Pathfinder 1E Mummy Mask AP: Thoughts?

[Starfox]

Its strange how I actually like Mymmy's Mask, despite it being a series of interconnected dungeons. The dungeons are quite good.

 

[delericho]

It's okay, IMO. There's a bit of weakness in the first part (where the PCs are assumed to be rivals of another adventuring group, but there's no obvious reason they wouldn't cut a deal with them), but otherwise it's perfectly serviceable.

However, the underlying plot is pretty much the classic "ancient evil is reawakening" deal.

It wouldn't be my first choice of AP, anyway.

 

[Crothian]

It wouldn't be my first choice of AP, anyway.

The simple plot is one of the reasons I am interested. The AP is not going to be the main plot of the campaign. Some AP's make for great full campaigns but I've found others make for better adventure archs. The party is not going to start at level one for this, they will be 8. I haven't talked it over with the players to see if they want to do this. In our homebrew they are in the part of the world that this AP fits. I can easily make the first few books more challenging and we can move through them quickly as there is not a lot there. By the time they finish these they will be on a good enough level to start the final part of the main campaign.

 

[Crothian]

So far so good. We are still in book one but the different adventuring groups offer a great amount of Role playing opportunities. It is really easy to expand the first book and present different small places to explore.

I am really disappointed with the map pack. There are some overland exploration in later books that would be great to have a map for. All that's in the pack is two cities and map of the country that is not helpful at all with the AP.

 

[Starfox]

I am really disappointed with the map pack. There are some overland exploration in later books that would be great to have a map for. All that's in the pack is two cities and map of the country that is not helpful at all with the AP.

Map Packs are very unreliable in quality. Some contain interesting but misplaced maps - for example the poster map of the eastern continent is in the Jade Oath AP. It is a lovely and very overall useful map, but the adventure path only plays in a small remote corner of that map. For the adventure path , a map of Minkai (the country you are actually in) would have been a lot more interesting. Others are simply bad, like Skull & Shackles that has the same map twice, in color and b/w, and then the AP gives the PCs magical maps in full color pretty early on - making the b/w map obsolete.

 

[Wicht]

Reading through Mummy's mask, I kinda liked it, but it would perhaps not be a good fit for every group. I especially liked the first two adventures in the AP. There is a lot of tomb exploring and the amount of flexibility, sand-box feel, is very limited. But in this case, the events become rather monumental and move rapidly, so I am not sure how much the PCs would notice that they don't get a lot of explore time in the large world, because they are too busy dealing with rather immediate threats, such as the living dead arising and attacking, or a swift onslaught of flying pyramids, or the like. It certainly captures a certain flavor of adventure, pulpish with movie-like sensibilities would be how I would describe it. I am not sure though how sustainable such a flavor (rush here, rush there, danger, danger danger...) would be over the course of a year long AP. If you could somehow condense it, it might work better, or if you could play frequently so as not to lose the urgency.

 

[Starfox]

It is like "The Mummy" movies, which is of course the intent. The mummy happens in Egypt, but it is more a collection of exotic shooting locations than a coherent image of early 20th century Egypt. Same with Mummy's Mask - it doesn't deal with Oririan politics, so Osirian politics only makes a short (and I think very fun) cameo.

If you want this to play like Council of Thieves or Kingmaker, you have to rewrite it more or less from the bottom up.

 

[Crothian]

I am not sure though how sustainable such a flavor (rush here, rush there, danger, danger danger...) would be over the course of a year long AP. If you could somehow condense it, it might work better, or if you could play frequently so as not to lose the urgency.

I think the trick will be to not make the events happen so quickly after another. The first book has no rushing in it so I'm spacing that out. The second book will have a lot of lead up to the auction and we might have multiple nights of the auction because role playing that out will be fun and I don't want it to end so quickly. Then I will let the players set the pace. Maybe they will want to hurry but if they want to take their time I won't punish them for it.

 

[Starfox]

I think the trick will be to not make the events happen so quickly after another...

For me, the POINT of a pulp adventure like this is to keep the pace up.

Of course, that doesn't really work well in Pathfinder, where players often need weeks between adventures to crafdtnew gear and whatnot.

 

[Crothian]

Pace is important but the pace doesn't need to be sprint from book one through book 6. The trick will be seeing where the pace needs to be brisk and where it does not.

My group does not spend weeks making magical items so we don't need to worry about that.