Pathfinder Adventure Path #69: Maiden, Mother, Crone (Reign of Winter 3 of 6) (based on
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Paizo Publishing, LLC
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Chapter 3: "Maiden, Mother, Crone"
by Tim Hitchcock
Three Times the Adventure!
On the trail of Baba Yaga, the heroes find themselves transported to the barbaric land of Iobaria on the far-off continent of Casmaron. They must explore three ancient, mystically linked dungeons in search of more clues to the fate of the Queen of Witches, while contending with savage centaurs and demon-worshiping frost giants who seek to claim Baba Yaga’s secrets for themselves.
This volume of Pathfinder Adventure Path continues the Reign of Winter Adventure Path and includes:
“Maiden, Mother, Crone,” a Pathfinder RPG adventure for 7th-level characters, by Tim Hitchcock.
A gazetteer of the Dvezda Marches—a cold and isolated region of Iobaria populated by centaur clans and dotted with ancient ruins.
An account of the demon lord of hideous giants, numbing cold, and bloody revenge—Kostchtchie the Deathless!
A glimpse into Irrisen’s eerie relationship with dolls in the Pathfinder’s Journal, by Kevin Andrew Murphy.
Five new monsters, by Jason Nelson and Sean K Reynolds.
Each monthly full-color softcover Pathfinder Adventure Path volume contains an in-depth adventure scenario, stats for several new monsters, and support articles meant to give Game Masters additional material to expand their campaign. Pathfinder Adventure Path volumes use the Open Game License and work with both the Pathfinder RPG and the world’s oldest fantasy RPG.
ISBN–13: 978-1-60125-494-8
Maiden, Mother, Crone is sanctioned for use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. The rules for running this Adventure Path are available as a free download (463 KB zip/PDF). The Chronicle sheet for this Adventure Path is available here (102 KB zip/PDF).
So many cool things about this adventure make me want to give it 5 starts, honestly. The first couple of parts in the adventure are amazing and cool and wierd and unique. However, once the PCs start exploring dungeons, the fun stops.
The dungeons are nothing special. There are rooms, and monsters, and you walk into the rooms and kill the monsters. It's routine, there are zero twists (I'm sorry, the "three linked dungeons" thing just isn't enough), and the entire section is longer than it should be.
The themes of this AP are just not very good with long, classic feeling dungeouns, so this adventure dosen't work. Next one sounds more interesting!
Of the three volumes of Reign of Winter so far, this one is unfortunately the weakest. That’s not to say it’s bad—I actually rather like it—but it’s not as good as the first two. Its major weakness is that it suffers from the static randomness that so many dungeon crawls suffer from. Despite a great backstory, its dungeon (or rather, dungeons) still feels like a place where the denizens just sort of sit there waiting for the PCs to arrive and kill them, and that spoils what is overall a great framework for an adventure.
