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Pathfinder Module: Heroes for Highdelve

2.80/5 (based on 4 ratings)
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Will You Step Up?

Highdelve is in danger, and only true heroes can save the day!

Young human cousins Brialla and Meraina, as well as Kiliuk the tempestuous half-orc and Torgen the stoic dwarf, find themselves engrossed in Highdelve's joyous summer festival, the Brightbloom Jubilee. But all is shattered when the youths being honored return to town battered and bloodied. What's more, bullies robbed them of an amulet that's precious to the townspeople as well as to the regal gold dragon who protects them. As the visitors venture up a mountain to confront the culprits, they find that the situation is stickier than it appeared. Can the heroes stop a tiefling mastermind and his plan to unleash an ettin upon the festival? Or will mayhem win the day?

Heroes for Highdelve is an adventure for the four pregenerated 1st-level heroes in this volume, written for the award-winning Pathfinder RPG. The adventure takes place in Highdelve and surrounding areas of Brevoy in the official Pathfinder campaign setting, and is the perfect introduction to the game and its world!

ISBN-13: 978-1-64078-002-6

Upgrade Your Game! Specially designed to accompany Pathfinder Module: Heroes for Highdelve, Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Cavernous Lair contains two of the main encounter maps from the adventure.

Note: Heroes for Highdelve is published by Games & Gears under license from Gen Con and Paizo in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Gen Con, taking place August 17-20, 2017. It will be available for purchase at both the Games & Gears and Paizo booths, as well as paizo.com on or after the show.

Note: Due to the special nature of this product, it is NOT part of the Pathfinder Modules Subscription.

Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Sanctioned Content
Heroes for Highdelve is sanctioned for use in Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild.

Download the rules and Chronicle sheets — (237 kb zip/PDF)

Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:

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2.80/5 (based on 4 ratings)

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Best Feature is Short Running Time

3/5 —

NO SPOILERS

Heroes for Highdelve has an interesting background. Produced for the 50th anniversary of GenCon, it’s a combination of introductory Pathfinder adventure (plus incentive to buy the related Cavernous Lair flip-mat), advertisement for GenCon’s four iconic characters (presented in Pathfinder rules for the first time), and mini-product catalog for a miniatures & paint accessories company called Games & Gears (Booth # 2402!). The product is 22 pages long, with maps on the inside front- and back-covers, 12 pages of adventure, 4 pages for the GenCon Iconics (integrated into the adventure with individual story hooks), and 4 pages for the Games & Gears products (which include minis of the Iconics and one of the villains). Although obviously produced with commercial partners, the module is very professionally done, with excellent interior maps, artwork, and solid writing. And, an awesome cover—if they made that into a poster, I’d hang it up! I got to play Heroes for Highdelve via play-by-post for Pathfinder Society, and we used custom PCs (I had no idea the product was even intended for pre-gens). For me, the module is most memorable as the first appearance of my Prophet of Kalistrade character, Nistivo Cirek. For everyone else, the adventure itself is fine but forgettable. It does have value as a one-shot with a 2-3 hour running time (perfect for when the usual PFS 4-5 hour scenario running time won’t work).

SPOILERS!:

Heroes for Highdelve is set in the eponymous town, which is located at the foot of the Goluskhin Mountains in Brevoy. The PCs arrive during the annual Brightbloom Jubilee, a spring festival, and can have fun with various low-stakes games like sack races, kick-sack (hacky-sack), a puppet show, and more. The adventure assumes the use of the pre-gens, who each have a reason for coming to Highdelve, and expects the PCs to be asking a lot of questions of the locals during this time. Perhaps oddly though, but fortunately for custom PCs, most of the NPCs just give the questions the runaround or say the equivalent of “I’m busy now, but ask me tomorrow”; the actual adventure itself has nothing to do with the PCs’ individual quests. My GM did an excellent job adapting the adventure for PFS, as it wasn’t until I read the module for this review that I realise how much he had to make up in order to get us hooked into the adventure. Anyway, after some relaxed fun at the jubilee, the adventure kicks into gear when a pair of town youth stumble in, bruised and bloodied. The pair were the town’s celebratory “Bloomgivers” this year, given the honour of walking to the nearby Dendra’s Slope to collect special flowers for the jubilee. It turns out, however, that they were attacked by two other youths in town (Richelle and Tolwin) who were angry about not being chosen as Bloomgivers. And worse, the (rather violent) juvenile delinquents even took the golden amulet of Aurelliax (the town’s gold dragon protector, who hangs out in human form) from the Bloomgivers! “Are there any among you who are willing to be heroes for Highdelve?” asks Aurelliax. Nistivo Cirek will—for the right price!

Part 2 of the module has the PCs travelling to Dendra’s Slope. After finding the site of the attack, they’ll soon find (hiding nearby) Richelle and Tolwin. What the PCs won’t be expecting is that the two aren’t by themselves--their attack on the Bloomgivers was prompted by an evil tiefling rogue named Feran the Pale. (Feran had some sort of unrealistic plan to distract the townsfolk so he could steal from them, but the motivation here is pretty week). I’ll just note as an aside that Richelle and Tolwin fight with longswords and Feran has sneak attack, so it’s perfectly possible that this seeming “playground bullies”-style adventure could become lethal (combats are first level being notoriously swingy in Pathfinder).

Part 3 of the module has the PCs facing off against what could be a pretty big threat: an ettin that is wearing Aurelliax’s amulet (it was part of Feran’s plan). Alas, the ettin doesn’t have much in the way of personality, so this is a pure combat encounter.

And that’s it--there is a *very* short (one sentence) conclusion to the adventure. As an introductory experience to Pathfinder, Heroes for Highdelve is certainly serviceable, though I don’t imagine the plot or writing will be especially impressive to newcomers to the game.

A good introduction using concepts from other games, without the fun twists

3/5 —

Heroes for Highdelve is a module written specifically for Gencon, with slots of uncertain length, that is supposed to be good for introducing new players to Pathfinder. And, if the ads are any indication, for selling Gencon junk.

It borrows the structure that was used with great aplomb in adventures like We Be Goblins! with roleplaying followed by dungeon delving. For new players, for whom the idea is new, this can be a beautiful experience! For old players, though, this is just going to play as "We Be Humanz!" without much of the charm. That said, meeting the [redacted] is sort of cool (again, more cool for new players...) and that's worth something. Plus, you can skip huge chunks of this and make it run in just a few minutes.

Of course, the huge volume of ads for minis of questionable quality eat up space that could have been used elsewhere. As has been mentioned before, the room descriptions are sparse (casualties of low wordcount, perhaps?) and the conclusion got typefit right off the printed page, which is also sort of a travesty.

As you can tell, I have mixed feelings about this. For new audiences, it can be an awesome experience, although you probably need a GM who's been around the block at least a couple times to really make it shine. But that's exactly the situation it's written for! So while it's not as unique as it could have been and it does have shortcomings, it's hard to hold them against it--at least too much. So I guess I'd rate it par. It is perfectly good at what it's designed to do--but it doesn't really succeed beyond that.

Not worth fifteen dollars

1/5 —

Pedestrian adventure whose concept has been successfully executed many times before, this is written with the intent of using the (incorrectly built) pregens that come with the 20 page book.

The book has like 20 pages, 4 of them advertisements for add ons for this adventure, 4 pages for pregens, 1 page for credits, and 11 pages of adventure. Box text for areas consists of sometimes as little as 1 sentence. The entire conclusion is missing. Plot hooks are incredibly dependent on the pregens and do not translate to built characters.

This would be a good way to bring random characters together and start an adventure if We Be Goblins, Neverwinter Nights 2 and Hoard of the Dragon Queen didn't already do it better.

Short and easy to prepare; great for new players and GMs

4/5 —

I’ve ran Heroes for Highdelve twice now. Above anything else I have to say this is a short module that is rather easy to prepare. You can finish the adventure in as little as 90 minutes if you and the players really want to. In that case you’ll skip most of the role-playing and get straight to the fights and subsequent dice rolling. The fights can be scary as there can be quite significant hits, but I personally wouldn’t worry too much about it. The final encounter can be scary for any low-level character though.

While it is certainly doable to tackle the module that way, it is my firm belief that you’re missing out on the greatest strength of this module: role-play potential. Especially at the start there’s a lot of opportunity for both the players and the GM to improvise and really get into character. If the players are willing to showcase what their characters are like based on their descriptions and don’t take things too seriously, they can have a lot of fun exploring the festival. This is especially the case if the GM can improvise well. I myself had a blast of a time responding to and setting up all sorts of shenanigans. Considering some of the players had tears of laughter, I think it’s safe to say we all enjoyed it.

The pregens are solid, but not overly special. They do somewhat foreshadow things, but they’re all useful throughout the module. The only minor complaint that I have concerns Meraina and combat situations.. Both times I’ve GMed the module, Meraina ends up being the ‘I got nothing better to do, so I’ll just walk around and hand out potions’. And that’s a shame. While her spells, scrolls and touch make sense considering her persona, I don’t think there’ll be many moments where players will use them because of a variety of reasons. Especially her touch ability is rather risky to use given her hitpoints. So while the spells available to her make sense, I feel like other options could have had more of an impact and would still have made sense on a thematic level. That said, she’s still a solid and fun pregen though.

The first segment, with all the activities, is therefore the highlight of the module for me. While the rest isn’t bad, it just feels a bit more generic and, dare I say, standard. The words railroad come to mind for the second portion and some of the ‘clues’ early on in the third part were a bit too forced. To conclude I think that this module is an interesting option for timeslots that are roughly between 2 and 3 hours. While veterans can still have fun with the role-play options, I’d say this module is better suited for new players and I would certainly recommend it to them.

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Dark Archive
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Huh, completely missed this is a thing ._.; So will this get a pdf release later on?

Yeah, I hope it gets a PDF. This looks and sounds like something on the scale of the Free RPG Day modules.
Silver Crusade

Oooo...
Silver Crusade
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

An adventure set in Brevoy?

I hope a PDF gets released.

I'm pretty sure this might be a free PDF but only because I like the idea.
1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber

Well, the PDF of the associated map is free.

:(

Unavailable

Seems to be for a thing later this month. I'm guessing the PDF will be available around then or shortly after.

Set in Brevoy? Hmmm, will have to pick this one up.
Paizo Employee Pathfinder Society Lead Developer
7 people marked this as a favorite.

And to head off a likely question: yes, this is being sanctioned for Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild play—likely in time for Gen Con.

The product description also doesn't say whether this is part of the Modules subscription or not...

I'm hoping it is.
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Probably not, as it's not actually a Paizo product.
Dark Archive
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Zaister wrote:
Probably not, as it's not actually a Paizo product.

*looks at Paizo Inc* .-. I guess you meant its not a product?

Advocates
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
CorvusMask wrote:
Zaister wrote:
Probably not, as it's not actually a Paizo product.
*looks at Paizo Inc* .-. I guess you meant its not a product?

I believe they were referring to the following, from the product description:

Product Description wrote:
Note: Heroes for Highdelve is published by Games & Gears under license from Gen Con and Paizo in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Gen Con, taking place August 17-20, 2017. It will be available for purchase at both the Games & Gears and Paizo booths, as well as paizo.com on or after the show.
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

They were indeed.
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Oh, it's a weirdo. The product I mean. Being a Pathfinder Module with a Paizo Inc. link but from another publisher

Hmm.. I'll get the PDF then.
Dark Archive
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Yeah, thats weird ._. Its still in Golarion setting, I don't think there are any 3rd party stuff that takes place in Golarion?
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Yeah, it's licensed by Paizo, the author is Amanda Hamon Kunz even.
3 people marked this as a favorite.

Yay, set in Brevoy! Also provides another reason never to attend a public function on Golarion. Festavils tends to get attacked or spoiled often.in this world.
Dark Archive
1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
CorvusMask wrote:
Yeah, thats weird ._. Its still in Golarion setting, I don't think there are any 3rd party stuff that takes place in Golarion?

technically, It's not 3rd party, it's 2nd party as it's done under license.

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Nope, the second party in the triangle is usually the customer, i.e. us.

In fact, all third party products are done under a license, whether it's the OGL or the Pathfinder Compatibility License, the Paizo Community License, or an individually negotiated license like the one Games & Gears is likely using.
Sczarni
3 people marked this as a favorite.
Zaister wrote:

Nope, the second party in the triangle is usually the customer, i.e. us.

In fact, all third party products are done under a license, whether it's the OGL or the Pathfinder Compatibility License, the Paizo Community License, or an individually negotiated license like the one Games & Gears is likely using.

As far as the RPG industry is concerned, 2nd party has always referred to parties other than the owner, with a license that allows them to use the owner's IP. Paizo was considered and referred to as a 2nd party publisher for D&D when they were printing Dragon and Dungeon magazines, for example.

CorvusMask wrote:


Yeah, thats weird ._. Its still in Golarion setting, I don't think there are any 3rd party stuff that takes place in Golarion?

Its very limited. From Shore to Sea was a joint necromancer games/paizo project similar to this one is, and several Kobald Quarterly articles were licensed. (The Radovan and Jaggare article, and the Creatures of Osirion stats are the two I can think of off the top of my head)

Kirstov,

There was also two articles on Barbatos and Dispater.
Scarab Sages Development Coordinator
23 people marked this as a favorite.

I am SO excited to see this announced.

This year will be my 12th consecutive year at Gen Con--I've been going to the show since I was in college, when it was just a carload of us making the trip from Michigan/Ohio as fans. As my position in the industry has gone from fan to freelancer to full-time industry professional, Gen Con has always been a constant. It's been a place to meet up with friends, to network with professionals, and now to chat with fans. It's been a big cornerstone of my personal and professional spheres.

So, needless to say, it is SUCH a huge honor to have the opportunity to write the module that's celebrating Gen Con's 50th anniversary.

It's so cool to have been able to give names, stats, and back stories to iconic characters whose introductions I remember from Gen Con's promotional materials back in, I want to say, around 2013. It's also exciting to have immersed these iconics in the lore of Golarion, and to be able to introduce them to Paizo's fans as well as to hopefully interest new folks in Pathfinder and our world.

As much as Gen Con was formative for me as a young fan, I hope that this module and the show's 50th anniversary will bring new fans into the fold, and introduce youngsters to a hobby they can call their own.

Gen Con and Games & Gears have been great partners in making this product happen--and a huge shoutout to Managing Developer Adam Daigle, who gave the module a once-over and helped me trim the (originally way too long!) text to fit into the page count.

I am stoked to have had the privilege to be involved in this book! I hope folks dig it!
Silver Crusade
1 person marked this as a favorite.
Amanda Hamon Kunz wrote:

I am SO excited to see this announced.

This year will be my 12th consecutive year at Gen Con--I've been going to the show since I was in college, when it was just a carload of us making the trip from Michigan/Ohio as fans. As my position in the industry has gone from fan to freelancer to full-time industry professional, Gen Con has always been a constant. It's been a place to meet up with friends, to network with professionals, and now to chat with fans. It's been a big cornerstone of my personal and professional spheres.

So, needless to say, it is SUCH a huge honor to have the opportunity to write the module that's celebrating Gen Con's 50th anniversary.

It's so cool to have been able to give names, stats, and back stories to iconic characters whose introductions I remember from Gen Con's promotional materials back in, I want to say, around 2013. It's also exciting to have immersed these iconics in the lore of Golarion, and to be able to introduce them to Paizo's fans as well as to hopefully interest new folks in Pathfinder and our world.

As much as Gen Con was formative for me as a young fan, I hope that this module and the show's 50th anniversary will bring new fans into the fold, and introduce youngsters to a hobby they can call their own.

Gen Con and Games & Gears have been great partners in making this product happen--and a huge shoutout to Managing Developer Adam Daigle, who gave the module a once-over and helped me trim the (originally way too long!) text to fit into the page count.

I am stoked to have had the privilege to be involved in this book! I hope folks dig it!

Kickass! I can't wait to look it over now ^w^

Paizo Employee Managing Developer
3 people marked this as a favorite.

Glad to be helpful, Amanda! People are going to dig this!
Grand Lodge

Whelp, I know what my GenCon store credit is going to!
Liberty's Edge
2 people marked this as a favorite.

Is this going to be part of the module subscription?
Dark Archive

Any chance of a PDF of this being released?
Grand Lodge

When will this be made available for online purchase? I love one-shots but find that the best medium for gameplay is through Roll20 so without a PDF I often can't DM a game.
Dark Archive

Will we still be able to get a print copy here?
Liberty's Edge

When will this be reportable? I'm running it at my FLGS on Thursday.

Edit: Also, will there be a PDF of at least the pregens?
Sovereign Court
Arch Fline wrote:
When will this be made available for online purchase? I love one-shots but find that the best medium for gameplay is through Roll20 so without a PDF I often can't DM a game.

dot

Grand Lodge

If it eases anyone's mind, I picked this up and GenCon and don't have PDF access either.
Grand Lodge

Made sure to get my copy of the rules and chronicle sheet.
Grand Lodge
TriOmegaZero wrote:
If it eases anyone's mind, I picked this up and GenCon and don't have PDF access either.

Honestly that, coupled with the knowledge that the product appears to be generally unavailable in pdf or paper form out side of having purchased at the Con, leads me to believe that this may be a Con exclusive which would be unfortunate. At any rate I do hope they make this more widely avalibe as I would love to DM some one-shots of this on Roll20.

Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber

If this item is supposed to be a Gen Con exclusive not available at all in PDF form, why does it even have a Paizo product page?
Silver Crusade
Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I'm expecting this to be like Free RPG stuff, where it isn't available for a certain length of time after Gencon.
Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber

That would make more sense, yes.
Scarab Sages Development Coordinator
17 people marked this as a favorite.

Hey there, folks!

As far as my understanding, this product should be available soon in print and PDF form. I don't have a definitive date quite yet, but they should be coming.

For those of you who picked up the print version of the module at the show, an error unfortunately cropped up sometime after we finished the files on our end. The final section is missing from the print version. I'm pasting it here for folks looking for that text.

Spoiler:

CONCLUDING THE ADVENTURE

After the PCs have defeated the ettin, recovered the Golden Pendant, and emerged from the cave, they come face to face with Aurelliax in her true form. She is a magnificent mature adult gold dragon whose presence dwarfs that of the PCs. Once she sees that the PCs have her amulet, she thanks them. She gifts each of them statuettes of gold dragons with diamonds for eyes, each worth 2,000 gp. If the PCs still need information to resolve the goals they pursued during the Brightbloom Jubilee, Aurelliax tells them now: Kiliuk's mother is in Grayhaven, the cargo Torgen seeks left Highdelve destined for Grayhaven, and Carth Garenth not only has Rhylene's ring designs but would be willing to make Brialla and Meraina a new one free of charge.

While the PCs were in the cave, Aurelliax harvested the slope's brightblooms. The filled cart in her claws, the gold dragon offers the PCs a ride to Highdelve on her back. (She also transports the bullies and Feran to stand trial, if any of them accompany the PCs.) With the bullies and possibly Feran locked up, the townspeople fete the heroes, who are invited to hand out brightblooms during the most joyous Brightbloom Ball the town has ever seen—all thanks to the PCs’ efforts.
Grand Lodge

Thanks Amanda! That DID confuse me a bit.
Grand Lodge
Amanda Hamon Kunz wrote:

Hey there, folks!

As far as my understanding, this product should be available soon in print and PDF form. I don't have a definitive date quite yet, but they should be coming.

For those of you who picked up the print version of the module at the show, an error unfortunately cropped up sometime after we finished the files on our end. The final section is missing from the print version. I'm pasting it here for folks looking for that text.

** spoiler omitted **

I'm assuming this will be adjusted and added to the upcoming PDF and new print?

Grand Lodge

I don't expect there to be a new printing.
Scarab Sages Development Coordinator
2 people marked this as a favorite.
kevin_video wrote:
Amanda Hamon Kunz wrote:

Hey there, folks!

As far as my understanding, this product should be available soon in print and PDF form. I don't have a definitive date quite yet, but they should be coming.

For those of you who picked up the print version of the module at the show, an error unfortunately cropped up sometime after we finished the files on our end. The final section is missing from the print version. I'm pasting it here for folks looking for that text.

** spoiler omitted **

I'm assuming this will be adjusted and added to the upcoming PDF and new print?

I don't know about any additional printing, because Paizo produced but didn't print this product.

The PDF remains correct (I just checked to make sure!), so when that's available on the website it'll have that missing piece of text in there as intended.

When will be able to download?. Thanks.
Sczarni
1 person marked this as a favorite.
Bowesley wrote:
When will be able to download?. Thanks.

I'm guessing it will be added when the stock from GenCon is put back into the inventory system. Last year that took about 3 weeks to do

Thanks Cpt_kirstov
Liberty's Edge

has anyone tried to report this module yet? I can't find it in the 'Pathfinder Modules' section of the site.
Silver Crusade RPG Superstar 2013 Top 8

I purchased this at GenCon and plan to run it soon, however it has not yet been added to the PFS reporting system.
Dark Archive

I just picked up the flip map at my local store but the module still seems to be unavailable, any clue when that might change?
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