Minireview: Pathfinder #18, Descent Into Darkness
Descent Into Darkness (by Brian Cortijo) concludes the Second Darkness adventure path. This time round, the PCs are assumed to have tracked the main bad guy to a vast underground region, “The Land of Black Blood”. Various glyphs are active there, and unless they are deactivated everything will end with a big bang topside.
It’s ok. While it does feel a bit like a computer rpg plot at times (multiple weird glyphs, all of which have different effects and must be deactivated in a different fashion), it can probably work pretty well in practice. The underground world is given some coverage in the scenario and also in a secondary support article, but if players do what they tend to do (i.e. wander off in a random direction), some extra work will be required to populate the place. I think this scenario has some promise if the GM manages to build a sufficiently creepy and threatening feel to everything. Not sure how easy that is, though, especially since this isn’t the first time the PCs are venturing into unknown underground depths.
As a whole, I have mixed feelings about this adventure path. I liked the “low-key scum” beginning, and the weird island hit my meteorite was pretty cool. But then it went into elfland, and underground, and somehow I didn’t like that part all that much. Sometimes for specific reasons (the second-to-last part was much, much too railroady in a bad way), sometimes just because it didn’t strike a chord with me, for whatever reason.
I think I have a fundamental problem with D&D adventure paths in general. I like the idea, but the “from zero to hero” level progression of D&D forces you to escalate things into superhero country pretty fast. I usually tend to find the beginning parts good, but the later episodes not so much… partly because at that point the power level has risen to silly levels, and the plots usually have you saving the whole world (yet again). In addition, D&D doesn’t have the concept of “high-level social combat” like Exalted does, so it’s more and more just about high-power physical combat – which can get old fast. I think that problem was magnified here; the beginning rocked, but the rest of the adventure went off in a totally different direction, and one that I didn’t find as interesting.
If you are fond of the drow and/or of D&D elves, you’ll probably find a lot here to love. If not… well, I think this is the weakest of the Paizo adventure paths I’ve read so far. It’s not bad by any means, just lacking a bit in comparison with the others.
Tue, 19 May 2009 09:25 Posted in Books, Games
Tags dungeons and dragons, paizo, pathfinder, second darkness
