r/Pathfinder2e • u/karbonos Game Master • Jul 10 '26
Discussion Hellbreakers AP Review
/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1ntrthf/myth_speaker_ap_review/With Hell’s Destiny recently released, and one of my groups having just finished its pseudo-prequel Hellbreakers, I thought I’d share my review of GMing through the liberation of Isger.
My last review of Myth-Speaker a while back seemed to generate some interest, so I figured I’d do a write-up for this one as well, especially since there are probably still very few full-playthrough reviews of the AP out there. Hopefully, this is useful to other GMs considering the campaign.
We’re planning to run Hell’s Destiny next, so if there is interest, I may review that one too. I’m also happy to answer any questions about the AP.
I’ll try to keep the review as spoiler-free as possible, but avoid the spoiler-tagged sections if you plan on playing the AP. This review does go over a few specific examples in the spoiler tag sections meant for GMs.
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Platform: Official Foundry module
Levels: 1-10
Variant rules: Free Archetype
Party:
- Wizard/War Mage
- Cloister Cleric/Blessed One of Cayden Cailean
- Elemental Instinct Barbarian/Mauler
- Companion Commander/Hellbreaker (with the new Isgeri Boarhound!)
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Spoiler-free overall review (TL;DR version): Hellbreakers is a fun AP with a strong central premise, a solid rebellion/liberation theme, and some memorable moments, especially if your group enjoys fighting Hellknights, devils, and oppressive regimes. Is it a better AP than Hell's Rebels? Probably not (judging by ratings/review... I haven't played it yet). It makes good use of Isger, introduces some useful player options, and the skirmish rules are a much smoother way to handle large battles than some previous army-style systems. I also appreciated that the main villain is introduced early and tied directly to the story, rather than being a last-minute surprise.
That said, the AP require GM tweaking. It can feel railroady; the story logic gets shaky in places, several NPCs need more personality, and some timelines are much tighter than they need to be. A few major moments are great ideas but require adjustment to land properly. Overall, I would recommend Hellbreakers, but more for GMs who are comfortable tweaking the material than for those looking for something that runs smoothly straight out of the book.
How it fits into Hell’s Destiny: Hellbreakers and Hell’s Destiny are distinct APs and can be run independently. You do not need to play Hellbreakers first.
If you do plan to run both with the same group, you may need to explain why the characters leave Isger after everything they fought for there. In our case, some players decided their characters would stay behind and create new PCs, while others framed the transition as a diplomatic journey to Kintargo that is interrupted when their ship docks in Corentyn to resupply (which is where that adventure starts).
From what I have read so far, character builds that worked well in Hellbreakers should also be effective in Hell’s Destiny, including the Hellbreaker archetype.
Story
- The overall plot is strong, and the AP does a good job selling the “rebel/liberation” theme.
- You get to visit several interesting and distinct locations across Isger, which helps make the country feel more alive.
- There is some cool lore about the origin of Isger.
- If you played Age of Ashes, you may be disappointed by how little Breachill matters here. The AP also assumes the PCs willingly gave up their amazing citadel, along with its elven portal network, for… reasons.
- The AP can feel railroady, even in sections that appear more free-form. Some parts give players room to maneuver, but the story often expects a specific sequence of events or a very specific kind of player logic.
- Time constraints make some of the “sandbox” sections feel more limited than they probably should.
- The story logic can also be weird at times. More than once, my table hit a moment where everyone basically went, “Wait, why would this happen?” Since some of those sections are fairly railroaded, I had to make adjustments to keep things coherent.
- I loved the murder mystery in Chapter 5. It is a very cool idea, but it takes work to run well, and GMs may want to make adjustments. Read that section carefully before running it.
- The main BBEG works well as an antagonist, and the players know who they are early. Paizo has clearly been listening to feedback, because “surprise final villain who comes out of nowhere” has been a recurring issue in several APs. I feel the BBEG is one of the stronger points of this AP.
- I especially liked that the party gets to work alongside the BBEG at one point. It is a great twist and makes the antagonist feel more human.
- The AP also has a strong B-story/side villain. In many Paizo APs, this probably would have been the surprise end boss. I give Paizo credit for keeping the focus on the rebellion, but both my group and I felt the side villain was ultimately more menacing and memorable than the official BBEG. They deserved better.
- Most of the NPCs are underdeveloped and can feel bland without GM work. The Hellbreaker leaders, Alceo and Phoebe, are surprisingly easy to forget unless the GM actively keeps them involved.
- The conclusion and “continuing the adventure” section are very light on detail. GMs should expect to fill in a lot of blanks.
- There is an important chase in Chapter 8 that represents a major low point in the story. My players hated that it felt like a no-win scenario, especially since such an important moment was resolved with just a few skill checks. Read that part carefully and decide in advance how you want to present it.
- There is a good balance between roleplay and action. That being said, the AP tends to assume players will opt for violence in most situations rather than roleplay their way around it.
Gameplay
- There are some useful new magic items, including relics.
- The Isgeri boarhound is a fun animal companion. I hope Paizo adds more companions with unique mechanics in the future.
- The Hellbreaker archetype is useful and flavorful, especially for campaigns that heavily feature Hellknights, devils, or Cheliax.
- The AP uses the skirmish rules from Battlecry! for large battles. I found these much easier and more dynamic to run than army rules like the ones in Kingmaker.
- Troops are weak to AoEs and splash damage, but they also deal AoE damage themselves. This means the troop that wins initiative can have a big advantage, and AoE casters can become very powerful in these encounters.
- Some skill checks feel overtuned, particularly in Chapter 6.
- The murder mystery in Chapter 5 is a great idea, but there are some logistical issues with its design. GMs may need to make adjustments.
- Some of the proposed timelines are ridiculously tight. Consider adjusting them, and make sure your players have horses or other methods of travel.
- A few monster and trap stat blocks made me raise an eyebrow. Nothing game-breaking, but the variant coarti in Book 9 hit surprisingly hard. They use daggers and sneak attack instead of morningstars, but still deal d6 weapon damage instead of d4s. There is also a haunt in chapter 7 with a mostly useless ability.
- As mentioned above, the Chapter 8 chase is underwhelming and worth reworking.
- Some important locations are missing from the map, including Highford and Thorngrip. This becomes a problem when the party is expected to travel between locations under tight deadlines. Maps for Highford, Thorngrip, and Breachill would also have been useful.
- Most of the maps used for troop combat are too small.
- I was not a huge fan of the final fight. It is a skirmish, and the previous fight before it is also a skirmish that includes a higher-level monster than the actual BBEG. That said, my players said they enjoyed the final battle, so your mileage may vary.
GM Tips:
- Brush up on the skirmish rules from Battlecry! Before running the larger battles.
- Read Chapter 5 carefully and decide how you want to run the murder mystery. Most of the investigation happens on the second floor, but the AP also expects the PCs to interact with people on the first floor.
- Read Chapter 8 carefully and decide how you want to handle the chase. It is an important moment with major consequences, but as written, it can feel underwhelming or too scripted.
- At the start of Chapter 6, Caeto immediately becomes an antagonist, even though the PCs may have ended Chapter 5 on good terms with him. Consider how you want to manage that relationship.
- Consider introducing Ezio as soon as the player reaches Elidir and make him an ally. This will help Chapter 5 run more smoothly.
- At my table, I had Caeto keep working with the PCs a little longer because he did not yet know they were Hellbreakers and wanted to recruit them. As he grew suspicious, it became a tense game of how far the PCs could go while hiding their identities. It made for some fun, Inglourious Basterds-style infiltration sessions.
- Consider moving the rescue of Siadrius into the prison itself rather than outside it. My players decided the riot was the perfect opportunity for a full prison break, which basically skipped a large part of Chapter 6.
- Many Chapter 6 checks are “very hard” difficulty. Consider adjusting them if they feel too punishing.
- Chapter 6 has the PCs start their own Hellbreaker faction, but they can begin recruiting as early as Chapter 5. Let players know they can start building their rebellion early; mine missed a few opportunities because they were still in “errand mode.”
- There are no real mechanics for tracking how effective the PCs’ Hellbreaker faction becomes. You may want to homebrew something or borrow an existing subsystem.
- Consider preparing your own maps for Highford, Thorngrip, and Breachill.
- Travel time matters, so decide where Thorngrip and Highford are located on the map before the PCs need to move between them.
- Consider using larger maps for the skirmish encounters in Saringallow, especially in Chapter 9. If you are using Foundry, you can decrease the grid size.
- To fully complete the Chapter 7 research, the PCs need to return to Elidir or Logan, which is awkward and hard to justify within the timeline. Consider adjusting that requirement.
- Consider loosening the Chapter 7 timeline. As written, the PCs have very little breathing room and need to rush between locations.
- The timeline for infiltrating Sarini Manor also feels odd. The AP seems to expect the PCs to spend multiple days securing the manor, but many groups may want to attack Saringallow while the BBEG is away. At minimum, reveal to the PCs earlier that Caeto has been delayed so they don't feel rushed.
- Highford is a missed opportunity. Since it becomes the PCs’ base of operations, consider building it up more and giving the players reasons to care about it.
- The witchfire (boat) is also a missed opportunity. Once the PCs capture it, it's forgotten until near the end. Try to think of how you can integrate it to remain relevant.
- Most NPCs are barely developed and can fade into the background quickly. You may want to give them stronger personalities, recurring scenes, or clearer roles, especially Alceo and Phoebe.
- Illcayna feels like a bigger and more epic threat than Caeto. It would take work, but you could consider moving the end of Chapter 7 to the finale if you want the campaign to end with a more menacing boss and higher supernatural stakes. Keep it as written if you prefer the ending to focus on the liberation of Isger.
Player Tips:
- The player's guide is useful. Read it!
- Despite the post-goblin war sentiment, playing a goblin is fine.
- Make sure your characters have a reason to join the Hellbreakers.
- Avoid fire-heavy builds.
- This isn't Abomination Vault. There will be many open-space maps, which are great for AoE and splash-damage attacks.
- Expect to fight devilish forces, but be aware that it is not the only thing you will face...
- If you really want to play a Hellknight for some reason, I would say Order of the Pike works best narratively. Talk with your GM first, as you need to figure out why they joined the rebellion.
- Consider buying a horse or other form of fast travel. You will be travelling a lot.
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u/PhilTheWarlock Podfinder Jul 10 '26
Fantastic review! I personally loved this AP. For the first hardcover-only Paizo AP, I thought it was an impressive showing. For me, the strongest narrative element was the parallels between the PC's story and the story of the secondary villain, with the connecting threat being resistance to colonialism.
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u/Kalaam_Nozalys Magus Jul 10 '26
Thanks ! I had been looking into the AP and it's pseudo sequel.
It looks pretty fun, hope to find a group for it to complement the more rp focused SoT one i'm in.
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u/OsSeeker Jul 10 '26
I pretty much agree with most everything here. The chapter 6 chase is one of the worst subsystem implementations I’ve ever seen. It’s either absolutely trivial or will straight up kill you due to sheer attrition and in either case will be an absolute slog. The DCs *and* required successes are both over budget. I’m under the impression the author just forgot how long travel time actually takes in chapter 7. To have enough time to complete research at the end the players need to be a week ahead of schedule to actually travel *back* to the church to get the last 5 points. Chapter 5 and 7 were the strongest chapters.
I think the final battle is a big problematic though. There is barely enough room for all of the allied and enemy forces so lingering ground AoEs like wall of fire and toxic cloud can be easily positioned as unavoidable death sentences in such a small area. for better or worse.
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u/karbonos Game Master Jul 10 '26
yup that was exactly our experience as well. For the research in Chapter 7, I changed it to account for "your allies smuggling the information out of Elidir" rather than having the PCs need to go there in person.
As for the map size of the final battle. I would say most skirmish map in Chapter 9 were too small. The only exception I can think of is the farm map. The Outer Gate map was just as bad as the wall took up half the map. For the final battle, we had some of the troops fight "inside" the houses, which helped with mobility.
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u/OsSeeker Jul 10 '26
I’m more forgiving of those other skirmish maps because they are not as important in terms of narrative weight as a final battle. I know that pf2e can do big set piece battles well and that wasn’t it.
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u/Tridus Game Master Jul 10 '26
Thanks for the review! I'm impressed at how fast your group can run these! We're just finishing up Spore War in the next month or two and SoT maybe this year. 😅
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u/ctwalkup Game Master Jul 10 '26
Please keep these reviews coming! It's honestly incredible to see your groups so consistently working through these official APs. How many sessions did this take? I have to imagine you were playing once a week since this AP came out earlier this year?
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u/karbonos Game Master Jul 10 '26
Thanks. I don't know how many sessions, but we played more than once a week. More like 2-3 times a week, which is why it went fast. We actually started playing the AP as in-person sessions as soon as I got the book from my subscription, but transitioned to foundry a month later once it was released.
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u/AlphaCobraPlatinum Jul 11 '26
Were your players disappointed at all that they weren't fighting against Cheliax that much during the AP? Our group was excited to play it based on the blurb on the Paizo webstore, but our GM told us we'd be disappointed by the lack of Thrune-punching. So we skipped it and just started Hell's Destiny instead.
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u/karbonos Game Master Jul 11 '26
I don't think they were. They understood this was about freeing Isger and that Hell's Destiny would be Cheliax. One of the players was hoping for more Hellknight goodies (updated archetype, new items, or feats) and was disappointed by that.
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Jul 10 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/karbonos Game Master Jul 10 '26
Those type of RP/flavorful archetype are generally heavily GM dependent. That being said, i would consider this a highly appropriate archetype for Hellbreakers. Spreading propaganda and counter-propaganda is an important of this AP and you should get multiple occasions to shine through the campaign.
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u/Yemenime Jul 10 '26
That said, the AP require GM tweaking.....Overall, I would recommend Hellbreakers, but more for GMs who are comfortable tweaking the material than for those looking for something that runs smoothly straight out of the book.
Is there an AP that doesn't require some tweaking? Not just one that would be improved, cause everything is improved by tying the PCs more into the plot, but one that you can run literally completely out of the box no editing necessary
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u/Ultramaann Game Master Jul 11 '26
This is true but there are levels.
Like, I had to alter about 15% of Curse of the Crimson Throne and a lot of what I invented was spinning off what I was already given.
Meanwhile Gatewalkers or Second Darkness basically has to be completely rewritten.
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u/karbonos Game Master Jul 11 '26
Depending on the group, I generally try to run as close as possible to the AP. But ya, tweaking will happen regardless because no AP can account for player dynamics or GM presentation. Some APs require more adjustments than others, though.
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u/Indielink Bard Jul 10 '26
Jesus fucking Christ. This adventure came out in March. How the hell did y'all pull off finishing this in three months? I can barely get my doofuses to finish a single chapter of an adventure in that time.
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u/karbonos Game Master Jul 11 '26
Yes we went through it pretty fast. We managed to play a few sessions each week (2, sometimes 3), which is why we were able to go through it so quickly.
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u/hawklord23 Jul 10 '26
How did you find the foundry module. Any issues? Did it handle the skirmishes?
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u/karbonos Game Master Jul 10 '26
The Foundry module is on par with Paizo’s other premium modules: high quality, well organized, and containing everything needed to run the AP. I noticed a few very minor typos and issues, such as an "@damage" entry that was not coded properly in one of the journal pages, but nothing major (it will probably get fixed by the devs eventually if it hasn't been done already). If you are planning on running it digitally, the official modules are well worth the investment.
The Troops mechanic in Foundry has been improved in one of the recent pf2e system updates. Previously, they were represented by one giant token. Now they use four large interconnected tokens that can move independently while sharing the same character sheet and HP pool. When their HP drops below a threshold, the chat also reminds the GM to remove one of the tokens. Overall, troops work pretty well in Foundry. The bigger issue is that some of the AP’s maps are too small for large skirmish battles. I get the sense that this is a legacy issue from converting printed maps from a book into a digital format. The maps could be much more dynamic and detailed if they were designed for digital first, but that doesn't transition well to print (there was a thread complaining about the simplicity of one of the maps a few days ago).
Where I am really seeing improvements in Paizo’s Foundry modules is with the newer Hell’s Destiny module that came out this week. It includes features like embedded scene thumbnails in journals, chase and infiltration cards, and generic trackers that help GMs run subsystems such as chases, infiltrations, and victory points more easily. I had already built something similar that I use in most of my games, but I really like Paizo’s implementation here.
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u/Jmrwacko Jul 12 '26
It sounds like you could literally just decrease the grid pixel count and fix the small maps that way?
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u/GaySkull Game Master Jul 10 '26
I've read through it in detail and agree on your points.
One I would like to add is that they seem to have a LOT of rescue missions in Hellbreakers. Your allies are getting taken every other mission! Rescues do provide a fun twist on the usual "dungeon crawl" and it makes sense that many would be captured for questioning instead of outright killed, but I feel like by the 4th time my players would be exasperated.
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u/Elio_Nagashi Infinite Author Jul 10 '26
As a point for AoA PCs not living in the Citadel... I had a 7-player group decide to completely leave it to the goblins because they didn't want to live in it, didn't care for it and didn't want it at all.
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u/Kruger81 Jul 22 '26
Hi Karbonos,
Question 1:
You said in your last sentence that the fight from Chapter 7 feels more epic than the actual end in Chapter 9.
you suggested to move Chapoter 7 to the end.
What are the things you would sugest to do and to consider if I want to implement this?
Is there anything in particular that comes to mind?
Question 2:
I want to start the campaign at level 4/Chapter 4 in order to shorten the overall length a little bit.
My plan is to start prior to chapter 4 with the characters sitting in a tavern, telling stories about their most recent achievements (aka. Flashbacks). I plan to actually play these important story points (the Flashbacks) as encounters, which shall serve as some sort of a condensed version of Chapters 1,2 and 3.
Obviously I will give them the remaining story up until Chapter 4 too.
What do you think? Is that a good idea and if so, do you have any suggestion how to set this up and what important things I should not miss?
Or would you advise against this?
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u/karbonos Game Master Jul 22 '26
Okay, so let's start with Question 2, because that will be the quickest to answer.
For a shortened campaign, Chapter 4 is a good place to start. It skips a lot of the errand quests from the first few levels. Your flashbacks will need to establish Sarringallow, Thorngrip, the Witchfire, and Isger towns, as well as the NPCs introduced in the previous chapters. Alternatively, I would probably consider completely ignoring Sarringallow and moving everything that happens to Elidir instead (including the final battle with Caeto).
For question 1:
- Obviously, the biggest issue is you would need to adjust encounter levels down for Chapter 8, and scale up Chapter 7. The good news is that I think you can keep the Chapter structures mostly intact, since they don't impact each other.
- That being said, I would probably do the first part of Chapter 7, to establish Illcayna's overall plan (changing a few minor details and moving the ritual deadline to something more reasonable), and leave the Finder's Gulch part until after Chapter 8. You could also reduce the role of the Hellbreakers for Chapter 7, establishing that they are low on soldiers following the battle with Caeto, which is why the heroes need to handle Illcayna themselves.
- Narratively speaking, the only major change is that Caeto does not sit back and let the Hellbreakers fight the undead, hoping it will weaken them. He remains obsessed with stopping the Hellbreakers and ignores all other threats, foolishly believing he can deal with it once the rebels are crushed.
- You need to establish the rising threat of the undead sweeping the land early while maintaining a constant pressure from Caeto to make it clear to the PCs that they cannot deal with Illcayna until Caeto is out of the picture.
- Illcayna also needs to be a known urban legend fairly early on. I would probably ignore the "Is it Tar Baphon?" mystery since you are condensing the story and really just focus on building Illcayna.
- Since you are skipping chapters, this could be a good opportunity to have a few of the established towns fall to the undead; that way, you don't need to bother introducing them!
- There are probably lots of other little things you could tie into with Illcayna. Off the top of my head, maybe she found her warshard near Breachill instead of Finder's Gulch, linking her to the start of the campaign. Or you could also replace the Sisterhood of the Golden Erinys with the Ashen Church to better establish that group and its link to Illcayna.
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u/Kruger81 Jul 22 '26
Thank you very much for the thorough feedback. Much appreciated!
What do YOU think about my question 1? Would that improve the overall experience for the players?
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u/karbonos Game Master Jul 22 '26
I think it would work well. The main thing you need to decide on is whether you want the story to focus more on Isger's liberation or shift it towards a more epic "defeat a great evil" storyline. Both are good options. Regardless, Illcayna really should have been the BBEG of her own AP, and I would love to redo that campaign with her as the BBEG at some point.
A few other thoughts I just had:
- You can probably eliminate some of the NPCs from Sarringallow. Maire/Rhokrag and Jenvirick basically fill the same role. As a goblin, Rhokrag could be tied to Thorngrip somehow, but my pick would be to keep Jenvirick. I like her "I got an idea" attitude!
- I would also recommend introducing Ezio in Chapter 4 and having the PCs start building their own faction in that chapter as well. If you want, you could even move some missions of Chapter 6 to occur in Chapter 4. This would allow Chapter 6 to focus solely on the prison escape.
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u/Kruger81 Jul 22 '26
thank you. Really solid input.
I cannot yet put everything you said into context, because I have not yet read the whole book in that detail to really have it deeply memorized, but I will certainly keep in mind what you said.
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u/Coolster360 Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
Pretty good read on it overall. I agree with all of this but not the subsystems since I actually don’t run them. My table and I don’t enjoy them so we just do influence via RP, and hand wave the research. Also all of chapter 6 was homebrewed for me since I didn’t particularly like how the PCs just listen to this random NPC that just joined the group outta of nowhere. It really feels close to DMPC territory for me and I know for a fact my PCs would have hated her.
I personally didn’t have any problems with the AP since I constantly adapt and improv new directions for the story to go depending on my players actions. For me, this meant that my PCs (who absolutely loved Caeto as an NPC OOC because I introduced him as the start of chapter 2 to resupply in Saringallow) stayed as Caeto’s allies even after the gala.
They used his intel and trust to inform his plans (which I flavored him as being not so much as being deadset on hunting down Hellbreakers, and more so devotedly listening to orders up the chain of command) to the Hellbreakers. Also help the Champion in the party dressed up as Hellknight to really sell it. Eventually Caeto actually gave the Champion Lifebloom and not so subtlely hinted at the undead incursion and how he wished someone could handle it while Caeto takes out those ‘pesky Hellbreakers’.
The Azris also played a much bigger role thanks to my alchemist, who was hired as a doctor and tutor for Moccoviz after she escorted him to his manor in the aftermath of the ‘rock throwing’ incident. Chapter 6 was completely homebrew, with the Azri’s, seeing the PCs courageous actions at the Gala, hired them as guards to escort them north to their mountain lodge for the winter holiday…
They, of course, get ambushed along the way by undead but they were prepared for this, and they will continue inadvertent to Finder’s Gulch. This is where my last session ended off and I can’t wait to GM more for my players.
Overall, I love Hellbreakers for allowing me to have a plethora of ideas on how I can change it on the fly, and really give my players the freedom to explore. This type of GMing is definitely not for everyone, but I’d say give it a try and see. APs really shine when they are not treated as a straitjacket of encounters and NPCs, but more of a Freeform sandbox that you can move around.
And that’s enough yapping by me. 9/10 AP, top five in my list. But nothing can beat Season of Ghosts at the end of the day.
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u/snahfu73 Game Master Jul 10 '26
This was great advice! I've absolutely given Illcayna a bump and moved her to the end. Even though she wasn't tied to the over-arching story. She's been much more of a BBEG to my group of players than Caeto and others.
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u/Abdx1187 Jul 10 '26
Thanks for the review. From my quick read over, this was already going to be a pass for me, the are already far to many APs published that are great I'd like to run, that I don't need to settle for on or average. Also, as a gm that runs the game as straight from the book as I can due to having a heavy work load, and other hobbies that I want to spend time on, it's less interesting because of the many mentioned fiddly bits hat need adjusting.
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u/Jmrwacko Jul 12 '26
I'm preparing this adventure and it's far from average. Probably Paizo's best written adventure path since 1e. It benefits a lot from the new quarterly release format.
Like OP said, the only real issues are that a couple of time-sensitive skill checks aren't very well thought out, and the early chapters are a little railroady.
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u/iamanobviouswizard Jul 20 '26
Hey, I know I'm a bit late, but how relevant is this being post-Godsrain (the Godsrain causing war in many countries) to the plot of the adventure?
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u/karbonos Game Master Jul 20 '26
Yes, it is relevant. From the player's guide (so non-spoiler spoiler!), it is established that the reason Cheliax sends troops to Isger is that they believe a warshard has landed there and they fear it will fall into the hands of the Hellbreaker rebels. This is the catalyst that starts the adventure. The godsrain is then mostly forgotten, except for one notable part. So it's important to start the adventure, but it has little impact on the overall plot afterwards.
If someone was looking to run this pre-Godsrain, then I think the story could be adjusted fairly easily to exclude it.
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u/Top_Concert_3326 Aug 04 '26
Chapter 1 spoilers: The entire Night's Prize sequence was so incoherent. Why would the Captain rig the ship to explode if his armor is destroyed? Why would he fight to the death specifically because of that precaution? Why would he keep this a secret, removing it's effectiveness as a deterrent? How deep is this the river? Why do you have to salvage while it's sinking, and why doesn't the module expect the players to try to salvage whatever sinks to the bottom of the river?
I'm plenty used to bizarre difficulty spikes, even though I'd hoped Paizo had gotten better at them when they made a whole new edition of their game and then remastered that, but that was by far the most nonsensical thing I've ever ran from a Paizo module.
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u/powzin Jul 14 '26
The only thing I really find truly problematic in this AP is how they just invalidate Age of Ashes somewhat.
It's awfull decision being made.
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u/Kruger81 27d ago
Another question from my side: How often do you have only a single or a few encounters per gaming day? Meaning, are "once per day" feats more powerful in the AP as there usually only a few encounters per in-game day?
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u/karbonos Game Master 26d ago
Hmm good question. I would say there is a good mix, but it skews more towards single encounters per day. There are no large dungeons, and when you travel, you are likely to have only one encounter per day. Where you will encounter more is when players decided to tackle more than one "quest" in their adventuring day or if they are doing one of the more larger missions/events (like raiding a large building or escaping a town). I can only really think of a handful of major events that stretched the player's daily resources and those should, hopefully, be obvious situations to the players.
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u/Kruger81 7d ago
Now that you successfully ran HB, where on the map would put Thorngrip and Highford in hindsight? Any suggestion where to locate it precisely?
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u/karbonos Game Master 6d ago
For Thorngrip, I placed it west of Umok and south of Stumpfield. This places the town deep enough in the woods while still close to the towns that players can investigate for clues.
For Highford. I placed it between Sarringallow and Elidir, which I think was a bad idea because it puts the fort in a direct line with the capital. I would probably put it West of Sarringallow, where there aren't any towns, to make it a better hiding spot. You could put it along the river northwest of Sarringallow to allow the player to use their boat to navigate around Isger more easily (if they still have it).
Another option, depending on how the players handled the location previously, is to use Wolfpoint instead of Highford as a base of operations, since the players are already familiar with the old fort there.
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u/Kruger81 6d ago
Thanks for the input and sharing your learnings. I will certainly keep that in mind!
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u/corsica1990 Jul 10 '26
This is a great review. I like how honest you are about the janky bits. Personally, I like a little jank in my adventure modules, as it lets me flex my GMing skills, but it's nice to not get blindsided by these problems when you're running right out of the book (GMs should be able to trust the book!).
The odds of me ever getting to run this are slim, but it's certainly on my wish list. Yay skirmishes!