Razcar's page

Wonderful, thanks for writing this up and posting it! Might use it in my campaign, they're soon to enter the hotel.

Not sure how much attention this forum is still getting, but here goes. I’m prepping for a run of Agents of Edgewatch in a couple of months, and looking for a way to carry over some of our inter-player RP that we enjoy so much in our current campaign (a one-year detour of Vampire). To help with that I will present my players a list of guard clichés and tropes from film and TV, just as a jump start and to prevent them from falling into the “mechanics first”-trap. This is what I have come up with so far (I’m sure you can spot the inspiration for some!) Could you imaginative folks please help us with suggesting some more?

I would like to really recommend Recall Knowledge's Abomination Vault GM Prep on Youtube for this. Especially the first episode which is an AP overview where he goes through the meta plot and the main points of all three books.
Abomination Vaults GM Prep Episode 001: Adventure Path Overview.

I can recommend the other five episodes as well where he walks through the first book - rooms, bosses, things to look out for etc. A goldmine for new GM's, and for veteran lazy ones as well :-)

Sadly he hasn't made any for book two (yet), I hope he'll continue.

Late to the party, but I nevertheless wanted to voice my support for the UPW all the way from Sweden. I hope this effort will result in a better working environment for all involved, staff, freelancers and managers. You people make great things and I hope you will continue to do so, and in a just and fair manner.

It’s one of the most coherent APs of 2e, baked into the Branch/Study and Free Archetype mechanics every single PC engages with.

I get the impression that you seem to think that people aren't allowed to not care about Strength of Thousands.

I usually buy the first book of each AP to get a feel about the adventure and if it would be fun to play for our group. My impression was that the plot was scattered and lacked coherence and that the BBEG and conflict was uninteresting. The setting seems rich and fun, but that's I suppose more credit to the Mwangi book than this AP.

I also think that the PF2E APs have lacked the oumph of many of the pf1 ones and been kinda lacklustre. We are however playing AV now that we are having a blast in, and I'm looking forwards to Blood Lords. My favorite AP-writer is Richard Pett and I'm hoping for some of that spooky and humorous magic (even though Mr Pett is sadly enough not involved nowadays).

No description for the villain who is personally known to every boss and shows up multiple times is a pretty big oversight!

It is. And I think your suggested reason behind it seems plausible, also I think it's such a given, such a major thing to have a description of the main villain - especially as she appears in a painting in the first book - that you can miss to include it just because of that. But Paizo's AP books, while generally good, are published once a month and are to my understanding seldom playtested (which would likely have caught this), so with that brisk production schedule you cannot really expect Mask of Nyarlathotep-level attention to detail. In my experience the errors/omissions are usually remarkable few. Not that that excuses not having a detailed physical description of your BBEG.

Anyway, I said to my players that the painting in A22 was too faded to make out any details. I couldn't find any good substitute image myself, despise trawling Google image search and Pinterest. Then again I'm spoiled by the excellent art quality in Paizo's product and won't accept any old anime drawing, nor a photo. Did anyone find a "stand-in" image of Belcorra that they are happy with and are willing to share a link?

All I've done balancing wise is reduce the incoming Damage and HP of each enemy by 25%, and I typically only give non-boss enemies two actions instead of three.

That's a smart way to do it and prevents the players getting overwhelmed by enemy actions (without cutting out monsters entirely). Maybe just give all bosses the Weak Adjustment to help with the math (which is very easy to do if you play via a good VTT such as Foundry, and not hard live either), along with 2 actions for mooks.

To give the PCs some sense of urgency, the impending doom from the Gauntlight is great of course, but you could use the Mayor as another factor. I've taken away the possibility for the PCs to find out when the Gauntlight can fire again, to stress them and the town out more, and I instead had the powers in the town set a deadline for the PCs for three weeks to find out what is happening, or they would send the contract on to the Absalom hunting lodges. (Could be fun to prepare a snotty group of adventurers from Absalom that will show up nonetheless and sabotage things.)

As for the dungeon itself, I have no problem adding some wandering monsters if the PCs decide to sleep in there or tarry too long. I have made a small list of some vermin and oozes (I like to keep these unintelligent to not give the PCs any info about the rest of the place, and control the loot) that will start to fill up "unoccupied space" or wander around looking for prey after a while. It is in a spooky swamp after all. Just keep these kind of encounters at about Moderate difficulty and you should be fine.

I you want to have the first couple levels be more dangerous at night a thing you could do is have the necromantic energy in the Gauntlight rooms (B35, C15, D9) fluctuate at night and strike out randomly. Or maybe snake around and chase the PCs in the corridors, dealing its damage per dungeon level (2d6 negative damage for level 2, 4d6 level 3, etc, with differing reflex saves as per the book) to denizens it doesn't like.

If you want your players to have a reason for activating the portals, I think a better approach is to tie a character reward/rare or uncommon character option/treasure to activating them than letting them be activated from one side only.

Well, they get 30 xp per portal, so it is easy and free xp (apart from them adding to the atmosphere and whatnot).

But I like your idea of a reward - maybe there's a footnote by the ritual saying something like "I had Volluk take a break from brushing his hair to reactivate all the portals these past weeks, just to be sure they are in perfect working order, and after he was done he said something peculiar happened: when the last portal was activated he felt a strange tingling, and he now thinks he has acquired some minor teleportation power. Could this be the Light affecting the portals somehow, or has all the perfume that drow drenches himself in befuddled his senses? Need to investigate this further."

I've listened to the first three episodes, and I think it's excellent! Great atmosphere and role-play, fantastic production quality (great sound and editing, love the theme song), fun gang of people with good chemistry. And a superb AP, of course ;) Looking forward to the next installment!

Interested to know what people think![/URL]

Looks really good! I'm thinking of some rooms on the other maps that would really benefit from some webs or roots hanging down... But as you say in the video, the fog in the swamp is a bit overkill.

What would be really cool would be the roofs of the outlier buildings showing from outside (and maybe a bit of the keep's roof as well). But I understand that would be a lot of work. My players had some trouble getting a grip on what their characters were actually seeing when they first arrived, with Foundry just showing a giant black blob in front of them. (I did explain it, but when using a map or a VTT people tend to focus more on what they see than what they are told they see...)

It cannot do it three times per round. Hazards dont get 3 actions, they get their routine.

Ah ok, thanks, that changes it quite a bit then.

Reading the rules again it actually does say they can have several actions (p. 522), but the number of actions the routine says it has (1 action in the case of this haunt) isn't how many actions the routine costs, but how many actions it gets in total for repeating it.

I should have read up on complex hazards better, but also kinda bad development IMO by Paizo to set a standard (things costs x actions out of a base of three) and then abandoning it for the hazards while still keeping the terminology.

Hmm, thanks folks, some different takes here though.

What confused me was looking up persistent damage specifically, on p. 621, and reading "Persistent damage comes from effects like acid, being on fire, or many other situations. It appears as “X persistent [type] damage,” (emphasis mine). As PF2 is so "strongly typed" I assumed that it should always say persistent when it is persistent.

Also, in a quick look through the Bestiaries for creatures that cause bleed (https://2e.aonprd.com/Search.aspx?Query=bleed&Filter=111111111111111&a mp;AllTerms=True), it seems most specify "persistent bleed damage", "1d6 persistent bleed" and so on, and that was also the case for all bleed-causing monsters (looking at you, mass-murdering Bloodlash bushes!) in the prior PF2e adventure I GM:d (Fall of Plaguestone).

However, as pointed out above, if I had checked bleed specifically (p. 452) it says "This is persistent damage that represents loss of blood". Ergo, bleed is always persistent in PF2.

The damage this haunt causes with this attack which it can dole out three times per round (DC20 fort, success(!) 1d10 bleed, failure 1d10+6, critical failure 2d10+6) seems wrong though for a "Moderate 1" encounter. Sure, it only comes out at night, but that should not affect the danger rating of the encounter itself.

I'll probably keep it as it is with the bleed but I'll move the success result of the saves one step.

Hi Runelords!

A forum user named Davion made a little homebrew addition for The Pit in 2011. I made some additions to it when we played RotRL 2015, some maps. As those links seem to be dead I've taken the liberty to put it up on a Google Drive, seeing as I get PM:d about this now and then again. Hope user Davion won't mind (if he's even still around).

Enjoy:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kUH4Ng3_ZgQ8DT0v_tinJPAHHgX4Sls1?us p=sharing

Another idea, that might be of interest to GMs/players who want to take a break from adventuring in the dungeon...

Relatives of Belcorra (or descendants of old allies or simply followers of Nhimbaloth) might learn of the PCs' foray into the dungeon and set up some sort of offensive in order to hamper their efforts: they could simply attack/ambush them or, maybe more interestingly, set up a base camp nearby and gather up allies to oppose the PCs in subtler and more varied ways.

That's a great idea. I have already been thinking to add a subplot that takes place in town, with a group of (secret) descendants from the Vaults conspiring against the PCs (or maybe helping them so Belcarra can be freed?).

A source of inspiration could be the great Feast of Ravenmoor for PF1. It would (of course) have to be modified quite a bit though.

One of the core assumptions for the entire AP is that the party will spend time in Otari and get to know its citizens. You aren't supposed to wait until the start of Book 2 to introduce the character, and this entire rant seems completely over the top.

I disagree about your "rant" dismissal. Steel_Winds post gave me several really good ideas how to adjust and improve this AP, and that is the sole reason I visit the Paizo forums.

As for the late introduction of major NPCs, I agree, and that is a major wrinkle of Paizo's AP magazine format that you IMO always should keep in mind and always adjust for yourself. Razcar's Golden AP Rule 1 - introduce major NPCs before the books that feature them do (unless their sudden appearance is a twist). Do not have to be in person, just somehow.

(Joke aside, I wish Paizo would make a sort of best practices list of how to approach their Adventure Paths, because you have to tackle them in a different way as a GM than you would an "all-in-one" book - a format that GMs are usually more familiar with. But I guess that could be seen as criticizing their own formula.)

Also one thing to consider is your participation in org play. As someone who was involved in organizing all the Paizo sponsored events last year and quite a few regional ones, I can tell you that Roll20 is by far the vastly preferred VTT for the community.

To add to that, if someone wants to play straight up pick-up games, I think that scene is much larger on Roll20 with their "Looking for Group" listing and similar listings elsewhere. And that will probably remain so (unless Foundry gets hosted on their own servers the way Roll20 does, which seems very unlikely).

I think you'll find a lot of table variation on that. Many people use Roll20 all the time without any issues or negative effects on gameplay. That is not to say that YOU might not prefer Foundry or FG or whatever, just that everyone should always add "IMO" to these types of statements as they are an opinion that is not universally true.

In general, you are of course right, but, well, sometimes some things are just objectively better than others. I use both Roll20 and Foundry now in two campaigns and I think that this is one of those cases here. (Having said that, familiarity is a very valid factor. If you're very good and quick with a familiar ((but not as good)) tool that beats being slow and awkward with a better one. Also, prior investments are a valid aspect, both in money and time.)

OP, there's not much to add that other posters haven't already said, but when I started using Foundry two (small) things stood out to me:

1. While PDF to Foundry is great and the Bestiary stat blocks and game content included in the P2E ruleset are as well, I missed instant art. In Roll20 it's easy to just search for "goblin" and Bob's your uncle, or buy the AP and it's all there (Then again, seems Roll20 are kinda abandoning PF). In Foundry you have to prepare better when it comes to token and monster art - for now. Hopefully we can soon buy the Bestiaries and APs in Foundry from Paizo and you'll have it right there for off-piste adventuring.

2. Modulitis. There's soo many modules for Foundry, developed by the community, that you can easily get stuck in constant discovery mode. Which ones are good? What does this one do? Does it work for PF? Is it better than that one? A champagne problem for sure, but it can make you lose focus and turn your game sessions into badly-prepped Christmas trees. Or maybe that's just me... :-)

I am so disappointed in Roll20. I am serious considering moving to Foundry completely.

We did. And we love it. With the PDF to Foundry module importing stuff is easy, and hopefully Paizo and Foundry can get a partnership going soon so we can get the APs directly in Foundry - like Roll20 was supposed to do. Foundry is just better than Roll20, like Pathfinder is just better than 5E.

...and we're done. We finished the Apex fight yesterday and Barzillai has finally been defeated. 105 (!) around-the-table sessions over four years. One change of players (in book two) due to a move. Two permanent character deaths. And now our four remaining heroes can kick back and eat all the freedom fries they want in the free Ravounel.

Big thanks to the writers and to the developer/writer James Jacobs for creating an EXCELLENT adventure path, and to the participants in this forum for great ideas, clarifications, and feedback.

I might muster the strength to write an AP summary post of our Hell's Rebels journey (or at least of the changes I made to the Bonetower and the visions, since that is freshest in my mind) someday, if anyone would be interested, but for now I'm off to actually getting to *play* some for myself! We're starting Ironfang Invasion this Friday, and I'm really looking forward to just coming to the sessions, put my feet up, and get to be entertained. No prep, no stress, just need to remember my iPad and dice. Heaven.

Wow, what a ride. It's been a blast (of hellfire!) all along. Long live the Silver Ravens!

These are great ideas Razcar! Some questions:

I may not have read Dead in the Deep carefully enough—does that adventure having them learning things about Barzi, or is it just securing the alliance? Also, totally unfamiliar with From Shore to Sea—can you explain how he used that?

How did you handle the consequences of the Ravens being scattered / forced into hiding?

Thanks! Yes, Dead in the Deep in book three is about securing an alliance with the aquatic elves. And of course defeating a local menace and getting the goodies that comes along with that, as usual.

From Shore to Sea is a great module by Brandon Hodge for level 6 characters, where the heroes explore an Azlanti ruined island. The same kind of monster as in Dead in the Deep is the villain and it's quite easy to slot in. The thing is, I got a problem when presenting early that there is a secret place which Barzillai sought entrance to - my players would seek it too. And that would of course not have worked out early, or been a waste of time. So sure, it is hidden, just as the books also says. But a) I didn't feel that was sufficient, and b) the solution given in book six where a player "feels" where the entrance is I felt was kinda weak.

So I left directions to the temple in Mangvhune's hideout, but also made the entrance have a time lock. It's only open one night a year, when the stars are aligned just right (Nasperiah, the builder of the portal, has an amulet which makes it possible for her to teleport freely in and out, but Barzillai and the PCs don't know that. Plus she's been permanently down there for several years). And a way to find out when that is is by studying the orrery in an observatory on the module's island. The PCs also found the ghost of a mercenary rogue that Barzillai and Tiarise brought with them when they were there to find out their date for entry, who gave the players the needed exposition. All this meant we had a date for this place which they didn't know where it was, but it was a breadcrumb and a part of the mystery, and since the date was almost a year in the future they could lay that part to rest for a while.

I cut down the number of encounters quite much in the module to not make it too long, and just replaced the villain in Dead in the Deep with the one in From Shore to Sea. Worked out great.

As for the scattering, they lost two teams (I had my players flesh out all the teams they recruited themselves with names of the leaders etc), they lost the Lucky Bones of course, and they lost some assets. They split up and hid in various places they had secured during the campaign, one of them being a refurbished Fair Fortune Livery which they ran as a business, and other places connected to the PCs. Then the retaliation continued, as per the book.

The loss of the teams mattered since I had the people of the city muster around the heroes and help them both in taking over districts, with the freedom fighters wearing white handkerchiefs over their faces (i.e "Silver Ravens") and also help them attacking the Asmodean Temple in the finale of book four, with the teams both holding districts the Ravens took over and helping in attacking the temple.

I had the same concerns as you do, and I don't think the AP gives good answers. But I think I managed to solve them (at least in the eyes of my players) with some additions/redactions and some other emphasis than the books present.

The main things I changed was that I made it more obvious to my players that ruling Ravounel in the "normal" way is not Barzillai's end goal. Successfully performing the Heart's Harvest ritual is, and everything he's done was just a means to this end. After the attack on the Fane is successful and the ritual has been performed, he thinks he's won. and because of that he doesn't care as much about them, or as early, as he really should have.

I started in Hocums were I presented information that Barzillai and Tiarize (who I gave a larger role than the AP does, she was with him for many years) were doing a lot of research at the Irori temple that had nothing to do with taking over the city itself. I had famine strike in book two because Barzillai called all the countryside dottari to Kintrago and bandits took over in the sticks (which the PCs had to solve), while he couldn’t care less about “his” city starving.

I added a large part in book three where the PCs follow in his footsteps during his preparations and uncover parts of his plans (for this I used a modified From Shore to Sea instead of the Dead in the Deep part). And lots of other small clues and indications. Quite soon my players started to ask themselves why he was acting so incoherently, and learnt about the existence of the Soul Anchor earlier than the books present this information, and figured that it might be what he seeked.

I also made him much more sick from the ritual than the book says, and made it clear to the PCs that this was their window of opportunity to establish a strong base. Now or never. All his lieutenants were either backstabbing each other or doing nothing while the big boss was away for two months (big parts of book two and all of three. That’s a part of the reason he is not present himself at the Ruby Masquerade). This meant I scratched the “A grateful city”-ceremony at the end of book two, which I (and many others) think is a plot hole and just a bad scene. I also removed all of the “untouchable heroes”-reasoning since I think it’s silly and also because my players were very secretive for as long as they could so it wouldn’t had made any sense.

As for the attack in book four, I made it clear to the PCs that when he was back in office (his convalescence was of course a secret but the PCs found out) he would attack them with force. So they presumed an attack against the Lucky Bones would be unwinnable at this time, and made arrangements for a quick and safe retreat (I made the Lucky Bones connect to the sewers which book two does not for some reason). So when it happened I could really put it on thick, with cadres of screaming powerful devils attacking, and created a fun retreating battle (saving friends and assets instead of winning the day) Empire Strikes Back-style. This really managed to set the tone for book four in a fun way with the movement scattered and the Ravens forced into momentary hiding.

TL;DR He only cares about the ritual, focuses 100% at it beforehand and relaxes afterwards, which is a mistake since both gives time and room for the Ravens to grow. He gets very weak after it and is out of action for a longer time. That means the gift giving ceremony needs to be cut or changed.

So unless I wanted to play a buff/debuff caster, I wouldn't play a caster then.

Well, if your player insist on playing a mass-destruction nuker maybe this is not an AP for them. There are plenty of very effective non-lethal spells in the game already. Having a caster with Charm, Command, Grease, Sleep, Color Spray, Ray of E., etc, etc, in a squad would be extremely beneficial for a non-lethal approach.

In my view, imposing limits on what PC choices you allow in an AP just adds to the fun. And having the PCs be mindful of what kind of damage they deal when solving many encounters is, for me, a big appeal for this AP and a welcome change from the usual mass slaughter in Pathfinder/DnD.

Also, I have no problem showing an entitled player, that insists in taking the cheap road to snowflakedom by going against the theme of the AP, where the door is. That is in my experience a sign of a problematic player that will cause other problems down the line.

SandersonTavares' archetype looks awesome and I will use it for sure when I GM this. Thanks mate!

As a theoretical thought exercise, this is interesting, but if you are looking for a hard n fast rule to explain it with regards to Golarion, the answer is largely "cause Mom/Dad said so."

"cause Arneson/Gygax said so."...FTFY

Just to add as I haven't seen it mentioned and you might have missed it: look at the back of the books, at the end of the "adventure part" but before the detailed NPCs, there you'll find what unique allies each book offers and their mechanical contribution (e.g. page 51 in Hell's Bright Shadow). It might be smart to check this section out in all the upcoming books so you know what to expect in this regard.

But as other's have said, just add your own NPCs as allies. I often find that NPCs I make up in the spur of the moment are the ones that resonate the most with my players; hence the dwarf Barl Bottock, proprietor of Barl's Meatballs, who (along with his street vendors) gave the PCs the Spread Disinformation ability.

Thanks for releasing this AP Paizo, our group was afraid it would be cancelled, and we're very much looking forward to playing it. The other 2e APs haven't really roused our interest, so this will be our first complete 2e AP. Cheers.

Since my previous wish of having an Absolom AP now has been granted, yay, I would like to see a Darklands AP. The characters start out in Nat-Voth, as the mystery unfolds they have to travel further down into Sekamina, and the finale takes place in the deepest reaches of Orv.

Drow gets to rebound after the much maligned SD, it's a cool place that hasn't been done much and recently, Jacobs gets to put in dinosaurs, everyone's happy! OK sorry, some people are happy!

I think Paizo's AP-writers are generally excellent at coming up with interesting plot lines and great back stories for NPCs, but often suck when it comes to inventing set pieces where that information is presented to the PCs.

Usually it goes like this: at the start of a chapter, a storyline or an NPC is presented, or expanded upon, in high detail. Then the encounter with whatever was presented consists of said NPC attacking the PCs, or at least is encountered in a very threatening manner begging for an initiative roll. NPC gets killed and the players go to the next combat, none the wiser, and the detail behind the encounter becomes pointless. Backstory is often presented to the players, usually extremely condensed, in written form, like a letter, along with a breadcrumb to the next highly detailed NPC up for slaughter - seldom in a conversation (or other means) since the author presumes the NPC will get killed before they can open their mouth anyway.

I think this is because of two reasons. First, I think adventure writers very much enjoy inventing interesting NPCs, and plot developments (although I suppose this is more rigid due to the longer AP arcs invented by Paizo's AP main developer), but then it sadly stops there. They are not as interested in providing an inventive way of presenting the information to the PCs, because they already had their fun in coming up with it. They don't care enough how (or if) it is presented to the players. So this falls on Paizo. Ask your writers for good ways to present backstory to the party.

Secondly, Paizo seems to have very, very low exceptions about the players. (So much text gets wasted on presenting alternatives to the GM for the totally insane murderhobo actions they AP assumes will take place. "A kindly old woman steps up the PCs in the street, holding a letter. If the PCs kill the woman in broad daylight and then eat the letter, you can instead present the contained information in the following ways...". It has happened that I had to check when reading an AP if it was made especially for evil PCs.) It often seems to assume the players are not interested in plot or backstory at all. I don't know, I guess that they have to know their playerbase, which then is just kinda sad. Or maybe they think they do since the data they get is from "open" play like PFS and seldom from home games. It's such a waste of AP word count nonetheless. (If the players behave like that an AP is wasted on them. Just present waves of enemies in arena-style combat instead, or look for other players.) I just think Paizo needs to trust their audience a little more and not cater as much to the lowest common denominator in this regard.

So what to do? You have to amend it yourself, even though I think Paizo has gotten better lately. I did this heavily in our playthrough of Rise of the Runelords. There's loads of ways to present the cool background without monologueing. One of the best I have found to be flashbacks, because you can involve the players, either in their PC roles or, even better but more work, playing others. Or a "meanwhile, in the lair of the villain.." scene. You don't have to present it all. Just a few bits of the puzzle that makes it all fit together when they confront the encounter in "real time". Present the AP more like a film than a Gygaxian dungeon romp. Trust your players to be presented with small bits of information their PC don't have (yet) - they already do when it comes to game mechanics, and if they don't meta game there, they can be trusted to not do the same with plot/backgrounds.

As for keeping the players in the loop, we always start each session with a recap. I usually ask players questions during this, to jog their memories and involve them. And I am often quite generous during these recaps, sometimes presenting more information than the players actually found, or tying things together more thoroughly then they have done. This "gift" is to keep their interest, and to give them a narrative push in to the coming session.

Then, as others has said, making an AP personal for the PCs is imperative. The best campaigns, in my experience, tends to be the ones were the players get so invested that they drive the plot forwards, instead of the GM.

My players are pretty smart about things so far and were able to avoid frontal assaults for the most part. The only open conflict that happened was at the first doghousing they witnessed, because one PC was outraged by it and charged in to end it.

But after it happened they had a long talk about things to prevent something like that in the future.
So I doubt they would walk into a place like Menador Keep just like that.

My players had the same approach, and didn't look to keenly on overt military action.

1. I raised the stakes. I had the queen actually answer Barzillai's call for help and send a battalion from the retaken Kintara towards the Menador gap. This made the players scramble. Instead of the blocking of the Menador pass being 'nice to have' it became a necessity, and a very urgent one at that. It forced them out of their sneaky sneaky comfort zone.

2. With the impending commotion of moving over a thousand soldiers, wagons, horses, fire giants, devils and whatnot through a narrow pass, it opened up a lot of opportunity for subterfuge. Lucien Thrune was stressed with suddenly getting all this attention and the PCs ambushed a Chelish patrol, took their gear and with some faked documents, disguises, great role play and bluff checks went into the keep as "inspectors from the Chelish 4th army". That only lasted as far as the Erynies with True Seeing, but the whole scenario was a blast nonetheless.

In my experience, Pathfinder generally attracts people based on two factors:

1. Adventure Paths. They are generally good, always really well produced, there's loads of of them, and they're an absolute godsend for people wanting to play but also have a life outside TRPGs. (Homebrews take lots of time and effort.)

2. Tinkerers. People that like to build and/or play mechanically creative and powerful characters. Here PF1 excels like no other game I've seen. It even easily surpasses build-oriented computer games like DDO.

so...

1. There's only one solitary lonely companionless AP out for PF2 atm, and the paint is still wet on it. PF1 has 24 APs. (Plus loads of stand-alone stuff, plus PFS scenarios.)

2. There is one rule book out, and a shy smattering of additional rules and options so far. Pathfinder 1 has what, like more than a hundred books full of archetypes, feats, titanium turbochargers, classes, and whatnot.

From what I have seen, PF2 will surpass PF1 in delivering quality in both these areas, just from its chassis. And now there's new factors to attract people with as well, like a fun and working game system. So let's see in one or two years how it does.

I am planning to rewrite the tower of bone to include many of the enemies previously faced by the PCs, including Nox as a bearded devil fighter.

I will as well. We're still a bit away from the tower of bone (starting the end of book 5) but it would be really interesting to hear what you come up with!

For our group, PF2 is a better game in every way. The systems are easier to use and more fun as well (we love the crit/fumble system for example), and they finally got rid of lots of stupid old AD&D baggage. Since we play APs we also really appreciate that high level play now just plain works, where before it started to bog down at around level 12-13.

We mostly play core classes/races so the huge difference in material does not bother us, but if you/your players love cooking up combos out of the gazillion of ingredients Paizo has pumped out for the last ten years, PF2 might just be too sparse - at least for now. So then my advice my advice would be to try it, then go back to PF1 for a year, until the Advanced Player's Guide has been released for PF2 along with all the other new material along the way.

And I definitely agree that a proposal using a flat number of attunement slots (like Cha+8) does little to incentivize investing in Charisma. So that's no good.

The hope was that a level-adjusted proposal (like Cha+lvl/3) would get around this issue by imposing non-trivial limits on the number of items one can equip at lower levels. So Charisma would still be desirable.

I like the Cha+lvl/3 (1 minimum) magic item formula very much. I also like the flavour of a sorcerer decked out in all kinds of minor magic items ("magic just loves me...."), as well as a bard with a lots of minor magic bling ("I looove magic!"), so even at the far end of the scale it works for me. I need to mind this is a GM though, and not be stingy with the small magic trinkets in the loot. I'm not that bothered by the high Cha characters, I'm more interested in removing the easy choices for my players. Cha = dump stat (unless x) is just bad design in my book.

I made a spreadsheet for the formula and it looks good. The only downside I can see to the Cha+lvl/3 is that it's a bit fiddly. I prefer simple and elegant systems, but this just might be worth it anyway.

So I'll think i'll go for this, along with the wand bonus and the bonus to Hero Point rerolls, unless the great collective here (or maybe even I) comes up with something even better.

I'm not very fond of the Cha for Will saves idea. It just does not sit that well with me flavour wise, even though I understand why Wis could do with a nerf in PF2. And also, as a minor quibble, it might become a bother to use this in Hero Lab (which my players use) and Combat Manager (which I use - If there'll be an update to PF2, that is).

How does anyone SEE a "murderous, erratic and bloodthirsty thug" from the sole action of not talking... Are all mute people are "murderous, erratic and bloodthirsty thugs"? As far as "big and dangerous weapons"... Were in a game with flying dragons, demons and wandering monsters: I'd look strange at the person WITHOUT any weapon. IMO, you'd get a bigger reaction with noble vs common folk or differing nationalities. I don't think being 'adventuring folk' in and of itself is a major factor.

I see you haven't met my players.

;-)

In general, how would one rate the usefulness of each ability score? Just generally speaking.

Con, Dex, Wis, Int, Str, Nothing, Nothing, Cha.

Between Follow the Expert and Aid, no party member that wants to talk should have any reason NOT to. As to "power gaming", I don't really see it. It's not power gaming to let the person with high dex and trained disable device to deal with the traps, let the person with a high strength and trained athletics to break open something or ask the high int person trained in arcana to answer a question. It doesn't seem odd in the least to have a representative speak instead of having a free for all, everyone talking at once situation. Diplomats are a thing for a reason.

I see what you mean, and 'power gaming' was a poor choice of words by me, since the word can be seen as slight. I think it boils down to how much emphasis you put on roleplaying and especially PC vs. NPC interaction at your table.

As for the OP, I just listened to the "The future of Pathfinder"-seminar from PaizoCon where one of the devs said they replaced the resonance system with not only 1/day wands, but also that max 10 magic items can be carried by a character (regardless of slots). I was thinking to let this number be affected by the Charisma mod. Set it to maybe 8 or 9 items per character and then let Cha modify that up or down. Too much?

Gloom wrote:

Charisma should very much influence the social abilities of your character and should result in more difficult social encounters when it's low and easier social encounters when it's high.

The effect of that tends to be:

(1) "Who's got the best charisma? The Cleric? Right: You're the 'party face'."
(2) Whenever there is an NPC to be interacted with in any way other than murder, the party face does all the talking.
(3) Nobody else in the party ever talks to anyone.

I have a standard response for this classic "party face" power gaming tactic. After the NPC has been successfully persuaded by the party face, the NPC will look behind the well articulated and charming fellow who has just been talking to them. To see a pack of unkempt, glowering and generally unpleasant figures staring at them with dead fish eyes. "What's going on here? Is this some kind of kidnapping situation? Are these people forcing you do to this? Do you want me to call the guards? No? All right, I'll help you, but you others, shoo!". Just because you have dumped your Charisma doesn't mean you're invisible. Quite the opposite, actually.

As for the mechanical effects, I'm a bit sad the resonance system wasn't kept in some form or another. The playtest version wasn't good, I admit, but they could have improved it instead of totally scrapping it, again leaving Charisma as a dump stat for many. There's some good stuff in this thread though, thanks people. I will use the hero point reroll modifier for sure, as well as the wand modifier, and maybe something else.

Marqel wrote a satirical opera called “The Rotten Ghoon” in our campaign, which the PCs were to stage (hire actors, find a venue, prepare for the one-time performance without the government finding out, etc). We didn't play it though, since we felt we had added more than enough of our own material and wanted to get on with the finale of book three (and we had included and ran the Six trails of Larazod from Council of Thieves so we had done the theater thing already).

It was an opera buffa (e.g. a comedic opera like Cosi fan tutte) about the conflicts between the ruling dogs and their bird subjects in a "fictitious" city. The opera became more and more silly as my players brainstormed it, which may come as no surprise to fellow GMs... but maybe you can get a title or an idea from my players juvenile ramblings :-)

Here it is in a nutshell (I blame my players for the bad puns): A city populated by birds, Titago, has been invaded by the Ghoon dog pack from Fleagorian. Their leader Barkzillion Ghoon now rules with an iron paw with the help of the prelate of the dog god Assniffious; bishop Drewlsteiner and his "friend" Madame Zhuck. A sparrow, Yilli, one day finally has had enough when she is forced by to pick up all the bird seed she has accidentally spilled in the street. She gets the help of a trickster figure, the White Crow, to take the fight to the mean canines and with the the help of the initially reluctant sea eagle Octo, she and her friends free the city.

Songs:
It's good to be top dog - Barkzillion, Pox, Octo, Drewlsteiner
Birds just want to be free - Yilli
Something shiny - the White Crow
Love that burns - Drewlsteiner, Madame Zhuck
Liberty, justice, birdiehood - the Crow & Yilli
I've been so blind - Octo
Beaks and fangs - All
I’m itching for Fleagorian - Barkzillion, Pox, Drewlsteiner
Free to fly the silver sky - Yilli, the Crow, Octo

Razcar -- Do you have any samples of the types of things the newsletters would contain?

Oh, they were mainly commenting on the things happening in the campaign, either through interviews with different officials, and offering exposition, rumors and introducing NPCs/villains. I made up a durotas (head constable) for each district, based on the system in Westcrown. So the newsletter interviewed them a lot.

The leaflet started to comment on the action of the Silver Ravens as they began to make an impact, and the tone turned more and more cheeky and sarcastic as Barzillai tightened the thumb-screws on the city. The PCs confronted the writer in book two and she later went underground and became an ally (and started the quest which led to freeing Jackdaw). It's been a fun addition to the campaign. I've made about one for each third session, and I post them in our game groups Facebook group page between sessions.

"Made a newsletter" - that is hardcore GM input right there

Thanks. Here's the template I used, if you're interested - I just overwrote a copy each time for "new issues", easy enough to do in any graphics software: http://i.imgur.com/5BFwHTm.png.

I made a daughter of Aulamaxa who ran the leaflet, Corinne Aulamaxa. Since she is a noble she had some leeway and access. Now we're in book four and her and the newsletter have joined the Silver Ravens and gone underground.

The illustrations of the Runelords are absolutely fantastic. Ekaterina Burmak is my favourite among your excellent stable of artists - tied with Wayne Reynolds, of course! I really love her realistic and incredibly detailed style. The characters come to life, in a way a more 'comic booky/anime' (as per Reynolds et. al.) style can't achieve, and their personalities just leap out at you.

So far, this is the thing I like the least in P2 (but there's many things I like a lot). When it comes to skills, I think P2 relies too much on level and dice rolls as compared to build choices. 5 points has too little effect when compared to a 1-20 dice range and level range (and Item and Ability, but anyone can have that regardless of specialising). And for many skills, I find that the Skill feats don't do enough to make a difference.

I'm GMing Hell's Rebels, an urban AP where skills are important, especially knowledge and social skills. So my players have specialised their characters in different areas - and this has added to their personalities. The guy excelling in Sense Motive is a bit suspicious and the one with a high Knowledge: History is always going on about historic landmarks, and so on.

I can't see that happening in P2 anymore, where the difference between "untrained" and "expert" is that the expert has a +3 on a d20 roll, with 1-20 levels added. I don't care as much how this focus on level affects characters of different levels, but more how this will affect the party dynamics and character uniqueness (since they are usually at the same level.)

We make a lot of what is now called Recall Knowledge rolls in Hell's Rebels. In P2, anyone can Recall Knowledge for any Lore skill they might think about, untrained (p.151). Putting skill feats into Lore skills will give a poor return of investment, as it stands now.
Instead, I foresee that players in P2 will use their skill feats for "action" skills only, and as soon as there is a Lore-based skill check everyone in the party will roll, with about the same chance of success as if they would have had spent skill feats.