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1
TimestampHave you played this AP as a GM?(GM Only) How easy was the AP to run?(GM Only) How would rate the amount of changes you made to run the AP?If your group quit the AP without finishing, why did you stop playing? (Optional - Do not answer if your group is still playing)How would you rate the overall difficulty of the AP for players?How would you rate the plot for the APHow would you rate the roleplaying potential for the APHow would you rate the combat encounters for the AP?How would you rate each book in this AP? (Rate only the books you have experienced) [Ruins of Gauntlight (1 of 3)]How would you rate each book in this AP? (Rate only the books you have experienced) [Hands of the Devil (2 of 6)]How would you rate each book in this AP? (Rate only the books you have experienced) [Eyes of Empty Death (3 of 6)]How well did the themes of the AP line up with your expectations, based on the marketing?How likely would you be to recommend this AP overall?Additional Comments (Optional: Can contain notes on the AP or the survey itself)
2
11/11/2024 15:35:14Yes45345444Not Played55
3
11/11/2024 15:44:10Yes54454454555
4
11/11/2024 15:50:32No4353Not Played4454Dungeon crawls are the kind of thing you either love or hate
5
11/11/2024 15:53:54No543555555
6
11/11/2024 15:54:28Yes54344544Not Played55
7
11/11/2024 16:02:53Yes44332454354Some encounters were too hard - there were too many will-o-wisps, which are an infamously frustrating enemy. Many encounters were in too-small spaces. I adjusted some encounters to allow the PCs to use Diplomacy, Deception, etc. to solve issues instead of just killing everything.
8
11/11/2024 16:05:57Yes43221322252
9
11/11/2024 16:12:54Yes54General loss of interest in the game, Lack of investment in the story41142Not PlayedNot Played42
10
11/11/2024 16:16:36Yes4524343Not PlayedNot Played54
11
11/11/2024 16:17:11Yes34332343353Reading ahead can allow you to do some foreshadowing to be more immersive
12
11/11/2024 16:22:52Yes54333353444In terms of difficulty this AP started off really difficult for my players, but teetered off in difficulty more and more as they leveled up. Most likely due to the fact that they caught on to the AP's more common tropes. Tight corridors, frequent high level enemies, and frequent undead made the group favor reach weapon, ghost touch runes, and inflicting status effects over raw damage. Also, champions really, and I mean really, shine on this AP due to a lot of the combat encounters taking place in smaller, confined areas. That aura really got around.

My main gripes with the adventure is that ghost touch runes kind of made a lot of encounters with ghosts feel trivial due to their low HP. Their over abundant usage as enemies also made sure that all my PCs chose to have ghost touch runes on their weapons. There are also a couple of encounters where large monsters are supposed to be fought in a small room with 5 foot wide exits. I recommend making some of those large monsters smaller as to not cramp everything up further.
13
11/11/2024 16:26:11Yes44344335455
14
11/11/2024 16:42:34Yes33432343355Has a handful of encounters that need to be manually rebalanced (scythe room, Froghemoth), otherwise it can be run pretty much as written w/o issue.
15
11/11/2024 16:45:46Yes43Lack of investment in the story312332Not Played31
16
11/11/2024 16:48:51Yes44432333455
17
11/11/2024 16:50:20NoGeneral loss of interest in the game, Lack of investment in the story, Not enough opportunity for roleplaying, Reasons unrelated to AP quality (ie. Scheduling, Personal Conflicts...ect.)432453253
18
11/11/2024 16:51:10Yes55Not enough opportunity for roleplaying421533352overadvertised dungeon crawler. Really good at what it does, really bad at other aspects of game
19
11/11/2024 16:57:06No443444554
20
11/11/2024 17:05:53Yes43332343354Combats are tough at early levels. Making this AP really relevant to your PCs requires substantial forethought. As a dungeon crawl there's more roleplaying potential than you might expect, but some skews to the silly side (e.g. a battle of the bands in an underground pub in the dungeon). Doing more background work on the Roseguard will pay off.
21
11/11/2024 17:31:52No212433344Overall lots of good combat encounters. Rooms being too small was sometimes a problem. The macguffin you need at the end doesn't really feel well integrated with the theme and action of the place. There's nothing interesting going on outside of the dungeon. 10 levels inside a single dungeon is much less interesting than spreading the campaign out over different areas. 10 levels is a long time to focus on a single big bad.
22
11/11/2024 17:34:36No421221142
23
11/11/2024 17:42:19Yes54322443354
24
11/11/2024 17:52:53Yes53432211353Dealing with the fallout of the combat design still a year after. Dungeon crawler, delivers what s promised. Book 2 feels like a tack on.
25
11/11/2024 17:58:34Yes55443545555
26
11/11/2024 18:06:20Yes42433443554Roleplaying potential in this AP is low in the first book and most of the second, but ramps up pretty hard at the end of the second and into the third. I think the AP gives the players a lot of time to justify their actions as "just helping the town" and not really much information about what's really going on for a long time. For example, there are some fun roleplay hooks in the first book with the morlocks that want to hire you to go down into the ghoul library and wipe them out, but there's basically no incentive for the party to take this deal. If they do, they will immediately lose out on XP for the second floor, have to face the third floor underpowered, and they get the ability to walk freely through the second floor as a reward. There's basically no reason for them to do this except that they want to, and they have far better reason to simply attack the man and kill all his underlings. These kinds of situations continue throughout most of the AP until they deal with Urevian, where they have the opportunity to avoid a potentially disastrous fight at the cost of turning over the soul of a man that they might believe they have set on the path to redemption. This is a good hook, but unfortunately again the book doesn't provide enough incentive for them to take the deal. In cases like these, I have reworked the encounters so that the offers given are much more worth taking, but still left the option there to kill the evil guy that needs their help, as well as changed the way that I handle leveling to not be strictly XP- or milestone-based, but a mix of the two so that players don't feel such a strong need to kill everything for the XP. Overall, the framework provided by the AP is good, but lacking in a few places where it could be really juicy. A lot of the fights are also not very interesting and overly difficult, and I have changed them in some places for the sake of fun.
27
11/11/2024 18:08:17Yes43344444455
28
11/11/2024 18:19:03Yes43432343454Most changes made as a GM were to enable additional or expand RP beyond what was written into the AP.
29
11/11/2024 18:24:21NoToo difficult for the GM to run, General loss of interest in the game33333Not PlayedNot Played33
30
11/11/2024 18:37:07Yes34343322245Not as hard as everyone says. Many combats were easy for my group, but they had a strong balanced party. RP requires some effort, making sure they spend a lot of time in town, as well as trying to talk with some enemies. Would add more low level enemies to some fights next time.
31
11/11/2024 18:44:47Yes34443444554It's good, but it suffers a bit from being the "default" starter adventure for most people. It probably isn't deserving of that honor, if I'm honest. It's fine, don't get me wrong, but I think the main reason it gets recommended so much is because it shares a setting with the Beginner Box and not because it's the best followup.
32
11/11/2024 18:57:19Yes44444445455There are lots of great combats, but also a LOT of combat... It can get a little repetitive, but taken individually things are pretty solid.
33
11/11/2024 19:03:43Yes44433343254
34
11/11/2024 19:09:23Yes44221541524
35
11/11/2024 19:19:12Yes44443344454Encounters really started to suffer from lack of variety for my group, more in terms of setting than enemies. A lot of fights in tight spaces or otherwise difficult areas didn't let the encounters shine, so that's where most of my changes were made. I turned a few of the combat encounters into roleplay ones or swapped them for an environmental challenge, but at the end of the day we all had a good time with this as our first proper PF2e adventure.
36
11/11/2024 19:23:53Yes35432333344
37
11/11/2024 19:40:13No344545555It's a megadungeon, but there's a ton more story and rp than you might expect!
38
11/11/2024 19:50:42Yes44333443454
39
11/11/2024 20:06:27No442454554AV does one thing, and does it very well.
40
11/11/2024 20:28:20Yes4324444Not PlayedNot Played55This was done with the FoundryVTT module
41
11/11/2024 20:46:43No343445455
42
11/11/2024 20:52:34Yes44422344354The first book strongly emphasizes haunts, with ~one haunt per level and the available Ghost Hunter archetype. The second and third books, however, have basically no haunts, screwing over players who take the dedication feat & Haunt Lore. It's also just a weak archetype overall.

Additionally, I recommend lowering the will-o'-wisps' AC, increasing their HP, and buffing their Feed on Fear action. Otherwise, it is just strictly optimal for them to stay invisible forever: regaining 2d4 HP is a laughably small amount. Remember, you can only cast Magic Missile/Force Barrage on targets you can see!
43
11/11/2024 21:33:14Yes43232433352
44
11/11/2024 21:44:20Yes44433334Not Played53What you see is what you get: It's a dungeon crawl. Decent story backing and factional conflict, though! Good number of entertaining NPCs, too.
45
11/11/2024 22:03:29No3434Not Played4444
46
11/11/2024 22:37:22Yes54322342252
47
11/11/2024 22:40:25Yes43422455344
48
11/11/2024 22:51:57No542554454
49
11/11/2024 22:59:59Yes34433344253
50
11/11/2024 23:45:54Yes43322435454
51
11/12/2024 0:16:09Yes4343342Not PlayedNot Played54
52
11/12/2024 0:22:14Yes44431433354
53
11/12/2024 0:25:50Yes54Reasons unrelated to AP quality (ie. Scheduling, Personal Conflicts...ect.)442442554This is a classic-style megadungeon
54
11/12/2024 0:30:59Yes43334434555
55
11/12/2024 0:45:19No42143Not PlayedNot Played54
56
11/12/2024 0:45:28Yes22333433254
57
11/12/2024 0:47:15Yes54232442343
58
11/12/2024 0:51:24No333544454
59
11/12/2024 1:42:22No44344Not PlayedNot Played54
60
11/12/2024 1:59:05No423434353
61
11/12/2024 2:02:27Yes43322453Not Played53
62
11/12/2024 2:04:39Yes54352251353
63
11/12/2024 3:01:22Yes34432453454
64
11/12/2024 3:02:56NoToo difficult for the GM to run, Encounters were too hard43344Not PlayedNot Played53
65
11/12/2024 3:19:21No443554555
66
11/12/2024 3:38:37Yes4443243Not PlayedNot Played54
67
11/12/2024 3:59:11Yes43342445455
68
11/12/2024 6:02:18Yes44332324443
69
11/12/2024 6:37:09Yes34432453454This was my first campaign and there are alot of things I would change in how I ran it
70
11/12/2024 7:20:09No432343553Encounter design is rough, between small rooms, high-level solo monsters, and an extremely metagame-y "the whole floor levels up when you descend one floor".

Traps are BS and pointless.

Otherwise, a solid megadungeon crawl with a strong narrative through line. The in-universe gates between each book were fantastic; I just wish the floors between were less level-scaled to encourage vertical exploration. Doesn't actually teach new players how to dungeon crawl though.

If I ever run this, it would be with Proficiency Without Level.
71
11/12/2024 7:26:10Yes24432442553My biggest issue with the AP is the need to read through the whole thing in order to create the roleplay needed to build a cohesive story.

I WISH I had thought to read through and rewrite beforehand, but it was my first AP. We used free archetype and had 5 players, which helped in terms of balance.
72
11/12/2024 8:51:18NoReasons unrelated to AP quality (ie. Scheduling, Personal Conflicts...ect.)543554Not Played55
73
11/12/2024 9:14:16Yes42332444344
74
11/12/2024 9:44:03Yes43433534455
75
11/12/2024 10:45:47Yes34Encounters were too hard, Insufficient emphasis on language needs. 545344444Ran twice: One group bailed after hitting floor 2 at level 1. First group is just got the 3rd lens.
76
11/12/2024 11:39:10No422343252Abomination Vaults is kind of mediocre. The town is only 15 minutes away from the dungeon but ends up feeling like it is forgotten by the third book of the AP, and isn't integrated well enough into the main plot. Belcorra isn't enough of a presence and is a pretty generic evil sorceress necromancer as written, and the vaults themselves don't feel like they make a lot of sense. It also feels like the adventure is longer than it needs to be, with some of the floors feeling kind of filler-ish. The highlights are the introduction, the Gauntlight going off the first time, the Worm guy, the tavern, the contract devil, and the final boss fight.

The dungeon is not well-suited to new players, with a lot of overlevel encounters on the 2nd-4th floors. It has a poorly signposted wood golem in a room that can easily result in a TPK or multiple dead characters (my party managed to win without any fatalities, fortunately). There's relatively limited RPing opportunities in the adventure; the few ones that are there are pretty good, but a lot of it is fairly hack-and-slashy dungeon crawl.

Overall, it's an OK dungeon, but it doesn't exactly thrill me, and it lacked the character of, say, Halister the Mad Mage's dungeon.
77
11/12/2024 12:06:23Yes54411222242
78
11/12/2024 12:18:37No432333344
79
11/12/2024 12:26:55No443434454AV is extremely brutal but fun, especially if you have a GM that doesn't pull their punches. There definitely should be some Session 0 discussion around lethality, and GMs should help nudge caster players to diversify a little bit so they don't feel useless in certain encounters. The party should also ensure its players can work reasonably well in small battle maps (e.g. might be rough to have five martials running into a closet, and longbow users may have a hard time).

The whole AP is well contained in one central area and overall is just a nice dungeon crawl. Definitely check with the party on themes and tones.
80
11/12/2024 12:31:00Yes53233143454horrible first AP, great for veterans. I hate how everyone recommends it as a first AP when all it does is teach bad habits and reinforce "fighter brain"
81
11/12/2024 13:37:40NoReasons unrelated to AP quality (ie. Scheduling, Personal Conflicts...ect.)343343454
82
11/12/2024 15:02:37Yes44443454555
83
11/12/2024 15:39:44Yes45442553355
84
11/12/2024 16:50:12Yes43454444455I ran the Beginners Box into Abomination Vaults for my table, making them generally one level higher than was expected for the AP. It was quick and easy to use the encounter building guidelines and XP budget system to rebalance encounters and hazards as needed. 10/10, would play again.
85
11/12/2024 23:30:40No321323322
86
11/13/2024 19:06:58No412321332The AP designs entire levels that can completely negate some classes from participating essentially on any level. Primal caster characters are useless for anything but being buff/healing bots for several levels of the dungeon. Other casters are completely negated except as pure support for several levels.
87
11/14/2024 12:19:12Yes34423443554The combat can be very difficult, but fleeing is usually viable and there's usually not tight time pressure. I wish my players had gotten more involved with Otari, but that's probably on me.
88
11/15/2024 11:13:55Yes45332424354
89
11/15/2024 11:38:28No443234253
90
11/15/2024 12:11:39Yes44432443453This AP took a very long time to run - combat after combat after combat mentally exhausted some of the players and I could see some of them getting bored with the monotony of their characters. Make sure your group wants a dungeon crawl, I guess.
91
11/15/2024 13:26:57No444424444
92
11/15/2024 14:04:49Yes43Reasons unrelated to AP quality (ie. Scheduling, Personal Conflicts...ect.)433344255Full time GM. I've run this campaign for 3 groups now all to the end, a few more groups to various places.

The ap is good but it jumps to amazing with some work. Adding in the BB and troubles in Otari really helped add some extra stuff that was more rp and less dungeon crawl.

I made adjustments to the ap after my first run. Adding in: more RP opportunities, more NPC interactions, and more outside the dungeon stuff.
93
11/15/2024 14:53:50Yes45533444555
94
11/15/2024 15:08:02Yes4344223Not PlayedNot Played54"How would you rate each book in this AP" does not have labels for top and bottom of scale.

Personally I quite like it and my players are enjoying it, but I think they expected something more whimsical. "We're going on an adventure!" rather than "This dungeon is really scary and deadly but we're going to clear it no matter the cost."
95
11/15/2024 16:05:03No433352454
96
11/15/2024 16:15:10No455555555
97
11/15/2024 16:19:17Yes42411122Not Played2My recommendation is not a "1" because you could theoretically take each fully lit Foundry Battlemap and rework it, which would save you time.
98
11/15/2024 16:24:34No432432453
99
11/15/2024 16:31:22Yes43443434544
100
11/15/2024 17:13:06No422342342Fairly overrated I think. Some of the dungeon levels are interesting and creative (primarily in Book 1, and start of Book 3). But almost the entirety of Book 2 feels like time-wasting filler, especially when they couldn't even be bothered to connect it to the thin sliver of Main Plot that Books 1 and 3 have. Encounters are fairly varied, but rarely elicit excitement. Overall, this AP is the definition of "just okay".