Pathfinder: "Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide" [RPG]

As my long-running Rise of the Runelords campaign has finally hit the last chapter, I realised that one of the things I've never reviewed is the original (3.5 edition) Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide.  This 16 page book was sold with a cover price of $ 2, and (I think) usually came bundled in packs of five so everyone at the gaming table could have one.  It's a high-quality product that comes on glossy paper and with colourful artwork and design.  They're pretty hard to find nowadays, but I was lucky to spot one on eBay for a reasonable price.  Anyway, with no further ado, let's get into it.

The cover is very cool, and, although players won't be quite aware of why yet, sets the tone for the campaign perfectly.  The 7-pointed Sihedron star takes prominence, and the page borders are designed as if the reader is about to open an ancient, eldritch tome.  The inside front-cover is a map of Sandpoint (the town that serves as the PCs' homebase), with detail sufficient to make out individual buildings, street names, and geographical features.  It's exactly the map that players should have at the table to better envision where their characters are, and players could, as they explore, make their own key to go along with the map.  The inside back-cover is similarly useful: an attractive map of Varisia that includes tons of marked locations and clear geographical features.  The vast majority of these locations aren't visited during the campaign, so there's no spoilers here--and in addition, the GM can make good use of this map as well.

The first page, "Welcome to Varisia," emphasises the usefulness of having PCs designed specifically for the region and the campaign.  Varisia is a frontier wilderness, and many of the challenges in the campaign involve surviving the land, not just monsters.  PCs who think about feats like Endurance and skills like Climb will find themselves better placed than PCs who care only about combat.  Players who ignore the Player's Guide very well may find themselves having a harder experience than they should in the campaign, but it's probably their own fault!

The next three pages, "Races of Varisia," discuss how the Core races fit into the region.  This is especially important for players new to Golarion who have probably never heard of Shoanti, Chelaxians, and Varisians.  Stories are best when they're grounded in interesting, believable settings, and this requires investment by the players in trying to make characters that reflect that setting.

Pages 6-9 are "Adventurers of Varisia."  It contains a couple of paragraphs on how each of the Core classes fits into the region and to the campaign more generally.  It's also chock-full of useful sidebars on things like native fauna, the deities of Golarion, and suggested familiars for sorcerers and wizards of different backgrounds.  In short, there's a ton of flavour and little bits of detail that help to situate a PC in the setting.

The next two pages are "Equipment of Varisia", and it focusses on weapons and armor used by the native Varisian and Shoanti peoples.  There are illustrations and statistics for things invented specifically for this setting, such as starknives, earthbreakers, bladed scarves, and more.  Many of these pieces of equipment were later included in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook and other sources, but often in a way that strips them of a lot of the flavour that is presented here.

The next three pages are titled simply "Varisia."  The section contains a brief overview of the region and its history--a crucial theme of the Adventure Path.  Several feats for PCs who hail from the region are included.  Because this was designed for 3.5, I won't go into great detail on them, other than to say they're probably low-powered compared to modern Pathfinder feats.  This book came out before Paizo had the concept of campaign traits, which is probably the only thing really lacking here.  A sidebar describes the languages often spoken by inhabitants of Varisia.

Last up is a two-page description of Sandpoint.  Sandpoint is extremely important for the campaign--if the PCs don't care about it, the campaign doesn't really work.  So getting the players invested in the town early is one of the GM's biggest tasks.  This book doesn't really emphasise the necessary connection as much as it should, however.

I love the idea of Players Guides, and they're one of the things that drew me to Paizo Adventure Paths to begin with.  They're a great way to sell players (in a non-spoilery way) on a new campaign, and to give them a chance to customise characters for it.  The original Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide was a concise but interesting and useful preview of the campaign, and surely contribute to the success of the Adventure Path as a whole.  It's still worth using today and I think it's far superior to the (PDF only) Anniversary Edition Player's Guide (which I've reviewed elsewhere).  I'd recommend making the substitution, just linking to the updated traits for the Pathfinder RPG.