Dungeons & Dragons Volume 3: Down

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51uYt7UeGEL._SS500_[1]By Paco Garcia Jaen

Ever since I read the first one, I have been a massive fan of IDW’s series of D&D based comic books. As you can imagine, when this one came out, I was almost with the finger on the mouse to get it right away. It wasn’t what I was expecting, though!

First, the Story. After receiving a letter from her beloved, Khal rallies Fell’s Five and heads back to the Dwarven Stead where he came from to look for her. After an unexpected welcome and fighting off a fair number of Kruthiks, they set off in a rather dangerous journey that will take them in directions they truly didn’t expect.

And neither did I

The quality of the book is just tremendous. Great thick hard back, fantastically well bound and with thick paper that won’t torn anytime soon. The colour is vivid and the printing pretty much flawless.

The artwork is simply put, excellent. From Tyler Walpole’s excellent cover, to Andrea DiVito’s interior work and the illustrations by Andres Ponce, Nacho Arranz and Vicente Alcazar, they are well chosen and well placed. In fact, this time the art direction has been a bit more consistent throughout the book, which is great!

The script is just as good as in previous books, though the story itself is a bit more forced too. This one, although is good, feels more like a gateway story to provide with some sort of continuity for a larger plot in future books.

It is a joy to read, though. Characters are taken very good advantage of and the sense of humour around the book its simply superb. This book will make you laugh often!

However this is where the good news end. One of the things I have liked the most in this series so far is how some of the locations and monsters have been presented as encounters one could play around a table. For me that makes all the difference as it is the perfect product. You get stunning stories perfectly presented and then the way to play them with minimum effort. Ideal!

In this book, though, we only get the stats for the Kruthiks. And just the stats. Barely a paragraph with information about the animals. Why?

Conclusion

This book is indeed worth buying and, if you’ve got the previous two volumes, you certainly should get this. For the price it commands, there is absolutely no excuse. The problem is that, because the other two volumes are so much better, this one can’t shine as it should. And that is a pity.

The lack of at least some of the locations and maps from the story are very much missed. Having set a very nice precedent in other books, missing them here just doesn’t make much sense.

For that and because of the story being weaker (although still good) compared to the previous issues, 3 stars to this very worthy title.

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