rokeca's page

My PCs are 50/50 roleplaying & tactics, so I don't know if our perspective would apply to your group. We've been having a great time with the AP - and I've run it largely as written. However, I've reskinned many of the roleplaying encounters to play up the comedy of this campaign. This approach was inspired by Berline in book one.

This tone hasn't been picked up as well in other books, but to compensate I've kept the statblocks the same, but reimagined the NPCs, sometimes playing them against type. Or sometimes leaning into the obvious - like making The Rhino in the current book a kind of female Schwarzenegger, who teased the PCs for being manly-weak. I had Seldig speak his frustration at always returning to the party for an expository role. And when the PCs were a bit short of XP at the end of Field of Maidens, I had a side quest before going to Mechatar, taking them to Geb's best kept secret, the hamlet of Hamster Fiesta (think of a year-round Cinco de Mayo with undead hamster ratfolk variants).

While the costs of shipping may be understandable, to me it at least closely approximates gross negligence to not tell the purchaser, up front, what the TOTAL cost of their shipment will be. Including delivery, taxes, collection fees, etc.

There really is no excuse for the purchaser to be taken by surprise.

Edit: If there is some reason that the exact price isn't known ahead of time a fairly accurate estimate should be provided.

Have to agree with pauljathome. Paizo has damaged good will with some Canadian customers since the shift to DHL from Mail Innovations International (which seemed to take place around the launch of the website). I saw my price to purchase a single AP go from about $40 CDN to over $75 CDN.

What was most frustrating was the lack of notification about this change. I only learned of the increased shipping charge when I got a credit card notification, followed by an invoice for customs/duties. As a Canadian, not being informed felt negligent and disrespectful. And the absence of a response from Paizo leadership acknowledging and explaining this - well I'd actually say it hurts.

As The Roguish Chef has pointed out - the increase in price with shipping is not directly related to tariffs. But tariffs do cast a shadow over this. Many Canadians are doing their best to boycott US products since the introduction of tariffs. My wife and I actually had a dinner table discussion: do we still continue to support Paizo? We decided yes, because of Paizo's values. However, the sense of not feeling valued or having our concerns adequately recognized is giving us second thoughts.

I'd started earlier thread when I first received DHL's invoice for customs & duty. There, Maya advised I reach out to Customer Service. When I did receive a response, it did not answer my questions regarding lack of notification to the shipping change and lacked understanding regarding why I was frustrated. Because my package was damaged by DHL, Paizo did send a replacement copy (which I'm thankful for). However, when the shipping/duty was 'refunded', the refund was for less than what I'd paid initially, then I had to pay shipping and duty all over again at the higher rate.

Another issue I've had is lack of transparency. Can someone break down why DHL? And why Mail Innovations International is no longer an option? In the other thread, Maya was quick to respond and did her best. But absent from that thread was a statement from Jim or other leaders behind the decision. I felt that I learned more about possible reasons for the shift to DHL from other customers than from folks at Paizo.

To be clear, in the other thread there are customers who prefer DHL because of tracking details and past issues with Mail Innovations International in their area. However, in our case, purchasing physical products from Paizo is no longer viable, even with deep discounts and I suspect I'm not alone. My hope is that someone from Paizo leadership addresses and recognizes the break in trust this represents to some of us here.

@Maya - a short update. Unfortunately, DHL delivered my package damaged. With Mail Innovations, I did receive one package damaged (when our local mail carrier decided it was OK to bend the cardboard envelope to place in our regular mailbox). So in terms of package delivery, Mail Innovations was 219 out of 220 APs received in good condition. DHL is 0 for 1.

I have sent an update on my ticket to customer service. I know they are overwhelmed, so hopefully they can offer some sort of solution once the store transition overwhelm is tamed.

Reading other responses here, the theme I'm seeing is 'choice is good'. Those with poor experiences with Mail Innovations in the past value DHL and the tracking. Using DHL may also make sense for supersubscribers or those with big orders to distribute the increased DHL costs over multiple products. For some international customers who make smaller orders though, the math may no longer works to purchase physical products from Paizo. Which I feel sad about and I hope a solution can be found.

Hey there, rokeca! In the long term, international shipping is something we're still working through. We know it's not ideal for a lot of people, and we want to make it so, but it's taking us some time. In the short term, you can reach out to Customer Service at customer.service@paizo.com to see if there's anything they do about this specific shipment!

@Maya - an update on my end. I still haven't heard from Customer Service. Like Steel Wind, I have elected to pay the duty so that I can have my complete set of APs. But I have to be honest, I don't feel good about it for all the reasons I've mentioned above, I have made the duty/brokerage payment because I am making a leap of faith that Paizo will do something to make this right once the chaos from the store changeover settles down.

I do have a request here. There have been a couple posts here of a time sensitive nature around customs and duty issues where you've recommended reaching out to Customer Service. But when Customer Service doesn't respond before the clock runs out, it makes the customer experience worse instead of better. Would it be possible in the future for you to flag these time-sensitive issues with Customer Service so they can be triaged when there is a matter of urgency?

I am also still hoping for some sort of apology/recognition of the impact this has had on Canadian (and potentially other international) customers. I recognize this has been an extremely busy time for the Paizo team, but I have to be frank that this has been a painful experience, and not up to the standards I've come to expect from Paizo.

We absolutely respect your decision to not want to pay this cost, but please do not confuse this cost for lack of care! As I've stated above, it's something we're actively working on, and the shipping climate in general right now is very difficult for small companies. We care very much about our community, which is why we're so sorry that this cost doesn't work for you while simultaneously respecting your decision. We'll never chastise you for just doing what's needed for you.

Hi Maya - I have no doubt the intent of care is there. I also have great empathy for the challenges small business are facing in this current environment. However, as Canadians, there are reasons why we may be questioning the extent of that care commitment. The shift to DHL from Mail Innovations took place without notification. We were not informed that shipping charges would increase. We were not informed that now we would be required to pay duties and brokerage fees almost equal to the cost of the actual product.

There's been a failure to communicate that does not make us feel like valued customers. I genuinely appreciate the efforts you are making. However, I also don't think anyone has apologized for the frustration and harm this has caused to our relationship/how we feel about Paizo.

Also - a quick follow up. I sent an email to Customer Service yesterday, but aside from an automated ticket email, I have not received a response. I was sent a 'last reminder' notice from DHL this morning and must now decide whether to decline shipment or pay the brokerage fees which I did not sign on for.

Hey there, rokeca! In the long term, international shipping is something we're still working through. We know it's not ideal for a lot of people, and we want to make it so, but it's taking us some time. In the short term, you can reach out to Customer Service at customer.service@paizo.com to see if there's anything they do about this specific shipment!

Thank you Maya - I'm reaching via email to customer service!

Whoever decided to shift shipping to DHL from Mail Innovations International did not think this through in terms of the impact on Canadian/International customers.

I’d posted previously that I was surprised when I noticed that my Adventure Path shipping costs going from $12.20 to $20.05.

Before the shift to DHL, I used to pay about $40 CDN per AP through Mail Innovations including shipping. With DHL, this month the bill was over $53 CDN. Now with import duties/customs clearance I’m paying over $75 CDN for this single Adventure Path volume.

I’ve been an AP subscriber since the start (AP #1). I’ve never had customs charges for any of my previous 220 volumes through Mail Innovations unless I’d also added other product to my order – and in those cases, the duties were fair and proportional. Here I’m being asked to pay $22.44 CAD in duty for a product I was charged $20.99 USD for.

Is there anything Paizo can do here? Otherwise my plan is to call DHL and reject the shipment. In that case, I would ask Paizo to find some other way to send me my physical AP volume without having to pay duty – and perhaps also throw me some gold for the frustration.

Alternately, fix Remaster Oracle (or allow PFS players to play their pre-Remaster Oracles again) and all would be forgiven :)

Hi - I received my adventure path subscription confirmation today and realized there's been a significant increase in the charge for shipping. Last month the charge was $11.92 through Mail Innovations International, while this month it's $20.05 through DHL Express Worldwide.

I can kinda sort of rationalize my subscription when shipping is in the $12.00 range, but the new shipping rates push my purchase to over $50 Cdn.

Is there a way to manage shipping options in the new store - or have shipping options been streamlined/changed?

Thanks!

MadScientistWorking wrote:

Mark Stratton wrote:

I think it should be noted that what’s being missed is that Paizo shouldn’t be going out if it’s way to make MORE work for it’s unpaid GMs and volunteers, and though that isn’t the purpose of this change, that’s exactly what the effect is.

Others have said the same thing.

Yeah but 10 minutes of work isn't really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things especially if you have venture officers that are competent at their position and actually help the GMs. I know that sounds really blunt but man oooo man the biggest strengths of my lodge is everyone will go out of their way to help one another with prep and running a scenario.

10 minutes for you! As someone who works 3 jobs, any extra time I have to spend in prep beyond what I normally do is really hard to do.

Perhaps you shouldn’t judge other people by your own privilege or ability to spend all that extra time.

One thing to note as well. There's a lot of neurodiversity/neurodivergence in the gaming community. For someone with ADHD for example, what's a 10 minute task for others could be 30 minutes when combined with all the other preparation tasks required to GM due to executive function challenges. Just because it's easy for some doesn't mean it's easy for all.

My group enjoyed Graveclaw. I beefed up the narrative between each location as a travelogue to introduce the PCs to the unique culture of Geb, and giving them options to travel by foot, zombie powered river boat, etc. It helped my players get a sense of the geography of the nation, setting up the later chapters in Mechitar and Yled. I think I still have some notes of that if that would be of interest.

One of the highlights was the Pakged inflitration. Using the infiltration rules, the whole affair played out quickly and with a lot of tension. If you skip this part, I recommend finding some way to integrate the Shroud. He helps set up the Carters Consortium early on in the campaign and their role is important later on.

A note that the Nathnelma segment does take place within Yled. My PCs enjoyed the RP segments checking out Yled and making allies. This chapter does a good job forshadowing book 5, introducing some of the NPCs the characters will encounter later (as well as the imposing environment of Yled). I found using Impossible Lands helped a lot to bring Yled to (un)life for my PCs

My ideal Oracle was my pre-remaster PFS Ratfolk Ancestors Oracle. So much flavor and backstory, all made unplayable by remaster. I'm still a bit salty about it. I've considered rebuilding as a Medium Animist but every time I start the process I find my heart's not in it.

Hey Ascalaphus - thank you! I appreciate you providing the link to the contact form. I've definitely been using the right email address, and the reset emails are not reaching my spam folder. Hopefully using the contact form will get me rolling again!

Hey - it's been a while since I've logged into PFS Tracker. Certainly before the migration. It's asking me to reset my password, however after I put my email in to receive a password reset link, no email arrives. I've tried Edge, Chrome and on my phone. I've tried clearing cache and I've check junk email. Has anyone else had trouble resetting their password? Thanks!

If I recall correctly, this is the adventure that reveals at the end that Kemnebi is the one behind the poison plot. The issue for the PCs becomes establishing enough evidence and political capital to safely expose him.

Delaying the clues early is a great option. Another way to play it might be to lean into the vetalarana angle as in the PC believes from their personal history that Kemneni would be direly offended by someone putting a stain on what it is to be vetalarana. That he would want to eliminate such a scourge to the "bloodline".

Overall I’m liking remaster. My biggest objection is with Oracle mysteries. Some remastered mysteries seem to have turned out of OK. But there are also some of us with existing Oracles who feel the remastered mysteries take away what was unique about the class: the roleplaying flavor, and what made the class both fun and challenging to play.

An example is my Ancestors Oracle. It’s been a blast to design a character around the challenge of finding something beneficial to do each round regardless of what I roll from my curse. Plus developing the backstory for the 12 different ancestor spirits that influence my actions (depending on severity of curse). However, most of what made me love playing my oracle is gone with remaster. The Ancestors mystery is now largely unplayable if you lean into the curse. And while I only have 3 levels with this PC, all 3 levels are via slow progression because I’ve enjoyed spending time with this character so much.

Oracle seems to be unique in that it’s the only class whose core (the mysteries) has been replaced/treated as errata with remaster to this extent. While Legacy wizards can retain their prior schools, oracles don’t have that option. “Because they share the same name, all Oracle mysteries are automatically updated to use the new Cursebound condition.”

I don’t know if there are enough of us out there, but I’m hoping that PFS will reconsider its approach to Oracle and make an exception, grandfathering the original mysteries despite them sharing the same name as remastered content. The case can be made that the changes to Oracle mysteries have fundamentally altered the essence of the class and how it plays. I would gladly give up the extra spell slot in return for all the wonderful flavor Legacy Oracle captured.

Adding my voice to express profound disappointment regarding Oracle and treating all the new Oracle mysteries as errata. In one stroke both the roleplaying flavor/concept behind my beloved ancestors oracle as well as the playability of his build has been neutralized. I sincerely hope this approach will be reconsidered.

I am running Blood Lords for my group on Foundry, using the official AP for it, and for the most part this book is pretty good. I did however run into kind of a DM trap tonight. In Gristlehall there is a Fossil Golem, and this creature has several things going on, but the one thing that caught us off-guard was its Fossilizing Touch. On a hit, it forces a Fort Save (with a decently high DC) that on first failure, causes the target to become Slow 1 for one minute. Then the next time a target is hit with the effect that also has Slow 1 from it, they become petrified permanently. This is the first time the group had anything do that to them, and one player wound up petrified. This derailed the adventure, forcing the group to leave Gristlehall and make an emergency trip to Mechitar, the closest city. Here is why it was a problem. First, there is nothing in Gristlehall that can fix this, it also is a level before the party can cast Stone to Flesh, so they cannot inherently handle it either. Also the map for Mechitar doesn't appear in the Foundry AP until the next book (Ghouls Hunger). So this is a bit of a trap that could force the DM to have to either be really fast on their feet, or break the session to set the stage for the party to fix it. I just wanted to make other folks running the AP aware of this in the tail end of Field of Maidens so they can plan for/counter this situation in advance.

I appreciate the flag on this big time. My group will soon be reaching Gristlehall. My first thought based on your insight was to give Lasheeli a greater Salve of Antiparalysis (based on stories that the Stone Sisters can cause petrification). She would either give the PCs the salve once she was ready to return to Holomog, or the PCs would find it on her after her defeat.

However, while prepping for the encounter with The Rhino I realized that there is a means to unpetrify a character within this adventure, but it's subtle and well hidden - and only works if the PCs succeed at gaining influence with The Rhino.

The Nwanyian's Aeolaeka Azata guardian has Stone to Flesh at 6th level. Furthermore, the border to Nwanyi is not far from Gristlehall, with Gristlehall being basically on the route home for The Rhino's company.

My PCs had a successful recall knowledge on the Aeolaeka when visiting The Rhino's camp and learned about the stone/earth based spells the Aeolaeka has at its disposal. But in theory, The Rhino could also boast about these abilities as part of her cover story – claiming to bring the guardian because she believes (incorrectly) that the Aeolaeka can unpetrify Stone Sisters.

Since my PCs were successful in their parlays with The Rhino, I'm going to use the Aeolaeka as my backdoor should anyone get petrified in Gristlehall. The Nwanyian troop will move more slowly than the PCs on their route home to Holomog. The PCs will emerge from Gristlehall and see the tell-tale sign of smoke from the Nwanyian camp a few miles away. That will provide another roleplaying opportunity with The Rhino where they can creatively insult each other.

In Chapter 2, Lasheeli Aminda has come to the Field of Maidens to retrieve the statues that were once her aunt and grandmother, whom her profile on page 90 says she barely knew.

"Barely" being the keyword that confuses the hell out of me. Lasheeli is stated on page 41 to be in her early 20s. Geb created the Field of Maidens nearly 400 years before the events of the Adventure Path.
Putting aside the question of how long-lived Lasheeli's mother must have been when it's clearly implied she and her sister are the first aasimar in many generations, how does Lasheeli "barely" remember family members that died nearly 400 years before she was concieved?

I made a very subtle change to Lasheeli's background regarding the statues she is seeking to retrieve. I had them be Aminda ancestors from the time of the pirate queen's invasion of Geb. I also made an adjustment to the curses on the Aminda family - that the excesses of Omwa Daol is what led to the downfall of the family over generations, but that the curse of sickness and weakness that afflicted her ancestors began with the generations immediately after the two Amindas were turned to stone and abandoned on the Field of Maidens.

With the ascension of Celeste Aminda to Omwa, one of the curses on the Amindas appears to be broken. But the ancestors haunting her dreams suggest that the second curse remains. It may have skipped Lasheeli and Celeste, but it lurks waiting to come back on future generations. For the sake of her future children and those of her sister, Lasheeli has been driven to the Field of Maidens to bring her lost ancestors home.

When we were doing Zombie Feast I didn't read it as Berline gifting companions to the PCs, but rather she was providing access to undead companions for PCs to select from if their class or archetype provided them with a companion. So giving them more Geb-themed companion options. Curious to see how others approached that now!

I made some adjustments to the set-up of Chapter 1 for roleplaying and continuity reasons.

First, instead of separate conversations with both Berline and Ortagar, I had Berline send Mhyurk with a dinner invitation. Mhyurk arrived within minutes of Seldeg leaving the party’s manor, and the invitation stated the theme of the dinner party was “Gossip!” In addition to the PCs, Ortagar was another guest for dinner. Ortagar and Berline divided up the content that Berline was to share.

For gossip, Berline shared the story about the woman pledging servitude to the reanimators; Ortagar shared a story about how he and Berline played a joke on Governor Seven-Stomachs by inviting him to a dinner party, while both of them wore clown suits, telling the governor this fashion is all the rage in Yled right now – and that Seven-Stomach’s hosted his latest council meeting in his own clown suit. Then they asked the party for their gossip (Berline being quite interested in what’s up with Seldeg).

I removed all of the content from the dinner party where Ortagar spoke about Taviah’s cottage and the shadows. From a continuity perspective, that didn’t make sense to me. The cottage is at least two-days travel from Graydirge. Before the PCs visited the cottage, none of Berline’s sources knew exactly where it was. And the forest itself is portrayed as being threatening and dangerous. So it was a stretch for me for Ortagar to have a contact who glimpsed Taviah at her cottage (or for that matter, have such informed knowledge about Taviah’s shadowy fate).

Instead I created a new scene to share this information. Since Seldeg’s latest information placed Taviah in Thornhearth, the fastest and most direct route would involve taking a trail that cut through the Axan Wood. While on the trail, the party once again encountered Drusilla (the fey/huldra from Graydirge), along with her new house spirit, Smirtlbin (who Drusilla took in after the cottage turned carnivorous, recognizing that they had both been victims of Taviah). Drusilla thanked the party for avenging her true love Neboah, but then shared what the PCs already knew: that Iron Taviah has returned.

Then Smirtlbin, who still has a strong otherworldly connection with the cottage, says that the shadows that consumed Taviah when she was defeated have now returned her. Seldeg can then speculate that this could be the work of shadowcasters, or other specialists in shadow magic, and that a short detour to the cottage could well be worthwhile. If Smirtlbin did not survive the encounter with the PCs in Graveclaw, his information could alternately be provided by Drusilla.

A heads up that Sulvik can be a beast. My party of 5 encountered the ettin mohrg after dealing with the wraiths, mummies, Nathnelma + TAs (as well as another encounter previously that day in the Pallidium). They were low on resources when they entered the basement, and it would have been a guaranteed TPK if I hadn't handwaved Sulvik's resistances, 'forgotten' to take its 2 AoOs/Reactive strikes on one occasion, and overall used suboptimal tactics. As it was, at the end my 2 human PCs were paralyzed and one of the undead PCs was unconscious.

AN INTRODUCTION TO INFILTRATIONS

In PF2e, Infiltrations provide a way to tell a cinematic heist or suspenseful espionage scenario, putting skills and social strategizing ahead of combat. While combat can take place, an Infiltration largely relies on skill checks, the creative use of resources (spells and abilities) as well as out of the box/off the menu thinking. Think of this as bringing a “Mission Impossible” or Bond-like scenario to life in a roleplaying game. The Infiltration mechanic means that the entire endeavor isn’t doomed due to a single bad die roll at an inopportune moment. Failure comes as the result of suspicion rising over time and ultimately reaching a tipping point.

Having said that, an infiltration can almost entirely be executed via roll mechanics – assessing each challenge then making the appropriate rolls. But we can also apply a role playing mindset here – visualizing the scene and painting the picture through our collaborative descriptions of what is happening, and what want to do. I’ll be awarding hero points based on role playing creativity and how players contribute positively through their involvement in the scenes and advancing the story.

While I can’t tell you exactly what skills will be most useful, think a typical infiltration. You can’t go wrong with social and espionage type skills.

OBJECTIVES

Each infiltration has defined objectives that must be accomplished to succeed. Achieving each objective requires overcoming one or more obstacles, which take one or more successes to defeat.
Once you complete one objective, you move onto the next.

PREPARATION ACTIVITIES

Before the infiltration begins, you have an opportunity to prepare for the infiltration. Each of these preparation activities can take an entire day to complete, and some require secret rolls (so you don’t know if you have succeeded or not).

Most successful preparation activities provide you with an Edge Point, which is like a Hero Point except that instead of providing a reroll, it automatically uses the ‘edge’ you earned from the activity to turn a would-be failure or critical failure during your infiltration into a success. Some Edge Points are situational (i.e. an Edge Point earned from creating disguises can only be used when faced with a challenge involving your identity.

AWARENESS POINTS

In combat your character has Hit Points. The equivalent in an infiltration is Awareness Points (AP) – except here APs go up while HPs go down in combat.

As you progress through the infiltration, the party will accumulate Awareness Points as a group. If the group reaches a defined number of Awareness Points, the infiltration fails. You will not know the number of Infiltration points required to fail.

In addition to the risk of failure, reaching certain AP thresholds can trigger complications (an additional challenge to be solved) or increase the DCs required to overcome the obstacles required to succeed in the infiltration.

You typically gain APs by failing or critically failing against defeating an obstacle or complication. The infiltration will also take place in rounds – an abstracted amount of time that could be a minute or ten minutes or 3 hours depending on the situation. Each round a PC has the opportunity to take one action vs. one of the challenges they currently face – and after each round, one AP automatically gets added to your pool.

INFILTRATION POINTS

To achieve objectives, you must overcome a number of obstacles to progress. You may not need to defeat all obstacles, while some obstacles may make overcoming a different obstacle easier.

All obstacles can be solved through the successful use of the listed skills, but may also be defeated through other creative ideas (including spells or the unconventional use of other skills/ideas).

A successful roll typically provides 1 Infiltration Point towards a specific obstacle, while a critical success usually provides 2 Infiltration Points. A failure often results in Awareness Points going up by 1, while a critical failure adds 2 Awareness Points.
Most obstacles require 2 or more ‘Group’ Infiltration Points to solve – meaning that anyone can contribute to the total IPs needed to overcome the obstacle. However, some obstacles require 1 ‘Individual’ Infiltration Point – meaning everyone in the group must find a way to succeed to progress.

Examples of obstacles might include getting past the guard at a front gate, or shadowing a patrol.

You can use Edge Points to turn a failed roll to a success or a Hero Point to reroll (as usual).

COMPLICATIONS & OPPORTUNITIES

Over the course of the infiltration, complications and opportunities can arise.

Complications are additional tasks or challenges that can pop up when you reach certain Awareness Point thresholds, or as a result of either solving (or failing to solve) an obstacle. An example of a complication is someone claiming to recognize you if you’re disguised.

Opportunities can also emerge. Usually you can’t directly earn Infiltration Points from an opportunity, but succeeding at an opportunity can provide another benefit – potentially finding valuable information, an additional Edge Point, or reducing your Awareness Points.

I'm not particularly good at super simplifying things, but I'll drop in the copy from a document I made to introduce the infiltration mechanic to them. I also made notes to enhance/flesh out the Pagked infiltration (i.e. giving them a sliver of information with each success in the first stage of the infiltration). If you're interested, I could clean those up and drop them in here as well.

Hi - I am preparing the encounter at Nathnelma's townhouse for our next game and agree that a door is missing on the upper floor (should be next to the washroom door I assume).

I missed the discrepancy between the chapter treasure list and what's actually in the adventure, but like you I haven't found the holy water and mithal shield in the adventure (or in the stat blocks of creatures that appear in that chapter). Your analysis of the pharasmans is making me wonder of Orou originally had her own stat block and was edited out.

I am preparing Sallowshore now, and I'm looking at Dagon's Shrine. It says that the Marsh Giant is lazy and doesn't attack unless the characters are hostile or attack him. More than likely the players would be there to destroy the statue.... does he even care if the statue is destroyed?

The way I prepared for this is I imagined the marsh giant as not really all that invested in the statue itself. I envisioned him as having a kind of surfer dude mindset. If the party hadn't attacked him, he might have simply made a couple comments of the "hey what's going on" variety without intervening directly before leaving (fighting is so much work). My characters though assumed he was a threat, targeted him with a spell from range and it was game on.

Lots of room for interpretation on this encounter.

Taviah’s cottage is definitely hard – one of the most fear-inducing encounters in the campaign so far. My group had little problem with the Keystone trap. They have no rogue, but both the bard and sorcerer are trained in Thievery, and an Expert in Crafting alchemist.

I’m wondering if part of the problem your group is facing is party composition. While in PFS there’s no guarantee you’ll have someone with Thievery in your group, it’s probably a reasonable design decision to assume that one or more characters in an AP campaign will be trained in Thievery since it’s such a generally useful skill. With 2e being such a teamwork game, I usually check to see if all the skills are covered across the party, then flag any gaps – still leaving it to player agency to decide if anyone wants to fill the gap, but my assumption is that sooner or later, all skills will come into play in the course of an AP.

Given your party composition, I think your solution of reducing the AC and hardness by 5 for parties without the required skills is great. This campaign may require vetting hazards and making adjustments based on what skills your party covers if no one wants to train or retrain into Thievery.

There are definitely several encounters in Graveclaw that are problematic or require ideal party composition. One potentially deadly encounter is during the Infiltration in Pagked. A critical fail on the Skavelings in the Stacks obstacle is almost certainly going to kill characters if the party has split up (which is the design of the Infiltration).

We played through the vampire pub crawl in Chapter 4 the other night – a lot of fun. I’ve been leaning into the dark comedy that is just under the surface in this campaign, so I decided to augment the pub crawl with some additional gruesomely decadent locations for the crawl (warning: some of these could be triggering – but no issues for my group):

The Pulseless Lounge – an underground vampire rave club (the club prominently features a graphic that declares that it is a garlic-free establishment). It was ghouls night out when the PCs arrived

Al de Hyde’s – a speakeasy, where patrons are served alcohol while being submerged in vats of alcohol. Basically you can get pickled while you get pickled

Arghun’s Retreat – patrons are invited to receive a soothing/torturous massage while lying in a vat of entrails. My skeleton PC was thrilled – the first time he’d had intestines inside his rib cage for years! This is also a breadcrumb for my PCs to learn more about the mysterious background of Arghun the Annihilator

Peeler’s – a zombie strip club. Except the zombies don’t take off their skin, but rather their flesh

Much appreciated. This has given me the confidence to take the leap.

@Ravingdork – thank you. This is exactly the kind of experience I was hoping to hear about. I far prefer Foundry as a platform, but have had concerns about whether Legacy and Remastered would be able to coexist. Being able to switch between Remastered for Society play and Legacy for campaigns is what I need.

Can I ask you – for your Legacy players – did they have any challenges when you upgraded to the Remastered PF2e rules on Foundry with the Legacy modules? i.e. did they have any problems with their character sheets when switching over? You had mentioned about needing to be careful selecting the right options from the compendium since some are not Legacy labeled. But aside from that, has there been anything to take away from their experience?

I ask this as some of my players are relatively new to Pathfinder or casual players and I want to minimize their potential confusion/frustration. Much thanks.

I’m running 2 pre-remaster campaigns on Foundry and hosting them on The Forge. Players in both campaigns agree they want to remain with the Legacy rules until these campaigns are complete, so we’ve opted not upgrade so far and have been sticking with PF2e v5.2.3

I’m interested in starting a new campaign for Season of Ghosts on Foundry, also with players who want to stick with the Legacy rules. However, I also understand that some of that adventure path will be released on Foundry using the Remastered rules.

I am wondering how well the Legacy module is working for 2e. I don’t want to upgrade my existing campaigns then have it not work well and frustrate my players. And I’m not sure how well the module would work downgrading Season of Ghosts content from Remaster to Legacy.

The advice I’ve received so far is “don’t do it”, and we’re looking instead at doing Strength of Thousands on Roll20 (which has done a nice job allowing Legacy and Remaster to coexist). But I’m curious on the thoughts of others. It would also be nice to have the Remaster rules on my Foundry for Pathfinder Society play.

I ran this a second time. I've changed my mind on the heist. I think the Heist works in fine if you have the right players and characters to do it well. It's not too limiting in the possible ways to do the job. It's not too difficult.

We just completed the infiltration last night and it's definitely been the highlight of the campaign so far. It took a while for my group to liberate themselves from thinking of combat rounds and the combat grid, but when they did the creativity was amazing. It felt like we were all improvising around a well defined framework and the group took things in delightfully unexpected directions to achieve their success.

If anyone wants to get a sense of how good the infiltration can be (or to get ideas for running the heist), the Role for Combat Edgewatch podcast (Season 3, Episodes 9 to 15) gives a really good sense of what's possible when players lean into the roleplaying possibilities of this chapter.

I'm trying to figure our how long Slowed 1 lasts on a successful save vs the Skaveling's paralysis effect. Here's the description from AoN:

Paralysis (incapacitation, occult, necromancy) Any creature hit by the skaveling's Strikes must attempt a DC 22 Fortitude save.

Critical Success The creature is unaffected.

Success The creature is slowed 1.

Failure The creature is paralyzed. It can attempt a new save at the end of each of its turns, and the DC cumulatively decreases by 1 on each save.

Usually a duration is listed for Slowed. Since it's a success, should it be 1 round? Or does the PC get a new save at the end of their turn as in the paralyzed result for a failed save? Otherwise it seems pretty brutal effect for a successful save.

Honestly, I think this might be the "best" solution, instead of allowing pocket dimensions or early travel via teleportation circle: Use the rules for Converting Magic Items in Treasure Vault to replace Kerinza's doll house with Quallaqh Manor as the shadow manse.

Basically, the PCs have to only pay 20-25% of the item price (310-387.5 gp) to "remodel" the shadow manse.

That is a very tidy and elegant solution that fits nicely within the rules. Having said that, I’m really juiced by the thematic and narrative potential of discovering a fixed magical conduit filled with viscera that the PCs must traverse/push through between the Manor and Mechitar or Yled – as well as the potential of unlocking new level-appropriate discoveries over time.

Like the OP, my players are quite invested in the manor, as well as the NPCs in Graydirge, so I’m going to muse this option and the impact it might have on the last half of the AP. Thanks to Graendal for a really great question.

You can still play with all the legacy options. Some things will get tweaked slightly but we are moving copies of the renamed and reprinted items to a module, and while alignment will be vanishing from the sheets in a dedicated section it will stay accessible in actor data and the same module will make it show up in the actor traits (which, they probably should have been in there all along actually).

The remaster is not the giant change people seem to think it is, and we are trying to make it as seamless as possible for people while also not ballooning our compendium size to unmanageable levels or offering conflicting sets of legacy/remaster data and rules to people. We're treating the remaster as errata, and most groups will hardly notice the changeover.

If roll 20 works better for your group, great. Use the VTT that works best for your group. We'll keep working to make the PF2e system better, and trying our best to manage a fairly difficult situation data wise in a way that makes the most sense going forward.

Thank you for going deeper into this. I personally prefer Foundry - it does almost everything better than Roll20 (and the one or two things I prefer about Roll20 is probably a matter of me not finding the right modules yet). Plus Foundry does more, makes character creation a snap, and the production value of the AP adaptations are on a totally different level, allowing me to run a more cinematic game.

Your reply has me leaning back towards using Foundry for this adventure. My biggest concern is that I've got 2 university students with limited funds who just purchased the Core Rulebooks on my recommendation since we're planning to stick with the legacy rules and I don't want to invalidate their purchases. As long as the legacy system spells & feats etc are available, then we'd be fine.

One other thing that might might help - I accidentally upgraded to the most recent version of Foundry with the Rage of Elements upgrades included. When I tried looking up the original names of renamed spells in the compendium, I couldn't find them. Having the legacy/OGL names included in brackets in the description during this transition period could be a simple fix (although I know the purpose of this exercise is to put the OGL in the rear view mirror).

Throwing an idea off the top of my head (my group is just starting Chapter 3 of Graveclaw). One of the unresolved mysteries of Quallaqh Manor is the Scrying Room in the basement. What if it was more than a Scrying Room? If it could also be used as a kind of visceral portal that allowed transport to (and maybe from?) the manor. Perhaps the secrets of this bizarre device could unfold over time. Arghun the Annihilator could possibly have some fragmented memories to guide the PCs in the right direction - and not necessarily as a side quest, but as the party shares their adventures ideas come back to the hand.

In Chapter 1 of Graveclaw, my party befriended the house spirit at Iron Taviah's cottage. The house spirit might come under the employ of your party and also have some insights as the secrets of the Scrying Room are revealed.

If the party tells Berline about the device, this is one of those joyfully grisly mysteries that I can see her wanting to unravel. As the party runs into her in Yled in Chapter 4 of Graveclaw, perhaps she has learned a bit more. Once the party gets to Mechitar in Book 4, perhaps there are opportunities to unlock secrets of this necrotic lore to the point where the party is able to travel back to the manor using this magic.

Alternately - perhaps after dealing with Iron Taviah in Field of Maidens the party finds a way to relocate the manor into a pocket dimension (similar in some ways to how Iron Taviah's basement was located on a shadow plane) - potentially using the viscera in the scrying room as the means to transfer back and forth.

I guess we all have our own definition of fun. For me, Zombie Feast, the first volume of Blood Lords has been the most fun I've had as a GM (and my group has had the most fun with as well) - because there is lots of dark comedy that can be mined here. Very memorable NPCs, with Berline Haldoli being the star (she's like Winnie the Pooh with a knife). I really leaned into the comedy potential, creating new scenes and opportunities inspired by the NPCs - and more important, by the way my PCs have responded to them.

While the second book (Graveclaw) has a different tone, I've reworked the NPCs there to keep the tone consistent with the fun we had in the first book.

rokeca wrote:

Hi - will the Foundry VTT adaptation of this AP be compatible with the last pre-remaster version of PF2e on Foundry (I think v5.2.3)? Thanks!

No. Modules are made to be compatible with the latest versions of the system and Foundry at the time they release. To do otherwise would require us system devs to go back and add actors to the old versions of the system and we aren't going to do that.

Thanks for the response. Not the response I wanted, but I appreciate the rationale. I'm running 2 other legacy PF2e games on Foundry and we've decided not to upgrade to the remaster rules until those campaigns wrap. If I was to start this campaign in Foundry, I believe it would require me to upgrade to the post-remaster rules (which would be a challenge for players in my other campaigns) - and the player in the new campaign also want to use their old rulebooks - several are casual players/students who either don't want or don't have the funds to upgrade at this point.

I know Paizo said that the transition to Remaster would not inconvenience players - you could still use your old stuff. But that isn't really the case here with Foundry (unless there is a more user friendly solution I'm not aware of) . I am hoping that Roll20 will handle this in a way that's friendlier to legacy PF2e players. I know it would take a lot of work (I don't think Season of Ghosts is available on Roll20) but perhaps that would be a better platform to use to best serve the needs of my players.

Hi - will the Foundry VTT adaptation of this AP be compatible with the last pre-remaster version of PF2e on Foundry (I think v5.2.3)? Thanks!

I'm curious to see how others will be approaching this. We're at the campaign midpoint, so we're planning to stick with the 2e 'classic' rules (the update to the Wizard got all of us off the remaster train) - but perhaps we'll feel different once we see remaster in play.

These are both excellent recommendations. Thank you. I read the first chapters of both and I can see my group getting excited about either. Now I can give them a choice.

Two of the players have just started university away from home (so this is a way for us to stay connected while they're away). It will be interesting to see if they want to lean into the university experience of SoT or do something different with Sky Kings.

Much appreciated!

I'm starting a new 2e campaign for friends and family. I'm looking for good options for a game that is strong on the role playing/skill side of the game (no interest in dungeon crawls). I've heard Strength of Thousands could be a good option. Is that the case? Also open to modules that Paizo has published. Thanks!

Hey - I wanted to flag that the map of Geb presented in Graveclaw is inconsistent with the map of Geb from Impossible Lands. For example, the Graveclaw map has Graydirge located in approximately the same location as Corpselight appears on the Impossible Lands map (if the IL map is correct, Graydirge would be maybe 20 miles to the west beyond the edge of the Graveclaw map). As well, Pagked looks to be about 20 miles to the east of where it should be when compared to the IL map, and Mechitar is a bit too far to the south.

Aside from the Graydirge/Corpselight switcheroo, the other inconsistencies are fairly minor but wanted to flag here for those populating the map as we progress in the adventure (as I do in my Foundry game)

I had trouble finding Iron Taviah's coven spells as well. The spells provided through her sisters are not in her stat block, but you can find them at the bottom of the previous page (88) under "Coven Spells". The same format is used for Sahni Bride-of-the-Sea (except in that case they appear on the same page as the stat block).

I ran this encounter with my group the other night, and thanks to this thread I was well prepared to have a handle on what could happen if things went poorly.

Fortunately the party was in pretty good shape overall when Taviah went down – only one PC was at less than half hit points (although their healing reserve was largely tapped at this point). The Hungry Cottage rolled into initiative with two PCs acting before it. I decided to run the stomach and throat as is. The party quickly got the idea to evacuate to the stairwell after the stomach’s first action. Because the stomach/basement activates before the throat/stairwell, no one was further harmed by the acid.

Since everyone was doing well at this point (save one PC who was down to 10 hp) I decided to run the ‘mouth’ as written as well. The fighter used a hero point on his failed Athletics check and successfully lodged a sofa in the front door. The party ended up taking one round of damage from the teeth, and one PC was Dying 2 by the time everyone was out and ready to heal, but everyone survived. Had the fighter nerfed his Athletics check though, a second round of saves against the teeth would have made things pretty tense.

My group did love the cinematic nature of the hazard, and came up with creative alternate ideas to deal with the challenges. The alchemist suggested using lethargy poison as a kind of anesthetic to soothe the contractions of the throat. I allowed an attempt with a DC25 Crafting check (it failed). In the cottage proper, the witch asked if the cottage had an uvula they could tickle to provoke the cottage to cough them out. I allowed a DC22 Perception check (successful, it was a small protuberance hanging over the basement stairwell) followed by a DC25 Nature or Medicine (that failed). Being able to interact with the hazard in an imaginative way made it memorable for the players.

Personally I have huge faith in the hard working and dedicated team behind the Pathfinder Foundry products. I have no doubt that they will do whatever is required once they know the extent of changes/new monsters/etc.

I think what makes the Hungry Cottage so challenging is that it's really 2 or 3 consecutive level 6 hazards bundled as a single level 6 hazard. The sustained DC24 saves for level 4 characters round after round is punishing. Some of my PCs have a better chance of a critical failure than a success against those saves at a point when they'll be low on healing and hero points.

Giving the cottage a full round after Taviah's defeat to manifest the Acid Assault, Swallowing Staircase and Gnashing Portal will still make this a difficult hazard but hopefully survivable.

Another solution might be to treat each of the 3 stages of the cottage as level 4 hazards (with lower DCs and damage) or even treat the 'stomach' and 'mouth' hazards as level 3 and the 'throat' as level 2 - with all of those contributing to create a level 6 hazard.

Purplefixer - I did a mock combat in Foundry as preparation for this week's encounter with Iron Taviah, using the cottage exactly as written, and as you've outlined.

The entire party was conscious after Iron Taviah's demise, and like you the cottage appeared in initiative immediately after Taviah (so before anyone else could act). Low on resources and healing, my mock party all ended up dead in the 'mouth' of the cottage, unable to escape.

Based on this, I'm thinking of giving the party a round from the moment Iron Taviah is defeated before the damaging effects of the cottage kick in.

I'm glad you flagged this. My characters will be meeting Iron Taviah in one or two sessions.

Unless I'm interpreting the rules wrong, I don't see the acid damage happening immediately as it would be rolled into the initiative order. Having said that, if the acid strikes before anyone in the party has the opportunity to heal/battle medicine/soothe etc. than that could be extremely problematic.

Perhaps instead of rolling for initiative, the cottage drops into the same initiative order as when Iron Taviah is defeated, giving everyone a round of actions if someone is unconscious to act and creating a bit of tension with a description of digestive juices flowing from the walls, beginning to pool etc.

As a current owner, I would have little issue paying for an "upgrade" that would reflect the new/updated art in the Monster Core and the time/effort required to add it in.

Same here - you should be paid for your work, and happy to purchase an upgrade when the time arrives. The tokens are excellent.

How the group rest? Dreaming Palace is 2 or 3 rest. Do have you any suggestion, for maintaining the group in the vicinity of Palace, they rest? [/QUOTE5]

My group rested at the Edgewatch precinct. Otto had some agents keep an eye on the hotel while the PCs were resting but ordered them not to enter or interfere with the agents investigation. And yes, they rested 2 or 3 times as I recall.