CastleDour's page

If you subscribe to a product line like the adventure paths, you get the book and you get the pdf early. Its not for one off purchases. I bought Curtain Call PDF and foundry vtt separately, for example. The vtt was discounted because I already bought the PDF. But id have to be subscribed to every adventure path if i wanted early PDF and physical book.

I didn't say they were similar, I said the type of person that likes one would probably like the other. They are characters that receive a lot of hate from those who don't like them. They both feel like self-inserts with main character syndrome.

Extinction Curse was never going to be a high level adventure about running a circus. I enjoyed playing through it and getting away from the cringe circus performances to actually be g~%%!#n heroes of Kortos. I think it is one of those APs that should have been two 3 part APs with clearer marketing for each, since a lot of people wanted it to be about the circus more and the whole way through, while for me it was just a distraction to a very straightforward fantasy adventure.

I really didn't get the hate the AP got. I feel like people just get weird about things without context; my table loves Sakuachi and Deniigi has been the source of at least two squabbles (two party members really like her and are bickering over who she thinks is cooler).

I love Pathfinder but sometimes I feel like I'm playing a different game after hearing from other members of the community lol.

If you liked the kitsune companion in wrath of the righteous crpg, you would probably like Sakuachi. Both very polarizing characters. My group hated Sakuachi.

I wonder if I can make Curtain Call work as a follow-up to the 1-10 Cheliax campaign in 2026.

Would be cool if Norgorber took over Cheliax from right under Thrune lol

Hoping for Hellknights or Old Cheliax soon!

Not only do the shorter ones sell better (in large part because there's twice as many opportunities to "get in on the ground floor" of the story), but they give customers twice as many opportuniteis to get excited about an Adventure Path (since we do four a year instead of two). The amount of time it takes the typical group to play through a 3 parter is generally more than 3 months, so by the time they're wrapping up, there's even MORE choices of where to go from there.

Also, while I do understand folks wanna play a pC from 1st to 20th level (that's my preferred method of play), many MORE folks are eager to always be building new PCs to try out new character concepts, in part because we continue to publish so many interesting and intriguing new options for new characters (ancestries in particular are VERY popular, and you can't easily switch your ancestry over on an established character). More opportunities to start a new campaign plays better into that sort of player mindset, I suspect.

For the time being, 3 part Adventure Paths are here to stay, in other words.

just kickstarter a 1-20 level campaign outside the 4 you are already doing when you are fully staffed up and release it in 2 or 3 years :) or contract it out to mark seifer and linda while granting them license to your full IP :P

Makes me hopeful for lost omens hellknights!!!

Battle of the bears.

Lost Omens Hellknights seems closer now, exciting!

Yeah and we haven't had any previews about NPC Core and I'm a lot more interested in this

Is this really coming out before the lost omens book?

The problem with art is I don't like having iconics in them. They now all have their own personalities, novels, biographies and history, and it's harder for players to replace them. Just show me the city, temple, monster, whatever. I don't need to see iconics in every image. That's the good thing about Lost Omens.

id prefer age of ashes or agents of edgewatch, SoG is really good as is

This is an interesting point. Do folks WANT us to provide maps for areas of importance where no combat or no tactical stuff plays out? I do love maps, but... they're the most complicated part of an adventure to create (since the authors we hire are generally experts at writing... not always at cartography, so that means that for a LOT of advnentures the developer ends up having to create the map turnovers themselves to send to the professional cartographer to do). The balance of text space to map space is also complicated, since adding maps not only takes up space text could have taken up, but often requires more text to contextualize the additional maps.

And they cost more; the more maps we put in, the less budget we have per volume for text and art.

It's all a balancing act, and the number of maps you generally see in a volume are all part of that balance. Adding maps = having to cut content in other areas, and vice versa.

That said... the idea that folks would prefer maps of areas where there's no need to do tactical combat stuff that requires maps is kind of a new request as far as I've seen over the past 20+ years of doing this, so that's why we chose not to include maps for these areas.

Yes, I want maps for non-combat encounters for Player Headquarters. This felt very much missing in Spore War and in Wardens of Wildwood. And Stolen Fate. Make less "generic forest / bridge / wasteland" maps, we can use the generic ones for that. HQ maps are always useful because the GM sometimes has to deal with things devolving into combat in their own base, or players want to bring back prisoners who can escape, or any number of events. It really helps set the context and immerse, especially with foundry vtt now.

It would be interesting to play as some sort of high level diplomatic corps type of character. I'm not sure for this one what I would build.

Please Paizo, I need character token art you made for Stabbing Beast human form in War for the Crown released. I can't find it anywhere.

We need a proper villains campaign where we actually fight angels, heralds of good deities and their champions, not villain vs villain again

I'm very happy with the heavy dose of Razmir content, and the focus on multi-lateral diplomacy. It felt well thought out and works.

What map are they using for the meetings at the estate in the Foundry VTT module? I half wish there was budget to include an original map of it since we spend so much time there this book.

Nice! Hoping for Cheliax next:) then we will have everything for the war

I'm more interested in being in service to evil powers for my own reasons than actually being evil.

I agree with ch2, I was impressed by the execution.

We've had years more practice at integrating Victory Point type stuff into Adventure Paths since Fist of the Ruby Phoenix; that feedbak's great, but I'd love to hear some similar feedback from more recent Adventure Paths that use this stuff. Curtain Call is a great example; with that one's focus away from lots of combat, I ended up using all sorts of Victory Point style rubrics for encounters there.

I'm critical of the research subsystem in curtain call, wasn't super interesting as a game system. Story was great but would rather less math.

so how much of Razmiran do you guys think we will see?

As James said, Paizo doesn't know which NPCs the group will connect with.

It's up to the GM to find ways to include the "important to your group" NPCs in the later books. Replacing new NPCs with the older ones is (typically) pretty easy, which is on the GM to do. Or the PCs checking in with the NPCs every once in awhile is a good, proactive way that the players can ensure that the NPCs feel like they're still around in the later books.

People on either side of the screen can help to keep NPCs around. It shouldn't be put on the shoulders of the writers.

A short story arc description can help guide a GM on how this NPC can get character development or make important choices. In 1e, we got this with many APs so it's nothing new to ask.

I enjoyed this book, but in almost every Paizo adventure, I feel like my players will side with the opposite NPCs that the adventure presents. I'm glad that there was text in the adventure offering the PCs to side against the orcs from the Darklands, and with the surface dwellers. The nastier, meaner, and stronger looking NPCs are always the cooler ones to ally with for some reason.

Overall, I quite like this book for its open-endedness, clear objectives and many ways to achieve them, the art is incredible as always, and the maps were interesting as well.

I'm sorry to the technology fans to say that I like the lack of guns in this one (I am not a fan of the orc deity who is a gun-totter).

Sometimes, you just want the orcs to be presented as magnificent bastards and cruel savages so you can enjoy allying with them and they won't be judgmental about your choices and mistakes lol

This AP is now fully published. Does it end well? Satisfyingly?

I hoped the siege of Wyvernsting would be longer and involve more large scale battles. Suffice to say I didn't like book 3 much...

Yes. The one thing I DON'T want is for the war to kick off and end in the same adventure. Things must change, but a war should take 3+ years to resolve. And Paizo can get feedback from the community before deciding where to go to resolve the war. I feel strongly that Geb is the more interesting faction to ally with, because I want to fight the horrors and mages of Nex more than more undead again.

Let the good vs. evil fight against undead campaign be against Tar-Baphon. And in Geb we can be the group of adventurers that joins undead.

I think we should fight Nex, and the adventure should be raising an army in Geb and scouting Nex in book 1, then full scale invasion of Nex in book 2, and in book 3, finish off the leaders and partial occupation of Quantum.

If we side with Nex, it would be very similar to Blood Lords where you fight Blood Lords in Geb. So more of the same.

But siding with Geb fighting in Nex is different and more interesting.

CastleDour wrote:

It would have cheapened the setting if the most prolific villainous deity was a meme conjured by the fandom. I thought it was amazing, I hope they make a novel to flesh things out.

Arguably it cheapens the setting for the super duper mysterious god Norgorber to have literally been a dude named Gorb.

I was always picturing like 4 halfling slaves from Cheliax scrabbling to become a god from nothing; Gorb literally is just the meme of the surprisingly well adjusted rogue.

And in any case, we didn't need outright confirmation that all of the ascended are, indeed, humans. Even just a halfling or gnome in the mix would have helped.

What did you find interesting about the revelations in his backstory besides your disappointment that he wasn't halflings?

I like that he has a stupid name, is polite, and has a sense of humor. He was just a regular human before he became an edgelord villain. It's cliché that every villain must have a deep voice, be tall, menacing and abusive, with an ultra on the nose evil name like Starscream.

Also, Gorb is his last name. His first name is Jaxter, which is fine.

Necromancer class makes me want to kick some Nexian butt!! Burn down the flesh forges! All hail king Geb!

It would have cheapened the setting if the most prolific villainous deity was a meme conjured by the fandom. I thought it was amazing, I hope they make a novel to flesh things out.

Is the vampire fully statted as a vampire? From what I remember vampires are notoriously difficult to kill for low level players. (Not a critique, in fact I kinda hope he is statted as a full vampire)

Yes, he's a vampire count from monster core.

It took a third party (shout out to MythKeeper on Youtube) to point out just how connected Belkzen could be for multiple trade routes and how their positioning is one of Ardax's primary motivations.

Yes, we need a lot more political context for these types of APs that present a region.

The maps are very cool. Not a fan of the majority of NPCs, the pathfinder one seems particularly out of place. I don't like the Lastwall one. Exceptions are the vampire who is a delicious addition, and the berserker lady who wants to hulk smash but she's also a secret Ardax supporter.

Honestly, we needed a lot more backmatter to flesh out the politics of Orcs. I don't understand what's going on, what's happening with the rebels, it doesn't feel all that immersive to me. Can I request the backmatter be linked to the adventures again, instead of being about more deities or mini adventures or a region that the PCs won't even go to. This would make the books much more valuable in my opinion.

Book 2 is a lot better than book 1 imo. Huge fan of the One Eye hold, the Oathsworn orcs, and the last boss. Beautiful art for each of those 3.

I am disappointed there are no grave orcs mentioned.

I would be excited to play an Anakin style switch from good to evil playthrough.

Ancestries would be the easiest, and I'd be interested to see what might be done with a "gnome" or "halfling" AP as they don't have particular homelands. Religions could be very interesting, though I'd do pantheons or accords rather than solo deities unless said deity is the ultimate villain, e.g. Norgorber in Curtain Call. A Radiant Prism three-parter makes all kinds of sense in all kinds of ways (bonus points if it either kicks off or concludes in June).

I adore Strength of Thousands, so I'd be up for an organization AP. The only snag is that an AP centred around one of the bigger organizations should probably be a six-parter. The scope of SoT showed a lot what the Magaambya does, and I greatly appreciated that. A Pathfinder AP (as in, the players are officially Pathfinders) deserves no less, and it could easily have that same mix of overarching plot and side stories. However, you could get into smaller organizations with a three-parter. A high level Riftwarden AP could work very well, as would a low or mid-level AP that gives us Eagle Knight or Lion Blade intrigue.

I'm also hopeful for a nation AP. The Runelord trilogy, Rebels/Vengeance duology, and War for the Crown are excellent, and a number of others have touched on such matters as well. I've wanted an Andoran AP for quite some time now.

Highly political APs are complicated to develop, but they pay off, because they do a lot of work for GMs. Especially paired with a Lost Omens region book.

I would love a full on morally grey or evil AP. Let us work once again for Geb! Or Cheliax. Or Norgorber!

Man..

My DREAM themes are...

TENGU.

HELLKNIGHTS.

And this is something really out there, but a new 6-part Kingmaker in a new region, new story, new everything... this would make me super excited. Building your own kingdom is the ultimate wish for players, conceptually, if you can pull off the army battles.

When you eventually turn your attention to political / war theater / intrigue heavy / deep dive on one region APs, I think the model for Wrath of the Righteous worked really well and hope to see more of, where the NPCs get an arc and work on their agendas. Just an idea!

I'm noticing this pattern.

Book 1 introduces NPC side character allies
Book 2 never references them again, and introduces new allies
Book 3 never references them again, and introduces new allies

You usually only have the main NPC questgiver that stays around.

Would it be difficult to have follow through on these characters without them being GMPCs following you everywhere (like the hated Sakuachi in Gatewalkers)?

Razmir cultist on the cover?

I agree that the writers should choose more judiciously what to focus on. Often times, the main story feels disregarded because the author thought it would be cool to have a scene in an arena, a casino, or make an obscure reference to an old film, and take up a lot of word count on that scene, rather than weave the plot around the main attraction of the story.

Sometimes, it works. You clearly enjoyed the devil gambling scene, for example.

But overall, it ends up feeling like everything is a bit disconnected and recycled for me.

What I love about the adventure path line is the fantastic art, the maps, the backmatter when it lifts the story (I don't feel the backmatters in book 1 and 2 were satisfying to read) and the main ideas for the AP are always strong (even though the execution usually strays from the main plot).

What I love about Bring the House Down, and why I think it's the best of the 3 books, is that I don't feel there's any self-indulgent side quest self-insert with quirky NPCs from the author's live game. There's no distractions. It stays with the story it wants to tell and executes on it.

I am really in love with the idea of A Story of Secrets, and I would kill for a fully-fledged theatrical text with all the "The text is dense, complex, and riddled with deliberate confusion and contradictory elements, but a close study of its pages can reveal very real secrets about Norgorber’s early childhood in Vyre." part.

I think it would be a blast to just give the text to my players and instead of rolling checks for the research subsystem let them dissecate the book and compare notes with the information all other sources could present "in roleplay" with dialogues and interactions to slowly let them put Norgorber backstory together by themselves.

PS: Please I would also kill for a portuguese translation that kept the lyrical aspects of the text such as metric and rhymes. I'm awful translating lyrical textes.

I'm dying for the full length novel where Norgorber meets his djinn friend and gives him poisons to transform him into Venomfist. Passes the test of the Starstone. Looks for his missing sister. And rescues his sickly friend and mentor Thamir from the river of souls.

CastleDour wrote:

Predictions on what evil god is in Belkzen?

Urgothoa? Demon Lord? The God of the Ghouls?

Based on the title?

Zagresh.

Well done lol

so any official word yet? are they waiting a few weeks before explaining what's going on?

The audiobook investment is impressive, Samantha Moon did a fantastic job voice acting everybody. I can't imagine anyone else trying to do Kyra. Maybe use some music you have available, since you have a large library of sounds and music at your disposal?

Mark, can you tell us if the sales are encouraging you to do more novels? I need more pathfinder novels...badly.

Also, when you click on godsrain on the main page, the link doesn't work.

Aren't the vampires in Shades of Blood trying to destroy the sun?

What about Jaethal? Wouldn't that nake it 5? But now there is an inquisitor class finally. Hope we get a statblock for her.

I REALLY hope more Norgorberite Vancaskerkins show up in adventures. Best family in Golarion.

Stolen Fate has a chapter set in Absalom. Dead God's Hand, releasing in next year, will happen under Absalom. Outside of those you mentioned...that's it!

I hope we get more adventures set in Absalom!