Mini-Dungeon Tome (PF1)

A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Mini-Dungeon Tome (PF1)

Mini-Dungeon Tome (PF1) is a role playing game supplement published by AAW Games for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result. The supplement is also available in versions for Pathfinder 2 and Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.

Mini-Dungeon Tome (PF1)The supplement is available as a PDF from DriveThruRPG for $39.99 and is also available in physical form from sites such as Amazon. The PDF is the version reviewed although it was purchased at a reduced price as part of a special bundle. It has 322 pages with two being the front and rear covers, one the front matter, two the Contents, four Kickstarter backers, one the Open Game License and one an ad.

The main bulk of the book is taken up by the 133 mini-dungeons, by a number of different authors, which were published separately before being compiled into this book. The mini-dungeons are arranged by level, starting at 1st level and going through to 20th, with some final ones being for no fixed level. The majority of the mini-dungeons are two-page encounters with a map, though there are some that are different, such as ones that are four pages long, not two, and some that are less mini-dungeons than specific encounters or not precisely encounters at all. Given the variety of authors, there is variance in the design. None of the mini-dungeons have stats in them; these are linked to later in the supplement. Most of the mini-dungeons have no fixed setting but there are some that are designed to be additions to some of AAW Games’ other content, namely Snow White and the Into the Wintery Gale: Wrath of the Jötunn adventure path, as well as a reference to Assassin’s Breach: Tavern Gambling Game. Most of the other mini-dungeons are completely standalone, but some are designed as sequels to others.

Pregenerated Characters has four pre-generated low-level characters.

Using the Index explains that this is an all-purpose tool intending to fill in gaps in campaigns or string multiple mini-dungeons together to make a campaign. This section therefore includes all the stat blocks, and reading the creature and NPC legends and trap and hazard legends is covered, along with the sources for the stats. Following this are the Trap and Hazard Index then the Creature Index, each arranged alphabetically with some very compressed stat blocks.

Mini-Dungeon Tome (PF1) in Review

The PDF is bookmarked with only the mini-dungeons linked. The Contents is slightly more thorough and is mostly hyperlinked. Each mini-dungeon has some internal links to the stat blocks at the end. Navigation is decent. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be mostly free of error. There are a variety of illustrations, up to double page in size, but the majority of them are the maps for each mini-dungeon as well as a piece of loosely appropriate art.

This supplement is what it sets out to be; a collection of small dungeons and encounters that can be used to flesh out the gaps in an existing campaign. None of them are particularly huge, but some could be expanded if needed, and they do allow for something to be quickly used on the fly should players zig instead of zag, as well as being slotted in with a bit more prep work. Though expensive, this is a useful supplement for GMs, containing as it does a lot of small adventures for many different levels and for many different types of location, even though dungeons are, perhaps naturally, the most common. Mini-Dungeon Tome (PF1) can be found by clicking here.


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