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Pathfinder 1E Recommend me Some Paizo adventurers
- Thread starter JoeGKushner
- Start date
roguerouge
First Post
Short answer: Definitely worth the money. Makes Freeport look down market. Let's just say that I bought a TON of all their products!
Long answer: HUGE NUMBERS OF BIG SPOILERS FOR PATHFINDER and D1!!!! My player out!!!!
The Paizo goblins are a wonderful take on an old monster. They're funny, still scary, and have an easy hook to role play them as a DM. The hidden treasure room behind the latrine and the collapsing rope bridge will make parties try to decide if goblins are smarter than they appear. They're a highlight in my campaign and I did them with just the ten rules on their site. (My player's trying to re-educate them while still using them as especially cowardly "red shirts" in combat. One's already betrayed them at a crucial time, having pushed the party "mage" overboard, destroying her captured spell books.)
Sandpoint is very well-detailed, with NPC relationships, quirky venues, a magic item seller, and memorable locales like the glass works. Being heroes and having a hanger-on who later goes all stalker on the party is a nice turn. The casual and flavorful integration of antiquity is a major bonus. The maps are excellent. Bonus points for the male-female ratio of their iconics.
I think the challenge issue can be a bit "off" for some of their products, however. I've posted before on these boards about this issue. The brief version: in Crown of the Kobold King, the party's supposed to make friends with some kids from the town. Then you rescue them from Kobolds. There's an insane number of difficult, interesting, and downright playable encounters between you and that goal. It's awfully hard to justify the many stops for rest and spell as a player of a good-aligned character. If you rested every four encounters, the kids would in there for 2 weeks. If your party mage leveled and needed to scribe new spells into his spell book.... It forces players into choosing between risking a TPK or straining plausibility by keeping themselves alive, presumably at the cost of the children's lives. And if they risk the TPK, there's absolutely no way they can get through the module in a day anyway.
In short, does it feel like you saved them just in time when you take 2 weeks in game? the module's totally worth it, but as a DM you'll need to modify the hook a bit.
I think that storming the goblin tribe in Pathfinder 1 requires some delicate handling too. First, there's more than 30 goblins plus more than 5 "name" enemies. That's a lot and I don't really see how they're going to be fourth level at that point. Some side adventures come in handy there. Second, DMs are going to have to provide a rationale for why the party's not accompanied by the militia or a similar military force. Fortunately, you can just hand wave it as they're keeping an eye on the other tribes and the "better mission for a small strike force" argument. Still, at that level, I'd look at that mission as extremely dangerous and want expert help or hazard pay. And explaining why there's not one cop or soldier to spare....
I like the background provided, but I worry about how opaque the Big Bad's motives are going to be from the PCs' perspective if you port it in to an ongoing campaign. I'd have to re-read it to be sure if this is really an issue. The druid and the goblin chief may provide the key supplemental info. But if they don't live, it may be a big info gap between the infatuated half-elf lover and the aasimar Big Bad. Part of it may be that the writers are assuming that party back story will account for some of the local history, as opposed to the party being all outsiders. That would get you the Big Bad's background as a harassed local beauty in, which I think would be key to the effect of the reveal. It's such a good idea that I want to make sure it works.
I like the use of obscure gods, like the god of monstrous births and the one for the Skinsaw guys.
I suppose one concern would be the use of the seven sins. As soon as the players figure it out, and they will, it could be very deflating, like if a major module used the four elements to organize its dungeon... Ancient empires motivated consciously by particular sins doesn't strike me as very likely. It's one of the things that made me a touch hesitant to go fully down this adventure path, rather than mine it for its rich veins of adventure and society building.
There's great set pieces: the glass factory fight with hot tong-wielding goblins with a victim killed by molten glass? Awesome. Haunts as traps that create a "Hell House"? Awesome. A fight in a saw mill and a clock tower? Iconic. Find the serial killer lest you get framed by the angry mob for his crimes? Superb. Hillbillie horror? Right on.
I'd love to see this site review them, in fact, to give more promotion.
Long answer: HUGE NUMBERS OF BIG SPOILERS FOR PATHFINDER and D1!!!! My player out!!!!
The Paizo goblins are a wonderful take on an old monster. They're funny, still scary, and have an easy hook to role play them as a DM. The hidden treasure room behind the latrine and the collapsing rope bridge will make parties try to decide if goblins are smarter than they appear. They're a highlight in my campaign and I did them with just the ten rules on their site. (My player's trying to re-educate them while still using them as especially cowardly "red shirts" in combat. One's already betrayed them at a crucial time, having pushed the party "mage" overboard, destroying her captured spell books.)
Sandpoint is very well-detailed, with NPC relationships, quirky venues, a magic item seller, and memorable locales like the glass works. Being heroes and having a hanger-on who later goes all stalker on the party is a nice turn. The casual and flavorful integration of antiquity is a major bonus. The maps are excellent. Bonus points for the male-female ratio of their iconics.
I think the challenge issue can be a bit "off" for some of their products, however. I've posted before on these boards about this issue. The brief version: in Crown of the Kobold King, the party's supposed to make friends with some kids from the town. Then you rescue them from Kobolds. There's an insane number of difficult, interesting, and downright playable encounters between you and that goal. It's awfully hard to justify the many stops for rest and spell as a player of a good-aligned character. If you rested every four encounters, the kids would in there for 2 weeks. If your party mage leveled and needed to scribe new spells into his spell book.... It forces players into choosing between risking a TPK or straining plausibility by keeping themselves alive, presumably at the cost of the children's lives. And if they risk the TPK, there's absolutely no way they can get through the module in a day anyway.
In short, does it feel like you saved them just in time when you take 2 weeks in game? the module's totally worth it, but as a DM you'll need to modify the hook a bit.
I think that storming the goblin tribe in Pathfinder 1 requires some delicate handling too. First, there's more than 30 goblins plus more than 5 "name" enemies. That's a lot and I don't really see how they're going to be fourth level at that point. Some side adventures come in handy there. Second, DMs are going to have to provide a rationale for why the party's not accompanied by the militia or a similar military force. Fortunately, you can just hand wave it as they're keeping an eye on the other tribes and the "better mission for a small strike force" argument. Still, at that level, I'd look at that mission as extremely dangerous and want expert help or hazard pay. And explaining why there's not one cop or soldier to spare....
I like the background provided, but I worry about how opaque the Big Bad's motives are going to be from the PCs' perspective if you port it in to an ongoing campaign. I'd have to re-read it to be sure if this is really an issue. The druid and the goblin chief may provide the key supplemental info. But if they don't live, it may be a big info gap between the infatuated half-elf lover and the aasimar Big Bad. Part of it may be that the writers are assuming that party back story will account for some of the local history, as opposed to the party being all outsiders. That would get you the Big Bad's background as a harassed local beauty in, which I think would be key to the effect of the reveal. It's such a good idea that I want to make sure it works.
I like the use of obscure gods, like the god of monstrous births and the one for the Skinsaw guys.
I suppose one concern would be the use of the seven sins. As soon as the players figure it out, and they will, it could be very deflating, like if a major module used the four elements to organize its dungeon... Ancient empires motivated consciously by particular sins doesn't strike me as very likely. It's one of the things that made me a touch hesitant to go fully down this adventure path, rather than mine it for its rich veins of adventure and society building.
There's great set pieces: the glass factory fight with hot tong-wielding goblins with a victim killed by molten glass? Awesome. Haunts as traps that create a "Hell House"? Awesome. A fight in a saw mill and a clock tower? Iconic. Find the serial killer lest you get framed by the angry mob for his crimes? Superb. Hillbillie horror? Right on.
I'd love to see this site review them, in fact, to give more promotion.
Shroomy
Adventurer
I got all the Pathfinders and Gamemastery Modules that have been released to my FLGS (still waiting for Carnival of Tears, hopefully tomorrow). For my money, Entombed with the Pharaohs is probably the best GM module, while The Skinsaw Murders and The Hook Mountain Massacre are tied in my estimation for best PF. But really, you can't go wrong with any of the series released so far.
mxyzplk
Explorer
I've been loving all the Paizo stuff. Our group is running through the Rise of the Runelords AP righ now and it's excellent. The haunted house in #2 and the "Hills Have Eyes" ogres from #3 rocked. It's certainly a little "edgier" than it was under WotC rule, but it's quite refreshing to get out from under those kiddified content rules. Now we're actually shocked from time to time.
The Kobold King module was also good. Pretty much anything Paizo and anything Bleeding Edge or Freeport from Green Ronin you can't go wrong with. And I like the "Wicked Fantasy Factory" stuff from Goodman.
The Kobold King module was also good. Pretty much anything Paizo and anything Bleeding Edge or Freeport from Green Ronin you can't go wrong with. And I like the "Wicked Fantasy Factory" stuff from Goodman.
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