Tag Archives: Paizo

Jade Regent – The Brinewall Legacy, Session 3

Third Session (9 page pdf) – We travel across Varisia and see the sights, until we reach Brinewall.  Ameiko falls mysteriously ill and we go recon the town, which is mostly intact but abandoned. What caused its sudden abandonment? We mean to find out.

We’re still going in The Brinewall Legacy, the first chapter of the Jade Regent Adventure Path. Apparently the first major arc in and around Sandpoint isn’t even half the chapter!

As we open in Sandpoint, V’lk continues to torment the local Sczarni for no real good reason. Then we get on the road in our caravan.  We manage to avoid “caravan combat,” which is for the best, and basically just have a travelogue of Varisia for a while.

I got to roleplay Hiro’s somewhat naive side… He was raised by his strict and somewhat assholey dad and then was shipped off to Chelaxian military academy. “Dad always said that the Varisians are a dog people…”  And he’s learning the samisen from Ameiko.  Note that in our previous Rise of the Runelords campaign, fratricide Tsuto Kaijitsu went to jail and wasn’t killed, hence that reference here.

As a result of our Riddleport-based Reavers on the Seas of Fate campaign I run, neither hell nor high water can convince our band of only second level adventurers to go to Riddleport. I’ve done my job as a GM; the group is sure they will all be robbed and rape-murdered if we go within 60 miles of the place.

The one downside was that the relationship rules started to get stupid. The Jade Regent Player’s Guide has these rules for relationships with the primary NPCs, with the intent that you build up point after point for a long time so that they’ll like you. (Apparently I need to “gain faction” with my own sister?) Anyway, it seems like giving gifts is the surest way to a quick +1 and so you’ll notice a couple gift buying and giving frenzies, ending up with Bjorn finally being rebuffed after buying a puppy for Shalelu.

I don’t mind relationship mechanics but I don’t like when they are too exposed – it makes the relationship between us and the NPCs forced and mechanical. I can spend an evening learning the samisen from my sister, but that doesn’t get a point, just the list of things in the ruleset… With new NPCs we meet, we have to be concerned about are they “special” NPCs we should track faction with to generate relationships or just normal NPCs we make relationships with the old fashioned way. Bah.

We finally get to Brinewall and scout the place out, it looks interesting.  Most entertaining is meeting Spivey, the “lyrakien azata” who lives in the graveyard.  She looks like a little fairy. She’s clearly a fairy.  Why would you have an outsider that just looks exactly like a fairy but it’s not because it’s from some made up outer plane? It’s just like the undead that aren’t undead because they are <some excuse here>. Anyway, she’s nice, even if the fact she’s a not-fairy is retarded.

Next time, we hit Brinewall Castle like a load of bricks!

Jade Regent – The Brinewall Legacy, Session 2

Second Session (13 page pdf) – We unearth a lot of beached ships in the swamp, and then best a samurai skeleton warrior! We put a caravan together to go check out the lost Kaijitsu secrets in Brinewall.

Our adventures continue in The Brinewall Legacy, the first chapter of the Jade Regent Adventure Path. I sure got my money’s worth from my samurai resolve ability that lets me stay up when at negative hit points.

I was pleased with my character development in this one – besides the fact that a lot of the plot points have to do with my family, my attempt to stand alone against the skeleton warrior to get beaten down and bailed out by my comrades is helping get Yoshihiro out of “personal glory” mode into more proper “all for one and one for all” mode.  It’ll be a while  yet, but that’s my intended arc.

V’lk being mute is a continued source of difficulty and amusement. His attempts to explain to us what he’s scouted sometimes go horribly awry. And then he really did just flip out and try to kill the toughs hanging around outside the inn.  He later explained that he wasn’t paying close attention and thought we were still in the wilderness and they were being more directly threatening…

Humorously, only two of us (me and Gobo) got a relationship point with Ameiko for giving her the scroll because no one else made it out of the brothel after their baths for their own demented reasons (Jacob – bisexual threeway; V’lk – handjob and book reading, Harwynian – afraid of getting dirty again).

Then we wrestled with the “caravan rules” as we planned our caravan to head north.  Having a large party (plus a horse) actually turned it into quite a task to balance out space and supplies and all. Here’s the kind of stuff we had to do…

I don’t mind the logistics planning though I’m not terribly fond of additional little minigames like “caravan combat” – and I hear from the Paizo boards that the rules are crappy and unbalanced.  Paul’s doing something else in their place I believe, but it’s not defined yet so that makes us not really able to make tactical choices. So we just tossed something together and we’ll see how it goes!

Pathfinder MMO Sounding Not Too Thrilling

More info is coming out on the new Pathfinder MMO being worked on by Goblinworks, an outfit with Ryan Dancey, Lisa Stevens, and Mark Kalmes.

Sadly, it’s not thrilling me.  I’d like to like it, I like those people and Paizo and Golarion and Pathfinder but it doesn’t seem compelling.  Connect the dots with me.

They are fanatically against making a “themepark” MMO, which sounds to me like a code word for “a MMO we have to make content for.” Eh, OK.

It’s set in Golarion, in the River Kingdoms, which is good.  But they contend that the normal levelling mechanic that Pathfinder (and most MMOs) use is no good and they want to use the EVE Online model.  For those unfamiliar with EVE, you get better at skills in realtime (not game time), meaning that those who got into the game first end up being the best.

This is combined with their plan to not let many people into the game, to dribble it in stages, 4500 players a month. So those first people are guaranteed to always be better, have better skills, etc. than anyone who comes later, no matter how much they play or kill or earn or whatever.

This sucks and it’s why none of my friends played EVE Online for more than a month. In their first blog post they say they want to avoid the spike and crash pattern, but the fix to that is to make sure anyone joining after start gets a progressively worse deal? Sounds to me like the “little bump then whimper” pattern.

So then also, it’s a PVP game, and when someone kills you they can loot your corpse.  They don’t get everything, but what they don’t get is destroyed so you still lose everything except what you had equipped.

So goody, you get to act out a paranoid fantasy, fanatically avoiding other people because it’s likely that they are part of a huge roving Lord Humongous band out to kill you and loot your corpse. That’s some bullshit right there. There’s a bounty system and guards in towns to slightly mitigate this but it’s really pretty awful.

Dancey came onto the Paizo forums to defend this as “not being theme parkey” and “well you just have to be in a party all the time, soloing is for WoW lovers” and some of the fanboys are behind them “catering to the niche” and “not selling out” but… really? Great, I can only do things rolling 12 deep for self defense and then also competing with everyone I’m with for resources.  Forget it, let’s just hunt PCs!

They claim to be against griefing but this basically sounds like a custom recipe for a big non-fun game.

Jade Regent Chapter 1, The Brinewall Legacy, Session 1

Welcome to the first chapter of our Jade Regent campaign, The Brinewall Legacy! Our neophyte adventurers in Sandpoint are drawn into long-hidden secrets by their friends, relatives, and loved ones, all linked to Sandpoint inn-owner Ameiko Kaijitsu.

That’s right, it’s a new adventure path! Paul is GMing, having just finished GMing a couple-year-long Alternity Star*Drive based campaign. We have six players – Tim, Matt, Patrick, Chris, Bruce, and myself. Matt has been in the other games our large loosely affiliated group runs but hasn’t gamed with us on the Sunday games since a Savage Worlds campaign in 2009.

First Session (14 page pdf) – We meet our intrepid crew of adventurers, and are immediately dispatched to the swamp to fight goblins.  Oh, joy. We run right into the Licktoad Goblin village and carnage erupts.

It was a charge starting out in Sandpoint, because that’s where we started our Rise of the Runelords campaign (most of the same players, also run by Paul) so we had a lot of familiarity with the place. And of course they used one of Paizo’s signature monsters, the wildly popular insane goblins.

My idea for my character Hiro’s arc is for him to be a glory-seeking cavalier who over time realizes the true calling of service and becomes a samurai. That was off to a rollicking start as he charged his horse right into the goblin encampment and into a big mud pit that the others had to haul him ingloriously out of. There were plenty of hooks; as Ameiko Kaijitsu’s little brother all the Kaijitsu family historical secrets made motivation a no-brainer.

Also, Hiro was trained as a cavalier in Cheliax.  I liked how the halfling swamp guy got all offended when Hiro called him “peasant” or “farmer”; Hiro thought he was paying the guy a complement – a farmer’s a much higher status job than “dumbass living in a swamp” in Cheliax at least.

And we got two badges, the Halfling Rescuer badge (optional, though we never can pass up a home invasion) and the Goblin Killer badge (fairly required, I think, or else no pointer to the next part…).

Then there was some confusion that we use as an in-joke in many later sessions.  There was a shack in the swamp, with a shed outside it.  We were trying to investigate both as rat-creatures came from each. Paul kept mixing up the two words to the point where we kept thinking we were near the shack but were near the shed, or the squeaking was coming from the shed but we thought it was coming from the shack (which got me enveloped in a rat swarm, so it wasn’t that entertaining initially).  So now whenever a shack or a shed is encountered ever after we say “Wait… Is it a shack, or is it a shed?” Perhaps we should nickname Paul “Two Sheds” as a multi-level homage.

We got a lot done, and a lot of role-playing, it was a very long first session and we were going on all cylinders.

Jade Regent Character Creation Rules

Here’s the rules we are using for our Jade Regent campaign from our GM Paul, with some explanations from me.

Allowed Rulebooks

APG is in, the Ultimate books are out (although during the campaign you will have the chance to pick up Japanese-style weapons and maybe even to get trained for levels in ninja or samurai).  [Ed: Paizo has been overwhelming us with new rules over the last  year, and frankly a lot of it isn't well balanced.  We haven't been allowing Ultimate Magic or Ultimate Combat in any of our games so far. In my Reavers campaign it's core only, anything else by specific GM inclusion or asking me.]

Chargen Methods

Stats are 4d6 drop the lowest, arrange as you will. If your stat block sucks you may use the point-buy method, this time around I’m setting point-buy at High Fantasy, 20 points. Standard races are all in, but if you want something other than that let me know and we’ll talk about it. No evil races or monster races will be allowed though.
Evil characters are not a good fit for this particular campaign.

FATE Aspects and FATE Points

Aspects! Please write 3 aspects for your character before you reach the gaming table, we will create 2 more for each character when we get together for the first session. The first three should be as follows:The first aspect should be a description of your character’s archetype, such as “Half-orc sorcerer in tune with nature’s fury”, “Physically perfectionist elven wizard”, or “Charming Sunderer”. Try to make sure your character’s core competency makes it into your first aspect.

The second aspect should describe your character’s trouble, the main weakness or stumbling block that keeps causing trouble for the character. It can be a personality trait that causes trouble for the character, or it can be something bad that just keeps happening to him for some inexplicable reason. Examples: “Why did it have to be fairies?”, “Vengeful over hurt pride”, “Family Man”.

For the third aspect, think about what motivates your character, what shaped him to become who he is, and what pushed him to the life of an adventurer. The best aspects are ones that can be used both for or against your character. ex. “Must protect my friends at all costs”, “People are not always what they seem”, “I Heart Forbidden Lore”, “There must be some way I can find a profit from this…”

Each character will get 3 fate points. When you level up, they will be refreshed. You can get more fate points whenever your character suffers due to one of his aspects (depending on the situation, this could result in failed skill rolls, damage, or just social humiliation). Spending a fate point allows you to either reroll the d20 roll you just made, or add +4 to it, your choice, but you can only spend a fate point when one of your aspects applies to the roll you’re making. For instance, “I Heart Forbidden Lore” could help you if you’re doing research or trying to recall facts about some kind of demonic monster, but it wouldn’t help you on a to-hit roll against a goblin. Regardless of aspects, a fate point can always be spent to stabilize you if you’re dying.

Character Advancement

There will be no XP awarded or spent.  Level advancement will be declared by the GM when it needs to happen. [Ed: XP are frankly one of the most annoying things to deal with - useless bookkeeping that promotes uninteresting behavior. None of our campaigns use them.]

Multiclassed Spellcasters

We will use our usual multiclassing house rule for spellcasters.

Badges

We’re not using experience points, but I wanted a mechanism that allowed me to give rewards for completing side-missions. Thus I created the badges; each one can be earned by completing one of the side-missions in the adventure path.

As soon as I introduced them the players started plotting to find a way to collect them all! Besides the pleasure of collecting, they each also get one fate point when the group gets a badge.

Pathfinder Minis: Heroes and Monsters Review

Earlier this week I read this review on ENWorld about the new prepainted plastic Pathfinder minis licensed from Paizo to Wizkids. I was in my FLGS today and they had a batch, so I picked up a large and normal booster to see what I thought.

I was lucky in that my normal booster, which can have either one medium or two small minis contained two goblins, and the large booster, which has one large, contained an ogre. The goblins and ogre are very iconic monsters in Pathfinder and have a different and distinct look to them than in earlier D&D.

The figures came out well – in D&D Miniatures boosters figs were usually pretty bent up, and often they don’t stand straight (either the base being bent or the figure doing the “V8 lean” on the base). These figures have nice hard bases and the goblins’ little weapons were striaght and good-looking.  The ogre’s club was slightly bent (he came out of the plastic shell while still in the box) but one bend and it was true.

The sculpts are good and the paint jobs pretty detailed.  The one weakness is that the big primary color they use on each mini, usually for the skin, needs a little more something – a wash or whatnot, it looks very homogeneous.

Here’s some large scale pics for you to check out.

The ENWorld review complained a lot about the amount of wrapping they come in. I was ready to ding them on it too, but really it’s just a box with a plastic blister in it – not even the little annoying plastic baggies that D&D Miniatures used. I do wish that they had boosters with more minis in them – buying one or, in rarer cases, two to a pack is a little annoying – but here’s my “trash picture” to compare to the ENWorld one.

Basically I put the plastic blister back in the boxes and then put the small box inside the large one and closed it. Voila. Less packaging is always good but I think the guy was being a bit of a drama queen about it – of course if you’re buying cases worth you’re going to have box detritus. If you want them to just put a dozen minis in a ziploc and send them to you I suspect you’ll have a lot of complaints about other stuff in return. But I was happier with the packaging here than with D&D Minis because the unpack process is “open box top, pull out mini, done.”

In fact, I just went and bought a brick from RPG Locker because I enjoyed these guys so much! I’ve never bought minis “in bulk” before…

Jade Regent

Our group finished off the epic three-year Alternity campaign, The Lighthouse, that Paul was running for us and then discussed what to do next. The result is more Pathfinder – we are taking on the Jade Regent Adventure Path! Paul ran Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne APs for us and they were excellent so we’re happy to get back into another.

Here’s our Jade Regent page, I’ll post characters and session summaries and whatnot there.

The upshot is that we are novice adventurers in Sandpoint (the same town Rise of the Runelords started in) and, because of our relationships with some important NPCs, end up taking a caravan north, through Ulfen (Viking) lands and across the Crown of the World (North Pole) to end up in Tian Xia (Asia)! Sounds like fun.

More later, I’m off to the game!

RPG Superstar 2012 Is Here

Another year, another RPG Superstar contest!  As they have the last four years, Paizo Publishing is having an open-to-all design contest. It consists of a number of rounds where the candidate pool gets culled down by experienced RPG designer judges.  The winner gets a module deal; even folks placing often get offers to do work with various gaming companies. So it’s a great opportunity to get your name out there!

Luckily you have like a month for the first round, because I haven’t been struck by the magic item inspiration fairy yet. Let me see what I can come up with…

ENnies Results – Paizo Wins Again!

Courtesy the sharp eyed folks on the Paizo forums…  The ENnies awards results!  Let’s count the Pathfinder wins…

  • Fans’ Favorite Publisher
    Gold: Paizo Publishing
    Silver: Wizards of the Coast
  • Product of the Year
    Gold: Advanced Players Guide, Paizo Publishing
    Silver: The Dresden Files RPG, Evil Hat
  • Best Game
    Gold: The Dresden Files RPG, Evil Hat
    Silver: Mutants & Masterminds Hero’s Handbook, Green Ronin Publishing
  • Best New Game
    Gold: The Dresden Files RPG, Evil Hat Productions
    Silver: The Laundry, Cubicle 7
  • Best Supplement
    Gold: Pathfinder: Advanced Player’s Guide, Paizo Publishing
    Silver: Space 1889: Red Sands, Pinnacle Entertainment Group
  • Best Adventure
    Gold: Pathfinder Adventure Path #43: The Haunting of Harrowstone, Paizo Publishing
    Silver: Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity, Arc Dream Publishing/Pagan Publishing
  • Best Setting
    Gold: Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea World Guide, Paizo Publishing
    Silver: Dark Sun Campaign Setting, Wizards of the Coast
  • Best Monster/Adversary
    Gold: Pathfinder: Bestiary 2, Paizo Publishing
    Silver: Monster Vault, Wizards of the Coast
  • Best Miniatures Product
    Gold: Mousling Heroes, Reaper Miniatures
    Silver: BattleTech 25th Anniversary Introductory Boxed Set, Catalyst Game Labs
  • Best RPG Related Product
    Gold: Castle Ravenloft Boardgame, Wizards of the Coast
    Silver: BattleTech 25th Anniversary Introductory Boxed Set, Catalyst Game Labs
  • Best Aid/Accessory
    Gold: Hero Lab, Lone Wolf Development
    Silver: D&D Essentials: Dungeon Tiles Master Set – The Dungeon, Wizards of the Coast
  • Best Electronic Book
    Gold: Continuity, Posthuman Studios
    Silver: Shanghai Vampocalypse, Savage Mojo
  • Best Free Product
    Gold: Old School Hack – Basic Game, Kirin Robinson
    Silver: A Time of War: The BattleTech RPG Quick-Start Rules, Catalyst Game Labs
  • Best Rules
    Gold: The Dresden Files RPG, Evil Hat Productions
    Silver: D&D Rules Compendium, Wizards of the Coast
  • Best Writing
    Gold: The Dresden Files RPG, Evil Hat Productions
    Silver: Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity, Arc Dream Publishing/Pagan Publishing
  • Best Production Values
    Gold: Pathfinder: Bestiary 2, Paizo Publishing
    Silver: The Dresden Files RPG, Evil Hat Productions
  • Best Cartography
    Gold: Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Poster Map Folio, Paizo, Cartography Rob Lazzaretti
    Silver: Bookhounds of London, Pelgrane Press, Cartography by Beth Lewis
  • Best Interior Art
    Gold: Pathfinder: The Inner Sea World Guide, Paizo Publishing, Art Direction by Sarah E. Robinson
    Silver: Dark Sun Campaign Setting, Wizards of the Coast
  • Best Cover Art
    Gold: A Song of Ice and Fire Campaign Guide, Green Ronin Publishing, Cover by Michael Komarck
    Silver: Shadowrun: Attitude, Catalyst Game Labs, Cover by Echo Chernick
  • Best Blog
    Gold: Best Blog goes to Critical Hits
    Silver: Best Blog goes to Gnome Stew
  • Best Podcast
    Gold: Yog Radio: The Cephalopodcast from Yog-Sothoth.com
    Silver: Chronicles: The Pathfinder Podcast, d20 radio
  • Best Website
    Gold: Obsidian Portal
    Silver: d20pfsrd.com
  • Judges Spotlight Award from Mark Green: Wayfinder #4: The Mwangi
  • Judges Spotlight Award from CW Richeson: Smallville, Margaret Weis
  • Judges Spotlight Award from Wil Upchurch: Outbreak, Hunters Books
  • Judges Spotlight Award from James Surano: Fortune’s Fool, Pantheon Press
  • Judges Spotlight Award from Tracey Michienzi: Eat & Run, Brainpan Games

The way I count it, that’s 9 gold for Paizo directly and then 1 gold, 2 silver, one Judges Spotlight for other Pathfinder related products (Hero Lab is mainly for Pathfinder, really, then d20pfsrd, Wayfinder, and Pathfinder Podcast). Also good to see Green Ronin representing, and Dresden Files getting love (6!). Congrats to all the winners!

New Pathfinder Prepainted Miniatures

Paizo has announced Pathfinder Battles, a new line of randomized prepainted miniatures much like the D&D Miniatures that WotC discontinued back in January. These are different from the non-random prepaints they announced in May.

There’s a good bit of glee and consternation over the news.  To break it down:

  • Again, Paizo does it better than Wizards.  Ha ha ha ha haaaaaa.
  • The minis are randomized, though a normal booster has just one Medium creature in it. I don’t mind the randomization, it’s kinda required to make the economics work.
  • The normal booster price is $3.99, which is steep for one mini. If they put them in boxes of multiple minis, wouldn’t that help keep per mini price down (and waste a lot less packaging)?
  • The scuplts look good, but I am frankly dubious about the paint jobs.  The rat’s fur and the gnome’s hair, for example, use very unnatural simple colors.

So good on Paizo.  I’ll probably buy some, assuming they look good when they come out, but a better per mini price would make me a lot more bullish about it.

Pathfinder Tales – Plague of Shadows and Prince of Wolves

In the second in my series of book reports from my vacation in Bulgaria, I thought I’d review the two Pathfinder Tales novels I managed to lay my hands on.  These things must be popular because I’ve been waiting for them to show up at Half Price Books and it’s taken a long time.  (I don’t buy paperbacks at full price…)

I’m a big Pathfinder and world of Golarion fan, so I wanted to see how the novels treat it. I enjoyed them both.  Neither is going to become part of the Western canon or anything, but they were better than, say, every Greyhawk novel ever. (Rose Estes is the worst RPG novel author ever, and Gary Gygax, God love him, isn’t as bad as she is but he isn’t the best either.)

Prince of Wolves, by Dave Gross, covers the adventures of Pathfinder and Chelish nobleman Varian Jeggare and his erstwhile tiefling companion Radovan wandering about in Ustalav.

Plague of Shadows, by Howard Andrew Jones, details the attept by elf-raised-by-humans Elyana to save her old adventuring buddy/lover, the now-married and now-Lord Stefan.

The Good

Prince of Wolves had an interesting conceit, where the chapters alternated being from the perspective of Jeggare and Radovan respectively. They get separated early (well, the book jumps back and forth in timeline a little) and then go about their own solo adventures till they join back up about 2/3 of the way through. In general the action progressed nicely, though there were some repetitive parts. It was well written and engaging in general.

Plague of Shadows was a little weaker in the writing department. I was feeling “meh” about halfway through but then there were some big twists and I was interested through the end. I liked the initial setup where it was an adventuring group that had grown apart and was coming together much later, and not all as friends. I had a 2e campaign that was like that, and it gives a feeling of a lot of rich history.

Both novels used Golarion to good effect.  Plague of Shadows did a lot with Galt and the French Terror-esque revolution there, and Prince of Wolves used the gothic nation of Ustalav and the gypsy-like Sczarni. They illuminated the world nicely.

The Bad

Both of the novels suffered from D&D.  Or from Pathfinder.  Mainly the magic system.  They use the game system’s rules too obviously in their fiction. “Time to rest to regain my spells!” “I don’t have that memorized today!” Suck. And they kinda went that way with the magic items too, though Shadows was a little more clumsy about that than Wolves. The mechanical wonkiness of D&D spells do not good storytelling make – Jack Vance used it but these guys are no Jack Vance. At least these authors don’t do like Gygax does in his Greyhawk novels where his storytelling is dictated by the combat rules too (seriously, Gord got 3 attacks every 2 rounds, and he let you know it), but the D&D magic system – for all its in-game merits – invariably comes off as lame in fiction.

And a small nit – I didn’t like the big Golarion glossary in the back. If your writing doesn’t stand on its own, definitions aren’t going to help you. I think it’s much more interesting to wonder about parenthetical references than have them defined for you – hell, that’s how Lovecraft and Howard and those guys’ prose captured the imagination. I am sure they’re trying to help, but cut that out of future novels please.

Conclusion

Both were better than most gaming fiction. I’d give Wolves 4/5 and Shadows 3/5, maybe. Fans of Golarion will enjoy them because of how they showcase the world, and normal fantasy fans should find them diverting enough. I definitely plan to hunt down the rest (though am not inspired enough to start paying full price for them).

Buccaneers!

Interested in pirate gaming?  Looking forward to Paizo’s new pirate AP, Skull and Shackles? Enjoy following our Reavers on the Seas of Fate campaign?

Well, happy news.  Green Ronin has just released a Web enhancement to their Buccaneers of Freeport book with stats for many pirate captains! It’s available in 3.5e and True20 variants.

Buccaneers of Freeport and Cults of Freeport were odd book choices – they were statless.  This was during the Mass D&D Confusion around the 4e launch.  For Cults, that was kinda OK, but with Buccaneers it really hurt- character backdrops for a bunch of cool pirate captains, but no stats.  Well, they have now published the stats, for free! Oh, and the stats for Cults, earlier on.

Download the stats, then consider getting Buccaneers and Cults as they are fine books (and often quite on sale…).  Get cranked up for the pirate holocaust that will come soon with the S&S AP!  All the Freeport stuff is great to mix with Golarion, in Reavers I used the entire Freeport Trilogy mashed up with Second Darkness to good effect.