we are lvl 10 and im thinking of quitting the game

pauljathome wrote:

My "favourite" is the Crimson Throne Player Guide (Pre hardcover if that makes a difference). Make a character who really, really hates a particular NPC. A NPC who is killed early in book 1.

Looking at the discussion threads, more than one group ended then. The PCs all basically looked at each other, went "Well, that was fun. Have a nice life. See you" and...

I guess your players didn't realize that "it's about the friends you make along the way." No one ever gets far without the magic of friendship in this game. XD

Who could have possibly known that a bunch of loaner isolationist introvert characters wouldn't work out in a social cooperative roleplaying game? :P

There's going against theme, and then there's totally ignoring what's clearly spelled out on the tin and calling it the game's fault. :/

I had a similar situation with Skull and Shackles and its Player's Guide, but unlike your party, after my players' characters killed their mutually hated enemy near the end of Book 1, they looked at each other and said "Wow, you guys are really swell! Thanks for the assist in the coup! How about we keep the momentum going and make each other rich?"

It's totally cool if your players simply decided they were done with the campaign; nothing badwrongfun about it. But it sounds to me they let something relatively trivial cause them to miss out on a grand adventure.

Just a minor correction. My party was just fine. at least partly because I supplemented the Adventure Guide. Other groups split up in the middle of book 1.

But with the players that I had I definitely thought there was a significant chance that, if given only the Players Guide, at least one would come up with a character who would leave the group after killing the little bad. A couple are very into character background and RP and if they thought their character wouldn't continue with the group then they wouldn't. They very much WILL build a character for the campaign, the issue is that the Players Guide essentially totally lied about what the campaign would be. I could absolutely see one building a character totally focussed on killing the bad guy, planning on retiring after that mission was over, thinking that killing the bad guy was going to take up pretty much the entire AP.

I can't see it, he was a small time crook. It was pretty clear he was just the first thing to pull the party together.

We made it to the Cinderlands before the GM burnt out.

That was a pretty consistent theme fifteen years back here on the forum, when I was looking to GM Curse for the first time as my first AP. I adjusted accordingly, but people back then already were complaining that a lot of their players characters were unmotivated, due to the guy from the player's guide being gone so early and the provided background traits being so laser-focused on his story. Yeah, there was a 3.5 player's guide for the AP.

There’s been a players’ guide for every AP so far.

They very much WILL build a character for the campaign, the issue is that the Players Guide essentially totally lied about what the campaign would be. 

It is a minor problem, basically only one if the GM doesn't read the adventure in advance and the players don't give the GM a rundown of their character/motivations prior to the adventure starting.

I mean "Obviously, these background traits won’t work well for new characters brought into the campaign after Gaedren’s been taken care of" makes it pretty clear he isn't sticking around.

I think the players guides are pretty good for language recommendations, at least.

the issue is that the Players Guide essentially totally lied about what the campaign would be.

What about an AP about a circus that is not at all about a circus?

pauljathome wrote:

the issue is that the Players Guide essentially totally lied about what the campaign would be.

What about an AP about a circus that is not at all about a circus?

My biggest disappointment so far with Paizo's AP. I haven't even launched it and will certainly never.

That was certainly the roughest I've seen.

Which is weird because some of the others are the player's guide literally only being the reason you're at a funeral, or an actual lie because whoever devised the campaign thought that a shipwreck campaign start would benefit from not letting the players actually in on that detail.

Even then, though, I feel like Extinction Curse could have been more accurate to what it would be as a campaign by simply not choosing the big top aesthetic. The guide said the characters were adventurer's first and the circus thing was just a side detail in the text, but the cover design for the AP and even the dice sets for the AP made by Q Workshop were leaning hard on the circus theming.

I’ve forgotten, which is the shipwreck AP?

I've had no issues with the circus theme in Extinction Curse and am quite surprised that it's a point of contention for other groups.

I've run two groups through the first four or five modules so far, and they're loving it. They really ham it up with their circus antics, put on as many as three shows a town, and generally understand the notion that THEY ARE THE CIRCUS and must therefore bring the circus to the world. They don't waste time wandering why the world didn't bring the circus to them (not even the fantasy world of Golarion works like that).

I’ve forgotten, which is the shipwreck AP?

Serpent's Skull

I’ve forgotten, which is the shipwreck AP?

I think that's Serpent's Skull. Maybe Skull and Shackles, too?

My advice is APs are something to take in with a grain of salt. I have not heard good things about most of them. I say honestly find a group and make your own adventures, have fun with a GM that can balance the adventuring day for the party and not whatever 4-5 combination you can make.

Most AP paths penalize casters by making you fight too many fights with your Spell-Slot Resources, the Focus point change helps but now you should make sure you get a useable combat focus spell.

Also this was probably said but make sure you know what your class does and what stat/ability score/attribute modifier it uses. A Strength fighter with +4 Str and +0 Dex trying to be a bow fighter will simply not feel good because a bow is a Dex weapon.

I've had no issues with the circus theme in Extinction Curse and am quite surprised that it's a point of contention for other groups.

I've run two groups through the first four or five modules so far, and they're loving it. They really ham it up with their circus antics, put on as many as three shows a town, and generally understand the notion that THEY ARE THE CIRCUS and must therefore bring the circus to the world. They don't waste time wandering why the world didn't bring the circus to them (not even the fantasy world of Golarion works like that).

It being a point of contention comes in two flavors.

The first, and most obstructive to the campaign as a whole, is when a player thinks that the circus is going to be the front-and-center focus of the campaign. When the campaign then asks the players to care about going away from their circus to deadly locales, the "I thought this was about a circus" player might well feel they don't have any motivation to be off doing such big things when they're "a circus performer".

The second is less of a problem to the campaign itself, but still a potential point of disappointment for the players involved, that the circus doesn't really matter to the campaign events. Yes, the players can steer into it and have fun with it, but it's kind of like if a player in Agents of Edgewatch spent an hour after every session filling out police-style paperwork on the events of the session; it might be fun for them, may even feel very immersive, but it's got no real bearing on the campaign itself.

So you could have two groups, one that really hammed up the circus element and one that entirely left their circus behind after the first show, and a summary of plot-important details of the campaign for each would read near identically.

The only worse mishandling of the campaign-specific gimmick I can think of is Agents of Edgewatch ditching its gimmick so completely and intentionally that a sidebar about retraining shows up in book 6 to outright tell you "yeah, none of what the player's guide said matters anymore."

Extinction curse was a real disappointment for me. The advertising media played up the circus connection, I didn't expect it to be the primary focus but I expected it to be more than "two small sections of two books"

Worst thing is, I did such a good job with fleshing out the circus and performance that my players HATED that it was irrelevant (I started running it when the first volume released, so I didn't know how irrelevant the circus would actually end up being).

It isn't even a bad adventure.

I am still bitter about Gatewalkers being compared to the Xfiles though, it is 100% indiana jones and an okay adventure at that (needs a little villain and npc work, but as a pulp adventure it works)... xfiles it is not.

Still, leagues better than the advertising WotC likes to do. Their marketing team likes to just jump on things they believe will sell, whether it is connected or not. Baldur's Gate Descent into Avernus... is not about baldur's gate and has an unrelated intro to get people up to the level for the main adventure, and it was advertised as madmax in hell, while having next to nothing to do with the hell cars.

I've had no issues with the circus theme in Extinction Curse and am quite surprised that it's a point of contention for other groups.

I've run two groups through the first four or five modules so far, and they're loving it. They really ham it up with their circus antics, put on as many as three shows a town, and generally understand the notion that THEY ARE THE CIRCUS and must therefore bring the circus to the world. They don't waste time wandering why the world didn't bring the circus to them (not even the fantasy world of Golarion works like that).

Well, when I played it it all seemed so ridiculously forced and contrived to me.

1) as seems quite common, the circus minigame wasn't all that well done and frequently made little sense.

2) you're constantly on the lookout for new NPC circus performers to show up. Really weird encounter? Oh, bet he has a circus trick.

3) it just wasn't at all integrated with the rest of the adventure.

I was expecting that the circus and it's NPCs would be coming up on screen a fair amount. Maybe a circus member would be framed for a crime and that would drive a couple of sessions. Or racism against some (or all) Carnies would rear it's ugly head. I was expecting the NPCs to actually matter, for most to grow with some new ones coming in from time to time. I was expecting Carnivalle the RPG

Most AP paths penalize casters by making you fight too many fights with your Spell-Slot Resources, the Focus point change helps but now you should make sure you get a useable combat focus spell.

How many fights per day do you see as too many? We have word from the devs that the intended rough balance point is about three serious fights per day.

Yeah, count me among the naysayers for Extinction Curse. The other problem with the abandoned Circus theme is that it is an early PF2 adventure, which means the balance kinks hadn't been worked out yet. So not only are you supposed to ignore your calling and instead go be a hero, you are thrown into a meat grinder of overly difficult, back to back encounters. My seasoned players could probably handle it. But I tried running it for a table of PF2 newbies and it broke them. (I could probably adjust it appropriately now, but the system was still pretty new for me too.)

Easl wrote:

arcady wrote:

Just going on one part of the original post that I was able to suss out in the middle of the rambling:

Regarding having a character who's main angle is not effective against the majority of hostile NPCs.

There's a bit of a duty on GMs that in my experience few live up to.

At character creation, a GM needs to let players know what they're in for for the given game. And actively warn players away from bad choices and guide them towards good ones.

Good advice. Paizo even publishes free player's guides to their adventures for that reason. Different-but-similar advice for home games is for the GM to fine tune their adventure/scenario concept to what the players take.

Though the OP was partially about 'boring' rather than 'ineffective.' I think it's perfectly okay after 10 levels to say 'I know what I like, this isn't it/is not longer it' and either switch characters or if your table is ready, start a new campaign with all new characters. I have to admit, I've never heard the Rogue described as ineffective and bad at saves before this though.

Worth noting that the Blood Lords player's guide, and the Paizo player guides in general, are NOT guides to actually effective characters in the AP. The Blood Lords guide talks about how fun necromancer wizards are in the campaign. That may be true thematically, but you will CRY if you try to play one mechanically, because negative energy bounces off 95% of the enemies. Likewise, it recommends evil champions. Whose main abilities revolve around dealing evil and negative damage. Of course, 95% of the enemies in the campaign are immune to both...

Paizo consistently prints "thematic" options in the player guides, which is great, but unfortunately for you the player, these thematic options are not always mechanically sound picks for the campaign. The Reign of Winter player's guide, for instance, likewise discusses how useful arctic druids, winter witches, and winter mystery oracles are in that setting....

Would you mind sharing your build? I am new to TTRPGs, and this is my first PF2e game. I also created a rogue scoundrel and realized my mistake after the first session. My GM is allowing me to change, but I've spent hours going in circles. Any help you could offer would be much appreciated.

Would you mind sharing your build? I am new to TTRPGs, and this is my first PF2e game. I also created a rogue scoundrel and realized my mistake after the first session. My GM is allowing me to change, but I've spent hours going in circles. Any help you could offer would be much appreciated.

If you want actually good advice on a build, there are a few things that you can do to get better help.

- Post the request as its own thread in the Advice section.
- Post everything you actually know and are willing to leverage as far as the shape of the campaign. I assume this is for Blood Lords? You should at least know if your GM is using any significantly build-changing optional rules like Free Archetype.
- Tell us about the builds that your fellow party members are using. The true path to power in PF2 is party optimization.
- Tell us which aspects you have that you know that you want, or that are locked in. Are you determined to make a rogue but okay on adjusting on the scoundrel part? Are you not particularly attached to the rogue, but know you want a martial (protip: someone will tell you to play a fighter. That doesn't mean that you necessarily should - just that I can almost guarantee that someone will tell you to. Some of the folks who like to give advice are really into fighters.) Is there some ancestry or role that you know you particularly want? Regardless of what it is, the more info we can get on "this particular thing would make me happy", the better we can help out.

You don't have to get all of this stuff out at once. Sometimes one of the useful thing that an advice threads does is help you figure some of this stuff out. Still, the more we can get, the better we can help you.

Unfortunately, the stuff you've given us here isn't nearly enough to actually help you.