Ken Blaney's page

Nice! It is now available. Thanks

Nice! Glad it worked out for you and your group.

I think your instincts are right here. Hialin accusing the PCs like works out pretty well for the AP as written. I'd like to borrow that for my own game, but I think he's going to get a reprieve from being the bad guy (for a handful of reasons related to character backstory and past campaigns we've run). I'm going to try really hard to get the Spike out of the wall via a Wish accidentally granted to one of the PCs.

Alternatively, if you want to roll deep in the lore, Quilindra being a succubus means she likely works for Nocticula and could easily have designs on slaying Treerazer as she is wont to do to demonlords. Your PCs might decide that working with Nocticula against Treerazer is a good bargain for Kyonin. I think that takes a little set up during Book 4 or before hinting at Nocticula's future as the Redeemer Queen (there's a mention of her ascension, but I don't think there is about her absolution).

This is, roughly, the direction I'm taking it when we get to Book 5. One of my PCs is unknowingly married to Quilindra (sorta, he just has a profane gift from her and *thinks* he's married to Lixi Paramenter), so I have the Nocticula channel dialed in already.

I picture it as sort of a WW1 trench warfare between Thorn's End and the demons. As a result, there's only the occasional flare up of violence that escalates quickly on each side as Thron's End troops reinforce the side with combat and the demons summon allies or otherwise get called in.

So, you could let the PCs find a gap and sneak through and then end up in No Man's Land between the two forces causing a mad dash and a desperate plea for entrance for the last 100 feet or so as demons charge up behind them.

There is a conversion of Second Darkness ongoing right now on the Second Darkness board. I'm currently running it in PF2e (we're one session into book 3) and so far it is working out great.

Confirming delivery. Thank you very much for the quick and easy replacement process.

One of the problems with this AP is that many of the elves are written as insular a&#&~&+s. Making the PCs not really want to help them. Kaerishiel is just the first example. He is written as abrasive, boorish, ungrateful, and outright hostile to the PCs. This is a guy the PCs are supposed to care so much about that they risk their lives to jump into an unknown portal to save?

I do think that it is important to the AP that some of the Elves come off as antagonistic to the PCs. A key point of the story, to me, is that there is a political civil war that has been simmering for sometime in Kyonin specifically over the more CG Queen vs the LN/LE Winter Council. That said, I do like the idea that Kaerishiel will thank the PCs for helping go to war against the Drow.

The events here, to my mind, create the distinction between the Tolkien-esque and the Golarion interpretation of Elves, specifically in Book 5. Largely my plan is to also mirror this in Book 4 revealing that Drow are not universally CE but rather just a specific set of the Drow ruling class. So by the end of the AP, the PCs will have set into motion political upheaval in both Kyonin and Zinarkaynin with the old guard (Stoic Elves, Evil Drow) getting replaced by more Pathfindery interpretations of the two ancestries.

Ultimate goal is for the two "new guard" factions to unite in Book 6 to run support for the PCs against an event that might literally end the world. Then Telandia's "opening up Kyonin" speech at the end of the AP includes opening up to Drow refugees to really dial in just how progressive she is towards reuniting the elves of Golarion.

----------------

So, how do I plan to get the PCs to jump into an unknown portal after that? My PCs like Kwava, so no need to have him stick around Riddleport. He's gone off to Crying Leaf while the PCs were on Devil's Elbow.

That was quick. I already see the replacement order.

I understand that these things happen. Thank you very much.

Hi,

I see Order 36418297 listed as completed on July 1st, but I don't see tracking information on it via UPS yet nor has it arrived. Anything I can do to locate it?

Thanks!

MRblahface wrote:

Why does the print preorder version say unavailable?

Probably additional shipping delays for the physical books. Aaron Shanks did mention some of the books still hadn't arrived in their warehouse and that they might have to delay it further from last night's Paizo Live, so that might be it.

Did they say if those of us with subscriptions still get access to the PDF?

1. Where are all the demons coming from? I'd have assumed Nolveniss, but as an Illusionist, he cannot summon or bind demons.

Nolveniss is a member of a particularly powerful Drow family and so likely had other resources to summon and bind demons. Maybe they were summoned in the Darklands and then commanded to travel to the surface? Maybe he brought some summoners with him? Maybe he just has a deal with a demonlord who provided them?

2. The Observatory - in the flavor text for Q1 it states the central tower is a "large domed structure", but the text for Q11 states it is a "large open-air rooftop". Which is true - enclosed dome or open-air platform?

An open air room isn't necessarily clear up to the sky. It could imply that it simply has nothing to block the air/wind. In this case I'm picturing something like a compound dome to make room for the orrery.

I've got the city map. That much is provided in the AP. I'm more interested in the individual buildings. The AP itself only provides a small handful of buildings, but I'm thinking there has to be more in some product somewhere.

I'm currently setting up to run Second Darkness 3: The Armageddon Echo. A lot of it takes place at an old Elven city. Elven architecture in general features a lot of curves and non-concentric circles which stands in stark contrast to Drow architecture that features a lot of irregular curves. I want to emphasize this with any additional encounters I add to the city.

Can anyone refer me to additional resources beyond Second Darkness 3,4,5 and the Elven City Map Pack for instances of these architectural styles? I'm ready, willing and able to modify maps to add war damage and the like. Just looking for additional map references.

Getting to the end of Children of the Void here. (Then we are moving back to Book 3 of Iron Gods in a 1e game.) Ran an encounter of Drow Guards from above as a moderate encounter and it seemed tuned about right (6 Drow Guards vs 6 level 6 PCs). No PCs knocked unconscious as expected in a moderate encounter, but there were some close calls that had to be overcome with some strategy.

I'm setting up Zincher's Camp in Roll20 currently. For the Axebeaks I'm using a Deinonychus with a re-skin (re-feather?) and for Erix I'm using a Monster Hunter swapping the Greataxe for a Maul. Erix general look lends itself to Barbarian more than Ex-Monk as is, so I think it works pretty well. Finally I'm using an Elite Gang Leader for Zincher.

My PCs broadly don't like most of the crimelords of Riddleport (especially Zincher) and are generally a little foolhardy, so I've a good feeling that they are going to start a fight in the camp. Makes me think it will be especially important. If they get Erix to switch sides I'll do the "as if defeated in combat" standard for XP.

For 5 PCs:
10 of Zincher's men - Moderate 5 by sheer numbers
5 Axe Beaks - Low 5
Zincher and Erix - Extreme 5

If it looks like they are winning Erix joins them and they win automatically. If they have to run after killing all of Zincher's men then they are going to be in a manhunt on the island which will be interesting.

I'll probably run this with Zincher and Erix letting the Axe Beaks go while the PCs fight the first encounter so there's 1 round of rest between those two, then Zincher coming out and doing something of a taunting villain speech giving another 2 rounds for them to prep. I'm okay with this being an Extreme encounter because the PCs really *shouldn't* go in like that, but they probably will.

Edit: Erix is undercover so probably won't use his Rage unless the PCs are targeting him over Zincher or refuse to take his side when he does his heel-face-turn. This mitigates the danger of the Extreme encounter a bit, but it could still easily kill a PC or two.

Turns out I know my players really well. Tonight they raided Zincher's camp. With some good stealth rolls, they positioned themselves to fireball many of the thugs to kick things off. 2 PCs were knocked unconscious, 1 was healed and got back up only to be knocked unconscious a second time.

I'd like to say that the PCs survived because of some lucky rolls, but mostly it came down to generally solid strategy and good teamwork. There was once incident with a summoned Blindheim where the wizard accidentally blinded himself, but other than that this was probably their single most tactical fight we've had since the beginning of the campaign.

Finished book 1 tonight.

My PCs were level 4 going into the caves below the Gold Goblin. I was a little worried that meant they would stomp everything down there until the final encounter. It actually worked out to be the exact opposite. They actually struggled a bit with a lot of the encounters, especially the aquatic gricks. The final encounter, however, ended up being drastically scaled back when Depora critically failed a Will save against the bard's Charm spell making her helpful. The fight became something of a stand still as she backed her way to the ladder and escaped.

Luckily, the bard followed her so I still got to do the "stand at the top of the Gate while the mini-Earthfall happens". So, not a total loss. It does mean I wasn't able to get a good measure on the power of the boss. She managed to get a shot off against the PCs one of whom said, "She is not messing around with that crossbow". So I think they all relaxed a bit that they didn't need to fight her to get the journal. (But they'll see her again in Book 2.)

The PCs on finding out their bard is a wererat now:
"How much does Remove Curse cost?"
"40gp if you can find someone to cast it."
"Hmm... that sounds like a <bard> problem. How much do silver manacles cost?"

I feel like my PCs ended up on the poor side here toward the end of Book 1. This is somewhat expected in both 1e and the 2e conversion as they haven't found either chest or the adamantine chisel (reskinned as Sovereign Steel in my game for a handful of reasons) in the underground yet. I'll re-gauge the treasure here at the end of the book.

I ended up slightly ahead of the normal XP budget from the stuff I added in before the Gold Goblin Job. They are currently entering the caves under the Goblin at level 4. I expect them to close out the book at around 4,600 total XP.

Boneyard ambush worked out pretty well, but I think Kwava was maybe a bit overpowered for the encounter. His showing up was the turning point of the encounter (the PCs had met him once already due to story changes I made, so it wasn't completely out of no where). That said, Kwava saved the monk from death at the hands of one of the wererats.

Also, I couldn't resist... I decided I'd have 1 wererat make 1 bite attack against 1 PC before getting yelled at by his allies. The PC failed the save against "rabies". I'm one of those GMs that keeps track of dates, so I also happen to know that the next full moon is in about 5 days. Should give them just enough time to take back the Goblin and get settled in their downtime while they search the entire compound.

Braddikar and his group ended up as a pretty good encounter. I flipped the script on the encounter so it was actually the PCs stealing Zincher's supplies. The PCs didn't bring any bouncers (see below) and largely ran point on the whole job finding out exactly when the ship was coming in. The group really thought they got in over their heads at first but then with some strategy and luck they turned the tables and won.

Not really PF2 related, but I added a side story about an upstart group of pirates that the PCs took a liking to. Instead of bringing the bouncers they brought the pirate crew with the promise of giving them the ship after they robbed the cargo. (My Chaotic Good party is slowly dragging themselves Evil, haha.) So I changed horses mid-stream and changed the Foam Runner to the Flying Cloud. Now the PCs will have a trip to Devil's Elbow with a friendly pirate crew already lined up on the same ship that is already mentioned in Book 2. Again, not PF2 related, but I felt clever and wanted to share.

I'm setting up Zincher's Camp in Roll20 currently. For the Axebeaks I'm using a Deinonychus with a re-skin (re-feather?) and for Erix I'm using a Monster Hunter swapping the Greataxe for a Maul. Erix general look lends itself to Barbarian more than Ex-Monk as is, so I think it works pretty well. Finally I'm using an Elite Gang Leader for Zincher.

My PCs broadly don't like most of the crimelords of Riddleport (especially Zincher) and are generally a little foolhardy, so I've a good feeling that they are going to start a fight in the camp. Makes me think it will be especially important. If they get Erix to switch sides I'll do the "as if defeated in combat" standard for XP.

For 5 PCs:
10 of Zincher's men - Moderate 5 by sheer numbers
5 Axe Beaks - Low 5
Zincher and Erix - Extreme 5

If it looks like they are winning Erix joins them and they win automatically. If they have to run after killing all of Zincher's men then they are going to be in a manhunt on the island which will be interesting.

I'll probably run this with Zincher and Erix letting the Axe Beaks go while the PCs fight the first encounter so there's 1 round of rest between those two, then Zincher coming out and doing something of a taunting villain speech giving another 2 rounds for them to prep. I'm okay with this being an Extreme encounter because the PCs really *shouldn't* go in like that, but they probably will.

Edit: Erix is undercover so probably won't use his Rage unless the PCs are targeting him over Zincher or refuse to take his side when he does his heel-face-turn. This mitigates the danger of the Extreme encounter a bit, but it could still easily kill a PC or two.

Ran The Raid tonight. Group 1 and 2 were somewhat surprisingly something of push overs. I think I spaced Group 1 out too much since PF2 is so dependent on positioning and the like. Half the PCs chased Group 2 out the back door after Jasker got to 1 HP so I took that opportunity to activate Group 3 and 4 at the same time to split the party and up the danger and chaos. The Monk at the back door went down and his back up cleric went down to 5HP and he used his last Heal for the day thinking that would be the end of one or more of them. So I took the opportunity to drop Sarenrae's minor boon on them turning the tide of the battle. (They just rescued St. Casperian's earlier that day. It fit narratively pretty well.)

All in all, I'm impressed how well PF2e works even if the combats are stacked back-to-back in huge fights with lots of combatants on both sides. The math just sort of works out.

Lucky crits are no joke. The fight with Beltias and Smeed both almost ended poorly for two PCs when a crit brought them down to Dying 2 each time. The PC who was at Dying 2 with Smeed then crit failed his stabilizing roll, but luckily had a hero point to allow him to re-roll. The fight with Smeed ended up, on paper, even easier than expected because the group was level 2 before hand and I didn't adjust the encounter upwards to account for that. So even with 1 extra level and 1 extra PC, we still got close to a player death.

Ran the first part of St. Caspieran's Salvation. My PCs are level 2 so with a few additions (like a second Fetch) the entire second floor minus the scorpion fight and the fight with The Splithog Pauper (which I placed in the Belltower) ended up as a Severe 2 encounter. This was the first Severe encounter that didn't end up with a PC unconscious at some point which I can contribute to their attacking from two fronts and making good use of the hallways.

In The Scorpion Fight poison once again proved pretty scary for the PCs. They all get that going unconscious is not a big deal, but going unconscious with persistent damage will kill them quickly.

I added an extra sniper to the fight with Beltias to keep the last fight left a Severe encounter for a set of 5 level 2 PCs. Since Beltias has an ambush set for them I'm sure that will go a lot different than the fights with the rest of the gang.

Ran "An Unfriendly Warning" in the most recent session. Poison really is no joke in Pathfinder 2e. Despite being Trivial 2 for them, a lucky bite and some mildly unlucky Fort saves almost dropped the monk to unconscious. Next session will be St. Casperian's Salvation.

In this case what I'm going to do is "A Missing Employee" will lead them to looking around St. Casperian's for someone to make an introduction to Smeed. Because I've wanted to do a puzzle using the Magpie Rhyme for a while and I am a sucker for inter-AP references, the group will meet up with ill-fated pirate Jakes Magpie (from Skulls and Shackles) who will tell them the code to get into Smeed's trust after they liberate the mission house. They might have enough time that same session to go after Smeed as well which will set us up for a whole session just for ''The Raid'' (where I expect them to hit level 3).

Broad summary: Book 1 is wide open for crafting. Book 2 is very much not. Transition to Book 3 is open for some crafting, but Book 3 is not. 3 to 4 is doable depending on how the GM wants to handle the transition. Book 4 would be rougher to justify. 4 to 5 and Book 5 are pretty much off the table. 5 to 6 is possible, but not by much. Book 6 crafting is pretty much impossible.

After Book 1 it is a pretty fast paced AP with stakes that are pretty huge and immediate.

Ken Blaney wrote:

Historically this group has been a little more goal oriented than completionist, so they *might* end up missing more than a few things along the way in AE which would make Endless Night interesting. (Although I haven't re-read EN yet and honestly cannot remember the major fights that happen there.)

I just read through EN this weekend and while AE has more than enough Exp to get a group up to 9th level with little effort, EN has almost NO experience (short of them trying to murder all of house Vonnarc). Certainly not enough to get a group up to 12th level for Book 5.

I anticipate a major rewrite of EN to really take advantage of the very unique setting.

Yes. I imagined a lot of Eternal Night was going to involve story XP and the set piece adventure. I might aim to end Armageddon Echo a bit higher as I have the feeling my group is going to blitz right through the standard story if I let them.

I was just entering this in to a Roll20 NPC and I think I found a typo. I don't think Jasker Gant's fists should be doing piercing damage, they should probably be doing bludgeoning.

We finally got to the "Gold Goblin Job" tonight. This was the intro of about half the group to Pathfinder 2e, so I'm glad I didn't start with it. There are a ton of NPCs in it and even using the standard tricks to speed up combat (grouping initiative, rolling to-hit and damage together, etc.) there were some definite slow points and a point where I needed to fudge a damage roll so that a PC would get the kill against Angvar instead of an NPC.

I have 5 PCs, so I adjusted upwards slightly and the Severe 1 ranking was still roughly about right. I had one PC go down but recover and two others at low single digits. So a pretty successful conversion for a tricky encounter. I did an encounter exactly like "First Night" before tonight (since it is a much more straight forward encounter to break people in to 2e), so I'll be skipping that, but as a Severe 1 it gave roughly the same results as this Severe 1.

The interesting thing that happened is that Angvar would have most likely gotten away with the loot if it wasn't for the Monk being absolutely scandalized by the debauchery and deciding to stay outside. He ended up cutting off their escape very nicely.

Granted, the problem I had is a problem with running huge combats in general, not this particular encounter itself. I think for the Attack on the Foam Runner I'll give the PCs control of their character plus one bouncer if they personally decide to take one along. That way the balance of the encounter is kept and the players have something to do.

Oh, important addition to the PF2 version of A Shadow in the Sky: The painting in Saul's office now has Shoonies in it instead of "a group of canine therianthropes". Super important change if you have any Shoonies in the group. :D

Kelseus wrote:

Possibilities for boosting experience before the start of book 3
2-4 random encounters, average of low-mod 4, up to 240 exp
Find abandoned/ransacked camp of Slyeg’s group, random encounter but PCs find can find evidence that the drow attacked the camp not the Akata, Mod encounter + 30 story award
Akata nest, a large Akata a level 5-6 creature + several smaller Ataka, mod to severe

This could net PCs a total of 470 exp. Getting them within 180 of level 7. You can add another 40 exp by bumping the Western Lighthouse up to a severe (see above). I am hesitant to add more encounters in the drow caves, as it will already sap the PC’s resources. This will put your party at 142 from level 7. A few random encounters on the way to the Meriani Forest will do the trick.

I just wanted to comment on this now, as it might be a few months before my write-up for Armageddon Echo is ready to post. As I am looking at AE, it looks like this gap in Exp is not too much of a hassle. One of the problems with AE is that it is only 2 levels, but it is jam packed with fun stuff to do. So how do I keep my party from outgrowing the AP while also not limiting the fun? By ending Children of the Void with about half of level 6 still left gives you much more breathing room to play in the Celwynvian sandbox.

TLDR; don't worry about the slow exp in book 2, you can easily make it up in book 3.

We'll see where we are when we get there, but I was thinking about subbing in a juiced up Feast of Ravenmoor (mostly for the story, encounters would have to be homebrew) between Children of the Void and Armageddon Echo if I felt I needed to up the XP a bit. (Although I probably won't need to because we did a few encounters before the Gold Goblin heist which gives me a bit of XP cushion.)

Historically this group has been a little more goal oriented than completionist, so they *might* end up missing more than a few things along the way in AE which would make Endless Night interesting. (Although I haven't re-read EN yet and honestly cannot remember the major fights that happen there.)

There aren't many specific religious themes happening in the AP and the constant moving from location to location also significantly cuts down on getting too involved in local worship.

That said, Calistria is a good thematic fit because of her worship among elves and in Riddleport, but also her relationship to revenge. Revenge is the motivating factor of a ton of the NPCs and their paths to revenge often lead them down particularly bad paths through life. That said, this is a thematic fit only. I can't think of any mechanical effect worshiping Calistra would have.

That Akata Queen is a really nasty looking creature. I love it.

- Souls for Smugglers’ Shiv : this has a very “Lost” vibe and is referenced as an influence by James Jacobs. It seems like seeing Lost would potentially help the running of this?

Doubling down on Lost, "Into the Shattered Continent" has a stat block for a smoke sentinel.

Starting Second Darkness later tonight. I'll be up converting this to second edition rules.

Party is 5 players:
Ancient Elf Wizard (Dedication Rogue)
Ancient Elf Monk (Undecided)
Half Elf Bard
Paddler Shoony War Priest Cleric
Forge Dwarf Ranger

To smooth over some of the well known connection issues between the books, I worked with the group to determine a uniting theme. Each of them has been asked to investigate the Blot by the Lantern Bearers and chose backstories that put them in or around Kyonin immediately before the adventure. (Technically all the PCs know now is they need to meet up with an elf named Kwava in a town called Roderic's Cove. Kwava will give them the rest of their task. The Players, however, know about the Blot and all that.)

had the question for a time whether the Plane of Fire served as a surrogate sun for all Outer Planes and whether they could see it in the 'sky'

I really like the imagery for that. I'd steal it, but I have no idea how to get the PCs in a place to actually see that.

This is great. I'm going to be running Second Darkness for PF2 in the near future and this definitely gave me a leg up, especially the builds for Saul and Depora. Hopefully I'm slow enough that inspiration will strike and you'll also convert book 2. :-D

zimmerwald1915 wrote:

Deadmanwalking wrote:

The elf retcon (inasmuch as it is a retcon, which it is partially, but there is also the Winter Council in-world change) predates PF2 by a fair bit, and was well into happening in later books of PF1.

Basically, elves being 'holier than thou' isolationists was never the creative team (and director's) intent for Golarion but snuck in as a default from other settings when some authors' work wasn't able to be properly vetted early on. They've been trying to change it ever since.

Setting material can sneak by. But there's a whole AP volume premised on Kyonin being isolationist. Was management that lax?

Yes.

Speaking as the one who outlined and developed that adventure path, it was a very frustrating thing to deal with, especially given the fact that I prefer not to "throw authors under the proverbial bus" when a freelancer fails to provide what we asked for... but there were some pretty significant broken deadlines on that adventure path that, when combined with the fact that we were also facing the fact that Wizards of the Coast's choices with 4th edition were compelling us to build our own RPG at the same time we were also working on this Adventure Path, made the environment surrounding the development of the last third of Second Darkness pretty fraught with peril.

So yes, management (me) at the time did drop the ball in portraying elves in the way that the original campaign outline had hoped to do. I had pretty good reasons for dropping that ball though, I think.

Also, it's worth remembering that at the time, given the fact that we knew we'd be asking our customers to trust us and stick with us going forward in producing games that were NOT D&D games, but our own RPG, that we were paranoid and cripplingly timid about making big changes to the expectations. So that likely also colored my decisions, making me more timid about setting up our elves to be more properly chaotic good rather than the traditions from D&D and...

I'm prepping to run Second Darkness up converted to PF2e. (We all have kids now, the APs have been a Aroden-send.) Since I have the advantage of hindsight and I know where the elves are going in the setting I was planning to use the events of the adventure to cause those political changes within Kyonin (the population will be much more on the side of the Queen being more permissive vs the Winter Council's secrecy). The players decided they wanted to be elves (and one Shoony) so I'm having them start as low ranking Lantern Bearers who are sent to investigate the Blot who then become important enough to actually influence the politics mentioned above.

I'm interested in any other tweaks you might have so I might be able to work them into the plans now.