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This book deals with the River Kingdoms, an area crammed with independent states, countries, fiefdoms, cities, towns or even villages. Setting up such a patchwork allowed Paizo to bring a whole host of authors to write about 22 areas, each of them different and unique.

And the writing is, wow, excellent. From RPG veterans (John Wick, Chris Pramas, Richard Pett, the Paizo Crew), rising stars (RPG Superstar winners) to veterans of fiction (Elaine, China) the line-up is amazing and the quality rocks the house. The areas are unique, vivid and sometimes plain outlandish.

However, the book has a few shortcomings. Presentation of the chapters is not standardized - some authors provided city statblocks, flags/coats of arms while others kept to pure fluff. The map is somewhat unclear and lacks detail - a poster map would be a far better move.

Also, while the books is written with background material in mind, the amount of crunch is very, very small. There are next to no feats, traits, spells or equipment.

Overall - great writing and excellent ideas with some slight presentation issues and a dire need for more crunchy bits. Still, it's a fantastic book and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

I'll be brief here: this adventure firmly establishes Richard Pett as one of the best module writers out there. And this time, he has a support sidekick madman thespian Nick Logue to boot.

The concept is absolutely unique, and the execution is brilliant. The Sixfold Trial is a great way of showing that D&D is something more than a "kick the door open and kill the baddie" game.

Bravo, simply bravo.

Written by one of the authors of the Planescape setting line, this module is the first planar adventure in the Paizo lineup.

"Beyond the Vault of Souls" features everything that made Planescape unique and vibrant, with dimensional travel, dead gods, daemons, demons, philosophy and strange answers to weird questions.

It's not a dungeon crawl and it's not an urban intrigue. There's a strong feel of other-worldiness and mystery. The are no philosophy clubs here, only philosophers with clubs. No Modrons sadly, curse you Sorcerers at the Bay !

All in all, if you are a Planescape fan and/or you are looking for an unique adventure, this one is a keeper. Not up everyone's alley, but certainly up mine. Excuse me, there is a keketar protean in my garden and he sings his song of ten thousands poisons. Ohhh yes, Planescape is back.

SERIOUS NOTE (really): This module pretty much expects the DM to have access to Paizo's The Great Beyond and Necromancer Games' Tome of Horrors Revised. Which is okay, as both books are all kinds of awesome.

In before the first coffee, so I'll be brief...

GOOD: Swashbuckler, Knight, Warlord, Artifcer and Shaman classes are going to be used in games. Chase rules are absolutely awesome and alone worth the asking price. Occupations are a nice way to flesh out the character and live up the "OK, roll for you gold" bit.

OK: The other races and classes seem fine. Random magic item and adventure generators might be great for many people.

BAD: There are a couple of typos and omissions (weapon and armor proficiencies for Artificer, for example).

VERDICT: A solid sourcebook and a great buy at this price.

What can I say ? I have two bookshelves of 3rd edition material, seven Paizo adventure paths to run, and I want to roll with that.

And now, with the PFRPG, there will be ongoing support for the game of my choice. I don't have to ask new players to hunt down PHB on auction sites, I can just point them to the dirt-cheap PDF and have them up to date in no time. Splendid.

The changes are mostly sound, the new rules elegant, one would wish for a few more radical improvements but we must remember about the Backwards Compatibility with all the previous material.

It's a great update and a great way of keeping the 3ed torch burning. Oh and just for sheer cojones of the endeavor, Paizo deserves 5 stars.

First of all, I'm a sucker for all things planar. From the first MotP through Planescape to Beyond Countless Doorways, been there done that.

So naturally I was quite looking forward to the Pathfinder book of planes. I jumped when the word was out that Todd "Shemeska" Stewart will be the author - I was following Todd's work on Planewalker website, and he struck me as particularly imaginative and interesting writer.

The hopes were high, but did the book deliver ? I am pleased to say YES ! The Great Beyond offers a vivid description of Pathfinder cosmology, complete with writeup on all major inner and outer planes.

Todd was faced with a real challenge - how to write something similar yet different from the good old Great Wheel D&D cosmology ? There is much Planescape nostalgia among the 3ed fans, and one of the major criticisms aimed at 4ed was the case of uprooting the entire D&D cosmology and turning it pretty much upside down. Over the years, the Great Wheel picked up tons of legacy material.

Todd manages to handle it elegantly, conjuring a streamlined version of the Great Wheel, which still can be easily expanded with pre-Pathfinder sources. The classic planes such as the Abyss, Hell, Limbo are all here (however the much beloved Mechanus and it's Modrons had to go, curse you WotC IP !). Excellent new replacements have been created to replace modrons, slaadi and yugoloths.

Yes, it's a bit on short side. And leaves you wanting more. Here's to hoping that Paizo expands the cosmology in further books, but for now, The Great Beyond is an excellent starting point. Good job !

You know, honestly, towards the end of Second Darkness my faith in Paizo adventure-crafting skills faltered a little. SD 5 was plain ugly, SD 6 was rushed. There was I wondering, did Paizo lose the steam ? Was the mojo gone ?

And that's when you wonder about such things, suddenly Erik Mona jumps out of the darkness, flips out and drop-kicks you with a module made of "pure epic win". Everything about HotCK screams quality, from the rich, vibrant and baroque layout (gratz Sarah !) to the amazing ideas and concepts within the adventure itself, to the cool support material.

On the top of that, you get the WorldWorks terrain to run along with. Best outsourcing idea ever, I say.

This module feels so fresh and yet so wonderfully old-school. The ball is rolling and Paizo is once again on the top, here's to the hope that rest of the AP follows suit.

Rock on Paizo, for you rock mighty ! I am SERIOUSLY considering ditching SD and running this right after CotCT. That's how good it is.

(Oh, and Chupacabras really should have some arabic name, I won't dare to call them out loud in front of my group.)

A very good, clearly written urban adventure. The whole "murder paintings" concept is handled elegantly with monsters and items that support the theme. Good art and cartography.

My only problem is that the second part of the adventure is a dungeon crawl, which might be a letdown for those who look for a "pure" urban adventure.

Still, Gallery of Evil did a great job of being a sidetrek in my RotRL campaign. Recommended !

I usually sing high praise of Paizo's products, but this is apparently the biggest miss in whole Pathfinder range so far.

This module is basically a giant railroad set, kicking off with the players being betrayed by their apparently only ally and forced into some choo choo train of an intrigue which they can't really break off from and have to play along. Sure, it's all explained and makes sense, but betrayal and deception is a very risk plot tool, as few things irk players more than becoming pawns of all-mighty NPCs who can just sneeze them off the Prime Material.

Coming up next are a few random "tour the Golarion" encounters with little cohesion ...

And then PCs meet the Winter Council, who are basically a bunch of douchebags who sit around and pick their noses. And whoever ordered the art for Hialin ... how am I supposed to show him to players ? He should have a "I'm a very bad person !" t-shirt, because it's not really obvious from the artwork. (SARCASM MODE OFF)

And on the top of that, in the end you get a massive highish level combat with dozens of stat blocks that have to be handled by the GM, some of them casters. Ever tried that ? I did, and it's no fun !

What I love about Paizo stuff it that it requires very little DM work, because most bases are covered and there are almost no glaring logical errors or possible exploits. The MoD is so underwhelming that I will likely have to scrap it and rewrite, something I loathe to do as it drains my already limited time.

The saving grace for this book are the backup material (Calistra article is great, but where did the prestige class go ?). They bump the score by one star.

You know what my problem with humanoid monsters was ? I could never tell or describe the difference between Goblins, Bugbears, Gnolls... All low-CR cannon fodder.

This book solved that problem. It's full of really great ecology information that really helps bring these critters to life. It's not just about Gobilns and Ogres, several "poor mans" monsters like Bugbears or Lizardfolk get a quality makeover.

A truly great book !

There is only one complaint I have with "Into the Darklands" - it's too short.

Yet, despite just 64-pages it's so crammed with awesomeness that it makes WotCs Underdark book look silly. There are so many amazing ideas there... You won't be missing the absence of certain emo drow ranger or the Mind Flayers.

I was really afraid about how Paizo can try and make their version of Underdark "similiar yet different" from the Wizards' one. But once again, they pulled it off, thanks to great talents of James and Greg.

Having read the PDF I can't wait when I get to throw my players into the deep below Golarion. There's just too much cool stuff there. Thumbs up !

At some point I browsed the MM and tried really, really hard to see some meaningful difference between a Bugbear, an Orc, a Hobgoblin and an Ogre. Couldn't find any. Brutish low CR cannon fodder...

And then I got this book.

And now my life makes sense ! ;) Seriously, this book is pure gold, it makes these insofar generic monsters come to life. After an evening with CMR I have a clear vision about what makes an Ogre such feared opponent in Golarion. I believe any fantasy GM can profit from this volume, it contains plethora of plot hooks and cool trivia. One of the best Chronicles products so far !

This book is a mix of various small articles, tables and aids that help GM solve most common problems in fantasy game - "Empty rooms worth describing" and "NPC Quirks" speak for themselves, but there is sooo much more to this small book ! Excellent value for the money, truly remarkable - no fantasy RPG GM should be without this gem.

This product had a lot of potential, which sadly wasn't fully realized. Maybe it has something to do with it being the first Folio. Anyway, the foldout map of Sandpoint is beyond awesome - I believe it was one of the major factors that hooked my players on PF1 - but the others...well, they could be better executed and more player-friendly. Oh well. Better luck next time, Paizo Map Team !

Wolfgang Baur is on it again. Excellent fantasy RPG content, not just for d20 players. Ecology of the Lich, however a paradox that title might be, is an excellent article. At the 6 USD price, KQs are a steal. Go Kobolds !

The original Flip-Mat was a great thing, mostly due to perfect choice of laminated paper, sturdy yet light and allowing use of almost any marker without stains and smears (unlike the Chessex mats).

There were three small issues with the original, and all three are fixed in this new release:

* both sides feature 1" grid now. Honestly, the hexes side was redundant for most D&D players, and everybody wished they could just flip (duh) the mat and have a second surface to write on

* coloring is changed - one side is light grey, the other sand brown with the grid lines in soft grey, making it look less like a ... grid, while still easily outlining the squares

* the grid extends fully to the edge of the map, eliminating the unnecessary border.

To sum it up, the best just got better !

The second part of RotRL is basically two adventures in one: first you get to brave the horrors of a haunted mansion, and second you get to track a sinister cult in a sprawling metropolis.

The first part is easily 5 stars - the Haunts are a great concept, the fights are memorable (Ghoul Bat, ouch !) and as usual the thing I love about Paizo's adventures - the amazing amount of detail and GM-helpful little things that help to flesh out the environs and NPCs, making them so much memorable than the "you see a room and it's a ...erm... room".

The second part keeps up the story standard, but I found it somewhat hard to picture (and describe to my players) some locales, I guess the mapwork was a bit iffy. And despite the excellent chapter on Magnimar, I still had to do a lot of GM homework to cater for players who kicked off with the usual "a big city, let's do ten thousand silly things" routine. WTB Guide to Magnimar, akin to the Korvosa one !

And of course, the TPK final boss, which required me to wrestle with re-statting to make it somewhat more manageable. Grrr... Playtest the boss fights I say !

As a hint for fellow GMs - I used "The Menagerie" from Dungeon 126 as a side-trek in Magnimar, worked like a charm !

The Desna article was really nice and the new monsters were, as usual, a nice addition.

The idea is pure genius. A magnetic, system-neutral board for tracking initiative...

This tool REALLY HELPS the gameplay. It makes one of major chores soo much easier. With added space for notes, different magnets for PCs/NPCs/monsters, and the excellent "oooh shiny" factor, this is easily the favorite accessory of my gaming group.

I echo some of suggestions - make the board more sturdy and give magnets more distinct colors (eg. red/green/black instead of blue/black/green). Such Combat Pad 2.0 would easily earn 5 stars from me !