Legend of Drizzt Board Game Review

Legend of Drizzt - DND Adventure System
by Wizards of the Coast

For 1 to 5 players

Play time 1.5 hrs

Setup time 15 mins

Teaching time 15 mins

Disclaimer - I have not played any of the other DND Adventure System board games (Castle Ravenloft & Wrath of Ashardalon)

Legend of Drizzt is a board game themed around "The Icewind Dale" Trilogy by R.A. Salvatore which is based around the dungeons and dragons world. The board game is a cooperative game where up to 5 heroes team up together to go dungeon crawling in order to come out victorious in their quest. The game features characters, villains and quests from the R. A. Salvatore's novels. You and your friends may choose to play the legendary king dwarf Bruenor Battlehammer or the quick witted halfling, Regis, or the courageous barbarian, Wulfgar, or the beautiful, Cattie-brie. Of course Drizzt is also a hero you can choose to play who in my opinion is super powered in this game.

Players will delve into the caverns to fulfill their quests. They start on a start tile and reveal additional cavern tiles when exploring. Monsters appear in the caverns and attack the heroes. Traps and encounters happen. Treasures are found. All these happen until either the heroes complete their quest or one hero gets knocked out with no healing surge available at the start of his/her next turn.

Gameplay 7/10

At the start of the game, a quest is chosen and read aloud to set the dungeon crawling mood. Players choose a hero to play, takes their respective hero board and figure, chooses their hero's active and passive skill cards to use during the quest, and takes their hero stance tokens, and hit point (HP) tokens.The hero figurines are placed on the start tile unless specified otherwise in the specific quest.
According to the quest book, instructions are given on which cavern tiles to shuffle together for the particular quests and whatever else that needs to be prepared. Then the game can begin.

Each turn follows a pretty strict flow - hero moves and/or attacks, exploration happens or does not happen, encounters happen, monsters activate and attack. Player cards are provided for each player to remember which actions to perform. After a turn or two, everyone will be familiar with the flow.

Just like a DND dungeon crawling game, each hero will have movement points showing how many squares they are allowed to move, what's their armor class for defense and their hit-point value. Each hero in this game also has a special ability, something only that particular hero can do, which may be special attacks, special effects or special actions they can perform during the game.

Players use their hero's movement points to move their hero around in the cavern which grows bigger every time someone decides to explore.

Attacks happen via a D20 (20-sided die) die roll. The player decides which At-Will power or Daily power to use before the die roll. Bonuses and effects if any are added to the die roll based on the cards. Then the armor class of the target is subtracted from this value. If the value is still a positive number (including 0), then the target is damaged. Damage is given based on the attack power card used (usually 1 or 2 damages).



When the monsters activate, they follow the pre-programmed instructions given on their respective monster cards. The monsters move and attack as stated on the cards. Sometimes their attacks may also poison or immobilize the heroes.

Rinse and repeat, the heroes continue exploring, fighting and defeating monsters until they reach the goal tile, which reveals the boss monster or any other objective that the quest book has provided. Once the heroes complete the quest, they win! If either hero gets knocked out and at the start of their turn, has no healing surge to stand up again, then the heroes lose the quest.

Experience 8/10

It is a great idea to have a co-op with monsters acting on their own instead of having a player play the dungeon master and controlling all the monsters. This way, every one gets to play together as a team, all against the game system. I love how the cavern tiles reveal themselves during exploration rather than having the whole map already there at the start. It gives a realistic sense of  actually crawling in the dungeon.



Because they made a game system to go against you, you can actually play solo, which IMO is more fun than a multiplayer game (you get to control everything). It is not so difficult to control 2 or more heroes solo. I can finish a game solo in half the time it takes for any number of players to play.

Playing this with other players, if there is an Alpha gamer (most often the owner of the game), the one who knows all the powers that every hero has, this one person may take control of the whole game and every one else will just be following. Games like this get really boring when really the only decision you can make is, well, none... You get to roll the die and watch the cavern unfold and cool looking monster figurines get placed on the tiles, some towering over your heroes.



Saying all this, we do enjoy this game from time to time. Kids love it because it looks cool. We love it because we get to do some real dungeon crawling, not knowing what will turn up at the next corner. If you're just looking to have a fantasy session, becoming imaginative heroes, looking to have a few laughs over drinks, then get this. If you're looking for medium to heavy strategy, then get the Castle Ravenloft DND Adventure board game. It is the same thing as this but ups the difficulty significantly.

Replayability 7/10

The quest book is filled with 13 quests with different ways of getting to your objective. Some will pit players against each other, some will divide you into teams, and one which will insert a hidden traitor that no one, even the traitor himself, would know until the end of the game.

So far we have not gotten the chance to try out these other quests yet, so I'd say the replayability is still there. However, most of the people in my gaming group would go with Descent if they wish for a dungeon crawling board game experience. Which means that this game stays on my shelf until I manage to find another opportunity to bring it down again.

Components 7/10

The figurines look good, color coded, some bigger than others. The boss figurine is a cool looking demon. Not expensive if you consider how many figures they are giving you for the price you pay.



The rest of the components are sturdy and card stock is thick. However, the art looks a bit dull and bland. There are many tokens and the box has compartments to place them. You will just have to figure out which works best for you.

Overall 7/10

I had the hots for this game for over a year before I got my hands on it. Everything from the mechanics to the tile laying to the dungeon crawling and to the characters, all of it drew me to this game. This would be a good gateway game for those players who are thinking of getting into tabletop RPG but are not sure they would like to spend the time and effort to sustain one.



Good for casual gamers who like dungeon crawling. You can finish a session in an hour and a half.

Pros:
Nice figures
Good mechanics of tile laying and monster activation
Kids can learn how to add and subtract

Cons:
Art bland
Difficulty - easy
Light, new gamers will find it a chore to understand how to use their powers/weapons


Variants
There are many other self-created quests online that you can print out and use. Many ways of using the game system to meet your gaming group needs.

You can actually use the components in this game for a your very own Tabletop RPG dungeon crawling. It is a very good system that is set up.

You can also get the rest of the DND Adventure Systems to combine and create your own dungeon.