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Welcome! This is a detailed review of the Troubles in Grayce adventure anthology. I am Giuseppe, but you can call me Joe. I have been the Italian translator for Pathfinder for the last 13 years, and I have played 20+ Adventure Paths across first and second edition. I have also read them ALL!
This review is focused on adventure design: it is part of my attempt to fully understand Pathfinder’s adventure design, to see if (and where) it can be improved, and where it can teach me (and, by extension, you) something about how to create great adventures. I will try to judge the adventures from the perspective of someone who writes professionally for the TTRPG industry and who reads and plays a lot of games (see my YouTube channel for more, below). So I will not judge these adventures from inside the niche of Pathfinder alone. I would also like to point out, however, that I am a huge Pathfinder fan, and I want to support Paizo’s work, even when that support takes the form of constructive feedback. Feedback from people who have actually played the adventures is increasingly rare nowadays, so take this as my contribution to the development of Pathfinder. I may like some things more than others, but my goal is always to give my personal insights on a game I have been playing for 15 years and still love to this day. Let’s just say that my contribution speaks the language of the love implicit in paying attention and devoting time, rather than in expressing only positive feedback.
If this is too long for your tastes, or if you are simply a more auditory-inclined person, I have a YouTube channel where this analysis has been presented in shorter video form. You can check it out there if you prefer: YouTube video. My channel is in Italian, but you can turn on the English subtitles if you want.
The first thing I want to say is that the collection makes clever use of horror. This is a notoriously thorny issue in RPGs, because horror has many faces, some scarier than others, and the degree to which players at the table want to be scared varies. The book sits on a comfortable horror baseline that a GM can crank up to full horror or tone down to gloss over the scary bits, depending on their group’s preferences. In my opinion, this was the most intelligent and sensible thing to do, if you don’t want a divisive product, fit only for a small niche inside the already small niche of TTRPG players who play Pathfinder. One thing I would have liked, however, is a box in each adventure where GMs are actually SHOWN how to crank the horror up or tone it down in THAT specific adventure. That would have helped, and it is certainly better than saying “well, this is it, now handle it yourself”. I am not asking for advice on exactly what to do to increase or decrease the horror, but at least for some hints about where and when to do it in a way that is appropriate and not disruptive to the adventure. Without this kind of advice, the collection is already asking something of the GM: to understand their group’s preferences and modify the adventure accordingly. So why not take Daggerheart as an inspiration and provide a few questions the GM can use to “feel out” the table’s preferences? Questions such as: “This is going to be a horror campaign, but I have some leeway to crank up the horror or tone it down. Which would you prefer?” or “This is going to be a horror adventure, and it includes the following themes. Is everyone okay with that? We have another adventure of the same level we could play instead, if this is too much for you”. I know this may technically be covered in Session Zero, but I doubt many tables run a proper Session Zero before a one-shot or a short adventure, which is how a lot of people will play the adventures in this collection. So those questions couldn’t have hurt. And I still remember the days when Pathfinder Companions included questions for the players to ask the GM about their campaign. So, no big deal, but this would have helped the GM work out if and how to modify the tone of the adventure(s).
The collection is billed as a sandbox, and that can be a matter of some debate. What links all the adventures is Grayce, the location where all of them start, and the overarching horror tone. For this to be a true sandbox, however, I would have needed at least a well-curated rumors list and a few pages of information about other adventure opportunities tied to those adventures for the players to pursue. Among other useful tools, a few countdowns explaining why, if the players take on mission #1, mission #2 expires or changes would have been helpful. Although defining categories in TTRPG adventure design is not always easy, one key element of a sandbox, in my opinion, is that the players actively choose which adventure to take on. That is not what happens in this collection. Due to the high-prep approach Pathfinder requires, I expect that most of the time the GM will choose an adventure and play it with their group. The book itself says so: “you as the GM will need to choose which of the two adventures in the appropriate level range your group of players will enjoy the most.” (p. 5). So the choice is up to the GM. You can certainly use the adventures collected here to play a sandbox-style game (and that is what I did, in fact), but that requires a non-negligible amount of work – and experience – on your part. If you want some references for what I consider a sandbox campaign, look at games such as Dolmenwood, Doomsong, and Forbidden Lands. This doesn’t mean that, because these adventures are not a sandbox, they are bad, of course. I would simply define them as independent adventures with the potential to be linked together into a campaign by the GM, if they think it appropriate and are willing to put in some work. The extensive gazetteer of the town at the end of the book is a great tool for devising your own mini-campaign using these adventures, but it does not contain enough prompts, tables, and tools to count as a true sandbox. I have to say, however, that the random encounter table provided by the book was useful, even though I would have loved for it not to focus so heavily on what would most likely turn out to be combat encounters. Instead of creatures, I would have needed SITUATIONS for that table to be a proper sandbox tool. Oh, and for a sandbox campaign you need foreshadowing. For example, one of the level 3 adventures tells you that a sinkhole opened in the town square and that, later, a county engineer came all the way from Caliphas to investigate. That must have taken some time, so… why not let the players hear about the sinkhole while they are on their way to the level 2 mission? There is a reference in The Path River Peeler, but I believe it should be made more explicit. That would make a bigger impact when, later, upon their return, you give them the option to go looking for the county engineer who hasn’t been heard from since climbing down the sinkhole. That is just one example of the amount of work needed to actually turn this into a sandbox campaign. And I haven’t even started on how you would then have to be ready for the players to drop their current mission and investigate the sinkhole before level 3. Sandbox gameplay implies a degree of improvisation that Pathfinder’s complex system makes harder. You can still do it, but you have to be very well prepared (knowing another adventure and scaling down its encounters on the fly is no easy task), unless you want to railroad your players and find some clumsy reason why they cannot access the sinkhole at the moment. That kind of railroading is very bad – although it can be solved by putting a timer on the level 2 mission – but… you see, I digress. My conclusion is that the anthology does NOT give you the tools to play this as a sandbox campaign, but it still manages to be a good product. I would simply have avoided labeling it a sandbox, as that can be confusing. That’s all. (If you want a Pathfinder sandbox, my favorite is Souls for Smuggler’s Shiv, from the Serpent’s Skull AP in the 1E era.)
[Another piece of foreshadowing that would be needed is the hag from the Sweet Tooth adventure. Let the players know the local baker left town in the middle of the night before they play that adventure at level 4. And the ghouls. Well, I guess turning this into a sandbox is a job for another time, folks.]
Another important discussion concerns how the anthology is used. Since the book contains two adventures per level, but each one of them is enough to make the PCs advance to the next level, a single group will only experience half of the book, unless the GM uses the slow advancement rules or milestone advancement. With the huge number of adventures available for Pathfinder today, I don’t think this will (or should) be a problem. In fact, I would go further and use it as a way to empower player agency. In Session Zero, or at the end of the previous session, you tell the players about both of the available adventures and make THEM choose which one they want to tackle, stressing that the other may no longer be available. This creates a meaningful choice. I would add a narrative justification for why they cannot do them one after the other, however. And I would also make a point of showing the impact of NOT choosing a certain mission in future sessions: maybe a rival group of adventurers took it on and is now enjoying increased popularity, overshadowing the PCs; or maybe no one helped the people in need and now the situation has got worse and there are complications. Of course, this implies that you WANT to make this campaign your own and go beyond what the anthology explicitly states. But that’s part of the fun. I don’t think this was the main goal of this anthology, so I’m fine with the book not really providing guidance on what to do, or how to do it, to turn it into a campaign, beyond a few words at the end of the introduction. You have Adventure Paths for that. What I want to say is that you shouldn’t surrender to FOMO and struggle to squeeze every drop of playability out of this collection of adventures. I think you can turn the fact that the book gives you several choices to your advantage.
One thing I wouldn’t do is play Troubles in Grayce after Secrets of the Unlit Star, the adventure contained in the Beginner Box. The main reason is that the latter is designed as an introductory adventure and requires a HUGE amount of work on your part if you want to make it interesting for more experienced players (see my previous review for more). I’d say go down this route only if you are starting with a group of absolute TTRPG beginners and, after playing SotUS, you want something to continue their adventures with. In any other case, don’t bother with the adventure from the starter set: it has no thematic or narrative ties to the adventures contained in Troubles in Grayce. You can have the PCs start at level 2, or create something of your own for level 1, maybe explaining how the group came together.
On the other hand, I think the fact that the primary quest giver for Bastion of Blasphemies is from Grayce is very interesting, making that Adventure Path a natural continuation for those who played through Troubles in Grayce. There is also specific information on page 119 that can help you bridge the gap between the two. This is very well done, and I approve of it. It will be useful for many, since some of us Pathfinder players are big-campaign people anyway.
There is also the question of where the characters come from. The book downplays it a bit too much. If a PC is from Grayce, they will know most of the people and places in town. This can be good for connections, but detrimental to the horror. It is your call, really. But one thing I will say is that, since there is the option for one or more PCs to be Grayce natives, I would have loved a separate handout to give the players with everything a person from Grayce would know about the town, with no spoilers, fewer objective statements, and no game stats.
Let me add one more piece of praise. In the adventure summary at the end of the introduction, there are a few lines that begin with “Choose this adventure if you want to…”. That is great. It allows for tonal focus and makes choosing easier. It distills each adventure down to its purpose and makes it easier to pitch to the players in case you want them to decide (as I do). But those lines can also help you, the GM, make a choice, if that’s how you choose adventures.
The background of the adventure is very cool. The hook is useful for introducing Albin Derkensoor, but you can always let the PCs learn that the local cryptid has suddenly become more active through rumors in town, or through a job offer on the town’s notice board that eventually leads them to Albin. I prefer this second option, since it puts the players on the active side. The secret Sense Motive check to notice that the people of Grayce are giving Albin the cold shoulder is appropriate and creates the suspicion of a secret, which is thematic for the adventure.
As I have said in other reviews, I don’t like the way the adventure delivers the information about the mission. It is a mix of a long text to read aloud, which players usually have trouble focusing on, and a series of questions and answers that are not GM-friendly, because they are not meant to be read as written, and the players will never ask those exact questions anyway. I would much rather have a curated, shorter set of bullet points with all the key information, followed by a few notes on how to roleplay Albin. I should mention that later, when the PCs talk to Euphis, a ranch hand, the information is presented in bullet points, as I like.
Be careful about mentioning the sinkhole and suggesting a connection in this context. It is nice foreshadowing for a future adventure, but there is a risk that the characters will take the hint and go into the sinkhole now. If you haven’t prepared the level 3 adventure, you will be out of your depth and tempted to resort to railroading. Don’t. The adventure shouldn’t mention the sinkhole in this conversation, I think. The sinkhole should remain a background element. If you give the players a hint, they will take it, and the adventure doesn’t really help you follow them if they do. Normally, following leads is something you want to encourage, so it may be confusing to discourage it here. I think putting the foreshadowing in this spot was a mistake.
I like how the adventure clearly positions itself as an investigation in its first phase, with the characters going around town gathering information. This has a very Monster of the Week/Vaesen vibe, and I like it. I would also have used it to give out mechanical information about the Peeler and about how to prepare for the fight. A game such as Pathfinder is much better suited to this than MotW, Vaesen, or Andaluria, the newest monster-hunting frame for Daggerheart. Pathfinder has prepared casters, weaknesses and immunities, and so on. If needed, I would have designed the Peeler in such a way as to motivate the characters to acquire the right tools to deal with it, maybe adding a vulnerability and placing a few scrolls or weapons around town to exploit it, just to make the investigation not only about gathering information, but also a means of gaining a distinct advantage in the fight. I don’t like how the information is gathered, either. It works like this: for every 30 minutes the PCs spend asking about the Path River Peeler, one of them can attempt a DC 15 Diplomacy check to Gather Information. What I don’t like is the use of time. Since time is not a tracked resource, and there are no consequences for letting more time pass in the adventure, spending time as a resource does not foster a fail-forward approach. There is no cost for failing, and you can retry whenever you want: so why roll? Rolls should carry meaning and have consequences. What I would have done is create a track for the PCs’ reputation in town, decreasing it by one for each failure. When it drops too low, the PCs can no longer ask questions around town, because no one is willing to talk to them. If you want to keep the time expenditure (maybe because one of the characters has a feat to Gather Information more quickly), then add a countdown to the adventure: if 6 hours pass, X happens; if 8 hours pass, Y happens. It doesn’t have to be dramatically impactful, but it should mean something. Maybe more victims, maybe the creature gains more HP, maybe the changeling does something, and so on.
I like how the characters are free to investigate the three major leads in any order they like, but I would have added more consequences to their choice of where to go first. Again, when choices matter, the players are happier. So if they visit Damarys last, maybe the encounter plays out differently. I must say that the three leads are all brilliantly written, with vibrant NPCs. Damarys in particular is a very well-layered villain.
I also like how, when searching the pen, the PCs can find the tracks automatically if they calm the sheep and search in the right spot. That is good design and rewards player initiative. I believe there is a mistake where the text calls for a Stealth check to follow the trail (it should be Survival).
What I don’t like about this part (and about similar parts throughout Pathfinder’s adventure design) is that most of the text is spent on long explanations of what the characters can do and which checks and DCs are needed. DC 14 Perception finds unusual tracks while Searching, DC 14 Nature to Command an Animal calms the sheep… If I were writing this, I would boil the information down to the essentials and simply describe what is there. A GM who knows the rules will know that finding a set of tracks calls for a Perception check, and will also know how to set an appropriate DC for anything the PCs may attempt. A general description of what is in the area and what clues are there would be enough and, I believe, would even allow for more player agency. A lot of GMs I know mistake this kind of writing – where specific checks for specific actions are called out – for the ONLY things that can be done, and even call for the checks themselves when the players do not actively investigate something. I get it, this is all a matter of playstyle, but this playstyle strikes me as rather outdated and boardgamey. I used to play like that 10 years ago, but in the years since, even though I never stopped playing Pathfinder, I also started playing a lot of other TTRPGs and saw how things can be done differently. OSR games could be a huge inspiration here: they save space and avoid detailing things so much that the players’ options are limited. If I think like a Paizo writer, however, I understand that opting for a different design style may leave many long-time fans confused. But that is true of each and every innovation. I believe it is time to restructure the way environmental interactions are handled in Pathfinder adventures, but that is just my personal taste. What is in the adventure is good: for a new GM it is very useful; for me, as a GM, it is just a waste of space that I would have used better, because I am going to boil it down to a few bullet points in my notes when I run the game, let the players do whatever they want, and use my knowledge of the rules to determine the type of check and the DC, rather than limiting myself to what the adventure can foresee. This constant attempt at foreseeing everything is a waste, really. But I get that the rules are extensive and not every GM knows them well enough to decide on the spot. My answer would be to make a ruling and move on, but that is just my personal taste. So this kind of writing is not bad; it’s just that, as an experienced GM, I don’t need it, I don’t use it, and I don’t like it.
Let me tell you a few things I do like, then. I like the way the Countryside Chase plays out and how it uses the chase rules from the GM Core. Pathfinder has so many cool subsystems – let’s use them! (Without overdoing it, ideally.) Another good thing is that the chase can go bad and the adventure doesn’t try to force it. There is also a convincing consequence in case of failure.
Hag Hollow, the dungeon of this adventure, has three factions and an interesting background. An investigation followed by a dungeon crawl is very Pathfinder-y.
In area A2 there are some traps and a jinkin. It is interesting that the gremlin raises the alarm instead of attacking outright, but I don’t like that there is no way for the characters to avoid this, since it happens even if they avoid or overcome his traps. I do like, however, that he can be Coerced into giving up some information, and that it all connects to another adventure in the anthology.
I love how the kobolds’ tactics in the Communal Cave are clumsy. It helps break pawn stance and re-establish actor stance for the GM, thus ensuring a more interesting world.
I found it interesting how the kobolds in other areas react to the noise of combat: they do not rush in to join the others, but wait and prepare. I can see how this is justified from a kobold’s perspective, and it helps maintain Pathfinder’s balance. One of the things I like least about the system is how it breaks whenever you try to run dynamic dungeons, if you insist on making the resulting encounters combat encounters. When multiple enemies join together, the action economy and the game math go through the roof, and a TPK is around the corner. Here, the adventure gives us a plausible reason for the enemies not to join forces, and I appreciate it. (One way to solve the dynamic dungeon problem is to turn encounters with too many enemies into chases, but you have to prepare for that.) However, I would have liked a better definition of what “loud noises” means exactly, because that has consequences! As you can see in the Bodyguard Cave, the author is aware of this issue: when the adventure allows multiple encounters to merge, it gives you the new threat level.
I like how the Snake Pit trap is foreshadowed by the stacks of planks resting against the walls just before the pit. This will get the players thinking and reward clever problem-solving.
I also like how Damarys gives the PCs one last chance to go back to Grayce before attacking. I would have added some kind of moral choice here, because as written this is no real choice at all: most parties will ignore Damarys’ request and just fight her. The fact that she is willing to give them a chance to understand her by explaining everything is very good. It’s just that she is a bit hard to empathize with. If you used something like Daggerheart’s questions to establish a relationship between one of the characters and Damarys, as decided by the players themselves, this could become a dramatic scene.
One last point in the adventure’s favor is the final encounter with the Path River Peeler. Although I would have used Hunt mechanics similar to those in Vaesen or Andaluria (Daggerheart) to make the characters’ investigation matter more, this is still a fun and appropriately deadly encounter. In my game, the characters didn’t tie Damarys up after besting her, so she joined the fight in a dramatic climax, wounded and desperate. Before the session, I had given her a cure spell instead of bane – maybe she used it to heal her animals – and that allowed her to make an unexpected comeback at the end of the game. But in itself, this encounter is already very deadly and cool. My personal highlight is the Nether Rift, which occupies some of the party’s attention and makes the fight even tenser by turning the environment into a dynamic battlefield, with concealment and occasional cold damage. Imagine the wizard and the cleric trying to shut the Rift while the rogue and the fighter deal with the Path River Peeler: that’s how my game went. That’s good stuff, and a great ending for the adventure.
All in all, I really like this adventure, as it presents a great mix of exploration, combat, roleplay, and investigation. It plays to the strengths of the system and makes for a really enjoyable session or two!
Alright, let’s talk about the second level 2 adventure. The PCs are summoned to meet Father Wren at the printing press, and the way their quest giver greets them changes depending on whether they were on time or late. Very good, I like this – if not for the fact that the adventure gives no reason for the PCs to be late. No check to Sense Direction in town, no distraction along the way. Better adventure design would have made this matter more: maybe the PCs encounter something on their way to the printing press and have the choice to stop and intervene or to keep going. If they intervene, they are late for the meeting but get something from the people they helped along the way; if they keep going, something bad happens in town, but Father Wren gives them a warmer welcome and maybe even better pay.
I will not repeat my criticism of the question-and-answer format here, since you can read it above and (in more detail) in my review of Secrets of the Unlit Star.
The investigation is handled in a classic location-based fashion and involves some new activities for deducing the saboteur’s identity and motives. I think this kind of approach reinforces a mechanics-first mindset, where everything is channeled into a rule and the description and details of what happens end up being mere context for the mechanics. In this specific case, I think it works pretty well. I would, however, start thinking about doing something akin to Daggerheart’s liminal clues every now and then, just to change things up. I also appreciate that the adventure allocates two hours per location investigated, so I expected time to play a major role in how things develop. It didn’t, and that was a missed opportunity. I think making players’ choices matter is good, so taking too much time should perhaps have had a consequence bigger than Father Wren becoming impatient.
I won’t go into detail about all the different investigation locations. I will just point out a few things. First, at the printing press, the PCs have to get Yvette’s attention before they can speak to her. The adventure says: “Getting her attention requires the PCs to attempt a DC 15 Diplomacy check to Make an Impression or Deception check to Lie, or a DC 13 Crafting check to Recall Knowledge.” I can see this kind of writing being useful for groups with very passive players, where the GM has to lead them by the hand through everything. Or, worse, it can become an instrument of evil in the hands of an overeager GM who doesn’t let their players act the way they want, forcing them to follow the specific approaches the adventure allows. For the way I play (and I don’t think I’m alone), that kind of writing is completely useless. I know how a Diplomacy check to Make an Impression works, and I’d set my own DC anyway, based on WHAT the characters actually say and the approach they take. I get that giving some options can’t hurt anyone, but I also think that knowing that “Yvette gives her warning to the PCs, then ignores them to focus on her work” – and that getting her attention will be challenging – would be more than enough. Adventures like this are very space-constrained, so I always tend to think that the space could have been used in more interesting ways. However, this is a matter of playstyle, so it is not an objective criticism. For many groups, this will be useful.
“Any PC who attempts an Intimidation check gets her attention, but not in a good way.” This is mechanics-first at its worst. The text should say: “Any PC who threatens or otherwise intimidates Yvette…”. The mechanics come later, and they arise from the GM’s decision. When I read this, I picture players calling for their own checks (“I want to roll Intimidation to get her attention”), and to me that is the death of roleplay and of shared, collaborative storytelling. Sometimes it’s just a matter of phrasing.
To be clear, what I would have wanted from these scenes is a description of the situation. Full stop. No suggested checks, no questions and answers. Just the situation (Yvette is busy working on a project, she doesn’t like to be disturbed, she reacts poorly to intimidation, she is impressed by technical knowledge, she wants to build a press lock to protect the printing press, and so on) and maybe a description of the NPC. That would save a ton of space and make for a much easier reference at the table. But that’s me, and it is highly subjective. This is my review, though, so these are my considerations, based on my needs and my preferred playstyle. The way the adventure is written, I need to: 1) read it; 2) summarize it; 3) take notes. If it were written the way I want, I would just need to read it. And in the Looking Around the Gazette subsection you have a clear example of the style I prefer.
A few highlights: Otto Vaunier, the superstitious caretaker of the drawbridge, is an excellent character, very memorable and not overdone; and Krenvus Sang, at his shop, offers a few examples of uncommon items instead of leaving you, the GM, to open one of your Pathfinder books and look for something appropriate.
There is an important part of the adventure where the PCs have worked out who the culprits are but have to decide how to find them. Here, the text presents you with two likely approaches. I usually don’t like this kind of predictive design, but in this case I couldn’t see many alternatives. I must also mention that time plays a role in this part, and I appreciate that if the PCs take only one day to find the culprits, there is a benefit for them. However, it is the same benefit they get anyway for staking out the gazette, so it’s pretty disappointing.
In many places in the adventure, doing the right thing or succeeding at a skill check results in a +1 bonus or a -1 penalty to initiative. I think that is fine once, but it shouldn’t be overused. I favor narrative consequences over small bonuses. And of course you get your railroading at the end: “if they weren’t staking out the right place the first night or don’t go to the Vintage Gearworks when they realize it will be targeted again, Father Wren gets nervous and insists that they stake out the printing press the second night, leading into the Battle at the Gazette.” That is too much hand-holding by the GM, and it disregards player agency. I don’t like it. If they stake out the wrong place, let them face the consequences and change the adventure accordingly. Putting them back on the right path for the sole purpose of using what is in the adventure fits the definition of railroading perfectly. Don’t do it. There is a box where the author tells you that you don’t need to force the players into the printing press, but the adventure offers no guidance on how to handle that and, most importantly, it doesn’t have an open structure to support that kind of emergent narrative. For that, you would have to use the Lazy DM’s tips on handling low prep, but that tends to get complicated with a system as deep as Pathfinder, so… there is no easy way out of this railroady feel, unless you want to rebuild the adventure from scratch.
Some highlights of the dig site: several encounters are not necessarily combat (such as the giant rats, which can be dissuaded with food); the pugwampi’s unluck aura has a distinct effect on the ecology of the dungeon; and there are interesting exploration hazards, such as the failed experiment and the dig beast. At the end of the adventure, the characters are sent to talk to everyone they questioned during the investigation, which is a nice way to give those NPCs more stage time and make the party care about them.
Subjective things I didn’t like: too much focus on gremlins – I don’t enjoy fighting tiny creatures over and over, as it strikes me as somewhat anti-heroic – and no interesting social encounters at the dig site.
This is the adventure I liked least. It is a straight-up dungeon crawl with a very static design. You are asked to go into the sinkhole and look for a missing engineer from Caliphas. You fight some monsters and deal with a lot of traps before encountering the two factions and having to deal with them too. The dungeon is not dynamic and is mostly made up of poorly connected rooms whose occupants always have an excuse to mind their own business and not investigate the clearly deadly noises coming from 20 feet down the corridor.
The tracks leading to the Cairn Court should be visible and should foreshadow the two factions: the gauntlings and the ghouls. I appreciate that in that encounter (A9) the GM is given the option to resolve the outcome narratively, instead of having to roll dice to see who wins while the characters stand back and watch. If you want to subvert the game’s expectations for a bit, I’d even suggest letting the players control the monsters and have them fight each other: that could be an interesting change of perspective, but only if the players don’t stay in pawn stance and metagame their way through the encounter, trying to lower the enemies’ HP so they can fight them more easily later. This requires actor stance.
I would have liked the adventure to give the PCs more reasons to side with one faction or the other. As written, the most likely outcome is that the PCs simply let the enemies fight it out and then face whoever wins.
Then there is the matter of the extremely peaceful ghouls: “for what it’s worth, we didn’t intend to make a mess of things like that. Beside, it only might’ve been us. There’s a group of gremlins in the tunnels too, and they’ve been making a lot of noise.” I am too steeped in classic fantasy to find this kind of apologetic ghoul to my taste, BUT I realize that is only my subjective view. My ghouls certainly didn’t apologize, but they could still be negotiated with. They are still corpse-eating monsters, prone to taking a snack from the living too, as the adventure states. I cannot picture them saying anything like the quote above: those ghouls are way too humanized for me. Aldern Foxglove is my idea of a ghoul. You can tweak this easily, however, so it’s no big deal.
What I find far more troubling is that the sizeable treasure in this room is inside coffins that the PCs need to pry open. That is desecrating the dead, and it only takes one lawful good PC for it not to happen. That is where Pathfinder’s linear design becomes a problem, in my opinion. You get punished for roleplaying your character (not wanting to loot the coffins) and you fall behind in terms of treasure. You are also punished for making a smart choice (waiting for the monsters to fight each other before attacking), because you get less XP (“if the PCs simply sit back and watch the ghouls and gauntlings fight, they only earn XP for the victorious gauntlings they face soon thereafter”). So you get less treasure and less XP for doing what made sense. This encourages a gamey, very radical pawn stance that I think is somewhat outdated in roleplaying games and is tailored to only a minority of groups.
You get the classic question-and-answer encounter here too, with an armored bugbear ghoul. I appreciate that the adventure doesn’t force you to fight him, or the other ghouls, but I would have designed this differently, because as written you don’t really get the feeling that you are speaking with a ghoul. Krethak is perfectly reasonable and could easily be a human, for all it matters. His ghoulish nature doesn’t really come through. And the combat trigger sounds truly arbitrary: “If at any point the PCs grow abusive or insulting, he grumbles in annoyance before sweeping up his sword and rising to attack.” Who decides what counts as abusive or insulting for a ghoul? Help me out, adventure! Tell me something that would offend a ghoul and make this a memorable encounter. Pathfinder has a huge body of lore to draw on for this. I was disappointed by how vanilla this encounter felt. It’s a shame, because I think Krethak had huge potential.
I must say that the ghouls being mostly peaceful helps turn this dungeon into something closer to roleplay than to a straight-up hack-and-slash. I just think the whole ghoul diplomacy angle needed to be more distinctive. Maybe, I don’t know, if the PCs fail their save against the ghouls’ stench, they insult them and make the negotiation more difficult. You can always add that yourself, but I expect more from Pathfinder adventures.
I like how some ghoul NPCs can be recruited by the party to help in the boss fight. That is awesome. I don’t like that Pathfinder gives you no system for handling it and forces the GM to make A LOT of rolls that don’t involve the PCs. Some recent games let you put allied NPCs into a fight without slowing it down and making the players wait even longer for their turns. Pathfinder should at least give you something, but it doesn’t. So: a very good idea, but not one the system really knows how to implement.
I found the boss fight very interesting and fun to play. I like that they brought orc and bugbear ghouls into the picture, not just human ghouls. That is something I have wanted to see more of for a long time. There is really no way to deal peacefully with the Primarch, unless you, as the GM, decide to step in and allow things the adventure cannot foresee. But even a fight here is very satisfying, so I think this adventure has a strong ending. I especially liked Carexilia’s possible betrayal, which is not scripted but depends on the PCs’ actions. That is player agency, and I like it. Restoring the Mausoleum is another clever idea, and I appreciated it. I want to see more things like this in adventures, where the players get to solve problems through their choices and can physically change their setting. Using divine intercessions from Divine Mysteries as a reward is a smart move, so kudos.
In this adventure, the party is hired by a tax collector from Caliphas to explore the eerie, trap-laden estate of a disgraced dollmaker just outside Grayce and recover a lost deed. Inside the decaying manor, they must survive twisted soulbound constructs and automated horrors while confronting the lingering ghost of its eccentric creator.
As it stands, the hook is a classic: an NPC asks you to do X (retrieve a property deed), so off you go, adventurers, because X is supposed to be dangerous. It is fine, but it’s generic. If you are playing a campaign, tie it to previous events. Otherwise, have one of the PCs inherit the house and explore it. Alternatively, the whole group is given the house as a reward for their deeds, and now they have a personal interest in clearing it.
I love how the house progressively reveals the owner’s story, leading the party to realize the monstrous experiments he had been conducting with soulbinding. This is a dollhouse/haunted mansion kind of scenario, and it is done pretty well. We have many examples of this in the history of the Adventure Paths. It reminded me of a mix of Foxglove Manor and Harrowstone Prison from Carrion Crown. There was also The House on the Edge of Nowhere in Strange Aeons, I believe. As in many of those cases, the house itself is haunted, and most of the narrative involvement in this adventure consists of discovering how the hazards connect to the story.
This is a particular kind of creepy. I liked it, especially because you can talk to the dolls. The most spine-chilling moment was when the players realized that all the dolls speak in the same voice.
There is also a twist on the classic “ghost haunts the house” trope. Thalleus’ ghost is fragmented into five pieces, imprisoned in the automatic butlers of his mansion. This gives you the opportunity to put even the spirit of the long-deceased professor to rest.
I also liked the feeling the adventure gives you when you complete it: the house is now free of its hauntings. Go a step further and give it to the PCs as a reward – they deserve it, and it creates a link with Grayce.
I won’t repeat the general design criticisms I have already made about the other adventures: sometimes there are checks where failing is irrelevant because there is no time constraint, so the PCs can try over and over again (I’m looking at you, locked trapdoor in A1); sometimes the characters need to make Perception checks to find treasure even when they look in the right place; and so on. We don’t get the question-and-answer format here, though. That is partly because there is very little social interaction in this adventure. Be mindful of that when you choose it. The PCs can interact with some automatic butlers, and that’s all. Everything else is a trap, a haunt, or a construct intent on killing them, and none of them can be reasoned with. One last thing I didn’t like is that the characters cannot fail their mission. Even if the acid trap goes off and they spend a lot of time dealing with it, the deed to the house is always recovered. You should know by now: that reduces player agency. Even if the deed is lost, then what? They failed, they won’t get the 100 gp, but they still have a haunted house to clear. And if they find the professor’s notebook, they will have plenty of evidence against him anyway.
But let me finish with some things I like: there is an alternative entrance that changes the experience – good! You don't need to fight noncombatants; they are simply destroyed. Good. There is an elementary skill challenge in the library, where you have to get 4 successes out of 6 attempts. Good. All the encounters are justified in the fiction and are never there purely for mechanical purposes: the zombies are previous interlopers who were killed, the crawling hands are the result of the professor’s gruesome experiments, and the shadow is the coalesced remains of his spirit. On top of that, you get a lot of unique encounters and adversaries that make this adventure really stand out as something different. Those encounters reinforce the creepy house atmosphere very well, and that was no easy task: good job! And you have a DESTRUCTIBLE maze that can be rotated by an NPC to create even more confusion!
So, ultimately, I like this adventure and I think it is strongly thematic. You can drop it almost anywhere on Golarion or in your own world, mutatis mutandis. Good job.
This adventure just wasn’t for me, thematically. It reminded me a lot of the Briochebane adventure from Dragon Delves (D&D 5.5). Since I didn’t like the theme, I didn’t play it. That kind of whimsical horror isn’t for everyone – but the same could be said of things I do like, so… I’m going to say just a few things based on reading it in detail.
One very weak spot I noticed is that the whole investigation phase can be skipped and, if the players are in actor stance (doing what their characters would do), it WILL be skipped. The only justification for not running straight to the mill is that there is no strict time limit. “Hey, I’m worried, because I might have spotted some bugbears in a mill where two dwarves used to live and no one has heard from them in weeks… well, maybe we’ll shop today and move out tomorrow. Chill, no need to hurry.” These are exactly the things I hate in Adventure Paths. Sometimes the writers come up with a cool scene but give you no motivation whatsoever to play it; they just trust the GM to railroad the characters into waiting and asking around town while someone may be in danger. Why should they Gather Information for 6 hours when there are potentially lives at stake? And if they don’t, and they run straight to the mill (which is what I would do)… nothing changes. No consequences. Ludonarrative dissonance at its worst. Two full pages that could have been put to much better use, in my opinion. Oh, and if you do the right thing and skip the investigation, you lose XP.
A few touches I liked: the adventure takes into account that the PCs will speak with flora and fauna. That can happen. Of course, adventures can NEVER really account for every possible solution, and that is why I prefer a much more emergent narrative in my own adventure writing, but this is still something.
Another thing I liked is that there are actual rules for using the mill’s noise to take out the bugbears silently. They CAN gang up, and you have to avoid that. I like it. What I would like even more is a subsystem for stealthily taking out enemies while not in combat, like what you would do in a Blades in the Dark game. If you still have to chew through 60+ HP, there is no way to do it in a single strike. I find that this closes off a lot of design space for high-intensity heists or infiltrations.
In general, I think the author did a very good job of applying the theme to Pathfinder. You have the hag’s eye that is a candy, the gumdrop keys, and the sweet-themed hazards, all perfectly rendered in Pathfinder rules. For people who like this kind of theme, this will be very good.
I don’t understand why Larmine, the final boss, barricades herself in a shop when she could flee and survive. I also don’t understand why the characters shouldn’t call the guards and have them help out in the fight. Motivation is what the adventure really lacks, in my opinion, and that is a shame, because it is a huge factor. Still, the adventure sounds fun and full of flavor (literally), so… I’ll just say that it’s cool that it is there, even though I won’t be playing it.
This adventure is my favorite in the whole anthology, and one of my top three Pathfinder 2E adventures ever. It also helps me make the point that adventure anthologies are not to be underestimated: you can find valuable hidden gems in them. And this is one.
So, why did I like this adventure so much? Because everything is perfectly thought out. Everything has a consequence, and all the moving parts are cohesive. It features modern design and is a strong reference point for what I would like to see in every Pathfinder adventure (including the others in this anthology). Let me give you some examples.
This adventure uses time as a resource. Remember me saying that over and over? Here you can see how it’s done and why it works. Time is so important that many encounters change dramatically depending on whether you deal with them in the morning or at night. For example, the encounter the PCs have on their way to the castle differs depending on the time of day: they can meet wolves during the day and shadows at night. If the PCs scout the castle’s exterior at night, they may encounter Matilda, and if they befriend her, that changes the whole adventure. Or take the gatehouse: the castle’s inhabitants lower the portcullises during the day, when the count and his servants are more vulnerable to attack. After dark, however, the barrier is raised. That changes your whole approach to the place. But the biggest changes are in the way the encounters play out: at night, the Count and his court are holding a feast in the Great Hall and are easier to find; during the day, the Count and the other vampires are resting in their coffins and have to be tracked down. That makes a HUGE difference to how the adventure plays out.
The decision to approach the dungeon at night or during the day matters. It changes the story. And it is signaled as a story-changing element from the start, thanks to a Pharasmin priest NPC. This is what I mean by giving agency to the players.
This allows the author to use time as a resource in other parts of the game too. For instance, during the initial investigation in town, no skill checks are needed, only time. And how much time the group is willing to spend makes the difference. It is a choice between information and time, and it matters.
Another thing I liked about this adventure is the way almost every encounter is triggered differently. Take the Wolves by Day encounter, for example. It is not just “the wolves spot you, roll initiative”. It is:
“The wolves reach the PCs’ initial location 3 rounds later, so if the howl made the PCs suspicious, they have some time to prepare for combat or attempt to hide. Small trees beside the road provide standard cover, while large trees and clusters of trees provide greater cover.”
Prepare, hide, flee: all the options are available, including creative ways of dealing with the situation. Having time to prepare is good, because it allows for unconventional solutions.
The Shadow at Night encounter is another good example. The characters automatically spot some shadows following them: “If the party stops, the figures do as well, picking up the trail again as soon as the PCs resume their journey”. This is an interesting situation rather than an event. And the adventure also provides several ways to deal with it through a skill challenge:
“Each PC can attempt a DC 17 Occultism (trained) or Religion (trained) check to protect the party with incantations and prayers, or a DC 19 Intimidation check to order the shadows to leave the party alone. In place of a skill check, a PC can attempt a DC 20 Will saving throw to steady their resolve. A critical success on any check counts as two successes. If the PCs achieve more successes than failures, the shadows disappear into the countryside.”
That is great design, and it uses the game system to its full potential. I wish more encounters were written that way.
Most of the encounters in this adventure follow this pattern: most of the creatures in the dungeon can be reasoned with under the right conditions, although each of them wants something different.
This gave me the idea of a very dynamic adventure location, a miniature sandbox, if I may put it that way. Lots of moving parts, but easy to track and easy for the GM to adjust. A living location – as much as a dungeon full of undead can be.
When I said that everything about this adventure is well thought out, I meant all of the above, but I also meant the details. Take these lines from the general description of the dungeon:
“Though torch sconces can be found on nearly every interior wall, the castle’s current inhabitants don’t need light to see, so most areas are completely dark at night. Within the keep, there are windows only in areas where it is specifically mentioned, with most rooms having only narrow arrow slits. As such, in most areas, creatures are exposed to direct sunlight only if they are positioned within a straight line extending directly from an arrow slit.”
Direct sunlight is one of the ways you can deal with a vampire, and this is one of Pathfinder’s strengths, in a world where D&D’s werewolves are no longer weak to silver. This adventure capitalizes on that. Again, the time of day matters, and with it, the players’ choices.
Here I could also mention the way the players are rewarded for scouting the exterior by meeting Matilda, or the way the time of day affects access to the dungeon.
Another thing I noticed is that the author usually allows for both character-focused and player-facing solutions. Take this trap, for example:
“The PCs can Seek and Disable a Device to deal with these traps as normal, or they can simply Interact to poke the stairs ahead of them with a staff or similar object, triggering the hazards from a safe distance.”
If the PCs take the time to do the sensible thing (poking the stairs ahead of them), they are rewarded by not having to make a skill check to avoid danger. That is good, and it illustrates how this kind of design is not exclusive to the OSR. The rationale is very clear: if you pay attention to the environment and do something that makes a lot of sense, no check is needed; if you want an easier, more abstract solution (“I look for traps”, without specifying how or where), then your PC may or may not succeed, and a skill check is needed. It seems easy to grasp, and yet so many adventures do not include this kind of design. Personally, I love it.
I could go on and tell you how many enemies here use their abilities to interact with their environment in interesting ways (Kierke the harpy and the Count are two good examples), or point out how thoughtful it was to have the PCs find the vampire hunter’s body early in the dungeon, so as to foreshadow what they will have to deal with and help them understand the situation better. And how considerate it is to specify this:
“The Count of Petals took Garren’s weapons and most of his valuables, destroying his wooden stakes and religious symbols, and claiming the hunter’s rapier for himself.”
The Count actually uses that rapier, and the treasure is not just there for mechanical purposes. It has a story – and not only in the past.
I should also mention that reading the vampire hunter’s journal takes 4 hours, while clearing the stone blocks requires 6 hours. Those are costs for the PCs’ actions. And since time is a resource, choosing to read or not to read the journal, to clear or not to clear the stone blocks, makes a huge difference. It isn’t just there to say “you can choose, but it doesn’t affect the adventure”. This is good design, and it puts some other solutions to shame by demonstrating what can be done with attention to detail and some technical knowledge of adventure design. That is my point here: this writer knows what he is doing. He knows how to write a good roleplaying game adventure, not just how to write. And it shows. As a Pathfinder fan, I would love all of my published adventures to be like that.
There is nothing scripted about this adventure. There are NPCs and monsters with their own motives, and an interesting environment with interesting interactive elements. The puzzle is maybe a bit too complex and may lead some groups astray, but then again, it is optional and gives access to some cool treasure: a fitting reward for engaging with the game world. Oh, and when the players come across the sarcophagi, they are not required to open them in order to find the treasure: the lion’s shield is resting on top of one of the sarcophagi, not inside them. So they can choose not to be grave robbers AND still find the treasure.
Everything the characters choose to do makes a difference in this adventure. That’s what I like about it. And its attention to detail. And the unique enemy tactics. And the dynamic environment. And time as a resource. And the cool enemies.
This adventure has a lot going for it. A very strong finish for this anthology.
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As a whole, this is a good adventure collection, in my opinion. It offers a lot of variety, and almost anyone will find at least a few adventures to play with their group that suit their tastes. As with all works by different authors, the quality varies. That judgement is partly technical and partly subjective, which leads me to my final consideration.
I hope to see more single-author Adventure Paths in the future. That allows those who take the time to understand the writers and the way they design adventures to make a much more informed decision. I will read and play everything James Jacobs writes, confident that it is in line with my personal tastes: then it is only a matter of whether the theme appeals to me or not, because I know how he writes, and I know what I usually change when I bring his work to my group. But it also means I know when to give a product a hard pass.
Adventure anthologies are the right place for several authors to contribute, I believe, because the adventures are not necessarily linked together and you can pick and choose what you like. With APs, though, you do have to run all the adventures.
I know this will be a somewhat unpopular conclusion, but take it as a fan’s opinion, not an objective truth. I think what this extensive review proves is that the author writing an adventure affects its design much more than we usually think. We tend to think: “Pathfinder adventures are X”, but sometimes that is not true, because that X heavily depends on the adventure designer. Of course, these adventures are edited and unified to some degree, and that kind of design unification is much more visible in Adventure Paths, because adventure anthologies are supposed to be varied.
Running and playing these adventures was fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The town of Grayce is interesting, and the new creatures are original and useful (personal highlights: the gauntling and the sangrist). I found the “bridge” to Bastion of Blasphemies a bit lacking, because it is essentially limited to travel, but I guess that’s okay. That is not the focus of this anthology.
Let me know if you would like to see something similar for Bastion of Blasphemies too. That would be a BIG review, so it would take some time… maybe it’s better to go with Vaultlines?
Creative Director
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Thank you so much for the extensive review. This sort of feedback is super helpful in aiding us in building adventures in the future, but it's also just a boost to morale knowing that the products we create are actually being read, if not played. So again, thank you.
And I particularly appreciate the call out to the authors. Starting at when we assign a project, up through developing and editing it, the choice of who to write the project is deliberate. In a best case scenario we're able to match the perfect author to the right job, but that's not always possible. We also try hard to preserve the author's voice and style while developing an adventure, when and where possible.
Letting us know which adventure or rulebook authors you admire thus also helps us in the future, and as an author myself it's always a boost to morale when something I wrote gets called out in a positive way. That said I also very much appreciate criticism; helps me to hone and adjust and learn how to do things better... provided it's constructive criticism with details (as presented in this great review) and not destructive criticisim or a review that simply summarizes the story.
Anyway, again, thank you for the time taken to do this review! Very appreciated!
This is an awesome review. You hit upon a lot of common issues in Paizo adventures that have been frustrating me for years (inconsequential checks, scripted NPC Q&As, non-reactive environments), so I'm overjoyed to see that James Jacobs read this himself. The only part I disagree with is that I find Sweet Tooth to be pretty fun, but that's a taste thing (I have a higher tolerance for goofiness, I think).
I'm hoping to do a meaty review of my own soon (for Starfinder 2e's first organized play season), and it'll take serious effort on my part to not unconsciously parrot a lot of what you said here.
Looking forward to your next review!
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Do you find that the amount of treasure is a little high? For example, the reward for the Disgraced Dollmaker is 100 gold, increased to 250 gold if the head councilor is made aware of how dangerous it was. That's over 70 gold per player, in addition to the treasure they find in the house itself, some of which are pretty significant magic items.
There's a room in Sweet Tooth where the players can find 472 gold, along with a variety of magic items. That's almost 120 gold per player.
I'm finding that my players are a little over tuned for the encounters and BoB is going to be a cakewalk. Is anyone else running these as it and coming across the same problem?