Highly recommend Carrion Hill

[SoldierBlue]

Finished Carrion Hill by Richard Pett on the weekend as a player.

The Pathfinder/Game Mastery stand-alone modules don't get the attention the APs do, but this is a doozy of an adventure with a cool Cthulu touch.

Best part - player actions early in the module determine how difficult the final encounter is...the adventure rewards smart and constructive PC play.

Kudos, Mr. Pett.

 

[renau1g]

I've heard good things about this one myself. Glad to see the recommendation. I might need to pick it up.

 

[SoldierBlue]

I've heard good things about this one myself. Glad to see the recommendation. I might need to pick it up.

Two sessions - 4 hours each - and you should be able to finish it.

One longer session might do, but that would serve to rush the mystery/exploration aspect to the module. And as I hinted at earlier, a little exploration early on pays big dividends later on.

I left the game table thoroughly satisfied in terms of a gaming experience. And my urban ranger (who said it couldn't be done?) worked out just fine...

 

[Psychotic Jim]

Looks interesting from what I read on the paizo product page. What are the highlights you found in it?

Also, did you find any weak points to the module?

 

[SoldierBlue]

Looks interesting from what I read on the paizo product page. What are the highlights you found in it?

Also, did you find any weak points to the module?

I only played it, and then only gave the module a cursory glance after play, so my comments have to be couched as such. I'm not in a position to completely review the mod.

No glaring weaknesses, except that if the PCs aren't on their toes, the final encounter will TPK them - it's a 5th level mod, and the final encounter has the potential of being CR 10.

An interesting and underused monster from Monster Manual I also appears. The DM needs to include some way for the PCs to access remove curse or greater restoration - it's likely at least one or two of the PCs will be suffering from corporal instability. We found a cleric of Serenrae and mortgaged our first born to pay for it.

I'm not a huge Lovecraft fan, but both the DM and one of the other players were, and they claimed it hit the mark in that respect.

Well written, and plays well. But if we'd just done a few things differently, it could have easily been TPK, which I suppose made our ultimate victory that much sweeter...

 

[ruemere]

Seconding SoldierBlue's opinion of the module.

Additionally:

1. The whole module exhibits somewhat rare strength to paint really bleak backdrop to the setting. Or, GM is reminded to include in descriptions, in no particular order, cockroaches, constant rain, homicidal maniacs, good guys torn to shreds, stench, slime.

2. The module does not conform to standard d20 rules of building encounters - there are almost no equal CR fights, so it's either an easy or dastardly difficult fight. This keeps everyone on their toes.

3. Bad guys are bad guys. Still, you can try to reason with them (or subdue them) and provision for interesting roleplaying interaction is provided. You're not forced to kill - you can take the hard way and try to put them into prison.

4. There are cliche moments implemented beautifully in the story (i.e. you get time honored loud stomps foreshadowing something big and bad coming after you and more).

Oh, and don't show the cover to your players.

Regards,
Ruemere

 

[SoldierBlue]

Yeah - Ruemere covered it better than me, but the whole thing has great ambience - Carrion Hill is a spooky little town, with incessant rain, a cockroach problem, and tunnels that lead straight to the Darklands.

So excellent atmosphere for adventuring.

And we chose to capture, rather than kill, several of our adversaries. However, the Crows (the city watch) chose to execute them, so moral questions abound...

Also, my ranger took a very risky swim through an underground lake to grab a sword that was very useful later on. In doing so, however, he had his teeth knocked out by an errant tentacle (thank-you, Paizo Critical Hit deck....)

Great module, with great memories. All in all, a very satisfying experience...

 

[Steel_Wind]

We'll be sure to review this one on the podcast. I've got it pencilled in on the list of early "satand alone" modules to review, though we'll tackle the Crypt/Masks/City Immortal Trilogy first I think.

That's the problem with reviewing Paizo adventure material: so much of comes out, so regularly and so often that even if you start to review products on a going-forward only basis, it will prove difficult to keep up! Throw in trying to review already released material? That's an awfully big cow to be chewing a bite at a time.

 

[frankthedm]

Say, could someone post a {spoiler}{/spoiler] or {sblock}{/sblock} list of the monsters and thier numbers that appear in the module? For a mini shopping list or counter list.

 

[SoldierBlue]

Err...umm..not smart enough to figure out the "spoiler" function.

Any freaky Cthulu-esque counters handy?