Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale: GameMastery Module Paperback – July 31, 2007

Ironically, I think this one might be a victim of Paizo's high quality. The background information tells an interesting and colorful story, and the adventure overall seems fun, but there is a lot that feels a little too open ended.Its meant as a "sandbox" adventure, where X number of things need to happen before a certain timeframe, but there are X+Y things to do if the PCs wish to, and many can be done in any order the PCs wish. It makes for a fairly open, character driven adventure, but it also makes for something that can feel a little too fast and loose as well.Also, while the fey in the adventure are fun, the main encounter with them could feel a bit more substantive than it does.If anything, this almost feels like the opposite of recent WOTC adventures, where the adventure is a thin frame for different kinds of encounters, this one almost feels like it has a lot of interesting background and things for the PCs to do, but that the actual encounters aren't as detailed or exciting as they might otherwise be.As I said earlier in the review though, I think that this might be a case where Paizo has set such a high standard its hard for them to always top themselves. Its a solid, fun looking adventure, and its well worth the money, its just not THE definitive "sandbox" adventure.

The previous reviewer is right about the loseness of it all, during the adventure. However, I think that the product is high above most of what the market is made of. Personally, I missed an old-school background adventure just like a pure Gygaxian AD&D adventure. You start off with a fully detailed background, so consistency is assured, and then players do whatever they want, instead of being massively railroaded in a dungeon room after room. Of course, it is a hard adventure. When detail is needed, you have to draw from either improvisation or pre-preparation so I wouldn't recommend it for any newbie GM. Nice product Paizo, keep delivering!!!