Let me start off by saying I don't want to dislike a product this much, especially a Paizo or Pathfinder product. However when you have this many game designers (Richard Baker, Jason Bulmahn, Ed Greenwood, James Jacobs, Erik Mona, and the Goblinworks Staff) work together to create a module you get a 50 pound turd in a 5 pound bag. This many game designers does not equal a 5-star product. It instead creates a phenomenal headache for whoever had to try and edit this into a working module.
I love the occasional dungeon crawl or hack 'n' slash game session.
However, we have been grinding through this module for 6 game sessions and I'm ready to intentionally get my character killed so I can get out of this adventure.
Someone probably said in a staff meeting, a staff game session, over lunch or more likely one to many beers "Hey wouldn't it be super cool if we all created one dungeon level for this adventure and loosely tied them together with Erik Mona's Sanctum of a Lost Age idea!!!"
This is not a module for anyone seeking role-play, character development or skill challenges. This is a module for players who like to kill creatures, lots of creatures, and all kinds of different creatures.
Role-playing there is some. The first game session when you arrive in the town outside Thornkeep you can interact with the townfolk and possibly the baron. Then you grind your way through 4 levels of dungeons before you arrive in the Sanctum of a Lost Age where you are overjoyed to speak to anyone that has a reason for being in this dungeon. Who's cares that its the villains. By this point I am willing to join them, or just have them slay my character.
CR, CR, CR. Apparently none of the game designers bothered to consult one another about appropriate Challenge Ratings for this module. We started out with goblins and appropriate underground creatures and ended up facing CR 7 and CR 8 creatures who seemed to be placed in the dungeon for no reason other than someone thought it would be cool if adventurers had to fight them. Creatures with no reason to be in a dungeon, and no way to survive and subsist in a dungeon. The worst offender so far is Erik Mona and his room of monster banners. When one or more banners are torn anything from a Frost Giant to a Chimera can be instantly unleashed for a Total Party Kill. The only reason there wasn't a total party kill was the GM took pity on us. There is no logical reason to me as a GM or player why you would put this in a module where the average level of the party members is 4th or 5th level at the point you reach this death chamber.
If you are a Killer GM this is the module for you!!!
If you are player who loves, loves, loves to kill creatures and roll-play this module is for you.
If you are a power gamer this module is for you.
If you are a player who loves dungeon crawls where you don't have to think this module is for you.
If you are a GM or player who likes to role-play an adventure with a good hook and storyline THIS MODULE IS DEFINITELY NOT FOR YOU.
