Item - Dragon's Deep

Follow up to The Renegade Wizard. Toby has to slay a Dragon but this time he is accompanied for much of the adventure by a group of knights. Unlike the first books which was much more of a solo mission, Dragon's Deep had a lot more dialogue which made it much more engaging.

Now I did enjoy the first book but I thought it got a bit tedious at times in terms of dice rolling. Dragon's Deep does remedy this with a lot fewer big battles and when they do involve a bunch of monsters the system is simplified by treating the group as a single monster.

This adventure had a slightly unusual structure in that a lot of the early story was told in flashback which was pretty unusual and it still included choices to make but being a flashback you couldn't really die - if you made a bad decision the "story teller" would say "no that's not how it happened" and you would have to rewind a bit until you got it right. Once you're past this sort of tutorial section you're back into deadly territory again but I must say that it was a lot easier than the previous book (which at times was just too deadly I thought).

Having played the first book already, I was able to carry over the equipment from the previous game but there is an option to start playing straight away with Dragon's Deep.

The other thing worth mentioning is that you get to "level up" in this book. This is done by spending Hero Points (which are normally used as dice fudging points) on new skills. These are broadly divided into warrior, ranger and wizard, just like in the first book, but now wizards can get to cast spells.

Overall worth a look and if you haven't played the first book (The Renegade Wizard) you're probably thinking that its better to play that one first. Perhaps. But I'd actually suggest jumping straight in with book 2 because it's actually better written and more fun that book 1.

Oh yeah, and it's also got some full page illustrations which, for some reason, book 1 was lacking.

More reviews by norrinradd