dungeons-and-dragons – Katie Plays Games

On September 15th, 2024, my group finally finished the epic dungeon-crawling Adventure Path known as Abomination Vaults. When I first heard that Paizo was putting out a mega-dungeon, I was stoked. While I haven’t been able to do many, I’ve always been enamored with the idea of a campaign focused on one dungeon, where things get more dangerous the deeper you go. Having a modern one where I didn’t have to convert the whole thing was doubly exciting.

The deets on us

The sessions were held once a month, for about three hours each. This may seem like a short amount of time to many, but this was an extremely focused group bent on getting to the bottom of the vaults. I don’t think we had a single session that we spent on fluff.

Even so, it wasn’t a short campaign. We ran from April 2021 to September 2024, with only a few skipped months due to holidays and scheduling issues. Doing some back-of-the-envelope math, I think AV is more dense than your average Paizo AP. One book is usually six four-hour sessions for my groups, and by my calculations, AV took us a quarter longer than your average AP. This math feels right, because AV is super dense. Every inch of the ten 40×70 grid maps is filled with something to fight, figure out, or talk to. There are encounters you can skip, but most players won’t want to leave potential enemies at their backs.

We had a shifting cast of characters since this was a campaign where we worked on a quorum rather than insisting everyone was there. The crew:

Kobold Thaumaturge
Strix Swashbuckler
Cave Elf Fighter (Bows)
Kobold Alchemist (Mutagenist, but threw lots of bombs)
Tengu Sorcerer
Dhampir Oracle

The oracle had to drop due to Real Life Cool Shit, so we swapped in the Iconic Kyra to follow the group around and keep them on their feet.

We used Automatic Bonus Progression, but no other variant rules since the AP didn’t recommend them. Yes, Virginia, you can play without Free Archetype.

Overall takeaways

This is an awesome AP. I squealed when they announced it, then worried it wouldn’t live up to my expectations. It really did, though. Hell, it even exceeded them, since it’s easy to have a dungeon crawler that starts to, well, crawl. The pace kept moving along at a nice clip, and there was always something to find just around the corner. Every floor is themed, so you don’t have to stress out too badly if a PC is less effective for a while. Things will swap around, I promise you, and it will give players a chance to dig into what else they could be doing to help their fellow party members.

One interesting thing as a GM was that much of the game was spent with me sitting back while the players planned. For me, this was a nice break from APs where there’s more roleplaying from me to get the story moving forward. Not that I mind running NPCs (I enjoy it!), but man, it was kind of nice to give them a map of what they’d explored, then sip my tea as they talked about where they wanted to go next, and how they should prep.

This is also one of the few APs that I could see running again since so much of the story comes out based on where the players go, and what they pick up along the way.

The elephant in the room: Difficulty

On Reddit, this is often considered a super deadly AP, with groups racking up body counts before they’ve found the first set of stairs. Meanwhile, our group had zero deaths. There were a few close calls, but that’s expected in PF2.

That’s not me saying that these other players were just clueless! We had a few advantages that many AV groups don’t have:

Experience. Over half the players were experienced with PF2, and all of us were experienced with TTRPGs of a similar ilk.
Old farts. When I say ‘experienced’, I don’t mean five years. Some of us are in our fourth decade of gaming. This means many of us came from an era when dungeon crawls were common. We already understood the metarules behind them, like pulling back when you need to, exploring carefully, and being prepared to run.
For some games, we had a larger crew. This alone can help balance for a creature that the group isn’t quite built for.
The NPC healer came in clutch. Sometimes, I just had her waiting by the stairs to heal after battles, but that was enough to keep the group out of the danger zone.
Shorter sessions meant no one got mentally exhausted, which can be the biggest killer in games.

GM suggestions

Prep in advance. In many APs, you can make an educated guess as to where your players could go in the next session. After all, there’s only so many encounters they can run into based on their current location. This is not the case with Abomination Vaults. Once a group is on a floor, nearly every room will be a possibility. So, if your players are close to going to the next floor, make sure you have it ready to go. And this isn’t just the creatures: Keep an eye out for interactions between encounters. Sometimes, running into a friendly NPC first can negate another room, or finding a switch or a clue can make another encounter less (or more) difficult.

Rest! Emphasize to your players that they’re the ones who control when they rest, and that there’s no gun to their head to push forward. They can fall back to town or a safe hidey-hole and rest as often as they like. While my players tended to only rest at the end of a session, there were a few times that they had one rough fight, noped out, and rested while they made a plan. They also chose to rest a few times when key daily resources were depleted rather than push forward with just cantrips and big sticks.

This goes for players, too. Being tired will kill you in this AP, so if players are starting to flag, it might be time to go back to town and have some fun, non-lethal interactions there.

Player map. I gave my players a map of where they had been at the start of each session, which gave them a chance to plan on their own. You can do this by hand, or you can do what I did on Roll20 if that’s your VTT.

At the start of the game, make sure Explorer mode is on.
Make sure your vision is attached to your players’ tokens.
Put their flag on the floor you want to make a map of.
Log in as a player.
Take a screenshot.
In the image editing software of your choice, fiddle with exposure until all of the areas are more clearly defined.

It’s a bit of work, but it’s better than dealing with an endless Q&A about where they’ve been and it gives them something to mark up if need be.

Stairs are not an invitation, not a summons. Another important thing to drill into your players: Just because they found the stairs to go down doesn’t mean they have to go down. Depending on which direction the players go, they could find the stairs down just a few rooms in. Going down immediately means they skip much of the content, and that they’ll likely be under-leveled for what they’re about to face. So, remind them that they likely don’t want to leave hostile forces at their back, and try to get them to hold off going down until they’ve cleared at least 80% of a floor.

Leash your murderhobos. The Vaults are full of things that want to kill the players, but they also are host to a number of friendly NPCs and factions. If murder is what they want to do, okay, but some of the fights that this could kick off are extreme or just very boring. Also, they’ll need information going forward if they really want to get the full story of what’s going on in the Vaults.

Lock all doors. If your players are the kind to wander and open every door willy-nilly, consider locking all doors until they come to them. The encounters are dense on these maps, with many starting the second the players stumble into them. You can also feel free to let them fuck around and find out! You do you, boo.

Otari fun! Don’t ignore the town! My group did less lingering there due to the nature of our time slot, but if you have more time to play with, make sure to play up the town plots. There’s a ton of cool characters and hooks to dig into that can help bring the town to life.

By the books…

Book one

Favorite bits: Augreal, the bookworm ghoul, and Tangletop, the grumpy sprite. The group immediately adopted both of them. They made a point to bring Augreal bodice rippers every time they did another dive, and hired Tangletop to keep their rooms in order. They also slowly grew more fond of Magiloy the Bartender. Amusingly, outside of a few required conversations, they ignored the main NPC with the most backstory and hooks.

Roughest bits: The vampiric mist was a bit of a struggle, though they got through it. There was also a drake that thoroughly stomped their butts. This was the fight that drilled home that, yes, sometimes they were going to have to run and come back later. Not only did they run, but they didn’t come back to deal with it for a few levels.

Book two

Favorite bits: Oh my god, the punk band. Paizo put a legit punk band in their mega-dungeon, and I had so much fun with them. I even had their set playing throughout that dungeon in the background. The players ended up getting them gigs in Otari, much to the distress of some of the locals. I also loved the fact that they could see the shanrigol behemoth well before they had to interact with it, leaving them with a growing sense of dread.

Roughest bits: To be honest, the behemoth wasn’t the toughest fight because they were able to prepare for it. The hardest part of this book was dealing with the seugathi, who had a habit of attacking from areas the PCs couldn’t reach (or sometimes see!). By the end of this book, they were practically foaming with hate any time they ran into one.

Book three

Favorite bits: This book was full of social interactions, but my favorite was the drow encampment because one of the players was playing an agoraphobic cave elf. The whole campaign, his character was grumpy about being forced to walk back to town all the time and hang out with a bunch of ‘upsiders.’ They met the drow, and he was suddenly Mr. Social, macking on all the ladies and playing made-up card games with the off-duty guards.

Roughest bits: This book featured the most instances of running and coming up with a plan. There was a huge spider, a huge mole rat, a terrible bird, and some creatures hidden in caves in the wall. Thankfully, this was also the book that had the most comfortable places to retreat, which was important since they refused to activate even one teleportation ring.

Final thoughts

I absolutely loved running Abomination Vaults. It lived up to my highest expectations, and even as the GM, I was excited to see how each session would turn out. Even if you aren’t interested in running an AP, this one is worth grabbing so you can strip it for parts. Each dungeon can be run on its own as a standalone adventure and could easily hold plot points for your homebrew campaign. It’s one of the few APs that I could see running again in the future, if a new group was interested. Once the maps are set up, there’s remarkably little for me to do but wait for players to choose a direction.

Every few weeks, someone on r/Pathfinder2e asks for thoughts on what AP their group should run. In the spirit of “I’m tired of writing out my response every time”, I figured I’d make a blog post about it instead.

Yes, I mostly blog to save myself time later.

What I’m including

I’m including every AP that I’ve at least experienced part of, either as a GM or a player. I also include how I ran it (since I sometimes like to switch things up and run APs in a non-conventional way).

I’m not including Adventures, even though I’ve experienced a few. Maybe a blog post for another day!

The Adventure Paths

Agents of Edgewatch

Role: GM
Game type: West Marches
Status: Mostly completed

I ran Agents of Edgewatch as part of a West Marches game, which worked shockingly well. I had to move the main elements of Book 1 to our town, but they were fairly easy to transplant. For later books, I added teleportation circles to the town that were only active for those working their way through the adventure. This did require removing some bits, but no one missed them.

I enjoyed running it so very much, and it’s one of the rare APs that I find myself wanting to run again. It’s full of so many fun set-pieces, and being set in Absolom could give players a chance to really branch out during the adventure. If your players do like to wander, grab a copy of Pathfinder Lost Omens: Absalom, City of Lost Omens. It’s filled with lots of hooks and little details that can bring the campaign to life.

That said, let’s talk about the elephant in the room: The first part of the book has you working as guards who make their money by getting it off of the people they’re guarding. I highly recommend just paying them to keep the peace, rather than taking the property of the people they’re policing.

If you want a high-level review of the cool encounters, check out my blog post about stripping AoE for parts.

Abomination Vaults

Role: GM
Type: Standard
Status: ~~In progress~~ Done!

This is hands down one of the best APs I’ve ever run. I’m going to put a huge caveat on that statement, though: I love dungeon crawls, and so do the rest of my players. There’s something very satisfying to me, clearing levels one by one, plunging deeper into unknown depths. Not every player is into this sort of set-up, though. Players really, truly need to understand that they won’t be leaving Otari, and that the thing they will be dealing with for ten levels is the dungeon. The dungeon does switch up themes as you go, but you’re not going to some exotic new locale or running into a town of completely new NPCs.

That said, you are fairly close to Absolom so a lenient GM could work in some sidequests there. My players never bothered, opting instead to order what they wanted through a weekly caravan. Like, I said, we like dungeons.

From the GM side, you should either grab the modules already on your favorite VTT or settle in for a lot of prepping. Because players can go any direction, you can’t just prep the ‘next few’ areas. Once they’re near a floor, you should have it ready to go. On the flip side, this AP does allow you to be more passive as a GM. Most of the time, I was sitting back while the players discussed where they wanted to go next. I didn’t have to run complex social encounters or dinner parties, and most NPC interactions were limited to just one NPC. It’s a pretty chill experience until it’s killing time!

Some warnings:

Quarters are tight, so limit bodies. This means discouraging too many minions. It can work, but if everyone has a wolf, someone is going to be sitting in the hall in some encounters.
Emphasize that the players should not go down until they’ve cleared most of the floor. They will get their butts handed to them.
Rest is important! If the party is low on resources or sitting on a nasty disease or curse, they should go get that fixed before moving forward.

I wrote more about Abomination Vaults in its own post!

Fists of the Ruby Phoenix

Role: Player
Type: Standard
Status: Complete

This is one we streamed over on D20Saves with a group of experienced players. It was an absolute blast, and delivered on what it promised: A bunch of heroes entering a fighting tournament and accidentally saving the world. There’s a fair mix of social and combat as well as some traditional combats, so you can’t afford to create a group of one-trick ponies.

This is a high-level AP, so it’s not one I would throw at new players. You really should know what you’re doing with your characters and running complex encounters.

Strength of Thousands

Role: GM, then player
Type: West Marches, then stream
Status: Started, abandoned, started again!

This AP didn’t work quite as well in a West Marches game, so it was abandoned fairly early. I did read the first part, though, and it’s left me aching to either run or play in this one for legit years. How can you resist a Magic School AP? Also, book one had one of the best collections of NPCs I’ve seen in an AP ever.

Thankfully, one of the GMs over on D20Saves has agreed to run it for us, so I’m getting another crack at it!

Quest for the Frozen Flame

Role: GM
Type: Speed run
Status: ~~In progress~~ Done!

I’ve been blogging about this AP book by book, so you can check out my previous posts here. In short, it’s a great AP for players who are down for a wilderness campaign that focuses on surviving, exploring, and building a following. I want to be clear, though: When Paizo said it was a wilderness campaign, they meant it.

Some suggestions:

Have a spreadsheet ready to keep track of renown and followers gained. You don’t want to have to backtrack and figure it out because suddenly it matters at the end of a book.
Dear lord, use ABP. The loot is sparse.
Make sure players know they can take downtime to craft items they might need. They will not have access to cities. In fact, the players in my game are in book three and just heading to their first major encampment.

Gatewalkers

Role: GM
Type: Standard
Status: ~~In progress~~ Done!

This is another game that’s being streamed on D20Saves. We’re currently in Book 2, and it’s been a wild ride. Book one especially has a lot of hard lefts that no one in the party predicted. This is a great AP for people who happily follow plot hooks, but may be a struggle for a party who resists going with the flow. Also, some of the fights are deceptively hard. If your party is too squishy, you’ll run into trouble quickly.

I have a series of GM posts about prepping and running this AP if you want a more in-depth review.

Stolen Fates

Role: Player
Type: Standard
Status: In progress

And other D20Saves stream! We’ve only just begun, but so far, it’s been an intriguingly weird adventure. Amusingly enough, we’ve had more gates in book one than we had in all of Gatewalkers. In fact, I feel like this would pair well with Gatewalkers as a follow-on adventure to get the players to level 20.

And that’s it!

I’ll update this post as I finish / start new APs. For now, this is the complete list as of July 2024! Rankings are highly subjective, if I were giving out awards:

Favorite overall: Abomination Vaults
Most likely to run more than once: Fists of the Ruby Pheonix
Most modded: Gatewalkers
Most niche: Quest for the Frozen Flame

Tag: dungeons-and-dragons

Exploring Abomination Vaults: A Dungeon Crawler Experience