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2/5

Dwarf fan fiction masquerading as an ok adventure. Some good set pieces (although the Kor Well outstays its welcome). A lot of boring dwarf stuff. I guess there is a message here about not being beholden to the past, but if I wanted lessons on morality, I would buy a Bible, not an adventure module for a fantasy roleplaying game.


1/5

Daaamn, this book got problems.

Chapter One: What better way to start a module than a Convoluted & Unnecessary subsystem, and this one is a doozie. Oh noes, your new guide done gone lead you into a morlock nest! No, you can't fight your way out, instead you must accrue Victory Points via a series of revolving checks that equal or exceed the threshold value of the current phase.... WTF is this!? Did I buy an Accounting Path by mistake? This is only the first of many C&USs utilized throughout the module.

The Court of Ether is a cool settlement, but nothing of consequence happens here. The Worm Cult serves as a bait and switch leading us to the true BBEBG of the campaign, but the connecting tissue between these two components is flimsy and borderline nonsensical. When you need two pages of exposition text to justify all the weird BS that just went down, something is awry with your narrative.

There is a troll doing a pretty great Snorlax impression, so that's neat.

Oh yeah, and then there's this. An NPC has something stolen from her. The PCs get it back. It is theoretically important to the plot. The book does not cover what happens if they give the item back to the NPC it was stolen from, or why she doesn't ask for it back at the time. Half a chapter later, she suddenly remembers the item and sends enforcers to track down the thieving PCs. What if the PCs decide to return the stolen item? Well, you'd better hope that they don't, cos' the book doesn't acknowledge this outcome and it will potentially F up your campaign if it happens.

Chapter 3 sees the party hit Hagegraf, capital of the duergar. Sorry, not duergar - I mean hryngar. I'm guessing all these name changes were necessitated by the OGL debacle, but it is still kinda' grating. The PCs investigate the BBEBG's penthouse lair and discover the full extent of his wicked plot.

I don't see how this book can be run without significant rewrites to make the story flow in a comprehensible fashion, which kinda' defeats the point of marketing it as an Adventure Path.

Oh, and there is a content warning for "financial exploitation & systematic creditor abuse", because Paizo (sigh). There is literally a cannibal restaurant serving decaying meat on p.32, but it's those pesky creditors that we should really worry about.

ONE STAR!


Bread Dead Redemption

2/5

The adventure begins with an NPC literally stating you stink of inexperience, then sending you off to complete 32 (!!) pages of random sidequests that do nothing to advance the adventure path. What the hell even is this chapter?!

The actual adventure begins properly in chapter 2 with the party setting off on a short expedition into the Darklands to recover a lost dwarven relic. Great, this is what we're here for! Shame it took almost half the book to reach this point.

Chapter 3 sees the party cleansing the tainted relic, and receiving a quest to find a forgotten tomb. Awesome! Love it! Then you are off to a sinister (sigh) bakery to deal with some sinister bakers, or something? Blaaah.

Not a lot of actual adventure on this adventure path, thus far.

TWO STARS!!


Best of Three Actual Books

4/5

This is it! The final book in the three part Stolen Fate adventure path. I couldn't finish The Destiny War, so my expectations for book 3 weren't great. However, after a rocky start, this final part really does deliver a rewarding finale to (IMO) a deeply flawed AP.

Straight out of the gate, we are subjected to a Convoluted & Unnecessary sub-system to accrue Negotiation Points with a magical tradesman. Really Paizo? 2+ pages for a pointless minigame to haggle over the price of a McGuffin that the adventure cannot continue without?! It's BS like this that makes me lose interest. Stop it.

Next we have another scavanger hunt for more cards. This mostly consists of weird mini-games. The less said about Kingdom Chase the better. Honestly, I skipped most of this chapter, as it was dull AF.

Fortunately, things improve at the start of Chapter 2. Remember those cards you've spent the last 2.5 books gathering? Well, the BBEBG comes out of the woodwork and now they're gone. On the plus side, since we're finally done collecting cards, the adventure can actually develop some momentum in the run up to the climax.

We are treated to a ghost NPC cameo whose only purpose is to remind us how great Curse of the Crimson Throne was in comparison to contemporary Pathfinder APs. Oh, those were the days. I hope you developed a strong connection to the ghost NPC cameo in the 5 minutes since she appeared, as now you have to go and rescue her.

Climbing the Tree of Answers reads like a really fun and unique set piece. Time for another Convoluted & Necessary sub-system to accrue Argument Points in a debate with some witches. I'll grudgingly admit that this scenario warrants the use of a sub-system, whereas haggling with a merchant does not. The book even acknowledges that the sub-system could be replaced with honest-to-goodness roleplaying! Unprecedented vision!! Give that man an eNNIE!

The book wraps up with a brisk romp through a demon-infested manor house, before transporting you to the BBEBG's demiplane for the final battle.

I really enjoyed this book, after it abandoned the whole card collecting aspect and focused up on the story. I would never run this AP as written, but the quality of Worst of All Possible Worlds has made me at least consider using the narrative skeleton of the AP for a heavily modified campaign.

4 STARS!!!!


The Destiny Snore

2/5

Starts out strong with a large-scale demonic incursion into the Harrowed Court, fighting alongside the epitomized entities you have unlocked from their cards. Love it.

Then, you are whisked off to Katapesh, because a half dozen cards have appeared in some random ruins. This entire chapter feels like it was found at the bottom of a dusty bin labelled 'generic fantasy sandboxes' and forcefully wedged in to make up the word count. It feels out of place, like cut content left on the editing room floor from - I would guess - Strength of Thousands.

I stopped reading at this point. Maybe it gets better? I will never know.


Hit the Deck!

3/5

Interesting card collection premise, but I wonder if 50+ cards by campaign's end, each with their own magical bulls**t will prove overwhelming. The first 18 are included with this volume, and it already feels like too many, but I guess collecting cards is the whole point of this AP, so....

Part 1 is fine; arrive in Absalom and begin investigating the mysterious cards. The author spends WAAAAY too long describing a subsystem for influencing three different merchants. Did we really need 3+ pages describing Tim the Cabbage Salesman and the varied responses he might offer to the most rudimentary questions, if appropriately motivated? Another merchant wants you to do an obstacle course before she ladles out that sweet, sweet exposition. This entire section is bulls**t. Even the book knows it is bulls**t, and specifically tells you it can be skipped, if you can stomach losing the XP.

After collecting an arbitrary number of cards, the PCs are transported to a demiplane, occupied by characters based on the cards they have collected. This is an awesome premise and has a lot of potential for RP with the fun personalities unlocked by the different cards. This is easily the best idea in the book.

Next, the AP leapfrogs around Golarion, collecting 6 different cards from 6 different locations. These mini-adventures are pretty "meh", but they don't outstay their welcome, so there is that.

Next, the party travel to the Storval Stair to recover more cards. It seems like every man and his dog here have a card in their possession. Pretty mundane dungeon crawl, followed by an unremarkable boss fight. The other two villains foreshadowed in this book (Prince of Wolves and the Raven) sound memorable and menacing, this dude is just A Guy In Armour.

Conclusion: A bland first book, elevated by strong theming and ties to the Harrow deck. Populating the Harrow Court seems like it will be fun.

3 STARS!!!


That difficult fourth phase

2/5

Paizo is starting to feel like the Marvel of the RPG industry, in the sense that I am still invested in the setting, but the quality is just not there any more.


The X Fails

2/5

My initial impression of The Seventh Arch is not great. The heroes are investigating a strange incident that granted them 'deviant' powers, at the expense of their memories. The adventure bounces from one location to the next like a concussed rat in a pachinko machine, with little progression to the overall metaplot, besides what is front-loaded into the GM only campaign overview. Sure, you get a whirlwind tour of some alien environs that have not been seen in previous Adventure Paths, but none of them were anything special. There are some cool combat set pieces, particularly one fight on a... hmmm, I want to say "light gondola"...? Anyway, some of the battles were pretty neat.

Having read The Seventh Arch, I am not enthused to run the Gatewalkers AP. IMO, the conceit behind the adventure is too niche to have much broad appeal with fantasy gamers. It kinda' feels like certain elements of this module are trying to cross-promote their Starfinder stuff.

I will give it extra credit for not being Blood Lords, so there's that, I guess.

TWO STARS!!


Low Stakes Climax

4/5

Chapter 1: The party explore a not-so abandoned Pharasman temple and discover an entrance to the Boneyard. The party infiltrate a 'hospital' for damaged souls, seeking the villain's very first victim, who may yet hold the key to defeating him. I actually really liked this first chapter, it is unique and evocative and seems like it will be a lot of fun to run.

Chapter 2: The introduction to Chapter 2 reads like an elaborate and time consuming sequence of fetch quests, which does not bode well, but let's see how this develops. The Ghost King needs <stuff> for a ritual to find the bad guy's lair. By happy coincidence, additional <stuff> can be found in each location, for a second ritual to free the Ghost King to roam beyond Geb's borders. That sure is convenient!

Honestly, these scavenger hunts aren't terrible, but Chapter 2 lacks the focus and momentum that made Chapter 1 so great.

Chapter 3: The party descend into the shadow plain to confront the bad guy in his lair. I liked that the final dungeon was comparatively short and did not outstay its welcome. The bad guy's ability to hop between bodies, and the precautions the party must take against this eventuality were quite clever.

The cherry atop the steaming turd that is the Blood Lords AP is surprisingly wholesome. It's a shame you have to slog through the previous 5 (not-so-great) books to reach it. My only criticism is this does not feel like the thrilling climax to an epic adventure path. By the end of book 5, the bad guy's plot has been thwarted, book 6 is just tidying up loose ends. There is no sense of urgency or looming peril. FOUR STARS!!!!


A Taste of Ass

1/5

The only bad taste is the one left in my mouth after finishing this module.

Chapter One: The heroes return to Yled to find out where the bad guy is getting so much Shadow Ash, a rare material created by the death/rebirth of an undead phoenix-like creature. Ok, that is still awesome. Yled is under control of the Wamaster's Council, effectively negating any political clout the PCs would enjoy as Geb's newest Blood Lords.

The PCs are instructed to investigate a dodgy priest, but they can't get near him for reasons, and for fear of losing Reputation Points (you know, the things they've been accumulating for the entire AP, for no apparent reason). Instead, they are steered towards a random guy who is acting weird. Sure, why not? This is followed by pages and pages of disconnected rumours, locations and NPCs that eventually railroad the investigators into a confrontation with the dodgy priest, whose schedule suddenly cleared up.

Chapter Two: The dodgy priest sends the party to a dodgy theatre. Oh no! Some actors are sick and the Blood Lords are volunteered to stand in for them. This whole section read like the author was trying to replicate the popularity of The Sixfold Trial, unsuccessfully. You can skip the entire thing at no detriment to the plot. A portal appears and transports the party to a dungeon, where the dodgy theatre owner finally reveals where the Shadow Ash is coming from.

Chapter Three: The party assault a bland underground facility to stop the production of Shadow Ash. They eventually reach the undead phoenix-like creature, that pops out its own eye, which acts as a magical go-pro that caught the bad guy doing some incriminating stuff. To be continued...!

Man, I had trouble finishing this book. I'm not sure how much of that was this book specifically, and how much was a general disinterest/distaste for the Blood Lords AP as a whole. ONE STAR!


1/5


Enough is Enough

1/5

One of the (many) hags you murdered in the previous module has rebounded from the grave, and set upon a cross-country jaunt across Geb. You must catch up with her, and kill her... again. The party team up with a miserable death knight, who immediately delegates his entire investigation to the heroes and refuses to help for a variety of bullsh*t reasons;

"Looks like we need to investigate the witch's home!"
"Oh.. I have to go talk to the fairies. You guys do it!"

"Looks like we need to investigate the vampire's estate!"
"Oh.. It wouldn't be proper to enter without an invitation. You guys do it!"

Chapter One is a total write-off, a sloppy smorgasbord of ideas haphazardly stitched together in grotesque mockery of an adventure path. Skip this section entirely and you lose nothing.

In Chapter Two, the party reach the titular Field of Maidens. A battlefield littered with living statues who could burst into action at any moment is a memorable and harrowing setting. Unfortunately, Chapter Two is as much a shambles as Chapter One before it.

1 STAR! BECAUSE I CAN'T GIVE IT ZERO.


Smack your Witch up

3/5

Having established the Graveclaw Coven are responsible for the events of the previous volume, the PCs are off to a haunted forest to murder some hags.

Chapter One, in which the PCs assault a witch's cottage is great fun and ends with a pretty spectacular set-piece escape.

Now it's off to the squalid seaside town of Shallowshore, inhabited by lizardfolk, ghouls and lizardfolk ghouls. Here they will find another hag of the Graveclaw Coven, and this one is guilty of... tax evasion!!! I hope you like auditing witches! Hag #2 is lurking in an underwater temple, so get those swimming rules ready to go. It's OK, but not as interesting as Part One.

In Chapter Three, the PCs head to a poisonous urban sprawl to execute yet another witch. Third time's the charm right? (Nope). Here we are treated to one of Paizo's signature Unnecessary & Convoluted Subsystems! As you explore, you will accumulate Awareness Points, Edge Points and Infiltration Points. Ten Awareness Points equals a Complication. Twenty Awareness Points and the infiltration fails-but-not-really as the adventure would end, so the PCs get to twiddle their thumbs for a minute, then start over. Are you bored yet? I was. This Chapter has some really cool ideas/encounters, but the way it is presented is just so blaaaaaaah that you quickly lose interest. Drop the Unnecessary & Convoluted Subsystem, and run it as you would any other town and this section of the adventure should be a blast.

Oh, what delight! Chapter Four contains a fourth hag, and another Unnecessary & Convoluted Subsystem. This time you are accumulating Debate Points by disrupting a lecture with deliberately obtuse questions. We are also introduced to Blood Price; "an economic strategy boardgame simulating Geb, its factions and the machinations of the Blood Lords". Paizo just broke its own record for being pointless and boring, so well done, I guess? There is an interesting combat encounter with some clerics of Pharasma, but they can apparently be talked down by a particularly charismatic zombie (DC 28). Does that not violate the tenets of the Pharasman faith to "destroy all [undead] abominations"? I guess someone is losing their class abilities after this. There is no explanation for how this band of holy avengers have been travelling through Geb undetected, or what happens if the PCs convince them to leave peacefully. They just kinda' wander off. The PCs murder witch #4 and the adventure is done!

Conclusion: Starts strong, gets boring. Some great ideas here, generally hindered or watered down by PF2 game mechanics and the obligatory Unnecessary & Convoluted Subsystem/s. PF2's insistence on being grounded in fantasy reality is starting to bog down the Adventure Path line. I would much rather be fighting a dragon than invoicing its hoard, but that's the direction in which this line seems to be spiralling.

3 STARS!!!


Pants Macabre

3/5

That front cover, blurgh. Then you open the book and see this amazing piece of art showing Geb being paraded through the streets of... Geb, I guess? Anyway, love the contrast between colour/energy and context. Great piece of art, does make me wonder why they went with 'Madame Toussards vs Animal Farm' for the cover.

Initial flip through very positive/exciting. Lot of cool art for unique characters & monsters. I am definitely looking forward to reading this one in more detail.

The main bad guy is a psychic vampire? Is that like an Energy Vampire from 'What we do in the Shadows'? I'm going to stop reading there and assume it is exactly the same. You made the main bad guy Count Colin Robinson? Well played, Paizo. Well. Played.

Shadow Ash and the process for making it sounds awesome.

Part One: Liberating a farm from rampaging zombies is fun! Spending the next god-knows-how-long repairing the damage and "evaluating crops" is kinda' not. I'm just relieved Paizo did not implement some manner of arbitrary Farm Repair sub-system. I'm guessing that Boss Cow is going to be a party killer, which might not have been a great idea so early in the book.

The PCs are given the deed to an abandoned manor house, to adopt as their headquarters. How the hell does a severed hand communicate by "squelching air from his gory wrist stump"?! I do like the ostovite redesign, much cooler than how they were presented in Tyrants Grasp. Ooh, just what every new home needs, a "thirty foot long trough of writhing viscera". That's sure to impress the neighbours.

Part Two: The Zon-Kuthonites tell the PCs self-harm is required, but don't begrudge anyone who refuses to do it. You cant have your horrible torture cake and eat it! Someone at Paizo has a real hard on for fancy cuisine, the amount of fluff text describing stuffed pidgeons and buttery pastry is positively self-indulgent. Also, what's the sudden fascination with banks?! It seems like every PF2 AP has an airship or a bank in it, sometimes both. Overall, I feel Part 2 could be skipped in its entirety with little to no impact on the story. The bank and the Bone Shard HQ might work better as side quests unrelated to the main plot.

Part Three: The final part of the book details a dungeon/pub crawl through a hostile brewery. It was kinda' meh. But that's not all, the party are then invited to the governor's mansion for supper and some pointless, inconsequential bureaucracy!

Conclusion: Zombie Feast makes a strong first impression, but that initial excitement does not survive a full read through. Three stars!!!


Saving the best till last

5/5

Initial skim through looks very promising!

Breaking into the offices of Shieldmarshall Loveless is reminiscent of Shoalsgate Station in Thief 2, and infiltrating the Tombend gala is straight up Dishonored. Finally, OoA is hitting the right notes!

The mana storm is FAR better implemented than the one in the previous volume, and will certainly make for a fun combat.

A fight atop the barrel of an enormous gun? Getting strong FF7 vibes and I love it.

The finale unfolds aboard a luxury gearboat. Rather than stage a frontal assault, the party must remain undetected until they have neutralised several devices hidden aboard the vessel. This entire chapter promises a harrowing infiltration, where a single slip-up could trigger an explosive end to the campaign.

After two disappointing books, I was ready to write off OoA, but 'The Smoking Gun' is a fantastic conclusion to an otherwise sloppy campaign. Five stars!!!


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Mana Wasted Opportunity

3/5

Opens with a whole load of religious fluff. I could feel myself losing interest right out of the gate. Asynchronous Archives, you say? 13th Ordinal, you say?? Concurrent Heresy, you say??? Get on with the adventure!!!
The time travel aspect is interesting, but by Christendom, you have to wade through some tripe to get there.

Another trap laden workshop. Yay. Such sparkling originality.

Part Two looks promising! Airships and mutants and marauders, oh my! It's hard to conceive how even current-day Paizo could make this boring, but let's see if they managed to pull it off.
Yeah, it's not looking good. You find a pilot, but rather than setting off into the Mana Wastes immediately, she demands that you adopt the role of fantasy travel agents to recruit more passengers for your flight.
Hold on, what? A DC 15 Medcine check to distinguish between a knife wound and a snake bite?! Suuuure.
The battle with marauders amidst a storm, followed by a boss beastie, who you might have to fight atop the envelope is a cool set piece, resulting in the ship crashing down in the desert. Awesome!
Completely unnecessary sidequest is completely unnecessary. On to the titular Cradle of Quartz!!
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Nyarlathotep and Yog-Sothoth? Someone should remind the author he's not writing Strange Aeons 2.
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I lost interest before reaching the end of the module. The skeleton of a great adventure is hidden here somewhere, beneath the fatty folds of bloated lore. Three stars ***


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More Steampuff than Steampunk

2/5

Kinda' dull and without purpose, which is just weird, considering how interesting/novel it could/should have been.
Party escort Mr McGuffin across city, then find out doing so was pointless.
Does a good job of setting up the villains for AP.
Alkenstar is a really cool and unique setting, but the adventure itself felt aggressively bland.
This book alone does not excite me to run this AP.


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Assault on Player Agency

3/5

Chapter One

An abrupt start to book four of the AP, the adventure begins in the middle of combat, which is a bit jarring. I had to re-read the conclusion of the previous book to make sure I hadn't missed anything. There follows a lengthy flashback/info-dump, hastily introducing three new major NPCs. There is a sidebar defining the in media res narrative structure, but I'm not sure why it was necessary at all, except maybe to streamline the opening or cull the word count.

The heroes are then presented with a potentially overwhelming enemy force and herded into a short and altogether unnecessary dungeon that I will likely cut entirely should I ever get to run this AP.

The party must then infiltrate a convention of evil alchemists to bring one of the primary villains to justice. This is a really cool idea. The three tests the party must complete to register for the conference are kind of lame, they each boil down to a boring knowledge skill roll. I would probably just give the players the opportunity to jump a group of attendees and steal their identities.

After infiltrating the convention, the party make their way down to a hidden dungeon beneath the revel. Their disguises are no longer of any use and the action switches from social stealth to kick door/kill monster. The dungeon has an interesting vibe, with laboratories set up to study and milk poison from various venomous beasties. There are plenty of opportunities for the party to gather incriminating evidence of unlawful and immoral experimentation and bring the perpetrators to justice. Once the party have found and apprehended their quarry, yet still have to extract him from the dungeon.

Overall, with the exception of the bizarre in media res opening, this is a pretty strong opening chapter.

Chapter Two

Arresting their target is only the start of the agent's troubles. Now they must detain him within the titular hunting lodge for a 72 hour period, while their superiors quibble over jurisdictional issues. It's made clear thar the party are not to interrogate or execute the prisoner, only keep him locked up until someone else decides what to actually do with him. Unfortunately, nobody mentions that the lodge is haunted.…

This chapter contains a description of the hunting lodge and a timeline of events that unfold over the next three days. Defending the lodge and repelling waves of attackers is fun, but the ghostly forces at work complicate the proceedings. I suspect I would drop the supernatural elements in my own game and focus on defending the lodge from enemies determined to rescue the prisoner.

Chapter Three

In the final chapter, the agent's are sent to investigate an abandoned theme park. This kind of feels like something that was left on the cutting room floor after the Extinction Curse AP, but sure, let's go with it for now.… Slightly more alarming is the boxed text warning that the players are about to be railroaded into a brick wall and how the GM should encourage their players to just go with it for the benefit of the story. The warning is warranted, this is perhaps the most blatant repression of player agency I can recall seeing in any AP. I can see this being problematic for some groups. The author also encourages the GM to dissuade players heading straight to the big finale, as 14th level characters will likely have the ability to bypass the majority of this area altogether.

I can't see any reason why this chapter needed such an outlandish setting, it exists as a buffer between the end of chapter two and the big rail-roady finale. This chapter may as well have been set in a big warehouse. By the end of Assault on Hunting Lodge Seven, the adventure is moving in an interesting direction, but is certainly taking a clumsy route to get there.


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It is alright!

3/5

Review edited now I've actually received book! It is alright!


Roll up, Roll up (your characters)

4/5

Thus begins the circus/dinosaur adventure path. That is such a cool premise, right there. So awesome!

However, book 1 is just... OK. The first three quarters of the book feel like padding to get you to the Aeon Tower and the main story arc.

Also, your circus is kind of boring. The GM will have to put some work in here to flesh out some memorable NPCs. There's some really cool art for different acts you can showcase, but nothing in the adventure, other than the mechanics for slotting them into the circus management mini game.

Speaking of; the rules for running a circus feel like they will be a total ball ache to implement. This could actually top the caravan rules from Jade Regent for 'most unrewarding waste of your valuable time'. Fortunately, the adventure states they can be completely ignored.

The art and general aesthetic for the adventure is really vibrant and fun. I think sheer novelty value boosts this book from 3 to 4 stars.


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More of a mole hill than a module

2/5

The first book in the Age of Ashes AP feels like a speedbump on your way to the portal hopping antics of the next 5 instalments.