DnD Archive

Pathfinder #2 is the second offering in Paizo Publishing’s “Rise of the Runelords” adventure path. It is an adventure designed for characters beginning at 4th level, who should reach 8th level by the conclusion. It also includes several articles with supporting material for the Pathfinder campaign world, Golarion, including a short fiction section, an overview of the city of Magnimar, a writup of the goddess Desna, and a Bestiary which includes several new creatures featured in the adventure, and a few new creatures that aren’t.

The production value and overall look of this product are fantastic. It is presented in a 96-page, perfect bound format, on high quality paper. The layout and design of the pages makes it very easy to read, always important with gaming products in which the DM might be flipping back and forth frequently during play. To aid this, each section of the book has a background and font style that serves to unify that section and set it apart from the other sections of the book. The artwork is exceptional throughout the book, featuring some absolutely creepy and beautiful images throughout. The maps and cartography were drawn by Rob Lazzaretti, someone whose work all D&D players should be familiar with by now.

The first 55 pages of the book are devoted to the adventure itself. The overall theme of the adventure is mystery/horror, and it pits the characters against undead and death cultists. As it is designed to tie into the “Rise of the Runelords” adventure path, this adventure assumes that you have completed the first adventure in that path, “Burnt Offerings” and that the players and DM are familiar with the town of Sandpoint, which is presented in that adventure. “The Skinsaw Murders” picks up where the previous adventure left off. The characters, who are by now local heroes, are encouraged by the Sheriff of Sandpoint to help investigate a series of gruesome murders – murders which appear to have a tie to the players. From there, things get rather dark, and before long, the players are encountering hungry undead, trying to unravel the mystery of a haunted house, and eventually facing down the murderer. After dealing with the murderer, the party can follow his trail back to a cult in the city of Magnimar. Eventually, they become embroiled in a struggle to bring the cult down. Suffice it to say that the cult has powerful allies in the city, both mundane and monstrous, and that taking them on is a challenge for even a party of heroes.

There’s a lot of interesting things about this adventure. First off, it is very well written, and the overall tone and look are really creepy, especially the scenes with the murderer and the haunted house. It is reminiscent of the movie Seven in which two detectives try to chase down an insane serial killer. The adventure is an absolute blast to read – the author went out of his way to include numerous small details for the DM which are a lot of fun and add to the feel of the adventure. Whether or not a DM chooses to share these details with his players is up to him, but I would suggest any DM running this adventure work some of them in during play. Another interesting element is the Haunts mechanic which is used in the Haunted House section of the adventure. Haunts are like a cross between a trap and a cut scene, and provide the main challenge in this section.

There are a few things about this adventure which I felt could have been improved. First of all, the first section of the adventure, with the murderer, does not flow smoothly to the second section, involving the cult in Magnimar. I think there’s a chance that some characters would not want to travel to Magnimar after the threat of the murderer in Sandpoint is resolved. According to the adventure, this break is intentional, to give the DM time to run side quests, however, I think it would be better to provide some urgency to the second half of the adventure. Secondly, later in the adventure, the party will come across some magic items which are somewhat disturbing – a set of human skin masks. I think the author intended the party to destroy these masks; however, their properties are so useful, that I can’t help but think that most players would take these items and wear them around. That’s really creepy, and I’m not sure I would want my campaign going in that direction. Finally, as this adventure is the second chapter of a six chapter adventure path, it assumes that the characters have already gone through the first chapter. A DM trying to use this product as a standalone module will have to do some considerable adaptation to give the players the background they’ll need to complete this adventure.

The remaining sections of the book I’ll cover in brief. The adventure is followed by a 10-page article on the city of Magnimar “City of Monuments”, which goes into detail about the city’s history, politics, important NPCs and various institutions the party might visit in town. It also includes a full color map of the city which you could print off and hand to the players. This section will be indispensable to a DM running the second half of the adventure, and Magnimar would make a fine city to drop into other settings on its own. The next section is a 10-page write-up of Desna, the goddess of freedom and dreams. It covers the tenets of her faith, the role of a priest of Desna, her avatars and allies, two new spells, and a prestige class for her followers. Following this is an 8-page fiction section, covering the continuing adventures of Eando Kline. This section also includes some new magic items, but mostly allows us to learn more about Pathfinders and the world they live in. The final section is a bestiary, which includes some monsters from the adventure, such as the Lamia Matriarch and the Faceless Stalker, and some creatures that aren’t mentioned, but are local to the Magnimar area, such as the Boggarts.

In conclusion, I think that this is a product which should appeal to many DMs. It is a fine adventure, though it does rely on some material from Pathfinder #1 in order to really make sense in some places. I think the haunts mechanic is something that an enterprising DM could easily use to great effect in other campaigns, and I am looking forward to see if Paizo continues to use it in upcoming adventures. The supporting material is interesting, especially the piece on the city of Magnimar and the goddess Desna, either of which could be used easily in other campaign settings. There are few adventures which are as interesting to read as they are to play, and this is certainly one of them.

Pathfinder #2 - The Skinsaw Murders