The Reaping Stone Deluxe Adventure (PFRPG) PDF

It's a-l-iiiiiii-vv-e!!!

Hmm...

Is this a dungeon crawl, aninvestigation adventure or something else? Since the disease-topic was done in Curse of the Crimson Throne, are there differences in the approach?

Very intrigued.

Is this a dungeon crawl, an investigation adventure or something else? Since the disease-topic was done in Curse of the Crimson Throne, are there differences in the approach?

Hope that helps!

Tom, you are an evil, evil man...

Looks great! COuple of questions though:
1) Does the above adventure include the battlemaps, it seems they're seperate but I wanted to make sure.
2) On the battlemaps, are there versions that can be used on a VTT?
Thanks,
Jeff...

Jeffrey,

Thanks! A lot of hard work went into this adventure, and we are glad everyone is appreciating it.

The adventure has the maps within, but they are not scaled for printing. There is a separate product for all the printable battle maps. As for the maps, I don't believe they are VTT, though that might be something we could retroactively include. I'll bring that up to our cartographer and see what he thinks.

Thanks for the kind review, JStep! You're actually the first person to post a review too, so double-thank you! :-)

Where can we get the maps as a separate product, or is that still to be released?

Where can we get the maps as a separate product, or is that still to be released?

Here's the link to the battlemaps.

Cheers Tom!

Thanks for the review Jst3p! Glad you enjoyed the adventure. This is one dark thrill-ride!

I'm going to be honest, I was not pleased, at all, with this adventure. Perhaps that is because I couldn't get past the first encounter. I was doing the whole "you're sitting in a bar and stuff happens" as a kid, I certainly didn't need an adventure to tell me how to tell my players "you're sitting in a bar and stuff happens" and I certainly didn't need to wait nearly a year for that adventure.

I thought about posting a review for the product but decided that wouldn't be fair, it is possible that the remaining pages are brilliant, but the truth is that if you can't hook your audience from the start you really don't have an audience and I wasn't hooked, not even a little bit.

I thought about posting a review for the product but decided that wouldn't be fair,

To heck with fair, ShadowcatX! I'd love to see your honest and thorough review. Sounds like the opening scene wasn't your cup of tea. It's very old school and rail-roady in it's approach, which isn't for everyone. But I'd still love to hear your take on the other 99% of the adventure. I'm sure others would too!

That's just it. I haven't read the other 99% of the adventure. When the hook didn't interest me I filed it away under adventures I will never, ever run, and quit thinking about it. That's why I said it wouldn't be fair, not because I'm afraid of offending TPK or anyone, but because I couldn't be fair in a review because I have 0 interest in the product.

So you have nothing to say about WHY you weren't interested and what could have been done to MAKE it interesting to you?

I'm not interested in the Reaping Stone because the hook had absolutely no appeal, I don't know how to say it any plainer than that.

However, having gotten the pre-release of the Bleeding Hollow I must say it is a different ball entirely. I'm absolutely loving it.

What would you change about the hook to make it appealing?

If it didn't happen in a tavern, would that be enough?

It wasn't just the location that bothered me exactly, it was that the pcs are at the tavern (and only the pcs) and they're there for no good reason other than the adventure says that they are. And what are they doing there? Just waiting for the adventure to start.

If the BBEG had figured the pcs as the threats and lured them to the tavern with some kind of promised reward or something that would even have been fine. If the town had a law that required all out of towners spend their nights in the tavern (which suddenly doubles as an inn, and for the express purpose of keeping them from causing mischief around town, maybe because the barkeep is the town's law enforcer) and that was why the pcs (being the only out of towners) were there alone, I could accept it.

To me, the hook isn't so much that you are waiting for adventure, it's that adventure is thrust upon you. Really, really, unfairly I might add. Because that's what we do. Enjoy your soup. ;)

Pretty much. They're at the tavern for the same reason any other random group of people are at a tavern. To get out of the elements and have a beer.

Has someone already GMed this adventure ?

It looks interesting.

If I understood correctly this adventure is a prequel to the Bleeding Hollow ?

You are correct. It's not absolutely needed, but where it ends is a great point to bring the PCs into the Bleeding Hollow adventure.

You are correct. It's not absolutely needed, but where it ends is a great point to bring the PCs into the Bleeding Hollow adventure.

Oh, Brian. Your optimism is adorable! You're assuming of course that the PCs survive the adventure. ;-)

:D

Reviewed first on Endzeitgeist.com, then submitted to Nerdtrek and GMS magazine and posted here, on OBS and d20pfsrd.com's shop. Great job, Tom! This alongside your work with LG really wants me see you craft more of those big monster-modules!

Reviewed first on Endzeitgeist.com, then submitted to Nerdtrek and GMS magazine and posted here, on OBS and d20pfsrd.com's shop. Great job, Tom! This alongside your work with LG really wants me see you craft more of those big monster-modules!

Thanks for the review, Endz!

The Reaping Stone was a great learning experience for me. It was originally supposed to be a short, 32-page prequel for The Bleeding Hollow ... but it just kept growing and growing. Oops. ;-)

Regarding your concerns with the ambitious meta-plot, I have to agree with you. In hindsight, I could have benefited greatly from a lead designer looking over my shoulder to help tie together some of my gooey, creepy plot-threads. But TPK is a 3PP (unlike Paizo, who has several such geniuses on staff!), so this monstrous, bloody baby was pretty much all mine (except for Rich's magnificent cartography and Skip's expert editing). In the future, I need to keep a tighter reign on my plot lines, especially when designing an adventure longer than the standard 32 pages. Lesson learned.

Brian, myself, and a too-early-too-reveal celebrity designer from the glory days of old school D&D are in the very early stages of designing a 3-part mega adventure. I'm also in the very very larval stages of plotting out another short adventure that Rich Hunt and I will co-author. I promise to take the lessons I learned from writing The Reaping Stone and heed them on these and all my future projects.

Thanks again for the kind review and the kind words!!

Is this available in print or just PDF?

@Gondolin: Yes, it's available in print.

@Tom Philips: I *hope* I managed to convey why it's awesome, but also why it has some weaknesses. I consider it a great buy still and DEFINITELY look forward to the 3-parter you mentioned (and also to teh collaboration with Richard!)! If I may: Some social scenes/investigations/non-combat scenes would also have benefited the module - other than that: RIGHT up my alley! Your writing slowly but steadily has made you one of the authors I look forward to reading.

Gondolin, this is available in print from d20pfsrd.com and on Amazon.

I liked the adventure, there were some good ideas, and it seemed like the danger factor was at last a bit better than usually, but I have one gripe : not enough art.

Your writing slowly but steadily has made you one of the authors I look forward to reading.

Thanks again, Endz.

If you're interested in another Tom Phillipsian adventure, you should check out the recently released Tomb of Caragthax - Revised.

I am about to start a tabletop campaign, and The Reaping Stone will be the centerpiece of what I've planned so far.

I am going to set the campaign on Golarion, and I'm substituting the city of Korvosa for Maerh-Varza. I am debating substituting the goddess Urgathoa for Maramaga, or re-casting Maramaga as a demon lord of disease. I'm leaning toward the former.

In case anyone is looking to follow the campaign, I am planning to start a campaign journal once we start playing.

Just how difficult is this module?

Do character’s need to be min/maxed to the balls, or can any player do well if they are resourceful and cautious?

Well, by my reading, a normal party should be able to handle it if they're resourceful and cautious. The module has a "scaling the adventure" section if you're running it with less than 6 PCs (similiar to how PFS Scenarios handle the situation.)

My PCs are built on a 15-point buy, and are not optimized. I have a feeling I'll be scaling it down, even though we have six PCs.

I'm starting the PCs at Level 1, and I'm running them through a couple of other short adventures to get them to Level 2 before we start The Reaping Stone in earnest. The PCs are based out of the Stirge and Hammer Inn, and all have connections to Vasaro and Basila.

Specifically, I'm running modified versions of the PFS Season 4 scenario Rise of the Goblin Guild, and the Set Piece "St. Carpathian's Salvation" from Pathfinder #13: Shadow in the Sky as preludes.

BTW, I have decided to use Urgathoa instead of the Maramaga goddess from the module, to give my game more Golarion flavor.

One small critique about the Maramaga write-up: deities should have five domains, but Maramaga has seven listed.

Cheers, I’ll probably bump my players up to 20 point buy to be on the safe side.

I too was thinking of running a short level 1 module first, but I haven’t decided which one yet. I’ll look into what you’ve suggested.

My campaign is progressing, and we have finally gotten past the introductory adventures, and are into Chapter 1 of The Reaping Stone.

In the five sessions I ran with the PCs at Level 1, I used the Stirge and Hammer as their base of operations. I worked to establish Vasaro and Basila as their friends, and tried to establish an emotional connection to them so that they would have a bigger stake in the game.

I also re-worked a bunch of campaign traits to use for this game. The traits are somewhat Korvosa-specific, as I do intend to continue to run this group as an urban campaign after the conclusion of Reaping Stone.

I've also started GM discussions about this adventure over on the Compatible Products forum, and over at the TPK Messageboards.

Glad to hear you are enjoying the adventure. We'd love to hear all the details.

My group is...

If you're interested in a play-by-play, see my campaign journal.

Looking ahead, there are a few modifications I think I'll be making...

1.

2.

So, I remember reading somewhere there was anoother super-delux adventure that can be run stand-alone or as a sequel to reaping stone. Anyone know what that was?