To be honest, I'm agog that this piece of information was cut for space. This is a detail that the PCs will absolutely obsess over; "who killed Valenar and what is their plot" is something they as players need to find out at some point, even if it is just a random grudge. And as a DM, I needed to know if this dangling plot thread is something I need to hold onto because it would come back in book 3.
I still very much enjoy the campaign, but I hope editors make different value judgements in the future. Prismati or Flyting could have been greatly simplified or cut entirely to make space for this kind of important information.
Still also feels weird to have a canonically level 15 druid get oneshot by a level 8 monster? I fully thought that there HAD to be a bigger plot because of that. Like maybe Valenar had been brainwhammied by Ayrzul or something? I love the idea of this being random pettiness, but the execution was fumbled here.
I've searched around and couldn't find any discussion on this. Is the Blight Hex useless by RAW?
Blight (Su) (Advanced Player's Guide pg. 66): The witch can curse an animal, plant creature, or plot of land, causing it to wither and die. Blighting an area takes 1 round, during which time the witch and her familiar must be in contact with the target. If it's used on a plot of land, the land begins to wither the following day, and over the next week all plants in the area die. Nothing will grow in that area so long as the curse persists. A witch can affect an area with a radius equal to her class level × 10 feet. Blighting a creature is a standard action that requires a melee touch attack. If used on a creature of the animal or plant type, the creature gains the following curse: Blight Hex—type curse; save Will negates; frequency 1/day; effect 1 Con damage. Both types of curse can be removed with a remove curse or similar magic, using the save DC as the DC to remove the curse. A witch can only have one blight in effect at a time. If another blight hex is made, the first immediately ends.
So the effect of the curse is it takes 1 con damage per day. Sleeping restores 1 damage to all ability scores. So each day the target will take 1 con damage, heal that damage with sleep, and take that same 1 point of con damage the next morning. The description <The witch can curse an animal, plant creature, or plot of land, causing it to wither and die> clearly spells out that the intention was for the target to continually take damage over the course of days, slowly getting weaker until it dies, but mechanically it's just cursed to have 1 con damage forever until the witch hexes something else.
Am I missing something? Was this just poorly written? Is there an errata somewhere I just haven't found? Would it be possible for the author to clarify RAI?
Hi there, I tried to purchase PDFs of Distant Realms and Planes of Power over the weekend for 31.98 on this account. The Paizo website said y'all declined my card, but my bank says you charged me twice. I'm out more than $60 but still don't have the two PDFs. Can we get this sorted please?
I've already emailed y'all but haven't gotten a response.
Thank you for your time, I hope you have a nice day.
I was reading through Ultimate Intrigue again (great book) and got stuck on the Owl Style feats. On the surface, they seem like the perfect solution for Vigilantes/Rogues/Slayers and whatnot wanting to Batman their way out of the darkness and get a full round of attacks on unsuspecting villains while also conserving skill points (using BAB for ranks in Stealth/Acrobatics/Fly). The problem comes in when you look at the actual rules for Style Feats:
Quote:
As a swift action, you can enter the stance employed by the fighting style a style feat embodies. Although you cannot use a style feat before combat begins, the style you are in persists until you spend a swift action to switch to a different combat style. You can use a feat that has a style feat as a prerequisite only while in the stance of the associated style.
So that right there completely negates using the style to ambush people, doesn't it? You can't start getting the benefits until initiative is rolled and you have your first combat round? If so, what's the point of the BAB replacing ranks in Stealth/Acrobatics/Fly, but only when you're actively in combat?
Am I misunderstanding the point of this feat, is there some ruling I'm missing, or was the "no stances outside of combat" rule missed when writing? I'm very confused.
Any ideas on a good infiltration spell? They have the other entrances pretty well covered. We're talking iron doors, superb locks (DC 40), pit traps, skeleton archers behind murder holes, and a wandering incorporeal being with lifesense 60. They've actually posted the vast majority of their defenses on the entrances, which is why I was excited to see that the book actually had a plan to bypass them.
Hey everyone, I've been running WotW for about two months and my group LOVES it. But I have an issue that I'd like advice on.
They took the Horn and everything, cleared it out, and they've been rebuilding/restocking/entrenching. During this time, they figured out the trick to the teleporter thrones. They already knew the passwords "Yah" and "Rah," so the cleric sat down in one of them and just started going down the alphabet: "Ah, Bah, Cah, Dah..." until he hit "Vah," which sent him to the lost teleporter *that they shouldn't know exists.*
Long story short, it caused some issues involving the angel-snake-lady and her entourage, and the PC's decided to destroy that chair. So now, the Harkon invasion force (week 12, event 7) is thrown off entirely, as that chair is integral to them getting in and causing problems.
I have two ideas.
One is to say that there's simply another teleporter somewhere with a password similar to "Nen" password that the magic circle on floor 3 uses, and they use that to get in.
The other is that when Harkon finds information about the chairs, he also finds out how to fix them when they are broken, given enough time, money, and the craft wondrous item feat.
I'm leaning a bit toward the latter, because that tidbit of information is actually something they've been trying to figure out.
Then again I could just say that the incursion force is SOL and they need another way in.
Ok so last game (Kingmaker Book 2, Pathfinder #32), my PCs were able to find the Lonely Barrow (area F on the main map) where it was rumored that a fierce undead guardian kept a powerful magic weapon. They of course wanted the weapon. So they went in, took care of the dinky monsters, the not-so-dangerous trap, and all of that with no issue whatsoever. My problem comes when I look at the Lonely Warrior, the guardian of the sword.
So it's a Cairn Wight Fighter 2. It's wielding a broken +2 Fey Bane Bastard Sword, which it has the proficiency feat for. The normal entry for a cairn wight says that they have a +6 to hit with a regular, nonmagical longsword. Why the hell then, does this boss cairn wight only have a +1 to hit?
I figure that a regular cairn wight with no class levels (CR4) has a +3 BAB, with a +3 strength mod (16 str) on top of that.
Going by straight stats, this boss creature (CR6 for the added fighter levels) should then have +3 BAB from being a wight, then an extra +2 for fighter levels, then +5 to hit from its 21 strength, leading to a total of a +10 to hit, down to a +8 because it wields a broken weapon.
WHY does the book list it at a +1 to hit instead of a +8? It couldn't do a dang thing to my PCs, and they just sat there doing little relative damage to it because it has AC 26 and a ton of health. What should have been a dangerous combat ended up being boring and trudging. Am I missing something? Are there conditions I'm unaware of that lowered his to-hit by 7?
if the game is loaded with mind immune crappies- there are 2 feats to take that allow your spells to function as normal- and witches are not feat hungry.
On the one hand the idea and the theme of the scenario were great.
But this just runs far too long, this will easily take 5-6 hours or more.
There are 5 combats, a complex research that alone will take 30 - 60 minutes, a chase, multiple RP encounters,...
Yes you can circumvent some of this but it is still too much.
Some suggestions how this could have been streamlined.
Cut encounter A5 - it doesn't contribute anything to the main story.
Simplify the whole portal thing - why track 3 different types of portals if they all go to the same direction anyway.
Streamline the Cross Reference mechanic in the research encounter - once the GM is basically forced to use an Excel sheet to track progress this is too much - and maybe cut some of the secondary rolls.
Cut the chase at the end.
Overall this plays pretty straight forward, go from A to B and overcome the obstacles/encounters on the way.
What I really liked as a GM was that every map had proper marks for player and enemy starting positions and included information for potential environment effects and descriptions of major landmarks on the map.
This is also a very good scenario for a new GM that wants something not too complicated to run.
Overall an ok scenario with a lot of variations for replays.
Some of the rooms on map B are too small for a fight that can contain up to 6 PCs + companions fighting multiple enemies. Even with the clarifications and then the clarifications for the clarifications that was a problem.
Also the timeline of the ritual/curse was a bit confusing.
Great adventure.
A nice mix of skill challenges and combats.
A good story that also interacts nicely with the greater world.
Slight warning for potential GMs, there are a few combats that can be very hard, depending on your party you might want to adjust them.
From a player perspective it is ok-ish, but not really great. As a season ender it is a bit disappointing that there is no real end to any metaplot here, but in a certain way that is a fitting end for the season 5 metaplot which outside of the Equal Exchange scenarios was very disjointed and basically went nowhere. But overall if your GM is plugging the holes (more to that in the GM part) this can be an enjoyable experience, nothing outstanding but I have played worse.
(3 stars for the player experience)
As a GM this is just a mess. Maps that don't fit the descriptions. Some maps are lacking markings while others have markings but no explanation what these are supposed to mean. Stat blocks for custom monsters are missing important information. We have multiple "environmental" effects that somehow are supposed to work as hazards except there are not written as hazards and their interaction with the PCs is lacking information. At the beginning you meet two NPCs but is unclear which one is which because the art and the description contradict each other. Somehow even the treasure bundle table in the Appendix contains a typo. Only run this if you are a completionist, or are willing to fill all the holes in it.
(1 stars for the GM experience and I would give it 0 stars if I could)
Overall 3 stars from the players side and 1 star from the GM side gives this a total of 2 stars and I am being nice here.
It has the maybe best skill challenge/variant obstacle chase part I have seen in PF2 so far.
My one minor nitpick is the final boss. Taking the final boss from an obscure Dark Archive adventure where their overpowered abilities made sense in context of the party getting ways to counter them, and putting it in here without these counters was not that great and is the main reason this adventure does not get 5 stars.
A very combat heavy scenario. If you have an anti-undead character you will enjoy this.
Now for some minor nitpicks which prevent this from being a 5 star.
During the beginning you get introduced to some NPCs (from Knights of Lastwall) that don't matter at all for the scenario and I have honestly no idea why they are even mentioned. Also the combats feel repetitive at times (fighting the same enemies over and over again) and adding all the bonuses and penalties from the preparation part felt a bit too time-consuming to be fun.
Overall I think cutting one of the 4 combats and replacing it with a some more roleplaying/skill challenges would have been better as would be a bit more of variety in the opponents.
Overall it is a nice scenario with some sandbox beginning and then a more or less standard dungeon crawl.
But from the GM side it felt more like an IKEA set of a scenario than a finished product. Just getting lists with "this is something that you can add together however you like" and then having to make something up is not what I normally expect from a society scenario.
Overall a nice adventure but I have one nitpick from the GM side.
Having to prepare complex hazards and encounters that then get avoided by skills is cool for the players but as a GM it feels like a lot of wasted time.
When I played it I had one of the worst experience ever and I would give it 0 stars if I could.
As a GM it worked far better and I would have given it solid 3 stars, so overall that would be a 2 star rating.
More details below
Spoiler:
This scenario contains a starship combat, a starship chase and then some mostly diplomatic skill checks. There is no ground combat and most of the skills are of the "one roll per party" kind, so if you are not the envoy you can just spend 2 hours of scenario doing nothing and watching other people play. When I played my vanguard I did a total of 2 rolls outside of starship actions. Also some the role-playing scenes (the Drift Lab and the searching of the ship) felt very weird and could easily be removed to add a ground combat.
Also if most of the scenario is skill challenges make them challenges in which everyone can participate and not one roll per party.
This scenario runs a bit on the short side (2-3 hours) which can be good if your group has limited time but I really feel like some more content in it would have been better. Overall there just isn't much in it.
The combats are far too easy and sadly there are not many extensive skill challenges either. There are at most 3 NPCs you can interact with for any roleplay so this is not much either. Overall it just feels that this could either have been cut down to a 2 hours quest by reducing the long descriptions of the area the players are traveling through or just add some more meat for a full blown scenario.
But now for my big complaint.
There are multiple instances of missing information in the scenario which I as a GM consider extreme annoying.
In the beginning the PCs get some gifts that they are supposed to use to make some friends, those gifts never get mentioned again and there is 0 information about what they do.
The final encounter is seriously lacking some information about where the party and the enemies are supposed to be on the map and the text description is contradicting and confusing.
Overall this was ok-ish. There was some nice roleplay with varying skill challenges in the first half of the scenario and then there are some combats.
Radaszam and Ehu Hadif get some nice moments to shine and Ehu especially gets some much needed characterization and can show some passion.
Outside of the now massively nerfed hazard (GMs check out the update) the combats are more on the easy side, maybe a bit too easy for my taste, but I understand that is considered an intro scenario and they wanted to err on the easy side.
But now for my big complaint, there are far too many NPCs in that scenario that players are supposed to interact with. Once you introduced the 6th NPC (and there are still more to come) expect a lot of confused players and constant questions about who they are. It would have been better to focus on like 4 and give them some deeper interaction instead of overwhelming the players with this flood. And while it is nice to see some recurring NPCs from earlier content it would help the GM massively to at least write the source in the scenario.
Also letting players make decisions that literally don't matter at all in already short scenario feels like filler.
So overall I cannot give more than 3 stars for this.
I played and GMed this one.
Overall this is a nice scenario, there are a lot of abilities to roleplay and different characters can shine.
BUT
This scenario runs far too long for a normal 4 hour slot. Running it took me over 5 hours and when I played it took us over 6 hours, in both cases that was with only 4 players.
The vehicle chase feels rather pointless and doesn't really add anything. Adding a subsystem in an already overcrowded scenario without any major payoff was a big enough mistake for me to retract 1 star.
Wow, that was the scenario that made me really consider quitting PF2.
The original setup is nice, but then the first encounter happens.
Spoiler:
At 5-6 you have to fight an AC 30, attack bonus +21. To give some comparision, my maxed out lvl 6 animal companion has an attack bonus of +12 and an AC of 23. There might be people that enjoy missing 85% of their attacks, I don't. On the other hand the creature hits it on a 2 and crits on a 12.
After that the scenario just screeched to a halt because to continue every party member had to succeed at a DC 24 stealth or perception check.
Also you are stuck in a sandbox but you basically have to guess what the author intended you to do.
My main problem with the scenario are the skill challenges. Forcing everybody to roll on a very limited amount of skill against high DCs and then expecting 4 successes from a 6 player party is just bad. The DC is high enough that even just being trained means you have a more than 50% chance to fail, and being untrained means you are basically fishing for 20s. Apparently the author or the developer expect every PC to be expert in the 2 to 3 skills that get used over and over again. This isn‘t the first time they did this and I get sick an tired of this. You can‘t just use the average DC from the table and then epect more than half of the players to succeed.
Another critique is the first encounter. Letting the party fight 5 monsters with gaze attacks that can petrify them is just a joke. This just turns into „everybody rolls so often until you fail“. And of course the monsters start near enough to the party that PCs are affected in round 1 before they even could act.
The only good thing is the story and the setting, but this scenario really gets dragged down by the bad mechanics, that apparently weren‘t tested properly.
(GMed at high tier)
This is literally the best SFS scenario i have seen until now. The combats where challenging and interesting. There are not 1 but 2 different stories happening and both contain some twists to keep the players engaged. This is especially impressive considering that this a transitional scenario as far as the metaplot is concerned. I was contacted by players afterwards just to tell me how much they enjoyed it! I also need to praise the artist of the Izalguun, it is great when players meet an alien species for the first time and the first thing i hear is "this looks cool, i want to play that".
On a personal note i also like that it sets hooks for multiple sequels besides the main metaplot.
I have a few minor nitpicks from the GM's side. There are many bonuses to certain skill checks that are determined by stuff happening earlier and it was quite hard to keep track of everything. Some sort of handout where you could mark everything would have helped a lot. Also the sandbox part felt sort of bare, i was forced to add a lot of flavor.
All together this means 4 1/2 stars which in this case i can round to 5 stars.
Great work, i hope this sets the standard for future scenarios.
