Should You GM Age of Ashes for Pathfinder 2nd Edition? (SPOILERS)

[@HowItsPlayed]

See this video for a follow-up that goes deeper into the stronghold mechanics and includes a few of my experiences GMing the first 3 books of the campaign: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nJuolGmuacmjhtU

[@tbruce8187]

I like the content, but would also like a review of what your thoughts are about the adventure. Pros, con, things you liked, etc. Maybe that works best as a separate video.

[@HowItsPlayed]

I've always felt a little uncomfortable about making reviews for games I haven't played... I can't tell you how many times I've read a module, thought it was awesome, and then realized how unfun/broken it is only after running it with players. That said, maybe I can offer a few observations with a heavy disclaimer. I'll keep that possibility in mind.

[@JonathanScruggs]

It's a meat grinder. I need to work hard to balance the fights and even then I risk a player death at almost all fights. A tree had 6 attacks at +26 to hit -- the average AC at that level is about 27.

[@bluefyr22]

@@JonathanScruggs which book was that?

[@JonathanScruggs]

@bluefyr22 all 6 of the age of ashes books. I had to rebalance almost all of it.

[@bluefyr22]

@JonathanScruggs ahh ok. I'm running a party of 5 through it and the first book has been ok except the 2 wights they are about to fight have a cr 3 each... seems a little crazy

[@knavesquill9198]

I really enjoyed this review of the AP. Please do more of these, as they're a great thing to do before the Remaster rules are out, and I think you did well at covering things with just the right amount of detail. The themes & mechanics expected in the books was a fantastic inclusion.

[@HowItsPlayed]

Thanks for the feedback!

[@mentalkitty789]

Second this, hearing about the Adventure Paths like this is really interesting! Helps give a better grasp on what's what with them. Gets me excited to wanna buy and run 'em!

[@gulthor]

Hey hey! This is a great idea for helpful content while we wait for Remastered. Thanks!

[@vacra]

In this case, per book is key as every part feels like it's own adventure. I recently finished that campaing about 1 and 1/2 years worth of real gameplay and can't recommend it enought, was a blast to play in book 4 and onwards, as the plot started to reveal. I would really love have those kind of videos in the past (and now), and i must say that is well done and goes to the point. I think GMs will be able to judge if that AP is for them or not with the themes and info presented. Great job :)

[@HowItsPlayed]

Thanks for the feedback!

[@dmitrii710]

I GMing AoA right now, we will start third book. At the moment I generally like how it introduces different parts of Gollarion and for people who really not familiar with this setting (me included) it has nice overview of regions, cultures. Though I feel it's really rough around the edges, some encounters could be balanced much better, also the adventure itself is pretty straightforward. In the book two my players got a bit tired of hexcrawl and survival mechanics, though events itself brought a lot of fun. Third book just starting, but I hope they'll enjoy it, it has some interesting encounters and plot twist I also like your video, but for me it would be nice to have small summary from you, what you liked about it and what design decisions in adventure seems not as good as they can be

[@skillmatey7144]

This was hands-down one of the best reviews I have ever seen. The length of time was perfect and the information was just enough to get a really good understanding of what this adventure path is about. I really hope that you do more of these, including some of the other paths and modules. Thank you so much for all of your hard work and exceptional teaching tools.

[@blaydsong]

There are some definite balancing issues, as this book was being written at the same time as the PF2 rules, but the story is pretty epic. My group is currently in the middle of Book 5, and loving it! Looking forward to the Finale. Great overview! Looking forward to hearing more! I certainly like going into a bit of details for each book. Broad overviews often miss on explaining what makes them interesting.

[@sugandarajadotdeck6768]

I'd love to see more of these. Despite how popular the Paizo AP's are with PF2e GMs, there are relatively few in-depth reviews of them. As far as my tastes go, I prefer in-depth and with spoilers, as the plot will be spoiled for me anyway if I GM it.

[@JustinBania]

I would love one of these for each of the APs. This was pretty rad and super helpful.

[@JustinBania]

As a side note, a followup to this that explores the specific system this AP adds (and similar deep dives on other AP's special mechanics if you make more videos like this one) would also be of great help for would-be GMs.

[@HowItsPlayed]

@@JustinBania Good point... I could have gone more into what the Stronghold mechanics entail, and definitely should go deeper into the Circus mechanics when I do Extinction Curse. Thanks!

[@dmeep]

I found this usefull. the format is good and i would probably welcome a longer more in depth version aswell but def not a shorter one

[@lukeholbrook204]

Always like your videos, and this one is no exception. Something I’d like to hear is how well this campaign will appeal to or satisfy players who favor different aspects of the game. For instance, several books have a strong social emphasis; will combat-oriented or exploration-oriented players find plenty to enjoy in these books as well?

[@srpsamatos7906]

I totally love this content! would you make the same for others ap?

[@DeclanFeeney]

Loved the review of the AP. Please do more of these. I’d love to get a similar take for Extinction Curse, Strength of Thousands, Kingmaker etc.

[@Razz1024]

What a coincidence I just started GMing this AP!

[@kevindaniel1337]

Yeah I'm sold. Thanks for not so much spoilers, but overview. It was enough to sell me, but not so much I'd be missing out on content.

[@TheSpaceDiddys]

Good job! More videos like this please

[@rickmimms449]

Great job and I'd love to see more! I think the length is good, but I'd add more info like your thoughts and opinions, things to highlight or downplay in earlier books to make later events more impactful, etc.

[@HowItsPlayed]

Thanks for the feedback! I'm considering adding more of my opinions, but I'm careful not to turn this into a "review" considering I haven't played it... only read it.

[@marioaf27]

Thanks for this, hope to see more! Ideally starting with more recent APs, I'm considering Stolen Fate after my players are done with Abomination Vaults

[@SwedishSpike-wm7wh]

Great work, I am returning to Pathfinder after some years away, relocation, child-rearing and life intervened. This AP really tempts me as a reasonably experienced GM but I need to find some better understanding of these new fangled 2e moves!

[@enrikozartajuz9702]

I really hope to see more of these in the future. It's not always easy to find solid overviews of an adventure like this. In particular, noting the themes of the overall path and each book and especially calling out new mechanics and adventure types (like social interactions, heists or infiltrations). Giving and idea of the basic path structure (when there is one) was also a nice touch so you can tell right off if this is the type of adventure you'd like to run (I ran into similar concerns with PF1's Shattered Star). And saving overall thoughts about the adventure till the end seems appropriate; while watching the video I was wondering why dragons seemed to take a backseat for about half the books so good to hear that it wasn't just my perception.

[@Radiotomb]

Great review! Per book is very important. The video length is fine. I'm used to long form Adventure reviews like Seth Skorkowsky does, with GM tips, suggestions, criticisms, etc. So if you can incorporate some suggestions giving by GMs who have successfully run the AP, that would be great. Example: "Many AoA GM's on the Paizo forums have mentioned that....." etc. or, Here's a link to some great fan made VTT assets for the AP. Thanks, and great job!

[@johnharrison2086]

Great overview. I particularly like how you covered each book. Looking forward to seeing more APs in this series.

[@TheFearlessFew]

This is great, going over adventure paths. Perfect for us GMs. Make more of this content🤘🏾💯 abomination vaults next 😉😇??

[@daveg9068]

I am currently running this campaign/adventure path. We should finish book 1 this week. It has been fun to GM and my players have had a great time going through it. LOL, I went old-school though. I read, re-read and read again..the entirty of the 1st book. I added notes to all of the maps for Exploration Mode. Even when my players did things "out of order" I was able to easily adjust. I am looking forward to running book 2.

[@Pentachills]

This video rocked. One thing I noticed, which is humorous more than anything, is saying the ruins of the citadel are '10 miles northeast' . The book flip-flops on 1/10 miles, and in digging I found author comments saying it was supposed to be '1' mile by the end. It makes VERY literal difference in the grand scheme of the adventure and was mostly a byproduct of the creation of the books so close to 2E's release, but it's funny that even to this day, I'm not sure if 1 or 10 works better/should be the case.

[@Bloodfencer1990]

Gonna echo some sentiments others have already said, but this is less a review of the adventure and more of a short plot synopsis. I think anyone thinking about running this would benefit more from talking about encounter balance, certain pitfalls and maybe some adjustments that could be made. Also a short note that this adventure was written before PF2e was finalized, so the imbalances that do exist are simply a result of a very tight release schedule.

[@tylerliley264]

This video easily deserves a like and a new sub. Good production value and quick delivery of information, thanks.

[@btottori]

Something else you might want to add to these reviews is audience suitability. Age of Ashes doesn't have much (if any) content that would not be considered suitable for younger players (middle-schoolers), e.g., a serial killer villain. Some of the APs and Adventures (Agents of Edgewatch, Malevolence) are definitely for more mature audiences and it would be good for prospective GMs to know this before deciding to run the AP. You might do a list of things that might trigger certain audiences like they do at the start of TV shows, e.g., "This AP contains depictions of body horror, murder, and suicide." There is a content warning near the table of contents of each adventure. You could compile these for the entire AP and provide this list as part of your overview.

[@deladriendilmegilindir9499]

Currently running this AP. Must say, I appreciate the overview and book by book breakdown. would be good to hear about anything you've changed or that needs to be changed to make the AP smoother, etc.

[@DecoupageGames]

Hi! I've been playing this campaign for the last 2 years and so far we got up to just before the last chapter on Cult of Cinders (yea, a lot of stuff happened during pandemic and it's taking us a while). I totally recommend the first book, it has a great city, great reasons to have your PCs there and an amazing safe to experiment dungeon crawl. During the second book we did have some fun at the start but it was kind of a drag, when the hexplore started I was hesitant as how it was manged within the book so I've started adding new mechanics and situations to accommodate my party's background and interest, also to start flexing the "modify what you need" muscle (second time GMing). I liked a lot how you explained the key gamey elements of each module as buy ins for the Players and would like to see more like this!!!

[@whitenightmare3575]

I think the format you choose does not really work for showcasing it to a possible GM, not more than just reading the covers would. It gave a broad overview of the plot and themes and mechanics, which is fine, but gives very little actually useful information. A GM is closer to a movie director that is given a script than a viewer that goes to the cinema, and their priorities are different. As a DM, I would be much more interested in the meta analysis of the adventure. How long will it take to run? (On average) HOW MUCH extra work will be required on my part? What themes does the adventure explore? (the specific plot is irrelevant) What type of players will the adventure appease to? What are the encounters like? Hard? Easy? Any special gimmicks that need extra attention. A little more detail on the overarching mechanics of the adventure, like the base-building, or a reputation system. What parts of the plot the GM needs to pay more attention to if (when) the players derail the plot? Most importantly, what are the opinions of the people who ran the thing? To answer all of the questions above you would need to run the adventure yourself, but it should be possible to get good enough answers by reading forum conversations about the adventure path or asking the opinion of people who played it.

[@PyroMancer2k]

This review makes me wanna go back and finish our Campaign. Had a group that made it all the way to book 4 when things in RL got hectic for some of the people in the group so we kept calling off the sessions until we just agreed to pick it up again when things settled down. Problem is it was like a year ago at this point and while I caught most references I don't recall the diplomats from Book 3 in the city, I recall a group and some balloons though. General non-spoiler what I recall was Book 1 was a nice standard adventure which was good as we had some new PF2e members in the group. Book 2 was a bit different as I had never done a Hex Crawl adventure before, which the survival challenges being trivialized thanks to the ranger being expert in survival to the point we stopped rolling them cause odds of failing were so low that even if we did fail the expert medic was able to quickly treat any jungle illnesses. Book 3 in game time seemed a lot shorter, probably because we didn't spend weeks walking through the jungle. But even outside of game time book 3 just felt the shortest. Perhaps it was because at this point everyone was more experienced so encounters of all types flowed really quickly as people knew their characters rather well at this point and didn't seem like anyone really got any new major change to their ability from 10-12. Though I suppose I should correct that by saying we thought we knew our characters as our champion wasn't using his Exalted ability that he got at level 11 and no one else having played a high level champion knew about which we didn't realize it until a few months after the campaign was put on perma hold. Book 4 we started and were in the first area with like 2-3 encounters in before we took the break and didn't finish. Still have my Alchemist and gonna have to talk to group to see if we can finish up.

[@btottori]

A good overview, though I think viewers would like to hear more of your opinions on whether this is a good AP. I have run this campaign several times and my player groups have enjoyed it. I would encourage GMs to have their players pick a variety of ancestries from the Core Rulebook (Goblin, Elf, Halfling, Dwarf, Gnome, Human) as specified in the Player's Guide as each book focuses on one of these ancestries and this is an opportunity to let each PC shine. In addition, this is a good AP for PCs with extensive back stories, as the varied settings and situations allow the GM to weave elements from these back stories into the campaign, which is something players find very cool. As far as balance is concerned, there are some encounters that are broken because the AP was being written at the same time as the rules (I'm looking at you Ralldar), but most of it runs very well. As you said, the storyline that gets resolved in the last book might go over the players heads, so it could be helpful if the GM is careful about reinforcing the clues along the way that foreshadow this twist.

[@Reinshark]

I think you've done a nice job providing an overview of the plot for the Age of Ashes campaign, and I like the format you used to provide this overview, breaking things down book-by-book. Knowing that the adventure path provides a variety of locales and different forms of challenges (e.g. a balance between social or skill-based encounters and combat encounters) is useful information. However, as a prospective GM, there is more that I am interested in knowing about when I select an adventure path. Your review gives a decent overview of what this adventure path contains, but I'd like a better idea of the quality of that content; you've told us what it is, but I'd like to know how good (or bad) it is at each of the aspects you touch upon. For example: are the combat encounters balanced? Did you have to pull back to avoid killing your players, or did you have to ramp up the challenge to make things interesting for your PCs? Are there guidelines in the adventure to help balance encounters for groups of 3 or 5+ players? I've read comments elsewhere about the level of difficulty for combat in this adventure path, so I was a bit surprised to not hear you comment on that aspect of the AP at all. Similarly, I'd like to hear what you thought of the skill challenge sections: are they well-executed and clever, offering avenues for creative players to find interesting uses for their skills? Are there binary pass/fail states that require proficiency in certain skills in order to advance in the adventure? I would also value an assessment of how much an adventure path allows for player freedom, both in responding to individual challenges/encounters and in driving the overall narrative. Is the adventure path strictly linear, or does it allow for some player agency when it comes to the direction things take (or at least the order in which they play out)? Are the actions and decisions of NPCs hard-coded into the writing, or is there room for roleplay to influence their actions, and written support in the adventure for various outcomes? I understand that most APs are going to be at least somewhat linear, but I enjoy adventures which provide as much opportunity for player agency and choice as possible, so that is something I would want to know as a prospective GM.

[@AJBernard]

Thank you! Grateful for the overview! Would love to see more!

[@szegediadam8793]

I'm GMing this to my friends, we're at book two only. Recommendation for New gm-s, in the first book there are some realy hardcore fights, because the book was ready before the core rulebook was out, and... Sometimes they tend to be more extreme than needed. If your players don't enjoy hardcore mode, just give them an early level up, and that solves everything. (Spoiler's: there's three insane encounter in book one: the camp where the elf lady hides, the greater barghest (this is the hardest) and maybe the final encounter a little bit too much)

[@MostlyHarmless-42]

The video is a great summary of the adventure path, but it doesn't answer the question "Should you GM?" I don't know if you have played the adventure or not, but there have been complaints that this AP is over-tuned or too difficult, though that might be because players were new to the game, or the writers did not know how to balance encounters yet. Are these concerns valid? Is throwing in a new system (stronghold) the right call for players new to the game?

[@spellswordmain]

Sorry but this video isn't much help at all. You just gave us a very basic a vague overview of the plot, which I could have surmised on my on by just skimming through the books. I thought you were going to talk about how the mechanics work, how well written (or not) the story is, if this is suitable for new players or veterans. Basically give a review of the adventure, not a summary

[@Hexblade_DR]

Currently GMing for my group of friends, about to start book 3, I really liked your overview over all, having played 2 of the book I think the information you are giving is spot on without spoiling anything,

[@RoninRaconteur]

Having suggestions that may help that you probably would tweak and how would be nice. Like how would you keep the plot from just dropping? Would you keep the essence of it in the background to keep the players remembering there's something still out there they need to do? Intertwine what's happening in book 3 and on in some way to show the dragon god isn't forgotten? Something like that could help new GMs immensely

[@TheAldares]

I'm just starting to prepare this campaign! Having a global view helps a lot! Thank you, this video came out at the right time :)

[@TheNoodleGod9001]

I wasn't a fan of Age of Ashes. You get a hint of a cool story at the start, and there's some cool stuff at the end, but the vast majority of the rest of the AP is an unrelated plot about fighting criminal mercenaries that I felt just wasn't particularly interesting. The whole time I was thinking "where's Dahak? What happened to Dahak? Why do we care about these random mercenaries?" It felt like we were wasting time waiting for the plot to come back. Which it didn't do until book 6! Also had a bad case of having some reasonably interesting and detailed bad guys who the party never meets until they reach the room where they attack on sight and fight to the death.

[@caleblayman856]

Great video! I'm actually going to be running this campaign soon for a new group and was really excited to see you cover it! Awesome job 👏

[@lightblckknight]

Absolutely loved this breakdown! anyway to do it with the other Adventures? APs & SAs? Curious how these are going to hit once the remastering is out.

[@tannerdaugherty407]

Dude super helpful without giving away to much. Loved the format and keep it up for all the adventure paths the exact same way.

[@diegorodrigues9528]

You should talk about the bad points of the campaign. AoA is full of uaeless combats and altough there are npc's they almost don't appear and there isn't much in the books talking about them, lefting most of the work in this part to the GM. The hexcrawl in book 2 takes a lot of time, finished 2 books and a half of Strength of Thousands before finishing this one.

[@Kain_Hywind]

I ran the 1st two books before dropping this AP. It felt difficult and unbalanced to players, and when I read books 3 and 4 it felt like it had no connection to the books 1 and 2, I did not want to input any more time of programing it in into the Virtual Tabletop. it was way to disjointed. My players had no interest in rebuilding the fort also, there is nothing in the ap to give the incentive to rebuild it. Especially since the theme after book 1 turned into into a world hopping adventure. Why waste the time rebuilding that thing if you are never going to be there.

[@nikkibloom1100]

I think you could have tolerated a few more spoilers. Since this is clearly targeted towards GMs, we actually *want* to know what the content of the adventure is before we splurge on a purchase! It helps us make that decision.

[@patricioa5535]

This was a great overview. I'd be really curious to see how you cover the updated version of Kingmaker since it's not broken into 6 convenient books and is instead one much larger volume. Looking forward to seeing more overviews come out in the future.

[@davidebombardelli8255]

As a player i advise you to gm balancing some parts because the difficulty can spike really high.

[@mrtinboy75]

Really liked this video! Good overview of all the books with the right amount of spoilers. Videos like this would help a lot as a GM.

[@xczechr]

I am currently running my group through book five of Age of Ashes. It's been a lot of fun so far.

[@Gubbykahn]

i didnt enjoyed the most of this AP...was kinda...oddly boring

[@dungeonmaster16]

loving this. hoping to see this for other adventure paths like agents of edgewatch.

[@CraigSteinhoff]

Great video! Would love your thoughts on Gatewalkers :)

[@wardriveworley]

I loved the review and really hope you do more. Personally I would also like to see an opinion on how well the ap is written if at all possible

[@MrWystan17]

Hurray! I was really waiting for this type of content!

[@rickbau7476]

Like the video a lot. Hope to see similar videos for the others adventure paths

[@joelhalfwassen9241]

More of this sort of content, please! As a GM this really helps!

[@scottmcgee3121]

I was actually planning on running this for my party. We are all new to Pathfinder but play DnD 5e regularly. I would have preferred if you gave a bit more information, like is it good for new GM's? Is it on rails or more sandbox? Other than common ancestries what are some good party compositions for this? I also would have preferred to see a separate video for each book. Love your channel and appreciate all your hard work!

[@TheNoodleGod9001]

I played the adventure start to finish. I wouldn't recommend it - being the first AP for 2nd edition, the mechanics/balance is a bit rough, and I really really didn't like how it sets up a plot in books 1/2 and abandons it until book 6; you hear a lot about an evil dragon god, Dahak at the start, who you assume the whole AP is about as a main villain, but you spend the vast majority of the AP fighting a mostly unrelated group of mercenaries/criminals/slavers under a really thin justification.

[@jimmessmer470]

great job wonderful for Game masters

[@CristianzenV]

This type of review is just..chef's kiss

[@ferraniglesias7269]

This is great! Thank you for your work!

[@rasleyforde2363]

Great Video! We needed some ones like this

[@haydongonzalez-dyer2727]

I really would love this to be a series

[@tabletopgamingwithwolfphototec]

Neat. I want more of these.

[@drewcourtney376]

This is excellent, I really appreciate you doing a "Should you GM" video for APs! The inclusion of themes and mechanics is spot on exactly what I wanted! Now, you just need to make one of these videos for each AP, and NoNat needs to make a player facing lore/background video for each AP, and I will be a happy camper!

[@mistaree8394]

I appreciate this sort of content. Be warned; many people say this campaign is extremely hard in places due to being written while PF2e rules were being finalized. I personally, have only played through the first book. It was fun with neat new mechanics and the beginnings of an interesting plot. However, my fellow players and I did struggle at times. We were new to PF2e (which was only out a few months), we had an inexperienced GM (although we were experienced roleplayers) and we were playing with a party of three.

[@joshuaradford2566]

I really enjoyed the review of the AP. The level overview, themes, and new mechanics was especially helpful for me. I would love to know how balanced it is though. I've heard nightmares of earlier AP's that needed a bit of rebalancing to avoid TPK's.

[@Ryno_the_Dyno]

I would love to see more content like this! Perhaps you could include an overview of particular challenges GM's are likely to face in a given book or adventure path? I really enjoyed how you highlighted the sections where different characters are likely to shine. I'm also pleased that this campaign in particular has books where the focus seems to be less about combat and more about social encounters and intrigue. Very fun!

[@jacobwilliams6545]

This was great. I think you did a good job balancing spoilers and useful information. I’d like to hear more about ideal classes or group make ups as well as the level milestones between books.

[@tylerliley264]

I loved the per-book breakdown, my players might suddenly want to do something else for awhile so this gives good ideas for break points and letting players do different things if they really feel the need to swap up characters. I haven't taken the time to read through all of the books yet so this gave an overview of what story notes a DM is looking to hit as well going through the campaign. I don't know if you did this in another video but going over a guide for DMs being like watch out for this, or like this is the designers intention to have this happen using these characters.

[@CPTRhino]

How It's Played, would this adventure path work with the PF2e rewrite (GM Core and Player Core)?

[@HowItsPlayed]

You'd likely also want Monster Core and there would still be some things that you would need stats for (for which you could use Archives of Nethys or PF Easy Tools). So, yes, it can be done but might need you to be a little flexible.

[@CPTRhino]

@@HowItsPlayed Ok cool, I was worried there would be major issues of conversions.

[@HowItsPlayed]

@@CPTRhino I wouldn't say "major", but you'll need to deal with differing language between the versions and other things like the removal of alignment.

[@averyadams6488]

I really enjoyed it!

[@jltheking3]

Loving this new series

[@douglasdesantis1355]

Love this content!

[@snowpython]

I will add the Dahak fight is unbalanced.

[@HowItsPlayed]

In which direction? Too easy or too hard?

[@NormalesEinhorn]

Yay, it's the content we voted for \o/ Also what @tbruce8187 said Hi Dave *wave*

[@charidimosf]

Spoiler: It's HARD (but as always it varies from party to party), go soft especially at the start or the tpk will come very soon and not even at a boss encounter.