Pathfinder 1E Paizo re-invents Hexcrawling

[Erik Mona]

Thanks for giving Pathfinder a shot, Croesus! I've seen the first adventure, and I think you'll be very pleased!

--Erik Mona
Publisher
Paizo Publishing

 

[S'mon]

I don't play Pathfinder, but I've just ordered Kingmaker 1: Stolen Land from amazon.co.uk, the only UK seller I could find - "dispatch in 1-3 weeks" so I guess they ship it in from the USA.

This is a test purchase for me - I've bought lots of Paizo flip-mats, and been happy with them, but I've never bought or read a Paizo adventure before. I'll see how good this is, and that will help me decide whether to get into Paizo stuff, and this AP in particular.

If it *is* really good, I'll then need to decide whether to convert it to 4e D&D, use it with 3.5e D&D, or use Pathfinder itself.

Edit: I'll be looking for the kind of things I don't see in WoTC adventures such as richly developed NPCs, lots of PC-NPC interaction, plenty of freedom of action by the PCs, and a bit of drama/melodrama to go with the hack-and-slash.

 

[Dimitris]

What I really like is that PAIZO always come with new and fascinating ideas.


I was a fan of Birthright CS, so I like very much the concept of Kingmaker and the change of viewpoint.

 

[roguerouge]

This is a test purchase for me - I've bought lots of Paizo flip-mats, and been happy with them, but I've never bought or read a Paizo adventure before. I'll see how good this is, and that will help me decide whether to get into Paizo stuff, and this AP in particular.

If you like this adventure, I can recommend the following:

Crucible of Chaos: If you like exploration based adventures, this is their least linear most hex-crawly prior to Kingmaker. Absolutely superb atmosphere.

Crimson Throne: It's the best urban campaign I've run across. A great villain, four adventures set in one location, and enough info on the city to make for a dynamic setting that responds to what your players do. Sure, you can go with the quest format given, but they go way out of their way to give you enough information to skin that cat by any means necessary.

Carnival of Tears: It's very rare that you have a module that makes someone LOL and scream in disgust, but this one does. A site-based adventure. It's the best module that I've read.

 

[Windjammer]

If you like this adventure, I can recommend the following:

Crucible of Chaos: If you like exploration based adventures, this is their least linear most hex-crawly prior to Kingmaker. Absolutely superb atmosphere.

That's easily one of the best Gamemastery modules (nothing beats winged monkeys), but I'd be hard pressed to dignify Baur's efforts here - aka 'players follow trail from locations A->B->C->D to get to your dungeon galore!' - as "hex-crawly". I'd much rather recommend Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale.

Carnival of Tears: It's very rare that you have a module that makes someone LOL and scream in disgust, but this one does. A site-based adventure. It's the best module that I've read.

I incline towards a similar judgement, but a brilliant mind suggests to disagree.

 

[garyh]

Sounds interesting.

Question for Paizo regulars - if you purchase/subscribe for a hard copy of the adventure, do you get the PDF included? I seem to recall them doing that when I converted my remaining print Dragon subscription credits to a Pathfinder sub, but was curious if they still did that. Thanks!

Count me as a 4e player who's considering converting this to run with 4e if it's as good as it's sounding...

 

[Orius]

I tend to give 'em coasts, roads, 'n' rivers - if any exploration has been done then it is typically along the coasts and rivers, and if there is a road then you at least know the next town, and any inns en route.

I would likely do something similar. Not just put down the base of operations and nothing else on a blank map, but show the major trade routes like roads and rivers, and have all the major communities. Basically all the stuff the everyone in the campaign should know about. The blank areas should be for stuff like back roads, wilderness, hidden elf villages, remote strongholds, monster lairs, and of course dungeons.

 

[Papa-DRB]

If you *subscribe* you get the free PDF and 15% off (which for me covers the cost of shipping), and 15% off on other Paizo stuff.

-- david
Papa.DRB

Question for Paizo regulars - if you purchase/subscribe for a hard copy of the adventure, do you get the PDF included?

 

[Arthedain]

Sounds interesting.
Question for Paizo regulars - if you purchase/subscribe for a hard copy of the adventure, do you get the PDF included? I seem to recall them doing that when I converted my remaining print Dragon subscription credits to a Pathfinder sub, but was curious if they still did that. Thanks!

If you subscribe to one of the Paizo product lines, e.g. Pathfinder Chronicles, you get a free PDF in addition to the hard copy.
If you purchase a single product you have to buy the hard copy and the PDF separately.

In addition, if you subscribe to the Pathfinder Adventure Path line you also get a 15% discount on other Paizo purchases.

Personally, I started out with an Adventure Path subscription, and today I'm subscribing to 5 lines. My inner collector rejoices . And with the PDFs I can just extract the pictures, put them in a Powerpoint, and connect my laptop to a big screen TV. I must admit I like the sound of my players going "Wow! That is an *awesome* drawing!" or "Holy F***, that dragon looks mean!"
So Paizo, you rock .

 

[garyh]

Thanks for the info, Papa-DRB and Arthedain! That's kind of what I'm thinking of doing, Arthedain, which is why I was curious about the PDF's.