Whether reading it or getting ready to run it, this is the place for your first impressions! Please make sure to put anything remotely spoiler-y behind the proper tags. We want to preserve the story for those who want to avoid learning anything accidentally.
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Prey for Death is, perhaps with a bit of hyperbole, the culmination of what I believe to be everything 2nd edition has grown to be loved for over these past 5 years. While it may not be a direct celebration of its history, mechanics, and lore (see 7 dooms for that!) I see, hidden in the pages, everything I’ve loved about pf2e to date. The adventure is wonderfully written with excellent plot, maps, and art. The villain seems believable and the narrative deliberately nuanced. The adventure is high stakes at appropriate levels and you won’t be seen fighting level 18 thugs. The narrative paints a picture we haven’t seen before of the Red Mantis and Achaekek. We do get to indulge in the expected assassinations we would want in this adventure but also get to hear about history we haven’t before and reckon with hypocrisies throughout the adventure.
On top of being really well written, this may be the first piece of pathfinder fiction I feel can be run cover to cover with absolutely no other supplements or books (besides the Core Rules of course). Many other adventure paths have had me delving into 1e lore books or other Lost Omens books to paint the full picture of the story going on. Prey for Death includes enough preamble and information in the toolbox that I never felt that way while reading.
The adventure makes great use of the pf2e subsystems (something I have always thought to be one of the system’s great strengths). It rewards well thought out and immersive play (thinking and acting like an assassin) while not overly penalizing those who want to get to the action. The adventure also respects the table’s time, never overstaying its welcome in one place or leaving the party wondering where to go next and why. This brisk pace may make some tables feel rushed but overall, I feel like erring on the side of a quicker pace and letting tables slow it down to their comfort is better then the inverse that can leave tables feel like cutting through a slog.
The ending is satisfyingly epic and that’s all I will say before spoilering. Vanessa did an amazing job bringing this story together and doing the justice it deserves.
Overall, I feel that this adventure was extremely strong start for the new larger adventure line of books. I think they will be at their strongest when they flesh out important themed narrative events like this. Another story I feel like would knock this format out of the park is The Test of the Starstone. I have always felt that an adventure like that would have to be set perfectly and not be held back by the limits that writing 3-6 books of content takes.
The following paragraphs breakdown the general plot and execution of the chapters. I’m still not talking about the BIG SPOILER as I do believe that’s best saved for street date talk ;-).
Following that though is a few pages guiding character creation. Since the players start at level 14 it can be quite the challenge! That being said I was impressed not only to find reasonable guidance (Ancestries, Classes, Skills ect…) but also mechanical benefits for fleshing out characters. The additional benefits for being close to Blood Mistress Jackalyn both provide some extra oomph to the starting equipment and also ensure a narrative reason for the PCs to stick beside her during the following chapters. Additionally, starting with Achaekek’s minor (or potentially moderate) boon is a really great way to set tone and feel like you are really playing some Red Mantis elite. There was also quite a bit of guidance in this section on customising/adapting the story for say a different deity dying or a PC worshipping Gorum. While I personally don’t find these paragraphs useful I am sure some tables will love them.
The action in the chapter itself is phenomenal. Researching, staging, and performing an assassination is everything you would hope it to be. The chapter uses a modified set of infiltration rules mixed with exploration to capture that dungeon crawlyness that players love while keeping the objective of the chapter in focus. The characterization of the chapter villain Odulf is great (and funny) and the rewards players receive for thorough planning is substantial. I do anticipate the moment where I get to revive the thought-dead boss 3 times then drop a herald on them. My biggest critique of this part of the adventure would be its complexity. As an experienced GM I know I’m going to need all the resources I can pull to keep track of Infiltration Points, Awareness Points, and triggers. On top of the normal tracking of exploration mode, I can see some GMs (and players with their brand new level 14 sheets) struggling a bit with the amount of content in this chapter.
The minigame of managing visibility while also possibly getting into fights, finding clues, and skulking around the city is pretty entertaining but I feel will fall flat if both the PCs and the GM aren’t well acquainted with the setting. That being said, the combats here also take place in a variety of location and contexts (most of which being ambushes unless the PCs can get ahead of their enemies!) which can keep things exciting enough to make it to the next chapter.
Also, my favourite NPC, Mantis Keeper can be found in this chapter so there’s that.
However, delving into Sazari (the ancient library beneath the Crimson Citadel) perhaps proves to be my least favourite part of the adventure. With a return to a classic dungeon crawl the assassins search out their fleeing foe. The combat spaces and creatures are diversified and colourful with a series of traps/hazards to keep the party on their toes. However, twice during this section are the PCs offered the opportunity to research. The first on the location of Blood Mistress Jackalyn (who has been on leave since the start of the adventure) and the second on Achaekek himself. These checks to research take 4 hours and 8 hours +1 hour/per attempt respectively. Considering the key information this research reveals about the story I find it very critical for PCs to acquire this information in order to get the full picture of what is happening. However, it also feels like a lot to ask that the PCs spend upwards of 12 to 24 hours researching while they are chasing down their foe. The GM may know that the villain won’t complete her plan and that time is not a crunch against the PCs (in fact they are invited to use the lavish upper echelons of the Citadel to rest and recuperate) but convincing four vindictive assassins to slow down their chase may be a hard to press offer.
The information that we get in these books however is phenomenal, specifically the extra information on Achaekek being my favourite. Foreshadowed earlier by a key NPC (Vatumledor), Achaekek’s role has changed through the years and has not always been the patron god of assassins we know him as today. Personally, after the events of the final chapter, I think this sets up a very compelling arc where some of that previous portfolio may be returned to him but that is 100% homebrew.
Side note: There is an enemy celestial who makes an appearance at the end of this chapter who perhaps has the funniest bit of red text dialogue I have ever read.
At this point, the set-piece of the adventure upstages the villain’s quest a little at this point as the action rises. However, the PCs to manage to corner her and put an end to her shenanigans. Shortly after, the Godsrain begins (as spoiler-less as I can get it) and the PCs must attempt to return home using a variety of their skills.]
[spoiler=Conclusion and After the Adventure] Blood Mistress Jackalyn, now returned, is able to be informed of the adventure. She has some different reactions depending on how successful the adventure was and the PC’s reaction to her secret in chapter 3. An otherwise satisfying ending with all the PCs being offered seats on the Vernai (coincidentally 1/3rd of 13 is around 4 seats that freed up from the villain’s attempts).
There is no official continuing the adventure part of the story but I believe there is plenty of content to be explored.
A big theme throughout the adventure is “Who is a rightful ruler?” What is divinity? By Achaekek slaying Gorum does that shake the foundations of the faith? Was Gorum a diety? Judging by Achaekek’s flinch at the violent explosion caused by his actions I’m not fully certain that even he knows. The conflict of the entire story is enabled by this uncertainty. Saviya enables your guilt by asserting that Ordulf (villain from chapter one) was a rightful ruler and plans to do the same to Jackalyn should she somehow succeed at killing Tar-Baphon (If she even ends up taking the contract. It remains unconfirmed). This definition is shown to be useless even in the face of deification as Achaekek slays Gorum. I believe that this leaves Achaekek’s story up for potentially potent change. Throughout the story we are also introduced to the idea that he was once long ago a diety of arbitration and judgement rather than assassins but has lost himself. If the PCs wanted, powerful as they are, I believe a storyline that followed up on Achaekek’s portfolio and perhaps returning some of that power to him would be a satisfying way to continue the campaign.
The article on Ilizmagorti is also well written, containing many interesting locals and NPCs for players to connect with and build backstories into if you are interested (as I suggested in chapter 2).
The creatures are all interesting and not incredibly complicated. I do question perhaps the kindness behind putting oozes and ghosts into a campaign where I am certain many players will be specializing in precision damage but since they are few and far between, I think I can overlook it.
TLDR: This adventure is amazing and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to take a look at the line or support it!
Awesome! I've been thinking about running it for my group when our current game wraps in the next month or two. Good to hear the product is as awesome as the pitch!
Creative Director
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I am going to be running this soon after Gencon. Got a question and maybe its just be not being imaginative enough at the moment. ** spoiler omitted **
Could be I missed something.. other wise super excited to run this.
A bit more context...
The Red Mantis Assassin archetype has received a good deal of love. From my initial AMA however, I get the sense that people were hoping that the proficiency restriction had been relaxed. It is difficult for most classes to obtain advanced weapon proficiency by level 2 to qualify for the feat after all. I would suggest having the dedication make sawtooth weapons martial weapons for the purpose of proficiency in the PC is trained in all martial weapons (like they did the remastered archer and mauler I hear).
It seems to me as if it was almost written as if characters were expected to get a general feat at level 1 that could be used on weapon proficiency.
Having read the adventure now (not sure I'll ever get to run it), I thoroughly enjoyed it. Starling Sweeter did a great breakdown of it. There is only one thing I disliked though:
"Gorum does not care the reason for battle—a village’s desperate stand against raiders is no less worthwhile to him than a crusader army marching against demons in the Sarkoris Scar—nor does he choose sides in such clashes. Good or evil, law or chaos, the reason for the fight is irrelevant. It is the thrill of battle that finds his favor, the crucible of struggle in which victory is there for the taking."
This is a god whose Anathema include prevent conflict through negotiations .
Sure, he's not an Evil god, but he's not Good either. I can understand Gorum wanting to find a worthy death, or at the very least I can understand him dying in the process of finding worthy foes. But engineering his own death because he's feeling bad about having evil followers? That just does not compute
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Creative Director
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Having read the adventure now (not sure I'll ever get to run it), I thoroughly enjoyed it. Starling Sweeter did a great breakdown of it. There is only one thing I disliked though:
** spoiler omitted **
Gods, like people, are complicated. Sometimes they make choices that don't make sense to mortals, and sometimes they make mistakes. And sometimes when they make mistakes things don't turn out the way they expect.
When gods make mistakes, we gain a wealth of story threads and plot developments to explore.
As you note in the quote from Gods & Magic, "...good or evil, law or chaos, the reason for the fight is irrelevant..." That's where so many of his evil followers were disappointing and harming his faith. Too many followers were using evil as a reason to extend wars and start wars and engineer wars, and Gorum realized he had failed and that the very thing he stood for—the idea that reasons for fighting are never irrelevant—is fundamentally flawed.
Had his followers been increasingly turning to non-battle methods to stop wars and create peace (the reverse of having followers use their faith as an excuse to pursue fundamentally evil acts) he would have been just as disappointed and would have sought a solution. But the fact is that seeking war doesn't foster goodness... and it very much encourages the rise of evil.
In a way, perhaps what you're seeing is (to use OGL terms) a neutral god finally coming to terms with the fact that much of what he stands for is not neutral, and wanting to find a way out of that complication.
In any event, as you'll see in the months and years to come of our storylines (starting right off the bat with Curtain Call, then into Triumph of the Tusk, and then beyond), this didn't prevent conflict at all. It enabled it in many cases.
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Creative Director
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The Red Mantis Assassin archetype has received a good deal of love. From my initial AMA however, I get the sense that people were hoping that the proficiency restriction had been relaxed. It is difficult for most classes to obtain advanced weapon proficiency by level 2 to qualify for the feat after all. I would suggest having the dedication make sawtooth weapons martial weapons for the purpose of proficiency in the PC is trained in all martial weapons (like they did the remastered archer and mauler I hear).It seems to me as if it was almost written as if characters were expected to get a general feat at level 1 that could be used on weapon proficiency.
Not every archetype has to be set up to be a "I can get into this role at 2nd level." You CAN, but as folks are noting, it's not easy. This is intentional, and is meant to model the fact that for most people, you have to spend a fair amount of time proving yourself, passing tests, jumping through hoops, etc. before you're "allowed into the club." AKA: The Red Mantis Assassins prefer those who are "card carrying members" to be higher level.
You CAN qualify at 2nd, but those are exceptions for special cases. For NPC Red Mantis assassins we handle this by just not creating NPC Red Mantis assassins of lower levels (except in story-based exceptions), and having their lower level needs seen to by "lesser agents" and the like. For PCs, we just make it tricky to get into the archetype at low level.
It's something of a throwback to the older idea of a prestige class I guess. Something you have to earn and can't automatically choose to do early on. It's a direction and philosophy we've abandoned for the vast majority of player options in order to give players a lot more choices as soon as possible (which I think is good for the game's longevity) but now and then, we'll deliberately skew back to the old ways for certain things.
When we do, we'll generally tag those options with Uncommon or Rare traits, since they do skew away from the norm.
Having read the adventure now (not sure I'll ever get to run it), I thoroughly enjoyed it. Starling Sweeter did a great breakdown of it. There is only one thing I disliked though:
** spoiler omitted **
Gods, like people, are complicated. Sometimes they make choices that don't make sense to mortals, and sometimes they make mistakes. And sometimes when they make mistakes things don't turn out the way they expect.
When gods make mistakes, we gain a wealth of story threads and plot developments to explore.
** spoiler omitted **...
Oh wow, thanks for the thoughful response! I understand gods are complicated beings, it was simply that the material we have available would never paint such a picture of this particular one.
But by that token, I don't see why he would care more about evil followers than good ones. Surely, someone who makes war for Good is violating the ethos on a cosmic level as much as someone who fights for Evil, or Law, or Chaos. Or for anything except the fight itself, but I think most people on Golarion and elsewhere would find fighting for the hell of it to be Evil. Or at least, not Good.
I'm sure Evil followers make war more often, but in the grand scheme of things I think framing it as they do in the small paragraphs of the adventure, where it places the weight of his decision on Evil followers, rather than on the much, much more poignant idea that Gorum's entire philosophy was, is and will always be wrong, and rather than try to adapt his philosophy he's too set in his ways to do anything else except die is a mistake. I find the latter much more enticing than the former, at least.
As for story threads and conflict continuing, I never had a doubt. There was war and strife on Golarion before Gorum was a thing, there will be war and strife on Golarion after he is gone. As Ron Perlman said all the way back in 1997.
"War. War never changes."
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Creative Director
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Having read the adventure now (not sure I'll ever get to run it), I thoroughly enjoyed it. Starling Sweeter did a great breakdown of it. There is only one thing I disliked though:
** spoiler omitted **
Gods, like people, are complicated. Sometimes they make choices that don't make sense to mortals, and sometimes they make mistakes. And sometimes when they make mistakes things don't turn out the way they expect.
When gods make mistakes, we gain a wealth of story threads and plot developments to explore.
** spoiler omitted **...
Oh wow, thanks for the thoughful response! I understand gods are complicated beings, it was simply that the material we have available would never paint such a picture of this particular one.
** spoiler omitted **
As for story threads and conflict continuing, I never had a doubt. There was war and strife on Golarion before Gorum was a thing, there will be war and strife on...
One key thing to remember...
But by that token, I don't see why he would care more about evil followers than good ones.
All things being equal, he wouldn't. But things were never equal. Gorum's worshipers skewed heavy toward evil due to the nature of him being a war god. And by "Gorum's worshipers" here I mean "all his NPC worshipers on all the various worlds where he his worshiped," not "all the PC worshipers who have been created over the years."
PC choices like that don't and can't factor easily into story decisions like this, since that's the one part of the story we don't directly control.
So since he had, in the so-called grand scheme of things, vastly more evil worshipers than good ones, and since most of those evil ones were taking things too far, we got to where we got.
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'War is nothing but the continuation of policy with other means' (Clausewitz, 1993:77).
It is not an ends in and of itself. Gorum and his faith likely forgot this and the greatest weakness of a god?
Self-Contradiction
Having read the adventure now (not sure I'll ever get to run it), I thoroughly enjoyed it. Starling Sweeter did a great breakdown of it. There is only one thing I disliked though:
** spoiler omitted **
Gods, like people, are complicated. Sometimes they make choices that don't make sense to mortals, and sometimes they make mistakes. And sometimes when they make mistakes things don't turn out the way they expect.
When gods make mistakes, we gain a wealth of story threads and plot developments to explore.
** spoiler omitted **...
Oh wow, thanks for the thoughful response! I understand gods are complicated beings, it was simply that the material we have available would never paint such a picture of this particular one.
** spoiler omitted **
As for story threads and conflict continuing, I never had a doubt. There was war and strife on Golarion before Gorum was a thing, there will be war and strife on...
One key thing to remember...
** spoiler omitted **
I understand that, and it's likely this is an issue of framing (and a personal one at that) but when I read the adventure's introduction...
And more as "Gorum, upon noticing many of his followers were evil douches, thought it was not nice that they were using him as justification for being evil douches and decided killing himself is the only way to stop enabling them."
(particularly due to the last line of that paragraph "His skill at battle is such that he emerges time and time again from conflict as a survivor, and with each triumph, he sees those who use his legacy to justify war as a tool for evil grow.)
But also because if it really was the abundance of evil worshippers that was bothering him, he could've just...stopped empowering them? That's something Golarion deities can and have done multiple times. Obviously this would've had huge ramifications. But if Nocticula could be redeemed thereby ceasing to provide powers to a huge swathe of her followers, Gorum could pick sides and do the same. Yes, it's vastly more interesting if he chooses the flashy way out, both for the setting and for characters. But if his beef was really with his evil worshippers, it looks a bit too extreme.
Then again, this is likely a result of Prey for Death having literally one paragraph to explain why all of this is happening. I hope War of Immortals goes into more detail and am waiting with bated breath.
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Creative Director
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The story is one that has long-term elements that we're not all revealing on day one as well. Could I have phrased the opening paragraph differently to be more clear? Of course I could, and that's why it's helpful to have online forums like these to clarify things, be they rules clarification or lore clarification or whatever. It was also compounded a bit by me trying to avoid using Alignment-Loaded-Words like good or evil or law or chaos in literally the FIRST remastered adventure we ever published (one that was written and 75% developed as an OGL adventure before the decision was made to instead release it under the ORC license), so that bit got psychologically tricky for me to navigate at that time as well.
But there's still more to be told about the event; some of it involving Gorum, but more not. Stay tuned!
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A small correction for an enemy statblock since I suppose a lot of GMs are going to be looking at this thread.
I'll probably run this adventure as soon as my players finally finish Rise of the Runelords, which shouldn't take much more than two or three more sessions, but it'll be my first time GMing PF2e (I already practiced this system as a player), and my group have only 3 players, what kind of adjustment should I make?
For the moment, I'm planning to simply have my party start at level 15 instead of 14, since from what I understand of encounter building, a party of 4 level "x" player have roughly equal power to a party of 3 level "x+1", and to give them one more "free" preparation phase that doesn't accrue awareness point in the first chapter, at the beggining of day 3.
Should I also increase the DCs of rolls to go with their higher levels? Or will the fact that they will have less actions, and thus less tries, make up for the fact that they will have an easier time reaching the DCs?
(on an unrelated note, I have to ask, is the "WHO GOES THERE?" event a Thief reference? I'd be really happy if it was the case, because I immediately read it with the Thief guard voice.)
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I'll probably run this adventure as soon as my players finally finish Rise of the Runelords, which shouldn't take much more than two or three more sessions, but it'll be my first time GMing PF2e (I already practiced this system as a player), and my group have only 3 players, what kind of adjustment should I make?
For the moment, I'm planning to simply have my party start at level 15 instead of 14, since from what I understand of encounter building, a party of 4 level "x" player have roughly equal power to a party of 3 level "x+1", and to give them one more "free" preparation phase that doesn't accrue awareness point in the first chapter, at the beggining of day 3.
Should I also increase the DCs of rolls to go with their higher levels? Or will the fact that they will have less actions, and thus less tries, make up for the fact that they will have an easier time reaching the DCs?
(on an unrelated note, I have to ask, is the "WHO GOES THERE?" event a Thief reference? I'd be really happy if it was the case, because I immediately read it with the Thief guard voice.)
This is a bit off-topic for this particular thread, and would have deservedd its own thread, but here an answer anyway:
I GMed a 3 player group through an AP, and instead of modifying the encounters, I had them play 1 level higher. The encounter designs values fit well for that, the extra level almost completely covering the gap.For DCs, because they are only 3 players, they need to spread out their skills a little bit more, and the slightly lower DCs help to not penalize that spread.
so yeah I don't know specifically for this, but in my experience, giving the PCs +1 lvl to compensate -1 PC worked very well.
I wanted to chime as I am running this for my group as we take a break from our regular AP (Gatewalkers) since the GM is in the process of moving.
I am having a great time, I echo the praise already shared in this thread (although I am not taking it as seriously as maybe the content warrants; I didn't want to get too grim dark so I have been writing the summaries up as penny dreadful novel blurps).
My one question/concern is the pacing and resource use for the castle infiltration. We are using this as a way to see how highlevel PF2 works, and the complexity of the characters has been rewarding for the players when it works out, but a few combats turn into a slog when everyone gets their wires crossed. The issue of resting came up just as they got 9 infiltration points. My solution was an effect called Achaekek's Goad. They received like a half resource regen and healing, but they had to kill someone within 10 minutes of be doomed 1. It sped the infiltration along a bit.
Also, I have to give praise once again for the foundry module. It totally makes it easy to track infiltration and alertness points. I am looking forward to the twist and especially Vatum's appearance at the end of the chapter.
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I just wanted to chime in and voice some praise for this Adventure. I have a really long running group though we don't play as often as we used to. We did Age of Ashes and then Extinction Curse before a pretty sizable break. I ran us through Crown of the Kobold as a refresher to get back into the swing of things with PF2e but was having trouble getting into it, you can really feel the different intention in encounter design from 1st edition show through and I think that had carried into AoA and EC as well as the writers were getting a sense of the new system.
As we were wrapping that up I decided our next step should be into one of the more modern adventures to see how that landed. I couldn't be more pleasantly surprised. The storyline and writing and fantastic, but the way they are backed by the rules and help encourage you to dive into the different subsystems that have been developed is fantastic. I hadn't thoroughly re-read the GM Core after the remaster and the intro to things like Infiltration and Influence in such effective ways has been great.
Coming as someone who often leans towards narrative systems but has a group of d20 at heart players and loves Paizo's fluff this adventure has ignited a lot of fire in me for the system and given great inspiration for ways to have the rules encourage flavoring a lot of the non-combat stuff.