For ages untold, a gemstone monolith has pierced the heart of the Echo Wood. Now, as civilization intrudes upon this enigmatic splinter, a strange life once again stirs in the depths—one with ties to undying evils and a might beyond time itself. The promise of wealth and power calls to glory-seekers from across the Inner Sea region, tempting them into a labyrinth of monster-haunted vaults, defiled tombs, arcane laboratories, and worse, as they seek to unveil the secrets locked below the legendary Emerald Spire.
Pathfinder Module: The Emerald Spire Superdungeon is the largest adventure ever set in the world of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Designed for characters of a wide range of levels, this megadungeon opens with challenges appropriate for 1st-level characters and can carry parties to 13th level or higher. Within this deadly super-adventure, you'll find:
Lethal dungeon levels crafted by the creators of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and a host of fantasy gaming's greatest authors and designers.
A gazetteer of Fort Inevitable, a bastion of merciless order near the Emerald Spire serving as a base for exploration or a launchpad for more adventures.
Insights into the region and plots taking central stage in the upcoming Pathfinder Online massively multiplayer online RPG.
A bestiary of the Emerald Spire's myriad monstrous menaces and inscrutable inhabitants.
Dozens of new treasures, maps, side-plots, and more!
The Emerald Spire Superdungeon is intended for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the Pathfinder campaign setting, but can be used in any fantasy game setting.
Written by Keith Baker, Rich Baker, Wolfgang Baur, Jason Bulmahn, Ed Greenwood, Tim Hitchcock, James Jacobs, Nicolas Logue, Erik Mona, Frank Mentzer, Chris Pramas, Sean K Reynolds, F. Wesley Schneider, Michael A. Stackpole, Lisa Stevens, and James L. Sutter
Cover Art by Jesper Ejsing
We just finished this adventure, and what a ride. It is quite difficult, we lost a ton of characters, but almost everything felt fair.
I completely disagree with the "lack of RP" there are plenty of opportunities and tons of lore for the fans of Golarion. (The end level was... just amazing, what a reveal!)
Some levels are really mean, and it will frustrate players no doubt, but if they want to be challenged, and you like playing to the will of the dice gods, they will have a blast.
We loved the characters on Fort Inevitable and it is most fun when paired with Thornkeep. We ended up doing a lot of sidequests and meeting very interesting NPCs (Dremagne, Iliara Starcloak, Oritian, Abernard are some of my favorites) *When I say interesting NPCs, I mean that they have a lot of potential, not that they come fully fledge and with 3 pages of backstory as some GMs might expect from a written adventure. (I'm fond of the simpler NPC, so I can have fun making them my own)
I was going to give a rundown of the levels, but I feel it would had too many spoilers and I liked the feeling of surprise that we had with every new step we took towards the bottom.
Number of Sessions; 26 over 1 year 1 month.
Hours of Playing; 165+
Major NPC Deaths; 2
Character Deaths; 11 (Strix Medium, Aasimar Cavalier, Gnome Inquisitor (2 times), Undine Hellknight, Fetchling Wizard, Grippli Monk, Human Armiger, Half-Orc Oracle, Aasimar Warpriest, Suli/Elf Tecnomancer)
The final party that completed the Spire were; Grippli Monk, Aasimar Warpriest, Suli/Elf Tecnomancer, Human Gunslinger)
Spoilers:
Hardest Enemy; Lady of Thorns and Lady Estrekan of Almorain Blue
Hardest Level; 13 Throne of Azlant; for Abadar, Lady Estrekan and the Abraxas trap destroyed our group. We ended up with just 1 survivor. An incredible way to finish the Crowned Skull Quest
Best moment of the Campaign; Klanky (Controlled by our Tecnomancer) defeating the final boss of the Spire
I Completely recommend this adventure. Is not just a Superdungeon, it's an amazing story to be retold over and over.
I had blast playing this for PFS. We finally finished it. Some levels are crazy hard if the DM runs it correctly. You could be fighting 2-3 encounters at once.
We had a couple players refuse to come back and play. They couldn't handle the pressure. Another player packed his stuff up like every other session crying for mommy :). We made our diplomacy rolls and so he stayed.
I played a paladin. I loved it. Talk about being heroic. I probably saved a dozen player deaths during the sessions with paladins sacrifice.
I would make sure you have some strong players and a well-built group. I would say you need a tank, healer, and rogue. Don't be afraid to max the table out and enjoy the beat down.
One of the most "rail-free" modules for pfs - as gm you may put amazing roleplay opportunities there - there are enough backstory for npc`s (town and dungeon alike) to make them alive and have motivation. Combats are neat, exploration are neat, layouts are neat. My favorite module.
A huge dungeon crawl with minimum roleplay. I can't say the fights are easy... however most PFS gruops of The Emerald Spire are power gamers that put all source on combat. Just not challenging enough.
If you prefer roleplay or investigaion, skip this. It's made for buttkickers that want to build high-level PFS characters(with more gear than average).
I would not recommend this, but for who enjoy "draw a dungeon, than kill them all, get the treasure", that's what you're looking for.
I am running it for a group of players and everyone is having a blast. This module could have definitely been a five star rating if it weren't for all the errors such as wrong monster stats and conflicting tactics.
If a map would fit in a space that's 24 squares by 30 squares, we *could* do it as a Flip-Mat... but if you look at the things we do as Flip-Mats, they tend to be fairly generic, because, let's face it, a Tavern or a Forest will sell a lot better than a Glassworks.
Love the cover. Hope it doesn't upset the "everything is going Sci-fi" crowd. Those totally look like clockwork soldiers or fancy iron golems to me. Nothing sooper-sy-fy-tekanojikal about them at all. Nope sirree. Clockwork and Golems, nothing to see here. 'Sright!
Is anybody else getting multiple requests to finalize their pledge and yet it say's here at good old Paizo it is? I am having serious doubts as to Goblinworks abilities!
Is anybody else getting multiple requests to finalize their pledge and yet it say's here at good old Paizo it is? I am having serious doubts as to Goblinworks abilities!
I think KS really wants you to put something in that text box at the bottom of the survey and hit submit.
Please see this post to find out why we don't do full-size battle mats for our AP volumes.
Plus, you can now see that 16 maps that each cover a space of 120x150 comes with a cost of $80—and some of the individual maps in our APs would need to be 4 times the size of one of those.
Why make a flip-map then? Why not one of the map packs? We could just put the cards together to form the large map. That doesn't seem terribly difficult or expensive. You could even sell them as a series.
One map pack covers the same area as a flip mat and costs $13. It would cost $104 to get a map pack that is the same area as 8 flip mats, which means Vic's comment about maps being 4 times the size would cost $408. Now there would probably be some bulk discount*, but you're talking about around $400 for one map pack for one map from an AP. Granted, it's probably an important map if it's that big, but that's still way too much to be spending on a map. You might buy that, but I doubt it would sell well, especially if it was a map for the later half of an AP.
*
Spoiler:
8 flip mats would usually cost $104, but the emerald spire pack costs $80, so assuming the same approximately 20% discount the mega map pack would cost about $320. That's still absurd.
Gentelmen...........It begins. Muhahahahahahahahahahahaha (I get an evil laugh)hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Sara Marie
Customer Service Dire Care Bear Manager
nogoodscallywag wrote:
A local store is already selling this...do they get advanced copies or something?
No. The release date is not until June 25th. You can email distributor.orders@paizo.com with the store information and the sales team can talk to the distributor.
Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Downloaded mine today. It looks great and each level is very flavorful, but has a good connection between the levels. Really glad I will be getting the hardcover as well. All of the authors did a great job. It will be hard to pick my favorite level.
I am already working on the sanctioning notes and Chronicle sheets with volunteer assistance. I anticipate their being available close to the book's street date.
Oh wow. This has information on something I've been looking forward to for a long while, and I wasn't even expecting it.
Final Level:
This explains who/what the Vault Keepers/Builders are, has stats for them, has one of them appear in the adventure, has an explanation on how Vaults of Orv are created, and gives the PCs a means to travel between several of them.
Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Alleran wrote:
Lord Gadigan wrote:
Oh wow. This has information on something I've been looking forward to for a long while, and I wasn't even expecting it.
** spoiler omitted **
Please, any details would be welcome.
As you wish:
They are primal earth elemental beings (Think Crystal Insectoids) of two castes: Keepers and Builders. The Builders are Mythic. Their species name is similar to the Xorn: Xiomorn
When are the books expected to be shipped out to the KS backers?
If all the ducks align, it is scheduled to start shipping next week along with all the subscription stuff. But since this is the single biggest and most complicated shipping that we have ever done, I have a feeling we may start a day or two later than we want to due to the difficulty factor. But maybe the stars will align and everything will flow on schedule. Because of the size, I expect it is going to take a full two weeks to ship everything.
I've only flicked through the pdf, but looks good so far. My group has been keen on running a super dungeon too, so this comes at a great time for us.
Also, I hadn't noticed how there are now direct download links on the page for purchased product. I really like that touch. Kudos to Gary and the team!
Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Just started reading it but it seems to be missing some important things.
A map of the area the Emerald Spire is located:
It would have been nice to see an area map in the actual module showing where it is located in comparison to everything else in the river kingdoms.
Expected PC level for each level of the dungeon:
This seems to be an important thing missing from the module.
The first I can say for fact is not in the module, I have not seen the second. Did they really forget to add the expected level of the PCs per level of the dungeon or did I just miss it?
One map pack covers the same area as a flip mat and costs $13. It would cost $104 to get a map pack that is the same area as 8 flip mats, which means Vic's comment about maps being 4 times the size would cost $408. Now there would probably be some bulk discount*, but you're talking about around $400 for one map pack for one map from an AP. Granted, it's probably an important map if it's that big, but that's still way too much to be spending on a map. You might buy that, but I doubt it would sell well, especially if it was a map for the later half of an AP.
*** spoiler omitted **
How about PDF only? I can't see much production cost in that. Paizo fans would be the most likely to purchase online, anyway so why not PDF only? We could purchase them and print them as we need them (like we're able to print the Sandpoint Cathedral Square).
How about PDF only? I can't see much production cost in that. Paizo fans would be the most likely to purchase online, anyway so why not PDF only? We could purchase them and print them as we need them (like we're able to print the Sandpoint Cathedral Square).
Actually that's also covered in James Jacobs' reply in the link Vic posted:
James Jacobs wrote:
It would cost us less to pay someone to write and illustrate a module than it would to pay for battlemat scale maps for an average volume of Pathfinder.
The fact is that battlemat-scale maps aren't just zoomed-in versions of the larger-scale map. And pdf only sales would be unlikely to recoup the costs of recreating them.
Just started reading it but it seems to be missing some important things.
A map of the area the Emerald Spire is located:
It would have been nice to see an area map in the actual module showing where it is located in comparison to everything else in the river kingdoms.
Expected PC level for each level of the dungeon:
This seems to be an important thing missing from the module.
The first I can say for fact is not in the module, I have not seen the second. Did they really forget to add the expected level of the PCs per level of the dungeon or did I just miss it?
there is a map of the area the the thorn keep book.
Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Yup, I am aware there are maps in other books, would be useful in emerald spire though.