Overview
This is a MonkeyLungs review of a Sword Coast Legends player made module, “Triboar Sovereign” by module author: dwargameDisclaimer: 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: Triboar Sovereign
Author: dwargame
DM Required: NO
Editable: YES
Recommended Level: No recommended level range by author. I played with a level 4 rogue.
Completion time: I spent 2.5 hours in this module. I went in with a level 4 rogue, used the npc companions, and finished the module as a level 5 rogue.
Thumbs Up? Thumbs Down?
Thumbs Up for: Hack and slashers that want some story too. Willing to suspend a little disbelief and overlook a few flaws and want to have a fun time in a fan made module? This one will do. It won’t rewrite the standard for fan made modules but it also doesn’t set out to crush your spirit.
Thumbs Down for: People who don’t like SCL. Players that have played droves of fan made modules already and are looking for something really original. Players who aren’t looking to be involved in an ‘epic’ tale and are looking for a more grounded or focused adventure.
Review
The general premise is excessively epic in scope for a single module. A deposed ruler, a scheming cult, and a decision to determine the fate of a region is a potential set up for an entire video game. To shoehorn this tale into the small framework of one module probably wasn’t the best way to tell this story but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t fun. And I did have fun and ultimately that’s what matters most.
You begin your adventure having just arrived in the village of Luskanwood. You are free to wander about town, engage a few locals, take on a couple of side quests, and hopefully sooner rather than later you stumble into someone that may or may not be familiar to you and We Accept! (TM) to take on the task of sorting out the nasty business of insurrection and urban warfare. I feel like there was a real missed opportunity to throw a famous line at the adventurers in one of the dialogs with a well known lass but it’s a minor nitpick and I don’t want to spoil anything. In general the village could have been fleshed out some more with more actionable placeables and some on action text blurbs for the villagers. There is also a very early side quest to get something edible (if your gross!) from a basement of an inn that had me scratching my head. Why was this thing down there and how did it escape the attention of a certain legendary hero standing upstairs?
The author uses a minimal yet still interesting amount of foreshadowing to the primary mission bolstered by some notes and clues in the environment if you keep your eyes open. This could have been expanded upon but then this kind of ties in to the primary shortcoming of this module. The scope is too large. This should have started out small, with a lot more attention to detail in each section and unfolded over the course of at least 3 modules. The author could then have had a smaller canvas to work with for each section of the story which would have made it easier to get more in depth and add more polish to each section. When you bite off more than you can chew, none of it gets mashed up properly and it’s all harder to digest.
I appreciated the encounter design. It wasn’t ground breaking or overly creative and at times it lacked a coherency to it’s own setting but it was fair, fun, and challenging in parts. A nitpick of mine is author’s that get too creative with their encounters and throw a bunch of special snowflakes at you that are nigh un-killable. Thankfully dwargame does not take this approach. Would I have liked him to personalize the encounters a bit more? Yes. Did I want to punch my monitor while playing this? No.
Another nice touch was the presentation of choice. You get to make a significant choice in regards to the whole deposed leader storyline. So if you are looking for a flawed but fun adventure and want to spend a couple hours in dwargame’s take on Sword Coast politics, head on over to Luskanwood and offer your sword, your bow, or your staff (no, not that staff), to the famous little lady at Bentley’s Tavern. Thanks for reading and safe travels!
Be sure to rate the module through the in game interface and let dwargame know what you think of this tale of intrigue over at the SCL forums.
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.