Storm King's Thunder Review
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After the breaking of the ordening that hold the giants in order, the entire world of the giants descends into chaos. Storm King’s Thunder is an adventure module for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. So how good is this book, let’s find out.
Up until this point in the 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons release history, there had not been many adventure modules that really captured for me a well written adventure book.
Storm King’s Thunder was released in September 2016 and the lead designer was Chris Perkins.
Storm King’s Thunder in my opinion was the first book that breaks the take it or leave it cycle that the previous adventures were able to bring to the table.
The Town of Nightstone
The first chapter is called the great upheaval. They players travel to a town called Nightstone in which was attacked by giants. The giants have stolen the Nightstone that the town is named after.
Players will need to defend the town from any more attacks from giants as well as free some of the villagers.
This chapter is what I would describe as a bottle chapter. Like in other adventure books like Curse of Strahd’s Death House chapter, this is basically a chapter used to get players to a level where they will be ready to actually take on the adventure.
The downside with that comparison is that Death House leaps and bounds better than this chapter. I find the overall goal with the town of Nightstone to not be all that amazing and it does tend to feel more like a grind.
That’s not to say a good Dungeon Master would not be able to tweak this chapter in length and be more heavy handed in experience points, but I think it would be better to just run a different side story that is more enjoyable such as Lost Mine of Phandelver.
Deviation In Storm King’s Thunder
One of the Major successes in my opinion to this adventure module is the choose your own adventure like scenario where players will go to 1 of 3 towns and encounter the next step to the story. Goldenfields, Triaboar, and Bryn Shander.
Those interested in the Dungeons & Dragons Icewind Dale Adventure Book would be interested to know that Bryn Shander is actually located in that region of the Forgotten Realms.
I like that there is choice here even though the story for all these areas is essentially the same, it’s still cool to get three cities to tinker around with and pick to best suit the theme that you, the dungeon master, want to set the story with.
The module does a really good job with other areas of choice as well that give all sorts of different flavor to the game such as going after specific artifacts later in the campaign.
It does all of this while also moving the story on in a relatively linear pattern. Playing multiple times players would definitely tell what parts are different because of this, but it does make it fresh enough to play through with more than one group.
Locations in Storm King’s Thunder
Honestly if there is one thing that really pulls me into this campaign book, it’s the locations. There are so many unique and fun areas that the players are going to explore through this campaign. I cannot even begin to try and list them all.
If you are looking for a good book that has a ton of unique locations and are wanting to even to your own Homebrew campaign, getting this book will allow you to get a good sense of MANY locations in the Forgotten Realms.
The locations are also varied, by being under water, in the frozen tundra, up in the sky, out at sea. This adventure feels like it has it all and your players will get the feeling of really traversing the world. Dare I say seeing how giant the forgotten realm can be.
Story in Storm King’s Thunder
The story of this campaign surprisingly fits well if players have gone through the events of the books released before such as the Horde of the Dragon Queen and Tyranny of Dragons. This is for reasons that I will not spoil here.
I will say however that because of the events of the Tyranny of Dragons series, that the orderning was called into question will a power void beginning to appear.
Stats and Monsters in Storm King’s Thunder
Like most 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons modules and books in general, there are unique monsters to the campaign in the back of the book.
There was for some reason not a whole lot of information on the giants in this book, which since this campaign revolves around these so much, they could have at least blatantly told the dungeon master running the game to look in the monster manual for the stats.
I get the the books can run a little long if everything we the dungeon masters need was included, but this felt like a glaring miss from Wizards of the Coast.
Combat in Storm King’s Thunder
Combat is not incredibly flashy or unique in this book. Like mentioned earlier, there are some missing stat blocks which would suggest to me the dungeon master that the campaign is not combat heavy. At the same time, the play through especially towards the beginning does not give off that feeling.
There does seem to be a defense of the town goal that reoccurs a few times in this book but it does not get to a point of repetitiveness.
The climactic battle the way it runs itself can be cinematically fulfilling but can also be either really easy or really hard based on the amount of players in the group, be mindful.
The Maps and Art in Storm King’s Thunder
The art and the maps that are provided in Storms King’s Thunder takes a step up for me in quality to the books that had been released up until this point. There is a fantastic map of a large chunk of Faerûn that takes up two pages in here that is great for referencing. The maps also have the style that becomes a regular in other adventure modules to be released later.
Unfortunately, there is not a tear out map for this book like in other adventure books that have been released. This could possibly be because there are so many different map locations and making use of both sides would have been difficult without giving things away for the choose your adventure style of chapter two and other portions of the module.
The art itself is well done, they did not skimp on some of the pictures and really give a good representation of what some scenery looks like and is useful to show or describe to players if so desired.
Dungeon Master Screen for Storm King’s Thunder
Like most adventures these days that are released by Wizards of the Coast, a subsequent Dungeon Master Screen was released. This Dungeon Master Screen is themed for the Storm King’s thunder and contains another map that covers the main area that players will travel around in this campaign. Along with that comes some other unique tables associated to the campaign setting that are all in all handy to the dungeon master. The outside of the screen contains 3 varied pieces of art from the book, I prefer that it’s done this way over other campaign screens that try and door a more mirror like effect on the screen that is visible to the players.
While the screen itself is by no means a requirement to run the game, they are always a welcome edition to my Dungeons & Dragons collection.
Final Thoughts on Storm King’s Thunder
Storms King’s Thunder excels in opening up a world and really giving players the feeling of an epic adventure. The theme still feels like a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, but with a more refreshing set of story characters and monsters to battle.
Though there is so much adventuring in this book, it maintains an overall goal throughout. The campaign does not feel like one that is on rails when the mechanics in the background cleverly steer players back to the main story.
This campaign module is fantastic to play from for even beginning dungeon masters. Your players will find something to love here and the dungeon masters will get a big bag of Forgotten Realms locations that can be recycled to any campaign.
This adventure book deserves to be one of the few campaign books that is purchased for the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition of the game.
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Thank you for taking the time to read through the review, please let me know what you think as well of this campaign setting. Did you love it, did you hate it, I would love to know so comment below.
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