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).

This has to be my favorite adventure path so far, out of "curse of the crimson throne" "council of thieves" "Second Darkness" and "Serpents Skull" and this one.

The NPC's are flavorful without being in-your-face, the story is rich, and the murder mystery in the second book had everyone scared to their toes!

In the first book, we had three PC's killed. A fighter who missed his swim check at the canyon, a bard was killed by raging summons from the little flying cleric demon, and a paladin killed by a bound demon. It sagged on morale, but we got though it and the history is WORTH every hour of playing.

I can't praise this as highly as other reviewers. This is a save-the-village adventure, fairly orthodox where goblins, their champions, and other influences are your enemies. The goblins are given character and do spice up the adventure, but goblins as early opponents is more than a tad formulaic. A corrupted tribe of Shoanti would have made for some more interesting opponents, although the scenes do use the goblins pretty well. For running it, I recommend adding in other low cr monsters. The goblin base is located and off the adventurers go.

Well there are a lot of goblins, and they have champions, not all of which are goblins so low level character can certainly get in over their heads (this path saw a tpk save 1, and then another tpk later). If the goblins coalesce it can signal real trouble, so stealth can really be advised for this one. Wizards, will run out of spells, and resting in a giant goblin warren is not the easiest thing to pull off. So its a dungeon hack and worth playing, but very hard unless a dm rolls back some encounters.

Now for some of the issues. The village is well fleshed-out as they say, but a dm should not forget to go through the various scenes that can draw the players in and make them feel like they are saving worthwhile people. The village is a little odd and cosmopolitan for a far northern village (a glass-works here?).

The sheriff probably should do more, perhaps team up with the pcs, and not necessarily leave them to do everything. This can cause resentment.

The idea of attacking the goblins is actually a bit ridiculous (yes smash yourself against their defences) and a strong defence from the town, using militas and quickly erected pallisade walls, would involve much less threat to the pcs. Spread around the damage, hurt the goblins coming in, and put less stress on the players. A railroad dm who ran this for me and others, refused to allow this option. Yet Sandpoint does have a militia, some good men and hardy women, whom one assumes would protect their homes and help cover the backs of the pcs if Sandpoint was under attack. If you leave the town and go in, you are alone. So an LOTR heroic defence makes a little more sense than what is suggested as the adventure course (if you face a numerically superior foe, shouldn't you defend not attack?).

Having voiced my criticisms, I do plan to run this soon, with some tailoring and more diverse monsters and more human adversaries as well. This adventure path has led to many memories and recounted stories in my gaming group. Most aren't good, but we laugh at them anyway. Play it with a good and relaxed dm, or it can lead to player slaughter.

After playing through this with a pathfinder conversion of characters, creatures and a fast experience level advancement it was a great run introduction to pathfinder for my group.

I did manage to get one of the characters married off to a girl with a rat problem, though could have done more with that part.

They reached level 5 by the end of the story, but it was necessary due to the boss fights being modified to have all the goblin hero's arrive to stop the group trying to cross the bridge and escape the goblin army behind them.

Then the big bad guy was supported by an adventuring party set up in ambush.

These things can happen if players take their time :)

Anyway I thought it was a good storyline and we have now moved off into the next part of the rise of the runelords.

Disclaimers: Review may contain spoilers
My Experience with it: DM for one 3.5 Group and one PFRPG Group (as is, no conversion)
Overview (no spoilers)
This was the first Paizo Product I owned (my 3.5 group gave it to me as birthday gift) and marked the transition of that group after almost 20 years of Forgotten Realms to Golarion (and we stayed there, that is saying something about the quality of BO, I guess)
Changes I made (spoilers):
I played the Adventure pretty much as written, just fleshed out the Cathedral a bit
Details (with spoilers):
The town became pretty much alive. Titus Scarnettis became a much hated NPC and ..... (whom they rescued from Goblins) provided gossip and cookies whenever they came back and they even trusted the Sheriff, Father... and some others - trusting NPC's is almost unheard of in my 3.5 group.
The Adventure is excellent, both groups had great fun, high points where the Goblin Attack, Chief.... and the fight with ....) The setting came to live in this volume and Lamasthu (with the info from latter parts of ROTRL) was the perfect poster-girl to really make Golarion unique and different from the Realms.
Overall: Very good adventure, gave us Sandpoint and Golarion Goblins

Due to a mix up, I was very late in getting this, the first Adventure Path. But I have to say it plays like a dream; my players are hooked. Check out my full review: Burnt Offerings

I just completed this part of the adventure path and it was a blast to run. My group consists of a couple long term players and some newbies and both loved the game. It gives you a nice coastal town as a home base, breathes new life into goblins, and has a couple high end encounters to challenge the PCs. The back story is very well fleshed out and was simple to integrate my PCs back stories into it. The rest of the book contains a chapter on ancient Thassilonian which was an interesting read but doesn't come into play much later in the game. A chapter on the town of Sandpoint which a smart DM could have fun with. A chapter of the Pathfinder Chronicles though in this issue it is more of an introduction. And to finish it out is a bestiary, including new creatures in this adventure and a couple others to use as DM discretion. Note: this was published before Pathfinder RPG was out so it uses 3.5 rules and will require minor conversion. All in all this is a great beginning to a campaign and everyone that has played said that it was fun, which to me is what a game should be.

As the first Adventure Path I ever purchased from the Pathfainder Game system, I have to say that I was instantly imptressed. It is fully packed with ample background info and gamemastering data and really set my team of mostly new D&D players on the right track to having excellent D&D adventures. All of the Pathfinder game system products I have purchased thus far have been of exceptional design and authoring. I look forward to many years of memorable adventures and can't wait to fully establish my team in the Pathfinder rules when I integrate the newly released core rullebook into our campaign.

I was really impressed with this adventure. The city of Sandpoint, its history and background, and its NPCs are extensively detailed making it a joy to read and very easy to DM. The main villains are very interesting, instead of the usual cardboard characters one sometimes finds in lesser quality works. The goblins are given a new life, and are a blast to throw at the PCs. Some of the encounters are quite challenging, and I would recommend toning them down a bit for less experienced groups.
The chapter describing the ancient empire in Varisia is also interesting, albeit small. The monsters in the bestiary are quite interesting also, specially the Attic Whisperer.

All in all, I strongly recommend this product.