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FYI: Customer service confirmed that they are indeed out of stock! I was able to pick one up through another vendor, though.

I love the Your First Adventure section!!

Of course, I totally understand that this is not something we can expect for future products. But hopefully it will inspire creative folks for Pathfinder Infinite offerings along these lines!

We'll get to detailing more about how the Runelords (both the archetype and the powerful wizard tyrants) function in the Remastered rules some day, but not in this adventure, which does start to set up further Runelord-adjacent stories I've got planned for some time in the future.

I'm really excited to hear that!

It seemed that 2e was shifting to Absalom and the Starstone Isle as its new focus. I always greatly enjoyed Varisia, though, and this comment gives me hope that we'll get to see more of it in 2e!

I'd love to get this, but I am a normal AP line suscriber and wouldn't want to double the product. I guess there is no option to order this as an "instead of", rather than an "and"?

That has come up here before: Check the post three posts above yours.

I would also love to see Fists of the Ruby Phoenix! We are playing through the absolutely fantastic Abomination Vaults in Foundry and Goats of the Ruby Phoenix would be a great follow-up.

I would also love to see some of the Adventures get a module. Malevolence seems like a great fit. Properly set up lighting, sounds and music would make that an amazing experience. And Narchy already made some maps for it!

Honestly, the availability of a Foundry module is one of the top 3 criteria for me when I choose an adventure, so the more, the better!

lex_dm wrote:

Mark Moreland wrote:

Opsylum wrote:

I was literally just bargain hunting for these. :p Still can't find Wormwood Mutiny for anything less than $100. Sigh...someday.

Seriously though, if Paizo did start doing this, they'd have another subscription out of me in a heartbeat. Probably not, because 1e's kind of done and conversions to 2e are complicated, if Kingmaker's anything to go by. Still, one can dream.

It sounds like you might be interested in a print-on-demand option. For those asking for reprints of collected material, would you be interested if they were just 1:1 reprints rather than changing form factor or contents of what was between two covers?

Always glad to see Paizo people involved with our comments.

One humble request would be to please, please take our money and do a deal to market your Adventures (both 1e and 2e if possible) to Foundry VTT.

They are a great VTT but I cant tell how many people would just rather buy modules and APs like they did in FG and Roll20, instead of investing HOURS to upload them.

D&D is bound to do this, just hope Paizo could sooner than later.

It's tricky because FG and Roll20 do it themselves with a license from Paizo, but foundry doesn't have content creators outside of the community, and Paizo cannot sell "volunteer work". So they need to do it. And maintain it.

They have made a test run with 5 bounties right now, and so we can only buy them and wait to see if the results are satisfying enough to be worth the investment.

I know that at least roll20 doesn't really produce the modules themselves either, they hire independent contractors to create them. Given that paizo has oodles of experience working with freelancers, I don't see why they couldn't do that, too. I would definitely be interested in both buying Foundry Modules and offering my services creating them.

Also, I just found this in The Insidious Reptoids in the Backmatter:

"[...] when Kluss's features changed to become reptilian upon death".

Who knew information on reptoids could be found in the article in reptoids.

Because I was worried it would maneuver us into a (literal) dead end if I'd effectively eliminate healing by establishing a doomsday clock, I took the note in the book to heart: there shouldn't be an actual countdown, but the players should feel pressured. So what I told them was that the reactor state is sleeping and it might go critical some time during the next few days, or maybe sooner, who knows with strange tech like this.

It worked as intended: the players felt pressured, but still dared to rest. And the obscurity of the timeline allowed me to suddenly escalate the reactor state once they reached the final encounter.

Thanks for setting these up! I'm preparing book 3 right now and will make sure I post here if I have any questions.

Thanks!

Yes, indeed, we had a lot of fun. We also just finished up book 2, but my session notes weren't very interesting since it's a fairly straightforward dungeon crawl.

Depending on how the first session of book 3 goes, I might start posting a journal again. So if you liked this one, keep an eye out for that one!

Session 6
The final session was a bit of a high-speed railroad: I really wanted to get through the last three events and the final sprint to the escape pods in this session, so I pushed for quick decisions and postponed looting until after the session. Turned out to be the right decision!

The three last events with the pirates played out pretty much as written in the book. I once again had to do some on-the-fly nerfing because the group, already mostly low on hit points, would probably not have made it through all of them otherwise. I don't think the players even noticed, though, because I mostly fudged some rolls and lowered some enemy HP. Nothing flashy as in the previous encounters. It wouldn't have made much sense, anyway, since the observing gray were at this point probably already dealing with the incoming bombardment.

After the party laid low "Algiada", they get the relic and I was hoping for a cool WTF moment when they open it, but they decided to open it with the professor present, not knowing if it might be dangerous.

Unfortunately, they decided not to go straight to him, though, but go to the bridge first to... I'm actually not exactly sure what it was they wanted to do. But time waa running out and I wanted the big reveal at the end of this session, so I had them run into the professor, whom they promptly sent back to his cabin. Then I decide to end things and bring out Kiiv, who drops dead in front of them as the explosions rock the ship.

The party immediately decides to go for the escape pods, but not before recovering the relic they had stashed in the cargo hold. The skill challenges in the final minutes before launching the escape pods were also nerfed because even half of the 3d6 damage was a lethal threat at this point.

And then they learned the truth. What a glorious moment. The amused shock on their faces was truly a high point of my gaming career. What a finale.

Conclusion
The finale was every bit as amazing as I had hoped. So. Much. Fun. As described above, I had to once again nerf almost all enemies to avoid TPK or at least a technical KO that would be hard to recover from, given the final exit from the ship. Maybe my group is not optimized enough or maybe they are too much stuck in a Pathfinder mindset and haven't yet taken in the tactical differences to Starfinder. But ultimately, it did not matter, because it was easy to do on-the-fly, the players did not even notice, and above all everyone had a blast.

I very, very, very much recommend this module. I guess, the only slightly "negative" thing I could say about it is that, as written, it is virtually impossible to just pick this one up and play it, because it leaves so many questions unanswered. Perhaps most pressing of all: Where are these escape pods taking us?

So you should make sure that you are committing to at the very least the first two books of the AP when you start the first one. But why wouldn't you, with an opening chapter *this* awesome.

Fan. Tas. Tic.

Session 5

We jumped right back in with the captain's laser pistol still glowing from the kill shot. He quickly produces a couple of mk 2 serum of healing and hands them out to the group. The book does not have any healing supplies and the Chimaira does not even offer a medbay. Given the string of encounters that are likely to happen in pretty quick succession in this final stretch, that seems pretty harsh for a level 2 party. On the other hand, it opens a window for plenty deus ex machina moments that conveniently help out the PCs. In fact, I decided to go all in with those for the home stretch because otherwise the pacing just would not work or a TPK would be inevitable.

After the encounter on the bridge, the group did another one of their by now trademark superficial interrogations of the captain. They asked why he thinks Jincheroga wanted to take over the ship and asked about the smuggler hold, which the captain denied existed.

The group then goes down to engineering to fix up their SRO buddy Stardust and they decide to take another good look at the wall they suspect holds the secret room. They asked Kiiv about it and I decided to throw them another (very convenient) bone and have him point out "that I totally could not tell you anything about a secret compartment that can be accessed through a door on the starboard side of the ship by using a hidden key pad" with a huge grin and then excuse himself to go "somewhere else".

With that huge pointer, they find the keypad, hack it, and enter the hold. They find the real captain's body and while they inspect it, "Trostinek" steps out of the shadow of one of the larger crates, slow clapping and cursing the "meddlers" before attacking.

Qub turned out to be a much more vicious opponent than I thought. He downed Alyssa in two rounds and her allies could not get to her in time to stabilize her. Since she is all out or resolve points, she actually dies.

A few rounds later, Qub is laid low. And then yet another gray intervention happens: Eeree notices the light getting bright for a split-second and the next moment, Alyssa wakes up, full health, full stamina, and everyone has their stamina back.

And then the ship is rocked by the pirate's docking maneuver and the session ends on a cliffhanger.

Conclusion:
This would be a very lethal adventure for a lot of parties if it weren't for the handy "gray intervention" card, which I think a GM should play when necessary to help. It worked pretty well for us and the players are quite creeped out by these events, which helps to overshadow the fact that they can't really fail. They don't trust it, which makes it fun.

I think next session we might be able to power through the last few bits of the book, which will get us to the big reveal in the end. I can't wait to see their reaction.

Session 4

The PCs continue to meander through the investigation: Instead of following up on the potential murder weapon, they decide to talk to Trostinek again, because they had just remembered that Alyssa overheard his conversation with Algiada. They find him nursing his wounds from getting knocked out with some of Grath's moonshine. When asked about the meeting with Algiada, he replies as suggested by the book, pointing to Algiada as the possible reason why his robot malfunctioned. The PCs continue to pressure him and he eventually tells them his story about Kiiv's late night visit to the engineering deck. Stardust accuses Trostinek of just trying to shift blame and suspicion away from him (spot on), but Trostinek responds with bluster and successfully cows the party (many of which were dangerously low on HP at this point) into dropping the issue.

The group decides to leave him be for now and call it a day. They get enough hours for it to count as a long rest, but early the next morning, they overhear another screaming match between Song and the goblins. When a laser gun is fired, they realize something bad is happening and rush out to help: Event 6 plays out as written.

Before they get a chance to look at the goblin's map, the intercom comes on and they realize that there is a fight on the bridge. Rushing over there, the party leveled up to level 2.

They get to the bridge and Event 7 starts to play out just as written, with Jincheroga eventually biting the captain and dropping him to the floor before engaging the PCs. And then things turned ugly.

Jincheroga is a brutal enemy for a level 2 party! She starts off with her level 2 fear spell, targeting Eeree. He fails his save and starts running away on his turn. The rest of the party gets clobbered by the barghest, PCs dropping to dying, getting back in the fight, only to be dropped again. It felt like this could easily end in a TPK. That's when I decided to insert some of the Hints of Reality (see the sidebar): On his second round (of 10!) of being frightened, Eeree suddenly is blinded by bright light and then finds himself not only no longer frightened, but also much closer to the fight than he had been moments before. This is, of course, an episode of lost time and the supervising grays intervened because they realized they had calibrated the fight poorly. Back on the bridge, it still felt like a TPK was about to happen, so I added another suspiciously convenient moment: Just before Jincheroga's next turn, the captain suddenly lurched to life, grabbed a laser pistol from a secret compartment in the captain's chair, and critically hits Jincheroga, putting her down. That's where we ended the session.

Conclusion:
Fun, but very dangerous encounter! What is especially fun is that the players now think I just saved their butts out of the kindness of my own heart, being a friendly GM who does not want to TPK his party. It will make for a fun reveal later. If I get a chance, I plan to add some log files in book 2 that will mention the PCs' poor performance and the "rebalancing of the experimental parameters".

A sheer coincidence that worked out perfectly was that I picked Eeree as the target of the fear spell, which gave me the chance for the gray intervention. I described the event similarly to the vision he's experienced before the adventure, which the player immediately caught as such. He also mentioned something along the lines of "somebody is watching over us", so it sounds like they are really piecing things together. The party is also now digging into the theory that the security chief was in fact a shapechanger to begin with. At first they were a bit puzzled as to why the shapechanger would give up their perfect cover, but then realized that maybe it did not have access to the real target on Legacy Station and was now making its next move. I was positively surprised that they were able to put that together, despite their rather chaotic investigation methods. Testament to how well the adventure is written, I guess!

Looking forward to the next session. I think we are not far out from the final few encounters, but the party will definitely have to get some healing before they can face that sequence of battles. I might have to throw in some very generous healing options. Maybe there are three mk 2 healing serums on the bridge, that the captain will share with the party as a thank you.

Session 3

The Mysterium is now really taking off.

The PCs talked to Trostinek a little bit and learned that he was ambushed by his own machine, but (once again) made no attempt to interrogate him regarding the disappearance of Algiada, the conversation Alyssa overheard, or the late-night visit with the captain that they learned about from Kiiv. I am very underwhelmed by my players' sleuthing abilities. I guess, I should have sent out the article on Mystery Adventures from the backmatter ahead of time. It's a bit late now, but I will send it out now anyway, maybe it will help.

Since they really showed no interest at all in Trostinek, I did not even drop the hint to the suspicious behavior of Kiiv, because that would have just been very weird. Maybe I should have, since "Trostinek" is actively trying to mislead the PCs.

The party then moved on to the gym to inspect the wall it shares with the kitchen, remembering Song's story about Algiada trying to annoy him by banging against the wall. They missed the Perception check to find the ring and did not bother taking 20, so that is still out there.

They then do some detective thinking (for the first time, really) and decide to go to Algiada's room. The trap goes off and one-shots Stardust. Thanks to the Starfinder dying rules and plenty of Resolve Points, he does not stay down long, though. They then proceed to search the room thoroughly (taking 20) and find everything there is to find. They succeed at the first Computers check to unlock the datapad and know there is a suspicious folder, but fail at the second one to hack the folder. I told them a message box pops up and lets them know they only have one attempt left and they decide to try again later.

They also find the holopic and decide to talk to the professor who spills the beans on his past. They believe him and do not seem to be suspicious of him.

They also immediately draw the line from LP to Lozu and talk to her, as well. With a little bit of pressure, the first mate admits to her debt and tells the story of how Algiada lent her the money she gambled away. They seem to believe her, too, and don't suspect her of anything.

Since they found the small ventilation shaft with the strange residue (which they successfully identified to the fullest extent), they then tried to connect all the sites where bad stuff has happened so far with that, assuming that something was maneuvering around the ship that way. They check the cargo holds and find the grates still in place in front of the vents and then move to the engineering deck to check out the "third cargo hold", which they saw on the deck plan. This is of course the smuggler compartment that would not be included in the ship's deck plan on their cabin's computers (which is how I explained the characters obtained the map). I told them their characters would not know there is a cargo hold, because it's not on the map. But they would be suspicious of this part of the ship because there is some negative space when comparing the insides of the ship with the outside view as seen in the introductory holovid. This is of course a huge handout to just give them this information, but I don't think it is ruining anyone's fun and it kind of plays into the "mysteriously convenient" angle that the adventure should have every now and then.

They try to find a secret door but fail. Kiiv then runs into them and the PCs ask them to show them where the ventilation shafts are running on the engineering deck. Kiiv happily shows them around and that is when they happen across the incinerator, where Alyssa notices a flashing red light indicating the not properly sealed door. They find the statue, notice the blood, and the session ends with Kiiv pointing out that it belongs to the captain. I did not give away the detail on the blood's origin because I don't see how that would be possible just by a high roll and no one had a chemalyzer to help with the analysis.

Another fun session with lots of grounds covered. Again, I was surprised by how little the group is interested in talking to the NPCs and instead relies on skill checks and scripted events to take them through the story. Their approach is slowly starting to change, though, and they have been trying to talk to the captain several times and are getting suspicious that he keeps himself out of reach. Now that they have found his statue with blood on it, they are dead-set on confronting him.

Conclusion: I hope I don't sound annoyed at my players' meandering playstyle. Suprised is probably the better word, because they really seemed to just wander around looking for stuff to happen to them instead of taking initiative and truly investigating. But things do seem to change now as they are picking up the thread and are beginning to unravel it (or getting themselves tied up in it). Still, I will send out the Mystery Adventures article and see if anything sticks.

Next session will kick off with the Attempted Takeover. The players have discussed getting a night's rest before proceeding, which would bring us to day 3 of the trip and sets the timing just right for Event 6 and 7. After Event 6, they will level up to level 2, so that is also right on track. After Event 7, they will get a chance to talk to the captain, which is also something high on their to do list. They are currently very suspicious of the captain and hopefully I can throw them of his scent in that conversation. Remarkably, they have voiced suspicions that shapechangers may be involved and even called out astrazoans specifically, but they have not yet really put things together.

I have relayed the "vision" to Eeree's player, who has so far not made any comments on it. We'll see how it develops.

Had our second session on Monday. Another fun one.

We picked up right were we left off after Event 1. Alyssa, returning from The Argument, did not immediately want to share what she saw with the rest of the group, so we instead played through dinner (another cutscene where I made sure to point out the chaotic mess the goblins are causing).

The next morning, all but Alyssa are already at breakfast, when Event 2: The Standoff happens. Alyssa hears the commotion outside and quickly comes to investigate. A high Diplomacy roll with the bonus for offering to help clean up convince Song to allow the goblins inside. Right after, Lozu steps up, asks Song and Alyssa about Algiada, and the power dip happens.

After the captain's reassuring announcement and dinner, the professor requests the group's help. They are immediately suspicious of the relic, but don't push him on it. They agree to look into the disappearance of the security chief.

The group then decided to split up (always a great idea) and ask around.

Eeree tries to hack into the ship's communication network from his personal entertainment console in his cabin. This caught me a little bit by surprise because it was not an option in the book. I told him that he finds out that the guest terminals are on their own network that has not outgoing connections whatsoever, which is strange, because it claims to offer infosphere access. He then learns essentially what is in the Drift Infosphere box, that the infosphere data is just a very limited subset of what would be available with full access. I added that the terminal attempts to fool the user into thinking they are on the actual infosphere, loading delays, buffering and all.

Alyssa helps Song and learns about his heated relationship with Algiada, but does not push him on it or make any accusations. She also learns about the captain's and Trostinek's late night meeting.

Eeree and Sokka go to check out the engineering deck, where Event 5 happens. They both get pretty badly burnt and when Kiiv calls Lozu to ask for help, they notice Lozu's affection for Kiiv when she answers the call thinking that he would be by himself. They also learn that only the captain, Kiiv, or maybe Grath could have sabotaged the valve. They walk away seemingly not suspicious of Kiiv, but also fail to interview him further.

Since the captain remains inaccessible to the party, they decide to look for Trostinek and soon learn that he is in the cargo hold. After explaining the situation to Lozu, they get her to open the cargo hold door for her and Event 4 happens.

The session ends when the fire extinguishers come on in the cargo hold, putting out the flaming remains of the incapacitor robot and waking up Trostinek in the process.

Conclusions
Good session with lots of ground covered. I was surprised that the players chose to split up, but it worked out pretty well. As long as you make sure that the group is together when an actually fight happens, a GM maybe should even encourage splitting up, although that will most certainly meet with suspicions by the players.

I was a little disappointed how little the players were interested in talking to the NPCs. Most conversations were very short and to the point, only getting an answer to an immediate question like "Have you seen Trostinek?" or "Do you need help fixing the ship?" Maybe once they hit a lull after "tapping" each NPC once, they will make another round and ask deeper. If they seem to be at a loss on how to proceed, I might send them the article on Mystery Adventures from the book's backmatter, maybe that will inspire them. We'll see.

We had our first session of The Chimera Mystery last Monday. I am running this in German for a group of four via roll20. It's our first Starfinder campaign after finishing Jade Regent last week. We dipped our toes into the system when it came out, but this is the first serious attempt to go through more then just a level or two.

I'm going to keep my notes here. Maybe someone comes across this while preparing their own game and finds any of it useful.

The PCs (background):
Alyssa - female damaya lashunta solarian (???)
Eeree - male strix technomancer (visionary)
Sokka - female ysoki mechanic (???)
Stardust - SRO Operative (traveller)

The player have decided to root all their characters in a common backstory with ties to the underworld. But other than the fact that they all know each other at the beginning of the book and have worked together in the past, no details were worked out.

This will of course turn out to be just a controlled parameter in the Gray's experiment: does an existing bond between the clones improve their performance? I plan to drop a hint at that some time in book 2. Later, they will find out that none of their alleged underworld contacts actually exist.

I kicked off the book with a lengthy narration of the first scene at the airlock, describing the other passengers as they board. After boarding, each PC settles into their cabin and is presented with the holovid I posted in another thread, which introduces the crew and the ship.

After this lore dump, I went around the table asking how their character would spend the first afternoon on board (I decided they left Legacy Station right after noon). Eeree went to stretch his wings in the gym, Stardust explored the middle deck, Sokka went to check out the dining hall, and Alyssa settled into her room.

Fast forward to just before dinner and Event 1. Everyone is present when the asteroid lice break free and combat ensues. To my surprise, all players said that their character's would be unarmed, since nobody brought a pistol, everyone is wielding longarms. We had discussed earlier that it would probably be fine to wear a holstered blaster around the ship, but everyonr agreed that you wouldn't bring a laser rifle to the dinner table.

This made the combat a lot longer and dangerous than expected. The only one who had a weapon at all was the solarian, but her low strength meant lots of misses and low damage. Only thanks to the technomancer's overheat spells did the asteroid lice finally go down.

After a few rounds of the PCs failing miserably to do damage, I started to bring in Algiada, but she arrived just when the last lice went down from a well-placed overheat.

Song enters and has a meltdown, orders Kiiv to clean up the mess. Alyssa offers to help and they match off to the incinerator as written in the book.

We then ended the session with apologies from the professor.

After the session, I texted Alyssa a cutscenes of the scene that follows in engineering as described in the book.

Conclusions
Overall, I think the session went well and everything served its purpose well: the players know the entire cast (at least by name and holovid image) and the general layout of the ship. They have also earned the professor's respect, which will become important later, when he asks them to look for Algiada. Since Algiada provided some medical aid to Eeree after the battle, there may even be intrinsic motivation to look for her when she disappears.

Dealing with the overheard conversation in a cutscene off-stage also worked well, because that scene may otherwise go seriously off the rails, I think. But of course, it's not everyone's cup of tea to be railroaded like that.

Anyway, we had fun and I'm looking forward to run the next session, when the mystery will actually start to unfold!

I thought the whole point of this set would be to find the mini that doesn't need you to overlook a bunch of things (like wielding the wrong weapon, wearing the wrong armor, being the wrong size/gender) so you can use it as your PC.

variety of combinations of ancestry, class, and gender

6 minis. 5 male, 1 female. 5 human (because half-elf and half-orc is just a human heritage now), 1 non-human. 5 martials, 1 divine caster.

You couldn't even represent the iconic Fabulous Four party, yet, because there is no wizard.

I know, it's just the first wave, and I don't mean to bash the entire line, but that claim side-by-side with the reality of the first batch was just too much to let slide. Sorry.

The book suggests that the players can watch a holovid about the Chimera but leaves it to the GM to flesh that out. Since that seems like a great way of giving the players an overview of not only the ship but also the crew, I thought I'd give it a shot.

Feel free to contribute if you come up with any other info, clue, or foreshadowing detail that could go into it:

As much as I would love to stay subscribed to the Adventure line, the switch to hardcover (even just for the occasional one) will probably make the shipping to Europe ridiculously expensive.

I'm willing to wait and see, since it is a rather small hardcover, but I'm worried it'll be almost twice as expensive after adding the shipping cost.

Dear customer service,

please cancel my Pathfinder Rulebook subscription.

Thank you!

English isn't my first language, but that does read strange:

Age of Ashes Player's Guide wrote:

...the PCs will negotiate deadly dungeons, interact with colorful NPCs in stressful social encounters, ...

Other than that: Love the "Befriend a local" Downtime activity

As a (fellow?) German native speaker, I can understand your confusion, but "negotiate" can mean "to overcome an obstacle", so it's fine here.

Love the guide and love the background working essentially like campaign traits cranked up to 11.

Now if only those 2E PDFs would finally unlock, I could start prepping!

So I've been listening to the Know Direction recordings from this year's PaizoCon and during one of the events, the panel is asked what upcoming thing they are most excited about. Lisa Stevens then goes ahead and mentions something she cannot quite talk about yet but that saying something to the effect of "it will transform the way we play".

Now, I've been looking around these messageboards for a thread of wild speculations as to what that might be but I haven't seen any. So I thought, why not start one?

So let's guess: what does paizo have I'm store that will transform the way we play our favorite game?

Here's my long-shot guess: Virtual Reality! something like an augmented reality virtual tabletop.

Any other ideas?

I'm also disappointed that the PDF didn't unlock when the book shipped. Especially because it doesn't say anything about this, in fact, it even claims in the shipping notice and right here on the product page that the PDF is available for download.

If I hadn't searched through the forums for an answer, I would still think that it's a problem with my browser. Poor communication, I have to say.

Anyway, I'm excited about 2E and I can't wait for August 1st.

Exciting! My very first Pathfinder campaign was Serpent's Skull, so I feel an almost nostalgic connection with the Mwangi Expanse.

I seem to recall that there were some revolutionary tendencies in Eleder (or Kalabuto?) but I don't remember anything in the APs about a new nation forming in Sargava, though. Was that part of Hell's Rebels? Or is that a new addition to the setting that wasn't a result of the P1 APs?

It's a very minor thing but I noticed that the spells with a Material Casting action don't actually say what the material component is like they used to.

Please bring those back! I really, really enjoy seeing that you need a piece of butter for grease or a length of copper wire for sending.

I hope the example components were just cut for space and that we'll see them back in the final version!

I'm having the same issues as DerNils and I also am trying really hard to like the idea of Exploration Mode but it just feels forced and mechanical in a dungeon setting.

The wording could be clearer:

My suggested revision:

It's a little wordy but it avoids any uncertainties.

I have already posted this in another thread but realized that it probably would not catch the developers attention there (sorry for the double-post).

During part 1 of Doomsday Dawn, a PC got confused by the fungus spores and another PC wanted to get him out of the spore cloud.

We realized that there is no Drag maneuver, no Reposition maneuver, and no way to move an opponent while grappling so the only way by the rules would be to walk around the person and Shove them.

Please add skill uses for Drag and Reposition and please add more options to the Grapple rules! My group thinks its a vital part of tactical battles. Thank you!

Hi!

In case anyone wants to watch us fumble and bumble our way through the playtest, we have recorded two of our session played on roll20:

Session 1 (The Lost Star)

Session 2 (The Lost Star, again)

We try to call out all the rules we apply and describe all the abilities as we go along so it may be interesting to see how it all comes together at the table. However, we are still learning this massive new rule set and I am sure we make hundreds of mistakes on the way. Feel free to comment!

Just watched the demonstration video and I had stop by and say that it sounds amazing! I especially like the little news snippets. Way to crank up the atmosphere!

Unfortunately, I GM exclusively on roll20 these days, but if I ever get to run in an in-person campaign again, I will definitely give this a try!

I can only encourage you to write reviews, especially if stuff you like. More positive reviews means more sales, which means more products of the same style/region/theme/kind will be made.

The post you made to there would be perfect for a review! Just copy and paste it and slap a star rating on it!

First of all, I don't think Chris is trying to attack you, Statboy.
Second of all, I don't think Statboy is "deliberately obtuse", Chris.

Maybe I can rephrase what Chris is saying:

Before Ultimate Wilderness, the PC would take Boon Companion, and their companion would get the benefit. The feat rule text addresses the "owner" of the feat directly: "The abilities of your animal companion or familiar are calculated as though your class were 4 levels higher".

Now Ultimate Wilderness allows an animal companion to take the feat because it automatically meets the Prereq of "animal companion". So now the animal companion is the "owner" of the feat. The feat rule text remains unchanged, now addressing the animal companion: "The abilities of your animal companion or familiar are calculated as though your class were 4 levels higher"

I agree with Chris that, as it stands, this means that the animal companion would somehow have to get their own animal companion for the rules as written to work, which is impossible AFAIK.

I, however, also agree with Statboy that what must have been intended is that the animal companion takes the feat AND benefits from it. Why else would they explicitly include it in the list? However, instead of just waving the prereq, they should have also rephrased the rule text for that intention to be the actual written rule.

I hope this helped.

I know that Iblydos is the Greece-influenced culture on Golarion, but since the Azlanti are inspired by Atlantis, which in turn was described by the Greek philosopher Plato, I always imagined Azlanti sounding like Ancient Greek.

And just as the Romans came after the ancient Greek and picked up a lot of their culture and traditions, the Thassilonians came after Azlanti (or at least after their zenith) and were heavily influenced by them. So in my mind, Thassilonian sounds more like the Latin of Ancient Rome (which sounded a lot like Italian).

Check out this video: Sound of Ancient Languages.

It looks like my group is going to pick Carrion Crown as our next AP.

I am gearing up for the first adventure and I am looking for ways to help introduce the overall plot of the AP (using Loki_Thief's brilliant letters found on this board) and also drive home the history of Harrowstone and its spooky inmates.

One idea I got from the opening vignette of the first book is to start each session after the first with a short cinematic flashback narration that introduces one of the murderers that are now haunting Harrowstone.

These flashbacks are only for the players' enjoyment, the PCs do not experience them, and the idea is just to thicken the atmosphere and give some context, not to give any vital plot information. After the scene is narrated, the game returns to wherever it left off at the end of the last session.

Since the players will not have any agency in them, it is important that they are short and sweet. They should touch on enough details of the murderers' appearance that the players will recognize them later when the PCs face their ghostly presence.

So far I only have a draft of the first vignette, introducing the Lopper. Here it goes:

I intend to write one for each murderer, but I would love to have some help, if anyone feels inspired!

Unfortunately, there are no official hi-res versions of the scenario specific maps. You can print your own for personal use, however!

If you want to scale up the image before printing, you could use this website. I know, I know, the link looks shady, but I have learned about that site from the Know Direction podcast recently and they do a great job!

Customer service got back to me and is replacing the book with no additional cost, even though they have to ship it all the way to Germany (50+ USD shipping!)!

Outstanding service, thank you paizo!

You have a math error in your conversion from cubic miles to cubic feet. There are 5280 feet in a *linear* mile, but 5280 x 5280 x 5280 cubic feet in a cubic mile.

Can anybody suggest a few source books to give me some more background information that I can use to flesh out the setting a little bit more?

This AP is actually going to bring a rather obscure part of the setting to the forefront, so you will probably be able to take what you need from the adventures themselves.

The party is involved with an Andoren organization of some sort so "Andoran, Spirit of Liberty" and "Andoran, Birthplace of Freedom" might give you some background on that.

Hmm... "Beyond the past" and "Adventures in Historic Azlant" article... could it be possible that some of the unstable magic sends the PCs back in time? At least for short stints or at least cutscenes?

I always enjoy those scenes when the PCs explore an ancient ruin and then through some magic or another get a glimpse of the place's past, only to see it crumble away again right in front of their eyes. So eerie!

I would hope so.

They apparently said that the PFS season will also tie into the AP and it is going to be called Year of Factions' Favor. Since the factions used to hail from those countries, maybe that is how they bring them in?

I'll share what I scooped up from various sources:

New 2018 AP: War for the Crown

Pathfinder Society Season 9: Year of Factions' Favor

Starfinder Society Season 1: Year of the Scoured Stars

New Pathfinder Adventures game by Obsidian: Rise of the Goblins

New Pathfinder Battles miniatures: Maze of Death

Pathfinder Online not dead, but now run by Paizo instead of Goblinworks

It was announced at PaizoCon. I don't know if the OP used some official release blurb, transcribed what was said or summarized it themselves, however.

"Golarion's timeline thunders forward [...]"

Does that mean this AP will actually advance the timeline of the setting? I've never heard them use that sort of language to describe any other adventure path.

I agree that it makes most APs better if you read the whole thing first. But have the advocates of that here actually read Reign of Winter?

Especially for someone taking on the daunting task of running an entire AP for the very first time, I would very much recommend focusing your time and effort on each individual chapter of this path.

I am curious to hear how others have improved their Reign of Winter game by foreshadowing events from future installments, though.

Let me be the first to say: Welcome to the fold!

You already took the single best step you can take: You signed up here and are looking for advice. As long as you are willing to put some work into the campaign to make it a fun experience, it will!

To be a little more specific: Reign of Winter is a good choice as a first AP to run. Its individual parts are fairly disconnected and you can get away with not knowing the entire path by heart.

So I would suggest to take it one book at a time and focus on each individual part without worrying too much about foreshadowing future events.

That means your first stop should be the Snows of Summer GM Reference thread. Find out what did and didn't work for other people.

Then ask yourself how those parts would resonate with your own group. If you don't know your players' preferences, ask them! In general terms of course.

Here are two examples from Snows of Summer that I would consider to sort of make or break having fun with it. I will put it in spoiler tags just to be safe.

Neverwinter Nights used pausable real-time combat

Well, with the references they give (Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale) I hope it gives us an idea about the gameplay. Here's hoping!