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Under the current Drug Rules, you have to make two Fort Saves when using one; the first to see if you don't actually use it (though if you want to use it, you'll voluntarily Fail it), and the second to see if you get an Addiction. Addictions work like a disease, with a new Save each week to see if you improve. You can suppress addiction by using whatever drug gave you the addiction, but it might make that addiction worse.

If you're of a high-enough Level or have Legendary Fort Saves, there's nothing stopping you from speedballing one of everything (other than that beneficial First Stage lasting only a minute sometimes), and even if you do fail that save, a cleric can cure that right up.

Now that we have Alchemy Food, I want to rework drugs into basically Alchemy Food With Downsides.
That way, pesh can stay cheaper than waffles while still having reasons to prefer the waffles over the drug (for one example)

The House Rules for Drugs

• If a drug is Ingested or Injury, it needs only 1 Interact Action to use. If a drug is Inhaled, it requires anywhere from 1-10 minutes of Interacting, which can be done alongside other actions. In either case, they can all have predictable onset times in case people all want to use them together. Their usage gets factored into their onset times, as well.
  
• Fort Saves stay the same, but instead, they're only used if you don't want to use a drug (in case someone slipped you one, or everyone's smoking flayleaf around here and you say no to it).
  
• At least two effects happen at once, lasting for the drug's Maximum Duration. Usually, one is beneficial while the others are not.
  
• With a Medicine check against a Moderate DC of the level of the drug's Item Level, someone examining a user can tell if the user is under the effects of a drug, or has used one within the past week. A Critical Failue results in a misdiagnosis.
  
• For simplicity's sake, you can only ever be under the effects of one drug at a time. Or, if you try to use one while already under the effects of another drug, you get all the Not-Good Effects and none of the Good ones.
  
• The GM might call your character an addict. NPCs might notice your withdrawl symptoms. You might want to ask the clergy to pray your addiction away. Work this out with the GM and Player.

Here are some example re-worked drugs:

Flayleaf (Alchemical, Consumable, Drug, Ingested/Inhaled, Poison) Level 0
Price: 1 GP. Usage: Held in 1 Hand. Bulk: L. Activate: 1 (Interact)
Onset: 10 Minutes. Duration: 4 Hours.
Effects: You treat Saving Throws against pain as 1 degree better, but are also Fatigued.

Pesh (Alchemical, Consumable, Drug, Inhaled, Poison) Level 1
Price: 2 GP. Usage: Held in 1 Hand. Bulk: L. Activate: 10 Minutes (Interact)
Onset: 10 Minutes. Duration: 6 Hours.
Effects: 1 Temporary HP/Level; +2 Item Bonus on saves vs. fear; Clumsy 1; Stupefied 1.

Zerk (Alchemical, Consumable, Drug, Injury, Poison) Level 4
Price: 20 GP. Usage: Held in 1 Hand. Bulk: L. Activate: 1 (Interact)
Onset: 1 Minutes. Duration: 1 Hour.
Effects: +2 Item Bonus on Perception-based Initiative; +2 to Melee Damage on the first attack you make against someone you haven't yet attacked while high on Zerk (after which you might lose interest); Drained 1.

After two long years (about a third of which was full of session cancellations), the Sihedron Council managed to rebuild the Shattered Star and show it to the late Emperor one last time.

(Due to adjustments I made to the AP, they also found that the Shattered Star was never actually shattered in the first place - Xin mailed a shard to each of his apprentices, with incomplete information on how to put them together. Instead of working together to finish it, they fought over which one would build it singularly, and worked together to send an assassin after him during a loss of the anti-teleportation ward in his palace.)

Their names:

Gaius Stormshield née Gaius Coruncanius Vettonianus (Chelish human Armiger Fighter/Hellknight)

Vissaa Sewer Dragon, Absalom kobold Starsoul Sorcerer (Absalom's first kobold astronomer!)

Torsten Ironbrew, Chirurgeon Alchemist with a dip in Fighter (The last remaining heir to some of Janderhoff's lost brewing secrets)

Purrcible McCoy, Rahadoumi Amurran Wisdom Witch (who later, after having met the metzlan, decided to learn their ways by tossing his familiar aside and retraining into Oozemorph)

Here is their denoument.

Lockerbie & Liza Jane Brast remained as, y'know, sewer custodians. They made sure to only eat derro crawling up from the Darklands, which kept happening surprisingly often.

The Tower Girls, under leadership of Ayala, helped people out of the flooding and made sure that people got their necessities while their homes were drying out. The reputation of the Sczarni as a whole improved in Magnimar, and the Nailers had to put that in their pipes and smoke it!

The Order of the Nail, their sterling reputation polished further by their organized handling of citizens during the Rise of the Isle of Xin and subsequent repairs, served them well in their other pursuits. Not only shall they bring their hammers down on the remaining cultists of the region, but they shall soon stamp out the lawless Sczarni threat once and for all!

The xulgath of these lands left the loathsome boggards and their hag friend to the Lady's Cape. Forced into letting bugbears offer their idea of help, they still rob river-goers in the south. Some went north, to turn to the World Thunder. The xulgath as a whole face hard times.

Maroux finally got some peace and quiet. Screw all y'all!

Kanya & Herifax lived a fast, carefree life, squandering all the stuff they were given. Eventually Fufu the Lurker ate them, but they were so overdosed, they didn't mind, or notice really.

Despite having received little funding, the most of which had come from Korvosa, Windsong Abbey saw itself rebuilt, with the help of some penitent giants. There is now a chapel - small to a giant - dedicated to both Aegirran, the Sea Dreamer, and Minderhal, the stone giant god of justice. Pilgrims have begun to return to Windsong, including, bemusingly, at least one Groetesian.

Worship of Lisalla, in any organized way, ceased in Varisia. Many former Lisallans, disillusioned or desperate, turned to other faiths. Soralyon, the Mystic Angel, took in some, while others heard Mhar's belching of smoke and molten rock. Others, however, were shown the uncaring light of distant stars, and began to whisper to anyone willing to hear of it, of the benificence of the Crawling Chaos. Their numbers are small, but in the endless length of time, the whole galaxy shall know the power of the Chaotic Evil side!

Shasthaak, rune giant graveknight, returned to the world at large! Having completed his goal of killing Emperor Xin, he set about searching for any remaining presence of his lieges, to inform them of his success!

The Sihedron Council was a brilliant idea from its very beginning, having apparently saved Magnimar twice over. Their former membership of the Pathfinder Society, and their renown throughout the city-state, inspired the people of Magnimar to new heights of literacy, making Magnimar, I daresay, even more highly educated than the backward outpost of Korvosa! They stand vigilant, ready to defend Varisia from dangers of its antiquity. They even managed to recover one of the Seven Swords of Sin, and used it in conjunction with the Sihedron to, well, that's another story.

(Mid-Credits Stinger)
Ogonthunn took the Platinum Key and with it, the entire Clockwork Army of Emperor Xin. Those mouth-breathers discovered their ruse thanks to one of them having conjured a creature with innate True Seeing, but never discovered their real name. They didn't even have to crush anyone's will to get it. Their resistance to saltwater should make the re-subjugation of the Deep Merfolk go more smoothly. (However, Ogonthuun was left unaware that, by the late Emperor's last decree, the next time a clockwork soldier would wind down would be for good)

I say do it.
This is Dungeon Crawl: The Adventure Path, which is both its greatest weakness and strength simultaneously. If your players like exploring ancient complexes, great! If they'll get bored of it, then this'll be the under-rated middle AP. I'm just glad my players enjoyed it to the end, then said they wanted the next one to have other stuff in it.
I just slipped in a different scenario between chapters: In Wrath's Shadow between the first two (If a PC profanes the temple of Yamasoth in some way, have other qlippoth aim for the DEFILER! later on). Also, you can have Sheila or other Pathfinders mention "some big migration of monsters out of Hollow Mountain" while the PCs were in Chapter 3.
I had Cultist's Kiss between 2 & 3, while they were stopping in Palin's Cove on the way to Kaer Maga; while they were in the City of Strangers itself, they could look for the Shard or investigate the Feast of Sigils in either order. Then, as soon as they hit level 11 in Chapter 4, they were recalled back to the Lodge to stall Krune until other Pathfinders could successfully booby-trap a Runewell as a backup plan.

You can add some more texture to dungeon crawls simply by having foes surrender. Maidens in Chapter 2 can be looking for a way to Resurrect their late queen, while some of them may believe she's still out there, ready to re-assert control of her city-state from the evil fools who overthrew her.
The ghouls in Chapter 5 could easily welcome them in and offer to convert them. If the PCs just go directly for the dragon or fight everyone, either way they won't be evil (though converting would probably make them evil).
Plus, if baddies surrender, they could totally give information on upcoming problems. Yes, PCs don't end up with government positions until the very end, but because your aim in each dungeon is Get The Shard, you don't have to fight everybody to get it.

Name: Purrcy McCoy
Details: Amurran Witch 17
Adventure: The Dead Heart of Xin
Catalyst: No Energy Resistance

The Details:
They entered the room where Emperor Xin was killed, and immediately looked through the Flamma Horicalcum.
They saw the Emperor, old and frightened, telling his almost-finished Clockwork Reliquary to return to its post, then get attacked by a giant who teleported in while the palace's wards were down.

They saw him get hit by the giant's Spark Shower, then the two of them die as Xin threw a hasty Mythical Meteor Storm and a Quickened Empowered Fireball at him, failing both saves against his own spells.
They lowered the Flamma Horicalcum to see the giant, back again, try to kill Xin who had inhabited the clockwork servant they'd found in the first chapter and had carried around with them the entire rest of the time.

Purrcy didn't get out of the way of either the giant's Spark Shower, nor the Emperor's Meteor Storm. He had the Sihedron thrown to him, though, meaning they couldn't rely on it to bring anyone back during the final fight with the Reliquary.

It was the final PC death of the entire AP.

Perpdepog wrote:

How many of the Runelords had predecessors?

All except Sorshen and Xanderghul had predecessors.

To clarify: By "predecessor", I meant Emperor Xin.

Also, I'm happy to hear there are plans being made.

Here's the way I think of it, when I'm the GM (though it will never really be relevant):
Aroden was set to return, to begin his Age of Glory. He just looked ahead a bit into the deterministic future he'd planned out for his people.

He saw himself micro-managing the lives of his worshippers.
He saw his worshippers praying for guidance on what to eat for every meal.
He saw people asking him for answers to everything, instead of learning things on their own.
He saw people turning from him, calling him tyrannical.
In that moment, he asked himself what made him any better than the ones from whom he'd freed his people, the algollthu?

He went to Pharasma, and asked for advice. She suggested something along the lines of allowing his people to make their own future.
So, with her help, he entered a sort of Deific Early Retirement. He allowed his herald to Inherit his mantle, and watches in silence.

...He might have gotten a laugh out of watching Tar-Baphon blow himself up by accident.

I'm not talking about just any symbol of Thassilon; I mean THE Sihedron that had a whole AP to it.
(Possible spoilery stuff for 1E APs that might just be history now)

I'd guess it'd be either in New Thassilon or Magnimar's Museum of Ages. In either case, I hope Sorshen & Belimarius get a chance to try it out and find out what their predecessor truly had in mind.

I hope some Patrons gain buff auras for familiars, encouraging sending your familiar out, but to hide behind allies and being less of a target.

Also, I just love the idea of witches talking to their familiars to gain understanding of/embody some abstract concept.

I am excited for this. We get to play Exalted-in-Pathfinder, we get a sort of a Medium rework, and, getting to see Mythicality again, we might get new stats for Baba Jaga or Sorshen.

Name: Vissaa Sewer Dragon
Ancestry: Kobold
Class/Level: Star-Soul Sorcerer 16
Adventure: The Dead Heart of Xin
Catalyst: Irony

The Details:
Due to some Shining Children of Thassilon having been rude while getting sent back home, Vissaa was magically insane.
Instead of the not-fun "Permanent Confusion", I secretly told her player that she was certain her ally, Sir Gaius was insane and would do something horrifically stupid at any moment. If she told anyone, he might attack her.

Later, they found a magic robe held by a statue with a spell on it to make you want whatever it was holding. Everyone thought that was very suspicious, and ignored the statue's offering of the beautiful robe.

Then the writing on the floor started zapping them, and they had to fight it. One of the Floating Runes turned into a Symbol of Pain, giving everyone -4 on Saves as soon as Vissaa was closest to the statue.

She said, "Ow! That's it! Vissaa will stop Metal Man from doing stupid things! Vissaa knows how to do things safe! LIKE THIS!"

She grabbed the Robe of Powerlessness, put it on, fell over, looked at the Symbol it was concealing, and died on the spot.

It was Sir Gaius who flung the Sihedron at her, calling upon its True Resurrection as he did. Vissaa was alive and sane again, but still needed help getting out from under the robe.

Honestly, I'm hoping for an impostor claiming to be him. It could even be Razmir's new bit.

Rock and stone!

Also, Strike the Earth!

As much as I like the look of the sketches, I'll most likely want to finally show to my players the sight of Xanderghul, fashionably late, in all his glorious, eye-blasting colour!

Speaking of, I'm torn between him having made contingency plans for his own death, or of such an utter certainty that it would be unnecessary, that he's just rhetorically asking the rulers of the afterlife if they seriously know who he is.

I'm sad that the Gravesoul Armour didn't make it to 2nd Edition. I have a soft spot for useful magic objects that have useless special abilities, or that make you think it worked.

Thanks for the information. It's probably better if they're used sparingly than too often.

I thought I saw one chapter of an Adventure Path in 1st Edition that includes a mimic. I might be wrong, in which case I don't know if one has ever been in a store-bought adventure.
Does anyone know if a mimic ever shows up, off the tops of your heads? Maybe in a PFS scenario? A module I never bought?

The only nitpick I have with this is that the water from the magic squirt gun would be better off "instantly evaporating" rather than "turning to sand".
Still, I want one, not to mention that bandolier. That poor ratchatcher should level up from this.

I would like to see something about syrinx society. Ever since I first read the bit that said they "made the strix as a servitor race", I imagined syrinx landing on rocks in the Arcadian Ocean, sticking their heads in the water, and shouting at algolthu, "You stole our idea and you're doing it the wrong way!"

Also, I'd like to see more about the geopolitics of the region, and how each nation dealt with/contributed to the fall of Razatlan. It'd get a laugh out of me if the fall of the empire was attributed to small groups of Concerned Citizens who, say, amassed unbelievable power and large groups of followers in months, only to retire in obscurity once the freedom was in the hands of the people.

My Rise group, due to problems all around, got the Bad End.

They still wanted to play Shattered Star and complete the trilogy.

So the search for the Shards began six months after the Rise of Mhar.

So trade has been disrupted and routes had to be redrawn due to the presence of an enormous volcano with legs stumbling around the landscape. I've determined that there is at least one NPC capable of casting 9th-level spells, who basically has to request a Miracle of "Save us from Mhar" on a near-daily basis to keep him away from major cities. (Small villages, however, are in dangerous positions) Also, there has been a rise in World Thunderers (people who worship Mhar) who think they can gain favour by throwing sacrificial victims into Mhar's caldera.

In other news, I looked up some "Worldbuilding With Food" ideas, and determined that potatoes were originally Varisian, but have been exported throughout the world via Absalom. Oparan chefs recently hit upon a dish of fried fish and potatoes!

Also, tomatoes were brought over from Arcadia by Chelish sailors, and now they claim it was always a Chelish fruit. I also claim Golarion has some veggies that can't be found in the real world, but I haven't specified anything about any of them.

As soon as I first heard of the whole issue, I wondered what Paizo's response would be.
I'm glad to be gaming with my buddy, Orkel. ORCL?
It was a good move to make the L silent in the acronym.

Name Purrcible McCoy
Ancestry Garundi Amurran
Class/Level Witch 12
Adventure Beyond the Scary Doomsday Door
Catalyst Poison

The Gory Details: The chernobue fell on everyone, paralyzing Sir Gaius and confusing Purrcy, to both players' dismay.
The confusion was dispelled, but the qlippoth managed to bite Purrcy, who had Fortitude as his worst save.
They did manage to kill the qlippoth (Torsten the alchemist trying, unsuccessfully, to lure the monster away), but couldn't help their friend and ally to recover from the poison. So they did the next best thing and Torsten gave him a posthumous Breath of Life.
Right after the qlippoth slime violently expelled itself from Purrcy's every orifice, Torsten described his use of that extract as "Gargling magic cough syrup and spraying it directly into Purrcy's mouth with a Kiss of Life."

We were all grossed out by the whole thing; Purrcy's first words upon recovery were, "Death is preferable! DEATH IS PREFERABLE!!"

Name: Sir Gaius Stormshield; Purrcible McCoy
Ancestry: Chelish Human; Garundi Amurran
Class/Level: Fighter (Armiger) 5/Hellknight 5; Witch 10
Adventure: Beyond the Scary Doomsday Door
Catalyst: 20s on Knowledge checks; 1s on Will saves. Also, Luthask

The Gory Details: I'd decided the two generic mummies in the room with Luthask were low-level Pathfinders, furious at how they got jumped by redcaps and undeadified by someone they didn't know, and nobody even bothered to find out what happened to them while the Society's Golden Children could get Resurrected whenever they'd want!
The PCs got a natural 20 on the Local checks to recall them, as well as another one on noticing the trapdoor. Three of the PCs rolled less than 3 against the mummies' Auras of Despair, and got paralyzed for 3 or 4 rounds each.
Right after they'd all been Nauseated by the nyogoth, everyone was rightly angry at having been taken out of action twice consecutively. Fortunately, the couatl they'd rescued in an earlier chapter was there to give one of them a Freedom of Movement and blast the mummies with Scorching Rays. He refused to bite the zombie, though.
Then, Luthask walked up to Purrcy. He'd trusted in his sturdy Will Save to let him get close enough to blast both mummies with a Lightning Bolt, but his normally-strong Will failed him.
So Luthask hit him with his axe. Of course it was a crit. Of course this killed him. On his next two turns, he stomped up to the paralyzed Sir Gaius, willingly taking AoOs in order to deliver a Coup de Grace. Gaius only had one turn of paralysis left.
Fortunately, Luthask was dissolved by some kind of alchemist's Holy Beer on the following round, and everyone got on the couatl to fly back to Sandpoint.
They did, in fact, use Prestige to activate a contingency plan and get their slain fellows Raised. They agreed to head directly back to Windsong Abbey.
They went through the front door this time, and got a big rock dropped on them. They stopped and healed back up to full right there in the rubble while the redcaps laughed at them, and the alchemist yelled out that they'd have to go back to Sandpoint after EVERY SINGLE THING THAT HAPPENS!!
...and this is just the upper floors.

Name: Vissa Sewer Dragon
Ancestry: Kobold
Class/Level: Star-soul Sorcerer 10
Adventure: Feast of Sigils
Catalyst: Everything Going Wrong

The Gory Details:
I'm including some PFS scenarios in this, due to relevance.
Basically, the kobold with STR 6 took 6 STR damage and fainted. Allies stayed close to her, up against a foe with known AoE attacks. This killed her by accident.
Also, the antagonist got away.

My PCs are just heading into this chapter, which I'd foreshadowed at the start of the previous one (mentions of some wierd exodus of monsters from Hollow Mountain).
I got an idea: what if Adrathanatus was the representative of Aroden instead of Pharasma?

He, like so many other followers of Aroden, was stricken with despair when his god died on the day of his prophecized Second Coming, but when Iomedae inherited his mantle, he over-reacted.

That way, his belief that Iomedae murdered Aroden as part of a coup becomes more personal. I also want to have bits of information revealed slowly to the PCs:

In their initial research, they find out that Windsong has lost some status ever since the Arodenite murdered the Iomedan and stormed out in a violent rampage (he's been somewhat of a bogeyman ever since). If they do enough research, they'll find out the man was an elf.

When they get there, maybe Kob-Kog or Sufestra name-drops Adrathanatus.

Other minions will confirm he follows Yamasoth.

Then, Rickle Peakes will be all like, "Hi, I'm Adrathanatus! Didja know that Iomedae's actually Evil and Yamasoth is actually Good?"

Hopefully, by the time Kandamerus mentions that Adrathanatus built all the constructs in the place, the PCs will fit it all together and shout out something like, "OH NO he's the guy who went on the murderous rampage here like a hundred years ago!"

This way, his redemption could involve asking him, "Is this what the Last Azlanti would have wanted?"

There was a sanitorium in Rise of the Runelords, with part of the horror coming from it having been run by a man who was more interested in studying insanity than caring for its inmates as people. He'd made zombies out of previous patients, but he was the best defense in the area for a plot-related thing that was going on. It left my PCs in a moral dilemma.

Similarly, I had a charcter once who was a LG Cult Master mesmerist, who I played as a magic psychotherapist. He was honest that his False Lay-On-Hands was a special trick he had learned and improved to ignore pain, and that they'd need some real healing or medicine later. The Leadership followers he would get would end up being staff for his eventual praxis, but I left the adventure before it got that far.

That might be a good place to put the trip.
My plan was that, since Baraket was already redeemed into the Blade of Humility, its cut-scene was due to the sudden trauma of what happened to its Runelord. Normally, Humble Baraket's Weird is a spray of illusory gore, causing onlookers to possibly faint from all the carnage.
Anyway, in Rise, Baraket, Garvok and the others (once they had started to regain awareness) all insisted that their Runelord was alive and the others were dead. In Return, Humble Baraket won't take control of its wielder, but will insist upon staying with them. It needs to tell its Runelord a terrible truth... that he was wrong about something.
When they meet him in person, Baraket will give him a message through its wielder: that this was not what the Emperor wanted, that the state of Thassilon that gave rise to it and the other Blades of Conviction caused unspeakable harm for generations, that, given the choice, it would gladly have never been forged if it meant the Emperor's Sihedron could have been restored instead, and that there is still time to make amends and show the modern world what Thassilon could be... What Thassilon was supposed to have been!
Xanderghul lets Baraket speak, waits just long enough for it to count as a dramatic pause, then replies with, "Baraket? Break."
Then the sword gives a sob as it shatters into a thousand pieces.
This not only shows that Xanderghul won't listen, it further sets up the possibility that Sorshen would. I'll totally have other Runelords tell the PCs that Sorshen is even worse than they are and has probably enchanted them already, with the big difference being she's the only one who will admit she did something bad AND want to do something to fix it.

Due to having played through Rise with all the Blades of Conviction Seven Swords of Sin (one per chapter with an extra bit added on), I wanted to add all of them back in Return.

I feel like an opportunity was missed, but I like what they did with the ones they put in the AP.

As for what you're doing in your AP, there are other possibilities. Take it to Runeforge to reforge it into the Blade of Kindness?

Bring it to Alaznist, who commands it to break, or go to someone she designates as her new champion? One who won't try to use it against her?

Personally, I plan to have one of Alaznist's sinspawn carry Garvok; Baraket (which had been reforged as a Blade of Humility) wants to return to Xanderghul and give him a warning he may not want to hear; Sorshen will tell her Sinuous Guisarme that it could learn a thing or two from Arshia, now the Blade of Love; they might even be able to recover Chellan.

Name: Chiyaliso "Chili"
Details: Nagaji Slayer 7
Adventure: Seven Days to the Grave
Location: The Urgathoan Temple
Catalyst: Quad-Crit Weapons

After fighting our way through the Urgathoans, enjoying the simplicity of Good Fighting Evil after all the worries of "how are we going to infiltrate this purported hospice over nothing but suspicion?" Andaisen chopped off Chili's head with her scythe.
When it turned out That Wasn't Even Her Final Form, the heroes ran off screaming, carrying Chili's head and body so that he could be safely Raised. We knew we wouldn't be able to stop her with our toughest one dead in a single blow, and when we returned the next day, she was gone.

Later...

Name: Tenris Chervenki, AKA "Softbrush"
Details: Foxfolk U-Rogue 8
Adventure: Escape from Old Korvosa
Location: The "King's" "Palace"
Catalyst: Another Lucky Crit

After sneaking through the place and finding nothing dangerous, Softbrush walked through an open doorway and found a bunch of people throwing axes at him, followed by a screaming gnome with a greataxe charging him with a power attack. One axe hit, the Power Attack charge crit, chopping his head off. After getting revified, his first plan was to get his magic armor magically fortified.

A fun and adorable story.
...Just make sure not to take that gun to Numeria, without expecting getting passive-agressive insults all the time.

Name: Vissaa
Ancestry: Kobold
Class/Level: Sorcerer 8
Adventure: PFS Scenario in-between Curse of the Lady's Light & The Asylum Stone (No PFS1 spoilers)
Catalyst:Closing into close combat as a sorcerer, with help from unwitting allies.

The Gory Details:
They gave the opposition a couple minutes of advance notice. Said opposition also had their backs to a wall. After getting attacked once or twice, the sorcerer cast Improved Invisibility and thought herself untargetable. However, one of the opposition was a sorcerer who had Lightning Bolt and her allies kept moving to either side of her while she converesed with them and called tactics. The sorcerer let fly, hitting her two intended targets as well as the invisible one.
There was a soft thud as Vissaa hit the ground.
Then their alchemist tried groping around to heal her, and the Hellknight attacked the sorcerer. Neither of them changed their position.
So the enemy sorcerer cast the spell again, almost dropping the alchemist and killing the invisible kobold sorcerer. Then the remaining PCs got to surround the sorcerer, who tried to flee and succeeded.
Then the spell wore off, and Vissaa was visible again. Fortunately, she has the Prestige to get herself raised, and they did accomplish their mission.

I'd have two:
One of a character who died in the Rise of Mhar, and whose player has since lost all contact with me;
One of a character who would canonically die in the far future.
See, I'd set up a homebrew Shadowrun adventure for my players, which had Gnarly himself try to manipulate a way to show up and herald the collapse of cyberpunk civilization far ahead of schedule. The PCs could help put a stop to this, but the players all gave up early on into it.
So the Crawling Chaos would put an echo of this corpse here because as far as anyone knows, he's destined to wreck a world because there'd be no-one to stop him. Plus, in some unsettling way, he knows that putting this corpse here would maximize dread in some unwitting passersby.
(One of the players is playing in a module I'm running that also involves worshippers of Gnarly. One of them will point at the PC and claim his god told him to name-drop two random people and declare them dead)

I'd still like Words of Power in PF2.
Also, I'd like to see something about Sarusan, whether it's a book, a module, or even a PFS scenario.

Syrinx haven't come out yet in PF2, and I'd like to see more of them.
Are there syrinx communities that aren't flight-supremacist? Can the Pathfinder Society make diplomatic contact with them without having to withstand incessant condescension?

No, but it is possible to cast Delayed Blast Fireball set to go off in X rounds. So unless you guess exactly how long the spell will last, either the fireballs go off harmlessly during the Time Stop, or the targets get maybe a round to run away.

In one adventure, the DM gives out a little extra EXP to the party for a recap of the previous session, and encourages everyone to take turns retelling part of it. Unfortunately, one or two players tend to get carried away and try for the whole thing at once.

In one where I'm the DM, I set up an Adventure Journal thread on the VTT and offered a Hero Point to the last person to post something non-consecutive. It worked until it was the turn for the player who has anxiety or something similar. The player has notes written down and means to post something, and I'm thinking of encouraging one of the other players to post something.

"Here, have some dumplings before you go. We made them ourselves, and they're sure to keep you warm!"

In case they ask, "Oh, no, not of anyone you know. Just some ogre who outlived his usefulness. We asked Barl and everything!"

EDIT: I did this myself, and the PCs just accepted them without asking. Then one of the hags told Barl they quit, incidentally also tipping him off that Those Guys were here.

I liked Words of Power, having used them once or twice. I would've liked even a web enhancement for them, and hope they'll get put back in to 2E (though I doubt it'll happen).

I don't normally think of "20 point-buy when the AP expects 15" or "roll for HP (reroll 1s) OR take half-hit-die+1" really count as boons so much as options.

I do give PCs boons on occasion, by means of NPCs they help. If they get in a random encounter with reasonable/sensible people ("knowing when to give up" counts), they can get clues or information. Anything from, "you returned the golden locket to the baker rather than pawning it, so you get enough Baked Goods of Gratitude that you don't have to pay as much monthly rent for the next year" to "The orcs respect both your power and cunning, and some of them will want to spar with you the next time you pass by." Rewarding Good alignments, while still setting up dangerous fights.

Similarly, if a religious PC goes out of the way to do something for a religion, they'll get a boon from that religion:

• Kill a bunch of especially dangerous undead and bring the corpses to the Pharasmin mortuary for last rites? Pharasma gives you all a boon so that the next death effect that hits you, you can just place the d20 down on a 20 and declare that your saving throw.
• Murder a proponent of justice, implicating someone else whose alibi is suspicious because you had previously drugged that person? Norgorber notices, and gives you +5 on skill checks relating to establishing your alibi.
• Throw a really loud party, all through the night, where everyone tries to learn how to play the flute with no instruction, and you ignore anyone who tells you to keep that racket down? For the subsequent 27 hours, a boon of Azathoth gives you a +2 size bonus to whichever ability score relates to the roll of 1d6, even if it wouldn't make sense, like WIS!

Basically, I like giving little one-time benefits to my players for doing something important. They get rewarded, and they can pull out those rewards in a dangerous situational circumstance.

The book does say to modify his tactics. Say, if GM & players agree more books than Core are on the table, you can give Karzoug Firey Body. 9th-level Transmutation that renders him immune to a lot of things, as well as healed by fire. Karzoug's Burning Glaive has 3 healing spells, but unlimited Fireballs. I'd also recommend a Wall of Suppression. He can goad non-flying PCs through it.
He'd also be able to plan for what the PCs would do if he'd seen them fight while spying on them.

As for the Meteor Swarm, my idea was he'd prepare spells like Cone of Cold and Polar Ray for the Karzoug Holograms to use on the PCs. Hopefully, they'd protect themselves against cold, only to get blindsided by a pocket plane made of molten gold. Then, Round One: Meteor Storm

"Taken on the whole, the writing makes no sense. Looking at one character at a time, you can figure out that this one's from Aklo, that one's ancient Thassilonian, that one's either the schwah from Infernal or the 'zh' from Draconic written upside-down.
"The most generous interpretation is that the calligraphers just wanted to be mysteriously foreboding, but couldn't agree on how."

Graham made something hauntingly beautiful.
Cosmic horror doesn't always have to be about a great big screaming blob in deep space: it can be about paranoid fears coming true, of loneliness overtaking one's entire sense of self, a search for meaning in random happanstance, and the resulting indecision when you find some.
Or, potentially, "What's so special about all that? It's just another week on Aucturn."

Matt Dusty, the reason Krune wasn't in any of the APs is because of PFS1, season 4: Year of the Risen Rune.
In my take on Shattered Star, I'm inserting one PFS scenario in each chapter, to show them what the Lissalans are doing, and interfering with them. Then, when they hit level 11 or 12, I'll run The Waking Rune, in which they'll tell the Runelord of Sloth that giving up and just reading up on history will be the path of least resistance, to which he'll reply with, "...Nah," and roll initiative.

Plus, when you get to such dizzying heights of personal power, individual people tend to blur together. Though Baba Yaga does keep a bit of a personal touch, (what she seems to get up to involves "Being A Grump" and "Eating Her Children") it doesn't look like she has any destructive designs on Golarion (I mean, she did get helped out by people from there once). Of course, that doesn't mean she's wreaking havoc on some other setting with a Mythological Russia analogue, but she can't do that when she's on a lunch date with the Old Mage.

As it turned out, my group did, in fact, get the Bad End. Now they've begun Shattered Star, six months after the Rise of Mhar.

My advice? Put Karzoug's box text in the mouth of Khalib, and have Special K complain that he's the only one who could stop someone like Xanderghul or Alaznist from ruining everything, and your attempts to murder him show how much you need him to own all of Varisia and everything in it.

...Then, when they need help from Dead Karzoug, he can say something like,

"...You mean to say that Alaznist is destroying the world, and even time itself, and you need my help to stop her?
"I recall saying the exact same thing, when I was alive. To a group of people, not unlike yourselves.
"Then they killed me, destroyed everything I had worked so hard to build, and awoke the World Thunder to do it, even at the cost of their own lives.
"Golarion deserves what it has earned. You are welcome to it."

She took over from him as Runelord of Wrath. In my opinion, if she hadn't gone to an enormous waste of magic to make him suffer endlessly in an act of horrifying pettiness, I'd have found it out-of-sorts for her.

To be fair, a lot of fantasy RPGs involve dealing with traps, and a great way to stop them from being a pair of Perception/Theivery checks is to make them intricate or elaborate. Slowly rising water, a shooting range maze where nothing is as it seems, swarms of cannibalistic rats (who hopefully don't eat each other before they get to the PCs)...

I do admit, I once had an idea for a Bond-style PC, who'd specialize in calmly walking out of cover and doing Sneak Attacks via Shot-On-The-Run. Also, who would get humorously rejected by every NPC on whom he'd advance. But I had to shelve the idea.

Ah well. Sean Moore will return...

I've always thought of Old-Mage Jatembe as the kind of man who would - now that his glory days of spreading literacy back around Golarion, Ten Magic Warriors with him, are over - encourage small, subtle, yet much-needed acts of kindness and compassion across the many worlds of the Material Plane. Why not have lunch with Baba Yaga in some Taldan place, for old time's sake?

This makes me want to run an RPG in a different setting, and have Jatembe cameo to offer a clue or some advice when the PCs are in a pinch.

(To preface, I'm talking about 1st Edition here)
I do like Hero Points in theory, and I implement them sort of like Shadowrun 5th's Edge: as a cushion for humiliatingly randomly generated numbers. Though that may be what they're actually for in the first place. I hand them out for stuff like who wants to write in the adventure journal, or who figures out an important plot point. Rewarding the players as well as their characters, and not just the numbers they roll.
Similarly, rolling a natural 1 is more like Shadowrun's Glitches: in combat, you still miss in an embarassing way, but you don't drop your weapon/target yourself with your spell. Or, you underestimate your foe, who dodges in an awesome way.
For skill checks, if you can still succeed on a 1, you do, but something happens. Your nat 1 Stealth still beats their Perception? You make it, but you accidentally leave clues to your passage that could make later tracking with Survival easier. You balance across that plank with a 1 on Acrobatics? You did it, but you forgot your shield on the other side, and one of your allies should probably toss it over or something.

As for house rules I don't like: Critical Skill Checks.
As the house rule goes, if you roll a 20 on a skill check (or initiative), you get to roll the 20 again and add that number to what you already rolled.
Predictably, the bard who always made multiple Perform checks at every city stop got Perform: 50+ on multiple occasions, leading to Shelyn and Desna stopping by his performances when they were on a date; the wizard got one while making a Bag of Holding and inadvertantly made a lesser artifact, which was used to cheese a good portion of the AP (though I didn't mind the part where we got a hundred or two captives out of captivity safely); and I only got them on Acrobatics checks with a flat DC, or Perception checks when there was nothing hidden. Also, there were a couple of times where my (15)+18=33 Stealth check was rendered useless by a (20+12)+3=35 Perception check.
That house rule ended up giving everyone else times where they ended up being like Mythic Tier 8 all of a sudden, and I was afraid to sneak by anyone in case Aroden made his Second Coming just to point out where I was.

They do have another niche: they talk bigger than both ysoki & goblins. They're the super-intelligent little dinosaurs who claim to actually be little dragons instead. That's gotta be worth something.

Though I'd expect a lot of them on Verces: while the others pay a lot of money for super-gentrified housing that goes up, they can dig down all under the place and set up their own subterranean arcologies.
Though Triaxus & the Diaspora also work for them.

Yeeeaaahh, even though I trust the people at Paizo to make an adventure where you get to actually help out the community and protect people from getting killed by other people, this is too touchy a subject. I'm glad there are lots of other things I can try, though.