Overview
This is a MonkeyLungs review of a Sword Coast Legends player made module, “Pig and Mystery” by module author: Grimslade70Disclaimer: Module review series is currently taking a time out. The limitations of the tool set have worn me down and, for now, I won’t be devoting as much energy into SCL. I will keep playing and am looking forward to RoD and I will probably grab the console version for some co-op but for now my epic quest is taking a breather.
Sword Coast Legends Module Review
Module Title: Pig and Mystery
Author: Grimslade70
DM Required: NO
Editable: YES
Recommended Level: The author doesn’t list a recommended level. I went in with a level 5 Rogue and came out at level 7. I would not recommend going in any lower than level 5 as some of the custom encounters, while fun, are very challenging even on EASY difficulty
Completion time: Module author estimates 3 – 4 hours. It took me 5.5 hours to complete. I completed all quests and thoroughly explored the module.
Thumbs Up? Thumbs Down?
Thumbs Up for: SCL players that want a relatively lengthy and expertly crafted single player module. Story lovers and dungeon crawlers alike will enjoy what awaits. Aspiring module makers: Play this right now before you even open up the tool-set to make your own. If you want to know why this is the most highly downloaded module then grab this lovingly crafted adventure and prepare for a treat.
Thumbs Down for: Players that don’t like SCL. I think if you actually like SCL you will enjoy your time in Pig and Mystery. However, if you are under-geared or under-leveled (sub level 5 or even level 5 or so with just basic gear) consider playing on EASY. This module can throw some brutality your way.
Review
BANG! Right out the starting gate I could tell Grimslade really cared about what he was offering up here. Attention to detail is the order of the day with Grimslade putting a carefully customized touch on even the ever present and universal Adventurer’s Camp. I knew as soon as the module loaded that I was in for a fun ride and, one little bump aside, I was not wrong. This module is a master class on what can be accomplished with the tool-set. I hope Grimslade is not done making modules because I really want to see what he does when and if Community Pack 3 is released. A less shackled tool-set and a determined Grimslade could provide SCL fans with some of their best experiences in this game.
Placeable objects in SCL currently are one of the ways authors can impart more of a story to players as they adventure through these fan made labors of love. Grimslade uses these often and well. Paying attention to the story that unfolds through quests, placeable objects, handcrafted encounters, and well thought out locations will reward the player for staying sharp and being invested in the adventure. Learn about NPC’s and foes alike, discover machinations and motivations, glean insight and knowledge and most importantly feel more connected to the adventure.
This is a large multi-quest tale that interweaves a few smaller stories into a larger plot involving some denizens of the dark and a lot of spiders. Aracniphobes, grab your +10 helmets of bravery for this one. The scope of this module is not something I would recommend other modules to attempt. This story has breadth and depth, covers quite a bit of ground and involves a large number of custom characters, NPC’s, and monsters. There is a lot of room for error in tackling something like this. Grimslade spent a LOT of time on this and it shows. I don’t even have to ask him about how long this took him, I can tell it was a massive undertaking. So for budding module makers looking at this and seeing it having so many downloads and thinking, “I will just make something like that with a big giant story and a bunch of hard encounters, and a few epic dungeons and I’ll get my module downloaded as many times as Grim!” My answer is you most likely won’t. My advice would be to look at what this module does well and give it your best shot to make something as polished as this but one third the size. Shoot for 1 to 2 hours as your target playtime and refine and revise your module. There are so many places in a module like this where Grimslade could have went really wrong and created boredom instead of awesome.
Which is a great segue to what I feel are the only minor bumps in this otherwise smoothly paved road. It gets a bit heavy in the dungeon crawl side at times and it features some encounters that are way beyond anything I have faced in the official campaign. Mostly the encounter design is astounding, providing tension and real danger of getting your butt handed to you while still feeling fair. But one fight felt above and beyond anything else in the module, there’s this lady and her ‘Consort’ and lets just say I wiped more than once in this encounter. By getting lucky with some questionable AI, not the module creator’s fault, I was able to actually trivialize the encounter after a few tries. However, in a straight up battle with no cheese tactics this one was punishing and much more difficult than anything else in the module. That was the only encounter that I felt was not in step with the rest of the excellently put together battles.
Here is something else that is great about the battles in this module: context, foreshadowing, character. The main encounters, the special ones, all have context tied to the plot and to the character of the NPC’s, their factions, the world, and they are all foreshadowed with in game clues. This is how it’s done.
The dungeons, as I said earlier, could have easily turned into just different versions of the dungeon crawls we can load up in the game and play at random at will. However, they are more than that. Why? Context, foreshadowing, and character. The placeable objects help provide context to the character of the story and the character of the inhabitants through descriptions in text and interaction with NPC’s and even side quests you discover along the way, leading to larger reveals that are foreshadowed throughout the player character’s journey.
Pig and Mystery is a great time, it’s well done, it’s fun, it’s creative and it has, mostly, just the right amount of challenge to feel punishing but fair. As an added bonus I think it fits in really well with the current direction of SCL and D&D and I won’t spoil it any more than that. If I really had to insert my opinion and make a suggestion to the author it would be to maybe take larger story arcs like this and, for future endeavors, consider splitting them into two parts aiming to never exceed more than a single evening of playtime for one module. This would allow pick up groups of players to get through each module together in one sitting. It would also have the added side effect of making it much easier to refine each individual module, decreasing the workload on the author and increasing the potential we get to see more of these. However, I know that suggestion is loaded with my opinion and not everyone will feel the same and quite frankly Grimslade knows what he is doing and obviously knows how to deliver his vision.
So go help a pig farmer, bring your bug spray, and make The Sword Coast safer for swine and swineherd alike. Thanks for reading and safe travels.
Reminder
Please remember to rate each module you play with the in-game rating tool and maybe head on over to the SCL forums and leave some feedback for the module author of the module you played. Link to SCL Looking for Adventure forums follows:
[link]
Review Score Disclaimer
Currently the dialogue editor for Sword Coast legends is woefully deficient. Dialogue response choice for players are limted to two choices: 1. We accept! and 2. Not right now.
This is something that weighs heavily on any module and is not the fault of the module author. As such, I am not factoring this into the reviews even though the lack of any real dialogue options is a detrimental factor to the overall experience. Hopefully this is something the developers eventually rectify. However all of the most enthusiastic module creators, the early adopters, the die hard supporters of this game will have already been dealt the short end of the stick.