Robert Trifts's page

Okay, I know this is a post where the topic matter is inherently potentially divisive and political. I'm going to steer away from as much of that as I can.

The reasons, whether you support it or not -- I don't care to discuss any of that here. That's not the point of this post. The point is to point out that tariffs and duties are going to be imposed -- soon -- on American products coming into Canada as a result of America's imposition of a 25% duty on all Canadian goods last night.

Those will take effect on American products on Tuesday Feb 4, 2025.

The effect this will have on your Canadian customers' ability to pay is going to be doubly affected by not just retaliatory tariffs imposed on US products at the Canadian border, but just as much by a falling Canadian dollar. That's going to increase the price on your products even if the Canadian Gov't holds off (for now, I stress the temporary nature of this forbearance) on imposing tariffs on product categories like Paizo's.

From my perspective, it's not hard to see how the price of your products will be effectively 33%+ higher for all of your Canadian customers by the end of February. On top of the already sky-high shipping costs?

You are going to see cancellations of subscriptions by those remaining Canadian customers you have. That's where this is going, sadly.

Rather than see outright cancellations, I URGE Paizo to add a suspend subscription button and make it prominent and easy for Canadian customers to see. Send The Canadian subscribers an e-mail about it, too.

This outcome isn't likely what anybody here wanted (or at least, very few of you). But like it or not -- here is where we now are.

I'd rather that Paizo and its customers acted rationally, with wisdom and forethought, and acted reasonably to preserve a customer relationship which has been strong and valued. Sometimes, crises beyond the control of both Paizo and its customers emerge; it's not Paizo's fault - and it's not the customers' fault. What's most important now is that steps are taken to not let the whole thing slide right down into the fire.

Which is where I fear it may go in the short to medium term without prudent intervention.

Thank you for your thoughts and your time.

Seeing as the best thing about Giantslayer was Vols 1 and 2 -- which were focused on Orcs, not Giants -- this AP is WELL PAST DUE.

Greg Vaughan's Scarwall Castle from Skeletons of Scarwall - the 5th volume from the Anniv Ed of CotCT. The single best castle in any modern RPG, imo.

3.5 Pathfinder: Burnt Offerings

1st Edition Pathfinder: A Song of Silver (closely followed by Souls for Smuggler's Shiv)
2nd Edition Pathfinder: A tie between Malevolence and Seven Dooms for Sandpoint
Remastered 2nd Edition Pathfinder: Can't talk about any of those I'm working on yet!

James Jacobs: "I like #1, #100, and #200" smiles.

Good. Round. Numbers.

[For what it's worth, "Souls for Smuggler's Shiv" was so good that the rest of the SS AP was, tbh, pretty awful in comparison after that amazing intro. Sometimes, there's just no way for the rest-of-the-play to live up to the first Act.]

I was a HUGE fan of Dungeon and for many years just bringing up the topic of its cancellation got me in a foul mood.

But compared to my love for Pathfinder: Adventure Path, my affection for Dungeon is a mere middle-school crush.

Here's to 300 more!

Huzzah!

This was just stupendous fun to write, I hope you'll all love it! I was literally bouncing around when James asked me to write this adventure and it was so great to have fun playing about with the wonderful ideas he's put into this AP.

Very happy to answer any questions when this puppy arrives on your doorsteps and thank you for all your enthusiasm you lovely folks.

Rich

The degree to which I am entirely enthused by this announcement is difficult to overstate.

I'd say you have been missed at my gaming table -- but that isn't true. We just finished running through The Skinsaw Murders under PF2, City of Locusts (also in PF2) is on the docket, and speaking of dockets - I'm converting Trial of the Beast to PF2 right now.

But I'd rather not have to convert your stuff :)

3) Even this month, the vast majority of people got it before release date.

If that's not good enough, don't subscribe. Close the subscription at Customer services and pay for the PDF.

I know you think you are trying to help; however, this isn't helping.

Unless you work in the Paizo warehouse, you have no information at all about the % performance of subscription shipments. You might be right, sure -- truth is though, you have no information about this one way or the other.

I've been a subscriber for a dozen+ years. Mine have not shipped yet either. No, I'm not terribly happy about it, but I'm philosophical about it at least. I well appreciate that others are not.

That said, I'd be a good deal less happy about it to receive a smarmy post like yours in response to a reasonable complaint. And his complaint IS reasonable, even if it is grounded in his own narrow self-interest.

Perhaps ad hoc Customer Service and PR for a company you don't own and aren't employed by is not your calling?

ckdragons wrote:

You're maps are very good! Keep up the excellent work!

Thank you! Hopefully they get better and better so I can do the later books justice.

I would ask that, in the future, you strongly consider exporting your maps with the grid OFF.

If it is at all possible for you to re-export your existing maps with the grid off, that would be very helpful as well.

Purchased and installed. It will be a while before I get to running this, (probably quite a while) but I played it from start to finish in PF1, reviewed it in depth, and will likely kick tires on running this for a new group under PF2.

Thanks for all the work and the product, most especially to James Jacobs for his initial work on the conversion which proceeded under less than ideal circumstances.

The Foundry implementation in term of the "open box" experience looks GREAT. BIG THUMBS UP.

Tangent101 wrote:

Essentially you would need the PCs to each possess some sort of Artifact in order to be able to stand their ground against the truly potent foes out there... and even then you risk enemies nuking the PCs by a couple lucky critical hits.

Why? Remember that you are also rebalancing the monsters.

This is exactly correct. Which is entirely fine, too.

There is a practical problem when discussing WotR with a significant segment of gamers that the AP inherently appeals to. Put simply, they are power gamers who enjoy very high level play. Reducing or eliminating that aspect of the AP is anathema to their preferred approach to it - so they don't even consider it. It's a disconnect in these discussions and it happens just about everywhere you attempt to have that discussion, too.

Which is okay, as people are allowed to like different things. The insistence that Mythic for PF1 was great and didn't need a complete re-write to deal with balance issues is ... well... that's not an objectively rational point of view.

People like what they like and some don't want to have any other discussion.

Which is a shame, as WotR is actually, story wise, one of Paizo's very best APs. James Jacobs is on his game with WotR. It's simply that it was built on top of Mythic, which was a rules set that never got play-tested and it was broken on release; which made WotR broken on release, too.

I would like to be more optimistic about similar efforts in next years War of the Immortals AP and new stab at Mythic for PF2. Sadly, I'm not sanguine about it.

I AM optimistic that my conversion of WotR to normal PF2 rules will work out just fine though!

Top Shelf
Carrion Crown
Curse of the Crimson Throne
Hell's Rebels
Iron Gods
Kingmaker
Rise of the Runelords
Skull & Shackles
Wrath of the Righteous (Note: this is an assessment of the AP itself after decoupling it from the Mythic Rules, which are awful. If you want an AP to convert to PF2 from PF1? This AP, RotRL or CotCT are your podium choices – as long as you strip Mythic out of WotR.)

Middle Tier
Ironfang Invasion
Reign of Winter
Return of the Runelords
Ruins of Azlant
Shattered Star
Strange Aeons
Tyrant's Grasp
War for the Crown

Bottom Rung
Council of Thieves
Giantslayer
Hell's Vengeance
Jade Regent
Legacy of Fire
Mummy's Mask
Second Darkness
Serpent's Skull

I could get into a long explanation to defend and explain the above choices – (believe me I have extensive and well thought out reasons for this) – but if I post those reasons and start getting into the minutiae and criticism, all that will accomplish is piss off and potentially denigrate many ex-Paizo developers (and maybe a few who aren’t), alienate current freelancers and, in general, piss in the coffee cups of a lot of people who, understandably, would not appreciate that flavor with their java.

So, no, I’m not going to do that.

I will say this: the job of developer of an Adventure Path was invented by James Jacobs back in the days of Dungeon and was refined over a course of many years by him while at Paizo. He did the job the longest – and he did it best. Far and away the best - No, it’s not even close.

I also consider James Jacobs to be the best adventure writer for RPGs of all time. Yes, I mean that – all the way back to 1974. There are no asterisks or exceptions to that overall representation of quality or statement of approbation. No, it doesn’t mean that everything he has written is awesome – he’s had some duds in there, too – but overall, yes, he’s the best there is or ever was. That matters.

As for freelancer writers on whom so much depends – the best Freelance adventure authors have almost entirely sat out writing any adventures for PF2. There are a number of good reasons for this, but the end result is a perceptible decrease in the quality of the overall product. Yes, this is, in my view, plain and obvious.

Paizo has also shied away from the world-shaking AP themes of the past with the APs it has published in the PF2 era. There were, initially at least, good reasons for them to do this. But as time has worn on, that lack of “epic” in terms of flavor to the AP line has been conspicuously absent. Quality of themes have suffered as a result. Too much travelogue and niche filling – not enough “epic”.

And that’s before we talk about the complete disruption within Paizo’s staff in the AP line over the past 7 years or so – which has taken its toll on the product line.

Add all of that together: Developer, Theme, and Freelance writers – and that’s why you get a top Adventure Path List that would exclude every single one of the Adv Paths written for PF2 so far, imo.

That doesn’t mean they are all bad. Volume 1 of AV, for example, is a top-shelf product (but the magic of Vol 1 doesn’t persist into Vol 2, does it? Be fair.) Overall, the three volumes of AV still would slot in in the middle third, not within the top shelf of PF1’s offerings.

All of this is a problem for the current product line. I hope John Compton gets it right and that he is given adequate time to find his feet and make his mark on Pathfinder: Adventure Path – which is still the single greatest RPG adventure publication of all time.

The only 2e adventure paths I’d give a hard “not recommended” to are Extinction Curse, Agents of Edgewatch, and (sadly) Blood Lords. The rest of them through Sky King’s Tomb I’d consider good to great.

My list is a little longer than that, but this isn't about "what's the worst" -- it's about "what's the best" - a different question.

As for Agents of Edgewatch, that one, sadly, has a lot to recommend it and there is the basis for an excellent Absalom campaign. All the key ingredients are there...

And then they serve it up to GMs and players on a garbage can lid.

The problem with AoE is the developer's choice to have the PCs acquire treasure by looting the bad (and not so bad) guys - the so called privateer model -- fundamentally undermined the entire premise of the campaign. The PCs, officers of the law, are required to fund their patrol operations by stealing from those they arrest.

It's a plain conflict of interest. So BY DESIGN the players find themselves role-playing bad cops. No cop under a treasure model like that is lawful -- nor good, in my view. It's a case where the treasure model basically forces the PCs to play dirty cops who are all in the Neutral, Neutral (Evil), Chaotic Neutral, and and even Chaotic Evil parts of the alignment spectrum. And this happens BY DESIGN, no less.

I played AoE, Vol 1 and this aspect of things was such a distraction to me that I couldn't wait for that volume to end. And we ended the campaign right afterwards.

As you might imagine, I have some strong views about that design, and some adjectives to attach to it which are both critical and unflattering.

Could we have changed the treasure model? Sure, absolutely. But changing something that is so plainly and obviously wrong in an AP's inherent design should not be necessary.

I think the stuff that belongs "top-shelf" is back in PF1's Adv Paths.

This is not an edition war post: I prefer the rules of PF2.

But the plots, the development work, and perhaps most of all, the quality of the freelance writers with PF1's APs, especially chronologically, the first two-thirds of them, are better than anything we have received in PF2.

It takes a lot of time to convert PF1 APs to PF2 if you are being meticulous about it -- but if you are looking for the best Paizo adventure paths? That's where you will find them.

I expect that what you are looking for in terms of Derzen is these two map images, created with Inkarnate by redditor u/IXMandalorianXI

They are located here Derzen Citadel and Derzen Dungeon. If not, they are still great maps!

What Unicore said. The mythic "have a competent GM fix it" mantra in this case means dozens of hours of extra work on the top of the usual work-heavy PF1 prep and even then it all fell apart because most of the issues were so deep at the base of the mythic design.

WotR *kinda* worked if you handed out a grand total of 2 mythic ranks across the entire AP - I ran it so and was manageable. But the PF2 framework should work much better for mythic, as math doesn't go off the rails as crazily as it did in PF1.

Arise my Unthread minions!

It's simpler than that, by the way. I am redoing all of WotR for PF2 and stripping mythic out of it entirely and just rebalancing the foes across the board for PF2.

Mythic was -- and is -- AWFUL. It was always so open to optimization "abuse" (if just building a logical Mythic PC can be said to be "abuse") that it came pre-broken for our better enjoyment. Trying to fix it with Legendary Adventures options for Mythic sort of works, but the amount of effort that must be put into each mythic encounter, adjusted to work alongside the specific mythic builds of the group of PCs is just not worth it. At all.

It's awful. Let it be. The AP, once freed of this dross, is actually pretty good. Unlike PF1, PF2 plays much better at higher levels. So just rebalance it for PF2 and call it done.

I was very pleased to have confirmation of continuing remote working conditions for Paizo employees. This offers a number of benefits to both Paizo and its employees, while reducing costs for Paizo and for its employees -- and permitting employees to reside in areas with far less expensive housing.

That's a net raise to United Paizo Workers, without it costing Paizo anything. Indeed, it should save you money in the medium to long run. Good.

More net pay after rent to employees with lower costs to Paizo. I call that a win-win. While I am sure inertia and unspecified general concerns militated against this for many years, the pandemic wiped that away at a stroke. Realizing it and accepting a gift-horse has been difficult for many businesses in the wake of the pandemic.

The fact that you have done so Mr. Butler is commendable.

There are many cool features of PF2 in Foundry VTT. There are many cool features of Foundry VTT for that matter - whether it is used for PF2 or not.

But far and away the most impressive achievement -- the thing which is FAR more difficult to do than writing software -- is to build the community around FoundryVTT in general and PF2 in particular. You could try and do that 100 times, and you would be unlikely to succeed as well or as brilliantly as the current community has. Truth is, you'd outright FAIL 98 times out of 100.

These things are once a decade or two events. The last time something like this happened around the RPG brand was BioWare's Neverwinter Nights 1. These communities are as rare as rare can be; so all readers here should treasure it and not take it for granted. Because when they come together? It's magic in a bottle.

I just took a look at both my print and PDF version of the 2nd book, and my pdf for the 3rd one, and they all fit? And the book 2 pdf on have not been update since January... I dunno how you pdf could get scrambled like that? But that seems like a very peculiar bug...

Just to make it clear:
My vol 2 (physical) and vol 2 (PDF): Same art between each other
My vol 3 (PDF): different art from the previous 2.
Note: I didn't look at the "file per chapter" version, only the one file version.

Look at your Interactive Maps for Vol 2. :P

Uhmmm... what is UP with the cover art on the PDF? The cover art on the printed product is as advertised; however, the cover art on Vol 2 of Gatewalkers: They Watched the Stars Interactive Maps is just ... wrong.

You have included as the cover art of the PDF for Vol 2 of the Gatewalker AP Interactive Maps the cover art which is for Vol 3 of the same AP.

I just noticed this today as I received Vol 3 of the PDF in my download section. James Jacobs is writing this one so I had to go look (even if only a cursory glance as I likely will be playing this) and I saw it was exactly the same cover art as for Vol 2!

Which art is correct? My physical copy of volume 2 indicates: the cover on the PDF for Vol 2 Interactive Maps is wrong!

Something's Wrong Here

This... this is an odd mistake for Paizo (there's a first time for everything) but uhmm... yeah. There it is, just the same.

Steel_Wind wrote:

I want to return to Varisia and the new Runelords. After that, back to Lastwall and perhaps Ustalav, please and thank you. The two main BBEGs in this world require some attention.

The remaining Runelords haven't been BBEGs since 2019 (Sorshen is a force for good in the world for some reason, Belimarius is an upjumped has-been on the level of Abrogail Thrune, and less of a threat than Geb), and that seems unlikely to change. Lastwall hasn't been a state since 2019 either.

The Pathfinder Campaign Setting (as opposed to the Lost Omens Campaign Setting) is dead and buried, and isn't coming back.

Should we let James Jacobs know that his Runelord's a good guy and that the Whispering Tyrant is a punk compared to Geb? Geb will doubtless pass that on to his wife "the guy who killed you when you were the Herald of a god is a punk".

It's good to know that Lastwall is gone for good and hasn't mattered since 2019. It would be preferable if someone told Paizo though, who released the Lost Omen Book for Lastwall ten months ago, in May, 2022.

Alternatively, maybe trying to stir up a 1st vs 2nd Edition war isn't helpful?

What I want to see? Less Golarion travelogue and niche APs focused on making this, that, and the other corners of the fanbase happy.

I want to return to Varisia and the new Runelords. After that, back to Lastwall and perhaps Ustalav, please and thank you. The two main BBEGs in this world require some attention.

Yes, I know, how "boring, typical, and samey".

Pssst: the reason why Abomination Vaults was received so well? Because it was familiar red meat, served up medium-rare, just the way people like it.

There are a lot of new GMs and players in PF2 right now -- though most of them are 5e refugees who default to "strong home brew" in terms of what they run. Give them a reason NOT to do that.

To be blunt, Foundry's amazing support for PF2 is literally why I moved to PF2 from PF1. Without it? I doubt we'd be playing PF2.

In that chicken and egg game? Love for Foundry's PF2 support came first. It's that good.

What I'm mostly hearing here is that our current methods of doing multiple Adventure Paths a year and varying the contents and themes and stories continues to be the right call.

So that I am clear on this, I was VERY pleased to see that Outlaws of Alkenstar was another lvl 1-10 3 vol AP. A heavy bias favoring level 1-10 in the 3 volume APs is preferred by me -- and it's not even close.

Leave the 6 volume APs for those who want higher level play. That is my STRONG preference as a customer.

It's the best AP Paizo has released in many years. This treatment is a good idea.

I have little doubt that it will be regarded as one of the best, if not The Best AP for Pathfinder 2nd Ed. To characterize it as simply a "dungeon crawl" misses the mark - as well as how adaptable the adventure is in terms of its structure outside of the Ruins below Gauntlight.

Here's the thing: I have Paizo's entire library of Map Packs, Flip-Tiles and Flip-Mats in electronic form. If this is Pokemon? I have quite literally caught them all. (I even have this physical product line before Paizo made them, going back to Steel-Squire's versions of them, for that matter.)

I use these products in digital form, not printed form and have for nearly a decade.

The problem I am now running into the past year or three -- and it is a problem now every single time I try and use these map making assets -- is that I find that I no longer can use them digitally, at least when it comes to the map packs/tiles. I just ignore the flip-tiles entirely now when it comes to map making. It's a damned shame.

The problem is simple: there are pre-existing grid lines on these digital map products that I do not want on my finished map image. And I have no way to turn them off. I don't want more than the digital product delivers -- I just need a little less

I appreciate that these products are primarily intended for physical use. Any digital use became an unintentional "bonus". That's entirely fair. And so in that context, a grid make sense.

But as a digital product, the grid is usually not desirable in the finished assembled map when used in a modern VTT. I could get into a lengthy technical discussion of digital map making, resolution independence, and VTT implementation -- but I don't think the specific technical reasons are terribly germane.

Suffice to say that while grids are helpful to help make a map, they are bad -- very bad -- with the finished digital product -in-use.

In the AP line, the interactive map packs exist so as to permit an end user to turn off the grid. This is super helpful to GMs using those maps for VTT play.

Bottom Line: Providing something similar, or simply just another PDF with the map images supplied **without the grid lines** would be greatly appreciated by subscribers who want to use these products for VTT play.

Because these grid lines are interfering with my ability to use what is otherwise an excellent digital product. I don't get any value-in-use out of them. Which is a shame given how awesome they otherwise could be in digital form.

I took to to a local print shop to see if they could make something on foamcore board or vinyl stickers that I could just tape down and while its a little pricey the resolution once is enlarged to scale is pretty blech.

Just wondering if anyone here has devised a good solution for converting some of the pdf maps in the adventures or APs into physical maps when they arent available for purchase from Paizo?

thanks!

While your comment is several months old, the issue is a recurring one so this reply will be of use to you as well as to others.

The cost of printing maps adds up quickly. The simplest and most cost-effective approach is to not print anything. Instead, use a 40" inch flat panel TV and lay it on the tabletop and hook it up with an HDMI cable to your PC or laptop -- or cast to it from a tablet or phone if it supports that feature.

Display your map on the TV, either through the use of a VTT -- or simply the use of a graphics program or even Adobe Acrobat if you must. Put your minis on top of the flat screen and just play.

You can get fancy and add a wood frame or install it in a purpose built table if you like -- but just laying down an old TV on the kitchen table works just fine too. If it gets tippy -- use a bath towel scrunched up underneath the tippy side to stop it from doing that. Carry on gaming.

You may well have an old flat-panel TV you no longer use that could be repurposed for this (I have two of them in the 40" range we no longer use). If so, the cost of doing this + your old bath towel to prevent tipping is exactly ZERO DOLLARS.

And yes, it will look better than any printed map, too. And the ease of use of changing maps and so forth during play will take you less than 1 second to appreciate and come to enjoy.

On Craigslist, a used flat panel can be had for less than $100. Hell you can buy a NEW low Hz 55" model for $200-$300 or so. 60 Hz is totally fine for still images. High Hz resolution is a concern for showing movies and sports - not for Tabletop gaming!

So we customers can be a b$$!&y, pain-in-the-ass ever complaining group of customers, I know.

Still, it is gratifying to know that Paizo pays attention to the grumbling.

The problem, hitherto, (which was really just this past AP and the one before, tbh, as the Interactive Map Packs were not in place for Starfinder prior to that) was that the ship maps on the back page were left out.

While it is true that Starship Maps don't contain the secret door info that was, once-upon-a-time, one of the main reasons for Interactive Map Packs in the first place, their utility has grown beyond that narrow use case. In particular, the Map Packs ability to turn off the grid allows for easier importing of the art into a VTT -- and we never want grids on maps for *final* VTT use as that just makes it harder to use them. (We do need the grids temporarily for scaling purposes to get them into the VTT though).

Anyways, bottom line, Paizo listened to us and with Vol 6 of FFoD, they included The Risen in the Interactive Maps too.

So very happy for this development. Thanks to Jason and Jason (and their other brother Jason, too) and all the non-Jasons at Paizo for this.

My players just finished up We're No Heroes, but they escaped from the rendezvous point without killing Deminda. The book says that Sinjin will kill her if she fails, but that feels like a waste given how much of an impression she made on my players. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to incorporate her into future adventures?

Well, the module anticipates that the PCs may not go the Golden League hangar and will instead attempt to make a run for it. "However, because the PCs never face Deminda, she could reappear in a future adventure—at an appropriately higher CR and accompanied by drow henchmen."

The time to re-emphasize this threat and re-insert the Drow, in my opinion, is not so much in Volume 2, but at the beginning of Volume 3. The perfect hook is the throw-away part of the intro to the adventure which follows up with a job offer while the PCs are still on Marixah - the planet where they finish Volume 2.

Marixah is the homeworld of the colonists the PCs probably helped on Vohxa (the labor camp) in their struggle with the Hobgoblins of the Gideron Authority. It is the GA which is the link back to the Drow. The GA are being supplied arms from the Drow on Apostae through House Zeizerer. Sinjin is from House Zeizerer, though he has largely "gone rogue" outside of the Drow matriarchy and has instead built up his criminal network with non-Drow in the Golden League.

Still, the links between the Drow and the Gideron Authority provides your opportunity to re-insert Deminda.

By this point, as the FFoD AP provides, the first contact with the GA was with Captain Harradan, Commander of the Gideron Authority Attack Vessel Falchion. This occurs as the PCs initially come into land on Vohxa in Vol 1. While in orbit, Harradan checks out the PCs bona fides, sees their arms shipment papers from House Zeizerer, and authorizes them to land on Vohxa. (At that time, Harradan's name is not mentioned - though his ship is.) He's potentially your recurring GA BBEG if you like.

At the beginning of Vol 3, Verran asks the PCs to bring a shipment to Absalom Station. The PCs don't know what this shipment is, but it's actually a fascinating collection of archaeological artifacts which underlie the conflict between Marixah and the GA.

The PCs take the gig and shortly thereafter, Captain Harradan in the Falchion and another GA ship confront the PCs in space above Marixah as the Oliphaunt leaves. Ideally, what you want Harradan to do is to board the Oliphaunt to take the archaeological relics back. Harradan's ship ordinarily has himself and five other Hobgoblins on it. (There is another GA ship out there as well).

Problem: The GA above Marixah is WAY too dangerous for the GA. They will get crushed trying that stunt above Marixah. Instead, have the shipment of cargo to be picked up on Sansorgis, a nearby planet outside of Vesk Space where the GA and Marixah are fighting. It's the setting for SFS 1-24 where the GA is introduced. Deminda sets up Verran as a fence to draw the PCs in - and get the GA Navy to help her do it.

Put Deminda and a group of Drow thugs on Harradan's ship. The entire delivery of the artifacts from Varran to the PCs is all part of her elaborate bait to catch the PCs, while using the military ships of the GA to help her do it.

So Harradan will board with his "crew", all done up in armor and with helmets on to conceal who they are. Some will be hobgoblin - others will be Drow thugs. The fight will be on board the Oliphaunt and it will happen even if the PCs comply with the GA's demands. Harradan brings Deminda aboard to verify the artifact cargo is the cultural relics. Deminda will use that opportunity to start a fight on the Oliphaunt.

Frankly, I consider the Gideron Authority and that entire subplot as being FAR more interesting than the underwater adventure that takes place in Vol 3. So much so that I may scrap Vol 3 as written in preference for some home brew with the PCs vs the GA.

Anyways, the drow will be on board the Falchion and will board the Oliphaunt if they get the chance.

Problem: They might not get the chance. Your PCs may choose try to escape from the GA vessels because the Oliphaunt has a Speed of 12 and the Sword Class Attack Vessels in the GA navy sent to interdict the artifact shipment have a speed of 8. Unless the GA ships get lucky and crit the Oliphaunt in order to slow it down, the PCs will get away.

If the PCs escape the GA, Deminda will use Sinjin's allies in the Golden League to attack the PCs at Absalom Station as part of Hafrigek's Xun's crew. Again -- that is the reason the Hafrigek family is attacking the PCs in the first place -- because Sinjin asked them to.

Well, Sinjin asked them to do it through Deminda. So either boarding The Oliphaunt with the GA or with the Golden League on Absalom station -- that is where the drow and Deminda re-enter your tale.

Why are the PCs going off to Entha for underwater adventures while this far more interesting intrigue with the Gideron Authority and the Golden League presents a more plot cohesive option in Volume 3?

Honestly, I think it's the biggest weakness in all of the FFoD AP. Volume 3 is detached by design from the rest of the AP and is intended to be a "palate cleanser" where the bad guys are the nameless, faceless EJ Corp. The AP is supposed to be about working class truckers and their former employer in EJ Corp, right? So that's why Jason Tondro made that choice and it makes sense from that perspective. This is a story not about "saving the Galaxy" but "woking class heroes". Vol 3 attaches its premise to the PCs former employers at EJ Corp - all vaguely wrapped around the idea of Big Corporate environmental exploitation. So in that sense - it fits the theme.

But if the politics of the setting appeals more to you, maybe you don't want or need to play up the heartless environmental destruction EJ Corp is involved in. Perhaps to you,the Gideron and Drow subplot is far more interesting and it also integrates well with Volume 1 and Volume 6 and Sinjin.

Pick your poison. I find the GA subplot to be so interesting, I may just scrap the Entha adventure in Vol 3 in its entirety and homebrew that part of the AP to go down that rabbit hole and just pick it back up in Volume 4 with the White Glove Affair.

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Starts shipping in a week?

"Not so sounded as we were lead to believe; so much the better"

Looking forward to this one! Oh hell, looking forward to all of them (except for Ruby Phoenix genre is not my cuppa - but I'll still get them of course).

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

Well damn, about the release being pushed back, but whatever still super looking forward to it! The August to September is gonna be insane if Guns and Gears doesn't also get pushed back, we're gonna have actual back to back rulebook releases.

I hear ya. Between Pathfinder and Starfinder we are looking at 2 hardcovers in June, 2 in August, 1 in October, 2 in November, and 1 in December. Subject to change of course.

And to clarify, I made some incorrect assumptions based on incomplete info about why it rolled. I now understand we hit our SofM deadlines and the delay was external to us. The point of the post it to confirm it rolled a month.

"Ill news is an ill guest, Aaron Stormcrow."

- Customer Wormtongue

Actually, ill news is appreciated and candid posts manage customer's reasonable expectations and assist in marketing and long-term customer goodwill. So all of this is really helpful.

And the best thing about all of this, to be perfectly honest, is that I find myself excited about both the PF2 and Starfinder releases.

I've subscribed throughout for both PF and SF, but during that time, I think it has only been in the past 3 months or so that I have come to get excited about all of these products again for both brands.

Sometimes, it takes the return of something to realize that its absence was bigger than I gave credit for.

Thanks for the updates Aaron.

All my sympathies. You do not have an easy job, and I know keenly how frustrating this can be for everyone.

When the whole business is planned on regular subscriber income for cashflow purposes, my sympathies go well beyond those of warehouse staff.

Delays of this magnitude are craptastic for Paizo. In a year full of nasty Covid impacts, nobody foresaw how a 10 minute strong desert wind squall in Egypt could disrupt the economies of all businesses, great and small, around the globe.

Another problem is that normally a heist means that you walk away undetected, or at least so that no one can proof that you are guilty, even when they know you are.

But that does not happen here. When the PCs cover is blown and they make a run for it, with the ship, it means their guilt is known which should have consequences in the form of investigations and arrest warrants (however that works in Starfinder).
But like so often Starfinder glosses over such details...

The activities on Fortune's Heart are not exactly all above board. The Kalistocrats are crooks, too. Their ability to Go. Run. Tell. is somewhat constrained by those realities.

The opponents of the PCs look instead to their civil remedies, rather than direct criminal justice for what has happened. And so Eline uses the lawyers (and good name) of EJ Corp (as plaintiff) to do it.

Doing just that, the PCs are sued for fraud and literally all of the PC's assets are frozen via court order across all of Known Space™ within 60 days of the event. That injunction is so extreme, they can't even buy a coffee using a creditstick. That's before a judgment is even granted or before they have had their day in court. It's a Sci Fi Mareva injunction on steroids with a reach that extends hundreds of light years in all directions. They are persona non grata and are wanted in some of those jurisdictions.

So, au contraire, for the first time in an Adventure Path or other adventure module since Gygax rolled dice at his sand table, there ARE actually adverse legal consequences for the PCs' actions -- and pretty drastic ones, too :)

Aliens threatening an Ice Planet, besieged terrified scouts/researchers huddling in the cold from an alien monster.

If there isn't a scene or three channeling John Carpenter's The Thing meeting Ridley Scott's Alien to produce a Swarm lovechild, I am going to be disappointed Jason! [Spoilers: I do not expect I will be disappointed].

Do you feel let down by the fact that Eline automatically blows the PCs' cover once they win and they have to fight to escape instead of maintaining the scam and just flying the barge out before anyone's the wiser? They'd still have problems because the PCs know the check they're writing won't clear, exposing them as surely as Eline pointing at them and shouting "J'ACCUSE!" will.

What exactly were your expectations for the heist that The White Glove Affair didn't meet?

The point is that Eline's blowing the PC's cover happens within seconds of the transfer to them of the codes critically necessary to gain entry to the ship's computer and so be able to fly off with the White Wind. They can't steal the ship without all the maneuvering and machinations up to that instant in time. This is explained in the sidebar regarding the ship's security system on p. 18.

That's when the final action sequence starts, that's literally about 2 seconds after the heroes have the keys to the ship's computer -- all purchased with somebody else's ID and money as apart of an elaborate long con.

As for the squawking about Credits and BP -- Jason Tondro has explained all of this in his Developer Podcast/YouTube series on BAMF and either you get it - or you don't.

And if you don't get it? Frankly, Boedullus your opinion is being shaped by preconceived notions that are out of place in this AP and do not work with the Starfinder RPG rules system. I urge you to watch all of Jason's series on it so you can "reset" your expectations so that they are reasonable.

Because right now? They aren't.

I am in the midst of prepping Crash and Burn for Fly Free or Die and the more I read, the more impressed I am.

I used to review APs for Pathfinder, both in podcast and in print form - and I am pretty hard on most of the stuff I read and run. While I do not claim to have read each and every single AP volume ever published (I play in some and so prefer not to spoil all of them) I certainly have GM's (or read) about 75% of them across both the PF and Starfinder lines.

I already think Fly Free or Die is the best of SF AP (by far) but I want to say that Crash and Burn is itself, exceptional.

There are not many times that Vol 5 becomes a high water mark in an AP. Frankly, the "back nine" usually sucks compared to the the "front nine". That's just the nature of storytelling and the AP format.

I can only think of only one other AP where Vol 5 was the stand out -- Greg A Vaughan's Skeletons of Scarwall in Curse of the Crimson Throne (and the Anniv Ed is even better). And that's mostly about Greg's amazing map, frankly.

But Crash and Burn appears to have bucked the trend, too. I might be jumping the gate and Vol 6 will blow me away (spoilers: final volumes in ANY AP never do that but... who knows?).

Still, this is a really great module and I wanted to say publicly how impressed I was with it. Well done!

.Robert

Dawn of Flame is awesome too. It’s got everything a decent SF Adventure Path needs, imo.

I know you are a subscriber Steve - but have you read Fly Free or Die?

FFoD is AMAZING. What a change and breath of fresh air into the Starfinder AP line. It made me excited to play Starfinder again -- and that spark was almost thoroughly extinguished by Dead Suns.

What this game needs is more FFoD hype -- and a lot of it being played on Foundry VTT, which is a natural software platform for the game and offers tweaks and differences which make Starfinder shine brightly. Yes, even starship combat, too.

Same for Herolab Online, which is now almost a year out of date.

That's quite an overstatement, don't you think? And by overstatement, I mean DEAD WRONG.

I guess when originally posted - it might have been closer to being correct, but it's still very wrong now.

Note: The most recent addition was Alien Archive 4. Released by Paizo in January 2021 and HLO month before last. The only hardcover not offered in the system is the Starship Operations Manual. Everything else in the rules for Starfinder has been added. And SOM will be added, too, soon enough.

"Piling on" threads which are materially misleading stray into toxic fandom.

A bunch of fans, on Paizo's own Message Boards, speculating about why Starfinder (the game they are talking about) isn't talked about by more people.

The irony.

I will throw this out there: you aren't getting good numbers from Roll 20 -- because there are no damned Starfinder APs to buy other than AtAT for Roll 20.

Put down Roll20, come on over the Foundry VTT and play Starfinder. https://discord.com/invite/v9K2hKJ

What the game needs to be making a bigger splash is the same thing every game does to make a bigger splash: more fun adventures to play.

For Starfinder, that's Fly Free or Die or Horizons of the Vast. And giant mechs from Tech Revolution won't hurt the buzz, either.

Zaister wrote:

Will there be some kind of way to get a free PDF when preordering this adventure for subscribers of some kind? Or will this be the first Paizo product that does not offer this?

To my knowledge, at this time, the Adventure will only be sold at full price at release in both print and PDF formats.

Aaron, in the past, for products that do not have a subscription those who have pre-ordered get a PDF along with it.

Anticipating this would be the case, I have pre-ordered both of the Starfinder modules. To be blunt, I collect in paper -- but I run exclusively online. The PDF is what I actually use.

If a PDF is available when pre-ordering, all is well. If not, that's not so good (understatement).

There is still some time to go here before July, but clarity on this subject would be appreciated.

Klart McCather wrote:

Yes! Provide us the thr huge file size version then! This is a nightmare in my prep.

I agree, 300 MB is nothing these days.

On a computer it isn't; on an iPad, Android tablet or even a smartphone - it can be the difference between a usable product -- and not.

I think the approach they should have taken was a Large file and a Small file download option.

Whatever the case, here we are.

So my Druid PC asked today if he could give his proposed Animal Companion a command while in a wild shape battle form.

I responded that he could not. An animal companion has the "minion trait", which is commanded/invoked using the "command an animal" action which has the "auditory" trait.

You cannot speak while in a battle form, ergo, you can't do it. This is the generally accepted reasoning to the above question.

[Note: Please appreciate that while I am the GM, I am also a lawyer IRL.]

The player then persuades me that the above interpretation is wrong.

Player says his proposed battle form is that of a wolf. His companion will also be a wolf. Wolves communicate effectively enough as a pack to battle all the time IRL, while not "speaking".

Player also notes that while "command an animal" has the auditory trait, it does not have the linguistic trait.. It requires only noise, not language.

When we look to the auditory trait, we see:

Auditory
Source Core Rulebook pg. 629 2.0
Auditory actions and effects rely on sound. An action with the auditory trait can be successfully performed only if the creature using the action can speak or ***otherwise produce the required sounds***.

Making a noise is a very different act than "speaking".

Linguistic
Source Core Rulebook pg. 633 2.0
An effect with this trait depends on language comprehension. A linguistic effect that targets a creature works only if the target ***understands the language*** you are using.

Druid player says "Command an Animal" doesn't require linguistic recognition. Druid need only be able to growl or bark to effectively coordinate with simple commands while in wolf battle form to his wolf companion. Druid can't speak, but he doesn't need to be able to in order to invoke "command a companion". A growl or bark will be enough. Auditory trait is not language trait. Growling isn't speaking.

Honestly? I think the player's interpretation, per RAW, is correct. He has found the loophole.

Moreover, on a common sense basis, wolf to wolf growl and bark seems sensible enough. It's a sound, it's not a word. He's not "speaking" as the term is used in the polymorph conditions, he's merely communicating in a limited way by producing a noise. By way of example, a polymorphed creature in a humanoid battle form might not be able to speak, but he could grunt.

Now, you could respond to the above by suggesting RAW is one thing, RAI is another. Problem is, I'm not even sure that the RAI is aimed at producing a negative result to this question.

While a wolf, to a wolf companion? I think I'm going to allow it.

Well, I do know this: lengthy 64 page "super modules" generally lack most of the back-matter inherent in an Adv Path. So they can almost be two APs in length in terms of "adventure content" if the custom stat blocks are kept to the low sider. And to be fair, 2 AP volumes is a LOT of gaming. If a GM adds a bit here and there to fluff it out? That's a full fledged campaign that can stretch for the better part of a year's play, depending on the material. I know - I played in one.

They aren't necessary lesser adventures than APs either in terms of quality. The best single volume adventure for PF1 was Mike Shel's The Dragon's Demand. That was essentially a campaign from 1st to 7th level and it was excellent; just an outstanding module.

In fact, The Dragon's Demand was so good, it deserves to be converted to PF2. After running it for PF1, my old podcast co-host Azmyth ran it TWICE more in PF1 - and then converted it to 5e and has run it under that system as well at least once (might be more, too. That guy GMs too much!) Maybe I'll convert it to PF2, too.

If Paizo is looking for something to aim for in a 64 to 72 page stand-alone super module? Yeah. The Dragon's Demand is the ideal prototype.

I think that the 1-10 APs in particular are really going to shine, and become popular if they are written as well as abomination vaults.

Well, AV1 is brilliantly written and designed and I do think it is Paizo's best work in more than half a decade. James Jacobs has also said that as he contributed so much to the back matter of the book as well, he ended up putting more of his own work into AV1 than any single issue of PF:AP, ever. All of which probably explains why AV1 is so strong, right there.

I guess there's Chris Perkins at WotC and Wolfgang Baur at Kobold; they've both been in the business longer than James by year count. But they also both have been out of the pure adventure writing/developing/editing as a full-time gig for quite a while. I don't think there is anybody actively employed in the business with more cumulative full-time experience at this than James Jacobs has now -- and if there is? It's a really short list. He's a master of his craft.

So the fact that AV1 is so good really comes down to that I think. I was not nearly as great a fan of Vol 2, but really, that's not being fair to Vanessa Hoskins. I take issue with a few of the extracurricular plots in AV2 -- and the squeaky wheel gets not only the grease, but the words spent on posts deconstructing it, too. Still, I enjoyed a great deal of her dungeon as well.

As for SRM's contribution? We'll know soon enough. I like Stephen personally and I generally like his work, so I expect to like it, too.

As as a subscriber since Burnt Offerings back with Pathfinder #1, my attachment to the general format of Pathfinder Adventure Path is quite high.

That said, I was never a fan of the fiction elements in the volume and I do not miss its absence at all. I prefer different support articles, that's all.

As for support articles, they are an ongoing feature of PF AP and have been since the start. What the support articles feature varies with the AP volume and instalment, but they are all necessary.

With a new version of the game, especially after that vast plethora of options that existed in PF1, PF AP for PF2 has also presented new class archetypes and feats thematically consistent with the AP. That's fine.

Given the relative paucity of magical items in PF2 as compared to PF1, there has been more of an emphasis to include more of those in the Adv Toolbox section of PF:AP, too. It might be at some point down the road 2 or 3 years from now, that particular focus may change. By that time, there will be more of a history of publications and options to PF2, so we may not feel like we need more archetypes, feats, or magic items.

Nothing is carved in stone. The creative minds at Paizo are flexible.

That said, we have all seen posts like the OPs every year during the course of publication of PF AP. They tend to be born out of the same twin desire and misunderstanding, which boils down to this often voiced request:

"Dear Paizo,

Paizo needs to put in more "adventure content" and less "fluff articles" in each volume. If only Paizo understood that, you would surely put more of the stuff we want in those 96 pages and less of the stuff we don't want.

Sincerely,

Your Customer"

The problem is that it doesn't work that way -- and it can't for very good reasons. The adventure text length in each volume of PF AP is determined by two things:

1 - That a Single Developer needs to Develop that Adventure Text; and
2 - That there are only between 28 and 31 days in a given month of the year. And Pathfinder Adventure Path publishes monthly. No exceptions.

Accordingly, there is simply not enough time for a single developer to do more than develop that amount of adventure text in a given month. So while epic stat block lengths and a few larger art pieces can effect the exact number of adventure pages, we get between 48 and 54 pages of adventure text per issue. That's the reality imposed by time constraints.

No, you can't have two developers develop a different part of the adventure. It doesn't work. It needs to be one person. So those are the rules of the road that apply, like it or not.

The back matter in a volume is principally developed by *another* developer working on the issue of the AP. That level of familiarity with adventure text is not required to the same degree. You can put more hands on deck to contribute to the back half of the book - but on the front end? One author, one developer. That's it.

So there's not more room in 96 pages to expand the Adventure Text and remove those things you consider to be fluff, because there's not more time to create it monthly. It just looks that way from the outside.

The reason why the other game products you refer to offer more of "X" and less of "Y" is for two reasons:

1 - They are not 96 page volumes which were created at that length at a time to satisfy the reasonable expectations of the then existing magazine subscriber base out of which Paizo's entire business model and existence depended; and
2- They don't have an inflexible monthly publication schedule and a large subscriber base like Pathfinder Adv Path does.

So there are good structural and practical reasons why PF AP is the way that it is. While it changes a little over time, it isn't going to change the way you want it to for sound commercial reasons.

At least now you've got the longer explanation as to why.

Anyways...

Apart from the removal of fiction from PF AP, the largest major change to PF AP we have ever seen is about to occur in a week's time as the third -- and final -- volume of Abomination Vaults is released. The move from 6 vols to 3 vols semi-annually was something that I initially reacted to rather poorly when it started in Starfinder AP.

In retrospect, I have warmed to the idea and now think it's a good one. In fact, the only thing I could say about it is that I hope the Level 1-10 3 volume APs outweigh the level 11-20 volumes by a factor of 2:1 -- or maybe entirely. I expect there will be many who disagree with that view. I also expect that those who will agree with mine -- and vote with their dollars in support of it -- will overwhelm those who feel differently by a large margin.

My guess is that in a year's or two, Paizo won't need much persuading on this, as the sales of the lower level APs will outperform the higher level APs significantly.

Remember that to a player, a near-death experience is more than enough to keep the fear of death in the game. A player character doesn't HAVE to actually die to keep that edge in play.

In particular to this case, milestone leveling really works poorly for an adventure like this. The element of being able to "grind" your levels up is a big part of sandbox play, and milestone leveling doesn't work as well. Unless you switch it to a milestone system like "Once the PCs do 10 encounter, or once they finish every 3 sessions, they level up" I guess. Tying a level to specific in-game events makes sandbox style campaigns kind of awkward to run.

Oh I have no problem with tough encounters. I agree completely that the game shines brightest where there is a real and palpable chance of death.

The reverse of that of course, is that in order for there to be that real and palpable chance... uhm.... there is a real and palpable chance. And that cuts both ways.

Deaths I don't mind. TPK's on the other hand, are problematic.

As for sandboxy play, yeah I agree. I had sort of expected that I might get away with milestones here premised on access to the 2nd level, just the same. I didn't crunch the numbers (as I sometimes do) to find the 2nd level break point. I was more focused on their hitting 2nd level before the cemetery. I wasn't paying attention as carefully as I should have to the hidden horror that is Mister Beak.

In other news: poisons in PF2 are pretty nasty! I had the stat block for the Giant Scorpion loaded -- but for whatever reason I didn't look carefully at it (you have to click on the entry to see all of it in Foundry). So when the character became poisoned, I just Googled it on AON in another window when I didn't see it quickly on the statblock (without clicking on the venom entry). And I clicked on the first link on my search results.

And therein lies a cautionary tale.

Turns out, there is an entry on AON for "Giant Scorpion Venom". It matches that of the stat block word for word -- except for one teensy weensy important detail. The entry is here: Giant Scorpion Venom

Yeah, on the monster stat block, the venom is the same, but DC18, not 22 as it is for the extracted venom entry.

This was entirely my fault. I own the book in both dead tree and PDF formats -- and I even had it entered in my stat block in Foundry, too.

I could have had it tattooed to my forearm for all the good it did me. You see, it doesn't matter how many times you have it if you don't actually look at it. When you look via Google and assume the AON entry is correct? Well it kind of is correct... and then again, it very, very most definitely wasn't :)

James/Ron

So I had a chance to run through most of Gauntlight level 1 over the weekend for my players, and 2 of the encounters that have lead to TPKs for others were touch and go with my own as well.

I am referring to the Giant Scorpion and Mister Beak.

My main question James relates to design as I have not crunched the XP numbers yet. I have moved away from XP awards and have moved instead to milestone levelling. Usually it works out -- but sometimes there are issues.

Did you envision Mister Beak as an encounter for level 1 PCs, or for level 2 PCs at that point? Curious because... DAYUUM... that is one helluva nasty soulbound doll!

Mister Beak is nasty enough that most GMs need to be alerted to it and consider throttling him back from elite to normal for most PCs. The potential that, as written, Mister Beak presents a campaign ending encounter is problematically high.

Today we had our first death in Abomination Vaults. The Paladin Tizoc fell to the appallingly awful Mister Beaky and his deadly Vampiric Beak!

Mister Beak is monstrous for a Lvl 1 party - and the poison on the Giant Scorp is horribad.

It's a tough 1st level!