More scattered cards of the mysterious and powerful Harrow deck known as the Deck of Destiny must be gathered before those who would use the Harrow's power to alter fate itself for their own needs can get them first. But this time, the cards come to the heroes when one of their competitors grows aggressive and attacks them in their own home. Only by gathering allies, exploring an ancient ruin, and exploring a corrupted demiplane can the heroes stand a chance over their latest enemy—a demonic mercenary who's taken an apocryphal Harrow card as his own identity.
The Destiny War is a Pathfinder adventure for four 14th-level characters. This adventure continues the Stolen Fate Adventure Path, a three-part monthly campaign in which a band of adventurers are thrust into the role of the defenders of destiny itself. This adventure also includes new magical items and treasures to be discovered, including another 18 powerful cards from the Deck of Destiny, and a mix of monsters to torment the player characters.
Each monthly full-color softcover Pathfinder Adventure Path volume contains an in-depth adventure scenario, stats for several new monsters, and support articles meant to give Game Masters additional material to expand their campaign. Pathfinder Adventure Path volumes use the Open Game License and work with both the Pathfinder RPG and the world’s oldest fantasy RPG.
Written by: Chris S. Sims
ISBN-13: 978-1-64078-517-5
The Stolen Fate Adventure Path is sanctioned for use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. The rules for running this Adventure Path and Chronicle Sheets are available as a free download (774 KB PDF).
Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:
Unlike the first two reviewers, I have read it and prepped to run it.
The art is fantastic. The Adventurer's Toolbox has some exceptional pieces in particular. The maps, though a little small, are intricate and well-crafted.
Part 2 makes a lot more sense if you read further and rant less. Interesting terrain, creatures, and motivations all stood out.
If you enjoyed the (fantastic) 1E module, "The Harrowing," wait until you see what an even darker influence does to your favorite storykin.
It all ends in a brutal, epic showdown where the PCs prior decisions probably determine the outcome. Fantastic book to what's shaping up to be a potentially Golarion-altering story. Can't wait to start it!
I have finished prepping this but am yet to run it. I thoroughly like the look of what we have here.
Part 1 is a big, sprawling, extended combat scene. It is reminiscent of the start of AoA Part 6 without being quite as brutal as that particular AP. Lots of stuff for people who really enjoy the combat system to do here with a variety of challenging fights. Also, heavy use of troops in this one so you had better remind yourself how they work!
Part 2 involves the exploration of an ancient city as you start collecting more cards in order to obtain more information about who attacked your home and forge various additional alliances. Its a bit "monster of the week" as you explore different locations but the scenario provides a range of different ways to handle these encounters. Plenty of opportunities here for enjoy exploration, diplomacy and negotiation.
Part 3 sees us return to the site of the old Harrowing module. Lots of interesting call backs to that module and people who have played it will find a load of easter eggs here. Again, a variety of different locations, not so much diplomatic options here, the people now in charge are not terribly reasonable but you never know. It as interesting to see what has happened to the Harrowed Realm.
Having obtained what you need from the Harrowed Realm the group can now strike back against their enemy in his home. Here we are off on a planar trip to the Abyss! However, you wont manage it without help so best hope you made plenty of friends in part 2. This part is very short but utterly brutal, a suitable finale for the second part of this AP.
Overall I am very excited to run this, it looks excellent.
Starts out strong with a large-scale demonic incursion into the Harrowed Court, fighting alongside the epitomized entities you have unlocked from their cards. Love it.
Then, you are whisked off to Katapesh, because a half dozen cards have appeared in some random ruins. This entire chapter feels like it was found at the bottom of a dusty bin labelled 'generic fantasy sandboxes' and forcefully wedged in to make up the word count. It feels out of place, like cut content left on the editing room floor from - I would guess - Strength of Thousands.
I stopped reading at this point. Maybe it gets better? I will never know.
I am prepping this at the moment and am liking it a lot. There is a mass of content here with a wide range of stuff for all sorts of different playstyles. I will leave a full review once I am done.
There are some editing errors in stat blocks here and there which are fairly minor but there does appear either to be a section missing or something was taken out but not fully.
At the start of Part 3 it talks about there being 3 events during the section, starting with when they enter the area These are then never mentioned again. Is something missing or were they taken out and this little segment didn't get cut (Page 51, para 4).
Sorry for the confusion there about events. During development, I incorporated all of the events into encounter locations so that they could be supported by maps, but also to give a bit more heft to the specific encounter areas. We should have cut mention of events on page 49, and left that paragraph simply saying:
Spoiler:
"The order in which the PCs explore the Harrowed realm is up to them."
OK, I have now finished prepping this and have a few questions/comments.
Here there be spoilers:
The defence points system seems to be fairly underdeveloped. It requires quite a bit of tracking with a binary result, you either have none and get a debuff or you dont and you are fine. I would really have liked to see these set the scale of the final encounter, which is also entirely binary. You get to battle round 8 or you finish sooner. A more varied impact would have, I think, created a more interesting set up.
On the defence points, it is not wholly clear how many you lose. Do the increased defence point reductions from not resolving events 1 or 2 stack? I think they do give the wording.
Several of the new cards have effects which rely on the users Class DC. A number of them are in the hands of enemies and at least one has tactics which specifically say they should use it. What do we use for an NPCs class DC? Is it just a level appropriate one, their spell DC (if they have one), some other number with a rarity adjustment?
Looking at the stat blocks I have a few questions:
The damage on Fate's Prophet hand crossbow seems very low. This may be because she is using a poison but its a very low level one and unlikely to bother level 14 PCs much.
The Shadow Prince lacks a spell attack modifier despite knowing Telekinetic Projectile. This is a fairly common error for various monsters across the Bestiaries.
Tremia's hand attack has paralysing touch but his stat block doesnt list it. Its a standard lich ability so it looks like it might just have been missed off the stat block.
Vehanezhad lacks a spell attack modifier. She is using level 9 illusory creature so really needs one. Again, this is a carry over from the Bestiary which fails to give blue dragons a spell attack mod for their innate spells.
TickTock lacks a spell attack modifier which he needs for his Chilling Darkness as does the Ephialtes.
Finally, one issue with the maps.
The scenario says that the Dens walls are colour coded to show height and whether or not they are difficult terrain. The maps in the module and in the map pack are not colour coded.
That seems to be most of the issues that cropped up as I prepped this. They are largely fairly minor and dont detract overall from how good this adventure looks.
just realized something: Does one of new demons in bestiary lack the demon unique weakness?
It does; that's an error we all missed from creation to development to edit, alas... but also that stat block is already really tight on the page. If/when we transition that demon over to a hardcover and remaster it we'll get it a proper weakness, but in the meantime, feel free to use something like this (Note this is just off the top of my head and not cross checked with other demon weaknesses or any development/edit pass to the text, so don't take this as official errata... just a suggestion):
Spoiler:
Creation Vulnerability The creation of anything new agonizes a katpaskir. If a creature within 30 feet of a katpaskir uses any magical effect to create a physical object, barrier, or structure that has a duration of at least 1 minute and that the katpaskir can observe the creation of, the katpaskir takes 5d6 mental damage. If that object, barrier, or structure is destroyed before its duration expires and a katpaskir witnesses its destruciton, the confirmation that all things must end bolsters the demon and it gains temporary immunity to Creation Vulnerability for 24 hours.
Creative Director
