Pathfinder 1E Paizo's Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale

[DM_Jeff]

I’m surprised I haven’t seen anything on this adventure yet. I sure hope folks aren’t so blindsided by that “other edition’s” news that we forgot there’s a game to play right now.

This isn’t a review, just observations and opinions. Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale is a 32-page full color noted as Module "W1" in Paizo’s Gamemastery adventure series. For basic background it's set in their new Pathfinder world, but generic enough to fit practically anywhere.

MINOR SPOILERS FOLLOW








It has old school goodness reminiscence of Necromancer and Goodman, but with that special Dungeon Magazine quality tossed in. In this adventure, a kingdom is trying to reopen trade routes to the south through the only pass, an old overgrown wild valley. They call up a trusted old soldier to lead the effort and he takes work crews in to settle the valley and rebuild the great road. But they are hampered every turn by monsters, nature, and mishaps. The crown sends out word for 6th level adventurers to save the day!

The party comes to the little fort on the borderlands and is subsequently sent on specific missions around the valley where monsters are attacking the workers or resources need grabbing, and so on. Overall, there is no one single plot, but many interconnected subplots. The fluid adventure is based on the PCs coming in and tackling the wide variety of jobs needed to bring peace to the valley and complete the assignment for the crown. There’s allies to be made, alliances to strike with unlikely creatures, horrid beasties to battle and the colorful and spooky “rose bush” theme and related fey that is really cool.

Overall, the PCs eventually do learn that a few of the threats are indeed related to a BBEG, and eventually they must confront the evildoer in his dread lair which from that point leads to the completion of the project, and land rewards for the characters from the kingdom.
There’s new monsters, new magic items, designers notes, and I still have no idea how they fit what feels like 64 pages of adventure into 32 pages, but they do. Good job Paizo!

-DM Jeff

 

[Agamon]

Cool. I have the adventure (I have the GM sub), and have glanced through it, but haven't had a chance to really check it out. I like that style of adventure. I think for my first 4E game (which is probably well more than a year away), I'm going to use the the new Paizo campiagn world, seed it with PF, GM, Dungeon and other adventures and let the party explore, in an open-ended, character driven, overplot is there but you can do what you want, Oblivion style of game, rather than a tight adventure path.

If creating encounters in 4E is as easy as the designers say, repopulating a higher level adventure to be lower, or vice versa, should be easy, too.

 

[EricNoah]

It actually feels a little bit like Red Hand of Doom -- in the sense that there are some missions that can be tackled in any order, it's very much wilderness based, and yet there is at some point a timeline/deadline to meet. Seems pretty nifty but as my group played RHOD recently I don't see me using the whole thing. But I probably will steal a lot of the locations and encounters for other uses.

 

[el-remmen]

Ooh! I wish this had come out some months ago, I might have actually gotten and used it.

How much is it?

 

[DM_Jeff]

Ooh! I wish this had come out some months ago, I might have actually gotten and used it. How much is it?

The copy I have has a back cover price of $12.99!

-DM Jeff

 

[Davelozzi]

Yeah, I have it, it's a pretty cool module. I think the price was $12.99.

Spoilers:

Spoiler

The section with the evil fey didn't really do it for me thought. I appreciated the flavor that they were going for, but the scenario just doesn't look like it would play out well. Gathering the two components of the gift in order to gain access to the king might have worked a little better if said components weren't just in the other room of the fey's own lair. Also, something seemed a bit off about the way the feasting fey are supposed to interact/ignore the party.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm a longtime fan of Dungeon Crawl Classics, but I was blown away by Crown of the Kobold King (I haven't given it a thorough read yet -- I've been reading some graphic novels and both of WotC's Practical Guides). If they're going to be able to stick to this high standard and high production quality, I'm going to end up giving them a LOT of my money.

Is it wrong of me to be eager to hear what they're doing for 4E, beyond publishing Necromancer's ToH 4E?

 

[DM_Jeff]

Is it wrong of me to be eager to hear what they're doing for 4E, beyond publishing Necromancer's ToH 4E?

Not at all. Is it wrong of me NOT to be eager to hear what they're doing for 4E? To each his own I guess.

-DM Jeff

 

[Stormtower]

I've got the GameMastery subscription from Paizo as well, and I've been pleased and satisfied with their production values and design choices. I hope Paizo continues to support the 3.5/OGL community with excellent products such as these for a long time to come!

Like the good Mr. Noah, my group is currently about 2/3rds through Red Hand of Doom so I'll be holding off on another timed, mission-based module for awhile... but I have lots of those weird fey-loving players who like the tricksies so there will be some thorny roses in the future at some point.

Here is a quibble - the maps that Paizo produces are among the finest (if not THE finest) in the industry, but settling on a standard 1 square = 5' for mapping would be a great boon to those of us who like to scan, resize and print/laminate the maps for campaign use.

Game on!

PS. EN - nice avatar.

 

[DM_Jeff]

Here is a quibble - the maps that Paizo produces are among the finest (if not THE finest) in the industry, but settling on a standard 1 square = 5' for mapping would be a great boon to those of us who like to scan, resize and print/laminate the maps for campaign use.

Scan, resize and print...wow, and I thought I was the only one! I'll agree with this, as one who also does this work, and likes it!

-DM Jeff