fyrekrest's page

For PF2, the Animate Dead spell gives the summoned undead creature the Summoned trait, which means that it has the Minion trait. So the continued existence of the undead creature is consuming actions from the necromancer. So I would likely still not change the CR rating of the enemy even if it is summoning minion creatures.

Glad I asked, because I completely overlooked this and it completely changes the difficulty! Thank you!

Hello PF collective!

I'm hoping to draw on the wisdom of the community with regards to encounter building. First, I'll preface it by saying that I love how easy it is to build encounters with the PF2e system. So simple, so easy, and usually pretty accurate. At least for straight forward combats!

When building important encounters, I love to bring in some kind of twist like terrain or changing phases, to keep things interesting. I'm currently building a couple encounters that have similar concepts wherein new enemies join on additional rounds. But how do I calculate this into the encounter builder formula?

Let's use a 5th level party with 4 players as the base with two different types of scenarios:

A CR 5 enemy (40 xp, trivial threat) dies and immediately comes back as a CR 7 enemy (80 xp, moderate threat). Would this encounter as a whole be 120 exp and Severe? A little weaker, since they don't fight both enemies at the same time? Or two separate encounters?

A CR 7 necromancer (80 xp) with 4 CR1 lackeys (10 xp each) = 120 xp total, Severe Threat. The lackeys are intended to die almost immediately so the boss can use animate dead spell to bring them back, casting it as a 4th level spell (to get a CR3 Wight), then 3rd level spell (to get a CR2 Ghast), then 2nd level spell (to get a CR1 ghoul). How do I even calculate this? Since the necromancer is using spells readily available to him, do I even add the additional creatures count as additional XP to the encounter? If so, would the same concept apply if any spell caster summons some kind of ally (the additional ally = additional xp to the encounter budget)?

Not sure if I've missed this in the rules, but I've been looking and can't find anything, so I appreciate the help!

Hello,

I'm currently running a homebrewed adaptation of Curse of the Crimson Throne and I'm in need of an upcoming side quest. I'm hoping the community might have some suggestions for a portion of an existing AP (1e or 2e) or even other published material that I can use. Hoping for something along the lines of going into a druid grove / magical valley / etc, to solicit the help of the local druids/fey/elves/etc, but something dark and twisted has poisoned the area and needs to be resolved.

I'm totally open to reflavoring things, rewriting things, etc, and just looking for even a minimum framework for inspiration. I'm currently considering reflavoring the Shoanti portion of the Curse of the Crimson Throne, but I'm wondering what else might be out there.

I'd love to hear your suggestions!

One of the most common complaints I see for PF1/2 and it's published AP line is the number of speedbump/filler combats designed to erode party resources and bump XP to where it needs to be. It feels like disengaging from the 'XP to Advance' model could resolve those issues in one swoop.

I could argue that the experience/memories formed playing the game should be reward enough after a session (in addition to any gold, magic items, new allies, etc...), and getting to do additional math to see if I level up is not much of a reward/incentive, at least not for me personally.

It might even help more people complete more adventure paths (which many groups seem not to do) if there are fewer filler combats, especially when combat at higher levels can take hours to resolve....

Well said!

Experience to incentivize or reward players is great. But unnecessary and irrelevant encounters simply to inflate the experience isn't adding anything to a story, it's only bogging things down to cater to what is arguably an outdated mechanic (at least for many players). And that's not saying random or side encounters can't be enjoyable, because lots of them are.

Maybe in APs some encounters could be labelled as optional, or others as "plot-centric" or something? That could be a way for the writer to signal that somes encounter aren't directly relevant to the story. And, before anyone argues that "every encounter is optional, you can change anything you want!", we don't always have foresight into what might be coming up. And, many people who play APs do so because they don't want to just want to pick up and play without having to read (and especially edit) six books before the first session.

Can I ask - how does Abomination Vaults not scratch this itch? It’s a dungeon, beneath a pretty classic Western high fantasy town, and it sold well enough to get a compilation hardcover.

"- Abomination Vault seemed cool, but I was hoping to avoid a mega dungeon. This would have been my top pick though, if I had to stick with a 2e AP."

The only issue I had with Abomination Vault is that it was a mega dungeon, and I don't think my group would have enjoyed that. Otherwise, it seemed cool.

And goes to prove my point: lots of people respond really well to the classic stuff. :)

I'm not actually sure what "traditional" means here. I get what you mean by "exotic", and I, too, don't really care for planet-hopping/world-spanning stories and would be quite content to see an AP pick a theme and stick with it, but a lot of what you cite as "traditional" seems to not fit that framework too well. What is an example of what you'd like to see them do more of?

Hmmm, perhaps "consistent" would be a better way to say it. Like you said, pick a theme and stick with it. Not a new theme, a new idea every page, with so many stitched together that the main idea gets lost easily.

Age of Ashes, I feel, would have been improved by less globe trotting. Seeing Golarion is cool, or at least I think so, but the execution didn't seem to work well. They asked "Wait, what about that castle?" and "Why are we here again? For the kobolds? Or the elephant people? Or the elves?" In fact, I think any of the Age of Ashes books (or at least the first four, and possibly the fifth and sixth though I haven't read them as thoroughly) would have made an amazing AP their own. Breachhill was fun and interesting, as was the idea of rebuilding Hellknight Hill. Akrivel was amazing, my players loved it. I'm certain they would have really enjoyed Ravounel, and the dwarven fortress. But everything together was too much, it was a case of the whole being less than the sum of it's parts.

Simiarily, Extinction Curse seemed cool, there didn't seem to be a need to tie it into a circus. I felt it just devalued the entire AP.

Strength of Thousands would have been awesome... except we were going to Mars.

I would just love to see some of the ideas get edited down, remove some of the unnecessary additions. Paizo clearly has talented writers, but a lot of it gets lost in the noise.

(see multiple well thought out posts above)

You've got plenty of good points in several of your points, and I appreciate the conversation. I don't know enough about all of the APs you're referencing, so I can't comment on everything.

But, I think it's important to reiterate my main sentiment: there seems to be TOO MANY ideas stuffed into even the the most "vanilla / classical / traditional", so many that it becomes distracting. A lot of them are cool ideas, I don't deny that. But when it seems every encounter of every chapter of every book is filled with something equally as exotic or rare, I personally don't feel that it adds value. It all just becomes overwhelming noise.

And while plenty of folks disagree with me (and they have every right to, it's all a subjective matter of opinion), there are also lots of folks who agree with me. Once upon a time, Paizo was whooping WOTC's butt with customers. That clearly isn't the case now (which is not saying they have less customers than they had before which I obviously have no idea about, but there are obviously MANY D&D customers that I'm sure Paizo would LOVE to win over). And a lot of those players are new to TTRPGs and likely would find the more traditional fantasy adventures an easier place to start. There is clearly an opportunity that is being missed, because multiple people have voiced similar opinions.

On a side note, I also appreciate your mini history lesson on the old vs modern Paizo. I never thought of it that way, but I agree. And I think that actually further illustrates my point. My point being, things seem to be going more extreme as time goes on.

If this thread could be closed because it's gone wildly off track and I've since started a second thread that I feel was better articulated, that'd be cool....

Reign of Winter and Iron Gods are pretty beloved by the fanbase,

Now I'm interested in reading them!

Speaking as someone who got into 2e /because/ it’s not focused exclusively on not!Europe and fantasy tropes that have been overdone for half a century of roleplaying: Pathfinder being Weird is the reason I’m here. Strength of Thousands centering the Mwangi and taking a detour to space made me giddy. Us getting an AP about steampunk gunslinging bank-robbers next year has a similar effect. My fingers are as tightly crossed as possible that we get a full AP in Arcadia.

And that's entirely valid and I love that for you. For me, though, it's not my cup of tea. I prefer fantasy and less sci-fi, magic and not robots, planes and not planets. I guess part of the frustration is that the gonzo stuff seems to be everywhere and it's very hard to avoid it.

And don't get me wrong, even with my gripes, I still feel Paizo puts out MUCH better content than WOTC. There is no other role playing company on par with Paizo, in my opinion. But, over the years, it seems like Paizo keeps reaching for the next big thing that's never been done, and it permeates everything so deeply and becomes so over the top that I find it difficult to enjoy.

Sure, I could have edited Age of Ashes and made it my own and tweaked it so that my players enjoyed it.. but that's not why I bought it. I bought it to pick up and play. When I realized I had to invest my own time and energy into rewriting stuff to make it enjoyable for my group, I also realized that I could invest that time into another AP that I felt would be even better (ie, Rise of the Runelords).

I have no doubt that there are a lot of players who love the really niche things. In fact, I'm really looking forward to the mammoth AP myself. But there are also a lot of players who want something more traditional, especially if they are new not just to Pathfinder but to role playing as a whole.

And, for me and my group, and for some of those newer players or more traditional players, I'd love to see something more vanilla and less exotic (referring to monsters/creatures, not cultures).

The idea that Strength of Thousands is emblematic of 2e being “too exotic” for going to space in a single volume when Reign of Winter did it twice in 1e does make me giggle some. Why is 1e allowed to be gonzo, but it’s a strike against the new edition? You want a return to the “classics,” but those gave us everything from Iron Gods (destroy a nascent AI god and help another ascend) and Strange Aeons (amnesiacs delving deep into Cthulhu Mythos stuff), among plenty of other examples.

Pathfinder has always been pretty out there. I don’t get holding it against 2e.

See my last point: "Please note: Please don't derail this with posts that: I hate 2e (I don't), I'm just bitter I spent money on a product I'm not satisfied with (I am), 1e also has exotic adventures (I'm clearly not referring to those), that I'm a fake account just meant to troll (go away), etc. Let's stick to discussing what we like/don't like about 1e & 2e APs :)"

Also, I haven't read or played Iron Gods and/or Strange Aeons. And, I specifically referred to "these early, classical 1e APs".

I'm with Squiggit here in that I always introduce AoA as the "classic" AP in terms of traveling the world, collecting artifacts, defending communities from harm, all while delving through dungeons and fighting dragons.

I'm not sure what the OP is looking for in an AP. Everything is going to have the Golarion touch which has added a lot of depth to my games. Even pre-Golarion, Paizo APs would be considered fairly "out there" with the old Dungeon magazines.

Also, a note on using "exotic" as a word to be "different from my expected norm" and why people may not be reacting to it well. You seem to have a very definied norm, which is fine. However, there's been a push not only in games, but in general, to amplify marginalized voices and put a spotlight on cultures that aren't centered on the western image that is everywhere in pop culture. We've gotten to see a lot of this in the newer APs, so I can see how your word choice can be drawing you some ire.

I agree with some of this. Rise of the Runelords has Paizo's creative touch spin all over it, and it's amazing. Same with Curse of the Crimson Throne. But, for the most part, it all added to the overall quality of the story without becoming too much. Age of Ashes has Paizo's creativity as well... but, I found it to be TOO many ideas. Every room and every encounter seemed to be a new idea, so much so that it detracted from the overall story. I regret that I won't get to run both Tomorrow Must Burn and Fires of the Haunted City because both look awesome. Unfortunately, I won't get to run them, at least not with my current group.

And I have not used "exotic" to refer to a non-western culture, or any culture for that matter. I've used it to refer to rarely used fictional monsters, including specific examples of Cabbagehead and Dero dwarves. In fact, I used it five times, and each time was specifically in reference to a monster or theme, not a culture. If people get upset because they think I'm referring to a culture rather than a monster, that's on them for making that assumption and rallying to defend a social cause that I'm not attacking.

For a similar suggestion to the one I'm trying to make with my original post, watch Ru Paul's Drag Race and listen to Michelle Visage tell a girl to edit their outfit. Sometimes too much of a good thing is just too much, and sometimes less is more.

Regardless of how people may want to read into it, I purchased a product (in fact, several of them and spent quite a bit of money on them) and it didn't deliver what I was expecting. I've tried to articulate the things I thought didn't work and some of the underlying issues. I wouldn't have spent that money on a company I didn't believe in, but I still have a right to be disappointed and seeing that members of the Paizo team frequently interact on the forums, it's my hope that my feedback might influence the next generation of APs. I'm obviously not alone in those sentiments, as shown by those that have agreed with various points and even the player polls. The "classic" APs seem to have been the most well received.

That being said, let's look at some of your experiences:

Lots and lots of assumptions bordering on personal jabs about me and my players that I won't bother with. I was trying to provide constructive feedback. I even stated that my group and I were new. So thanks, but no thanks, not interested in engaging.

Although this one...

9. "Wizard school AP... but then it just got weird and exotic." Honestly sounds pretty racist here.

Did you miss the part where they go to the Golarion equivalent of Mars? Or were you just sticking up for the Martians?

Funnily enough Age of Ashes was ranked #3 by him and #4 by the players. Here's a link to his AP Guide

That's a great resoruce, and one that I've actually used. I think it's interesting that he rates RIse of the Runelords much lower than the player poll, but this goes to show how subjective it can be. The player poll scores Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne as #1 and #3, respectively. And, both had successful anniversary editions launched. I also said I liked a lot of the ideas in Age of Ashes and Abomination Vault, but felt Age of Ashes was too overloaded to make it newbie-friendly, and Abomination Vault seemed too much of a mega dungeon.

I think that goes to show that a lot of people, like me, appreciate the amazing stories, despite the "classical" (at least many of them) enemies. And, the point of my original post, was to highlight specifically some of the things I like in them, versus some of the things I found challenging in the 2e APs.

Again, all feedback is welcome!*

*NOTE: That's not quite true—insulting feedback is not welcome, so if you don't like something, please try to avoid personal attacks on the developers or authors or editors. That's the BEST way to ensure that we as the content creators will not only not take your criticism to heart in a productive way, but it more than anything else will erode our passion for content creation.

I've seen you post or reply in virtually every forum I've read over the years, and that's the reason I took the time to write such a lengthy post after just lurking for over a decade. It demonstrates a degree of customer centricity and I think it means a lot to a lot of your customer base.

And the footnote is also valid. It's why I started a second thread when the first started off on the wrong note and went way off track ;)

Quote:

Beyond that, I’m not really grasping your use of classical/exotic in regards to everything.

I think that I am. As the first AP for a new edition, it could have been a fairly normal AP. You fight goblins, orcs, giants, dragons. A reasonably normal quest story spread over 6 volumes. Where the emphasis of the AP was on being a fairly simple story where the players could concentrate more on the mechanics of PF2 (either coming from PF1 or new players entirely).

You get to see all the classics done in PF2 with a decent story around that.

Instead, you do get a rather weird convoluted story taking you to all sorts of thematically totally unrelated places. The whole reason you're doing so is kinda sketchy and railroady.

On more than one occassion, my players also had the "What are we doing here again?" question.

And, like the OP, I failed to get the players to care about Breechhill when almost all of the action was elsewhere.

Well said!

In another thread, Saedar suggested providing specific things from 1e adventure paths that I enjoyed, vs what I was experiencing with 2e APs. As the other thread went way off the rails, I'm starting a fresh one! :)

And beware, there will most certainly be spoilers!

My own experience (and yes, YMMV): I purchased the 2e system to run the 2e APs and I've run some of Age of Ashes. We are wrapping up Book 2 "Cult of Cinders" and concluding the AP at that point. This is, in part, because my group has voiced their feelings that the AP is very erratic and the story is hard to follow.

Numerous things contributed to this:
- morally unexpected characters ("Wait, he's a Hellknight, but he's good?" "Goblins are good now?" and they are just about to encounter a good red dragon)
- a large dungeon with every room packed full of different monsters (just on the first floor of Hellknight Hill: imps, bugbear, rats, spikey turtle monsters, wargs, goblin dogs, spider swarms, grauladon, giant bats, skeleton guards.. that's 10, if you were counting!)
- The idea of hopping from locations was cool, but didn't turn out that way. All the effort to make Breachill feel alive, to get them excited to now have the deed to Hellknight Hill (just to whisk them away to some far off jungle), to make Akrivel feel alive, but they never need to revisit. This led to, "Wait, where are we now and why are we here?"
- lots of bizarre and wacky creatures where every room seemed to be "Wait, what is this thing??". Normally, I'm all for exciting and unique creatures, but there were TOO MANY of them. We were all learning a new system that is, undeniably, pretty crunchy and combat takes a while (especially for new players) and I felt like we spent way too much time trying to help the players understand what they were fighting. It made every encounter feel too cumbersome. (Don't get me wrong, I LOVED some of them! Like their first encounter with the ooze? The archeologist's twin? Yes please!)
- Lots of really neat ideas, but so many of them just created noise rather than amazing moments.
- as the DM, I'm sure there were plenty of things I could have done differently, but it really felt like it slowed things down unnecessarily. It was too much for new folks to absorb, myself included.

So, we all agreed that with COVID restrictions lifting in my area, we'd return to playing live, and use it as an opportunity to start fresh with a new adventure. I own all the 2e APs and although I haven't read them fully from beginning to end, I have skimmed all of them and am at least familiar with them. I was surprised going through them, and in an dissatisfied way.

Some of the reasons I chose NOT to run another 2e AP, despite having purchased nearly the entire 2e library to run them:
- the themes seem too exotic and too niche. I was hoping for a more classical fantasy trope, something that wouldn't take so much time and energy just to understand.
- I was super excited for the wizard school AP... but then it just got weird and exotic. It felt like too many good ideas were being mashed up, just creating noise.
- I LOVED some of the Extinction Curse story, but the circus was too much.
- Abomination Vault seemed cool, but I was hoping to avoid a mega dungeon. This would have been my top pick though, if I had to stick with a 2e AP.

Instead, I am going with Rise of the Runelords, and I'm also running Curse of the Crimson Throne (converted to 2e and heavily modified to fit a different setting).

There are a few things I love about these early, classical 1e APs:
- The stories are full of dramatic moments that don't just rely on exotic monsters
- because the monsters are more classical, it allows the players to focus on the story and the drama, rather than whatever oddity they are facing
- When they do face something exotic (Hello, Cabbagehead! Hello, Dero!) they stand out as memorable

Undeniably, I'm feeling frustrated that I spent so much on the new system, hoping to just pick up an AP and play so I didn't have to put the time and energy into creating my own adventures, but now I'm spending a ton of time converting 1e adventures. True, there are plenty of awesome resources already available and it's still less work than creating an entirely new adventure, but it's still more work than I had intended.

My hope is that we see a more frequent return to the classical fantasy adventures. That doesn't mean we should only be fighting goblins and ogres (but there's also nothing wrong with fighting goblins and ogres), but an exotic or wacky theme doesn't always make for an enjoyable adventure. I feel like the 2e APs would benefit from a good edit to create a more enjoyable pace and tempo. "You know what, those ARE really cool and fun ideas, but let's maybe save it for the next adventure!"

When everything is permanently dialed up to 11, it just becomes one note and exhausting.

Please note: Please don't derail this with posts that: I hate 2e (I don't), I'm just bitter I spent money on a product I'm not satisfied with (I am), 1e also has exotic adventures (I'm clearly not referring to those), that I'm a fake account just meant to troll (go away), etc. Let's stick to discussing what we like/don't like about 1e & 2e APs :)

Paizo is trying to reduce product deadline crunch internally. It has increase the size of the project management, design, and editing teams—and that started before unionization. I sit in a lot management meetings and union chats, and the whole company is focusing on creating the highest quality RPG products in a sustainable and profitable way. How to best do that is a bit related to negotiation, but I think the company is united in those goals.

The creative team has told be they like to alternate AP themes between something traditional (like dragons, urban murder mystery, dungeon crawl, and magic school) and something as little wacky (like circus, international fight competition, and mammoth hunters).

Thank you for the insight.

... is pretty transparently an excuse to moan about not liking APs and pretending it's somehow not your fault for buying blind.

The OP is simply upset at wasting money.

That is not a secret, I literally stated that in my post. It was meant to be transparent. That's why I wrote it.

It wasn't a post intended to gather people's opinions on what the purpose of a union is. It wasn't a post to denigrate the entire 2e system. And I certainly made no secret that I was frustrated that I felt that I wasted my money. I was so frustrated, in fact, that I ceased all my subscriptions. And my hope is that improving the workers' environment will see a better product... but until then, I'm no longer spending money on Paizo products, or at least not supporting them so blindly. (And it's not an invite to argue "Unions are only for the people! Blah blah!")

Thanks Kobold Catgirl, pixierose, fanatic66, keftiu, Exocist, Kevin Mack, The Gleeful Grognard, Paulyhedron, Tarondor, Saedar and Aaron Shanks for the intelligent responses. But this thread has gone in so many different directions with very little meaningful conversation.

Let's move on now, people.

Wow, relax peeps. I never said I don't like PF2e.

In fact I still run it, and I enjoy it enough that I have resorted to playing 1e APs. Like fanatic66 said: one can like PF2e and not like the APs. Problem is, I bought the system to play the APs and that was a disappointing experience.

All the nonsense about me not liking PF2 is just that... nonsense. In fact, I quite specifically said there were things I liked.

Perhaps I should have articulated more clearly that I bought PF2e to play the APs because I loved some of the 1e APs and because I didn't want to put a ton of time or energy into doing the work. I just wanted to pick up the new edition and play. But, that didn't happen, because I didn't enjoy the Age of Ashes and I was disappointed with the rest of the APs. Granted, Abomination Vault seemed pretty cool, but I wasn't wanting a mega dungeon.

My complaint was against the quality of the APs and how bizarre they seem to have become, and my hope is that by improving worker conditions, we'll see improved quality in the APs. Employee engagement has impacts on performance. It's a real thing and that's why so many companies invest so much money into their employee engagement.

@ Firelion - My first purchase with this account was October 30 2008. So no need for your conspiracies, name calling, and accusations. Please refrain from engaging in conversation with me in the future, if I post again.

I recently fell into... and out of... love with 2nd edition. I was super excited to be able to convince some of my friends to put a pause on D&D 5e and hop over to try 2nd edition. I sold them on stories about the amazing APs and lore from first edition.

So we started playing Age of Ashes, and we were all really disappointed. It seemed like a great idea, but did not deliver on it's execution. Poorly constructed storyline, every room packed with bizarre creatures that were more distracting than engaging, even art that didn't match what was written; we were all pretty disappointed overall, despite really enjoying some of the aspects of 2e (such as character customization and the 3 action economy).

I was even more disappointed to see online that it there was an attempt to somehow justify it because Paizo was racing to meet publishing deadlines. While I can understand that, it's Paizo's responsibility to put out high quality products... not the consumer's responsibility to just accept a lesser product because they didn't manage themselves properly. Poor project management and leadership was the problem, not deadlines.

So I purchased nearly every 2e product, including all the APs, and figured I'd find a new AP for us. Instead, I was disappointed to find a bunch of really bizarre APs that seemed more focused on doing something "unique" or "exotic" rather than "engaging" or "interesting". It felt like 2e was doing little more than trying to fill in what few gaps were left from 1e, catering almost exclusively to the 1e players and making little effort to attract new players.

When I started looking for player reviews on favorite APs, it seems like almost all of the favorites are from 1st edition, and almost all center around classic fantasy tropes. So I decided to switch to converting a couple 1e APs instead.

As I was Googling as much as I could (no need to reinvent the wheel), I came across numerous stories and articles about employees (past and present) airing the Paizo dirty laundry: poor work environment, a frenzied rush to push books out, and of course all the awful behaviours of the leaders. Suddenly, it all made sense: I was disappointed in 2e because shoddy products were being pushed out to make more money, and it was being confirmed by the employees themselves.

So, I just cancelled all my subscriptions and genuinely regret putting nearly $2,000 CDN into building a Pathfinder 2e library, only to find it's mostly all useless and uninteresting. I should have just converted some of the APs to 5e, it would have been a lot cheaper.

And, perhaps it's just nostalgia, but I'm hoping the unionization of the employees will force Paizo into putting out better products.