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Pathfinder Adventure Path #34: Blood for Blood (Kingmaker 4 of 6) (PFRPG)

3.40/5 (based on 8 ratings)
Pathfinder Adventure Path #34: Blood for Blood (Kingmaker 4 of 6) (PFRPG)
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Chapter 4: "Blood for Blood"
by Neil Spicer

Even with the PCs’ kingdom growing at their heart, the Stolen Lands are far from tame. An incursion by merciless barbarians spills blood on the PCs’ lands and begins a search for a legendary artifact in the depths of the region’s most infamous wilderness. Amid the perpetual shadows and bottomless bogs of the Hooktongue Slough lie long-mired secrets and terrors eager to consume any who intrude upon their fetid realm. Yet what powers that lurk beyond the swamp seek to end the PCs’ reign? And how might a single, bloodthirsty blade mean the difference between their kingdom’s ruin and its survival?

    This volume of Pathfinder Adventure Path includes:
  • “Blood for Blood,” a Pathfinder RPG adventure for 10th-level characters, by Neil Spicer.
  • Information on the cruel society and blood-curdling superstitions of boggards, Golarion’s sinister frogmen, by Todd Stewart.
  • Details on some of the most famous hidden treasures and lost relics of the Stolen Lands, by Brian Cortijo.
  • Ollix and Phargas learn the perils of gambling with a leucrotta in the Pathfinder’s Journal, by Kevin Andrew Murphy.
  • Five new monsters, by Julian Neale, F. Wesley Schneider, and Neil Spicer.

Pathfinder Adventure Path is Paizo Publishing's monthly 96-page, perfect-bound, full-color softcover book printed on high-quality paper. It contains an in-depth Adventure Path scenario, stats for about a half-dozen new monsters, and several support articles meant to give Game Masters additional material to expand their campaign. Pathfinder Adventure Path volumes use the Open Game License and work with both the Pathfinder RPG and the standard 3.5 fantasy RPG rules set.

ISBN–13: 978-1-60125-251-7

"Blood for Blood" is sanctioned for use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. The rules for running this Adventure Path and Chronicle sheet are available as a free download (606 kb zip/PDF).

Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:

Fantasy Grounds Virtual Tabletop
Archives of Nethys

Note: This product is part of the Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscription.

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This product is non-mint. Refunds are not available for non-mint products. The standard version of this product can be found here.

Are there errors or omissions in this product information? Got corrections? Let us know at store@paizo.com.

PZO9034

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3.40/5 (based on 8 ratings)

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Too many low-level encounters

2/5 —

I ran this adventure with moderate modifications for a group of 5 players (4 experienced, 1 novice). We used the fast XP track, so I cut all of the random encounters and some of the hexploration. My players also avoided the majority of the Baron Drelev questline. What parts of the adventure we did go through took a little over 5 sessions for a total 16 hours of play.

I usually love Neil Spicer's work. My players really enjoyed Realm of the Fellnight Queen, and his perspective on fey that he's shared on the messageboards inspires great adventures. Yet, even though this is a fey-based adventure path and Spicer is brilliant with fey, the adventure has basically none.

In general, the adventure suffers from a surplus of under-leveled challenges. It's not just the random hexes with uninteresting foes either. The big boss in Part 3 is also low-level and bland. My players didn't really see a reason to dispose the villain of part 3 anyway. Since the big boss is such a coward, I felt their decision made sense and wished the adventure had addressed how Drelev responds to a diplomatic solution. Part 4 is better and has an interesting dungeon design, but uses way too many swarms. (Not text related, but the art for Santinder also makes no sense.)

As far as backing material goes, I really didn't feel the need for Ecology of the Boggard. The Spoils of Kings article served as a good reminder that a few proper nouns can make treasure feel more a part of the world, yet the item histories themselves fall flat with throwaway references to kings not mentioned anywhere else. The fiction is entertaining, at least, and I do like the calathgar and the leshy.

If you want to sub out one of the adventures in the Kingmaker adventure path, I would suggest this one. It's a pity Realm of the Fellnight Queen is too low-level to replace it.

Fort Drelev

2/5 —

Havent quite finished the Armag encounter at the end of the book as I write this but so far book 4 is LAME. The battle for Fort Drelev which could have been awsome instead relies on this ridiculous points based system (think kingdom building but without the fun) that forces your party to kill enemy soldiers in a small fort (high alert anyone!) And then make friends with NPC's who do NOTHING to actually help or facilitate in ANYWAY (other then points) the taking of the fort, and if this all wasnt bad enough its all done on a "time clock" where you lose points everyday do to low moral amongst the villagers. This whole story basically leads to you storming the fort but without the excitment or immediacy that you want. Takes what should just be an amazing fight and military action on the part of your PC's and kingdom and drags it out into several sessions to stretch a very weak book 4. I recommend DM's just run a "homebrew" version and keep the Armag storyline.

Go West Young Man! And Bring Your Waders!

5/5 —

Now that the Characters have a kingdom, it's time for outside invasions! A really fun arc in the Kingmaker Adventure Path. Check my full review:Blood for Blood

Great stand alone for 9th level characters...

3/5 —

This adventure was tragically under CRed. Even adding additional monsters to random encounters didn't make it much more challenging. The three times my group had a real challenge were once when I rolled a 100 on the random encounter in the Slough (and a 4 for the quantity), once when the group was so overconfident with their abilities they stormed the keep (I had incorporated a mercenary NPC archer to discourage such brazen actions. Without doing this I am sure that the mage-less group could have easily strong-armed the entire keep.) and finally when the barbarian tribes were united under Armag and marched on the PCs kingdom. I don't like to encourage the 'kick in the door' tactic for every encounter. It's fun to really mop up some baddies sometimes, but 2 or 3 levels of it just gets boring.

Overall I highly recommend this adventure as a stand alone for 9th level characters OR enhancing some of the encounters as part of the Kingmaker AP. Although thematically this adventure was SUPERB and worthy of 5 stars, it just needed a bit of work to make it truly fun for the group. The amount of work needed to make this adventure cohesive, plot advancing, and challenging (not to mention the useless sword) knocks the book down a couple notches.

Just can't give it that 4th star

3/5 —

My reviews use bullet points, just how I roll.

The Good: -Barbarian villain seems pretty tough.
-Good storyline, overall one of the better stories.
-Rewards for the PCs are really strong, this is important.

The Bad: -1st of 2 main villains is going to go down like a chump.
-Suffers for wanting mass combat but not having rules for it yet.

The Ugly: -OK we see gay characters but big surprise they are pretty lesbians with fan service art, bad form.
-The big bad's sword is effectively a cursed reward.
-The mid level boss is the chump little brother of book 5's boss.
-Its a little too apparent that these adventures were developed by seperate people who were only very basically collaborating. Paizo has gotten better at this but Neil is an excellent author this was not his best IMHO

Overall: The rewards are great, the villain would be better if not sandwiched between an awesome villain (book 3) and a better version of the mid level villain (book 5.) Can't give a 4th star for it...

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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut
Dark Sasha wrote:
...If I do spot you there I may take you up on your offer with your module "Fellnight Queen".

By all means! Some people have already said they're going to track me down at ConCarolinas here in Charlotte for FQ autographs, as well. So, hopefully, I'll figure out something witty to write for that adventure by then. ;-)

Anyone have any ideas why this hardcover and the Game Mastery Guide are both showing "Unavailable"?

Could it be that they are held up in Customs or is it the printer could not keep up with the demand?

and the next volume on my subscription is
Pathfinder Adventure Path #35: War of the River Kings

:-/
Dark Archive

Same in my subscriptions as well.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut
silverhair2008 wrote:
...or is it the printer could not keep up with the demand?

Ooooh. That would be a nice problem to have!

SilentBob wrote:

and the next volume on my subscription is

Pathfinder Adventure Path #35: War of the River Kings...

WHAT?!?

::shakes fist::

NELSON!

Me too. And congratulations, by the way.

A printer not being able to keep up with the demand of the order is not a good thing for a new printer with a new customer. I hope it is just a matter of the shipment in being held up in customs. Not that the new printer could not fulfill the order in a timely manner.
Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
NSpicer wrote:
silverhair2008 wrote:
...or is it the printer could not keep up with the demand?

Ooooh. That would be a nice problem to have!

SilentBob wrote:

and the next volume on my subscription is

Pathfinder Adventure Path #35: War of the River Kings...

WHAT?!?

::shakes fist::

NELSON!

Reminds me of the PaizoCon banquet last year, when every time the Brazen Strumpets bettered their score, Boomer's Tumors erupted with a cry of "CURSE YOU, JASON NELSON!!!"

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut
silverhair2008 wrote:
A printer not being able to keep up with the demand of the order is not a good thing for a new printer with a new customer. I hope it is just a matter of the shipment in being held up in customs. Not that the new printer could not fulfill the order in a timely manner.

I haven't heard that there's a delay...priting, shipping, customs, or otherwise. In fact, PaizoCon attendees were given the opportunity to pick up their subscriptions (including Pathfinder #34) at the convention rather than have it shipped out to them. So, I'm assuming it'll be on hand and available. At least, I hope so...

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

I am pretty sure that several of the items in the store have been going unavailable right before release. So it probably isn't a problem.
Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

The "unavailable" status was the result of somebody flipping a switch that shouldn't have been flipped. We are indeed preparing to fulfill subscription copies and preorders starting next week.

I just got my "expected to ship next week" mail!

Looking forward to getting this, one of my players is running a barbarian - should be fun.

BUT, and with all due respect, please proofread a little better. The content of each AP product is good, but there are constantly errors in things like map/quest references, which detract from the product.

Still loving it, and no regrets subscribing.

Anyone notice that Goreclaw of Thercerrod is a +4 total bonus weapon that costs around 24kgp?
ntin wrote:
Anyone notice that Goreclaw of Thercerrod is a +4 total bonus weapon that costs around 24kgp?

I have not recieved my copy yet so I have not seen it. Nor can I download the pdf yet. But I am looking forward to seeing this. I have to say this Kingmaker path is one of my favorites so far.

Paizo Employee Creative Director
ntin wrote:
Anyone notice that Goreclaw of Thercerrod is a +4 total bonus weapon that costs around 24kgp?

That's a typo. My guess is that it was supposed to be double that (46,305 gp) and that the construction cost somehow got displaced twice or something.

Contributor
James Jacobs wrote:
ntin wrote:
Anyone notice that Goreclaw of Thercerrod is a +4 total bonus weapon that costs around 24kgp?
That's a typo. My guess is that it was supposed to be double that (46,305 gp) and that the construction cost somehow got displaced twice or something.

Actually, my goof was slightly worse than that. I calculated the weapon at a +3 bonus instead of +4 (for some reason, wounding was at a discount that day?). Had my math been correct--not accounting for any disagreements on pricing on the non-weapon property of the goreclaw, of course, the cost should have been 40,305 gp, with a creation cost of 20,305 gp.

Apologies for the confusion.

all hail King Torg
Sovereign Court
Pathfinder Maps, Rulebook, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

[Size=10] ALL HAIL KING TORG!{/size]
Tim Statler wrote:
ALL HAIL KING TORG!

There ya go.

This AP gets better with each adventure. Neil wrote a terrific module with loads of interesting locations and events.

Thumbs up also for the Boggard chapter by Todd Stewart. These creatures are exactly what I hoped they were. Fine job!

My group´s near the end of "Stolen Lands", and we all love the concept of exploring the blank hex paper. I can´t wait to get to the kingdom building parts and see how my players will act.
Contributor
Stephan wrote:

Thumbs up also for the Boggard chapter by Todd Stewart. These creatures are exactly what I hoped they were. Fine job!

I'm glad you liked :)

I can write non-planes material too. ;)

But back to the boggards, I'm still sad that my attempt to create and request illustration of a "sexy albino tattooed boggard-subspecies amazon chick" went unanswered. *weep*
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut
Stephan wrote:
This AP gets better with each adventure. Neil wrote a terrific module with loads of interesting locations and events.

Awesome. I haven't had much feedback on Blood for Blood yet, so I've been admittedly curious how folks received it so far, especially since it's my first contribution to an actual AP. Thanks for posting your impressions of it. I appreciate it.

--Neil
Dark Archive
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber
Todd Stewart wrote:
Stephan wrote:

Thumbs up also for the Boggard chapter by Todd Stewart. These creatures are exactly what I hoped they were. Fine job!

I'm glad you liked :)

I can write non-planes material too. ;)

But back to the boggards, I'm still sad that my attempt to create and request illustration of a "sexy albino tattooed boggard-subspecies amazon chick" went unanswered. *weep*

So... Seoni as a boggard?

Dark Archive

Speartooth p. 20, he's a 20 HD monster so he should have 10 feats, Stat Block only has 9.

Good adventure. The NPCs are strong. The whole bit at Fort Drelev requires tactical thinking outside of combat. Armag's tomb is a first-rate dungeon crawl with great story elements sown in.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut
therealthom wrote:
Good adventure. The NPCs are strong. The whole bit at Fort Drelev requires tactical thinking outside of combat. Armag's tomb is a first-rate dungeon crawl with great story elements sown in.

Cool.

I was a little worried the Fort Drelev section might be too open-ended for some. But, this is a sandbox AP after all. So, I focused primarily on the locale and the NPCs in it...and then dropped in a couple of potential plot twists for what's going on in town and up at the castle. From there, it's up to the GM running Blood for Blood and his or her players to determine how they'll approach everything. It's probably too early for anyone to have actually played it out. But, if anyone does run the adventure, I'd love to hear feedback on how it worked for everyone.

Lastly, with regards to Armag's tomb...I had a LOT of fun crafting that location. Everything just sort of came together for it. The traps, the guardians, the backstory for all the how's and why's...I just really enjoyed writing that section to lend something cool to the adventure's final encounters.

Glad you liked it,
--Neil

P.S. You ain't seen nothin' yet. I gots somethin' else in the works now. ;-)

My party has been adoring the Kingmaker Adventure Path, and this book seems to be the best book yet. Thank you for putting out such engaging product.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut

Dude! You made my day...despite being down with ConCrud. Many thanks for your feedback. And I hope your players enjoy the adventure.

--Neil
Neil Spicer wrote:
But, if anyone does run the adventure, I'd love to hear feedback on how it worked for everyone.

After defeating the army and finding out about the Baron, we teleported into his bedroom and subdued him.

We may have leapfrogged some or all of the plot. :/
Owner - House of Books and Games LLC
kelvingreen wrote:
Neil Spicer wrote:
But, if anyone does run the adventure, I'd love to hear feedback on how it worked for everyone.

After defeating the army and finding out about the Baron, we teleported into his bedroom and subdued him.

We may have leapfrogged some or all of the plot. :/

Really? When did he invite you into his bedroom so that you could teleport there? Seems kinda dumb of him :)

gbonehead wrote:
Really? When did he invite you into his bedroom so that you could teleport there? Seems kinda dumb of him :)

I'm not sure what you mean about an invite, but we used scrying on him beforehand, saw that he was unguarded, and took the opportunity to pay him a visit. His henchman at the battle gave us the information we needed to make the scrying contact -- as well as his name, I believe we had the Baron's seal and some documents he'd given his general -- and the rest followed from there.

By the way, don't take this as a criticism of the adventure. We're all having great fun with it, and if anything, there's some disappointment that we've missed some of it by skipping ahead. We are finding that we are good at turning the open-ended sandbox format to our advantage, but it does lead to some shortcuts.

For example, after clearing out Fort Drelev, we've stripped the Baron of his title, rescued Numesti from the dungeons and installed him in the Baron's place -- getting him to sign over allegiance to our kingdom first, of course. Then we cleared any remaining pro-barbarian forces from the town itself, and used scrying and teleport again to drop in on the kidnapped daughter in Armag's camp, thus skipping all that tracking and pursuit stuff. ;)

I just noticed that the overland map in both the print and pdf version of this issue don't quite match the one provided in the map folio. In particular, the Siltstrand River is not labelled. It's just a small thing, but it might be an easy fix for the pdf.
Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer
Tem wrote:
I just noticed that the overland map in both the print and pdf version of this issue don't quite match the one provided in the map folio. In particular, the Siltstrand River is not labelled. It's just a small thing, but it might be an easy fix for the pdf.

One of the benefits to the large maps in the folio is that we have room for more map tags!

Also, the PDF is always intended to be a reflection of the print edition.
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