The New Flesh

Another good entry in the Reign of Winter series. The Shackled Hut has lots of interesting intrigue and stealth elements initially, introducing some of those who resist the rule of the Winter Witches and focussing on avoiding trouble and acquiring forged papers. The second half kicks off with a battle in a clock tower with a white dragon which is the kind of epic swords and sorcery I love. And then its back to the slightly ho-hum Baba Yaga storyline with the players acquiring the plane-travelling hut. Fey continue to be used in an engaging and pervasive way this issue. You get a real sense of a world with two very different groups living in parallel and impacting on one another in a big way. The incidental NPCs are also excellent. Well-drawn and with engaging back stories. You kind of what to carry them all into future adventures.

This is the first entry in the new adventure path feature winter-themed scenarios and Baba Yaga. I like the first and am indifferent about the second. This adventure looks at first blush like a winner though. It's split into two parts (reflecting the arbitrary nature of the six-issue format). The first is an expedition to rescue a missing noblewoman and discover why winter seems to have come to a near-by forest. The task is hindered by cold-touched fey and a group of bandits who have ambushed the noble's caravan. At the heart of the mysterious winter the group discover a portal to another part of the world, the perpetual winter of the land of Irrissen. Travelling through leads to the second part of the adventure, with the PCs trying to defeat one of the winter witches. Things that look really promising: the winter fey are very engaging as antagonists and the bandit leader seems to have been given a twist to keep it a step away from total cliche. The second half seems down...

Ho hum, here we come to the end of another Pathfinder Adventure Path and we have the usual difficulty of finding a good crescendo to the campaign, something that is inherently difficult unless you've kept the game on rails because by this point there is a massive possibility space been created. The goal of this scenario is quite admirably it basically wants to create a valid epilogue to a Rod of the Seven Parts quest. What happens when the characters reassemble the artefact? Well in this case it's an ill-omened artefact with warnings of great danger should it be assembled so we open with a discussion on how to make the players want to do the thing that seems very stupid to do. Interestingly I can't think of many scenarios where reassembling the rod of seven parts has a happy ending. Maybe the Crook of Rao in Greyhawk. So really the scenario isn't about the consequences of assembling the Silhedron it is about an ancient clockwork city rising from the depths of th...

Every now and then Pathfinder Adventure Paths crossover with the Cthulhu Mythos (in fact it feels as though it happens frequently enough that it is nice to see a series where it doesn't happen). Shattered Star does that in this issue with a journey to the Plains of Leng . Now I'm not sure the Mythos works for me when you are meant to be hacking through it with a plus two sword of smiting so mileage is definitely going to vary here. What does work for me is the initial camp of giants who are excavating an tower buried in an ancient lava flow and the blue dragon who forms the boss villain of the adventure. There are two interesting opportunities for alliances: a rebel fire giant and a drow seeking to become a vampire. Both are interesting ideas for non-good/lawful characters and I like the idea that both might survive to recur later in a campaign. Overall though this is a bit meh. The parts are more interesting that the sum and I remain unconvinced that heroic fantasy and ...

The previous adventure path in Pathfinder left me a bit cold, despite loving the Arabian theme. I was feeling that the adventures were becoming quite rote with the inevitable escalation to the demons and devils that made up the end of adventure opponents. This one is quite different, there's already been a scenario based around a play and I'm enjoying the current issue which involves a sealed Pathfinder lodge, vampires, assassin priestesses and pit fighting with summoned monsters.

Another nice book in the Pathfinder line, an old-school style Monster Compendium. What is interesting is that it seems a lot more readable and enjoyable than the ultra-slick 4e books. I think the secret is that this is a genuine bestiary full of a variety of monsters and creatures including D&D classics and fantasy staples. It also includes some of Paizo's Lovecraft crossover creatures which are nice additions.

I picked up the Pathfinder playtest at GenCon UK and I have found it quite intriguing. I actually quite liked D&D 3e and while I respect the 4e design a lot, the baby went out with the bathwater for a lot of play styles. Having seen a lot of the new ideas in 4e though it is quite hard to go back to 3e and I hope that Pathfinder is going to square the circle here by having a more flexible, less combat-orientated and prescriptive games system while fixing flaws. What kind of things do I mean? Well the rest tendency, dead levels and avoiding classes with too many one shot powers. I'm reading through at the moment but it is difficult because so much of it familiar I keep tending to skip read.