Goblin Squad Member. RPG Superstar 7 Season Star Voter. Organized Play Member. 986 posts. 51 reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 1 Organized Play character.
Shards of Sin, at its heart, is a classic dungeon crawl and it does a good job at that.
The main dungeon is expansive, with a variety of distinct areas so you're not just slogging through the "Pit of all fire enemies" for four levels. It also captures a bit of that old-school Caves of Chaos/Temple of Elemental Evil magic with competing factions and dungeons that can be taken in chunks.
Outside the dungeon, the adventure serves as a good introduction to the Pathfinder Society and has a fun trail of investigation. I'd have liked a little more detail about what the NPCs know about the MacGuffin, but I can fill that in.
Update: After running this adventure, I found I was largely right. The dungeon was cool and modular, the NPCs in and out of the dungeon were engaging, and much fun was had by all. I do feel, with the power of hindsight, that the dungeon was missing reasons to leave and mingle with the populace of Magnimar. Without those reasons, it became bit of a slog.
There's one special thing I'd like to call out: This is the only adventure I've ever seen with predominantly female NPCs. The adventure doesn't make a big deal out of it, I just think it's awesome that Paizo doesn't always default to guys.
Overall, I'd still suggest this without reservation to anyone who likes dungeon crawling, the (in-game) Pathfinder Society, or Thassilon.
The comic is a bit different from what you might be expecting. It's split into two sections: the comic proper and a roleplaying section.
The comic itself is fast-paced and pretty fun. The story hasn't hooked me yet, but my wife doublechecked I'd gotten the subscription last night, so we'll count that as a vote of confidence.
I was worried when I heard about the comic that it wouldn't be very "Pathfinder," but I was blown away on that front. It not only feels like Pathfinder, there are places that they're illustrating things I hadn't understood.
The art was a bit of a shock at first, because I'm used to page after page of Wayne Reynolds. It took a bit of getting used to, but I think Huerta ultimately did a good job with it.
The roleplaying section in the back includes sample characters for the core group (Seoni, Valeros, Ezren, and Merisiel). It also includes a single encounter mini-adventure related to the plot of the comic.
The real star, in my opinion, is the Sandpoint Gazetteer. It contains enough information to start a game in Sandpoint and, although you'd want to check for yourself, I think it's spoiler-free enough to share with players.
All-in-all, I'd suggest picking it up if you're interested in Sandpoint, even if you're not gung-ho about comics.
Short Version: This is to the Expanded Psionics Handbook what the Pathfinder Core Rules are to the PHB and DMG
If you want to use classic D&D psionics in your Pathfinder game, this is the book you're looking for. Which is great because (as of January 2011), there's no Paizo psionics coverage on the horizon.
The classes have been Pathfinder-ized, with more options and more awesome. The Soul Knives and Psychic Warriors in particular look way more interesting.
The powers have been rebalanced and in some cases renamed. I'm personally glad to see they ditched the "<spell name>, psionic" which always made the psionics system feel like a hack to me.
If you hated psionics in 3.5, this isn't the book to convert you. If you loved psionics in 3.5, this book will save you some time houseruling everything.
If, like me, you didn't mind psionics as an option, but don't want to bother doing the conversions yourself, this book takes care of everything for you beautifully.
Truth be told, I'm excited enough I might have to sneak in some psionic NPCs into my ongoing Pathfinder game, which is where this product definitely moves up to five stars.
First off, before I get started: start downloading the PDF. Its free, after all.
If you want to play D&D, this is the way to do it. A lot of little things are cleared up, but I think the strongest point is the work done on classes. Balance may not be perfect, but they're all far more interesting than in 3.5 or 4.0.
Suffice it to say, we got the PDF first. But my playgroup happily sprung for two hard copies. That's how good this game is.