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Pathfinder Adventure Path #169: Kindled Magic (Strength of Thousands 1 of 6)

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Pathfinder Adventure Path #169: Kindled Magic (Strength of Thousands 1 of 6)
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The Strength of Thousands Adventure Path begins! A magic school like no other! The oldest and most prestigious magic academy in the world is the Magaambya, an ancient institution founded by the greatest wizard the world has ever known. This wizard vanished long ago, but his sinister enemies plot against his school and those who attend it. Over their long academic career, the heroes rise from humble students to become teachers, and they ultimately hold the fate of the school in their hands. Graduates of the Magaambya are among the greatest wardens of the world, but if the heroes can't marshal the strength of thousands who have come before them, the venerable Magaambya might fall! The Strength of Thousands Adventure Path is a six-part, monthly series of connected adventures that comprise a complete Pathfinder campaign.

School's in session! The newest students at the venerable Magaambya school of magic must begin their academic careers with tests of their skill and resourcefulness. The heroes can learn much from their teachers and fellow students, but must beware of mysterious secrets and sinister plots. The rigors facing any Magaambya students are steep, but the heroes must also contend with strange infestations and supernatural intruders in the school's ancient halls. Education is far from easy at the oldest and most prestigious magic academy in the world!

"Kindled Magic" is a Pathfinder adventure for four 1st-level characters by Alexandria Bustion and Eleanor Ferron. This adventure begins the Strength of Thousands Adventure Path, a six-part, monthly campaign in which the heroes rise from students to teachers, and ultimately decide the fate of the Magaambya. This adventure also details other students to become friends or rivals, rules to gain extra lore throughout a year of academic study, as well as new monsters and new spells—including lore of the prestigious Magaambya!

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: 978-1-64078-349-2

The Strength of Thousands Adventure Path is sanctioned for use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. The rules for running this Adventure and Chronicle Sheets are available as a free download (954 KB PDF).

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

Fantasy Grounds Virtual Tabletop
Roll20 Virtual Tabletop
SoundSet on Syrinscape
Archives of Nethys

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A Major Favorite

5/5 —

Strength of Thousands currently stands as my favorite complete adventure path and this is probably my favorite opening.

The adventure presents a variety of characters and feels like a different opening from other adventures as it felt like it was much more primed to have the party performing things that feel like lessons they learn rather than just a list of random missions are tasked.

This feels like an opening to a campaign that fosters a good party and I feel these tie into the rest of the campaign really well.

This book presents a lot of characters and that establishes the school in an odd order. A large focus on fellow students, then just a few teachers and couple faculty. The vast majority of the faculty doesn't get a lot of information or more than a single encounter until quite some time later. Establishing these characters can be something I encourage a GM to do, but it is also a case of there being a lot of characters already at the outset.

I would suggest GMs should know what they intend for other students and faculty for the rest of the campaign so that it can be established either here or the later books.

I highly recommend this campaign.

A Place, A Feeling: The Sandbox AP

5/5 —

This review is written from the perspective of a player on the whole 6-part adventure. Strength of Thousands is divergent from the norm in both its setting, tone, and gameplay. Set at the magical school, the Magaambya, it covers years instead of months, taking your characters from bright eyed students to mythical heroes of legend. It is part academic simulator, part adventure, leading to a lighter tone for much of the story. It has its massive battles and its dark themes, but these are interspersed with exams, detentions, parties, research, diplomacy, and sports.

The narrative is one of Paizo's most non-linear, and players seeking a streamlined, linear, or direct story experience may find themselves bored. By contrast, a player who enjoys roleplaying will find an immense amount of freedom. The timescale, which takes place over years, helped me contextualize my eventually immensely powerful character. And on the way I stressed over exams, conducted field research on a cyclops temple, joined a gang (or two), and taught my students (spellcasters, mostly) how not to get grabbed.

The narrative, non-linear though it may be, is replete with wonderful NPCs and villains. For the GM, also, I would suggest that if you prefer running combat, this APs long stretches of diplomacy or detention may not provide the best experience. SoT is the least "combat simulator" AP released since Kingmaker.

It does, however, have its great battles and cinematic clashes. There are some grueling combat challenges that pushed my party to the brink (and nearly over it), but as I reflect on the AP, it is not the combat I remember, but planning birthday parties for my classmates, using hero points to change fails on exams to successes, and simply enjoying the presence of the characters and my real partymates. More than any other AP, the Magaambya felt alive, full of characters wonderful and wicked, brilliant but not always bright. I think of the allies made and the ones lost. If any of that appeals to you, I cannot recommend this AP enough.

5/5 —

Not what it claims to be on the cover

2/5 —

I am going to write this review from the perspective of a player. I didn’t read the books except for the chapters we played (and I only read those after out campaign ended in chaos and frustration).

Our group lasted all of four sessions. We’re fairly experienced players and we had just finished a PF 2 campaign we played for two years.

Our expectation was to play students at a renowned magical academy. Something like the Hogwarts of Golarion. This is imo how the Magaambya and the Strength of Thousands adventure path are marketed. The book itself fails to deliver that feeling completely.

First off, most schools have teachers. The Magaambya in the book has a couple of students who arrived a few weeks before the group and who try to come up with tasks for the newbies.
There’s also Teacher Ot, but you only interact with him during the first interview for a couple of minutes and if you try to ask him any questions about the tasks the other students invented he doesn’t know anything at all.

Second, teachers at a magical school should probably know something about magic.
They don’t, which becomes apparent after the third combat encounter, a Myceloid who inflicts the group with a deadly disease. The Magaambya is either unable or unwilling to produce a „Remove Disease“ spell, potion, scroll or wand and the book doesn’t mention any options to cure said disease either.

Which brings us directly to the encounter design.
The first encounter is a piece of unwashed panties and fairly simple to beat.
The second encounter is a severe difficulty encounter against a large group of enemies.
The third encounter is a boss fight with a very hard to save death effect that cannot be reverted even by Resurrect or similar rituals since it destroys the body.

If you assume this is the first PF adventure someone plays, you can also assume it’s the last PF adventure that person will ever play.

So far we have very disappointing world building that contradicts the expectations raised by the cover text and the Mwangi setting book. We also have terrible pacing with encounter design and difficulty.

But there’s also an upside: the NPCs we met (with the exception of Ot) were funny and interesting to interact with. Especially a certain fellow student who likes to brew alcohol and skip lessons…

Storywise there‘s not much to say. Four sessions in we didn’t see a story at all. Other adventures manage to start, have a climax and a satisfying conclusion in less time, so that’s not a very promising start.

To sum things up, from a player’s perspective I am insanely disappointed by this adventure.
I might still run the campaign as a DM one day, but only if I find enough time to go through every encounter and story beat and rework it into something functional. This doesn’t seem to be an adventure you can just run as written.

just here to offset the guy 1- & 2-starring all the PF2E products

5/5 —

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Really appreciate the little nods to disability representation here: Anchor Root’s anxiety is treated as a genuine struggle for her, rather than comic relief, and Chizire’s dyslexia being mistaken for laziness REALLY hit home for me as a gal with ADHD. Major kudos.
Marketing & Media Manager
2 people marked this as a favorite.
TRDG wrote:

From Roll20

"And to answer the question I know some of y’all may have:

Does this item benefit from Paizo Account Sync?

We are still experiencing a bug that is preventing users from redeeming Paizo Account Sync benefits with this product. We know the wait for this is immensely frustrating, but I can assure you we are continuing to work on this with Paizo and will hopefully have a more solid update for you in the months ahead.

That being said - hope you enjoy these releases, and we have lots more Paizo love coming your way in the next few months! Adventure awaits!"

So they know of the issue but I am concerned about the "months ahead" comment. So Paizo any clue on when this will be fixed on both your ends?

Thanks

Tom

I regret don't know, but I have inquired internally.

I found out we are in communication with Roll20 about the issue. (Ball is in their court at the moment.) We will work with them to fix it as soon as we can. Our Licensed Partners get to choose if/when/how they use our API, but we understand the sense of urgency here. Have a good weekend.
Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy
3 people marked this as a favorite.
TRDG wrote:


So they know of the issue but I am concerned about the "months ahead" comment. So Paizo any clue on when this will be fixed on both your ends?

This issue is one that both we and Roll20 want to have fixed ASAP. There is a certain amount of back and forth as we try to assess whose end the problem is on and what one or both of us need to do to address it, but I don't have a better sense of when it'll be fixed since it's a complex issue that I'm not directly involved in.

That said, the "months ahead" comment is more about the amount of new Paizo content Roll20 is working on getting up on their store in the coming weeks and months than it is about this issue. I hope we have this addressed (and that it doesn't repeat with other products) long before they're done adding new content to their platform.

Thanks Team Paizo, good to know everyone is on the same page here and thanks for the helpfull info on this.

If one buys this without it working then we usually have to put in a "Roll20 ticket order" so they give our account the refund/credit sooner or later from the linked accounts. Not a huge deal but more hoops to jump through when one just wants to run or play this with as little hassles as possible from the get go :)

Tom
Katina Davis wrote:
Update: I've uploaded the new single-file version of this product, which should fix the problem with bookmarks. There's an email notification going out currently. Please don't hesitate to let me know if there are any additional issues that I can assist with. Thanks!

This works for me. (I did have to reset the download, but all the bookmarks are there). I really appreciate the effort put into getting this fixed, thank you.

Has the Player's Guide been releasd yet?
Pathfinder LO Special Edition, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber

I believe so. Check the blogs. Maybe sometime during the past week or so.
1 person marked this as a favorite.
Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:
Has the Player's Guide been releasd yet?

Monday of last week. It’s in the blogs.

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Gracias!
Marketing & Media Manager
4 people marked this as a favorite.

Player's Guides can also be found on the product page for the each Adventure Path as a free download, so you don'r need to hunt for the blog.
Marketing & Media Manager
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The Syrinscape SoundPack for Kindled Magic is now available!

I have tried downloading the single file version a number of times since it was updated and I am still missing nearly all of the bookmarks.

Also, is there an easy way to pull artwork from the PDFs for Foundry VTT ?

You have to reset your download to get the bookmarks appearing.

Doesn't work for me neither, I can't get the one with bookmarks, it's always the one personalized a few days ago.

Is 'reset the download' you speak about this link 'Problems downloading this file? Click here.' ? I can't find a 'reset the download' anywhere.
Anyway, this don't work, it's still the old one without bookmark.

I can't remember the wording, but that's it AFAIK. You need to be given the option to re-personalize.

Ok that's the right link then as it re-personalize, but still it redownload the one without bookmarks

Huh. Maybe reach out to customer service? I might just not be fully remembering what I did, just that I did do something to get the correct version.
2 people marked this as a favorite.

You may have to clear your cookies, then log back in to your account & re-personalise the download.

(At least, that seems to work with me whenever I want to download an updated version of a pdf...)

Carry on,

--C.
Sirfuzzzy wrote:


Also, is there an easy way to pull artwork from the PDFs for Foundry VTT ?

There is the PDF2Foundry module, that sets up a load of things and imports the artwork, but it usually takes some days to be updated for new AP's.

Other than that, you'd have to look at some image extraction software.
Liberty's Edge
1 person marked this as a favorite.

I wish there was a player-friendly summary of the Life in the Academy chapter, or even that it was included in the PG, because of how build and concept choices, maybe even some made when creating the PCs, have an impact / are impacted by the subsystem.
3 people marked this as a favorite.
The Raven Black wrote:
I wish there was a player-friendly summary of the Life in the Academy chapter, or even that it was included in the PG, because of how build and concept choices, maybe even some made when creating the PCs, have an impact / are impacted by the subsystem.

That chapter is explicitly called out as spoiler free and intended to be shared with players.

There's not really an easy way to do that though, especially for online play.
1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

you can use this link on AON:https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1467

I do wish it was included in the players guide to make more space for other stuff but the rest of the AP is so good i dont really care tbh
2 people marked this as a favorite.
Lonesomechunk wrote:

you can use this link on AON

I do wish it was included in the players guide to make more space for other stuff but the rest of the AP is so good i dont really care tbh

linkified

Dark Archive
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

"GMs, Share This With Your Players
The details of the academia subsystem aren’t a secret. This article is spoiler-free and written from a player’s perspective, so you can share it with your players and help them make informed decisions for their characters’ academic careers. Throughout the Adventure Path, you’ll find numerous opportunities to tie into the academia subsystem, called out either in sidebars or in the text."

Huh thanks for pointing this out. I did have bought this from roll20 but didn't read it since I'm trying to be 100% spoiler free in case I get chance to play this xD

Interesting that magaambyan attendant feat is bonus feat as part of academy sub system
Dark Archive
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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Spoiler:
Since I flip to the Bestiary first...

Hmmm did not realize a pugwampi could be adorbale. Also, hooray for new gremlins!

Also, the idea of a giant tetse fly is terrifying in concept alone.

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Are there plans for a Pawn pack to go with this AP?
Thrawn82 wrote:
Are there plans for a Pawn pack to go with this AP?

There always is one, but they come out usually about one or two months after the last volume because art isnt done for the books until right before they come out.

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
KaiBlob1 wrote:
Thrawn82 wrote:
Are there plans for a Pawn pack to go with this AP?
There always is one, but they come out usually about one or two months after the last volume because art isnt done for the books until right before they come out.

Oh that makes sense. I'm always a few years behind running them so i was never clear on the timeing. thank you!

Dark Archive
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Hoping paizo-roll20 sync works soon because I still want pdf from buying this on roll20 :O (even if I can't read it yet x'D )

On Roll20's Twitch stream Thursday they said it was fixed for all current products. Already bought it and got the refund before so no idea if this one is fixed for the discount but I checked other products and they were showing the linked discounts if bought on Roll20.

Hope it works for ya CM

Tom
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Bought exclusively because of the Foundry PDF to Foundry module. Paizo should really be giving this stuff for free to fryguy (module author) on account of how much money he makes them.
Acquisitives
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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Book 2 came the other day, and I was like... where's Book 1?

And... it's in New Jersey. Since August 6.

One of these days, maybe I will see you, precious jewel of a distant star...
Marketing & Media Manager
3 people marked this as a favorite.

The Pathfinder Strength of Thousands Adventure Path Trailer premieres on YouTube at 11 am Pacific today!
Dark Archive
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Pathfinder Battles set 21 has been confirmed to be named "The Mwangi Expanse".

The three premium minis (sold individually) will be:

-Adult Cloud dragon (Huge)
-Dimari-Diji (GARGANTUAN)
-Mamlambo(HUGE)

There is a discussion thread with pictures over on minisgallery.com.

Intended release date is january 2022.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

The same month I should be getting a Steam deck. Damn. My disposable income only stretches so far.

How well does this scale to five players?

I have five players in my home group, but this is written for four players? Do I need to vote one off, or are there scaling options?

The scaling options are on par with any AP by Paizo; there aren't any, besides those you implement yourself. On the plus side, it should be easy enough to handle on the fly; just add more mooks or increase HP where you think it's necessary. It's not the end of the world if an encounter is too easy for your group - and if you inadvertently make an encounter too hard, you don't have to kill the player characters outright if/when they lose.

Trust your judgement and have fun with all your friends.
Dark Archive
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Even if you don't scale encounters at all, paizo adventure design shouldn't actually be that much easier for one more character.

Like the way game balance works, if there would happen to be severe level soloboss, having one more character would make it easier for characters to survive yes, but severe level solo boss would still likely auto crit and knock character down per round :p So it doesn't feel particularly much easier for the party.

(if you want to go by the rules just to be safe, the encounter design rules in rulebooks are pretty easy to understand)
Grand Lodge

There is a ritual in this first AP book called Arcane Weaving (page 79), and it's a pretty nice option for those with the Ritualist Dedication. However, it does not list a duration for the spell swap. Is the spell swap then permanent? Is there a default duration for those rituals that seem similar? Swapping spells permanently seems pretty ridiculous. Specifically asking for Pathfinder Society play. Thanks in advance for the guidance!
Marketing & Media Manager
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Watch "Outcast & Outclassed - Pathfinder 2e Actual Play - A Strength of Thousands Playthrough" from WafflesMapleSyrup, sponsored by our friends at Roll20.
Dark Archive
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Can somebody post in a spoiler what kind of opponents are in the book (for a minis preparation)?

Is it true that you don't have to fight At all in this book?

Thanks in advance.
3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Here you go.

Kindled Magic Creatures:
Pugwampi
Umbo (variant myceloid)
Vexgit Gremlin
Centipede Swarm
Scrit
Silverfish Swarm
Giant Silverfish
Spellskein
Shieldbearer Construct
Sicklehand Construct
Bramble Champion Construct
Giant Goliath Beetle
Flash Beetle
Giant Centipede
Giant Mining Bee
Gnagrif
Gray Ooze
Jinkin
Mitflit
Nuglub Bully
Griffon
Anadi Seeker
Dark Archive
1 person marked this as a favorite.
Fumarole wrote:

Here you go.

** spoiler omitted **

Thank you, Fumarole.

So there is one creature from the "Pathfinder Battles: The Mwangi Expanse" set in book 1?
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I've heard so many great things about this series. However, I can't find a Foundry VTT version. Am I missing it? Is the PDF to Foundry (PF2e) module the only option? The PDF to Foundry (PF2e) imported Beginner's Box gave me maps with big placeholder numbers in the center of rooms & images of monsters that had to be obscured. I mean, it's a great module but can only work with the materials it's given.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Lance_Davis wrote:
I've heard so many great things about this series. However, I can't find a Foundry VTT version. Am I missing it? Is the PDF to Foundry (PF2e) module the only option? The PDF to Foundry (PF2e) imported Beginner's Box gave me maps with big placeholder numbers in the center of rooms & images of monsters that had to be obscured. I mean, it's a great module but can only work with the materials it's given.

Yeah, the official modules made for foundry only started after Strength of Thousands, I'm currently running it on foundry and use pdf to foundry for it, definitely not as fancy as the official modules, which are excellent, but it is still very useful!

Dark Archive
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Soon I'll finally get to play this ap :D After all the wait

...Does feel funny I'm about to get to play conrasu cleric of Valmallos the moment inevitables are going to be retired from game due to pathfinder remastered :'D Ah well, I guess Valmallos isn't going to be non canon, just never mentioned again
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