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Pathfinder Adventure Path #79: The Half-Dead City (Mummy’s Mask 1 of 6) (PFRPG)

3.90/5 (based on 12 ratings)
Pathfinder Adventure Path #79: The Half-Dead City (Mummy’s Mask 1 of 6) (PFRPG)
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Chapter 1: "The Half-Dead City"
By Jim Groves

The Mummy's Mask Adventure Path begins with "The Half-Dead City," an exciting new adventure in the pyramid-laden realm of Osirion, Land of Pharaohs! In the city of Wati, the church of Pharasma holds a lottery allowing explorers to delve the tombs of the city's vast necropolis in search of the nation's lost glories. In the course of investigating dusty tombs and fighting their ancient guardians and devious traps, the heroes encounter a group of rival adventurers intent on keeping one tomb's treasures for themselves. At the same time, the heroes learn that a dangerous artifact has been stolen from the tomb. Can the adventurers defeat their rivals, or will they fall to the undead defenders of the city's necropolis?

This volume of the Pathfinder Adventure Path launches the Mummy's Mask Adventure Path and includes:

  • "The Half-Dead City," a Pathfinder adventure for 1st-level characters, by Jim Groves.
  • A double-sized gazetteer of Wati exploring both parts of this vibrant city dedicated to the dead, by Crystal Frasier.
  • A rough welcome to Wati in the Pathfinder Journal, by Amber E. Scott.
  • Five dangerous new monsters, by Jim Groves, Will McCardell, and Michael McCarthy.

Each monthly full-color softcover Pathfinder Adventure Path volume contains an in-depth adventure scenario, stats for several new monsters, and 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 world’s oldest fantasy RPG.

Cover Art by Tyler Jacobson.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-588-4

The Half-Dead City 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 (595 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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A thematic start to an Osirion AP

5/5 —

So let's start with a full disclosure - I am a massive fan of Ancient Egyptian history and also the 1999 The Mummy film (which I know are only transcendentally linked). If you asked me what I wanted to be when I was around 10 years old, I would have said an Egyptologist.

This was the first AP I bought when it first came out many years ago having only planned/run my own games in the past. I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to read and run this one! Reading through it was great fun (I've read through it at least 4 times in the last 6 years). The organisation is great, the gazetteer is fun and also useful; in my opinion the best gazetteer I've seen.

The game itself starts assuming all the PCs are already in a group signed up to the lottery, so it's important to get your players talking before you start.

Now a lot of people seem to say this first book is just dungeon crawling not roleplaying and they would technically be right. BUT there are so many opportunities for roleplay as there is no time-limit on this competition per see. I've GM'd it irl and the roleplay opportunities were second to none if you try to make the most of Wati. The right role-playing group will absolutely rise to the challenge.

Some of the encounters in this can be pretty deadly for a party of 4 but managed right work well. If you have a slightly larger party, they will do well.

Overall, this is one of my favourites and I absolutely recommend if you're looking for a good atmosphere.

Part 1

5/5 —

I thoroughly enjoyed GMing this chapter of the campaign. Partly because it is set in Osirian and I am really intrigued by the fantasy Egyptian lore.

The party I am running for is (at time of completion) a human cleric of Nethys, human occulist, dhampyr sorcerer (undead bloodline), elf fighter/bard (archaeologist), dwarf unchained monk, and a human alchemist.

As for the scenario:

The good:

* The premise works. Adventuring parties come together because the tombs of Wati are being opened to explorers. It gives a decent explanation for the players to form their party. No sitting in a tavern this time.

* Three different locations each with it's own distinct feel and set of challenges. Felt very old school to me so it gets a thumbs up.

* Although I have noticed many didn't like it, I love how this has nothing to do with the actual campaign plot until the very last minute of the book. Not every campaign needs to start off face first into the plot.

The Bad:

* This book is basically three dungeon crawls. By the time my players had finished the book I was bored of describing corridors and rooms.

* There are role-play opportunities but not enough. This chapter is very heavy on the combat and the dungeon crawling.

The Ugly:

* Nothing.

Review

4/5 —

The good thing about THDC is that is set in Ossirion, the land of the exotic and the hot. The bad thing is that THDC starts slow, very slow in fact - the first third of this adventure felt more like a training session for the beginners - few monsters, few traps and some treasure. The speed began to pick up in the second third, but even then the action was uneven, and in the final third THDC did feel like a proper RPG game, but the problem was that there was little connection between the three parts. Yes, it did give us plenty of time to play-act various scenes...but this situation works only when players want to play-act; otherwise, it is just a waste of time. THDC feels more like three different adventures combined into one, and this isn't the best of feelings.

Please Paizo, improve the book binding

4/5 —

First, I need to comment on the book binding. These are very nice, magazine style paperback books. But, after paging through the first third or so several times prepping for the first session, the pages are falling out. I'm very careful with the book, nothing got pulled on, and I don't flatten the book open nor strain the binding in any way. The glue binding just starts falling apart and now a whole section of pages has fallen out completely. This is incredibly disappointing for what otherwise is a great looking book. It makes me limit how many times I dare crack open the other volumes I've received.

As for the adventure itself:
The other reviews here are right on, the adventure/encounters are good, and if you do some flavor work-up around the theme of tomb-raiding, it can be interesting - but yeah, the whole first couple adventures into the Necropolis just seem to be completely disconnected to the actual story.

I would have liked to see one or two encounters based on exploring outside in the necropolis on the way to something, running into more unexpected troubles (other than the ambush already there, I mean). It does provide some good suggestion-type details on the necropolis to make this on your own. I would suggest cutting the second adventure site in half (both the layout and number of encounters) and having the party deal with two other encounters out in the necropolis based on where they say they go.

It does, however, lend itself well to a group that isn't very experienced in a table-top rpg, and maybe that's what Paizo had in mind here. The distinct chunks of tomb exploration are a great "intro to dungeon delving", if you will. The dungeons, traps, treasure, and random encounters are all there without the risk of being away from town. That can really help a new group. And if you're a GM that makes traps more interesting than default, those fit in pretty well.

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Paizo Employee
Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Accessories, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Garret Candoor wrote:
Anyone else have any issues with the booklet coming apart? I have only had it a week and the pages are already coming apart. Very frustrating.

I'd start a thread in the customer service part of the forum. I've always had really good luck working things out with them.

Cheers!
Landon
Lorimez wrote:

Can I ask a question or two as a new GM to pathfinder?

1. Which books, in your opinion, are essential for running this campaign? (Feel free to include core books to this)

2. When is the release date for the second installment?

Any advice, experienced players of AP, is always welcomed. (Feel free to PM me rather than take up the good people's time on here with my noob questions :-))

Thanking you in advance.

G.

The NPC Codex seems to save alot of time for some of the other adventuring party stats and random encounters. Not sure that info is available online.

Webstore Gninja Minion

The NPC Codex is on the Pathfinder Reference Document.

Thanks very much Liz!
Landon Winkler wrote:
Garret Candoor wrote:
Anyone else have any issues with the booklet coming apart? I have only had it a week and the pages are already coming apart. Very frustrating.

I'd start a thread in the customer service part of the forum. I've always had really good luck working things out with them.

Cheers!
Landon

They are already resolving mine! Thanks for the suggestion Landon

archmagi1 wrote:

1) This one (and books 2-6). The other 2 Osirion books released with it are very non-essential, and as a GM running this, I don't own them. D20PFSRD.com gives most of the OGL mechanical stuff from the Player Companion lines, so if your players want more, they can go there. The Campaign Setting book for Osirion, while a very good read (I've read it twice at FLGS), isn't needed at all to run the AP; infact, the areas covered in the AP receive much less attention because they are detailed in the AP.

Non-essential books that would be nice to have at hand: Inner Sea World Guide, the new Osirion CS book, and any whatever mechanics books your players bring to the table.

One word of advice regarding d20pfsrd.com: because they are not allowed to use setting-specific names (at least, those not found in the core rulebook), they have to re-name things like traits and prestige classes that have proper names in them.

This means that it's not always obvious when something is an inappropriate choice for a particular character. For example, one of my players found a good trait - but when I finally found the original printed version, it turned out to be only for gnome worshippers of a particular gnome deity (and thus completely inappropropiate for a human worshipper of Desna).
Lorimez wrote:

Can I ask a question or two as a new GM to pathfinder?

1. Which books, in your opinion, are essential for running this campaign? (Feel free to include core books to this)

2. When is the release date for the second installment?

Any advice, experienced players of AP, is always welcomed. (Feel free to PM me rather than take up the good people's time on here with my noob questions :-))

Thanking you in advance.

G.

There will also be some good advice to be found in the Mummy's Mask section of the message boards, found here.

Paizo Employee
1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Accessories, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Psyonis wrote:
They are already resolving mine! Thanks for the suggestion Landon

You're welcome! I'm glad they're getting that sorted for you.

Cheers!
Landon

Will there be minis (a.k.a. paperminis and pawns) for this line besides the NPC codex pawns?
Webstore Gninja Minion

Pawns are currently scheduled for an October release.

Guess i´ll start this end of juli/august, so might be just in time for the thrid one.

Ok so I am GM'ing the Mummy's Mask Adventure path and while I am overall very pleased with the layout and general progression with the 1st module I have observed that the total XP count for the first part of 3 for the Half-Dead City gives about 7500 XP. Part 2 is worse giving out only a total of 12800. If I want the PC's to have any chance of hitting 3rd level by part 3 I have to have about 30K XP available to me in Part 2 which is simply not there. While this would not be a problem for a small party of 3-4 players I have 6 in my campaign. So, as a result I am having to retool the encounters so that I can be sure the PC's are keeping pace with the adventure path. Kind of a pain in the arse but what else is there to do!
Liberty's Edge
Gentle Paladin wrote:

Kind of a pain in the arse but what else is there to do!

With 6 people, there really isn't anything. I would suggest buffing the encounters through the first book, then revert to the standard ones in book two. By the end of the second adventure your PCs will be about a level behind and will stay there for the rest of the AP, but the extra action economy should offset the higher difficulties.

Sovereign Court Senior Developer
Gentle Paladin wrote:

Ok so I am GM'ing the Mummy's Mask Adventure path and while I am overall very pleased with the layout and general progression with the 1st module I have observed that the total XP count for the first part of 3 for the Half-Dead City gives about 7500 XP. Part 2 is worse giving out only a total of 12800. If I want the PC's to have any chance of hitting 3rd level by part 3 I have to have about 30K XP available to me in Part 2 which is simply not there. While this would not be a problem for a small party of 3-4 players I have 6 in my campaign. So, as a result I am having to retool the encounters so that I can be sure the PC's are keeping pace with the adventure path. Kind of a pain in the arse but what else is there to do!

I'm running an office game of Mummy's Mask with 6 PCs. Since 6 PCs increases the party's APL by +1, I've been pretty much bumping up the encounters by +1 CR, usually either by adding the advanced simple template or adding a few more monsters to get the CR where I need it to be. For the really difficult encounters (where the CR is already pretty high for the PCs' level, either APL +2 or +3), I pretty much leave them as is, though I may make hp adjustments on the fly as needed (in other words, if the PCs seem to be having too easy of a time, I might max out a creature's hp).

Dark Archive

Does the PDF purchase include the interactive maps for this book?

Ck,

I've always assumed those were separate...
1 person marked this as a favorite.
ckdragons wrote:

Does the PDF purchase include the interactive maps for this book?

Yes.

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Every AP book after Carrion Crown (and maybe Carrion Crown) includes the interactive maps for that book with the pdf.
Dark Archive
1 person marked this as a favorite.
captain yesterday wrote:
Every AP book after Carrion Crown (and maybe Carrion Crown) includes the interactive maps for that book with the pdf.

Thank you. Wanted to confirm because Paizo also has Mummy's Mask Interactive Maps PDF, "a compilation of 31 maps from the entire Mummy's Mask Adventure Path". Didn't know if that item would be an extraneous purchase after I purchased the 6 PDFs of this AP.

That is geared towards people that buy the physical books, and not the PDF, I suspect.
President, SmiteWorks

The Fantasy Grounds version is available for just $7 now if you already own the PDF here at Paizo.com and synced your account.

Mummy's Mask AP 1 for Fantasy Grounds

The rest of the Mummy's Mask series is available as well.

I saw the print edition of this was available for a little while. I was hoping I'd have money to buy it before it disappeared again, but I was too late, as I see today.

Is there any chance the print editions will be listed again?

I, too, would also like some information on why the

Pathfinder Adventure Path: Mummy's Mask Part 1 - The Half-Dead City

is only for sale between $75 and $150 while all the other books are less than $20... what asshattery is afoot, PAIZO???
Dark Archive

The first book is sold out and won't get a reprint as no Pathfinder AP volume was ever reprinted afaik and it also is for 1st. edition, which is discontinued after august 1st 2019.

I would get the pdf and print it, thats cheaper than the aftermarket prices.
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Actually, Adventure Path Volume 2, "The Skinsaw Murders" did receive a second printing. As far as I know, this has been the only such occurrence.

Also, Pathfinder First Edition is not discontinued, is ist still being sold by its publisher and will continue to be sold even after the release of the Second Edition.

That is correct, Paizo doesn't discontinue anything.

I have a similar problem as above. Book 1 can only be found for atrocious resale prices, if at all.

I can make do with the pdfs, but I would love to have a full collection of the physical books for the first campaign I've ever run for a total of three groups by now, so I'd really love to see a reprint...

(Alternatively, if anyone has the first book for resale for -not over 100-200 bucks-, I'd really appreciate a DM.)
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