Now bound to Queen Abrogail by infernal contracts, the villainous adventurers are tasked with destroying the Glorious Reclamation's headquarters in the former citadel of the Hellknight Order of the Godclaw, where they face a gold dragon ally of Iomedae herself! Only if they can survive the terrible onslaught of this fearsome foe and secure the citadel from the revolutionaries can the vile characters succeed at their quest—to perform an evil ritual, using the dragon's head to craft a legendary weapon capable of defeating the Glorious Reclamation's army of valorous knights once and for all.
This volume of Pathfinder Adventure Path continues the Hell's Vengeance Adventure Path and includes:
"Scourge of the Godclaw," a Pathfinder adventure for 13th-level characters, by Larry Wilhelm.
An exploration of how Cheliax's neighbors respond to the current uprising, by Alex Greenshields.
A look into the faith, dogma, and worshipers of the archdevil Geryon, lord of Stygia—Hell's fifth layer—by F. Wesley Schneider.
Dark secrets revealed in the Pathfinder's Journal, by Josh Vogt.
Five new monsters both dangerous and helpful, by Benjamin Bruck, Paris Crenshaw, Jason Keeley, Greg A. Vaughan, and Larry Wilhelm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-842-7
Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:
GOOD:
Good illustrations, four very different locations which all have good maps, strong (but mostly not too strong) enemies, good roleplaying opportunities, 2 good minor artifacts and a nice new poison, the "beyond the borders" article where the reaction of the six neighbouring states and 3 organisations is summarized, the very interesting Geryon article with new spell and obediences and a bestiary with 4 (out of 5) cool monsters: Hammer Archon, Nehushtan (tiny NG snake/advanced familiar), Spellgorger (superdeadly) and Zana (fey).
BAD:
The size and build of the "Godclaw Citadel" make it complicated to handle for a GM, lots of enemies with spells, spell-like abilities and extraordinary abilities make it hard to remember everything, You need ALL 5 Bestiaries!
The Duergar Antipaladi sucks as does the Ez-Azael from the bestiary section.
UGLY:
In part 3 the GM has to handle an entire adventurer party of 3 casters and a 4th member with lots of special abilities - that is too much.
The plugging of the "NPC Codex" for one battle only is needless.
The same is true for the "Occult Adventures" book, which you need for only one enemy caster with lots of occult spells you have to read.
All in all the second half of "Hell´s Vengeance" continues to be much better than the first.
It is however an immense workload for the GM, which only expert Gamemasters can handle easily.
If you are a traveling GM and use physical copies, you´d have to carry 13 hardcovers with you!
A little less "bookload" would have been more.
Does the Astral Deva even warrant a Challenge Rating of 14 though? It seems to me there are a great deal more monsters at CR 14 with far more firepower than that. Also, did they ever revise the Empyreal Lord subtype to make them comparable to the Demon Lord subtype?
I don't have my Cheliax book on hand right now, but I recall it being mentioned (as well as the old Nail fort).
I couldn't find any mention of the Order of the Godclaw in the Cheliax book (if by that you mean Cheliax, The Infernal Empire, the Campaign Setting book).
I don't have my Cheliax book on hand right now, but I recall it being mentioned (as well as the old Nail fort).
I couldn't find any mention of the Order of the Godclaw in the Cheliax book (if by that you mean Cheliax, The Infernal Empire, the Campaign Setting book).
Probably because Citadel Dinyar (the headquarters of the Order of the Godclaw) is in Isger.
Any chance you can give a little bit of detail on them? Especially the first two.
Spoiler:
Hammer Archon - CR18 LG large outsider (it's an Archon)
Ez-Azael - CR12 LG large Outsider (it's a goat thing)
Nehushtan - CR2 NG tiny Magical Beast (it's a snake thing)
Spellgorger - CR12 N large Ooze (it's a spellcaster-hating, floating ooze sphere)
Zana - CR14 NG medium Fey (humanoid-looking fey warrior)
I got my pdf as well and thought I didn't get a complete volume pdf, but I noticed the zip file contains not only the individual chapter pdfs, but also the complete volume pdf. Those of you who want the single volume can just open up the PZO90107E.pdf file.
Would anyone be able to summarize the reactions of neighboring nations? Do any of them raid or invade Cheliax?
Here's the abbreviated version:
Rahadoum retakes Khari no matter which side wins. Andoran declares war on Cheliax's slave trade, but the Supreme Elect can't convince enough members of the People's Council to declare full-scale war. Isger pledges loyalty to Cheliax but sends no troops, and quickly starts negotiating with its other neighbors for an alliance, afraid that it can't survive on its own. Molthune sends troops to help House Thrune, but they mysteriously disappear near the town of Finder's Gulch. Nidal retreats and closes its borders until hostilities end. Sargava is too busy with its own internal problem to take advantage of Cheliax's momentary weakness.
So, I just gorged myself on my subscriptions (much like Geryon on the rulers of Hell). And I discovered something... interesting.
Spoiler:
The lictor of the Godclaw seems very different between this book and Path of the Hellknight. Different deity, different appearance. It's not completely unexplainable (in fact, upon review, they were more similar than I thought), but it was rather jarring nonetheless.
So is the Hammer Archon anything like the D&D 3.5 Hammer Archon from Races of Stone? Or totally different, I hope?
They're not especially comparable, besides "big archon with a hammer". For one, the one here is 9 CRs higher. The old one was more stone-based (which makes sense, given the source), while this one is more law-focused.
So lol on chapter Pathfinder Society part of "What will happen if either side of this war wins the rebellion": Stay classy Society, on that side of Neutralness :'D
I really like the chapter on the various reactions of other nations to the insurrection. Even if one isn't keen on the Adventure, they can open a lot of story possibilities.
I too could only download the version where all the chapters are separated. Would definitely like access to the PDF where it's all in one file. Please?
*Edit: Okay, the single PDF was in there with all the others. It was simply titled PZO90107E.pdf and was 22,000 kb in size. So if you have this problem, just look for this particular file and that's the entire adventure in one PDF.