We review Army of the Damned, an indie 5e module that takes place in the Magic: the Gathering setting of Innistrad, which is basically Ravenloft.
The blood hunter class we used you can find @ drivethrurpg.
You can grab the Army of the Damned module we’re playing from reddit.
Hosts
DM
Players
“Lewis and Dekalb” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Episode image by Ryan Yee, taken from the module.
gg no re 
Hey! I’m the creator of this module and I want to thank you so much for not only running it but also giving me such amazing feedback. I’ve never gotten so much constructive criticism that is both specific and useful in terms of improving for future projects. You’ve helped me out a ton!
There are a few changes to the module that I will make after having listened to you guys: first of all, I agree with Daniel’s suggestion of more handouts. I can easily add links to all the images of things you might come across and add notes to the adventure on when to hand out those images. I have an idea on how to hand out the magical loot as “magic card” images.
Tim’s suggestion of flowcharts is something I’ll try to incorporate as well. Especially with something like the Siege of Shadowgrange, a quick chart tracking the PCs progress and what decisions they took will be quite helpful. I’ll see if I can add flowcharts or other TLDRs for other parts of the module too. I want to make it as easy and intuitive as possible for a DM to run. By the way, Tim, you did an great job DM’ing it. I’m sorry for the mess that is the final encounter with Siegfried; I’m going to overhaul that encounter and try to make it easier to follow. I’ll also make sure all the monsters you encounter can be found in the PDF without needing the Monster Manual.
As for the main story abruptly ending, I originally intended to continue writing a sequel that would eventually end with using the strionic resonator to free Avacyn. But then real life punched me in the face and as the months went by and I got free time again my passion shifted to other projects. I did put out a one-shot adventure, Madness of the Rat King (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/183874/Madness-of-the-Rat-King), but otherwise I’ve been writing Magic: the Gathering stuff these days. Listening you guys did get me writing D&D again, so thank you for that.
As for system balance and the Blood Hunter, I’ve never had firsthand experience with that class but looking over I dig it and it doesn’t look overpowered. The Order of the Ghostslayer’s (Asa’s subclass?) Rite of the Dawn feature is quite powerful in this adventure and it’s strange that the subclass’ first ability either is amazing or does nothing, but the rest looks fine. The Order of the Mutant (Henryk’s subclass?), the only feature that gives an extra attack that I could find was the Cruelty Mutagen which requires level 11 to learn. Until 7th level, you can only have one mutagen at a time and the ones available from 1-4 seem fair plus come with negatives.
Just fyi, proficiency is only supposed to be added to your attack rolls (and skill checks, and is a factor in ability/spell save DCs), not your damage rolls or AC. I think that might have happened at some point but I could be wrong. Also you only ever have one bonus action per turn, so you can either use it to make an offhand weapon attack or the bonus action crossbow attack from the Crossbow Feat thing, not both.
As for the podcast itself, it was a good listen. You’ve got good chemistry and banter. You guys are the type of people I’d love to have a beer with. Maybe edit out some of the downtime filler if it’s 5+ minutes but otherwise I liked it. I will keep listening for my commutes!
Hey! I’m the creator of this module and I want to thank you so much for not only running it but also giving me such amazing feedback. I’ve never gotten so much constructive criticism that is both specific and useful in terms of improving for future projects. You’ve helped me out a ton!
There are a few changes to the module that I will make after having listened to you guys: first of all, I agree with Daniel’s suggestion of more handouts. I can easily add links to all the images of things you might come across and add notes to the adventure on when to hand out those images. I have an idea on how to hand out the magical loot as “magic card” images.
Tim’s suggestion of flowcharts is something I’ll try to incorporate as well. Especially with something like the Siege of Shadowgrange, a quick chart tracking the PCs progress and what decisions they took will be quite helpful. I’ll see if I can add flowcharts or other TLDRs for other parts of the module too. I want to make it as easy and intuitive as possible for a DM to run. By the way, Tim, you did an great job DM’ing it. I’m sorry for the mess that is the final encounter with Siegfried; I’m going to overhaul that encounter and try to make it easier to follow. I’ll also make sure all the monsters you encounter can be found in the PDF without needing the Monster Manual.
As for the main story abruptly ending, I originally intended to continue writing a sequel that would eventually end with using the strionic resonator to free Avacyn. But then real life punched me in the face and as the months went by and I got free time again my passion shifted to other projects. I did put out a one-shot adventure, Madness of the Rat King (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/183874/Madness-of-the-Rat-King), but otherwise I’ve been writing Magic: the Gathering stuff these days. Listening you guys did get me writing D&D again, so thank you for that.
As for system balance and the Blood Hunter, I’ve never had firsthand experience with that class but looking over I dig it and it doesn’t look overpowered. The Order of the Ghostslayer’s (Asa’s subclass?) Rite of the Dawn feature is quite powerful in this adventure and it’s strange that the subclass’ first ability either is amazing or does nothing, but the rest looks fine. The Order of the Mutant (Henryk’s subclass?), the only feature that gives an extra attack that I could find was the Cruelty Mutagen which requires level 11 to learn. Until 7th level, you can only have one mutagen at a time and the ones available from 1-4 seem fair plus come with negatives.
Just fyi, proficiency is only supposed to be added to your attack rolls (and skill checks, and is a factor in ability/spell save DCs), not your damage rolls or AC. I think that might have happened at some point but I could be wrong. Also you only ever have one bonus action per turn, so you can either use it to make an offhand weapon attack or the bonus action crossbow attack from the Crossbow Feat thing, not both.
As for the podcast itself, it was a good listen. You’ve got good chemistry and banter. You guys are the type of people I’d love to have a beer with. Maybe edit out some of the downtime filler if it’s 5+ minutes but otherwise I liked it. I will keep listening for my commutes!
I think Jim mentioned possibly running Maze of the Blue Medusa? If so, please do! I bought it, loved the artwork and some of the encounters, but my group didn’t enjoy it and we dropped it. It might be that I just was shitty at running it. I really wanted to like it but I walked away feeling like it was more of a pretentious art project rather than an adventure for a DM to run. It’s a treasure trove of sweet ideas for me at least. I’d love to hear you guys play through it and hear your thoughts.
I wrote way more than I thought I would. Thanks again!
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Yeah, we’re doing Maze of the Blue Medusa next, at least a session or two of it. Thanks for the feedback: I’ll ping the others so they can take a look.
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