Pathfinder 2E Tell me about The Abomination Vaults

[Reynard]

Specifically from the perspective of a new to PF2 GM (but long experienced D&D GM).

I bought the first installment and like what I have read. I plan on using the dungeon to introduce players to PF2 once it gets the Fantasy Grounds treatment.

So I'm not really looking to be sold on it (though if it is terrible I could be un-soldon it). Rather I am looking for advice on how to run it for someone who has GMed every iteration of D&D including PF1, but hasn't played or run PF2.

Thanks.

 

[CapnZapp]

Since you've played adventure paths before (as opposed to WotC adventure) you might know this already:

Adventure Paths can come across as inflexible, and in my experience this is amplified by how the rules of Pathfinder 2 operate.

The first thing you might have already heard elsewhere - PF2 combat can be incredibly lethal, especially for 5E players accustomed to being able to just charge ahead, trusting their abilities and defenses to handle most heat unless you take especially headless or ill-advised actions.

That will get you killed in PF2.

The other really big thing to watch out for is that PF2 combats are designed in isolation - that is, there is little accommodation for either of the two following things that GMs in other systems do fairly often and naturally:
1) the heroes enter combat while not at full health. Unless you have especially battle-hardened veteran tacticians as players, try to encourage them to always always always heal back up to full hp before exploring further. The important point from the GM's side: always give the heroes time to recuperate. This might mean ignoring the fact the heroes just rested for 45 minutes. At least until you know why I made this recommendation...
2) combine encounters (running fights, reinforcements, monsters ganging up for safety etc). Put very simply: never do this as a new GM, full stop. (As you become experienced with the system you will a) see what I mean and b) start seeing ways to pull this off "safely" anyway).

That's the two main traps we fell into, at least.

The final piece of advice is to be honest and open with the fact that magic is generally feeble at low level. For instance, I would simply suggest you steer your players away from a class such as the Wizard entirely for an AP that only lasts through the low 10 levels such as the one you have chosen. (Playing a Wizard in this spring's other AP -Fists of the Ruby Phoenix- on the other hand, will likely be awesome!)

Bards and Druids are generally considered reasonable precisely because they can do other things than spend slots to cast spells. And the Cleric is awesome thanks to one single spell: Heal

Good luck with your game!

 

[Retreater]

Not specific to Abomination Vaults, but more general about learning any new system is to be flexible as the GM. Let the players retool their characters. Talk to them about the expectations of how play is different in PF2 compared to other games (including 5e). Don't be afraid to have "do-overs," fudge die rolls, have the monsters make poor decisions, etc. - my experience is that no system fidelity, sense of campaign realism, etc., is worth a bad time. Wait to pull out all the stops until the training wheels are off. (Conversely, try running a couple short Society modules to learn the system before diving into an Adventure Path - and those should be available right now on Fantasy Grounds.)

Good luck!

Incidentally, I'm trying to get a game of this started on Roll20 (after adding all the elements of it myself). Would love to get a few ENWorld friends involved.

Interest Check - PF2 Abomination Vaults on Roll20

There's been a bit of chatter on these boards about PF2, the quality of its APs, and implementation on Roll20. So I'd like to test it in actual play. I've scanned in the first book of Abomination Vaults and am looking at running it. Instead of putting it up in general, I'd like to see if any of...

www.enworld.org

 

[!DWolf]

Some advice off the top of my head.

Having briefly skimmed the first part of the adventure:

• The paizo forums usually have great threads on the specific modules. Check them out.
• Use exploration mode! Let the PCs explore between encounters and not just kick in the next door, fight the next monster, repeat (see the third paragraph on page 6 for the authors 'subtly' reminding you of this).
• I am going to disagree strongly with Captain Zapp about monsters. Feel free to take James Jacobs’ advice (sidebar on page 8) and use the tactics listed in the module (for example have the miflits retreat as indicated) instead of making them all fight to death in their rooms. Zapp runs games in a very specific way that makes some things much more difficult than they would otherwise be.
• You will want to keep track of time since some encounters happen only at night. I personally have found a time wheel quite useful in my games but since you're on a VTT, you'll probably need a different option.

General Advice:

• If you can, record your game then go back over it and see how it played, what worked, what didn't, and check for rules errors and themes (intentional or otherwise).
• In a dungeoncrawl pacing is very important. Try to frequently mix things up between combat, roleplay, puzzles, and exploration. Try not to have the game degenerate into open door, clear room, rest, repeat. The module (from what I read) seems very good at helping with this.
• Also pay attention to the mood and themes of the area/module/ap and try to match your narration to the mood and your plot to the themes.
• Narrative difficulty control is your friend. Use it to adjust the modules difficulty without having to change any numbers.
• Verisimilitude is important in any sort of dungeon setting. The monsters shouldn't just sit in their rooms having no impact on any other section of the dungeon (with some exceptions).
• An easy way to achieve narrative difficulty control and verisimilitude in a dungeon setting is through foreshadowing (immediate, proximal, and distant). Note that this particular module seems to already include a lot of it, but if your players are having difficulty (or you foresee them having difficulty with a particular encounter) you can always add more.

PF2e Advice:

• PF2e seems very similar on the surface to 5e/PF1 but it is a very different animal in play. Beware veteran players of other systems "optimizing to suboptimal results" and coming in with skewed expectations. The common examples everyone cites are spellcasters and making a third strike at -10 MAP instead of taking a more effective action, but there are a bunch of others.
• PF2e tends to be a diffrent type of power fantasy than 3.0/3.5/4e/5e/PF1 editions (depending on how people play them of course). PF2e defaults more to 'I'm awesome because I won against overwhelming odds' than 'I won against overwhelming odds because I'm so awesome'. If your players don't realize this it can easily result in a TPK.
• There is a good video by Collective Arcana on Feats.
• Use the free archetype variant. There is a reason people rave about it.
• Don't deny the PCs advantages gained through exploration. Never ever arbitrarily increase the difficulty of an encounter to compensate for the PCs gaining an advantage through skilled or clever play - if you do, you are effectively teaching them that such play is worthless and only a linear stream of combats through the module is acceptable.
• The starting stat modifiers of a character (without voluntary flaws) should add up to +9.

 

[kenada]

Some advice off the top of my head.

Having briefly skimmed the first part of the adventure:

• The paizo forums usually have great threads on the specific modules. Check them out.
• Use exploration mode! Let the PCs explore between encounters and not just kick in the next door, fight the next monster, repeat (see the third paragraph on page 6 for the authors 'subtly' reminding you of this).
• I am going to disagree strongly with Captain Zapp about monsters. Feel free to take James Jacobs’ advice (sidebar on page 8) and use the tactics listed in the module (for example have the miflits retreat as indicated) instead of making them all fight to death in their rooms. Zapp runs games in a very specific way that makes some things much more difficult than they would otherwise be.
• You will want to keep track of time since some encounters happen only at night. I personally have found a time wheel quite useful in my games but since you're on a VTT, you'll probably need a different option.

General Advice:

• If you can, record your game then go back over it and see how it played, what worked, what didn't, and check for rules errors and themes (intentional or otherwise).
• In a dungeoncrawl pacing is very important. Try to frequently mix things up between combat, roleplay, puzzles, and exploration. Try not to have the game degenerate into open door, clear room, rest, repeat. The module (from what I read) seems very good at helping with this.
• Also pay attention to the mood and themes of the area/module/ap and try to match your narration to the mood and your plot to the themes.
• Narrative difficulty control is your friend. Use it to adjust the modules difficulty without having to change any numbers.
• Verisimilitude is important in any sort of dungeon setting. The monsters shouldn't just sit in their rooms having no impact on any other section of the dungeon (with some exceptions).
• An easy way to achieve narrative difficulty control and verisimilitude in a dungeon setting is through foreshadowing (immediate, proximal, and distant). Note that this particular module seems to already include a lot of it, but if your players are having difficulty (or you foresee them having difficulty with a particular encounter) you can always add more.

PF2e Advice:

• PF2e seems very similar on the surface to 5e/PF1 but it is a very different animal in play. Beware veteran players of other systems "optimizing to suboptimal results" and coming in with skewed expectations. The common examples everyone cites are spellcasters and making a third strike at -10 MAP instead of taking a more effective action, but there are a bunch of others.
• PF2e tends to be a diffrent type of power fantasy than 3.0/3.5/4e/5e/PF1 editions (depending on how people play them of course). PF2e defaults more to 'I'm awesome because I won against overwhelming odds' than 'I won against overwhelming odds because I'm so awesome'. If your players don't realize this it can easily result in a TPK.
• There is a good video by Collective Arcana on Feats.
• Use the free archetype variant. There is a reason people rave about it.
• Don't deny the PCs advantages gained through exploration. Never ever arbitrarily increase the difficulty of an encounter to compensate for the PCs gaining an advantage through skilled or clever play - if you do, you are effectively teaching them that such play is worthless and only a linear stream of combats through the module is acceptable.
• The starting stat modifiers of a character (without voluntary flaws) should add up to +9.

This is all awesome stuff. I’d like to add a couple of things that apply generally but not necessarily to this AP (but hopefully since the Abomination Vaults is trying to be a large dungeon complex).

The first thing is that not every encounter needs to be a fight. If it seems like the monsters might just be guarded or cautious towards the PCs, start with that and see what happens next. If the PCs can get a chance to parlay, they can potentially avoid fights or even make friends. In a large dungeon, there are usually factions. If you make friends, it reduces the number of things that are trying to kill you, and your friends can help you out against the other factions.

The second thing is don’t have everything fight to the death. In old-school D&D, morale mechanics help diffuse fights by making it possible for them to end early. You don’t have to add morale to PF2, but if the PCs kill an important combatant or just do particularly good, have monsters pull back or even surrender. If you just roll things into the next fight, that can be bad, so don’t do that. Think of the implications of that, and have the creatures in the dungeon react organically. However, keep in mind also that consequences need not be immediate (e.g., “Think offscreen too”).

Both of these may be what @!DWolf means by narrative difficulty control, but I figured they were worth calling out explicitly.

 

[CapnZapp]

Some advice off the top of my head.

Trying to blame me for challenges caused by PF2-specific design in the same post where you later bring up and acknowledge the same points is entirely unnecessary.

 

[Retreater]

The second thing is don’t have everything fight to the death. In old-school D&D, morale mechanics help diffuse fights by making it possible for them to end early. You don’t have to add morale to PF2, but if the PCs kill an important combatant or just do particularly good, have monsters pull back or even surrender. If you just roll things into the next fight, that can be bad, so don’t do that. Think of the implications of that, and have the creatures in the dungeon react organically. However, keep in mind also that consequences need not be immediate (e.g., “Think offscreen too”).

Both of these may be what @!DWolf means by narrative difficulty control, but I figured they were worth calling out explicitly.

James Jacobs uses the exact phrase "fights to the death" 12 times in the first book. (I did a search of the PDF.) If you consider these specific mentions and others that can be implied, probably close to 1/3 or more of the battles are with creatures that do fight to the death - as called out by the adventure. So if you run the game in this way, you are going against the design principles of Abomination Vaults, and one might assume the paradigm of PF2. After all, it's hard to argue with James Jacobs about Pathfinder design intent.

However, I would argue. The designers are not at your table, and modifications have to be made for your table and the players who are there. I've seen how disastrous a game can be when you try to run a game "by the book."

 

[kenada]

James Jacobs uses the exact phrase "fights to the death" 12 times in the first book. (I did a search of the PDF.) If you consider these specific mentions and others that can be implied, probably close to 1/3 or more of the battles are with creatures that do fight to the death - as called out by the adventure. So if you run the game in this way, you are going against the design principles of Abomination Vaults, and one might assume the paradigm of PF2. After all, it's hard to argue with James Jacobs about Pathfinder design intent.

I was really hoping it was the other way, or they wouldn’t be that explicit, but alas. I’d say ignore James Jacobs and run the dungeon as a living complex. It will make the dungeon more interesting if you favor verisimilitude over just running encounters as combat challenges outside of a wider context.

(But I don’t like how Paizo writes adventures, which I’m sure colors my opinion.)

However, I would argue. The designers are not at your table, and modifications have to be made for your table and the players who are there. I've seen how disastrous a game can be when you try to run a game "by the book."

This exactly. It strikes me as completely fair to warn people off a certain style that results in adverse outcomes. Running rigidly by the book and echewing exploration mode seems to be a combination for misery.

 

[!DWolf]

It’s not that bad. The module reminds GMs about exploration (subtly) and has a sidebar about living dungeons. It also specifically calls out when monsters will fight to death (or until destroyed for undead and constructs) meaning that is NOT the assumed default (or otherwise it wouldn’t have to tell you that). It also calls out when a creature will retreat or surrender and when they will start an encounter with a warning display or talking (letting PCs flex social skills and feats). There are a lot of instances where the players can simply safely retreat as monsters are specified not to pursue. It also sometimes details further tactics and actions once a monster retreats or is defeated (goes to area X and joins the forces there; allies with the monsters in area Y for revenge; stays away for a couple of days until the PCs leave and then returns; realizes that they can’t defeat the PCs and begs for mercy; attempts to lure the PCs to the lair of its enemy so they kill each other; etc.).

 

[Retreater]

It also sometimes details further tactics and actions once a monster retreats or is defeated (goes to area X and joins the forces there; allies with the monsters in area Y for revenge

I know how combined encounters turn out in PF2, so I won't be making use of that specific advice in the module.
The best advice I can give is to take all of the adventure advice with a big grain of salt. Feel free to adapt the adventure to suit your group. Paizo staff can't know how every group functions.