Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 793
EAN num: 9780786926640
ISBN number: 0786926643
Label: Wizards of the Coast
Manufacturer: Wizards of the Coast
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 192
Printing Date: March 27, 2002
Publishing house: Wizards of the Coast
Release Date: January 01, 2000
Sale Popularity Level: 618850
Studio: Wizards of the Coast
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Product Description:
The Shadow Looms Ever Nearer
The events leading up to Tarmon Gai'don have long been foretold. Treacherous Darkfriends conspire to permanently sever the Dragon Reborn's link to the One Power. Brave, new heroes must emerge from the Great Pattern and discover those insidious plans to give the forces of Light a chance to prevail over the Dark One.
The very first adventure based on Robert Jordan's New York Times bestselling fantasy series.
The Wheel of Time: Prophecies of the Dragon comes from one of the most successful fantasy novel series ever. This game uses the d20 system as a base mechanic, giving it direct and immediate accessibility to the entire Dungeons & Dragons network. It is playable with The Wheel of Time campaign setting or a D&D player's personalized campaign.
Prophecies of the Dragon is a stand-alone adventure of epic scope for The Wheel of TimeTM Roleplaying Game. Designed to serve as the foundation of an ongoing campaign, it weaves the players into the storyline of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.
To use this accessory, a Gamemaster also needs The Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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What this is: an epic adventure. It would be imappropriate to review the WOT series when speaking of the Prophesies of the Dragon book; it's also not really a supplement akin to, say, The Monster Manual for D&D--the only extra skills, feats, backgrounds, etc are those directly related to NPCs in the campaign. What Prophecies is designed to do is take a party of characters through their very first six levels of adventuring, which correspond roughly to the very first six books of the series of novels. The players are allowed to play a key behind the scenes role in the story of the novels and cameos have been scripted for many of the book's key characters. It's a really ambitious undertaking; players have to be given a compelling storyline, feel like they're making a difference in a campaign that covers over a year of game time, without letting them change what happens in the novels.
Does it work? I am currently GMing this adventure. On paper, it looks really good. Some of the scenes, especially in the later parts of the story, look exciting, moving even. Faile's cameo is perfect, for example. In practice, though, it's been an extremely frustrating experience. First, the early encounters (as pointed out by another reviewer) are unnecessarily difficult and add nothing to the plot. As things progress, the authors presume too much on the goals and motivations of the players. There is one chapter, for example, where the introduction says something along the lines of, "Upon entering the city, the players will want to find (a certain NPC) as soon as posible and will definitely want to investigate the actions of (another NPC)." The players in my campaign knew they wanted to talk to one of these guys eventually, but the other one was off their radar completely. Throughout, I've had to improvise ways to keep them approximating the plot line of the campaign and by chapter 3, they're feeling very manipulated.
The campaign assumes the party wants to do nothing more than hunt down dark friends and expose evil plots and will take great personal risk and go through great hardship (including, at one point, a monthlong trek through a winter wilderness without adequate provisions) on the chance of thwarting same. Characters with any other motivations (say, a character modeled after Mat or Nynaeve in the books) will feel forced into situations unnaturally. There has been more than one point where one of the players saying, "I *think* this is where the plot wants us to go."
So, in conclusion, while this adventure is excellent in its dreams and scope--and it's definitely better than something I could have designed myself--but it will fail often fail as a game. If you are intending to run a WOT campaign, buy this adventure, read it so that you thoroughly understand its scope BEFORE you even let your players make up characters. The characters need to be created to fit the story or the story won't work.
Rated by buyers -
It's not a supplement. That'd've been useful. It's a big adventure set. That could've been useful.
Then we met the Demon-Bear.
Allow me to explain. In d20, animals don't get feats. One of the early mini-adventures has a BIG bear that has lots of bonus feats...and a party of very first and second-level PCs is supposed to defeat it. When it can kill a PC with one swipe of its paw. Right.
That's emblematic of the problems with this adventure set. It's written with little attention to rules or game balance, or even party survival. Some adventures throw opponent after opponent at the PCs, but with such poor healing capability, you'll inevitably have PC casualties. While those aren't necessarily bad, having the odds stacked so heavily against you isn't fun.
Another flaw is that, in many instances, PC decisions don't matter. You are, in fact, on rails in a good many adventures, and that's BAD. The adventure in Falme, in particular, comes to mind.
It could've been good. Really. Almost anything would've been better than the ... introductory adventure included with the main book (1st-level PCs...against 3rd-level trollocs that outnumber you, and, oh yes, have high strength and high-crit-range weapons!)...save this.
If you're intending to GM Wheel of Time d20 adventures, save your money and look elsewhere. You can come up with stuff that's easily better.
Rated by buyers 
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The Wheel of Time saga is an uninspired, hardly original, badly written pile of junk. It is difficult to see a plan into its development, and the story sounds like a free association of words at the psychanalist's office. If The Lord of the Rings had not been around may be the Wheel of Time would have had a shot...but, to be honest, if the Rings had never been written, Robert Jordan would have had nothing to (badly) copy.
Rated by buyers 
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This a great sprawling epic of a module, with the heroes crisscrossing the Westlands in pursuit of the Black Ajah. Many characters from the series appear, and many of the events of the series are highlighted for the players enjoyment. The Cairhein section is especially good. A very worthwhile book.
Rated by buyers 
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At very first this book looks promising for everything supposedly contained within. Fighting along side Rand al'Thor definitely has its appeal. But when looked at closer, it has a few problems. First, there are only 3 new weaves. For a new expansion book, this is very few. They do not list new Ter'angreal, Angreal and Sa'angreal in the back of the book, but the few(only one that I have seen so far) they have are listed during the adventures. This book mainly has adventures in it and aims at gaining the heros their very first few levels. This is definitely not a book for players. If the characters are higher than 5th level, the adventures must be adapted because they are far too easy. With low level NPCs, only low level characters will be challenged. They also forgot many important things, especially when making NPCs. One major thing they forgot was to put number of weaves per day for the channelers. Another was the fact that they did no research on the classes. For instance, one NPC with 2 levels of armsman has the armour compatibility feat, where 3rd level armsman is required to get it. Some more armsmen have will saves above +3 with no wisdom bonus and all other modifiers only equalling +2. The list goes on but I feel that this is enough. All in all, the book looks good, but beware of its downfalls. I give it a 2.
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