# Storm King's Thunder



## Morrus (Sep 21, 2016)

Product information... View for more details


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## shawnellsworth (Sep 21, 2016)

*4 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

From my first flip through of this book, I was impressed. The book looks great and I think it’s an excellent adventure and setting resource. The additions of the Dramatis Personae and the adventure flowchart are superb and I hope we see them in future books. The illustrations throughout the book are great (just look at those I included on this review) and there are many maps too.

The adventure does a good job of mixing all three types of gameplay including court intrigue, interrogation, wilderness exploration, search and rescue, dungeons of various sizes, and plenty of combat – including running NPCs alongside their PCs. Some DMs might have an issue with so much of the book going unused as players make their choices and skip locations, but these locations can be explored later or used in your own adventures later.

This is one of my favorite 5th edition adventures, but it might not be for everyone, especially newer groups of players or groups that just want to hack and slash through dungeons. It’s a really solid purchase that will provide hours and hours of gameplay, as it is somewhat re-playable with the branching style of the adventure. This book gives you nearly everything you need to run SKT as a campaign or provides you with a valuable sourcebook when paired with the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide to run adventures in the Northwest of Faerûn.

I originally posted this as a 5 before the database issue. I now repost it as a 4. My rating is 9/10 or 4.5, but there is no way to post that score, and I prefer to go lower vs. perfect. For me personally, I think this is the best adventure book they have done - but I recognize that it is not for all groups, so 9/10.

Read the Full Review
http://www.tribality.com/2016/09/06/storm-kings-thunder-review/


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## Prakriti (Sep 21, 2016)

*2 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

It seemed like every new adventure improved on the last. Hoard of the Dragon Queen was a rocky start, but things started to improve with Princes of the Apocalypse. Then came Out of the Abyss -- an excellent adventure -- and Curse of Strahd, a solid 5 out of 5. Now, however, we have our first backward step. Storm King’s Thunder is a total mess.

To begin with, this adventure involves a great deal of exploration, but the provided map is tiny compared to the area it encompasses, and it doesn't have a grid. We really need something better than this. Curse of Strahd, for comparison, came with a big, fold-out map of Barovia (which didn't even need it -- Barovia is small enough that characters never need to spend a night outdoors). This adventure, however, has characters leaving well-traveled roads, traversing wilderness, and making week-long journeys. If any adventure needs a big, fold-out map, it’s this one -- something to spread across the table and get players excited about exploring. As it is, chapter 3 looks like a boring slog, and it'll take a first-rate DM to keep players interested as they spend yet another week traveling from one place to another.

As for the plot -- others have criticized it, and I have to agree: There's very little there. On looking through Storm King's Thunder, my first thought for a possible subtitle is "An Adventure without a Plot." The giants are little more than a back-drop for most the story, and the book does a very poor job of involving the players in any meaningful way. They spend a large chunk of the adventure running errands for random villagers and shopkeepers while everyone sits around, scratching their heads and wondering what's gotten into the giants.

Which is a big issue for me. For most of the adventure, the characters aren't heroes. They're just random people who wander around and happen to be nearby when disaster strikes. That's not how I envision my heroes, nor does it really comport with the game's own guidelines. Levels 5-10, for example, are supposed to represent characters as "Heroes of the Realm." But for most of Storm King's Thunder, the characters are about as heroic as deliverymen. They spend an awful lot of time pooping around and doing favors for random villagers.

For example: For defending the town of Triboar, the characters are "rewarded" with a quest to deliver horse harnesses to a nearby frontier town. According to the "Developments" section: "When the characters arrive at Noanar's Hold, they are told that they can find Amrath Mulnobar in the keep overlooking the village. Amrath takes the harnesses off their hands without so much as a thank you. Thus ends the quest."

Thrilling. 

We're also told in a further four paragraphs that if the characters are "inclined to spend the night in the White Hart Inn" (and why would they be?) they'll encounter some brothers who do some suspicious things, and if the characters investigate, they'll uncover some provincial intrigue. Also thrilling. And inconsequential. Unfortunately, the book is filled with "quests" and vignettes like this that have nothing to do with the larger story. 

In the end, Storm King's Thunder is a mess. As a sandbox, it might work. But even then, the DM has a lot of work cut out for him if he wants to make it halfway compelling.

2/5

I leave you with a series of nitpicks:

- None of the dungeons have boxed text. DM's, you're on your own.

- The actual adventure begins at level 5. The first chapter is a rush-job to get players to level 5, and it’s not very good.

- The maps are disappointing. Many are 1 square = 50 feet or 1 square = 20 feet, which makes them useless as battle maps. Granted, most of the dungeons are 1 square = 10 feet, which converts fairly well to virtual tabletops, but the maps don't look detailed enough to withstand so much magnification. In the end, I have to wonder how Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds were able to convert this adventure into an online module.

- There are no player options.

- There are few new magic items and monsters.

- “Rune magic” adds nothing new to the game. Runes work just like any other magic item. Find one, attune to it, enjoy some magical benefits. They never tie into the plot.

- The characters are given an airship, but they do nothing to deserve it. A group of strangers literally flies up to them and asks if they want it. Really. 

 - At one point, the characters are tasked with looting burial mounds before they can advance the plot. But they only need to loot one, and most of the burial mounds are dull as dishwater. For example, one mound has a pair of elk nearby. That’s it. The characters can fly in, take the relic, wave goodbye to the elk, and leave. Mission accomplished.

- Even if you wanted to salvage the adventure for parts, there’s very little worth taking. The dungeons are unimaginative and don’t offer much in the way of traps or puzzles. Most dungeons are just a matter of going from one room to the next, killing the giants inside.

- A lot of the adventure’s word-count is wasted on insignificant details about places that the characters will probably never visit. A trading post in Triboar is allotted three paragraphs, detailing the proprietors, their relationship with the local lords, their hidden treasure stash, the Perception check needed to spot it, and the stash’s contents. None of this is germane to the plot, nor is it likely to ever come into play. Unfortunately, each of the three starting towns get a similarly verbose write-up, recording every insignificant detail.

- The characters start in 1 of 3 towns. They need to loot 1 of 9 burial mounds. They need to defeat 1 of 5 giant lords. In the end, probably 80% of the book’s content will never see play, either because it’s unnecessary to the plot, or because it’s irrelevant fluff. This means that, of all the published story-lines, SKT is the shortest. 

- Advancing the plot requires some unfortunate rail-roading. For example, in order for the story to move from the aimlessly-wandering-the-wilderness phase to the looting-the-burial-mounds phase, the party has to be convinced to trust a random frost giant they meet and follow him to a temple. Until this encounter takes place, the story can’t advance, and the book doesn’t take into account the possibility that the characters might attack and kill the giant, or that they might simply distrust him or not see the value of visiting the temple. Considering the whole plot revolves around fighting and killing giants, this seems like a grave oversight. 

- So many other things. The only reason I’m not giving SKT a 1/5 is because Tyranny of Dragons is probably worse.


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## Daern (Sep 23, 2016)

*5 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

The Giant King is dead, and his subjects are wreaking havoc across the land!  What will puny adventurers do to defend the people of Faerun?

IN A NUTSHELL: If you've read Forgotten Realms Gazeteers, thought about all the adventures Ed Greenwood's group seemed and always wondered how you might possibly use all that yourself in a way that made sense, then this is the module for you.  The book provides a huge and detailed sandbox of the Sword Coast with entries that tend to point toward the metaplot of giants unleashed across the North.  There are set piece dungeons, encounters, and key plot events, but this module could easily be used as a longer, drawn out campaign, with the players poking around the nooks and crannies of the map, protecting folk from giants and getting in trouble with various factions.

Storm King's Thunder is a little different than previous WotC 5e modules.  I would compare it's structure to Princes of the Apocalypse, but where that book offered a small valley setting with LOT of dungeons and not much happening, STK is a huge sandbox with lot's of things happening.  The wilderness encounter tables become important.  There are interesting and unique encounters: Underwater intrigue in the court of the Storm King, ship battles, town invasions, dragon fights, airships, wizards protecting teleport circles, goblin catapults.  There is a lot of content that won't be used.  There are three towns that will be attacked.  You are only told to play through one attack.  There are five giant lairs of which only one needs to be explored.  There are nearly a dozen barbarian burial mound mini-dungeons.  This might bug some people, but it is much better than being expected to slog through all of them.  On the contrary, I foresee DM's using bits from products like PotA as a change of pace during this campaign.  

The story could use a bit of help. The plot hooks are pretty weak.  The DM will have a to do some work to make it work best for him or her, like any module.  There are some big reveals that won't be terribly interesting unless there is a bit of foreshadowing.  

Over all, get this if you are a fan of the Forgotten Realms, or you want a big detailed map to in which set your group loose, then this could be the module for you.


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## delericho (Oct 8, 2016)

*2 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

If WotC had described this book as a "North Faerun" setting book with associated adventure material, it would probably have rated a 4-star review. The centre-piece of this book is a large chapter giving a very brief but surprisingly good overview of a significant region. Good stuff. Of course, if WotC had described this as a setting book, I also wouldn't have bought it, it being "not for me". As it was, they described it as an adventure... and as an adventure it is poor.

The other problem I have with the description of this adventure is that it is advertised as a storyline for PCs of levels 1-10. However, the real adventure is actually for characters of levels 5-10, with the first full chapter providing some material to advance characters from 1st to 5th. But that section then manages to fall flat - not only does it not contain anywhere near enough adventure to justify all those levels, but it also doesn't give enough space to let that material breathe. Bluntly, WotC should have dropped that first section, started the storyline at 5th level, and used the freed up space to bulk up the rest of the material.

As for the 'real' adventure itself...

I should start by noting some positives: the concept of this adventure is very solid, with lots of characters, factions, and intrigues throughout. And there's a lot of material that's worth salvaging - the three villages, the five quests "against the giants", some of the Storm King's court, and of course the gazeteer in chapter three. Indeed, this book provides a huge array of ingredients that a good DM should be able to assemble into a truly great campaign.

But there are two big problems with that:

That "good DM" should equally be able to come up with his own 'ingredients' pretty trivially. There's very little here that is particularly new or exciting, or put together in a particularly innovative way.
Even that "good DM" would probably be better served by starting with a better adventure to disassemble and rebuild.

But probably my biggest disappointment in the campaign is this: throughout, there are large numbers of factions and characters described with their own secrets and agendas. There's plenty of scope for the PCs to work with various NPCs, or reveal various secrets, and thus to talk their way through the campaign rather than just kill everything. Indeed, the whole "King Lear + Giants" premise practically promises that. Except that it never really delivers - with only a few exceptions, there isn't really any way for the PCs to find out those secrets and agendas, and thus reveal the intrigues and betrayals.

Nowhere is this most obvious than in the chapter detailing the Storm King's court, where there's a lot to discover, and where the PCs are ideally placed to find things out - being "puny folk", they could easily go unnoticed and so hear conversations between the various plotters that would allow them to discover the evil plots that are afoot. But, as written, there is no opportunity to do that, because that chapter spends most of its pages on a detailed room-by-room description of the area (which is simultaneously too small to host a real court and also too sparsely populated - where are the servants?), with the various NPCs in fixed locations waiting for the PCs to bring them on-stage. The whole thing really needed more pages, and it also needed to be a much more dynamic environment - describe _scenes_ rather than _rooms_.

I'm also rather dismayed about the end of the adventure, where once again WotC have pitted the PCs against a foe who is way too powerful for their level, meaning they have to be backed up by powerful NPCs who both serve to detract from the PCs' spotlight and also make the final encounter harder to run. If WotC want to use these top-tier BBEGs (and I applaud that) then they should also pitch the adventures to higher levels so the bad guys fit.

(Also, in a campaign strongly themed on giants, shouldn't the climactic encounter have been against a giant or giants?)

Ultimately, I found this book very disappointing. As I said, there's a lot here that's salvagable, and as a setting guide to the region it's pretty decent. But as an adventure, I'm afraid I can't recommend this storyline - it's the weakest of the 5e campaigns except "Tyranny of Dragons" (but without the excuse that that was developed in parallel with 5e itself), and it's weaker than Paizo's comparable "Giantslayer" path. A shame - I had such high hopes.


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## Jester David (Oct 8, 2016)

*3 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

I was worried at the thought of an _Against the Giants: Take Four_, as we’ve seen this adventure before and there was not much substance. _Storm King’s Thunder_ really goes all out in giving the adventure a different story, just using the original for inspiration rather than simply updating the stat blocks. 

The dungeons are excellent, and you can use this product to update the classics or embrace the wholly new experience. Each of the dungeons is radically different, and there’s a lot of unique flavour. A heck of a lot of work went into making cool giant clanholds, complete with some amazing maps. The book is also incredibly useful to Realms fans as a guide to the Northlands. And there are a number of fairly detailed settlements, completely with NPCs. For DMs planning on stripping this adventure for inspiration, it’s a fabulous product.

If the product has a flaw it’s too much story. There’s lots going on beyond the Breaking of the Ordning: the missing Storm King, traitorous daughters, a dragon, a kraken, plus the Rod of Seven Parts story seen in both _Force Grey: Giant Hunters_ and _Acquisitions Incorporated the Series_. 

The adventure was hyped as being inspired by Shakespeare – which I won’t dispute – but the play in question is actually _Much Ado About Nothing_. The ordning breaks and just kinda sorta gets fixed off camera. The evil daughters don’t do anything and may or may not receive their comeuppance. The kraken is very likely unseen. And the main plot of the adventure – the kidnapping of the king – could easily be missed if players too distracted by the very real threat of evil giants that need to be put down. 
While there are all serious problems with the plot of the adventure, you can still run it just fine pretty much as-is. You just need to seed and foreshadow the Storm King. Play around in the royal court a little more. Perhaps have the sisters doing some scheming or trying to betray the adventurers in the final moments. A good DM can easily work around these problems.

Honestly, there’s probably room for a great Dungeon Master’s Guild product that replaces the final two or three chapters of this adventure with something related to the ordning. Perhaps heading to the “Hold of the Storm Giants” to find an altar to the High Father, where you can plead with the giant god to change their mind, followed by a quest to prove their worthiness. But the fact you could just entirely swap out the climax to this adventure and your players would never know is incredibly problematic.

Read my full review here.


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## abyss warlord (Oct 13, 2016)

*4 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

giants galore


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## clearstream (Oct 21, 2016)

*4 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

SKT embeds a simple linear plot in a wide sandbox. Taking advantage of that brings it to life! Following the linear plot on rails most likely does not. 

For example, for a sandbox campaign a simple hook like Harshnag is perfect for rejoining the  main thread in the time and fashion of your choosing. He can inspire all kinds of encounter ideas that will fit into and elevate whatever it is your PCs are doing. Run as a linear adventure path however, he wouldn't work nearly as well. 

Another way to put it is that as a sandbox DM I want rooms, characters and motivations, but emphatically _not scenes_. Scenes happen and are over. Whereas a room may contain many scenes, played out by characters according to their motivations.


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## BMaC (Oct 21, 2016)

*3 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

Great background material on the north; individual giant dungeons make great one-shots.


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## Istbor (Oct 21, 2016)

*4 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

I am digging it.  Read through for the gist of it.  
So far the players are enjoying it, and I am enjoying it. 

Some hooks or motivations are not terribly good or clear, but I am not certain that they are bad, just seeing they would be bad for my players.  

There is some additional prep work that i have to do to work around these issues and I have added a few side-quests and areas as well to emphasis the crisis and provide some meat to less meaty parts of the story.

All in all I would say 4/5


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## CanadienneBacon (Oct 22, 2016)

*2 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

This adventure does not contain enough data points to be able to run it with little prep, so it is not a good adventure for a DM with a busy work and family life.


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## jcrog (Nov 2, 2016)

*4 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

Storm King’s Thunder is a good module with a lot of information about the Sword Coast in it. The flow is a sandbox type campaign and you could even replay it. You could even use some encounters from Chapter 3 and piece together a larger campaign from this book.

http://www.play-board-games.com/storm-kings-thunder-review/


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## EthanSental (Nov 25, 2016)

*4 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

I've never used giants much in my campaign and I was pleasantly surprised by some story themes I could pull from the book. The flowchart was an excellent addition for continuity purposes and to keep the sandbox feel inside an overall theme for the DM.


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## dropbear8mybaby (Dec 1, 2016)

*1 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

If this were a sourcebook for the Savage Frontier, I would rate it probably at a 4/5. But it's advertised as an adventure, and as an adventure it is simply terrible. I honestly think anyone who rates it at a 2 is being generous, and anyone who rates it higher than that hasn't run it or doesn't run games very often and therefore doesn't understand adventure design very well.

The campaign elements in this book are so obviously rushed and have quite obviously had very little internal review and rewriting. It reads very much like an early draft where the writer hasn't come back to plot elements, or had them pointed out by a third-party, and realised the issues with them and then corrected them in a rewrite. And there are so, so, so many issues. I actually wonder if this was done almost entirely by Chris without much input from anyone else. To be clear, I don't think it's possible to write a book like this (well) without the input from other people that helps the writer get perspective and solve issues and conflicts. So I don't fault Chris for these issues as much as I fault what I suspect to have been the process behind this book lacking the necessary design and development structure that I believe the other books to have had.

I might be wrong about this and it might've gone through those procedures, but if it has, then that's an even bigger mark against it because the issues this book has, as a campaign, are quite obvious (as a third party) on reading through it that they really should've been caught before the book ever went to print.

To touch on some of the issues, I'll deliver them in point form below:

*Disconnected*: there is almost no connection between any of the events that occur and how they relate to any of the story. The first chapter has an attack on the town by a giant that then never comes up later in the adventure. If the players follow this McGuffin, they have no end point for it, making it not even a McGuffin but rather a completely random event with almost no relation to the story. As the starting point this is bad enough, but this trend continues throughout the entire book with so many elements being introduced that don't connect, or lead the players to a story conclusion, that your entire campaign could end up being a very frustrating chain of the players following clues and finding nothing for their efforts.

If this was merely a small entry in a sourcebook that was added as a plot hook and inspiration for DM's, that would've been fine. But this is meant to be a campaign book, not a bunch of random, disconnected plot hooks that lead nowhere.

*Illogical*: Almost the entire plot is illogical. A god is annoyed that his followers didn't do something that he put a stricture in place to prevent them from doing and so punishes them by removing the stricture and then they all go and do the things they're not meant to do. And that interpretation is being generous to the logic behind it. What's more, nothing the players do makes any sense. Nothing the NPC's are doing makes any sense. The few railroaded "decisions" that the players get to make have no impact whatsoever on the actual plot. The Storm King isn't even the central character or integral to the plot of anything. And the primary antagonist has nothing to do with either, short of being shoehorned in as an afterthought. It's such a complete mess of illogical conclusions and reasonings that after reading through it I was genuinely left thinking that I'd have to tell the group that I didn't want to run it and would just make up my own campaign. If it weren't for the fact that they all bought the book for me, that's exactly what I would've done.

*Zero impetus*: The PC's are given absolutely no motivation whatsoever to become involved in any of the adventure, at any point during the adventure, other than, "Random stuff is happening, go do something about it." The very first part of the adventure where a town is attacked, the villain has run off never to be heard from again throughout the campaign and no clues are even given as to where it went or why it wanted the thing it came for in the first place. So even if the player's investigate, there are no clues for them to follow, no investment for them to gain their own drive to search anything out. And then the reason given to go to the next location is merely to tell someone one of their relatives died. Several thousand miles of travelling for no other reason than to pass on a message. DM's are left with telling their players that they're going to this other location simply "Because."

*Material*: A lot of the material in this is reused or is calling back to the DMG. In previous books that was content that was added to the actual book, but in this one it seems to be a constant referral to other books. At first I thought this was in order to encourage people to buy the DMG, but as I read through the rest of the book, I started getting the clear impression that Chris didn't have the time or energy to create this material and simply reverted to calling on the DMG as a fallback measure. The distinct lack of maps for locations where those maps are sorely needed, the lack of dedicated material unique to the campaign, and reused content are all signs that Chris didn't have the resources or time to develop this book properly. Again, I may be way off base with this, but again if that's not the case, then this is a further mark against the book because these things really should've been addressed before the book went to print.

*Pointless*: Ultimately my biggest issue with this book is that it's pointless. There is literally no point to any of it. If you strictly adhere to the very core elements of the plot and disregard all the other parts of it that go nowhere, like a city of dead-ends, even this core plot has no point to it whatsoever. The PC's "solve" the issues with the Storm King and... nothing. So what? It's only tangentially related to the inciting incident of the campaign, that being the god's "wrath", and after it you're left with going and killing a dragon. Because. And killing the dragon has no impact on the story either. Every "plot" in this campaign has no point to it other than to go kill stuff "because".


In conclusion, if you want to run a campaign in the Savage Frontier and need a consolidated, updated source of information with a lot of random plot hooks for you to develop _into_ a cohesive, coherent campaign, then this isn't a bad book. Chris has obviously put a huge amount of effort into researching the lore and tying things into the history of the north. There are lot of cool and interesting bits of information that can be developed further. But that effort has come at the cost of the actual campaign elements. Do not buy this book to run as a campaign unless you're willing to put in a _lot_ of effort to rewrite and reorganise and customise the campaign to your group. It is not a book that stands on its own two feet like the previous campaign books do.


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## Messageboard Golem (Dec 2, 2016)

*4 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

Is Storm King’s Thunder the best 5th edition adventure Wizards has ever done? Well, I can tell you that from an organizational and technical standpoint, it certainly is. It successfully improves upon the mistakes of its predecessors and delivers the best version of the Sword Coast yet. I think it’s safe to say that it’s better than Tyranny of Dragons and Princes of the Apocalypse. Out of the Abyss and Curse of Strahd are harder to compare, because they attempt to achieve very different things and offer different styles of play. That aside, I do think you could easily make a compelling argument for Storm King’s Thunder taking the top spot, solely on its organizational merits, its level of ease for the DM, and its truly sandbox type gameplay. Rest assured that if you choose to dive into this world, you’ll get to experience one of the finest adventures on the market for 5th edition today. Full review at Nerdsourced.


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## Messageboard Golem (Dec 2, 2016)

*2 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

Beset by a thin plot, forced transitions, and a lot of dead pages, Storm King’s Thunder does not live up to the standards of most of the prior D&D 5E adventures, especially Curse of Strahd and Out of the Abyss. I love to see an effort that, like Storm King’s Thunder, takes the page count of one of these gorgeous hardcovers and only tries to deliver 5-6 levels of content, instead of 15 (my time is limited at this stage in my life, so from a GM point of view I always appreciate adventures that detail as much as possible to minimize the time I have to spend filling in the blanks). But I want that effort to focus on richly developing a story, characters, and place, and not just teleporting (or air traveling) the party around from deadly battle to deadly battle. Full review at Strange Assembly.


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## Messageboard Golem (Dec 2, 2016)

*2 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

As a series of adventures, I think Storm King’s Thunder is good. It updates and modernizes some classic D&D giant’s lair tropes, adds a few new ones, and clarifies the boundaries of what a 5th Edition D&D campaign looks like. As a campaign, though, as a story, I can’t particularly recommend it. Storm King’s Thunder lives in an awkward space where as a game artifact it’s useful and fun, but as a map for structured gameplay it’s just not very compelling. For some that will be enough, but to the others looking for a D&D campaign to buy I’d recommend Curse of Strahd for its more compelling narrative, even if its individual components aren’t quite as good. Full review at Critical Hits.


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## Messageboard Golem (Dec 2, 2016)

*4 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

If you like more traditional D&D type adventures in the Forgotten Realms and want to return to that after the enjoyable but less standard adventures of Out of the Abyss and Curse of Strahd, pick this bad boy up.

If you are a fan of giants in fantasy and D&D, then pick this bad boy up. Even if you never play it you will like all the background info and artwork, etc.

If you like a more linear adventure with a few side options, Storm King’s Thunder is for you. If you love the more sandboxy approach of Out of the Abyss and Curse of Strahd you are going to be somewhat disappointed.

If you are tired of the Forgotten Realms and fantasy adventures involving classic monsters like giants and dragons, or you are just gasping for a different setting like Dark Sun or Planescape, then Storm King’s Thunder probably isn’t for you.

Last, if you are looking for a great jumping off point after The Lost Mine of Phandelver in the 5th Edition D&D Starter Set, this is a perfect adventure to pick up.

Full review at Shane Plays.


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## Messageboard Golem (Dec 2, 2016)

*5 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

In all, this is an excellent adventure book.

It’s full of epic battles, interesting NPCs and tons of fantastical locations to explore.

Whenever I get the opportunity, I’ll definitely run Storm King’s Thunder.

Full review at Crit for Brains.


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## Messageboard Golem (Dec 2, 2016)

*3 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

Before we jump in, I just want to point out that I think this adventure is probably the second-best one so far. I have a lot of issues with things in this book, but in general I'd say that if you have a little time to sort through this and pull out the stuff you like, it is worth buying. Full review at Power Score.


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## Messageboard Golem (Dec 2, 2016)

*5 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

Short version of this review: Storm King’s Thunder is the best 5th edition D&D adventure yet, and its Roll20 adaptation shows clearly that Roll20 is the best virtual tabletop on the market. All in all, Storm King’s Thunder is a remarkably clever story, jam-packed with great ideas you can use as-written or steal for yourself. If you play D&D, this adventure is a must-own. Full review at Geek & Sundry.


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## Messageboard Golem (Dec 2, 2016)

*5 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

Based on my experience running Storm King’s Thunder as a novice DM, I continue to be impressed with the quality of work that Wizards of the Coast puts into their roleplaying game peripherals. The art is fantastic, the maps are meticulous and all of it is set against a Shakespearean story of corruption, betrayal and power. Full review at Slug Magazine.


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## Messageboard Golem (Dec 2, 2016)

*4 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

Overall, if you like buying Dungeons & Dragons pre-made adventures, I highly recommend this product. While the $49.95 MSRP price tag may seem a bit steep for some, the amount of content provided seems well worth it. No doubt the price will eventually drop slightly, but the amount of content and hours of fun that could be had with this adventure more than make up for it, considering most of us have paid more for a video game with a fraction of the play time. I can’t wait to get a group together for this one! Full rveiew at Project Nerd.


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## Messageboard Golem (Dec 2, 2016)

*4 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

I have been gushing about all the great things in Storm King’s Thunder to this point. I have to admit that there are a few low points. Typos are there, which is not surprising from a first printing. The high amount of magic could also be considered a negative, as some DMs just prefer magic to be a sacred thing. I described the possibility to “railroad” players above, which is also a commonly-discussed and under-appreciated tool. There is little to explain the reasoning behind the main story, focusing instead on the journey itself. That might put off some players that like deep story and thorough investigation.

But the flaws in Storm King’s Thunder seem insignificant compared to the design and fun of the journey. I think that the Dungeons & Dragons® team did a wonderful job of creating a new adventure. New players will have fun with the story and the monsters. Experienced players can appreciate the lore and deadly encounters. Any player that loves fantasy will recognize the inspirations behind it. Whether as a DM or a player, there is plenty of enjoyment and excitement packed into these pages. I am sure that no-one at the gaming table will be disappointed.

Full review at RPG Academy.


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## Messageboard Golem (Dec 2, 2016)

*4 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

Overall, I’m incredibly impressed with the world that Storm King’s Thunder hands players and Dungeon Masters alike, and I look forward to the next opportunity I have to shove some of this content into my own play sessions. Full review at Paste Magazine.


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## Messageboard Golem (Dec 2, 2016)

*4 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

Storm King’s Thunder is a wonderful adventure that introduces players the varied cultures of giantkind, it is narratively stunning and well crafted and presents many different challenges that will keep players clamoring if not squirming. Players will have to think with their wits and ingenuity besides their brawn, though it is still a viable option but sometimes a good word helps. There are plots and intrigue which have been largely underplayed in previous products and actually has a viable place in this particular product. There are new magical items, new monster races and stats, there pages of NPCs that can be transplanted to anywhere and any setting.


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## sphere830 (Dec 20, 2016)

*5 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

Storm King's Thunder, I have waited some time to write this short review.  I wanted to first read the book, but then to see if afterward that SKT would inspire a campaign.  For me this is the bottom-line measurement of an adventure/campaign/collection of linked adventure sites.  Invariably, a published module, sandbox, or setting has to answer two questions to validate its worth to me. Do I understand what is going on while reading the adventure? Does it make me want to host a group of friends through this adventure?

While there are far better summaries available about Storm King's Thunder, I'll briefly touch on the main story-arcs here and hardly risk spoilers.  The "ordning" of the giants has been disrupted.  The ordning is a natural/social order of giants that work to keep everyone in line.  Especially regarding all giants relationships with both dragons and little-folk, which include all smaller humanoids.  Now that the ordning has been shattered for unknown reasons the resulting power vacuum unleashes incidents involving giant-kind all along the periphery of civilization in the Forgotten Realms.  To this end, this is a campaign surrounding giants, as the name implies.

I have read that some complaints are centered on whether this book was marketed correctly.  For example, had this adventure been marketed as a setting book, that they would have rated it higher.  I can see that, but the product works either way.  And although looking at just the adventure, I agree this would not be a 5 star product, but in the whole product and its use-value to me as a DM, this is tied with Volo's Guide to Monsters as my favorite 5E product outside of the three core books.

*Do I understand what is going on while reading the adventure?
*
Retrospectively looking back at the campaign/adventures that have been produced for 5E, the campaigns have catered to a progressively old school DMing philosophy.  I ran the Tyranny of Dragons campaign, altering the modules significantly to make the campaign my player's.  Storm King's Thunder assumes that, as an experienced DM, that I would be doing those altercations already.  SKT offers a story arc, alternate paths through that narrative, but through various event and site based adventures.  Yet this book offers the savage frontier as the back drop. Chapter 3 in SKT offers dozens of adventure sites that have just enough description to spark a simple encounter or situation.  While these sites do not get equal treatment, this chapter sets this "adventure" apart from previously published material. The North is a desolate landscape with nomadic tribes of humans, ancient ruins, draconic threats, and of course settlements of giants--not to mention a number of access points to the Underdark.  While the book is rather large at 256 pages for material that host levels 1-10+.  Because the narrative suggests a route, at the player's discretion, the GM must set the scene for the players and the dice to make the story connections.  This game theory reaches back into some of my favorite material ever produced for Dungeons and Dragons.

Back around the second edition of the boxed basic sets, the adventure area, or perhaps better known gaming philosophy of the _sandbox_ had evolved.  This is the era of Keep on the Borderlands establishing the outpost on the fringe of civilization, the party of young adventurers, a home base, and the caves of chaos to go and explore.  You didn't have to explore the caves.  But the game would have been boring if everyone decided to play farmers.  Probably the most efficient and honed adventure that was the pack-in game of the expert set was the famous Isle of Dread.  This was an entire island that functioned as a sandbox.  The primary point of the sandbox is to present the players with a site to explore.  Make sure there are a number of hooks to inspire exploration and let the game itself fill in the story gaps.  By no means, am I arguing that this is the best or only way to run a high fantasy game of swords and sorcery, but I am saying that this is what Storm King's Thunder most closely reminded me of in terms of reading and imagining running a game through this module/adventure/setting. 

*Does it make me want to host a group of friends through this adventure?
*
The most efficient answer here is simple, yes.  But this is where Storm King's Thunder really shines for me.  First off, against the mounting arguments that this book is not organized well, I adore the layout of this campaign.  It is organized to use at the table.  The caveat is after you've prepared it to run.  With some markers and "post-it" notes I have this book ready to run at the table.  There are a few sections that you need to copy to keep things straight.  To start with specifically the Dramatis Personae (p. 5-6), Figure 0.2: Adventure Flowchart (p. 17), and the treasure section (p. 18).  As the adventure progresses, there is a very useful appendix D that has very useful pages to copy for the casts of major NPCs.  This is a boon to running an open adventure campaign like I am planning.  Speaking, again, of planning appendix A offers cross-over expositions from other published scenarios, which is a great touch into this adventure area.  After reading the whole book carefully I can confidently say that you could competently run this adventure after only reading chapters one and two.  Then organizing sessions to end on major decisions.  In response, only preparing the sections based upon your player's direction.  And there is ample space between story encounters to develop this campaign into something unique with each group.  I have a far more nefarious plan toward the end of this story arc.

Storm King's Thunder inspired the idea of hacking two other published adventures as possible adventure sites.  I know, reviews should be evaluating each product on their own stand-alone usefullness, or something to that effect.  In large part I agree.  But answering my second question (which took the longest to reach a conclusion *aka this review!) this forced me to look at Out of the Abyss and Princes of the Apocalypse as co-existing sites.  I'll get back to SKT, but bear with me.  Out of the Abyss is an epic romp through the Underdark beginning primarily between 8-10 level, upon answering Bruenor.  The best and most interesting dungeons in PotA is the higher level/deeper levels of the elemental dungeons.  SKT, while suggested up to 10th level, offers several more Giant lords to confront if the players so choose.  Storm King's Thunder quelled any issue of campaigns feeling railroaded by upper level campaigns.  Using SKT as a setting, with benefits, as in a true old school sandbox opens up what this product has inspired for me to bring into my game.

Storm King's Thunder Organizes a tremendous amount of useable material for an unquestionably "old school" feeling campaign, wherein much of the story is invented 'in situ' between the players and the DM, but directed by the dice. The limitation there is I am not sure how younger players/DMs will make of this book.  While there are fair critiques against SKT in terms of not holding the DMs hand and offering much more game than a group is likely to use on one play through.  These critiques only increases the long-term usability of a role-playing product for me.  Perhaps many folks were thrown by this book being marketed as an adventure, which has developed into a preconceived notion of how an adventure path is to be presented, but I would refer to Storm King's Thunder as a bound boxset adventure of old.  For that, I love it.

PS

It is also worth noting for those of you that play D&D via roll20.  I also purchased this software after reading the book itself and am positively happy with the translation.  The reason that I am mentioning this here is that you don't need both, but the digital package of this book works like a sandbox too.  You could even use SKT roll20 software for the maps, magic items, and NPCs and run your own game entirely.


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## Jensen (Dec 28, 2016)

*5 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

I strongly disagree with many points mentioned in the 'poor' reviews. 

The adventure is definitely more of a sandbox than adventure path, giving the DM a lot of province. It may not be the best place to start for a new DM, but boy does it give you a lot of tools to work with- interesting circumstances, side-quests, political and personal drama. As a DM you have so many entry points for the party, and it can be (main) plot-driven as you want it to be. I don't think it's a waste to have 40 pages on locations and situations in the region- that's material you'll always have an is easily adaptable for just about any location or campaign. I think it rewards a hard-working DM. 

Chris Perkins hits all the right notes when it comes to the giants. Each race's goals and motivations reflect their worldview and abilities; each lair is iconic without being cliche, and there's an ecology for each giant stronghold that gives a fun variety of encounters, creatures and traps. Giving players the ability to become giant-sized and at different times control npcs (commoners as well as giants) is a terrific option to have in the adventure. 

It is about as user-friendly a product that WotC has given us, too. 

It has a few drawbacks:

It's not ideal for a new DM or a DM short on prep time (very little boxed text, key NPCs to understand in order to properly role-play, maps are not ready-to-use for the tabletop).

The DM will need a through understanding of the plot and lairs to give the players a chance to find out a lot of backstory. This involves inventing ways for the party to be exposed to information- overhearing conversations, finding notebooks, NPCs, etc, and those situations aren't always written into the adventure. To get the most out of this adventure, it pays to have a curious, patient group that engages with the people and world around them. 'Bottom-line' players that want to grab n' go through the adventure will miss out on a lot. 

I loved the storyline, and the characters absolutely have compelling reasons to step up to the challenge in each phase of the adventure. And no, the story doesn't culminate in the players facing off and defeating giants, but they have opportunities to do that all throughout the adventure. However, being key players in the reshuffling of the ordining is pretty dang cool, and the climactic battle of leading a group of storm giants vs an ancient blue dragon is just brilliant.


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## jhhoffmann (Jan 3, 2017)

*5 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

A great adventure of classic fantasy.


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## Tobold (Apr 13, 2017)

*3 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

Storm King's Thunder has a bunch of nice features, like an adventure flowchart, and encounter rosters for each dungeon. However if you play this adventure as written, it also has a lot of problems:
- The chapter to get from level 1 to 5 is a rush job, badly written and very thin (17 pages). It would be better to play something else to get to level 5, like the Lost Mine of Phandelver (64 pages).
- At level 5 the players get to defend a town from a giant attack. You are given three choices of which town to defend, with different maps and different NPCs. But the general structure of the three options is exactly the same, and they don't really play any different from each other.
- There is a huge sandbox section about the Savage Frontier, which would combine very well with the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. However the players don't really have much reason to explore all that, and the chapter is only meant to bring them from level 6 to 7.
- At level 8 the players should get an item from *one* of five different giant dens. This time the 5 options are really different from each other, and it is a shame to play only one of them.

One could do more with the book by not following the adventure flowchart, especially not granting the milestone levels, just giving players regular xp for encounters. Playing the start plus various events (adjusted for level) of the big sandbox chapter until the players reach level 7 (with the town attack inserted somewhere at level 5) would probably be more fun than the rush proposed in the flowchart. I would also consider playing several or all of the giant dens at level 8.


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## pogre (Jan 6, 2018)

*3 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

The players in my group felt like a bunch of errand boys in the early parts of this campaign. They were fatigued by it early and we abandoned the adventure. The latter parts may be excellent in play - we'll never know.


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## Brandon Kettler (Feb 25, 2018)

*5 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

We're currently in the middle of this campaign with a 4 man group and with the levels you start running into hordes of monsters critical thinking is a must. I'm not sure how much, or if at all, my DM is deviating from the content as written but thus far charging in headfirst quickly got us killed. We've had to be very creative with how to bait enemies, starve out Guh, etc. From my perspective this is a blast compared to typical run in and hit stuff til it dies style campaigns.


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## Enrico Poli1 (Apr 3, 2018)

*4 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

WotC tried to make a true sandbox. They were and, at the same time, were not successful.
First of all, the adventure truly starts at 5th. The provided adventure to bring beginning characters from 1st to 5th is a joke.
Then, they provided 3 different starting points for the campaign. Nothing exceptional. After that, the PCs can explore the Sword Coast. WotC built a true sandbox, in the sense that the party can truly pass through every town of the Sword Coast and find something interesting to do. That is impressive: the Sword Coast as an open-world that can be used by the DM in many other campaigns. But this part is so free-form that it is easy to get lost. Meaning that the players, fascinated by the sub-quests and red herrings, don't know clearly what to do. IF all goes as well, the PCs discover the plot of the giants and can storm ONE out of FIVE of their lairs. Each of these dungeons is very good or masterwork, and the DM can use the excellent material provided later in this campaign or in other ones. Then, the final part of the campaign: the Storm Giant lair appears excellent but the NPC relationships make it a bit confusing (IMO), and the end appears a bit anticlimatic. A Giant campaign with a BBEG that is not one of them?... 
Other ideas were underdeveloped, as the runes or the potions of growth (why? "You have to be a giant to defeat a giant!" But Please!). The art, instead, is excellent.

In the end, it is a good product with some excellent aspects that the DM can peruse, but ultimately lacks focus. As a consequence, the players lack a strong motivation. So I cannot give this product a 5-star rating.

WotC experimented with the idea of a true sandbox, surpassed the results of the first published adventures for 5e, and learned some lessons from the mistakes, and in fact some time later Tomb of Annihilation was produced: a truly well made sandbox.


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## Jesse David (Feb 5, 2019)

*1 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder*

[FONT=&quot]This, like most wizards campaign books, takes a good adventure idea and stretches it into an overly drawn out campaign with a ton of meaningless random encounters and half baked side quests. It assumes a ridiculous amount of prep to run anything prior to the higher level dungeons (which aren't in themselves that bad, except that as written the majority of them won't be played through). More of a North Sword Coast Gazetteer with some cool giants' lairs tacked on at the end.[/FONT]


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