There seems to have been more QQ over the most recent installment of this fantastic AP than previous installments. I figure I would present the other side of the coin. There are groups that have fun with dungeon crawls and high level gaming. RotRL #5 is a fantastic upper level dungeon. Having said that I'd like to put my two cents on Pathfinder in general.
Pathfinder is a tool for us GM's to put into our Nerd toobox. Any inconsistencies with the story continuity or mispellings of "the" as "teh" shouldn't be a reason to lay it down and throw up our hands and demand our 20 bucks back.
I think it is a well agreed upon fact higher level adventures are hard to write for a general user-base. High level adventures require a very detailed and intimate knowledge of your party make-up as well as what your players are apt to do.
Taking that into consideration, what we have in issue #5 is a fantastic main course for any of our RotRL campaigns. It is left to us as talented and brilliant GMs to adapt certain elements to our personal tastes. Sins of the Saviors and the adventure path as a whole provides a great environment and story for us all to tell together.
If all I have to do is add "...up the stairs to a broad landing...", change a few NPC/Monster tactics and maybe replace 1 or 3 traps with something that I like better, then Pathfinder still saved me countless nights of sleep loss tryiing to craft an adventure of mine own.
Hurray and Huzzah, as I for one am tickled prismatic over this adventure path as well as the current installment.
Thanks, Jesse. That's nice to hear :).
Agree with Jesse 100%. I get these books for two reasons. One: they are very well written overall, great stories, and have very evocative background material. Two: I don't have to write them! That's the biggest thing.
I have a full time (usually overtime) job, kids, a wife and life in general to worry about. I don't have time to write my own stuff anymore. The pathfinder stuff has been great. If it weren't for books like this, I wouldn't be playing at all so, if the module is well written and has good story/characters, I can handle the occasional editing typo and map mistake ;)
I agree as well-my group will be finishing up # 2 on saturday, and having such well made adventures in hand allows me to geek them out with fluff from various sourcebooks (replacing monsters with ones from the MM4, adding obscure wondruous items, etc)...stuff I'd never have time to do otherwise...
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I had the PDFs for issues 5 and 6 available only last night, and not-so-strangely, I spent almost the whole night reading the adventures in them.
It was well worth the coffee abuse.
I as a DM, and my players, are not really fond of high-level adventures or big, week-long dungeon crawls... but this time I foresee and exception.
The whole dungeon complex, aside a few minor encounters and locations, can be explored and survived on roleplaying and social skills alone.
This is no small feat.
It's one of the few times where a big, evil, nasty enemy sparks more roleplaying ideas and possibilities than combat options. Can't wait to have the new Golarion campaign started.
A(wesome)+
The only complaint (if you can call it that) I have for PF so far (other than some early art issues that have since been rectified) is that it is still a little heavy on the dungeon crawl side of things. I personally would like to see more varied, non-dungeon stuff and what dungeons there are to be smaller with very heavy flavor.
All that said, I am still very please with PF and would not give up my subscription for the world. Still the best RPG product for my money.
Sean Mahoney
Creative Director
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The only complaint (if you can call it that) I have for PF so far (other than some early art issues that have since been rectified) is that it is still a little heavy on the dungeon crawl side of things. I personally would like to see more varied, non-dungeon stuff and what dungeons there are to be smaller with very heavy flavor.
All that said, I am still very please with PF and would not give up my subscription for the world. Still the best RPG product for my money.
Sean Mahoney
Thanks for the kind words, everyone!
And I've said it before... but since we were starting up a new line of products with Pathfinder, we consciously chose to have the first AP be dungeon-heavy, since that's the most popular style of play. We still took pains to try to make these dungeons interesting with lots of roleplaying opportunities, though.
Readers looking for something less heavy on the dungeoncrawl side of things should get ready for Curse of the Crimson Throne. While there are still dungeons in the next Adventure Path... most of them are smaller (with a couple of notable exceptions), and there's a LOT more urban and even wilderness encounters—much more variety, at least, I hope!