O.W.'s page

My most inquisitive player (a cheliaxian émigré whose devilish bloodline made a sorcerer but whose experiences made a champion of Iomedae) had also expected the Copper Hand to use Graverakerto enter the bank vault from underground.
Although I overused the word "excavator", they seem to think of it as some sort of giant drill. Since there isn't any precisely determined aspect for Graveraker, I decided to humour them, and it will be some sort of weird hybrid machine (befitting it's protean-powered functioning).

Seeing this thread pop up anew, I figured I could as well throw my own hat in the ring.
My group being relatively new to Pathfinder, and all brand new to 2nd edition, I decided to merely apply the normal lethality rules, to use the dying/wounded conditions for NPCs, and to add to the Pacifying weapon property rune the abiliy to deal nonlethal damage without any penalty to the roll.
Simplicity & cool factor went first, I most wanted to add as little complexity as possible for the players.

I'd say the Washboard Dogs work with the Skinsaw cult out of fear & opportunism.

The players do not have to work with them if they don't like Maurissa, her methods, or what she offers. It is assumed the PCs will work with Maurissa because, firstly, that they are not after her, but the Twilight Four; secondly, they meet her while surrounded with gang toughs, making the idea of fighting her very intimidating.
Last, but not least, they can completely turn on her if they consent to parley with Berleth, since he can reveal them she has proven herself to be able to betray even a close partner. And I think this can be a fun experience for the players.

My advice would be to prepare, for the meeting with Maurissa, an optional severe encounter (and do not hesitate to apply the Weak template to the toughs in order to make them feel like a giant mob). If you want, you can make them more numerous and have them make a circle around Maurissa and the PCs while she battles them alone in a show of strength (you might want to apply the elite template to her in that case), and have them protect her retreat when she eventually loses.
Keep the options open for a chase sequence, maybe using the chase rules that are used earlier for her little brother's encounter, or maybe making a gauntlet of fights with thugs trying to protect her.

First, the writer has made it very clear that the encounter with Fayati can be talked through, and if your players have a commitment to relatively peaceful lawkeeping, it is likely they won't fight her.

If they are going to, however... Do not do as I did when I realised standard XP tarcking wasn't right for my roleplay-centered, non-completionist group and give them an enormous amount of XP immediately so that they can tread onward as they should. You could give them more XP for each prior fight, and not tell them you are buffing them up for the encounter. You can make up objectives for them to complete and gain bonus XP with. And your idea to merely debuff the enemies and give them a sidequest in beteween is great too. You could take inspiration from the plot hooks at the end of Book 1, or from the "Gangs of Absalom" section at the end of Book 3 (I sure did for one of my sidequests).

I don't know if Norgorber has an intent. The Twilight Four all share a lust for power, a devotion to their god, a fierce individualism, and the will to take over Absalom. Norgorber, both rewarding and amplifying their devoted's ambitions, seem to be content to make a masterful, grand plot happen, and rewards Olansa accordingly, with the knowledge that she won't change her ways, and divine power is only going to enable her further.
I can't say for sure, but I feel like Norgorber's aim in all this -- in general, really -- is simply to have people follow their sacred ways.

However, I do concur with what you said, OmegaZ, that it feels like nobody in the Twilight Four (besides Reginald, arguably) thought of what they'd do once they'd have won (and I really like your solution to make Olansa's magnum opus to steal Absalom itself and I will probably be stealing it for my own run). But, to be fair, between their backstabbing each other and a certain group of tenacious watchmen's constant disruption, they have had to change their plans several times. And I wouldn't put it past Olansa to prioritize eliminating the only people who can still threaten her before anything else in her reign as primarch. And if one's players are fortunate, they'll never know what she wanted.

accessibility items to enable adventures for anyone

I like the idea. I am fond of disabled characters, and having an official option for playing them is neat.

Junker has a point in that some inherent evil in the kobolds might be why they are shown by the adventure as the villains in this situation. But what makes people unhappy whith this is that no ancestry, people, or group is as whole inherently evil, or even inherently on the same side of anything, and Paizo has demonstrated that before.

So, while we know that kobold are intelligent people, enough to be a playable ancestry, and while they could protest against an issue that is both very real, and very realistic in that setting (Absalom is not an ideal place by any metrics), that is to say exploitation of workers because they are at the fringes of acceptable society, the kobolds are written as murderous belligerents with absurd demands.

However! There is room for interpretation whithin that framework, and for any GM, it is perfectly possible to play the Stonescales as a straight evil tribe of Kobolds (Skerix & Rekarek working towards their goals with finesse or lack thereof), as oppressed, rightfully indignated workers, or as a more nuanced tribe of people torn by a strange situation, two competing leaderships, and their admiration for Rekarek's audacity.

I see now, thanks folks.
I only have a very brief experience with PF1, and that was as a novice GM. I made a five-player party play through the first Kingmaker book (Stolen Lands), and I did feel like I had a hard time challenging my players; although --since I lacked experience -- I wasn't at all able to tell if that was due to me being too kind, the AP being too easy, them being too numerous, or PF1 being usually an easy game at these levels.
On the contrary, in PF2, I feel like, so far, challenging players is the default. It only takes a Moderate-difficulty encounter to make them have to be careful. It makes sense that players used to simpler battles would feel like the ennemies are suddenly much more powerful in a game that yet still bears the same name.

Most sessions, my players are infuriated with the inflated enemy rolls.

May you please elaborate on what you mean by that?

I've only seen a cobbler make a copy of a key once, and he did it impressively quickly and easily. Granted, it was four years ago, so he had technology Golarion hasn't, and a vault key has to be more complex than any random door key, but between magic and craftmanship, copying a key as an object must not be very hard nor very long in this universe for a skilled craftsman...

My suggestion might be basic is that the key itself is magical: if examined, it gives off a faint abjuration aura. Both keys are like two halves of a password to deactivate one of the spells protecting the vault. Two identical keys would be useless, and one wouldn't be able to make a key without having prolonged, direct access to both the shape of the keyhole and the spell.

I can't stress enough how I'm appreciative of detailed maps like these. It can sometimes feel a bit barren, on official maps, when you are playing on a VTT and not around a table.

I really don't want to sound ungrateful or entitled, but the openings on the chasm around the Starstone Cathedral look a lot like lava. Is it just me?

On a more trivial note would there happen to be a gridless version of your map? As a VTT GM, I prefer to use hexes, and try to avoid putting the hex grid on top of squares when possible.

An awesome job. These maps really are more agrable to the eye than the official ones, and your versions of the House of the Planes brings much needed life & colour into it.

You might want to make the PCs meet again with Graycloaks, especially those who served under her command in her last mission. Being reminded -not beaten over the head, mind you- that the Watch misses Quorein will make the PCs and their players remember her more vividly when they meet again.

Then, what explanation have you prepared? Why would this have happened to Quorein in particular?
You could also look a the Harrow cards, and try and pick the one that would most make sense for her to impersonate/immitate/remake herself into. The Rabbit Prince might not necessarily be the one befitting her best.

It's certainly a relief, and somewhat amusingly appropriate, that the only instance of such a missing of a clear depiction is an excavation machine powered by raw chaos. Why not describe it exactly as that "ambiguous thing", wich shifts and evolves as it tears through matter?

@AlastarOG: So you too have a worshipper of the Reaper of Reputations among your players' group?! Ah, players.
This particular character even has a vendetta against Wynsal Starborn himself, who executed her big brother under what she thinks is the pretense of him being a traitor nicknamed "the Skinner". I think you can see where this is going (they haven't got to Book 2 yet): I want to sow doubt in this cleric of the Reaper of Reputation's faith by showing a compassionate, emotionally clever and good-hearted Wynsal Starborn and by playing up the atrocities other followers of Norgorber commit; thus, hopefully, when they get to what should be the perfect opportunity to turn on Starborn (the end of this Book 4), she doesn't act on it and is mentally carried by her fellow agents through Book 5 up to a point where she would either turn back to Iomedae, or use Norgorber's powers against even the Rumormonger and the Gray Queen, and maybe take on one of these titles herself.

My modification to the whole kobold thing:

- Im gonna have a leshy in the Tipsy Tengu chatting it up with the party about poor wages. He will describe how they get pay deductions for materials used in labor and how at the end they may only end up with a pittance for a week of work. He won't work at the Pagoda but will say that cheap non-human labor is a widespread thing in Absalom. This guy won't be a kobold, so it won't telegraph it too much.

- None of the kobolds outright killed any other workers. Instead, Rekarek rigged some of building to collapse. It was supposed to happen once the non-kobold workers in the area were off shift (and the area was clear) but the manager forced them to work overtime. Now Rek's desperate and, fearing being brought up on murder charges, she's threatening to bring the whole place down unless she's given a pardon (partial bluff, she can only take down some of the construction).

- Rek will let the party pass uninjured if they agree to see her and her compatriots safely out of the city unharmed with enough money to sail to another port of call. The manager will agree to pay for this if the party keeps it all hush-hush. This will come back to bite them later when the Ollo hears of it and they end up getting a lower stipend (or maybe lose some of their discount at the quartermaster). He cannot fire them since he has no hard evidence but he puts the party on notice. The choice won't be murder the kobolds or no. It will be follow the law and bring in this person whose recklessness led to death of coworkers or free this person who was mistreated by their employers and acted out of desperation.

- Rek will be initially hostile as she is scared. Her and her people will fight but can be reasoned with. However, odds are these kobolds will fall if the party does not approach with stealth and do things like listen to kobold conversations, try to knock out/question guards, etc.

- Rek may agree to be taken in but only if those kobolds she has enlisted in her cause go free. Taking this middle way does not come with any blow back and gains the party some kobold contacts. However, it may comprimise their ideals if they are hardcore pro-law.

- Skerix cautioned Rekarek against sabotage. The humans "held" there are sympathetic to the kobold cause but Rek won't let them leave (leverage she can't let go of). So Skerix took them in. Skerix is more than willing to talk. However, she too is scared of the police and will fight back if attacked. In essence, Skerix has broken no laws and is much the same situation as the humans with her.

- The manager doesn't reveal the poor pay or overwork. She just states that these kobolds killed some non-kobold workers and destroyed a part of the pagoda. She paints them a ravenous and she laments hiring them.

I applied a similar method (not playing Rekarek as a maniacal, power-hungry battle-leader, but as someone who was trying to play tough and fly by the seat of her pants after her protest bombing ended up killing four of her human colleagues and impressing her fellow kobolds), and wanted to relate my group's experience with it so that may help any GM who hasn't gotten to this part yet.

I roleplayed the NPCs in a maybe slightly too "happy to talk" way, and although Rekarek (the only one with Skerix that spoke common), immediately shouted her demands and threatened to harm the hostages if they were not met, the players talked her into revealing a bit more than she intended about the situation, and persuaded her to let the mute cleric of the Reaper of Reputation (I know, I know, I might write about it around this forum later) come into the pagoda unarmed to see if the hostages were really there in the first place, and alive and well.
Thus, she (the cleric) was able to meet with Skerix, who looked much more like a strike leader, and who Rekarek didn't dare outright attacking.
Thus, the players understood that the hostages weren't really in danger, and that the claims of both Ama Uomi and Rekarek were supposed to paint them in a more "serious" light (Ama din't talk about the increasingly poor working conditions as the Pagoda's construction was going late, and Rekarek pretended that her killing her human colleagues was intentional).
The players didn't dare enter the Pagoda after they realised it had been rigged with traps, but they didn't even wanted to do it: they were entirely focused on negociating a peaceful solution and establishing clearly what had happened.

In the end, they handcuffed and took to the station both Rekarek and Ama Uomi, fairly confident that the battle leader was the only kobold guilty of anything criminal, and that the chief architect had been too far.
Some of them talked afterwards with Sekrix and the remaining workers, and learned then of Jeremin Hoff's involvement and about the House of Planes.

So, in the end, my players resolved the whole Dragonfly Pagoda by talking it out in the first room, and I gave them full XP for all the kobold encounters.

Agreed.
I intented to merely use his Claw strike and to describe it as him using an axe, but you can indeed give it the Sweep trait instead of Agile, and you can even give it the more threatening Jaws strike damage.
Don't overthink nor worry about it though, your players don't know the names of the attacks unless you tell them; what truly matters is your narration.

I fully concur with Benchak the Nightstalker.

The AP deals you all the cards you need to make this about your agents of Edgewatch - sorry, Starwatch, and about them getting to redeem and save the city, no matter the cost.
Although you are right to be careful with these events, you are absolutely able to frame the situation in a way that will entrance your player's character.

Unless they are roleplaying a "lawful stupid" PC and have a misplaced obstinacy about roleplaying their character without any flexibility, they should be able to see the good in what they are doing, and to see that you, as the GM, are giving them an opportunity to show how far this Paladin's dedication to the greater good really is.
It can - and arguably should - be harsh for such a character to debase themselves and to compromise their ideals this way (I'm eager to see the anguish of one of my players' character who's a Iomedae devout), even if it is temporary. Play up the tragic side of the situation, its powerlessness. This Paladin should accept to dirty his hands, but he souldn't be happy about it. and it should be another reason for him to want the Twighlight Four stopped once and for all. It should not be easy for him, and that is precisely the point: half the fun in playing a Champion, to me, lies in the moments where you are lead to compromise your ideals, or even betray them. This Paladin (not his player, mind you) is going to hate every second it; and it's going to fuel his eventual retributive strike.

I've gotta pretty important issue with this Volume. The adventure is amazing, in every way, except one: I'm having trouble rationalizing how my LG Paladin is going to function breaking into a lawful prison to free someone who is by all legal means implicated in a crime, after they have to spend time lying and ruining their own character publicly.

So far there's been a few moments where my paladin had slight qualms but those volume seems very much like 'time to have them step aside for a guest character' time.

Anyone else feel this way or am I just overthinking?

I understand your problem, Virellius; I think depending on your players' sensibilities, it could either go well or mildly. I am personally not too worried about my group, but I'm faaar from getting to this point.

I would advise you to make very clear that Wynnsal Starborn should not be imprisoned.
To play up the fact that the laws of the city are being used against themselves and the greater good.
Even a LG Paladin should be able to see the evil in what is happening, especially since the Black Whale is far from a "good aligned" jail. For Norgorber's sake, good guards can't even stay employed there for long because of the evil nature of the methods used.
Present it as a necessary evil Absalom has had to tolerate - or inflict - in order to keep horrendous criminals from escaping, and make your PCs (especially the idealists among them) want to get rid of it entirely long-term.

Last post about it just to confirm this theory to anyone still wondering: as an online GM, I rely (too much) on illustrations, and went to Lie Setiawan's portfolio (they're the cover artist for the AP) to find illustrations for who I am now sure are Olansa Terimor & Blune Bandersworth (on Book 6's cover, as you folks had guessed) since their names are in their files'.

If you're a sucker for sketches like me you might be interested in what they have posted over there, but what amuses me the most is that the version of Olansa on their portfolio has her hair braided and on Book 5's cover she doesn't have any fancy hairdo. One can only imagine the conversations during the creative process...

I also set up an alternative reward system so that my players would not be forced to loot everything, to fine people as if they were shaking them down and to accept what would otherwise be considered bribes in order to stay relevant, and instead only be taking what their character would have.

I did not want to shower them under money, though, nor did I want to drop the plot point that the Edgewatch is underfunded.
So I told them their salaries were just enough to cover the cost of life and would not be taken into account in the game (as written).
Then, I set up a budget system, which determines a ceiling to how much money the Edgewatch would be ready to spend - for each PC - on equipment, consumables and other stuff. This budget rises as they gain recognition & influence, which are mechanically represented by the PCs' level.

I based myself on the Table 10-9: Party Treasure by Level on page 509 of the Core Rulebook, and divided the advised "Total Value" between each of them and tweaked the individual sums a bit.

The main draws of this system for me is that it feels quite plausible in the context of the AP, gives them a lot of liberty in their choice of gear (I told them that anything that wasn't uncommon or rarer was automatically available), gives some more life to the Edgewatch (I decided Corporal Batiste would be the one to manage this part, so it should drive them to interact with her), doesn't turn the PCs into gold hoarders since money is not - and never will be, nor should it - their objective in any way, and eliminates the incentive to power abuse.

I second what Deadmanwalking wrote.
Although you can optimize, you aren'trequired to do it, but no matter what, a great strength of the game is it's combat. It's far more interesting than many, many other roleplaying games, and actually makes it worthwhile fighting. But if you don't like combat and don't want to care about it in a game, you will have a much better time playing something else; too much of this game's quality and design resides in this precise aspect of the game.

...You could also look at it as I often do: you don't really need rules for roleplay, so, even if you have very few combat, it's all the better if the combat system is great and actually matters, and makes the combat interesting in it's own way. But again, if it's not boring combat that is your issue but simply fighting altogether, and engaging with combat is something you'd rather not do, PF2 isn't suited to your style, nor are official Adventure Paths (as written at least, since those are packed with fights).