Fires burn atop the ruined citadel on Hellknight Hill, sending plumes of red smoke into the air that could be a call for help. Within the old keep, strange invaders from a distant land, mysterious long-lost ruins, and the machinations of a shadowy organization await discovery. Something dire is building toward an apocalyptic event, and it falls to your characters to stop the end before it begins. The Age of Ashes Adventure Path begins with "Hellknight Hill"—a complete adventure for 1st- to 4th-level characters.
This is the first adventure I've ever GMed, and i thought it went well. issues with balance and grind as others have pointed out are present, but not overly glaring. My players enjoyed it and i think the overall story of the AP is really good, and I'm looking forward to continue through the rest of it.
This was my first time running an AP, although I did wind up starting and finishing book 1 of a Starfinder AP while in the process of running this book. I had run a few PFS scenarios before this, but did not otherwise have much experience as a GM before running this.
Overall I was satisfied with it and think my players enjoyed their time and are looking forward to book 2. I did not find it difficult to run besides a minor plot hole or two. I really liked the town of Breachill as there is a fun cast of NPCs to interact with the PCs when they're in town, and there is some nice artwork to go along with it. Some of the villager artwork is tucked away at the end of subsequent books though as a heads up.
Overall the citadel felt like a bit of a grind. Even though I was using mile-stone leveling (which felt like it worked really well) I was wary of deviating from the module so I basically included every combat. If I were to do it over, I would remove a lot of the filler combats that just don't really matter.
I think my biggest criticism is that although the book has some nice story points and a fairly solid ending, the villains pretty uniformly struck me as underwhelming if you run them exactly as written. I might have overly high expectations, but I just didn't think any of the antagonists had a coherent plan or goal which makes it hard to take them seriously. Luckily(?) my players tended to cut them all down without bothering to ask them any tricky questions like 'how exactly did you think that would work?'.
My other gripe is that most of the battle maps were very cramped. My group had two fighters, so body blocking in all the narrow passages and then just using Attack of Opportunity to hack anything trying to get to the squishier backline characters made a lot of the fights feel pretty flat.
There was however one map with a lot of verticality that I would like to praise. It was essentially a map with three multi-level, fancy tree houses to fight over. The distance math on ranges of spell effects got a bit complicated, but the players really had a great time putting together a plan of attack and then (attempting) to execute it. So that fight really shined as a high note in the adventure.
Overall would recommend and the overall story seems interesting.
I enjoyed spending some time in Isger between #1-05 in PFS, Fall of Plaguestone, and this AP volume.
That said, Hellknight Hill feels like the most forced of the lot. It's paint by numbers to remind you that goblins are good now, bunch of combat so that you can try out 2E monsters, and sets up the rest of the AP.
I enjoyed playing through it as a completionist, but once more APs come out I think this intro won't compare to the newer entries.
The NPCs are good. And there are some well scripted scenes.
But as with anything, the advantages also signal the disadvantages. Good NPCs are "protected" -- the module scripted to keep one from find out too much before it's time. And the scripted scenes, by definition, beg to be played -- which means a significant degree of linear movement through the adventure, and the inability to have the excitement of resolving or discovering something on one's own time.
Does the rules rewrite (the new Player Core and GM Core) work with Age of Ashes? Would I need to make changes to the campaign or can I run it un altered?
Pathfinder LO Special Edition, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
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