The kings and queens of Korvosa have long ruled under the shadow of the Curse of the Crimson Throne—an infamous superstition claiming that no monarch of the city of Korvosa shall ever die of old age or produce an heir. Whether or not there is any truth to the legend of the curse, Korvosa's current king is but the latest victim to succumb to this foul legacy. Now, the metropolis teeters on the edge of anarchy, and it falls to a band of new heroes to save Korvosa from the greatest threat it has ever known! This hardcover compilation updates the fan-favorite campaign for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, including new and revised content and nearly 500 pages packed with mayhem, excitement, and adventure!
This hardcover edition of Curse of the Crimson Throne contains:
All six chapters of the original Adventure Path, expanded and updated for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.
An in-depth gazetteer of the city of Korvosa as it exists under the rule of its new queen.
An array of new rules options for characters, ranging from campaign traits to spells to magic items.
An expansive appendix with statistics, descriptions, backgrounds, and rules support for the 12 most important NPCs in the campaign.
A bestiary featuring nine monsters from the original Adventure Path making their debut under the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game rules.
Dozens of new illustrations, never-before-seen characters, location maps, extensive new encounter locations, and more!
ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-890-8
Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Sanctioned Content Curse of the Crimson Throne is sanctioned for use in Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild.
This AP is widely considered one of the (if not THE) best Adventure Paths for good reason. It really is that good. Tons of really interesting NPCs and storylines. Lots and lots and lots of room for a GM to add their own touches. An excellent story that makes the PCs feel like heroes. Villains they really want to beat. Heck, it's even a good introduction to the pathfinder system and world.
Not only that, but since it's so popular, there's tons of advice about what changes to make, what to keep an eye on, and how to make changes that can improve it. This edition is a fantastic deal and an excellent campaign and I can't recommend it highly enough.
I wrote fricking long review about great time I had with running the whole campaign(and post campaign) and then it got deleted by the fricking "too much backtracking" page dagnabbit
I'm not gonna write the entire thing again, so here is in short: This campaign has great recurring NPC cast(most of later APs have problem with introducing cool NPCs and then rest of books never mentioning them again), great themes, great villains, Kazavon's awesome hair, allows multiple approaches to different situations(such as infiltrating with sneaking or talking through places instead of just fighting through them. Kinda reminds me of Deux Ex computer games in a way), awesome locations, awesome post campaign potential and is one of my favourite APs ever.
Short Version: A smart buy but held back by structural issues.
It's hard to get better adventure value for your dollar than this or the Rise of the Runelords collected edition. If I were reviewing on that alone, this would be 5 stars and then some. But there's more to an adventure than that.
The AP's hook is quite good, but almost immediately discarded in favor of saving the city. This can be helped a good session 0, but still feels artificial.
Even looking at the new plot, many elements feel shoehorned in. People point to volumes 4 and 5 for this, but there are sections in 2 that exist only to kill time as the plot advances and an entire dungeon in 3 that is cool but can seem forced if the players don't kick in the door right away. Any of these alone would be fine, but each makes the next more obvious.
That being said, there's a lot of cool stuff going on here, it just takes at least a star's worth of work to stitch it together.
I´m gonna list the differences between the original AP#7s chapters and it´s adaption into the hardcover edition:
Inside front cover:
The "Korvosan Hierarchy" overview is not reprinted.
Part 1:
The illustration on page 6 is exchanged for a cartoony new one on page 12 of the HC.
Page 10 of AP#7 has a map where the 8 locations in Korvosa that are important for book 1 are marked and named. This map is reprinted on page 400 of the HC but that one shows ALL important locations of the campaign at once, marked with letters and numbers.
"Lamm´s Lambs" stats are upgraded to young human on page 18 of the HC.
"Yargin Balko" now has a full body illustration instead of an upper body one. "Hookshanks Gruller" gets a full body illustration. "Giggles" gets a fbi. "Gaedren Lamm" gets a fbi.
Part 2:
King Eodred Arabasti gets a head illu. "Imps and Dragons" gets an illustration. "Meet the mob" gets a "Amin Jalento" head illu and his battle stats.
Part 3:
The illustration of "Sabina Merrin" on page 25 is not reprinted (she gets a new one on page 455).
Part 4:
"Cressida Croft" gets a head illu (and fbi on page 443). The Queens gets a new veiled head illu (the old one is more mysterious). The "renegade guards" stats in "All the Worlds Meat" get new stats. "Verik Vancasterkin" is upgraded from fighter 3 to fighter 4.
Part 5:
The "Ambassadors Secret" gets a new head illu. The fbi of "Vencarlo Orisini" from page 34 is not reprinted. The fbi of "Devargo Barvasi" on page 37 is replaced with a new one that is very much less impressive. He is upgraded from rogue 4 to rogue 5. "Majenko" is changed from pseudodragon to house drake. The illustration on page 41 is replaced with a new one (page 57). Both are equally creepy.
Part 6:
The "Trinia Sabor" fbi from page 43 is not reprinted (she gets a new look on page 460, but the old one is flashier). She is upgraded from bard 4 to bard 5. "The Shingle Chase" gets a better illustration. Curiously it features the old flashier Trinia Sabor outfit instead of the new.
Part 7:
The Owlbear skeleton gets gorgeous art on page 59 of the HC. The cool illustration on page 52 is replaced by a cool new one on HC page 61.
Cabbagehead´s head illu is replaced by a fbi. The "Gaekhen" head illu is not reprinted. "Vreeg" gets a much better new fbi.
Concluding the adventure:
The famous "green dress Illeosa Arabasti" illustration from page 56 (on which the first miniature is based) is NOT reprinted!
The Blackjack illustration from page 57 is replaced by a much better one on HC page 67.
Appendixes:
The 4 page Harrow article is updated to a 14 page one!
The 8 page "people of the road" article about varisians is not reprinted.
The 6 page Pathfinder´s journal is not reprinted.
Bestiary:
The illustration of the "Dream Spider", the only creature that hasn´t been adapted to a Bestiary yet, is not reprinted from page 82 but it´s stats are.
Inside back cover:
The "Korvosas enemies" overview is not reprinted.
While the new edition HC is better overall and everything needed for playing the campaign is included, updated and streamlined, quite a few cool things are left out.
I´m glad i got the original AP #7 too.
It was perhaps inevitable that Curse of the Crimson Throne would one day also receive a similar treatment to Rise of the Runelords. There’s no special anniversary to celebrate this year, but does there really need to be? Much like its Runelords predecessor, the new hardcover compilation of Crimson Throne updates the adventure path to Pathfinder rules and also expands on the story where beneficial and streamlines in other areas. It also takes advantage of the most recent rules supplements, making use of newer monsters, classes, and feats where appropriate.
At nearly 500 pages in length, it is actually a substantially larger tome than the hardcover Runelords (a good 50 pages or so longer), and its extra length is certainly put to good use. Indeed, it manages to make one of the best adventure paths even better.
The 1st Hardcover collection "Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition" took 5 years (2007-2012) between Adventure Path and HC.
This 2nd Hardcover theoretically took even longer (2008-2016/8 years) BUT it came out 4 years after the first.
Ultimately the sales numbers of this "Curse of the Crimson Throne" HC (together with the ones of the RotR AE) will decide IF and when a 3rd collection will be published.
It won't be in the next 3 years probably, but i can see either a "Kingmaker" or "Legacy of Fire" collection.
Kingmaker is sold out, isn't very much work to update and a lot of people that didn't get the opportunity to buy it when it came out would be interested.
Legacy of Fire is on a good way to sell out slow and steady (1200-2495 issues left in stock) but would have to be converted from 3.5 to Pathfinder which is a lot of work.
Carrion Crown has only left 245-499 issues in stock but may have less appeal.
I'm sure we will get another collection someday IF the two first ones sell well enough. ;-)
I doubt we'll get anything but Legacy of Fire or Second Darkness - everything else is already Pathfinder-accurate, which is the other prerequisite for a compilation. I suspect that they're more likely to do no compilation at all.
That said, we should probably get this thread back on topic. ^_^
I've been checking back every day for the collectors edition.
I have the regular one on order from Amazon right now (sorry Paizo but shipping costs hurt for UK buyers) I would still be tempted to cancel that for the collectors edition depending what it actually has.
Hey Everyone! We're thrilled that so many of you are eagerly waiting for us to post our Limited Edition version to the site. We are working on it right now and we're hopeful that it will be up and ready for you guys to purchase sometime tomorrow or Monday.
Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Do we know roughly when the authorizations for these will start to hit for subscribers? Between this, the module and the doubled up Campaign Setting, this will be a pricey month and I want to make sure my bank account is sufficiently padded for it.
What I'm planning on doing is buying a gift cert that will cover the amount and leave it sitting on my account, then I won't have to worry about when the auths hit because I already charged my card when I bought the gift cert.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
I just pre-ordered. I love that being an AP subscriber saved me nine dollars off the cover price! And a free PDF to boot.
This AP is classic. I played in it about 7 years ago. Would love to run it for a new group of players. And the fact that they gave this one the RotRL treatment gives me hope that one day we'll get Second Darkness and Legacy of Fire done up too.
I guess a blog is cool and everything. But I just went back and looked at the original player's guide PDF. And.. it looks fine. It has traits and everything. I don't see where it needs to be updated.
James and the guys, thanks for keeping us entertained all these years.
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens, PF Special Edition, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Jam412 wrote:
Do we know roughly when the authorizations for these will start to hit for subscribers? Between this, the module and the doubled up Campaign Setting, this will be a pricey month and I want to make sure my bank account is sufficiently padded for it.
Yeah Tri is correct, I wouldn't suspect we'd get any traction on Second Darkness until probably...2020 maybe?
If that. Either the policy would have to change, or the majority of the old stock would have to sell. And even then, Second Darkness is far more "cult classic" than "blockbuster".
There's a whole thread discussing the merits of each AP as the next candidate for a hardcover. It began well before Curse of the Crimson Throne was announced, for which reason you will see CotCT is popular and seems the most likely candidate in the earlier posts. Later posts, after announcement of the CotCT updated version, begin re-assessing... and lead to the possibility of "maybe none", as Kalindlara mentioned.
My players are already eager to start creating their characters for this campaign. Can we get some information on the updated campaign traits, if possible?
46$ for shipping to Canada ? seriously ? i'm getting much bigger boxes from Amazon for almost no shipping cost. I'm a litle mad cause i want the Limited Edition Hardcover but it's only from Paizo.com but they add 46$ for shipping for a total of 125 $ come on !!!!
46$ for shipping to Canada ? seriously ? i'm getting much bigger boxes from Amazon for almost no shipping cost. I'm a litle mad cause i want the Limited Edition Hardcover but it's only from Paizo.com but they add 46$ for shipping for a total of 125 $ come on !!!!
However, the reality is that it just costs that much to ship products overseas. We do not make any profit whatsoever on our shipping and handling fees (usually quite the opposite, in fact), so what we charge you to ship it is what it costs us to ship it to you. We do not have the capacity to have fulfillment centers all over the world. In fact, we don't even have "fulfillment centers" at all. We have our warehouse. Right here in Redmond with the office. From here, we ship all of our orders.
Sadly, any international package over 4 pounds can only go International Priority, and the Bestiary Box weighs more than 4.6 pounds, which means it's actually more than 5 pounds when it's packaged to ship.
Odds are good, though, that it's going to be in a Flat Rate Box at that point, though, which would mean that as long as any other stuff you order will fit in the same box, it doesn't cost any more to ship. (Eventually, though, it will go to a larger Flat Rate Box that costs more, or to a weight-based box.)
Our shipping charges are based on actual cost. Feel free to prove that for yourself by going to postcalc.usps.com and asking it to calculate the shipping for a package from ZIP code 98052 to your own ZIP code. For the Base Set, you'll need to choose "Large Package" as the shape. The weight is 5 pounds even, and the package dimensions are 16 x 16 x 5. (Note that it cannot be sent via Media Mail.) Add $.95 to cover the cost of the box (ULINE S-15055) and $.23 to cover the cost of the Foam Corner Protectors we use to ensure your Base Set arrives in excellent condition. Your total will be very close to what we charge for shipping and handling, and may even be *higher* than we charge. If the difference is in our favor, it will be a small difference, and covers the "handling" portion of "shipping and handling" (which is to say those few cents go to pay the people that carefully handle your package).
46$ for shipping to Canada ? seriously ? i'm getting much bigger boxes from Amazon for almost no shipping cost. I'm a litle mad cause i want the Limited Edition Hardcover but it's only from Paizo.com but they add 46$ for shipping for a total of 125 $ come on !!!!
Amazon lose money on shipping (in fact, believe it or not they often lose money on the sale of the books they're shipping at a loss).
Their profit comes from selling access to their virtual infrastucture/branding now that they've captured the market by being so super-cheap. We're not really the customer - businesses who want to operate an online bookstore are.
Think Legacy of Fire falls in the "sadly overlooked due to pre-publishing Pathfinder RPG hype" category.
I agree. It's got some elements that were unpopular, but it also has a huge number of positives, in my opinion - positives that got drowned out somewhat by the new RPG.
Will the Limited Edition have the handouts like the Limited Edition of RotRL did?
As far as I see it, the only difference between the normal and the limited edition is the faux leather cover. (Hence the small price-difference of just $15)
46$ for shipping to Canada ? seriously ? i'm getting much bigger boxes from Amazon for almost no shipping cost. I'm a litle mad cause i want the Limited Edition Hardcover but it's only from Paizo.com but they add 46$ for shipping for a total of 125 $ come on !!!!
I feel your pain. As a Dane I've pretty much given up on ever getting my hands on a limited edition of anything Paizo might produce.
However, as people further up the thread have mentioned, there really isn't much Paizo can do about it. A direct Amazon/Paizo comparison is pointless because the two companies operate vastly differently.
It's my understanding that Paizo charges just enough for shipping to cover the costs, and it really lines up relatively well with similar, comparable online stores, in my experience.
Shipping is expensive (insanely so for international shipping), and it's part of the reason why I've cancelled almost all my subscriptions here at Paizo*. But the issue doesn't lie with Paizo itself.
*) Stubbornly holding on to that charter subscriber tag. :D
Yeah, I preordered the Limited Edition yesterday without thinking much.
Seeing as the Limited isn't that much different from the normal (just the faux leather covering), I notified the CS to cancel it again and I'm going to purchase it at a FLGS, saving more on shipping than the PDF version is costing.