arnon's page

Frozen Stars was just the fix I needed after the disappointing 3rd chapter of Reign of Winter. The PCs are zapped (sort of) to a world filled to the brim with dragons and their like, and the dragons, as usual, don’t play nice.

While the premise of the adventure is a simple "go find these two items", the execution of it is awesome. And it’s awesomenes stems mainly (but not only) due to the fact that this is the most open of Reign of Winter adventures so far: this is the environment, here are your objectives, go!

The party can go about completing their objective in any way they see fit and is in their style: good guys, bad guys, sneaky guys, betraying guys, dastardly bastards guys… the options are there, and the adventure gives the GM the tools on how to handle any of these situation. At no point in this adventure is anything assumed as to the actions the PCs might take, and the adventure can run its course not matter what the end result of the PCs actions is. The party might leave Traixus behind in a far better situation than when they came, they might leave it behind with the “bad guys” having a one-up on the good guys, or something in between.

The first (although you may run it second if it so fits your group) adventure is to help defend/attack/sneak into a fort under siege. Some very good possible role-playing situations there, and very cool combat encounters as the PCs run around the battlefield scoring (hopefully) victories for their team, or trying to avoid being captured cause they snuck in.

Next part of the adventure is sort of a dungeon crawl, but one that feels alive and has some interesting NPCs to interact with. It’s not overly long (which is good in my book), has good encounters, and excellent NPCs.

The gazetteer very nicely expands and enriches the area the adventure takes place in and the planet of Triaxus in general. And the monsters are very cool and appropriate (and got me itching to try them on my party).

All in all: a very good book.

Snows of Summer has a good premise, and a desperate feel to it due to the harsh environmental changes which (at least for me) the PCs almost never experienced. It’s nice the the players fear the environment even more than what might be out there, at least monsters they can kill.

Snows of Summer also has a hook that is hard to swallow, and starting in a location that is strange for PCs who wish to have winter-themed characters. The railroady nature of the adventure also bothers me some, it’s a journey from point A to point B with many encounters in the middle, with almost no way for the PCs to decide on the direction they are taking.

But that’s no deal breaker. I do like Snows, and will probably run it, but might feel the need to change some stuff around.

Shackled Hut has many elements i really like.

It starts with a journey and some cool outdoors encounter that really set the mood of dark fairy tale, with some moral choices the PCs may choose, and not fearing to punish them should the PCs be not fast enough or skillful enough. Crap happens... deal with it!

Then you reach Whitethrone, and the city gives the dark feel, of a subjugated land in which the players have to tread carefully not to upset the powers-that-be... and there are several powers out there which could easily overwhelm the party should they not be careful.

What I didn’t like so much here, is how the missions (once in the city) are handed down to the PCs (go there do that, no you can go there and do this), and how it just so happens that there is a sub-culture in the city that allows PCs to keep walking around with their weapons and armor and such, even under martial law.

On the whole this is a good adventure with a cool theme, and very nice encounters.

I'm not a fan of this one.

The main reason probably being that I don't like dungeon crawls. While some dungeon can be cool, and this one certainly has a cool premise, at the end it's just a place with many rooms and monsters that do not interact very well with each other. The place doesn't feel alive enough for me.

Being in a faraway region of Golarion, I would have perfferd the PCs to have more opportunity to explore and interact with the natives, than passing most of the adventure in either The Hut or The Dungeon