Pathfinder Adventure Path #182: Graveclaw (Blood Lords 2 of 6)

Tondro AP's tend to be a bit unwieldy and unnecessarily long.

There are a litany of issues with this AP.

- Hamfisted solution to the problem of no positive healing introduced at the beginning of the AP. No ritual entry or anything to explain why this hilariously game-breaking ritual that gives you negative healing can't be exported to any other AP.

- In part 2 there's an enemy that's literally weak to Area of Effect and Salt 5. You fight it in the ocean.

- Some copyediting errors with one of Haldoli's henchwomen. Glorinsa was a human in book 1 and is a skeleton in book 2. What changed?

- Chapter 3 is a mess. It's neither an interesting narrative-driven chapter or an interesting setpiece map. I would have preferred they go either all one direction or the other. Unfortunate because it's a pretty unique location. Slows the AP to a crawl.

- A lot of the chapters in general have that Tondro sense of taking too long to get to the point. It made me miss Starfinder where because pagecount is at a premium the authors have to keep things nice and tight and moving.

- Faction reputation still has no clear utility. I'm hoping that it will start becoming pertinent in book 3.

- I did like the inclusion of Pharasmans as enemies.

- In Chapter 4, there's a ritual that the last hag can use against you. But it requires your blood. There is no explanation where the hag would acquire your blood and as far as I can tell it just went unnoticed.

- Wraiths are used throughout the book. Why? They only do negative damage and since your characters (who would be stupid NOT to take the negative healing ritual offered) heal through negative damage, there's no danger.

- The Vampire Pub Crawl was great. But...

- My group wound up bypassing the office and the necromancer academy (which is okay!) and going straight to the townhouse of the hag. The ending was a bit of a let-down, again 3 wraiths which are not a threat to anyone who now has negative healing -- mummy rot COULD be an issue depending on how your GM rules? You can bypass the ettin in the basement and not miss anything - leading to a pretty weak final encounter.

Of the three Hags, I think Sahni was the most dangerous because you fight her in a phone booth with two angry ghoul gators. She also has Crashing Wave, which is a pretty brutal level 3 spell that does 6d6 damage and she can cast it 3 times!

Nathnelma is arguably the easiest of the 4 hags, with Decrosia being contextually difficult. Arguably if played as written, Decrosia sabotages her own encounter by defenestrating herself away from her Azmakian Effigy bodyguard!

Having established the Graveclaw Coven are responsible for the events of the previous volume, the PCs are off to a haunted forest to murder some hags.

Chapter One, in which the PCs assault a witch's cottage is great fun and ends with a pretty spectacular set-piece escape.

Now it's off to the squalid seaside town of Shallowshore, inhabited by lizardfolk, ghouls and lizardfolk ghouls. Here they will find another hag of the Graveclaw Coven, and this one is guilty of... tax evasion!!! I hope you like auditing witches! Hag #2 is lurking in an underwater temple, so get those swimming rules ready to go. It's OK, but not as interesting as Part One.

In Chapter Three, the PCs head to a poisonous urban sprawl to execute yet another witch. Third time's the charm right? (Nope). Here we are treated to one of Paizo's signature Unnecessary & Convoluted Subsystems! As you explore, you will accumulate Awareness Points, Edge Points and Infiltration Points. Ten Awareness Points equals a Complication. Twenty Awareness Points and the infiltration fails-but-not-really as the adventure would end, so the PCs get to twiddle their thumbs for a minute, then start over. Are you bored yet? I was. This Chapter has some really cool ideas/encounters, but the way it is presented is just so blaaaaaaah that you quickly lose interest. Drop the Unnecessary & Convoluted Subsystem, and run it as you would any other town and this section of the adventure should be a blast.

Oh, what delight! Chapter Four contains a fourth hag, and another Unnecessary & Convoluted Subsystem. This time you are accumulating Debate Points by disrupting a lecture with deliberately obtuse questions. We are also introduced to Blood Price; "an economic strategy boardgame simulating Geb, its factions and the machinations of the Blood Lords". Paizo just broke its own record for being pointless and boring, so well done, I guess? There is an interesting combat encounter with some clerics of Pharasma, but they can apparently be talked down by a particularly charismatic zombie (DC 28). Does that not violate the tenets of the Pharasman faith to "destroy all [undead] abominations"? I guess someone is losing their class abilities after this. There is no explanation for how this band of holy avengers have been travelling through Geb undetected, or what happens if the PCs convince them to leave peacefully. They just kinda' wander off. The PCs murder witch #4 and the adventure is done!

Conclusion: Starts strong, gets boring. Some great ideas here, generally hindered or watered down by PF2 game mechanics and the obligatory Unnecessary & Convoluted Subsystem/s. PF2's insistence on being grounded in fantasy reality is starting to bog down the Adventure Path line. I would much rather be fighting a dragon than invoicing its hoard, but that's the direction in which this line seems to be spiralling.

3 STARS!!!

Each chapter in this book features a hag of the coven and with them, another approach. While the first one is pretty much settled in direct combat, all the others have ways for your players to make it harder or easier, and to earn/lose faction points. Allies can be made (or enemies), and PCs trained in social skills will have many chances to shine. One of the best 2e books I've read yet.