The PATHMASTER products are part of an adventure writing and design competition from Adventureaweek.com. Five finalists from loads of initial entries were chosen to write an adventure each, and the winning adventure of the five gets to move onward and upward in the RPG writing industry. This review is a review of one of the adventures from the five finalists. I've reviewed each of the five final adventure submissions, culminating in me choosing my own personal winning entry for PATHMASTER. Each review has been concluded with a few comments on the adventure relative to the others, and some justification as to its position in the winning stakes. All five reviews have been posted at the same time, so if you're reading this, you can read the other 4 review entries as well. With that in mind, on with the review.
The Timeless Fort is a 51 page Pathfinder RPG adventure written by Luis Loza for 3rd level characters. The product presentation is neat and professional, with excellent maps, art and use of colour-coded layout to allow GMs to quickly find what they need. The product has a rather heavy background on each page and for the text boxes, so won't be suitable for all when it comes to printing. Writing is good, with good attention to detail, and good descriptive text that allows the imagination to run wild.
The Timeless Fort takes elements of the film 'Groundhog Day' and combines that into a compelling story with a hint of time-travelling madness. An ancient fort, host to a powerful artifact, is stuck in a time-loop, and the PCs, upon entering the fort, are cast into a world of kings and foes battling for control of the power of the artifact. The PCs are required to protect the fort as much as they can, while at the same time unraveling the mysteries of the time loop and so bringing an end to an ancient tale. While doing so, they are capable of being 'reset' in the time loop experiencing the same events again, as they struggle to make sense of events around them. The adventure is entirely location based in the fort, though the action, barring initial exploration, is largely event based with the PCs responding to swarms of events happening around them and the soldiers of the fort.
This is an exciting and dynamic adventure that will see the PCs rushed off their feet as they dash from one place to the next, facing foes from all sides while trying to deal with a potentially unreal situation and the many soldiers of the fort. It's a fast-paced action adventure, which looks like it will be a blast to run. While the time-travelling aspects might not be for everyone, I think these can (and probably should if I were to play it) be glossed over. I think incorporating the time-travelling is an interesting idea, but I think the execution was a little unclear in places, as to what consequences there were between time loops. I'm not sure players will really enjoy going through the motions to repeat something they've done before. For me, this adventure just doesn't need the time-travelling - it's a distraction to an otherwise strong adventure that is just fine on its own.
There are several things I love about this adventure. Firstly, there are a lot of factions involved, meaning the action is varied, and you're not bashing heads against the same old creatures all the time. Motivations for the factions are different, and it means that one moment you could be facing one monster crawling up from underground, and the next another monster trying to breach the fort walls. This makes it interesting both for the DM and the players. Secondly, there are a lot of things happening and a lot of events to play with. These make the action dynamic and fast, and similar events can easily be incorporated to change or add to the adventure. All the little parts of the adventure make for interesting scenes. I really liked the fact that several events could happen at once, and that while the PCs were dealing with one, other events could take place in their absence.
This is an excellent adventure that's full of action and fun. The encounters are interesting and action-packed, the story is good, and the event-driven nature means that the PCs will feel themselves being rushed as things happen fast and quick even when they're not around. While it's not an 'against all odds' kind of scenario, it can create a sense of panic as the PCs deal with too many things happening at once, and need to decide how to handle and best deal with the situations. Compelling narrative, great action, excellent dynamics, and a lot of fun. Excellent adventure.
As mentioned in my other reviews, Timeless Fort and Ironwall Gap Must Hold are very similar style adventures. Both are dynamic and action packed, with events happening around them, although I think the air of the mystical and the pace of the events in Timeless Fort is better. I really liked the pacing and number/type of events of Timeless Fort compared to Ironwall Gap Must Hold, but at the same time the time-travelling is a bit of a distraction. While To Walk the Dark Road has oodles of atmosphere, the dynamic and frantic action of Timeless Fort still give the adventure a unique feel. Cutting Silver Pass is really slow on the action front compared to Timeless Fort, while the more 'standard' adventure in Twilight Falling, while it comes with a good mix of atmosphere and action, doesn't quite match this on the excitement front. In the end, for me, it was a toss-up between Ironwall Gap Must Hold and Timeless Fort, and despite my feelings on time-travelling as a distraction, I think Timeless Fort wins out by a smidgen. I've rated this adventure as 1st in my list of adventures for the PATHMASTER contest.
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