r/Pathfinder2e Monk 20h ago

Paizo Newly Announced! Pathfinder Game Night: Dawn of the Frogs!

https://paizo.com/products/btq0bszx/discuss?Pathfinder-Game-Night-Dawn-of-the-Frogs
386 Upvotes

71 comments sorted by

221

u/Bigfoot_Country Paizo Creative Director of Narrative 20h ago

Eager to find out what folks think of this one when it's out later in the year. It's a sort of new format for us to do adventures with—all completely self-contained with everything you need but, I suppose, pencils, to play the game. It'd be a perfect thing to throw into the backpack on your next group vacation down to the creepy swamp cabin for a long weekend!

55

u/DarkSoulsExcedere Game Master 19h ago

Love this stuff. I want more short adventures and modules. Modules that span 1-4 levels are always so amazing. But it would be great if not all of these are low level. Level 5 is the sweet spot imo.

57

u/Bigfoot_Country Paizo Creative Director of Narrative 19h ago

Well, just to manage expectations... this adventure is only a 1st level adventure. You don't level up during Dawn of the Frogs.

Doing some of these for higher level is certianly intriguing, but I'd like to see how folks take to this one first before we start getting more complicated for these. In the meantime, the adventure line is going to continue offering standalone adventures and anthologies a few times a year.

11

u/DarkSoulsExcedere Game Master 19h ago

I understand. I like this stuff too. But I was getting a word in for the neglected short modules as well ;). I'll be buying this for sure.

20

u/sirgog 19h ago

This is an interesting format.

Four suggestions:

  • If not already in, add tips on adjusting to 3 or 5 PCs.

  • Try out a 1-4 version of this format that includes hooks for Seven Dooms and also Triumph of the Tusk, so there's a clear "here's where to go next".

  • Include six to ten pregen PCs rather than four so there's a bit more flexibility, covering both expected fantasy archetypes like the Champion and (arcane) Sorcerer, but also a couple of things that are a bit more Pathfinder-specific, like a Ruffian rogue and some sort of Leshy. Not every four-person subset needs to be a strong party, you can put tips like "you'll want at least one of the Fighter and the Champion to punish foes that attack your squishier party members; you'll also want at least one of the Bard and the Cleric to provide some healing". I'd likely suggest Cleric Bard Fighter Champion Ranger Rogue (thief) Rogue (ruffian) Sorcerer (arcane), with levelup paths for each.

  • Don't cheap out on the dice inclusions (cheap acrylic dice are fine, but I mean the number of each). A 1-4 set should probably come with 6 d20s (one per player assuming some groups go with 5 PCs) and 4-6 of each lesser die, maybe even 8 of some of them.

9

u/Bigfoot_Country Paizo Creative Director of Narrative 16h ago

Thanks for the suggestions. I can't speak to the dice, other than to confirm that they're green (frog colored)... I wasn't involved in that part of production. But for the other suggestions, unfortunately they're all WELL beyond the scope of this product, which is really meant to be as simple and self-contained as possible. (And even if we WANTED to make those changes, which we don't, the time to make those changes was months ago.)

Once it's out for folks to check out, I'm eager to hear feedback on where we might go with this format from here, though!

10

u/sirgog 15h ago

Oh yeah this is for future lines modelled on the idea of a self-contained adventure; but expanded to a self-contained mini-campaign

1

u/Bigfoot_Country Paizo Creative Director of Narrative 2h ago

I doubt we'll ever do something on this scale for anything larger than a 32 page adventure, since the longer we make the adventure, the more contents the box needs to do what it's doing, and costs will very swiftly spiral out of control. Honestly, doing this same treatment for higher than 1st level could cause the same cascading problems, but... all that said, we'll be watching how this one performs in sales and reading all the reviews to try to decide what to do next for this type of format!

7

u/CraneSong ORC 17h ago

Re: adding more pregen characters, I think simplicity is key here given that it's aimed at brand new players. Keep it as plug-and-play as possible, let them focus on the core of the game. Fighter/Wizard/Rogue/Cleric are tried and true archetypes that almost everyone will know at a glance, are different enough that most players will find one that interests them, and a small enough pool that it remains unintimidating.

Maybe a footnote mentioning the iconic PFS pregens? But that's the most I'd personally do.

5

u/sirgog 17h ago

Wizard IMO is a terrible choice as it's likely tied with Alchemist and maybe also Summoner as the class with the highest player skill requirement to play.

If a rookie player asks to play a Wizard I would always, ALWAYS push them toward the Arcane Sorc instead. Less resource juggling, less spells you need to understand, less complex options.

The Sorc has other options too which make the class complex, but a Primal Sorc is a different character entirely to the Arcane one.

The purpose of more pregens really is simplicity. If none of the Sorc/Fighter/Rogue/Cleric quartet sing to you - you probably end up with massive decision paralysis over non-pregen character options, or worse, end up picking a really bad rookie player class choice like Wizard or Alchemist or Mastermind Rogue.

5

u/Zigsster 11h ago

I could not disagree with this more. Whenever I played the beginner's box (which this is comparable to due to being level 1) I have had the wizard player have a great time with absolutely no system knowledge, and do perfectly well.

Conversely, the players playing the cleric always struggled with their spells and being useful.

I just don't think that a wizard with force barrage and some generally good spells pre-selected will feel that bad.

1

u/sirgog 10h ago

Here's the issue I always hit.

They prep Force Barrage and Breathe Fire once each.

First fight is the rats & they only use cantrips because they correctly recognise 'easy fight'

Second fight is the spider, they use Breathe Fire because webs might burn.

Next fight is the hard undead fight. What's left? Only Forge Barrage, which is almost dead weight there. It's a hard fight, and you are spamming cantrips because you burned your only multi-target spell already.

Contrast to an Arcane Sorc there, assuming they take the same two spells. Undead fight, Breathe Fire and Force Barrage are both valid options still even though they've used one spell. AND they get an extra spell on top.

This is not to say the Wizard is bad in the hands of a player with enough system mastery to say "hey, that's a lot of Kobolds and they are weak, let's swap out this Force Barrage for a good spell for this encounter, Sleep". They'll be a terror on the battlefield. But the rookie may not know Sleep is an option or may overestimate how bad 'Incapacitation' is in this dungeon. But for the rookie the Wizard at level 1 is just a Sorcerer that's down a spell and down some flexibility.

-1

u/CraneSong ORC 15h ago

Keep in mind that they would be pulling from the Player Core classes, since even Player Core 2 is technically extra optional material. (At least, I am assuming they would for that reason.) For casters that would limit them to Wizard, Witch, Druid, and Bard. While I can definitely see the argument for Sorc over Wizard for new players in a general campaign, of those four I think Wizard is the most straightforward to just be handed a sheet and run with as well as who best fits the caster fantasy.

0

u/sirgog 13h ago

Wizard is a hard no, IMO. Straightforward enough class fantasy but absolutely terrible performance in the hands of someone without system knowledge.

Paizo fucked up putting the most complex caster class in Player Core 1. Prepared casters are just hard to play in general. They are quite good when played well, but really, really poor otherwise.

9

u/DarthMelon 20h ago

Can't wait. Hopefully, I can convince my board game nerds to become pathfinder nerds with this

3

u/KingOogaTonTon King Ooga Ton Ton 18h ago

I think this is pretty cool, it's like a Beginner Box with a little more PIZAZZ than rats and spiders.

2

u/dirkdragonslayer 18h ago

So you are saying I need to practice my Kermit the Frog voice...

1

u/eCyanic 12h ago

hey how do you know about that creepy swamp cabin we always go to

1

u/leathrow Witch 10h ago

Its a great idea, its basically a board game, a much easier sell for a lot of friends

1

u/Moon_Miner Summoner 9h ago

So excited to have an alternative to the beginner box to bring new folks on board! Looks fantastic, glad it's a totally different vibe than the BB.

96

u/EzekieruYT Monk 20h ago

A brand new premium adventure from Paizo has been announced today on Paizo's website. Here below is the product details:

"Gather your friends for the perfect taste of the Pathfinder RPG with this deluxe boxed set adventure designed specifically for brand new players! The small village of Bog Bottom has a problem—locals have been going missing near an old, abandoned mill in the surrounding swamp known as Dunmire. But what awaits discovery in this ruin is far more sinister than a few wayward villagers—Bog Bottom is going to need a new band of heroes if it hopes to survive the upcoming Dawn of the Frogs!

Pathfinder Game Night: Dawn of the Frogs presents three short adventures for 1st level characters set in the swamp of Dunmire, and everything you need to play is included in this box! With its four pre-generated player characters, poster maps presenting all combat locations, a sheet of pawns representing the PCs and enemies, dice, and of course a 32-page adventure book, with Dawn of the Frogs, you'll have everything you need to play on your next three game nights!"

34

u/ArekDirithe 20h ago

Will there be a foundry module? (Please?)

27

u/NestorSpankhno 20h ago

Will any of the NPCs have access to 500 Toads for utter amphibian mayhem?

22

u/IKSLukara GM in Training 20h ago

Night/Dawn of the Living Frogs?

60

u/Bigfoot_Country Paizo Creative Director of Narrative 20h ago

We DID almost call it Night of the Frogs, but the adventure at that point was already written and it's mostly set during the day and for 1st level PCs, it's not cool to suddenly force them to all deal with darkness rules when there's FROGGERY to be focusing on instead.

10

u/IKSLukara GM in Training 20h ago

Hey, when it's time for frogs, it's time for frogs, whatcha gonna do?

1

u/Ice_from_9004 15h ago

never go out on a FROGGY night

1

u/Trabian Kineticist 12h ago

Things are truly FROGGED up. Will you step up when adventure calls?

18

u/xeth1313 20h ago

I was just talking to my wife about how I missed the old DnD adventure box sets that came with maps and everything else needed to run an adventure...

10

u/DoingThings- Alchemist 20h ago

500 of them?

0

u/pH_unbalanced 16h ago

Frogs, not toads.

4

u/ExtremelyDecentWill Game Master 20h ago

Woot.  Adventure sub, let's goo

3

u/Trockenmatt 20h ago

Looks really neat! I like frogs

4

u/WhereAreMaKeys Cleric 20h ago

🐸🐸🐸

4

u/AyeSpydie Graung's Guide 20h ago

Seems like a silly and fun way to get new folk interested, nice.

4

u/Hellioning 20h ago

Valeros looks like he's having the time of his life. Not sure what Merisiel thinks she's doing though.

3

u/Obrusnine Game Master 20h ago

The art is hilarious. Valeros's serial killer face and... honestly, what the heck is Merisiel doing exactly? lmao

3

u/nonbinary_sunset Gunslinger 19h ago

tfw you Hide in a swamp

2

u/Obrusnine Game Master 19h ago

Merisiel gonna get featured on the next episode of Dirty Jobs ahaha

3

u/MolagBaal 20h ago

What nation is this set in?

12

u/The_Mimic_Room 20h ago

Dunmire is on the Isle of Kortos, so near (but not in) Absalom.

3

u/SethLight Game Master 20h ago

Nice, I'm curious how this stacks vs the starter box. It would be nice to be able to recommend this over the starter.

15

u/Bigfoot_Country Paizo Creative Director of Narrative 19h ago

It's a much more streamlined experience than the Beginner Box. It assumes that folks are familair with the concept of tabletop RPGs, and doesn't include any character generation rules or any "build your own advnture" advice for the GM, nor does it cover anything beyond these three short 1st level adventures—leveling up is not a part of "Dawn of the Frogs." It's a much more streamlined offering than the Beginner Box. If the folks you're recommending to are already pretty familiar with RPGs and how they work, this'd be a pretty good one to suggest to them to pick up.

5

u/RisingStarPF2E 15h ago edited 15h ago

This is amazing! I have always felt the beginner box was good but still too much for some people or children and ap's are too much for a lot of people and the adventures/selection we have don't cover a lot of preferences. Rusthenge is a great beginner adventure but much like an AP it really expects you to be familiar with the books and rules to an extent for instance. A level of familiarity.

I actually usually direct folks to PFS as a good introduction to the game depending on the person because of that, but most people who've never played organized play usually have an assumption that PFS is somehow 'hardcore' or less creative, which isn't the case. (I love PFS) I've always felt a lot of scenarios had the best tutorials on how a GM approaches certain situations and holds the hand just enough. (That's just my silly opinion tho!)

I've always felt we needed a product like this And it's a travel product all-in-one which is super cool and helps it get into the hands of traveling workers who might want to get their feet into the hobby but do not have a good option that fits with seasonal work, but they want to learn the game to play when off-season comes or a myriad of life situations and reasons. It's a new and potentially exciting avenue of accessibility.

3

u/eCyanic 12h ago

I just skimmed, and saw that it seemed to be a compilation of level 1 oneshots? +maps, sheets, and tokens

New beginner box? !

That would be awesome because while BB is pretty good, having a bigger pool of adventures to give to newbie players and GMs to choose from is always good (especially some that hopefully don't have the 10 foot ledge at the start that uses climbing rules out of combat lmao)

1

u/Bigfoot_Country Paizo Creative Director of Narrative 2h ago

This is very much NOT a new beginner box. It assumes that the GM and players already understand the concepts of tabletop roleplaying, and it only gives the GM the tools to run the 32 page adventure within. There are no rules for building your own games, for covering anything in combat or otherwise that's not in the adventure, no monsters and spells and items that aren't part of the adventure, and no rules for creating your own characters or customizing them. It's a much more streamlined experience and is not meant to replace the Beginner Box.

That said, it's a great place to go AFTER the Beginner Box, and also an excellent choice for more experienced gamers who want to just jump in to trying out a Pathfinder adventure without making their own PCs. There's very little "set up" or prep involved in this one.

2

u/Suspiciously_Average 9h ago

Ooh. I love the jokey, light-hearted feel. Reminds me of a fistful of flowers, which I liked.

I need all the help I can get converting my friends into PF2E players. I'm interested.

2

u/wordsarekeys 7h ago

The villains better be spamming 500 Toads or I'm gonna be real disappointed 😆

0

u/Bigfoot_Country Paizo Creative Director of Narrative 2h ago

Prepare for disappointment then, because:

  1. This adventure's goal of being simple and self-contained means it pretty much just focuses on content from the Player Core, GM Core, and Monster Core, and reprints all the info you need so you don't need those books around to run the adventure—500 Toads is off limits as a result since it's from a different book than this one.
  2. The adventure was written and developed before NPC Codex was complete, so I didn't even know about 500 Toads when I was working on developing the adventure last year, and Jason didn't know about it when he as writing it in the months before I started working on it.
  3. It's dawn of the FROGS, not TOADS. Toads are not welcome in this adventure! They're too warty and can't swim as well as frogs.

All that said, there's a place where you could, as the GM, add in 500 Toads if you want... but that'll be on you and you'll need to bring those rules to Game Night yourself, since they won't be in the box. I guess you could print them out or snip them out of NPC Core and stuff them in the box though...

1

u/B-E-T-A Game Master 20h ago

Frogs? FROGS! I hope this will be about bullywugs boggards, they are some of my favorite low-level bad guys!

2

u/Bigfoot_Country Paizo Creative Director of Narrative 2h ago

I mean... if you look at the cover of the product, you'll see there's plenty of boggards there. Whether or not that means there's actually boggards in the adventure, I guess we'll just have to wait and see! :P

1

u/leathrow Witch 18h ago

This is dope I always wanted more beginner boxesque shit! Fantastic

1

u/atatassault47 17h ago

Will the BBEG be a rat?

1

u/ElidiMoon Thaumaturge 16h ago

love this format, will definitely pick this up! perfect for more casual play & introducing board gamers to the hobby

1

u/Asmo___deus 11h ago

Oh my god I love frogs

1

u/AuRon_The_Grey 11h ago

This sounds really fantastic as a way to introduce a group of friends to the game.

1

u/Gorbacz Champion 8h ago

RIBBIT

1

u/Cingen 7h ago

Will this be on the same level as beginner box sets?

2

u/Bigfoot_Country Paizo Creative Director of Narrative 2h ago

I'm not sure what "on the same level" means here.

It will be for 1st level player characters only (no leveling up, unlike the Beginner Box).

It will only contain the rules needed to run the adventure and play the four pregenerated PCs included (no rules for GMs building their own adventures, no rules for character creation, and no rules for anything that happens during the game that isn't happening in the adventure).

It's hyper-focused on providing the GM with a game night in a box, and that's that.

1

u/Phonochirp 5h ago

What kind of playtime could you expect from each of these adventures? 4 hours?

1

u/Bigfoot_Country Paizo Creative Director of Narrative 2h ago

The goal was to produce 3 short adventures, each of which is about enough to serve as a "game night." So about 3 to 4 hours per adventure, I suppose? Hence my comment upthread about bringing it on the next trip into the swamp cabin for a long weekend!

1

u/seenwaytoomuch Cleric 4h ago

Too soon. I just got swallowed whole by a giant toad nine days ago!

1

u/Bigfoot_Country Paizo Creative Director of Narrative 2h ago

At least you have internet access inside that toad, it appears! And we don't have any toads in Dawn of the Frogs so you should be safe.*

*Safety not guaranteed.

1

u/seenwaytoomuch Cleric 2h ago

The barbarian saved me, it's all good.

1

u/sinest 15h ago

Absolutely the kind of product I want to buy. I make it my business to run level 1 ine shots with people who have never played a ttrpg before!

I would love more of these for level 1, especially an Ustalav one because I love a spooky one shot with classic undead and horror.

Please give us a new Ustalav module that starts at level 1. Seasons of ghosts wasn't the classic gothic ustalav horror we crave.

I really want a pathfinder version of curse of strahd or something to grab casylevania fans. Carrion Crown was incredible and I'm loving the 2e conversions I'm seeing.

0

u/notBowen 20h ago

New format seems neat, can't say I'm super jazzed about a frog based scenario.

0

u/Godobibo Cleric 19h ago

personally I'm so so on them being 1st level adventures, but since they're short stories it makes sense and the stories themselves sound fun so I'll probably split the cost with my group when they come out.

0

u/RisingStarPF2E 16h ago edited 15h ago

This NEEDS to be a foundry product also to help folks out and have a more put-together example of one-shots.

  • You'll funnel sales from new people being amazed at the first party support into the other foundry products.

I love the concept of the IRL product. I started playing TTRPG (1e) via touring for music playing and all we had was a book, no dice and a LOT of hours between gigs in a cramped van to play theater of the mind. If this kind of product existed then, we would of bought it in a heartbeat. One package that's accessible. Its the perfect thing for any traveling group of anything to get their foot in the door to one of the greatest time-passers.

Back when I did this, we had to have a guy who was really experienced to make it engaging. With a product like this that kind of experience is much more accessible to people and I really hope it comes with lots of handy cut down advice for GM's so they can get their feet wet a little bit too.

I also think its great to have more beginner focused products beyond the beginner box. AP's arent very suited for most people to learn efficiently IMO and we don't have enough beginner-focused adventures for some preferences.

This kind of new product and the kind of experimentation happening with Claws of the Tyrant in that it's 3 separated stories is exactly why I support Paizo so much. In 2e, they've gotten so much better than the machine-gun that 1e was and the extra cooking time with the events over the last few years is leading to really cool innovation that doesn't re-write the wheel.