I'm playing in this adventure path and it seams to really require the PCs to be the heros and do what the NPC leader wants you to do (Sorta like a Shadowrun Mr. Johnson). Its fun but it would work better with a little lead in like maybe your spys from another nation or something.I've gamed with this GM many times so I think its more of the material than the GMing. It probably is one of those adventures with a ton of GM information that never (or almost never) comes out in play.

After having DM'ed this first module I have made some observations. It starts off great, but if you follow the rules as written then the escape has far to many encounters, none of which are extremely interesting. A little modification gives off a much better journey and the feel that they are rushing even more.

The next part is socially heavy and extremely difficult to run as there are 10+ NPC who will have to be introduced in one scene. That is to much for anyone to bite off in one go, but if you only use a few of these at a time it will be an awesome experience as everyone has a more or less plausible reason to there.

The event that follow is quite fun, and there are a few elements that make the encounter memorable, and the fact that you are rewarded differently if you act one way or another is awesome, and it is followed by a fun social encounter, we sure had a few laughs.

The fact that there are several "sidequests" that the PC's can follow if they like when they like, gives the feeling at it is an open world rather than a railroad plot. That these quests are more or less for the DM to decide makes them applicable at anypoint later in the adventure path and could be challenging at any level.

The final "run" has a few quite stimulating encounters, but for 3 level 2 heroes it was a bit to hard. They needed to rest during the dungeon and that was not supported by the adventure path. Even with a rest they only managed to complete the quest due to reduced amount of bad guys and good rolls on their part and bad on mine. The encounters however was great fun, and that guy who appears to be something else was awesome, the cleric trying to burn him and turn him. Awesome twist on an otherwise poor adversary, gave him that twist wile not making him overpowered.

The two main bad dudes are awesome, and fun to use and they gave some flavor to the fights.

All in all a good start to something that will eventually be great.

On a side note, the fact that it is an organization that reaps the fame rather than the heroes makes dealing with PC fatalities more easy as well as adding and removing them.

In 10 years of weekly D20 gaming I've never seen an adventure start as good as this one.

Characters get an opportunity to present themselves, then are clearly presented with their exiting goal, and then get drawn right into action while being forced to cooperate. It all fits together like clockwork.
There's so much win in this book it hurts!

Tell your players to come prepared with a 2nd level character on the first session though - they'll need it. Which is good: they love gaining levels.

The XP awards for completing story elements in the prescribed way are a bit awkward - but their result is great. Quick level-ups gives a huge sense of accomplishment, and you know the players love to tweak their characters. Now they get to do it twice :) Nobody likes to be left at level 1 at the end of a session. But in Bastards of Erebus that's all taken care of, even though the mechanism may at first seem a little awkward to a GM.

This AP is flat horrible. I was hoping to find an epic transition to the pathfinder rules system and instead discovered a work in progress that requires a lot of DIY tinkering to get it to work smoothly (Note: If I had time to tinker, I would run my own adventures =). I had to spend hours prepping not only the background but tweaking the adventure itself. Overall the storyline is simple, the transitions are choppy, and considering the setting, a bit difficult to rationalize the PC's motivations (Would you work for a resistance group that, in the first encounter, is raided by the dreaded Hellknights?)The only thing that saves this book is the back half which is very well crafted and worth the price of the AP by itself.

This module is heavy on setup fluff and a bit thin on encounters. My major complaint is the large chunks of story XP to compensate for lite game content. Still, there are some very memorable moments in here, and one excellent encounter in particular that allows for some creativity and probably pleases most groups that go through it. Not the best in the AP, but enjoyable and worth doing largely because of what follows it.

This would have been a four star review, but unfortunately the editing errors, story inconsistencies, and XP problems dropped it down a notch on the reviewer scale. As a solid module, it is unfortunate that it was marred by these kinds of problems, as the kick-off into the story of intrigue behind the Council of Thieves is exciting and interesting. I strongly suggest spending some time on the messageboards reading through the posts outlining these problems as they do help the GM work through how to adjust things to eliminate the biggest concerns.

The other problem with the module revolves around the requirements of the AP itself. This AP more than any others requires very specific kinds of characters who are interested in helping the public and/or Westcrown regain its honor and brilliance in Cheliax. Selfish and evil PCs will have a much harder time integrating with the story. I suggest that GMs spend time really getting to know the entire AP before committing to it, as the brewing background story itself doesn't start picking up until the fourth module.

Through these negatives though the module is really quite a bit of fun. Sean's maze rules are fun to work with, and the encounters are exciting and diverse. You just need to get past all the rough edges to enjoy it all. As an added benefit, the included rules on Tieflings are absolutely fantastic and bring the race into the Pathfinder fold as a viable PC race. The included creature chapter has some fun lower level options as well as the return of a very iconic creature, the rot grub. The GM chapters alone make this book worth the purchase.

There is some cool material in here, but you have to put it together into encounters yourself if you want to use it. why pay money for something that still needs work?

This module is mostly just a story barely organized into sections for a GM to run. It's probably one of the worst layouts for a module I've ever read. The story and background seem interesting but to fully understand the what's going on I find the campaign book required reading.

First time GMs need not apply.

I really liked this volume. It started things off with just enough plot to get the PCs involved, and then BANG! and things go down, thrusting the PCs into action. Fighting through the first section really presented good opportunities for the players to get into character and react to one another, and my group definitely appreciated being pushed almost immediately into combat.

I will be the first to say that I am a total fangirl of this adventure path. It has such perfect flavor for one of my favorite countries, Cheliax. Where it falls short, in my estimation, is that not all parties will want to be unquestioningly fanatical devotees of good and light. This section of the AP doesn't provide very much room for the morally gray in my opinion. Nonetheless, it's well written and enjoyable and is a good lead-in to the rest of the AP. A solid three-stars.