paizo.com Recent Reviews by Granklesspaizo.com Recent Reviews by Grankless2024-03-22T22:23:29Z2024-03-22T22:23:29ZPathfinder Adventure Path: Abomination Vaults: The best way to play the best 2e AP. (5 stars)Granklesshttps://paizo.com/products/btq02d7u?Pathfinder-Adventure-Path-Abomination-Vaults2022-08-10T20:12:02Z<p><b>Pathfinder Adventure Path: Abomination Vaults</b></p><p>This is, top to bottom, one of the best APs Paizo has put out. The only other megadungeon I've ever felt positively about is 13th Age's "Eyes of the Stone Thief", and this tickles me in all the same ways. The adventure is great, and the Foundry module support is absolutely stunning. Well worth the money, even regardless of me not getting discounted for having the original 3 in PDF (which, whatever, sucks but hey).</p>
<p>The changes made in the compilation themselves are great too - adjustments to a couple encounters, improvements in connectivity and layout... It's just all around a stellar package.</p><p><b>Pathfinder Adventure Path: Abomination Vaults</b></p><p>This is, top to bottom, one of the best APs Paizo has put out. The only other megadungeon I've ever felt positively about is 13th Age's "Eyes of the Stone Thief", and this tickles me in all the same ways. The adventure is great, and the Foundry module support is absolutely stunning. Well worth the money, even regardless of me not getting discounted for having the original 3 in PDF (which, whatever, sucks but hey).</p>
<p>The changes made in the compilation themselves are great too - adjustments to a couple encounters, improvements in connectivity and layout... It's just all around a stellar package.</p>Grankless2022-08-10T20:12:02ZPathfinder Adventure Path: Abomination Vaults (Foundry VTT) CODE (5 stars)Granklesshttps://paizo.com/products/btq02dso?Pathfinder-Adventure-Path-Abomination-Vaults-CODE2022-05-28T03:20:22Z...Grankless2022-05-28T03:20:22ZAegis of Empires Adventure Path (PF2E) PDF: Poor encounter design and disconnected adventures (2 stars)Granklesshttps://paizo.com/products/btq029ws?Aegis-of-Empires-Adventure-Path2021-08-07T16:55:17Z<p><b>Aegis of Empires Adventure Path (PF2E) PDF</b></p><p>I backed this product on Kickstarter and recently received my fully bound copy.</p>
<p>First off, the product description - and this is true for the Kickstarter as well - does not mention that the adventures are barely connected and in fact have sizable level gaps between them where the GM is expected to add their own stuff. This is not a full campaign, but a collection of vaguely related adventures where only two have real connective tissues.</p>
<p>Further, this is just generally not a great conversion. Encounters are inconsistently designed, and were clearly designed for 5e or 1e first. There are several Trivial encounters where a level 13-ish party is expected to spend table time fighting 3 level 6 creatures. There is an encounter with 8 bee swarms, which are level 4 wasp swarms, which is also at level 13. There is a tremendous amount of Trivial encounters that are clearly adapted straight from the encounter design of those other games. On a mechanical level, I feel like this "adventure path" is not very good, particularly at later levels - the earlier adventures are much better put together.</p>
<p>The story of each part is fairly interesting on its own - I love the setup of "When Comes the Moon" especially, although I feel like some parts fall flat - and this book has consistently •excellent• art, both landscapes and character renditions. </p>
<p>Not quite related to the PDF sold here but still relevant - the actual book itself is quite nice, with nice-feeling paper and good color quality, and a very nice actual cover.</p>
<p>In all, while each individual adventure is Just Fine as an individual adventure, for the most part, it needs a lot of work and he lack of connective tissue is very annoying. (Also, the number of explicitly called out references to other Frog God adventures gets kind of weird, especially ones I have no real way of ever accessing.) I cannot really recommend the full package, but maybe you'll like the individual adventures?</p><p><b>Aegis of Empires Adventure Path (PF2E) PDF</b></p><p>I backed this product on Kickstarter and recently received my fully bound copy.</p>
<p>First off, the product description - and this is true for the Kickstarter as well - does not mention that the adventures are barely connected and in fact have sizable level gaps between them where the GM is expected to add their own stuff. This is not a full campaign, but a collection of vaguely related adventures where only two have real connective tissues.</p>
<p>Further, this is just generally not a great conversion. Encounters are inconsistently designed, and were clearly designed for 5e or 1e first. There are several Trivial encounters where a level 13-ish party is expected to spend table time fighting 3 level 6 creatures. There is an encounter with 8 bee swarms, which are level 4 wasp swarms, which is also at level 13. There is a tremendous amount of Trivial encounters that are clearly adapted straight from the encounter design of those other games. On a mechanical level, I feel like this "adventure path" is not very good, particularly at later levels - the earlier adventures are much better put together.</p>
<p>The story of each part is fairly interesting on its own - I love the setup of "When Comes the Moon" especially, although I feel like some parts fall flat - and this book has consistently •excellent• art, both landscapes and character renditions. </p>
<p>Not quite related to the PDF sold here but still relevant - the actual book itself is quite nice, with nice-feeling paper and good color quality, and a very nice actual cover.</p>
<p>In all, while each individual adventure is Just Fine as an individual adventure, for the most part, it needs a lot of work and he lack of connective tissue is very annoying. (Also, the number of explicitly called out references to other Frog God adventures gets kind of weird, especially ones I have no real way of ever accessing.) I cannot really recommend the full package, but maybe you'll like the individual adventures?</p>Grankless2021-08-07T16:55:17ZPathfinder Adventure: The Slithering: Could have been good... (2 stars)Granklesshttps://paizo.com/products/btq023hg?Pathfinder-Adventure-The-Slithering2021-02-12T00:37:33Z<p><b>Pathfinder Adventure: The Slithering</b></p><p>I wish there was more emphasis on Kibwe itself. Going to Holy Xatramba was cool and all, but the combats on the way there were both far too hard as well as kind of boring that I just cut them. I also wish Xatramba had any kind of description to it. The plot is a bit all over the place. I ended up not running part 3 at all and just having them save the day after chapter 2 because it just was not worth continuing.</p>
<p>Oozes every so often are neat. An entire chapter of just oozes is really, really bad. They have very few unique mechanics, which makes it hard to stop the individual fights from feeling samey. The maps were also very tight.</p><p><b>Pathfinder Adventure: The Slithering</b></p><p>I wish there was more emphasis on Kibwe itself. Going to Holy Xatramba was cool and all, but the combats on the way there were both far too hard as well as kind of boring that I just cut them. I also wish Xatramba had any kind of description to it. The plot is a bit all over the place. I ended up not running part 3 at all and just having them save the day after chapter 2 because it just was not worth continuing.</p>
<p>Oozes every so often are neat. An entire chapter of just oozes is really, really bad. They have very few unique mechanics, which makes it hard to stop the individual fights from feeling samey. The maps were also very tight.</p>Grankless2021-02-12T00:37:33Z