Ellestil's page

After finishing this module last night, I have to say I will miss it. It has been an enjoyable time with my group and I wanted to say well done to the creator. There is variety here, and although the end may seem a little dungeon crawlish, it pays off in the end with a very interesting encounter. Each chapter has a different feel, with chapter 2 being the longest of the three. If I had to knock off a point for anything it was the lack of a ship to ship battle. I felt any pirate adventure on the high seas should include at least one ship battle. However, the way the game is designed you can easily create your own encounter and insert it as a "random" encounter, since you can roll for those anyway. If ship combat doesn't appeal to you, you can skip it and the module runs fine as is.

The only other criticism I got from the players was how the game really doesn't reward the players until the end, which is a huge haul to be sure. However, they felt some better rewards should have been sprinkled along the way more often. This could also be fixed by not following a strict path and allowing the players to sandbox more. It will just take more work from the GM.

Overall, if you are looking for some high seas adventure and want to see exotic locals and meet interesting NPC's while roleplaying or rollplaying your way to a hoard of treasure, look no further than Plunder and Peril.

Hello! First I would like to say how I think of stars. I know lately people think that if something isn't 5 stars it isn't good. For me, that isn't the case. A four star for me means that there is room for improvement, but the product is good.

In this case, the ROTRL cd is a good product, but I will list what I feel is constructive to help it improve to a great one. So I will start with the improvements first.

The story felt a tad rushed, and I feel strongly that this is due to the 1 hour duration. There are times when the story loses a little flow and natural progression to reach a conclusion too quickly. I feel this would be greatly improved upon if the duration of the story was increased to 1.5-2 hours. Maybe there is a budget reason why it is only 1 hour, I don't know, but the cut in time costs the story a little.

Secondly, there are times when it feels assumed that the listener will automatically know references made. I know this product is aimed at Paizo customers who are probably already familiar with Pathfinder, but, I feel the product should be edited or referenced in a way that ANY listener would be able to follow it, and understand the story. Again, this is a cost of limiting the time to tell the story to 1 hour. You have to forego some explanations or development.

The goblin voice was great, but there was no variation to it that would distinguish it from other goblin voices. It was hard to tell a boss goblin from a normal goblin because of this. More variation in pitch or rhythm would help this. Small thing, but it would help.

Lastly, there are times when action overbears the dialogue in volume. I love a good battle scene, but if characters are talking please make sure it is easily heard over the combat. I'm sure there were times on the road when listening to this that people wondered what in the heck I had cranked up so loud, but hey, FREE ADVERTISING!

So that wraps up the "what could improve part", now on to what I liked. The music was very well done, really set the atmosphere for the story. I absolutely loved the bonus tracks at the end. Now, again I don't know about your budget but hear me out. If you could expand the bonus tracks a little, maybe have 3-4 each disk that the players could use while playing the game, that would be absolutely brilliant and wonderful at the same time! Players who bought all the cd's would then have an entire album worth of soundtrack to loop for their home game. That alone would increase your sales, and honestly you should market that feature as a bonus so people know about it. It's pure gold my friends!

The character voices were great. Each voice really represented the character in a way that I could easily put the voice to the character, and that was a good thing in some scenes where multiple people were quickly talking. I didn't have a single complaint about the voices of the main characters or main NPC's. Well done. Just keep in mind that multiple NPC's of the same race need slight variation to help keep them separate and that would be perfect.

The story was well done, and I liked the suspense created with the actors and the music. I truly wish they had more time as I could listen to these guys tell a story for hours at a time. The editing was well done for the 1 hour time frame allocated to it. I know it is hard to take all that content and condense it down to 1 hour. I'm sure there will be people who feel that parts were left out that they wanted to hear in the story, but being realistic about the 1 hour limit, they did a good job of getting the biggest parts in there.

So, I give this a solid 4 stars for a solid product that is worth your hard earned money, especially if you enjoy this story anyway. It would, in my humble opinion, improve with the suggestions noted above and I sincerely hope they would be taken into consideration. I will be buying all the parts to the story, and eagerly await the next chapter!

Adventure on!

Your going to find a lot of very nice pawns in this box, as well as more bases. The hidden value, however, is that there are quite a few monsters in here that can be used for multiple purposes, which increases the value even more. Need a statue? There are pawns in here that can do that. Need a giant mosquito looking monster that may be similar to a particular monster from a module I won't name for spoilers sake? Yea that is in here too! The art work is great, although sizing issues will have the occasional detail missing due to the cut size, leaving some artwork on the leftover cardboard. Since this is expected and a known limitation to pawns, I will not ding the product for that. It isn't a new trait but a known sacrifice. Bottom line, if you use pawns, you want this item.

First let me say, the decision to make the old large red dragon into the medium dragon size was a good call. Secondly, the new large red dragon is fantastic and the current photo does it absolutely no justice. The coloration, size, and pose make this mini formidable. The huge red dragon compares in size to the huge white, and is larger than the huge black (which I think is correct anyway, black dragons are smaller than reds). The detail on the huge is very nice and the pose is aggressive. Great addition to the dragon line. Now we need another!

This new story arc has a lot going for it. I don't want to spoil it for anyone so I will just say it is a familiar story to Pathfinder fans that I am really looking forward to seeing in full. The dialogue and action seems well paced in this comic and the art style just seems to improve each issue. This one is my favorite of the series so far. No more maps, but we all knew that. I'm sure they will do special issues in the future where they can put maps in again from time to time. Keep up the good work Paizo and Dynamite!

Pro's:
You can put all those map packs neatly into these boxes. The boxes themselves are good quality, you can neatly put in the maps and label both the edges and front with a sharpie to announce what it holds. The cost is reasonable and the artwork is nice.

Con's:
The lamination on these aren't as high gloss as the new map pack boxes (this may be a plus to some though due to less glare). The boxes need to have some minor folding prior to use (I sound lazy but with 30 map packs looking for a home that's alot of folding!). The artwork is not varied, some variation in cover art would have been nice but not needed.

Overall a much welcomed aid for GM's wanting to organize their maps, or for those who want to be able to place them edge out on a shelf and know the contents quickly.

This book could be the start of a new hard back book called the Advanced Companion Guide. I truly do. I feel this has just scratched the surface of what is possible and that little scratch has revealed some very flavorful and fun ideas.

As another reviewer said, who wouldn't want to try a barbarian with a T-rex that can run out and drag that poor victim back for a proper mud stomping? Who doesn't dream of dive bombing birds dropping flasks of pain from on high?

I can understand why one poster was upset that he wanted more awesomeness out of this player companion, but not because it isn't awesome, it just leaves you wanting more!

The lists in this guide are very helpful, and gives you a very nice one stop shop resource for most things companion/familiar related. But I will say it again, the ACG (Advanced Companion Guide) should be on Paizo's to do list one day. I will gladly fork over $30+ for more of this goodness and some expanded ideas on building interesting class/companion combinations!

I am new to Pathfinder, so my mini collection is pretty much nil, except for some main character mini's I purchased recently. I started with the beginner's box where these card stock mini's were first shown and immediately I was struck by how good of an idea that was. Especially for a new comer that didn't really want to play years of catch up trying to stock up on mini's just so I could have some really cool scenes for my players.

In comes the Bestiary Box! Of course I immediately ordered one, why wouldn't I. The product idea had already won me over from the beginner's box and now here was the full version for the game. Same quality, many more monsters, more bases (and larger ones as well to reflect the monsters footprint on the game table). Also, they have different colored numbers on the face to help you keep track who took what damage....brilliant!

At this point, for me or any other newer gm, or any GM really this is a no-brainer product. I also bought a 3" binder and the business card holders from Office Depot for the small, med, and large monsters. I used trading card holders for the huge and giant sized ones. Perfect fit, and all your monsters are in one easy to grab place. It is also nice if you already have the beginner's box because not only do you get extra monster cards and bases, but the graphics on some of the same monsters vary, giving you some variety in looks.

Thank you Paizo for this product. I look forward to the Bestiary 2 and 3 box as well! May you have much success.

Mark