This is such a great review format for anyone that would just be looking to lift individual things out of an adventure book rather than use the whole thing, I love it!
I introduced Bean-Coin, followed a few hours later by Seed-Coin and the players lost their minds trying to shake everyone down for beans and comprehend the extremely fluctuating values and incomprehensible chaos of a system where things had greater value the less of it the individual owned in one system while the other was based on the amount of emotional impact an object could have. People were screaming about how terrible it is while others were pulling out drawers to find beans and desperately trying to convince others to sell them. They grabbed a bag of beans and planted them all. What lovely chaos out of a ridiculous joke.
I found Thither to be overall “You’ve Disappointed Me.” Basically reworked the entire thing. Had the mist deposit the characters in the east instead of the west, in a wild west town where people are going to escape Granny. There’s a train line that loops Thither, conducted by the Centaur. The party was able to build anticipation and plan for Granny, and the encounters that sparked joy, or added to the narrative arc, I found a way to include before taking out Granny, so that Loomlurch was the boss fight of Thither.
THANK YOU!! I love this campaign as a concept, but I wish the wotc modules would have a diagram/map detailing which encounters are actually needed for the story, which encounters are there to flavor the locations, and which encounters are just fluff that can be just drag/dropped anywhere to control a session's pacing.
I think what they need to do is not separate locations and random encounters. I think they should have a list of major and minor encounters, which include the locations, and let the DM's decide if the party is in a sandbox or should move in a different order. It's much less of a guiding hand, but I'd like to see them trust their readers a little more.
That part about the evil landlord made me laugh becuase there's nothing moraly wrong with the concept of rent lol. I guess logic in the feywild is different to say the least.
How I ruled it, the landlord charged far too high for the places he rented, took advantage of the poor, did not offer an appropriate exchange, which the fey would absolutely frown upon!
For Hither, I ran Inside Slanty Tower and The Watcher's Pool from Daniel Khan's Hither Expanded and it improved Slanty Tower GREATLY. How barebones the tower was as written is, as you said, incredibly disappointing.
The tornado could be sentient. The party are carried back to an event, like the Owlbear, and offered a chance to do better. Then the tornado carries them back to where they were. A sort of "wind of change".
If I had used the tornado, I think my characters would have taken it as a "we forgot something" indicator. Making that the case would make the tornado a little more acceptable to me
HI Beans. Great review! I am running Mad Mage, and my players all want to play Witchlight next. So I appreciate the insightful breakdown of all the places and encounters.
I recently ran into your channel and I'm doing an expansion for wild beyond the witchlight, I just wanted to say I really like what you do! Its been really helpful for creating content for my players
When I played through witchlight I seduced Longscarf after his crew absolutely crushed us and the DM was like "Uhhhhh, it doesn't say what happens if you lose???" Lol
I think the overall threat the fey should present lacks throughout, tho there are exceptions. Like, I get this domain is trying to feel more like a fairy tale, but it can feel like a Disney fairytale more than the old world classics. Which is ok, it was a choice. I certainly want the whimsy. And silly here and there is ok, but there’s no teeth. Even the Redcap in Downfall…book says he doesn’t attack the party? Like, what? That’s their thing. Why is he there then? If I don’t replace him entirely, he gonna attack But as I go thru this I’m seeing a lot of characters who seem to exist just to tell the characters a thing. So, most of them I’m not gonna use, or, if it better suits, make them have a reason. I know this was written to go without combat which I thought was cool until I see that they made so many encounters gutless. The fey is beautiful and weird and dangerous. Slight perturbances are not good enough for danger
i love coming back to your videos whenever i'm stumped for encounters. I just realized you could cut the main plot out of this book, and the remaining 70% of the book would just be a solid book of random encounters. that's an awesome mega dungeon or a way to recreate a fey reflection of a different module's plot. Lost Mines Of Prismeer? :D
I love this adventure, hopefully my players and I can finish it soon. It has been a great learning experience. I hope I can run a shorter version of it soon. I like your ranking, but my experience with some of the events was diferent. One of my characters was abandoned by the rest in loomlurch, so we has a prisión breck sub plot that took a lot of time. I think of modifying Nib's cave si that it runs like a tower defense game. Nib needs a certain amount of time depending on the ítems the characters want and they need to defend him from waves of resentfull specters until he finishes.
It's the first campaign I've ever DM'd, so the learning experience feeling is real. Really like the tower defense idea for Nib's cave! My players basically ignored the ghosts milling about
If this is the first 5E campaign you’ve DMed, FF, I’d recommend “Curse of Strahd” for your second. Of course “as written” it has its issues too, but there is a lot of good material to work with and a very compelling overall story arc. AND the hag coven encounter in CoS is memorable, difficult and terrifying. I think you’d enjoy running it.
These are some interesting reactions to the encounters. To me, many of them hit differently. The ones that are just an information, such as the jabberwock trail, were perfect for the purpuse of being a forshadow of the Jabberwock itself. If they were to reach the places they go to with no foreshadow, I think it would be percieved that that place/thing didn't have a far reaching influence, or feel very random. My players very much liked the Owlbear Juniper, because I ran them through the optional "Lost Things" story you can get on drivethrough rpg, were they meet and befriend Juniper as a cub, and they were very excited to see it. I made her rider be the 'spy' Raezy Uthemar that was petrified in front of Kelek, after failling to save Zybilna. I also didn't want to use the tornado at Yon, I totally agree. I kept it in my mind just in case, because "they winds of feywild have a way of taking us where we are supposed to go", and I would take them further to their goal, as if Prismeer itself wants Zybilna to be free, but I also would take away some of my player's agency, so it's a dangerous encounter to use.
This is actually a really great list I'm happy to have it as a resource going into my witchlight campaign! I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on witchlight supplements. There's MANY. There's... wild beyond the witchlight reworked which is a free blog by indierex. The witchlight carnival expanded a $5 PDF Wild beyond the witchlight for the combat starved, I think it was $1.99 on dms guild It's hard for me to love wild beyond the witchlight as written because I think they wasted zybilnas potential as a BBEG.
I have not actually looked at any of them. I'd just tell you to decide what it is you'd want out of the campaign that isn't there and see if the supplements add that piece. And honestly, making Zybilna the BBEG could make up for the surprisingly easy time players might have freeing her!
Interesting! What a wild format I love it! My thoughts on WBTW are that the Carnival is fantastic, and Palace of Heart’s Desire can be unwieldy to figure out but once you do is AMAZING! But the middle bits really lack strong sense of place and compelling antagonists. I think the hags need to be meaner and the dungeons more dungeony. CoS doesn’t have this problem (the villains and environments are top notch) and I wish it was more like CoS in that way.
I like the idea of extending some activity at Nib's cave. I used it as an opportunity for a side quest when we had a few people unavailable around the holidays and I didn't want to move the actual campaign plot forward. Before departing, the party made camp in the windbreak offered by the cave entrance and fell asleep as Nib told a tale from his days in Waterdeep and each drifted into dreaming they were right there, and I pulled out Winter's Splendor, which is a published oneshot that takes place in the Casselanter Villa for a midwinter Waterdeep celebration. As a side note, not a oneshot that I'd recommend, having run it. The plot and logic holes were big enough to ride a Tarrasque through. Module choice aside, the idea was well recieved if a bit lazy - I'd maybe do it again with a different Waterdeep module, if just because I like to tease links to other published adventures.
The Witchlight discord has discussed the palace's central tower extensively and the conclusion was basically that a) It's supposed to be private b) Zybilna has like 7 different ways to get either her or someone else in or out at will and a key feature of the cauldron is that it can create an infinite amount of Brooms of Flying so under normal circumstances it's really not THAT inaccessible. You could probably leave a broom or two in the tower itself if you'd like but the idea is that the party are so high level at this point that they should have at least some way to get in without much hassle. Fly is just a 3rd level spell after all.
When you're in the witchlight carnival there's more than enough time to do everything. The carnival is a mystical place and time passes as mister witch desires as he has the watch
starting with the carnival is just a great design. It's the definition of a strong start. If you had players who weren't sure about playing this campaign, this would likely sell them on it.
Terrific review! Enjoyed the details. Makes me think of how I’d rate the other adventures I’ve run for players. My main agreement with you is how strong the carnival is in comparison to the rest of the adventure. The carnival is fantastic and very original. The author’s take on the Feywild in my opinion is a failure. They didn’t get the tone of dream, surprise, nonsense, wonder and terror that I think is essential to Faerie. The hags were shallow and easy to defeat. The castle represents a nice dungeon, but has little connection to a fairy story. I’m still waiting for a good take on the feywild in an adventure. Are you the one to write that, FF?☺️
@@feywildfiend - Better to adventure in border faerie realms like _Dolmenwood._ Much better world building, and adventures the DM doesn't have to constantly "fix."
Are the takes hot? Do you agree with me? Disagree? Let me know!
I have been informed that returning the gold to Nib's Cave DOES, in fact, break the curse. Oopsie.
This is such a great review format for anyone that would just be looking to lift individual things out of an adventure book rather than use the whole thing, I love it!
I totally think people should pick and choose what they like from this book for their own story!
I introduced Bean-Coin, followed a few hours later by Seed-Coin and the players lost their minds trying to shake everyone down for beans and comprehend the extremely fluctuating values and incomprehensible chaos of a system where things had greater value the less of it the individual owned in one system while the other was based on the amount of emotional impact an object could have. People were screaming about how terrible it is while others were pulling out drawers to find beans and desperately trying to convince others to sell them. They grabbed a bag of beans and planted them all. What lovely chaos out of a ridiculous joke.
I like the way this was put together and the reasoning behind each section was well thought out and expressed. This girl likes her Fey
This is the best d&d adventure review I've seen, ever?! I feel like you should patent this 🤣
I found Thither to be overall “You’ve Disappointed Me.” Basically reworked the entire thing. Had the mist deposit the characters in the east instead of the west, in a wild west town where people are going to escape Granny. There’s a train line that loops Thither, conducted by the Centaur. The party was able to build anticipation and plan for Granny, and the encounters that sparked joy, or added to the narrative arc, I found a way to include before taking out Granny, so that Loomlurch was the boss fight of Thither.
The best Witchlight review I've seen. Well done!
High praise! Thank you!
THANK YOU!! I love this campaign as a concept, but I wish the wotc modules would have a diagram/map detailing which encounters are actually needed for the story, which encounters are there to flavor the locations, and which encounters are just fluff that can be just drag/dropped anywhere to control a session's pacing.
I think what they need to do is not separate locations and random encounters. I think they should have a list of major and minor encounters, which include the locations, and let the DM's decide if the party is in a sandbox or should move in a different order. It's much less of a guiding hand, but I'd like to see them trust their readers a little more.
15 mins in. Great video. Have to watch the rest later.
That part about the evil landlord made me laugh becuase there's nothing moraly wrong with the concept of rent lol. I guess logic in the feywild is different to say the least.
How I ruled it, the landlord charged far too high for the places he rented, took advantage of the poor, did not offer an appropriate exchange, which the fey would absolutely frown upon!
For Hither, I ran Inside Slanty Tower and The Watcher's Pool from Daniel Khan's Hither Expanded and it improved Slanty Tower GREATLY. How barebones the tower was as written is, as you said, incredibly disappointing.
A classic tierlist! Also it is fun to see you start playing around more with making jokes and showing your personality!
I don’t have one of those
The tornado could be sentient. The party are carried back to an event, like the Owlbear, and offered a chance to do better. Then the tornado carries them back to where they were. A sort of "wind of change".
If I had used the tornado, I think my characters would have taken it as a "we forgot something" indicator. Making that the case would make the tornado a little more acceptable to me
@@feywildfiend The party might fly past a farmhouse caught up in the wind. In a window, a young girl is yelling, "Auntie Em!" :)
HI Beans. Great review! I am running Mad Mage, and my players all want to play Witchlight next. So I appreciate the insightful breakdown of all the places and encounters.
I recently ran into your channel and I'm doing an expansion for wild beyond the witchlight, I just wanted to say I really like what you do! Its been really helpful for creating content for my players
When I played through witchlight I seduced Longscarf after his crew absolutely crushed us and the DM was like "Uhhhhh, it doesn't say what happens if you lose???" Lol
I think the overall threat the fey should present lacks throughout, tho there are exceptions.
Like, I get this domain is trying to feel more like a fairy tale, but it can feel like a Disney fairytale more than the old world classics. Which is ok, it was a choice. I certainly want the whimsy. And silly here and there is ok, but there’s no teeth. Even the Redcap in Downfall…book says he doesn’t attack the party? Like, what? That’s their thing. Why is he there then? If I don’t replace him entirely, he gonna attack
But as I go thru this I’m seeing a lot of characters who seem to exist just to tell the characters a thing. So, most of them I’m not gonna use, or, if it better suits, make them have a reason.
I know this was written to go without combat which I thought was cool until I see that they made so many encounters gutless. The fey is beautiful and weird and dangerous. Slight perturbances are not good enough for danger
Awesome video. This is the next big campaign I’m running, so this was super helpful
i love coming back to your videos whenever i'm stumped for encounters. I just realized you could cut the main plot out of this book, and the remaining 70% of the book would just be a solid book of random encounters. that's an awesome mega dungeon or a way to recreate a fey reflection of a different module's plot. Lost Mines Of Prismeer? :D
I love this adventure, hopefully my players and I can finish it soon.
It has been a great learning experience.
I hope I can run a shorter version of it soon.
I like your ranking, but my experience with some of the events was diferent.
One of my characters was abandoned by the rest in loomlurch, so we has a prisión breck sub plot that took a lot of time.
I think of modifying Nib's cave si that it runs like a tower defense game. Nib needs a certain amount of time depending on the ítems the characters want and they need to defend him from waves of resentfull specters until he finishes.
It's the first campaign I've ever DM'd, so the learning experience feeling is real. Really like the tower defense idea for Nib's cave! My players basically ignored the ghosts milling about
If this is the first 5E campaign you’ve DMed, FF, I’d recommend “Curse of Strahd” for your second. Of course “as written” it has its issues too, but there is a lot of good material to work with and a very compelling overall story arc. AND the hag coven encounter in CoS is memorable, difficult and terrifying. I think you’d enjoy running it.
@@_sphere_9654 I actually AM running it next!! In less than a month we'll have session zero!
These are some interesting reactions to the encounters.
To me, many of them hit differently. The ones that are just an information, such as the jabberwock trail, were perfect for the purpuse of being a forshadow of the Jabberwock itself. If they were to reach the places they go to with no foreshadow, I think it would be percieved that that place/thing didn't have a far reaching influence, or feel very random.
My players very much liked the Owlbear Juniper, because I ran them through the optional "Lost Things" story you can get on drivethrough rpg, were they meet and befriend Juniper as a cub, and they were very excited to see it. I made her rider be the 'spy' Raezy Uthemar that was petrified in front of Kelek, after failling to save Zybilna.
I also didn't want to use the tornado at Yon, I totally agree. I kept it in my mind just in case, because "they winds of feywild have a way of taking us where we are supposed to go", and I would take them further to their goal, as if Prismeer itself wants Zybilna to be free, but I also would take away some of my player's agency, so it's a dangerous encounter to use.
Foreshadowing is definitely important for this campaign. Without it, the palace is completely left field
Might i suggest you take a look at the TSR era supplement Tall Tales of the Wee Folk, it was D&D's first stab at the fey
You absolutely may
This is actually a really great list I'm happy to have it as a resource going into my witchlight campaign!
I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on witchlight supplements. There's MANY. There's...
wild beyond the witchlight reworked which is a free blog by indierex.
The witchlight carnival expanded a $5 PDF
Wild beyond the witchlight for the combat starved, I think it was $1.99 on dms guild
It's hard for me to love wild beyond the witchlight as written because I think they wasted zybilnas potential as a BBEG.
I have not actually looked at any of them. I'd just tell you to decide what it is you'd want out of the campaign that isn't there and see if the supplements add that piece. And honestly, making Zybilna the BBEG could make up for the surprisingly easy time players might have freeing her!
Interesting! What a wild format I love it!
My thoughts on WBTW are that the Carnival is fantastic, and Palace of Heart’s Desire can be unwieldy to figure out but once you do is AMAZING!
But the middle bits really lack strong sense of place and compelling antagonists. I think the hags need to be meaner and the dungeons more dungeony. CoS doesn’t have this problem (the villains and environments are top notch) and I wish it was more like CoS in that way.
This is a great video! Thank you so much. I'm running WBTWL for my daughters right now, and I think your ideas will make it a lot more fun for them.
I like the idea of extending some activity at Nib's cave. I used it as an opportunity for a side quest when we had a few people unavailable around the holidays and I didn't want to move the actual campaign plot forward. Before departing, the party made camp in the windbreak offered by the cave entrance and fell asleep as Nib told a tale from his days in Waterdeep and each drifted into dreaming they were right there, and I pulled out Winter's Splendor, which is a published oneshot that takes place in the Casselanter Villa for a midwinter Waterdeep celebration. As a side note, not a oneshot that I'd recommend, having run it. The plot and logic holes were big enough to ride a Tarrasque through. Module choice aside, the idea was well recieved if a bit lazy - I'd maybe do it again with a different Waterdeep module, if just because I like to tease links to other published adventures.
The Witchlight discord has discussed the palace's central tower extensively and the conclusion was basically that
a) It's supposed to be private
b) Zybilna has like 7 different ways to get either her or someone else in or out at will and a key feature of the cauldron is that it can create an infinite amount of Brooms of Flying so under normal circumstances it's really not THAT inaccessible. You could probably leave a broom or two in the tower itself if you'd like but the idea is that the party are so high level at this point that they should have at least some way to get in without much hassle. Fly is just a 3rd level spell after all.
When you're in the witchlight carnival there's more than enough time to do everything. The carnival is a mystical place and time passes as mister witch desires as he has the watch
starting with the carnival is just a great design. It's the definition of a strong start. If you had players who weren't sure about playing this campaign, this would likely sell them on it.
Thank you for this! This was a seriously helpful breakdown of all of these major and minor encounters!
I’m running Wilds for the first time end of this month, looking forward to this list
I have been watching this for one minute and: this is the only format I want for D&D book reviews from now on. Excellent idea, no notes
No notes? I’m HONORED
Terrific review! Enjoyed the details. Makes me think of how I’d rate the other adventures I’ve run for players.
My main agreement with you is how strong the carnival is in comparison to the rest of the adventure. The carnival is fantastic and very original. The author’s take on the Feywild in my opinion is a failure. They didn’t get the tone of dream, surprise, nonsense, wonder and terror that I think is essential to Faerie. The hags were shallow and easy to defeat. The castle represents a nice dungeon, but has little connection to a fairy story.
I’m still waiting for a good take on the feywild in an adventure. Are you the one to write that, FF?☺️
Agree with EVERYTHING you just said. And I dunno, maybe 😉
An Excellent review!
This was fun! Been looking into fey stuff for a section of my setting lately. So glad i stumbled across this channel.
No. Next question.
Literally laughed out loud
@@feywildfiend - Better to adventure in border faerie realms like _Dolmenwood._ Much better world building, and adventures the DM doesn't have to constantly "fix."