Adam Smith's page

Still alive, on level eight now.

Teaser from the upcoming report to drop next month:

"One of the things we love about delving a megadungeon is how you get to make a different entrance onto each level, and level eight was hard to beat. We descended on an elevator into a large cavern filled with water, docks, and a few boats. Cypress Hill prepped the scene with “Cock the Hammer” as we spotted forms moving below – undead forms to be precise. One ran for a door and only made it to the handle. Another tried to launch a skiff and never had a chance. We dumped lead on them until the shouts of 'cease fire!' echoed off the walls."

Your maps are always so good looking. Well done!

Fumarole, thank you! This was a joy to render on vinyl, many thanks to James Jacobs for such design variety among the levels in the Vaults. Level 6 was probably one of my longest draws in a while (c. 30 hours). I like to imagine the encounters in each room as I draw them, and even come up with dialogue or little scenes that play out when the PCs first see an area I've spent a lot of time on. I get to walk the halls before they do.

The game is in such a great place right now, I'm always amazed at the virtual options out there, but for me there's still something I can't duplicate about watching my players standing around a map that's 20sq ft, moving their miniatures, and slapping hands.

Glad we can help carry the tabletop torch as the game continues to evolve!

Cool to see Joe joining y'all! Praise Log!

We had a great time! Being in the same NJ/NY area helps, and also makes it likely the Beast Gunner will see action again. Speaking of which, our next marathon just happens to be this weekend. I tweeted out some pics of the level six map in progress -- we're set to launch Saturday morning!

Praise log.

Blue Coat Adventurers? Oh, Adam. The Order missed a golden opportunity to drop an epic The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension reference by calling themselves the Blue Blazer Irregulars. 50dkp minus.

As for the maps, you know I am a huge fan of hand-drawn maps, something I haven't done in almost 3 years playing digitally. I know you don't reveal a section until the players enter the space, but how do you handle players seeing the Secret Door notations (from your IG post Level 3 Library Level)?

--Vrock, Stock, & Two Smoking' Barrels

Blue Blazer Irregulars, yes!

It's funny, Zoric blurted out "Blue Coat Adventurers" because he didn't want to give the party's actual name (see backstory), so instead we ended up with something the group will never let him live down. Neither will I, so as they pass by townsfolk in Otari, whispers of "look honey, it's the Blue Coat Adventurers" can be heard. About this time next year, someone picks up a newspaper all the way over in Galt: BLUE COAT ADVENTURERS KILL BELCORRA. Never gets old for us!

Great question about the map tags. For this one, I simply printed a version that didn't have the secret doors. I wanted to use the official GM-version of the map for the blog, which is what you see above. Most of the time they can be removed with a single click in the interactive map files, but in the event that they won't come off, we've found it fairly easy to remove them with editing. In a pinch, I've had to use a version with the secret doors still on it; I simply slid the mat board that we use to provide fog of war over the edge of walls as far as I could, along with extra "fake" boards to the outside of rooms to throw PCs off from knowing where secret doors might be. This will work until there is a door between two rooms that they've already revealed and yet haven't discovered a secret door between them.

My goal at the beginning of the project was to vary the way we presented each level, so it's been:

Level 1: 3D build
Level 2: hand-drawn
Level 3: printed from the adventure
Level 4: 3D build
Level 5: hand-drawn

For the lower levels, you'll have to wait and see...

I've received quite a few messages with the same question about the maps from this blog and the previous one, so I thought I'd just answer them here in case it helps. I love that people noticed the ACTUAL mulch on the map of level three! After all, violet fungus needs a good place to thrive, why not just use real mulch on your map?

Yes, there will definitely be another hand-drawn map in our next blog (much like the first blog, but I had both eyes functioning this time). I posted some pics of the progress on social media last week, it's level five of the Vaults. It measured in around 17sq ft, so it was a pretty serious draw!

I feel vindicated. The Wood Golem appearance that used in a game I ran nearly wiped the mostly ranged party, and it did kill their intern. That thing is vicious!

Wonderful write up as always! I dream of playing at such a well produced table someday!

Eddie, thanks for the kind words! That golem is so nasty, I can't wait to go round two against the team!

As it turns out, we're about to play marathon 3 of the project THIS weekend, starting Friday morning and going through Sunday night. We'll post some of it to our social media; if that second showdown with the wood golem happens, I'm definitely displaying the outcome! More than one PC has wanted to go back in there already, and I even heard "But what if the golem TPKs our project out?" Either way, if the golem wins round two, it's getting a name.

I'm going to start the encounter by handing each player one of the dead body minis we use at our table, then call for initiative...

Love reading these reports from OAD, especially since I'm also running Abomination Vaults.

However, I don't think you can die by Phantom Pain. It has the nonlethal trait and if you hit 0 HP you go unconscious, but don't gain the dying condition. When it ticks again it, you aren't dying, are at 0 HP again, but as its nonlethal you still wouldn't gain the dying condition.

Unless of course Mr. Beak's attack brought Rome down or Mr. Beak hit him while unconscious (unsure based on this report).

Thanks, glad you like them! We had a lot of fun putting this one together, especially because the "gunslingers in a megadungeon" theme has been on the OAD bucket list for a while.

I'm the one who shortened the death description (maybe too much), but yup there was some lethal damage in there. I want to say it was from falling into debris after he was unconscious, but I'll ask Erick to confirm. It was not a glorious death, he even crit-failed his last recovery check. If you look closely at the pic of the graveyard battle, you can see Rome at the bottom...most of the party didn't enjoy putting having to put him down. See here's the thing: Erick is the best PvP player in the Order. We would struggle to count the number of beloved characters that have fallen to his charmed, confused, or dominated warriors over the years. Then there is also that look of glee he gets when he is allowed to attack a fellow companion. Heck, he had that look as a zombie approaching us from across the graveyard!

This was their chance to return the look. :)

Well, we're a few months into the project and there's a lot to say about what it's like to go through this Adventure Path with a party of gunslingers.

One of the above characters is dead. The others are doing well.

Before our first report drops on the Paizo blog next week, you're free to guess at who we lost -- or better yet -- what killed them!

This is the first time I hear about the Order of the Amber Die.. I went back to the first project and its a PDF of the Spire. Are there recordings about the live gameplay or was that in future projects?

The Spire was a great run! Our goal there was simply to play the entire megadungeon in a summer of continuous marathon format and thoroughly document the experience. 195 hours in 35 days was the result. We never broke down the setup the entire time -- we lived in the Emerald Spire. The hardest part was assembling a team that could do it. We brought our data to GenCon that year (2014), and the rest is OAD history.

The Spire is primarily the PDF, photos on our Facebook, and the advice I left on the forums during our run. For the other projects it varies between PDFs, still photos, and video on our YouTube and Patreon. For six of the eight projects, there are blog reports from each marathon. It's fun to reminisce about the Spire, so feel free to ask about anything that you can't find in the PDF!

So many kind words here, thank you to all! I’m also glad that people are as interested as I am to see what happens. From the party lineup to the props, this might be the first project where I’m a little jealous of how cool things are from the players’ side of the screen. Really though, it’s just awesome to be launching another project again. Our team right now is predominantly teachers and nurses, so it’s an understatement to say that COVID tried to beat on the Order pretty hard – but we’re still here.

As for that model of the Gauntlight, it looks even better up close, and it did most of the work to make those photos! Heck, even the fog is real and not editing. I'll see if I can get the Black Bard himself to chime in about it, but only if he can get some time away from working on our next build. I can promise that you’ll see more of the Gauntlight -- a lot more -- on the upcoming blog. We’ve already played the first marathon and put a bunch of pictures of it on our media, but the best ones are yet to come. With a little coaxing, we might be able to drive the whole setup across the bridge into Philly for PAX Unplugged…

Adam Smith wrote:

the players are busy commenting away in the Google Classroom we use for our campaign

Total thread derail!

(Could you start a new thread and/or PM me privately?)

Would really like to hear more about how you wrangle Classroom to work for a campaign. There are some limitations that I find frustrating. How do you use the different tools there? Is everyone given 'teacher' access?

Hi Wind! Hope you’re enjoying watching this project develop. I’m in a mad flurry of prep before our launch Marathon in a few days, so I’ll come back to address the Google Classroom at some point after the Marathon (if I forget just hit us up on the blog comments when the intro blog drops), and I know we already had a post set to talk about it some on our Patreon next month. Only the Player Captain and GM are “teachers,” with the rest of the players being “students.” It’s honestly been incredible for managing projects, though we also have a lot more deadlines than a standard group might have, and the "Assignment" feature is really where the Classroom shines. Lastly, being a teacher for twenty years REALLY helps, so I’m not exactly sure what the base skillset looks like for a GM trying to implement this for the first time. Thanks for your interest, and I’ll make some notes as I go so we can talk more about it as the project continues!

This looks like fun! :-)

I'm excited for this one too! This project is something I've wanted to see for a long time as a GM. A party of all gunslingers, thrown into what many would consider the "standard unit" of adventure: a dungeon. In this case, a megadungeon gives us even more in the way of reporting as far as how this will play out. Will they fare better on certain levels than others, and why? Which encounters will they struggle with the most, and which ones will they simply obliterate? We purposely chose not to go with the Outlaws of Alkenstar AP for this reason, in that we wanted more of a control group (classic dungeon experience) for our experiment using this extreme party. Of course, it's not a perfect science experiment, especially when you toss in all the other variables and controlled chaos that comprise tabletop roleplaying. It sure has us eager to see what will happen though! We're one week away from the launch marathon, and the players are busy commenting away in the Google Classroom we use for our campaign -- their main concern is not healing but ammunition right now...

We're known for pushing the envelope of tabletop roleplaying, and yes, we're doing it again.

A new Paizo blog project begins! Abomination Vaults is the Adventure Path of course, but as the title of this thread suggests, it's with a twist. This is where the party comes in.

For nearly a decade (and many Paizo blog projects) we've set ourselves apart by playing iconic characters. That said, we've read your messages and pondered the email requests for a while now -- it's time to personalize our characters. In our private work, OAD has never been one for party balance or a traditional approach; we had plenty of that during the first phases of our 35 years. What you'll get in this project is nothing short of extreme when it comes to party construction. Much of this project was inspired by the release of Guns & Gears, so why not use this chance to test out game theory in front of the community? Who cares about TPK, anyway? After crawling through 150+ published adventures, we've TPKed more campaigns than most people ever play. Heck, we even put up pictures of a TPK in our inaugural project for Paizo! So let's use this opportunity to see if an ENTIRE PARTY of the same character class can successfully delve the first megadungeon of Pathfinder 2E.

That's right, this party is ALL gunslingers. Every character, even cameos. Nope, not even that friendly NPC who offers free healing is welcome in the Black Powder Cadre. Unless you're fully strapped, that is.

This thread is where we'll post our stat blocks, starting with the first character next week. Feel free to ask questions, interact with the Order, and offer your predictions as to what will happen when you try to go both guns blazing into an epic megadungeon.

As always, sessions will be in our Marathon format, with play continuing over several days each time we meet. Our launch Marathon is set for late August. According to our custom, we’ll play the entire Adventure Path as written, using the complete PF 2.0 rules set, and we ask no quarter from our GM or the Amber Die itself. We'll post mid-Marathon and pre-Marathon updates on our social media, as well as full reports on the Paizo blog like we've done for previous projects.

Adam Smith wrote:

Sold. Our project will be here on the blog -- but it won't be the party you'll expect.

I'M LISTENING! ...

Well then, you might already know that we like to push the envelope a bit with each project. I wonder what would happen to an entire party of the same character class inside a Megadungeon?

I'm thinking a lot of it would depend on the class...

Sold. Our project will be here on the blog -- but it won't be the party you'll expect.

Yes, Order of the Amber Die is back, was wondering what ever happen to them. What I would like to see and hear them do next is run through the Abomination Vaults Adventure Path, if they would be interested or wait until the Hardcover issue comes out.

Yes, still here! 28 blog project reports since 2015, and more to come. The Order is also a lifestyle for most of us, so it'll never go away. As for any delay, we still really enjoy the tabletop in "tabletop roleplaying," which meant that we had to push this project back twice to be as safe as possible when assembling the group. Totally worth it though, I will miss the setup we had for this one!

Adam Smith wrote:

Quick question, now that things have picked back up here. We've got some time this winter to do some conversion work. If we were considering playing an older PF 1.0 Adventure Path on the blog, which one would you be most interested in seeing presented?

War for the Crown?

So with this choice we have a more recent AP in addition to the two older ones listed. War for the Crown interests me, since from what I understand, it's got a larger focus on roleplaying encounters. I like the challenge of bringing court intrigue to the blog, it's something we haven't done before, and you know our feelings about anything we haven't done before...

Quick question, now that things have picked back up here. We've got some time this winter to do some conversion work. If we were considering playing an older PF 1.0 Adventure Path on the blog, which one would you be most interested in seeing presented?

What miniature is that in the picture, that you're using for the huge black ooze?

Hi Brell, it's the "Carnivorous Pudding" from Reaper Miniatures, the Bones line of figures. Then you'll want to probably create a base for it, you can always slice a huge pawn base flat if you have extras of those around and don't want to buy a blank one. Pathfinder Battles also has an awesome black pudding mini, you can even put a figure standing in/under its wave of pudding; however, it's worth noting that the Battles one is only large size and Pathfinder 2.0 has made the pudding huge size now.

** spoiler **

I wish you guys would show a line up of your character miniatures

** spoiler omitted **

They're beautiful up close, we definitely will! They will show up here in part two, and they've already been on our social media a bit. The trickiest part is playing with the same minis we use for the photos, yet still keeping them in good shape afterwards!

Adam Smith wrote:

Speaking for myself, this is the hardest project to let go of, and that includes every Pathfinder project since 2014. Each undertaking has its own story in our real lives, and its own spin inside the game as well.

The Emerald Spire Project tested how many days we could play consecutively toward a goal.

The Giantslayer Endeavor tested how many marathons we could sustain in half a year's time.

The Strange Aeons Experiment tested our ability to adapt to an entirely new genre for us.

The Pathfinder Playtest tested our skill in crunching a new system at the fastest pace imaginable.

The Azlant Odyssey tested our ability to hold a long campaign together despite the real-life events that challenged it. Two babies were born, two new members were inducted, and we tossed an eight-blog playtest into the middle of this AP. In terms of session hours, Azlant was the lengthiest campaign we've ever played, and a lot of that had to do with the amount of activities available to characters during downtime. Yet we found a way to come together again and again, to stand in awe as we opened the chambers of lost Azlant to gaze upon sites unseen for thousands of years.

Now a little something for the Order, you guys know I do this at the end of every path...

Marathon 1: Never forget that hike down the beach that we took as a group out to the end of Long Beach Island, with the lights of Atlantic City in the distance.

Marathon 2: I'd like to take a moment and thank Urgent Care, for providing medical treatment to three OAD members during this marathon. Oh yeah, there was that hospital trip in there too. The Order is more important than any one of us, so we played through.

Marathon 3: We already have a name for this one, and that evil USB chose it: File not found. It's too painful to elaborate on. Safe to say we won't forget it--yet there's nothing there.

Marathon 4: Hands-down one of the top three marathons in

...

Thank you, glad you could come along for the ride!

I was wondering if marathon 2 might get a mention after that farewell. Alright, here goes:

So we had about seven people present for that one, and it was a cold weekend in January. We had exactly four days to play the adventure, and a standard Pathfinder Adventure Path volume has somewhere around 30 to 40 encounters. Considering the amount of extra role-playing we had done in part one, we needed to keep a strong pace but we had the right amount of time allotted. On Wednesday night, one of our guys showed up and was definitely battling something he had picked up the week before from an injury. By Thursday morning, the whole team had rolled in and we were ready to start at 6am. A couple of members were also struggling with something that we thought was a standard cold, but if you pile three days of straight play and little sleep onto it all--hello group membership to Urgent Care! Three of us managed to dodge it, so I guess we teachers can thank our students for the boosted immune system and circumstance bonus to Fort saves. Still, this wasn't the worst thing that has ever happened across decades of marathons now, and we played on. Major credit goes to the author here (Robert Brookes) because the adventure was complex enough to hold our attention on the game the entire time. We plan these marathons months in advance and a lot of us travel pretty long distances to make them happen; we approach them like any sports team that can't postpone the playoffs because of a few injuries, and it's that dedication to the group that has kept our story going all these years.

Where do you get that Lusaka miniature from? I need me one of those three headed sharks

Gorgeous, right? It's even better up close. The lusca is a custom piece created by one of our partners (Black Bard Studios, listed above).

The lusca was separated into several pieces and carefully placed inside luggage, then flown from Oregon to GenCon 2019. Once there, the lusca was assembled in a hotel room and painted over the course of the convention. The final step was to drive it from Indianapolis to New Jersey, while being held the entire time in the capable hands of a good friend of the Order. :)

It survived the trip, and made it all the way to the Paizo blog!

Speaking for myself, this is the hardest project to let go of, and that includes every Pathfinder project since 2014. Each undertaking has its own story in our real lives, and its own spin inside the game as well.

The Emerald Spire Project tested how many days we could play consecutively toward a goal.

The Giantslayer Endeavor tested how many marathons we could sustain in half a year's time.

The Strange Aeons Experiment tested our ability to adapt to an entirely new genre for us.

The Pathfinder Playtest tested our skill in crunching a new system at the fastest pace imaginable.

The Azlant Odyssey tested our ability to hold a long campaign together despite the real-life events that challenged it. Two babies were born, two new members were inducted, and we tossed an eight-blog playtest into the middle of this AP. In terms of session hours, Azlant was the lengthiest campaign we've ever played, and a lot of that had to do with the amount of activities available to characters during downtime. Yet we found a way to come together again and again, to stand in awe as we opened the chambers of lost Azlant to gaze upon sites unseen for thousands of years.

Now a little something for the Order, you guys know I do this at the end of every path...

Marathon 1: Never forget that hike down the beach that we took as a group out to the end of Long Beach Island, with the lights of Atlantic City in the distance.

Marathon 2: I'd like to take a moment and thank Urgent Care, for providing medical treatment to three OAD members during this marathon. Oh yeah, there was that hospital trip in there too. The Order is more important than any one of us, so we played through.

Marathon 3: We already have a name for this one, and that evil USB chose it: File not found. It's too painful to elaborate on. Safe to say we won't forget it--yet there's nothing there.

Marathon 4: Hands-down one of the top three marathons in OAD history. In thirty-three years of tabletop, none of us had ever spent so much time underwater. Always remember that night we partied with merfolk in July, with fireworks going off a few blocks away.

Marathon 5: The most frantic of the six marathons. 15-hour sessions and then building the Trident at night while you guys slept. Eight hours of sleep in three days? No problem. It was worth it to descend another tower which deserved as much respect as Nightfang Spire.

Marathon 6: The loudest midnight build (mid-marathon) we've ever done--we don't have to worry about Savannah forgetting it! And that final day, riding the waves to victory from 6am until past 2am. Longest sessions in the industry, baby.

A huge thank you to the players who gave took days off and traveled long distances to make the The Azlant Odyssey possible. These players also spent their time in-between marathons compiling data and helping to create the setups that can be seen in these blogs. Also, a warm thank you to the other Order members who found ways to contribute despite the distance between us.

Lastly, to the Amber Die itself: We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you. Ever since those four 20s in '87, you've still got it, and you're the greatest die a GM could ask for.

This Vrock wishes he was a diving bird to participate in such an enormous undertaking. I'm gonna go check it all the videos you have of this again. Congratulations on your final 1st edition AP. Can't wait to see what the Order takes on next!

--Vrock the boat

Thanks! It's crazy to think this began on an actual beach and ended up with that "Final Morning" video you probably saw. I've come to equally value the out-of-game journey that a group of friends goes through when trying to pull off six volumes of an AP. As for what we take on next...I'm allowed to say this: It's PF 2.0, and it's soon!

That's not nearly enough of a teaser, is it?

I've spent my career teaching, and now could GM my players as they go from students to teachers--to administration--and beyond?

Very, VERY intrigued. :)

Adam Smith wrote:

Ron Lundeen wrote:

#sorrynotsorry. I love shining children!

really excited to see what kinds of variant shining children we'll see in PF 2.0! :)

They're right there in the Bestiary!

(slides aside a stack of Ruins of Azlant and Beyond the Veiled Past materials for Labor Day marathon, checks 2.0 Bestiary)

Hehehe...
(evil, evil smirk)

Seriously though, Tower of the Drowned Dead was incredible Ron, I'm looking forward in particular to showing everyone some of the video we compiled of the tower during assembly and play, as well as some end photos of the Omen Dominion.

Thanks for an adventure that was very rewarding to GM!

#sorrynotsorry. I love shining children!

Gotta say to the group, I'm on the side of the author here as usual! The Amber Die approved of the pelagic child, and spoke by gifting it a 20 with a searing ray. I will miss Aoinse dearly, but the Amber Die's word is final.

Shining Children vs. the Order
-Fortress of the Stone Giants
-Sins of the Saviors
-The Emerald Spire (emerald child)
-Tower of the Drowned Dead (pelagic child)

Let me just throw some more salt on the players and say that I'm really excited to see what kinds of variant shining children we'll see in PF 2.0! :)

I look forward to meeting you (through my words) in your next installment! :D

Thurston, all these projects over the years and finally Beyond the Veiled Past will be the first one of your adventures that I get to run! Lots of prep has gone down already, and I'm excited to show off some surprises. There are a couple of encounters in particular that I've set aside the Amber Die itself for, so we'll see what kind of magic it can deliver...

Wow, that's incredible! This is the level of gaming that I aspire to. You all are amazing!

Thanks so much, Steph! Day three of the marathon passed nineteen hours for a single session, and definitely tested the Order. I think I was still talking like a lich when my students walked into homeroom the next morning...

Onward to part six!

150 published adventures is quite a feat, indeed. I don't think I've even read that many. What are the Order's favorite 10 they've played or DMed?

I'm glad the holidays gave me a few days to think about this one. It's really hard to commit to a permanent list, as my tastes have changed over the years, but I didn't have much trouble saying these could be in my potential top ten.

Here are a bunch of the favorites I've GMed:

1. Night below
2. N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God
3. Return to the Tomb of Horrors
4. S4: The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth
5. The Emerald Spire
6. The Rod of Seven Parts
7. Heart of Nightfang Spire
8. PF113: What Grows Within
9. Moonlight Madness
10. G1-2-3: Against the Giants
11. I2: Tomb of the Lizard King
12. U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
13. The Temple of Elemental Evil

I am in awe of your dedication to your passion; your game.

I'm extremely jealous of your dedication to your passion; your game. ;)

I look at my own dice bag, gathering dust. 3 of us in my group of 30 years have children under 3, and 2 others live 60+miles away. We simply cannot make it together that much at all.

So, I'll live vicariously through your exploits. Well done, thanks for sharing, keep it going!

Such comments like this and the others on this blog really make what we're doing worth it, and it has me wanting to spend today working on new ideas for our next project. :) Thanks for mentioning dedication, I always appreciate when that's noticed alongside the material aspects of our setup. What is sometimes overlooked is that this is actually our regular game, meaning that we play like this whether we are posting our game online or not. We've been keeping logs and doing reports for ourselves as far back as our second year of play as kids, and I have an attic full of everything from initiative sheets to campaign records from everything we have ever played. The passion you mentioned is another big component, and it took us three decades of both that dedication and passion to get our game to this point. While our roster changes and members come and go over the years (and come back too), I'm the one in the Order that has GMed the entire count of what will soon be 150 adventures. Until we received such a warm welcome with our first Paizo project, I used to hide from the number, since it showed that I have clearly dedicated a very large part of my life to GMing published adventures. Thank you for inspiring us to share our game and keep doing what we're doing, and let's see what we can come up with for 2019!

Oh, and since it sounds like your group is still together after thirty years, don't put that dusty dice bag away just yet. :)

Thank you, OAD, for all of your hard work in completing the playtest! Hearing the horrendous schedule you kept demonstrates your dedication to the game and your efforts are appreciated. Not only that, but each blog was a treat to read and the pictures were always amazing. You have me excited to see the final version of 2nd Edition and I'm looking forward to experiencing some of these changes myself. Thanks again for another great read and for sharing such dedication with the community!

K, thanks so much for the words of encouragement! It's a nice feeling to know that people noticed the pace we kept, because we found ourselves sitting there at times after a session in the middle of the night, compiling data and planning for the next two-week segment saying "Are other groups out there keeping this pace?" :) I like to think of it this way though: No matter how furious our schedule, imagine all the effort it took on the part of the design team at Paizo to read and react to so many reports coming in at that same pace! I can only wonder what these next few months look like for them until version 2.0 ships out to print...

Truth be told, it was an awesome gaming experience to be able to play a role in the evolution of the game that OAD approaches as a lifestyle--and we got to make many new friends like yourself in the community throughout!

Loved all these write-ups great job.

That's a lot of hero points though per scenario. Maybe I was too restrictive with them. But it never really felt like my players did anything above and beyond to earn more than a few every now and then.

What was the criteria you used for giving out hero points?

Thank you! We really enjoyed putting this together for everyone, and I hope it offered some useful perspectives on the new edition.

As for Hero Points, we used the formula provided on p. 300 of the Playtest Rulebook. If your scenarios weren't longer than four hours, you might not have been as restrictive as you think. Each player has one or two points at the moment they sit down to the table, with the final point per session to be determined during play. For a much more detailed explanation of how our numbers ended up the way they did, check out the comments section of this blog. Hope that helps!

Bravo!

As I was writing down some notes for this blog, I was remembering how a humorous conversation about our experiences playing a high level medium somehow turned into laying the groundwork for a full playthrough of all seven playtest scenarios. Looking back, only you really knew what we had just signed on for. :) Thanks for believing in us, Mark!

Great job OAD team! I love the photos.

Thanks Fumarole, I'm glad you could come along on another ride with us. I must admit, I'm incredibly happy that so many people like the photos. We have a lot of members, and our roster changes a bit with each project, so the photo team tends to vary a bit. This time it was Erick on editing and myself on the primary camera. We tried to look around at how people were documenting their games in the community, and then approach the shots from a fresh perspective. The shoggoth was actually my favorite one, and a lot went into it: I picked up a desk sculpture of a shoggoth from Ebay, another member (Jody) chiseled it out of the plaster, we put it on a 3x3 base, used several black lights to give it some of the black sheen that Jacobs described in the module, added a small reading light to let some colors appear, and then shot top-down with a 60mm macro lens to throw off the perspective of how big it was.

We've had such a good response about the photos on our own social media as well, that I'm going to add another seminar to our usual two that we run at GenCon every year. The subject of the seminar will be something down the line of what it takes to document your game. We'll use the photos from this project, some of the recent Azlant photos, and even ones from older projects to explain what goes into documenting your own game, as well as how to make some simple improvements that took us a couple of years to learn. It seems like more groups than ever are documenting their games out there, so hopefully it gets some interest and we can help others with what we've picked up over the years.

Stay tuned for an 8th blog: a wrapup complete with behind-the-scenes photos, cumulative data, and reactions. :)

A 20th level monk multiclassed into barbarian for Furious Sprint can pull tricks similar to the one David knott describes, probably winning the Playtest 100m dash event!

Awesome!

You're making it very tempting to put together a few 20th level encounters and record some data...

PFW1-K1 wrote:

OAD Sean wrote:

Stride, stride, stride. More than 200' in a single round.

Context:

9.84 seconds, 100m dash
14.77 seconds, 150m dash

Usain Bolt in 2009:

9.58 seconds, 100m dash
14.35 seconds, 150m dash

Bonus context:

Based on the 100m dash time for Usain Bolt, his speed over 6 seconds (aka a round) is roughly 205 feet. Pretty dang fast! You'd need a speed of 70' per action over 3 actions, or 55' per action over 4 actions (via haste or a similar effect) to outmatch Usain Bolt.

Sean will probably chime back in here, but I think he had either boots of bounding or anklets of alacrity (perhaps both). I am almost certain there was a round in there where he moved 270 total! The map we used was parchment to match the pages of The Last Theorem, and though it was 36x36", it was still way too small!

Wonderful report and wonderful pictures! It reads like you had quite a blast! Very creative responses to situations too!

Thanks Rob! We had such a good time playing this one, we thought it would be fun to go with one of the most casual group shots of us roleplaying that we've ever put up on the blog. While the team loves to debate after each session about which part of the playtest they liked best, it's my place to just observe and listen--but I will say this--if you want to see if Pathfinder 2.0 feels like Pathfinder 1.0 for roleplaying purposes, this is a great scenario to do that with.

Here's a bit of OAD life: Sean is actually planning a New Year's Eve pirate party at his house where we'll be using this 3D setup, and replaying the scenario with many partners/spouses who are new to Pathfinder. :)

You guys are always a breath of fresh air, a positive inducing blast of energy to the game. After reading these blogs I'm always left with a hunger for more, and to truly experience the game at its fullest. Thanks for the amazing attitude towards the new system. I stopped reading everything related to the playtest, the amount of negativity is something that really ruins the experience for me, but after reading this, I'm ready for more. Thanks, guys, you re a shining beacon, and a great example of how to play and how to face this amazing game. I will resume supporting you as soon as I can... xD Long live the Order

This chapter looks a lot less grindy than the last ones, but still as dangerous.

These are my thoughts as well when it comes to OAD. Long live the Order, indeed!

Sebastian, thank you for the kind words, it really means a lot to us after the amount of effort that went into the playtest from our members. As you know, we are spread out across the country and prefer to assemble less often but for longer periods of play. This playtest put much of the work onto our local members, more of whom have families and demanding careers that had to be navigated to create time to play and report out. When it comes to reacting to the news of Pathfinder 2.0, like so many groups out there, the announcement of the Playtest caused a passionate response from some of our members. Games evolve, just like most everything else. It's normal that each proposed change would often be met with voices of both agreement and dissent. These voices help shape the next phase of the game, but are also stronger with data to support them, and I hope our work has helped provide that data. We'll keep doing our job to push the ceiling of the game, and we are grateful for the support we've received from everyone. We actually end many of our emails to each other with exactly what you and Elorebaen left us with: Long live the Order!

From the GM tracking sheet:

"Total number of Hero Points given out: 36"

36?!! What sorts of things get you awarded hero points? Our DM hands out maybe one or two hero points a session, and that's total, not each character. Figuring out one of the puzzles as a group without having to make any knowledge or lore roles in one of the previous adventures was the only time he handed out 1 hero point each.

Also, how many hero points do you start out with?

Hi Fiziks, happy to explain, since the minimum number was actually 24 for this scenario as played. Total time was just under twelve hours, and our sessions are four-hour increments. In addition to the standard one Hero point per session and one for contributing (OAD members are expected to carry many out-of-game tasks to help run our game, see comments for blog #4), the players threw themselves at the adventure trying to do something daring or heroic enough to warrant an additional point. Since a session is capped at 4 hours, 4 players x 3 points per session = 12 points per session, x 3 sessions = 36 points. What's interesting is that with a minimum of 2 points per player/per session regardless of any heroic or special actions, our spread was still a minimum of 24 and maximum of 36 points. So far we've seen a nice variety among the group in regard to how they spent their points: some save them to revive from dying, some go all-in for the extra action, and others prefer the reroll option. The balancing factor with Hero Points is that they reset each session, so depending on what occurs in a four-hour increment, players who try to hold them too long for the perfect moment might never get that opportunity, resulting in points going unused (see our first report). At the same time, the most notable piece of data is that plenty of points were given out in parts two, four, and five--which didn't prevent TPK.

One sure way to bring the number of points down would be for the standard session increment to become longer than four hours, but since that's a fairly standard length for tabletop RPGs, I'm not sure if we'll see it change. When it comes to giving a point for contributing to the game, a long-term effect on the Pathfinder community is that GMs should generally have more help at the table, which frees more of their time to run a better game for their players--a potentially powerful effect for a single Hero Point! One other thing that might help in determining how players earn the third Hero Point each session, would be a more specific rubric for rewarding dramatic actions, but it also seems like that's hard to do without boxing both GMs and players in. Since we had some experience with Hero Point mechanics in the past, we decided as a group early on that we weren't going to spend precious session time having debates at the table about whether an action was heroic enough, etc. Hope all of this helps, and we're excited to show off more data about Hero Points in our upcoming blogs!

Mark Moreland wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

So far, the most likely death points have been the treachery demons, the demilich, and the finale, so that tracks with the numbers! The last boss is brutal, though, unless you bring all the right stuff like the group on the Paizo stream did.

To be fair, we one the stream also skipped a bunch of encounters, so whether or not we would have made it that far or still had the right stuff available when the big bad showed up remains a mystery.

This is true! I suspect a fair number of groups would have trouble with that boss even at full resources, though. But not everyone had a shadowy monk with frosty cold iron fists.

Interesting, I was wondering the same thing about the stream, which ties into why I look forward to running this one again. Nothing affected the outcome of this scenario more than the decision to have the wraiths attack a single character. I knew the end was out of sight well before the players: I watched them cook off resources chasing wraiths around the cathedral as their wizard suffered through round after round of attacks, draining what I estimated as 20% of their resources in one fight. Incorporeal, flying, and with a 10' reach, there was no way for the wizard to find safety. Even with the data above showing how many times the wraiths missed, they still created a sense of panic and uncertainty that caused further attrition. The players also chose to use the stained glass against the wraiths to force a faster conclusion. This is the first time our team is even hearing this, but the main reason I want to see it play out again (with this same party) is because I am nearly certain they would at least make it to the end if any of the three other characters been the closest one to the graveyard when the wraiths emerged.

Editions aside, the diversity of scenarios and challenges in this playtest has definitely made us better as a group!

I love the photos, as always!

Much appreciated! That's always good to hear because a good amount of time goes into choosing which photos we use, and especially how to thematically capture each part of the Playtest or project we're running. Erick and I have been doing the pics for the Playtest, and we were lucky to have such a perfect sunset for this one.

PsychicPixel wrote:

Wow the detail and the numbers are fascinating to read.

There has been some controversy in some threads about handling the larger enemies within the church. Specifically the treachery demons. How had the GM placed them when they popped into the church and how were they manuvered around the area?

I'm curious too, cause one of those figures looks pretty fenced in by pillars. XD

Myself I've found liberal use of Dimension Door is the best option. XD Breaking pillars could work but DD covers ground faster.

Demilich, reporting in! As for placement of the treachery demons, it seemed pretty clear to me on p. 63 (rubble pile and east end)? Anyway, mine used D-Door also, but I otherwise pretty much stayed on each end until I had one demon left; at that point, I had a good time making everyone run the length of the temple once they were able to base my remaining demon (D-Door to opposite side, rinse, repeat). So many abilities to work with in this one--a great time for a GM!

Great blog post! You're right about those high numbers! 2E really can pack a lot in and keep you going or take you down! Very energizing read through and always appreciate the beautiful pictures the team takes! I'm so very envious considering my team has gotten very busy this autumn so we haven't played much more, let alone our Strange Aeons game. Thanks for sharing Order of the Amber Die!

Thanks for reading, and glad you liked the pictures! We had a good time with this one, and the team wanted me to give them another crack at it as soon as the Playtest is over. They have me intrigued to see whether they can finish out with a winning record, that's for sure!

OAD Life! No matter how many conversations we have, nothing we discuss is taken more seriously than this:

Deciding what we're going to play next. :)

Awesome guys! It's very rough if you can't get enough Ally points to avoid the giant fight and weaken the final fight. Depending on if you had 2-3 or 0-1 ally points, the final fight was either Extreme like the Night Heralds in Part 2 that also TPKed the Order or Extreme+ (listed in the adventure as "virtually impossible"). Those Extreme encounters by design are supposed to have a much higher chance of a TPK (and it's why in this adventure, they tend to be something that doesn't happen by default, like the Night Herald fight in Part 2 or the buffed fight here). And the Order beat the terrifying sea serpent, as hard a Severe encounter as they come. I'm really looking forward to seeing how you guys manage in Part 5!

Thanks Mark, it was awesome getting to play a scenario that you authored! With twenty-five hexes explored, we felt like we were able to see a lot of it. As for the sea serpent, we gave it a bloody nose, but ultimately decided to retreat to the shore with fly since it was our very first encounter of the scenario and the risk was too great. Against a Severe encounter (like you mentioned), it definitely felt like a win though. I was also really impressed with how well they did against those giants, I didn't think this party could stand toe-to-toe without a major melee character. The layout of the Moonmere's Flip-Mat helped a lot too, as characters used the third action to stay mobile while utilizing the terrain to prevent the larger creatures from ganging up.

The ending played out exactly as we deserved; plus, we all love a good TPK, right guys? :)

I'm also curious how the Order of the Amber Die sessions compare.

There are some excellent points being made in this thread, it's awesome to see how many groups are trying to stick to RAW for the Playtest. I wanted to chime in and say thank you to all of you for putting in the time to interact on threads like this, I can say that OAD members do frequently keep up with what is being discussed, and we spent about an hour before each playtest session just going over what is currently being said among the community. Some members even like to cite specific comments they’ve read, and we go around the table trying to interpret elements of the playtest. We agree with many of the comments here, in that we felt the best way to offer data (and the point of the Playtest) was to play as close as possible to RAW. That being said, there is no "right" way to play and enjoy the game, so while our style works for us, every group should find what's comfortable for them.

As for TOZ's question about how OAD compares to the live games mentioned in a couple of posts above, we don't skip any encounters or change anything in the narrative structure, and play everything as tight as we possibly can. Related to this, we have sometimes struggled with expressing one particular piece of data after every session: total session time played. When learning an entirely new system and at the same time trying to accurately record how long it takes to play, we've been wondering if other groups count the time they spend looking up rules? Since our game is out in front of the community, we feel obligated to spend time looking up rules (we’ve even texted authors in the middle of a game) in order to make sure it's played right. As a result, we've tried to employ a system similar to stoppage time in soccer, where we estimate the amount of time spent looking up rules, and remove some of that from our data. The same goes for time spent in character creation. Do players count the time they only spend making the character, or include the time spent looking up how all the spells, feats, and abilities work for the first time as well? In the latter case, that same player a couple of years down the line would have a better understanding of the system, and thus the amount of time spent in character creation will likely drop to a more accurate average for the edition.

When it comes to the doom, gloom, and TPKs, hang in there everyone—we might just have another TPK to show off in a future report, too! :)

Quote:

Number of Hero Points used: 37; Fumbus (8), Lem (10), Sajan (8), Seoni (11)

That is an absolutely baffling number of her points. Are they supposed to be given out this liberally?

Hi Tridus! I'll explain, since the minimum number was actually 32 for this scenario as played. Total time was just over twelve hours, and our sessions are four-hour increments. In addition to the standard one Hero point per session and one for contributing (OAD members are expected to carry many out-of-game tasks to help run our game), the players threw themselves at the adventure trying to do something daring or heroic enough to warrant an additional point. Since a session is capped at 4 hours, 4 players x 3 points per session = 12 points per session, x 4 sessions = 48 points. What's interesting is that with a minimum of 2 points per player/per session regardless of any heroic or special actions, our spread was still a minimum of 32 and maximum of 48 points. So far we've seen a nice variety among the group in regard to how they spent their points: some save them to revive from dying, some go all-in for the extra action, and others prefer the reroll option. The balancing factor with Hero Points is that they reset each session, so depending on what occurs in a four-hour increment, players who try to hold them too long for the perfect moment might never get that opportunity, resulting in points going unused (see our first report). At the same time, the most notable piece of data is that plenty of points were given out in parts two and four and it didn't prevent either TPK.

One sure way to bring the number of points down would be for the standard session increment to become longer than four hours, but since that's a fairly standard length for tabletop RPGs, I'm not sure if we'll see it change. When it comes to giving a point for contributing to the game, a long-term effect on the Pathfinder community is that GMs should generally have more help at the table, which frees more of their time to run a better game for their players--a potentially powerful effect for a single Hero Point! One other thing that might help in determining how players earn the third Hero Point each session, would be a more specific rubric for rewarding dramatic actions, but it also seems like that's hard to do without boxing both GMs and players in. Since we had some experience with Hero Point mechanics in the past, we decided as a group early on that we weren't going to spend precious session time having debates at the table about whether an action was heroic enough, etc. Hope all of this helps, and we're excited to show off more data about Hero Points in our upcoming blogs!

GreatKhanArtist wrote:

I love the sea monster. Who produces that miniature?

That's a "Sea Dragon" from Safari.

I use it as a Linnorm, as it is easily gargantuan. ;-)

Right on point there, Marco! Safari makes some useful miniatures which can fill gaps in any collection.

Speaking of miniatures, wouldn't it be cool if someday the case incentive for a Pathfinder Battles subscription could be a gargantuan roc? :)