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So you're fed up of Kobolds and Dragons?
Orcs and Giants?
Goblins and Hydras and Spiders?
Well maybe Snakes are the thing for you!
The Series
Epic Encounters: Chambers Of The Serpent Folk is one of many box sets released by Steamforged Games in their series of boxed encounters that contain everything you need to play all in one place. Well, everything's ready to play provided you bring the right tools along that is. You'll find a nice looking double sided map inside the box, along side the rule book with all the details of the encounter, including backstory and other descriptive info, information regarding the location where the encounter takes play and statistics for all the creatures that will be encountered, helpfully matching up to all the wonderful miniatures safely packaged in the bottom of the box. Steamforged games have become known for producing some gorgeous miniatures and these ones follow suit in that, there's twenty creatures in the box, separated into 8 different sculpts, even taking away the four unique creatures that still leaves sixteen enemies to face across four different sculpts. The level of detail allows you to easily differentiate the differences from a distance and give some wow factor for the players to look at as they begin the encounter.
Rules Required
So if you start working through the booklet you'll discover tat contained within are not so many rules to learn, outside of the details for the encounter specific rules and conditions. The box won't teach you how to play using the contents, it's designed with other systems in mind and to expand your gameplay sessions of those, more specifically the existing Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition rule set. Provided you already have a couple of rulebooks in your possession then there's no problem applying what you know to the encounter, if not though then maybe you might want to consider picking up some RPG content to learn and play before coming back to the box in order to truly experience the encounter freely.
Regardless of whether or not you can play the set, inside is still the information required to get the ball rolling. There's background info for the player running the encounter to get a feel for how this should play out, a page of story hooks to lure the other players into entering this den of danger, handily six of these actually, so if you're not sure which route to go down just roll a die and let random chance decide their fate. There's even some brief talk of the different class relationships among the enemies, the Serpent Queen below won't send her elite guards up to defend the chambers, opting to keep them close to herself as there's a rift between her and the priests.
Another nice feature about the book is it offers some aspects of a scaling system, many of the events through the encounter may ask the players to make a standard DC or take standard damage, but this standard will actually be set by the games master before hand, choosing a pre set level of difficulty which sets these values before the encounter even begins. However, there is still an intended level of power required from the party for this, it's possible to scale down everything but takes some skill to do so and still keep the encounter balanced.
One final point to make about the contents, whilst providing you with maps and figures in the box, there are no other physical components inside, so as well as needing to bring your own rule sets there's additional requirements for figures, dice and anything else you want to have at a games night.
Looking For Party
Epic Encounters: Chambers Of The Serpent Folk mentions that the encounter can be used stand alone or as part of an ongoing adventure, and it caters for different levels of player experience, so I put all these things to the test. First up, while there are some places with alternative options, this encounter is the majority a combat encounter. I guess this is part of what makes it Epic, as a grandiose fight scene seems to have more going for it than a couple of thieves sneaking around at night. But the old school style of just pure combat encounters is what makes it easy for groups young and old. The experienced party used tactics and role played different scenarios in order to take down the enemies and make it play out to their advantage, the rookies just waded into combat, hacking and slashing away, and both groups enjoyed it and almost ended up with similar outcomes.
The option to be stand alone or a continuous part of the adventure means you can tailor some parts of this to match up with any previous story, the box is open in that regards and let's you take all or none or just the best bits as you see fit, feel free to tailor it to the player's needs. This also helps with being able to fit into non 5e rule sets, as you can just choose what to adapt in order to fit the desired system. However, do make sure to get the maps out ready in preparation and maybe lay them out under something flat pre gaming, being folded for so long it liked to bunch up at the creases and didn't always sit flat on the table, not major but a minor nuisance at times. Another thing to mention about the maps is to study them before hand, as some parts of the encounter can get confusing, some areas don't particular seem to match up from page to picture, like moving from one chamber to the next has no obvious path displayed so one has to be invented.
Snake God
One of the neat features of this encounter is that it is able to link into another box set, Temple Of The Snake God. If you happen to have both of these the end of this book will lead you along to the second, while it also gives you some minis to use in the box set. A nice touch, and even without owning the other boxset, if the players enjoy this one enough there's nothing stopping you going out to pick up the next one, provided they get through all the encounter has to offer. I've not gone into too much detail about the specifics of the encounter but some of the features include a bias against the playing character's magic users, various hazard areas and objects around the rooms and stages of reinforcements to appear for the enemies.
Defeat?
After all the experiences of this adventure the overall result seems to be that Epic Encounters: Chambers Of The Serpent Folk is a brutal one to play through if you're not prepared, but even if you are it's still very difficult. The experienced members who took part that have tried some Epic Encounters boxsets before said it was the most difficult one they had faced by far. The newbie group came in with a very magic heavy party, only to find that half the time their spells failed while the snakes were unaffected by such problems, even after fudging some rolls for the rule it still ended with them beating the hasty retreat while staring in the face of a dramatic loss, heck the most experienced group only made it through after a few moments were roleplayed so well that they were allowed to be scripted in the party's favour and removed a few powerful foes, one character sacrificing themselves to do so in one of these.
So, Epic Encounters sounds like the sort of thing you're looking for, then perfect jump on in and grab this set, exactly what you're looking for especially if you're out to maim the party. If not, maybe try one of the other ones first to get a feel for the sets, then gradually build your way up to it.
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