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Pathfinder Adventure Path #157: Devil at the Dreaming Palace (Agents of Edgewatch 1 of 6)

3.50/5 (based on 13 ratings)
Pathfinder Adventure Path #157: Devil at the Dreaming Palace (Agents of Edgewatch 1 of 6)
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Get ready to shine your badge and report for duty—the Agents of Edgewatch Adventure Path begins! In this thrilling new Pathfinder campaign, players assume the role of fresh recruits of the Edgewatch, the newest division of Absalom's city watch. Tasked with fighting crime during this year's Radiant Festival—a grand centennial gathering of exhibitors and wonders from around the world that this year celebrates the grand reopening of Absalom's treacherous Precipice Quarter, long a ruined haven of monsters and criminals. Soon after taking on the new beat, the detectives learn that the fair has attracted not only cutpurses and vandals, but also poisoners, ransomers, and even a sadistic serial murderer, and it's up to the Agents of Edgewatch to crack the case and bring these villains to justice!

“Devil at the Dreaming Palace,” by fan-favorite author James L. Sutter, is a Pathfinder adventure for four 1st-level characters. The adventure kicks off the Agents of Edgewatch Adventure Path, in which the heroes join the city watch to solve a series of crimes across Absalom, the City of Lost Omens, before the crooks can pull off the ultimate heist! This volume also includes an in-depth gazetteer of Absalom's Radiant Festival, thematically appropriate new monsters, and new rules designed to support the Agents of Edgewatch campaign!

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.

ISBN-13: 978-1-64078-253-2

Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:

Hero Lab Online
Fantasy Grounds Virtual Tabletop
Roll20 Virtual Tabletop
Archives of Nethys

Note: This product is part of the Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscription.

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3.50/5 (based on 13 ratings)

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This is the best edgewatch book, but...

3/5 —

...Its also giant meatgrinder with multiple overtuned encounters and tpk opportunities at level 1 and at the final boss.

Its still best crime solving book out of entire ap, even with its issues(the labor strike/hostage thing as written is yikes in many ways), because this is before Twilight Four's nonsense starts, but part of why later book suffers is problems starting from this book.

Like for example, this book's adventure toolbox article lacks campaign outline that actually explains what is Twilight Four's history and plan, so GM has to put it together from over course of reading multiple books... And their plan seems to be kinda poor for master criminals.

Its hard to review Edgewatch books as a player who is now reading the ap because biggest problems of Edgewatch relate to ap as campaign. Like its fairly clear the AP would have been better as 3 part one, timescale of AP makes no sense(why does it need to take place during Radiant Festival exactly and why couldn't festival be as long as chicago's worldfair festival it seems to be inspired by?)

While this is also only book in ap that remembers players should prefer to use nonlethal combat methods(ap was clearly written with different assumption than player's guide), its also the one that misses opportunity to use automatic bonus progression rules or create campaign specific loot rules and instead just handwaves it with "edgewatch is acting with privateer laws for duration of ap"

Its also feels like straight up false advertising when this ap was promoted as police procedural ap while book itself says "Since the focus of this Adventure Path is fast-paced action rather than legal paperwork,"... Well I really disagree with take that town guard ap should be cop action movie, it really should have put more focus on crime solving and investigation and etc thing than just rushing pcs into next action scene with tiniest amount of downtime and breathers.

Devil at the Dreaming Palace in itself is memorable and brutal adventure, but yeah its best ap because its self contained from later books weird issues.

5/5 —


Almost made us not play 2e.

1/5 —

With any kind of published adventure, especially one in a new system starting at level 1 the most important question is "can I pick this up and run it?" If the answer to that question is no, it's like a car missing a part. It doesn't matter what the engine torque is if there are no wheels. It doesn't matter how engaging the plot or setting are if you can't run this as a game.

The escaped critters encounter is an absolute meat grinder. Paizo's products tend to over estimate low level (especially brand new first levels) but this is n.v.t.s. nuts. Several monsters in a row can walk up to PCs, hit them twice and drop them without even critting. One of the hits is LIKELY to be a crit that will drop them.

The situation is set up so that you probably shouldn't be taking short rests to heal up, much less take the long rests you're going to need to recover from each encounter. There are clever system agnostic adventurer shenanigans you can do to avoid engaging with the system, but as far as "lets try out pf2" goes you get the impression that the adventure and system want to turn you into a fine red mist.

Good start to a fine AP.

4/5 —

This is a well-written first book to get the players and characters interested in the promised themes of the adventure.

Our player group all really enjoyed the Dreaming Palace and the House of Planes which we made the most of. The name-dropping for later is also a nice addition.

Unfortunately, the Adventure Path starts going down hill in the later books which makes starting this as a long-term game not as attractive a recommendation as a GM or player.

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Sporkedup wrote:

Finally got around to finish reading it through.

First thought, in regards to this discussion at hand, this is not Saw levels much at all. It's intense, more Penny Dreadful than Supernatural, but almost all of it is very easily glossed over or rewritten as needed (and the AP itself offers a sidebar on exactly which points need some attention).

But more importantly, this book absolutely rocks. The writing is great, the variety of encounters is terrific, and it feels absolutely connected to future events! That's my favorite bit. The last two first-books in APs seemed to be removable by design, but this one absolutely is dialed in from minute one. I really appreciate that.

Between the heavily lawful elements of the campaign and the grotesque horror that apparently will be a part of it as well... I will have to work at what table I put together. But a good table for this literally feels like a whole level higher than Extinction Curse or Age of Ashes.

If this quality keeps up, I see a future classic just started.

In before Paizo staff shows up to say, "Write a review!" :D

Joana wrote:
Sporkedup wrote:

Finally got around to finish reading it through.

First thought, in regards to this discussion at hand, this is not Saw levels much at all. It's intense, more Penny Dreadful than Supernatural, but almost all of it is very easily glossed over or rewritten as needed (and the AP itself offers a sidebar on exactly which points need some attention).

But more importantly, this book absolutely rocks. The writing is great, the variety of encounters is terrific, and it feels absolutely connected to future events! That's my favorite bit. The last two first-books in APs seemed to be removable by design, but this one absolutely is dialed in from minute one. I really appreciate that.

Between the heavily lawful elements of the campaign and the grotesque horror that apparently will be a part of it as well... I will have to work at what table I put together. But a good table for this literally feels like a whole level higher than Extinction Curse or Age of Ashes.

If this quality keeps up, I see a future classic just started.

In before Paizo staff shows up to say, "Write a review!" :D

Ha! Generally speaking, I'd prefer to run it before I commit to a review... but also, it would literally just join my backlog of intended reviews. Oops.

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Spoiler:
That is pretty much H. H. Holmes.
Dark Archive
2 people marked this as a favorite.

Although I think the atmosphere and art in DatDP feel a bit too "Victorian London" to my taste, it's a well-written module that features great encounters and great maps! Well done, James; this is IMO the best 2E adventure published so far! :)

Some comments and a question:

Spoiler:
WOO-HOO! this adventure features gricks and shredskins, which are among my favorite creepy monsters of all time! And that shredskin art is something that will give you nightmares!

I was also delighted to see the pickled punk encounter, but was somewhat confused by the stat block... first of all, it doesn't list any icons for actions? Secondly, pickled punk seems to be able to inflict automatic damage without spending any actions while attached? That is quite different from, for example, how bloodseeker's attach works. Maybe this was an oversight, or a "copy-paste" glitch from the 1E stat block?
Dark Archive
2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

For myself, I'm digging the Victorian vibe and art. Also, kudos to the artist for this chapter, they're captured a smoothly executed dung-eating grin for a certain character.

This one sounded it good enough for me to throw in for a subscription. Last two didnt thrill me. Hope this one is better
Acquisitives
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Started reading through this yesterday... oh man, this looks fun. I want to run the Kortos Trilogy!
Pathfinder LO Special Edition, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber

Found a small discrepancy, probably doesn't matter much.

The intro to chapter one says the Radiant Festival was supposed to be in 4719 but was delayed because of Tar-Baphon's invasion (see "Tyrant's Grasp"). The "Radiant Festival" article says the first festival was in 1620, one year after the "Radiant Siege" of 1619, and the second, in 1720, was when it was decreed that there would be a festival every 100 years. So it wasn't every 100 years starting with the year of the siege, but every 100 years starting with the year after the siege. Which kind of makes sense.

Like I said, not a big deal, but little things like this bother us ocd types. :-)

Oh, another very minor detail: the "Radiant Festival" article speaks of "the 4,000 year history" of the festival. It's 3,000 years. :-)

Has anyone put out any homebrew for this that removes the civil forfeiture and fine/bribes?
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The book 1 GM thread in the AoE forum has a lot of posts from people working to strip it. Highly recommend you give it a read (and ignore the people who say "Actually it's fine")

Simplest solutions: stipend based on WBL table, bounty-based payouts, or have some kind of quartermaster NPC providing them stuff. Police auctions can also work ("hey this guy got arrested and processed and the city is selling his stuff to process it") but I don't like that stuff IRL either so YMMV.

Use the Automatic Bonus Progression rules and a paycheck (with rapid promotions) to make up the rest of the wealth needed?
Marketing & Media Manager
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Lone Wolf Development plans to have the Pathfinder Agents of Edgewatch Adventure Path available for Hero Lab Online on October 20th.
Dark Archive
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I do wish I had a way to discuss playing in these games without being in risk of spoilers.

Like it was really fun how yesterday we skipped the certain dungeon with use of single charm spell on certain person who was making situation much much more worse and thus managed to get peaceful compromise (for everyone but the person making things worse x'D) But I can't talk about specifics because that'd be spoiling and if I went to talk to spoiler thread I woudl get spoiled
Dark Archive
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Happy days! Edgewatch player content is finally available for ACP boon purchases :D

(sad at lack of archetypes or nightstick though, but finally nice to have access to admonishing ray)
Dark Archive
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Level 4 reached :'D We getting pretty determined to catch the "devil" so to speak. Geezus how disturbing the final act of book is so far.
Dark Archive
1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Geezus, that final boss was overtuned x'D Also weirded out to learn that serial killer mentioned in blurb is inspired by real life serial killer (even if legend of real life inspiration was exaggerated by the press)
Marketing & Media Manager
CorvusMask wrote:

I do wish I had a way to discuss playing in these games without being in risk of spoilers.

Like it was really fun how yesterday we skipped the certain dungeon with use of single charm spell on certain person who was making situation much much more worse and thus managed to get peaceful compromise (for everyone but the person making things worse x'D) But I can't talk about specifics because that'd be spoiling and if I went to talk to spoiler thread I woudl get spoiled

Consider: Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Adventure Path

Dark Archive
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Aaron Shanks wrote:
CorvusMask wrote:

I do wish I had a way to discuss playing in these games without being in risk of spoilers.

Like it was really fun how yesterday we skipped the certain dungeon with use of single charm spell on certain person who was making situation much much more worse and thus managed to get peaceful compromise (for everyone but the person making things worse x'D) But I can't talk about specifics because that'd be spoiling and if I went to talk to spoiler thread I woudl get spoiled

Consider: Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Adventure Path

But there are spoilers there xD

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Two sessions in and this feels like an absolute meat grinder.

I don't know if its some of the issues Paizo has with balancing things for level ones , something in the module, or just the new system, But it seems VERY hard for the PCs to hit anything, and incredibly easy for the NPCs to just hit crit a PC and drop them.
Starfinder Superscriber

Levels 1-2 in Pathfinder are always pretty swingy. Blood Lords #1 is the same.
Dark Archive
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I have started my progress of reviewing these books and detailing what the issue with ap is :'D

I think biggest issue with this book really is lack of adventure toolbox campaign outline article, it just has book volume summaries without detailing overall plan of the big bads resulting in that when you look at their plan as written, it just seems to have lot of weird holes in it.
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