Reviews of Pathfinder Modules

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Reviews of Pathfinder Modules

Post by Gonzoron of the FoS »

Finally catching up on reading some of my scores from the Great Golem sale (this past year's sale AND the year prior's). Figured I might as well post my thoughts.

Carnival of Tears
Well, it's certainly not "our" Carnival, that's for sure. A roguish adventurer reforms after falling in love with a constable, but when her soul is captured by dark ice-themed fey, he falls into depression, taking over a travelling carnival (because that's what one does in that situation, surely). Then the carnival returns to same logging town where he first joined them (conveniently, I suppose, so you can get some backstory from the locals), at the same time that a local dryad decides to ask the dark fey to take revenge against the townsfolk on behalf of the trees. But the dark fey get out of control and take over the carnival. Carnage ensues as the patrons are charmed into not noticing that the fey are making the carnival into a bloodbath, and the PCs have to save the day, preferably by freeing the constable's soul and getting her lover, the carnival master, to help out against the fey.

It's not a bad adventure in isolation, though some of the backstory seems forced, as I mentioned. Also, the gore factor is really high, to the point where the charmed victims not noticing it becomes comical rather than scary. (There's actually a chart of how many deaths happen per hour in each "attraction"). But I'd be hard-pressed to use it in the same campaign as Ravenloft's Carnival, as it would be a little repetitive. Of course, if you don't mind that, or if you don't plan to use Isolde and friends, or I suppose if you want to do a themed campaign involving multiple rival carnivals or something, you could drop it into any isolated area of Ravenloft, preferably somewhere cold and forested. Maybe Lamordia, Sanguinia, the Balinoks, or just Verbrek or Kartakass in the winter time. You could tie the fey to the Shadow Fey, but these fey are more overtly sinister. Alternately, it's a somewhat useful source of inspiration for attractions for Ravenloft's Carnival or other travelling shows or festivals. One might also plunder the handful of freaks for Twisting ideas, or use the few included dark ice fey monsters for other purposes. (rules are 3.5e, but could be adapted). Overall, not really what I was hoping for, but just "OK." 3/5 blood drops.
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Re: Reviews of Pathfinder Modules

Post by Gonzoron of the FoS »

Carrion Hill
OK, this one's specifically set in Ustalav, Pathfinder's horror setting, so you'd think it would be Ravenloft-ready, and for the most part, you'd be right. It's Lovecraftian, literally. Elder God worshipping cultists attempt to summon a spawn of Yog-Sothoth with predictably disastrous consequences. The invisible creature is wreaking havoc on the town of Carrion Hill, destroying buildings while searching for the cultists to consume their spirits. If it kills them, it will regain its full strength and be free to leave the town. If someone else kills them first, it will be diminished in power permanently. PCs have to race to the 3 remaining cultists and battle them in their homes: a zombie-staffed factory, an alchemist's lab under a church, and an asylum.

I like this adventure, and it could easily be slotted into any of the major cities of Ravenloft, especially any set on a coast or river: Martira Bay, Port-a-Lucine, Egertus, etc. Or you could plunk down all of Carrion Hill, as is, on an otherwise uninhabited stretch of coastline. It's got a nice bit of sandbox aspect to it, and the settings for the battles are atmospheric and exciting. The Asylum in particular is nicely detailed, and the map could be used on its own to stand in for any of Ravenloft's many asylums. The bad guys themselves get a bit of character, but not as much as most Ravenloft NPCs. And I just wish there was another way supplied to stop the spawn other than killing the cultists. Granted, the cultists are bad guys and will conveniently fight to the death if need be, but presenting the heroes with no option other than slaughter is not my preferred style, and not really "Lovecraftian". (neither is the eventual combat with the spawn, but this is 3.5e D&D in the end, I suppose, not CoC.) There are some small mentions indicating that maybe the PCs will find another solution, but no examples of viable options given. The DM or Players will just have to come up with their own, unless they are ok with just executing the cultists.

Overall, not bad. I could see myself running it with a bit of spicing up. 4/5 blood drops.
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Re: Reviews of Pathfinder Modules

Post by Gonzoron of the FoS »

Gallery of Evil
OK, now we're talking! I really liked this one, and may actually use it. An adventuring wizard settles down in a city and takes to painting in his retirement. But when an art critic reviews him poorly, and a rival artist copies his works-in-progress and publishes them first, he uses his magic mixed with his artistry to exact revenge. Very reminiscent of what I've heard of the Ghastria RPGA adventures, in that there's a lot of playing with paintings, and things going in and coming out of them. Trapped paintings are delivered to the artist's rivals, either allowing painting monsters to come out and kill them, or sucking them into hellish torture inside the paintings. The PCs must try to rescue the victims that they can reach in time, travelling into one painting to get one of the victims out, crashing a dinner party to prevent one of the paintings from being unveiled to a crowd, and battling the living painting monsters here and there along the way.

The climax takes place at the artist's home, where they have to fight with a monster that jumps from painting to painting in a gallery, as well as duplicates of the bad guy, created by a magical painting that fractures his psyche and creates versions of him out of the different parts. If there's any problem I have with the adventure, it's here. I feel like the final "dungeon" doesn't live up to the build-up. I expected the whole reality-bending theme to really ramp up here, and it doesn't. The painting makes duplicates based on the charisma modifer of the user, so this guy only gets 2 duplicates because of his mediocre CHA. I wanted to see more elements of his psyche. Why come up with such a cool device and then limit it's use in the adventure? I will definitely bump up the number of fragments there.

And his plot to deal with the interloping PCs has a hole a mile wide in it, which results in a lackluster finale.
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He has access to teleport, and could just leave. But instead he imbues the teleport into his shield guardian, then gets in the painting to make his 2 duplicates to "slow down the PCs so he can escape." Except a) he can't escape the painting until the duplicates are killed or die at the end of the effect's duration and b) when the duplicates die, he's ejected from the painting and suffers from a slow and dimensional anchor effect for 24 hours. So the shield guardian can't teleport him until those 24 hours are up. Great plan there, buddy. Tell me again how this is better than just leaving? Also, how much fun is an end boss fight where the boss effectively buffs himself with slow!?
I will certainly change that up a bit if I run it. Wouldn't chasing the bad guy from painting to painting or having him paint himself surreal defenses or means of escape like Duck Amuck or Harold and the Purple Crayon be more interesting?

Anyway, aside from the ending, which I can spice up on my own, a very good looking adventure, and a fine addition to Ravenloft. The artisan's neighborhood called the Ivy District could easily fit in any of the major cities, most likely Port-a-lucine or East Riding. Or you could eschew the included map and sprinkle the locations of the adventure in existing parts of the city in question. Very glad I got this one. Highly recommended: 4.5/5 blood drops.
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Re: Reviews of Pathfinder Modules

Post by Gonzoron of the FoS »

The Harrowing
OK, this one takes the title of strangest RPG module I've ever read. It's really ambitious. It's intimately tied to the Harrow deck, Pathfinder's version of the Tarokka or Tarot. A magical deck connects to an artificial demiplane where a long dead bard created a world based on the stories of her ancestors to preserve them. But 9 of the characters from those stories revolted and killed her, each taking part of her body and a gem token from her scarf. The PCs are sucked inside the deck and must collect 8 of the gems to lead them to the leader of the revolt and the final gem. Put the gems back into the scarf of the realm's creator, and they can escape, possibly rescuing an NPC who was also sucked in. Along the way, they meet someone or something inspired by each of the 54 cards in the Harrow deck, and by "playing" cards from the deck at the right time, they can alter events in their favor.

It's a very "trippy" adventure, with really wild characters. Sort of like a visit to Oz, Wonderland, and the Sandman's Dreaming, all at once. The author makes use of some really out-there crunch designs to back up the flavor, too. (my favorite is the marrionette who's a "soulbound doll" summoner. His apparently human puppeteer is actually his eidolon.) I give Crystal Frazier great kudos for finding a way to work in all the cards and coming up with quirky characters that feel like they came from fairytales.

The trouble is, I don't know if I can use it. First off, if you're using it in Ravenloft, you have the problem of Harrow deck vs. Tarokka deck. Do you include both in the same world? or dump the tarrokka? The module would basically have to be completely rewritten if you want to replace the Harrow deck with the tarrokka, keeping only the basic concept. But assume I was willing to have both exist, which is the easiest way (although it feels a bit awkward and redundant), or even if I were using the module in a Golarion-based campaign where only the Harrow deck exists. Even so, I feel like the characters would resonate more, and the PCs would know what to do with them, if the PCs (and better yet, the players) actually knew the stories and how they went. As is, you're basically forced to feed scraps of these tales to your PC bard to share with the others in the group if you want them to have any inkling that they even have stories associated with them at all (and scraps of the stories are all you get in the module, obviously because the stories themselves don't fully exist.) As cheesy as it might be, I'd almost rather have known stories like Red Riding Hood or Goldilocks, so the PCs could use knowledge of the stories to help them. Granted, the module will still function as is, but I imagine there would be a lot of scratched heads over some of the odder denizens of the Harrowed Realm.

And ultimately, for all the novel setting, most of the encounters can be solved by just attacking the story creatures and taking their stuff (and since the dead "storykin" reform constantly, you can't even feel too bad about temporarily killing them). There are non-combat solutions to many of them, which is awesome, but it's hard to say how many of those solutions would be stumbled on without knowing the tales that would explain why the solution works. With a group in the right mindset, looking for such solutions with an eye toward "fairytale logic," maybe it would be a fun adventure, though a very long one. And in the end, it is still kind of just a "kill the darklord, escape from the pocket domain" sort of adventure, with little lasting consequence. I may plunder some of the interesting NPCs and locations for dreamscape adventures or the like, but I doubt I'll ever use the whole thing. Not even sure how to rate it on the blood drop scale. 5/5 for ambition and imagination. 2/5 for usefulness to me. I guess that averages to 3.5...
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Re: Reviews of Pathfinder Modules

Post by The Giamarga »

Nice reviews Ron. Keep them coming... Will they be added to the review section? Or is that RL only?
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Re: Reviews of Pathfinder Modules

Post by IrvyneWolfe »

I'd love to hear your take on the Carrion Crown adventure path.
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Re: Reviews of Pathfinder Modules

Post by Gonzoron of the FoS »

The Giamarga wrote:Nice reviews Ron. Keep them coming... Will they be added to the review section? Or is that RL only?
Sure, I'll add them eventually.
IrvyneWolfe wrote:I'd love to hear your take on the Carrion Crown adventure path.
I'll get there eventually, though I didn't get them from the Great Golem sale. :)

And if anyone else wants to review these or any other PF adventures, by all means use this thread. It's not entitled "GonzoRon's Reviews of Pathfinder Modules."
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Re: Reviews of Pathfinder Modules

Post by Gonzoron of the FoS »

Hungry are the Dead
Well, you'd look at the cover of this one and think Ravenloft immediately... but it's pretty much just a dungeon crawl full of undead. If that fits your needs, sure, I guess it's Ravenloft-ish in superficial flavor, but I was hoping for a little more nuance. An undead mystic theurge unlocks one of the seals of Tar-Baphon, Ustalav's imprisoned lich-king. This causes the local dead to to rise and attack nearby humans. A bunch of walking dead shamble into the town where the PCs are staying (the same logging town as in the Carnival of Tears adventure, for what it's worth. A bit of nice continuity). They save the town and track the undead back to a nearby graveyard and then back to a dungeon under a dwarven monastery. The text references two prior adventures that took place in this monastery, so I guess this is the end of a trilogy of sorts (though if it were my PCs, they probably say, "back to the abandoned monastery again? didn't we clear that place twice? Can we just nuke the whole thing?"). Go in the dungeon, kill the theurge, sweep out the undead. Fairly standard. Only bit of real twist is a rogue necromancer cursed into the shape of a worg who offers to help the PCs (claiming to be the awakened companion of a dead druid), then turns on them.

I suppose if you need a basic dungeon crawl for a pickup game, without much story, it suffices. But the module suffers from some bad editing. (A group of monsters are supposed to have their mouths bolted closed, but the artwork shows them with mouths open wide. One statue bears a "code[sic] of arms". A staff described as being made of bone is illustrated as though it's made of wood. And one room has something going on clockwise and something else going on clockwise (one of those was clearly supposed to be counter-clockwise), just to name a few of the errors.) And also suffers from maps that seem incomplete (many features from the text don't appear on the map). The Evil NPCs have little motivation other than "I will amass all of teh powerz!" (Though there is a somewhat endearing friendly undertaker NPC. He's got enough fun character that I might find a use for him somewhere.) And the dungeon design is pretty uninspiring, with a lot of the rooms easily skippable, and some very repetitive. There's some interesting flavor to the gore here and there, (the theurge is missing his lower half and floats around with his intestines encased in a flying glass case, for example. And there's a cool ghoul variant that runs on all fours.) as well as some nice illustrations thereof that might be stealable. But some is just beyond bizarre (a room full of eye-balls, like the world's most disgusting ball pit.) I guess there's a style of player that just wants to bash monsters, and for them, this module will work. But it's not for me, at all. 2/5 blood drops.
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Re: Reviews of Pathfinder Modules

Post by Gonzoron of the FoS »

The Midnight Mirror
This one has promise. It's got a very Ravenloftian backstory. The only trouble is the preponderance of "shae" (outsiders from the Shadow Plane) and "fetchlings" (shadow-infused humanoids) that are treated as completely normal, giving it a feel that, while admittedly "dark" and "spooky," is a bit more high-fantasy than most Ravenloft campaigns. You could play it as written, by making an island domain for it, but it doesn't match up with the Core real well. I suppose one could, with some effort, replace them with elves and half-elves and put it in Darkon. Or maybe just change them all to humans of a foreign ethnicity? (There's a good deal of predjudice against the fetchlings that's central to the module.) But the fetchlings are born to humans, sort of like calibans, so maybe they could be a specific form of caliban?

Anyway, I'm getting ahead myself: Long ago, a shae and his shae and fetchling followers rose up against the local rulers and were banished into a "Midnight Mirror," a magic mirror containing a demiplane meant to torture the prisoners. But the mirror broke, allowing the shae limited contact with the outside world. Centuries later, a third-born noble made a deal with the shae to dispose of his father and 2 older brothers into the mirror, in exchange for letting the shae take over his body one year each decade. But now he's a new father and afraid of what the shae will do, so he reneges and the shae unleashes a shadow plague on the town, which the human townsfolk blame on the fetchling population. PCs arrive in town, investigate enough to trace the plague's source back to the mirror, then travel into the mirror to defeat the shae and destroy the animate heart of the mirror to get out. (There's also a sideplot with a fey abducting townsfolk, but that's not as interesting.)

The module's definitely Ravenloft-worthy, and there are some nice twists and conundrums beyond the combat. (For example, one of the elder brothers sired a child inside the Mirror, who has a claim to be the new Baron once released.) And all the NPCs have a good deal of story/personality, though I wanted a bit more on a few of them. There's a minor issue of gobs and gobs of magic items, but that's fixable. Maybe if the shae started human, but became shae over centuries in the shadowy mirror plane... yeah, I think that might be best, along with making the fetchlings a caliban variant (or simply calibans). There are also some details regarding the worship of Zon-Kuthon, a really dark sounding deity of pain that nevertheless is treated as perfectly normal by the locals. They are a bit over the top, and might need toning down or switching to some other religion (Lawgiver? Eternal Order?). Overall, quite nice. 4/5 blood drops.
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Re: Reviews of Pathfinder Modules

Post by Gonzoron of the FoS »

Murder's Mark
And the "don't judge a book by it's cover" award goes to... Murder's Mark. Generic seeming, forgettable name? Check. Mediocre cover art that doesn't really tell you anything about the adventure, instead focusing on a minor encounter? Check. Drawn out intro about Golarion history in the first paragraph? Check. But WOW! After you get past that shaky start, what a great adventure for Ravenloft! It drops in almost effortlessly, and it's really well designed module. (As it turns out, the name is actually an attempt at a play on the word "Mark" as in: the target of a deception, or patron of a sideshow. But I still don't think the title fits the adventure well. It certainly didn't draw me in, and I almost passed it up, but I'm glad I didn't!)

The story goes like this: a carnival comes into town. (Yes, another one, not the same one as in Carnival of Tears, but the scarier sounding, though actually much less sinister, "Umbra Carnival," which got a brief mention in The Harrowing.) And the local thieves' guild sees an opportunity to take out some local adversaries and pin the blame on the carnival. After proving themselves by containing the circus's escaped monitor lizard, the PCs are enlisted by the mistress of the Carnival to find the real killers when one of their own is accused. But only the carnies know that the accused party, a captive sphinx, doesn't actually exist! (She's an illusion created by their bard). The trail of the investigation leads to a moneylender's vault, and then to a merchant's manor house, where the thieves' guild tries to pin the latest murder on the meddling PCs themselves, and finally to a showdown at the guild's warehouse lair. (I can only assume the thing on the cover is supposed to be the monitor lizard because nothing else fits, but wow... that is so not a monitor lizard. And could you tell from that picture that this was set in a circus if I hadn't told you?)

Now why did I love this adventure when it would seem to have the same problem as the other carnival module? (namely the conflict with Isolde's carnival) Well, you can swap Isolde's carnival right in with very little change to the adventure. The Umbra Carnival has a secretive Mistress with a tortured past who could easily be substituted with Isolde herself. There's an undercurrent of ethnic conflict between the Chelaxian locals and Varisian (for Ravenloft purposes, read: vistani) carnies, which can easily point toward the Skurra and their associates instead. There's even a "freak" in the form of a new monster race called the Panotti (based on real-world myth) who could instead simply be a unique creature resulting from the Twisting. With those minor edits in place, the town itself could be replaced with nearly any large settlement in Ravenloft, or plunked down as-is on a stretch of unused land. The only other minor change might be to do away with the few skulks the guild employs. If those are too high-fantasy for you, they could simply be humans or calibans or some other race that's more commonplace in Ravenloft. The sphinx herself would seem a bit fantastical, except of course that she's fake anyway, so it all fits in the end. (Obviously, she'd be presented as a captive from Har'Akir in our version.) If that's still beyond the line, you could use a werebeast, wolfwere, broken one, or maybe even a reaver instead. Or simply make her a bestial Twisted freak, (As long as the concept of an intelligent creature with monstrous claws is kept, the adventure still works).

In summary, a fine adventure with great Ravenloft potential. It's made for 1st level characters, but it's mostly a mystery, so easily adaptable to higher levels. I now have another answer besides The Created and Night of the Walking Dead when people ask for a good intro module. Highly recommended. 5/5 blood drops.
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Re: Reviews of Pathfinder Modules

Post by kottakinge »

Hi Gonzoron,
you sell it good! :D
Do you think it can be playable by high levels characters (9th levels)?
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Re: Reviews of Pathfinder Modules

Post by Gonzoron of the FoS »

Which one? Murder's Mark? yes, the core story could be kept, but you'd have to amp up the enemies quite a bit. You'd also have to watch for powerful magic that might circumvent the mystery parts.
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Re: Reviews of Pathfinder Modules

Post by Zilfer »

Thanks for the Reviews Ron, I'll read them and check over them to see if I want to pick any of them up.
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Re: Reviews of Pathfinder Modules

Post by kottakinge »

Gonzoron of the FoS wrote:Which one? Murder's Mark? yes, the core story could be kept, but you'd have to amp up the enemies quite a bit. You'd also have to watch for powerful magic that might circumvent the mystery parts.
OK for buffing up the monster buti have a 10th level 1/2 vistani bard in my group, sure he could charm/read the mind of PNJs, could it break the plot?
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Re: Reviews of Pathfinder Modules

Post by Gonzoron of the FoS »

kottakinge wrote:OK for buffing up the monster buti have a 10th level 1/2 vistani bard in my group, sure he could charm/read the mind of PNJs, could it break the plot?
To some extent, yes, but you're probably used to dealing with him by now. You may need to think on your feet a bit to steer it back on track. Or simply buff up the enemies in the thieves' guild so they can have a chance to resist. It's not really a problem if they find out the circus's secrets too quickly, since their supposed to be on their side, but only if they find out the theives' guild secrets too fast. I think it could still work, but may need some work on your part.
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