The kings and queens of Korvosa have long ruled under the shadow of the Curse of the Crimson Throne—an infamous superstition claiming that no monarch of the city of Korvosa shall ever die of old age or produce an heir. Whether or not there is any truth to the legend of the curse, Korvosa's current king is but the latest victim to succumb to this foul legacy. Now, the metropolis teeters on the edge of anarchy, and it falls to a band of new heroes to save Korvosa from the greatest threat it has ever known! This hardcover compilation updates the fan-favorite campaign for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, including new and revised content and nearly 500 pages packed with mayhem, excitement, and adventure!
This hardcover edition of Curse of the Crimson Throne contains:
All six chapters of the original Adventure Path, expanded and updated for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.
An in-depth gazetteer of the city of Korvosa as it exists under the rule of its new queen.
An array of new rules options for characters, ranging from campaign traits to spells to magic items.
An expansive appendix with statistics, descriptions, backgrounds, and rules support for the 12 most important NPCs in the campaign.
A bestiary featuring nine monsters from the original Adventure Path making their debut under the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game rules.
Dozens of new illustrations, never-before-seen characters, location maps, extensive new encounter locations, and more!
ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-890-8
Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Sanctioned Content Curse of the Crimson Throne is sanctioned for use in Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild.
I ran this AP for two years with five players. We're using the Pathfinder Second Edition ruleset (along with a resource document from pathfinderinfinite). After that much time, we've journeyed through 5 of the 6 chapters and I'm willing to give it a review!
It has been a blast! The city of Korvosa is very memorable, primarely in the atmosphere it breathes.. its people/npcs, locations, a tiny little bit of political intrigue.. the Chronicles Guide to Korvosa is another book that does a splendid job of painting the setting.
The adventure kicks off very, very strong! The first couple of sessions might be some of the best you've ever had while running an adventure. It is grim, realistic, exciting, it feels real! As if you're not sitting at that table but walking the streets yourself. Be that good or bad, there is no other chapter that quite reaches the heights of the first.
As people mention out, there is indeed a "leaving Korvosa" part in chapters 4 and 5, and they do feel very contrasted to the others. On the other hand, book 4 I found easier as a GM to adjust to my whims more than any chapter before it, and chapter 5 with its mega dungeon was a (for me) surprisingly appreciated intermediate after I had prepared all the resources (drawing the mega-dungeon on several huge 1-inched grid papers, making up the treasure table for 2nd edition) since it required much less effort from my part after that.
Now that we're about to crack the final chapter I can see my players have a lost of investment into returning to Korvosa and seeing all lose knots tied. I'm somewhat disappointed though, that, for the most part, the final chapter ALSO works as a mega-dungeon! I've explained this with my players and we've agreed that we don't need to chapters of that in a row; we'll take on the final one with a more narrative approach to the most interesting locations instead.
I'm certain that the final chapter will be a success and we'll have many, many opportunities yet to see how each relation of the pcs with the many npcs comes to an end. Many of them have become second family to our group!
Though it may require a bit of love in some spots to fit your needs, Curse of The Crimson Throne offers, without a doubt, a very memorable setting and storyline. It is harsh, often grim, with endless opportunities to bend it to a unique experience for your group!
This AP is widely considered one of the (if not THE) best Adventure Paths for good reason. It really is that good. Tons of really interesting NPCs and storylines. Lots and lots and lots of room for a GM to add their own touches. An excellent story that makes the PCs feel like heroes. Villains they really want to beat. Heck, it's even a good introduction to the pathfinder system and world.
Not only that, but since it's so popular, there's tons of advice about what changes to make, what to keep an eye on, and how to make changes that can improve it. This edition is a fantastic deal and an excellent campaign and I can't recommend it highly enough.
I wrote fricking long review about great time I had with running the whole campaign(and post campaign) and then it got deleted by the fricking "too much backtracking" page dagnabbit
I'm not gonna write the entire thing again, so here is in short: This campaign has great recurring NPC cast(most of later APs have problem with introducing cool NPCs and then rest of books never mentioning them again), great themes, great villains, Kazavon's awesome hair, allows multiple approaches to different situations(such as infiltrating with sneaking or talking through places instead of just fighting through them. Kinda reminds me of Deux Ex computer games in a way), awesome locations, awesome post campaign potential and is one of my favourite APs ever.
Short Version: A smart buy but held back by structural issues.
It's hard to get better adventure value for your dollar than this or the Rise of the Runelords collected edition. If I were reviewing on that alone, this would be 5 stars and then some. But there's more to an adventure than that.
The AP's hook is quite good, but almost immediately discarded in favor of saving the city. This can be helped a good session 0, but still feels artificial.
Even looking at the new plot, many elements feel shoehorned in. People point to volumes 4 and 5 for this, but there are sections in 2 that exist only to kill time as the plot advances and an entire dungeon in 3 that is cool but can seem forced if the players don't kick in the door right away. Any of these alone would be fine, but each makes the next more obvious.
That being said, there's a lot of cool stuff going on here, it just takes at least a star's worth of work to stitch it together.
Yes but how can a physical product be cheaper than a digital one?
For 4925th time: "the price of a product does not reflect only production costs; it reflects dozens of other factors". In this case, the factor is likely that Paizo wants to get the books out of the warehouse as they're taking up space, and with PF1 dead, there's little prospect of this moving faster under the current price, so it got discounted.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:
Pinktiger wrote:
Cori Marie wrote:
One is digital and the other physical?
Yes but how can a physical product be cheaper than a digital one?
For 4925th time: "the price of a product does not reflect only production costs; it reflects dozens of other factors". In this case, the factor is likely that Paizo wants to get the books out of the warehouse as they're taking up space, and with PF1 dead, there's little prospect of this moving faster under the current price, so it got discounted.
I'm pretty sure CotCT started off at $30 though. Is there any other precedent that a PDF is more expensive than the physical product?
Yes but how can a physical product be cheaper than a digital one?
For 4925th time: "the price of a product does not reflect only production costs; it reflects dozens of other factors". In this case, the factor is likely that Paizo wants to get the books out of the warehouse as they're taking up space, and with PF1 dead, there's little prospect of this moving faster under the current price, so it got discounted.
I'm pretty sure CotCT started off at $30 though. Is there any other precedent that a PDF is more expensive than the physical product?
Have to admit that usually makes. For EU GM that even might temp me to buy it even with all the extra shipping costs, if I didn’t decide to go fully digital these days. Still I found the difference great in this one.
Yes but how can a physical product be cheaper than a digital one?
For 4925th time: "the price of a product does not reflect only production costs; it reflects dozens of other factors". In this case, the factor is likely that Paizo wants to get the books out of the warehouse as they're taking up space, and with PF1 dead, there's little prospect of this moving faster under the current price, so it got discounted.
I'm pretty sure CotCT started off at $30 though. Is there any other precedent that a PDF is more expensive than the physical product?
There were a couple of sales previously when a physical early-era Paizo product ended up cheaper than PDFs. That's how you clear your warehouse.
Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, PF Special Edition, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:
There were a couple of sales previously when a physical early-era Paizo product ended up cheaper than PDFs. That's how you clear your warehouse.
There are examples of this right now in the sale area of the store.
Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
This also applies to the Rise of the Runelords Pocket Edition. First edition Pocket Editions are the same price as the PDFs. First edition print products are just going to be cheaper, because the system isn't supported anymore and they don't want those products taking up valuable space in the warehouse.
