Vecna Eve of Ruin: Trash or Treasure?
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- SKIBIDI VECNA, SKIBIDI VECNA, SKIBIDI VECNA
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Art Credits:
Most of it is official Wizards of the Coast stuff that I found in articles pertaining to this release.
Cool DM screen near the end: Sidharth Chaturvedi
So true Archie. Get that fake ass "Lich"
Don't think I forgot you.
“None of your choices have any consequences and you’re punished for being creative”
Ah, telltale games, we meet again
I don't know a single instance where Telltale gives you the option to be creative and slaps your hand. It's usually just two options whose outcomes become invalidated soon thereafter.
thats not necessarly a bad thing, if the players are ok with playing a sort-of interactive novel just for the ending
More like Life is Strange
I don't know how, but it seems like every single one of your videos reignites my passion for dming. Even this video that's just ripping into a module just hit me with a wave of inspiration.
I'm glad to hear that. I think I try to always at least end by suggesting new things to do, and how the game should feel for people. If I can help people keep the joy they find in TTRPGs without getting jaded and losing the spark, I'm a happy villain indeed!
honestly, I did my best campaign to date on the impetus of "good lord Descent to Avernus is some hot fucking garbage. I could do better than this." So negative and positive influences help creativity. :v
A 10th level party absolutely *can* go toe to toe with a CR30 baddie in many, many cases. I've had it happen in my own game before. And it wasn't some squishy mage where the fight is decided on whether a bruiser can reach it or not. They had to fight for that shit.
It baffles me that WotC to have the audacity to throw a squishy CR26 monster as the BBEG to a 20th party
>CR 26 with 270 hp or if maximized 380ish hp
>recommended by the DMG table that was done by someone that actually gave a fuck to crunch math says 620~ MINIMUM (which if you assume a resourceless 26-32 dpr after passive riders, items, AC and defenses, unoptimized resourced of 78-82 or wasteful/full nova for a few rounds of 160+ at final tier of play from players makes fucking sense, its in the 3-5 rounds of play with 4 players)
Truly a 4e math moment in reverse (as 4e till the the 3rd monster manual and essentials books had the issue where almost all monsters did around 72-73% of the damage they should before role modifiers to even count as a threat yet had 30-60% too much hp to even be regular filler creatures if you didnt outright make them minions; or worse at high level up to +130% EHP too much, but often entirely based on swingy rng despite the treadmill math).
They make 5e specifically for people who never want to struggle, never wants to lose, and never want to have any consequences. It's not adventurers adventuring, it's super heroes slumming it killing goblins.
Just go look at a monsters stat block from 3.5 vs their same stat block now. 75% less attacks, status effects removed, hp cut in half, can only use their famous deadly move once instead of at will.
@@acrab6527 Not actually true.
Monsters from MM, Volos, Mordenkainens are all pretty much in line with their 3e versions with the exception of pre CR 1/2 and top end once you convert BAB to PB.
E.g. Trolls have around 70 hp, AC in the 14-16 range and 3 attacks with the 5e ones taking average between claw and bite instead (as there is no distinctions by secondary vs primary natural weapons) with 30 ft speed with perception proficiency (alertness feat) and keen smell (scent).
The only things lacking is wisdom saving throw proficiency, 30 ft of darkvision and a bit of strength (which again is more of a result of removing primary/secondary split and BAB penalty to successive attacks).
Spellcaster monsters did get fucked slightly by below average default choices, but overall... well since 5e was in the final stages of D&D next/its playtest directly copying (with find and replace for bonus types to advantage) as much of 3e as it could, it is by lethality very much in line.
Hell even the encounter suggestion rules, CR stat tables and monsters given class levels are all present correctly.
The only difference is WOTC themselves (or to be precise, their outsources other than Kobold Press back when they worked closely with WOTC on rise of tiamat) didnt read the content they copy pasted with minimal tweaks and didnt bother playtesting when "inspired"/effectively redoing old arcs (like with Curse of Strahd... or even Eve of Ruin which on surface level takes from both Vecna Lives and Die Vecna Die)... seriously, look at the wall of playtest credits in the early books, now look at the complete absence of them in the current ones instead replaced by the "rules editors" box (consisting of Jeremy Crawford, Makenzie De Armas, Ron Lundeen, Ben Petrisor, Carl Sibley)".
@@ANDELE3025 No, it's basically everything.
Just using your Trolls as an example, you left off that they removed Rend, the special attack where they get an extra double strength attack if they hit with 2 previous attacks. You're forgetting it's STR, DEX, and CON, were lowered.
The 5e version can't see, hear, or smell as well as it used to, it's attacks are weaker and less accurate, and 3.5 didn't have cantrips stronger than most spells to give you infinite fire to kill them with. And on top of that, the Trolls arms shrunk, because they don't have Reach anymore.
Or let's go with Jarlaxle's hat. He pulls the feather out and drops it to make a terror bird.
5e it's called axe beak. It gets a single peck for 1d8
3.5 Had the same peck, plus two talon attacks, And it could reach 10 feet instead of 5 feet. And all of it's stats are 25% higher. And it can trip you on a charge attack, which was also removed in 5e.
And Jarlaxle's bird inflicted poison with both talons, which isn't in the 3.5 book or the 5e, but would NEVER be in 5e, because WoTC went out of their way to remove all status effects from enemies unless it's a spell.
They dumbed down EVERYTHING to make it so no one ever died ever.
@@acrab6527 I didnt.
I specified the stats were adjusted to follow the BAB to PB and damage got averaged across attacks.
5d6+24 that easily drops down to 2d6+9 damage only vs mostly consistent 5d6+12 damage.
It can by raw numbers both smell and hear better and can even see better outside of complete darkness just due to changes to light rules which yes are simplified.
Terror Bird and Axebeak are unrelated as they both have 3e stats (Cr 4 vs Cr 1, both from different environments).
The only thing you got actually right is that the 5e trolls arms shrunk/they cant bend over as much because 5e doesnt have a variant rule for 3es facing based contextual Space/Reach value (which it itself simplified in 3.5 when it comes to reach weapons).
Thankfully I have a REAL villain to follow when it comes to running campaigns.
This is the lockpicking lawyer, and today I will be using "Dispel Magic"...
Oops, I activated an impossible to defend against trap, and Im dead.
Good one.
hasbro has fallen off lately.
The money people are trying to strangle every creative in every department in the company
Lately?
Yeah, only lately have they been writing badly designed, railroady, yet mostly pretty crap.
That’s a really good joke, Erik!
It's time to play other ttrpgs
For literal years now
DMs: WotC, I'm tired of you. This game has always been about me building a world for the players to play in, but your modules that are supposed to save me time by providing a preexisting world just give me more work, and none of them give me anything to work with for high level play since it's so unbalanced.
WotC: I made a new module for you for high level play. It even has Vecna as a BBEG.
DMs: Wow... thanks WotC. I gue-
WotC: We don't let the high level characters do anything and you have to do a lot of work if you don't like the NPCs or the traps.
People might think that it's a joke, but no, you really can write this module better than WotC at this point. My current campaign springboarded off a converted N1 module has a better story than this. The party met Mordenkainen in all his TN glory and they think he's an asshole because he has such a wizardly nihilistic take on good vs evil. The party has interacted with Vecna's underlings and become so terrified by the mere prospect they don't even want to deal with that plot thread anymore, and they're allowed to fight some jerk Dao in the mountains instead. If they want to use Slippers of Spider Climb to go up the top of the tower and enter down through the roof, or use a Helm of Telepathy to interrogate bad guys for information they'd otherwise never give up, that's something that should either A. be rewarded, or B. be denied in exchange for knowledge of what's at hand.
Spoilers for N1, the 1-4 plot involves a Spirit Naga that's developed a permanent Dominate Person ability, and is slowly "recruiting" new cultists to subvert a small town. The point of the module is for the party to investigate through the distrustful town like some sort of Call of Cthulhu game. But the party is smart, remembering that in 5e, Detect Magic is a ritual spell that Wizards can just cast for free, giving the party a baddie detector that the module had no intention of existing. They get to keep it, they corner a guy, and try to Charm Person to override the existing spell. I give it a Counterspell-esque ability check to override a 5th-level spell with a 1st-level one, they succeed, and they get an interrogation scene where the NPC has to skirt the limits of both Charm spells, which culminates in the villain's spell reasserting itself in horrifying fashion as the Charm Person wears off. The party figured out a clever solution, got to use it to the effect they could, learned how powerful the enemy is, and there was still an adventure to have them play through where they got to feel really smart, even with the odds against them. Enemy spellcasters that could mask the effect with Nystul's Magic Aura actually gained the party's trust and were nearly able to dispose of what little evidence they had acquired against them, so there's still that element of distrust.
I literally ran this concept, minus the multiverse bs because that's lame imo, and had Vecna as the mastermind. And I'm staring at the statblock (that hasn't changed since Don't Say Vecna!, proving they haven't taken the feedback at all), and I just asking myself "who seriously thought *this* was strong enough?"
I'm pretty sure there's going to be a spin-off of 5e, people are not gonna move on to 6e/1DnD, and instead move to the spin-off, like with Pathfinder. Just wondering at this point who it will be.
Ah, Against the Cult of the Reptile God, a certifiable classic.
You know, having half the writing team get fired during the writing process probably was what put this module in the ground. I doubt anyone had any real motivation to make something meaningful after seeing their friends all put on the chopping block.
"Book tells you to change a location of an item!"
That reminds me of the Stone of Golorre from Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. The book suggests you to use the Stones mind controling powers to force pcs to bring it to the location where it's supposed to be if they are to get it too early and then forget about it. Thanks, WotC, very cool.
it's so annoying because the stone of golorr is like the only aggressively railraody part of an otherwise great module, and there's so much potential for ways to fix it (and many have, from simply ignoring that restriction, having the villains go directly to the pcs if they get the stone early, or majorly shaking things up like in the alexandrain remix).
Yeah on the "monsters have weak basic items that just work differently when they hold it" can you imagine vecna using a +2 dagger? Like. It is just a +2 dagger.
Vecna. The archlich god.
A +2 dagger.
A fucking +2 dagger.
Thats like saying Baphomet's axe is actually just a +2 axe and nothing special.
Imagine if Staff of Orcus was just a +2 wand.
Insane.
Ridicilous.
I like Vecna because he's actually an obscure Elric reference
Jack Vance, actually: Vecna's an anagram.
So you're telling me Bethesda wrote this adventure?
You're telling me Bethesda writes?
Touche
Thank you for the review Archlich. It really does seem like every time I look at a high level module the writers can't seem to account the increased power and importance that should come with that tier of play. Being the first 5e adventure to properly hit level 20, I think the mandate from on high was to make the adventure "idiot proof" for a new DM where this book might be their first foray past level 10. WotC seems to weirdly put a lot of trust in the DM to flesh out shallow NPCs in their modules should the party take a shine to them but not to improvise when the party threatens to go off the rails of the plot.
Now that we've seen a review of a product you didn't like, I'd love to hear from you about a module that you did enjoy. You're right that most of the internet likes the complaining but I like to see praise given where its due too.
This is an excellent video and a very good tear down of why the book is bad and what makes Dnd good. My main concern is that I am personally writing a campaign that includes a main villain who is supposed to be the god of a cult, but I don’t know if my attachment to said cult and god due to all of my writing and worldbuilding will make me subconsciously fearful of having said god be handwaved and ignored or unceremoniously decimated because I’m not certain how to balance them. I’m definitely stronger at narrative aspects of running this game, and I have been surprised a lot by the players mechanical ingenuity and combat skills, but somehow turning up the heat by having an enemy do something as simple as focus the healer seems unfair to do to them.
All in all, this video is going to give me a great deal of introspection as to how I should continue to plan the world for the players
Imagine commenting before watching
Couldn't be me
Out of curiosity what 5e module would you recommend for play? I'm relatively new to 5e and I'm curious what you would recommend.
Curse of Strahd, Rime of the Frost Maiden, or Ravenloft have been the ones I've heard good things about. Additionally, about anything that Ghostfire Gaming puts out is stellar from what I hear.
I would go with Tales From the Yawning Portal, actually. It's a good collection of classic D&D dungeons updated to fifth edition, going all the way from beginner-friendly to meat grinder
why would i trust wizards over a lich on how to run THE lich? i wouldnt.
On Skibidi Vecna's got eyeball rizz.
I'd like to add that my browser asked me if I wanted to translate this to english...
@@The_Archlich That's awesome, yeah I've been seeing that a lot. It's crazy that I'm no longer in tune with current youngin slang. I'm still on lit and dabbing lol.
The best part of Eve of Ruin is the Languid Touch perk
So the door can't be picked and is trapped and there's no way to get through it. What about the wall 5 ft to the right?
One of them explains away how that can't work either IIRC. Honestly I would just trash the restrictions and make it up on my own.
Its worrying how close WotC's in-house game design is to that of a novice, modern DM. You know, when all your design cues are from CRPGs like Oblivion, Neverwinter Nights, or Kingmaker; games that don't have to contend with players who could do anything besides follow pre-made paths in the game.
Of course an AI generated adventure path wouldn't be able to comprehend original and creative player choices.
Honestly, when I heard that a new campaign came out, my first reaction was "Welp, can't wait to steal the pdf online." Because frankly, while I wish I could support the artists who make these gorgeous books, most of my money will probably just go to the idiots who "balance" and "write" this garbage. I'd rather just take the pdf and use the monsters in my own campaign, buffing when it needs it. Because ain't nothing else in there, other than the art, is worth it
Archie! This was a great vid! Please do a review of other WOTC products from the past! I really like your content, and seeing an expansion from the classic "how to run a monster like a chad" formula is great. (although, I do also love those videos, too)
I know it isn't WOTC, but I'd also REALLY like to hear your thoughts on the "Where Evil Lives" and "Flee Mortals" books.
So our writing is better, that's good to know :D
Disappointing, though not necessarily surprising. I'd be happy to see more vids like this from you Archie if you enjoyed making it. Can't wait for the hag video, your stuff is excellent. Though I must apologize to all evildoers for my poor running of a Beholder, there were only like 3 traps per square foot instead of 30 (though he did use tunnels with tiny murder holes to fire from the ceiling and my players were utterly terrified).
I have failed you my evil master :(
I am incredibly disheartened to hear this. I've already given up on DnD as a system since the crap show that was 4th, and subsequently haven't heard anything good about 5th. But to hear that they are churning put highpriced garbage is really sad.
The Return of the King
I got a friend who is really excited to run this and I said I would play in it... please pray for me!
Just try to have fun and make a basic less complex character. Might be time to whip out Gigacles the Neutral Human Fighter
This book is worth it purely for the stat blocks. Its so awesome to finally get stat blocks for legendary characters like Tasha and Kas.
I will say the stat blocks are the best thing about this book. For 60 bucks though? Eh I don't know.
Can't agree more, 30 dollars for a piece of sh&t. Great!
What's with the black void?
It’s a common technique used in editing called a J cut
@@TechnoCheezit For like a solid minute?
I’m so tired of the multiverse it’s unreal
I’d rather have have a video about hags than complaints about a failing company, bc hags as a concept are system agnostic
Let Archie cook
And I'll finish making it when I feel like it.
@@The_Archlichbro is brewing an elixir of peak
Eve of Ruin is the perfect name. Given this is the capstone of 5e and all the BS that has been going on.
I really liked that part when he said "Its Ruining Time" and then Ruined everywhere......... building ruins your dirty bastards
True
Fr
You seemed genuinely surprised that the famous Official Forgotten Realms Characters(tm) didn't have a lot of depth to them. WoTC is just following the tried and tested hollywood business model: name recognition equals hype and hype equals sales, all other writing beyond the skeleton of a plot is extraneous.
I wasn't surprised that it was pretty boring, but I was surprised by just how bad the writing is. Like very very bad.
@@The_Archlich That's what happened when you have never created anything ever, just buy other people's things.
the original creator is gone, the work should stop, period. IT is NEVER good with the B team.
@@acrab6527 considering the original creator was gygax, I'd prefer anyone else to make DND. Dude was a horrible person.
@@josiahws5 you can't name a single bad thing he did
@@acrab6527 he was a sexist by his own word, like he literally called himself sexist. He said the only way women would be in DND was as sex slaves. He thought women weren't mentally capable of playing DND. He cheated on his wife and got addicted to drugs and hookers as soon as DND made money
Seems like Vecna-based adventures have a recurring theme of being notoriously railroady. From what I've heard Vecna's debut module "Vecna Lives!" suffers the exact same problems of giving the players very little agency and forcing them down an extremely specific path of progression. Old habits die, or rather I should say UN-die hard I guess.
Sad part is while Vecna lives is super railroady (despite being well written if followed as a "investigative noir story" campaign) the other vecna adventure, Die Vecna Die actually uses the railroady bits to tie in options from other adventures just as Eye of Ruin should have (after all it stole a fuckton including the planehopping chase plot and collect random objects each hidden behind 1-3 keys from DVD) as in each section where if the party of DVD leaves the main plot it has a direct tie to a AD&D or 2e adventure (tho some are magazine released shorts) including the location names and events of the adventures.
Like fucking hell, let Descent to Avernus info and NPCs be in the tiamat cultist run clown colosseum (maybe Arkhan vs the clown bard tiefling lady and if you went for Tiamoms help in BGDIA he just rips the heart out of her, spits on the illusion from the fake Dragonlance lore that awakens and you have a actually cool (projection) dragon fight or if Rise of Tiamat was failed (or even better, acknowledge that you can help the cultists even if the story arc/2 adventures werent written for it) have the breakaway point not be stupid voice projections, but the actual Azharul-based Avatar of Tiamat crashing back down to the Lair (or even if it was successfully defeated, make a note of the ex-dragon-gods-altered corpse being enshrined half-detransformed from the Tiamat appearance); same way let Strahd actually fucking interact and deal with characters if they went through ravenloft as the other Domain figures can in DVD.
> Ancient evil lich god of dark magic, arguably the final boss of all of DnD
> CR26
lmao
To try and be fair, they did specify that he's reduced to his "archlich" form while pouring his power into the ritual. But even then, he's weak af for what an archlich should be.
@@The_Archlich powering him down like that is just bad writing. The entire team needs to get replaced, what a joke
Lich v Lich warfare.
i've kind of learned while DMing for about 5 or so years now that instead of making a problem with a specific solution: Make a problem and let the players figure out the solution, so you dont try and subconsciously railroad them into doing a specific thing you want them to do, like for example:
you step into the onyx room deep within the pyramid, you feel a pressure plate click beneath you as solid earth slams down in the doorway behind you sealing the passage tight with a bang, and suddenly you feel a trickle of sand glancing off your shoulder before you realize around you the room is filling with sand, roll initiative!
now a newer dm might make up a crazy intricate puzzle to stop the room from filling with sand that they spent maybe a few hours creating and fantasizing about the players triumphantly solving the riddle? or whatever they decided to create... only to have the druid cast mold earth and block the tubes that are feeding the sand into the room, which will make the DM upset surely that DAMN druid is trying to "break" their puzzle.
when instead you should just describe the sand falling into the room, roll initiative, and let the players problem solving skills decide how they're going to stop the trap. This way it prevents the "NO it doesnt work the sand magically shoves the earth out of the tubes and keeps filling the room" and it allows "ah that'll work druid great idea, as you plug the tubes the sand stifles and stops flowing into the room, your filled up to your ankles in sand now as an eerie quiet fills the empty room" which will make the players feel good, and you! because at the end of the day we want them to solve the things or die trying! not just HAH i got you, you have to do it my way or the high way!
This
Did this in my first dnd oneshot last year (we were playing pure homebrew before dnd). There was a small corridor they had to enter from an elevated opening. Once on the inside there was a gelatenous cube behind them and a few traps infront of them. It also was possible to spot the cube before dropping in. I didnt intend on my players to solve this in a 'perfect' kind of way, I planned the room just as is. And all of my groups came up with different ideas and solutions without me having to interfere or remind them of things. Was alot of fun and I will do that more in my big campaign in a few months.
If you're really the bigger DM, you can do the intricate planned puzzle but accept alternative solutions, as well as allowing players to "buy" themselves advantages by being clever.
The room was filling with sand, but you've stopped that. Good job, you now have way more time to figure out the puzzle to open the exit. That way both you and the players get your satisfaction.
@@ZarHakkar You're absolutely right about that too, that also is a way you can do it!
As I said in another Archlich video: Goblin Slayer shows the ways a lot of player characters solve issues that are creative an unique (like throwing a vampire into a bag of holding).
Too often it seems the people writing these in the modern era assume the players are unimaginative and uncreative.
I have yet to see an official setting adventure that isn't a railroad.
On the magical lock spiel, one of my favorite things is that the spell Knock explicitly makes a loud audible sound, something that could easily be set as the trigger for a Glyph of Warding to then cast Arcane Lock on the door from the other side or something similar.
I've pretty good experience with Curse of Strahd in that it is quite open ended. The PCs get introduced to the land in the village of Barovia and then after that they pretty much just get quests they can choose to engage with our not. Depending on which they engage with there are diffent consequences. The group I'm DMing has been playing for a little more than a year and we are in act 3 now.
!!!*SPOILERS*!!!
Honestly, the part that bothers me the most, was the defanging of Straahd and Kas. (pun intended)
Kas specifically, instead of being hatred incarnate, unable to die because hatred never leaves unless you let go of it, has become a backstabbing, cowardly loser who "desperately wants the wizards (Tasha and Alustriel, 2 powerful women nonetheless) to witness and acknowledge his strength".
He was originally written as emotionally vacant, bored, unchallenged by everything, until bringing up Vecna near him or whatever object is tying him to the realm sparks his overwhelming hatred. That's why his sword was so cool, it's the ultimate curse. You're filled with powerful hate, the boon being you're immensely powerful, the detriment being you *can't* make it stop.
Thank you for the spoilers warning.
Of course they did that. Why would a nigh powerful unkillable undead give a damn what two women think of him? That would be like making a Lich or Elder brain make inappropriate remarks about a female's attractiveness.
The only things these two bbeg would find attractive about, well, any character is that sexy sexy rare ancient tome (lich) or sensual knowledge that your delectable brain has that it doesn't (brain).
I ran a pretend combat with the items they give out in the adventure and killed Vecna before he got a single turn of combat...
You, know I think he could've benefited from at least having the shield spell in his repertoire and, you know, some cool legendary actions.
You don't understand Reddit complained about legendary actions so they removed them
@notthefbi7015 honestly legendary actions are fine it's legendary resistance that's annoying and a not great mechanic
Getting a WotC adventure used to feel like ordering a hearty meal at a steakhouse, and now it feels like ordering a cheap sample platter.
Gone are the days of Tomb of Annihilation, Icewind Dale and Curse of Strahd, of a book that contains a lovingly crafted region full of NPCs, dungeons, quests and events that all create the illusion of a living place that reacts to player choice; instead we get the much cheaper and lazier format of little standalone "adventures" in tiny locales that don't really effect or have anything to do with each other, which can either be run standalone or together bound by a shoestring-thin premise (candlekeep, golden vault, radiant citadel, fortune's wheel, etc.).
Eve of Ruin is just more of that, served up with a big slice of nostalgia for much better adventures and settings to disguise the fact each segment isn't doing anything new. Death House is literally just Death House reskinned with an added Strahd miniboss fight, and "Tiamat's Lair" is literally Fortune's Wheel Casino from ToFW spliced weirdly with a Mad Max car sequence from DoA!
Maybe I'm lazy, but I'm personally sick of buying a $75 book and having the adventures within be "perfect to slide into your home game as a sidequest" or have a janky story that requires a remix and DM's Guild fan expansions to be playable. At that point, I could and should save my money and just make my own adventure in Ravenloft/Dragonlance/Sigil/Hell/Whatever.
Regarding the subtle glyphic inscriptions within the keyway of the locked door, the Rogue unfurls a second set of tools on the stone flagstones beside their lockpicks, a set of gleaming tuning forks. Striking each fork in turn and listening carefully for a resonant hum vibrating from the lock, in harmony with the fork. Having identified the harmonic resonance of the arcane trap, all that remained was the not so simple matter of calculating the spell's exact tonal opposition, a few lines of complex mathematics drawn with a finger in the crypt dust, before striking that exact disharmonic chord to suppress the ward, and then picking the mundane aspect of the lock before the suppressive tone subsides. It's not a quick job, or a quiet one, far beyond the skill set of a common cutpurse. But no locked door has ever stood between the promise of treasure, and a Rogue with a Reliable Talent
OR do what previous editions did. "Finding the frequency told him it was a necromantic magic trap. So Steely Dan got his scroll of Death Ward and used it on himself, the negative energy explosion doing nothing to him."
This is a very cool description, and I'm stealing it.
Roll sleight of hand
@@emmadebeer8134 I rolled an 8 before any bonuses.
Must have been the wind
i dont even know much about dnd, i just watch some random shit
I saw a video by a guy on here that fixed....basically everything about this one.
His name is Mr Welsh.
*Mr Welch
@@fletcherw32 "He's been kicked out of more games than you've played, boy"
@@acrab6527 he's not allowed to do more things than you'll ever do
It clearly feels like they were tasked with writing "D&D Avengers: Endgame!" (it's screaming obvious how they make Vecna into knockoff Thanos) but with the assumption that the players at the table will be excitable Twitter users. Which is to say, not TTRPG hardcore crowd but people with poor grasp of the game, whose characters are interchangeable "me superhero, save good kill bad" templates with ability blocks, and who're just being offered a guided tour of all the famous D&D characters. Let's face it, Vecna is only there because of Stranger Things. And the DM is intended to be a chaperone of the group leading them on that tour, as opposed to running a real game
I love when Vecna snaps his fingers with the infinity gauntlet.
The MCU and its consequences have been a disaster for the human species, truly.
Suffering the consequences of letting your party do whatever they want is *the* thing about DMing. There is a time to shepherd the party and a time to ask "so what do you all want to do about this?" I can't count how many times in the past couple years of running games for this group, they've offered a conclusion I hadn't thought of only to go "no, no. That would probably work. Go 'head."
Just happened in my last game.
"the mayor has a greater demon lord summoned and trapped in his mansion. He's using it's power to make himself an alchemical army. You need to find 7 stones to open his sanctum door.."
"why don't we just knock the light house over?"
"what?"
"His mansion's at the base of a light house, right? Stone to mud, drop the 30 story lighthouse, killing the mayor and the demon lord"
"Okay new plan"
Years ago, I made the mistake of pre-ordering the Spelljammer for 5E three book set when it came out.
To this day, it is the worst hasbro entertainment product I have ever purchased (yes, even compared to the shitty $15 board games you buy as a kid)
Two of the three books combined (spelljammer handbook, monster manual expansion) have a near equivalent number of pages to a single Eberron 5e book. And the third book (I don’t remember the name, I’ve purged it from memory) is such absolute dog shit, hot trash, irredeemable garbage of a campaign book, that I have genuinely actually looked through and found zero reusable pieces of content (statblocks, charts, concepts, ideas, etc. they were all bad)
Throughout the three booksset, I’ve noticed multiple instances of:
Introducing a new mechanic, but failing to provide the rules for it
completely violating existing rules or canon without explanation
Declaring that a core component of the spell jammer setting is inherently unfun and should not be engaged with
Yeah, that’s right, instead of finding an optimal balance of complexity, player interaction, and ease of play in ship to ship combat. The design team cooked up a half baked and dysfunctional ship to ship combat system, and then declares directly in the book that it should be avoided at all costs, and that all ship to ship combat should transition to a boarding action as soon as possible whenever possible.
seeing that you’ve had a similar experience with one of their most recent books in terms of how god-awful it is just shows that they deem this to be an acceptable level of quality and have no plans on changing or improving their products
I agree vecna’s stats are laughable. Seriously, why does a CR 26 creature not have Legendary actions or lair actions?
On a lighter note, this was a cool detour from your usual content. I’d love to hear your takes on running other 5E adventures, both the good and the bad
I heard that for Vecna, a literal fucking god of magic, they gave him his statblock that was supposed to represent him thousands of years ago BEFORE his apotheosis. Is this true, wise Archlich?
He is using his Archlich (preposterous) stats, not god stats.
@@The_ArchlichThat’s so dumb. They couldn’t have even given him mythic actions, or improved stats? Really?
Remember, the OG Vecna, without yet full divine status (in narrative a nearly/at the divine power of Lesser God, but currently still at Demigod status with his mortal body turned Avatar to fight the party) managed to cockslap the Lady of Pain into hiding and it either takes 4+ heroes immune to the bulk of his power due to using his own relics against him OR 4+ other demigods and lesser deities along with the Lady herself fighting him together to possibly beat him (irony is, against gods and mortals with his artifacts embedded in them, his Avatar is outright weaker than his regular lich self that can be fought prior when he is in the process of draining Iuz, as he has 20+ in all stats, 25 perfect strength at that, 4 on saves/fixed 80% success on saves and -10 AC back then... and the party gets a shitton of magic items just to learn only the sword of kas can actually harm him but, even if he is unlikely to murder the party in that encounter as they deal with the rest of the evil minions around).
A Vecna Archlich assembled from the DMG monster creation page is about 3 times more dangerous than the Dos/Eye of Ruin one before even accounting for active buffs and magic items he should have such as the OG ToST, extra ring from HoG, .
Trash, absolute trash. I'm surprised all the negative reviews of this module really fail to go into just how bad Vecna's actual statblock is. Like, there is no reason to go on all these side quests, Vecna is so weak you could just pop into his arena as 4 level 10s and smoke him. 4 level 20s is just so overkill, and I don't envy the new DM that uses this as their first module as their BBEG goes down round 3.
A lot of the criticisms here have been issues of D&D for the past couple of years. To me, Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, was the last good 5e module. And that came out almost 4 years ago.
Further, a lot of 5e content is just streamlining or modernising older D&D content, and honestly, I prefer that over them trying to come up with their own ideas.
I agree. It feels like the people designing the game fundamentally don't understand it, and are just on autopilot.
I’d beg to differ, I don’t think they should rework their old content either!
I’ve seen what they’re reworks of old Contant looks like, and it’s even worse than their newly made content
I purchased the spell jammer for fifth edition books when they came out, and they’re LITERALLY unuseable as is.
There are multiple rules that are missing or incomplete! An easy example of this is that spelljammers (spaceships) have to be a certain distance away from any other object or celestial body in order to travel at faster than light speeds. This is an important rule that keeps the players or enemies from simply leaving any encounter the moment it becomes even slightly unfavorable.
The book, however, does not actually list what that distances anywhere in the book.
(I had to find a copy of the original second edition book in order to answer this. It’s a varying distance, depending on how large the nearby objects are. Usually tens of miles for planet sized objects.)
@@evangold4748 I meant more like Tales from the Yawning Portal or the New Infinite staircase module coming out, but I see your point.
@@tyhatch3771 true, Yawning Portal was good
It seems that the dev team don´t know who vecna is, just said "hey! he is a lich, monster manual such page, k, an undead wizard. Lets make him main villain"
- No book of vile darkness
- no hand of vecna
- no eye of vecna
- no sword of kas
- no black obelisks
- no previous story
- Vecna encounter is just a cameo
and I can keep going... But worst crime ever!!
- They made Strahd a random encounter at the turn of a corner in a random dungeon!!!
Realy those ppl got paid?
WotC, please, read me out! you have ppl that want to destroy you. You kicked out the wrong ppl. Check the credit page of this module, there you will find all those ppl who hates D&D and fire them.
Yeah...It was frustrating to say the least. The audio was way harder to clean up at the end because I kept getting angry and it was messing with the levels without me noticing lol.
A vampire being a random encounter around a corner made someone so pissed that they proceeded to do better and write Curse of Strahd. They have gone full circle.
@@persiancarpet5535 sad at least
Technically it does mention you can drop the Sword of Kas anywhere, we know the hand is off in Avernus (which you go to but never meet the character that has it DESPITE IT BEING A PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO DIE IN BALDURS GATE DESCENT TO AVERNUS) and the Book of Vile Darkness is there in 2 chapters, both the Neverwinter attack on the guild and in sigil (as Alustriel would either be stationed in the Ladys ward or Clerks ward of the city, in both cases tied to a patron/contact from Keys to the Golden Vaults BoVD adventure). THE MOTHERFUCKERS JUST DIDNT EVEN ACKNOWLEDGE IT as if the writers didnt even read the other adventures WOTC released.
Then again Keys is just as much slop so i dont blame anyone for not reading it.
@@ANDELE3025 They want to ruin D&D, that´s my though
the "swashbuckling across the multiverse" concept feels disgustingly corporate, like hasbro execs told wotc to "make a marvel movie". especially with how much crossover nonsense has been forced into MtG as well
Great video, I’m glad I’m not alone in hating the balancing choices in this book. I was baffled that there were so few magic items in the book, and the ones that were included weren’t particularly strong, and many of them are meant to be returned to an NPC for no actual reason. When is the time for players to get good magic items, if not in a level 20 campaign?
And of course, laughably easy combat all around, even though many players have easy access to resurrection spells. Glad I wasn’t crazy in thinking it was way too easy.
Needless to say, much workshopping is needed to make this campaign work, which has occupied much of my time. I still think I will have fun running this for my players, the foundations of my idea of a fun campaign are here!
Im truly baffled why wizards is obsessed with turning dnd into a videogame when 90% of the games draw is it's freedom
because then, microtransactions
Hasbro's CEO was literally the Microsoft gaming CEO that was fired for losing xbox money with microtransactions. So they're just doing it again
I loved when Vecna said: these things sure were stranger
I'll catch this later, I'm on my way to a ball game in st.luise with my fam.
No rush, I'm pretty sure it'll be here when you get back.
The company shed all its competent people after the first OGL fiasco, we are seeing the reality of that now
Your list of recommendations is scary, scary because it's all basic stuff the writing team didn't include.
One thing I have loved about D&D is how, even if it's loosely attached, there's often a canonical lore reason for a new edition to be released. When I saw that this adventure was about Vecna remaking the multiverse I thought about how cool it would be that the next edition would be explained from this adventure. Vecna is about to remake the multiverse, but then is simply defeated and there's no ceremonious ending or anything remotely notable. I had hoped Vecna would remake the universe, but then the party would defeat him, take control of the maguffin, and then remake the universe themselves, this creating 6th edition (D&D One). But nope, just simply Vecna falling back to Oerth... the ending being a single page is embarassing for an adventure, and especially a capstone adventure to an edition.
The entire concept of new editions is a petty marketing campaign. It is always a better option to keep releasing more of the old thing people liked. But then they can't force you to buy another set of books. It's just greed.
That's cause Onednd is just 5.5 not 6e
@@notthefbi7015Tasha's was 5.5
What this shows is that, unlike what people tried to say, WotC is fundamentally dying. They continue to release poor or even terrible products, and it's not just rushed schedules or one higher up messing with it. I haven't seen a review that was positive about this book beyond some of the core ideas and the art. In the end, I am glad that WotC is showing me, and everyone else interested in doing so, what NOT to do in writing an awesome and compelling adventure.
Honestly, the balance and fear of making players stronger is on brand for the people who thought to patch the martial caster disparity by removing great weapon master and sharpshooter
Honestly, the key thing I always took away from High Level Campaign is that you just... Make puzzles and encounters, and if they get absolutely OBLITERATED, that's fine. And if the encounter or puzzle you made is something they simply don't have the skills to deal with, and they have to try again later, that's fine, too. Just make the encounters as best you can, and let them get solved however they get solved.
Thank you for doing more than Hasbro as of late, Archie.
If only I had their money and publishing resources...
I still find it baffling that the main villain of *Vecna* Eve of Ruin is, in fact, not Vecna.
It’s kinda funny, I don’t know if it’s coincidence or not but me and my friends started a 3 person, multiverse hopping adventure…. 2 months ago. The fun part being that we swap over dm seat every session, each of us having our own world to explore and our own character. 2/3 ( myself included) of us are also DM’ing for the first time so it’s chaotic and sloppy right now (at least mine is) but the point is that we can improve and grow with the story. And I’ll take what we got anyday over this streamlined railroading nonsense.
It’s my second campaign but the first one ended session 3 so I’m still embarrassingly new but it’s been a great experience and I’ve taken a lot of inspiration from your videos to help.
Glad y'all are having fun!
One of the worst things I noticed immediately when the book came out was the fact that Vecna's stat block was never updated from the stat block in The Vecna Dossier that was released years ago. The Vecna from that Dossier was a weaker, non-deity version of Vecna, but the Vecna in this adventure book is labelled as the Lich-God Vecna, so why tf doesn't his stat block reflect that? Why is he still using his pre-deity stat block?
Just the fact that the titular villain doesn't even have a stat block in his own adventure book is bad enough. Using a stat block that goes against lore in the very book he is in is even worse.
They do say the ritual reduces him to his archlich form while he's casting it, but honestly that statblock isn't worthy of an archlich title.
@@The_Archlich it's such a cop-out imo. Even assuming he would be stronger than the average archlich, weakening him should be something the players have the ability to do if they want to make the battle easier.
Wouldn't someone as powerful and intelligent as Vecna ensure his ritual doesn't weaken him?
Yet another great lecture from one of my favorite D&D RUclipsrs. I'd love to see your take on critiquing/fixing other modules, or just creating adventures from the ground up
An easy way to tell between a company that can balance their monsters, Paizo, vs WotC.
Paizo is the gold standard in my opinion.
@@The_Archlich Interested to see how Abomination Vaults for 5e pans out.
@@CyberSkelly817is this a homebrew or official thing?
@@dantefiore8442 It's official, can even order it on Paizo' website now. I can't believe no one is talking about it.
@dantefiore8442 It's official, they had it in the works before the OGL situation and figured they should release it anyways.
It's as if WOTC are trying to advertise to a fanbase that doesn't exist
That point of "takesies backsies" is something so prevalent with all wotc modules I have read for a while now, where enemies and story characters get items but the players don't even if they steal or kill for the item.
Didn't realize half your thumbnails were just soyjack edits until this video
Only the shittiest of thumbnails from yours truly.
Good review. Sad to see that WotC is struggling so hard to put out actually good content. Also, "titular" doesn't just mean "important", it means "relating to the title of something". For instance, Vecna is the titular character in the module Vecna Eye of Ruin because his name is in the title. Characters can't make "titular decisions" :P
I'm planning to take small elements from Eve of Ruin for my Ravenloft game. Its set about 25 years after our last Curse of Strahd game, where we went evil, killed everyone, gave Strahd his eternal love, and fucked off.
The plot, is that my former character has made a deal with Shar, as she cannot effect the Domains of Dread, but they exist on her Shadowfell, that he will remove them from her realm in exchange for power. He's still trapped, his 'home' he got to return to was Darkon, so unlike when Strahd normally invites others, he's become more complacent, focused on containing his vamprized wife, not inviting anyone to his domain, killing anyone who goes into his castle to avoid some unfortunate demise for her.
So my former character, with that deal, orchestrated the events to have the new players (as I'm the DM now) get dropped into Barovia, straight into the village, without Strahd knowing. He deceived them to oppose Strahd and obtain artifacts he scattered in the land, or knew would be effective but couldn't get himself, and watches them carefully from afar, Strahd thinking him dead.
When the players do get to beat Strahd, thats only the middle part of the campaign, as the true villain will use that situation to force the Dark Powers to draw back from the Shadowfell and recreate the original Demiplane of Dread, an act my villain is hoping to use to thus BECOME a Dark Power himself, a betrayal of his deal with Shar as well. That aspect will take the campaign into higher levels.
Added villains include the Gentleman Caller with a buffed statblock (funny enough, a 3rd party PDF I bought had a statblock for him, and they were very similar, I merged them for my campaign), potential inclusion of Tovag and Kas (my statblock for him was CR 28, but I merged it w/ the Eve of Ruin statblock, but I'm playing him more like 2e AD&D), considering having the campaign run concurrently with the events of Eve of Ruin, with the Tovag/Kas part being after Vecna is defeated, no longer a god, and 'retrieved' by the Dark Powers along with Kas from Oerth. And my villain also would have become the new Dark Lord of Darkon.
Side plot, while they're in Barovia, is that like Darkon fading away w/o a Dark Lord, with historical precedence with Lord Soth (yes, that Lord Soth) being rejected by the Dark Powers and forced to leave Ravenloft due to ignoring his punishment/plight to just live in his memories, that because Strahd is no longer being 'tormented', unable to obtain his bride, the Dark Powers are slowly reclaiming Barovia into the mists, but due to Strahd being the literal first Dark Lord, from which all dark domains are connected to (hence the plot involves beating him for the villain to recreate the Demiplane), the Dark Powers can't free him or erase his domain, only threaten it in the hopes someone will get desperate enough and oppose Strahd, kill his wife, restart his punishment, etc.
Cool, hope you all have fun!
I havent finished the vid so i wont comment my thoughts on the module. But i will say a thought that was lingering in my mind for a long time. Is anyone else tried of vecna or is it just me? Im tired of seeing him everywhere and people circld jerking him like he's the greatest ever. Why dont we get modules covering the other great villians of dnd. Why dont we get a module around Orcus? Or a cult of lovitar? Maybe adventure into the upper planes? Sorry for the mini rant, i needed to get it off my chest.
They're basically Marvel Soyjacking him at this point. It's kinda bad.
@@The_Archlich Yeah its pretty bad at this point. WOTC seems determined to lose as much money as possible. I have no idea how that is possible, I would think they would be printing money with dnd and magic the gathering.
This has been a reoccurring issue with all modern entertainment media, sadly. the people getting into these companies have no creativity and no concept of agency. Its one of the reasons east asian entertainment mediums have become so much more popular lately.
And quite simply, companies don’t want to take risks with “new concepts and agency.” So, anyone new who comes into these big media markets anymore with exciting and bold new ideas is probably going to just be shut down, as it’s not the goal to “revolutionize” anymore, it’s to increase profit, with minimum loss.
Which especially for DnD is ironic. The only reason 5th edition got so popular was the company got humbled by 4th edition, then did the DnD Next playtesting, and took a gamble on redefining the game and changing focus. Which led to a HUGE boom in not just DnD, but Table Top RPGSs as well. Between this, their openness and support with their community and 3rd parties (ie streams, homebrew, etc.), and quality content, they turned DnD and TTRPGs from niche content, to much more mainstream and practically tripled the market.
Now, literally a decade later, it’s been these painful mixes of stupidly safe bets and material, unimaginative content, reliance on “oh it’s fine, the players will fill in the blanks”, monetization schemes, hostile policies, and exploitation of the goodwill they once had aimed at them. It’s absolutely insane how a decade had them completely alter into a culture similar to a video game company like EA.
You ever hear the expression: "your audience is smarter than you think they are"?
The people who wrote this clearly haven't.
Because they called everyone with talent "ist a phobic" to get them fired, so the loses in Human Resources can employ their loser, talentless friends. Then they all just pretend to know what they're doing to keep collecting a paycheck, until the company goes out of business, and they have to parasitize another company.
They never actually do any creating, they're hiding for another 2 weeks to get a last paycheck.
Damn! That is disappointing, very solid review sir. I'm glad we have DM's like you that can spin this ill written beast into an epic of legend. Keep up the good work 🤙
ANOTHER BANGER DROPPED MOM!
I thoroughly enjoyed you yelling at WOTC at us for 20 minutes. Even with the new video format, I was not at all disappointed. I wait with bated breath for your next project!
fun fact: Vecna for being a literal god is a weaker lich than Acererak who is also mentioned in the book
Acererak: gets 9th level spells, Vecna at best gets 8th
Acererak: has a higher AC at 21, Vecnas is 18
Acererak: has all around better ability scores even a higher intelligence than Vecna
Acererak: has better defenses to damage types than Vecna
per these stats presented in 5e Acererak could have solo'd Vecna and not even gotten a scratch on him
In my opinion/experience the more famous characters are in a module the worse it is because those characters are fundamentally untouchable. the setting is hilariously allrgic to change, even when that change only exists at a dm's table, just look at the glut of pointless gods that infest the setting
I wonder what you'd think about Abomination Vaults by Paizo.
I should give them a look sometime. I've played some PF2e but not enough to confidently say I know a ton about it or anything.
@@The_Archlich Many people seem to hold the opinion that Paizo just puts out great adventures. I have limited experience, but I usually recommend Abomination Vault since it's been made for 5e now.
The change I would make to this book is that the Rite of Unmaking has already succeeded, but instead it has split Vecna into Seven Parts (with the rod of seven parts). Each major boss guarding each part is an aspect of Vecna.
Vecna’s main body is being held by the three wizards in a shield, but they can’t beat him because of the rite, until all seven parts of the rod are assembled. Therefore, the players are actively fighting to make Vecna stronger so they can kill him!
never played D&D on a table before but now i know what book NOT to play! cheer master lich
Duly noted fellow lich, I shall instead continue focusing on World of Darkness for a... change of pace, it's quite refreshing honestly.
World of Darkness is goated in the sauce.
It's interesting how they pretty much had a collaboration dlc for Dead by Daylight to advertise this book and that dlc is probably better than this (Vecna is still severely underpowered but at least it makes sense in the context of the game).
Also not a fan of the purple look.
Good video. I could see a good level 16 party(17 max) finishing this level 20 module. I knew from the first dungeon with barely anyone above cr5 that this would be a cakewalk.
It's such a disappointing adventure. From using established characters just as a means to get people hooked in (or as a marketing tool), changing established lore for no reason only to fall flat on, plot convinient elements that were made so adventure would exist at all (a certain crown), to a final battle where your party of 20lvl characters waced against a (spoiler!) 26CR creature with 272 HP (max. 382). The last part is just pathetic, a lich who has hungred years of experience according to the book "ignores party unless attacked," has no minions, no contingency plans, nothing.
After they fvcked up this book that I skimmed from a mate this is the final straw for me & am out.
2022 & 2023 had nothing but re-releases we never asked for & terrible content that no one I know likes book wise.
I'm sticking to 2021 & prior books for 5e & refuse to buy anything else till this is resolved by Wotc under Hasbro as frankly fvck em!
I could put up with much but doing mucking up Vecna I just can't get on board for this!
Having read the book it bothers me.
** SPOILERS **
What if Strahd or Glaive take their rod pieces? The book gives you no indication of how to resolve that. I know that the book can't account for every possible outcome, but those are the most basic negative outcomes and theres nothing.
Its a very flat story. I would only consider it as a story where you add in the scenarios in another campaign.
It doesn't even need to go that far, its in the 5e DMG under Traps in Play: "Any character can attempt an Intelligence (Arcana) check to detect or disarm a magic trap, in addition to any other checks noted in the trap’s description."
That would be nice if the door even allowed for checks and didn't just blast you with psychic damage anytime you use anything other than the key. Maybe this would at least work for the second door I talk about.
Extremely tangential to the points of the video, but after seeing how the Dead by Daylight team executed the Vecna DLC, I fully and thoroughly anticipated to hear your take and perspective on this adventure. Glad to see the video.
Sad to see it's about equal to whatever they did collabing with DbD. If you don't want an aneurism, don't try reviewing that can of worms either. Great to hear your take on it, and will absolutely be avoiding buying it (yar har fiddley dee). Cheers.
Spoilers Ahead
Can we please talk about how the artifacts introduced in the book are just… underwhelming? One is a DM tool/plot contrivance for a lackluster villain that others have already picked apart in other comments and the other is just a list of situationally useful spells that can be cast basically once per day. Artifacts should feel and be powerful, but the Rod of Seven Parts just feels disappointing. If I’m going on a plane hopping, multiverse spanning campaign for a multi part item, then I at least want something that feels like it will make a difference in a final confrontation with the big bad.
Imma come back and watch this after I play through it with my friends. Chapter 1 wasn’t bad so far, hopefully it doesn’t go too downhill lol
Vecna has the stat block of what I would give a 5th level party of adventurers with a few uncommon magic items.