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Thank you to both Cori and James! A follow-up question I now have (since a few books were mentioned); What books would should I look at to read up on the lore of Bastardhall? July is ways away and though I want this adventure in my hands now so I can start prepping, I will make do by reading on lore
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I think almost everything from the wiki actually comes from Rule of Fear, except for the one from Inner Sea Magic. I know the burning down of the castle is on page 56 of Rule of Fear.
Fair enough. Still doesn't change the fact that burning down a stone castle is weird. :-P
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Oh I agree, my brain is just swimming with all the research I did to prep my own Bastardhall work, so it just sits back there and percolates while I wait for July. the August subscriber day will be either 5 days before or 2 days after my birthday, and I can't ask for a better gift than Bastardhall
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TBF, in certain periods of real-world history it was fairly common for a "stone castle" to have wooden floors/ceilings, wooden beams for support, wooden roofs (covered with slate or other non-flammable material), etc. "Burning down a stone castle" would usually involve all the wood structural components, furniture, tapestries, etc. which would just leave a stone shell and often involve a collapse of the upper portions of the stone walls.
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TBF, in certain periods of real-world history it was fairly common for a "stone castle" to have wooden floors/ceilings, wooden beams for support, wooden roofs (covered with slate or other non-flammable material), etc. "Burning down a stone castle" would usually involve all the wood structural components, furniture, tapestries, etc. which would just leave a stone shell and often involve a collapse of the upper portions of the stone walls.
There was still a fire. And stuff did burn down. Just... not the whole castle.
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There's honestly very little published at the moment. Most information about Bastardhall is in the 1E Campaign Setting book Rule of Fear with a teeeeeeensy bit in Inner Sea Magic, Dungeons of Golarion, The Dungeoneer's Handbook, and Book of the Dead
Duly noted and thanks once again for the reply!
the August subscriber day will be either 5 days before or 2 days after my birthday, and I can't ask for a better gift than Bastardhall
This is basically how I feel, as my birthday is a few days before the adventure's release. "Recently" (as in, these past few years) I've felt like Paizo have been making adventures just for me due to how many of them have touched on themes or plot points I've wanted to make use of in my own home campaigns. If they release a new naval campaign or an elemental planes / lords focused on then I'll know for sure :P
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One question: Since it sounds like the adventure is going to be very much a "you get stuck in this location" is there going to be guidance on how to address backup characters if a PC doesn't make it?
I wrote a big sidebar about precisely this topic for the larger-than-normal introduction, so... yes!
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A thing that I just noticed: The Bastion of Blasphemies product page says that it is the "perfect follow-up" for a completed Troubles in Grayce. But according to its product page the latter had six adventures worth 1 level each, putting you at seventh if you finish it, while Bastion... starts at level 5. Is one of the pages in error, or is there something else going on?
"Pathfinder Adventure: Troubles in Grayce Adventure Anthology is designed for characters of levels 2–4"
I think you're not supposed to play each adventure with the same characters.
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A thing that I just noticed: The Bastion of Blasphemies product page says that it is the "perfect follow-up" for a completed Troubles in Grayce. But according to its product page the latter had six adventures worth 1 level each, putting you at seventh if you finish it, while Bastion... starts at level 5. Is one of the pages in error, or is there something else going on?"Pathfinder Adventure: Troubles in Grayce Adventure Anthology is designed for characters of levels 2–4"
I think you're not supposed to play each adventure with the same characters.
Paizo staff have talked about this, stating you can either go the regular XP progression route and only run half of the adventures before moving on to BoB, or go the slow XP progression route and play all 6 adventures.
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Paizo staff have talked about this, stating you can either go the regular XP progression route and only run half of the adventures before moving on to BoB, or go the slow XP progression route and play all 6 adventures.A thing that I just noticed: The Bastion of Blasphemies product page says that it is the "perfect follow-up" for a completed Troubles in Grayce. But according to its product page the latter had six adventures worth 1 level each, putting you at seventh if you finish it, while Bastion... starts at level 5. Is one of the pages in error, or is there something else going on?"Pathfinder Adventure: Troubles in Grayce Adventure Anthology is designed for characters of levels 2–4"
I think you're not supposed to play each adventure with the same characters.
I am getting pretty dismayed by the fact that I missed all this info about new products such as this Adventure anthology as well as the new Beginner Box it mentions in its description even though I spend A LOT of time each day browsing these boards.
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I am getting pretty dismayed by the fact that I missed all this info about new products such as this Adventure anthology as well as the new Beginner Box it mentions in its description even though I spend A LOT of time each day browsing these boards.Paizo staff have talked about this, stating you can either go the regular XP progression route and only run half of the adventures before moving on to BoB, or go the slow XP progression route and play all 6 adventures.A thing that I just noticed: The Bastion of Blasphemies product page says that it is the "perfect follow-up" for a completed Troubles in Grayce. But according to its product page the latter had six adventures worth 1 level each, putting you at seventh if you finish it, while Bastion... starts at level 5. Is one of the pages in error, or is there something else going on?"Pathfinder Adventure: Troubles in Grayce Adventure Anthology is designed for characters of levels 2–4"
I think you're not supposed to play each adventure with the same characters.
To be fair, I spent a good chunk of time writing up a bunch of details about these products back when they were announced in December. A link to the Reddit post (which links to a Google Doc due to the sheer amount of images they showed off that month) can be found HERE!
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Apart from the "black coach" bit, it sounds kinda like Scarwall from CotCT (which I would be continuing to explore tonight if the session had not been cancelled, *grumble grumble*). But I guess the specific will be pretty different.
BTW, it is "currently" 4726 AR, right? So 513 years ago?
Turns out, Scarwall is inspired by a lot of the same tropes that Bastardhall is. That's a side effect of me and Wes both having such similar muses and for the first several dozen Adventure Paths working so closely together to make them happen. In effect, Scarwall is my initial take on the "haunted castle" and Bastardhall is Wes, but with both of us helping out the other to make things happen. In a way, you can also think of Scarwall as the test run for Bastardhall, which leans SO MUCH MORE into the Castlevania (and now Dark Souls) elements than Scarwall did.
Scarwall and Bastardhall are both haunted castles... but Scarwall is SO much smaller than Bastardhall. Bastardhall is over three times the encounters and levels of play than Scarwall, but ALSO skews to lower levels. Scarwall is for level 13–15, while Bastardhall is for levels 5–13. So even then they'll feel different simply because the monsters will need to be different.
And yup; just over 500 years ago. Bastardhall's last manifestation on Golarion was a little over a decade before this adventure takes place, which is part of the plot that I'm not gonna spoil more of here.
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A thing that I just noticed: The Bastion of Blasphemies product page says that it is the "perfect follow-up" for a completed Troubles in Grayce. But according to its product page the latter had six adventures worth 1 level each, putting you at seventh if you finish it, while Bastion... starts at level 5. Is one of the pages in error, or is there something else going on?
We're doing something similar to what we did with the first Beginner Box/Troubles in Otari/Abomination Vaults, but more planned out since we no longer HAVE to start Adventure Paths at 1st or 11th level.
The order is:
1st level: The new Beginner Box
2nd–4th level: "Troubles in Grayce", which presents 6 adventures (2 2nd level, 2 3rd level, and 2 4th level) so that the players can choose which of the adventures they want to play through to reach 5th level. And if they wanna play all 6, then you can use a slower XP route and play them all.
5th–13th level: "Bastion of Blasphemies"
AND of course, all three stand alone perfectly well if you don't wanna play them all in order.
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I am getting pretty dismayed by the fact that I missed all this info about new products such as this Adventure anthology as well as the new Beginner Box it mentions in its description even though I spend A LOT of time each day browsing these boards.
Adventure content has been a bit tricky for us to announce, since they don't sell as well as do books aimed at players, and for a while the announcements were skewing more toward those products and we admittedly kinda lost the proverbial path for adventure announcements. Didn't help that last year was particularly chaotic of course. That said, it's something we've taken notice of and are trying to do better about. It's a slow process, but getting adventure announcements out there in a more visible way is for sure something myself and Rue and others are working toward doing better with.
That said, Paizo Live is an increasingly important place for us to make these announcements, so if one is interested in upcoming announcements, it's a good idea to look forward to and mark the date for these streams. Even if you don't watch, you'll know that during/after it's a good idea to check out here or reddit or wherever to see recaps or folks talking about them. I for one will always be eager to chat about the adventures here or on reddit... ESPECIALLY the ones I'm writing or developing!
A little history...
The pandemic threw chaos into that, but so did our switch to doing 4 3-part Adventure Paths a year. Post-Covid, we had FOUR Adventure Paths to announce (and one to two standalone adventures), but no longer had the rhythm or option to do so at our two big conventions where we had a strong physical presence of staff at shows. And even then, the old way of announcing one at Paizocon and one at Gen Con resulted in us only announcing 2 of the 4, so that meant that for a few years... two announcements were soft (made online without in-person conventions) and two just didn't happen and typically got "announced" when the pages went live on the store or someone noticed a page on Amazon or the like. Not great.
Took us (and the world) to recover from the pandemic disruptions, for sure, but it HAS been a clunky and awkward trip out of the pandemic to get into a more regimented cadence of Adventure Path announcements. It's frustrating to us too, but hopefully we're on the cusp of a better method going forward!
In the meantime, if folks are ever interested or curious about what's been announced recently, asking here on the boards is never a bad idea!
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To be fair, I spent a good chunk of time writing up a bunch of details about these products back when they were announced in December. A link to the Reddit post (which links to a Google Doc due to the sheer amount of images they showed off that month) can be found HERE!I am getting pretty dismayed by the fact that I missed all this info about new products such as this Adventure anthology as well as the new Beginner Box it mentions in its description even though I spend A LOT of time each day browsing these boards.Paizo staff have talked about this, stating you can either go the regular XP progression route and only run half of the adventures before moving on to BoB, or go the slow XP progression route and play all 6 adventures.A thing that I just noticed: The Bastion of Blasphemies product page says that it is the "perfect follow-up" for a completed Troubles in Grayce. But according to its product page the latter had six adventures worth 1 level each, putting you at seventh if you finish it, while Bastion... starts at level 5. Is one of the pages in error, or is there something else going on?"Pathfinder Adventure: Troubles in Grayce Adventure Anthology is designed for characters of levels 2–4"
I think you're not supposed to play each adventure with the same characters.
Thank you very much for this. It is a great service you provide here.
I confirm I missed it earlier on these boards.
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I am getting pretty dismayed by the fact that I missed all this info about new products such as this Adventure anthology as well as the new Beginner Box it mentions in its description even though I spend A LOT of time each day browsing these boards.Adventure content has been a bit tricky for us to announce, since they don't sell as well as do books aimed at players, and for a while the announcements were skewing more toward those products and we admittedly kinda lost the proverbial path for adventure announcements. Didn't help that last year was particularly chaotic of course. That said, it's something we've taken notice of and are trying to do better about. It's a slow process, but getting adventure announcements out there in a more visible way is for sure something myself and Rue and others are working toward doing better with.
That said, Paizo Live is an increasingly important place for us to make these announcements, so if one is interested in upcoming announcements, it's a good idea to look forward to and mark the date for these streams. Even if you don't watch, you'll know that during/after it's a good idea to check out here or reddit or wherever to see recaps or folks talking about them. I for one will always be eager to chat about the adventures here or on reddit... ESPECIALLY the ones I'm writing or developing!
A little history...
** spoiler omitted **...
In the meantime, if folks are ever interested or curious about what's been announced recently, asking here on the boards is never a bad idea!
Thank you for this insight. I am definitely looking forward to this.
I must say I love perusing threads about new products, but I never think about asking for information on new products I am not yet aware of.
So I'm confused. Street date for Hellbreakers is March 4. Street date for Bastion of Blasphemies is July 30 (according to the Store page). So if Hell's Destiny is between them, sometime in mid May? And one AP between August and December? Or October and December if in the fourth quarter?
Year looks a little front loaded on AP's or are we getting 5 this year? Is there a shift to move them more toward the beginning of each Quarter?
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Yes. Four per year is the goal, but not one every 3 months. Certain months of the year are AWFUL to release big books (such as early in the year when folks have already spent lots of money on the holidays), and other months are GREAT (like the middle of the year during the height of convention season), and those months kinda tend to clump.
Chances of us simultaneously producing simultaneous releases of brand new Adventure Paths in multiple systems are not zero, but they're so close to zero that they might as well be. We might do stuff like we did for Kingmaker and Abomination Vaults again at some point if it makes sense financially and assuming we have the staff to do so responsibly.
Wasn't exactly hoping for the possibility of "simultaneous" released adventure paths in multiple systems. More like, maybe one day somewhat down the yellow brick road we could get a 5th edition release of another adventure path if it made sense financially and if Paizo had the staff of course.
Thank you very much for giving us an adventure path centered around Bastard Hall though James and Paizo. Looking forward to playing it.
We're finally going to Bastardhall, and in the same year we're finally getting a new Castlevania game? Pinch me I'm dreaming.
What a horrible night to have a curse! Heh. ;)
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I didn't see anything separate listed elsewhere, so I figured with it being built to work together I thought I'd ask here. The 6 adventures for the Troubles in Grayce Anthology. Roughly how long is each part? I'm guessing about 2 sessions worth of time, so 6-8 hours?
Each adventure in Troubles in Grayce covers a level of content. Whether that's 1 session or 10 sessions depends on a particular game table—we don't really use hours to quantify game play length for published adventures in the same way we standardize things on the Org Play side of things.
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And Wes Schneider's fingerprints are on both.