Pathfinder Adventure Path #187: The Seventh Arch (Gatewalkers 1 of 3)

Some interesting reviews on this one!

The big difference between them being I actually read it before submitting my review.

I restarted my subscription following the ORC announcement; received, read and reviewed the PDF copy of this book, then cancelled my subscription because I found it to follow in the recent trend of being, well, bad.

But in response to NVM's not-really-a-review, I have adjusted my own review score to 1 star, just to "balance things out".

The big difference between them being I actually read it before submitting my review.

I restarted my subscription following the ORC announcement; received, read and reviewed this book, then cancelled my subscription because I found it to follow in the recent trend of being, well, bad.

But in response to NVM's not-really-a-review, I have adjusted my own review score to 1 star, just to "balance things out".

Just noting something from your review:

It kinda' feels like certain elements of this module are trying to cross-promote their Starfinder stuff.

This AP is meant to cross-promote with their paranormal rulebook, Dark Archive. So a lot of the really unusual, non-fantasy gaming elements are meant to branch off of the sort of "X-Files in Golarion" writing from that rulebook.

Still, sucks that you didn't like it. Unfortunately, not every AP is to everyone's liking. Thankfully, the shift to more 3-part APs will mean you will be able to try a different story much sooner than before.

It's also worth noting that PF1e did Distant Worlds and all its Numerian stuff well before Starfinder came along, and the elves have always been from another planet - to say nothing of the Mythos's tentacles all over Golarion, the Dominion of the Black, or the ill-fated Lirgeni space program.

Pathfinder has always been chock-full of stuff from the stars above.

After my initial skim-through, I think it's pretty good! Will have to review it once I have a more thorough read.

That reviewer really is out here acting like Golarion hasn’t had Lovecraft/Science-Fantasy elements since the beginning

While I don't always agree with mike's take on AP's, I don't think that his thoughts should be dismissed out of hand. He takes issues with some of the things I take issues with in various AP's as well.

I dont understand why you need to play something in order to review it I mean after all hasent James Jacobs himself said these are intended almost as much to be read as to be played? Plus if at the end of the day if something reads so bad you dont want to play it is that not a valid reason for a bad review? (I mean end of the day he has paid money for the product and if a person dosent like it they dont like it.)

All reviews are subjective. Thats why I like a lot of the Gaming Gang reviews. He gives reasons but is very clear its subjective. And that you may well disagree and like something he does not.

While I might be making what seems like an obvious point, unfortunately many people, and reviewers state their subjective opinion as if its an objective fact.

So there is nothing wrong with someone stating.

" I found it to follow in the recent trend of being, well, bad."

They have not clearly sated its their opinion and sort of done so while leaving the last part stated as a fact.

Now subjectively I strongly disagree with that opinion "well, bad", and I think it would have been clearer to have written "I found it to follow <in the recent trend> MY RECENT TREND of me finding it bad for me, <well, bad>."

Yeah, I did consider adding "IMO" afrer the fact, but the person below had already quoted me and I didn't want to alter my post again.

I completely agree with what you just said, re: subjectivity. My review is written from my personal headspace, with the added caveat that I am reading it as a non-Pathfinder player who is looking for material/storylines to convert to another game system. I completely gloss over the stat blocks and specific rules for traps/hazardous environments, as I will be rebuilding those myself.

For these reasons, I found The Seventh Arch to be lacking, but other people will have their own reasons to like or dislike the module, whereas NVM seems to have taken umbrage with my apparent powers of time travel more than anything else.

Yeah, I did consider adding "IMO" afrer the fact, but the person below had already quoted me and I didn't want to alter my post again.

I completely agree with what you just said, re: subjectivity. My review is written from my personal headspace, with the added caveat that I am reading it as a non-Pathfinder player who is looking for material/storylines to convert to another game system. I completely gloss over the stat blocks and specific rules for traps/hazardous environments, as I will be rebuilding those myself.

For these reasons, I found The Seventh Arch to be lacking, but other people will have their own reasons to like or dislike the module, whereas NVM seems to have taken umbrage with my apparent powers of time travel more than anything else.

That is a fair view. For me, if someone gives a negative review and explains what they based their opinion on, how it met their particular tastes that helps me, and I suppose others, in considering if the review, positive or negative applies to my tastes.

I dont understand why you need to play something in order to review it I mean after all hasent James Jacobs himself said these are intended almost as much to be read as to be played? Plus if at the end of the day if something reads so bad you dont want to play it is that not a valid reason for a bad review? (I mean end of the day he has paid money for the product and if a person dosent like it they dont like it.)

Also, if reviews shouldn't be given until it was played, it would likely be months after publication before reviews start trickling in, which makes them not work very well for helping people decide to buy them or not.

In practice the main thing to critique about an AP is its flow and implementation. Battles can be somewhat circumstantial in whether they're a slog or not. Critiquing the premise is pointless, because you're not going to change the authors minds' and make them not do whatever they have planned, that ship has sailed. Your choices are buy it or don't. That leaves two main things open to critique - implementation of the premise, and the general flow of the adventure -- with layout, art, and adventure toolbox being secondary characteristics.

Some people can tell at a glance whether something is going to work as intended. I personally was taught not to neg something until I've tried it so I try to play them first.

Some things wind up going smoother in practice than you'd think, or you find a work-around that preserves the intent while cutting out some of the jank. Others it's just like "tough noogies, you're doing it this way or not at all" and those are the ones that tend to get a lesser rating.

Wouldn't be an AP product page without bickering about reviews.

I gotta say I really dig the highly color-saturated artwork one artist did. Reminds me of the old 80's D&D art.

keftiu wrote:

Side note: who wrote the Castrovel gazetteer? It’s awesome.

Table of contents says James L. Sutter wrote the adventure and the Castrovel gazetteer, while he and Patrick Renie cowrote the adventure toolbox.

I like that the table of contents for AP volumes notes who contributed to which sections.

I couldn't pass up the chance to write another Castrovel gazetteer. Between Distant Worlds and the Starfinder Core Rulebook/SFAP #2/Pact Worlds, I'm apparently on a 5-year orbit... better mark my calendar for 2028! :D

Just wanted to drop in and say thanks for the kind words, folks! I was really excited to get to write an adventure focusing on several of my personal favorite aspects of the setting. (As soon as I finished writing, I turned around and started a Gatewalkers campaign with my home group, and we've been having a blast!) Huge props to Patrick Renie and James Jacobs for masterminding such a fun project!

Sasha Laranoa Harving wrote:

keftiu wrote:

Side note: who wrote the Castrovel gazetteer? It’s awesome.

Table of contents says James L. Sutter wrote the adventure and the Castrovel gazetteer, while he and Patrick Renie cowrote the adventure toolbox.

I like that the table of contents for AP volumes notes who contributed to which sections.

I couldn't pass up the chance to write another Castrovel gazetteer. Between Distant Worlds and the Starfinder Core Rulebook/SFAP #2/Pact Worlds, I'm apparently on a 5-year orbit... better mark my calendar for 2028! :D

Lost Omens: Castrovel would be a dream! We’ll see you in five years :p

Removed a couple posts for wandering off topic. Respectful debates are fine. Agreeing or not agreeing with reviews is fine. You dont have to like every AP. But lets keep on topic of the post please.

James Sutter wrote:

Sasha Laranoa Harving wrote:

keftiu wrote:

Side note: who wrote the Castrovel gazetteer? It’s awesome.

Table of contents says James L. Sutter wrote the adventure and the Castrovel gazetteer, while he and Patrick Renie cowrote the adventure toolbox.

I like that the table of contents for AP volumes notes who contributed to which sections.

I couldn't pass up the chance to write another Castrovel gazetteer. Between Distant Worlds and the Starfinder Core Rulebook/SFAP #2/Pact Worlds, I'm apparently on a 5-year orbit... better mark my calendar for 2028! :D

Lost Omens: Castrovel would be a dream! We’ll see you in five years :p

I’d love that but if it comes out before Southern Garund, I’m rioting.

Just wanted to drop in and say thanks for the kind words, folks! I was really excited to get to write an adventure focusing on several of my personal favorite aspects of the setting. (As soon as I finished writing, I turned around and started a Gatewalkers campaign with my home group, and we've been having a blast!) Huge props to Patrick Renie and James Jacobs for masterminding such a fun project!

Hi James, are you running with a 4 person or 5-6 person party?

I'm new to PF2e and everything official I read is that APs are for 4 PCs but players and GMs I talk to say they end up running with 5-6 players cause the APs are too hard. Then they complain the APs are too easy.

How is your group finding the difficulty?

... Illuminated Consortium of Epopts?

GROAN.

James Sutter wrote:

Just wanted to drop in and say thanks for the kind words, folks! I was really excited to get to write an adventure focusing on several of my personal favorite aspects of the setting. (As soon as I finished writing, I turned around and started a Gatewalkers campaign with my home group, and we've been having a blast!) Huge props to Patrick Renie and James Jacobs for masterminding such a fun project!

Hi James, are you running with a 4 person or 5-6 person party?

I'm new to PF2e and everything official I read is that APs are for 4 PCs but players and GMs I talk to say they end up running with 5-6 players cause the APs are too hard. Then they complain the APs are too easy.

How is your group finding the difficulty?

Some of the first APs for 2e were too difficult at times (Age of Ashes, Agents of Edgewatch), but from Abomination Vaults onwards the balance is spot on. Since APs are indeed designed for 4 players, try using the encounter building rules to balance them for more players (because encounter budget increases with each additional player).

I'm excited to get started with this one, really been enjoying reading through the pdf. Any idea when the foundry module will be released? I have a game tonight, and as long as it doesn't release too late in the day, we would love to get started on this.

I'm excited to get started with this one, really been enjoying reading through the pdf. Any idea when the foundry module will be released? I have a game tonight, and as long as it doesn't release too late in the day, we would love to get started on this.

I've asked the same question in the Gatewalkers thread, no response so far.

Some of the first APs for 2e were too difficult at times (Age of Ashes, Agents of Edgewatch), but from Abomination Vaults onwards the balance is spot on. Since APs are indeed designed for 4 players, try using the encounter building rules to balance them for more players (because encounter budget increases with each additional player).

I hear you but in my 9 months experience playing in APs (AV and BL) with 5-6 players, nothing the GMs are doing makes a difference, the party curb stomps encounters. I'm seeing this on message boards as well.

Adding more monsters, making them Elite etc it's just not working. It goes back to Action Economy, the same issue that plagues that other game system. Either groups need to limit to 4 players or Paizo needs to make APs for 5-6 players since when GMs try to do it, it's not working.

I'm about to run Gatewalkers for 4 players. Let's see what happens.

GGSigmar wrote:

Some of the first APs for 2e were too difficult at times (Age of Ashes, Agents of Edgewatch), but from Abomination Vaults onwards the balance is spot on. Since APs are indeed designed for 4 players, try using the encounter building rules to balance them for more players (because encounter budget increases with each additional player).

I hear you but in my 9 months experience playing in APs (AV and BL) with 5-6 players, nothing the GMs are doing makes a difference, the party curb stomps encounters. I'm seeing this on message boards as well.

Adding more monsters, making them Elite etc it's just not working. It goes back to Action Economy, the same issue that plagues that other game system. Either groups need to limit to 4 players or Paizo needs to make APs for 5-6 players since when GMs try to do it, it's not working.

I'm about to run Gatewalkers for 4 players. Let's see what happens.

No matter how an encounter is balanced it will be off balance for a particular group. But I think it is easy to change the balance.

On a personal note my group curb stomped the standard encounters in Age of Ashes and they were only 4 players. Yet other people complained the adventure path was too hard and a TPK.

... Illuminated Consortium of Epopts?

GROAN.

Doctor’s Illuminated Consortium of Epopts

DICE

In translation, the name is strange and has lost some of the eccentricity.

James Sutter wrote:

Just wanted to drop in and say thanks for the kind words, folks! I was really excited to get to write an adventure focusing on several of my personal favorite aspects of the setting. (As soon as I finished writing, I turned around and started a Gatewalkers campaign with my home group, and we've been having a blast!) Huge props to Patrick Renie and James Jacobs for masterminding such a fun project!

Hi James, are you running with a 4 person or 5-6 person party?

I'm new to PF2e and everything official I read is that APs are for 4 PCs but players and GMs I talk to say they end up running with 5-6 players cause the APs are too hard. Then they complain the APs are too easy.

How is your group finding the difficulty?

I ran it with 4, and they're more roleplayers than powergamers. There were definitely harrowing moments, and one of the players dropped frequently due to a truly astonishing ability to roll ones, but I think there was only one fight where they actually came close to a TPK.

To my thinking, that makes it about right: hard enough to worry the players, not hard enough to kill them all. But every group is different, and your mileage may vary! (For instance, I saw somebody say there's not much opportunity for roleplaying in this adventure, and I can see how that could be—but also, my group roleplays EVERYTHING. Their plan for handling the first encounter in this adventure involved seducing Oakstewards, performing a rock concert, and arranging a sponsorship deal with a local melon merchant, complete with new product jingles. :)

...but also, my group roleplays EVERYTHING. Their plan for handling the first encounter in this adventure involved seducing Oakstewards, performing a rock concert, and arranging a sponsorship deal with a local melon merchant, complete with new product jingles. :)

A "How to roleplay in a published adventure" would be a great theme for a liveplay type show on the internet. Just sayin'.

Also... HI JAMES! I've missed seeing your frogly countenance here! Hope your group makes it to part three, since there are for SURE some fun roleplaying moments with some really weird folks in that one!

James Sutter wrote:

...but also, my group roleplays EVERYTHING. Their plan for handling the first encounter in this adventure involved seducing Oakstewards, performing a rock concert, and arranging a sponsorship deal with a local melon merchant, complete with new product jingles. :)

A "How to roleplay in a published adventure" would be a great theme for a liveplay type show on the internet. Just sayin'.

Also... HI JAMES! I've missed seeing your frogly countenance here! Hope your group makes it to part three, since there are for SURE some fun roleplaying moments with some really weird folks in that one!

HI JAMES! :D

And yeah, I'm looking forward to Part 3! (We're just now starting on Part 2, since after Part 1 I split their souls in half and made them go on a quest to the afterlife to find the rest of themselves... Judy may have had a surrealist biplane race against Hei Feng...)

Any official update on Foundry VTT support for Gatewalkers? I was under the (apparently mistaken) impression it would be released with the PDF but that's not the case.

I'd love to run it this Friday.

I ran it with 4, and they're more roleplayers than powergamers. There were definitely harrowing moments, and one of the players dropped frequently due to a truly astonishing ability to roll ones, but I think there was only one fight where they actually came close to a TPK.

To my thinking, that makes it about right: hard enough to worry the players, not hard enough to kill them all. But every group is different, and your mileage may vary! (For instance, I saw somebody say there's not much opportunity for roleplaying in this adventure, and I can see how that could be—but also, my group roleplays EVERYTHING. Their plan for handling the first encounter in this adventure involved seducing Oakstewards, performing a rock concert, and arranging a sponsorship deal with a local melon merchant, complete with new product jingles. :)

That's good to hear James and what I expect from RPGs. TPKs should happen for two reasons - the dice behave really badly that night OR the PCs make a stupendous tactical error which kills them.

Groups shouldn't have to add 1 or 2 players to APs that are balanced for 4 players.

Of course as others have mentioned but mileage may vary from group to group.

Foundry Module released, looks like this page just hasn’t updated yet. https://paizo.com/products/btq02edj

Foundry Module released, looks like this page just hasn’t updated yet. https://paizo.com/products/btq02edj

Linkified links, the first to the "bundle version", if you don't own the PDF (this will give you the PDF for free), and the second one can only be bought if you already own the PDF, and will be cheaper.

One thing too, different people enjoy different lethality. So my group love danger, and have no issue with a strong risk of TPK. If there is no good risk of a TPK and they do not feel they really needed planning and luck to get through they feel bored. By the way they are not power gamers and spend a lot of time role playing.

But we have been playing AD&D 1st ed since 1981, and grew up on Gygaxian dungeons. And played 2nd ed, Then Earthdawn from FASA, + Shadowrun, then 3.0 and 3.5 then 4th Edition DnD and Pathfinder 1E, and now Pathfinder 2E as our game of choice.

So maybe thats why we love lethal encounters, ones they need plan for and scout. So I modify the Adventure Paths in places and make the encounters more lethal but with adding some extra stuff so that if the party scouts they can avoid the encounter. But a few encounters I make easier, all to keep them off balance.

So I play Pathfinder 2E and adventure paths but with a strong OSR vibe and balance.

I find its extremely easy to customize the adventure paths, and even to modify parts of the stories to better suit my tastes and my players tastes (we prefer more dark stories with grey morality).

This often I do by impromptu role playing. And seeing what my players do so I have to adjust the story.

In any case, I find the adventure paths very useful and love reading them even if I modify them a lot. Though some parts I don't change at all.

I am not saying there is anything wrong with the adventures and that I need "fix" it. But I feel it likely the adventure writers themselves mean often for one to adapt and mutate the adventure for ones own groups taste.

And the best part about this approach, for me, is that so far I really enjoy and love the adventure paths from Paizo. So does my group of players.

So I am a big fan.

In any case thats my approach to make the adventures right for my group. I cannot see how anyone can create an adventure perfectly suited and balanced to every group. So I assume the Paizo designers make it "more or less middle of the road." and write their adventures in a way that makes them easy to adapt and change.

At to make it clear, this is totally my subjective opinion and not objective fact.

Many hate TPK. Nothing wrong with that. My group love high risk and occasional TPK, nothing wrong or right with that.

gnrfan001 wrote:

Foundry Module released, looks like this page just hasn’t updated yet. https://paizo.com/products/btq02edj

Linkified links, the first to the "bundle version", if you don't own the PDF (this will give you the PDF for free), and the second one can only be bought if you already own the PDF, and will be cheaper.

Foundry Module + PDF in a bundle
Foundry Module only

Thanks for helping! While PDFs go on sale at midnight the morning of Street Date, the Foundry VTT product generally launch at 11 AM Pacific. That is our SOP at this time. Then we manually make the buttons leading to them from this page.

Elfteiroh wrote:

gnrfan001 wrote:

Foundry Module released, looks like this page just hasn’t updated yet. https://paizo.com/products/btq02edj

Linkified links, the first to the "bundle version", if you don't own the PDF (this will give you the PDF for free), and the second one can only be bought if you already own the PDF, and will be cheaper.

Foundry Module + PDF in a bundle
Foundry Module only

Thanks for helping! While PDFs go on sale at midnight the morning of Street Date, the Foundry VTT product generally launch at 11 AM Pacific. That is our SOP at this time. Then we manually make the buttons leading to them from this page.

Do you think we will be seeing a foundry subscription any time soon? I would definitely sign up for that. Keep em coming!

Aaron Shanks wrote:

Elfteiroh wrote:

gnrfan001 wrote:

Foundry Module released, looks like this page just hasn’t updated yet. https://paizo.com/products/btq02edj

Linkified links, the first to the "bundle version", if you don't own the PDF (this will give you the PDF for free), and the second one can only be bought if you already own the PDF, and will be cheaper.

Foundry Module + PDF in a bundle
Foundry Module only

Thanks for helping! While PDFs go on sale at midnight the morning of Street Date, the Foundry VTT product generally launch at 11 AM Pacific. That is our SOP at this time. Then we manually make the buttons leading to them from this page.

Do you think we will be seeing a foundry subscription any time soon? I would definitely sign up for that. Keep em coming!

I hear your feedback. Thanks.

... Illuminated Consortium of Epopts?

GROAN.

Having worked with academics, this feels extremely accurate, to the point that the main NPC will be based on one of the professors I worked with in college.

He would have 100% used something like this to describe a pet working group.

orangepeelbeef wrote:

Aaron Shanks wrote:

Elfteiroh wrote:

gnrfan001 wrote:

Foundry Module released, looks like this page just hasn’t updated yet. https://paizo.com/products/btq02edj

Linkified links, the first to the "bundle version", if you don't own the PDF (this will give you the PDF for free), and the second one can only be bought if you already own the PDF, and will be cheaper.

Foundry Module + PDF in a bundle
Foundry Module only

Thanks for helping! While PDFs go on sale at midnight the morning of Street Date, the Foundry VTT product generally launch at 11 AM Pacific. That is our SOP at this time. Then we manually make the buttons leading to them from this page.

Do you think we will be seeing a foundry subscription any time soon? I would definitely sign up for that. Keep em coming!

I hear your feedback. Thanks.

I would definitly sign up too!

Hmm I'm bit sad that lot of castrovel lore in book kinda reads like its taking inspiration from starfinder stuff rather than doing "time period between pathfinder and starfinder", but I realized that nature of gap would mean that lot of the concepts in starfinder kinda would have to be already true by time of pathfinder ._.

(since any historic change that people remember can't have happened during gap and lot of them would be weird if it happened post gap, meaning it has to have happened pre gap and pre gap is pathfinder x'D)

I found an error on page 19, but I couldn't find a dedicated spot for all error reports. If there is one, I'd be happy to post it there, but here it is.

On page 19, the sacrificial unicorn says (Pathnder Bestiary 6, 316). That should just be Pathfinder Bestiary. I verified it's the right book and page number.

Aaron Shanks wrote:

orangepeelbeef wrote:

Aaron Shanks wrote:

Elfteiroh wrote:

gnrfan001 wrote:

Foundry Module released, looks like this page just hasn’t updated yet. https://paizo.com/products/btq02edj

Linkified links, the first to the "bundle version", if you don't own the PDF (this will give you the PDF for free), and the second one can only be bought if you already own the PDF, and will be cheaper.

Foundry Module + PDF in a bundle
Foundry Module only

Thanks for helping! While PDFs go on sale at midnight the morning of Street Date, the Foundry VTT product generally launch at 11 AM Pacific. That is our SOP at this time. Then we manually make the buttons leading to them from this page.

Do you think we will be seeing a foundry subscription any time soon? I would definitely sign up for that. Keep em coming!

I hear your feedback. Thanks.

I would definitly sign up too!

As would I.

On page 19, the sacrificial unicorn says (Pathnder Bestiary 6, 316). That should just be Pathfinder Bestiary. I verified it's the right book and page number.

It's not Bestiary 6, it's page 6 (of the first Bestiary), that's where the weak adjustment is listed. (Note the number isn't in italics like the book name.)

Terry Mixon wrote:

On page 19, the sacrificial unicorn says (Pathnder Bestiary 6, 316). That should just be Pathfinder Bestiary. I verified it's the right book and page number.

It's not Bestiary 6, it's page 6 (of the first Bestiary), that's where the weak adjustment is listed. (Note the number isn't in italics like the book name.)

Ah! Thanks. I missed the italics and am new to the system and didn't know about the weak adjustment yet. I appreciate the clarification.

Ooh, this AP's iconic party is Ezren, Lem, Feiya, and Thaleon: all casters! How will they fare without a martial?! I had expected Mios the thaumaturge to be in this!