u/Frosty88d

I'm on my first read through of the series and I absolutely love it. Its probably one of my favourite series of all time. I went into book 13 knowing Androls arcs is the only one thats 100% Sanderson (even more so than Perrins arc) so I know it was somewhat controversial, but I actually kinda liked it in ToM.

He was fairly interesting, and it was great to see more of the inner workings of the Black Tower, since I thought it was quite underused in the early books. Heck the segments with Logain and the captive Aes Sedai is still one of my favourite parts of the whole series. I loved it so much I would have happily had a whole few chapters, maybe even a whole New Spring esque book of just them.

However, I'm only about 250 pages into book 14 and the arc just feels ... different, in a way I can't quite put my finger on. Its so tonally different from the other chapters it feels like another author inserted it into an already finished book.

It's very bleak and miserable compared to all of the other chapters, with Androl just being unhappy, but what I particularly dislike is that it completely changes the dynamic of the previous Black Tower arcs. Logain and nearly every other named Aes Sedai or Asha'man who was previously important, apart from the ones in Rand's personal service, have somehow been kidnapped/disappeared and not only are they are now powerless, somehow no one has even noticed their disappearance.

And if that wasn't bad enough, the majority of them have been turned into Darkfriends by some strange ritual that got mentioned once in Book 3 and was never brought up again, which becomes the central part of the arc and the other old plot threads are ignored. If this ritual was so powerful and important why weren't they doing it in the White Tower when Alvieran and Co were around.

It just feels so awkward and contrived, like Sanderson wasn't sure what to do with this new character so he just neutered all the other older characters. Why couldn't Taim have charmed the people with his charisma, since it was clear he could be quite eloquent and well put together, like when he was debating with Elayne about her visiting the Black Tower.

This may have been a bit of a rant but its strangely unsettling how just... off things have been, since the writing up until this point has been brilliant.

I hope they get better, as I can't think of anyway the whole lot of them won't either be Turned or die without some kinda of Dues Ex Machina.

Would delighted to hear what you guys think about this?

Question about encounter balancing

Hey guys, I'm a first time DM running a quite homebrewed version of Dragon of Icespire Peak and the party is near the end, which involved a big raid on the town of Phandalin that party has been anticipating for half the campaign.

An army of orcs from Cult of Talos is attacking Phandalin from the northern gate. They've managed to hold them off so far and ended the last session with about 60 orcs 3 orcs and about 6 anchorites or so remaining. The players dont know the number of orcs but I was planning on having them split up to target 3 different parts of the town. Firstly, the central barrier generator powered the magic barrier over the town which the wizard us running to. Secondly, the archers walkway over the gate which has a lot of major NOCs like Falcon the guard campaign, his second in command Linnene and the Fighter PC and finally the manor at the back where the women and children are hiding, guarded by a Druid PC who had trapped the hill with ball bearing and some spikes.

The rest of the PCs are the gate trying to hold it and Warlock us communicating with his patron in one of the houses, so would that be a good idea.

However two of the PCs are escaped Male Drow mages, one slave and one average peasant, so a drow cleric was dispatched to retrieve them.

The party met her once already with an anchorite in a cave but she escaped and swore vengeance.

I'm planning to have her ambush the town from the opposite site with a force of drow, but I'm trying to balance it to make it possible but difficult.

I had considered maybe 2 Royal guards and about 5 generic drow soldiers but I would very much appreciate some advice from you guys on how many should be there.

Cryovain hasn't shown up too much apart from eating some orcs a couple of times and leaving the frozen bodies outside the mine, so I think I should include him somewhere but I'm not sure where

The party is 7 level 5s of a Barb Necromancy Wizard GOO Warlock Cleric Paladin Battlemaster Fighter and a Moon Druid.

Hey guys, I'm running a quite homebrewed version of Dragon of Icespire Peak and the party is near the end, which involved a big raid on the town of Phandalin that party has been anticipating for half the campaign.

An army of orcs from Cult of Talos is attacking Phandalin from the northern gate. They've managed to hold them off so far and ended the last session with about 60 orcs 3 orcs and about 6 anchorites or so remaining. The players dont know the number of orcs but I was planning on having them split up to target 3 different parts of the town. Firstly, the central barrier generator powered the magic barrier over the town which the wizard us running to. Secondly, the archers walkway over the gate which has a lot of major NOCs like Falcon the guard campaign, his second in command Linnene and the Fighter PC and finally the manor at the back where the women and children are hiding, guarded by a Druid PC who had trapped the hill with ball bearing and some spikes.

The rest of the PCs are the gate trying to hold it and Warlock us communicating with his patron in one of the houses, so would that be a good idea.

However two of the PCs are escaped Male Drow mages, one slave and one average peasant, so a drow cleric was dispatched to retrieve them.

The party met her once already with an anchorite in a cave but she escaped and swore vengeance.

I'm planning to have her ambush the town from the opposite site with a force of drow, but I'm trying to balance it to make it possible but difficult.

I had considered maybe 2 Royal guards and about 5 generic drow soldiers but I would very much appreciate some advice from you guys on how many should be there.

The party is 7 level 5s of a Barb Necromancy Wizard GOO Warlock Cleric Paladin Battlemaster Fighter and a Moon Druid.

Question about encounter balancing

Hey guys, I'm running a quite homebrewed version of Dragon of Icespire Peak and the party is near the end, which involved a big raid on the town of Phandalin that party has been anticipating for half the campaign.

An army of orcs from Cult of Talos is attacking Phandalin from the northern gate. They've managed to hold them off so far and ended the last session with about 60 orcs 3 orcs and about 6 anchorites or so remaining. The players dont know the number of orcs but I was planning on having them split up to target 3 different parts of the town. Firstly, the central barrier generator powered the magic barrier over the town which the wizard us running to. Secondly, the archers walkway over the gate which has a lot of major NOCs like Falcon the guard campaign, his second in command Linnene and the Fighter PC and finally the manor at the back where the women and children are hiding, guarded by a Druid PC who had trapped the hill with ball bearing and some spikes.

The rest of the PCs are the gate trying to hold it and Warlock us communicating with his patron in one of the houses, so would that be a good idea.

However two of the PCs are escaped Male Drow mages, one slave and one average peasant, so a drow cleric was dispatched to retrieve them.

The party met her once already with an anchorite in a cave but she escaped and swore vengeance.

I'm planning to have her ambush the town from the opposite site with a force of drow, but I'm trying to balance it to make it possible but difficult.

I had considered maybe 2 Royal guards and about 5 generic drow soldiers but I would very much appreciate some advice from you guys on how many should be there.

The party is 7 level 5s of a Barb Necromancy Wizard GOO Warlock Cleric Paladin Battlemaster Fighter and a Moon Druid.

Edit: added some more info