Lawrencelot's page

Maybe ask the creator of Dawnsbury Days?

Magic in the masks?

I would love to understand what the AP KM creator's intentions were with how powerful the masks were intended to be after creation at the Masking Ceremony in Tireless Hall Chapter 2 of SOT, KM. Was it the creative team's intention to allow adventurers to pick from the Magical masks in the Adventure toolbox on page 73, and if so what levels?

Was it the author's intention to have the masks remain unmagical unless students transferred stuff from other masks that were found, to leave it wide open to GMs to grow the masks in power as the students grow, or to use the relic system in the Gamemastery Guide?

As a new GM, I would be more comfortable with a little more guidance on intent.

I believe the intention is for masks to possibly become more powerful in the following ways:

So I don't think masks are supposed to do anything right after the masking ceremony. They just replace the beads in a more powerful way roleplay-wise, not mechanically.

That said, other people have indeed incorporated the Relic subsystem from the GMG for these masks, which I believe would also work fine if the players are okay with having more options.

For those who mentioned that PF2 should have been more flexible with for example using int with a Religion check to recall knowledge about undead, this is already in the rules: "If the GM deems it appropriate for a certain situation, however, they might have you use a different ability modifier for a skill check or when determining your skill DC." (Source)

For some reason it just never happens in practice, I haven't seen any PF2 GM make use of this rule and as a GM I never use it myself. Maybe I should, but then I think players will expect to always be able to swap their ability modifiers.

The ideal scenario to me would be where a better version of the current Alchemist is some kind of generalist subclass, while the other subclasses are better at their own niche but worse at doing other stuff. A bit similar to the wizard schools, with one universalist school. I wouldn't even mind if the general subclass would be the best one mechanically, as long as bombers are good at throwing bombs all the time and mutagens can fulfill the Hulk or Jekyll and Hide fantasy. Make them more noob-friendly, not punish bombers for throwing bombs and doing what the Fumbus image suggests you should be doing.

I use recall knowledge on NPCs all the time, though mostly out of combat. Have been doing this since PF1. I roughly know what an NPC knows about the main plot mostly, but that's about it. There are infinitely many unforeseen situations while roleplaying so that I could not imagine NOT rolling dice to determine what an NPC knows.

'I ask the bartender what he knows about the barbarian king' <GM rolls dice, crit fails> 'The bartender has heard rumours that the barbarian king can turn into a dragon'

'I tell the fruit merchant in a subtle way that I know the fish merchant is using false weights' <GM rolls dice, crit success, PC rolls diplomacy, crit success> 'It seems that she already knew that, but she is impressed by your gossip and trusts you a lot more'

Yes, at least two people have:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/17x55ni/arcane_school_for_st udents_of_the_magaambya_sot/

https://www.reddit.com/r/strengthofthousands/comments/17vclzg/arcane_school s_for_the_five_branches_of/

And here is some information on the new teachers (partly thanks to u/stoneofthewise):

Xhosiliawa. A kobold, and Xhokan's sister. She looks a bit down on Xhokan and has the opposite personality, valuing freedom and chaos, also in her teaching. She pretends to be of high social class (wearing flamboyant clothes) and is very ambitious, and hopes to become head of the Magaambya some day.

Varashod. An android who specializes in the body and soul of humanoids. As quite the emotionless teacher, it has no qualms disecting animals (or even humanoids if the school would allow it) and uses illusions of humanoid bodies to teach what is inside, physically and spiritually. It has an amazing grasp of humanoid life and experiences but does not experience all of it itself, leaving it in a constant state of wonder about everything that students do.

Yavased. An old ratfolk from the Golden Road. Still wears clothing as if he lives in the desert, but somehow the rainy weather of Nantambu does not seem to effect him. Though not quite a cleric, he is somewhat of an expert on all deities and religions of Golarion, which is why he left his home country of Rahadoum. He gets angry at anyone who speaks before they think.

Berendu. An old Bekyar who was a chime-ringer for over 25 years. She decided to study at the Magaambya at old age, where she met her imp familiar Haxtria. Her experience as a Chime Ringer made it an easy decision for the Magaambya to offer her a teaching position, and though she has returned her chimes, her voice keeps any student in line who was thinking of disobeying a Magaambya rule.

Elresja. One of Teacher Ot's cousins (and good friends) who is somewhat of a multi-talent. You can find him tinkering with clockwork materials almost any time he is not teaching or researching something. He is also a talented bass player, often requested to support other musicians around Nantambu, though unlike Ot he sees music as something from deep in the soul, rather than mathematics in air form. Sometimes the Magaambya asks him to craft high level magical items.

Hi everyone, I have updated the system into a 5 year course list, with the fifth year being an internship in Nantambu. This is because at the start of book 3, the PCs are expected to be lvl7 in their primary branch, so if they are also half that level in their secondary branch, that means 50 courses are required to be passed, which happens in 5 years in this system. After that, you can either follow the AP and let the PCs become teachers, or treat the trip to Bloodsalt as some kind of graduation or practical research project to finish their studies if you want to delay them becoming teachers.

Thanks to The Oddest Duckling for helping me with the final courses!

The link in the first post should still work, but if anyone wants to make adaptations to their campaign, here is the source code for scribe.pf2:

Yeah, all the things I've seen asked are either:
1. in the bestiaries, with monsters that have cool abilities
2. in pre-written adventures (APs or PFS)
3. in the GMG (how to customize creatures)

You will need all three, though. If you have a homebrew campaign and you only look at the bestiary, then it is a valid criticism that the same creature can't feel both like a boss and later like a minion, if the only thing that changes is the level of the party. If you then look at the GMG, you might feel a bit lost if you don't look at examples from existing adventures. If you do have a pre-written adventure, you will still want to customize the experience to your players, for which the bestiaries or GMG can help.

Luckily, all of this is available for free on AoN.

As a practical example, the way I do it is to take a monster from a certain level, think about what would make it cooler (let's say a petrifying gaze, for example because I saw it in a pre-written adventure), then look at higher-level monsters that have such an ability (basilisk/medusa), then add the ability to the boss using the rules in the GMG. It might actually need lower AC or hp to compensate for the ability, but as OP says this makes the boss more interesting. If I wanted the monster to have more actions, I would look at creatures with reactions for inspiration, or something that triggers on a crit or on death. Plenty of examples in the bestiaries.

One thing that I feel like is missing is clear rules for how to design troops, because they sort of have multiple stages. But you can look at the existing ones and figure it out quickly. Another thing is multi-stage boss fights in general, or bosses with multiple spots in the initiative order. Again, there are some examples, but clear rules of thumb would help.

I don't understand getting disappointed about something not changing from how it has always worked.

Like if going from 18 to 19 to 20 in two boosts was a huge failure of design, I'm confused why we never saw people complaining about it before the remaster? Like suggesting house rules or something?

What? There have been many complaints about ability scores in PF2.

It's one of those things that do not make sense unless you've been playing TTRPGs since the 1970s, just like Vancian casting and spell levels. Actually, spell levels and ability scores suffer from exactly the same issue: an arbitrary linear formula that you need to remember, instead of just using level and modifier for everything.

Spell level = [Character Level]/2 rounded up

Ability score = 10+2*[Ability Modifier]

The remaster would have been an excellent opportunity to tidy this all up. Actually, the switch from PF1 to PF2 would have been too, but roleplay veterans have a larger voice than new players unfortunately.

For the last mission at level 1, the Uzunjati mission, players are supposed to tell a story and also say something about the morale of the story. What did your players come up with?

My players had the following:

You are never too old to learn.

Sometimes you have to take a different perspective to see what is truly going on.

You can ignore what is happening outside, but it is possible that what is happening outside does not ignore you.

You can always rebuild that which was lost.

Never mix nitric acid and copper.

I have run two alchemists as a DM. I have not seen the Alchemist run out of bombs past the low levels. High level alchemists never run out of bombs. The goggles are useless for them.

There is always someone arguing some niche case which almost never comes up for an item that is badly designed. This is a badly designed item that needs a fix. I made it better so the alchemist player felt like having one. If a class's main reason for wanting this item is "I ran out of my strongest bomb, so I have to rely on my weaker bombs and these goggles keep the item bonus to hit up to par with my strongest bombs so my even weaker bombs from Perpetual Infusions are certainly going to do worse damage leads to the self-doubting question...why am I even here?"

If that is the line of thinking, that item is not great. Bombers should never run out of their strongest bombs during battle past the low levels.

I don't think it hurts to buff this item, but I would argue that ignoring lesser cover is its main advantage, not the item bonus. It essentially allows you to have +1 (on top of the bomb's item bonus) in the common situation that there is an ally or enemy between you and your target.

The mechanics are not the issue. You pay some gold and you use an item in one hand, and you spend an action to increase your AC: that's all fine. The issue is purely thematic: the typical monk fantasy fights with two hands free (except those who use certain weapons, which is a different problem with its own thread). Or at least not with a shield or buckler.

So, if there was some kind of class feature given for free, with exactly the same mechanics as a shield but different fluff, that would solve it. It would be a small buff due to no gold needed to spend on a shield, but that's all. Maybe compensate it by not giving shield block as an option. So the parry option given above would work. But you don't want to rely on reflavouring when it's such a classical power fantasy.

Hey Grifta, thanks a lot for your feedback! Appreciate your kind words and the effort you put into this.

Oh, I didn't do the math exactly, but this is absolutely intended. I was wondering what kind of characters would be disciplined enough to turn a group activity not too much into a social activity / party (which is what a charismatic character might do), while also not turning it into a solo study (which is what an intelligent character might do). A wise character would be able to balance this. Totally subjective, I know, but that's what you get with abilities anyway. I can completely imagine the clerics and druids, and also the monks and rangers, to better be able to seriously lead such a group effort, as opposed to the more charisma-based or int-based characters.

It is not as unbalanced as you portray here though. A high wis character might have less charisma, which they might need to succeed with the Hangout (many influence checks will be charisma-based). And a high int character might be better at the Study checks, as many int-based skills are used for Study checks, and they would be trained in more of such skills. Not too sure about this last point as it depends a lot on the chosen branch and on the class, but I have more points:
- having a 90% chance to get a free Hangout, even with a -2 penalty, is still a very good trade-off for those who find their NPC relationships important. Even more so if a low nr. of points is required for an NPC influence benefit (this completely depends on the Influence subsystem, which is left open).
- You can completely ignore this activity if you want and just Study and Hang Out in the same period anyway. You won't get as much benefit as a high wis character going for this option, but it is still a good option.
- A low wis PC can Study Together with a high wis PC. I made sure that the highest Will save counts in this case, because the high wis character would take the lead in the teamwork. In this case, you don't get the influence bonus with the NPC, but you could still get the possibility to turn a Study success into a crit success.

It is good that people using this system are aware of the unbalance though, and I like your recommended changes, they indeed make it all more balanced (except that maybe high charisma characters would have a slight advantage, which would be fine for a teamwork-based activity too!).

The reason to tie it to a save instead of a skill, is that in my opinion you need discipline to not let a group activity degenerate into a social activity, or to avoid the trap of getting distracted, but to keep yourself and others focused on the task. I found Will to be the most fitting save. But your skill suggestions make sense too.

I don't think there are many fiends in this AP. At least the Charau-Ka and Usaro don't play any significant role, for whatever reason. I've prepared some adjustments for my campaign where they do play a more important role, you can find it here.

Adding this to my SoT campaign right away

Wait, Stone ghost doesn't know undercommon? That seems like quite an oversight. My players know so many languages, but not undercommon, so they had some trouble with the gremlins so far. I will have to add it to stone ghost to make him a believable commander of gremlins.

Both of them can get to dying 3 before being healed back or doing a heroic recovery. So the hp is mainly important to determine the first time they go down.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I'd put money on the clerics over the summoners.

I take your bet everyday. But I don't think we'll ever be able to get to the end of it.

One could build one party and the other the other party, and then you pick four encounters from different APs at different levels and let the same objective GM run the four encounters for the two different parties. The GM can also determine conditions like everyone at half hp and out of focus points but 10 minutes time before combat, or everyone knew a particular skill challenge was coming up the next day so they have time to pick the right spells. Running 8 encounters is still an investment but might be doable.

I really love this resource! I notice that the courses only go up to Year 3. This should coincide roughly with the party starting book 3 (where they graduate). What do you plan to do/suggest for leveling up past then? Just going back to the original system?

Thanks! I haven't given it much thought yet, but I was under the impression that at some point the original system wants characters to switch to the practical research activity. Alternatively, I have seen many ideas of not immediately making the PCs teachers, but first let them supervise other students or do some graduation project (or both at the same time). I think this would be a good option for book 3 rather than more courses.

So rather than traditional courses, switch to other things like internship / practical research / graduation project / custom courses / inventing new spells / supervising newer students / learning to teach.

I think I've seen literally every class mentioned in this thread now for Samurai, besides full casters and alchemist. So maybe the word Samurai is actually as versatile as something like the words Mage or Hero, and we won't come to any conclusion because basically everything is possible.

I did like the Swashbuckler solution though, for keeping a weapon sheathed to gain panache. You could disallow tumbling through to gain panache with this option, and instead give it any of the thousand Samurai mechanics discussed in this thread to compensate.

Since the Tian Xia announcement, I've heard an awful lot of general desire for a Samurai Class... and almost no specifics. "Guy with a sword, who is maybe in armor or not" isn't much of a pitch, y'know?

Agreed. Isn't unarmored swordmaster just a swashbuckler or a monk with monk weapon? Isn't armored swordmaster on a horse just a fighter or champion, possibly with cavalier?

I guess letting monks use Japanese-style swords would fulfil one part of the fantasy. Homebrewing that is easy: give a weapon the monk tag and possibly remove another tag if it's too good.

I really enjoyed this! The course list is excellent!

Just curious - Have you come up with any info about the new teachers you added?

Not yet, I'll probably improvise something in my campaign. But someone on reddit started work on this:

I really like this and have started fleshing out the new teachers. Since their names were similar, I have made Xhosiliawa a kobold and a sister to Xhokan from the Powderpile. Varashod is an android. Working on the others.

While the vanilla 'Life in the Magaambya' study system is too bare-bones for my taste, the expanded Magaambya with weekly checks is too overwhelming for me. So in my system, I picked some parts from these systems, as well as from the Monthly study system (which includes exams, and roles for branches), to make a new bi-weekly study system. I don't have a calendar or exams but I do have a course list, as my players indicated they would like to choose the courses their characters are following, and I've seen some nice examples of courses online already.

So with that, I present:
BI-WEEKLY STUDY SYSTEM

for the Magaambya. This document is written from a player's perspective. The branch benefits remain the same, though you could also change the benefits based on what courses the players took. I also encourage to combine it with an NPC Influence system, for which many options can be found online: I personally like this one best. How many Influence Points (or Friendship or Relation Points) you need for an NPC to give a certain advantage is left open. I also had to introduce some new teachers, else the teaching load of the staff mentioned in the AP would become ridiculous. For example, there is only one Emerald Boughs teacher mentioned (Zuma) and it is mentioned that he only teaches electives, so I made up some alchemy and other related courses for him.

Now we have 4 possible study system options (3-monthly, monthly, bi-weekly and weekly), so I hope this will be useful to someone. Please let me know if you have any critique!

A historical ninja was essentially a spy whose job was mostly to gather intel and report them to their Lords. They rarely assassinated people, as blood splatters would be too glaring and obvious. The idea of this stealthy and powerful warrior came from medias.

Speaking of generic names, I think 'Spy' would be an excellent class name that could cover some things that the current rogue does not cover. Stealthy poisoner with smoke bomb and some ki magic (ninja) could be covered by it, as could the Vigilante (though this is already an archetype), but also more diplomatic characters that don't necessarily want to use music, the gods, or the blood of their ancestors to influence people.

The map and the Tanuki art look super dope!

I think you are drawing very different conclusions to me about the difference between a tool, and AI given your use of comparisons like drawing/painting and cameras.

What's your conclusion? Both photography and painting are art forms, wouldn't both human-GMs and AI-GMs be valid TTRPG forms?

I would not agree that generating “art” and text “supports” storytelling.

Why not? And what do you think of virtual dice rollers and fantasy name generators that have been around for much longer?

In my opinion, it's only a matter of years before most of the media we consume (books, memes, films, etc.) will be mostly AI-generated. TTRPGs will follow suit, with AI taking a prominent role, just like VTTs have taken an important role since the pandemic.

That is not to say there will not be a place for human GMs. Just like people have continued to draw and paint even though we have cameras, and people still calculate things by hand even though we have calculators, people will keep GMing. But AI will be a huge support, and in many cases I think a human GM might not be needed at all in the future, except for those who want to have that old-school feeling, just like some people right now do not want to use digital dice-rolling tools because they like rolling physical dice.

Already people are generating art and text with AI to support their storytelling. As long as we view AI as a tool this is the way to go in my opinion.

It doesn't really make sense that a crime boss could amass wealth and power in a society where wealth is meaningless.

Maybe she wants to go back to the old ways, or just keep wealth for herself instead of sharing it with society. However...

What I would recommend instead is still playing up the ways in which Nantambu approaches this ideal while having it fall short for practical reasons (the rest of the world is not like this, after all) and then having some of those shortcomings resolve throughout the AP.

This sounds like a very good idea to me. The events with Salathiss and Froglegs like you mention, and later with Dimari-Diji visiting Nantambu, could all result into big changes in Nantambu society.

And thanks for answering my questions! This helps.

I feel like the positive influences from both the Magaambya and the city's connection to the plane of Axis can definitely be highlighted without turning the city into a post-scarcity utopia. Personally, I would advise against committing to the idea as hard as you propose; first, it would involve a lot of rewrites, but more than that it undercuts Osibu's role both in the Mwangi Expanse and in this AP as... well, a utopian Mwangi city full of magic that's worth protecting.

Plane of Axis? I missed that, is it in the Mwangi expanse book? And yes I would have to make sure Osibu still plays an important role, I didn't yet have a solution for that. Taking your and hauk's ideas together, maybe Nantambu is on the edge of becoming a paradise, but some troubles need to be solved (stone ghost, frogless, salathis, etc.) and once Osibu is protected and Dimari-Diji visits Nantambu, the heroes can help shape Nantambu into a paradise city like Osibu.

Another thought on this (apologies for the double post): if Nantambu is so utopian, then it makes Walkena's argument significantly weaker - why put up with his tyranny when a perfect life is so relatively close at hand? The hardscrabble lives folk make in Bloodcove or while (re)building Vidrian are somewhat cheapened if they could just move to a nearby slice of paradise.

This, however, doesn't seem an issue to me. Because it is already the case (Nantambu being a haven of peace and culture), just to a lesser degree. And Nantambu is much too open of a society for Walkena.

In my opinion, the high levels are not so much of a problem. Characters have so many options there already, and would likely use their reaction for something else. What you can do is make the DC the same as the primary check DC (or 2 less as proposed in this thread), but only for DCs up to 20. After that, keep it at DC20 like in the core rules.

...Charau-Ka and Usaro ideas...

I love your ideas about involving the Charau-Ka and Usaro! I was wondering why they didn't show up in this AP. Having a student from this region since the start would be a good idea, luckily I can still implement this in my campaign.

In preparing for this AP, I've decided that I really wanted to lean into the utopian aspects of Nantambu. It is already described as a haven of peace, learning and culture, but I want to take it one step further. The Magaambya being focused on both arcane and primal magic also gives me solarpunk vibes, with nature and magic (instead of nature and technology) as core aspects of the city. With so much magic going around, and so many people dedicated to improve society, and such long periods of peace due to the tempest-sun mages, in my campaign I imagine Nantambu has recently developed a post-scarcity society where everyone has their basic needs met. Unseen servants keep the streets clean, primal magic causes an abundance of food, and healing magic keeps everyone healthy (though resurrections would still be rare and costly). Money is no longer necessary: everyone can ask for basic things like food and minor healing, and if anyone needs something more special like a big house, or transportation to another city, it is freely given if it is 1) abundantly available and 2) deemed necessary. The chime-ringers help in making sure no one gathers wealth for themselves (cough Froglegs cough) and also that slackers (cough Chizire cough) get a bad reputation and might be refused luxury goods and services.

Now, the question is, if I make such a choice, besides the effects on the story it will also have mechanical effects.
1. No money means less bookkeeping, which is good, because I can focus more on bookkeeping for NPC relations and an elaborate academic subsystem. Even more so if I add milestone leveling and automatic bonus progression.
2. Item levels. These are a good way to limit what characters can get (no you can't get this scroll of teleport, that's for this teacher who is doing an important mission in Absalom). But what about, let's say, 4-th level items for 1st level PCs? These items should still be abundantly available, what would be a good reason to deny them to the PCs at first?
3. Importance of diplomacy. If items are not traded for money but on the basis of need and availability, a PC who has invested in diplomacy or deception might be able to convince someone to give them a high level item. This makes social skills very powerful, maybe too powerful?
4. Trade with other cities. If Nantambu is the only post-scarcity society, they still need to trade with neighbouring cities and countries. So money still exists, unless they are so utopian that they are self-sufficient and just give away what they have for free, but that seems unlikely on such a dangerous world as Golarion. Maybe PCs will need to keep track of their money after all, just not in Nantambu?
5. Treasure: what do PCs do with treasure they don't need if they can't trade it for money? They can give it away to gain reputation with a certain NPC or group maybe, or go to other cities to trade it for money. How would you react to such a rule as a player?

These changes are great! I am still preparing but I've also read similar qualms about Koride, and I also thought the Vesicant Egg could use an update on the role it plays in the AP. Your rewrite solves a lot of problems I've read from others.

I will also add here the idea I've read somewhere else about the animal trader in book 1, to make it more like an animal hospital. In general, the vibe of this AP could be much more positive, and I was thinking of making Nantambu much more of a utopian place, but a utopian place overrun by insects seems even more fun!

If you really want to give a discount by using Diplomacy, you could make it up to 25% of the full price of the item. That way, if they are cheeky and try the same trick again later to sell the item for a higher price with absurd Diplomacy rolls, and you make them sell the item for 25% of the full price more, then they haven't earned any income, meaning the Earn an Income activity and the Bargain Hunter feat are not useless.

Example: they want to buy an item worth 100gp, they get critical success on Diplomacy (I would require multiple rolls, to make the NPC helpful and make a request, etc.), the NPC hesitates but sees the hero really needs the item, and it offers up to a 25% discount, meaning the PC buys the item for 75gp. The NPC would then still have made a 25gp profit to cover their costs, as someone has sold them the item for 50gp at some point in history. Later, when the PC comes across a better item, they want to sell the same item again. This would normally yield them 50gp (half the normal price), but they convince the new buyer to pay 75gp with several high rolls. Then in the end they earned nothing, and if they actually want to earn something with diplomacy they would need the Bargain Hunter feat.

Skinsaw man is no match for the PCs on his own, I know from experience and also from other GMs. Like always, I think the best choice is to add minions in his room, indeed something like one or several goblin ghast assistants. I don't know how he is supposed to get sneak attack damage as written, maybe by feinting or something?

I've also finished now! After 3.5 years. Oyoryel's box is now with me, also in the Netherlands, if you want to come pick it up please let me know!

Did anyone do some PF2 monster conversions for Runelords?

Yes, all of them. Check A Series of Dice-based Events and its corresponding discord server.

Try this mirror: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hSvaNxF7Ihs5naizo8G6UpCgZnOZWYLk?us p=sharing

Wait really? I live in the centre of the Netherlands and my party just entered Xin-Shalast. I'll send you a private message!

Also, congratulations on finishing the campaign! What was the most exciting part of the campaign?

PC: Galathorn the Unbroken
Class: Champion 16
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast (Pathfinder2e) -> Whispers in the wind
Catalyst: Wendigo
Story: After defeating the ghost of Karivek Vekker and finding his remains, the PCs hid in a tunnel burrowed by the Frost Worm to find shelter from the growing blizzard. Galathorn, the brave Paladin of Iomedae, stood watch outside, as they heard a second howl from a magical beast. The Wendigo appeared behind him, thinking the lonely champion would be an easy prey, but Galathorn reacted fast, and called his allies to battle. Together they managed to severely damage the creature, at which point it began to flee into the storm. The party wizard transformed into a dragon and followed it, while Galathorn jumped on the dragon's back. After searching and trying to maneuver through the blizzard, they got close enough to the creature that Galathorn could damage it even more with his runeforged blade, but the Wendigo fled again. This time it took more effort but they found it, though the dragon wizard had trouble getting close to it. Galathorn managed to make a 90 feet jump to get to the Wendigo, grabbed it and held on to it, but the Wendigo caused Galathorn to ride the wind and took him along by transforming them both into snowclouds. The wizard's dragon form would soon end, and he didn't manage to stay close to the Wendigo in the blizzard so finally turned back, while Galathorn decided to stay in the wind walk form with the Wendigo. The Wendigo took him to a distant mountain top while getting healed back to full health, where it had a duel with Galathorn who was almost out of abilities. Galathorn alone was no match for the Wendigo, and got clawed to death and then eaten.
Aftermath: At this high level, the player probably doesn't want to make a new character anymore, and maybe also doesn't want to get resurrected, so sadly the other players might have to try to defeat Karzoug without him.

Officially there is no impact for virtuous players in Runeforge. Which I think is kind of boring, so you can search the forums for alternative boons and penalties as there were plenty of suggested options. Or even better, come up with your own!

I would only give a boon to a player that has no sin points though, and even then you might consider keeping the original ruling because Runeforge is all about sins, not virtues.

Exactly how much downtime is expected to occur in any given chunk? The reason I ask is that I just crunched the numbers and unless I'm mistaken, it would take a level 3 Wizard who critically succeded their craft check something like 44 days to complete a level three item worth 75gp. Am I doing this math wrong or am I just assuming 'downtime' is much shorter than it actually is...?

I don't think there are expectations. I run a converted PF1 AP and I just give a few weeks of downtime between books.

Note that for what your player is doing he is better off just buying the item, then spend the rest of the time adventuring (if possible) or if everyone wants downtime, use the Earn Income action. Unless there is no 3rd level settlement anywhere near, which I doubt. Or he has a cool uncommon formula of an item not sold anywhere nearby.

Crafting is almost never the best option, check the homebrew forum for ideas on how to change that.

I've run one homebrew campaign and one AP is currently near the end. As someone fresh to roleplaying in general, for the homebrew campaign I was very grateful for the pathfinderwiki to read up on the lore. Then I thought of an overarching story, and made encounters 1-3 sessions in advance.

When I switched to running an AP, the thing is that it is easier, but takes the same amount of time. Where I would actively look for monsters and lore in a homebrew campaign, for the AP I could just read the book. It requires less creativity, but still gives the option for creativity by making changes to the AP and tying in player's backstory, etc.

So APs have my preference unless I have a very long creative spark.

Congratulations! Also for keeping it up for 9 years, that's a long time.

PC: Mok

Can't edit my post anymore so here's the aftermath.

There they saw Mok's soul going towards Pharasma's judgment, fought some Astradaemons, and also figured out that some of the souls from Varisia were missing the greedy part of their personality, causing a wrong judgment from Pharasma and disturbing the whole process. Outsiders asked them to figure out what was going on with this, as the PCs suspected Karzoug had something to do with it.

In the boneyard they found a high level cleric NPC and paid him to cast the Resurrect ritual on Mok, but unfortunately the NPC failed because he had never tried to resurrect such a powerful person before. It cost them most of their coin. Then they realized the NPC could also use the Raise Dead spell, which is more expensive but at least wouldn't fail. They sold everything they didn't need and Raised Mok's body, then returned to the Material Plane with the help of Iomedae's herald.

My players disliked Belor so much they thought he might have something to do with all the murders. It was for similar reasons: it seems like he's not doing anything useful in the AP and he's a lousy sheriff.

What helped in my case was a bit counter-intuitive: giving them a badge that said they were on a mission for the sheriff of Sandpoint. In the meantime Belor would go look for other recruits, or train the guards in case there would be a ghoul or goblin attack. But the badge helped make the relationship more clear: the PCs were on an official mission, rather than doing this guy a favour. In later books they just took the role of independent investigators but for book 2 it helped them being able to say they were on official business everywhere.

As Arcaian said, a small village isn't supposed to be able to defend itself against high level monsters such as giants. Goblins and orcs are already a threat to them. This is why remote villages in for example Varisia are under protection of larger cities, who can come to their aid with small armies or send adventurers to help.

PC: Mok
Class: Rogue 14
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors (Pathfinder2e) -> Halls of Wrath
Catalyst: Sinspawn Axemen
Story: The PCs got past the Iron Archer statue by solving a riddle for it, then successfully convinced the inhabitants of the Wrath Wing that they were there to pass 'the test' (trying to defeat their leader, High Lady Athroxis), though in reality they were looking for a teleportation portal. When they wanted to continue to the leader, they were held back as the inhabitants did not think they were ready. The PCs then convinced them to do a pre-test, a mock battle to show their strength. The inhabitants agreed that if the 4 PCs could beat 6 Sinspawn Axemen, they were ready for the test. Unfortunately, the rogue got downed and healed and then downed again multiple times, which in PF2 is the best way to get yourself killed. The last critical hit of a greataxe with power attack proved fatal, and the mock battle was cancelled.

Plus one name for multiple things to keep things simple (ish) like they did with Feats kinda makes sense

The thing is that all feats work the same. You can get a feat of a certain level only if your character is that level or higher, no matter if it's a class feat, general feat, skill feat, etc. It makes no sense that it doesn't work this way for spell levels too, instead relying on an arbitrary formula just like the archaic ability scores->modifier formula (which also should've been removed in my opinion).

Hm, my paladin player probably won't like that he can't wade through a troop of low-level enemies with his high armor, as every attack by the troops asks for a reflex save so AC is meaningless. Does anyone know why even melee attacks require a reflex save? You'd think having good armor helps when wading through a bunch of goblins or orcs.