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Flavourful and memorable 1st-level adventure for 1-on-1 game play!

5/5

Alright, first off, I was not given a free copy of this product nor requested to write a review. I purchased this product when it first came out, and I assure you, I am more than amply satisfied with my purchase.

How good is it? Let me put it this way: I have already run it as a solo adventure for myself and I am in the midst of running it again for a player - our characters could not be any more different from each other and yet the adventure itself does not care - with absolutely minimal alterations, you can practically run this adventure for any character of ANY CLASS. This is an adventure that rewards creativity, with a solid mix of role-playing and combat scenarios.

But that is not what you really want to hear, is it? You want to know the meat and potatoes of this product. So here is the page count overview: it has exactly 28 pages of adventure content, 3 pages of player-friendly maps, and the rest of this 40-pages long book are the covers, table of contents, and obligatory OGL mentions (you know what I mean).

My rating system for an adventure breaks down like this: 1 star for the artwork, 1 star for editing and rules accuracy, 1 star for the adventure content, 1 star for the cartography (this is important to me as a DM) and 1 star for what I call "replay value" - basically, as a GM, how much use out of this product am I going to get for my money.

So, let's start with the art. While I am not going to say that the art made me drool, the few illustrations (besides the maps) in here are wonderful (all in wonderful colour!) AND the Legendary Games team made the right choices in which illustrations to showcase here. As an example, there is the Legless Skeleton, which looks really cool, and you can ramp up the horror factor here if you want - you never knew how scary a lone skeleton can be until you realise you are all alone with it!

The editing and rules accuracy in here are top-notch. I didn't see any errors and the pdf comes with hyperlinks for anything listed that is not a new rule or game mechanic (so any monster is hyperlinked to their respective stat block online - just hover over their name and away you go). The pdf is fully bookmarked (thank you!) and I like the background style - the font doesn't disappear in it so reading the pdf is not going to put a strain on your eyes after a while. Like pretty much all of Legendary Games' products, they utilize a two-columns layout to give you the goods.

Now, what about the adventure itself? The product description tells you what it is all about, but let me give you my rundown: as a player, you control a single PC who lives in the slums (well, you are 1st level after all). At some point the night prior, a local gang took it upon themselves to remind you (by thrashing your little shack) that they don't take kindly to independents operating in their territory. Turns out that this new gang are calling themselves the Orphans of the Hanged Man, brazenly stealing the gimmick of a famous gentleman thief (who was known for an incredible escape from a hangman's noose) as their own calling card and symbol.

So, you want to dish out some payback in return (sure, your shack was crap to begin with, but you got to educate these punks about respect, old school style). You may want to learn more about this gang (the bulk of their membership are orphans) before you do anything about them (remember, they may be orphans but you are just 1 person and they can pummel you senseless with their little fists of fury or with whatever scrap they find on the ground, like a dirty coat hanger - think about that for a few moments).

As you gather information and/or talk to people, you learn more about this mysterious gentleman thief (who reasonably should be either dead with old age if he managed to survive all those years since his disappearance from the public eye or living the retired life on an tropical island somewhere). This led to my favourite scene that does not involve the pc directly - the interaction between the housemaid and the butcher's assistance. Ah, sweet romance in medieval times. And no, it was completely PG - get your mind out of the gutter.

As the adventure progresses, you learn enough clues that you think may lead you to one of the hideouts established by the gentleman thief - if you can find it, you might find enough loot to get out of town (or retire, if you are really lucky!) or maybe you find something to tip the balance in your favour enough that you can take on the Orphans of the Hanged Man to send those little brats running for the hills!

The adventure has a lot of non-magical traps and a few complex challenges, but the adventure also provides you with the means (sprinkled throughout the adventure) to make many of those obstacles much easier to overcome while the rest of the challenges can be defeated with either brute force or smart thinking. The adventure also gives you the opportunity to gain the help of some npcs (in and out of combat).

To make it all more fun, there are multiple sites of exploration (you have to check them all out in order to get to the final area, but you don't have to follow any particular order of exploration) so player agency is given a lot of room to manoeuvre here - hardly a railroad in sight.

Now, about the cartography? They got player-friendly maps at the end of the pdf. Yes! Thank you very much! That's not all - they are beautifully done (they included furnishings!) and the grids do line up! Although those are no gridless versions of these maps, the grids are thin and blend in rather nicely with the rest of the map. I just want to give a digital hug to the cartographer responsible for these maps as a gesture of appreciation.

Finally, the replay value. Damn right this adventure has replay value. I could run this adventure numerous times for a different player with a different character each time. On top of that, I can crib several of the traps and even whole sections to use in other adventures. Seriously.

My favourite moments as a DM in running this is the one-two trap combo of the memory mold and the alpluachra (Bestiary 4), - this one was just so well done that I had to give it the slow clapping applause.

My favourite moments as a player was cackling madly as my pc crushed the Orphans of the Hanged Man with only a blow gun and some elbow grease; I also was amazed that a single young npc expert ally was performing leagues above my pc in combat with a string of high rolls despite being only CR 1/4 and wielding a piece of wood as an improvised club. Yes, you heard me right, a piece of wood. That kid got major league talent.

All in all, I felt that the team behind this product really delivered a superb starting adventure that can be used in conjunction with the Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path (with minimal adjustments for a party of four pcs) OR as an 1-on-1 adventure path that promises to be full of intrigue. Because this product meets (even exceeds in some areas) my expectations, I give it a full 5 stars. I know I am already looking forward to running the sequel, The Smuggler's Seal.

Cheers!

CB


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A bloody, magically delicious adventure!!

5/5

O.k., bad pun aside, shall we get to the actual review? ;)

First off, I was not paid in any shape or form, nor rewarded with a free copy or anything of that nature in exchange for this review. Basically, I was not bribed into gushing (get it?) about this little gem.

I like to be as objective as possible with regards to reviews so here is my break-down of how I generally rate adventures, out of Paizo's five stars rating system.

One star is for how easy it is to run or adapt the adventure to different gaming styles and different campaigns (such as incorporating it into other adventure paths).

A second star is for editing/layout overall (is there a lot of typos or inconsistencies? Does the layout bleed your eyes [I cannot promise this will be the last of the "bloody" puns]? Etc., etc.).

Two stars are for the crunch, the content, and the want-to-play factor (basically, as a GM, do I want to run this? As a player, do I want this adventure to be one of my character's memorable experiences?).

And the last star is art. That is right, art, my friends. Not just cartography, but I also care about how the bad guys look because I suck at describing monsters.

Having said all that, let us examine each in turn.

Seriously, I was stoked at how easy it is to adapt this adventure for a large number of campaigns/adventure paths. Sure, it is ideal for the Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path (if I recall correctly), but honestly, I am implementing it for my mythic Kingmaker adventure path (inserting it directly into Blood for Blood - the irony is thick here). I can easily see how it would fit Rise of the Runelords, Carrion Crown, Legacy of Fire, Serpent's Skull, Skull and Shackles, Wrath of the Righteous, Giantslayer, Hell's Rebels, and even Strange Aeons. It could also work in Second Darkness and Hell's Vengeance with some further tinkering of the backstory.

Heck, I could even drop this in older adventure paths like Age of Worms and Savage Tides with minimal changes. Not running an adventure path? Drop this adventure almost literally anywhere in your campaign. All you need are a wilderness area where a fort would make sense, and a group of barbarians or tribal warriors who want to raze the fort.

As for actually running it, most of it is straightforward. I recommend running this in two sessions, possibly three sessions for a slower group. You should definitely take the time to read it carefully though; it is not a rules-heavy or extremely complicated adventure, but some of the challenges (creatures, traps, etc.) are unusual or quite narrow in focus.

For example, one of the unique creatures' primary method of attacking is nasty use of the Grab and Constrict universal monster abilities so I recommend boning up your knowledge on that if you struggle sometimes like me in running monsters whose specialty is grappling.

The good news is that the team who gave us this adventure went above the standards in providing us with detailed information about locations, creatures, and traps (oh man, the traps are mouth-watering. If your pcs are not careful, someone is bound to get mulched to a bloody pulp!). I like having as much information as possible, whether it be fluff or crunch-based information, because quite frankly, players will do anything and everything you did not expect. The tactics descriptions for combat encounters are solid - a welcome sight for me because my players are also ridiculously tactical. I also liked that things like Escape Artist DCs for squeezing through the arrows slits in the towers were included - it is the little details like this that makes my job as a GM easier.

There is a simple timer on this adventure (trust me, it is nowhere near complicated like the timer in the final adventure of the Second Darkness adventure path). Depending on how many days the pcs spend exploring, the creepiness factor and difficulty level will progress at specific locations (the add-on challenges are often a single line of adjustments to stat blocks or a single saving throw against a harmful effect upon entering the affected area).

Overall, the editing is great (I love those hyperlinks). The stat blocks for the generic monsters are reprinted here, despite the hyperlinks, and I believe it to be because the team decided not to assume the GM would have an available online access at all times. In such cases, having the actual stat block helps. As far as I can tell, reprinting those stat blocks did not seem to cause the adventure to suffer from a lack of content that was otherwise be required to run the adventure.

There were a few unusual editing spots for me. I did not notice typos per se but I was confused as to why the stat blocks for one of the undead monsters was reprinted twice (not in the same place, but rather they are encountered in two different locations).

In addition, page 11 has a tiny chronological inconsistency in the first paragraph in regards to the timeline of the fort's construction but that is easily remedied. The last error that I saw was in a few areas they make a reference to Area C2 for description of the condition of the dead soldiers, but Area C2 does not actually have dead soldiers; Area C3 does contain the initial description of the condition of the dead soldiers' corpses. It is an error that is easily fixed as well.

Now, to the crunch. I cannot do justice to how much fun this adventure can be for those who like a bit of shock value (as a GM, you can easily tone down or ramp up the description of the carnage/gory bits). I liked the story and, although I am not overly familiar with the horror style of story-telling, I thought the mixture of undead, aberrations, and haunts were well-placed.

Interestingly enough, a few of the creatures here are from the Bestiary 4, and they are definitely weird, presenting different kinds of challenges, like the Ectoplasmic ooze. My favourite creature though has to be The Tongue. It is a one-trick pony, but it is horrifically good at it.

The traps here are fun (for the GM), reminding me of The Tomb of Horrors and The Temple of Elemental Evil. Although one or two of the traps can be extremely lethal for the foolish, a diverse range of options are given for how to beat the traps so unless your players are all playing martials, chances are your players are going to eventually overcome the traps. Basically, the traps are tough but fair (fair as in they make absolute sense, thematically-appropriate, and actually requires the players to use resources or cunning to overcome them).

To be fair though, while having access to the Horror Adventures sourcebook is not a requirement, I recommend having it because it does talk about the rituals mechanics in whole. The adventure has enough details for you to simply run it but the sourcebook itself can help you if you want to add more to the rituals or ramp up the horror factor.

Oh, did I not mention it before? Yes, the cornerstone of the story and the reason for all the horror in the adventure is due to the npc end-boss attempting to complete a ritual. I will not give it away here but let me just say that even if the pcs defeat the final boss (who has a great backstory), the secrets of the ritual does not necessarily end with his defeat. Why, the pcs could attempt the ritual themselves... :D

Finally, the art. The cartography was good (solid grid lines) with decent resolution overall. Although I wish the resolutions on the encounter areas were a bit higher. The tags (area labels) are a bit hard to read without zooming. The art of the unique monsters (and the end boss) are great - I really like the art of the guardian. Mucho bad-ass.

However, there are two artwork that is confusing the heck out of me as to why they are there. On page 17 and page 18 are two artworks that, as far as I can tell, does not actually depict anything that is directly from the adventure. Do not get me wrong, they are still nice artwork, but other than helping serve as filler, I do not understand why else they were included in this product. *shrugs* Like I said earlier, I have not noticed a lack of required content to effectively run this enjoyable adventure so the inclusion of these specific artwork is not hurting the usefulness of this product.

Whew! Having said all that, what is my final verdict? One full star for ease of play and required effort to adapt it, one full star for the editing/layout, two full stars for the crunch/content (so juicy!), and half a star for the art. (Honestly, I wish Paizo's rating system was more than a mere five stars. Even six stars would allow for a more robust and fair review). That gives us a grand total of 4.5 stars, rounding up to 5 stars (because I like the fluff and crunch that much)!

Cheers!

CB.

EDIT: I corrected a few grammar and punctuation errors above.


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A wonderful collection of pre-generated PCs for the Legendary Planet AP

5/5

EDIT: fixed a spelling error.

This is a rather long and comprehensive review so consider yourself forewarned, ;)

I believe that a reviewer has an ethical responsibility to disclose to readers about anything that may have influenced their thoughts/review process on the product itself. That being said, in this particular case, I am one of the Kickstarter backers for the Legendary Planet AP who selected the Create a Planetary Hero pledge (which meant that I got to help flesh out the background, name, and personality two of the pre-generated heroes featured within Planetary Heroes). As a result, I have a lot of enthusiasm for this product but I strove to be as objective as possible when examining both functionality and value (in terms of whether or not the content is usable and, if so, how useful the content is) of the overall product.

My review process for a supplement like this is as follows: 1 star for the art, 2 stars for the fluff, 1 star for the crunch (because the amount of crunch needed is significantly lower than normal), and 1 star for “entertainment” (meaning, does it make me want to play the characters described within?). Shall we get to the review, eh?

Although this product is a plug-in for the Legendary Planet AP by Legendary Games, a player (or GM) can choose any of the pre-generated pcs here for use in almost any other Pathfinder-compatible roleplaying games with minimal adjustments. The characters in this product are built as 2nd level characters because the first module of the actual AP is intended for 2nd level pcs. The pre-generated pcs are also built with a 20-point stat buy; the developers explain their rationale for it, and I concur. But fret not: the developers have detailed notes for each pre-generated pcs outlining the necessary adjustments to the characters if you wanted to use the 15-points buy option instead so kudos here on trying to address the ability scores generation of choice of as many users as possible.

While none of the content inside is hyperlinked to Paizo’s PRD, about 80-85% of the “crunch” are drawn from the materials that are available on Paizo’s PRD (none of the choices for classes or feats was really obscure). The only new content (or at least not available on the Paizo’s PRD) are four new races (auttaine, chlorvian, tretharri, and zvarr races; their relevant abilities and special qualities that is derived from their race are described within. For more information on the new races, including racial modifiers to ability scores, check out Legendary Planet Player’s Guide), the campaign traits (which were original in the Legendary Planet Player’s Guide but have been reprinted in this product for ease of play) and the introduction of a draconic bloodline based on the lunar dragon (the only details needed, mechanically speaking, were what is the energy type and what is the shape of the breath weapon that will eventually manifest itself when the pc reaches that level of character growth; everything else is the same as for any other draconic bloodline, i.e., the claws and wings).

For each pre-generated pc, we begin with a page featuring a beautiful work of full-body art (head to toe) depicting the character (some are in full gear while others are not but still have a weapon on their person – I like the variety in the poses; an adventurer is not always in combat mode, and some adventurers just like to smoke a pipe to relax).

On the same page as the artwork is a quote from the character that is roughly about a paragraph in length. The majority of these quotes are philosophical insights or opinions held by the character that strongly reflects their personality. These quotes really give you a solid starting idea of how the character sees the reality around them. One of the pcs’ quotes might not come across as well-thought out, but then reading further into the background, you realise that the character in question simply is unable to fully express clearly and effectively the alterations and damages that was inflicted upon him by the AP’s primary antagonists.

Following the artwork and quote are two more pages of content. These pages give you several sections. First, you get a fully-fleshed out statblock. I did not double-check every number and aspect of the statblock, but after a casual inspection, they seem to be quite legit and sound. Then you get a background section detailing the character’s origins and how they reached their current stage in life (ranging from 3 to 4 paragraphs total), a physical description section (1 paragraph long; while the artwork is sufficient on its own, the additional notes here also tie in to how the character see themselves), a personality section (1 paragraph long; a general overview of the personality, including behaviours in and outside of combat), and an advancement section (1 paragraph long; discusses future choices up to 5th level for class features, feat, skills, spells, and likely mythic path should the pc achieve mythic status in the AP).

Finally, you have a section discussing roleplaying ideas for the character. This section features 5 bulletin points that covers key situations that would trigger a specific response (for example, one character will have very strong feelings regarding some species that is based on his past experiences with them) and specific interests the character has (for example, one character has a strong interest in business due to their background and will usually offer free advice to merchants in a friendly manner that would often would result in some goodwill from the merchant who profited from his advice). In other cases, you have a bulletin point that illustrates how that particular character uses a class feature in pursuit of their goals/desires.

Finally, you have the scaling notes that outlines changes that would have to be made to the statblock if you decide to go for the 15-points buy option instead. This section is very concise and short, which is fine; the changes are often minimal and none of the ability scores changes affect the number of skill ranks, which is usually the hardest part to alter.

Now that I covered the format and purpose of each content section for the pre-generated pcs, I want to talk a bit about the flavour. While I have clear favourites, it is obvious to me how strongly everyone felt when they were assisting in the development of the backgrounds, personalities, and mannerisms. The thing that I really like the most about each character is that they are all FUN to roleplay as. They have unique and entertaining personality quirks, along with flavourful roleplaying challenges.

For example, one of the characters is described as willingly to chat with strangers if they show an inclination for conversation; from a game mechanics perspective, she has a good Diplomacy skill, but it is pointed out that her mannerisms and physical expressions are not refined like a professional diplomat. In fact, the way she expresses herself can make people who are more conservative uncomfortable. It is this level of detailing how the character interacts with others that makes it fun for me to immerse myself into the character’s mindset when roleplaying.

I also liked how there is considerable variations in the classes selected here, including using some of the newer classes like bloodrager and the psychic, along with archetypes for some of the characters, which are wonderfully supported by the fluff. There are 2 characters that actually have 2 classes (1 level in each) that were meshed together in an interesting way. Case in point: I was at first a bit confused at the archetype choices for Omik “The Clever” Jetruk but the more I read into the background and personality, the bigger the smile on my face as I began to understand why and how those choices made sense. I’m an avid supporter of gamers who chooses to make character growth decisions organically – meaning, they let the game world have some influence on the growth of the character.

In the end, what I am really trying to say here is that I can easily imagine a beginning or experienced player choosing to play the Legendary Planet AP with any of the pre-generated pcs here; these are pcs with a strong motivation to learn and seek out new adventures, new experiences, and new planets to visit. Heck, even a group of players can choose together to play a group comprised of pcs from this product, in just about most Pathfinder-compatible game settings you can think of with minimal adjustment.

For what the designers and developers said this product should give you, I believe they delivered fully. The layout is concise, the pdf is bookmarked, the artwork is wonderfully done (magnificently so in some cases), and the fluff/crunch contained within is tasty and make you want to play at least one of these characters. I cannot find anything to legitimately gripe about. This product gets 5 stars out of 5 stars from me.

Cheers!

CB out.