If possible, I would give this book a 4.5 star review, but I’m bumping it up to 5. Unlike the Advanced Player’s Guide, I view this book as a mixed DM and Player hardcover book. There are plenty of archetypes, spells, and options for both a player and DM.
For players, the Magus is a wonderful class that, after the playtest period, was balanced and brought to near perfection. The addition of a few archetypes for Magus in the same book as the base class was also a very welcome surprise. A few spells also brought in some holes in some classes spell lists (like water/ice spells for clerics). Other player options such as Saurian Shaman, Bardic masterpieces, and cleric variant channeling I have already seen use in PFS organized play and enjoyed the flavor that was brought into the game from it.
For DMs, the meat of the book comes in Chapter 2 and Chapter 4, where items such as spell dueling, creating spells, and words of power are brought it. Words of Power are not something that I personally would use, but it enables a DM to create a magic system for his world that has a large amount of flavor different from the normal D&D magical system. In addition most items from Chapter 2 won’t be used extensively, but having rules written out for a spell duel is useful for that time that you need it. Other options that won’t come up often, but are still great tools for DMs in Chapter 2 are the Spellblights, Binding rules, building spells, and building/modifying construct rules. Players could dabble in these things as well, but the real gem is that it gives DMs tools to do more “magical” things within their campaigns.
For both players and DMs the Appendix also gives a nice quick update/support on some older spells and familiar rules that will clarify and bring things up to date.
While there are some editing mistakes in the book, and there will most definitely be an errata coming in to correct those, I think most reviews are focusing on the few glaring errors and forgetting that as a whole, the book is well written. DMs exist for a reason, and they’ll be able to sort out any editing problems in the interim until the final answer is given by Paizo with an official errata. In the end, if the price is too expensive for the hardcover, I fully recommend buying the PDF of this product today, and getting the hardcover after the next errata if it bothers you enough. You will always be able to download the most recent PDF with changes from Paizo.
I just recently played through a marathon weekend of all four parts of the Eyes of the Ten series with our level 12 characters. This was a fitting end to the entire four part arc. There were plenty of scary traps, items, and flavor in Sky Reach that made me think as a player “Yep, this is where the Decemvirate must live.” The first encounter seemed like it was very very difficult for the DM to run and is something that he should prepare extensively for. In fact, I’m not positive if it’s even possible for the DM to fully prepare this first encounter properly without having played it or DMed it prior. However properly executed it will be a memorable encounter for the PCs.
The only other complaint I have is that the end encounter didn’t seem quite… epic enough. It wasn’t an extraordinarily easy encounter, but it didn’t seem nearly as difficult or as “deadly” as the first encounter of the entire arc. However the final encounter was a fitting end to the arc, and something that I didn’t see coming as a player. My only gripe would be that we as players don’t learn enough of the BBEGs motivations. I feel as though we stopped the BBEG, but we don’t really know how he got to the point where he is in the story (and this is after taking him alive and interrogating him).
I just recently played through a marathon weekend of all four parts of the Eyes of the Ten series with our level 12 characters. To us, this was the weekend module of the four by far. While the module was set in a very interesting and flavorful city (planet?!), the module itself fails at capitalizing on this flavor. To be honest, this scenario could easily have been set in another city on Golarion and it would’ve felt nearly the same.
The adventure and story itself is written relatively well. There is a great “gotcha” moment that confused us as players until we hit the end. The combats and pacing were also deserving of a level 12 arc, however there wasn’t much room for roleplay in this adventure. In the end I think a rework on the development side could shore up many of the issues with this mod and make it just as good as the other three parts of Eyes of the Ten.
I just recently played this scenario at tier 7-8 at a con with a relatively balanced party, and after reading the module decided that a review needed to be made on the scenario. The scenario as a whole seemed too easy although it was very "swingy." The first act in particular was entirely too easy; CR 2s against a party of level 7s and 8s isn't very challenging. On the same note the second encounter uses the young template on two spellcasting based monsters... which while it decreases the CR does not decrease the spellcasting ability. So the encounter could swing towards the more difficult side if the DM decides to use only their spellcasting abilities (as the scenario tells you to do, in fact.)
The next few encounters are relatively easy, although they set up the characters for DM coup de grace moments, which really are not that fun as a player. Next the writer uses the young template again, which seems like the scenario was even more rushed. Finally after receiving the chronicle I saw that the GP total is about 60% the normal of a Season 1 scenario for tier 7-8. I've seen low gold amounts... but this gold amount is just pathetic.
With a few more tie-ins to the overall story, another developing pass to replace some overuse of templates, and equalizing the rewards, this scenario does have potential. In its current state however I would not recommend playing, running, or buying this scenario.
