The Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path continues! The evil beneath the town of Sandpoint refuses to sleep quietly, and a killer from the ancient past awakes. Clues found in his lair lead to the den of a legendary dragon and into a vast arcane dungeon ruled by ageless wizards, where the seven deadly sins reign supreme. Can the PCs hone the sins within themselves into weapons against their true foe, Karzoug, the resurrected Runelord of Greed?
The adventure is well done and follows the pattern of a dungeon crawl.
The rest of the book is loaded with an interesting set of monsters, fiction, an exploration of Thassilonian magic, and information on Lamashtu (a deity named the Mother of Monsters).
4 Stars for the adventure but overall the product is a solid 5 stars!
The free PDF that comes with a subscription is an over-the-top bonus!
While I took the time to review part six first, this is one of the best dynamic dungeons I've ever seen. There are limitations to it, of course, but the fact that the Dragon can run away and just pursue the PC's into the place at the end makes it quite a challenge. Ideally, around the time the final encounter starts, that's when it's time to drop the dragon on them. Just wait for round two, and BOOM!
While the dungeons themselves were not particularly original, I actually LIKED that classicism and what they were trying to hearken back to. It's Paizo's respect for history that wizards lacks that makes these adventures great.
I've tried repeatedly to post this: here's one more, much shorter attempt.
This is a classical dungeon with very strong writeups for the central NPCs: detailed, technically accurate, with excellent tactical notes. It fails to shine fully, however, because there is not much scope for non-combat interaction. One faction is confined to its quarters, two consist of people who have been more or less reduced to automata, almost all are described as uninterested in negotiation. A group interested in intrigue will require considerable GM reworking. The sin theme, therefore, is underdeveloped.
The adventure is much shorter than it looks (my group finished in 4.5 sessions) because several of the promised 7 dungeons are only 1-2 traps or creatures. The traps are inspired by Tomb of Horrors and were not appropriate for my group, but are fairly easy to remove.
The background material contains the usual items plus a too-short section on Thassilonian magic with one spell and one rune per school, and an outstanding background article on Lamashtu. This is truly a model of excellence in cult writeups--it gives details not only on the goddess but on the role of her priesthood in different societies.
Overall, this should be fine for dungeon-crawling groups, but others may find it lacking in spots. My player was particularly disappointed in the Greed dungeon, which should have foreshadowed Xin-Shalast but was utterly flat in play.
I hope it's not asking too much, but I wonder if it's possible to get an image of this latest iconic against a white background, similar to what was done with the previous iconics. It's not that I'm not absolutley drooling over the current image--I most assuredly am--but rather that I cut & paste the images into a neutral background "group image" to use as images of the characters in my game....
He looks like he'd make a great Ben Kenobi/mentor character. He's got a certain air of nobilty to him. And even though he may be older, you wouldn't want to mess with him. I like him already.
I hope it's not asking too much, but I wonder if it's possible to get an image of this latest iconic against a white background, similar to what was done with the previous iconics. It's not that I'm not absolutley drooling over the current image--I most assuredly am--but rather that I cut & paste the images into a neutral background "group image" to use as images of the characters in my game....
If this is possible, a most hearty "thank you!"
This is certainly possible. It'll probably happen later next week. I still haven't written up his backstory and all that, but it's on the schedule for quite soon.
Correct. And we wanted to come up with our own looks for dragons, in any event; they're a pretty iconic monster, and it's cool, I think, to be able to look at a dragon and say, "OH! That's a Golarion Blue!"
We're expecting it to reach our warehouse around January 9.
Yay - I can't wait. I am enjoying the AP a lot. About that time I receive this installment my group will be starting Hook Mountain. Every installment has been great.
So we can expect to have our PDF's by the end of that week?
Probably somewhere between that week and the week following it. You're giving them 2-3 days to get them in stock, inspect and start the export procedure.
I hope it's not asking too much, but I wonder if it's possible to get an image of this latest iconic against a white background, similar to what was done with the previous iconics. It's not that I'm not absolutley drooling over the current image--I most assuredly am--but rather that I cut & paste the images into a neutral background "group image" to use as images of the characters in my game....
If this is possible, a most hearty "thank you!"
This is certainly possible. It'll probably happen later next week. I still haven't written up his backstory and all that, but it's on the schedule for quite soon.
James, I think you already have..or someone there has. Isn't Ezren, our RotR #5 cover boy, the subject of the October 26th blog entry?
I hope by the end of 2008 there's enough fabulous art for Paizo to put out a Pathfinder Calendar. I'm sure there's even enough 'B' art to put in a few surprises.
I hope it's not asking too much, but I wonder if it's possible to get an image of this latest iconic against a white background, similar to what was done with the previous iconics. It's not that I'm not absolutley drooling over the current image--I most assuredly am--but rather that I cut & paste the images into a neutral background "group image" to use as images of the characters in my game....
If this is possible, a most hearty "thank you!"
This is certainly possible. It'll probably happen later next week. I still haven't written up his backstory and all that, but it's on the schedule for quite soon.
James, I think you already have..or someone there has. Isn't Ezren, our RotR #5 cover boy, the subject of the October 26th blog entry?
Somewhere in these threads one of the Paizonians said they had received them on the 9th (yesterday).
Edit: Actually, correction. Expecting it on the 9th. Whether it arrived yesterday or not remains to be seen (or read).
My order status has changed from "pre-order" to "pending" so I presume they have it in stock and are preparing to ship it.
This discussion is attached to
http://paizo.com/store/paizo/v5748btpy7xpv
but there's another listing for this product at
http://paizo.com/store/paizo/v5748btpy815p
with no discussion attached and no way that I can see to start one.
Why the two listings?
-LB
http://paizo.com/store/paizo/v5748btpy7xpv
but there's another listing for this product at
http://paizo.com/store/paizo/v5748btpy815p
with no discussion attached and no way that I can see to start one.
Why the two listings?
-LB
The first listing is for the print edition. The second listing is for what we call a "parent product," which has two children: the print edition and the PDF. Right now, the PDF is still only available to subscribers, which is why you can't see the difference between the two. Once the product's street date arrives, the PDF will become available from the parent product listing.
OK. Three questions:
Why is there no way to start a discussion of the parent product?
Why is there no link from the parent product to the print edition? The only way I've found to navigate from one listing to the other is to add the product to my cart and click the link there.
When is the "street date"? I stopped at my FLGS Thursday 1/31 and they said they were still waiting for #5.
Why is there no way to start a discussion of the parent product?
Looks like we had a little data problem. It's fixed now—and while I was at it, I moved this discussion to the parent.
LurkerBeneath wrote:
Why is there no link from the parent product to the print edition?
You shouldn't ever really need to know about children. I assume the only reason that you're interested is that you want to be able to find this thread... and the discussion should be on the parent, which it is now.
LurkerBeneath wrote:
When is the "street date"? I stopped at my FLGS Thursday 1/31 and they said they were still waiting for #5.
The street date was this past Wednesday. We shipped to distribution almost two weeks ago, so they should check the status of their order with their distributor.
Will they ever print this again or will it only be a pdf?
We don't have any plans at this time to reprint Pathfinders #1, #3, or #5. We do have stock of the other three, but it is going fast. I expect #6 to sell out shortly.
The listing above is for the PDF—the only version we have.
Ah, I didn't notice that on this page. I was looking at the availability of all the RotR chapters on this page and it was displayed differently than Chapt 3, which lists both the print and pdf versions, though the print version is out of print. I couldn't imagine why the pdfs would come off the market, but I was thinking about doing a pbp campaign and I wanted to make sure I'd still be able to get all the pdfs later.