Sure, it may be a bit stereotypical with the whole "Help! Goblins are attacking the town! Quick, chase them back to their lairs and finish their leader!" beginning, but there's a lot more to Burnt Offerings that makes it a very classy introductory chapter to a campaign.

1. It's familiar and accessible for nearly everyone, even those not familiar with Pathfinder.

2. It offers a great town with well-established characters and an enormous wealth of roleplaying to be done. I have found that Sandpoint allows for some great character development and superb adventure hooks.

3. It's possibly the best introduction to Pathfinder's beloved goblins, who have far more character than their counterparts in most fantasy settings.

My primary trouble with this chapter in Paizo's original adventure path is that it feels the most like a "standard" fantasy adventure- there's definitely some work to be done on the part of the GM to create a captivating atmosphere. There's really little wrong with this, and the incredible variety of side quests/tangents that are prepared in Sandpoint are great, but it doesn't stick out as particularly outstanding.

I do feel, however, that all the hype over Rise Of The Runelords is well-deserved, and Burnt Offerings is an extremely solid beginning.

Pro :
- Really nice background for the main foe (Nualia)
- Paizo reinvents goblins with verve : nice background, nice personnality traits. They are hilarious, insane but really seem dangerous.
- Brillant articles on Thassilon and Sandpoint

Con :
- AP1 plot is not original at all, even with these goblins and this main foe.

The adventure itself clearly not deserve a 5/5 and maybe not a 4/5, but the description on Sandpoint, the Thassilon article, Paizo's vision of goblins and the quality level of the product layout make the difference.

A aventura é muito boa, se não pelo plot, é pela maravilhosa apresentação e o cenário facilmente reciclável. Eu realmente aprendi a amar Sandpoint e de ficar ansioso para saber o destino de alguns NPCs. Alias a cidade é tão melhor que a aventura em si que chega a distrair se o mestre não focar um pouco no enredo principal. Infelizmente houveram algumas falhas de produção que são perdoáveis por ser a primeira, mas eles realmente melhoram depois. Mesmo que você não planeje mestrar, vale a pena só pela leitura. Mas cuidado que você pode se viciar como eu me viciei.

To date I've run 6 separate groups through Rise of the Runelords, the most recent starting this past June (having made it to the end of the second book after 8 sessions thus far), so I am very familiar with the adventure path. Rise of the Runelords is a very entertaining campaign, and Burnt Offerings starts it off strongly. Warning: here there be spoilers!

The PCs find themselves in Sandpoint, a sleepy coastal community in Varisia, at the start of Autumn where the Swallowtail Festival is in full swing. The book jumps right into the action by having a band of goblin raiders assault the town. Personally I wish more emphasis was put on the festival itself, giving players a chance to mingle with the townsfolk and enjoy games of skill and/or chance while listening to some speeches by noteworthy personalities. However, I understand that in published adventurers there is only so much space to work with, and it is easy for a GM to magic some fun up (or steal a few thing from a very entertaining thread on the message-boards). In Sandpoint the PCs will involve themselves in 3 battles against groups of goblins, while there silly antics set a chaotic scene. These battles felt a bit repetitive, so I made sure to add a unique element to each fight and changed the locations of each battle from what was written (saving th Rusty Dragon from being burnt down is an excellent way to introduce Ameiko Kaijitsu).

Once matters calm down and in the raid is under control the PCs learn of a disturbance at the cemetery, where some of the town's beloved deceased have been dug up, their remains missing. I recommend taking the opportunity here to introduce some red herrings. In the days following the festival, the PCs are regarded as local heroes, and the book gives a few good examples of side quests to take place, though I felt the need to add a little bit more to stretch the duration of levels, otherwise RotRL will have players zipping to the upper teens in no time.

It isn't long before something foul is again afoot in Sandpoint. Goblins, under the command of a disgruntled former citizen have kidnapped poor Ameiko and taken control of the local glass-works. Here we hit my first major problem with Burnt Offerings. The map of the glass-works dungeon is tilted diagonally, making it awkward to copy onto a battle-mat, even more awkward (to the point of needing to create a new map to suit your needs) if you are like me and prefer using hexes to squares whenever possible. The party should discover and old smuggler's tunnel in the basement of the factory which connects to some recently disturbed ancient ruins. This is an optional dungeon, the villain of which is incredibly annoying. She isn't particularly dangerous as written, but it'll take forever to defeat her unless you have the savyiest of players (most groups I've run through the adventure have spent hours of real time locked in battle with her in a most unsatisfying session).

Whether the group decides to delve into the Catacombs of Wrath (the optional dungeon above) or not, they should learn of a greater threat to the town; the goblins of normally feuding tribes are massing to mount an attack that dwarfs their last. They must then head to Thistletop and protect the village in the absence of the law. Thistletop is a rather large dungeon in multiple parts. First, you have the Nettlewood, the forest outside, with a mix of interesting and mundane encounters. Next you have the goblin fortress itself, which holds quite a few humorous asides for the GM, and finally you have the ruins below, which will eventually culminate in a crescendo battle against an aasimar warrior-priestess of Lamashtu, the Mother of Monsters.

Overall I was rather pleased with Burnt Offerings. Though it felt more a skeleton than an adventure. It needed more side quests and better pacing, though it provides many opportunities for the GM to flex his or her creativity and add their own material and spin. The motivations feel a bit forced and contrived, which is recurring throughout the path, but for kick in the door groups this poses hardly any trouble at all and it is easily altered for role-play heavy groups. The encounters run the spectrum from ridiculously easy to insanely frustratingly difficult with no rhyme or reason. Saving a town from a montrous horde is a bit cliche, but allows for major parts of the adventure path to be set up, and if it isn't broke...well, you get the picture. With the wealth of player and GM resources available to enhance RotRL on the Paizo message boards alone, you'd be doing yourself a disservice to not play or run this adventure path from start to finish (after some fine tuning, of course).