Item - Mistywood

Oh, another adventure by Roy Cram. After his Gamesmen of Kasar, I wasn't all that enthusiastic.

Hunted by the men of a noble whose son you killed in self-defence between adventures, you're forced to enter the cursed Mistywood. Unfortunately for you, that forest is the habitat of the Barghest, a black dog from Northern English mythology.

Not only the hound, but also quite a few powerful creatures haunt Mistywood, with lots of combat dice. If you've played the Crown of Klade campaign in sequence, won each adventure once, you'll be on 6th level, tops. I doubt a 6th level character stands a chance to slay the Barghest. Or the ogre of Mistywood, for that matter, but him you can avoid.

Speaking of combat, the limitations of the Tunnels & Trolls game system are starting to show. Fighting now is a matter of rolling 10 dice and adding 45 against an opponent who rolls 15 dice and adds 25. The MetaArcade app's physics engine gets pretty busy with all those dice. You'd need a 13 inch tablet to actually see all of them. Me, I found the fights more exciting when they were limited to single-digit numbers in the early adventures. 2D+9 against 3D+5, now that was fun, that was tense, and every roll counted.

Mistywood is a grim, realistic adventure with a folklore background. I enjoyed that. The sole challenge, however, lies in its tough opponents.

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