Preview – E1: Death’s Reach

Not even a year after 4th Edition’s release and Wizards of the Coast is now into the Epic Tier of gameplay with their official modules.  Adventure E1: Death’s Reach is all about introducing DM’s and players to the world of Epic 4th Edition, and it doesn’t matter if you’ve played all the way from the Keep on the Shadowfell up to this adventure or if you’re a group just starting a campaign and eager to start at 21st level you can jump right into the module.  The first thing I noticed reading through this material is just how badass everything seems at this level of play. Sure, technically your slippery cave fungus is just as hard to walk on at 3rd level as it is at 30th, and the fights are all designed to be just as hard throughout the tiers. But what became apparent to me very quickly was that the fluff really takes over when you’re dealing with Epic storylines.  While this isn’t a review, I will say that after a thorough read through of the whole module my opinion is that it will be an incredibly fun and exciting gaming experience to play through it.

Warning: If you’re planning on running or playing the module E1: Death’s Reach, there may be minor spoilers in this post.

While some may argue that most of the fun in D&D is leading a character from commoner to conqueror / master of reality, if the typical day of Epic tier play ends up looking like Death’s Reach then the wait to get there is well worth it.  E1 appears to be very similar to the other modules in the line that WotC has put out. The only one I’ve played through is H1 – Keep on the Shadowfell but I’ve read H2 and H3 pretty extensively, and I read about half of P2 – Demon Queen’s Enclave before I handed it off to Dave.  E1 looks to be about 30 encounters, the right number to take players from level 21 through level 23. It shapes up to be rather combat heavy (just like the others) with roughly 25 combat encounters and 5 skill challenges or other miscellaneous roleplaying scenarios.  However, the first key difference between Death’s Reach and the other modules is the scope and scale of the story and locations it encompasses.

Death’s Reach starts with the party being summoned to meet with the Raven Queen herself, and assuming there’s no TPK right off the bat it happens too!  So get out your character’s checklist and cross off the “Meet a God” line already.  What follows the meeting is a storyline of grandeur that focuses almost entirely on, no surprise, our cuddly buddy Orcus!  Without getting too spoilerific, the party travels to a place called Death’s Reach (gasp!) where things have gone terribly wrong (shock!) and the Raven Queen herself wants to see them righted (awe!).  While it sounds terribly simple and cliche, I’m avoiding spoilers so just trust me that throughout the adventure it all comes together in a compelling and incredibly EPIC (zounds!) story.

The journey to see the Raven Queen is actually the first chapter of the module, as of course she’s a god it’s no small task to meet her.  You don’t just walk up and ring the doorbell, there are tons of angels and exarchs with nothing better to do than drive to the pizza store.  You really think the Raven Queen is going to pay for unnecessary delivery?  I digress.  The second chapter takes place in the locale of Death’s Reach, which is more of a continent-like location than a simple dungeon, and could open up a campaign to endless possibilities for Epic adventures if the DM so chooses.  Telling you what the third chapter is would be a spoiler, but suffice to say there is something bad which needs to be un-badded….or gooded….or made with the righting of wrongedness…in the face!  *ahem*

The combats are extremely varied, making excellent use of the plethora of monster types available at such high levels, and I would be surprised if more than two or three combats in the whole module feel even vaguely similar.  The journey to the Raven Queen is fraught with various perils (they’re much too perilous, really) that progress in what really reads more like an elongated puzzle/skill challenge.  The Death’s Reach encounters, some of which may be avoided or ignored if the party chooses, each focus around a unique and otherworldy locale, while the final chapter welcomingly gets back to the more classic (but still quite epic) dungeon motif.  The scale of the story and actions involved are really intriguing, and when the adventure comes to a close I can imagine lots of players will be clamoring to move on to E2, even I’m sad that I have to wait until June to read it and probably even longer to play any of these!

On the technical side, the module comes in the standard folder with two adventure books and one poster map.  Unfortunately it’s still printed on the same kind of paper as Keep on the Shadowfell was, so fingerprints and smearing will occur (especially if you’re eating the Raven Queen’s pizza while flipping through the pages).  I’m also not entirely sure why Wizards splits the adventure books how they do: all of the introduction, the fluff / story, and new monsters are in the smaller Book One, in addition to the opening encounter fight.  Also the maps and dungeon layouts are in Book One.  The rest of the encounters and skill challenges are in the much larger Book Two, which results in a lot of flipping back and forth and switching books that I think would be avoided if everything were just printed, in order, in a single book.

…

Okay, one more (major) Spoiler?

Seriously, it’s a spoiler, so if you ever plan on playing Death’s Reach, stop now!

In what I think is the coolest bit of the module, Death’s Reach is inhabited by a large Purple Worm-like monster called the Worm of Ages.  The worm quite naturally eats players, but its digestive process is represented by a series of 2×2 tiles that the eaten characters progress along – the Maw, The Throat, the Gullet, and the Stomach.  Players inside must fight against being swallowed and attempt to move closer to the maw and escape, while players outside desperately attempt to not get eaten but still fight to save their consumed companions.  This is hands down the biggest thing I want to run and/or play in  the module.