Yakman's page

I was looking forward to more naval combat stuff. We got some but not as much as I would have hoped. Alas.

But I didn't suspect that I'd like the Hermea section so much. The Mediogalti Island and the secret underwater city are pretty fun as well.

IMO, Fighting in front of the Starstone Cathedral fits better thematically. My idea is that the big explosion happens and blows up the cathedral, exposing the Starstone. Everything the PCs have done counts as the same journey other candidates have done in the past and they can ascend to become new divinities.

Plus, this can be a good shift to 2nd edition with the explosions causing things to get very different from now on.

also an alternative origin for Warshards.

So... a few things I would recommend to the aspiring Stolen Fate GM after getting to the end of Act 1 of Book 2.

1 - This really, truly, is a sequel to THE HARROWING by Crystal Frasier, for Pathfinder 1E.

I didn't really understand this until we got to Book 2 and I read it from cover to cover after having skimmed through it before.

As such, my guys are in the midst of a 'flashback' adventure to when they did THE HARROWING and met All-Seeing Hajeck for the first time.

I bought the pdf, did a fast and dirty conversion from 1E to 2E, told them to bring back their Level 10 PCs [see below] and we are probably going to wrap it up next session, having done 3 3 1/2 hour sessions. It's a fun and stupid adventure - I told everyone not to take it seriously, that I'm not trying to kill them - but that it's important to set the stage for later events in Book 2.

If I were to run this again, it would be the first thing we do.

2 - I thought it was important to have the party know each other before they meet up. These are old companions reuniting unexpectedly. If you want your party to be strangers, then great, but I didn't think that was very fun. So, I told them that they were all Pathfinders, and after the events of SEE BELOW, they parted ways for 8 years, only to be brought back to Absalom by the appearance of the Harrow Cards...

3 - One of the main villains of Book 1 is a returning villain from a 1E Pathfinder Scenario adventure, namely THE SKY KEY SOLUTION. To set the scene for our adventurers, before they split up, I ran them through that - asking them to build level 10 PCs. Again, I bought the pdf, did a quick conversion, and we had fun. It's a bit of a mess of a scenario - no idea how someone is supposed to get it done in 5 hours - but have fun with it. Not only does this introduce a major villain, but it does two things - provides a natural 'capstone' for your party to split up for 8 years and also...

SPOILERS

4 -

6 - Having the Party know each other and having adventured with each other allows you to have the players make up stories about their [mis]adventures together. I've set up flashback scenes for them hiding from the Technic League in Numeria, and had them perform in a play dramatizing a perilous escapade in Cheliax. It's a fun way to add some additional character to the PCs without doing a ton of prep work.

7 - I've thought about running one or two Scenario modules w/ low level PCs as flashbacks, but dunno if I'll actually do it, since it does involve some work for one of our players who doesn't build his PCs in Pathbuilder... but if your party is up for it, why not?

8 - I asked everyone to choose a Harrow Card which represents their player. I've also 'numbered' the sessions w/ Harrow Cards [just going in alphabetical order]. At the start of each session, I draw a Harrow Card, and if it's one of the PCs or the one for the session, everyone gets a Hero Point. Regardless, I show the art and read the text for the card. It kinda sets the mood for the session [and yes, I'm keeping track, so eventually, it'll hit!]

9 - Don't use Free Archetype. The cards are powerful enough to fill that perceived gap, and you should encourage the players to use their cards.

10 - The seven year gap between THE SKY KEY SOLUTION and THE CHOOSING [I just used the publication dates] lets PCs have aged up, done stuff, had adventures on their own. Some of the players liked talking about these things.

So... these are just some thoughts. I'm really enjoying STOLEN FATE and I hope more groups run it.

Well, definitely don't give them free archetype. Completely unnecessary for this AP.

Second, adding a mook or two [or three] is usually the best way to go. Making the bosses stronger can end up making them unhittable except on Nat 20s or where they can't fail the saving throws except on Nat 1s.

You'll get the feel of it.

Since... oh, i dunno... around 2022? the APs have warnings in the first few pages about some triggering themes / events / monsters / whatever.

Just saw the one for Bastion of Blasphemies. Looks ... fun >:-)

How did your party take the TPK? I ask because I'm a few sessions away from the final encounter and TBH I don't see how the Tyrant CAN'T easily win, unless I play him like an over-confident idiot.

I decided not to have them fight him.

a) I didn't want to learn the Mythic rules
b) Unless the PCs get really lucky they aren't beating him
c) Even then...

Instead, I moved the fight to Absalom itself.

His armies surrounded the city, we did some stuff in Absalom [mystery plays with the Ascended Gods, it was fun]

Then I ran the combats from the book in the city, using urban maps, as his armies broke through the walls.

The final battle was on the bridge to the Starstone Cathedral. TB was too arrogant to actually fight, so he threw one of his most powerful minions - I used ZALISHKAR OF THE BROKEN FLAME and a DC 20 Daemon w/ 2 fire elementals.

My party pretty quickly dispatched w/ them [didn't expect that - Zalishkar is DC 23, iirc (but they did get to fight a balrog on a bridge, so win)], and then I had TB step up, use a fragment of the Radiant Fire to destroy them... I asked the guys to roll their best save, pretended that it mattered, then told them that their power w/ the obols had reflected the destruction and destroyed the Tyrant.

Then we went to epilogue.

In truth, the obols had only contained the destruction, but had reflected it back at TB, slaying him eternally [?]. The players all had their happy endings, but then I pulled a LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST on them where the Kumaru Tree came to them telling them that yes, they had to die. Pulled them all back to the last moment of their real lives, had final farewells, and boom. go to black.

Did the ending where their souls were growing from the rejuvenated kumaru tree, 'to be reborn in a better world'...

But I have another player in a different game who had a mage who got lucky with arcane disjunction and kept TB from casting his spells. So, there is a way to win, I guess.

I like my ending better.

Call me crazy, but if Paizo needs to see some clamouring for a Second Darkness Redux, put my name on the list of people who'd be interested in that story.

I'd like to see a full reimagining, while still keeping some of the iconic Set Pieces in place that actually keeps it in my mental rotation of Adventure Paths I'd Put My Own Spin On One Day.

Also interested in how one would replace the Drow in that story since the ** spoiler omitted **

But if I had to guess: Aboleths messing with the cave elves, they do love their meteoric solutions to the problem of pesky surface dwellers!

So... I was running a SKY KING'S TOMB campaign where one of my players was going with the CAVERN ELF PC [I stated, with no equivocations, that we were remaster only].

We both decided that we didn't know what CAVERN ELF was, and we'd figure it out as we went... I ended up with an idea, but a pesky construct unexpectedly TPK'd the party at the end of Book 1, and we didn't get the chance to explore it further.

That being said, I like the idea which some have floated that fleshwarps got out of control and slaughtered / fleshwarped all the drow, if you want to keep with some semblance of 1E canon.

Second Darkness was also main Abraxas themed campaign, so considering Abraxas hasn't been used otherwise a lot, would be cool to get that back and see new context for him since drow aren't around anymore x'D

One of the PCs in my SEVEN DOOMS campaign decided that she'd worship Abraxas.

I gave extra XP for that moment of awesome.

Art 'quality' goes up and down through the APs.

The first AP I subscribed to was Mummy's Mask, and man, I really felt sad giving those books away as the art was massively awesome.

The second was Iron Gods. I had no such strong feelings about the art there.

Right now, I'm DMing STOLEN FATE and SEVEN DOOMS FOR SANDPOINT. One definitely has art that I prefer over the other.

It varies. It usually hits and sometimes it whiffs. I wouldn't say that there's a trend.

Started reading this in depth after skimming through it when it arrived.

I really like this AP thus far [about 1/3 of the way through].

It's fun, it would definitely fit my players, and I can smooth over the rough part for me [I don't like Paizo's move to sanitize goblins].

It'll probably be [fingers crossed] a few years before I start running another AP, but this one seems to be a great start to the hardcover era.

I'm soon to move onto this book with my group and have a question about The Hunt in part 1. As far as I can see it doesn't state anywhere the base number of pursuit points the party starts with, only that they get a headstart amount of time it takes the hunters to sing their favourite hunting song. It points you towards page nine but even then it only says they begin with a certain number of points, and don't give an amount. The only thing I can see is that the party can try and get up to an additional three points, so does this mean they start with three?

I feel I'm going to have to do a dry run of this section before the players touch it and work out an idea of points to start them with.

As mentioned by @GM Cthulhu , the party starts w/ 3 points.

It worked out well for me. My players tried to cast spells and stuff, and I told them just to roll the skill checks and that they would be fine, which they were.

Even more to the point, Golarion and PF2 are very "Yes, and" with lore. So any player coming in with a different narrative for even mechanical aspects of the their character, the GM can say, "that is not how it works for everyone, but it could work that way for your character."

If you want summoning undead to require some parts of a corpse, then the character can play it that way. If they dont want anything to do with that, that is fine. If the player is surprised about some kind of outsider, then Great!!! Their character can always make a RK check to learn more about it and what is relevant to the story in progress when it comes to that.

The need to be "right" about the lore is very, very low.

This.

The more and more that I really play and run the game, the more I think about lore books as simply being a vast series of hooks, scenes, and flavor to enhance adventuring, rather than any sort of holistic and cohesive worldbuild.

i've already mentally scheduled this in for my group, although we're a long way off!

it does look like a lot of fun... in late 2028!

Oh yeah, one last thing on this module: the dragon's hoard was utterly ludicrous: as well as the magic items it "consists of 60,040 cp; 8,500 sp; 4,650 gp; and 931 pp." Are we supposed to believe the dragon flew into town with 60k copper pieces in tow, or that there was that much copper lying round the pyramid? Idiotic!

it's the contribution from a greatful community to your coffer.

I'm prepping to run Seven Dooms (will be starting with Rusthenge), and I have a player who wants to play as an Air Kineticist. In particular, he's looking forward to flying and using his flight for fun strategies. Since a lot of Seven Dooms is underground exploration (often with low ceilings), what should I tell him? Encourage him to find a different build? Tell him that it won't be a problem? Quietly modify ceiling heights to give his character more room to play?

It's perfectly fine to tell a player that this is a dungeon crawl and it's in a dungeon. If a player came to me with a potential pc who had a heavy crafting focus and I was running a campaign that moves around all the time and there's few opportunities for crafting, then I would be remiss to not tell them that this might be a less-than-fun-choice.

You are the DM. You have SO MUCH WORK TO DO. Don't beat yourself up and add more work to your plate b/c of a character build, much less a potential character build.

It's okay to give players guidance on their pcs. Maybe before you have that call, take a look at some of the other kineticist options and helpfully suggest one or two of them as alternative possibilities?

Abrogail II really isn't all that accomplished.

Last I checked, she was a Sorc16/Aristocrat2 and sitting on a throne for 17 years. What has she done that would make her worthy of becoming a demigoddess?

If you suggest that maybe she does something REALLY diabolical in the Hell's Destiny AP, I would answer by pointing out that that doesn't sound like a good result for the players. That's the kind of thing players are supposed to prevent.

statblocks are pretty easy to change.

Rise of the Runelords climaxes at the Pinnacle of Avarice (mostly), and yes, it's a "nice place to adventure in" if you enjoy all out war and the GM utilizes all the resources and reinforcements with the adversaries responding with tactical retreats, ambushes, etc. Quite dynamic, and built for veteran players. Double points if you challenge it without accumulating all the macguffins earlier in the AP that help conquer it.

I don't know which AP or whatnot leads to the Spire of Nex. I don't know what to make of a mile-high building. Even if it only has a floor every 100', that's...a bit much. Seems impossible to defend from highest-level penetration w/o a contrived amount of gold/etc. And then there's toppling.

none of the APs go to the Spire of Nex.

I think the original poster meant that there's a good AP going to the Pinnacle of Avarice.

None of the published APs go to Nex so far as I am aware.

Virellius wrote:

Atavist wrote:

Definitely sounds like the Spire of Nex is the winner, with the Pinnacle of Avarice as a runner up. The Spire seems like a nice place to adventure in.

Magic is fine. I figure outsider-made stuff would count, I probably wouldn't count Deific made.

It is!

So much so they made an entire Adventure Path focused on going there!

Wait, which AP?

I think the reference is Rise of the Runelords?

A Theme I would like to see is one of transformation. Maybe the players need to turn into things so solve problems. Maybe they travel to weird demiplanes which alter their form. Maybe everyone is a lycanthrope of some sort.

I'd also kinda dig something where the players are "blessed" by Yamasoth and slowly transforming over the course of the campaign. Possibly even being contagious. maybe some modification of the old corruption system from horror adventures of 1e

the corruption rules were awesome and should make a comeback.

Abrogail II is such a key character to the mythos, I dunno if they would ditch her completely.

It being Paizo, it's entirely possible that, as a nigh-all-powerful, irredeemably evil FEMALE character, she redeems herself and becomes a good guy [Sorshen, Nocticula, Arazni].

Andoran as it exists is not super interesting. That being said, it was all written out in SHINING KINGDOMS, so retconning everything in there might be a little too soon.

I would assume that the final state is some sort of shattered central Cheliax, more homelands for demihuman ancestries [gnomes, strix], and there being lots of hell gates opening up and maybe like, open diabolic control of the rump state of Cheliax.

Man, Hammer Rock is *brutal*. I told my party in advance that 'Save or Die' was going to be a feature and that they should judiciously use those abilities that enable re-rolls or add extra dice to saves.

Despite this, the scout died twice in rapid succession: once when he failed his save against the Weird effect from the Radiant Reprise haunt; and again when the Wyrmwraith caught him by surprise and hit him with a quickened Finger of Death. Turns out a sneak skill in the 40s means nothing when the enemy has lifesense.

The party decided that sending the scout up front was a bad idea, so buffed up the fighter with Death Ward and a few other things and used him as the point man instead, on the grounds that he was more likely to survive initial contact. Unfortunately he ran into the Nemhain who hit him with successive Harm spells. Down he went. Luckily the cleric is a healing machine and saved him from outright death with a maximised Inspiring Recovery.

Additionally, two party members failed saves against the Haunt in C6. One was the Bard who now can't use most of his abilities because they specifically target allies.

And they haven't even got to the Fallowdeep yet!

i skimmed through the whole dungeon. After running the AP for 3.5 years, I just didn't have the energy to do another multi-level dungeon. I just hit up some of the funner monsters / encounters.

And then they fought mecha-hitler, but that clearly wasn't in the published product.

My group is currently playing through 7DfS

We are a Fighter, a Guardian, a Thaumaturge, and me, a Kineticist.
We're at 7th level, and beginning to discuss what to follow up with.
Both "Spore War" and "Revenge of the Runelords" have been mentioned as options.
I just recently discovered that RotRl involves Mythic rules.
Would this pose a significant problem for us? *More importantly ME*
As I understand that Mythic rules don't work very well with Kineticists.

Thanks!

you can always change characters if one doesn't fit in well with the future adventure.

just saying.

So... we are heading into the final session or three of THE CHOOSING, and I finally did more than skim through Book 2.

It looks like a lot of fun!

But... the Harrowed Realm section is gonna kinda take my guys for a loop. I was thinking that before we run that bit, I have ALL-SEEING HAJECK tell them the story of a brave adventuring party... and run THE HARROWING in 1E w/ brand new 9th level PCs.

I THINK my guys would be down for that, and it would set the stage for this adventure. To speed it up, I'm thinking that we basically role play any of the encounters where they successfully draw the correct harrow card. Otherwise it might take awhile, but I think with that method, we could get through the module in about 2 sessions [and of course... it doesn't work with the Tyrant].

Thoughts?

I also swiped out the sword-and-board mercenaries in the Storval Stairs [after they guys got inside the dungeon] for unique NPCs from other APs.

Way more fun. Pushed the boys to the limits.

TickTock's SHADOW SCREAM ability doesn't have damage associated with it. Is that intentional?

I'm about to start up Seven Dooms in our next session and my players are asking about earning the support of locations in Sandpoint. How often would you allow the PCs to attempt Make an Impression checks to improve the attitude of any particular location's NPC?

My gut feel is to allow it as part of a business transaction (they either buy or sell something at the location); and to allow a "pure social call" once a week for a given location.

use your judgment.

The Raven Black wrote:

I'm sad that all the buzzing posting activity that surrounded monthly releases is gone.

Now, to be hyped about BoB, I will need to wait for the first subscribers' AMA threads just before its release.

3 months is a long time to wait between two AP releases, with only some LO lore posts and often belligerent General and Rules threads to peruse in the meantime.

Ironically, I feel like we'll be BETTER able to build hype for hardcovers, and stores will be MORE interested in putting them on shelves, so while we might miss the monthly buzz on the boards, a big part of the goal here is to stop flooding the market with products that don't get reprinted and self-obsolete if 1/3 (or whatever) of the adventure goes out of print or just doesn't happen to be on the shelf when you shop for it (because someone just bought the last copy or because the store isn't as interested in or capable of stocking such a large number of softcover books).

It won't always be 3 months. The goal is 4 per year, but some months are awful to release products in for various reasons. That means in some cases it'll be longer than 3 months and in others it'll be shorter. Hopefully the fact that we're doing 4 releases a year and not 12 (8 of which almost always fall between the cracks and don't get the attention they deserve because they're not starting up a new Adventure Path) will result in a stronger line overall.

Absolutely let us know how things play out on the customer/reader/gamer side though, once we actually start getting these out there!

as a long-time AP subscriber, if you can't make a month, don't sweat it!

So... reading through the Stairs section, and there's the harpy queen. It says that she doesn't get involved even when her other harpyes are engaged unless someone's flying OR they go into her home ... which is on top of a statue that is inaccessible unless someone flies up there or climbs up.

What's the point?

I'm thinking about holding her in reserve if the fight against the BBEG is really easy for my players. She can sweep down from behind in round 2 or 3 and really stick it too them.

Otherwise??? I dunno. Any thoughts?

Yakman wrote:

I dunno. It's your game. Most of the APs are isolated enough that you don't have to worry about previous events if you don't want to. For those which are tied to the others, some of them are more tied and some less. And honestly, players don't usually care that much. Most of them want to have a good time - canon not being 100% in alignment doesn't get in the way of a good time for most people, I think.

Long / Short : Have a good time!

My players and I have spent a lot of time building our version of Golarion, so I could definitely have them just read the wiki for an update or give them some version of "Somehow Palpatine returned!", but I would much rather have the option of them playing these things out if that makes sense?

yeah. totally. just... there's a world shaking event published at least once a year, and for me, it took 4 years to run tyrant's grasp. I dunno how fast you game, but keeping up with everything just seems unsustainable to me.

Anywho, this is something I have thought about a lot over the past couple of years, so I figured I would put it out there into the world.

It is YOUR Golarion.

So... maybe just ignore the stuff you don't want to include? or just leave it in the background? or yeah, point players at the wiki and keep a change log for your game which supersedes it. i have a little text document with the changes i've made at my table. just a some bullet points going over the divergences from 'canon' as a result of our running Tyrant's Grasp and Sky King's Tomb. it seems to work so far.

Tyrant's Grasp is a really solid campaign, and if you do end up running it, there's plenty of guidance in the forum here.

Scanning through this book... not a fan of the first one, but this seems like running this on its own would be a pretty solid stand-alone dungeon crawl. Anyone have any thoughts on that?

I think I would just throw the PCs in, with a little blurb about them trying to save a sea-side town from an awakened vampire lord and go from there.

I dunno. It's your game. Most of the APs are isolated enough that you don't have to worry about previous events if you don't want to. For those which are tied to the others, some of them are more tied and some less. And honestly, players don't usually care that much. Most of them want to have a good time - canon not being 100% in alignment doesn't get in the way of a good time for most people, I think.

Long / Short : Have a good time!

Got back to playing after a 55 day break [Foundry is very helpful!]

We ended our last session after the initial battle on the Storval Stairs, and we continued clearing out the Band of Blades. Bit of a short session since I couldn't log in for about an hour, but it was refreshing getting back to the game.

Yakman wrote:

My table want to be sailors. I know there's a nautical component to MythSpeaker, but I think an 'exploration' AP where the PCs are sailors / traders, might satisfy their itch.

You may be in luck, with the recent announcement of the upcoming Lost Omens High Seas book...

I could see an AP, or at least a stand-alone adventure, based on it.

oh nice! hadn't seen that one yet...

I'm so far behind on these though... still haven't read the academy book! or the taldor one!

Yakman wrote:

My table want to be sailors. I know there's a nautical component to MythSpeaker, but I think an 'exploration' AP where the PCs are sailors / traders, might satisfy their itch.

They keep bringing up wanting to run Skull and Shackles, and I seriously considered it, but I'm not going to run 1E again, and don't have the bandwidth or interest to run a 2E conversion.

Are any of your players game to try GMing?

oh, I'm happy GMing. I'm running STOLEN FATE, and we're in the final chapter of Book 1, so we'll be doing that for another 2 years or so. We are having a good time, so it's not a pressing concern right now, but in 2028... might be nice to have another nautical AP to choose from.

And the shorter APs are just a delight. I ran Tyrant's Grasp, but that took almost 4 years [4 hour sessions every 2 weeks].

My table want to be sailors. I know there's a nautical component to MythSpeaker, but I think an 'exploration' AP where the PCs are sailors / traders, might satisfy their itch.

They keep bringing up wanting to run Skull and Shackles, and I seriously considered it, but I'm not going to run 1E again, and don't have the bandwidth or interest to run a 2E conversion.

Yakman wrote:

]I personally hated this part of the Radiant Fire reveal.

Just like... kill TB. It's FINE.

I'm probably going to. When my party dithered about accepting the destruction of the souls, I upped the stakes a bit by having Maraina provide new information based on updated research: there's a chance the radiant fire will kill the Tyrant outright, but she wasn't sure. She also suggested they pray. The Cleric of Desna cast Commune and sought guidance. Desna was particularly supportive of any efforts to put a stop to the plans of the Tyrant.

So, the majority of the party accepted their fate. The bard held out and now I'm going to have to work out what happens to his soul when the radiant fire is detonated. Plenty of time.

The PCs are also discussing the possibility that they may have to track down the Tyrant's phylactery. I've already hinted that its beyond their ability to scry. Hopefully they take the hint.

I've never really liked the 'phylactery' mechanic that is so tied to the lich since forever.

I don't know what benefit it adds to the story. I mean... it CAN add fun to a lich adventure... you've killed the bad guy in his evil wizard tower, and now it's a race against time to descend into the mysterious dungeons before he reconstitutes...

That's a great hook... but TG isn't that story.

So... whatever. Maybe TB doesn't have a phylactery. Or maybe not all liches have them.

In my head canon, it's in the black hole thingy on the Isle of Terror [or maybe is the black hole thingy]. But I told my players after we finished TG that since we are playing other APs in the same shared Golarion, that they should consider Tar Baphon as perma-ded, and if I as a DM would only bring him back if there was a super-cool adventure where I couldn't swap in some other BBEG.

I struggled to keep things reasonable and believable around the authorities not immediately acting on a WMD threat. I managed to handwave Lastwall not having news of Roslar's Coffer since the next nearest farmland settlements were being beset by red dragons (linking in an unresolved plothook from a previous campaign), but upon arriving and letting people know, it was hard for me to come up with a reasonable excuse to delay/get them to look for evidence while keeping the authority figures sounding rational and reliable.

As a huge fan of Ustalav I'd have been so down for a jump to Ardis or even Caliphas! Get some Whispering Way vs Vampires action in the sewers!If I weren't about to start prepping Book 5 for when we're off of hiatus I would totally consider some Ustalav time.

remember: the authorities don't know that there's a threat of a WMD. no one knows what happened in Roslar's Coffer. The PCs have to investigate to find that out.

They don't start out with a solid theory of the case. And by the time they have some information, well... it's almost too late. And in fact, it is - only the PCs delving into the sewers can find out the actual truth, by which time, it's too late.

One thing I did add was that the orcs had started raiding across the frontier, and the Knights march out to join their allies in the Holds - Arstan Whitebeard [?] I can't remember his name - so the city is in a state of mobilization, and ultimately goes into the control of the female knight who later tries to flee the city. Then she can be a spoiler to the PCs, just ignoring their claims, and be a deaf ear.

That forces them to act - they gotta get absolute proof - so they follow every lead... and they are too late...

I'm prepping the last battle, a/k/a Flash Point 5.

And I realized that the map shows the hole blown in the side of the keep before the battle even begins. So much for that surprise attack by Tar-Baphon. Arg!

eh. just do theater of the mind until it happens.

I just finished the Blue Gardens section and the PCs then went back to town and got the big reveal from Miraina.

They are NOT happy about having to sacrifice their souls in order to only destroy the Whispering Tyrant's superweapon, knowing it won't also destroy the Tyrant himself. I boosted the stakes a bit in that I had them find in Umbarno's notes some correspondence between Umbarno and someone called Istravek - who the party doesn't yet know is the Tyrant's dragon - concerning research into creating more shards which can be used to trigger the Radiant Fire.

The Cleric is also a bit miffed that reversing the polarity of the obols means his healing spells automatically become maximised. He already does that with the Healer's Touch feat that he spent the first two modules gaining the prerequisite for! Oh well, I'm sure he'll cope.

I personally hated this part of the Radiant Fire reveal.

Just like... kill TB. It's FINE.

That "Last Temptation of Christ" idea is just brilliant! I'm absolutely stealing it.

I'm going to have them think they're just about to die from Radiant Fire resonance...and then each PC finds themself in a dark box. Yes, they're back in the sarcophagi of Rosler's Tomb!

They'll leave the mausoleum without trouble and discover that they're in the town of Rosler's Coffer, which is rebuilding (although is is enclosed in yet another impenetrable bubble).

Of course they'll discover that this idyllic outcome is actually a sort of holodeck situation that Pharasma created for them.

Umble and Thoot will reappear (which I think they'll enjoy) and explain that if they choose to stay, they can live out their lives in peace...but Tar-Baphon will succeed. Or they can give up their happy endings (again) and save the world.

dunno how much i like the switcheroo choice on them in this way. i do really like the holodeck RC idea though.

Update: We finished the book. #AMA

This was a hell of a rollercoaster. Gallowspire was a lot. Seeing my last post being just after the Gustari fight means Gallowspire took the best part of 4 months for us to clear. Highlights include:

- The Paladin destroyed Yhalas the Serene in a single full-attack action. She didn't even get a chance to strike more than once (which she missed). It was literally "Turn 1: Yhalas charges, misses. Turn 2: Paladin Smites Evil, full attacks, deals somewhere in the region of 300+ points of damage. Fight over.

- In the Mummified Morrigna (Mummigna) fight, the player of the Conjuration wizard asked if there were any decent psychopomp summons for a bit of added roleplay. I've allowed her to use the 6th level Vanth alternate summon. The Vanth the wizard summons is Thoot from Book 1.

- The party have really good AC and healing. Their collective touch AC is kind of garbage though. And HP isnt worth a dime when a Dread Wraith is hitting you with that 1d8 Con drain instead. The Swashbuckler almost died, would have done if the Paladin didn't use Paladin's Sacrifice to take the effect instead. That fight ended up being way more fun and impactful than I was expecting.

- The Conjuration Wizard now worships Arazni. They've had some great little mind-palace conversations where they're both like "hey being held against your will and forced to do evil sucks amirite?" I'm sure this blossoming new relationship will be very healthy and last a very long- oops.

- With the party a) stomping on all my precious graveknights and b) smashing their armor with a hammer every morning in case one of them decides to get back up, I was concerned that the fight with Amaretos was gonna be far too easy. It did not. Amaretos cast Cloudkill and then disappeared into it, using the concealment to avoid attacks while remaining immune to the ability damage. Anyone who wanted to get a hit on him had to move into the fog, and you still take half Con damage on a save.
(You might be thinking...

epic.

good time for a bit of a break.

I didn't use all of the timeless trait, but I did note to the players that they didn't feel the need to sleep or eat or anything, which was disconcerting for them, but they only got really really hungry and sleepy when they got back and no immediately starved or dehydrated or died of sleep deprivation. I let them have the natural healing because, for my table at least, I think it would have felt a bit of a slog at early level.

But, if you wanna increase the survival aspect, you could totally go full timeless trait and/or full Strongly Neutral Aligned. (I used the latter one too, mostly because my two good-aligned party members are religious, and I wanted to sort of express to them that their connection to their deities was far more distant/smothered here than was comfortable.) As the others have mentioned, I'd absolutely look for alternative options for them if you did wanna use the planar traits and touch base with your players about what it means/requires from them and how they're feeling about it.

Another point (kinda unrelated to planar traits but related to prepping for book 1 not being in the material plane) - if any of your players have some sort of animal companion, you might wanna decide how best to handle that. The book kinda just says "they're dead, but you can find a new one in book 2 and onward," but I wanted to tweak it a bit. My wizard player had a jerboa familiar. They loved that lil guy. His name was Buttons. I didn't wanna just kill the poor thing off immediatly - "soz, he's gone now, get a new one later", so I had the familiar still be around for the whole book, right up until Barzhak appears to help them get to the Material Plane, and was like "unfortunately one of you must stay - the dead cannot return" and the Jerboa hopped off the wizard's shoulder to go stand by the psychopomp and - surprise - was a ghost. He just wanted to help his wizard get home.
(I think someone else wrote this idea in the main book thread, so I can't take credit for it, but we were all weeping. You...

I'm not crying, you're crying.

adventure path are by necessity if not by ideology champion of status quo

setting could not change too much with 1 short ap

this is always the case but particularly glaring in the case of warden of wild

writer trying desperately to justify pro peace stance just fail miserably when peace just means don't complain about the boot constantly stomping down

it is narrativelly unworkable

literally come off as anti environmentalist propaganda

the only way to work this campaign as written, imho, is for the party to be ambassadors from Galt/Taldor/Andoran, and they are trying to fight for the status quo - not for the factions on the inside of the forest. they align themselves with the moderates against the radicals.

you can run that game. it does make the 'magical forest' stuff a lot more interesting, and everything would be new to the PCs, which is a big benefit to the table. but i don't think a lot of players would be happy about it v. some kind of Ferngully campaign.

Yes, I used the timeless planar trait for the whole book. The PCs noticing (eventually) that they didn't need to sleep or eat provided clues as to where they were.

oh, and when they finally emerge from the tomb, have someone from the town looking for them. someone that they know and trust - where were you? and why are you out here?

they are all bewildered about why the PCs vanished... and if you can, maybe do what I did, and end the session with everyone rolling a Wisdom check... lie about the DC, and tell the one player who rolled highest that they look up to the sky and on the moon, they see a laughing skull...

let'em cook on that 'til the next session.

The Dead Roads are part of the Boneyard. It applies to everything.

My party had an oracle, so they were good on healing. If you don't have a healer, you'll want to provide some options for your PCs. Some of the fights in the castles are pretty brutal - looking at the glass angel and the big bug - so you'll want your PCs to be able to heal up before they tackle each one.

Hello all GMs. I will be starting this AP for my group in two months and was looking to see how many GMs jumped right into Roslars tomb or did session zero, or extensive background sessions before dumping the pc’s into the coffins.

I have been listening to two podcasts for this AP, and like the idea of doing significant character background to make the impact of part two more significant. My initial plan is to do a lot via email (who you know, what your link to town is, what they are doing on day -1) and start first live session with stuck in box.
Just looking to see how folks have started this AP off. Jumped right in or session zeros?

As an aside, i have already run We Be Heroes goblin one shot and will be doing the PFS Reavers Roar and the Shattered Shield, as preludes. My head cannon will be that the recovered shard from Shattered Shild will be passing through town when WW sets off test fire.

I did not do anything before the blast.

I set the AP on the first day of the year. In Golarion, the last day of the year is a sort of 'day of the dead' where people celebrate those who have passed. I asked everyone to say where they were at midnight, someone said that they were looking out at the street, I said, oh, you see a guy walking down the street ... ALL OF YOU ARE IN DARKNESS ROLL FOR INITIATIVE.

Threw them right into it. They had no idea what was happening, and no idea where they were.

One thing I did was make up the Red Shrikes, so each one of the PCs had a 'fore-runner' Red Shrike whose coffin they woke up in. Turned out that was one of the best decisions I made in the whole campaign. I created little subplots tying them to the PCs... one of them was a half-orc dragonblooded bloodrager... his 'forerunner' was his ancestor, book 5's villain's lover, who was grabbed by TB's forces and sold to the orcs hundreds of years ago, and who gave birth to a half-draconic child... when they met up with the boss of book 5 it was readily apparent to him that he would be battling his descendent, and relished the opportunity... the oracle woke up with a holy symbol of Aroden around his neck, which was the holy symbol of the Red Shrike's cleric... that was a long and thoroughly awesome tale... The gear that they start with isn't their gear - it's the gear of the Red Shrikes.

One podcast [I just listened to the first episode] has the Red Shrikes being the ones who summoned Arazni to the mortal plane all those many years ago. Now the heroes, who are 'reborn' in the coffins of the deceased, have a chance to address the consequences of that action.

By doing this, you have the opportunity to add in some unique storytelling to the campaign which might otherwise be kinda dry at times.

I also went with the alternative bonus progression mechanic, since there is almost no shopping opportunity through large stretches of the campaign. Using that mechanic meant that the bloodrager went to the final battle wearing Roslar's breastplate, which was pretty awesome, while the gunslinger had the same gun that they started with.

Arkat wrote:

I just don't see it.

If you do, please speculate here.

Somehow, Xanderghul returned.

-Skeld

I do hope something like this is in the credits quote.

my party TPK'd in the bakery, so my direct knowledge of running the game is limited to book 1 and reading through the other two.

1 - the 'festival' should be a multi-day affair. I ran it so that it lasted for a few weeks, so the party could be at the 'kickoff' event and then we can conclude it at the 'dinner party'. that way you can have pcs go and have a place to interact with npcs throughout AND gives a reason for people to stick around. AND a better place to meet the key npc who drives the plot in book 1.

2 - there's a big throughline of the adventure that the dwarves did really bad things and it still has ramifications throughout the darklands. this is not reflected in anything in the adventure beyond an npc saying things to them. the troglodytes should be SCARED of the PCs, even if they are willing to fight them. the gnomes should distrust the PCs at the very least. those ruins you wander through in book 2? dwarves made them ruins. The dwarves crimes are brought up from their perspective, not from those who were actually savaged by them.

3 - the BBEG should be at the festival. why wouldn't he be invited by one of the less reputable major npcs? He's gotta learn about the worm from someone...

4 - the whole plotline with the gnome doesn't make any sense at the end of book 1. why is this happening? there's no payoff at all - not in this book and not in book 2 - and there's no reason why you would need this particular gnome. the settlements you are going to are large, and highhelm presumably has trade links with them. then she leaves the party after getting you to a place any merchant should be able to give you directions to. plus the part with getting her out of prison makes no sense at all. remove it or jazz it up.

5 - The Ash Engineer is AWESOME and should be in this trilogy somewhere.

6 - Book 2 ends badly. what the party has just done should end them up in prison. Book 3 starts weakly. Start it with some kind of prison break and a flight through the Darklands back to Highhelm. This gives the BBEG a chance to show up again and taunt them in the cells and reveal his plans so they can show up and be heroes.

My Stolen Fate campaign has reached its triumphant conclusion! We had a great time with it (but then again we might be easy to please). People had fun collecting the cards and deciding which ones went the best with each character, and the various set-piece locations in the later chapters had a lot of flavor.

awesome!

I think this was a solid AP to jump into after cancelling my Starfinder game. Everyone seems to be jiving, enjoying playing higher level PCs, the exotic travel has been fun, and it's just a good AP.

Shame that it hasn't been received as well as it should have been. Admittedly, we are about halfway through Book 1, but I'm looking forward to getting to where you got!

Yep, I'll add in my .02 also. I've recently had to cancel my subscriptions due to not needing the physical product any more...and now having to buy both the pdf and the foundry module make me reconsider things even more. Hopefully there's some new solution soon, or there's some way to at least bundle the foundry module with the pdf...

Just buy the Foundry module. Yeah, it's not the same thing, but the adventure content is all there.

And w/ the change in adventure paths, the pdf value vis a vis the Foundry module will probably be nil.