This final adventure tries for an Indiana Jones style conclusion to the trilogy with the players traveling to deadly Isle of Terror where Aroden defeated Tar- Baphon (in his mortal form). The adventure begins with another boat journey of random encounters before the characters begin their journey to the lost city and this is where the adventure falls short somewhat for me: The Isle of Terror is shown to be a vast nightmarish land mass teeming with savage monsters, evil trees and poisoned waters, plenty of opportunity for exploration and yet the adventure puts your players on a very linear track following the cultists to the city on a race for time. The character of Dusan was also an awkward addition as an almost useless companion; me and my players forgot about him completely by the time we reached the city. Once there however, the adventure becomes more contained and more focused, with the place threatening to flood with molten gold if your players aren't fast enough. The place is filled with deadly challenges and interesting monsters, though I found the naga encounter to be a little too deadly and tedious (with the creature re-spawning after the players defeat it) and ended up removing it. My players came up with a very amusing way of resolving the adventure and despite the module's faults, we ended up enjoying it (though not as much as the first two).
After playing the Crypt of the Everflame, this adventure changes things around a bit with the players infiltrating a temple of a corrupt religion and taking them down from within. This offers many interesting roleplaying opportunities, with the NPCs in the temple constantly abusing your players and encouraging them to commit acts of robbery, extortion and property damage. Though the adventure can be restrictive at times, it requires players to think things out in order to find ways to break through the temple's rather ridged regime and infiltrate it's higher levels. it's recommended to have at least one stealthy character in the party, though a GM can easily shift things around if this isn't the case. The last part of the adventure is supposed to involve the characters fighting their way past hordes of cultists to escape, but my players simply ran for it, avoiding the attackers and leaping over the wall for a rather un- smooth landing making for an amusing end to an entertaining adventure. The boat journey at the start however is a little shaky with its random encounters: I only ended up with two when my players were in need of some extra XP but this can be rectified by the GM if need be. Otherwise, this adventure was entertaining for me and my players with some fun roleplaying to be had.
Though by now new players have access to the beginner box, for me this was my first introduction to playing Pathfinder. Before this, I'd been playing 4th edition and I found running this module (and playing Pathfinder in general) such a refreshment: Combat resolution was much quicker and the game felt more challenging and deadly. The dungeon itself was brilliant in my opinion, I loved it's concept of a tutorial dungeon gone wrong with a mixture of lethal and non- lethal traps on the first floor, followed by some rather nasty surprises on the floor below. One player who used to play D&D back in the seventies and eighties told me that this adventure had really brought back memories for him. The adventure even comes with pre-generated characters in the back, allowing new players to jump right in. If I did have one minor complaint about this module, it would be that there is not enough XP to be gained in this adventure if you plan to follow this up with Masks Of The Living God. If you're planing on running the Price of Immortality trilogy I would suggest you switch to the fast XP advancement track. Other than that, this is a great module (if your party's in to dungeon crawls that is).
