I understand the disappointment and frustration around the Blood Lords sanctioning decision. Speaking for myself, it was not an easy decision to make. Of course I want people to have more sanctioned content for Pathfinder. Of course I trust our community to handle content responsibly. And I wrote Zombie Feast (the first volume of the Blood Lords AP) myself! And it was my first AP volume! Imagine how difficult it was to balance my excitement about my first full adventure path, my responsibilities as the Pathfinder Society developer to provide excellent content for organized play… and the harsh reality that Blood Lords is, ultimately, not suitable for organized play sanctioning. At the end of the day, no matter how responsible you are about how you portray the content in Blood Lords, no matter how much you sanitize the grimmer aspects of the adventures, the Blood Lords AP assumes your characters are abhorrent people, that you work for and support an abhorrent totalitarian government, and that you can and will routinely have opportunities to do abhorrent things, either for self-gain or in the name of Geb. In that way, it is unlike the vast majority of our content. Even when there is uncomfortable content in our other adventures, the assumption is usually that your characters are *not* willing to do abhorrent things. Even if they aren’t exactly heroes, the assumption is that they’re definitely not villains. The exact opposite is true in Blood Lords. Again, speaking personally, it was a difficult decision. That might not make it any easier of a pill to swallow, but I hope you understand that our reasoning is far from “ew, this is kind of gross, we can’t trust our community to portray this well.” I’m not so worried about the content that goes against individual sensibilities—that’s something we absolutely trust our players and GMs to handle well. But the very premise of this adventure path, and the foundational assumptions of who your characters are and how they will behave, go far beyond “sensibility” concerns. Transparently, when we reached our final decision, despite my disappointment that my very own debut adventure path volume would not be sanctioned for my very own organized play program, my primary emotion was relief. I don’t expect this to make anybody feel better about our decision, but I hope it provides some insight into my personal thoughts on the matter.
So, for those of use who like to try and play the season with one character, is it possible to get a feeling on the number of meta-plot scenarios and their levels? We published a blog post laying out all of Year of Shattered Sanctuaries, and I'd love to do the same thing for Year of Boundless Wonder. We're not at the point of being ready to do that yet, though. I can say that the structure of Year of Boundless Wonder is similar to Year of Shattered Sanctuaries in that there are multiple standalone stories which all contribute to a greater whole, rather than a linear progression of scenarios intended to be played in a specific order.
Eando Kline rips off another eversticky note reading "destroy" and slaps it on a crate of cursed potions. "Whew. I think that's the last of them." Zarta peers up from the strange chalice she was examining. "No. There's another room. That way, behind the pile of chests." Eando sighs. "I'm going to need more of these. Got any more 'destroy' stickies?" Zarta tosses him a stack. "Sure. I've only been using the ones that say 'protect' and 'contain.'" She suppresses a wicked grin while Eando storms off into the adjoining chamber, notes in hand, grumbling something about the abundant arrogance of archivists. "Now," she says, picking up the chalice, "whatever shall we do with you?"
I wish the writers would be more engaging in these threads to shed some light on these hiccups. That's understandable, though it isn't the author's job to monitor the forums, and we developers generally prefer that they leave such questions to us. Transparently, I've been quite busy with PaizoCon prep + GenCon scenario development. I'll loop back with more specific, bullet-point responses as soon as I can, but it looks like the issues that have been raised here are typos and other errors. Apologies!
Content Note: This scenario does not include harm to children or child endangerment. The Pathfinder agents (player characters) face danger, but the students of the academy do not. This was an expressly stated requirement in the original outline, and the author did a wonderful job meeting this requirement while creating lots of fun combat, puzzles, and role-playing opportunities. “Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.” –God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Kurt Vonnegut, 1965
By the way, I wanted to give a shout out to this adventure's author, Jacob, who did a stellar job, conducted thorough playtesting, and delivered exactly what was asked for with this adventure. The rebalancing we had to do for the final encounter is entirely on me.
We made a few adjustments the final encounter and we've updated the PDF. Please be sure to re-download the PDF from your downloads page. You may need to click "Problems downloading this file?" to refresh the file. It's still a hard scenario (as intended), but not so "brutally unfair." Enjoy!
I'd love it if this conversation could move elsewhere, as we've gone beyond the concerns of the original post, and we're well outside the "space for grieving" Tonya offered when she kept the thread open. Questions about org play policy, or questions about how to best follow the code of conduct, are certainly reasonable topics for discussion, but please raise them somewhere with a less demoralizing thread title. I am tired of seeing "SHAME ON YOU" at the top of the forum every time somebody posts here. Please let this thread die.
Maybe Christopher had another pronunciation in mind, but in my mind it's "vill-TIE-duss." Whatever you can easily say at the table should be fine. Of course, now I'm smacking my forehead because Viltydus should have they/them pronouns, and there's clearly at least one instance of "his" referring to Viltydus in the text. Many apologies for that. Thanks for the feedback!
I'm excited about the story justification we came up with for skeletons (eventually) becoming an option in Pathfinder Society, and the author of the adventure in question did an excellent job making our idea come to life (pun intended). Wish I could say more, as I'm just as excited as everyone else for Year 4... but I can't!
Yup. And even if you could augment them to hold aspis badges too, you know it would just point to the grand lodge's collection of them.I love the wayfinderfinder. Feel like that needs to actually be a thing :) So what you're saying is that we need to begin developing a wayfinderfinderfinder, just in case.
Trying something a little different today, and setting up a GM discussion thread myself. This is the place for GMs to discuss Pathfinder Society Scenario #3-12: Fury's Toll. Players, be aware that there are spoilers ahead! GMs, if you have any questions, ask away. Talking things over with fellow GMs is often helpful. I'll do my best to clarify any major issues and answer questions as soon as I can. My first piece of advice for GMs looking to run this adventure is: please read the final battle's tactics carefully, and implement the tactics as written. There are strong narrative reasons for the enemies in the final battle to use suboptimal tactics. If you run the final enemies with optimal tactics, the encounter may be far more difficult than intended. Enjoy!
I'm speaking solely for myself here, not the rest of the team. This thread is mostly talking about interactive specials, but it's tangentially touching on our overall approach with regard to "quantity vs. quality," and I have some thoughts. I help make Pathfinder Society adventures because I love doing it. I take pride in the stories and experiences we create. I have no interest in lowering the quality of my work for the sake of producing more content. I value my work, and I want it to look good. I want editors to review my scenario outlines and developed turnovers and show me how they can be better. I want the adventures I develop to have layout done by talented professionals with the proper tools. I want quality art. I want to be able to show our adventures to people and say, "I helped make these. Aren't they awesome?" If the time comes for me to apply for a new job, I'll need to point to the products I've helped to create in my time on this team, and I'll want them to look good. If being on this team meant that I was cranking out low-quality products for the sake of meeting demand, I would have an incentive to leave the team and join another one where I got to make higher quality products. I feel for everyone who wants more content. I also wish we had the additional time and resources to produce more org play content. Our setting is enormous. I have more adventure ideas than I know what to do with, and more prospective freelancers than I could ever possibly hire. I appreciate everyone trying to come up with ways that we could produce more content. The fact that you want more content shows that you enjoy what we create. Speaking personally, I wouldn't like to cut pieces of the production process so we can fit more adventures through the production pipeline, because I do not want to reduce the quality of our adventures. I also can't even think of a part of the process we could reasonably cut. Everyone who works on our adventures is essential to the process. Enough rambling from me. Thank you for your contributions to the discussion. Time for lunch... then back to making adventures!
The Pathfinder Society was similarly upset, so they named their lodge in Quantium "Nexus House" to maintain proper balance in the universe. Anyway, I can't wait until everyone gets a chance to see the guts of this delightfully disgusting adventure.
Thursty is wise. Listen to Thursty. I'm super excited for both of these adventures! Everyone on the team (and at the rest of Paizo) is working as hard as they can to produce as many high-quality adventures as possible in the time that we have. Given limited time and resources, we need to make decisions about what to make, which also means deciding what not to make. We know we won't please everyone. And that's okay. We appreciate your feedback, as it helps us make these decisions.
Response to the goblin/hobgoblin question, which I'll put in a spoiler because it's GM info: Spoiler:
They are hobgoblins. They just have the "goblin" trait like other hobgoblins do. I'll definitely take this into consideration when naming stat blocks in the future, or when deciding what to put in the line under the traits. It would be more clear if it said, for example, "variant hobgoblin deckhand..." or something similar. Hope you enjoy the scenario!
Correct: this is not a metaplot scenario. It's unrelated to the events of the Year of Shattered Sanctuaries, and unrelated to the events of Year 4. The conclusion to the Year of Shattered Sanctuaries is PFS Scenario #3-19, which is for levels 7–10. Rigby and Thursty are putting together a super fun adventure for us. Jump in and enjoy it!
The PCs don't need to trade any of their possessions for the items. If they satisfy any of the conditions described for the different NPCs (usually improving their attitude through Diplomacy or other actions), the NPC gives them the item. It may seem a bit odd that an NPC is willing to give away his grandmother's necklace to a group of strangers, but you can use the various options/suggestions for influencing the NPC as inspiration for why he might decide to give the PCs the item. Some of the NPCs trade their items more willingly if it's for a good cause, or if the PCs help them out, and so on. Even if the PCs are just rolling Diplomacy to Make an Impression, they've got to talk to the NPC for a little while, so the hope is that GMs have an opportunity to bring up these other roleplaying options in a natural way. Additional note: I noticed some misleading phrasing in Safa's goal for the Overmarket Trading encounter. Safa wants the PCs to do literally anything with the three objects other than returning it to them (because then Fasiel gets the items). The PCs don't need to give the items to anyone else, although they can if they want to. They could also keep the items for the Society, or dispose of them, and still satisfy Safa's condition. Hope everyone is enjoying the adventure!
I see you've started scripting your spin-off podcast, Welcome to Darkmoon Vale. I think the title would need a question mark. Welcome to Darkmoon Vale? Like, "we're honestly so uncertain of what's going on that we're not even sure where we are any more."
The PFS-related question in the original post was succinctly answered in the first one or two responses. To those who responded helpfully and with clear information, you have my thanks. If people want to deliberate other unrelated rules or have a conversation about how many times you have to put on your metal armor for it to be considered more than single "act" of anathema, that's fine. But please start a different thread.
A 7-10 scenario?! Time to bring my level 9 barbarian back from sabbatical! Assuming they survive the very first level 9–12 scenario for PFS in 2nd Edition, which is coming out in May! (It's not on the list above because it's not a metaplot scenario.)
Always glad to see Qadira get some love. I’m bummed that this seems to be the only metaplot in the season set outside of Avistan, but at least we have it. Rest assured, we'll be visiting a larger variety of areas in the near future. The Year 3 metaplot was expressly designed to focus on the Inner Sea nations representing past Pathfinder Society factions. Unfortunately, this plan was soon followed by a reduction in the # of scenarios we release in a given year, so our non-metaplot opportunities to visit other regions of Golarion in Year 3 were more limited than anticipated. It's too soon to talk about future plans yet, but this is definitely something we're aware of as we plot out what's happening next. As for scenario #3-12, I can't for you all to see what Sol has in store for you!
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