Freeport: The Freeport Trilogy Review

By John Grigsby, Staff Reviewer

Available from FRP Games

Freeport Trilogy 5th Anniversary Edition (d20)
Retail $27.95 Sale $22.36

Initiative Round
Freeport: The Freeport Trilogy is a Dungeons & Dragons supplement from Green Ronin Puvblishing. This is a 144-page softcover by Chris Pramas, William Simoni, and Robert J. Toth. The cover art by Wayne Reynolds pictures a battle in progress on the docks of Freeport. Toren "Macbin" Atkinson, Andrew Baker, Kent Burles, Marcio Fiorito, Rob Hinds, Chris Keefe, Britt Martin, and Manoel Moreira contribute to the interior art. Freeport: The Freeport Trilogy retails for $27.95.

Way back when Dungeons & Dragons 3.0 made its debut, the first adventure released for this brave new system was Death in Freeport, appearing the same day that the system was unveiled at GenCon. Death in Freeport was followed by two more adventures—Terror in Freeport and Madness in Freeport—that made up what became known as the Freeport trilogy. From there, Freeport began to grow as its fan base expanded, over the course of the next five years.

Therein lay a problem. The modules, now out of print, were becoming more and more difficult to find, and newcomers to Freeport wanted to get in on the ground floor. Further, even when a module could be located, it was out of date and not up to standards of the 3.5 revision. Well, be of good cheer! Freeport: The Freeport Trilogy takes care of that for you, bringing all three of the original modules up to date with the current rules, and providing two interludes (one reprinted from a web enhancement and the other completely original) and new maps and artwork.

Before getting into the actual adventures, the book offers a brief history of Freeport for the DM, a two-page map of the city, a brief timeline of the history of Freeport, and information on the Captain's Council, the governing body. Each adventure has a synopsis that tells the DM what is going on and provides a general idea of path the adventure should follow. The adventure text follows the standard put forth by Wizards of the Coast, with ELs for each encounter, and information to be read to the players set in boxes and italicized. Sidebars scattered throughout the adventures offer advice on handling potential problems, rumor checks, mini-biographies for important NPCs, further adventure seeds, and information on unique magic items.

Following the adventures are three appendixes—new mechanics (detailing the cultist class and new feats, magic items, equipment, and spells), The Jade Serpent of Yig (explaining the history and powers of that artifact), and new creatures (including the shadow constrictor snake, the shadow serpent, and the serpent person—as well as a collection of player handouts and four pre-generated characters to let you jump right into the action.

Critical Hit
The adventures themselves are well-written and look to be enjoyable. From a DM's standpoint, I appreciate the way answers to questions that will probably be asked of certain key NPCs are provided and the sidebar that describes the effects of any players that get too wise for their own good in a certain room was a welcome addition. I just know that my group would attempt it!

The serpent people are a great addition to the D&D milieu. I tire of adventures in which the old standby, the drow, are used as the major villain, and the authors here have come up with an original villain, every bit as twisted and evil, and yet completely alien to many players. I use Freeport in my homebrew campaign, and the serpent people (and their distant "cousins," at least in my campaign, the yuan ti) are movers and shakers therein.

Critical Fumble
While I like modules that set off text to be read to the players in boxes, the authors went a little overboard with this one. The boxes in which the text is placed have a dark background which, combined with the text size and the fact that it is in italics, make it difficult to read at times. I think either just italicizing the text or using bordered boxes with plain backgrounds would have worked a little better.

The only real problem with the Freeport Trilogy is that it can't decide whether it wants to be a Cthulhu-esque gothic horror setting or a swashbuckling pirate setting. The first adventure, Death in Freeport is largely one of investigation into something man was not meant to know. Thought there are plenty of combat encounters, if the PCs go in with swords swinging, they may become frustrated with the apparent lack of direction. In contrast, the last adventure is brimming with combat opportunities, including an old-fashioned dungeon crawl. It's not that this diversity is bad, but it makes for a strangely inconsistent adventure.

Coup de Grace
If you're looking to get into Freeport and you haven't run these adventures already, this is a great way to get started. Furthermore, since Freeport is largely a self-contained environment, it fits into just about any campaign setting with a minimum of effort. The adventures are engaging, and will offer any group plenty of sword-swinging, spell-slinging action and excitement.

That said, if you have the original adventures, you're probably better off doing the conversion work yourself. There's really not too much that's new here (beyond the interlude Thieves and Liars, the maps, and some artwork). The cultist class and several of the feats, spells, and magical items from the original adventures are updated, but on the whole, it's probably not worth your money to buy this volume unless you haven't used the adventures yet or would like to run them for a new group of 3.5 players.

All text past the Introduction, except proper and place names, has been declared Open Game Content. The artwork is adequate (I found some pieces more pleasing than others), and seems to be pretty much in context. NPCs and monsters are presented in the original stat-block format, rather than the new one found in the Dungeon Master's Guide 2, but there's nothing wrong with that, either.

Review Scores

Game Mechanics Rating: 13 (87%)
OGL Open Game Content: 16 (100%)
Originality Rating: 18 (78%)
Playability Rating: 17 (77%)
Presentation Rating: 29 (91%)
Value Rating: 20 (83%)
Reviewer Opinion: 7 (70%)

Overall Total (Does not include OGL Rating): 104 (83%)
Final Grade: B