profounddark's page

Mythraine wrote:

Is there a reason why the blurb to the book says "Written by: John Compton, Crystal Frasier, and Caryn DiMarco" but the cover attributes it solely to John Compton?

Not a criticism, just interested.

Generally, the "blurb" is a solicitation to the industry written about 9 months before the product goes live. It is an idea rather that a product. The final cover should reflect who actually did the writing. Specifically, in this case, I don't know. I'll ask.

I'm a bit confused now. Who ARE the authors of this product? The credit here (on the website) says John Compton, Crystal Frasier, and Caryn DiMarco. But the actual adventure (at least the physical copy I have) lists:

AUTHOR
John Compton
ADDITIONAL WRITING
Caryn DiMarco and Vanessa Hoskins
DEVELOPERS
John Compton, Adam Daigle, and Vanessa Hoskins

Although I backed the Bestiary, I hadn't read the rules for monster crafting, but after your suggestion I've been looking at it and ...

Yeah, actually, this feels like it solves all of the concerns I was having regarding treasure, crafting, and equipment that I was having with the AP.

Good idea!

Just a heads up to GMs planning on running this whole AP, and this book specifically. Mark Seifter has made it pretty clear that the 6th Pillar Archetype from this book is going to be getting Errata'd very quickly, specifically in that it will not be allowing casters to gain expert proficiency with unarmed attacks at level 8 and master proficiency with unarmed attacks at level 16. SO if you have players excited about unlocking this archetype for one of those reasons you will either want to talk to them about their expectations.

That was quick! I just noticed it this morning. Was about to say, "so, heeeey, how about that Cloistered Cleric Master Unarmed combo?"

:-)

As a new Pathfinder player, I wasn't quite sure about the Adventure Path format at first, but I've actually warmed to it quite a bit. As mentioned previously, it's just the "Dragon and Dungeon magazine combination," but with a theme across six issues.

I compare it to something like the PFS scenarios, which are *just an adventure*, and while I am interested in those, it's much less because there's usually less for me to take away from it than the standard adventure path. That is to say, I may not want to run Agents of Edgewatch, but there are things of interest to me, such as lore articles, new rules bit, items and equipment, character features. In addition to an adventure I may salvage some ideas from.

I get that it's not for everybody, but I like it.

It's not *combat* that I have a problem with. It's more the notions that (a) entering the tomb doesn't relate to the stated goal of rescuing the Mayor or Harlock; (b) exploring the tomb doesn't seem to advance any goal or story; (c) removing the tomb has no impact on the rest of the Hermitage; and (d) the "treasures" collected in that section amount to grave-robbing.

From a narrative perspective, the only reason the PCs would go INTO the tomb is because the two bumbling Corrupted Retainers (Ebbern and Faldinor) trick them into believing Harlock is in there. It's worth pointing out that the adventure text makes it clear that their "deception" is extremely poor and that the PCs are unlikely to "fall for it." Yet, even if they DO enter the tomb, the only way out is the way they came. The solution to entering the tomb is "exit from the way you came in." There is no key or secret escape further in the tombs.

And then there's the grave-robbing... My players had already expressed concern that a fair amount of the treasures in Chapter 2 were essentially stolen. Now, in some cases, the items were from people who had died (Odlin's Orchard, Lindell Barn), so it's easier to justify. But, the Hawfton Mill? Simple burglary. The Crypt at the Goldenlaws Church? Grave-robbing. For my players, these were not acceptable sources of treasure, and I agree. So when I looked at the tombs, I realized we'd have the same concern. Which means that even as a source of treasure, the tomb didn't really work for me or my group.

To wit, the tombs were pointless. Just ghouls and grave-robbing.

I would suggest that either the entire Hermitage would have been better served by removing the tomb, enlarging the interior of the Hermitage, and having battles with the corrupted hermits and their minions. Even if the only purpose would be, "because they're in the way to the place we need to go" would have been thematically more engaging than the ghouls in the tombs.

Now, if your argument is that Pathfinder APs are just for killing monsters without purpose, I'm going to hard disagree. Combat is certainly important, but at least with PF2 adventures, there's a fair effort to justify why the PCs go to certain places and fight certain monsters.

I'm sort of surprised at how many people don't like the circus theme either, as the "fantasy RPG but with a circus" was what sold me on Pathfinder 2E altogether. But, I get that tastes differ significantly. I'm at the end of Book 1 and feel like the dungeon-y stuff goes on too long; I'm probably going to start abridging most of the dungeon-type content to be a handful of iconic encounters. But, that's just me.

Sounds exciting, either way.

There are a few threads on the forum here of people trying to tweak or re-work certain aspects of the Circus Rules; it may be worthwhile to take a look at a few of them.

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs4343s?Circus-Rules-Plus

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42x9c?Circus-Show-analysis

I far prefer writers to simply "cheat" - to use monster guidelines even for tool users. A lot of spells would be very cool if only monsters got extra "corruption damage" or whatever when they use them, for instance.

Maybe it's my 4E background showing, but I'd prefer if they just had damage blocks that are consistent with the expected damage expressions for their level. I'm actually surprised at the number of enemies that have weapon damage stats that look like PC stats (especially, as with this case, when there's a non-weapon attack that does more damage and is more consistent with GMG guidelines).

I also give AoA and EC a bigger pass because they were both developed before the final ruleset was completed. Or, at least, that's what I'm assuming based on some of the content.

I'm curious to hear people's thoughts on what the demons in Abberton will do if they aren't stopped.

My players went to the church but, after a near TPK during the fight with the wrecker demon, they opted to flee back to the circus with the priest, leaving the vermleks and quasit un-harmed. They plan to come back in the morning. What would the demons be doing next after they get new bodies and finish desecrating the church (especially without Nemmia around to command them)? Kill the Hawftons? Attack other areas of Abberton?

If the PCs didn't see the Vermleks yet and you want to keep it easy on yourself, you can just presume that the Vermleks were not actually there digging up graves on the first day but show up on whatever day the PCs get to the graveyard.

In the alternative, the Vermleks are described as feasting on corpses at the graveyard. So, maybe they just keep doing that. So, the alternative is, "nobody found us at this buffet, so we just went back the next day."

Another alternative could be that they go back to the Lindell Barn to take an extended nap. "We ate SO MANY corpses that we have to sleep it off for a few days."

Of course, the fussy option: the description indicates that "Vermleks use their powers of deception and disguise to infiltrate mortal settlements and influence unwitting acquaintances of the bodies they wear." So I would imagine that they'd find some friend or acquaintance of the Lindell Brothers. This is where I'd base it sort of on where the PCs go. For example, if they decided to go to the local shop for supplies, maybe the Lindell Brothers were associates of the shopkeep and they encounter them there, trying to terrorize the shopkeeper. I'd only go with this if the PCs happen to go somewhere where it makes sense (like a shop, or the mayor's house, or something).

In general, my instinct would be to avoid anything that involves the vermleks going off to places that the PCs wouldn't already go (or wouldn't be directed to). Especially if they hadn't even seen them to begin with, because then they don't really know what they're dealing with.

Possible errata:
I'm getting ready to run the battle with Nemmia Bramblecloak and I'm a little confused. Is her sickle damage incorrect? It says she does 1d4+3 damage on a strike instead of 1d4-1 (based on a -1 STR). It wouldn't bother me that much, except that her staff DOES deal 1d4-1 on a hit. And, I assume that if she used the staff two-handed, the expectation would be that she does 1d8-1 (and not 1d8+3).

So, who didn't roleplay Ledorick as Gaston? Because he's totally Gaston, and I dig it a lot. Especially as Lyrt looks a little like Morshu from Zelda CDi, so I have this mental image of the Lyrt/Ledrorich possession sequence being like a YTP video that blends Zelda CDi and Beauty & the Beast.

Reading it, I think it's going to be a good deal of fun though, starting to run it tonight.

Well, he looks like Gaston.

As a duelist, why yes, he's intimidating!
My, he's a guy, like Gaston!

This is more of a formatting/text errata that anything substantive, but on the Table of Contents, the Section Heading for the four chapters (page 2) is incorrectly listed as "Broken Promises" instead of "The Show Must Go On."

One thing I was working on: Having a "level up" chart for the Performers. My thought was to make it clearer how the Performer's Trick Checks go up and to provide some obvious choices for added skills/traits. Part of it was based on the fact that it's not entirely clear how their Trick Checks would increase by level; the other part was just to make it simpler for ease of play/tracking.

The other idea was to add a bit more late-game character for the characters. For example, it seemed obvious to me that Axel would add Society as his second Trick Check and Audience as his second trait. But, what does he do at higher levels? Add Sleight of Hand? Magical? Elemental/Air?

Of course, once I started thinking about that, I also thought about performers having special abilities or powers, but that's probably waaaay out of scope.

https://scribe.pf2.tools/v/7dDmfjMS

So, for reference, this is my "not even done yet" draft for what a Performer level-up chart would be. I still have a few ideas I'm throwing around (for example, make his choice-of traits be Magical or Musical, having a level 20 "super duper" ability that makes leveling him up cool).

I was also thinking about making a side quest or two related to the performer that crop up between big events. And maybe even tie them to the level up choices (i.e., he learns Magical or Musical based on something that happens during the side quest).

Anyway, this is still very early thought but I wanted to provide context so people know what I'm suggesting.