Dungeons and Dragons: The Legend of Drizzt Review

The game spans multiple scenarios detailed in the Adventure Book, the first of which mostly follow the same basic formula: explore the dungeon, fight monsters and avoid traps, reach the objective, defeat the Big Bad Evil Guy, repeat. Nevertheless, the variety in the narratives of these adventures, coupled with the fact you do not have to play as the same character in each quest, permits the scenarios to remain somewhat fresh as one progresses through the game. In fact, the game encourages players to experience a range of character playstyles by offering suggestions in the Adventure Book as to which characters would be most suited to each scenario. This also serves as an adherence of sorts to the aforementioned source material, should one choose to heed this advice. Moreover, in addition to the standard cooperative play suggested by the game box, some missions feature competitive gameplay or a split team experience.

Once players have consulted the main rulebook, the Adventure Book must be consulted in order to set up one of the aforementioned quests. The Adventure Book is clear and concise, allowing players to set up the scenario quickly and easily. As a result, the dreaded lengthy set-up time one might expect from a box this size is thankfully not an issue. During set-up, players can choose to use only the basic 100 cards from the Encounter, Monster and item decks or to also shuffle in the next 100 more advanced cards from each deck for a more challenging experience.

For each game, dungeon tiles specific to the current quest must be selected. For example, starting tiles are placed on the table in the play area, while other necessary named objective or location tiles are mixed into a tile stack determined in number by the instructions given and placed to the side. Instructions will also specify where in the stack these special tiles should be mixed in, allowing a sufficient amount of dungeon exploration before objectives are revealed. This encourages exploration and also grants players a satisfying amount of gameplay before each mission approaches its endgame.

Each player’s turn is separated into three phases - the Hero Phase, Exploration Phase and Villain Phase - which work as follows:

Hero Phase: Players can choose to move twice; move then attack; or attack then move. If a hero is currently at 0 hit points, they must use a Healing Surge to heal if one is available before any of these actions can be performed.

Exploration Phase: This phase is only performed if the hero occupies a space adjacent to an unexplored tile edge. If this is the case, a new tile is drawn and the side that bears an arrow is joined to the unexplored edge currently occupied by the hero. A Monster card is then drawn to determine which monster should be placed on the mushroom cluster image that is present on every tile in the dungeon. When this monster is activated, it will always be controlled by the player who revealed it, unless the card states otherwise.

VIllain Phase: If a new tile was not placed in the Exploration phase, or if a new tile was drawn but it bears a black arrow, an Encounter card is drawn. The types of encounters one might draw include but are not limited to: traps, rock slides, curses and even more monsters!

Then any villains, monsters or traps that are already in play and are controlled by the current player must be activated in the order they were drawn. Possible behaviours or attacks during this activation portion of the phase are listed clearly and the relevant stats are provided for combat (i.e. an attack bonus to add to a d20 roll to determine if the attack lands, as well as a damage value on a successful attack).

The win conditions for each scenario are listed in the Adventure Book. The game is lost if the objectives are not achieved or if any one hero is defeated.