Pathfinder Module LB1: Tower of the Last Baron (OGL)

I am currently running Tower of the Last Baron for my players, and we are having an absolute blast!

This adventure starts with a small sandbox town full of a dozen NPCs to interact with. The beauty of this is that the players are not overwhelmed with choices, yet they feel like they have free reign in Piren's Bluff to explore and determine the best way to infiltrate the keep and take out the Baron.

Once inside the keep, the characters must face many old school decisions...which encounters to bypass, which fights are worth the risk fighting. Once the alarm is sounded...the real fun begins *evil grin*.

A piece of advice to GMs running this game. Do your homework. I probably spent three times the normal amount of time to prepare for this game. Make sure you create a schedule of where the Baron and his guard captain can be found throughout the day. While this may seem like quite a bit more work, the end payoff is great and you and your players will be quite satisfied.

The stealth/assassination theme of the adventure is fun in theory, but it ends up getting somewhat repetitive. The players fight guards. Lots and lots of identical guards. If fact, 90% of everything you come across is some kind of human guard.

The last encounter is interesting, bit it almost feels as if they are trying to make it up to you for a few boring sessions before it.

It would recommend it for people who want to try out the Pathfinder system, since most of the crunch is pretty simple. I would not recommend it for experienced players, as it will make their eyes sag.

My table loved it! So evil a villain with so much hanging on the success of the heroes was the perfect adventure for an awesome night of gaming!

I ran this module for our group and we had fun. The party were not into much sneaking around. They were more into confrontational interaction. However, the intrigue was there regardless. The party that finished this was without a Cleric, but didn't really need one. The recognition signal was well thought out and very inobtrusively placed. I highly recommend this module and the sequel to it. Both are outstanding variations from the typical "Hack-and-slash" modules. Well done Mr. Greer.

Perhaps my favorite Pathfinder module so far. Lots of emphasis on social interaction, investigation and sneaking around, which is a very welcome change from the combatfests most modules tend to be. Don't get me wrong, a good combat can be fun... but it can get old, too. This one looks like a great, open-ended sandbox to drop players into and see what they do. I also liked the fact that the players have a mission which relates to local politics, instead of the tired old "save the world from ancient evil" thing or some such.

Good stuff.