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Crucible of Freya (Sword and Sorcery)

Crucible of Freya (Sword and Sorcery)

List Price: $7.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Thid edition rules, first edition feel!
Review: Ah just fliping through this will bring back memories of late night gaming and pizza! Surely even Gary gyrax would agree a torch has been passed! Buy it and see!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Module for Beginning and Experienced players
Review: I bought this adventure while looking for something to add to my new 3rd edition campaing. I found it great reading and better than anything put out by WOTC (with the exception of the new system) to date. Then to find out that there is another 23 page online down load for free, as well as several other DM and player maps, this just blew me away. and all for a smaller price than the new WOTC releases. I have since purchased every d20 product in the sword and sorcery line and have not once been disapointed. A thing I can't say for any other gaming company that I have tried yet.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Must for any games
Review: I bought this adventure while looking for something to add to my new 3rd edition campaing. I found it great reading and better than anything put out by WOTC (with the exception of the new system) to date. Then to find out that there is another 23 page online down load for free, as well as several other DM and player maps, this just blew me away. and all for a smaller price than the new WOTC releases. I have since purchased every d20 product in the sword and sorcery line and have not once been disapointed. A thing I can't say for any other gaming company that I have tried yet.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Look Out Wizards!
Review: I must say that originally I was skeptical of a non-Wizard's company providing materials for the Dungeons and Dragons game, but when I opened and perused a copy of the Crucible of Freya, that changed. The quality of the cover and the cover illustration grabbed my attention. I purchased it immediately and took it home to digest. The graphics are top notch, the plot and story are excellent and the overall presentation of the module is very good. It centers around the activities of one of "1st Edition" Dungeons and Dragons best known villians: Orcus, Demon Lord of the Undead. It is great to see that first edition feel. This company knows how to write good adventures and knows how to package them to make them a complete product. There are several good maps, several NPC's presented to help adventurers and a complete location that DM's can base further adventures in. The best thing about Necromancer Games is their customer support. If you purchase their products, you can visit their web site and download additional material for each adventure, really giving you your money's worth. I think that the D20 Open License might be the best thing for DnD and that Necromancer Games will be leading the way in providing additional resources for all Dnd players.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Startup Adventure
Review: If you want to return to the "old school" feel of first edition D&D then this is for you. Great into adventure - challenging and rewarding. Perfectly blended into my campaign. Great maps, art, and text - very well written. Highly recommended.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The best of d20 so far
Review: The biggest change brought about by 3rd edition D&D might not be the revised rules, but the introduction of the d20 open gaming system. This unprecedented agreement allows independent publishers to produce their own materials for D&D -- including campaign settings, rules supplements, new monsters and more -- as long as they're used in conjunction with the D&D 3rd edition Player's Handbook. When it comes to adventures, the d20 companies are definitely giving Wizards of the Coast a run for their money.

There have been several good d20 modules released so far. "The Crucible of Freya" represents the first great one. It has all the right ingredients: an interesting story, well-developed characters, a detailed location, strong writing, challenging opponents and clear direction for the DM. At 48 pages, it's packed with more content than any of the other 3rd edition adventures currently available. The high production value stands out, as well, with excellent maps and black ink illustrations throughout.

I really can't say enough about this release. You've got to see it for yourself. If "Crucible of Freya" is any indication, Necromancer Games will be a serious player in the d20 market for years to come. They're certainly off to a fast start.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Module for Beginning and Experienced players
Review: The Crucible of Freya (and it's online introductory module, The Wizard's Amulet) are both excellent products. They are geared toward new DM's and take the time to explain the new 3rd edition rules and proper ways these rules should be used. This is a very refreshing way to read a module for new and old players alike as it reinforces what you know (or just think you know).
Highlights: A simple but well planned adventure centered around the retrieval of a holy relic. The villians are nasty, more than a challenge for the 1st and 2nd level characters the module is designed for, but the website has free advice on how to tailor the adventure for more powerful characters.
Numerous NPC's are introduced with quirky backgrounds and personalities that the players may or may not meet. I have adapted the entire module to my Forgotten Realms campaign and plopped it in the north, a few hundred miles from Waterdeep.
The writers stress that although the module is very difficult for low level characters, they did this on purpose as the best memories often derive from the most demanding challenges. And a resourceful DM can still save the PC's butts from the fire without them knowing.
Definitely worth giving a try, and the best thing is, the more popularity Necromancy Games gets, the more money they acquire, and the better their products will be in the future.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Interesting start, kind of repetitive, but good intro.
Review: This module is intended as an introduction to AD&D for new players and DMs. I have not yet played or DMed it, and there will be spoilers below:

The production quality is uneven. Nice glossy, colorful cover and back which you can see above. The maps are amateurish in look, and the text is easy to read with good use of whitespace.

There's a lot of fleshing out the adventure and the area surrounding the adventure. What I really like is that there are areas that will likely [terminate] a low level party if they go exploring, but most of those offer a way out or a way to solve the problem (even if it's just to run, a healthy thing to learn to do for players). No coddling of the players here.. I like it. Though there is one way for the DM to help out the players, but it's through a natural part of the module, not fudging a die roll because the players are in over their heads. The village and NPCs are well fleshed out, with good characters having some not so good qualities at times, and at times the PCs and the NPCs will conflict even if on the same side. Because the players can give in to the NPC wishes or do what they think is best, it gives the illusion of choice to the players in an otherwise simple adventure. The actual encounters mostly involve one monster (humanoid actually) race, unless the party explores where it shouldn't, and as such it can be fairly repetitive. There's a secret area in the module that they can find, with a surprising twist if a fight doesn't actually occur, which shows that there isn't always a happy ending. There's little in the way of puzzles, and no 'usual' dungeon. The players can greatly affect the difficulty of one of the main battle depending on what they do...

>Overall, this is a good first adventure with plenty of opportunity for roleplay, conflict and battle. Almost every possibility is spelled out for the DM, and there are numerous ways to continue on from the end of the adventure. Recommended.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Interesting start, kind of repetitive, but good intro.
Review: This module is intended as an introduction to AD&D for new players and DMs. I have not yet played or DMed it, and there will be spoilers below:

The production quality is uneven. Nice glossy, colorful cover and back which you can see above. The maps are amateurish in look, and the text is easy to read with good use of whitespace.

There's a lot of fleshing out the adventure and the area surrounding the adventure. What I really like is that there are areas that will likely [terminate] a low level party if they go exploring, but most of those offer a way out or a way to solve the problem (even if it's just to run, a healthy thing to learn to do for players). No coddling of the players here.. I like it. Though there is one way for the DM to help out the players, but it's through a natural part of the module, not fudging a die roll because the players are in over their heads. The village and NPCs are well fleshed out, with good characters having some not so good qualities at times, and at times the PCs and the NPCs will conflict even if on the same side. Because the players can give in to the NPC wishes or do what they think is best, it gives the illusion of choice to the players in an otherwise simple adventure. The actual encounters mostly involve one monster (humanoid actually) race, unless the party explores where it shouldn't, and as such it can be fairly repetitive. There's a secret area in the module that they can find, with a surprising twist if a fight doesn't actually occur, which shows that there isn't always a happy ending. There's little in the way of puzzles, and no 'usual' dungeon. The players can greatly affect the difficulty of one of the main battle depending on what they do...

>Overall, this is a good first adventure with plenty of opportunity for roleplay, conflict and battle. Almost every possibility is spelled out for the DM, and there are numerous ways to continue on from the end of the adventure. Recommended.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good for beginning DMs, but has errors
Review: This module is quite well done. It is somewhat better than the modules that WotC has been putting out. Also, the downloadable mini-adventure is pretty good.

One strength of this module is in its notes to the DM. The hints provided about how to run an encounter are the kind that are normally hard to express, but when expressed properly are valuable pearls of wisdom. There are also good descriptions of where xp are derived, suggestions of a bonus, additional story ideas,... I recommended the module to a friend of mine who wanted to learn to be DM and she was immensely pleased.

The module is a little bit difficult for beginning players, however. Some of the encounters could easily destroy a party if the DM wants them to. Therefore, this module is especially suited to a beginner DM in a group of experienced players. Experienced players often are not happy sitting around while the DM reads a long-winded block of text describing a room. In this module, text that is to be read to players is mercifully short. It is also clearly set out from the other text in "scrolls" so that you can access it quickly. Very nice layout.

There is a problem associated with the module that almost prevents me from giving it a 5 star rating. The authors of the module made mistakes with the 3e rules. For example, a sorcerer wears armor and has the spell mage armor. The authors erroneously believe that mage armor and armor stack. That is not the case, according to the DMG. (I decided it was unfair to dock a star since the character was downloaded rather than printed in the module.)


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