paizo.com Recent Reviews of Pathfinder Adventure Path #176: Lost Mammoth Valley (Quest for the Frozen Flame 2 of 3)paizo.com Recent Reviews of Pathfinder Adventure Path #176: Lost Mammoth Valley (Quest for the Frozen Flame 2 of 3)2024-03-02T01:21:13Z2024-03-02T01:21:13ZPathfinder Adventure Path #176: Lost Mammoth Valley (Quest for the Frozen Flame 2 of 3) (5 stars)UlfenTraderhttps://paizo.com/products/btq02c1b?Pathfinder-Adventure-Path-176-Lost-Mammoth-Valley2023-12-28T10:51:17Z...UlfenTrader2023-12-28T10:51:17ZPathfinder Adventure Path #176: Lost Mammoth Valley (Quest for the Frozen Flame 2 of 3): just here to offset the guy 1- & 2-starring all the PF2E products (5 stars)King Wedgiehttps://paizo.com/products/btq02c1b?Pathfinder-Adventure-Path-176-Lost-Mammoth-Valley2023-03-11T17:17:20Z<p><b>Pathfinder Adventure Path #176: Lost Mammoth Valley (Quest for the Frozen Flame 2 of 3)</b></p><p><b>Pathfinder Adventure Path #176: Lost Mammoth Valley (Quest for the Frozen Flame 2 of 3)</b></p>King Wedgie2023-03-11T17:17:20ZPathfinder Adventure Path #176: Lost Mammoth Valley (Quest for the Frozen Flame 2 of 3): A solid follow-up to the hexploration AP, marred by a few plot holes (4 stars)Porridgehttps://paizo.com/products/btq02c1b?Pathfinder-Adventure-Path-176-Lost-Mammoth-Valley2022-04-02T03:00:50Z<p><b>Pathfinder Adventure Path #176: Lost Mammoth Valley (Quest for the Frozen Flame 2 of 3)</b></p><p><b>Pathfinder Adventure Path #176: Lost Mammoth Valley (Quest for the Frozen Flame 2 of 3)</b></p>Porridge2022-04-02T03:00:50ZPathfinder Adventure Path #176: Lost Mammoth Valley (Quest for the Frozen Flame 2 of 3): Too much hexploration stuff, and some continuity/editing errors (3 stars)Leon Aquillahttps://paizo.com/products/btq02c1b?Pathfinder-Adventure-Path-176-Lost-Mammoth-Valley2022-03-06T05:36:05Z<p><b>Pathfinder Adventure Path #176: Lost Mammoth Valley (Quest for the Frozen Flame 2 of 3)</b></p><p>I disagree with demlin's review posted earlier — and I'm curious why if it had enough content to keep him busy for months, it took him less than a month to finish the AP. </p>
<p>Anyways — there are some issues with this that keep it from being a stand-out AP. To summarize: Continuity issues, too much stuff spread out over too many encounters, editing issues in the AP, and a possible sequence break that could lead to you fighting the final encounter way earlier than the AP expects you to.</p>
<p>In detail: </p>
<p><b>Continuity issues</b> - Ivarsa's motivation for hunting the Broken Tusk in book 1 was to find the Frozen Flame. But Venexus has had possession of the Frozen Flame for at least 100 years, and Ivarsa has personally treated with Venexus in Lost Mammoth Valley, trying to recruit her into her service (this is, I presume, to explain why she can teleport two camps of Burning Mammoths into the valley ahead of her main host to cause trouble). So the entire pursuit of book 1 seems to have been mostly a waste if that was true, since she already knew where Broken Tusk valley was. </p>
<p><b>Too much stuff</b> - The hexmap is filled with activities, every single hex. Some of them are waymarkers, but almost every hex has at least one combat encounter. Quite frankly, it's exhausting to have to keep wiping and re-marking up flipmats for use in the various biomes for each encounter. The enjoyable parts of the AP were ironically the ones where they had to stay in a single location for more than a day, so they could actually stop and take things in — otherwise you're just going from encounter to encounter, hex to hex, with not a whole lot of opportunities for much besides fighting things that want to kill you in between. </p>
<p>Also the group was level 7 by the time they hit areas B41-B50. Neither I nor the group had the stomach for a lot of the fetch-quest stuff that is on the eastern side of the map by that point. We were ready for the finale, and so I wound up allowing them to sequence-break (more on that later) since it was a relief to both me and them. </p>
<p>I would have liked for an encounter rate more in tune with the first book — rather than the densely packed one that was in this. As it stands some of the later stuff in Lyuba and its surrounding hexes wound up "cut for time". In general the stuff on the west side of the map was more interesting, especially the stuff surrounding the crusaders.</p>
<p>It seemed like a lot of the reputation point-building opportunities were on the eastern side of the map as well, and should have been spread out more through the AP. </p>
<p><b>Don't care about the Sutaki</b> - A lot of text is spilled on encounters with the Sutaki, but as a society I don't really get a lot of info about them. I was made to care about the Broken Tusk through glimpses into their society. I care about the Iomedaen Crusaders because I know what they went through at the Worldwound. But I don't really care about the Sutaki.</p>
<p><b>Editing Issues</b> - There were a few statblocks that were frustrating to read and wound up with me realizing after the fact "Oh, that encounter was too easy". The Abyss-warped trees on page 13 looks like a complete stat block, but if you go to page 14 you realize that the other half of it is on that page and if you didn't bother looking at page 14 (because all you needed for the encounter SEEMED like it was on page 13 ) you never would realize it was there. I think maybe the art placement could have been moved. Similarly there's a statblock link on page 41 that says to use a "human tiefling adept" that had me fumbling through pages for awhile before I realized they wanted me to use the tiefling adept, but the character was HUMAN, not a human-ancestry tiefling adept monk.</p>
<p><b>Sequence Break</b> - on page 41 there's an encounter which, if your party completes it, it LITERALLY SAYS that the white dragon boss of the AP shows up and starts raging about you destroying her statue. Well, my group simply looked at me and said "....so could we get her attention and kill her now?", and I had no good answer for them. So they wound up slaying the boss outside her lair, all because the AP said she was supposed to show up and get bent out of shape that they smashed her statue. It was a tough, but fair fight, but I believe the encounter at the very end of the AP was designed to be slightly harder. I had no good reason to tell them no other than "Because I said so", and by that point I was eager to take any quick exit out of the AP I could. </p>
<p>Finally - I think my players felt that chapter 3 was rather anticlimactic. You've been building yourself a practical army as you migrate eastwards across the valley — and you don't get an opportunity to use it. I believe my group really wanted to use the Iomedaen Crusaders to attack Lyuba (with help from the Sutaki who disliked the regime) and capture it. But the AP seems to think you're out there on your own and can't show up with a huge army in two weeks. </p>
<p><b>Things I liked about the AP:</b></p>
<p>The Ashen Tower, the Crusader encampment and the encounters in the western portion of the map were all great. My players all felt really good about helping the halfling avenge her brother, and killing Tatzlwyrms. The Glacial Palace, and the four little wyrmlings were all great. Fezerod was fantastic, my players love talking to dragons, and Fezerod is the perfect schemer — so he was great to interact with. The write-up on the Primordial Flame is fantastic, and it was a pleasure to put that artifact into the hands of a level 8 character.</p><p><b>Pathfinder Adventure Path #176: Lost Mammoth Valley (Quest for the Frozen Flame 2 of 3)</b></p><p>I disagree with demlin's review posted earlier — and I'm curious why if it had enough content to keep him busy for months, it took him less than a month to finish the AP. </p>
<p>Anyways — there are some issues with this that keep it from being a stand-out AP. To summarize: Continuity issues, too much stuff spread out over too many encounters, editing issues in the AP, and a possible sequence break that could lead to you fighting the final encounter way earlier than the AP expects you to.</p>
<p>In detail: </p>
<p><b>Continuity issues</b> - Ivarsa's motivation for hunting the Broken Tusk in book 1 was to find the Frozen Flame. But Venexus has had possession of the Frozen Flame for at least 100 years, and Ivarsa has personally treated with Venexus in Lost Mammoth Valley, trying to recruit her into her service (this is, I presume, to explain why she can teleport two camps of Burning Mammoths into the valley ahead of her main host to cause trouble). So the entire pursuit of book 1 seems to have been mostly a waste if that was true, since she already knew where Broken Tusk valley was. </p>
<p><b>Too much stuff</b> - The hexmap is filled with activities, every single hex. Some of them are waymarkers, but almost every hex has at least one combat encounter. Quite frankly, it's exhausting to have to keep wiping and re-marking up flipmats for use in the various biomes for each encounter. The enjoyable parts of the AP were ironically the ones where they had to stay in a single location for more than a day, so they could actually stop and take things in — otherwise you're just going from encounter to encounter, hex to hex, with not a whole lot of opportunities for much besides fighting things that want to kill you in between. </p>
<p>Also the group was level 7 by the time they hit areas B41-B50. Neither I nor the group had the stomach for a lot of the fetch-quest stuff that is on the eastern side of the map by that point. We were ready for the finale, and so I wound up allowing them to sequence-break (more on that later) since it was a relief to both me and them. </p>
<p>I would have liked for an encounter rate more in tune with the first book — rather than the densely packed one that was in this. As it stands some of the later stuff in Lyuba and its surrounding hexes wound up "cut for time". In general the stuff on the west side of the map was more interesting, especially the stuff surrounding the crusaders.</p>
<p>It seemed like a lot of the reputation point-building opportunities were on the eastern side of the map as well, and should have been spread out more through the AP. </p>
<p><b>Don't care about the Sutaki</b> - A lot of text is spilled on encounters with the Sutaki, but as a society I don't really get a lot of info about them. I was made to care about the Broken Tusk through glimpses into their society. I care about the Iomedaen Crusaders because I know what they went through at the Worldwound. But I don't really care about the Sutaki.</p>
<p><b>Editing Issues</b> - There were a few statblocks that were frustrating to read and wound up with me realizing after the fact "Oh, that encounter was too easy". The Abyss-warped trees on page 13 looks like a complete stat block, but if you go to page 14 you realize that the other half of it is on that page and if you didn't bother looking at page 14 (because all you needed for the encounter SEEMED like it was on page 13 ) you never would realize it was there. I think maybe the art placement could have been moved. Similarly there's a statblock link on page 41 that says to use a "human tiefling adept" that had me fumbling through pages for awhile before I realized they wanted me to use the tiefling adept, but the character was HUMAN, not a human-ancestry tiefling adept monk.</p>
<p><b>Sequence Break</b> - on page 41 there's an encounter which, if your party completes it, it LITERALLY SAYS that the white dragon boss of the AP shows up and starts raging about you destroying her statue. Well, my group simply looked at me and said "....so could we get her attention and kill her now?", and I had no good answer for them. So they wound up slaying the boss outside her lair, all because the AP said she was supposed to show up and get bent out of shape that they smashed her statue. It was a tough, but fair fight, but I believe the encounter at the very end of the AP was designed to be slightly harder. I had no good reason to tell them no other than "Because I said so", and by that point I was eager to take any quick exit out of the AP I could. </p>
<p>Finally - I think my players felt that chapter 3 was rather anticlimactic. You've been building yourself a practical army as you migrate eastwards across the valley — and you don't get an opportunity to use it. I believe my group really wanted to use the Iomedaen Crusaders to attack Lyuba (with help from the Sutaki who disliked the regime) and capture it. But the AP seems to think you're out there on your own and can't show up with a huge army in two weeks. </p>
<p><b>Things I liked about the AP:</b></p>
<p>The Ashen Tower, the Crusader encampment and the encounters in the western portion of the map were all great. My players all felt really good about helping the halfling avenge her brother, and killing Tatzlwyrms. The Glacial Palace, and the four little wyrmlings were all great. Fezerod was fantastic, my players love talking to dragons, and Fezerod is the perfect schemer — so he was great to interact with. The write-up on the Primordial Flame is fantastic, and it was a pleasure to put that artifact into the hands of a level 8 character.</p>Leon Aquilla2022-03-06T05:36:05ZPathfinder Adventure Path #176: Lost Mammoth Valley (Quest for the Frozen Flame 2 of 3): The highlight of this AP (5 stars)demlinhttps://paizo.com/products/btq02c1b?Pathfinder-Adventure-Path-176-Lost-Mammoth-Valley2022-03-02T18:33:17Z<p><b>Pathfinder Adventure Path #176: Lost Mammoth Valley (Quest for the Frozen Flame 2 of 3)</b></p><p>There's so much to love in this book: it's wide open, has interesting factions and areas and every small encounter tells a part of the bigger story. I especially loved the Worldwound themes that come up throughout the first and second chapter: curses, Mendevian crusaders and demons. The encounters were varied with a rough 50:50 split between combat and role play.</p>
<p>The hexploration design made it interesting for optimizing for movement speed and as a GM provided an easy way to insert your own encounters.</p>
<p>It took us 20 3-hour sessions to finish this book and we're playing fast: the usual group, from what I've heard, will probably finish this book after 30-40 sessions, an amazing value.</p>
<p>There were no obvious editing issues apart from Ivarsa having met with the dragon (just skip this, nothing changes), but you need book 3 to puzzle everything together. The whole "recruit local people into your group" also prevents the players from just overrunning Lyuba and killing everyone.</p>
<p>Even the final battle was done right in this book.</p><p><b>Pathfinder Adventure Path #176: Lost Mammoth Valley (Quest for the Frozen Flame 2 of 3)</b></p><p>There's so much to love in this book: it's wide open, has interesting factions and areas and every small encounter tells a part of the bigger story. I especially loved the Worldwound themes that come up throughout the first and second chapter: curses, Mendevian crusaders and demons. The encounters were varied with a rough 50:50 split between combat and role play.</p>
<p>The hexploration design made it interesting for optimizing for movement speed and as a GM provided an easy way to insert your own encounters.</p>
<p>It took us 20 3-hour sessions to finish this book and we're playing fast: the usual group, from what I've heard, will probably finish this book after 30-40 sessions, an amazing value.</p>
<p>There were no obvious editing issues apart from Ivarsa having met with the dragon (just skip this, nothing changes), but you need book 3 to puzzle everything together. The whole "recruit local people into your group" also prevents the players from just overrunning Lyuba and killing everyone.</p>
<p>Even the final battle was done right in this book.</p>demlin2022-03-02T18:33:17Z