Sell me on Giantslayer


Giantslayer

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Looking through a few threads, it seems like Giantslayer, much like Iron Gods, has been a bit of a divisive issue. I count myself on the "Iron Gods" side of that equation, and I've been considering canceling my sub for Giantslayer, but before I do so, I want to be sure that I've given it a fair shake.

I consider myself a pretty open-minded guy; I enjoy 'traditional' dungeon crawling as much as anyone, but I also like to spice things up a bit with new ideas. I've run Rise of the Runelords (three volumes before the group collapsed due to...reasons) and Mummy's Mask (on book two now, still going strong) and I've played parts of Legacy of Fire, Jade Regent, Carrion Crown, and Skull & Shackles. I'll be playing Shattered Star pretty soon as well. My point is, I think I can enjoy just about anything, as long as there's a hook. Reign of Winter, for example, sounds awesome: fighting to overthrow an evil Ice Queen is a classic setup, but plane-hopping via Baba Yaga's hut is a nice bit of spice. Mummy's Mask is really a classic dungeon delve/undead adventure, but setting it in a less-frequently used cultural context gives it new life.

So what am I missing with Giantslayer? Where is the hook? Giants have never been my favorite creature, and in Pathfinder they're basically just...big guys that hit hard. It's not like there's a system in place for having to scurry up a guy's legs to club him to death. Belkzen isn't an especially interesting part of Golarion either; it's just orc-infested badlands. But enough of the negative: I want to hear positives from people who are looking forward to this AP. What is it that is pulling you in for this one? What am I not "getting" when I look at the description of this AP?


I'm sure there will be more encounters than only Giants.

I'm not a fan of Hill Giants, have found those creatures extremely boring and useless (with both Stone Giants and Ogres around) since the beginning of D&D (at least when I found out about D&D in the late 90ties) and they probably get a role in giant slayer, but there are probably many NPC's and other Monsters to make up for it.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

The Giantslayer Handbook or whatever it's called has the campaign specific traits for the AP, one of which is called Dragon Slayer. So there should be more than a few dragons? Dragons are always fun. I wasn't enthused by this AP but now I'll at least take a look.


You'll get to make nice with a red dragon:)
also has an Orb of Dragonkind:)

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Selling point: roll a full caster with spells that target Will and Ref saves, giggle at poor martials who spend 5 adventures getting Large/Huge full attacks in their faces. Bonus points if one of these martials is a Monk.


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The same selling point of all the APs really: what are they going to do with this?

I've yet to see an AP that was exactly what I expected when I first saw it.

Silver Crusade

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captain yesterday wrote:

You'll get to make nice with a red dragon:)

also has an Orb of Dragonkind:)

wait what? spoiler


Mythic Evil Lincoln wrote:

The same selling point of all the APs really: what are they going to do with this?

I've yet to see an AP that was exactly what I expected when I first saw it.

Really? I feel like most of them live up to their titles.

Rise of the Runelords: You have to stop a Runelords rise to power.

The Mummy's Mask: There is literally a cursed mummy's mask at the center of the plot.

Jade Regent: There is literally a guy called the Jade Regent. You have to kill him.

The Shattered Star: A seven-pointed star artifact has been shattered into seven pieces. You have to find them.

I could go on, but you get the point. Usually there is something present in the initial summary that grabs me. With Reign of Winter, I was interested in learning more about Irrisen, Baba Yaga is awesome, and traveling to WWI earth sounded like a blast. With Mummy's Mask, I was interested in Osirion, and fighting a ghost-Pharoah in his flying Pyramid sounded incredible. With Iron Gods...c'mon man, it's Numeria! We never get to do anything with Numeria!

Is there something awesome about Belkzen that I'm forgetting?


spectrevk wrote:

Really? I feel like most of them live up to their titles.

Rise of the Runelords: You have to stop a Runelords rise to power.

For example, I see nothing about hillbilly ogres or haunted cabins in that title.

The devil is in the details, that's my point here.

An AP theme doesn't really lock you down into exlusively one thing. They're usually more varied than people figure when they start.

Talk to anyone who picked Favored Enemy: Gnoll (or GENIES for that matter) in Legacy of Fire.


Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

The first book seems to be more about defending a settlement from an Orc invasion than about giants. Also, there are interesting locals like fighting inside a volcano and a flying castle. Unfortunately since none of the books are out yet (and we don't even have a final product description yet), we can't really sell you on the AP, since we don't really know what the AP is....


Ayanzo wrote:
captain yesterday wrote:

You'll get to make nice with a red dragon:)

also has an Orb of Dragonkind:)
wait what? spoiler

I dont need spoiler tags, its all right in the description:)

Silver Crusade

heh, I always saw the little blurbs as an expression of the Stanford marshmallow experiment.

0 is outright reading the AP
1 Marshmellow is reading the blurb.
2 is experiencing it fresh.


So the the third one is hooked up to a battery then.... :-)


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j b 200 wrote:
The first book seems to be more about defending a settlement from an Orc invasion than about giants. Also, there are interesting locals like fighting inside a volcano and a flying castle. Unfortunately since none of the books are out yet (and we don't even have a final product description yet), we can't really sell you on the AP, since we don't really know what the AP is....

We have descriptions for the first 5 volumes of Giantslayer. It doesn't seem all that varied:

1. Defend town from orc army, explore tomb.

2. Fight Hill Giant chief.

3. Finish exploring tomb, then go to Mindspin Mountains. Fight a bunch of giants in a valley.

4. Fight village of Frost Giants.

5. Fight dungeon of Fire Giants. Learn about flying castle

Presumably, volume 6 will be "go to flying castle, kill Storm Tyrant". I think the problem for me here is the lack of motivation for the villain. Karzoug awakened after thousands of years and was trying to rebuild his empire. First Emperor Xin saw his dream of a perfect society destroyed by his students who then tried to kill him, slept for thousands of years, and went mad. Hakotep had his soul torn into fragments and finally has a chance to avenge himself. These are interesting villains.

The Storm Tyrant is just a guy with a cloud castle and an Orb of Dragonkind, who wants to conquer Avistan because....well, just because. I've heard people comparing this to Against the Giants, but I never had a chance to play that module. What could I be missing out on if I skip Giantslayer?


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Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
spectrevk wrote:

Presumably, volume 6 will be "go to flying castle, kill Storm Tyrant". I think the problem for me here is the lack of motivation for the villain. Karzoug awakened after thousands of years and was trying to rebuild his empire. First Emperor Xin saw his dream of a perfect society destroyed by his students who then tried to kill him, slept for thousands of years, and went mad. Hakotep had his soul torn into fragments and finally has a chance to avenge himself. These are interesting villains.

The Storm Tyrant is just a guy with a cloud castle and an Orb of Dragonkind, who wants to conquer Avistan because....well, just because. I've heard people comparing this to Against the Giants, but I never had a chance to play that module. What could I be missing out on if I skip Giantslayer?

But did we get all that backstory and motivation for Xin and Karzog in the prerelease product description? We don't really know the why of the AP until it is release and we can read the first issue with the AP rundown.

Take WotR for example, here is the description for book 4

The Midnight Ilses wrote:
After an audience with the Crusader Queen, the heroes journey to a fortress that straddles the boundary between this world and the demon-haunted realm of the Abyss. There, they must face powerful agents of the architects of the Worldwound and put a stop to the production of the powerful elixirs being used to grant demons mythic power. Beyond the fortress lies the Abyssal realm of the Midnight Isles, lair of the succubus queen Nocticula—and the source of the crystals used to create the mystical elixirs. Can the heroes navigate the intrigues of the Midnight Isles to strike a critical blow for the forces of good? And can they avoid losing their souls to darkness in the process?

This description, which was written after the final product was approved it both incomplete and misleading.

The Midnight Ilse:
1) The fortress is more of a small outpost; 2) there is, at best, a very tangential mention of exploring the city of Alushinyrra or gaining the attention of Nocticula (about 1/2 the book); 3) no mention of the nahyndrian mine; 4) No mention of the fact that PCs are trying to ally with Nocticula against the other two cults.

My point is that until we have at least the final product description, if not the first issue in hand, we don't know. As Mythic Evil Lincoln said, the Devil is in the details.


To me, the selling will come when we get the player's guide.


spectrevk wrote:
What is it that is pulling you in for this one? What am I not "getting" when I look at the description of this AP?

For me, it's the same as all the others. I don't look forward to them for the plot (some grab me, some don't).

I like learning about golarion. I don't have strong feelings about belkzen or giants yet, precisely because I haven't yet seen what paizo's take on them is. I suspect belkzen is about to get much more interesting. I'm really looking forward to seeing more about giant cultures and ecologies too.

I'm never going to use iron gods, but what's interesting about it to me is that it fleshes out numeria.


What's the division caused by Giantslayer?
I ask because i haven't noticed anything like what was going on (and still is) when iron gods was coming out.

I also think about cancelling my AP sub for Giantslayer but that's because that this AP will be another Shattered Star, that is a disjointed series of very easy and usually boring modules that have only a smidge of story connecting them.


I'm actually under the impression that this'll be heavily dragon emphasized, given the Orb of Dragonkind. Reading it over, ANY non-human who DARES to possess one will IMMEDIATELY earn the wrath of all dragons aware of it, regardless of alignment or type. I'm expecting the party to quickly become agents of dragons at some point, and a full on battle between giants and dragons.


Also, despite the fact that it likely won't be advertised, remember that Belkzen was originally one of the dwarven Sky Citadels. The area is more than just "hurr durr orcish badlands".


I wonder if we'll get to KEEP the flying citadel. Usually those things seem destined to fall once the bad guy is defeated. It would be nice if the heroes got one AWESOME high flyin' pad as part of their swag.


I can hardly wait for this.


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I guess you just can't please everyone all the time. Every AP they put out has complainers out their. WoTR they said to many demons, IG to much tech, RoW what WWI Russia, CC and MM to many undead I could go on. Now you all are complaining you don't like giants. The old GDQ series is considered by many to be the best series of adventures EVER put out. Will this live up to that probably not, but this AP is going to give us Giants, Orbs of Dragonkind (which indicates dragons to go with them) Lots of orcs and Oh Flying Castles. Am I missing something here whats NOT to love this is classic D&D err Pathfinder if I ever heard it. And on top of all that other than a few promotional blurbs we really don't even know what will be in it besides, Giants, Orcs, Orbs of Dragonkind and Flying Castles. They got me with Giants. :)


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I think this AP is catered towards players that want to - - I don't know - - kill giants.

I like the sound of that so count me in.


ladydragona wrote:
I guess you just can't please everyone all the time. Every AP they put out has complainers out their. WoTR they said to many demons, IG to much tech, RoW what WWI Russia, CC and MM to many undead I could go on. Now you all are complaining you don't like giants. The old GDQ series is considered by many to be the best series of adventures EVER put out. Will this live up to that probably not, but this AP is going to give us Giants, Orbs of Dragonkind (which indicates dragons to go with them) Lots of orcs and Oh Flying Castles. Am I missing something here whats NOT to love this is classic D&D err Pathfinder if I ever heard it. And on top of all that other than a few promotional blurbs we really don't even know what will be in it besides, Giants, Orcs, Orbs of Dragonkind and Flying Castles. They got me with Giants. :)

I'm not looking to complain/argue about Giantslayer; in fact, I'd originally posted this in general, not in this forum, for precisely that reason. I'm looking for good reasons to *like* this AP, but I'm having some trouble.

A flying castle sounds kind of cool, but we already just had an AP with a flying Pyramid, which sounds even cooler. If I wanted to fight a bunch of giants, I could play Rise of the Runelords. It's interesting that Belkzen has one of the Sky Citadels, but it doesn't look like that's going to play a role in this AP at all...the AP outline as it stands now just looks like a linear CR progression from orcs to giants, and then through the various giant types, going in the order of CR.


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If people have to "sell you" on something, then this probably isn't the AP for you, which is fine. Find one that appeals to you and have at it!


spectrevk wrote:
j b 200 wrote:
The first book seems to be more about defending a settlement from an Orc invasion than about giants. Also, there are interesting locals like fighting inside a volcano and a flying castle. Unfortunately since none of the books are out yet (and we don't even have a final product description yet), we can't really sell you on the AP, since we don't really know what the AP is....

We have descriptions for the first 5 volumes of Giantslayer. It doesn't seem all that varied:

1. Defend town from orc army, explore tomb.

2. Fight Hill Giant chief.

3. Finish exploring tomb, then go to Mindspin Mountains. Fight a bunch of giants in a valley.

4. Fight village of Frost Giants.

5. Fight dungeon of Fire Giants. Learn about flying castle

Presumably, volume 6 will be "go to flying castle, kill Storm Tyrant". I think the problem for me here is the lack of motivation for the villain. Karzoug awakened after thousands of years and was trying to rebuild his empire. First Emperor Xin saw his dream of a perfect society destroyed by his students who then tried to kill him, slept for thousands of years, and went mad. Hakotep had his soul torn into fragments and finally has a chance to avenge himself. These are interesting villains.

The Storm Tyrant is just a guy with a cloud castle and an Orb of Dragonkind, who wants to conquer Avistan because....well, just because. I've heard people comparing this to Against the Giants, but I never had a chance to play that module. What could I be missing out on if I skip Giantslayer?

That alone, to me, sounds fantastic. So to know that they get even better from there upon the final release really leaves me anticipating.


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If the prospect of fighting a lot of giants does not appeal to you in the slightest, I'm going to go ahead and say an AP called Giantslayer that is an homage to Against the Giants is not going to bump elbows with your various cups of tea.

If the prospect of a new take on Against the Giants being released by Paizo appeals to you, stick around.

Also, a brief glance at the story overview is never anywhere close to estimating the worth of an AP. There's always twists and unexpected encounters, and they tend to (from what I've seen) strive for a high quality in these adventures. An expectation to encounter a simple string of "kill giants at locations A, B, C, D, E, and F" seems horribly premature and historically unlikely, given their body of work thus far.


Brimleydower wrote:

If the prospect of fighting a lot of giants does not appeal to you in the slightest, I'm going to go ahead and say an AP called Giantslayer that is an homage to Against the Giants is not going to bump elbows with your various cups of tea.

If the prospect of a new take on Against the Giants being released by Paizo appeals to you, stick around.

As mentioned in the original post, I simply don't have any information about Against the Giants, because I never had the chance to play it; can you tell me about it?

"Sell me on X" isn't an insult to X; it's just a request. If I was trying to sell someone on Mummy's Mask, I wouldn't just tell them to get hyped about fighting mummies or GTFO (which appears to be the common response re: Giantslayer); I'd tell them about the history of Osirion's buried secrets, the excitement of being part of the first group of people to explore the necropolis of Wati, and discovering the existence of an artifact that will lead to them fighting a ghost-Pharoah on a flying Pyramid.

If I was selling someone on Reign of Winter, I wouldn't just say "do you like snow and witches? If not, then tough cookies". I'd tell them about how Irrisen was conquered by Baba Yaga, who leaves one of her daughters on the throne for a hundred years, and now it's snowing all over Avistan and Baba Yaga has been sealed away by an evil Snow Witch and you have to reassemble her from scratch by traveling across the plans in a chicken shack before confronting an evil ice witch on behalf of another evil, though slightly more stable, witch. Oh, and you get to travel to WWI and fight Rasputin.

That's a sell. So what don't I know about Belkzen that's likely to make Giantslayer awesome? Someone mentioned a Dwarven Sky Citadel, but it seems unlikely to come up since you leave Belkzen after the first two volumes, and those are focused on protecting a village. Is there cool, interesting stuff about Giants that I'm not aware of? The combat rules for fighting creatures of different sizes in Pathfinder mostly boils down to reach, but if they've announced something more interesting, I'd love to hear about it.


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spectrevk wrote:

"Sell me on X" isn't an insult to X; it's just a request. If I was trying to sell someone on Mummy's Mask, I wouldn't just tell them to get hyped about fighting mummies or GTFO (which appears to be the common response re: Giantslayer); I'd tell them /snip/

I'd tell them /snip/
I'd tell them /snip/

Would you have told them all that before the product was released?

(Heck, the updated AP descriptions for Giantslayer aren't even out yet.)

Your expectations are interesting... but premature.


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Against the Giants was the start of the first ever real AP. It started with Steading of the Hill Giant Chief which leads to the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl which the leads to The Hall of the Fire Giant King. King Snurre is a great villain. Then of course this leads to finding out about Drow and Kuo-toa and eventually leads to the Abyss and Lolth the spider goddess. I know this all sound rather routine to an experienced DM with all the complicated adventures that have been published since then. But this came out in the 70's 35 years ago. This was the first appearance of many iconic monsters, such as the drow. Back then it was remarkable, and all that followed is based in part on the GDQ example. So if nothing else Against the Giants is where it all started and 35 years later it is still a great adventure. That is IMO the definition of greatness.


Well if you don't work in sales, then you should at least think about it:-p


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You have the same information we do. What you do with that is, ultimately, up to you. Just felt it was worth pointing out that the writing quality and diversity of APs have been admirable since the beginning, even when at-a-glance implied something tame.

Personally, I'm hoping the bit about a Belkzen invasion means an alliance of necessity between the heroes and the orcish hordes. Also find myself longing more for a more generic adventure as time goes by. All of the gonzo and spice is getting so thick I want to wade back to Middle Earth.


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

I believe it's also the first time orcs get a major role in a Pathfinder AP. Besides a really small group in A History of Ashes, I believe, they have really been absent.

Scarab Sages

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spectrevk wrote:
It's not like there's a system in place for having to scurry up a guy's legs to club him to death.

Actually, there is.

The Exchange

Zaister wrote:
I believe it's also the first time orcs get a major role in a Pathfinder AP. Besides a really small group in A History of Ashes, I believe, they have really been absent.

The orcs appear in Skeletons of Scarwall, not a History of Ashes - clearly you have no idea what you are talking about ;)

More recently there were some orcs with the Lords of Rust in Iron Gods, but I dare say that most people looking for orc fighting have something else in mind than what Iron Gods can offer.

To the OP - like you, I don't really get the thrill of fighting giants - I am veru lukewarm about the concept. The selling point, as far as I am concerned, is that Paizo are darned good when it comes to revamping traditional D&D adventures. I think some of their very best adventures are those traditional ones. They are usually more surefooted than the experimental adventures, and have a sort of cohesivness that the more outlandish adventures sometime lack. So while Giantslayer is unlikely to be able to compete with Iron Gods or Reign of Winter when it comes to interesting concepts, I am sure that it's execution will be superb.

Sometimes, all you want is just a truly well made familiar story. Like going to an action movie - you are likely going to see a collection of tropes you encountered before, but it could still be very enjoyable.


Well, the Player's Guide for Giantslayer is out now, so we have a bit more info on the campaign. The starting town sounds interesting, but there isn't much more info on the development of the plot at this point. Does anyone have additional thoughts now that we've got more info on where the game will be starting?

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Well, like people have already said, we can't really know whats in the APs until they are released or at least until descriptions are updated, since old APs have had some curveballs in content. If nothing else, maybe we get backstory and motivations for Storm King or something.

We do know that apparently despite being about killing giants, this is going to have dragons since dragonfoe trait :P Kinda like how Rise of the runelords has giant slayer trait despite giants not appearing until much later.

I have to say, name of the AP and some specific traits make me want to make Attack on Titan parody <_<;

...Anyway, http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/advanced/magicItems/majorArtifacts.html Storm King's flying castle is on major artifacts list, but I'm not sure if that really interests anyone much. It does say that Storm King knows how to make it travel to other planes, so maybe that works as foreshadowing.

Dark Archive

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spectrevk wrote:

Looking through a few threads, it seems like Giantslayer, much like Iron Gods, has been a bit of a divisive issue. I count myself on the "Iron Gods" side of that equation, and I've been considering canceling my sub for Giantslayer, but before I do so, I want to be sure that I've given it a fair shake.

I consider myself a pretty open-minded guy; I enjoy 'traditional' dungeon crawling as much as anyone, but I also like to spice things up a bit with new ideas.

I'm on the other side of the fence. I've long since canceled my subscriptions because piazo has gone on "wacky" encounter design and adventures. (among other reasons) SO this will be the first paizo product I buy in a long time.

I like traditional adventures. But that might just be the old player in me. So giants, orcs and dragons sound like fun.


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I'm getting a big Kings of the Rift vibe from this. Sounds fun to me!

Dark Archive

To be honest, I have never seen a problem with Paizo making vanilla adventures even with something as "been there, done that" as orcs and giants. I am sure they will have some nice twists and very memorable and unique npc's as they always do. My issue with their AP's is that they seem to be quite unforgiving meatgrinders if you do not have a large, optimized party. I would say at least look at the first one or two books before giving up on it.


carmachu wrote:

I'm on the other side of the fence. I've long since canceled my subscriptions because piazo has gone on "wacky" encounter design and adventures. (among other reasons) SO this will be the first paizo product I buy in a long time.

I like traditional adventures. But that might just be the old player in me. So giants, orcs and dragons sound like fun.

I'm surprised that Shattered Star didn't appeal to you then. Collecting pieces of an artifact is pretty old-school. Mummy's Mask seemed pretty old school too, as even flying castles date back to Dragonlance. Ah well, to each their own definition of traditional.

Dark Archive

roguerouge wrote:


I'm surprised that Shattered Star didn't appeal to you then. Collecting pieces of an artifact is pretty old-school. Mummy's Mask seemed pretty old school too, as even flying castles date back to Dragonlance. Ah well, to each their own definition of traditional.

Mummy's mask wasnt that old school. I have no interest in egyptian themed parts of paizo's world.

Shattered star was ok. But the end BBG was too wacky, as were some other items. I might pick it up eventually and adapt parts of it for my own ends. It reminds me of the old Rod of Seven parts adventure.....but wackier in places.


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When the thing actually releases, I expect it will sell itself. Until people actually know what's in it (beyond the vaguest of blurbs), how could they possibly sell you on it?

What sells me is the fact that I've yet to come across an AP I didn't see a wealth of potential in, even when it came to AP's that dealt with subject matter I expressly didn't care for (like Iron Gods).


Well, with the book about to ship, I had to make a final decision, lest I be stuck with the first volume of an AP that I might not ever have any interest in running. Thanks for all of the discussion we've had here, everyone. I will (probably?) be back on-board for Hell's Rebels.


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Quite obviously, if you don't like giants, pass on this. Obviously the drow will not be pulling the strings in this AP, but who knows what it will bring.

It think you made the right decision. I would wait out the Giantslayer recruitments and psyche yourself up for the next one. Old school classic throwbacks aren't for everyone.


Oh, I might even reply to some of the Giantslayer recruitments; my standard for buying an AP is whether or not I'd be interested enough to run it. But I'll give almost anything a try as a player.


CorvusMask wrote:

Well, like people have already said, we can't really know whats in the APs until they are released or at least until descriptions are updated, since old APs have had some curveballs in content. If nothing else, maybe we get backstory and motivations for Storm King or something.

We do know that apparently despite being about killing giants, this is going to have dragons since dragonfoe trait :P Kinda like how Rise of the runelords has giant slayer trait despite giants not appearing until much later.

Don't be so sure, Iron Gods has the against the technic league trait but except book 5 you don't really fight technic league members.

PS The presence of the technic league is felt through the AP and the trait does it's job of tiying a player to the AP, it's just that the mechanical part of the trait does not come up a lot.


except you do leo:-)

:
books 1, 3, 4, and 6 even

maybe they don't line up for you to kick their ass, but they're there:-)

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