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The Road to Monsterberg, Crypt of the Raubritter $9.34
Average Rating:5.0 / 5
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The Road to Monsterberg, Crypt of the Raubritter
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The Road to Monsterberg, Crypt of the Raubritter
Publisher: Codex Integrum LLC
by Christopher P. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 11/06/2022 15:29:44

I'll consider this product in two parts:

The Adventure: It's an excellent adventure either as a sandbox or as part of the series. The adventure introduces players to a gritty/historical setting through the narrative and I found this to be effective. I've tried and failed to run historical settings for players, and part of my failure was front-loading too much setting detail. Here they do a good job of introducing the differences from standard FRPG tropes by introducing some fairly low-stakes social situations, and how they could go really wrong. The adventure itself is episodic and broken into digestable chunks. The episodes also progressively introduce more setting/cultural elements which helps with world building and bringing the players along. The adventure IS and CAN BE lethal, and a balanced party with urban, rural, social and combat skills will be essential. That said, the need for a balanced, resourceful party is a strength. You can't get through this adventure unless the party is flexible.

The Utility of the product as a standalone/reference: The book is full of maps, tables and NPCs that can be endlessly mined. You could easily use this as the basis for a quasi-historic hex-crawl. Additionally, while the adventure is designed with a D20 OGL in mind, much of the material here is system-agnostic and what isn't can readily be adapted into whatever else you're playing.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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The Road to Monsterberg, Crypt of the Raubritter
Publisher: Codex Integrum LLC
by Achilles A. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/23/2022 16:47:34

This is a fantastic module for a variety of reasons and a lot of different play styles could make good use of the content found here.

The Road to Monsterberg, Crypt of the Raubritter uses the Codex rulebook and the Codex superno magic system. If you haven’t already picked up those rulebooks, I highly suggest doing so. That being said, a creative GM could still make use of this module without needing to put too much elbow grease into making the DC’s or monsters fit their core system. Of course, using the system this module is designed for is recommended.

The Codex core rules and soprano magic system are designed for a low magic setting. If you’re running that kind of game, do yourself a favor and pick this book up. Writing interesting modules without the use of high magic elements can be difficult, but in this module the developers prove that they are up for the challenge.

The setting is based off of real-world 14th-century Europe. And as you explore the various twists and turns the landscape offers, you realize you want to know more about this world. You want to know who lives in all of these keeps and castles. You want to know what’s really going on in that haunted forest. You want to know what happens next. The game is full of rich detail and intriguing mystery which will engage your players and incite their curiosity.

The format of the module is easy to follow and well organized. The writers list out a series of events in what they refer to as “episodes”. Each episode contains a plot point that the players need to experience in order to progress to another location and adventure. However, these episodes don’t need to be in order. They wrote the module so that it doesn’t matter where the adventurers go because there’s something interesting wherever they end up. They can progress to another location and further the story without feeling railroaded.

This episodic system makes it easy for the GM to remember locations and events while still being able to shuffle the plot points as the players move around. Every GM knows that you can’t count on anything your players are going to do. This module gives you all the tools necessary to stay on your toes and one step ahead of those irksome adventurers.

Because of this flexibility, any gaming table could take advantage of this module. However, if you are running a low magic campaign with a darker and more realistic style, you need this book. In fact, if you’ve never run a low magic campaign but would like to give it a try, this book would be ideal. It’s so well organized, that you could almost use this as a “how to guide” for running a low magic world.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s an intriguing story, but it’s an invaluable example of solid writing for what is a challenging setting.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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The Road to Monsterberg, Crypt of the Raubritter
Publisher: Codex Integrum LLC
by Jack G. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/21/2021 11:45:51

Full disclosure I was playtester for the Monsterberg Adventure.

When I ran it I was playtesting it according to the letter of the book, which is great but not necessarily how it’s meant to be run. Monsterberg is more a toolbox that gives the GM loads of options. The biggest plus of the adventure is definitely Jean, he is always easy to talk about the setting and easy to reach over the forum. https://www.codexintegrum.com/forums/

Monsterberg is what I refer to as historical +, so everything is beautifully researched but with historical fantasy elements, so there’s magic, but magic the way they thought it worked, which is loviingly researched and laid out in the Superno book.

I would definitely suggest a session 0 for combat and explaining the system, this is also a good opportunity to decide how you want to set how dense you want the rules and what your own version of Monsterberg will look like. This also gives you a chance to set expectations on “genre”, Monsterberg is not a marvel film, it’s more like Ocean’s 11 crossed with Joe Abercrombie’s First Law series. Where some systems don’t want you to preplan the operation and prep and let you go backwards and hand wave you have the thing you need or did the right thing that’s not how Monsterberg works. Monsterberg is about doing things “smart”, you prep, you evaluate risks and play the best strategy to get out alive. Minmaxing is encouraged to achieve this. If you don’t get this into your players, you won’t get 100% out of Monsterberg.

We ran it in roll20, if you want to use the adventure we built just write me on the forum I’ll send it over. At first we built macros for the attacks etc. this worked really well but added a lot of time to our prep. personally I’m a bit of a free wheeler as a GM and once the npc sheets were updated and streamlined it was a lot easier to just run it as dicerolls, it’s more a question of preference. If you want details on how to add macros for attacks in roll20 just check the Codex Integrum forum where’s there’s a guide with the code already added.

I would suggest you run through with players how you can get more dice into attacks and into damage before the game and have a printoff sheet of these options. If you use them they will really add an element to the game. Anybody who has fired a rifle will know how much of a difference shooting prone on a bipod vs standing makes etc. I would also have a discussion with your players how much lethality you want in the system and adjust to meet it. Monsterberg is not ‘Lethal” system per se, neither is it a dnd slogfest.

My players took a while to adjust to this kind of in-between damage system where things could take a few turns to die or just one depending on crits. For next time I would probably prepare a range of “damage results” to kind of tell the players whether it was an actually damaging wound or not.

If your players are uncomfortable with foreign languages make sure to name things for them to reduce their shyness, you can use google or wikipedia to find out how to pronounce things. it doesn’t really matter though nobody’s the Polish pronunciation police. But Monsterberg should feel a bit weird and foreign, it’s a weird and foreign place for the PCs too.

KEEP TRACK OF DAMAGE, MONEY, SUPPLIES REST ETC this is something that is pretty important to the Monsterberg vibe. Monsterberg this helps keep the players feel a bit more immersed and constantly problem solving and feeling grounded in the world and under threat, which is what Monsterberg is all about.

to recap. If you are looking for a hyper realistic setting with load of hard choices and management of resources with easy tools that can you can adjust to your needs then Monsterberg is it.

If you like OSR this is probably 4.5/5

If you like lite RPGs with inovative mechanics this is going to be 3/5, unless you do some very simple switches that are outlined in the forum which probably bumps it to a 5/5

If you like hyper realism and gritty in depth campaigns with engaged players who are looking at squeezing every bit of advantage out of the rules this is probably going to be 5/5 with a bonus dice off the bat

If you are looking for high fantasy quick rolling fast and loose with loads of magic with no prep on player or GM side, this is probably not what you are looking for



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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