Right now I have a magus critical PC in a weekly live game.
Most of the PC's are very powerful; able to do 50-70 damage a round each. But the magus is doing 150+ damage easy.
The Magus is killing bosses on round 1 or 2 of combat. Even on crit immune guys he is taking them out in 3 or 4 rounds at the most, and still kills non-bosses in one round.
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My 2nd trouble is the party rest a lot. They spend half their spells in two, or three combats. Then they spends the rest setting up to rest (ice/stone walls, alarm/trap spells, Liveoak, ...).
I don't mind if they do that while traveling to avoid encounters while resting. But they been doing more then once per level in a dungeon. 1/min and 10/min per level spells don't even have time to run out. So they have higher AC, attack, and mirror image with fewer castings.
They started using Ice/stone wall because I started having groups ambush them while resting.
Soon one of the casters will have lesser Demiplane. I feel that will only make it worse.
I know it is a smart plan, but it looks so stupid to fight for 30 mins then rest for 20 hours.
The next book has a number of dungeons that fit well with time limits, but I would like ideas for other dungeons.
Having a time limit for taking too long could work, but I don't want every dungeon to having a time limit.
You don't need a time limit, so much as a feeling of urgency created. When death isnt the penalty, but failure is, the heroes are motivated beyond themselves.
Like a serial killer is killing victims, and cops go without sleep many times because they never know when he'll strike again.
This will fix your damage problem. magus are nova characters, and if you let them rest, then they can expend a lot of resources at once to do damage like that.
Or, out of character, just speak to your players. say that resting for 8 hours every 10 mins isnt realistic, and you'd prefer they not do that. speak as adults
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If they spend 30 minutes attacking and 23 and a half hours resting, that's 23 and a half hours for the badguys to re-organize, call in reinforcements, prepare traps, ambushes and horrors. Seperate groups that they now realize are too weak to fight the PC's merge, ready Summoned creatues to bolster there numbers, use scouts and spells for info.
It's 23+ hours to change the dungeon around. Move the princess to another level, shift the treasure to another plane. And if things look bad? Well, the PC's can wake up from there nap and find the place deserted. Sadly, the local walled town is now a little on fire and occupied...
The five minute adventuring day has a lot of negatives. The simplest one? They're going to suffer with any time based mission.as you've noted - but smart badguys will cause all sorts of grief too. Waking up to find every foot for twenty feet around your ice wall has been trapped is gonna suck.
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Also, if the PCs always use the same tactics, smart bad guys can research and counter them. E,g., protection from energy often nerfs a shocking grasp magus build... Other techniques might apply to other characters.
Important: do this lightly. You do NOT want to turn this into a GM-vs-players arms race. Nobody really wins those. The occasional smart enemy that takes advantage of the players is one thing. Having every enemy nerf them automatically tends not to be fun.
If you are using single boss fights then stop doing so. Also if you are running an AP then don't be afraid to up the power of the boss. The AP's are not made to handle optimized parties. Also look into tactics. Having bad guys run away to report tactics to higher ups is valid.
Using things like trip are disarm are also good ideas. If they are resting in enemy HQ it should not take 20 hours for the bad guys to realize their buddies are missing or dead. If this is an ongoing thing then a full on assault makes sense against the party. Also just packing up and leaving makes sense, as well as having every remaining bad guy waiting for them.
If they spend 30 minutes attacking and 23 and a half hours resting, that's 23 and a half hours for the badguys to re-organize, call in reinforcements, prepare traps, ambushes and horrors. Seperate groups that they now realize are too weak to fight the PC's merge, ready Summoned creatues to bolster there numbers, use scouts and spells for info.
It's 23+ hours to change the dungeon around. Move the princess to another level, shift the treasure to another plane. And if things look bad? Well, the PC's can wake up from there nap and find the place deserted. Sadly, the local walled town is now a little on fire and occupied...
The five minute adventuring day has a lot of negatives. The simplest one? They're going to suffer with any time based mission.as you've noted - but smart badguys will cause all sorts of grief too. Waking up to find every foot for twenty feet around your ice wall has been trapped is gonna suck.
Basically exactly what this guy says. Also have people attack them while they rest, if they have plenty of defenses fine. The bad guy hires a goblin tribe to attack them, each goblin triggers one of their traps, if they have ice walls then fire or magma elementals are summoned to deal with them, stone walls earth elementals are summoned instead. Or a small hole is cut in the top of the wall and a divine caster starts filling the area inside the walls with endless water from create water.
If the bodies of enemies killed earlier in the dungeon are still there, the loot they should have gotten was used to cover material costs to make a bunch of undead out of the bodies.
Since you are playing a high level game, and the party is effectively unstoppable:
Are the bad guys recruiting or resurrecting to replace defeated encounters?
Are they redirecting the by now predictable party?
They have time to fill in rooms and corridors.
Are they sapping to just bury the party, rocks fall, everyone dies?
Are they moving treasure and important resources out of reach of the party's next ten minutes of travel?
Are they making sure what treasure left within reach is bogus, trapped or cursed?
If the party are actually good guys, are the bad guys sending out raiding parties to capture hostages, so that each morning the party is faced with a room full of corpses with a couple pathetic living ones begging them to just go away before the bad guys destroy everything?
Lots of encounters every day..... and the odd PC death doesnt hurt!
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I would certainly add to the chorus of voices that are advocating to have the party's enemies react.
Our group has been playing together over 15 years, and most of us take turns between GMing and playing, and we collectively would expect nothing less. Resting is always a big deal for our group, and we'll often push ourselves well past what would be a good time to rest for fear of not being able to fully clear an area and giving our enemies a chance to regroup.
We're loathe to rest after a nova fight even when it's perfectly acceptable to do so; "Awwww, that was it? We should have just kept pushing yesterday," or, "We're done? But I still have 90% of my spells left!"
I remember a notable moment in our Savage Tides campaign where we pushed ourselves ridiculously far for story reasons, and when we finally rested and the GM tallied up the xp, we'd gone up two levels.
It was a highlight of the campaign. The sense of accomplishment everyone felt was so great that we continue to push ourselves past our limits because we want to hit that again.
So I suppose what I'm getting at is that this is a group dynamic issue, and it's not going to change unless the party is "punished" enough to create a change in the mentality of the players. That said, I'm not saying screw over your players, just have there be natural consequences for resting too frequently. I *would* expect the players to initially feel like they're being screwed, and I'd expect a lot of "That's not fair!" objections from the party, but that just leads me back to another part of our group's gaming philosophy, which is "What's good for the players is good for the GM."
Good luck, and I hope you can lead your group on to a shift in their gaming mentality. They'll have a lot more fun if they go with you on this.
easy... add :
grapple = no spells.
anti magic field .
a monster that ready attacks when spell is cast.
lighting immunity .
lot's of monsters in a row.
The bane of spellcasters... A Tetori Monk. Great saves, great touch AC, grappling penalties to casting, high mobility, immobilization, and ability to target physical ability damage.
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You can't rest anytime you want!
By RAW, you need at least 8 hours of resting to recover hps and arcane spells. If you rest less than 8 hours, you just recover from the exhausted condition (and become fatigued instead). Also, divine casters regain their spells at a set time of the day. They don't need to sleep, they just regain spells once per 24 hours (when they usually pray/meditate), so why arcane casters should be so "lucky" to regain spells after a nap? Just tell your clever players that they cannot spend half an hour awaken and then rest for 8 (or more!) hours, because it is not credible, and it doesn't work that way. This is not Neverwinter Nights!
Also, make sure that the Magus pg is legal. But I'm sure that, removing the "hitting the rest button" option, he'll think two times before going nova and expend all his spells.
Seriously, resting more than 8 hours per day is just plain cheating.
The easiest and most straight forward way is to talk to you players. Discuss with them that you do not like the current method of 10 minute adventuring day and then resting the rest of the day because it means they're more powerful then the should be and there is no management of resources. Which is not how the game was designed to be played. It was designed with 4-6 encounters per day in mind, and tell them that's how you'll be running it and you would like them to play along with that.
If they resist, you're never going to get what you want without someone having hurt feelings. Because after that it means sending enemies against them while they're trying to rest. Those groups don't need to win, they just need to not be allowed to rest for sufficient time. Just send waves of expendable enemies against them every few minutes. Eventually they'll get the picture that they can't rest here.
I mean, dungeons aren't static, you start trying to rest eventually guards come along and will find the bodies of the evil allies, or that their evil allies are present at all. Regardless, they whole place goes on high alert calling back in groups outside of the dungeon and beefing up security. They start sending out groups trying to find out if the invaders are still inside. Depending on the level magical lockdown happens.
Guards and wards spell, dimension lock, etc. Enemies group together now more than before, so now you have to face much larger groups. Individual small groups might not be a problem, but now they grouped together and there are 12 of them. Now the enemy is expecting them at every turn. The battle just got much much tougher.
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I'm actually surprised with how rarely this pops up in PFS. 90% of the adventures involve the PCs being in some sort of hurry to get their thing done before enemies get away or finish their scheme. The odd adventure where you actually refresh "dailies" between encounters is a refreshing change of pace.
The easiest and most straight forward way is to talk to you players. Discuss with them that you do not like the current method of 10 minute adventuring day and then resting the rest of the day because it means they're more powerful then the should be and there is no management of resources. Which is not how the game was designed to be played. It was designed with 4-6 encounters per day in mind, and tell them that's how you'll be running it and you would like them to play along with that.
It's always funny to me to see how many different ways people will suggest to really screw with your PCs before someone offers something like this. Just ask them to take it easy with the rests. If that doesn't work, come back and THEN look for ways to ambush them.
One would reasonably assume that coming here for help would be a last gasp attempt to fix a problem, Doc. To think otherwise would be to assume the OP was just lazy. Additionally, I am sorry you feel that attempts to inject consequences for unrealistic and just lazy tactics is screwing with the players. Perhaps we should have servants feeding them delicacies, and rubbing them with scented oils while the various monsters bring forth their treasure before killing themselves in a convenient alcove with good drainage?
Not lazy, if there was a simple, "Oh, just do this and everyone wins" then there's nothing needing to be discussed with the players.
I'd probably ask without talking with my players because if I can fix it without bringing it up then "there never is a problem to fix" as far as the players are concerned. And to check to see if this is something that the players need to fix and not a shortcoming of my GM experience.
The spell nightmare. Have fun
Ok, in the original post, Hokina states that he has tried to break the bad habit by disrupting rest breaks, which only encouraged the party to employ countermeasures. The only big fail I noted that wasn't most likely indicative of a playstyle I don't share was that he thought that their tactic was a good idea, which in any even marginally logical or realistic game, it just isn't. Since the party has already shown resistance to dropping the tactic, we provided many options in the hope that there would be some he hadn't thought of, and perhaps some that might get through to the players.
As to the superiority of just telling the players to just drop what they obviously feel is a brilliant strategy, wouldn't that just as likely be perceived as a fiat from a controlling and unreasonable GM?
2GC: I do not get the Nightmare Spell reference, perhaps a less abbreviated message would be more useful?
Chess: Mostly agree with you, but wasn't calling him lazy, was saying that assuming he had tried absolutely nothing would have been calling him lazy, which wasn't the case.
It's always funny to me to see how many different ways people will suggest to really screw with your PCs before someone offers something like this. Just ask them to take it easy with the rests. If that doesn't work, come back and THEN look for ways to ambush them.
The easiest and most straight forward way is to talk to you players. Discuss with them that you do not like the current method of 10 minute adventuring day and then resting the rest of the day because it means they're more powerful then the should be and there is no management of resources. Which is not how the game was designed to be played. It was designed with 4-6 encounters per day in mind, and tell them that's how you'll be running it and you would like them to play along with that.
Or, out of character, just speak to your players. say that resting for 8 hours every 10 mins isnt realistic, and you'd prefer they not do that. speak as adults
In terms of the crit builds, first and formost, there should never, ever be a single enemy in an encounter who if taken out, effectively ends the encounter. Always have at least two, preferably 3 or 4 meaningful enemies in every encounter. And if your party is taking out the enemies you put in too quickly, add more.
Second, in terms of the party resting too much. TALK TO THEM. Figure this out by sitting down and working something out with the group and figure out what is going on. There is a very real concern about running out of resources. The game is 'meant' for the party to go through 3-4 encounters in a day, but that is like 3 minutes of actual action. Players are aware of this and never know what is around the next corner, so they are worried about maintaining resources.
Trying to punish them for resting when the game actively encourages them to rest is stupid and will only create an arms race or resentment. Sure you can have the enemy 'organize' or what have you, but all that is going to do is increase the already present antagonism with the party. They will try to conserve resources even more.
Instead, talk to them. Figure out what they are worried about. Maybe give casters a few pearls of power (or the equivalent for other casters) or staff or two so they can comfortably contribute while conserving resources for the 'big fight'. Maybe institute house rules to recover some portion of party resources with a short rest. If you work with them and they don't feel like they are at a massive disadvantage for perusing the story at the pace you want, instead of trying to bludgeon them into the behavior you are looking for, you will all be better off.
It is tough to know whether 150 damage is excessive without knowing the levels of the PCs.
If you're looking for house rules to encourage longer adventuring days I guess you could institute XP penalties for resting too often or XP bonuses for resting less often. A simple method might be that you have an "XP Multiplier" which starts out at 60% and increases by 10% every time the PCs complete an encounter. You could think about whether to cap that at 100% or allow "bonus XP" for completing more than 4 encounters in a day.
I guess it could also make sense to define "encounter" as defeating a certain CR worth of enemies (say CR = APL) so that the XP Multiplier wouldn't dictate your encounter design quite as much or make the players feel like you're being unfair if you throw in a giant encounter or two which might reasonably require them to expend more than 1/4 of their resources.
I'm actually surprised with how rarely this pops up in PFS. 90% of the adventures involve the PCs being in some sort of hurry to get their thing done before enemies get away or finish their scheme. The odd adventure where you actually refresh "dailies" between encounters is a refreshing change of pace.
At the same time very few scenarios actually have that many combat encounters though. Lord knows my Kineticist has had a ton of scenarios where she just sits on her burn for a whole day of adventuring until the obvious final boss shows up and she automatically explodes them. I think I've had exactly one scenario where there were enough encounters of high enough difficulty that I had to manage my resources carefully (Labyrinth of Hungry Ghosts, if you haven't played it you should do so, it's awesome).
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I'm actually surprised with how rarely this pops up in PFS. 90% of the adventures involve the PCs being in some sort of hurry to get their thing done before enemies get away or finish their scheme. The odd adventure where you actually refresh "dailies" between encounters is a refreshing change of pace.At the same time very few scenarios actually have that many combat encounters though. Lord knows my Kineticist has had a ton of scenarios where she just sits on her burn for a whole day of adventuring until the obvious final boss shows up and she automatically explodes them. I think I've had exactly one scenario where there were enough encounters of high enough difficulty that I had to manage my resources carefully (Labyrinth of Hungry Ghosts, if you haven't played it you should do so, it's awesome).
I ran Labyrinth last saturday... it was okay, I guess. Not wild about it. Liked the premise and flavour, not so much the exact monsters, stats and tactics chosen to do it.
Most adventures tend to fall neatly into 3-4 encounters with an obvious Boss Room Door, that's true. Though I'm usually too cautious with expending resources anyway. I rather dig scenarios where I go through more than 70% of my prepared spells but they're unusual. The low point was Ghennett Manor Gauntlet where due to overeager barbarians I still have about 70% of my spells un-cast but we had two dead and one melted. It was just me and the Ninja/Paladin looking at each other and we decided that since all the impulsive people were decommissioned, now was the time to do the rest of he stuff properly careful. So I ended that scenario with 4 L4 and 4 L3 spells uncast...
First, two things to keep in mind:
The wall created need not be vertical, nor rest upon any firm foundation; however, it must merge with and be solidly supported by existing stone.
Duration: 1 min./level
Second, I see two ways they're using these walls:
A) Hemisphere for protection from all sides - burrowing creatures or just running out of air should be a concern.B) Creating a fort around them - open topped means flyers can still get in, burrowers are still a threat, and this gem is a party wipe (short of poison immunity).
Hit and run, skirmish tactics will encourage better resource management. If the party novas, have the bad guys run away.
Alternatively hit the group with very low level enemies, if they reflexively cast haste etc on the first roll of initiative they'll feel appropriately tricked. Or have them fight illusions, it'll probably take a couple rounds before they realize they wasted their resources. Or have the enemies flee into an ambush.
Also at their level(around 10?) The enemy should be employing divination to understand who is attacking them and why, hit them scry spells, clairvoyance, prying eyes, legend lore, contact other Plane, divination, etc. Extra hours really make those spells shine.
Deploy more wards. After divining Who is attacking and why, having the right proc vs energy memorized is easy, so is deploying the correct forbiddance, ensuring your shrine is affixed with unhallow. Enemies also have time to cast planar binding and negotiate, and many outsiders have unlimited uses per day of very good spells and can teleport, very easy for them to drop a spell then teleport away only to come back an hour later to do the same thing.
Also bad guys can either craft minor items or use such as extra scrolls or possibly take some of their loot and buy the appropriate anti hero bane magic item.
By the time demiplane comes on line you'll have to accept that if the party wants to rest, they can rest. At that point it becomes a game of efficiency, will the bad guys work harder and longer to accomplish their goal, or can the party upset their plans in time.
Oh man, busted by smashomancer! Sorry I missed that first response!
Certainly wasn't trying to be a jerk, so I apologize if it came across like that. Just didn't see anything in the OP suggesting that he had tried to discuss the issue with his party. I've seen a lot of players and GMs get very frustrated trying to win the countermeasures game, and if the party is open to the 4-to-6-encounter-per-day model of play then the players can sleep soundly in their tents after 5 encounters instead of creating demiplanes.
And sorry for the overly broad generalization. There's plenty of sound advice in this thread. When I said screwing with your PCs I meant things like anti-magic field and lightning immunity that just shut some PC abilities down completely.
The 15 minute adventuring day has long been a point of contention.
Vary the types of adventures you run, so there are times when they are running against the clock and don't have the luxury of resting.
Also, magi hate mirror image, blur, displacement and invisibility. Read Alex Augunas' How To Build Challenging Encounters if you haven't already.
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ghosts use them. planer beings can't they just appear? where is the planer space being made i am sure that there is creatures there make them inquisitive. whats this new bubble is it edible. does your caster have planer knowledge? if he doesn't then he might be creating a demiplane on the plane of fire or in hell with evil demons. there is something on the outside of the bubble use it. the planes are not safe. and time is not consistent they spend 8 hours resting and find that 8000 years have gone by and they are under an ocean.
That's... not how create demiplane works. For one thing it's it own self contained plane. No creatures are there, unless you bring them, or they use interplanar travel to get there, which would require knowledge of where the plane is. They also don't appear in the hells or plane of fire, they are contained on the astral or ethereal plane, and you choose the aspects of your plane specifically, like you choose which element you want to resist with resist energy. If the particular spell doesn't state an option for changing an aspect of the plane, like time, it defaults to normal planar traits, like regular time.
Also, you can eject a creature from your demiplane as a standard action. They get a save, but they're going to fail eventually.
The Magus can be played many ways. One of the shocking grasp build, that has very high damage out put. The weakness of this build is numbers. The magus is most likely using level 1 and 2 spell slots for the SG(Shocking Grasp) spell. They are most likely using one or two of there spell slots for SG spell, and using spell recall to recharge as needed. They can pull this trick about 20 time a day if they put all of their resources to doing the trick. 10 time per a day is a more likely number.
The problem you are having is after they have went through about 10 to 15 rounds of combat or two or three encounters they are resting. You could talk to the players, or have enemies come up with ways to make resting every time minutes a bad ideal, just do not over use one method.
For the magus
1. Use enemies that are immune to electricity. (Demons)
2. Use enemies who have SR. (Devils)
3. Have time limit on completing the objective to limit resting.
4. Set ambush for when they come out. Outside have some catapults ready to fire, inside a ballista with bear traps covering the floor.
5. Summoned Swarms, or multiple low level swarms can be a pain if no one have any area effect damage spells.
6. The enemies come in waves. Send the whole day worth of encounters at the party, when they come out. Say 5 to 15 rounds apart. When one round goes down send the next. Do this with groups of 10 plus enemies a wave and coming in groups of 2 or 3 from different directions so as not be taken out by a single fireball. Have the groups use teamwork.
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A lot of people have made good suggestions. Here's my take:
1. High damage output on a critical based (magus) build.
A. Use more, weaker enemies. This is good encounter design anyway since it's generally more interesting to fight five orc barbarians backed up by a bard than to fight one orc barbarian who is higher level. If the bad guy with 50 hp gets critted for 150... he only had 50hp to start with.
B. Other people have mentioned electricity resistance, electricity immunity, spell resistance, and mirror image--all good things and available on many if not most of your top shelf foes. (Vrocks are pretty much an all around anti-shocking grasp magus enemy. Electricity immunity, spell resistance, DR, mirror image, and a good variety of attacks and special abilities. Plus they are easily summoned in mid levels so facing a lot of them is not unexpected. And they look cool).
2. The fifteen minute workday is the second issue. That can be a big deal if you have the party exploring a static dungeon with no particular mission. On the other hand, if the party does have something they are trying to do, it gets more complex.
Rescue the princess before she is sacrificed/forced to marry Prince Humperdink? Better get there before the ritual is completed.
Find the employer of the assassins who was supposed to be paying them at midnight in the cemetary? Better be there at midnight or th you won't find out who they were.
Defeating the evil lich lord before he can send assistance to the army besieging your hometown. Better defeat him before his undead army marches or it will be too late.
Even in the dungeon complex, there can be consequences to the 15 minute workday. Bad guys could group together and plan an ambush. They could track you down, dispel the wall of ice/disintegrate the wall of stone and attack while you are resting. A rival group of adventurers could break through to the treasure chamber and make off with the treasure.
Really most adventuring situations should not be amenable to the 15 minute workday. When there is one that is, let the players enjoy it. But think twice to see if there are really any things that should happen when the PCs are hiding in their demiplane/behind their wall of stone.
Oh man, busted by smashomancer! Sorry I missed that first response!
Certainly wasn't trying to be a jerk, so I apologize if it came across like that. Just didn't see anything in the OP suggesting that he had tried to discuss the issue with his party. I've seen a lot of players and GMs get very frustrated trying to win the countermeasures game, and if the party is open to the 4-to-6-encounter-per-day model of play then the players can sleep soundly in their tents after 5 encounters instead of creating demiplanes.
And sorry for the overly broad generalization. There's plenty of sound advice in this thread. When I said screwing with your PCs I meant things like anti-magic field and lightning immunity that just shut some PC abilities down completely.
Mr. Smashomancer. To be honest, I don't usually expect people to admit to a mistake so readily. Good on ya for being big enough to do so.
As for my advice, I think this is the kind of thing that should be solved in-game with a simple mixing up of tactics. Plenty of folks have given advice on how to do that so far. Burrowing, having a creature with invisibility follow them, etc...
When a party (or anyone really) feels like they've found "the winning strategy" you gotta turn things around to keep them on their toes. Even if it means dumping them on their heads a couple times first.
Pretty good advice so far. I would just like to emphasize a few points.
Unless the plot makes it necessary or it is a very unimportant encounter, I almost never use single opponents any more.
Booming fireballs, clomping full plate, escaping mooks, etc... will attract additional alert opponents.
Opponents should behave as cleverly as can reasonably be expected from them.
If kobolds or goblins are under attack but can't find or get to the attackers, I would expect them to fill the area with traps. If that doesn't work, they would probably run away.
Hobgoblins or soldiers would increase patrols, spotters, and try to set up a serious ambush for the group when they come back.
A high level caster will scry or commune tofind out what happened. Then he could summon a huge lightning elemental to close with the magus. Immune to lightning and crits. Hire a ninja or 2 to take out the squishies. Etc...
A high level bandit may just collapse the cave complex on them and run away with his loot.
An evil priest might make a deal for some dimension hopping demons to hit the party while sleeping. Then earthquake the remainder. Etc...
If you're running on experience, drop the experience speed down one level (so if you're on fast go to medium, medium go to slow). One of the things resting often breaks is proper CR, because you're supposed to encounter 3 to 4 appropriate CR encounters before resting.
The other thing it allows is for you to rank up the difficulties of individual fights without the run away train effect (too much extra exp)
Cthulhu, the great old one, is currently imprisoned on a distant planet in the sunken city of R'lyeh, which, while not explicitly specified, is likely on the material plane. Same thing with most of the eldritch horror beings.
Actually, within the canon of the Golarion setting, R'lyeh lies at the bottom of the South Pacific Ocean on Earth - don't forget, Earth is canonically part of the Golarion universe thanks to Rasputin Must Die!
Strange Aeons is releasing in 2016, meaning that the assumed Golarion timeline is 4716, meaning that the year on Earth is 1921, which is the year that "the Nameless City" was published, which is the first short story set in the Cthulhu mythos, and is, in fact, the story in which the words "Strange Aeons" appear. Furthermore, the release dates of the rest of the adventure path will place some of the books as canonically in the year 4717/1922 - 1922 is the year the Necronomicon is discovered in the Cthulhu mythos.