When the mysterious Gauntlight, an eerie landlocked lighthouse, glows with baleful light, the people of Otari know something terrible is beginning. The town's newest heroes must venture into the ruins around the lighthouse and delve the dungeon levels far beneath it to discover the evil the Gauntlight heralds. Hideous monsters, deadly traps, and mysterious ghosts all await the heroes who dare to enter the sprawling megadungeon called the Abomination Vaults!
Pathfinder Second Edition's most popular campaign yet bursts from the pages of this massive hardcover compilation, containing all three adventures in the fan-favorite Abomination Vaults Adventure Path, a dungeon-delving campaign like no other, along with support articles, rules, monsters, and more!
Content Warning: While Abomination Vaults contains typical Pathfinder action and adventure, it also presents themes of suicide, ableism, body horror, and human experimentation. Before you begin, understand that player consent (including that of the Game Master) is vital to a safe and fun play experience for everyone. You should talk with your players before beginning the adventure and modify descriptions or scenarios as appropriate.
Note: This Abomination Vaults compilation hardcover is not included in the Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscription. Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscribers who preorder Pathfinder Adventure Path: Abomination Vaults will receive a free PDF when their physical copy ships.
ISBN-13: 978-1-64078-410-9
"Abomination Vaults" is sanctioned for use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. The rules for running this Adventure and Chronicle sheet are available as a free download (907 kb PDF).
Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:
To the Point: Abomination Vaults is a game with Very Specific Tastes.
It's a 9/10 if you absolutely love combat in Pathfinder Second edition, and dislike everything else.
It's an 8/10 if combat is your #1 favorite aspect of role playing games, with everything else a distant second place.
It's a 7/10 if you think combat is amazing and you want more of it than any other aspect in your ttrpg.
It's a 6/10 if you find constant combat to be fun, and don't mind not having anything else to do.
It's a 5/10 if you like combat a whole lot, but maybe want some role playing in your role playing game.
It's a 4/10 if maybe combat is your favorite thing, but not by much.
It's a 3/10 if you think that hey, maybe there's a plot to be discovered here.
It's a 2/10 if you were expecting a character arc.
It's a 1/10 if you wanted something other than to make hp go down on enemy tokens.
To play Abomination Vaults is to embrace with both arms and a loving heart a single aspect of Pathfinder Second Edition.
To run Abomination Vaults is to look at your players and say - with complete seriousness - that while other game masters studied storytelling, you studied the blade.
To truly enjoy your time in the Abomination Vaults, you must be able to maintain a laser focus on the marathon sprint that is eternal combat.
What plot exists is paper thin. The trappings of the city of Otari, the locals, the names, it's all two dimensional cardboard.
You delve into the vaults because you can. You stay because you want to. Your character motivation comes from sitting at the table and holding your character sheet. The game requires a level of buy-in from both players and GM that every other game I've played does not require. You play and fight and run the adventure path because that is the agreement you made by making a character.
And that can be glorious. It can be freeing. To sit down with your friends and say, friends, we are a dungeon delving swat team and by all the gods we are going to delve some dungeons. We are here to murder/delve our way straight to the core of this place and anything that gets in our way is getting pasted to the walls.
If you are a GM and want a story, steer clear. But if you have a pack of barely constrained murderous players who crave blood?
Good hunting, my friend.
I'll be honest, I didn't understand why everyone was raving about this adventure until I read it. The concept and story are nothing new, but the execution is superb. The villains are foreshadowed well, the dungeon levels have distinct themes, all the monsters are there for a reason and make both narrative and thematic sense.
The fights are well balanced. They are difficult without feeling unfair or insurmountable. And there's still roleplaying opportunity even with many of the dungeon denizens!
I'm having a blast running this adventure and it's one of the best Paizo has ever made. I'd put it with the likes of Curse of the Crimson Throne, easily.
This is, top to bottom, one of the best APs Paizo has put out. The only other megadungeon I've ever felt positively about is 13th Age's "Eyes of the Stone Thief", and this tickles me in all the same ways. The adventure is great, and the Foundry module support is absolutely stunning. Well worth the money, even regardless of me not getting discounted for having the original 3 in PDF (which, whatever, sucks but hey).
The changes made in the compilation themselves are great too - adjustments to a couple encounters, improvements in connectivity and layout... It's just all around a stellar package.
Dungeon-crawls aren’t really my thing. But this is the best dungeon-crawl style adventure I’ve seen.
It has an overarching plot driving the exploration, giving the adventurers a sense of purpose and urgency. It’s filled with sub-quests tied to the different factions in dungeon and to the people in the nearby town. It presents a number of entertaining NPCs and role-playing possibilities for the players to take advantage of. (Make sure the party has someone who can speak Undercommon and Aklo!) And it weaves in some mystery-solving, with a scattering of clues about the dungeon’s history (and about the main plot) well-distributed throughout.
It does a nice job of explicitly presenting the dungeon in a dynamic way, describing some of the likely movements of various occupants of the dungeon over time. It introduces “Environmental Cues” to the sidebar descriptions of each level, providing some nice aesthetic guidance for the GM to elaborate on. And unlike the early PF2 APs, it’s pitched at a more reasonable difficulty level.
But the most impressive feature of this dungeon is how organic and well put-together it is. Each room has a history, a reason for why it’s there. The occupants of each room make sense, and tie into the history, and the other occupants of the dungeon, in natural and organic ways. The levels are nicely integrated with each other. It all just makes sense.
I tend to dislike dungeon-crawl-style adventures because they often seem to consist of a bunch of random rooms, filled with random monsters; and if you’re lucky, the monsters on a level might be thematically related to each other, although the levels themselves rarely are. This adventure is the exact opposite of that. And even though dungeon-crawls aren’t my thing, it’s hard to deny that this one is a masterpiece.
This product makes a ton of sense; new groups can roll straight out of the Beginner’s Box into a full campaign, all nice and tidy in one book for them. I imagine no new content?
Is Abomination Vaults really a best-seller? That’s good to know.
You know, it has been very difficult to find any copies of this adventure path where I'm at (so many reasons why...). So, having them collected as a single book may be the only option I'll get!
Q: Will this compilation include the article on Nhimbaloth?
(I really hope so...)
I guess this is experiment on ap where it makes sense(to have everyone in same book) on whether hardcover compilation would kill sales for individual parts? O_o
Either way, this doesn't have any updates right, just compilation of all parts right?
Wow! I honestly wouldn't have expected this! I didn't know Abomination Vaults was so popular to warrant a re-print like this but I won't complain, bring on the 3-part APs!
Hardcovers are not included in the subscription. Usually, we have a deal where if you have the Adventure Path subscription, and you preorder the book, then you get the PDF. We will confirm.
I mean, it makes sense that AbV would be popular - as mentioned, this is a pretty natural segue from the Beginner Box (although you either need to reset your characters or make new ones, given how leveling works), it's a smaller investment as a three-parter than a full-blown six-parter, and people do love their dungeon crawls.
Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
RiverMesa wrote:
Interesting!
I mean, it makes sense that AbV would be popular - as mentioned, this is a pretty natural segue from the Beginner Box (although you either need to reset your characters or make new ones, given how leveling works), it's a smaller investment as a three-parter than a full-blown six-parter, and people do love their dungeon crawls.
If you lower the XP rewards based on how the encounters interact with party level, it should balance pretty quickly, and your players will feel a little more powerful on the first little bit of the Vaults before everything catches up to them.
It's the best AP Paizo has released in many years. This treatment is a good idea.
I have little doubt that it will be regarded as one of the best, if not The Best AP for Pathfinder 2nd Ed. To characterize it as simply a "dungeon crawl" misses the mark - as well as how adaptable the adventure is in terms of its structure outside of the Ruins below Gauntlight.
Will the original pdf receive the balancing updates as well?
This will be the first time we've created a product like this - a compilation with no expansion and/or conversion to the latest version of the game - so I don't know yet. I would expect error corrections, but what balancing updates are you expecting?
Will the original pdf receive the balancing updates as well?
We have no plans to do so, no.
Further, there's not a lot of balancing to do. We're tweaking some encounters that have proven a bit problematic, but beyond "give a certain soulbound doll the phantom pain spell rather than vampiric touch," there's not a lot of dramatic changes.
That said, if you've seen other huge balance issues, please let us know!
No idea why I would buy it, since I have the 3-booklets version, but maybe as a present for someone?
Due to global shipping delays, I ended up purchasing all three parts of this AP as PDFs. I eventually received my physical copy of Ruins of Gauntlight, but it took my FLGS months to deliver, so I decided that having the last two installments as digital copies is enough.
I soon began to regret my decision, however, because I just prefer printed books over digital stuff, always (and also find them easier to read and utilize as a GM).
Then this hardcover edition was announced, and I didn't even need to think twice about whether to pre-order it or not -- even though I've already spent close to a hundred bucks on Abomination Vaults. And why not? It is not only the best 2E adventure path so far, IMO it's the best Paizo AP Paizo has published in years. It features well-designed and consistent maps, plenty of great encounters and fantastic lore, and more than a few cleverly hidden treasures and secrets for the players to discover. And, as CorvusMask said, to me it makes sense to have the whole adventure in one book. :)
Ron, I get that there won't be many changes, but it'd great to have a separate illustration and handout section at the end of the book -- with maybe a few extra handouts and illustrations, if I can make a modest wish! :)
Ron, I get that there won't be many changes, but it'd great to have a separate illustration and handout section at the end of the book -- with maybe a few extra handouts and illustrations, if I can make a modest wish! :)
We have some additional art going into this (as of right now; it's not off to the printer yet, so nothing's final!). We haven't put them into an "art section" in the back like I've seen some RPG products do; that's not our style.
Ron, I get that there won't be many changes, but it'd great to have a separate illustration and handout section at the end of the book -- with maybe a few extra handouts and illustrations, if I can make a modest wish! :)
We have some additional art going into this (as of right now; it's not off to the printer yet, so nothing's final!). We haven't put them into an "art section" in the back like I've seen some RPG products do; that's not our style.
I think they mean like a handout section, like Call of Cthulhu does.
Q: Will this compilation include the article on Nhimbaloth?
Repeating this because it was never answered, but also extending it to ask whether the support articles from the individual volumes of this AP will be included.
I seem to remember (maybe one of the interviews from GenCon/Paizo Live) that it won't include the back matter articles. Just the adventure (and presumably any NPCs/items that are directly linked to the story).
Ron, I get that there won't be many changes, but it'd great to have a separate illustration and handout section at the end of the book -- with maybe a few extra handouts and illustrations, if I can make a modest wish! :)
We have some additional art going into this (as of right now; it's not off to the printer yet, so nothing's final!). We haven't put them into an "art section" in the back like I've seen some RPG products do; that's not our style.
Thanks for your swift reply, Ron! It's fantastic that there'll (likely) be additional art in the final product.
As captain yesterday noted, I did indeed refer to Call of Cthulhu style handout section. I personally feel that it's easier to cross reference and photocopy handouts that way, but I understand why Paizo wouldn't want to do it (=additional work on the layout process, and it'd also probably increase the page count).
With an Anniversary Edition of an AP, Paizo has added value and content. In fact, if I am not mistaken, every hardcover compilation has also updated the Pathfinder edition, either from 3.5 to PF 1, or as in the case of Kingmaker, from PF1 to PF2. This will be the first time Paizo has compiled three virtually sold out AP volumes into one hardcover so soon. Thus, not a lot of revisions. We just want to get it printed and in the hands of players ASAP. It could be for collectors as a sentiment, but I see it mostly for new players. It is a popular seller and Otari is a well developed location. We want to make sure new players can get the whole AP experience for years to come.
Whew! I gave this its final approval pass on Friday, and it's off to the printer now!
There are a lot of tweaks in here. Some were just necessary for the revised layout (when a new piece of art made text on the page flow differently, for example), others are minor corrections and polishes.
We've got some new art for this, including the often-requested image of a certain ghost when she was still alive.
I want to thank everyone who weighed in on issues or fixes on these forums. I looked over lots of those and made many improvements based on those--thanks!
The hardcover is formatted a bit differently, as well. Instead of looking like three volumes between two covers, we rearranged this to have 10 sequential chapters, one for each level of the dungeon (along with a few other chapters for a campaign overview, the town of Otari, info about Nhimbaloth, the adventure toolbox, and so on).
People who aren't familiar with the three-volume nature of this AP are going to find the hardcover to be very accessible; people who already have the three volumes might prefer to have it in this more cohesive whole.
Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Any way that oft-requested image could be posted to the GM forum for the AP or something? It would be immediately helpful for those of us actively running the existing volumes of the campaign.
Guess Mr. Beak with phantom pain is now a thing officially :O (if I run this campaign again though, I'm going to stick with Mr. Break with worm's repast because I love foreshadowing that spell going to show up later at use of Mr. Break's creator x'D)
Hardcovers are not included in the subscription. Usually, we have a deal where if you have the Adventure Path subscription, and you preorder the book, then you get the PDF. We will confirm.
Aaron - apologies if I missed this previously but can you please confirm if subscribers will be getting the PDF if we pre-order the hard cover?
Hardcovers are not included in the subscription. Usually, we have a deal where if you have the Adventure Path subscription, and you preorder the book, then you get the PDF. We will confirm.
Aaron - apologies if I missed this previously but can you please confirm if subscribers will be getting the PDF if we pre-order the hard cover?
I have just asked. I have also asked that we create a workflow where such deals would be announced when we post the product to the store, in the future. Thanks!
Guess Mr. Beak with phantom pain is now a thing officially :O (if I run this campaign again though, I'm going to stick with Mr. Break with worm's repast because I love foreshadowing that spell going to show up later at use of Mr. Break's creator x'D)
I'm going to get it anyway since 1) I don't have the AV books physically so getting this one would be nice 2) I want to see what small patches they made and new pic of Belcorra Haruvex while she was living
Hardcovers are not included in the subscription. Usually, we have a deal where if you have the Adventure Path subscription, and you preorder the book, then you get the PDF. We will confirm.
BTW was there confirmation that if we preorder this we will get pdf as freebie?