Appreciation for the “Weird Book 5” trend.

[keftiu]

There’s a common-enough pattern of Adventure Paths taking a pretty wild turn in their penultimate book: Reign of Winter’s beloved trip to WW1 Earth is probably the most known, while Tyrant’s Grasp’s trip to Arcadia is very dear to my heart. The upcoming fifth volume of Strength of Thousands has me out-of-my-mind excited.

So I wanted to put it out there: please, never stop doing this! My favorite parts of Pathfinder are almost always those that push beyond the norms of traditional Western high fantasy. Keep Pathfinder weird!

[Rysky]

I concur!

[vagrant-poet]

It makes sense as a narrative structure, because the PCs going "away" somewhere weird sets the high-level tone by visiting a high-level kind of locale, AND gives time for the villain to set the stakes at the start of Book 6 without PC interference.

So I can only see it continue to be used, especially in campaigns with a "center" or known area of interest.

[Zapp]

keftiu wrote:

There’s a common-enough pattern of Adventure Paths taking a pretty wild turn in their penultimate book: Reign of Winter’s beloved trip to WW1 Earth is probably the most known, while Tyrant’s Grasp’s trip to Arcadia is very dear to my heart. The upcoming fifth volume of Strength of Thousands has me out-of-my-mind excited.

So I wanted to put it out there: please, never stop doing this! My favorite parts of Pathfinder are almost always those that push beyond the norms of traditional Western high fantasy. Keep Pathfinder weird!

If you're saying "keep at least 1/6 of every AP weird" I agree completely.

It's only if you specifically need the weirdness to happen in book 5 I think that would become too predictable.... and predictability != weirdness

Cheers :)

[Perpdepog]

Zapp wrote:

keftiu wrote:

There’s a common-enough pattern of Adventure Paths taking a pretty wild turn in their penultimate book: Reign of Winter’s beloved trip to WW1 Earth is probably the most known, while Tyrant’s Grasp’s trip to Arcadia is very dear to my heart. The upcoming fifth volume of Strength of Thousands has me out-of-my-mind excited.

So I wanted to put it out there: please, never stop doing this! My favorite parts of Pathfinder are almost always those that push beyond the norms of traditional Western high fantasy. Keep Pathfinder weird!

If you're saying "keep at least 1/6 of every AP weird" I agree completely.

It's only if you specifically need the weirdness to happen in book 5 I think that would become too predictable.... and predictability != weirdness

Cheers :)

I think the idea is more for a tonal shift in the latter half, what I keep thinking of as a "latter half break," so it can show up in book four as well. Iron Gods did that IIRC, where you are figuring out the adventure in book four, and then the adventure asks you "Yeah, but what about aliens tho?" And the next thing you know you're fighting the Dominion of the Black for some reason.

[Vorsk, Follower or Erastil]

I have found book 5 does either this, or it's the big DUNGEON book. Ruins of Azlant has Auberons Tower Mummy's mask has the slave trenches, Giantslayer has Ashpeak. Legacy of Fire has Bayt al-Bazan. Crimson Throne takes you to the best damn castle ever printed.

[Cori Marie]

Vorsk, Follower or Erastil wrote:

I have found book 5 does either this, or it's the big DUNGEON book. Ruins of Azlant has Auberons Tower Mummy's mask has the slave trenches, Giantslayer has Ashpeak. Legacy of Fire has Bayt al-Bazan. Crimson Throne takes you to the best damn castle ever printed.

Rise of the Runelords and the Runeforge

[vagrant-poet]

Some of those are both. The Runeforge and Scarwall are removed from the action.

Though CoCT does it two adventures in a row, which is arguably too much.

[Paradozen]

Perpdepog wrote:

I think the idea is more for a tonal shift in the latter half, what I keep thinking of as a "latter half break," so it can show up in book four as well. Iron Gods did that IIRC, where you are figuring out the adventure in book four, and then the adventure asks you "Yeah, but what about aliens tho?" And the next thing you know you're fighting the Dominion of the Black for some reason.

I agree, Ruins of Azlant shifts from rural community of colonists investigating an unfamiliar island/ocean to urban intrigue adventure in book 4 and it's my favorite book in the AP.