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Watched your video. Some good insights. And I appreciate your honest evaluation of Paizo's products. As you and your guests mentioned, some adjustments are in order. I agree the chores are a little dumb. I'm thinking of achieving the same sense of intrigue regarding missing people by doing a werebat attack on the ship either coming to Talmandor's Bounty or on the way to Vil-Azmar.

I'll ask this here. On page 11-12, there are obstacle stat blocks for Forest of Stones, Scaling Cliffs, and Storm-Screamer Signs. They are followed by paragraphs of the same obstacles with skill checks and consequences. Is there something I'm missing in how these interact, or is this another example of poor editing in this AP?

...but we all know that’s beyond the scope of this adventure.

I laughed out loud. Thank you for this.

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

New to posting here but have been running AP's professionally for a while. I like subsystems a lot. It's something I appreciate about PF2e. I like crunch! And putting rules to chases and infiltrations and influence encounters equips the GM to offer players real agency that rewards character choices and feels fair and meaningful.

That said... you're starting to do too many of them. I've gotten complaints from players about Seven Dooms having too many for a dungeon delve. They want to head back to the Pit and hear me say, "Roll initiative!" rather than another exposition on how the mechanics of this next Research challenge works. I'm currently prepping Triumph of the Tusk. Love the story, but I'm going to have to tone down the subsystems. I think the chase and the infiltration are central and meaningful in Book 1 of that AP. Everything else is extraneous and distracting.

So my input as a devoted Pathfinder GM who regularly purchases your AP content is to moderate the subsystem usage a little bit.

For high level play, I'm not looking necessarily for direct or even indirect sequels. What I really want in high level play is high stakes against great villains. An adventurer has a career arc which can encompass various enemies that don't have to be linked. But give me the good enemies!

Like if there isn't an epic Whispering Tyrant showdown in 2e, I'll be highly disappointed by the end of this edition run. :)

Just read the whole adventure as I'm getting ready to run it. Definitely needs some work, and some of the adventure feels rushed to print. Maps weren't well planned. Interesting that the River Crossing map, which features one enemy, is enormous while Splitskull Keep has small rooms with multiple and large-sized enemies. I'll probably move encounters in Splitskull. The wyvern fight would probably work really well in the keep courtyard. Area I1 in Splitskull Catacombs mentions a circular staircase in the description that goes nowhere. Original map doesn't have it (making it easy to ignore in the description), but unfortunately the Foundry version put the staircase to nowhere in. I may have to make some tiles to cover it up. It's annoying when Paizo makes exits to maps that don't go anywhere with a "this is beyond the scope of the adventure" statement. This one doesn't even do that for the staircase.

Overall, narrative issues (such as those mentioned by the OP) can easily be fixed by the GM. I'll have to think through whether or not to keep Ardax with the group or send him on to Urgir. In general, I'm going to add lots of Ardax background info on my own, and I'm using better artwork. The adventure's pic of him is pathetic. One other important change I'm making is adding K'zaard and even the Book 3 main villain to the Torrentmoot. They'll both bolt before the Flee section. There's nothing more important than giving the PCs exposure to villains beforehand in order to heighten the drama and increase character motivation.

It's a good adventure. Just needs a little more work from the GM to fix things.

It's intended to be 1–6, playing off the dungeon's actual level. If they do all 6, this could earn them 1+2+3+4+5+6 points, for a total of 21 points in all. Linking it to intended character level would give out WAY too many points.

To me, the "usual meaning" of dungeon level is its depth underground, but the definition of a "dungeon level" isn't really something that still exists in the game's lexicon. Sorry about the confusion!

Thanks! That makes sense!

The reputation quest Mapping the Pit says "On a success, they can turn the map of the level over to the Runewatchers for a reward of a number of Reputation Points with the faction equal to the dungeon’s level." Would you have this as 5-10 (intended character level), or 1-6 (numeric level)? Going by character level seems like a LOT of rep points, but that is the usual meaning of "dungeon's level."