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Way of the Wicked—Book #6: The Wages of Sin (PFRPG) PDF

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Reap what you have sown!

Talingarde is yours! Once the people of this noble nation called you a criminal and branded you as one of the forsaken. Now, by blood and guile, you have seized control of the kingdom.

You are at last victorious.

And this is only the beginning. What shall you do now that you are in power? Will you lead your army in wars of conquest? Will you take revenge on those who once oppressed you? Will you write your name across the pages of history in blood and fire?

There will be no one to stop you this time!

Welcome to the sixth and final chapter of the “Way of the Wicked” adventure path. Inside you’ll find:

  • “The Wages of Sin,” an adventure compatible with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game designed for 18th level villains by Gary McBride
  • Full color illustrations and maps by Michael Clarke
  • New character options for villains by Jason Bulmahn
  • A complete campaign timeline for all six books
  • And More!
Become the tyrant you were born to be! Conquer all who oppose you and fear not—surely there will be no repercussions for your reign of terror.

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Fraud

1/5 —

I would love to give this product a higher rating but it has been written by a fraudster, Gary McBride, who tricked 315 people into giving him $40,000 through Kickstarter and refused to communicate with them for 4 years now. Despite multiple appeals from backers he has backed over 520 other kickstarters since then, logging in every week though seemingly unable to respond to his backers products. Shame on Paizo for selling the products of a con man and allowing him to continue profiting from rpg fans.

For details of the swindle and Gary McBride’s backing record see https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/730004812/throne-of-night-a-pathfinder -rpg-adventure-path/comments

Reap what you have sown indeed

5/5 —

The end-game where we're used to the good guys catching up to the bad guys and stomping a mud-hole in 'em. Only now you're the bad guys. Will you indulge in the rewards so long denied you?

Personally, I recommend thoroughly abusing your power over the island. Crush the inevitable rebel scum and try to anticipate the sudden yet inevitable betrayals by (almost) all of your mini-onions.

I strongly recommend the GM exercise the "second option" to conclude the campaign. In other words, give the villains a properly sound thrashing by the Good Guys.

Kill them, kill them all, permanently.

Wages of Sin Review

4/5 —

Warning: Potential spoilers. Written from a GM's perspective. I ran this for 6 PCs.

Finally, after nearly two years, my group has been able to complete this entire Adventure Path. Like the entries before it, this chapter did not disappoint.

Strengths:
This chapter is jampacked with content. Wages of Sin is basically a giant villain sandbox and the author outright states that the GM will likely have to fill in some gaps for options that they didn't think to include. This is true to a certain extent. For example, my PC were rather interested in the world outside of Talingarde, for which the campaign offers only minimal information. However, for the most part, it seemed like almost everything my PCs wanted to do had been accounted for. I was thoroughly impressed by how often I was able to rely on the prewritten material given the open-ended nature of the campaign.

Another thing that I loved about this book was how it really made the players feel like they were powerful villains. Fights with weaker creatures were mostly handwaved, while the creatures they actually fought all felt legendary and threatening. Also, making them leaders of Talingarde they were empowered to make decisions that would affect the entire nation and have consequences for generations to come. My players really latched on to the politics of it all. Every decision was weighed heavily, as they tried to get all the things they wanted, while trying not to drive the general population into supporting the rebels.

Last, but not least, I have to talk about the final battle. At first I was a little concerned. I saw that the PCs fought the titan and his planar ally, then the combination of Belinda, Antharia and the Solar. Two encounters didn't seem like enough for an epic finale to an almost two year campaign. Boy, was I wrong. The titan went down fairly quickly, but the fight with final three took over two sessions. Belinda looks weak on paper, until you realize that she can combine Mind Blank with Greater Invisibility to become practically unfindable. Antharia is an absolute beast and borderline unhittable by traditional means. The Solar can heal like no one's buisness, all the while still attacking with her dancing greatsword. Add in the fact that all three of them have access to long duration protection spells, like spell immunity and protection from energy...well, your PCs should have a tough time. The combination is an appropriately epic final boss battle.

Weaknesses:
One criticism I had, that I have seen other reviewers mention, is the way the the game handles Princess Belinda. Essentially, she has fled the island to form her army and Mitra has given her a magic item that literally makes it impossible for the PCs to find. Now, Way of the Wicked is no stranger to railroady plot elements. However, for the most part I have been pleasantly surprised by how little of an issue that was for my players. The path the writers provided always seemed to intrigue them enough that they walked down it willingly. However, the Belinda situation in this book was noticeably frustrating for them. Essentially they had to sit there waiting for three years for her to act and they couldn't do anything to stop her.

Probably the biggest weakness of this book is pacing. When I say that this campaign took almost two years, what I really mean is that books 1, 3, 4 and 5 took about 2 months a piece. Book 2 took about 5 months. Book 6 took the rest of the time. With Book 2 I was able to cut out a lot of material, due to its fairly linear nature. However, with Book 6 that was almost impossible, since the content was entirely driven by the actions the PCs wanted to take and initially the players were reluctant to accept time skips because they wanted to get as much done as possible. It took them a while to realize that there was no shortage of in game time to do everything they wanted. The most noticeable impact was on leveling. I used the story based leveling suggestions at the back of this book for most of the campaign. However, I had to modify it a bit for this book, overwise the players would have been level 17, 19 and 20 for about two sessions each and level 18 for the remaining ten months. Instead, I let the PCs level to 19 early and did some rebalancing of later encounters. Still, while I would have liked to have seen this book paced a little more evenly and I think the players would have appreciated a bit more combat, the content was dynamic enough that the game never became too stagnant.

Conclusion:
Ulimately, despite the uneven pacing, this is another excellent addition to the Way of the Wicked adventure path. It thoroughly does its job in offering an epic conclusion to the campaign. Regarding the campaign as a whole, while I have had minor criticisms throughout, I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone looking to run an evil game. It can be challenging for a GM, due the high level game play and it's unconventional nature. However, the payoff, at least for my table, was a unique and memorable gaming experience.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

5/5 —

The final chapter in the evil AP Way of the Wicked is 102 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page advertisement, 1 page back cover, 2 pages maps of Talingarde, leaving us with 94 pages of content, so let's take a look!

This being a review of the final part of this AP, the following contains SPOILERS - not only for this module, but for the whole AP. Potential players are strongly advised to jump to the conclusion.

All right, still here? Cardinal Adrastus Thorn lies slain, Asmodeus has proclaimed his support of the PCs and they have risen to be High Cardinals of the lord of the ninth - but they still need to clean p their house - the knots are in place, but depending on the actions of the PCs, the remaining knots may prove to be problematic. Take for example Barnabus Thrane (who is called Thrain in text once - unfortunately but one of numerous, accumulating editing glitches throughout the module) - the spymaster and Asmodean sleeper that has infiltrated the clergy - he most definitely will become a mayor problem if the PCs have not secured his cooperation. The man knows much, but can just as well be a worthwhile asset to the PCs claiming Talingarde and changing the clergy of Mitra from within. General Barca, on the other hand, is not a valuable asset - indeed, if the PCs have not killed him and opt to put him on the throne, they'll see their grip weakened by his growing paranoia. The Devils are unproblematic allies as long as the PCs serve the Dark Lord, but what if they falter? For falter they might:

After having slain Chargammon, princess Belinda, the paragon sorceress has been granted a solar and an artifact by Mitra - a veil to hide her from the eyes of all evil-doers and from all mortal magic. A powerful tool indeed to conceal her from the prying eyes of the PCs and plot with her draconic mother Antharia Regina the downfall of the tyrants to be - but more on that later.

If you recall the Hadean Signet in Book V, well the ring awakens and starts beckoning its master to sacrifice an angel, a fiend and a creature of titan-blood to unlock its vast powers - upon the third sacrifice, though, the thanatotic titan bound to the ring is released, seeking to enslave (or kill) all. Wise villains know when to stop and may use the properties of the ring's first two phases - though honestly, I would have expected a way for the ultimate tyrants of Asmodeus' reach in Talingarde to have some way of enslaving the vastly powerful titan - perhaps by besting him in combat thrice (he respawns after 66 days as long as the ring is not destroyed...) or by torture? After all, all spirits can be broken... A bit of a pity here, but oh well. It's not that they need the titan for now, for one of the knots has actually done his job well - Cedrick malthus has gathered a vast army of deadly mercenaries and cutthroats under the command of Volker Eisenmark - provided they can pay the ships to get them to Talingarde, the PCs have a vast army of cutthroats, murderers and people eager for a fresh start - at least 20 thousand strong.

These will be the saviors of Talingarde, for another army waltzes south - Sakkarot's Horde has done its job admirably. But in order to rule a proper land and not some heaps, in order to have a capital, the betrayal must be sprung - and while Sakkarot may falter, he will not fail. Following the plan, if the PCs can show that they are the favored of the Dark Lord, he leads his army to the slaughter in fields where the PCs have a chance to shine in a grand narrative battle where they have pivotal roles in ensuring that no elite humanoids escape the slaughter to hamper the first weeks of their reign. If the PCs have hired the elite mercenary general Eisenmark and brokered a deal with the Frost Giant Queen, they may even have more benefits from this battle - chief of which would be rekindling the hope for a place to be for the Fire-Axe himself - universally loathed and sans home, the PCs could tie him up - or make him one of their fiercest allies.

Speaking of allies - if the PCs have managed to corrupt Sir Richard, he returns from the shackles of hell as an anti-paladin, presented by Dessiter as a candidate for the throne of the puppet-king - and, unbeknownst to the PCs, walking scrying focus for Dessiter. Sir Berithor is his new title and yet another piece falls into place. With the Fire-Axe defeated, the PCs can walk into the city and, after meeting a delegation (including a relative of Barca) that welcomes the unlikely saviors, present their claim to the throne. Meanwhile, the princess is off to a quest on the mainland, gathering her forces - protected, unfortunately, by a plot-fiat device. Honestly, I would have expected some clever rules, ways to bypass the artifact, at least kill her allies - instead, the artifact essentially binds the PC's hands in that regard until the final battle.

Till then, though, the tyrants run free - and the best part of the module happens. The Tyranny-sandbox. Establishing a court of people with varying degrees of usefulness (and ambitions), the PCs have 3 years to enjoy their reign and manage their kingdom. While in the background, the might-score of the kingdom represents the overall power of Talingarde - and almost all decisions have consequences. And oh boy, are there things to do: From the court's machinations to the religious question of whether/how to legalize Asmodeus/ treat the Mitran church, coronation ceremonies etc., the PCs will have to make decisions fast: Whether to worm their way into the hearts of the Mitran believers or usher in brutal pogroms, it's all up to the PCs. Speaking of purging opposition - exterminating the blood of house Darius is an option, though taking them hostage might be wiser and aid them in the long run. Speaking of aid: If they are smart, they may find records of the remaining Knights of Alerion as well, netting them a chance to surgically remove the best remaining soldiers of the Talingarde resistance. Speaking of resistance - if the PCs take heed of their traitor's court, they may get the necessary information to take down one superbly stealthy leader of the resistance.

But there are also tasks that require the PCs to deal with: Take the problem of the Irean barbarians of the Caer Bryr: These clans may be unified - a free bonus army for the PCs - but only if they manage to exploit a prophecy of the people and kill a primal bandersnatch, the legendary Caothach Ool to show that they are the chosen ones. In the Caer Bryr, the PCs may by the way also revive the noble tradition of unicorn hunting to fill the coffers of their nation... Of course, cracking down on the resistance, razing a village to the ground that openly defies their rule, gaining the service of the Barcan nobles and their griffon knights, redecorating the palace, legalizing prostitution and/or slavery - the latter serving as a prerequisite to legalize bloodsports (and gladiator veterans), rebuilding Balantyne and fortifying and finally conquering the North, rebuilding Daveryn etc. are a lot of interesting things to occupy the PC's time. Finding a way to ensure their army remains happy is yet another issue to handle, as are the battle-nuns and the fact that the duergar are problematic allies at best, prime candidates to be betrayed to the regular dwarves to gain their loyalty as a vassal state.

Allying with the reclusive Yutak, killing an elder kraken plaguing the trade-routes, side-quests in the Agathium, Grumblejack having prophetic dreams, dealing with a duke that could spell trouble, surviving an assassination-attempt by 2 mariliths and their demonic servants, rooting out the last outbreak of the Tears of Achlys, children praying for salvation and an angelic host(a great way to really screw up public relations),marrying a beautiful, wicked lady and make her queen - there is a lot going on. While darkness stirs in the North - a seeping shadow of invulnerable antilife seeps from a cavern where ancient tables lie, guarded by shoggoths: Stopping the all-consuming shadows and claiming the tables may add yet another dread weapon to the PC's arsenal. The Minions the PCs may still have also have up to 23 different tasks waiting for them - and then, after 3 all too short years....she returns.

The Pcs will reap what they have sown, with each of the different decisions resulting in modifications to Belinda's army or their own. And the saviors waste no time - the final stretch of the AP kicks off with 2 angels showing up above the city, preaching hope and seeking to wreck the palace. An aerial battle thus kicks off the final battle for Talingarde's soul -soon to be followed by an assassination attempt by Solomon Tyrath, high inquisitor of Mitra - hopefully they can make Naburus join their cause - and hopefully, they did not make Berithor king. For the ghost of his mother shows up - and he repents. Kills Dessiter. Becomes a paladin again. And delivers a final stand - to die and be claimed by the heavenly host, his contract voided by repentance.
And then, the final battle is upon them. They may even study the battle of the Victor fought in the same locale. And then lead their army into the final battle. Versus the last hope of Talingarde, Princess Belinda, Antharia Regina, the elysian titan God-hammer and a solar of Mitra. And then, there are two ways to end the campaign - win the insanely difficult final fight. Or suffer the fate of villains - abandoned by allies, more Mitran angels join the fray, ensuring the fate of the PCs. And thus, in which way you choose, ends the Way of the Wicked.

The supplemental material of this issue has Jason Bulmahn contribute 6 additional Asmodean spells, 8 magic items to insert into the campaign if you choose to. And finally, the last 3 pages contain a timeline for the whole campaign.

Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are the weak spots of this pdf - much like almost all issues of the AP, several easily avoidable typos, glitches and minor issues mar the AP and show that a second set of eyes editing this would have helped. Layout adheres to FMG's drop-dead gorgeous 2-column full color standard and the book is BEAUTIFUL. Michael Clarke's renditions of key enemies, almost all of them spanning full pages, rank among the best in the whole AP. On a formal level, the scarce bookmarks feel a bit unpleasant, much like in the predecessors - nested bookmarks would especially in the tyrant-section been appropriate. The pdf comes in two versions, one slightly more printer-friendly and, rather cool, the AP comes with an 9-page pdf of player-friendly maps and handouts - awesome!

Oh boy. Usually the editing glitches would mean that I rate this module down. And e.g. a certain archmage's plot-thread has not been addressed. But the sheer amount of loose ends being tied in this module is AWESOME. The Tyrant-sandbox is glorious and something only all too rarely seen. The final battle is brilliant.

This module is epic and ranks among the finest final installments of any AP I've ever read. The power of the foes arrayed, the amount of consequences the PCs face - all these made me grin and want more - and look forward to Throne of Night. Since part 2 of the AP, not a single installment has had me that excited, that euphoric, that delighted by offering something truly different - at levels not usually supported by APs. Cool, deadly and truly a book centering on being villainous, I only wished more space in the overall AP would have been devoted to doing such things. Running Talingarde - for better or for worse for the villains is a sufficiently epic change of pace before a final confrontation of insane difficulty. If I had one complaint regarding the narrative, it would be the magical gizmo-stealth of Belinda. At least offering a chance to take down the solar or the dragon would have been more prudent in my mind - but then again, this is not about being fair. This is about reaping what was sown - and Fire Mountain Games, in spite of the scarce bookmarks and editing glitches, for this stellar module, reaps 5 stars + seal of approval for being innovative, cool and providing a joyous read that will have you cackle with glee - just remember that the fires of hell are waiting to claim you and that failure is not an option in the eyes of the dark lord...

Endzeitgeist out.

The PCs have finally become true masters of evil...but to what end?

5/5 —

It is said that all evil needs to triumph is for good men to do nothing. That may be true, but what about when good men (and women…and dragons, celestials, and so many more) do, in fact, do something? Can evil still be triumphant then? That’s the question that has been posed throughout the Way of the Wicked adventure path, from Fire Mountain Games, and the final answer is presented in the sixth and final book in the series, The Wages of Sin.

The Wages of Sin is presented in three files: the main book, a printer-friendly version thereof, and a set of player handouts. The player handouts are, for the most part, maps with the GM-only information removed, though one illustration is there too. The counterparts, with the GM information added, are found in the main book.

The printer-friendly file is the main file down to a “T,” save for turning the page borders into grayscale and removing the page backgrounds. This may sound like a lot, but it still preserves all of the interior illustrations, all in full color. I maintain that this detracts from the “printer-friendly” part of the equation, especially since several of these illustrations take up an entire page (though, to be fair, that does mean you can skip over those pages altogether).

It’s on that note that I do need to talk about the illustrations again. Michael Clarke’s talent is on full display once again, with a large number of full-color illustrations, many of which, as noted, take up an entire page. The artwork here is gorgeous, enough so that I wish that there was a separate file of just the art so that it could be shown to the players without needing to let them see the accompanying text (on the non-full-page illustrations, I mean). Heck, I just wish that there was an artbook of this material for its own sake.

The main file is just over a hundred pages long. While it does allow for copy-and-pasting the text, and there are bookmarks present, said bookmarks are to each of the book’s major sections only; there are no nested bookmarks to go to sub-sections, which is a shame.

The Wages of Sin opens with the usual introduction from the author, which is noteworthy this time because he talks about the issue of how to end the campaign; specifically, he calls into question whether you want to end on a note of evil victorious or evil undone, and discusses, albeit briefly, the pros and cons of each, insofar as what your players would like. I was actually somewhat impressed with this, since it brings up what I think is an interesting distinction in how the campaign ending can be approached – whether from a more personal point of view (e.g. “I don’t want my character to be defeated while on the cusp of total victory!”) or from a more poetic, narrative standpoint (e.g. “and so our PCs’ evil finally catches up to them, and they earn their just deserts.”). It’s an interesting dichotomy to consider.

The adventure background presents, well…the background for the adventure. More specifically, it goes over some of the things that have been happening outside the PCs knowledge to set things into motion, which isn’t unbelievable despite having five books’ worth of material behind them at this point. More specifically, we get the background on what Princess Bellinda (the last, best hope for Talinguarde) has been up to, and the information about the here-to-fore unknown Sixth Knot.

We then move on to the first major section of the book, which takes place shortly after the PCs successfully overthrew their master at end of the previous adventure. Now, the PCs are in charge…or are they? In fact, being in command is more than just having thrown off the shackles of servitude; it means actually taking control of the existing operation, enforcing their will on their comrades in evil, and keeping the late Cardinal Thorn’s plans on track.

Several events in this section focus on just that, as the PCs need to deal with the various factions remaining in the service of Hell, ending the “threat” of the humanoid army marching towards the capital, and then formally assuming control of the nation. Several of the events here revolve around existing NPCs that the PCs have dealt with before, and the author does a fairly good job of noting not only how these scenarios could play out based on what the PCs have done before now, but how they still could depending on what the PCs do.

My major complaint about this section was the sidebar near the end on why Princess Bellinda can’t be discovered and hunted down prematurely by the PCs. It’s not necessarily that she has a mcguffin item that makes her impossible to find, it’s that this is plainly acknowledged by the text, rather than giving her mcguffin stats. While all adventure paths are railroads to some degree, the major draw of this last adventure is that after so long being under the command of another, the PCs are now free to do what they want. This freedom is, for the most part, celebrated in this adventure…except where Bellinda is concerned. The text about her artifact makes it clear that there’s nothing the PCs can do to find her, and so the endgame can’t be tampered with (very much). It strikes me as a bit of a cop-out; at least give the thing game mechanics so that it’s conceivable, if unlikely, that the player-characters could have a chance of overcoming it.

Act two is the real meat of the book, being fully half of its page-count. It’s here that the PCs are at their pinnacle of glory. They are now in command of the nation that once condemned them; this section is given to all of the things that they can do – and that they must do – now that Talinguard is theirs. While various points in the campaign have been fairly open-ended in what the PCs could do, this is the largest the sandbox has ever been in the Way of the Wicked.

For one thing, the PCs are given several years of game time to indulge themselves. Over this, thirty different events are presented. Some of these are things that the PCs can do for themselves (do you want to legalize prostitution? How about the slave trade?), while others are things that happen during the course of their reign (e.g. assassins!). Insightfully, these events are set to take up set blocks of time, making them easy to adjudicate during the PCs’ rule over Talinguarde.

What really makes these events stand out is their scope. While some of these are issues of domestic policy, such as whether or not to erect temples to Asmodeus, others are much more grand. Do the PCs want to send their army to the north and wipe out the remaining humanoids (and other creatures) there, conquering the whole island? What about opening trade with foreign nations? There are many things the PCs can do to reshape the political and social lay of the land as they desire. As a bonus, there are almost two dozen additional actions that are specifically meant for the PCs minions (using the rules first introduced in the second adventure).

Event three is where it all starts to fall apart. Bellinda is back, and depending on how the PCs ran things, the degree to which the domestic populace flocks to her banner can vary wildly. Only a half-dozen events are here, and some of these are fairly low-key events like tallying up the respective sizes of the PCs army versus the Princess’s. Several individuals play out their last scenes, and the stage is pretty well set by the time things are ended here.

The fourth event is the finale to everything, as the two major armies clash. The PCs’ main opponents here are Bellinda and her immediate retinue, set against the backdrop of the battle. The bulk of this section discusses the battlefield itself, and the hefty stat blocks for the good guys, each one taking up about a page.

Somewhat disappointingly, what’s here doesn’t quite seem to tie together as strongly as I would have liked. For example, there’s several paragraphs of discussion given to the nature of the terrain on the battlefield, but the practical context of this (e.g. what happens if the PCs try to march their army through disadvantageous terrain) isn’t discussed. Likewise, the book uses a numerical score as a shorthand for determining the strength of the PCs’ army versus Bellinda’s…but while the results of this score are indicated clearly, it’s only in terms of how the setup looks, and not the actual outcome (e.g. you can read that score X means that your army outnumbers Bellinda’s four to one…but that doesn’t mean that you win).

The outcome appears to be entirely predicated on whether or not the PCs can kill Bellinda and her retinue, the lynchpin of the final battle. Hence, this seems to make the preceding sections somewhat superfluous. Whether the PCs have their army avoid the rough terrain, or whether or not their forces are a match for Bellinda’s army…all seems to come to naught, regardless of the final outcomes. What matters is this one last fight, and as that goes, so does the final battle. It’s a very poor integration of the wider implications for the PCs large-scale tactical knowledge, and the practical ramifications of how they conducted themselves as rulers of the nation.

A single-page epilogue is given next. It’s surprisingly poignant, allowing each player a turn to write their character’s final impact on the campaign, before the GM brings the curtain down. I was slightly surprised at the tone of finality here; I’m much more used to how Paizo gives us an entire section at the end of each of their adventure paths devoted to what you can do to continue the campaign, if you and your players are so inclined. Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by that, but I find the absence of such a section here to be somewhat disappointing. Three or four meaty adventure hooks, and a CR 20+ stat block for some future foe, could have made for some very interesting material for enterprising GMs.

Several new evil spells and magic items appear next, courtesy of Jason Bulmahn. A sidebar addresses the irony of virtually none of these (save for one item) appearing in the adventure itself; of course, that’s somewhat expected, since the PCs are likely to be the one using these. What’s far more interesting, however, is the campaign timeline that’s presented as the last item in the book. This walks us through a chronological reading of the entire campaign, denoting which book the various events occur in, and what the PCs’ levels are, alongside dates and years. This really helps to lay down the feeling that this is a campaign that takes some time, as by the end of it over five years have passed. This chronology was far more interesting than I’d have suspected.

One thing I haven’t noted thus far is that the book does have some errors that crop up periodically, which is irking. For example, I noticed several spelling and grammatical errors throughout the book; not many, but enough. Likewise, some stat blocks had errors in them. While this can’t be helped much when you’re facing such high-level creatures, things like incorrect CRs were a recurring problem.

Of course, these don’t detract from the adventure very much at all. It’s here that wickedness reaches its fullest flower, and your PCs get to enjoy it greatly. They’ve become not only mover and shakers, but at last have reached their full potential as conquerors and tyrants, and they get to enjoy all that comes with it. This is the payoff that they’ve been working towards from the beginning of the campaign, and it’s in spades. If you and your group manage to get this far, you’ll have a great deal of fun reveling in The Wages of Sin.

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Ok, some thoughts after reading through the whole thing.

1 Someone has already mentioned the possibility of the dark titan showing up in the final battle. Can he be tricked into fighting the good guys, or will he always prioritize whoever has the ring?

2 If I were running the campaign as a player, I'd surely start a side project of trying to turn the Nameless King's machine into a weapon of mass destruction (linking it remotely to the royal scepter, so it could dump the accumulated negative energy onto the battlefield.) Do you think it would work?

3 In the "two solars" version of the final battle, the PC's allies flee, except for Grumblejack. What about Sakkarot? If the players take him (obviously disguised) to fight by their side, would he flee too? He seemed like a very fatalistic type.

4 It bothers me a bit how the whole might score thing ends up largely cosmetic in the end - no matter which side is outnumbered ten to one, it will be down to the fight between the leaders in the end.

5 There are two courses of action that seem very logical to the players, but aren't described in the book at all.

5a - countering the princess' efforts in the mainland. Yes, she's permanently veiled, but a gathering army of thousands is much harder to hide, and if Dessiter gets some intelligence info like he was supposed to, the players might come up with a plan to delay her - hitting (or bribing) her potential allies, or perhaps persuading the kraken to harass her fleet en route.

5b - search for Anthea's lair. Even if the players haven't figured out she's their enemy, her treasure is the last major unclaimed hoard in Tallingarde, and the players are conquering the north either way. With some initial clues from Polidorus' book on dragons, they shouldn't have much trouble pinpointing the lair - and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't just be a frozen cave with a pile of treasure and a bunch of guardians. I really wish there were some more descriptions for it.

So, has anyone tried writing up Anthea's lair?
Braininthejar wrote:
So, has anyone tried writing up Anthea's lair?

I'll give you some feedback:

1) The Thanatonic Titan from the Ring is basically an evil genie, in the sense that, when freed, i can be a powerful ally like a terrifying enemy. He's extremely intelligent and possibly somewhat aware of the situation of Talingarde throught the ring-wearer senses, if you so decide. However, by design, he's an enemy boss. If freed he should try to claim dominance over the land of Talingarde. If this requires to ally with the Pcs for a few fights, he will do so, but be sure he'll greater vital strike any creature that might oppose his rule the second the princess's forces are defeated.

2) The machine is not a cannon, unless you actually build a cannon over the Aghatium. Which is complicated. However, by design, the machine could be use to "create" and "bottle up" negative energy elementals, which could be deployed as weapons in a battle. Other, more sofisticate uses, are up to you.

3) The "two solars" scenario is build to stagger your players giving them a CR 25 fight, but since no creature exist with a CR label clearly visible, very few of the Pc's allies could infer their power, and therefore fall into despair. Who escapes this battle, if any, it's up to you.

4) By my understanding, the adventure it's heavily focused on getting control over Talingarde, which gives pcs little time to look outside the island for the princess. Nevertheless, you could arrange a number of situation, like discovering a few named npcs that your pcs may discover have been visited by the princess, and that may actually be interacted with.
As as example, i would suggest: 1) a monarchy allied with house darius 2) some other dragon (i remember the name of an ancient gold dragon offered by mr Mcbride), and possibly some kind of Azata/fairy princess.

5) Antharia's lair is a good place to visit, but should be almost empty. Antharia is, by the book, currently plane hopping with her daughter searching for allies. However, if you want to give your Pcs something EVIL to do, they could discover inside the almost void lair some kind of massive forge were Antharia's colossal mithral armor is being forged. They could either destroy the forge and steal the mithral or, if they are smart, try to intercept the dragon when she comes to put it, or even put high level curses on the piece, so that when the dragon wears it something very very bad happens - possibly during the battle, so that Antharia does not have time to counter it.
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Braininthejar wrote:
So, has anyone tried writing up Anthea's lair?

Not that any of my groups ever got even remotely close to this section, but I always had it ready to literally steal the silver dragon lair design from the 3.5 Draconomicon (page 266) and went with CR 18 dragon horde wealth (page 283), not including the mithral armor being created.

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kevin_video wrote:

BTW, did anyone figure out just how the Princess ended up with Cha 40? Even with a tome of leadership and influence +5 I can only figure she's got a 38. I'm using the point buy calculator to help with this.

Her base stats are 8, 10, 14, 10, 14, 18
Human +2 to Cha
Sorcerer 20 bonus stats +5 to Cha
Half-dragon template +8 Str, +6 Con, +2 Int, +2 Cha
Headband of Mental Superiority +6

This gets her to 16, 10, 20, 18, 20, 33

Not noted, but let's assume she actually did read a tome of leadership and influence +5 to get her to 38 and Gary just forgot to make note of it. Where's the extra +2 come from to make it 40?

I'm dumb. After all these years, I finally broke it down and figured out what Gary did, and why the princess is "elite". It would have been so much easier had he just kept the original wording. The missing +2 comes from her being a dual-talented human. She gave up her bonus feat and Skilled human abilities for an additional +2 modifier to a stat. However, Gary did it wrong. You have to pick two separate stats, not the same one. This may have been an interpretation error or this could be something changed through errata and I'm just not aware. This also explains why she's missing a feat. As well, a few of the skills seem off because it looks like Gary may have mistakenly added in the trained +3 bonus to one or two of the skills. Namely Fly. Even if you have 1 rank in it, if the headband gives you max ranks, it only gives you the bonus as if you had max ranks in an untrained skill.

Basically, her stats should be more along the lines of 16, 12, 20, 18, 20, 38. Actually, better still, make her the equivalent to Azlanti, and give her +2 to all stats. That doesn't even give her a +1 CR because Advanced is +4 to all stats and +2 natural armor. It's an evil loophole Paizo came up with, but it works. She'd be a true elite in that regard.

I'm glad to have finally figured out what I was missing in regards to her stats.

What's funny is that today, because she's a half-dragon and really only gets the benefits of blindsense 60 ft., you could easily take the variant capstone and give her +8 to various stats. This could be +4 Dex, +4 Cha or it could be the full +8 to Charisma, because she has Perfect Body Flawless Mind.

If blindsense is something you really want to keep, the 3.5 dragonsight spell would be fine as a scroll or even a 1/day item.
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1 The Hecontires is really scary, I seem to remember my players felt it was more dangerous than anything else in the campaign and set up an impressive trap for it and burned multiple wishes to get it to go away. It is intelligent, ruthless and wants to destroy everything . So it could be manipulated but only with extreme difficulty and then after is has slaughtered the good guys , the forces of evil still have to kill it.

2 If you have a character who is a skilled techno arcanist , spends a lot of the book6 downtime and resources of the kingdom working on it why not. It slaughters a lot of the army (possibly both armies) and now you have hundreds of soul sucking wraithes messing up your country

3 This is all subjective, If I had used the 2 solar ending the pc;s would have just killed both of them. I had to boost the final battle a lot more with all sorts of extra's but I let my party pick up lots of powerful enhancements like vampirism and being grave knights as well as crafting their own gear.

4 Live with it. The nature of D+D is that the small party of 20th level characters can slaughter most armies unless blocked by peer level opponents. My players made this point to the princess and there was no battle , the pc's fought the princess and her elite guards and the army of the losing side surrendered or fled the country. The Gravekight antipladin could probably have killed an entire mortal army on his own without the others helping him

5a - Dessiter is small fry the Princess is aided my many eqully capable angels and in the same way Asmodeus prevented the witch hunters running down the pc's Mithra protects the princess. Sure let the players spend a lot of their time and effort on this instead of securing their kingdom , let them wipe out a bunch of minions as you said above it won't matter at all at the final showdown

5b - I assumed the Dragon had moved out with her horde and was using it to fund the army of light, so my players never looked for her lair

I have been toying with the idea of starting a 1st level adventure in Talingarde that takes place after the events of book 6. Clearly depending on how WotW ends, the adventures will be dramatically different. Has anyone done a 'Liberate Talingarde from their own WotW PCs' adventure? How soon after WotW would be a good time to start overthrowing the Asmodeans?
If the PCs lose the final battle of book 6 the adventure might be a little more traditional style, where the PCs must clear out the remaining Asmodeans and monsters and help rebuild Talingarde.
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WagnerSika wrote:

I have been toying with the idea of starting a 1st level adventure in Talingarde that takes place after the events of book 6. Clearly depending on how WotW ends, the adventures will be dramatically different. Has anyone done a 'Liberate Talingarde from their own WotW PCs' adventure? How soon after WotW would be a good time to start overthrowing the Asmodeans?

If the PCs lose the final battle of book 6 the adventure might be a little more traditional style, where the PCs must clear out the remaining Asmodeans and monsters and help rebuild Talingarde.

Haven't given it much thought other than Gary was originally going to write a sequel, but we all know how that went. Which, at any rate, just would have been something akin to the Ruins of Azlant/Skull & Shackles/Serpent's Skull.

If you're sticking to Pathfinder you'll have to convert it over, but DM's Guild has a solid 5-star series of adventures called Eat The Rich that's all about revolution and taking down tyranny. At the very least it'd give you some examples to base yours around. I couldn't find much more in that regard.

As for a timeline, probably about 10-15 years. Seems like a good amount of time for the villains to get lax in their defense.

10-15 years seems like a good idea.
I'll have to check Eat the Rich out (even though the name is kinda dumb). Wonder if Hells Rebels AP would be useful for this.
We just finished book 3 of WotW so there is a lot of time.
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WagnerSika wrote:

10-15 years seems like a good idea.

I'll have to check Eat the Rich out (even though the name is kinda dumb). Wonder if Hells Rebels AP would be useful for this.
We just finished book 3 of WotW so there is a lot of time.

"Hell's Rebels"? I want to say yes. Which is ironic because then it'd be "Hell's Vengeance" next, which then starts this whole debacle again. Guess "an eye for an eye" fits pretty well in this case.

kevin_video wrote:
WagnerSika wrote:

10-15 years seems like a good idea.

I'll have to check Eat the Rich out (even though the name is kinda dumb). Wonder if Hells Rebels AP would be useful for this.
We just finished book 3 of WotW so there is a lot of time.
"Hell's Rebels"? I want to say yes. Which is ironic because then it'd be "Hell's Vengeance" next, which then starts this whole debacle again. Guess "an eye for an eye" fits pretty well in this case.

Funnily enough I'm running WotW as a prequel to Hell's Rebels, after we played that AP first! It takes a bit of rejigging of WotW but it's worked well (transposing Talingarde to Cheliax, Mitra to Iomedae and setting it a couple of years after Aroden's death, around the civil war).

I turned Baroness Vanya into Abrogail 1st (Dessiter suggests her as queen after she makes an infernal pact with him) and the PCs run the world from the background/go off and follow their own agendas rather than get bogged down with Kingdom ruling.

So yes it would totally work as a sequel!

I also rewrote most of book 6 after reading this comment section. In mine Bellinda is gathering allies to perform an elaborate ritual, and over the 2 years the PCs gradually get intel about those she's approached (a Paradise Dragon, and then Avanostryx the Empyrean (from Heaven Unleashed) who they have to fight in his domain in heaven). I found Book 6 mostly a dull sequence of unrelated events and don't understand why Gary didn't make it a bit more tied to the story of Bellinda. So I cut most of it.
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AsherPAF wrote:
I also rewrote most of book 6 after reading this comment section. In mine Bellinda is gathering allies to perform an elaborate ritual, and over the 2 years the PCs gradually get intel about those she's approached (a Paradise Dragon, and then Avanostryx the Empyrean (from Heaven Unleashed) who they have to fight in his domain in heaven). I found Book 6 mostly a dull sequence of unrelated events and don't understand why Gary didn't make it a bit more tied to the story of Bellinda. So I cut most of it.

Admittedly, I had completely forgotten about the LG paradise dragons and their force breath weapon that can bend 90 degrees to attack evil creatures. That's just bonkers.

Regarding Book 6, I'd wager that Gary wanted to do something unique with each book. We had a "defend the lair" book, technically two "attack the lair" books although one was more about infiltrating secretly where as the other one was leading an army, and Book 6 is your standard sandbox. Just letting the PCs do their own thing. They don't know about Bellinda or that she disappeared to a far off place to train and bring back an army. It's cool that you're rewriting it though. Means you have a different vision for the story's conclusion than what Gary had.
kevin_video wrote:


Admittedly, I had completely forgotten about the LG paradise dragons and their force breath weapon that can bend 90 degrees to attack evil creatures. That's just bonkers.

Regarding Book 6, I'd wager that Gary wanted to do something unique with each book. We had a "defend the lair" book, technically two "attack the lair" books although one was more about infiltrating secretly where as the other one was leading an army, and Book 6 is your standard sandbox. Just letting the PCs do their own thing. They don't know about Bellinda or that she disappeared to a far off place to train and bring back an army. It's cool that you're rewriting it though. Means you have a different vision for the story's conclusion than what Gary had.

The paradise dragon's spell selection isn't great though. They can't even see invisible creatures, so I'm considering creating a Paradise dragon with a Bliss dragon's spell list (some kind of hybrid creature) to be really nasty and give my PCs a run for their money!

Yeah I get what you mean about mechanics. I just know my players will be bored by a lot of the content, so trying to spice it up a little!
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AsherPAF wrote:
kevin_video wrote:


Admittedly, I had completely forgotten about the LG paradise dragons and their force breath weapon that can bend 90 degrees to attack evil creatures. That's just bonkers.

Regarding Book 6, I'd wager that Gary wanted to do something unique with each book. We had a "defend the lair" book, technically two "attack the lair" books although one was more about infiltrating secretly where as the other one was leading an army, and Book 6 is your standard sandbox. Just letting the PCs do their own thing. They don't know about Bellinda or that she disappeared to a far off place to train and bring back an army. It's cool that you're rewriting it though. Means you have a different vision for the story's conclusion than what Gary had.

The paradise dragon's spell selection isn't great though. They can't even see invisible creatures, so I'm considering creating a Paradise dragon with a Bliss dragon's spell list (some kind of hybrid creature) to be really nasty and give my PCs a run for their money!

Yeah I get what you mean about mechanics. I just know my players will be bored by a lot of the content, so trying to spice it up a little!

That's fair. You definitely want to tailor the game more towards your players.

What you could do to make it more your own, take an adult paradise dragon that's CR 16. Add about 8 oracle levels. That'll give you +4 CR for CR 20 (assuming you're wanting to go that high). Those oracle levels will let you customize the spell list to what you'd like to have (including invisibility purge), and give you a mystery as well. As for the curse, go lame. Being reduced to 50 ft. land speed and 190 ft. fly speed is laughable. Also your dragon HD count as half the oracle level for the curse benefits. All dragons have blindsense, so look at the whimsy or solar mysteries (definitely recommend whimsy for the flicker and whimsical step abilities). Both get faerie fire as a bonus revelation spell. Sense an enemy at 60 ft. cast the spell. Everyone in that 5 ft. burst is discovered. Heck, take Widen Metamagic Spell as one of the bonus HD feats and that'll increase the radius.
JohnHawkins wrote:
** spoiler omitted **...

Can I ask where you're getting the +15 deflection bonus from for Bellinda? I can't see how anywhere! Thanks

AsherPAF wrote:
JohnHawkins wrote:
** spoiler omitted **...
Can I ask where you're getting the +15 deflection bonus from for Bellinda? I can't see how anywhere! Thanks
In an earlier post he says
JohnHawkins wrote:
She also has a permenant Nereid's grace spell in effect , done via a tattoo which several of my pc's also use so she gets charisma to AC AS A deflection bonus.

Probably somehow gotten with the Inscribe magic tattoo feat.

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WagnerSika wrote:
AsherPAF wrote:
JohnHawkins wrote:
** spoiler omitted **...
Can I ask where you're getting the +15 deflection bonus from for Bellinda? I can't see how anywhere! Thanks
In an earlier post he says
JohnHawkins wrote:
She also has a permenant Nereid's grace spell in effect , done via a tattoo which several of my pc's also use so she gets charisma to AC AS A deflection bonus.
Probably somehow gotten with the Inscribe magic tattoo feat.

I wondered if that was the case, but the spell has since been changed so that the max is +3. It can't get as high as +15 any more. An item might do that, but it'd be stupid expensive.

kevin_video wrote:
WagnerSika wrote:
AsherPAF wrote:
JohnHawkins wrote:
** spoiler omitted **...
Can I ask where you're getting the +15 deflection bonus from for Bellinda? I can't see how anywhere! Thanks
In an earlier post he says
JohnHawkins wrote:
She also has a permenant Nereid's grace spell in effect , done via a tattoo which several of my pc's also use so she gets charisma to AC AS A deflection bonus.
Probably somehow gotten with the Inscribe magic tattoo feat.
I wondered if that was the case, but the spell has since been changed so that the max is +3. It can't get as high as +15 any more. An item might do that, but it'd be stupid expensive.

If you give the princess a level of paladin she could smite and get that +15 that way. She could also take a level of lore oracle for sidestep secret to get Cha instead of Dex to AC. Or a level of scaled fist monk to get cha to AC instead of Wis. If you are willing to change some feats around then Crane Style feats give even more AC. Osylyth guile feat would give Cha to AC against single target when fighting defensively.

It is fairly easy to get her AC even higher.
Shield spell gives +4 Shield bonus, change Chastise on her spells known to Shield. Foresight spell gives +2 insight bonus to AC,
Dusty rose Ioun stone for +1 insight bonus to AC. Too bad the jingasa was nerfed (I do not use the nerfed version in games I run). Couple of skill points to Acrobatics and fighting defensively gives +3 to AC.
If you can somehow justify it, you could have the Princess be a devoted worshipper of Arshea and take the Celestial obedience and get Cha to AC as armor bonus.
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WagnerSika wrote:
If you can somehow justify it, you could have the Princess be a devoted worshipper of Arshea and take the Celestial obedience and get Cha to AC as armor bonus.

Mitra is essentially three gods. You wouldn't need to make her a worshiper of Arshea if only because that deity technically doesn't exist in this campaign, but you could reflavour Mitra to allow Arshea's feats.

As for monk or paladin levels, it's one of the reasons people were negative towards Gary going sorcerer 20 for the princess instead of sorcerer/dragon disciple. Not that all of her abilities were spelled out either, and the DC's are definitely min-maxed to a degree. But, that somewhat balances out what the PCs would do.

I noticed the Nereid grace max Deflection bonus is +6 at CL18.
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WagnerSika wrote:
I noticed the Nereid grace max Deflection bonus is +6 at CL18.

Yeah, I don't know if that's an errata or what. The +6 limit is definitely in the online versions of the spell. I don't have a copy of the 1st printing, which might not have had a limit.

Regardless, it's druid/witch 1, so it has to be a magic item. Belinda couldn't cast that on herself unless it was through a wish.
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Wow, this is a lot of errors over the course of seven books. It's good to note though, so anyone running this can make adjustments to their own games.

That said, the person who did that also wrote an epic reddit post about the AP, and was not exactly kind. The title of it speaks just how much this book hurt them. Literally, the final paragraph describes that the AP affected their mental health negatively.
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Wow, that's rough. I do agree with many of the criticisms. I have redone almost all of the major NPCs so I did not really notice all the mistakes. And it did not make any difference if some skill points were in error on some soldiers. I disagree about the story being bad. While not brilliant it is easily on par with Paizo APs that I have read or played. The AP does require a lot of work on the part of GM, but at the same time I really enjoyed the work. It felt like I was making a good thing better, not that I was salvaging bad work.
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WagnerSika wrote:
Wow, that's rough. I do agree with many of the criticisms. I have redone almost all of the major NPCs so I did not really notice all the mistakes. And it did not make any difference if some skill points were in error on some soldiers. I disagree about the story being bad. While not brilliant it is easily on par with Paizo APs that I have read or played. The AP does require a lot of work on the part of GM, but at the same time I really enjoyed the work. It felt like I was making a good thing better, not that I was salvaging bad work.

Same. I liked it for what it was. It had its hiccups, for sure, but that's what happens when your hard drive crashes and you lose everything that's not written down on paper. Humans a fallible, unfortunately. It's also partly why we have a Book 7.

We all know I've done dozens of blog entries on various changes that should be implemented in the game, whether stats are wrong, or CR should be lowered or increased for NPCs that don't make wealth or are too well build for feats, etc. I'm sure if Gary had done things with Hero Lab it'd have been easier, but even that isn't perfect.

I will agree with one thing that was noted in the reddit post--it's a product of its time. Had it been written when five of the bestiaries had been written, with the sixth on the way, as well as more core books such as Ultimate, Combat, Intrigue, etc, the AP would have been done differently.

Have been away for sometime
I did give the princess Nereids grace as a permenant spell via tattoo , most of the pc's had the same effect. I believe the PC sorceress also had , the Arshea effect via one of the devils, and an orcale dip and her Charisma so high that I had trouble getting a Solar to hit her at all.

I can't remember the quality of the npc's in the campaign I know I rebuilt all of them, but I have never run an AP were I did not rebuild every notable character as my players optimise to a higher level than writers expect and I am too generous to them . Plot wise it is at least as good as the average paizo AP ,better than some worse than others but a lot of that is going to depend on your group.

The only AP I have ever had a serious problem with the mechanics of is Wrath of the Righteous but there are whole threads on that. The CR/Wealth and so on are all guidelines and any writer should be willing to break them when needed, I regularly ignore them when rebuidling encounters for balance and I have not used xp in 20 years so the CR serves no purpose anyway, and is a very rough guide a level 1 Goblin and a level 1 Orc warrior have the same CR and they are very different threats to characters

Giving the princess levels in gragon disciple would be a solid nerf to her, trade in severel caster levels for strength and natural armour , thats great for a primary caster , really great could not persuade one of my players to do that if I tried.

The main thing I learned from this AP was to never give templates to pc's they are far too effective. Vampire sorcers are terrifying as they get all of that lovely charisma bonus on their hp
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WagnerSika wrote:
I disagree about the story being bad. While not brilliant it is easily on par with Paizo APs that I have read or played.

Former Wicked player here. For me, elements of the story as written were very frustrating, and I frequently felt like the AP had a poor grasp even on its own plot, even without getting into its poor grasp on game mechanics that a better AP might have harmoniously integrated into said plot. Completely forgetting about plot elements introduced in earlier books is a repeated problem - not just once or twice but again, and again, and again, only a handful of which were addressed in the later Book 7 - and on some occasions the AP not just ignores previous scenes or lore but outright contradicts them.

There are any number of examples, but the worst and most frustrating IMO was Richard's

Spoiler:
absolutely bogus redemption in book 6. It was such a blatant, in-your-face failure by the author to respect the elements of his own plot. It makes it seem like he did not bother to reread the scene he was writing the sequel to. Not only does he want to pull some surprise gotcha with the principle that devil contracts signed by compulsion are invalid (a principle never hinted at before but invented on the spot for the benefit of the author's Very Special NPC, and as a GM there are few things more odious than inventing rules on the spot for the benefit of a Very Special NPC); even that asspull also requires the AP to pretend that Richard was forced to sign the contract (when the previous AP book has Dessiter and the party not force Richard to sign but convince him - to quote exactly, if the party supports Dessiter, then the paladin "gives in to Dessiter's argument").

This wasn't a minor scene, either, it was the resolution for one of the AP's most developed characters, the only antagonist in fact who is meant to fight the party three different times in three different books, who has pages of ink devoted to chronicling his backstory and offscreen exploits. The AP pays more attention to Richard than to nearly any other NPC, and even so could not be bothered to keep his story straight.

Such gross railroading - bulldozing not only over any party actions w/r/t Richard but over the AP's own prior scene - and for what? A lame gotcha.

At this point, when the scene goes yet further and gratuitously gives him back full paladin powers with no need for an atonement, it's just par for the course. This is honestly the least bad part of this mess of a scene, but it is still an instance of the tendency to write plot points that handwave game rules rather than integrating them.

Quote:
The AP does require a lot of work on the part of GM, but at the same time I really enjoyed the work. It felt like I was making a good thing better, not that I was salvaging bad work.

My own take is that it was an AP with some interesting and ambitious ideas that it mostly failed to execute well. I absolutely agree that a GM willing to do enormous amounts of extra work could make something very good out of it.

The stats work is capital-A Awful, and I do not just mean that it is absolutely riddled with severe errors, though it is that, but also that the AP's ability to challenge a halfway competent party is at best mediocre and at worst completely MIA after Book 1. You do not need to be a highly optimized party to blow this AP out of the water; you as PCs can mail it in after Book 1 and still feel little sense of challenge. Playing a witch, out of sheer laziness, I stopped selecting feats or filling more than one or two spell slots a level after Level 5. Just left placeholders on the character sheet. I had picked up a crafting feat at Level 5 but ended up leaving the majority of my character wealth in the form of a pile of uncrafted GP even as weeks and months of crafting downtime drifted by. Never needed or missed any of that stuff.

This is an AP that at one point throws a barbarian opponent at a 14th/15th level, and supposed to be high powered for its level, party whose threat consists of attacking in melee for 1d8+5 damage. Purportedly a CR 14 melee threat that the text describes as a "furious combat monster." Paizo's Clockwork Soldier has comparable offense (same to hit; fewer attacks but more than double the damage) at CR 6!

Not an outlier when it comes to humanoid NPC statblocks (i.e., statblocks fully built by the AP author rather than taken from a Bestiary), either. The boss of book 4 is another martial NPC who purports to be CR 15 and deals 1d8+7. Neither has Power Attack, so for damage what you see is what you get.

There are many other complaints that could be made, such as how not-actually-Good the good guys feel as written, but I'll save those for if I ever write an actual review. Players and GMs who put in extraordinary effort can make this a cool and interesting AP, but there are so many warts.
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As the person who shared the Reddit post that heavily criticizes the AP, made a revision blog about it, and objectively been looking at it from a designer's point of view, it absolutely has its flaws and ignores a number of rules. Because we're bringing up Book 6, just one thing we can address is the fact that dragons don't have armor proficiency, yet the silver dragon is wearing mithral full plate.

[i]Nonproficient with Armor Worn:[i] A character who wears armor and/or uses a shield with which he is not proficient takes the armor’s (and/or shield’s) armor check penalty on attack rolls as well as on all Dex– and Str-based ability and skill checks. The penalty for non-proficiency with armor stacks with the penalty for shields.

Even with it being mithral, the dragon should have had -4 to all of those things and a 20-foot move speed. In my blog, I said to give her a level of warrior as NPC class levels wouldn't increase CR and adjust ability scores, or you could give her a magic item that gives her Heavy Armor Proficiency, but still. This was an oversight made by the author.

Regarding NPCs throughout, a lot of class levels were ignored. Not even "this monster with X class is 1:1 while Y class is 2:1 for CR ratio", but some didn't even have class levels at all. Just abilities added to them like it was a template years before Paizo gave us the Simple Templates. There were also creatures that were "advanced", but that math didn't math so they were CR 16, but actually only CR 12, which the author denied because he said he looked at Paizo's quick advancement rules. Unfortunately, that's not good enough.

And spelling errors were definitely an issue. I couldn't help but wonder if this was written WordPad. Not everyone uses Google Doc, or owns Word Document, and being your editor is difficult because you know what the wording SHOULD say. I give a slight pass on that, but only slight.

I agree with Coriat that the whole thing with Richard was very poorly executed and made no sense in the grand scheme. It's the kind of thing you'd see called out by movie critics if this was a film.

I think part of the issue with Book 6 was crunch time. When Books 5 and 6 were coming out, that's when Gary's hard drive failed. He lost practically everything because he hadn't backed it up. The only stuff he had on both books were paper notes he had scribbled everything down on. He was trying to release each book once every two months, and this put him behind significantly. As well, he was in the middle of talks with Paizo staff to commission them (namely Jason Bulmahn) to do feats and class archetypes. As such, the quality shifted quite a bit.

What's unfortunate is this AP was supposed to get a complete facelift for the 10 year anniversary edition, fixing and clarifying all the issues, but obviously that didn't happen.
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Maybe we can all stop discussing Way of the Wicked and let money-thieving, Kickstarter-defrauding, safari-loving Gary McBride fade into the obscure ignominy that his actions have warranted.

I'm running book 6 at the moment and I agree that Richards return to the side of good was done badly. Do you guys have any advice on how to handle it better?
I would like it to be little shock to the PC's that he turns. Maybe some thing happens as a catalyst?
My PCs have installed Richard as a king, maybe Bellinda sends a kidnapping team and they kill Dessiter in the fight so he can't scry on his location?
If the Pcs are present they will most certainly foil the kidnapping but doing it "behind the scenes" seems a bit cheating.
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WagnerSika wrote:

I'm running book 6 at the moment and I agree that Richards return to the side of good was done badly. Do you guys have any advice on how to handle it better?

I would like it to be little shock to the PC's that he turns. Maybe some thing happens as a catalyst?
My PCs have installed Richard as a king, maybe Bellinda sends a kidnapping team and they kill Dessiter in the fight so he can't scry on his location?
If the Pcs are present they will most certainly foil the kidnapping but doing it "behind the scenes" seems a bit cheating.

A rescue/kidnapping team sounds good. The final battle has a solar. Have a cleric that's possessed by that solar be part of the team to do an atonement on Richard and rescue him. It also gives a reason for why the solar is present for the final battle besides just having more holy allies. You could also have a half-giant/titan mauler/titan fighter be part of the team, and make it be the child of titan. If you're not opposed to 3pp, it could even be a giant blooded sorcerer with teleportation spells.

As for how it all came to be, the whole Richard's mother thing could still be present in the story. Maybe Richard's mother becomes an angel and was the one who had the solar sent.

I would honestly strongly consider not doing the scene as written if the party has treated him well and rewarded his ambitions (as I guess they probably have if they made him king). Maybe consider letting them foil it, or even, if they have been particularly generous to him, having him reject it on his own and tell them about it later - and let them know this is the payoff for empowering and rewarding him rather than sidelining him after his fall.

But if you do have the scene happen, maybe at least let his soul be properly damned when the party deals with him, given that:

1) the compulsion thing that the scene pulls from its butt to handwave away his contract is a continuity error.
2) even if it were true that he signed under compulsion, the "rule" that compulsion invalidates devil contracts is made up on the spot to save a special NPC, and making up previously unheard-of rules to make the party lose something is obnoxious.
3) even if compulsion did invalidate devil contracts, it's unbelievable that a contract devil would have no idea about this and consequently would draw up a contract that is just invalid and worthless. A contract that is valid but has loopholes or ways to lawyer out of things is one thing, and would be fully appropriate and traditional, but are we to believe Dessiter was so incompetent and uninformed about the way infernal contracts work that this contract is just pointless and not worth the paper it is written on? Also that a being as intelligent and expert as a pit fiend was unaware of the rules either, so that he had no idea the contract is worthless? Greater devils should not be portrayed as incompetent when it comes to contracts, nor should signing your soul away be portrayed as inconsequential and trivially undone.
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