Introducing the Seven Dooms for Sandpoint Player’s Guide

[Stone Dog]

And there was much rejoicing!

[Anorak]

Ohh its good to be back for this!

[The Raven Black]

Just perused it and I love it. Thanks a lot.

All those familiar places and people. Was it that long ago ?

Now to read every word with glee and delight.

Notes : Kendra does look older but Hemlock younger. Is there an error in the name for the picture ?

Will you find the Azlanti heir hidden in this guide ?

[Jason, The Podfinder]

Dang, that is a beefy player's guide! Love to see all the info about Sandpoint printed in there for us. Thanks!

[Calcryx666]

Loving the updated Sandpoint locals artwork, *chefs kiss* especially Bethana, so sweet
Also, the interactive narrative to get new characters to level 4, so cool! Great job all round, now the real wait begins for some Dooms

[James Jacobs]

The Raven Black wrote:

Just perused it and I love it. Thanks a lot.

All those familiar places and people. Was it that long ago ?

Now to read every word with glee and delight.

Notes : Kendra does look older but Hemlock younger. Is there an error in the name for the picture ?

Will you find the Azlanti heir hidden in this guide ?

Everyone in town is 17 years older than they were in Burnt Offerings. Hemlock started out quite a bit younger than Kendra, though. Also, everyone ages differently.

It's not an error in the art or its caption, in any case.

[James Jacobs]

Calcryx666 wrote:

Loving the updated Sandpoint locals artwork, *chefs kiss* especially Bethana, so sweet

Also, the interactive narrative to get new characters to level 4, so cool! Great job all round, now the real wait begins for some Dooms

Been eager to try something out like that interactive thing for helping to create higher than 1st level characters for quite a while—ever since we switched things up to 3-part Adventure Paths in fact. Hope folks enjoy it! Won't be something we can do for every Adventure Path that starts at higher than 1st level, for sure, but I did want to make this player's guide feel extra special in some way since it's all part of the "we've been doing this for 200 months non-stop" celebration.

Well... at least until now, since we took a month off for this one in order to be able to get out a double-sized volume on the same schedule.

[rimestocke]

This player's guide is definitely giving 200th Adventure Path milestone given how thick it is comparatively to previous player's guides lol! And reading through it, I'm definitely feeling excited to try playing this AP despite not having any nostalgia for Sandpoint at all (since I started with 2e). Extra kudos to the the First Adventure section, that was a nice touch, and I appreciate there being option for locals and non-locals! Although it's making me waver on whether to start with Rusthenge (my original plan) or forgoing that and just start with this, haha. Decisions, decisions...

[QuidEst]

Kudos to Paizo for hitting such a big milestone! There's also a nice sense of closure, wrapping up the OGL with #200. I remember the big #100, so it's cool to be around to see this as well.

[keftiu]

Massive congrats on the long road to #200 - not many can say they've done something similar!

[pixierose]

Ohh one of these backgrounds would be perfect for a character from one of the rise of the rune lords games I joined but it never really got off the ground.

[rainzax]

Got to book #2 in Rise, and GM moved to Australia.

One character died, had my backup ready to go.

If I get into this game, I will play him!

[MadamReshi]

Oh wow! There's a gazetteer in here for Sandpoint!

I was at some point going to pick up the AP; being a newer fan of the system and setting, I really do want to dive into a special moment and at-least read and appreciate it (if not run it at some point).

But I was also interested because my party in my own campaign are coincidentally going towards Sandpoint, and will probably be there by the time the book drops.

The fact the Sandpoint gazetter is in the player's guide - oh this is going to be SO useful to me.

Really fascinated to read this AP and be inspired by it.

And yeah. Congrats on 200. That's something special.

[Evan Tarlton]

It was good to see some of those names again, and find out about how they've progressed since we last checked in on them. (Mawwiage!) I like how some plot threads were hinted at in the guide. And who was the trailer's VA?

[NerdOver9000]

I just want to say I really enjoyed the first adventure system for this one, and I hope to see it again in future player guides for adventures not starting at level 1.

[James Jacobs]

NerdOver9000 wrote:

I just want to say I really enjoyed the first adventure system for this one, and I hope to see it again in future player guides for adventures not starting at level 1.

I wouldn't expect it to show up in future player's guides, just to manage expectations. It was a bit of extra work to make happen, and especially for ones that start at 11th level or so, the amount of work would be pretty significant. For now, think of it as a special bonus to help make #200 feel special, I suppose!

[Kevin Mack]

So whos the lady on the inside front cover dont think Ive seen her before but could be mistaken?

[James Jacobs]

Kevin Mack wrote:

So whos the lady on the inside front cover dont think Ive seen her before but could be mistaken?

She's a new, never-before-seen NPC who's in the adventure itself. Whether she's friend or foe is something you'll have to wait to find out when you read or play the adventure! :-)

[Elfteiroh]

James Jacobs wrote:

NerdOver9000 wrote:

I just want to say I really enjoyed the first adventure system for this one, and I hope to see it again in future player guides for adventures not starting at level 1.

I wouldn't expect it to show up in future player's guides, just to manage expectations. It was a bit of extra work to make happen, and especially for ones that start at 11th level or so, the amount of work would be pretty significant. For now, think of it as a special bonus to help make #200 feel special, I suppose!

I'll be honest, the plot hooks are so interesting, I might flesh it out into a full 1 to 4 adventure if I ever get to GM it... :O

[Secondary Nova]

So it recommends the Runelord archetype, with the dissolution of the magic schools how do we play that one. Or do we just play that one as per pre-master rules.

[Jonathan Morgantini]

Secondary Nova wrote:

So it recommends the Runelord archetype, with the dissolution of the magic schools how do we play that one. Or do we just play that one as per pre-master rules.

Our first Remaster AP is going to be Wardens of Wildwood. Seven Dooms is our final Adventure Path using the OGL pre-Remaster rules.

[James Jacobs]

The pre-remaster and remaster rules are all still 2nd edition. If your group wants to play this using the remastered rules, your GM will still need to reference some of the Bestiaries for monsters that are OGL-only, and likewise to spells and magic items as needed. For players, using any of the remastered classes works fine unless you want to play a wizard with the runelord archetype, in which case just play the Secrets of Magic version of the class and archetype.

That all said, yeah, this adventure and its Player's Guide are OGL publications, not remastered ones, so that's why you're seeing references to alignment and the runelord archetype in the Player's Guide.

[Hikuen]

The "Your First Adventure" section of the players guide makes me cry GM tears of joy! A mini, speed-run choose your own adventure story for the group to automatically create a series of past events everyone was involved in? Omg yes!

Please do this for every single adventure going forward (AP, standalone, one-shot, whatever) that starts past 1st level.
No more of this "you all start at level 15, and may or may not have been adventuring with each other before this... discuss with your group about previous adventures you've possibly had and how it affects the group dynamic going forward"

Players dont want homework, they want gameplay... and gameplay that creates a party dynamic before the real adventure even starts is amazing and wonderful

Heartfelt thank you to whoever came up with this idea!

[Master Pugwampi]

Stone Dog wrote:

And there was much rejoicing!

Little banners appear over a far hill with a faint, "Yay!"

[Elfteiroh]

Hikuen wrote:

The "Your First Adventure" section of the players guide makes me cry GM tears of joy! A mini, speed-run choose your own adventure story for the group to automatically create a series of past events everyone was involved in? Omg yes!

Please do this for every single adventure going forward (AP, standalone, one-shot, whatever) that starts past 1st level.
No more of this "you all start at level 15, and may or may not have been adventuring with each other before this... discuss with your group about previous adventures you've possibly had and how it affects the group dynamic going forward"

Players dont want homework, they want gameplay... and gameplay that creates a party dynamic before the real adventure even starts is amazing and wonderful

Heartfelt thank you to whoever came up with this idea!

From the bureau of Expectation Management, a couple posts above on this page:

James Jacobs wrote:

NerdOver9000 wrote:

I just want to say I really enjoyed the first adventure system for this one, and I hope to see it again in future player guides for adventures not starting at level 1.

I wouldn't expect it to show up in future player's guides, just to manage expectations. It was a bit of extra work to make happen, and especially for ones that start at 11th level or so, the amount of work would be pretty significant. For now, think of it as a special bonus to help make #200 feel special, I suppose!

Even for only 4 levels this takes a LOT of page space. For lvl 1 to 11 this would be quite unlikely to get this on a free document... And paid ones have al;so pretty strict page counts. So unlikely.

[Nullpunkt]

I love the Your First Adventure section!!

Of course, I totally understand that this is not something we can expect for future products. But hopefully it will inspire creative folks for Pathfinder Infinite offerings along these lines!

[Old_Man_Robot]

Jonathan Morgantini wrote:

Secondary Nova wrote:

So it recommends the Runelord archetype, with the dissolution of the magic schools how do we play that one. Or do we just play that one as per pre-master rules.

Our first Remaster AP is going to be Wardens of Wildwood. Seven Dooms is our final Adventure Path using the OGL pre-Remaster rules.

I take it that we won’t be seeing a Remastered Runelord archetype in 7 Dooms then?

Seemed like such a natural place for it as well.

[UnArcaneElection]

Seems like the adventure bits at the end could be fleshed out into a full adventure -- or pair of adventures if you have PCs coming from out of town and PCs who grew up in Sandpoint.

[Aenigma]

I just watched the YouTube video about this adventure path. Is the narrator Nualia? I totally didn't expect she would come back! I wonder who the voice actor is.

Am I the only one who thinks her voice sounds irritated and sore, or do others think so too?

By the way, for example, Burnt Offerings and Spires of Xin-Shalast are the titles of the adventure books, while Rise of the Runelords is the title of the adventure path. So if Seven Dooms for Sandpoint is the title of this book, then what is the title of this adventure path?

Does this adventure path have OGL-only monsters? I really wish it doesn't, because that would help GMs use this adventure path under Pathfinder Remaster.

[Shisumo]

Anyone else find it odd that none of the Campaign Backgrounds give training in the skill needed for the corresponding skill feat?

[Dragonchess Player]

Shisumo wrote:

Anyone else find it odd that none of the Campaign Backgrounds give training in the skill needed for the corresponding skill feat?

This has been explained with previous Players Guides: One of the reasons some AP-specific backgrounds are Rare is that they grant feats without needing to meet the prerequisites; as well as additional benefits directly tied to the AP. I believe the guidance is the GM can also have the backgrounds grant trained proficiency in the skill for the feat without being overpowered.

[Anorak]

Aenigma wrote:

Is the narrator Nualia? I totally didn't expect she would come back! I wonder who the voice actor is.

Yes (?) and the actor is Margaret Wyl

https://www.voicegiant.com/artist/margaretwyl

Quote:

Am I the only one who thinks her voice sounds irritated and sore, or do others think so too?

Nope! But coming back from the dead (?) can do that to a person

Also, the opening sound reminds me of the music when Cersei blew up the Sept of Baelor.

[TSRodriguez]

Came here just to comment that the Entry challenges are the best idea ever. Love it, I hope to see it repeat in the APs
Reading through the player guide is such a trip down the memory lane, I missed these colorful guys

[James Jacobs]

Aenigma wrote:

I just watched the YouTube video about this adventure path. Is the narrator Nualia? I totally didn't expect she would come back! I wonder who the voice actor is.

Am I the only one who thinks her voice sounds irritated and sore, or do others think so too?

By the way, for example, Burnt Offerings and Spires of Xin-Shalast are the titles of the adventure books, while Rise of the Runelords is the title of the adventure path. So if Seven Dooms for Sandpoint is the title of this book, then what is the title of this adventure path?

Does this adventure path have OGL-only monsters? I really wish it doesn't, because that would help GMs use this adventure path under Pathfinder Remaster.

Since this is a one-volume Adventure Path, the name of the Adventure Path and the name of the book are the same thing.

This adventure is an OGL adventure, just like the 199 that came before it, so it'll have about the same amount of mix as those that came before. If you want to run this adventure using ONLY remastered creatures, you'll need to replace some of them, but that's kind of a waste of time I think since the only reason you'd have to do that is if you were republishing this adventure in print to make money. Which you can't do. Playing it as a home game... you don't have to do any replacements at all. It's still 2nd edition Pathfinder.

[James Jacobs]

Shisumo wrote:

Anyone else find it odd that none of the Campaign Backgrounds give training in the skill needed for the corresponding skill feat?

Dragonchess Player has it 100% correct in their response to this.

Furthermore, relaxing the idea that you have to link training in the granted skill to the granted bonus feat lets us make MUCH more specific combinations for backgrounds, which not only lets us make things more thematically appropriate for an Adventure Path, but it helps to avoid repetition as we continue to make 4 to 8 new rare backgrounds every 3 months or so. If your PC wants to gain training in the feat associated with their background skill, that's a great use for one of the bonus skill proficiencies you can choose for your class.

[Unicore]

This is absolutely amazing! Great job to everyone involved with it.

[crovaxpso]

With the understanding that the "choose your own adventure" section takes a lot of work, I still have to say that I would love to see something like this for other adventures that don't start at level 1. Such a cool idea!

[Kevin Mack]

James Jacobs wrote:

NerdOver9000 wrote:

I just want to say I really enjoyed the first adventure system for this one, and I hope to see it again in future player guides for adventures not starting at level 1.

I wouldn't expect it to show up in future player's guides, just to manage expectations. It was a bit of extra work to make happen, and especially for ones that start at 11th level or so, the amount of work would be pretty significant. For now, think of it as a special bonus to help make #200 feel special, I suppose!

If not in another players guide maybe in some other form of book (some sort of rulebook or chapter in a book with a few pre-generated more generic ones of these that could be popped into the start of a campaign?)

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

crovaxpso wrote:

With the understanding that the "choose your own adventure" section takes a lot of work, I still have to say that I would love to see something like this for other adventures that don't start at level 1. Such a cool idea!

I'd bet this would make a fantastic Pathfinder Infinite product for other APs that start at higher level.

[Yoshua]

The choose your own adventure style of backstory creation is great in this players guide. Love what you did there :D

[Cralius the Dark]

UnArcaneElection wrote:

Seems like the adventure bits at the end could be fleshed out into a full adventure -- or pair of adventures if you have PCs coming from out of town and PCs who grew up in Sandpoint.

Exactly. I have been preparing Rusthenge for my players. I already had them taking the ship to Sandpoint. Then I read the entry about the Sea Drake in the players guide. Think I will combine the the two and flesh it out.

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

I had the same thought.

[Aenigma]

Sigh. I'm really frustrated that this is a one-book adventure path. I honestly think it has the potential to be a six-book adventure path. I wonder why Paizo made such a decision.

[Jonathan Morgantini]

Aenigma wrote:

Sigh. I'm really frustrated that this is a one-book adventure path. I honestly think it has the potential to be a six-book adventure path. I wonder why Paizo made such a decision.

It was designed as a one book Adventure Path for a couple reasons. 200 issues is a big deal and we wanted to do something special and its the end of the OGL in our Adventure Paths.

As for why its not six books. We posted a while ago that six book APs were going away for the foreseeable future. They eat up a LOT of resources, the middle books usually do not sell as well as the beginning, and if the plot/themes didnt interest someone, thats a full six months they would need to wait before there was something new coming out.

[Elfteiroh]

Aenigma wrote:

Sigh. I'm really frustrated that this is a one-book adventure path. I honestly think it has the potential to be a six-book adventure path. I wonder why Paizo made such a decision.

1: It has the pagecount of about two books.

2: The book have reduced back matters compared to two AP books, "saving" about 10 to 20 pages for the adventure. (I don't have it yet, so the exact number is speculation. First one is if it still has 1 book's worth of back matter, second one is if they only have the "bestiary", NPCs, and "toolbox" directly relevant to the adventure.)
3: The player guide is extra big at 37 pages, which is more than double the averaage of pages for player guides, more that 4 times the smallest PF2 one, and 12 more page that the second biggest one... so even worst case scenario, that's 12 pages more for "free", of stuff that liberate space for adventure text in the book "proper".
4: It's ~55$, ~5$ less than two AP books... So we definitely get a lot for our money here.

And based from what we know of the original "office game" this is based on, IMHO this is probably the best format, and should cover all the big story points that can be sorted out for publishing.

[Easl]

Kudos for the guide for players,
Useful for all potential slayers!
But what's with the 'goblin warning', jack?
If we can't visit Sandpoint...hack hack hack!

[Belabras]

Stoked for this!

[James Jacobs]

Aenigma wrote:

Sigh. I'm really frustrated that this is a one-book adventure path. I honestly think it has the potential to be a six-book adventure path. I wonder why Paizo made such a decision.

Jonathan covers this reasoning above, but to add to it:

The original pitch for this to be a 200 page celebration of 200 months of Adventure Path volumes all contained in a single volume of a self-contained Adventure Path that takes you from 4th level to 12th level was my idea, and it's why I also pitched a 4-part Season of Ghosts Adventure Path just before it so that previous one would end on volume #199, and since it was a celebration of the accomplishment, having it be a sequel to Burnt Offerings and based on what is probably the first-ever Pathfinder RPG campaign to ever get played all seemed like a strong idea.

Having #100 land in the middle of an Adventure Path was unsatisfying and didn't have as big a splash as we were hoping. So we did things different with #200.

Could this have been a full 6 part adventure path? Yes, but bear in mind that the original campaign this is based on went from about 1st to 12th level before I moved on to a totally different campaign. Having this skew up a few level to start from 4th was a change I made so that the end fights could retain their scale and to feature some established foes that need 11th level PCs to face off against. Doing the full thing would have required either a 4 part Adventure Path (akin to the 1st to 12th saga of Season of Ghosts) or a 256 or so page product, which we didn't have the resources to pull off. You'll note that a 200 page book is twice the length of a single Adventure Path, and that we skipped an Adventure Path release in February to account for that for our internal process as much as for customer wallets. Doing a single 1st to 12th one would have strained both too much.

Personally, I feel happy with the creative vision and result of Seven Dooms for Sandpoint as a single 200 page Adventure Path volume. I do appreciate the concept of someone wanting more adventure words from me, but this isn't a case of us significantly truncating what could have been a full 1st to 20th level Adventure Path down to "just one book."

[The Raven Black]

James Jacobs wrote:

The original pitch for this to be a 200 page celebration of 200 months of Adventure Path volumes all contained in a single volume of a self-contained Adventure Path that takes you from 4th level to 12th level was my idea,

And now I wonder if there will be small nods/references/easter eggs related to all the APs that came before in this one.

[James Jacobs]

The Raven Black wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

The original pitch for this to be a 200 page celebration of 200 months of Adventure Path volumes all contained in a single volume of a self-contained Adventure Path that takes you from 4th level to 12th level was my idea,

And now I wonder if there will be small nods/references/easter eggs related to all the APs that came before in this one.

Not to all of them, but to some of them where it makes sense for the plot of this adventure.