Yakman's page

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.

I'll throw my 5c in here: My group has recently gone from 1e to 2e, and we're also embracing a hybrid in-person/VTT playstyle. One of the big sells for that was being able to buy the PDF, then get the Foundry module for a great price as well. No Foundry discount is going to be pretty disappointing

100%

And it's not like this is a challenge to implement [at least from my perspective] - it's a discount code based on a prior purchase. Am I missing something?

The Foundry discount is:

a) a great value, particularly for me, a guy who purchases way more stuff than he can actually use
b) what encouraged me to switch from Roll20 to Foundry

And finally, then you add those two things together, its meant for a much better table-top experience, since the Foundry VTT is so great AND I can get value out of the subscriptions I've been plugging away at for well over 10 years now.

Paizo really needs to prioritize this for its user-base, as more and more people are playing their games online, and on the platform of one of their key partners.

And yes, I am rooting for Abrogail II.

Failing and falling from the inside is incredibly boring and not very fertile ground for memorable APs.

A 6-volume Mythic AP where the PCs are charged with taking down House Thrune via heroic/mythic means from the outside is FAR more interesting and I'd LOVE to play that.

How cool would it be to take down the Arch-Devil whom Asmodeus temporarily entrusted to watch over Cheliax?

I'm also rooting for Abbie.

Honestly, I hope that Cheliax WINS. It would make the setting much more interesting if they can break Andoran [not conquer it, but weaken it] forcing back the tide of anarchy and the rule of the mob.

This seems awfully complicated.

Personally, as I DM, I'm a fan of subsystems.

They give players a chance to drive narrative action, to introduce NPCs, always an opportunity for a joke when the barbarian crushes the library check and the wizard flubs it.

There might be too many in Myth-Speaker and Wardens, but I think they are a critical part of adventure paths. Otherwise, it's just punching and blasting.

I honestly do not understand the influence system [this is after running Book 1 of Sky King's Tomb]. It's a lot of note keeping or otherwise I was doing something wrong.

I would hope that future subsystems not vary dramatically from the GMG. But yes, get the party in a library, get them on the dance floor, get them in the courtroom.

Yakman wrote:

Ptolemaic / Christian Egypt

Come again? The Ptolemies were a couple generations gone by the time Christianity was a thing, never mind a predominant thing, in Egypt.

I'm thinking of when Egypt came permanently under the sway of foreign imperials... macedonians, romans, etc.

there's historical continuity, but also unmistakable foreign influence

ultimately, eh. doesn't really matter too much. make it your own place.

sorta bummed that there isn't going to be an 'evil' AP in this meta-plotline. Alas.

Why Ptolemaic? I would've assumed that's the era that's missing the most, since there's no parallel to Hellenistic conquest in Osirion's lore, but you seem more well-versed in Egyptian history than I am.

(I feel like there's also a bit of modern Egypt in there with the sort of nationalistic reclaiming of its ancient history, but that doesn't contradict anything else)

I always thought that if you were really desperate for Ptolemaic / Christian Egypt, then the influence of the Inner Sea Gods would be a good proxy for these.

But that's really getting in the weeds.

Wow! Great stuff. Gonna yoink some of that for sure. We're just doing the penthouse ourselves now. I had to completely rejigger the Hagegraff part too...

We are going to wrap up Book 1 in a session or 2... what did you do to improve Hagregaf?

Yakman wrote:

they don't always come out on time.

not worth worrying about.

Counterpoint: I would like the Player's Guide because I wanna build characters!

You can always build characters... just sometimes they'll be better off riding bench for a bit... ;-)

Here4daFreeSwag wrote:

Prolly still a wee bit too early yet to bring out the Player's Guide for this, methinks. ;)

It comes out on April 2nd, so if anything it's late. They seem to drop the PGs two to three weeks before the street date, and we're just under 2 weeks away now. I know that I was hoping for it this past week.

they don't always come out on time.

not worth worrying about.

Arkat wrote:

Darth Game Master wrote:

In this case the hypothetical enemy would be Cheliax, which Camilia Drannoch has already supported rebellions against, and is less of a direct risk since Andoran could be a buffer against counter-invasion. I agree it probably wouldn't go over too well, but people make bad decisions sometimes, so it's not entirely out of the question. Either way, I'd certainly be surprised if Galt immediately joined the war on Andoran's side.

There would have to be some sort of provocation or a false flag operation conducted to get the people of Galt to believe Cheliax poses enough of a threat for them to ally with Andoran.

Which brings up the question of why Andoran would even bother. Galt is weak, and unlike other weak powers (e.g., Isger, Ravounel) doesn't even have the advantage of offering a strategic base from which to strike at the enemy. An alliance with Galt would at best offer Andoran a quite small army of militia fighting far from home for a cause not their own--thus an army that is unlikely to be useful on the offense or cohesive on the defense.

The only scenario where Galt involving itself in the war makes any degree of sense is one where Taldor intervenes against Andoran with the express or implied aim of suppressing Common Rule, because such a campaign naturally turns against Galt itself after Andoran is dealt with. But that is a thing which Taldor has no good reason to do. The advantages to Taldor of neutrality have already been hashed out at length. And even if it did, for instance by jumping in opportunistically against an Andoran which has suffered reverses, such a Taldan campaign is not one in which Galt could expect to make much difference (because, again, it is weak).

We have no idea of the political leanings of most important player here: Taldoggis.

Yes, how will the lore survive without the gameplay canonicity of a biologically superior master race, represented in mechanics that simply don't mean the same thing anymore.

the mechanical bonus was just a straight up bait for an argument between a DM and a player who really wanted the free bonuses.

DM: "Jake, that sure does sound like a fun gnome barbarian... he'll be a great fit in our campaign... Bob, who are you playing..."

Bob: "My guy was frozen in ice for 10,000 years, but he's been thawed out now, and since he's Azlanti, he gets +2 on all ability scores. Says so right here in the World Guide."

Also... Jirelga and Krohan just... vanish? Like... where do they go? Would there be good places to bring them back into the AP? Jirelga just, like... jets before the Court, and Krohan kinda... evaporates?

I'm thinking that the PCs get

So... I was reading Book 2's back half for the first time, and while I didn't go into detail, I saw that it just... ends?

And then Book 3 starts in a whole other place. There's no guidance for how to get out of the broader situation in the end of Book 2, ramifications, etc.

Any thoughts on how to get the PCs effectively from Book 2 to 3? Particularly on the extrication from the almost certainly LETHAL situation they'll find themselves in at the end of Book 2?

Yakman wrote:

JeremyK wrote:

Hey folks-

I havnt found any solid places detailing the final battle with Tar Baphon. I'm debating whether to run it in the Sun Scarab as written or move it elsewhere. If I run it as written, does anyone have any advice on the map? It seems like a strange "camera angle." Normally, if the players are in a room, the point of perspective is an interior. In this case, the heroes are inside the building, an outer wall gets blown up, but rather than detailing the interior you can see a bit of the inside, but the camera is mostly focused on the exterior of the pyramid. A cool set piece to be sure, but what if the heroes just fall back deeper into the pyramid?

Am I missing something about this map's mechanics?

it's not a great map, imho [way too small and confusing], and i didn't use it... BUT...

from my understanding the distance / height is intended to give your PCs a round or so before getting the "full tyrant"

Can I ask where you set the final battle?

I set it on one of the bridges to the Starstone Cathedral. Moved all the prior stuff to "city" style maps.

The night before Tar-Baphon launched his invasion of Absalom, I gave each of my 4 PCs a "passion play" with one of the "Ascended" Gods, [and tossed each of them a blessing (+1 bonus to an appropriate ability score [DEX for Norgorber, CON for Iomedae, CHA for Cayden, INT for Aroden's Ghost])]

I also didn't want to bother learning the Mythic rules to run TB, so I used Zelishkar of the Burning Flame + the CR 20 daemon as the final boss.

When the PCs killed them, TB tries to use the Radiant Fire to clear out the troublesome defenders, I told them all to roll their highest save, everyone add their total... said... oh boy, this is a high DC... can you guys get there??? [the DC was, in fact, 1]

And then I told them that they'd won. They'd turned the Radiant Fire back on TB, and yeah, blown up a large part of Absalom, but saved the city and themselves. They gave me their happy endings...

And then I did a LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST on them, where the spirit of the Kumaru tree revealed itself to each of them, that they were still on the bridge, but the tree had given them a chance to live their best lives...

We returned to the bridge, gave each of them a moment to speak to each other for one final time, and BOOM. Go to black. Roll credits.

Final scene was the kumaru tree and Mictena and one of the psychopomps seeing that it was bearing fruits with their souls for a rebirth in some better, future, era.

They've since learned in our new AP that they did indeed kill TB, that they are lauded as great heroes, etc.

Did anyone else wonder how the spitty things in the mushroom worked? It seems like from the text that they only shoot on the inside, but shouldn't they be a defense from the outside as well [or instead?]

I have a player who just relishes the idea of an evil campaign. When we were ending our 1E game and I was looking at the 2E campaigns, I looked at Blood Lords and was like... well... it's Parks and Recreation in a Nightmare Before Christmas.

I like it, but BL is just not an evil campaign.

To make it one, maybe the 'bad guys' are really trying to increase the rights of the Quick and overthrow the evil necromancers? LIke they are Pharasmites and Geb is run by foul Urgathoans exclusively?

Not creating 10th level pregens? Paizo does want people to play these scenarios, correct? I'd like to just pass pregens out to my players, esp. for higher level PCs.

I'm about to start running this AP, first time as a PF2e GM. None of the players bit on the player's guide backgrounds. I'm looking for suggestions on tying in one player's backstory in particular, but thoughts on any of them would be appreciated. (Players are pretty easy-going and will play even if their backstories aren't tied to the campaign, but I'd like to think of something that makes their choices not completely irrelevant.)

One of the players wants to play a human noble whose land has been taken away through unspecified evil manipulation left up to the GM. The family's broke. He has traveled to Highhelm with his father and daughter, whom he offers to the GM to use as I see fit. I think maybe his father is a scholar of some sort and so it was father who got invited to the family festival. Any thoughts on how to make Narseigus behind his family's trouble?
My other players are:
a Minotaur mercenary-maybe his minotaur village was the first to fall to Narseigus aggression? Or he is aware of the seals on the well weakening, in HH to try to get someone to listen to him?
dwarf kineticist with ancient blooded dwarf background-could have had a vague dream of taaargick.
a gnome magus played by a new player, so I'm helping feed backstory ideas, I thought maybe sister to Ria, interested in tracking down dwarven artifacts?

Narsegius could be tied up with any kind of malific force on the surface.

He's been actively evil for a long time - maybe the father and Narsegius have old scores to settle against each other. The father was part of an adventuring party which did X and impacted Narsegius with Y. Maybe they were hunting worms in the underdark and stole something that Narsegius wanted... have the player come up with some weird 'darklands' themed macguffin which was always in the family house and father always was a bit evasive about how he got it. When the house is destroyed, THE THINGIE is missing....

Personally, I'm bringing Narsegius into the AP in Book 1, as a guest of the Tolorr Festival. He's a scholar, and not everyone at the festival is exactly of sterling reputation.

Maybe the PC is there at the festival, his father's there... sees his father arguing with Narsegius... then all the STUFF happens... and when the PC & co. are done with the stuff... dad's gone. And he's found dead. And ole N's got a smile on his face and nothing connecting him to the crime.

BOOM. You gotta hook, you gotta motivated PC. You gotta balla villain.

For the other PCs what 'backgrounds' are they looking at? These are really important tools for storytelling and shouldn't be ignored/disregarded.

Has anyone created a complete list of the things that Resolve Points can be used for. I know there are some general uses and some specialized uses but has anyone consolidated a list of all the Class Features with their Class that use Resolve Points or know of someone that has done this?

Not in one place w/ every class. That wouldn't really be helpful.

A list of non-class, non-core functions, which are optional uses of the resolve points can be found in the back of Starfinder Enhanced.

Paizo has THREE of these same characters:

Arazni, Nocticula, Shorsen

Each of them is IRREDEEMABLY EVIL. One is a bloody handed tyrant manipulator and schemer, the other is a DEMON PRINCESS, the last has controlled the bodies of others for millennia to do what they want, and advocated that more of this is better than less.

They do like, one kinda altruistic thing, and BOOM. REDEEMED.

They make for fun villains. They do not make for fun patrons.

As for me, Arazni is PERMA-DED in my homegame. She ain't gonna make that transition to divinity.

Allen Cohn wrote:

GM Cthulhu wrote:

Is it just me or is this module too top heavy with magic loot?

I think the same.

This is pure conjecture...but when this AP was being written most of the Paizo people were deep in the development of PF2. So I suspect that this AP got substandard editing, including matching loot to level.

I'm finding errors in game mechanics, plot holes, etc. all over the place!

Allen

This is one a few APs that assume that the PCs won't have much time/opportunities to go shopping in certain parts, this AP also sort of assume the PCs won't have much time/opportunities to rest during certain parts.

This.

There's zero opportunities for shopping between midway through Books 3 until the start of Book 5. So, there's gotta be a lotta loot.

NerdOver9000 wrote:

Yakman wrote:

UnArcaneElection wrote:

Earlier, I wrote:

^The Runelords Strike Again!? The Infernal Empire Strikes Back? Heist of the Crown?

Here's a Runelord idea: A new generation of Runelords has arisen, but rather than staying secreted away in demiplanes or castles, these brazenly move among the public, actively moving the levers of political power and swaying the masses with crude yet glitzy demagoguery, as they seek World Domination through Political Action.

A Runelord striking north into the Linnorm Kings would be a fun Viking-based AP.

Oh I like that. A Viking AP would be a fun redux to Skulls and Shackles... instead of being a morally gray pirate AP run a morally gray Viking AP, striking south at Varisia or even further south into Ravounel or Cheliax. Scratches a very similar itch in my mind.

Actually, not even "morally gray." Within Norse culture of the time, Vikings were upstanding heroes.

Save us oh Lord, from the wrath of the North men.

Am reading Roger Zelazny's LORD OF LIGHT and did my first yoga class in almost 5 years yesterday, and boy oh boy, would a Vudran adventure w/ rakshasas would be a lot of fun.

CastleDour wrote:

I like that they have a centaur hellknight, it looks cool! Not a fan of colonizing in general, but taming the wild and savage lands of Belkzen does have a certain appeal.

Uhhh, mate, please don't take this as an insult, but that thing you just said is in fact extremely colonialist. Calling an environment where people live wild and untamed, with the implication of taming it by turning it to agricultural land that can be better exploited by state powers as an unambiguous positive is pretty much colonialism 101.

Like, if you want to play this character, absolutely sure, go have fun! But do be aware that the organisation your character serves is monstrous.

it's the "monster ancestry" AP.

hobgoblins, gholos, orcs, goblins, etc. battling undead, abominations born from a dead god's blood, and other evils (I assume) in a savage land of horrors.

man wants to be a hellknight centaur, more power to him.

I would say though that in many Paizo APs the maps are TEENY TINY. Check w/ your GM if you should play a large PC before committing to the concept.

Before the player's guide came out, I was thinking a Human Diplomat Kineticist who was a survivor of the goblinblood wars, was raised by the church of Asmodeus, and is being sent by Isger to respond to Ardax's call. After reading the player's guide, I think I would go with a hobgoblin swashbuckler from Oprak.

This looks really fun. We just started up SKY KING'S TOMB and I was thinking we'd delay that to at least take a look at the orc game. Having a blast, but boy, I do like the concept of a buncha orky-boyz smashin' hedz and diplomasyzin.

Alas, I suspect that the opening will be yet another festival... which makes for four festivals starting the last 6 most recent APs... Wardens, Season, Sky Kings...

so... what's an appropriate fix to this?

Marking my calendar with a TPK for my table... say... next March?

Would love having more direct or indirect sequel APs. Making a 10th (or higher) level character in second edition can be an ordeal, especially for newer players. It would be much easier to be able to bring old PCs over if the higher level APs had stronger thematic or at least locational connections. If I create a rootin' tootin' gritty cowboy for Outlaws of Alkenstar I might feel a little out of place if we end up transitioning to Curtain Call, but if I'm a newer player I might not have the system knowledge to create a high-level replacement. Or, on a more basic level I might not enjoy playing a character made for one genre and transferring them to another.

honestly, i would love to run higher level stuff, but paizo should provide pregens for all their higher level adventures. it's hard to ask players to create 10th level PCs.

It's the same with Patrick Rothfuss's The Kingkiller Chronicle by the time book 3 comes out it'll have been 14 years... That's just too long for me to care anymore.

dropped that series halfway through book 2. what a miserable slog.

bought it hard cover the day it released when i had very, very little money.

never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, going back.

Yeah! Do it! I'd love to have a direct sequel to something I haven't run [HONEST!].

If the guys want to play a high-level AP we can open it up and there'd a wealth of NPCs, themes, etc. to mine from an AP which we haven't even run.

NoxiousMiasma wrote:

considering one is a big sleepy lizard

Wait what?

does some googling

...huh. welp, that's going to change how I approach my homebrew Sky King's Tomb continuation. Thanks for teaching me about Bokrug.

As for the topic on hand, I'd love for something that deals with the Dominion of Black. Other than that my only wish is that it is an 11-20 AP so that it can work as a sorta follow-up to Gatewalker.

Started running DEVASTATION ARK for Starfinder, and I realized that this might be the last time I get to run some fun SF1E enemies, so I started off the AP with a homebrewed attack on the PCs starship by the Dominion of the Black.

Long / short: They killed one of the PCs and the player rage quit.

So... yeah. Gimme more Dominion. They are awesome.

NoxiousMiasma wrote:

Alright, poking over the 1e list of Great Old Ones... I will confess to a soft spot for both Bokrug and Yig, but I'm not sure either of them makes for a very good center of a campaign - considering one is a big sleepy lizard and the other literally doesn't care unless you're mean to snakes. Maybe we could do something with Atlach-Nacha and Leng Spiders, poking about with webs of dreaming minds and lucid dreamers? Or go back to the Lands of Black Blood, with Orgesh (bonus points for giving a perfect excuse for a 2e version of the Black Blood Oracle, and a look at the Darklands now that they're not full of drow. Black Blood serpentfolk could be cool).

I could see Yig having a presence in the Valeshai Jungle. It’s very Saurion.

the serpentfolk are also the leading villain in the Darklands these days.

Arkat wrote:

keftiu wrote:

A full six books, but inexplicably full of framing corrupt policing (getting paid under the table for strike-breaking, delivering striking workers to execution, stealing from those you arrest) as Good-aligned... and came out just as massive anti-police protests rocked the nation.

The only good thing I'll say for it is that one volume has a lovely overview of Vudra in the back. One volume's author donated all their profits from it after a public apology, and Paizo claimed it was reworking internal policies after it released despite internal pushback.

Thanks.

Sounds like an AP I definitely don't want to play.

I hate it when game companies feel like they have to go on a crusade by making changing current products to somehow reflect on current real world events.

If they want to come up with a new game to reflect their personal political views, fine. People who buy such things would know what they're getting into.

I play Pathfinder to get AWAY from real-world bulls**t.

The thing is, that seemed to be exactly what Paizo thought they were doing - being as apolitical as possible. They just wanted a turn-of-the-century seedy urban crime story, structured it a certain way, and decided that because it was fiction they wouldn't be tarred by the real-world context that would be read into it. And it blew up in their faces, because leadership ignored the voices warning about how it would be received, looking catastrophically insensitive on two levels.

Personally, I never understood the decision to make them cops in the first place. If you're going to lean into Sherlock Holmes tropes, the whole point of Holmes is that he isn't a cop, he doesn't have a boss, he doesn't have bureaucracy, he takes his own jobs, he plays by his own rules. You'd think a small company of private detectives would be perfect for Pathfinder adventurers.

Pinkertons are better?

Sorry, but this gnome is just BUGGIN' me.

Looking through Book 2 and like... she's a guide to what should be a fairly well known location in the Darklands. And... that's it. And why isn't she at all connected to the original expedition to her destroyed home earlier in the book?

Like, you could just hire someone to take you there. So... what's the reason that she in particular is important?

==

One of the PCs has involvement with forgery and artifact dealing. I think what I'll do to tie in Jirelga is have her sell some relic - maybe something that 'fell' off the worm??? which our intrepid PC comes across and it's got some hints to Felgunn / Targick [still thinking if I should go for it being a 'relic' or just a powerless item]. That would then help with Targick pointing out the need to find her in Part 3. BUT... I dunno.

Seems kinda weak. What do you guys think?

James Jacobs wrote:

Sometimes though, especially when the team is hit with unexpected complications (such as the OGL crisis, which hit Curtain Call somewhat hard but hit Wardens of Wildwood a LOT harder), no amount of Discording will fix everything.

I can't overstate just how disruptive 2023's OGL situation was to Paizo. 2023's products most impacted were those on the rules side, while Narrative's were more late 2023 and early 2024. You saw the exact same disruptions when we shifted from 3.5 to 1st edition Pathfinder, and then again from 1st edition to 2nd edition. The difference there is that edition changes are things we plan ahead for. The OGL crisis caught the entire industry by surprise, and while the switch to the remastered rules isn't a new edition, it had a lot of the same ripple effects. Compounded by the fact that we had to make those changes more swiftly and with less preparation than an edition change.

Feedback is always welcome, but I hope that folks are already seeing an improvement in connectivity in stories—be they late legacy Adventure Paths like Season of Ghosts, or ones like Curtain Call and the upcoming Triumph of the Tusk, which are increasingly not being impacted by day-and-date change3s from the remastering.

My great hope is that now that we've completely distanced ourselves from the OGL that we won't have to scramble to change the schedule at after the actual last minute, which we've had to do three times so far (once when we lost the magazine license, once when it became apparent that 4th...

That’s fine James, but telling us after the fact we bought the entire AP doesn’t help us there. If you do feel that strongly about this to respond twice to our feedback thread and really believe we’re in the right here, I’d call for an errata because this AP is suffering the most so far from it. You have every reason to revisit and fix this one considering what you yourself have just said.

From what I can see Curtain Call is suffering just as much if not worse, but I...

this is a mildly outlandish request / expectation.

No company is going to say "Just cancel your subscription for a few months, our product is gonna be sub-standard."

The one-two punch of Valenar’s murder never being solved in the story and then Ruzadoya’s return never being explained is one of the most egregious missteps in a Pathfinder AP I can think of. Both of these plot points FEEL like they should be part of a massive reveal, and they just never go anywhere.

I finished running the AP yesterday and somehow missed in my initial prep that Zibik actually had nothing to do with where Ruzadoya was getting her power. I don’t really understand all of the painful visions of Zibik PCs are supposed to have if it turns out he’s a totally nice guy? I ended up explaining it as Ruzadoya’s power and the visions being a trick executed by Ayrzul, who was trying to manipulate Ruzadoya into spreading his blight to the material plane. But yeesh, this is one of the messiest Pathfinder APs to come out of 2nd edition.

finished running it? what's your schedule!!?

AestheticDialectic wrote:

I must have communicated what I meant poorly because your first paragraph misses the point I was trying to make. Gygax sucks, I don't like the dude and I've made it very apparent in these very forums. My point isn't that the legacy isn't here for us to contend with, but that if Paizo can do a pretty decent job getting away from that, overcoming that, we can't direct the blame away from WotC to a dead guy who didn't make the decisions WotC did in not properly dismantling that legacy. The continuation of the reactionary ideas of Gygax within D&D today are the fault of WotC. WotC is to blame, Gygax didn't make them keep his nonsense and them fumbling by changing race to species is not the ghost of Gygax moving their hands. We can only say the ghost of Gygax haunts d20 fantasy, and if you're going to make a d20 fantasy game you have to put in the effort to exercise that ghost. It's no longer something we can blame on Gygax when it is up to "us", in this case WotC, to exercise that

No, no, I get where you're coming from and that would be a very good point about the responsibility to change cultural institutions into something better... except that, as fairly recent history has proven time and time again, nerd spaces are often a lot more conservative and reactionary than people expect. When Gygax laid the foundations of D&D he sort of set the conceptual boundaries of what it could be. People closer to you and I were more likely to just overlook that parts they did not like than agitate for change. The conceptual space was limited.

New editions did push the boundaries a bit but the boundaries were defined more by nostalgia and cultural inertia than active effort. Both of those are things people are famously reluctant to examine. Does WotC take some of the blame? Definitely, but they are chasing a profit in a space defined by what came before.

My point is a lot more in line with yours than you might think. I'm just not going to expect better of the company that released the...

People were changing stuff about D&D / TTRPGs right from the start.

Gygax & Co. might have taken the step from changing war gaming into dungeon crawling, but they only had a monopoly on defining its boundaries for as long as it took to get copies of D&D into the hands of customers [or rather, for customers to put those copies to use at their tables].

We are starting a new campaign and one of my players is going kobold w/ the dragonblood versatile heritage. He's pretty excited about it. I think they are way more fun now that they aren't exclusively tied to dragons.

Just wanted to say that I bought this in preparation for running SKY KING'S TOMB, and it's a magnificent setting book. Tons of detail, great art... all the stuff which made me love the hobby from back in the day [namely the Mystara gazetteers]. And just the right length.

A pair of my players also bought a copy, and they have built some great dwarven PCs, with clan identifications and all these fun details from the book. They also agreed that the book is great.

Session 1 on Tuesday! Wish us luck!

JiCi wrote:

Can we get steampunk-esque mechs in Pathfinder now?

I'd far prefer Paizo to use their time on something else.

IT would make for a fun pathfinder infinite supplement though.

It would be fun to finally get the Dominion of the Black AP which is hinted at in almost every single CONTINUING THE CAMPAIGN section...

I'm in the process of running Sky King's Tomb and I really enjoy the context it provides to the history of the Dwarves. I added some content to a certain location in book 2 ** spoiler omitted **

I've also run Agents of Edgewatch and it required some minor tweaking as well. I had each of my players write up at least three NPCs- an ally, an enemy, and a rival, which I wove into the story. With ABP and a salary/requisition system instead of loot-based pay, it was a big hit. Unfortunately, this was run in person and a couple of key players moved away, killing the game about mid book 4.

I really like the idea of Quest for the Frozen Flame, and if it had better Foundry support I'd probably run it next. As it is, I'm looking seriously at Season of Ghosts or Kingmaker as my next campaign. The last time I tried to run a Kingmaker campaign I cut the Kingdom rules out, but that group fizzled out.

That sounds like a good idea in SKT... I'm running Session 0 this Tuesday!

I have a player who really perked up when I mentioned that this was announced at GenCon.

We are just starting SKY KING'S TOMB, so we won't get to run this when it comes out, barring a glorious TPK, but I am looking forward to reading it, and maybe running it.

also, I really liked

Going over the Hive stuff from Pathfinder.

The two are very similar in theme, if not game mechanics, and fill a similar role. Are they supposed to be the same thing or does the Swarm simply replace the Hive?

no.

"The Hive" is, iirc, supposed to be a way to fight xenomorphs. Similar to X-Men's "The Brood"

"The Swarm" is a malevolent hive mind which controls an insectoid space faring race - which have independent thought, but it's just all focused on EVIL due to the hive mind's influence. In theory, you could remove Swarm components from the hive mind's control and they'd be able to have healthy lives, like the Shirren.

Kishmo wrote:

Master Han Del of the Web wrote:

It's divine character development and moving their story forward. Shelyn lives up to her nature of seeing beauty and goodness in even the most unlikely places by trying to help the Newborn. Zon-Kuthon gets some measure of redemption by sacrificing himself for his sister. The new fusion of two of the better known Pathfinder deities further defines a unique identity for Starfinder's fantasy elements.

Right, I get the in-universe rationale, and it makes sense, neatly wrapping a little bow about the whole Shelyn/Dou-Bral/Zon Kuthon storyline. What I am most curious about are the real-world reasons why they decided to merge deities, why these two, what other options were on the table (for either merging or some other "deific shake-up") and so on.

Basically, I need to remember to ask for the behind-the-scenes on Zon-Shelyn, in the Star Friends AMA, next PaizoCon :D

My speculative reason would be that with Nidal... elsewhere, the world building team felt that he'd lost relevance as one of the Core 20 and this was a chance to do something new and wrap up his and Shelyn and Zon Kuthon's stories simultaneously in a way that their fans probably find more fitting than just siccing Achaekek on them (I know a rather salty Gorumite).

yeah, i like the idea of a god of shadow and dark and pain in SF, but w/o Nidal, he's kinda floating around without much purpose. doing new things w/ the pantheon is a good idea, imho