Pathfinder Legends

To be honest, while the first release in this series wasn't bad, it didn't inspire me to listen to any more. As it happens, though, I bought the set of six together at a discount, and it seems a waste not to try the other five. And it turns out that this is rather better than its predecessor.

Without having read the original on which this is based, I'd guess that the reason for the improvement is that the adaptation is freer with the plot. (The Goodreads entry currently states it has the same scriptwriter but the credits say it doesn't; it's by Cavan Scott, not Mark Wright). This time around, the party's rogue, Merisiel, is the main viewpoint character, and we don't have the narration by the wizard. For much of the story, she's separated from the rest of the party, making the story rather more personal, with the kind of emotional drama that audio is better suited for. There's also some decent characterisation of her companions, although the fighter really doesn't come across as very likeable.

Having said which, some of the problems of the basic concept are still on display. None of the central characters have a backstory here, so that we know more about the villains than the heroes, and the fight scenes still tend to be difficult to follow. Even so, the more character-based story that forms the core of this would have inclined me to give it a higher rating... were it not for the final segment.

The problem here is that the main plot - the investigation titular murders - is basically resolved about three-quarters of the way through with what should have been the story's big climactic scene. But the original scenario, which presumably wasn't as much based around the travails of one particular PC, continues on after that, with the heroes following a clue to find and fight the level boss who's behind it. This part reads much more like a typical D&D encounter, moving on to a more powerful villain (one assumes the PCs are supposed to have gone up a level and need something tougher to fight). That would work in the context of the original, but here it feels tacked on, an extra bit after the real story has concluded.