My game has benefited tremendously from introducing these models.
I gave this model four stars because it lacks one thing that would have tipped it over into perfect.
There are carpets that can be placed, and a fireplace, but the rest of the hut is barren. The addition of furnishings would have been enough to make this perfect. Other terrain by graffam has tables, but as of yet, there is a lack of these small details in most of the sets. A scale bed, chair, bookcase, chest of drawers(Which I have from another Graffam kit) and a few other odds and ends.
The WAR art is great. The contents are not particlarly well organised. I bought a few of these, and I find them not as useful as I had hoped. The excellent SORD has spoiled me. I look at this as a wasted investment. The other criticism I have of this product is that it is shockingly flimsy. It has no heft, and does not stay put, It falls over without provocation. If you have seen the excellent screens put out by White Wolf, made of thick cardboard, with well organised charts and tables, you will be far less likely to give this featherweight screen a second glance. To add insult to injury, the screen has pictures of D&D minis as space fillers. There is no excuse for this, as many critical tables are not present. 2 1/2 of the four panels are given over to skills. Only two tables are useful in combat. One is the Armour class modifiers table from page 151 of the PHB. The other is buried between the use rope and disable device DCs. It is the Attack roll modifier table from the same page. IF you want a screen, get SORD, and clip the pages to a storyteller screen. This screen does not have the conditions, weapon tables, armour tables, level progression chart, or pretty much anything except the tables from the skill chapter. It was good as a free gift with Dragon. That is all it is.
The world of Golarion is a jigsaw of different genres, co-existing, and influencing each other. It has a delicious variety of settings on offer, which allow almost any type of campaign. The talent that was tapped for this product are a who's who of most of the best designers to ever work on D&D. The book gives you tools to make Golarion come alive. Almost every paragraph sparks the imagination. I could scarcely read a page without daydreaming about what I had read, and planning campaigns about it. It is a testament to the quality of the product, that I cannot think of a favourite region. Every two page spread had enough hooks and ideas for a year or two of gaming.
This is by far the best concieved fantasy world I have read yet. It is more dynamic than any other IP I can think of. I think it is richer than Star Wars, More colourful than the Forgotten Realms, More fun than Eberron, Gritter and wilder than Greyhawk, and the extraplanar cosmology opens things up more than the old Great Wheel did, making the relationships between different planes seem much more dynamic. the rethinking of the elemental planes, and the Onion Cosmology, is like a shot in the arm. It is as well wrought as the AD&D manual of the planes, and the third edition MoP too.
The layout is perfect. Chapters are well placed. Each region has a two, or four, page spread, which makes it very easy to find exactly what one is looking for, in a session.
My only complaint is, however, a serious one. Paizo stretched its staff too far on the editing front. It was a prodigous effort for them to get this printed on time, and a lot of spelling errors got in. The poster map itself, was labelled: "The Inner Sea Reigon"
I believe that there will be a reprint of this book next year, with Pathfinder RPG crunch in place of the 3.5 crunch. Charles Evans 25 has done a fantastic job of collating the errors in this book, for correction in the next printing. I will happily buy it again.
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