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Overview

Burnt Offerings is the first installment of the Rise of the Runelords adventure path, featured in Pathfinder. It is the spiritual successor to the print version of the Dungeon adventure paths (Shackled City, Age of Worms, and Savage Tides), combining an adventure, new monsters, and background information in one book. If you’re familiar with the previous adventure paths, you can expect to see more of the same (for good or bad) as the editor-in-chief of Pathfinder (and the writer of the first adventure) is James Jacobs, formerly editor-in-chief of Dungeon. Many of the writers responsible for previous adventure paths are already signed up to write future Pathfinder adventures.

What is Pathfinder not? It is not a magazine. Although it bears some similarities to Dragon and Dungeon (now available in an online format through Wizards of the Coast), the Pathfinder series are packaged as 96 page soft cover perfect bound books, free of advertisements except for a short preview of what’s to come on the last page. It also is not merely an expanded version of Paizo’s Gamemastery modules. Those 32-page adventures are intended as stand-alone; the adventure portion of Burnt Offerings runs 51 pages and is the first of six adventures in the path. Although it is possible to play Burnt Offerings (or, one imagines, any of the other Pathfinder adventures) independently, the main purpose is as part of a six part campaign, complete with expanded background material in each issue.

Art

The art is mostly good, with a few places I wish they’d gone with a different artist. The cover is done by Wayne Reynolds, one of my favorite artists. It features the re-designed goblins that play a major role in the adventure, as well as Valeros, iconic two-weapon fighter.

Inside, Valeros appears in one half page painting facing off with the module’s toughest foe. Seoni, the iconic sorcerer, also has a half page encounter with another monster. Both of these paintings, while very dark, are also very good. I’m not sure who the artist for them was, but I hope his or her work continues to be featured.

Several NPCs in the adventure are done by a single artist whose work I’m unfamiliar with. The style seems very angular. I wouldn’t classify it as bad (and I’m actually very fond of a few of the pictures), but it looks very out of place next to Reynolds’ cover.

The location pictures featured in the Thassilon chapter are nice, but make heavy use of shadow.

My biggest problem with the art was in the works of Jeff Laubenstein. He illustrated a few of the monsters in the adventure, as well as several NPCs in the Sandpoint chapter. His images are very cartoony and don’t fit with what I consider to be D&D art.

Burnt Offerings

SPOILER WARNING

Being a review of an adventure, there will be information here that could spoil your enjoyment of playing it.

Burnt Offerings is intended for a party of first level characters. A party of four should easily make third level by the end, and probably fourth, even if the optional sections are skipped over. I’ve been running the adventure unmodified for a party of six, and they should still make it to fourth, or very close. At 51 pages, this is the largest feature in the book.

The adventure opens with a goblin attack on the town of Sandpoint during a religious festival. The characters are thrust into the role of heroes as they face off against the goblins. The opening section consists of three separate fights that are set up to be very easy for a first level party. Besides the low damage of the small goblins, their dictated tactics are such that they’re more amusing than dangerous. A goblin might forego an attack to stuff his pockets with food, or one might spend an action climbing on top of a cart for tactical height. Additionally, their scrap metal “dog slicers” break on a natural 1. If the PCs get injured, the town priest is on hand with a few healing spells.

Following the attack, the characters are acclaimed heroes. A section of role-playing encounters follows, most of which can be skipped or embellished as the DM chooses. A temptress attempts to seduce one of the PCs, which could result in dire consequences if her father (the owner of the general store) finds out. A noble saved by the PCs invites them on a boar hunt; his developing interest in the party is revisited in the next adventure. One gruesome encounter involving a goblin survivor shows that, although often goofy, the goblins are still vicious and dangerous foes.

The disappearance of a tavern keeper leads the party to investigate her father's glass factory. Inside, there's a large fight with goblins, who again use sub-par tactics so a first level party should manage with ease. After defeating the goblins and their leader, documents are found indicating that the goblin attack at the start was more than just a random raid.

From here out, the adventure starts getting tougher, but at this point a four person party should have just reached second level. The first optional dungeon is found below the glass factory. Smuggler tunnels lead into an ancient set of catacombs. The PCs will have their first encounter with the sinspawns, one of the ugliest aberrations I’ve ever seen. Other encounters include a mutated goblin and a spellcasting quasit. That last one can be very difficult to kill. The quasit’s Damage Reduction and Fast Healing makes it harder for the party to inflict lasting damage, while her flying abilities can keep her out of reach. However, besides summoned monsters, her offensive abilities are pretty weak. The text states she’s reluctant to leave the catacombs, so an outmatched party has the opportunity to run. And, as noted, this dungeon is optional; the information needed to advance the plot has already been found in the glass factory.

The last part of the adventure takes place in the lair of one of the goblin tribes. Here, a fallen aasimar plots how she will burn Sandpoint as an offering to her dark god, who in turn will reward her with transformation into a fiend. More goblins are encountered here, as well as several 3rd and 4th level NPCs. For the most part, the NPCs are encountered singly, so the PCs numbers should compensate for their lower levels. Also, the PCs should level before they get too far into the lair; a party of 3rd level characters should handle things without too many problems.

The goblin’s lair also contains an optional encounter with a greater barghest, a remnant of a fallen empire. At CR 7, he’s the most powerful foe the PCs will encounter in Burnt Offerings. He is bound to his room, however, so escape is possible.

All in all, Burnt Offerings is a strong low level adventure. The fights can be challenging, but rarely fatal, with the two toughest fights offering an escape path. Experience is offered for non-combat encounters in additional to the usual reward for killing monsters.

There are a few flaws in the adventure. A few of the stat blocks have errors, most of the nature of a stat being changed and not all of the repercussions being noted. None of these is game breaking. There is also the problem of the abundance of small rooms and 5’ wide hallways. Characters are forced to move single file between rooms, and have little space to maneuver inside rooms. It’s a problem for a party of four, and horrible for a larger group.

Sandpoint

As with the adventure, this chapter is written by James Jacobs. It covers the town of Sandpoint, home to some 1200 people. As this will be the home base for the PCs throughout Burnt Offerings, it’s important that it is well-detailed and appealing. Jacobs has succeeded in this (he’s stated that Sandpoint is based on his hometown, which probably adds life and detail to the area).

The section contains an overview of Sandpoint and its history, from the murders committed by the original settlers to the unpleasantness of five years ago, events which had further repercussions as detailed in Burnt Offerings. There is also a map and details on 50 buildings. Some of these buildings contain figures important to the adventure, or are shops likely to be frequented by the PCs. Several are there to provide additional flavor, like the estates of the noble families, or the Sandpoint Theater.

I found this to be a very good chapter, except for the NPC portraits, as previously mentioned.

Thassilon

Wolfgang Baur is responsible for this chapter concerning the ancient empire of the Rune Lords, the chief villains of the adventure path. It’s interesting if brief. I expect I’ll be referencing this chapter later on, but it’s unnecessary for Burnt Offerings.

Sidebars throughout this article offer summaries of the rest of the adventure path, to be written by Richard Pett, Nicolas Logue, Wolfgang Baur, Stephen S. Greer, and Greg Vaughn. If you’ve read Dungeon before, particularly the adventure paths, at least some of those names should be familiar.

Opening Moves

This is the first Pathfinder’s Journal, written by Erik Mona. This article establishes the Pathfinder Society (and the Pathfinder Chronicles, the name of the setting) as an actual part of the gameworld. The Pathfinders are explorers, historians, and adventurers, looking for ancient ruins and recording their findings in the Chronicles. In short, the organization provides a legitimate reason for there to be adventurers in the world.

It’s an interesting idea to give adventurers a role beyond wandering killers seeking gold, but for some reason I found this chapter a little lacking. It seemed dry. Also, unless I misread, there isn’t an established chapter in the area where Rise of the Runelords takes place.

Curiously, this chapter was done in black and white. It looks odd compared with the rest of the pages, all in full color. The art is good, including the character portraits (done in the same style as the Rise of the Runelords Players Guide, available as a free download from Paizo).

This chapter includes six new monsters, from James Jacobs, Richard Pett, and F. Wesley Schneider. Three of the monsters are featured in the adventure: the goblin dog, the giant gecko, and the sinspawn. The other three can be added in or used in other games. Here are brief descriptions of all six:

Goblin Dog: Looking like a cross between a dog and a rat, this creature serves as a goblin mount that’s weaker than a wolf.

Goblin Snake: A snake-like aberration that fits well with the goblin theme of the adventure.

Giant Gecko: A less powerful version of the monitor lizard, this works as a goblin mount that won’t overwhelm the party.

Sinspawn: A vicious aberration tied into the core of the adventure path, it attacks with claws and a wrath-inducing bite.

Attic Whisperer: This creepy undead, born of a neglected child, seeks out other children like it.

Sandpoint Devil: This creature looks like a horse that walks on two legs, with a lizard tail, batwings, and a row of sharp teeth. At CR 8, it is well outside the power level of a party playing Burnt Offerings, but it does provide a little more color to the region by giving Sandpoint its own folk legend.

Characters

For Dungeon, the Paizo crew created several iconic characters to provide cohesiveness in the artwork of adventures. A side effect of this was they received several questions about the names and stats of the iconics, information they had never created. This time around, they’re heading off the questions by having the iconics serve double duty as the pregenerated characters.

The four iconics for Rise of the Runelord are: Valeros, human figher; Seoni, human sorcerer; Kyra, human cleric of Sarenrae; and Merisiel, elf rogue. The characters are shown at first level with the elite array of stats. Each character has been given a bonus background feat from those offered in the Rise of the Runelords Players Guide; there is no information on what the feats do here, but the Players Guide is a free download.

Evaluation

If the print version of Dungeon had to end so that we could have Pathfinder, then I’d say it’s a good trade. I’d been a fan of the last two adventure paths (Age of Worms and Savage Tides), and this looks like it will offer the same quality and

I'm torn on the rating. While I think this is an excellent product, I feel there is room for improvement. Since 4.5 is not an option, I'll go with 4 for style (as the art was my biggest problem area, and I've seen a number of complaints about the small font) and a 5 for substance.