A PFO centered review of The Crusader Road (Pathfinder Tales)


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Grand Lodge Goblin Squad Member

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I finished the book just after midnight on Saturday - likely missing some urgent housework or guild business while reading. I enjoyed the book a lot. Given that it was a free pdf for Pathfinder Online Kickstarter backers at the Early Enrollment level I felt it might be useful to do a review that is PFO centric from a Tales Subscriber who has read all other books so far.

General: It isn't my all time favorite in the whole series - but it is a solid good read. I would place it in the better half of the series. If you like it depends on the kind of books you like to read. I still liked reading even the worst ranked (according to my taste) ones. The one downside I noticed for this book - I had the feeling there where more spelling mistakes/left out words as usual. I'm not a natural English speaker and not a spelling or grammar nazi - but I noticed a few sentences where a word was missing or off.

This out of the way I start with the PFO centric part. Pathfinder tales tend to be 350-400 page long softcover books that tell some heroic story in Golarion. Paizo controls what is written - so these books tie in nicely with the lore of Golarion and the pathfinder rules. Expect some artistic freedoms - but you often can recognize individual spells from the rules and at least in one instance I have read it in the tales first and saw a rule for it later - the riffle scrolls used by Count Jeggare.

The tales are not only tied in to Golarion. They deliberately try to further explore some (or multiple) regions of Golarion, one or more classes of the rule book and try to give the reader an idea how Paizo sees Golarion looking through the eyes of the various authors.

The Crusader Road ties into the launch (or near launch) of PFO alpha / Early Enrollment. As such the area explored is the River Kingdoms - or to be more precise - Thornkeep and the settlement of Silverlake.

The story starts with a meeting of Lady Tyressa Vishov - a noble from neighbouring Ustalav driven into exile - with Baron Blackshield - the ruler of Thornkeep.

I try not to give any spoilers here. But I felt this first chapter ideally sets the scene for a PvP game as PFO. Baron Blackshield is in the Thornkeep book (Kickstarter 1) a level 8 CN lycanthrope. He reminded me a little bit how Bluddwolf sometimes portrays himself here (I hope I don't offend him using this as comparison). But don't expect the Baron to 'play nice' just for the sake of it.

For me chapter 1 is a must read for all RP players who haven't realized PFO is PvP and not PvE. Get used to it - the River Kingdoms are rough. You either defend yourself or you suffer.

The story is mainly described from the view point of Jerrad - the 13 year old son of Lady Tyressa - with sometimes Lady Tyressa herself. So chapter 2 is a naive boy wandering into Thornkeep. I try not to give spoilers - just one word - Goblins.

What follows in the next chapter - and other chapters throughout the book is to show the need to make friends and allies if you want to survive. This is very fitting to PFO. If you think you can do it on your own - think again.

Various allies encountered are the strange and old druid women living on her own in the wood, the Murdoon clan - the closest neighbours to Silverlake, the fey, the local barbarian tribe called the Wolvemanes, the broken ones - failed crusaders turned bandits who have fled the Worldwound and have nowhere to go and turned to banditry just to survive.

Not everyone is a natural ally - some even start as enemies. But they all have one bit in common - the newly to be build settlement encroaches on some of their own interest or territory and they all are neighbours. As such all of these are faced with the problem of collaboration or fighting with each other for resources and/or land.

I think that mimics perfectly how Paizo sees PFO and the different settlements / the landrush. We are thrown into a competition for resources, interests - and we are tasked to work it out one way or the other. Collaboration as well as war are both options - so is destruction.

Back to the book - destruction of Silverlake surely isn't an option - there will be a happy end - a hard fought over one - but nevertheless. I'm sure Paizo would like the same outcome for most settlements - after all - they like a striving community and game - alas in PFO you won't have the guarantee that you will end up with a happy ending. Do the wrong decision - anger the wrong neighbour and it might end up badly with you.

So what about PvE? We have monsters as well as fights with them. The whole book manages to get away with just three !! types of monsters without being boring - wolves, goblins and ogres. Lets have a look how that foreshadows PFO. Oops - forgot goblin dogs - but they are close enough to wolves and I'm too lazy to check if GW has implemented them early or uses wolves as riding companions of goblins.

We already know that these three monster types are also what will be in the early launch.

Wolves are random predators roaming the wilderness. Expect to run into them occasionally. You might gather hides from them - but to a degree it is a warning not to go out on your own - oops - did I just drop a spoiler here?

Goblins are the enemy we love. They are unorganized, they are everywhere - and given the right incentive will attack you in sufficient numbers to be a challenge. They are the normal pests that add spice to the game through their antics. And they should give you fights to win.

And then there are the Ogres. The way ogres are described makes them the tough monsters, the early boss monsters. A single one easily fights a whole group of ordinary settlers and only multiple adventurers together or a true hero is able to defeat them.

What did I miss? Intrigue and backstabbing. If you have never played PvP then expect some amount of betrayal - sooner or later. We have this in the book itself - but I'm not giving a spoiler here to tell you who the evil schemer is who plans the downfall of Silverlake from the beginning while hiding behind a smile and cultured diplomacy.

Every poster here - to some degree - has an agenda. Just look at the bottom of this review to see one of mine.

For PFO this means - just because you find someone writing nice words here in the forum doesn't make him universal trustworthy if his/her interest and your own no longer align (off course with me the exemption). I hope and don't expect to see betrayal in PFO on the level shown in the book - after all - this is an artistic piece of work - but expect some of it to happen to you eventually.

So if you never read a single Pathfinder Tales book and want to play PFO - I really, really recommend that you read it ahead of Early Enrollment. If you don't like reading and are new to PvP and come from the table top environment then read at least chapter 1. Everyone will benefit if players have some more idea how Paizo sees their own creation in the lore of the Pathfinder Tales. Build on that lore - don't build against it whatever your own idea of your gameplay and settlement might be and you can be sure to enrich the world of PFO for everyone else.

Comments welcome.

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This review was brought to you by Join Thod's Friends. There are many worthwhile guilds to join - and I will send you elsewhere if I feel you will fit there better. But I hope some readers who haven't decided yet where to go will at least have a look.

Liberty's Edge Goblin Squad Member

I just want to add that it has been very interesting seeing bits of MMO style gaming and PFO specifically worked into the Thornkeep, Emerald Spire, and Crusader Road books. For example, various NPCs in Thornkeep offer classic MMO 'newbie quests' (e.g. 'vermin in my fields', 'help me court yon lady fair', 'missing child', et cetera). The Emerald Spire has some of these in Fort Inevitable, but mostly higher level quests for the spire itself. Similarly, both the Accursed Halls and Emerald Spire dungeons incorporate some classic MMO dungeon features... item and lever based puzzles, back door for easy exit after completing a level, fast transport for different sections of a large dungeon, et cetera.

They've done a very nice job blending elements of the different styles (MMO vs TT/novel) together to create something which works in either format.

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