Rescue at Rivenroar

[Donovan Morningfire]

I agree that giving the outline of the adventure at the beginning is something very useful which Paizo learned to do with paths. I'm surprised that WOTC hasn't learned from Paizo to do this better.

Well, maybe not all parts of Wotc have failed to grasp this.

For the Star Wars Dawn of Defiance campaign/adventure path, one of the first things released was a campaign overview for the GM with a basic breakdown of what each chapter would cover. Then again, the Star Wars department is a separate beast from the D&D department, so maybe it's only Rodney that got the hint about having an outline

 

[Hawke]

For the Star Wars Dawn of Defiance campaign/adventure path, one of the first things released was a campaign overview for the GM with a basic breakdown of what each chapter would cover. Then again, the Star Wars department is a separate beast from the D&D department, so maybe it's only Rodney that got the hint about having an outline

I thank Rodney for doing this. If he had not I wouldn't've started running it. I really hope they end up doing something like that for this adventure series. It'll be a month before I can start out, so there's some time for them to get on board so I can actually choose whether I want to use this or just spend the work on homebrew.

 

[Jhaelen]

Oh, I'm not blown away either. It's a pretty straightforward adventure. Sure, there are some interesting bits thrown in (like trying to figure out where all the prisoners are held,) but it's basically a dungeon crawl.

Hasn't that been true for all of Paizo's adventure paths as well?

I've only skimmed over it so far, but I liked the first part. I'm not so fond of the dungeon crawl part because I've never been fond of dungeon crawls, especially those of the traditional kind.

If I ever use a dungeon in my games, it tends to be a small, focused affair of 5+ rooms, no more. But that's just my personal preference; one that has never matched the style of official D&D adventures, so it doesn't bother me.

I'm simply going to steal the interesting parts for one of my own adventures

P.S.: I thought the sidebar about the treasure parcels was interesting...

 

[Jack99]

/pimp-mode

I made a short review here

Leave a message and let me know if I suck (or not).

Cheers

 

[FadedC]

Did Paizo do the dungeon magazine adventure path with the city of cauldron, or something like that? I remember thinking they usually featured really cool investigationa and flavor, and really boring overly long dungeon slogging.

Oddly I seem to have a hard time accessing the current adventure path.

 

[carmachu]

Hasn't that been true for all of Paizo's adventure paths as well?

Not at all if you read any of piazo's.

Just spent some time counting up all the pages taken up by their ‘Combat Spreads’, that 1-2 page layout that outlines the monster stats and a general idea of what they do, along with the map. While handy, they are taking up 26 pages of this 42 page adventure.

That leaves 16 pages for the actual adventure.
2 pages are taken up by Background.
4 pages expand on the Adventure Synopsis and the town.
2 pages go over the “Campaign Setup” which involves custom picking treasure for the PC’s ‘parcels’ (I really hate that term).
3 pages talk about some of the ‘in between’ stuff, which seems to involve a couple scenes and an overview on travel.
5 pages are dedicated to mapping the single dungeon and giving extremely brief descriptions of all the rooms and the pages where encounters are found.

That’s really it. Compared to the 52 pages dedicated to a Paizo AP (each combat of which rarely ever takes up an entire page, especially two), along with 22 more pages of extra fluff and monsters, this is extremely pitiful.


"Rescue at Rivenroar" has an incomplete feeling to it. A sidebar is mentioned in the text, but it's not printed anywhere in the adventure.


My favorite "What...?" part of the adventure is the Brindol map. "Rescue at Rivenroar" has the exact same map of Brindol from Red Hand of Doom's page 83, but there is no map key for the town's locations. I guess WotC expected us to have RHoD handy as a reference. Or, we go from memory, or we make up our own locations.

It's gonna be a bumpy ride with this adventure path. Sadly, I bet they are planning and writing these things as they go with virtually no long term plan except to go "from 1st to 30th-level." The lack of a campaign overview document seems to say a lot about how Scales of War is a write and post as we go effort from WotC.

Wizards of the Coast has no idea what they've gotten themselves into. their off to a rocky start to AP's.

 

[functionciccio]

... I liked the first part. I'm not so fond of the dungeon crawl part

The first part is indeed interesting. The "bar fight" and the "ogre bombardier" look like very good encounters.

Conversely, the dungeon is quite uninspiring.
It's seems a collection of random rooms with random monsters.

The two "random" encounters (between Brindol and the castle) are not good either. The kruthiks are (imho) utterly flavourless, and the fight with the cave bear is going to be a grindfest.

Finally, there is no campaign overview nor a summary of how the adventure proceeds from here. And this is BAD.

I thought the sidebar about the treasure parcels was interesting...

Yes, I liked it a lot.

 

[The Black Sword]

Not at all if you read any of piazo's.

Just spent some time counting up all the pages taken up by their ‘Combat Spreads’, that 1-2 page layout that outlines the monster stats and a general idea of what they do, along with the map. While handy, they are taking up 26 pages of this 42 page adventure.

That leaves 16 pages for the actual adventure.
2 pages are taken up by Background.
4 pages expand on the Adventure Synopsis and the town.
2 pages go over the “Campaign Setup” which involves custom picking treasure for the PC’s ‘parcels’ (I really hate that term).
3 pages talk about some of the ‘in between’ stuff, which seems to involve a couple scenes and an overview on travel.
5 pages are dedicated to mapping the single dungeon and giving extremely brief descriptions of all the rooms and the pages where encounters are found.

That’s really it. Compared to the 52 pages dedicated to a Paizo AP (each combat of which rarely ever takes up an entire page, especially two), along with 22 more pages of extra fluff and monsters, this is extremely pitiful.


"Rescue at Rivenroar" has an incomplete feeling to it. A sidebar is mentioned in the text, but it's not printed anywhere in the adventure.


My favorite "What...?" part of the adventure is the Brindol map. "Rescue at Rivenroar" has the exact same map of Brindol from Red Hand of Doom's page 83, but there is no map key for the town's locations. I guess WotC expected us to have RHoD handy as a reference. Or, we go from memory, or we make up our own locations.

It's gonna be a bumpy ride with this adventure path. Sadly, I bet they are planning and writing these things as they go with virtually no long term plan except to go "from 1st to 30th-level." The lack of a campaign overview document seems to say a lot about how Scales of War is a write and post as we go effort from WotC.

Wizards of the Coast has no idea what they've gotten themselves into. their off to a rocky start to AP's.

Exactly the same as you put it in Paizo messageboards.

I didn't have time to answer you there but now that I can I want to point out that Paizo sells one adventure along with info from Golarion. Dungeon must have several adventures. In addition, you have not seen what other chapters of Dungeon will hold.

In a POL setting I trully do not find the reason for that much dungeon crawl. What should be pointed out though is the fact that the adventure levels up a PC only once. With respect to that the dungeoncrawl does not seem to much (As we have become used to much more leveling in a dungeon).

 

[carmachu]

Exactly the same as you put it in Paizo messageboards.

I didn't have time to answer you there but now that I can I want to point out that Paizo sells one adventure along with info from Golarion. Dungeon must have several adventures. In addition, you have not seen what other chapters of Dungeon will hold.

In a POL setting I trully do not find the reason for that much dungeon crawl. What should be pointed out though is the fact that the adventure levels up a PC only once. With respect to that the dungeoncrawl does not seem to much (As we have become used to much more leveling in a dungeon).

Doesnt answer the sloppiness of not labeling teh map.

So the excuse now for a linear dungeon crawl instead of an actual AP is.....wait till chapter two? So the excuse for a bad adventure is....Paizo is selling a setting

The proble with a setting less setting is there is nothing there. No hook no life. Look at Shackled city, for example. Built from a single city, there are hooks to other places on the map, but its not really not for a setting.

*shrug* Wotc hasnt had much good track records writing adventures. They've had some gems, like RHoD. But the bar is set pretty high, so lets see if they can deliver. So far? Not even close.

 

[OpsKT]

I can't see it, or read it.

Every time I try to download it, logged in, right software and everything, I get the 'File is damaged and could not be repaired' message.