Pathfinder Adventure Path #42: Sanctum of the Serpent God (Serpent's Skull 6 of 6) (PFRPG)

I did not enjoy the Serpent's Skull AP very much, and it's not easy to disentangle that from my assessment of this module. I think it was a solid module that caps off an AP that wasn't good at all. By itself, it's not bad. But it wasn't good enough to act as a satisfying conclusion to Serpent's Skull.

The module's structure is that of two large dungeon crawls with some climactic plot culmination in between. The first dungeon crawl is... ok. You need to find the NPC maguffin and fight some morlocks in order to do so. It really feels like a diplomatic approach should be workable here, since canonically the morlocks and serpentfolk are enemies, but I digress. This dungeon has the same problem as virtually ever Serpent's Skull dungeon has: a ton of repeated encounters against the same enemies, over and over again. This dungeon does make an attempt to add variety, and is somewhat successful, but it's shackled by my poor experience with the previous module and I just had no patience for this kind of thing anymore.

Once you get your maguffin NPC (who is, admittedly, very cool), it's up to the surface to do the old "assemble an army, give inspiring speeches, etc.". Thing. There's a series of neat assassination encounters that feel very out of place but are also pretty fun. Once the army is assembled, it has virtually no further part to play in the campaign. It fights the serpentfolk off-camera while the PCs infiltrate the last boss' temple. This is very disappointing, and a GM would do well to do something to make this more engaging for the players. It's actually a pretty epic tableau for the last dungeon crawl.

Speaking of the last dungeon crawl, it's pretty standard. Evil serpent god temple, lots of high-level serpent dudes, etc. etc. At this point the AP finally adds enough variety to the encounters to make them interesting. It's not a bad romp. The last boss is an interesting gauntlet design that didn't quite work for us, but did demonstrate some cool thinking with regards to encounter design. It really did feel like a multi-phase last boss encounter, but it was a touch easy for us.

Overall the last module was ok, but it comes at the tail end of an AP that I simply cannot recommend. I might have had more fun with this book if I wasn't suffering from such burnout on the entire Serpent's Skull experience, but I also don't think that this is a world-beater of a module either. As with a lot of the Serpent's Skull modules, it might have been too ambitious and tried to cram too much into the book, with the two large dungeons and a mass combat army scenario.

This adventure picks up from the previous one: the party found an important NPC - Eando Kline, imprisoned by the serpentfolk. Eando supplies key information to continue the campaign: the serpentfolk high priest Vyr-Azul is planning to bring back the serpent god Ydersius, slain ages ago by an azlanti hero.

The moment of this restoration is near and the only chance to stop it is to first, get an über-weapon from the hidden jungle city they're already in. This weapon will allow them to access Ilmurea, the underground city where Vyr-Azul operates from. After this, they need to get an army to attack Ilmurea, enter the temple fortress known as the Sanctum of Ydersius and fight the high priest and the avatar of Ydersius before the serpent god has a definite shape and is still vulnerable.

The plot is super-linear with little space for creativity. The PCs need to get the McGuffin from a dungeon before moving on to the second dungeon.

The army part is a little deceiving. When one reads the summary for the first time, it looks like there is going to be some sort of army encounters à la Kingmaker or Wrath of the Righteous. Not so. The army-recruiting section is limited to talking to different factions or tribes the PCs have been exposed to previously in the campaign and trying to convince them to join their cause. So, a series of boring skill rolls: "Roll Diplomacy DC 35 five times and succeed at least three times" is not the most exciting of play moves. Repeat for every faction changing the skill used every time. Boooooring.

Do they end up using the army for anything even remotely fun? No... the armies are supposed to be fighting in the background while our heroes enter the fortress by themselves. I can't see why they added the army section, it brings nothing to the campaign.

Oh, yes... every faction they manage to recruit gives achievement points! These pointless things are used to change the difficulty of some early encounters in the fortress dungeon. This is the least exciting use for achievement points there ever was. So, if our heroes have a lot of armies fighting for them in the background, there are four morlocks in the entrance, instead of eight? Wow. Waste of space.

Once the PCs advance to Ilmurea, the armies are supposed to do their thing while our heroes attack the fortress. This is just a big dungeon split in two sections: the ground level and the dungeon below.

The first part is pretty uninteresting, some morlocks and a lot of serpentfolk in a pretty empty fortress. The entrance of the fortress is pretty mean-looking but other than that, lackluster. Also, the new creatures are just variants of big snakes.

The dungeon below is not much different but it gets very lethal: a marilith demon followed by a new serpent monster, followed by a super-serpentfolk fighter and then the final encounter with Vyr-Azul - a 16th level evil cleric serpentfolk with six attacks and a huge snake companion - followed by the avatar of Ydersius, a big powerful snake. This is the real final encounter, one full page of stats will keep the players entertained for a while.

It's not the boring layout of the fortress that keeps this flat, it's not even the monotony of serpent-themed encounters; it's the fact that the palace is a mere succession of combat after combat with little to no room for creativity - not in the way of social interaction or puzzles but neither in the way of battlefield tactics. It's just a plain ol' huge square room with a big ass monster to slay. Again and again. "Sanctum of the rollfest with lots of snakes", they should have called it.

My rating: 2 stars. This is a mindless dungeon crawl with nothing but combat. The serpent thing gets old after the 10th combat too.

Read my full review here

This is a good finale module. It is sufficiently-epic, well-organized, concludes all the important story lines, and has some great encounters and events.

The "Coils" are cleverly done. The back and forth with the Serpentfolk has worked well for our group in previous modules (the Seekers in module 4) and I think these will, too. My players will never go for the railroady assassination setups suggested, though, but this is a very minor complaint.

I really liked the sanctum. Other than its generous use of my paper and ink, it is a great final dungeon crawl with appropriate encounters along the main theme and a seriously dangerous, epic finale. If you kill those dudes, you totally won.

I thought the hunter's maze wasn't that interesting and reworked the recovery of the "weapon" (which is a cool encounter and theme) into a much smaller map. I was looking to cut some stuff, though, and a lot of this part seemed like filler to me. Given that, its written well enough, and others might like it.

For me, the only big problem with this module is the ridiculously bloated maps. These three maps print out (at standard 1 inch mini scale) at about 7 feet by 9 feet EACH! I think you may have been able to trim these down a bit, guys. People print maps and use figures, but it's just not practical with these behemoths.

Overall, this is an epic finale to the AP that manages to shine through the the failings of its wayward sibling modules. Major and minor themes of the AP - the overarching story of Savith & Ydersius, Azlant & the Serpentfolk, the various factions & tribes, the ongoing skirmishes, and the beloved abominations - are all woven in nicely. Thanks to Neil Spicer for pulling it all together into a refreshingly well-written finale.