A Complete Campaign with Dungeons—and Dragons!
I’m Ron Lundeen, the development manager responsible for the Abomination Vaults Adventure Path. At Paizo, we have a lot of confidence in our adventures. We’ve been crafting phenomenal campaigns for many years, and the Pathfinder Second Edition rules have only helped us make more. The Abomination Vaults Adventure Path has been one of our best campaigns, and our fans love it. But a lot more gamers all over the world play the newest edition of the world’s oldest RPG, and we wanted to show them how great Paizo’s Adventure Paths can be, too.
Cover Illustration by Setiawan Lee
Once we realized what a hit we had in the Abomination Vaults Adventure Path, we started a Pathfinder Second Edition compilation and a 5E conversion at roughly the same time. James Jacobs, Vanessa Hoskins, and Stephen Radney-MacFarland had done phenomenal work creating the three individual Adventure Path volumes. The story, maps, and art were already in place. So while I was compiling the Pathfinder Second Edition version, I brought in David N. Ross, a 5E expert, to convert the entire campaign from its 1st-level beginning all the way to its 11th-level conclusion. This conversion is a rules overhaul from the ground up. We streamlined all the combat encounters, adjusted all the treasure, adjusted all the XP awards, and loaded the book with tons of 5E stat blocks.
This isn’t the first time we’ve adapted one of our adventures to a different game’s rules. It’s not even the first time we’ve adapted one of our campaigns to the 5E rules: that would be the Kingmaker Adventure Path. But while the Kingmaker 5E rules cover an extensive bestiary of monsters and NPCs, the Abomination Vaults Adventure Path gives you a complete 5E campaign in a single book! This hardcover is the only thing you need to run this campaign at your gaming table—from a complete gazetteer of the town of Otari to every one of the ten dungeon levels beneath the eerie Gauntlight lighthouse. There are doors to be kicked down, loot to be plundered, side quests to fulfill, people to help, and even a few dragons to fight.
One of the things I loved about putting this book together was all the extra art we could include. Pathfinder Second Edition players already know what grothluts, gogiteths, and shulns are. We have those monsters illustrated in our Pathfinder Bestiary. But 5E players don’t know what they are, so I packed in a lot of our art to show them off.
Of course, all these new critters need 5E stats, and the Abomination Vaults Adventure Path provides them. This hardcover is a great 5E resource, even if only as a great big book of new monster and NPC stats. Shulns for everyone!
Illustration by João Fiuza
But the key, as always, is the story. Despite the differences in rules, the Abomination Vaults Adventure Path is still the tale of the sleepy coastal town of Otari, the Gauntlight’s dread light, and the spiteful ghost who lurks deep underground. Heroes must explore the dungeon, solve its mysteries, and help the helpless. That’s a story I love telling in any rules system.
Ron Lundeen
Development Manager
The Abomination Vaults Comes to 5E!
Wednesday, June 01, 2022
