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I was looking through Battle Cry with my playgroup and one of my players noticed the Atlas Arcane item.
The Atlas Arcane is a 7th level item with the following effects:
This well-worn vellum scroll has edges trimmed with golden
thread, and it unrolls to reveal a map of the nearby area. The
atlas arcane always shows the surrounding area (out to a 36-
mile radius centered on the map) with a reasonable level of
detail, providing a +1 item bonus to Survival checks and any
skill checks to Recall Knowledge, provided the checks are
related to the location detailed on the map.Activate—Situation Report [three-actions] (auditory, concentrate,
detection, manipulate) Frequency once per day; Effect You
speak a command phrase, and the map reveals the location
of all troop movements within the area it maps. This intel
is current the moment the phrase is spoken but does not
update afterward, and moving the map does not reveal
further intel.
Said player says that should allow you to know the shape/layout any dungeon you are in - at least on a floor by floor basis.
I can see a case for this, but I also have a feeling the intent is only for the world surface to be shown. This does constraints its usefulness for otherwise all sorts of legitimate applications.
What do we think?
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Seems like an item with a lot of room for table variation.
36 square miles is quite large. I imagine a DM could argue it shows the landmarks in the area like where the dungeon is, but maybe won't map the dungeon. That does make it useless in dungeon crawls and more aligned with large scale outdoor areas.
It will also depend on how troops are defined. Is it only enemies with the troop tag or general monsters? How do you determine if they meant monsters in the area rather than actual troops in service to some enemy warlord?
It's in Battle Cry, so is this item meant to be used in war campaigns or for general use for dungeon or lair mapping by a group.
Seems unclear, so I imagine table variation will be the most common way to decide how it works.
It is a cool item. You could definitely see a tactical group loving something like this. Or a war commander engaged in large scale troop battles like in Kingmaker.
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Assume your map is a 18 inch diameter circle, showing 4 miles per inch. Allow the dungeons to proportionally fill its fractionof the relevant quarter inch.
This thing is for “there’s a line of hills, that small block is a village of 1,000 people, that symbol on it means there’s a platoon of 20-50 located to its south, etc.”
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Deriven, it's not 36 square miles. It's a 36 mile radius!
That works out to about 4070 square miles. It's a huge ducking area.
A large modern city is maybe like 10 miles across.
Anyways, if the question is about level of detail....well my suggestion is go to google maps and keep zooming out until you can see the distance gauge in the corner says something around 5 miles. You can see a large city and it's surrounding areas. You can see interstates. You can't see individual small roads.
I'm imagining a similar level of detail, with the exception of troop formations being usefully informed on the map.
If you want info on a specific location, even a megadungeon, you're probably not getting anything useful.
Edit: To answer the OPs question more directly:
Absolutely not! You're playing is not getting any useful detail about a dungeon or castle or any other small specific feature beyond probably a marker that says "Weathered keep" or something similar for any important enough locations.
Like, the witches hut is almost certainly unmarked.
The local keep that's been abandoned for 20 years is probably still marked.
The mountain range the dragon lives in, probably marked. But the specific cave in the mountain...probably not marked.
If the map had "adjustable zoom" and could go up to a 36 mile radius it would be a be different. But this is a map of a big freaking area, that happens to adjust to where you are located.
To use a practical example, the largest dungeon level I've seen in a Paizo AP is about 350 by 350 ft. If you double Xenocrat's proposed map size to 36 inches, that whole dungeon level on the map would be roughly the width of a credit card.
To use a practical example, the largest dungeon level I've seen in a Paizo AP is about 350 by 350 ft. If you double Xenocrat's proposed map size to 36 inches, that whole dungeon level on the map would be roughly the width of a credit card.
To be honest, I do feel that most dungeons and maps are kind of wonky when it comes to size.
But yes.
If you had a 36" radius map (I know it's silly, but it makes the math easy) then that would mean 1" = 1 mile. So 1/4" would be a quarter mile.
And 1/8" would equal 1/8 mile (660ft). And you're probably not getting better than 1/8" resolution on this physical map.
So yeah...anything smaller than 660ft is probably just a dot on this map.
I mean it's a fair question to ask "how much detail would I get about this thing on this map".
But the answer for this item is pretty much "None"
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As an aside, I think I absolutely loathe this item with a fiery passion.
In a traditional warfare campaign one of the things PCs often do is act as scouts. And suddenly that possibility is eliminated by a 7th level item.
Even worse if the granularity goes down to a level of, say, 4-6 characters or, say, a platoon or so led by PCs the other thing that PCs traditionally do (act as a either a Special Forces unit or the nucleus of one) suddenly becomes much, much more difficult,
I haven't gotten the book yet but if there isn't some way to fool/foil this the entire face of combat just got massively changed, Even large scale surprise attacks can be detected via a few spies/outposts/ships with these items. Goodbye Pearl Harbor.
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Well, it only eliminates the need for scouting within 36 miles of the map. It's also a 7th level item, which isn't going to be available to everyone all the time.
Even if you suppose that every outpost has one of these maps, they can only do something about it (maybe) if there are allied forces within a specific range.
What do we think the chances are that you have an allied significant force within range to be contacted and respond within the time it takes to travel?
It also just means special forces have even more reason to operate and go into small outposts and take out the positions where the map might be, assuming a special forces team doesn't register. There isn't clarification about how big a group needs to be to count. Personally my answer would be at least the size of one platoon, which is roughly 4 squads, with each squad being ~10 soldiers. So I would say less than 40 people don't show up as "troop movements".
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Not to mention it is only once a day.
And it does not mention what kind of troops it is, how many they are, what their morale is like, what special abilities they might have nor who their commanders are.
Plenty of jobs left for scouting parties. And they will not be sent to empty territories where there are no troops to spy on.
Not to mention it is only once a day.
And it does not mention what kind of troops it is, how many they are, what their morale is like, what special abilities they might have nor who their commanders are.
Plenty of jobs left for scouting parties. And they will not be sent to empty territories where there are no troops to spy on.
I assumed it would give you an idea of the troop size, but technically it doesn't even do that (although I think if it can't even give you that it might be a worthless item). But yes, it absolutely doesn't tell you what composes that troop, what equipment they have, or anything else relevant.
I'd probably still say the map needs to give you an idea of the size of the troop, but not more than that.
I get being worried about it invalidating scouting. However, some other factors to consider:
In the book, the item's rarity is Uncommon.
The ability to reveal troops is a once-per-day activity that has the detection trait. Otherwise its just a map with a "reasonable amount of detail".
The granularity goes down to "troops", which is then up to the DM. Personally I'd say anything PC party or special forces sized wouldn't qualify. The item also doesn't even say it has friendly or enemy identifications.
You mentioned Pearl Harbor. The US military had radar stations that detected the incoming Japanese planes, but due to the military expecting friendly planes that day, security procedures, and miscommunications, they weren't reported.
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I think you guys are SERIOUSLY underestimating the value of accurate maps especially when combined with troop deployments. In anything approximating real world pre Ww1 warfare this is a game changer, a massive force multiplier. There is a reason that accurate maps were considered valuable military assets.
And it has massive gaming implications. Hexcrawls just got very, very seriously affected. Hidden dungeons just vanished from the world.
I love this as a major plot device item. The impact if it is rare and closely guarded (and no one has multiples to spread to different observation points and use them at multiple times of day) has a lot of story potential. I strongly dislike it as a common item.
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This is where I'm happiest for rarity. This thing is really useful. Why is it uncommon in the context of the world? Because it's really useful for everyone's enemies too.
But yeah, the scale is off for any sort of local dungeon floor mapping.
Deriven, it's not 36 square miles. It's a 36 mile radius!
That works out to about 4070 square miles. It's a huge ducking area.
A large modern city is maybe like 10 miles across.
Anyways, if the question is about level of detail....well my suggestion is go to google maps and keep zooming out until you can see the distance gauge in the corner says something around 5 miles. You can see a large city and it's surrounding areas. You can see interstates. You can't see individual small roads.
I'm imagining a similar level of detail, with the exception of troop formations being usefully informed on the map.
If you want info on a specific location, even a megadungeon, you're probably not getting anything useful.
Edit: To answer the OPs question more directly:
Absolutely not! You're playing is not getting any useful detail about a dungeon or castle or any other small specific feature beyond probably a marker that says "Weathered keep" or something similar for any important enough locations.Like, the witches hut is almost certainly unmarked.
The local keep that's been abandoned for 20 years is probably still marked.
The mountain range the dragon lives in, probably marked. But the specific cave in the mountain...probably not marked.
If the map had "adjustable zoom" and could go up to a 36 mile radius it would be a be different. But this is a map of a big freaking area, that happens to adjust to where you are located.
Radius. That is too big an area for small details. Must be meant for hex battlefields or something and large scale battle.
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I think you guys are SERIOUSLY underestimating the value of accurate maps especially when combined with troop deployments. In anything approximating real world pre Ww1 warfare this is a game changer, a massive force multiplier. There is a reason that accurate maps were considered valuable military assets.
And it has massive gaming implications. Hexcrawls just got very, very seriously affected. Hidden dungeons just vanished from the world.
Maybe.
A GM would be within their purview to say things that aren't general knowledge wouldn't be marked on this map.
Honestly this item is cool, but it leaves so many things to question, up to the GM to decide. For the better or worse.
Radius. That is too big an area for small details. Must be meant for hex battlefields or something and large scale battle.Deriven, it's not 36 square miles. It's a 36 mile radius!
That works out to about 4070 square miles. It's a huge ducking area.
A large modern city is maybe like 10 miles across.
Anyways, if the question is about level of detail....well my suggestion is go to google maps and keep zooming out until you can see the distance gauge in the corner says something around 5 miles. You can see a large city and it's surrounding areas. You can see interstates. You can't see individual small roads.
I'm imagining a similar level of detail, with the exception of troop formations being usefully informed on the map.
If you want info on a specific location, even a megadungeon, you're probably not getting anything useful.
Edit: To answer the OPs question more directly:
Absolutely not! You're playing is not getting any useful detail about a dungeon or castle or any other small specific feature beyond probably a marker that says "Weathered keep" or something similar for any important enough locations.Like, the witches hut is almost certainly unmarked.
The local keep that's been abandoned for 20 years is probably still marked.
The mountain range the dragon lives in, probably marked. But the specific cave in the mountain...probably not marked.
If the map had "adjustable zoom" and could go up to a 36 mile radius it would be a be different. But this is a map of a big freaking area, that happens to adjust to where you are located.
Not even, this somewhere between looking at the whole warzone between two countries (of the Inner Sea) and mapping out Absalom City. A hex is variable size, but I think it's on the order of a mile.
This is probably one of those "magic does what the rules say and nothing more" situations. The map's passive provides +1 bonuses to survival and relevant RK checks, that's it. Yes it's a map, but in the rules if you want to translate "I use the map" into some skill check, then it's getting you +1 on the skill check.
I'd like to direct your attention to this thread.
Not even, this somewhere between looking at the whole warzone between two countries (of the Inner Sea) and mapping out Absalom City. A hex is variable size, but I think it's on the order of a mile.Radius. That is too big an area for small details. Must be meant for hex battlefields or something and large scale battle.Deriven, it's not 36 square miles. It's a 36 mile radius!
That works out to about 4070 square miles. It's a huge ducking area.
A large modern city is maybe like 10 miles across.
Anyways, if the question is about level of detail....well my suggestion is go to google maps and keep zooming out until you can see the distance gauge in the corner says something around 5 miles. You can see a large city and it's surrounding areas. You can see interstates. You can't see individual small roads.
I'm imagining a similar level of detail, with the exception of troop formations being usefully informed on the map.
If you want info on a specific location, even a megadungeon, you're probably not getting anything useful.
Edit: To answer the OPs question more directly:
Absolutely not! You're playing is not getting any useful detail about a dungeon or castle or any other small specific feature beyond probably a marker that says "Weathered keep" or something similar for any important enough locations.Like, the witches hut is almost certainly unmarked.
The local keep that's been abandoned for 20 years is probably still marked.
The mountain range the dragon lives in, probably marked. But the specific cave in the mountain...probably not marked.
If the map had "adjustable zoom" and could go up to a 36 mile radius it would be a be different. But this is a map of a big freaking area, that happens to adjust to where you are located.
The hexes in Kingmaker were 12 miles. So that would be 6 hexes across.
If the hexes were 1 mile, sheesh. You would need to be able to focus on a hex to see the little details.
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And it has massive gaming implications. Hexcrawls just got very, very seriously affected. Hidden dungeons just vanished from the world.
I do not get what you mean here. Why would it be so ?
And it's Uncommon, so if the GM says No, it's No.
Hexploration is quite different when you have (at least) the basic features in a 3 hex radius from where you are every day.
And, depending upon assumed granularity, most dungeons would probably be large enough to show up on the map. Admittedly you'd then have to actually find the entrance but knowing approximately where to look is a huge thing.
Yeah, its uncommon. And incredibly vague and up to GM fiat. Which means it becomes an insanely rare plot device in any game I run with lots of restrictions. But it substantially changes the world for any GM who lets it become fairly common in their world in a way that may not be at all obvious to the GM. And gives a MASSIVE advantage to the one side if the GM allows only one side to get it.
I'm just justifying why I, personally, loathe this with a fiery passion. Not really trying to convince other GMs that they should ban it too :-).
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And it has massive gaming implications. Hexcrawls just got very, very seriously affected. Hidden dungeons just vanished from the world.
I do not get what you mean here. Why would it be so ?
And it's Uncommon, so if the GM says No, it's No.
Hexploration is quite different when you have (at least) the basic features in a 3 hex radius from where you are every day.
And, depending upon assumed granularity, most dungeons would probably be large enough to show up on the map. Admittedly you'd then have to actually find the entrance but knowing approximately where to look is a huge thing.
Yeah, its uncommon. And incredibly vague and up to GM fiat. Which means it becomes an insanely rare plot device in any game I run with lots of restrictions. But it substantially changes the world for any GM who lets it become fairly common in their world in a way that may not be at all obvious to the GM. And gives a MASSIVE advantage to the one side if the GM allows only one side to get it.
I'm just justifying why I, personally, loathe this with a fiery passion. Not really trying to convince other GMs that they should ban it too :-).
I do not see it this way: "reasonable level of detail" is what gives the bonuses and that's it.
End of discussion in my games.
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This is probably one of those "magic does what the rules say and nothing more" situations. The map's passive provides +1 bonuses to survival and relevant RK checks, that's it. Yes it's a map, but in the rules if you want to translate "I use the map" into some skill check, then it's getting you +1 on the skill check.I'd like to direct your attention to this thread.
I was always of the opinion that there is actually such a thing as flavor text, so this does not change my mind about it one bit.
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Sounds more like it's about terrain and major landmarks or armies. Nothing else. No single building or complex unless it's a major site above ground. Doesn't tell you what direction an army is headed so in a few hours you might be critically outdated on info. It's nifty but you'll have to be on top of things to make good use out of it in most situations.
As an aside, I think I absolutely loathe this item with a fiery passion.
In a traditional warfare campaign one of the things PCs often do is act as scouts. And suddenly that possibility is eliminated by a 7th level item.
Even worse if the granularity goes down to a level of, say, 4-6 characters or, say, a platoon or so led by PCs the other thing that PCs traditionally do (act as a either a Special Forces unit or the nucleus of one) suddenly becomes much, much more difficult,
I haven't gotten the book yet but if there isn't some way to fool/foil this the entire face of combat just got massively changed, Even large scale surprise attacks can be detected via a few spies/outposts/ships with these items. Goodbye Pearl Harbor.
Yeah I agree. Even if you limit this to just showing troop units/armies, a 36 mile radius means that this map is showing you armies that could easily be 2 days march away from you (20 miles is an optimistic estimate for an army day march). A PC party with a 40' move speed for overland travel is doing 32 miles a day in exploration mode, for comparison.
At a military campaign level, this feels like serious overkill. Every army in Golarian is going to want to have one of these, and you'd need army level teleportation magic to ever catch an army with it off-guard or flanked since they would have so much advance warning.
I'm not a fan either. I just don't think this will exist at all in my games.
Said player says that should allow you to know the shape/layout any dungeon you are in - at least on a floor by floor basis.I can see a case for this, but I also have a feeling the intent is only for the world surface to be shown. This does constraints its usefulness for otherwise all sorts of legitimate applications.
What do we think?
Not a chance. The sheer amount of land shown on this map means that even if the physical map is fairly large, a normal size dungeon is going to be a dot if it's enough of a landmark to be on there at all.
Like, even if you make this a huge physical map and say it has a 36 inch radius, every inch going outward on the map represents a mile. Almost no dungeon is anywhere close to a mile across, and most rooms in dungeons are under 100 feet across, so none of that detail is going to be visible as the scale is just too high. (And the map is probably physically smaller than that, since a 36 inch radius paper map would be huge when unrolled.)
And that's if we ignore the problem that how does this map show multiple levels on it? Like if it's showing the above ground map, how is it also showing individual dungeon levels below that on a 2d map?
This might be a magic item, but it's not a 3d video game multi layer mapping interface.
The hexes in Kingmaker were 12 miles. So that would be 6 hexes across.
If the hexes were 1 mile, sheesh. You would need to be able to focus on a hex to see the little details.
The hexes in Ruby Phoenix were half a mile, IIRC, and you could travel through one in ~30 minutes. So those hexes on this map would be quite small.
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Not a chance. The sheer amount of land shown on this map means that even if the physical map is fairly large, a normal size dungeon is going to be a dot...
"That's okay. I also bought a magnifying glass!" - Player
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Not a chance. The sheer amount of land shown on this map means that even if the physical map is fairly large, a normal size dungeon is going to be a dot..."That's okay. I also bought a magnifying glass!" - Player
Beat me to it, lol.
Those reading magnifiers used to be super common, I remember a grandmother and two great aunts having the rectangular variety in their living rooms. They work very well, and it's easy to guess every map-user would carry one.
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Overall I'm afraid I gotta agree with the haters this time. Considering how crazy stingy Paizo is with magical recon and scrying
(someone needs to be sat down and convinced that the "blocked by running water" clause renders half the spells useless),
it's honestly crazy that they could add such a "it just works" item, and not even as a level ~22-ish endgame thing.
Seriously, it just screams that someone got incredibly lazy and didn't take the time to think it though.
Even communication magics are *incredibly* locked down and limited in pf2, and this map completely bypasses the need to stay in touch with your scouts altogether. (I mean for the terrain/dungeon scouting side, the troop movements thing is once per day)
itJustWorks.howard
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Major roads, check. Forests, check. County borders, check. Your house? No. The number of people standing around outside (i.e. army size)? No. The 10' diameter entrance to some cave? Absolutely not.
You think a major road would show up but a dungeon wouldn’t. But most dungeons are a LOT bigger than a road in Golarion. So, why?
There is going to be an absolutely huge amount of table variation with this item. I hope PFS, at least, outlaws it for exactly that reason
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As an aside, I think I absolutely loathe this item with a fiery passion.
In a traditional warfare campaign one of the things PCs often do is act as scouts. And suddenly that possibility is eliminated by a 7th level item.
Even worse if the granularity goes down to a level of, say, 4-6 characters or, say, a platoon or so led by PCs the other thing that PCs traditionally do (act as a either a Special Forces unit or the nucleus of one) suddenly becomes much, much more difficult,
I haven't gotten the book yet but if there isn't some way to fool/foil this the entire face of combat just got massively changed, Even large scale surprise attacks can be detected via a few spies/outposts/ships with these items. Goodbye Pearl Harbor.
Yeah I agree. Even if you limit this to just showing troop units/armies, a 36 mile radius means that this map is showing you armies that could easily be 2 days march away from you (20 miles is an optimistic estimate for an army day march). A PC party with a 40' move speed for overland travel is doing 32 miles a day in exploration mode, for comparison.
At a military campaign level, this feels like serious overkill. Every army in Golarian is going to want to have one of these, and you'd need army level teleportation magic to ever catch an army with it off-guard or flanked since they would have so much advance warning.
I'm not a fan either. I just don't think this will exist at all in my games.
I do think any military leader worth their salt (and who are at least 7th level) will own one of those.
Most PCs won't though.
Since all sides will have one, they will even out.
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Not a chance. The sheer amount of land shown on this map means that even if the physical map is fairly large, a normal size dungeon is going to be a dot..."That's okay. I also bought a magnifying glass!" - PlayerBeat me to it, lol.
Those reading magnifiers used to be super common, I remember a grandmother and two great aunts having the rectangular variety in their living rooms. They work very well, and it's easy to guess every map-user would carry one.
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Overall I'm afraid I gotta agree with the haters this time. Considering how crazy stingy Paizo is with magical recon and scrying
(someone needs to be sat down and convinced that the "blocked by running water" clause renders half the spells useless),
it's honestly crazy that they could add such a "it just works" item, and not even as a level ~22-ish endgame thing.Seriously, it just screams that someone got incredibly lazy and didn't take the time to think it though.
Even communication magics are *incredibly* locked down and limited in pf2, and this map completely bypasses the need to stay in touch with your scouts altogether. (I mean for the terrain/dungeon scouting side, the troop movements thing is once per day)
itJustWorks.howard
Even more arguments for the "it gives the bonuses it says and that's it" interpretation IMO.
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Look, GoogleMap your home town. Zoom it out until the screen size is about 36 miles across. See what it shows. The features marked on that map is what counts as "reasonable level of detail." Major roads, check. Forests, check. County borders, check. Your house? No. The number of people standing around outside (i.e. army size)? No. The 10' diameter entrance to some cave? Absolutely not.
And now I demand a higher level version of the item that gives me the shortest way to a given point on the map with an assessment of how long it will take and how fatigued my party/troops/army will be on arrival
You think a major road would show up but a dungeon wouldn’t. But most dungeons are a LOT bigger than a road in Golarion. So, why?
Most dungeons are underground, not overland. If it's above ground it's probably a castle or fortress rather than a dungeon, and that could show up as a dot.
There is going to be an absolutely huge amount of table variation with this item. I hope PFS, at least, outlaws it for exactly that reason
AFAIK it's Uncommon, so it's already not in PFS unless someone puts it on a chronicle. I sincerely doubt they will ever do that. But yeah, they should just PFS ban this entirely.
I do think any military leader worth their salt (and who are at least 7th level) will own one of those.
Most PCs won't though.
Since all sides will have one, they will even out.
Everyone having one evens out, but not in a way that makes the game more interesting. "Everyone has infallible intelligence on troop movements within multiple days of their present location" removes a bunch of strategic options, including trying to keep movement secret by finding and taking out the enemy scouts.
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The whole "only works aboveground" houserule doesn't fly with me, narratively or mechanically.
First, it says nothing of the sort. Second, there are plenty of vaults within Golarion that are large enough to house entire countries, including their warring armies. An item like this would be right at home mapping them out just as much as the surface. And finally, it only solves the perceived problems with dungeons, not other adventuring areas.
The level of detail limitation makes much more sense. It solves many of the issues, has some support with specific sizes being mentioned, and doesn't come off as nearly as arbitrary.
This isn't Minecraft.
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Since all sides will have one, they will even out.
Every side having access to planes and tanks evened out (eventually as different nations adopted them at different rates).
But they sure changed warfare.
Everybody having guns (eventually) evened out. But they sure changed warfare.
Admittedly, this map won’t have quite the same effect as wide scale adoption of guns. But it will still greatly change warfare.
And, from a gaming perspective, in a bad way
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Not a chance. The sheer amount of land shown on this map means that even if the physical map is fairly large, a normal size dungeon is going to be a dot..."That's okay. I also bought a magnifying glass!" - Player
"You see a magnified dot"
"Zooming in" doesn't provide more detail. This isn't the CSI TV show, you can't just "Enhance".
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Major roads, check. Forests, check. County borders, check. Your house? No. The number of people standing around outside (i.e. army size)? No. The 10' diameter entrance to some cave? Absolutely not.You think a major road would show up but a dungeon wouldn’t. But most dungeons are a LOT bigger than a road in Golarion. So, why?
There is going to be an absolutely huge amount of table variation with this item. I hope PFS, at least, outlaws it for exactly that reason
A dungeon might be bigger in one dimension, but roads, a major road like an interstate, is much much longer. Miles long. And so the maps draws a thin, but long line to reflect the route of the road. It's pretty standard for maps.
Why would you think otherwise?
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The whole "only works aboveground" houserule doesn't fly with me, narratively or mechanically.
First, it says nothing of the sort. Second, there are plenty of vaults within Golarion that are large enough to house entire countries, including their warring armies. An item like this would be right at home mapping them out just as much as the surface. And finally, it only solves the perceived problems with dungeons, not other adventuring areas.
The level of detail limitation makes much more sense. It solves many of the issues, has some support with specific sizes being mentioned, and doesn't come off as nearly as arbitrary.
This isn't Minecraft.
** spoiler omitted **
I agree, and disagree with you at the same time.
I agree this item shouldn't be limited to the surface only.
I disagree, that if you're walking on the surface that you would also get an underground map as well.
My interpretation, or house rule, or whatever you'd like to call it since this item is vague, is that the map would map out things for the "level" you're on. So if you're on the surface, you would get a map of the surface. If there's a large enough opening to underground, it might get marked on the map. Or perhaps the cave network's opening that leads to the Underdark might have a marker. But you wont get that map of the Underdark until you reach that "level".
So it will work underground, but you have to already be there to get that info would be my ruling.
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I envision this being akin to standing on a world map in an old JRPG. You can see there are forests, mountains, hilly terrain, maybe a village all near you. But you're not seeing anything more detailed than that, and once a day have a radar ping for large groups of things moving together.
To know anything more detailed than that you'd still need to scout to find useful info about the finer points of the area. Using the hexcrawl example and the base assumption from GM core that a hex is 12 miles across, I doubt you'd really know much from the map besides what type of terrain the hex has and *maybe* a landmark or buildings being there if they're large enough or form a town, you'd still need to explore the hex to find out what might be there. Useful but not game breaking imo.
It seems that even in the most limited form, this item kinda wrecks the notion of exploring / navigating unfamiliar terrain.
Which is kinda something the pf2 system sees as an important role / job, considering all the survival skills and feats related to it.
It would kinda be like if the party could throw a magic puppet at a subset of diplomacy tasks instead of needing to do it themselves. Sure, it it's not perfect for all diplomacy needs, but it still is easy to see why it would be such a problem.
This Atlas is not a tool made to enable / enhance PCs. It's a problem *solver* or deleter.
Plenty of those do exist in pf2, but tend to be only at high level. That's the realm of your permanent flight (which has become easier and easier), easy there-and-back again teleportation, etc.
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I was curious so I took a look at a map of the Peak District (UK) I have. It has a scale of 1/2 inch to the mile and is slightly smaller than the Arcane Map (covers 56 by 38 miles).
At that scale it shows individual buildings and plots of farmland.
It also uses cartographic techniques such as colour shading and contour lines to show heights. Would be useless without those so presumably Arcane map does something similar.
Also worth noting that reading a map like this is NOT automatic and obvious. It takes at least a little knowledge and training.
It does show roads not to scale with different colours to indicate importance. Another cartographic technique that may or may not be present on the magic map.
Just looking at this map shows how incredibly useful it would be, even in the absence of enemy troop positions. With any troop positions shown every 24 hours (or more often with multiple maps) the value would be insane.
I stand by my position. Owning such a map is a force multiplier. And both sides having them changes warfare a lot