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B6 The Veiled Society (Basic)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Martin S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/05/2017 11:59:45

spoiler alert This short adventure takes place in the City of Specularum in the Grand Duchy of Karameikos. Of course, it can be set in any other campaigns where there is a city big enough to host three influencial families deeply involved in politics. The adventure starts with the characters entering Specularum and witnessing an argument during a parade that could lead to a violent conclusion. The characters can then be hired by one of the factions (families) to hinder the other two. However, one the families is secretly leading an organization called The Veiled Society: masters extortionist and sometimes murderers. Different events are provided to get the characters involved into the adventure and depending on their choices, they may end up helping the veiled society or destroying then and the Radu family leading them. The background for the events is the murder of a girl from another family.

The adventure is not bad per se and offers quite a change compared to the other adventures so far which were mostly about dungeon crawling. The events are varied and enough content is presented to expand the adventure beyond its low page count.

However, there are some flaws that would require a bit of work on the GM's part. First is the incentive for the characters to get involved. Besides getting paid, they do not have a lot to hook them in. Secondly, the duke and his soldiers seem not only inefficient, but they are barely present. The characters get a chance to oppose the soldiers, but not to collaborate with them. Considering a rather important noble was murdered it seems weird not to have a chance to investigate on behalf of the law rather than being hired privately.

Again a good GM can fix this, but to provide what I think is a fair review of that module such as it is, I would say it is an ok module.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
B6 The Veiled Society (Basic)
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B7 Rahasia (Basic)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Martin S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/05/2017 11:57:40

Spoilers Alert

This adventure begins with the characters travelling through a forest in elven territory. On the trail ahead, they find the corpse of an elf warrior. If they look at the body, they find a letter penned by an elven maiden called Rahasia. The letter beseeches anyone who reads it to seek Rahasia in the nearby village and help her get rid a great evil come to her people.

After the characters agree to help, they must get to the temple in Gray Mountain, find the Rahib and in so doing, figure out why elven maidens are disappearing and free the elves called the siswa from the control the Rahib has over them. To accomplish this, they must explore the temple and the ruins of a tower once belonging to a powerful wizard. The adventure ends with the defeat of the Rahib and the three witch sisters.

The module is a nice one and well designed. The temple feels inhabited and as the player characters explore it, they can uncover what has transpired and even the ancient history behind the creation of the temple. Many of the adversaries (including the witches) are elven victims and as such, it would be unwise of the characters to just kill anyone they encounter. This sets the adventure apart from its predecessor and is a nice change of objective for low-level characters. It does change the way the adventure unfolds when the majority of your opponents should not be killed. Also, a nice twist of the story is that the characters must find an artefact and use it to destroy the witches.

I enjoyed the adventure and I think that the change from the regular explore the dungeon and kill everything makes it a very interesting playing experience. One thing that I think the GM should revise are the random encounter tables. While ok, some of the monsters do not make a lot of sense. For example, the temple is not in ruins and was used daily even before the Rahib arrived. Why would spiders be running free in the corridors? Unless the Rahib had an army of spiders at his disposal, which would be odd, I cannot find an explanation as to why they would be there. Besides that, the rest is well designed and worth playing as is or adapted to another rule system.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
B7 Rahasia (Basic)
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The Sunless Citadel (3e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Martin S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/05/2017 11:54:41

spoiler alert This is a nice module, well suited for 1st level characters. The conflict between the kobolds and goblins gives for the characters to explore the dungeon without needing to kill everyone if they do not mind allying with the kobolds. There are enough details to help a GM develop the area around the Sunless Citadel, but the content of the adventure is really about the dungeon. I have but two complaints concerning this book:

1) Cutting down the Gulthias tree kills the supplicant under its influence. It would have nice to alter this and add a way that supplicants can survive and be redeemed with an atonement spell or with any other quest. It would have allowed for further development for this adventure. 2) I think the village of Oakhurst could have been a bit more developed. There are notes about the village, but a couple of sidequests idea related to the main adventure goal would have been nice. After all, the "bad guys" are not confined to the dungeon.

Otherwise, this is a nice first adventure and it is easily converted to any campaign.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
The Sunless Citadel (3e)
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B11 King's Festival (Basic)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Martin S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/05/2017 11:52:15

spoiler alert As stated on the back cover, this is an introductory module to not only fantasy roleplaying, but also to the D&D basic rules. As such it contains several pages of reproducing useful rules to run the module as well as a section that can serve as players introduction to roleplaying and to the setting in which this adventure is located, The Grand Duchy of Karameikos. For DM who do not own this resource, an overview is provided. These sections are very useful and I have rarely seen so much care put into modules written in these years. Even the pre-generated characters have a generic background that adds flavor and helps playing them.

The adventure itself is pretty straightforward. After arriving in Stallanford, on their first night, the village is attacked by Orcs who kidnap the village's priest, Aralic, for their own unfathomable reasons. The characters are asked to help defeat the Orcs and save the priest who is the most important character in preparing the upcoming King's Festival. With or without help, the characters find the Orcs' lair and there thy can free Aralic if they can defeat the Orc Chief and his guards. Compared to other adventures I read that were published during these years, the room's description are very good and the advice on how to play the opposition and how to use the different rules (like morale) is very sound. The same can be said of the second level of the dungeon. All the encounters are detailed and fitting of the generic atmosphere of the dungeon.

The link between the two dungeon levels is a bit tenuous in that Aralic tells the characters the Orcs discovered an ancient evil in the caves below and he asks them to investigate after getting some rest. Unless the Orcs are confident they can repel said evil, it is hard to understand why they would elect to live so close to it. Of course, an experienced GM can elaborate and find a good excuse to have the Orcs live so close to an evil cleric commanding undead. Likewise, although both dungeons are caves, it would have been nice to provide some kind of background for the dungeon. Who used the second level as a crypt? Who lived there before the Orcs? Again, this is easily fixed and it does not prevent this module for being a very well written and extremely useful introductory module for both GMs and players. Actually, experienced GM looking to start a new campaign could easily add a bit of background around the dungeon and they would have a very good first adventure with most of the work done for them.

This adventure is one of the better adventure of the B-series in my opinion.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
B11 King's Festival (Basic)
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Deadly Delves: Along Came a Spider (PFRPG)
Publisher: Jon Brazer Enterprises
by Martin S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/28/2017 14:01:42

Spoilers Alert

This short adventure is intended to be played over one session, two at the most. It starts with the characters being sent to the town of Mossdale to bring a shipment of spidersilk rope, a rare alchemical item that is only found there due to the village proximity to the Webmoss Woods. However, Mossdale was overrun by spiders and while battling the stragglers from the spider “army” the characters discover a few survivors and learn that the spiders captured many villagers and amongst them is the alchemist they are looking for. What happened is that an entity of pure thoughts managed to slipped to the Material Plane and took control of a giant assassin spider. Curious, it wants to study and control more advanced beings, so it ordered

While tracking the spiders through the Webmoss Woods, the characters may encounter other denizens that can provide a bit more information about the spiders and their strange behavior. Depending on the information they get, they may find or stumble upon an ancient rock monument where the spiders converge and there, have their showdown with the “possessed” assassin spider.

Overall, the module is well made despite its brevity. One has to keep in mind that it is intended to be brief, so it is not a bad thing. The idea is good and while I would have liked a bit more information about the being called the Great Hive or on the town itself, the module’s goal is not to provide a long campaign or a complex adventure. It does what it intends to do: provide a challenging and fun adventure for an evening of gaming. Drawbacks? Well, two of the encounters are a bit strange to me. The first one is the wererat living in the wood with his giant rat friends... It is not a bad encounter, but there is really no rationale as to why this particular wererat would choose to live in nature as opposed to their normal habitat. Any good GM can come up with a reason, but it still feels strange to me. The other weird encounter is with a summoned dretch who has been trapped in its summoning circle for centuries. I get that the encounter adds to the strangeness of the ancient ruins the characters are visiting, but at the same time, I have trouble understanding why Drothic barbarians with the power to summon would waste their resources summoning a dretch. Of course, the reason why is lost to time and the creature may have been summoned as a mere messenger, but the encounter just feels out of place. It just feels as if the encounter was added to provide more challenge for the characters rather than to add flavor to an otherwise interesting locale.

Despite these two little things that may not bother someone else, I think this is a good module and one that not only reaches its goal, but that offers many possibilities to expand on the material presented here.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Deadly Delves: Along Came a Spider (PFRPG)
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Creator Reply:
Thank you for taking the time to review. I really appreciate it. Please feel free to check out our other adventures and share your thoughts on them as well.
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B9 Castle Caldwell and Beyond (Basic)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Martin S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/06/2017 15:06:28

This adventure is actually not one adventure, but five short ones. All of them remain pretty generic and they do not include a lot of details about the environment in which the dungeon is located. If you like detailed environment and context around your dungeons, you will not find it here. All of the adventures start with the characters in front of the dungeon or in the dungeon. You usually have some background information and a few lines about how they got there, but there are no maps of the environment, so you set these dungeons pretty much anywhere you want. Except for the first two dungeons, none of them are linked although they assume that these dungeons are located within the same kingdom.

The first two adventures are closely linked and could have been only one dungeon in my opinion. In the first adventure, the characters are asked to explore and clean-up the main floor of an old castle which got infested with a few critters and humanoids. The second adventure is about exploring the dungeon level of the same castle. In both adventures, there is a strange match of monsters/opponents without any reason as to why they would live together and not attack each others. I mean, what are traders doing in an abandoned castle in which bandits, kobolds, and goblins live? Why would human berserkers live in the basement of an abandoned castle with a few undead? The other issue I see is that in the first adventure there is a door leading to the basement and we are told that the characters should go down before completing the exploration of the first level; then in the second adventure, after all the characters go downstairs in the first room of the dungeon, the door slams shut and they need to remain until they figure out the riddle that will tell them how to get out. As a GM, I dislike that kind of situation where characters can resolve a situation using only one solution, especially when there is no logical reason why the door would slam shut...

Anyway, the three other adventures suffer from the same issues: strange mixture of opponents, dungeons that are straightforward and in which doors should not be opened, lack of details where needed. They are pretty much all a collection of encounters with random treasure placement.

That being said, a good GM with enough time could salvage this collection of dungeons and put some meat around them so that it becomes a good playing experience and that it may even be a small campaign. A creative GM could even find a way of linking all the adventures together. However, if you intend to play the module as is, I would recommend getting another module as this one collects a series of broken adventures, in my opinion. It may give you a head start, but a lot of work is required on the GM part to make this an enjoyable playing experience.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
B9 Castle Caldwell and Beyond (Basic)
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Horrific Curses
Publisher: Legendary Games
by Martin S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/20/2016 11:01:40

Within these pages you will find a short discussion on the nature of curses and their roles in history. We then get three interesting cursed archetypes for witches, hunters, and sorcerers. The next section deals with a new type of spells, Dying Spells. These spells can be used as an immediate action by a dying character. They could be used otherwise, but they require a lot more time to. The PDF ends with new curses and awesome mythic curses. It is nice to have a bit more variety around curses. As much as a GM can devise new curses, having a few more never hurts. I also liked the archetypes; they are thematically fitting and using the mechanics of the oracle curses, seem well-balanced overall.

My only complaint would be around feats. I would have liked to have a few accursed feats for accursed characters. Overall, a very good PDF!



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Horrific Curses
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L2 The Assassin's Knot (1e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Martin S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/15/2016 12:48:53

This adventure is unusual for adventure published in those years in the sense that it relies heavily on the players investigative skills. After the introduction, the adventure starts with a description of the events that trigger this adventure: the characters are hired to find out who murdered the Baron of Restenford. All investigation points to three characters living in the village of Garotten. After travelling there, through questioning and deductions, the characters can uncover a guild of assassins and possibly stop them from killing off the remaining ruling family (the baroness and her daughter).

Instead of following the usual format of set encounters, the adventure provides an overview of the events to come, provides a time table and offers a sample of events that may hinder or help the characters’ investigation based on what they do. The remainder of the adventure provides a description of the locales and major NPCs. An emphasis is placed on the three starting suspects and the areas in which they will likely be interrogated. The conclusion provides ideas on how the adventure can end once the characters figure out the truth.

What we have here is an excellent free-form adventure that progresses based on the characters actions. I like the fact that events will unfold unless the characters discover the truth and that nothing is set in stone, no railroading here! The resolution depends on the players’ wits, not on how lucky they are or on how they maximized their characters options. In fact, trying to attack and kill everyone is a sure way to fail to prevent anything! Great adventure!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
L2 The Assassin's Knot (1e)
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WK3 Revenge of the Over-Kobold (PF)
Publisher: Cut to the Chase Games
by Martin S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/08/2016 09:39:34

The last installment of the Wrath of the Kobolds trilogy begins with the characters returning to the town of Ormkirk which is featured in the first module of the series. The group is welcomed by the new townmaster (assuming the characters managed to find proof of the previous townmaster's involvement in the events of WK1).

As they are dining with Layla Havenstein, the new townmaster, chaos erupts in Ormkirk as a small army of kobolds is attacking the town. As buildings burn and people flee from the kobolds onslaught, there are six events in which the characters can play a role to save Ormkirk, or as much as can be saved. In my opinion, this type of event is usually pretty hard to play in game in which events are turn based. It usually is challenging to convey a sense of everything happening at once and letting the characters decide how to handle the situation. Over the years, I saw many systems to handle such occurrences and each time it felt as if the antagonists were waiting for the characters to arrive before they truly unleash their potential. Here however, an elegant and efficient system is used. Instead of having to count rounds or having a linear series of encounter that does not take into account each of the attacking groups composition (some kobolds have dire weasels with while others are using war chariot pulled by dire goats), each encounter is assigned six different “Destruction Points” score. Depending on the order in which each encounter is tackled, the GM selects a destruction score. For example, the kobolds and their dire weasels will cost the characters one point of destruction if they choose to handle this encounter first. However, if they choose to deal with it after all the other encounters are resolved, then that encounter will cost 6 points of destruction. The genius of the system lies in the fact that other encounters have a different progression. For example, 3 kobolds alchemists are moving around Ormkirk using bombs to destroy buildings. If dealt with early, they cost 3 DPs, but if taken care of last, they cost 13 DPs to account for their destructive potential. A simple and efficient system, I love it! The first chapter is a very good chapter!

After learning that the Over-kobold possesses a suit of armor gifted to him by the God of Kobolds, the second chapter sees the character follow hints and trails to find an artifact that can be used against the over-kobold and his magical armor. After learning that the first Over-kobold was defeated by his own spear on account of gnomish magic, the characters set out to find a reclusive blacksmith living in the Mountains, and who reputedly possesses said spear. Aside from the trip in the mountains, they will have to convince the blacksmith to reforge the spear. That second chapter is ok, but I feel it lacks set encounters. Sure, the characters will have to deal with the Gargoyles trying to prevent them from completing their quests, but without maps, their travels through the mountains will feel like a series of random encounters. Some work on the GM’s part will have to be done in order to render that part of the adventure more interesting. It may be just me, but a few more set encounters and locales might have been nice here.

Whether they have the spear in their possession or just the spearhead, the characters will be guided by the artifact towards Castle Kragtooth, the lair of the Over-kobold. Avoiding or fighting the patrols, they will reach Kargtooth field where an army of kobolds is camped. Each kobold tribe is described (there are four of them) and notes on how to use them and how they act during the day or night are provided. Notes are also provided to provide guidelines on how the characters can sneak into the Castle and avoid notice from the tribes. This is followed by a description of the Castle’s rooms and its inhabitants, with the last part providing notes on facing the Over-kobold himself. This part is also ok and it does have the old-school dungeon crawling feel which is what the module intends to do: provide an old school experience. The Over-kobold himself is an interesting and paranoid adversary. My only complaint here would be that besides the undead in the basement (which is avoided by the kobolds by the way), the opponents are not diversified since the castle hosts the Over-kobold entourage, mostly composed of kobolds. Of course, this is an encampment for a kobold army, so it is expected that most of the encounters will be with kobolds. However, making use of some of the available templates, classes, and archetypes in the Pathfinder game would provide much more diversity and more fun for players. Kobold chiefs and sub-chiefs all have the same statblock i.e. kobolds with warrior levels. After a few encounters, it become apparent that they are all the same even if you modify the description of each kobold.

Overall, not a bad adventure and the first part of the adventure is pretty awesome. Some tweaking is necessary to include a bit of variety and a feeling of realism in the locales and encounters in the rest of the adventure, but the plot is interesting and I feel like having to sneak past an army of kobolds and then find a way in the castle to fight the Over-kobold without raising the alarm is a very challenging task for low-level characters and something they could be proud of should they succeed.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
WK3 Revenge of the Over-Kobold (PF)
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B2 The Keep on the Borderlands (Basic)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Martin S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/31/2016 12:00:43

As is often the case with these old modules, you will find a lot more content herein than its page count would lead you to believe. This is one of the very first module I ever played and therefore, my rating might be biased, but I think that no matter the rule set you are using, this is a good example of an adventure adapted to beginner GMs.

The first part of the module provides guidelines on how to run the adventure and how to add your own material (end of the book). The second part presents the Keep, the place where the characters can resupply and gather information as well as hire help to explore the Caves of Chaos. The third part is a description of the Caves of Chaos and its inhabitants.

The adventure is pretty straigthforward and does not necessarily contain surprises, but it is a solid classic in which new players can learn how to play the game and veterans reminisce some of their first experience. I really enjoyed reading it one more time!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
B2 The Keep on the Borderlands (Basic)
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B8 Journey to the Rock (Basic)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Martin S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/07/2016 12:10:31

This adventure is a very good low-level adventure. The characters are tasked with journeying to a place simply called The Rock, and bringing back its secret. The players can choose one of three paths to reach their destination, each path offering different challenges and different environments.

Once they finally reach their destination, the characters will have to face a Crone of Chaos before finding a way to enter The Rock. Once they get in, they will have to choose wisely if they wish to discover the secret hidden here.

I really liked this adventure because it offers encounters with a large variety of adversaries and not all of the encounters are resolved by combat. Several can be resolved with negotiations and wise choices. Each of the three trails also has two encounter tables, one for daytime and one for night time. This is something that is rarely seen in recent adventures, but something that makes a lot of sense and makes life easy for GMs. As for the encounters tied to the story, most of them are nice and fun. A few feel like filler or seem a bit strange, but they can be easily modified or replaced.

Interestingly, once the characters reach The Rock, the GM has two options on how to end the adventure based on how hard the ending should be for the characters. Once of them is a non-combat option which is nice to see since the fight with the Crone of Chaos could have been hard on the characters.

After the conclusion, there a great section on how to run additional adventures using the material found here and suggestions as to where to place the adventure in the context of the campaign world developed for D&D. The ending also provides a kind of lesson for the players that All that glitters is not gold. I have not seen this very often in roleplaying games.

While the encounters provided are interesting and that the adventure itself is well written, it is also pretty straightforward. Besides choosing one of three trails, the characters pretty much follow the trail and get to their destination. Advice is given should the players choose to travel without using the roads. At least, the encounters are varied and bring diversity to an otherwise pretty straightforward story.

If you like old school gaming, I believe that this adventure can be easily adapted to other rules set and even if not played as is, it has good material for scavenging.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
B8 Journey to the Rock (Basic)
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WK2 Curse of the Kobold Eye (PF)
Publisher: Cut to the Chase Games
by Martin S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 09/16/2016 11:04:44

This review contains spoilers

This adventure is the second part of the Wrath of the Kobolds series. While you could use it on its own, it is enhanced when used as the follow-up to the first adventure. In the first module, the characters put an end the Kobold Queen’s reign of terror in the Talon Hills. As she dies, she curses them with her last breath. This module begins when the characters start to feel the effects of the curse. This is something I have not seen often in all my years. Characters can find cursed objects and have to get rid of them, but it is rare to have them suffering from a curse. Usually, they help others get rid of their curse.

As the characters become haunted by the spirit of a powerful kobold warlord, they have a chance to figure out what is going on and travel to a place call the Lone Library. This library is located in the Liverswood. When the characters reach the woods, they may notice that it is very creepy. The place is also under curse, like them the spirit of Kra-Moth-Kra, the powerful kobold warlord is encroaching upon the woods. He took hold of a bear and is terrorizing the lone gnome caretaker of the library. The thing is, this gnome is the descendant of the illusionist lords that defeated the kobold armies long ago. Of course, the characters learn this only if they make it to the library. They can help remove the curse from the woods and it is in their best interest to do so as Markar Laan, can create a special elixir that will remove their own curse when it is poured in on the remains of the kobold warlord.

Once their business is over in the Liverswood, the characters will have to travel to the ruins of an ancient gnome city where the tomb of Kra-Moth-Ka is located. There, they may make an alliance with a group of giant badgers, also descendants of badgers allied with the illusionist lords of old. Once they find the kobold warlord’s resting place, they will have to fight him and get to his remains to use the elixir. The adventure ends once the curse is lifted from the characters.

This is a very good adventure with a strong old school feel. First, the characters are personally involved. While they can certainly help others in order to achieve their goal, the fact remains that they do it for themselves. This is rare and very nice to see in a published adventure. Another thing that I like about the adventure is that the manifestations of the kobold spirit have different effects and they are not quantified or explained. What is sometimes frustrating with Pathfinder adventures is that most of the times, effects, consequences, and pretty much everything affecting characters is related to a spell-effect and can be countered with a save. Not so here, the curse affects them, they need help to research a solution, the content of the elixir than will lift the curse is left unexplained and hte only thing they need to know is how to use it. That is old school! I do not think everything needs to be quantified and /or statted to make the game enjoyable. In fact, all that crunch sometimes remove the fun from the game. This adventure is a perfect example of old school. It does not mean it is abusive and the players do not have a word to say, it just means that they know what they need to and that space is not wasted on justifying why things are the way they are.

The only thing I want to complain about is the effects of the curse. It would have been nice to have diverse effects varying in intensity as the characters come close to Kra-Moth-Ka’s tomb. As it is, it is not bad at all. The characters get to face the spirit and it gets stronger. But, I would have liked to see effects like haunts or even have characters suffer penalties while fighting. As it stands, the characters encounter a wraith with a bit more hit points and doing a bit more damage, and with a greater number of weaker undead surrounding it... So, not bad, but other effects would have been nice. That is just me though, it does not make the adventure less enjoyable because of this. Another strong point that this adventure has is that it can be used in any campaign. Indications are provided to help achieve this and the names of locations and NPCs are pretty generic. All in all, a very good adventure!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
WK2 Curse of the Kobold Eye (PF)
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TG0 Depths of the Croaking Grotto (PF)
Publisher: Cut to the Chase Games
by Martin S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 09/13/2016 14:47:57

This review contains spoilers

The adventure starts with the characters being hired to find an amulet that is lost in somewhere in the Fell Mountains. A trading caravan was transporting to the amulet through the mountains on its way to the frontier town of Kraden’s Hill. The characters can follow the trail of the attackers (degenerate toad-men) for a short while, but will have to continue exploring the mountains on their own as the trail becomes too hard to follow, if they are to succeed at their mission. Of course, once they find the lair of the toad-men, they will have to fight them to recover the amulet. The adventure ends once the amulet is returned to their patron.

The first thing to understand about this adventure is that it is designed to be “old school”, therefore, not everything is quantified or explained by a magical effect found in one of the core rulebooks. For example, when the characters first arrive to the toad-men they witness their shaman summoning a foul slime toad to prevent them from recovering the amulet. This is not linked to a monster summoning spell or to a specific magic item, rather, the event is used further the story, expose the characters to the power of the amulet when used by a priest of the Toad God, and as a mean to further enhance the story. Having played this game for several years and being “old school” myself, this is something I truly enjoy. Not waste of time trying to figure out if it is “legit”. My most memorable games are the ones where not everything was transparent to the players or explainable by a rule in a book. In any case, it makes for awesome storytelling and a sense of wonder.

The second thing awesome about this adventure is that it is more like an open sandbox. There is a small hexcrawl provided complete a player’s map. Not something you often find in Pathfinder’s adventure, but something that is extremely for players as they get to choose where they want to go.

Lastly, many names and locations are rather generic because the adventure can be used anywhere there is a jungle and a mountain range. There are notes as to how to adapt the adventure to your own world.

Overall, I really liked the adventure. It is created to be played as a small sandbox with only the goal of recovering the amulet. The main antagonists, the degenerate toad-men, are really fearsome foes, their savageness being well rendered; and their lair is very evocative of what you would expect from such weird foes. It is a very challenging adventure I believe though, but one that is very enjoyable!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
TG0 Depths of the Croaking Grotto (PF)
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The Hound of Yellowcloak Bog: A Short Adventure Module
Publisher: LPM Media
by Martin S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 09/08/2016 14:15:40

I downloaded this adventure out of curiosity as to how it would translate into the game system I use, Pathfinder. As I was reading the adventure I noticed that all creatures mentioned are easily available in my world and not only that, they are appropriate to the proposed challenge level. Do not let the low count of pages fool you, you have enough details in this adventure to expand on it or run it as is with little to no work depending on how much preparation you need.

Although the adventure starts as a mystery investigation of sort (what kind of hound is causing such damage...), it ends-up as a pretty straigthforward adventure. Nothing wrong with that though, sometimes things are just what it is. I would have a like a little more mystery in the end with maybe someone from the village using the monsters to foment war between the humans and elves. However, this is a short fun and easy to use module that is Pay What you Want, so I do not think I should complain much here considering it is well written and structured. Give it a try!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
The Hound of Yellowcloak Bog: A Short Adventure Module
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Honeymoon of Horror
Publisher: Wayward Rogues Publishing
by Martin S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/22/2016 10:56:28

This adventure starts rather well with a solid background and an interesting villain. The story itself contains lovecraftian themes and will perfectly with any campaign exploring those themes. While trying to find out what happened to a beloved cleric who got married a few months ago and was never seen again, the characters discover a cult to Dagon in which skums cultists breed with human women. The cult is led by a deranged pair of cloakers, trying to take advantage of the cultists.

This adventure has a lot going on for itself as I mentioned above. The premise is strong and the plot is interesting. However, a few things make it a little bit hard to run. On one occasion, two identical paragraphs are reproduced on the same page. While this does not impede comprehension, it is a big formatting mistake. The tactics of the main villain, Silan, are written on two different pages and are not the same which is a bit confusing. The second set of tactics makes more sense. Again, nothing that makes the adventure bad, but it might confusing for an inexperienced GM.

Lastly, I would also have liked to see a map of the manor with summaries of room content. I would also have liked a random encounter table for the journey at the beginning of the adventure. It would have been a good opportunity of foreshadowing the events to come. There is a nice encounter with an old merchant that can provide information on the main villain.

Overall, a good adventure with a nice plot and interesting atmosphere. Should the formatting errors be removed, it would make for a very good adventure!



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Honeymoon of Horror
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Creator Reply:
Thank you for your review! We will take a look at those formatting issues you mention and repair them to make a better product.
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