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Pathfinder Adventure Path #39: City of Seven Spears (Serpent's Skull 3 of 6) (PFRPG)

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Pathfinder Adventure Path #39: City of Seven Spears (Serpent's Skull 3 of 6) (PFRPG)
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Chapter 3: "The City of Seven Spears"
by James Jacobs, Kevin Kulp, and Rob McCreary

The legendary lost city of Saventh-Yhi, known to some as the City of Seven Spears, has finally been found! Yet while the ancient city's mysteries have long remained hidden, all manner of man-eating beasts and plants still dwell within the vine-choked ruins. Can the PCs be the first among five competing factions to claim the rights of discovery? Or will they become but the latest of Saventh-Yhi's victims?

    This volume of Pathfinder Adventure Path includes:
  • "City of Seven Spears," a Pathfinder RPG adventure for 7th-level characters, by James Jacobs, Kevin Kulp, and Rob McCreary, including an extensive appendix of magic items designed by Owen K.C. Stephens.
  • A detailed look at the members of the five factions exploring the city, by James Jacobs and Rob McCreary.
  • New powers and magic items from the sinister mystical tradition of juju, by Mike Shel.
  • Deadly lion riders in the Pathfinder's Journal, by Robin D. Laws.
  • Nine new monsters, by Jesse Benner, Patrick Renie, and Neil Spicer.

Pathfinder Adventure Path is Paizo Publishing's monthly 96-page, perfect-bound, full-color softcover book printed on high-quality paper. It contains an in-depth Adventure Path scenario, stats for about a half-dozen new monsters, and several support articles meant to give Game Masters additional material to expand their campaign. Pathfinder Adventure Path volumes use the Open Game License and work with both the Pathfinder RPG and the standard 3.5 fantasy RPG rules set.

ISBN–13: 978-1-60125-274-6

Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Sanctioned Content
City of Seven Spears is sanctioned for use in Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild.

Download the rules for running this Adventure Path and Chronicle sheets — (495 kb zip/PDF)

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Cool Premise, Poor Execution

1/5 —

Serpent's Skull is shaping up to be an AP that has a strong sense of what it wants to be, but doesn't have any sense of how to deliver on that idea. The idea of the PCs stumbling on a legendary city, lost to history and the jungle, is a really cool one. Who knows what secrets and dangers lie within? It's a high adventure concept and fits the idea of heroic fantasy really well. It's exciting! I'd want to play that adventure.

Unfortunately, the content presented in the book isn't exciting at all. There's some elements that you can work with as a GM. The underlying concept is that the "lost" city is actually pretty well populated by a number of peoples. Each people has taken over one of the seven districts of the city, and each of the districts has a magic quasi-macguffin that you have to activate to advance the plot. So you'll have to treat with each faction in order to accomplish this.

Except, by "treat", I actually mean "fight". Most of the factions are not amenable to any kind of diplomacy, and thus represent nothing more than scattered encounters for the PCs to fight. No diplomacy, no inter-faction rivalries, no real interaction with any of the factions as NPCs. Just go there, figure out what you need to do in order to conquer the area, and do it. Oh, and if your GM hates you, you can fight wandering patrols of low-level enemies all day.

This could have worked as a seven-sector dungeon crawl, like you'd see in Rise of the Runelords. But that's hard here, because there are no maps for any of the encounters (save one) published here. So the GM would have to design an entire series of dungeons with little help.

On the other hand, the tableau of the city suggests that diplomacy should be an option for the tribes. And I definitely think that could be a very, very cool campaign. But there's no guidance on how to do that in this book. The various factions are seemingly uninterested in diplomacy and are characterized very thinly. If a GM wants to go this route, it can be made into a great game, but that GM will have to homebrew almost everything.

This book could have been cool, but in the event it didn't provide a GM with any of what they would need in order to bring the concept to life. There needed to either be more maps for a dungeon-crawl style adventure, or a lot more depth given to the factions for an RP sandbox. Either way would have been better than what was published.

It's a shame, because you can see what the intent was and it was cool. However, this is two poor books in a row from the SS AP. At this point, I would have to think a lot of groups will be thinking about dropping the AP, unless the GM puts in a ton of work in order to do justice to the concept.

Use this as a Framework

3/5 —

My players and I just finished City of Seven Spears (CoSS) last night. We actually genuinely enjoyed it for the most part, but as the GM I made some radical overhauls for my group. This review will contain SPOILERS, so be warned.

As an AP, CoSS isn't great. It's not even really good - compared to most other APs I've seen, it's shockingly bare. It seems to be missing a bunch of substance and is just festooned with combat encounters (none of which have any maps for them) with a little narrative fluff placed between them to give them some precedence. There's no puzzles, no traps, the rivalry of the factions (which was already something a GM would've had to put into effect in the last installment since that AP hardly goes to any lengths to establishing any sort of rivalry besides one meagre assassination attempt) doesn't even come into play unless the GM explicitly tries to tie them in (you should). However, what this AP does provide is a decent framework for a personalized sandbox adventure. The downside is that it requires a bunch more work than most APs should, so I can understand why people buying it would be suddenly put off by the lack of, well, plot or information or anything. I actually liked this approach for the city since it allowed me to customize it based on my players actions and desires.

Here are some things I did and would recommend:
I changed it so that the existing tribes and factions within the city were constantly warring with one another and vying for territorial control - admittedly I kind of tossed the idea that the spires were magically keeping them sated and happy staying in their own districts in favor of something way more interactive and dynamic. I also established the various faction's methods of exploring and where they'd start first upon entering the city. In this sense, I had to keep track of the days and nights on when the other factions were arriving, what they'd do, where they'd explore, and even made the PCs' decisions as to what districts they conquered have weight (since rival factions might conquer another district given the right amount of time). Along with that, I used the Kingmaker mass combat rules when the PC's faction went up against Olujimi in the Military District (which they actually lost, and in turn they had to strike a deal with the malicious Akarundo to offer serpent folk troops in exchange for various "favors"). Even when meeting the Radiant Muse, instead of rolling a performance check that none of them could hope to succeed on, I allowed them to actually make an impromptu play to earn her favor. All in all, there's a lot to work with here, given what little they provide. Use it as a framework and it'll work well, but played as is this installment is terribly boring and monotonous.

It's also worth noting that our group (and I assume most other groups as well), did not technically "complete" CoSS since they hit level 10 before exploring the last 2 districts (boggards and troglodytes, specifically, and even Egizmora, who I altered to be an enigmatic fungal beast that's infected a treant and seeks to cover the whole city in spores, was hardly touched and is still at large. I fully plan on incorporating them into the next installment as events that happen between the exploration of the crypts so they don't just suddenly not matter anymore.

If you go into this installment with the right mindset and the willingness to put some work into it (maybe a lot of work), it can be very rewarding. If not, prepare for a series of barely linked combat sequences and the thinnest drippings of a plot.

Not bad, but not good either.

3/5 —

As a player I do like a sandbox adventure, and this was a nice big sandbox for me to play in, but sadly much of the adventure was monster killing rather then exploring or discovering.

So let me start with the complaints (many of which have already been expressed by other reviewers):

1) the players were not the first group to discover the City of Seven Spears. What?! Turns out there's a ghost of a pathfinder that was part of a group that discovered it from over land, and we run into another pathfinder that was part of a group that discovered it though the darklands. Way to take away the heroic accomplishments of PCs completely.

2) The Spires don't seem to serve any point whatsoever. This adventure starts with the PCs hacking through the brush to discover the amazing sight of Saventh-Yhi. Seeing those spires made our PCs imidately want to explore them. Sadly, apart from some basic bonuses, the spires really didn't do much of anything. My character has slowly been piecing together the underlying plot of the campaign, she even reasoned that the city was there to guard against something, and she had a hypothesis that the spires must be activated all at once or in a set order to open up some secret ancient gate that leads to . . . nope, turns out there's a hole in the ground where some feebleminded elf escaped from that leads to the next chapter in the story.

3) Diplomacy = role for initiative. Our group was really never going to talk our way though this adventure, we really don't have face, but it seems like everyone and everything in this adventure was out to kill us from the start. Only the humans seemed willing to parlay and even they seemed ready to attack us at points. It would have been a nice mix to have more then one area in the city were we weren't automatically attacked the moment we were spotted.

4) Mystery/action/adventure = role for initiative. As others have pointed out there weren't any traps or abandoned temples or anything else that you might associate with discovering an ancient hidden city. If you were expecting Indiana Jones you'd be very much disappointed, this is more Duke Nukem, and while I appreciate there are time and word constraints you could have at least thrown us a bone here. I've been waiting for Indiana Jones style action adventure for sometime now but if that's coming in this adventure path we haven't seen it yet.

There are however some good points, and although I'm not so sure how well they translate from the adventure as written, I am giving this review three stars because of them.

1) Interesting characters and NPCs like them or hate them there are a lot of fun personalities in Saventh-Yhi. Not only do we have all our old friends from the Shiv, but we get to meet faction leaders, and the interesting denizens of city itself. Granted many of these folks are trying to kill us but there were lots of interesting interactions before the inevitable combat.

2) Good boss fights I'm not a huge fan of combat, to me it's usually something that we need to suffer though to advance the plot, but there were some tough fights in this adventure. Often encounters are written with creatures with abilities that counter the abilities of the players, as my character is a witch I notice many monsters that have immunities to mind affecting, but I don't remember too much of that happening here. There were big bad monsters for sure, some with various types of DR, but there weren't too many that seemed to exist solely to dick around the PCs. It's fun sometimes to fight a monster who's biggest defense is a vast amount of HP.

3) There was a promise of mystery and discovery Now granted much of this proved to be a disappointment, but just thinking that we were going to stumble across something vast and wondrous did keep me going. I wish the adventure had delivered but seeing that vast map and listening to the descriptions kept me exploring and anticipating.

4) There is lots of room to expand The adventure as written doesn't seem that impressive but my GM took the time to add some of his own content and these small changes made the adventure the second most memorable in the path thus far. The great thing about a sand box is that it gives you lots of room to expand, if you're a GM that likes building then this adventure has lots of space to build, however if you're the type of GM that prefers the work done for them and tends to run everything as written then this adventure might seem a bit dry.

Overall I think this adventure is probably middle of the road for me. It had great potential but I feel it squandered much of that, and while what we're left with isn't bad, what was missed makes this adventure feel like a bit of a disappointment. We raced through a jungle for this? I can only speak as a player however, I thought our GM did an excellent job, but many of the disappointments were from what he kept from the adventure and the real fun I had was from what he'd added. I'd give the adventure 2.5 stars if I could, I don't feel uncomfortable bumping that up to a generous 3, but I do agree with the overall disappointment of my fellow reviewers. Perhaps one star is a little harsh, I think there's enough good stuff here to warrant at least a two, but I can't disagree with their well argued complaints.

Could have been really good if it were finished

2/5 —

If you are able and willing to spend 15 or 20 hours preparing for each gaming session you run, this may be the module for you.

Because its a sandbox adventure, you need good reference access to lots of information. But the module is so poorly organized, you are going to be flipping back and forth trying to find stuff so often that your players are going wonder if you've prepared at all. For example: the spears. I can't count how much time I wasted searching back and forth between the descriptions and the powers, which are each separate. There are at least 15 different locations in the module for information about the spears. A summary table would have been nice. Also, there is a table of "Historical Discoveries" that you can roll on - but all the information you need for the roll results is scattered across various sections and even other modules. There are so many poorly organized facets to this module that I wanted to scream. The result is a huge amount of preparation and play overhead.

Content-wise, there *is* some good stuff here. I especially liked the Tribe of the Sacred Serpent, the Green God, and the Military District. Make sure you study Olujimi closely. His at-will abilities are key to making him a really excellent and challenging encounter - or series of encounters. I also liked Akarundo. Egzimora is right, he is a "filthy deviant". His abilities, location and perversions combine well if you want to harass your players with something very creative.

Other stuff was weak. I hate encounters or story lines that contain long-winded justifications and backgrounds which the PCs have little or no hope of ever understanding. And there is plenty of this. It's even worse if the players spend a lot of time investigating - because of all the clues - and then it turns out to be completely orthogonal to the main story. I'm thinking of you, Aboleth. This is a complicated theme which your players have little hope of ever unraveling, and which you have little hope of keeping track of in a timely manner since the clues and explanations are scattered all over the module. Yet if you and your players, in a great show of teamwork, somehow manage to get to the bottom of it, you'll find that it was just a lame side story, and that you wasted hours of your lives on it.

Lastly, the maps. There is exactly one encounter map for one unimportant encounter. That's it. Paizo, you should have held off publishing this until you had some maps. I don't think you've fulfilled your side of the bargain when you sell us such a complicated module with no maps.

Overall, this module could have been good with a lot more organizing, a bit of cutting, and a good dose of cartography. But as is, it's a rough draft with a lot of TBDs printed on shiny paper. As the linchpin module of the adventure path, it is an epic failure. It should be framed and hung on the wall at Paizo as a reminder of what not to do.

If you are thinking of running this adventure path be aware that this module is the centerpiece. You'll have plenty to do reworking, organizing, mapping and finishing it yourself. I strongly recommend visiting the forums where the community have posted a lot of helpful information and game aids.

Extremely disappointed

1/5 —

I tend only to write bad reviews because I cannot spare the time to write some for all the decent books I read from Paizo. Therefore, as a “Pathfinder Charter Superscriber”, it pains me to say that like the two previous reviewers, I have found this adventure underwhelming at best.

The very first complaint is: "Where are the maps"?
While I do not mind some free in-house advertising by referring to the optional use of Map Packs and Flip Mats in my Pathfinder copies; I resent the lack of maps, and worse I resent being told to use generic maps for all sorts of encounters. Do I have to design and draw my own maps? I thought this was a ready-made adventure; this is what I paid for at least... Hello...?!?

That problem put aside, why oh why redo Runeforge (RotRLs, Sins of the Saviours) as a city? Runeforge was great, seven mini-dungeons with a theme, but one can only be original once. “City of Seven Spears” just does not work and for the reasons already exposed by Erik Freund’s review. The, I must say “lazy”, repetitive design carries on with “Vaults of Madness” as we get another seven mini-dungeons. The following instalment of the “Serpent’s Skull” AP has a bit more taste though with indeed more defined theme per cave... and it has maps, yeah!

I agree that one cannot always win and that people at Paizo can have a miss or two. I am a bit behind my AP reading and I dearly hope that the last two adventures rekindle “Serpent’s Skull” because the first two adventures were pure gold. “Legacy of Fire” had its continuity issues, but Paizo had the excuse of developing the Pathfinder RPG at the time. What is the excuse for those two unimaginative duds in a row (“City of Seven Spears” and “Vaults of Madness”)?

Note that for me “Rise of the Runelords” is still the ultimate AP, things were new and original back then and looking back makes parts 3 and 4 of “Serpent’s Skull” look pretty tired design-wise indeed.

That being said the non-adventure contents of “City of Seven Spears” are very good and it is a shame that the Juju magic article will not come to mind when mentioning the title of this book because of the poor quality of the adventure itself.

Well, as mentioned earlier, I am not going to burn all my Pathfinder books because of that, but I had to react to it nonetheless.

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Silver Crusade
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I'm still kind of curious how come this adventure went from 1 author to 3 :)
Shadow Lodge
Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Wow I think I'm in love with the cover girl lol

Another dominant female red mantis assassin.

Do the red mantis assassin females kill the red mantis assassin males after mating? Is this why there are no male red mantis assassins with names?

I guess they kind of are the Golarion version of "red shirts."
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut
Mikaze wrote:
I do hope we'll see more important Mwangi characters as this goes on.

You should definitely see some in the chapter I wrote...provided everything makes it through development, of course. And I suspect some of the other authors drew on a few here and there, as well.

Paizo Employee Creative Director
Mikaze wrote:

I do hope we'll see more important Mwangi characters as this goes on. I'm still kind of miffed at the severe lack of Mwangi character art in the Mwangi Expanse book. I had really been looking forward to seeing the wide range and wild variance of culture amongst them visually represented in that book.

(the one time Mwangi are seen, they're shooting arrows at the iconics from the shore.... :( )

There are indeed several important Mwangi characters in the adventure. There's one in the first adventure, in fact. And several more in the adventures to come.

It is, alas, somewhat unfortunate that some artists, when you ask for someone who looks African, default to white guys. Very frustrating. Especially when the art comes in too late to do much to change it.
Paizo Employee Creative Director
Ice Titan wrote:

Another dominant female red mantis assassin.

Do the red mantis assassin females kill the red mantis assassin males after mating? Is this why there are no male red mantis assassins with names?

I guess they kind of are the Golarion version of "red shirts."

While the Red Mantis Assassins don't particularly ban males from positions of power... they sort of do unofficially. And it's also because of the legend that the mantis kills and eats her mate kind of got carried over into the Red Mantis society.

What exactly happens to men in the Red Mantis who get to high ranking positions has yet to be revealed, in other words.
Paizo Employee Creative Director
Gorbacz wrote:
I'm still kind of curious how come this adventure went from 1 author to 3 :)

Because it took three authors to write it.

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut
James Jacobs wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:
I'm still kind of curious how come this adventure went from 1 author to 3 :)
Because it took three authors to write it.

Thus, it shall be three times as awesome! ;-)

James Jacobs wrote:
Zeugma wrote:

The half-elf Red Mantis is very sexy. But I'm wondering why all the face characters on the covers so far are melanin-impoverished? I understand they're NPCs, but for an AP set in Mwangi, they're awfully lily white.

I hope they packed sunblock.
Because of the nature of Sargava, which is a Chelish colony. The factions all hail from this colony, and all represent intruders of a sort into the Mwangi expanse; the locals aren't as interested in discovering an ancient city in their own back yard as they are, perhaps, in either living life or even getting these various factions out of their land.

Walkena does not approve of these pale-faced foreigners. When the invaders are slain, then we will explore the cities of our ancestors in proper Mwangi style.

I believe that Red Mantis elf will not hold out long in our jungles; leather doesn't breathe well in tropical climates.
MUAHAHAHAHA!

May Walkena smile on our cause.
James Jacobs wrote:
This one's going to be VERY inspired by Indiana Jones AND by the old 1st edition module "Dwellers of the Forbidden City."

For what it's worth, I was considering letting my subscription lapse until I read those words.

Now I'm back in.
Keep 'em coming!
Silver Crusade
NSpicer wrote:
You should definitely see some in the chapter I wrote...provided everything makes it through development, of course. And I suspect some of the other authors drew on a few here and there, as well.

Aces! Looking forward to that!

James Jacobs wrote:
It is, alas, somewhat unfortunate that some artists, when you ask for someone who looks African, default to white guys. Very frustrating. Especially when the art comes in too late to do much to change it.

Grah! I understand the deadline limitation frustrations. Just crack the whip on those artists a few times for me, please? ;)

Spoiler:
It's just doubly frustrating when one of the strengths that drew me to Golarion was the multiculturalism of the setting, and ethnicities beyond the typical "generic European fantasy" range getting equal depth of development and representation. Then the Mwangi book is announced and I'm all like "YES! Awesome! A wide array of African-based cultures getting the same fantasy setting treatment as everyone else! After all the visuals that the Darkmoon Vale, Korvosa, and Dark Markets guides had for their native cultures, I just know the art for this is going to rock!" And then it comes out and I'm like "Oh."

It's just something I hope the art department tries to avoid in the future.
Paizo Employee Creative Director

It's not really the art department's fault; we specifically chose the characters for the covers to be representatives of the various "outlander" factions who have an interest in the region. And normally, I like to think we're pretty good at covering various types of ethnicities on our covers... this time it just didn't work out that way.
Silver Crusade
James Jacobs wrote:
It's not really the art department's fault; we specifically chose the characters for the covers to be representatives of the various "outlander" factions who have an interest in the region. And normally, I like to think we're pretty good at covering various types of ethnicities on our covers... this time it just didn't work out that way.

Oh no, I'm not really complaining about the Serpent's Skull covers. My gripe was mainly with Heart of the Jungle, really, along with the added worry that Heart of the Jungle was pretty much the big chance to see the Mwangi fully explored visually, and with that opportunity being shot they might not ever get a chance like that again. (s'why I spoilered it, so as not to sour the thread for this product. :) )

Still, trust me, the efforts are deeply appreciated. Golarion is one of the few fantasy RPG settings I've seen that remembers that "black people" aren't one single ethnicity. That's one of the things I love about it.
Silver Crusade
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
NSpicer wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:
I'm still kind of curious how come this adventure went from 1 author to 3 :)
Because it took three authors to write it.
Thus, it shall be three times as awesome! ;-)

Is it because it is that complicated, or did someone drop the ball ?

Paizo Employee Creative Director
Gorbacz wrote:
NSpicer wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:
I'm still kind of curious how come this adventure went from 1 author to 3 :)
Because it took three authors to write it.
Thus, it shall be three times as awesome! ;-)
Is it because it is that complicated, or did someone drop the ball ?

That's not something we generally share with the public.

Silver Crusade
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
James Jacobs wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:
NSpicer wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:
I'm still kind of curious how come this adventure went from 1 author to 3 :)
Because it took three authors to write it.
Thus, it shall be three times as awesome! ;-)
Is it because it is that complicated, or did someone drop the ball ?
That's not something we generally share with the public.

Luckily, your skill at writing between the lines never fails, James (and that's a honest compliment !).

Here's to hoping that with your and Rob's talents the adventure will deliver.

(Also, here's to hoping that you quit experimenting with untested writers in APs and first try them out in PFS.)

(Also, more Pett. And please, please, let Todd Stewart write an adventure once, even if it means a 200-page draft and SKR getting a heart attack).
Lazaro wrote:
Wow I think I'm in love with the cover girl lol

this artist is great

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer
Lazaro wrote:
Wow I think I'm in love with the cover girl lol

I'm pretty sure it would *not* end well.

Sovereign Court
Pathfinder Maps, Rulebook, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

But he'd die happy!
Dark Archive
Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Kevin Kulp wrote:

My current biggest regret: that there's no easy way to slip in a froghemoth.

...what?

Given today's Blog, I'm guessing that there was success?

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

One question: If we the Red Mantis leader statted out in this installment, has there been some sort of update to the Red Mantis PrC for Pathfinder somewhere already, or will this be in the AP itself?
Paizo Employee CEO
magnuskn wrote:
One question: If we the Red Mantis leader statted out in this installment, has there been some sort of update to the Red Mantis PrC for Pathfinder somewhere already, or will this be in the AP itself?

The update, IIRC, will be in the new Campaign Setting book coming out early next year.

-Lisa
Paizo Employee Creative Director
magnuskn wrote:
One question: If we the Red Mantis leader statted out in this installment, has there been some sort of update to the Red Mantis PrC for Pathfinder somewhere already, or will this be in the AP itself?

Yup; as Lisa mentions, the Red Mantis prestige class will be updated in next Feburary's "World Guide: The Inner Sea," the revised 2nd printing of our campaign setting. The stats for the red mantis assassin that appear in Pathfinder #33 utilize these updated rules, although there may still be a few minor things that change with the class before it finally sees print early next year.

So, folks will have all the rules they need to play this character in their game, but will have to wait until early next year to build their own updated red mantis assassins. The changes are pretty minor, though, so you can also go ahead and keep using the previous book's version without much worry.
James Jacobs wrote:
GeraintElberion wrote:
So, will the whole AP be a race/contest against other groups?

Nope. Parts of the AP will be, but not the entire AP. But the element of "be the first to discover and explore the legendary lost city of Saventh-Yhi" is going to be one of the AP's central themes.

This one's going to be VERY inspired by Indiana Jones AND by the old 1st edition module "Dwellers of the Forbidden City."

Wow! I still have that module...what a trip.

Dark Archive
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
James Jacobs wrote:

There are indeed several important Mwangi characters in the adventure. There's one in the first adventure, in fact. And several more in the adventures to come.

It is, alas, somewhat unfortunate that some artists, when you ask for someone who looks African, default to white guys. Very frustrating. Especially when the art comes in too late to do much to change it.

After getting the Second AP. I can see what you mean. Seems like some got confused between Native Americans and Africans..

So was Jask supposed to be Mwangi? The state line list him as Gaurndi.

-Remoh
Paizo Employee Creative Director
remoh wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:

There are indeed several important Mwangi characters in the adventure. There's one in the first adventure, in fact. And several more in the adventures to come.

It is, alas, somewhat unfortunate that some artists, when you ask for someone who looks African, default to white guys. Very frustrating. Especially when the art comes in too late to do much to change it.

After getting the Second AP. I can see what you mean. Seems like some got confused between Native Americans and Africans..

So was Jask supposed to be Mwangi? The state line list him as Gaurndi.

-Remoh

Jask is supposed to be Garundi.

And yeah... art is hard to handle at times.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Lisa Stevens wrote:

The update, IIRC, will be in the new Campaign Setting book coming out early next year.

-Lisa

James Jacobs wrote:

Yup; as Lisa mentions, the Red Mantis prestige class will be updated in next Feburary's "World Guide: The Inner Sea," the revised 2nd printing of our campaign setting. The stats for the red mantis assassin that appear in Pathfinder #33 utilize these updated rules, although there may still be a few minor things that change with the class before it finally sees print early next year.

So, folks will have all the rules they need to play this character in their game, but will have to wait until early next year to build their own updated red mantis assassins. The changes are pretty minor, though, so you can also go ahead and keep using the previous book's version without much worry.

Thanks, good to know. :) Am I to assume that the Red Mantis PrC will keep their spellcasting, then?

Paizo Employee Creative Director
magnuskn wrote:
Lisa Stevens wrote:

The update, IIRC, will be in the new Campaign Setting book coming out early next year.

-Lisa

James Jacobs wrote:

Yup; as Lisa mentions, the Red Mantis prestige class will be updated in next Feburary's "World Guide: The Inner Sea," the revised 2nd printing of our campaign setting. The stats for the red mantis assassin that appear in Pathfinder #33 utilize these updated rules, although there may still be a few minor things that change with the class before it finally sees print early next year.

So, folks will have all the rules they need to play this character in their game, but will have to wait until early next year to build their own updated red mantis assassins. The changes are pretty minor, though, so you can also go ahead and keep using the previous book's version without much worry.

Thanks, good to know. :) Am I to assume that the Red Mantis PrC will keep their spellcasting, then?

Yes. They'll keep their spellcasting.

James Jacobs wrote:
It is, alas, somewhat unfortunate that some artists, when you ask for someone who looks African, default to white guys. Very frustrating. Especially when the art comes in too late to do much to change it.

On that topic (flog that horse): Is it just me, or does Kyra look even paler than getting tossed into a bunch of cannibals' cooking pot calls for (on page 30 of PF 37)?

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
James Jacobs wrote:
Yes. They'll keep their spellcasting.

Thanks, once again. :) Interesting, that makes them quite distinct from the normal Assassin PrC.

Hope we get this soon. I can't put off my PC's facing the Bekyar Witch Woman in our campaign for much longer.

I have to say, while in general the adventure paths have been getting better and better, this one is really getting my juices flowing.

Shipwrecks, lost cities, evil serpent men, factional rivalries..it really is an amalgum of all my favorite adventure tropes.

Now, if you guys only include a key like medallion, that one of the other fcations chief minions gets burned into his hand so they can keep up with the PC's in tracking the Ark..er..Coffer of Blasting.., well, all will be good.

Anyone know an EXACT DATE of release of this product?

Until the books are actually present in the Paizo warehouse, "late october" is going to be as exact as anyone can be.
Berselius wrote:
Anyone know an EXACT DATE of release of this product?

Given that we haven't even gotten our "going to ship in the next week or so" email, I'd guess this won't be out until early November.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer
Generic Villain wrote:
Berselius wrote:
Anyone know an EXACT DATE of release of this product?
Given that we haven't even gotten our "going to ship in the next week or so" email, I'd guess this won't be out until early November.

We're still anticipating late October.

Vic Wertz wrote:

We're still anticipating late October.

That's the good thing about being a pessimist - I'm never dissappointed.

What about the PDF Vic? Same time?

Also, I don't suppose you could possible squeeze the new Oracle Ju-Ju Mystery into the next Ultimate Magus Playtest Round?
Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer
Berselius wrote:
What about the PDF Vic? Same time?

Subscribers get their free PDF when we fulfill their subscriber copy; non-subscribers have to wait until the retail release date to purchase a PDF, though. Like the subscriber ship date, that date isn't set until the product is in our warehouse, and we generally choose a Wednesday about two weeks away from when the subscriber copies start going out.

Paizo Employee Creative Director
Berselius wrote:

What about the PDF Vic? Same time?

Also, I don't suppose you could possible squeeze the new Oracle Ju-Ju Mystery into the next Ultimate Magus Playtest Round?

Nope.

The Ju-Ju mystery is not part of a playtest.
Dark Archive
Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
James Jacobs wrote:
Berselius wrote:

What about the PDF Vic? Same time?

Also, I don't suppose you could possible squeeze the new Oracle Ju-Ju Mystery into the next Ultimate Magus Playtest Round?

Nope.

The Ju-Ju mystery is not part of a playtest.

Should we take that as a hint that it will be in a book though?

Dark Archive
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

It's probably going to be like the Pestilence sorcerer bloodline - exclusive to the particular issue of Pathfinder it's in until the issue goes out of print.
Paizo Employee Creative Director
Kvantum wrote:
It's probably going to be like the Pestilence sorcerer bloodline - exclusive to the particular issue of Pathfinder it's in until the issue goes out of print.

Whether or not the pestilence or the ju-ju elements get into a hardcover is a complex matter entangled with multiple variables... but the chances of something like the ju-ju mystery getting into a hardcover only a few months after it first sees print are small.

James Jacobs wrote:


Whether or not the pestilence or the ju-ju elements get into a hardcover is a complex matter entangled with multiple variables... but the chances of something like the ju-ju mystery getting into a hardcover only a few months after it first sees print are small.

Hmm, deduction time:

-Ultimate Magic will (hopefully) be out in April.
-James states that the juju oracle mystery will be published "a few months" before Ultimate Magic.
-A few months before April... That could be October!
-This volume of the AP has a section on juju.

Therefore, I deduce that the juju oracle mystery will be in none other than this very volume! And that Coronel Mustard did it with swordchucks in the library!
Quote:
Subscribers get their free PDF when we fulfill their subscriber copy; non-subscribers have to wait until the retail release date to purchase a PDF, though. Like the subscriber ship date, that date isn't set until the product is in our warehouse, and we generally choose a Wednesday about two weeks away from when the subscriber copies start going out.

Um, okay...wait a sec. Let me see if I get this. Your saying subscribers get their PDF's as soon as the hard copies come into the warehouse but you intentionally wait TWO WEEKS after subscribers get their PDF's before allowing the PDF itself to be downloaded by non-subscribers? Is that it? If so, why do that? Does it take that long (aka two weeks) to make the PDF available for non-subscriber downloading?

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Subscribers get their PDFs when their order ships and their credit card is charged, not when the stock gets to the warehouse, so it's less than two weeks delay.

As for delaying the PDF release, it's available as soon as the physical books are supposed to be available for sale. If people want it sooner than that, that's what the subscriptions are for.

I guess I'm basically asking for the reason why the non-subscribed PDF's are delayed for a longer period of time than even the non-subscribed Books themselves are. Is it because you guys/gals at Paizo have to put it up on the site?
Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber

I'm not one of the Paizo people, but I think the physical books are available for general sale from the site when they estimate that the local shipping time will get the books delivered to the customer on the official release date.

I'm pretty sure the PDF sales are on a 2 week delay so that Paizo can basically guarantee that subscribers get access to the books before non-subscribers.

I think a lot of subscribers would be a bit annoyed if subscribing resulted in them getting access to the adventures after non-subscribers. Some would probably get so annoyed that they would drop their subscription, which is obviously an outcome that Paizo want to avoid. Hence the (roughly) 2 week cushion.

Olaf the Stout
Silver Crusade
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

The main reason for the non-subscriber delay is to make the PDF release date equal with LGS street release date - if PDFs would be available 2 weeks ahead of normal book trade, stores and distributors would likely be really, really, REALLY p'd off.
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