Dragon of Icespire Peak

by Wizards of the Coast

Genres: Dungeons and Dragons, Fantasy, Gaming, Role Playing Games, Fiction

64 pages, Paperback

Published September 4, 2019

About the author

Wizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC /ˈwɒtˌsiː/ or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. Originally a basement-run role-playing game publisher, the company popularized the collectible card game genre with Magic: The Gathering in the mid-1990s, acquired the popular Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game by purchasing the failing company TSR, and experienced tremendous success by publishing the licensed Pokémon Trading Card Game. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Renton, Washington in the United States.[1]

Wizards of the Coast publishes role-playing games, board games, and collectible card games. They have received numerous awards, including several Origins Awards. The company has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1999. All Wizards of the Coast stores were closed in 2004.

Reviews

[Phil Nicolle · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like an accumulation of random quests and dungeons loosely triggered by a big bad showing up. Excellent for experienced DM’s who are comfortable making their own story, role-playing with little info and/or reacting on the spot. Not great as a starter kit for new players/DM’s as this book is meant to be, at least RP wise. That being said it does offer solid support for getting players used to the way D&D runs.
I ran this alongside Lost Mines of Phandelver as extra side quests.

[Stephen Grice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was a good value way to get into DM'ing.

Having dice and handouts included was useful but it does have the feeling of a bunch of fetch quests without a lot of work tweaking things.

If you are running a duet game, the inclusion of sidekick rules is invaluable.

[Adam Graves · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good way to enter D&D, but, if you want to master it to experienced players, you must make an effort to improve the campaign.

[Sophie Carbone · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was definitely overwhelming but I do feel excited to start becoming a DM!

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This adventure for the Fifth Edition “Dungeons & Dragons” game comes with its “Essentials Kit,” and thus is intended for beginning players and DMs. It occurs in the same region as “Lost Mine of Phandelver” from the “Starter Set,” and can be used as a second adventure for the same party of players, assuming they want to continue with the pre-generated characters they most likely played for those sessions, or it can be used as a stand-alone for players beginning at first level. I happen to have run it as the second adventure in my campaign, using the “Roll20” virtual tabletop.

Unlike the classic “modules” of TSR’s day, this is more of an adventure setting with short, mostly unconnected quests for the players to run, rather than a single dungeon or wilderness area to explore. They are all tied together by the fact that a young white dragon recently came to the area, disrupting the local ecology and economy, and causing various monsters and people to migrate to places they wouldn’t otherwise have gone to. One nice feature is the random “where is the dragon” table that the DM rolls on every time the party travels. There’s a small chance the party will wind up in exactly the same place as the dragon, far more likely they will arrive in time to see the aftermath of its attack. Perhaps unfortunately, there is no specific guidance for the DM on what the dragon will do in various locations, you have to make it up as you go along. Possibly the dragon wrecks a quest before the players get there or disrupts supply-lines, making it harder for the players to equip themselves. Or maybe it just flew overhead and scared everyone. Your choice.

Most of the short quests are neatly handled, although it’s more likely that a mid-level party is going to get to a too-easy quest than for a party’s power to be seriously tested. A good DM will compensate by beefing things up a bit (what? Only one carrion crawler? For this group, let’s make it three). I particularly like the minor subplot about the “Anchorites of Talos” and the Thunder Boar. It is possible to spin some of these plots into more involved, or longer-term quests, but again, remember that as the PCs’ experience level goes up, so must the challenge rating of their foes. If you’ve played “Phandelver,” you’re going to have to keep track of where the PCs have been before – none of those quest locations are on the map for this adventure. Moreover, some places that are marked on both maps have no descriptions or information for running them should the players choose to go there. This is most detrimental in the instance of the great city of Neverwinter, which is very much “on the way” to some locations and which the PCs are bound to want to visit, but there is no information at all about what they should find when they get there. Once again, the DM must improvise (that’s a big part of DMing at any rate.

I wouldn’t call this a perfect adventure, but it has some pretty fun parts and is a good way to introduce new people to the universe of D&D and especially the Forgotten Realms. It seems like a good way to flex your 5th Ed muscles as you are getting ready for something more serious.

[Ebbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like this one, and would recommend it over Lost Mine of Phandelver. I understand how the patchiness of the quest with be something some DM or player are not super fine with, but for me, as a first adventures to new player, I think it helps to set the idea of the more sandbox-y side of DnD.

It's not perfect (is there a perfect module by WotC?), but it's easily tweaked and I wouldn't change THAT much to make it more fair and enjoyable. I like how it takes the DM by the hand a lot more than other full fledge module as well, which helps build some DM muscles and instincts if you've never DMed before or if you need to go back to basics.

I wasn't aware there were further adventurers connected to this one and I'm pleasantly surprise. I'm going to look them up for sure. I also like that, even though I bet each one would form a full on module, they're more bite-sized and so it's faster to get through one (took me about 3 sittings, roughly 4h30, and that includes reading most stats block and items cards and such).

I'm highly considering running it for a new campaign, and as I'm already DMing another bigger one, I wasn't planning on using a prewritten because of the excruciating hassle of reading everything beforehand, prepping, prepping and MORE PREPPING. But as a base for getting into the game and then flying away homebrew style, I'm seduced.

One of the things I would maybe spice up a bit is switching some of the Anchorite of Talos encounters, as I feel like there's just a bit too many (even though I understand why and everything). I just feel like, as a DM, I would get ennemy boredom a bit. I also think party building has to be a bit too tight, but I could be mistaken. And it's nothing that cannot be resolved with some improv on the DM's part.

All in all, it's a good egg. It also made me want to watch some actual play of the thing (when I can fit something in my never-ending playlist of actual play).

[Sirepte · Rating 1 out of 5]

This thing is unplayable, there is no other way to describe it. The setting and RP elements are fine, good even, but the encounters are ridiculously unbalanced.

Going heavily against guidelines in Dungeon Masters Guide and common sense, the very first fights put the players up against such monsters as a manticore that can basically kill at least one level 1 player a turn.

However, the true crime of this adventure is that it is presented as a ready to go adventure for first time players and dungeon masters. An experienced DM would recognize how broken the encounters are, but a new DM will likely trusting in the design team and play it as instructed, leading to bad experience for everybody involved.

Honestly, I wonder how many people never played D&D again, just because this happened to be their first adventure.

[Bobby Desmond · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is no central plot (or interesting related moments) tying these random encounters together, besides the fact that a dragon has moved into town and dislocated many people who are now causing trouble as they move to new locations. It would take a skilled DM to turn this in to a cohesive campaign that allows for any ounce of real story telling beyond mere monster-of-the-week combat-heavy sessions. Plus, even the combat sessions are fairly boring, with most of the dungeons consisting of four empty rooms to every one room filled with a monster and nothing more. It’ll help you learn to play the basics, but it won’t do much more than that.

[Hannah Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used it as a plane-shift arc in the middle of our main home-brew campaign. Works really well, if you’re looking for a flexible mod that can be adapted to a pre-existing story. I recommend buffing the dragon encounter (get it inside the hold if you can, for some fun cat-and mouse) and making the anchorites of Talos a stronger plot force.

Not sure what it would run like if played as written, but it served very well as a flexible framework for a compelling story.

[Bret · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really solid starting campaign. As a starter for beginners (both DM's and PC's) it is truly a gift. It uses quests for the party to move from one point in the story to the next. Unfortunately, the quests go from bland to fun. None of them are amazing or excitingly well written. It takes a bit of work from a veteran DM to turn this into a serious campaign. Fortunately, there are a lot of spaces for such a DM to do that.

[Bradley Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I decided to sprinkle in the quests inside DoIP into my Lost Mine of Phandelver campaign to stretch out my party’s first campaign. At the first whisper of “dragon,” my party’s interest was piqued (who would’ve thought, playing D&D?). I think this speaks to the shortcomings of the story in LMoP, but DoIP does lack a strong overarching plot. The quests, however, are very beginner friendly, and I appreciate that for first-time players and DMs alike.

[Sean]

A decent introductory adventure whose virtue for new DMs and players lies mainly in its simplicity. As has been often noted, the locations, plot, and character development are all sparse, so making it feel like more than disconnected fetch quests will take a more experienced or ambitious DM. But it doesn’t do a bad job slowly easing players into the basics of exploration, combat, and to a much lesser extent, role play.

[Toevolution · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dragon of Icespire Peak is a fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons adventure that takes place near the town of Phandalin and on the Sword Coast.

Dragon of Icespire Peak (PDF-Online Reading-Download-Summary-Review): https://www.toevolution.com/blog/view...

[River · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was great very bigginer freindly the storyline was so so. It seems like a module that you could then run a different module or just a homebrew campagin. One thing that I really liked was that it is the first module that I have read that has milestone leveling which is something I really appreciate becouse for a while I have thoght there was something off with the xp leveling system.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's just 14 side quests with no real overarching story other than they all take place around Phandalin. But the quests are all quite good and this seems like it'll be a fun adventure.

[Luba]

hm

[Milo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great way to get new DM's and player's into the game, lot's of room to add your own plot to it, but as it is, there's no much there story wise. Since it's intended as a Beginner's Adventure, I don't feel like thats too much of a downside!

The quests that its made of a r e well created.