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Just wanted to quickly warn everyone about the first boss encounter of the Doorway to the Red Star AP book, which happens before the party planet hops to Akiton.
The litch Dwandek encounter is another one of those really foul SoT nuggets that can tank an entire session, and can easily result in players quitting the campaign.
And unlike the at-night ambush in Mezali, where honest oversight could be the explanation for a "TPK likely" balance point, this one seems engineered to cause a TPK on purpose.
Even if TPK is avoided, because of his many [death] spells, especially Power Word Kill, the NPC needs a lobotomy to avoid killing one or two of his foes outright, even if the litch is defeated.
And the timing of this death breaks the AP, due to the the party's need for a high-level Resurrection competing for the time-sensitive plot need to get to Akiton while the ritual is possible.
Even from a narrative standpoint, this is a Litch. Because they can/will auto-resurrect, they are uniquely incentivized to go for a few kills specifically because that'll make any potential rematch easier for the litch.
This encounter is not an easy fix, either. If the litch is "balanced" then it becomes a curb stomp of the entire party v one caster. Giving the GM that much more of a "fix it" burden to remake the boss battle essentially from scratch, with minions, etc.
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The caster has generous damage resistances, and even a no-cost passive that gives him a DC 12 check *after* getting a spellcast disrupted to cast it anyways. Plus a 1 p day Reaction to auto-save against an incoming spell.
His most scary combo is Pw.Wrd.Kill --> Maze/Quandary, as that will knock a full HP PC to the Dying state, while also poofing them away from the party's help. Even if they pass the recovery checks, the need to actively escape the spell means they will snooze for the entire fight with no way for the party to wake them. This does require Sustaining, though.
But even a half-brained use of Prismatic Wall kinda just wins the fight. I didn't realize before now, but the wall is opaque to foes, yet the caster can "can pass through the wall and ignore its effects." so the Litch can cast and attack through the wall, but the party cannot. This is double-confirmed by the base spell stating the same rule more plainly:"You can ignore the wall's effects."
Even if the wall is house-ruled to be opaque to the litch and affect his spells, it's too deadly to cross, and instantly spilts the party with no hope of reuniting. Violet's targeting prevention even removes the counterplay of teleporting to bypass.
The spell has jumped to the near-top of my "most brokenly OP" list due to contact with the wall invoking a save against all of the 7 different layers simultaneously, while not affecting the caster.
And as if that's not enough, simply being within 20ft of the wall is another Will save against the Dazzle/Blind of the lightshow.
Another issue with Dwandek is the Drain Soul Cage ability, which is *not* a Wizard-like slot recharge. The 0A itself instantly casts the desired spell. Using this to rank up a Dominate is a simple and horrifying use of that ability, but another Prismatic Wall might be worse for the party.
But, even the most brain-dead use to cast 2x AoE spells back-to-back, still leaves the litch with room for a 1A PWK to insta-kill any PC that is below 50 HP.
And considering a Fail vs Massacre is 130 damage w/ [death]...
yeah. This encounter is just too poorly made to improve-balance without breaking immersion.
Our party only survived because of cheese involving R4 Silence, Pillar of Water, plus the GM forgetting details of the Litch abilities. He appeared to not realize Prismatic Wall is all 7 walls at once, nor did he realize that Drain Soul Cage instantly casts the spell.
Even those nerfs might not have been enough for us to avoid a PC death.
We also got far more lucky than we knew when the door first opened. That PC's save prevented the clone mirror from working, and GM allowed the trap to be completely disabled via that PC flipping it face-down.
Even Dwandek's 1A Paralyzing Touch attack is balance-breaking. Loosing an entire turn to Paralyzed on fail is very serious.
The dingle-berry atop that encounter's turd sundae is that if like us, your party does a RK on Litches generically, they will get an answer of "Lowest save: Fort."
Meanwhile, the unique litch Dwandek's highest save is Fort, a full +4 higher than Ref, and even 1 higher than his Will.
And considering that it is a +10 to his RK DC to go for the unique creature... no one will/should attempt that. Turning that supposed smart play into a trap.
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Honestly, I might suggest a GM cut the entire segment with the Litch and the temple. Replace it with the Iobane legitimately training the party over a timeskip. That even helps sell the narrative moment of the trip to Akiton as a big deal.
It can even be a thematic moment due to the Iobane's connection with the Jatembe and the 10 Warriors, as being helped by that legacy would go a long way toward positive player investment with the upcoming task. For our table, all allies look like incompetent idiots, Iobane included.
That would also help the new stakes appear justified. Which is kinda needed, since the AP was insane enough to have already put the party in direct combat against the avatar of a big G God. Cripes, talk about jumping the shark, that book was so bad.
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The entire notion that the are is under Iobane control, except for their most scared building, not only makes them look like chumps, it's just narratively asinine.
It also makes the Litch into brainless caricature for not fully expelling or killing the hostile locals. And for picking that location to begin with. I do not recall any reason at all being given for its selection, he's simply there, in the middle of some of the only hostile magic warriors that could legit oppose him, because the author wanted to pad the book.
In hindsight, all this rant-warning sounds rather dire.
I am still having fun as a player in SoT, but I cannot honestly say that SoT is a quality product. Just about every other session we run face-first into some absurd nugget: a useless reward, an anti-logic narrative development, or badly balanced encounter.
I do not envy a GM who needs to triple-check everything to first catch these problems, let alone come up with a solution to fix them.
If I were Paizo, idk, but I might take a long honest look at their library and maybe pull the AP from sale.
SoT is genuinely 2 tiers below the next-worst I've played. Aside from a great premise, it's honestly "bad" and requires serious GM labor to "fix" into becoming something enjoyable.
The later-made APs are of such a higher quality, and a bad first impression is a real danger. It can genuinely hurt the entire brand as not only will a group of players bounce off pf2, but they will forever recommend against the system to other people in a space that is hugely affected by word of mouth.
I had only glanced at Doorway to the Red Star since my campaign is still in Hurricane's Howl, but the Table of Contents struck me as odd. Pages 5-18 are a semester at the Magaambya Academy. My players like events at the Magaambya, but a quarter of the module's adventure seems excessive. Pages 19-23 deal with the Iobane, the guardians of the doorway. That seems reasonable, but I would have assumed that the Magaambya would have maintained a good relationship with them rather than an unfriendly relationship. Pages 24-33 deal with the undead that Trip.H complains about. Undead do not seem the appropriate theme for a last obstacle, and 10 pages feel excessive when the Red Star is just ahead.
In another thread, I saw a complaint about a ritual, DC 40 Arcana or Nature, required to open the doorway. Assuming the primary spellcaster is legendary in Arcana or Nature, their bonus would be +8(rank) + 15(level) + 5(INT) = +28. That player would have to roll 12 or higher, a 45% chance of success. The ritual is only one hour with no penalty for repeated tries, but repeating the ritual will rob the experience of opening the door of much of its excitement.
In all, half the module is over before the PCs go through the Doorway to the Red Star. Shouldn't adventures on the exotic Red Star, AKA the planet Akiton, take up more of the module?
I was mildly disappointed in Hurricane's Howl for similar unexpected priorities. Pages 5-11 happen at the Magaambya, which is fine since they are newly appointed to lore-speaker status. Pages 12-23 cover an archaeological expedition to the ruins of Bloodsalt, which is great. The PCs conduct real field work for the Magaambya. But then the rest of the module, pages 24-67, deal with a bandit gang called the Knights of Abedego. What does this have to do with being a Magaambya lore-speaker? Bandit fighting is what any good-hearted adventurer would do. Two-thirds of the module has no Magaambya flavor except what the players themselves bring to it.
On the other hand, Strength of Thousands is highly rated among the adventure paths. I guess that sometimes losing the Magaambyan connection and becoming a standard Pathfinder campaign fighting bandits or undead is tolerable to most players.
The entire notion that the [area] is under Iobane control, except for their most [sacred] building, not only makes them look like chumps, it's just narratively asinine.
It also makes the Litch into brainless caricature for not fully expelling or killing the hostile locals. And for picking that location to begin with. I do not recall any reason at all being given for its selection, he's simply there, in the middle of some of the only hostile magic warriors that could legit oppose him, because the author wanted to pad the book.
I checked the module. The Cathedral of Nothingness contains one creature 17, five creatures 15, one creature 14, two creatures 13, eight creatures 11, one complex hazard 15, one simple hazard 15, one complex hazard 14, and one simple hazard 12. 80xp + 5(40xp) + 30xp + 2(20xp) + 8(10xp) + 8xp + 40xp + 30xp + 3xp = 511xp. Also could earn an 80xp story award. It serves to push the PCs halfway from 15th level to 16th level for no narrative significance beyond fighting monsters. That does seem like XP padding--the writer wanted the party to reach 16th level before going to the Red Star.
I originally thought that my party could handle the lich by proper forewarning to prepare against its spells. Now I am considering rewriting that entire section and adding something that relates to my party. One party member, the Ekujae elf magus Zandre, is a dragon hunter, so I like to occasionally throw in a dragon for her to fight. I could replace the undead with a cult of Whisper Dragons who hope to use the Doorway portal to contact the evil dragon god Dahak. Whisper Dragons gather information, but this evil cult exploited their information to conduct psychological warfare on the Iobane and destroy their confidence.
And I would need only 250 xp of dragon cultists and their allies and let the party gain the other 350 xp on Akiton itself. I own a PDF of Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Distant Worlds, so I can generate more Akiton material myself.