The Extinction Curse Adventure Path begins! The Circus of Wayward Wonders has just arrived in the remote town of Abberton, and the player characters are the stars of the show! When the ringmaster turns up dead, the fate of the traveling circus and its entertainers hangs in the balance, and the heroes must scramble to put on a successful show and find the killer—all at the same time! Investigations only lead to more questions, and the heroes find themselves center stage in a dangerous, prehistoric plot that threatens not just Abberton, but every inhabitant of the Starstone Isles!
"The Show Must Go On" is a Pathfinder Second Edition adventure for four 1st-level characters. This adventure begins the Extinction Curse Adventure Path, a six-part, monthly campaign in which the heroes lead a traveling circus as they unravel a plot to eradicate all life from the Starstone Isles at the heart of the Inner Sea. The adventure also includes advice on how to run a traveling circus, new circus-themed rules, and a menagerie of monsters both wondrous and wicked.
Each monthly full-color softcover Pathfinder Adventure Path volume contains an in-depth adventure scenario, stats for several new monsters, and 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 world’s oldest fantasy RPG.
The Extinction Curse Adventure Path is sanctioned for use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. The rules for running this Adventure and Chronicle sheet are available as a free download (972 kb PDF).
Note: The Life in the Circus article in this volume references a feat from the Extinction Curse Player's Guide. That feat isn't in the player's guide, but can be found here.
Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:
This adventure flows really well and has lots of fun encounters and the art is amazing.
Chapter 1 starts with a murder mystery that is very different from Plaguestone: you are trying to find the guy that killed your boss by following leads and running into traps on the circus grounds. Depending on how fast they find her, she might ambush them from behind. The circus backstory is well done and bringing up the weird competition of their previous circus is the cherry on top.
Chapter 2 is very well done and the short encounters are fun albeit not very tactical. The demons are super weird and fun to run and I love the bar encounter.
Chapter 3 involves diving into a bigger dungeon that requires you to basically clear it out. Unless a PC took Gozreh as their deity, then they can use a short cut. The final fight is fantastic from a tactical perspective and there are lots of fights that can be moved into a different direction. You can even get a special animal companion.
The maps lack a bit of tactical depth but the last dungeon makes up for all of that. Many chances to climb and really cool extreme weather changes shake up the crawl. The succubus encounter suggest a few very funny ways to run it.
The circus rules are crunchy but I did not spot any obvious issues.
TL;DR: Really good first book 1, even better than AoA and Agents of Edgewatch. Can't find anything to really criticize.
The Good:
-A nice tie into various circus-related themes.
-An interesting mystery/intrigue set-up to the module.
-It does a nice job of sowing crumbs about what the AP's endgame will be from the start, making sure the players will get plenty of foreshadowing.
-Some fun, and appropriately grotesque encounters (I'm looking at you, Vermlek Demons!).
-Several climactic encounters that look challenging, but not excruciatingly-difficult; a better balance than in most of the other early-level material Paizo's put out.
-Some really amazing beastiary creatures. The Bone Croupier, the Mechanical Carny, and of course the Vermlek Demons; all just great additions, dripping with flavor.
The Bad:
-It would have been nice to have some descriptions of the other members of the Circus of Wayward Wonders, especially since this kind of flavor is the kind of thing the Paizo writing team excels at.
-A few features of the Circus rules seem a little funny (e.g., the cost of high tier advertising, the lack of incentive for using different skill checks), but any wrinkles here seem easy enough to tweak with a house rule or two.
-The first level of encounters is intended to be worked through in a single night, which might be a tall order for parties who get unlucky in some of the early encounters.
The Pretty:
-The maps are beautiful. The map of the Hermitage of the Blessed Lightning in particular is a pleasure to look at.
-The art in general is really good. Both the stylistic touches of the page layout, and the pieces of art themselves, are really nice.
Overall: 4.5/5 stars (rounded up).
Welcome to the circus! Hope you enjoyed it, now it's time to leave until book 2.
I had high hopes for this book but it doesn't quite come through in the end. The opening is jarring-- you're thrust into the adventure in media res and immediately must manage a circus of performers you've never interacted with before. Before you're allowed to even share a split-second with an NPC you're immediately urged to investigate their murder. Somehow the circus camp is chock full of monsters and the investigation becomes a string of combat encounters against level 1 staples-- bears, snakes and rats.
I think I would like this book a lot more if it didn't immediately leave the circus after Part 1. The only reminder of you being a circus performer is a trick-off against two rival performers and Pennywise's stunt double in Part 2; otherwise it's a quick ramp up to two back-to-back dungeon crawls (one demon themed, one troglodyte themed).
I think the weirdest part about this adventure is that it shares so much in common with The Fall of Plaguestone. From elemental animals to a bare-fisted barroom brawl to the encounters against the same woodlands creatures to the primary impetus of Part 1 to the adventure taking place in a farming village... Every time it detours from that feeling, it swerves back around.
The combat encounters appear much more balanced than the other low-level PF2e adventures-- there are only 8 Severe encounters in the book's 50~ish encounters as opposed to Plaguestone's 9 in 32. Weak-adjusted monsters and Trivial encounters are great and I'm glad there's more than 0!
If you're hard up for some new PF2e content, or are a GM who's invested in adding a lot of your own content to the book, this will satisfy. Otherwise I'd wait for a bit until more of these books are out and you can read reviews on where this AP is going.
Thus begins the circus/dinosaur adventure path. That is such a cool premise, right there. So awesome!
However, book 1 is just... OK. The first three quarters of the book feel like padding to get you to the Aeon Tower and the main story arc.
Also, your circus is kind of boring. The GM will have to put some work in here to flesh out some memorable NPCs. There's some really cool art for different acts you can showcase, but nothing in the adventure, other than the mechanics for slotting them into the circus management mini game.
Speaking of; the rules for running a circus feel like they will be a total ball ache to implement. This could actually top the caravan rules from Jade Regent for 'most unrewarding waste of your valuable time'. Fortunately, the adventure states they can be completely ignored.
The art and general aesthetic for the adventure is really vibrant and fun. I think sheer novelty value boosts this book from 3 to 4 stars.
Like Jellico Bounce-Bounce's art doesn't really match the whole "Acrobatic bouncy clown" gimmick :p
Maybe we can come up with a new name for him? (Easier than to redraw the illo, I mean. Plus, there's nothing wrong with the illo. In fact - it's excellent!) I think I'll simply call him "Jellico".
On that topic, it appears there's *no* art for Daring Danika or Viktor Volkano...
Spoiler:
While I understand there can't be art for every monster you face, this trio isn't exactly monsters - they're supposed to be the PCs former colleagues from as little as a few weeks ago!
Guess I'm taken slightly aback at how the module just shrugs at the issue of explaining three murdered circus performers. Is Abberton entirely lawless? Not a huge issue, but a small one.
The art looks like something audience is supposed to be scared by instead of being entertained by though :D
Also to note:
You only fight ONE of the three after the performance battle. You never fight all three in combat, so presumably two of the surviving ones should show up in next book, unless writers didn't know that
But yeah, wouldn't be surprised if pawn box for this will have art for all circus performers
That said, Daring Danika and her lion does appear chapter opening art :D
Anyone else having trouble with the map PDF? For some reason the maps in the main book are pristine but the maps in the interactive map pdf are MUCH lower resolution and I cant use them for the game I have planned!
Wow. Aroden is good at not planning ahead or checking results of his actions xD
What colonizer is? XP
All of them? Superior planning skills and analysis are pretty universally greater in colonizing countries/governments than in colonized ones. That this may break down at certain scales doesn't change the relative competence levels.
You only fight ONE of the three after the performance battle. You never fight all three in combat, so presumably two of the surviving ones should show up in next book, unless writers didn't know that
Spoiler:
None of the three are mentioned in book two Legacy of Lost God (where the rivalry with Mistress Dusklight and her circus comes to a point, and presumably finishes).
Why is the product delayed worldwide from January to April 2020, it cannot be ordered from Amazon, BookRepository or anywhere else.
It's relatively common for Amazon to provide incorrect information about RPG products release dates.
My guess would be that they received their January shipment of preorders, sold out and have put a conservative placeholder date for when they'll receive their restock.
You only fight ONE of the three after the performance battle. You never fight all three in combat, so presumably two of the surviving ones should show up in next book, unless writers didn't know that
** spoiler omitted **
You can add them back in. But we don't know who you fought, so that's up to the GM.
Like Jellico Bounce-Bounce's art doesn't really match the whole "Acrobatic bouncy clown" gimmick :p
Maybe we can come up with a new name for him? (Easier than to redraw the illo, I mean. Plus, there's nothing wrong with the illo. In fact - it's excellent!) I think I'll simply call him "Jellico".
On that topic, it appears there's *no* art for Daring Danika or Viktor Volkano...
Anyone else having trouble with the map PDF? For some reason the maps in the main book are pristine but the maps in the interactive map pdf are MUCH lower resolution and I cant use them for the game I have planned!
You are most definitely the only one who noticed. A thread was already spun up about this over here. I don't think there was ever an official response in that thread but based on the numbers I was getting it looks like the maps in the dedicated maps pdfs significantly worse resolution(I have numbers in a post over in the other thread). Funnily enough though, the aspect ratio I got for the images was not the same between the two pdfs.
Ha! Indeed, seems I shouldn't post when tired. Re-read that message a few times and still didn't spot that I missed a word. Thank you for the correction!
I don't think there was ever an official response in that thread but based on the numbers I was getting it looks like the maps in the dedicated maps pdfs significantly worse resolution(I have numbers in a post over in the other thread).
FWIW, I don't expect Paizo to respond until they themselves 1) realize what is happening, 2) have investigated exactly why things are going wrong and 3) have agreed internally on what they are gonna do about it.
I mean, obviously we will keep telling them until they acknowledge the issue (since it likely is just a silly handling error) - it's just that it's better IMO to give them time to coordinate a fully comprehensive reply.
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I think 2e has made this significantly easier, at least for me, so you can do this on the fly.
For each encounter, look at the severity—moderate, low, etc. Look at the chart on page 489 of the Core Rulebook. The character adjustment amount is for each PC over four. So for a moderate encounter, you'd expect 80 XP worth of opponents for 4 PCs. The adjustment for a 5th PC would be another 20 XP worth of opponents, 40 XP if there were six PCs, etc.
Then choose what to add using the second chart on that page. This could be another henchman in an encounter with multiple creatures with a level of PCs - 2, or adding the elite rules if they're fighting a single creature equal to their level (changing that creature from Party Level to Party Level + 1).
In practice, it's usually better to add more henchman than to make the creature elite, as it provides more opportunities for all PCs to engage an enemy.
Regardless of how much you add, you do NOT change the XP awarded—the additional XP of creatures just makes the challenge appropriate for the original XP budget. So in this example, the PCs would each still earn the 80 XP budget for a Moderate encounter.
I think 2e has made this significantly easier, at least for me, so you can do this on the fly.
Thanks. After looking at some other advice, it seems like APs are still hard mode, so I'm going to start with my five players and the normal number of enemies. I think I still need to add 25% more treasure.
I think 2e has made this significantly easier, at least for me, so you can do this on the fly.
Thanks. After looking at some other advice, it seems like APs are still hard mode, so I'm going to start with my five players and the normal number of enemies. I think I still need to add 25% more treasure.
Eh only particularly hard fight on level 1 part is that one level 3 enemy. (well that and if players ignore common sense and open one cage)
Thanks. After looking at some other advice, it seems like APs are still hard mode, so I'm going to start with my five players and the normal number of enemies. I think I still need to add 25% more treasure.
That's exactly how I started out. After the first two chapters I decided to add the Free Archetype variant for the PCs as well, and so far (most of the way through chapter three) I've been happy with the decision.
Anyone else seeing that the “S” character is missing from the red circus font when reading the PDF in the Apple Books app on an iPad? For instance, the name of the book in the right page margin says “THE HOW MU T GO ON” on every page. And this happens throughout the book. The “Staff Acrobat” archetype is “taff Acrobat”, for example.
