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I think this is purely a positive change! It’s not like anyone realistically should have been starting an AP before the whole thing was released anyway. The only downside I can think of is that there’s now more of a wait in between APs, but the logistical problems this solves as well as the cohesion it allows across an entire AP more than makes up for that.
LET’S GOOOOO
This argument is in incredibly bad faith. You’re not getting less of an adventure for the same price — it’s not like the book is blank. You’re just getting a different type of adventure than in book 1 of Abomination Vaults. If you’re trying to argue that this shouldn’t have been marketed as a megadungeon, then I would disagree with that too, as it’s not like it’s inherently bad spending book 1 getting the PCs to care about the town next to the megadungeon they’re going to spend the next 2 books exploring.
The stars aligned so well for you?? That's awesome! Happy 2025, Prince Maleus! ^_^ Offhand, I just wanted to say that your positivity here in the forums has been such a delight!
That announcement was pretty much about was I was expecting/hoping for, but definitely caught off-guard by it being mythic!
This has GOTTA be the high-level follow-up to Seven Dooms and I couldn’t be more excited
Do the titular seven dooms correspond in any way to the classic seven deadly sins of the Runelords? I tried finding it in the text, but if it’s there, I’m missing it. My players came up with that as a theory, and now I want it to be true! If they don’t correspond as written, do people have ideas for how each doom might be tied to a different sin? Feel free to weigh in as well, Mr. Jacobs.
Thank you for bringing these back! I was making them myself for a while but eventually got lazy
It’s very different since I ran Gatewalkers as a solo campaign for my wife, but Sakuachi quickly became her closest companion, and she was very invested in helping her on her journey. YMMV.
I rewrote large parts of Curtain Call to run it in Goka as a sequel to Season of Ghosts!
We’re now in a very unusual situation, where we know the Q3 2025 adventure path (Mythspeaker) and the Q1 2026 adventure path (Hellbreakers) but we don’t know the one coming in between. Any chance this will be the fabled AP that’s a good follow-up to Seven Dooms for Sandpoint that James keeps hinting at?
I’m heavily in favor of only providing maps when there might actually be combat on them.
https://paizo.com/products/btq02e0m?Pathfinder-Kingmaker-Companion-Guide
I want an Iblydos AP, and I want a proper film noir detective genre AP. This has been at the top of my wishlist since I got into Pathfinder 4 years ago, so hype!!!
Is Adam going to be developing adventure paths going forward in addition to John Compton?
Is this where that "the sun dies" prophecy from Stolen Fate comes to fruition?
Didn’t he just become Director of Rules and Lore this year?
If I can, I want to play Triumph of the Tusk and this one with the same "diplomat" PC, even if it means going back to 11th level. That’s my current plan for GMing it, hoping it doesn’t clash too much narratively.
The idea of all the PCs starting off dead and helping out a problem in the cycle of souls in exchange for reincarnation (or perhaps redemption) for deeds they did in life. The psychopomp ushers and the different courts all seem begging for a fleshed out AP. It isn’t as big a part of the AP as you’re probably hoping for, but Tyrant’s Grasp starts like that!
I want an Iblydos AP, and I want a proper film noir detective genre AP.
I liked how Carrion Crown opened with a funeral, we should do that again!
I do really like this from what I’ve read of it, but by the gods, does every adventure path need to start with a festival? In just the past year or so, that’s been the hook for Sky King’s Tomb, Wardens of Wildwood, Season of Ghosts (this one was a bit different of course), and now this AP.
While Spore War has a diplomat focused beginning, it is very much not "go do diplomacy all the time after the first part of the first adventure." I wouldn't call it an AP about diplomats and diplomacy, any more than I'd call Abomination Vaults an AP about exploring above-ground ruins. Do you think Triumph and Spore War thematically make sense for the same party to play through both?
Most of what I use the forums here for instead of reddit is to discuss adventure paths and lore. Any time I try to discuss either of those things it feels like most of the responses are along the lines of “I run exclusively homebrew adventures in my homebrew setting and you should too” or “I briefly skimmed that AP and here’s why it’s bad” or “all Paizo APs are bad.” Much harder to have an in-depth discussion on anything other than rules stuff on reddit, and the interaction with Paizo developers here is what keeps me so invested as a customer. I wish I saw more of them than just James Jacobs and Michael Sayre most of the time, but I understand that it’s probably not a fun part of the job for most of the team.
The way Fists of the Ruby Phoenix and Stolen Fate theoretically made sense for any level 11 party to be involved with made them far easier for me to make work as sequels than Curtain Call. It’s weird, because I think I’m in favor of indirect sequels in theory, but with how janky the Nemesis ended up being in Curtain Call, I think indirect sequels are too hard to make not feel TOO generic. I would have much rather the Nemesis have a set stat block and be its own thing rather than it being written to be anyone. I much prefer level 11-20 APs that can be easily used as continued adventures of a party that went through a level 1-10 AP, as my group always prefers to take characters all the way from level 1 to 20 if we can. I have a feeling the upcoming Spore War will be difficult to tie into any level 1-10 APs, unfortunately, but it is a theme that excites me.
I agree that as someone who wanted to see more of Garund, a quick pit stop in Osirion to do a dungeon crawl doesn’t do much to satisfy those desires. It’s something I felt frequently with Stolen Fate too—-I loved finally getting to see more of Arcadia, but if we’re barely even getting a glimpse of the culture or getting to spend any meaningful time there… what’s the point aside from fanservice?
Throwing my support behind an official 2e remaster of Skull & Shackles being a dream come true. Same for Curse of the Crimson Throne.
The only thing that using this accusatory tone with the developers of the game will accomplish is getting them to stop interacting directly with fans entirely. I have plenty of issues with Wardens of Wildwood, but I find the direction this dialogue is heading in to be extremely unproductive.
My main concern with the way this turns into a Norgorber story eventually is that it isn’t really set up to be one at the start, unless I’m missing something. I’ll have to do some thinking on how to run this so that the Norgorber stuff doesn’t feel like it’s coming out of nowhere, so my players are as excited about all the reveals as I am rather than confused as to why their characters should care.
finished running it? what's your schedule!!? My wife and I play every day as our quality time/before-bed activity, so this is the 10th adventure path we’ve played through since we started in late 2021. We’re insane people, I know.
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.
Andoran vs. Cheliax.
We’ve been on a hot streak of adventure path themes that really excite me and my players for a couple years now, but I have to admit that straightforward action-adventure vampire dungeon crawl is… less exciting. My favorite quality of recent APs like Wardens of Wildwood and Seven Dooms are that they’re deeply entrenched in the setting of Golarion, so I hope that as more info comes out about Shades of Blood, it turns out to be less of a campaign that could exist in any TTRPG, and more of a distinctly Pathfinder story.Shades of Blood is also pretty deeply entrenched in Golarion's setting. That's something we actually work hard to do on ALL of our adventures. That’s great to hear then, and shame on me for doubting you!
We’ve been on a hot streak of adventure path themes that really excite me and my players for a couple years now, but I have to admit that straightforward action-adventure vampire dungeon crawl is… less exciting. My favorite quality of recent APs like Wardens of Wildwood and Seven Dooms are that they’re deeply entrenched in the setting of Golarion, so I hope that as more info comes out about Shades of Blood, it turns out to be less of a campaign that could exist in any TTRPG, and more of a distinctly Pathfinder story.
Hi everyone! Posting here to try and get some advice on how best to tailor Seven Dooms to my group of players. I always like to tie in people's backstories as much as possible, but I'm finding that a bit harder than usual for some reason. As a bit of background, we played through Rusthenge prior to Seven Dooms, and have our first session officially getting into Seven Dooms content tonight. I'd already moved Osprey Cove and Iron Harbor to also be on the Lost Coast, and before Meitremar died I had him foreshadow that he was far from the only threat their corner of the world would soon face. The first PC is a human Life Oracle named Cass. I've just had it revealed to him by his mother that he was actually born to Nualia following her exile from Sandpoint but before she was killed by adventurers, and Cass was then adopted by who he believed to be his real parents. I'm not too worried about getting Cass's player invested in what's to come. The second PC is a human investigator who goes by E. He's a teenager, and it's been established that his parents, who are fishermen, were helping Meitremar in some capacity after disappearing from Osprey Cove. My current plan is to have them turn out to be thralls of the Midnight Dawn, but I'm unsure how they would have fallen under the cult's control in the first place. I also want to plant some seed that they were seen leaving for Sandpoint or something to especially motivate the party to go there, but I'm not sure what makes sense there. The third PC is a human magus named PG, and veteran of the Fifth Crusade. This tie-in feels pretty organic, but I want make the Red Bishop's plans to create a new Worldwound come to light far sooner. Is there a way I can do that without giving too much about him away? The fourth PC, and where I'm struggling the most, is a human wavetouched monk. His backstory is that he washed up on the shore of Osprey Cove as a baby, and I've already planted a lot of seeds to set up that he's a chosen one of Dagon. However, I feel that I've really backed myself into a corner here, because there's very little Dagon-adjacent content in Seven Dooms. Does anyone have any ideas for a faction I could reflavor into being disciples of Dagon? Before Seven Dooms came out, I had planned on changing the Red Bishop to a priest of Dagon instead of Pazuzu, but that doesn't seem especially fitting for him.
Yeah, it’s definitely a case of mismanaged expectations and poor framing. I read through the books and prepared my group beforehand, so they’re now playing as agents of Taldor/Andoran/the Wildwood Lodge itself trying to restore peace to the area, and that’s going really well. But it’s not exactly how the AP was advertised.
Thank you for the advice James! I’m definitely going with the route of supporting characters from Hell’s Rebels now taking the lead. I was already planning on having the Hell’s Rebels PCs make an appearance, so glad to hear that should work well!
Since one of my earliest solo campaigns with my wife (then-fiancé) was Hell’s Rebels, I’d been wanting to run this for her as a direct sequel to it — it only seems fitting with it being set in Kintargo. My initial plan was to have the party consist of prominent NPCs from that adventure who were involved with the Silver Ravens (in our case The Poison Pen, Hetamon, Octavio, etc.), but obviously didn’t fight Barzillai directly. But after reading through book 1, I’m starting to have second thoughts, as the interactions with the Nemesis assume a much more direct involvement in his/her initial defeat. Do you have any suggestions, James?
Anyone with their copy mind sharing what new beasties are in the toolbox of this adventure? Spoiler: Azarpal, a level 13 hog-like fey
Furnerico, a level 14 very tentacle-y aberration
Hellshadow, a level 13 incorporeal/undead/fiend Ockomlire, a level 13 aberration, walking mushroom with lots of eyes and sharp teeth Rezzelki, a level 10 wolf-like beast with a crystalline tail and anteater-like snout Anguish Siktempora, level 13 Also, book 3 looks like it has the PCs going to Duskfathom and facing Norgorber himself. Wild!
Thanks for all the sneak peeks James, you’re the man!
James, you knocked it out of the park with this players guide. Excellent stuff!
I NEED to hear more about this brewing continental war, holy cow.
Just wanted to say that I just found these maps halfway through my run through Tyrant's Grasp and they're amazing
Just want to say all of that is excellent feedback - keep it up!
I was a fan of Stolen Fate, but totally agree that it felt rushed. I’m not sure if I mentioned it in my review of all the APs on reddit, but each book had one chapter where you quickly run through a series of unconnected encounters where each one gives you a new card. This resulted in those sections feeling like you’re sort of just going down a checklist. I’m not sure the same AP premise stretched out over 6 parts would have worked though, because I suspect the card-collecting mechanic would get pretty old doing it all the way from level 1 to 20. What the AP needed from my POV was 2 things. First, an element of actually tracking down the cards rather than a portal taking you immediately to each of them. This could have been a great opportunity for more investigative elements to come into play, use of the research/influence subsystems, etc. The Harrow Court’s portals are stupidly OP, and take away much of the sense of accomplishment that finding the cards would otherwise provide. Second, I would have loved to see more people involved in the Harrow card hunt outside of the Unmatched. As it stands, there are very few NPCs to roleplay with who aren’t one-off encounters. Multiple factions of evil characters hunting the cards down as well as other heroes trying to do the same could have given the same feeling as Fists of the Ruby Phoenix. A group of card hunters that the PCs love could be killed off-screen and had their cards stolen for even more motivation! So I think that if the structure was kept the same (harrow court teleporting you everywhere you need to go, largely unrelated encounters, etc.) then the AP would have been far worse as a 6-parter. But if the scope of the story was expanded in ways described above, it could have worked really well as a 6-part AP.
8) A pale cataclysm ravages the lands, leaving corruption and tangled thorns in its wake. A group of tangled thorns is called a briar, and we know what that means. Our boy Treerazer is about to make his play for full demon lord status. He may or may not have an ally in Tar-Baphon, who would benefit from the living being weakened and who would have a vested interest in getting a dangerous rival off of Golarion. Well, I think we know what this one is about now.
James, do you have any sneak peeks now as to which existing APs will act as a good lead-in to Spore War?
For the purposes of scheduling my upcoming Seven Dooms campaign, can we get a rough estimate for when that adventure is expected to release? Sometime in 2025?
The brewing war between Andoran and Cheliax has been mentioned in a dozen places since 2e started. This has gotta be the time that finally comes to fruition, right?
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