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Dungeons & Dragons 3e/Pathfinder RPG: Rogue Wizard

Rogue Wizard

Opening with some background for the GM, the tale of a wizard bad to the bone, the basic premise of the adventure is presented: the characters are hired to track down and deal with this rogue wizard who has been missing for many years but has recently been sighted in the northern wilderness not too far from Rybalka, the village where the characters are based. This backstory and the wizard's tower can easily be translocated into a setting of your choice if you do not use the Adventureaweek one.

Being hired and indeed finding the wizard's tower is left to the GM to detail, the adventure proper begins once the characters are standing outside wondering how to get in. The whole edifice is clearly described, with all the usual 'GM-friendly' tools that we have come to expect from this publisher: colour-coded read-aloud text, puzzles, traps and adversaries, all with apposite die-roll details, hyperlinks to both D&D 3.x and Pathfinder SRDs (or creature stats at the back, if preferred) and everything else you need to run each encounter effectively right there where you need it. One puzzle, involving crossing water, comes complete with a scale diagram you can put before your players, a neat touch. (A solution is provided, although I can spot some alternate paths, or of course characters may turn to magical means if they are not into 'command task' style activities!) There is also a fine set of riddles, a successful solution being rewarded by magical treasure, and failure with a malign spell!

Other classic puzzle/traps follow thick and fast. Note that no die-roll alternatives are provided, players are going to have to think - generally best, but be ready to offer the odd hint if they struggle too much. Many of the traps are quite deadly. At the top of the tower lurks a strangeness beyond all imagining...

And that's it. The goal, beyond mere survival, is to capture or kill the rogue wizard, and parties which do so may with justification feel proud of themselves. Puzzle-dungeons (OK, tower...) appeal to many players but can bore others, so decide if your group would relish the challenge - for if they do, this is a fine well thought example.

Return to Rogue Wizard page.

Reviewed: 7 August 2012