If you had to name 3 or at least one PF2 AP that you like the best what would would it be?
PS: I tried doing a search, and I got nothing so I don't know if my search-fu failed.
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I haven't played or read it myself, but I've heard the most good things about Abomination Vaults. And it was at least popular enough to warrant a hardcover release and a 5e conversion.
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[url=https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WDZBFJtiCc3CiFUwaed-A4kqiTi2JCHmb0jf65rH3oY/edit#]A full guide to all Paizo APs with ratings can be found here[url/].
In general, Abomination Vaults and Strength of Thousands get highly rated, as does Age of Ashes (albeit with some difficulty concerns).
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Tarondor made a survey of players' opinions about the Paizo adventure paths: Tarondor's Guide to Pathfinder Adventure Paths.
I have played or run Rise of the Runelords, Serpent's Skull, Jade Regent, Iron Gods, and Ironfang Invasion. Iron Gods was the most fun, but my players are performing some excellent roleplaying in my current Ironfang Invasion campaign, above and beyond the modules themselves. And Rise of the Runelords is a classic.
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For 2e two APs seem to rise above the others:
Abomination Vaults seems to be at the top of the list for popular/liked. It has a simple theme that stays on point (its a megadungeon), but still has enough non-combat roleplay aspects to keep it from getting stale. Its sandboxy, which ends up meaning the characters get a lot of choices on how they want to explore (even if they are a bit railroaded into exploring in the first place, but that's the whole conceit of the AP, if you don't want to explore a megadungeon, you shouldn't play it). It still has some difficulty spikes that feel unfair, and they aren't always telegraphed. Parties need to know retreat should be an option.
Strength of Thousands has the second place, right now I think, in terms of popularity, but to some degreee that's based on hype/expectations as I don't think many group have finished/even half-way through it yet. From prepping it, but not running it, I expect it to vary greatly based on how much effort the GM puts in. There's a very expansive set of NPCs to bring to life and weave relationships with to pull out the most from it, but often you're only given 1-2 paragraphs to work from. The story is good, the emphasis, where possible, on non-combat solutions to problems is very refreshing and is varied enough that I don't think it would get stale. Balance looks good in general.
I have a good amount of experience with Age of Ashes and Extinction Curse. I've enjoyed them both, but they had some problems.
AoA has some difficulty issues that are generally chalked up to the AP being written while the rules were still be finalized and/or people not realizing how strong the suggested guidelines were. The new quest hub every book model can lead to player disengaging from becoming invested in the location specific NPCs.
EC does a bit of a bait and switch with the circus theme and can get a bit monotonous on enemy types. However I think I'm having more fun with it than AoA.
The other APs I have much less first hand experience with, but from what I've heard:
Fists of the Ruby Phoenix: If you want to lean into an anime-esque fighting tournament story, it works very well.
Agents of Edgewatch: If you want a gritty city adventure with morally gray police offices, you can pretty much run as is. You'd need to do a fair bit of rewritting if you want to have a reformed/reforming police aspect, or a citizen patrol/regular adventurer party w/o a police charter. Tends to need some solution for extra/free healing to allow the narrative to flow at paces that make sense. If you're wanting a comedic Pterry Nightwatch style thing, you're out of luck.
Quest for the Frozen Flame/Outlaws of Alkenstar: both too new to have much public opinion yet.
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Of the four campaigns I've played or run the majority of, I'd rank them as follows.
1. Strength of Thousands. Incredible setting, fun NPCs, and a satisfying storyline. Final chapter is a bit of a letdown. 9 out of 10.
2. Abomination Vaults. It's a great dungeon and perfect adventure for newcomers to the genre. Found there to be a lot of filler encounters though that were better left cut. 8 out of 10.
3. Quest for the Frozen Flame. Does a great job showcasing how unique and captivating the culture is in the Realm of the Mammoth Lords. The hexploration can be very repetitive. 7 out of 10.
4. Agents of Edgewatch. I ran this differently with the PCs not being cops, but instead adventurers working in league with the Edgewatch. While it's an extremely linear adventure path with specific ways it expects the party to do everything, it's still a good time. 7 out of 10.
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If you had to name 3 or at least one PF2 AP that you like the best what would would it be?
PS: I tried doing a search, and I got nothing so I don't know if my search-fu failed.
Having played partially through two APs and run one of those myself, I have to say that AoE is easily my favorite.
EC does a bit of a bait and switch with the circus theme and can get a bit monotonous on enemy types. However I think I'm having more fun with it than AoA.
the biggest complaint i have heard about that is that it has this whole in depth and elaborate circus system that you can invest heavily into that will, at best break even, and in most cases just drain resources with no payout whatsoever.
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the biggest complaint i have heard about that is that it has this whole in depth and elaborate circus system that you can invest heavily into that will, at best break even, and in most cases just drain resources with no payout whatsoever.EC does a bit of a bait and switch with the circus theme and can get a bit monotonous on enemy types. However I think I'm having more fun with it than AoA.
The bigger issue is that the circus is pretty vestigial compared to the actual plot (the aeon orbs and the xulgath).
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For EC (not to derail the thread in general with discussion about it) that's kind of the bait-and-switch I was talking about The circus aspect is hyped up in the player's guide and the pitch piece for the AP. The first main scene is planning and putting on a circus show. There's an elaborate rule system/subsystem for it. And the first performance works beautifully, because it has hand-crafted extra things. All the later performances are basically devoid of scripted extra items and rely on a random table. And the integration with the story is often along the lines of "The heroes are in town for NN days and thus have time for 2 performances." Book 1 is fine; Book 2 still feels connected to the circus and has a more than enough non-performance, but still circus related events. And if you want a short AP, books 1-2 alone, with a tiny bit of rewriting can make a very satisfying story. Book 3-5 (in the middle of book 5 now, don't remember definitively how book 6 deals with it) the circus is basically an excuse for why the party goes to the next stop on the railroad. And as Kekkres said, the balance point on rewards/investment/etc feels off. So really after the performance in book 1, unless the group enjoys just roleplaying around the circus, its kinda best to just like it happen in the background and don't spend time on it. I can easily see groups that enjoy focusing on the circus instead, and end up spending more than half their sessions on circus performances/interaction with the NPCs/etc and resent having to go adventuring -- but then the GM and more critically the PCs are creating practically all the content themselves -- basically spending all their time on the things that happen between what happens in the AP.
All the APs with a special book 1 subsystem seem to have a little bit of this effect. AoA's citadel rebuilding, suffers from a bit of "it all happens in downtime, its not 'interesting'" and while its meant to be spread out across mulitple breaks between each book, there's really only seeds in book 1 for how to make it more interesting. And its 'payoff' is fairly limited. When I ran it it was more connected to the character's personality arcs and how they interacted with the town. Mainly time for the players to monologue a bit about what they spent time on during the months between books.
Strength of Thousands can have some of the same problems as EC (both theme and subsystem), but it handles it better.
For theme, if to your audience "Magical School AP" = "Reskinned Hogwarts" you're set up for a bit of the jarring theme-mismatch. The AP spans an entire academic career -- from students, to junior professors, to field researchers, etc. Its not six books of student hijinks interspersed with brief moments of seriousness. As long as you cue people in on this before starting that should solve that problem. And its subsystem of Research is much better integrated -- its coupled to character power through progression through your branch of the academy, granting free feats/etc. And each book tends to call out what is researchable directly in the book -- often something that's important to the plot and ends up with better/more rewarding research than the abstract possibilities during downtime between books.
Age of Ashes gets a bit of a bad rap for being the first AP and still rough around the edges, and to an extent it deserves it, but I really enjoyed it. Still, of the three 2e APs I've run so far it's distinctly third place.
Armageddon Vaults is amazing. Everything I wanted in a megadungeon. One of my favorite APs Paizo has published. Makes dungeon crawling tense and exciting without devolving into a boring slog. Works really well with a program like Fantasy Grounds that handles lighting and the like - my players have literally gotten lost after splitting the party. Very atmospheric, good mix of challenge and excitement, and enough going on outside the dungeon to make going back to town worthwhile. Absolutely perfect. Second place.
My Fist of the Ruby Phoenix players have come up with names for their attacks and shout them when they get a crit. 11/10, most fun AP I've ever run.
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I know Abomination Vaults gets all the praise, but from what I’ve seen, Quest for the Frozen Flame seemed like a sleeper hit. How have folks liked it so far?
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The bigger issue is that the circus is pretty vestigial compared to the actual plot (the aeon orbs and the xulgath).the biggest complaint i have heard about that is that it has this whole in depth and elaborate circus system that you can invest heavily into that will, at best break even, and in most cases just drain resources with no payout whatsoever.EC does a bit of a bait and switch with the circus theme and can get a bit monotonous on enemy types. However I think I'm having more fun with it than AoA.
Yeah this. The AP was kind of presented as "the circus AP" but it's a much more traditional AP that just so happens to use a circus as part of its opening hook. That feels bad if you're expecting a circus AP.
TBH this is something that happens kinda often with Paizo APs. Book 1 starts to head in one direction and then later books don't really run with that same energy or focus and in order to preserve a sense of mystery sometimes it ends up being difficult to communicate what the 'real' themes of the AP are and what's setup.
... Not PF2 but I remember a bunch of my friends being really disappointed in Starfinder's Dead Suns for similar reasons: a lot of what they thought were the major plot elements, characters, and foreshadowing in Book 1 were just never mentioned again (to the point that some of them thought they would have had more fun if they just started with book 2).
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I ran Age of Ashes for three books and my biggest issue there is not the difficulty (easy for me to adjust) but more the general lack of purpose. A general sentiment through many books were "why are we doing this?" and it really depends on your players being very natural explorers and wanting to do things just because it is a shiny portal.
I've run a little Strength of Thousands and it has been very fun but the campaign has been plagued by hiatuses :(
I've run a lot of Fists of the Ruby Phoenix and I love it, it just oozes cool and really leans into making combat a cinematic experience of sorts which I rarely see other pre-written content nail down. Also has a lot of lovable and hatable NPCs though like a lot of pre-written content the GM will have to make some work to get that RP/encounter balance that fits your group the best.
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So far I have to say my favorite is Strenght of Thousands.
The lore, the setting, the schools, everything is well thought out and as a veteran I often find myself facing down things I have ZERO knowledge about.
Goat-crocodile-storm riding creature? Let's do this !
A full guide to all Paizo APs with ratings can be found here.
In general, Abomination Vaults and Strength of Thousands get highly rated, as does Age of Ashes (albeit with some difficulty concerns).
Thanks for the link.
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Tyrant's Grasp/WOTR are way too high on that ratings list.
I know Abomination Vaults gets all the praise, but from what I’ve seen, Quest for the Frozen Flame seemed like a sleeper hit. How have folks liked it so far?
It was very very fun, but my wife and I may have gotten more than your average party out of it because we rabidly speculated on aspects of Broken Tusk society 1-2 months prior to the AP's release and tailored characters specifically towards it. If your group doesn't have buy-in to the setting your mileage may vary.
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From what I have run/read
AoA 7/10 fun adventure let down by a few weaker sections. When it does something well it does it really well though, as long as a GM characterises the villains as sentient creatures that can be interacted with they should be very memorable.
EC 6/10 I am biased as I ran this as it came out and leaned into / hyped the circus elements... boy was that a mistake. The players loved those elements but ooof, the adventure has very little to do with them. I would consider it a similar story to AoA and worse in most regards.
AoE 8/10 I have only run the first book (and read the rest), but it was very fun. I stopped so I could wait for the Absalom book lol. Very linear but a strong structure with the right group. Feels like it should have ended at book 5 imo.
AV 8/10 well balanced and straight forward dungeon crawl. It really shines when the beginner box and trouble in otari are combined with the first book to be a mini sandbox imo. I will be running this one again, it won't be making my best adventure ever list, but it is what I would recommend new GMs and players play. Has some foreshadowing issues.
The others I have only skimmed or partially read. I was excited for quest for the frozen flame, and its story beats are generally cool (love the last boss) but overall it feels a bit unpolished and the hexploration is something I would ditch given that they are being pursued.
Fists of the Ruby Phoenix was a fun skim, but I really need the right party to run it for. And knowing I will have to rebuy the adventure if I want it on foundry next year makes me sad.
I ran Age of Ashes for three books and my biggest issue there is not the difficulty (easy for me to adjust) but more the general lack of purpose. A general sentiment through many books were "why are we doing this?" and it really depends on your players being very natural explorers and wanting to do things just because it is a shiny portal.
The first book while being pretty poor and the weakest of the entire AP gives immediate motivation.
The second book gives motivation in the sense of "don't let those things come through again we just got this place".
The third book actively has npcs drag PCs into wanting to defend their town/location as someone comes to them as a threat.
The fourth book should be motivated by the threat from the previous book growing and notes specifically stating as much.
The fifth is entirely motivated by exploration but by this point I would expect them to want to.
The sixth has the strongest motivation since book 1 given what notes they find in book 5 reveal.
I dunno, while I think it does benefit from more foreshadowing I think the throughline is pretty clear from book to book. And any GM worth their salt will be foreshadowing the primary villains from book 1 onwards.
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I ran Age of Ashes for three books and my biggest issue there is not the difficulty (easy for me to adjust) but more the general lack of purpose. A general sentiment through many books were "why are we doing this?" and it really depends on your players being very natural explorers and wanting to do things just because it is a shiny portal.
The second book gives motivation in the sense of "don't let those things come through again we just got this place".
The third book actively has npcs drag PCs into wanting to defend their town/location as someone comes to them as a threat.
For the second book, the portal is broken as you start and is entirely non-functional. The players can just ignore it and nothing will happen to them instead of repairing it. The dragon living inside it also is a motivation to just destroy the portals instead of opening them.
The Scarlet Triad guy showing up at the start of book 3 has nothing to do with the portal, he just took the roads. There is no reason to go through the portal at all in book 3 as there is zero indication that it will lead to them. The Scarlet Triad don't even know where the portal is and have no key for it.
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Nothing happens to them right away if they ignore the portal. Meanwhile, bad stuff is still happening on the far side of it, and they're not gaining any of the allies and resources they would if they chose to engage with the AP's storyline. And if your players aren't self-motivated to do that, then as the GM you'll need to help them out and invent some. If they still won't bite, then it's probably better to play a different AP.
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Yeah, obviously we are all playing a game so the GM has to push the party through the portal but I think the AP is much weaker for it.
I think it would have been much better if you are given a clear reason for what you are doing rather than simply indulging the story.
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AoA suffers a bit for me because for the longest time it all seems horribly contrived how it goes from book to book. At the end it starts to fit together but that's a bit late.
To me the comparison to Deep Space Nine presents itself; there, the big bad metaplot doesn't immediately force itself forward, it builds for a bit in the background and only then starts to claim more and more of the limelight in later seasons. That just seems to flow more naturally.
Tarondar's Guide is a good overview.
Part of it will depend on what your group prefers.
I liked Agents of Edgewatch the most so far in PF2. But even it has a few duds in the overall path. It has a fun plotline if your group doesn't mind playing fantasy cops.
Abom Vaults first module is pretty cool. It gets a little monotonous as a mega dungeon, but overall well done.
Extinction Curse was pretty cool. Circus seems tacked on, but the overall metaplot is pretty interesting and it's the first time I've seen the monster used as the core enemy of an adventure.
Age of Ashes has a lot cool elements. You might have to arrange them in a more interesting manner than presented. Feels a bit too contrived for my tastes, but not a hard fix if you don't mind putting some work in to build the plot a little tighter.
Check that Tarondor thread. It has a lot of good discussion.
It’s also my understanding that 2e doesn’t have any adventure paths widely regarded to be straight-up D-tier the same way 1e did with things like Second Darkness, Serpent’s Skull, or Council of Thieves.
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It’s also my understanding that 2e doesn’t have any adventure paths widely regarded to be straight-up D-tier the same way 1e did with things like Second Darkness, Serpent’s Skull, or Council of Thieves.
Though the first book of Serpent's Skull was really good - probably my favorite first book of any AP.
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I know Abomination Vaults gets all the praise, but from what I’ve seen, Quest for the Frozen Flame seemed like a sleeper hit. How have folks liked it so far?
The first book is an improvement over Hellknight Hill. The hexploration rules in QFF are better than the base-building stuff if AoA, and there aren't any problem combats thus far.
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Though the first book of Serpent's Skull was really good - probably my favorite first book of any AP.
As far as I'm aware, it's pretty much the consensus for serpent's skull. The first book is absolutely amazing and maybe the best module/first part of an AP paizo ever produced, the rest is at best a hot mess that take a lot of rewritting to make fun.
One of the advice I see most often about SS is to only run that first module, and then connect it to the skull and shackle AP (who happen to be a well liked AP with a first module that is considered pretty weak).
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It’s also my understanding that 2e doesn’t have any adventure paths widely regarded to be straight-up D-tier the same way 1e did with things like Second Darkness, Serpent’s Skull, or Council of Thieves.
We'll see how Outlaws of Alkenstar ends but the reception so far has not been overwhelmingly positive.
My personal opinion is that the first AP that takes place inside Alkenstar lacks thematic consistency and doesn't know if it wants to be "19th Century London with more gears" or "The American Frontier circa 1870".
In the beginning you visit and stage a Spaghetti Western-style hold up, and then you're trekking through a zeppelin graveyard.
In the middle you pick up a magic artifact that was keeping a freezer going in a warehouse and the handwaving explanation is just "There's some metal bindings around it that keep it from going haywire". Huge missed opportunity for an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine that makes ice/reduces temperature like in Back to the Future Part 3
Some people were also griping about an ambush on a bridge over a river that doesn't exist on the greater map but I just kinda figured that a city like Alkenstar probably has canals for water to reach parts of the city so that didn't bother me too much.
In the last part of Punks in a Powderkeg you visit a:
Private Club for Rodeo Champions
A Re-Agent Vendor
and a Dance Hall/Discothesque.
These are all so wildly thematically different that you get whiplash going through them. I was joking with my group about it after we went through it: Are there lots of cows in Alkenstar? Is it known for its ranches? Do they export a lot of beef? Are there annual cattle drives up the Ustradi river to Nex, braving sandstorms, Gnoll bandits, and mana waste monsters?
Or was it just a leap of logic from "What real life culture is known for guns and stetson hats?" to "Cowboys" to "Rodeos!" ?
And this isn't even getting into the lack of consequences for spellcasting in Alkenstar at the wrong time.
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It’s also my understanding that 2e doesn’t have any adventure paths widely regarded to be straight-up D-tier the same way 1e did with things like Second Darkness, Serpent’s Skull, or Council of Thieves.We'll see how Outlaws of Alkenstar ends but the reception so far has not been overwhelmingly positive.
My personal opinion is that the first AP that takes place inside Alkenstar lacks thematic consistency and doesn't know if it wants to be "19th Century London with more gears" or "The American Frontier circa 1870".
Adventure Path Spoilers:
In the beginning you visit and stage a Spaghetti Western-style hold up, and then you're trekking through a zeppelin graveyard.In the middle you pick up a magic artifact that was keeping a freezer going in a warehouse and the handwaving explanation is just "There's some metal bindings around it that keep it from going haywire". Huge missed opportunity for an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine that makes ice/reduces temperature like in Back to the Future Part 3
Some people were also griping about an ambush on a bridge over a river that doesn't exist on the greater map but I just kinda figured that a city like Alkenstar probably has canals for water to reach parts of the city so that didn't bother me too much.
In the last part of Punks in a Powderkeg you visit a:
Private Club for Rodeo Champions
A Re-Agent Vendor
and a Dance Hall/Discothesque.
These are all so wildly thematically different that you get whiplash going through them. I was joking with my group about it after we went through it: Are there lots of cows in Alkenstar? Is it known for its ranches? Do they export a lot of beef? Are there annual cattle drives up the Ustradi river to Nex, braving sandstorms, Gnoll bandits, and mana waste monsters?Or was it just a leap of logic from "What real life culture is known for guns and stetson hats?" to "Cowboys" to "Rodeos!" ?
And this isn't even getting into...
Yeah I'm seeing a lot of similar feedback online and it looks like it only gets worse as the AP continues.
Can't say any of the groups I've involved with have really felt "whiplash" from Outlaws. They've enjoyed getting to see some of the weirder corners of Alkenstar.
Well currently it's at 3 of 5 stars so I guess none of those people felt like sharing their opinion?
If you liked it so much you played it in multiple groups then I'd definitely leave a 5 star review.
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I'm not sure that review scores mean much this early in an AP's release schedule, since I know a lot of groups won't even start an AP until the GM has had the chance to read through all of the volumes.
Plus these things tend to come out faster than people play through them, so I'm sure there are groups just starting, say, Strength of Thousands or Quest for the Frozen Flame now.
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I'm not sure that review scores mean much this early in an AP's release schedule, since I know a lot of groups won't even start an AP until the GM has had the chance to read through all of the volumes.
Plus these things tend to come out faster than people play through them, so I'm sure there are groups just starting, say, Strength of Thousands or Quest for the Frozen Flame now.
7 reviews for an AP within two months of release is above-average. Most are lucky to get that many after years.
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Attempting to tattle-tale on a person expressing opinions about the theme of an AP in a blanket AP discussion thread as "mean spiritedly spoiling the entire thing" is a bad faith attempt to suppress negative criticism and I won't respond to it. I did not discuss the plot of the AP at all, only the locations.
Well currently it's at 3 of 5 stars so I guess none of those people felt like sharing their opinion?
If you liked it so much you played it in multiple groups then I'd definitely leave a 5 star review.
I'm not sure it's really worth 5 stars. Somewhere in the 3-4 range sounds about right.
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I’m likewise underwhelmed by OoA thus far, but posting untagged spoilers for an AP that isn’t even finished yet in an unrelated thread is a huge jerk move.
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This community doesn't exist so you can feel self-satisfied by taking clever snipes at one another over reductively small differences of opinion.
Please stop this pointless and toxic posturing/bickering. It's off-topic, childish, and more to the point, exactly the thing you were complaining about, straight up churlish, none one here wants to see or hear that.
Edit: I am adjusting this after the fact to soften the wording and inject a bit more civility into my request.
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Spoiler tags aren't censorship. They free you up to say stuff without spoiling it for people who want to wait to be surprised.
But it's easy enough to post a relevant comment, and realize only afterwards when it's too late to edit, that it would have been better to use spoiler tags.
Let's just all flag the relevant posts with "needs spoiler tag"
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I'm not sure it's really worth 5 stars. Somewhere in the 3-4 range sounds about right.
There's this huge disconnect about what review scores mean across different things. Like a movie that scores 3 out of 5 stars is a pretty good movie, but a game that gets a review of 6/10 is "literally the worst game ever made" or something. You'll also see Amazon reviews that are like "Item did not arrive. Five Stars" so I think the text of the review is a lot more meaningful than the score.
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Attempting to tattle-tale on a person expressing opinions about the theme of an AP in a blanket AP discussion thread as "mean spiritedly spoiling the entire thing" is a bad faith attempt to suppress negative criticism and I won't respond to it. I did not discuss the plot of the AP at all, only the locations.
You spoiled several locations and plot elements that my party has not reached, but okay. Just asked for a little courtesy and you just decided to get meaner instead. Appreciate it.
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So on the subject (ahem!) of liked campaigns.
I'm currently playing AoA and AoE. Despite its flaws I've had overall fun with Ashes.
Edgewatch I like better, I think partly because we have a group with a bit more interesting party dynamics. But for Edgewatch I think the main thing is that the players are all willing to lean in to whatever movie the current book seems to be strongly based on. Just about each time we've gone "this is a bit implausible, there'd be a more straightforward way to do this, but the author was obviously watching this movie" and we've just gone along a bit because hey, you wanna see where it's going. And that's been pretty fun.
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For the second book, the portal is broken as you start and is entirely non-functional. The players can just ignore it and nothing will happen to them instead of repairing it. The dragon living inside it also is a motivation to just destroy the portals instead of opening them.
A few things here
- The portal is broken magically not physically with the players being unable to tell if it is broken on both sides.- The party has no idea if it can be fixed from either side if it is broken on the other side too but do know that fixing it isn't especially difficult.
- The party has no idea if they key has been duplicated or not or if alternative ways to open the portal exist/will be made. Or what other threats could come from the other portals.
Now... they could choose to seal off the chamber (I don't believe elf gates are easy to physically destroy). But there does come a point where aversion to adventuring is not the fault of the adventure.
Heck as far as the party is aware unless they deal with the explosive energy coming out of the portal the whole keep might be in danger. Again sure, they could choose to not care about owning a keep, go off and be turnip farmers. But that is a completely different kettle of root vegetables.
The Scarlet Triad guy showing up at the start of book 3 has nothing to do with the portal, he just took the roads. There is no reason to go through the portal at all in book 3 as there is zero indication that it will lead to them. The Scarlet Triad don't even know where the portal is and have no key for it.
Uh? his explicit reason for going to the town was because of the portals, just because he didn't travel through one doesn't mean it isn't to do with the portals.
Now, while they do not have to travel through the portal to get there. It is generally worth while investigating what someone wants if you have access to it -laughs-. But a party that doesn't and simply wants to deal with his boss can just travel to the place they are stationed the old fashioned way. The hook still functions fine even if the party is obtuse.
I am not saying the adventure is perfect, I gave it a 7/10 for a reason. But the motivations for continuing the adventure are more than adequate unless a GM is skimming over things imo.
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This community doesn't exist so you can feel self-satisfied by taking clever snipes at one another over reductively small differences of opinion.
I don't think this assertion passes the Visiting Alien From Mars test.