Rusthenge is a deluxe Pathfinder adventure for 1st-level characters.
The ruins of Rusthenge have stood silent vigil over the southern coastline of Chakikoth Isle for eons, dating back to the era of the runelords of ancient Thassilon. The town of Iron Harbor was built in Rusthenge's shadow, but now that New Thassilon has risen from the depths of the distant past, the old ruins are coming under unexpected scrutiny. Something sinister is afoot in Rusthenge, and it falls to a brand new band of adventurers to learn the truth of the ancient evil that stirs deep within its long-abandoned halls! This adventure also includes new items and character backgrounds, as well as a pair of new monsters tied to the region's notorious history.
I just wrapped up a full run of Rusthenge and just want to sing it (and Vanessa Hoskins's) praises. It's a wonderful intro adventure, particularly for players who are familiar with d20 games in general and so don't need quite as much hand-holding as the Beginner's Box offers. The plot is compelling and feels epic while also being appropriate for 1st-level characters; the dungeon is evocative and intriguing (though as is often the case in published modules, a lot of the rooms feel kind of empty - my Weapon Improviser was a little sad about that); and the characters you meet are engaging, complex, and interesting to roleplay with (I had a great time with the amphibian possible-friends in particular).
While I haven't run a whole lot of 2e published content, I do also want to praise that this adventure seems to have cracked the edition's early problem of having too many Moderate-Severe encounters; a quick skim through the PDF confirms that the encounters are pretty much all Low or Moderate, with Severe reserved for the climactic fights. This works really well - the encounters in general still felt challenging, but the increase in threat for those big setpieces was palpable. There's also plenty of suggestions/guidelines for roleplay and interaction rewards. I sent my party an XP tally after each session breaking down how the XP awarded got added up, and I recommend doing so. My players were very appreciative to see that doing things like returning an animal to its carer or having a civil conversation with a potential enemy were getting them XP as well as combat.
My ONLY quibbles with this module (which might knock it down to 4.5 stars, but I'm on the fence about even that) are these:
The final fight feels a little anticlimactic, though that might be on me/my party's composition (I was playing with 6 and adding creatures to compensate; my party was barbarian, fighter, swashbuckler, monk, magus, and cleric, so also a lot of heavy hitters!). But the fight is variable and I was still using a nominally Severe encounter, so I have to imagine if the party manages to get the Moderate version it feels even more underwhelming.
The first dungeon level is really engagingly laid out and interesting - a nice semi-Jaquaysed dungeon with lots of different paths through it. After that, the next two levels are a tiny bit of a letdown, as both are much more linear (though one has a lot less space to play with as a map, and of course I have to assume page count is a factor).
Finally, for an adventure called "Rusthenge," my players commented on the relative lack of "active" rust-themed threats; there's one in the final fight, but otherwise it's mostly an aesthetic. I totally get this from a design perspective (if a player's weapon gets broken by a foe in the final fight that's dramatic; if it happens every other fight that's an obnoxious chore), but it was a glaring enough lack for my players to comment on it at the table, so I thought I'd mention it.
Overall, though (as you can probably tell from my arguing both sides of each of those quibbles), I really liked running this adventure and my players enjoyed playing in it! It's definitely a dungeon crawl so if that's not your style, your mileage may vary, but I can heartily recommend it as an intro to both PF2 and that style of play. Brava to Vanessa Hoskins and thanks to her and Paizo!
Ran this for my players as a mini campaign and it was great!
Solid introduction to get peoples boots wet, followed by investigation, and multiple paths to their final destination. A dungeon that feels alive, with clear RP opportunities. Much better at showing a player what it FEELS like to be in a TTRPG with clear player agency, with a story that's much more interesting then 'Demi-humans in the basement' with far grander stakes that still make sense for your heroes to tackle.
It has completely replaced Beginners box for me as my way to introduce new players to PF2, this adventure did not get the attention it deserved I feel.
I'm excited to start running this adventure in the next month or so, and the Smiteworks folks were kind enough to expedite the release of the Fantasy Grounds version after a request (once I had my pdf).
It has been a while since I picked up a standalone adventure. Do they usually release interactive maps as part of the pdf?
Pathfinder LO Special Edition, PF Special Edition Subscriber
Darrell Impey UK wrote:
Oh Gods I can't fight the urge to be THAT person...
The henge is the circle of ditches and banks (specifically in the sequence ditch/bank/ditch) not the monoliths.
Sorry, back to your usual program. :)
Yes, you are correct, but we also have humans naming places Hill Hill Hill, so YMMV.
Some pirate or merchant sailed by once, made a note of it and said "it's a bunch of rust trees or something, like... like a henge of rust."
Another sailor said, "You mean like a Rusthenge?"
And on that day, the name was born, never to be changed by the most pedantic of naturalist scholars.
However, I will grant you a special boon for pointing this out. When you run or play this, please only refer to it as "Rustmonoliths." Do not correct anyone else nor explain yourself, just keep saying "Rustmonoliths" with a smile on your face and offer no explaination.
Pathfinder LO Special Edition, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
Darrell Impey UK wrote:
Oh Gods I can't fight the urge to be THAT person...
The henge is the circle of ditches and banks (specifically in the sequence ditch/bank/ditch) not the monoliths.
Sorry, back to your usual program. :)
Huh. I could have sworn I responded to this already, commenting that two of my usually pretty good dictionaries have the wrong definition for "henge" but wikipedia gets it right. OTOH, that was about 6 AM, and I'd been up all night, so maybe I'm hallucinating -- or you posted the same thing in another thread. :-)
Names of locations aren't always best when they're 100% accurate in definition. Sometimes, places get named for the poetry and emotional impact and the way the word sounds and feels when you say it.
The names "Rusthenge" immediately evokes in the reader what the site looks like in a way other names don't.
To anyone who’s bought this: what is the general style of the adventure? How much of it is social encounters vs. exploration vs. dungeon crawling, etc?
I just completed this adventure yesterday as a player. It's quite good overall, and frankly, a better introduction to Pathfinder 2E than the Beginner's Box.
The module does a number of things quite cleverly:
* It has a NPC healer who helps you out for a couple encounters at the very beginning, giving you "training wheels" that also feel like a natural part of the world and precondition you towards remembering that NPCs have agency, too.
* It has a variety of different (if mostly pretty simple) enemies you fight over the course of the module.
* It presents the players with a small mystery that they get to solve via RP after getting a few combat encounters under their belt, and which has multiple ways of solving it that lead to the next part of the adventure so the players can't really get stuck.
* There are actual stakes - the players aren't just doing it just because, there's a reason why they need to help out and go and continue into these dangerous situations, and it makes sense from an IC perspective that they would do so.
* The combat encounters aren't overly difficult but aren't overly simplistic.
* It teaches players about weaknesses, gives them the tools to exploit them, and rewards them for exploiting them.
* There are RP encounters throughout the module, not just in one place - each section of the game has an opportunity where you can do some roleplaying, and not just going into every encounter with bloody intentions in mind can allow you to avoid fights and get help and allies
* The NPCs who are helpful often have a good, very sensible reason why they are supplying you with stuff rather than joining in to help you fight, so you don't feel like they are just shoving it on the PCs for no reason or leaving the fighting to the PCs for no reason.
* You can disrupt the bad guys' plans in ways that go beyond just killing things that, if the players are paying attention, will allow them to make their life significantly easier.
* The little town in the module is just big enough to be interesting without being so big that you'll get lost in it and derail the adventure.
I liked it a lot! It was a fun thing and it worked very well, and had a bit of charm to it.
Creative Director
