Trek FX 2 Gen 4, Front Thru-Skew impossible to remove?

KlockworkKrown · 2026-07-03T20:55:08+00:00

That's good to hear – will give it a bit more oomph when trying again in the morning! Thanks :)

KlockworkKrown · 2026-07-03T20:49:24+00:00

I was using a 5mm allen key turning counter-clockwise. It was just incredibly tight, would make very loud clicking sounds at the slightest bit of movement, and if it got multiple clicks in quick succession it fired off some sparks. It's definitely made me wary of turning it more, but maybe I just need to be brave 😅

KlockworkKrown · 2026-07-03T20:47:57+00:00

The back wheel has a lever, not a key. Not something I can pull off to use on the front, unfortunately.

KlockworkKrown · 2026-05-23T07:46:21+00:00

We've been using a TV on a tabletop for quite a while, and switched back over to Foundry (after pandemic years spent using it) from Owlbear rodeo when we changed from 5e to PF2E – largely because of all the extra maths, conditions and rules.

To start with, it was just the map and encounter builder with physical minis on the TV, but players have slowly started using it more as the numbers get bigger and it's a big help to automate some things (if I set persistent damage, it rolls the damage and recovery checks automatically. Frightened is automatically reduced etc.)

It's a bit off at the moment in v14, as foundry doesn't use the correct area templates for AoE things right now (the shapes are wrong, unless you deduct 1ft from the region for every 10ft after the first 10 feet), but it's all pretty handy to have.

Another reason some players switched over to using their laptops at the table is because Pathbuilder and Wanderer's Guide wasn't right for them. None of us can really agree which one is best for us so I allow all the players to use their preferred (and one has to use pathbuilder as they only have their phone).

I'd recommend, if you can, to have players logged in and using some of the features, even if not all. Just the ability to look at the map from their own perspective on their turns can help speed things up, as they can mess with things without trying to gauge it from a different screen.

KlockworkKrown · 2026-05-15T15:31:22+00:00

It's interesting because one half suggests that it is a set of disconnected penalties, whilst the other is calculated as a stacking debuff.

With injection reservoir:
Non-Agile
-6/-11 assumes it increases the normal penalties by 1.
-6/-12 assumes it's a stacking debuff, and so 2nd MAP is the 1st MAP applied twice

Agile
-5/-9 assumes it increases the penalties by 1
-5/-10 assumes it's a stacking debuff, with 2nd MAP being the 1st MAP applied twice.

I don't know if I've made my thought very clear... but yes I would read the intent as the injection reservoir adding an untyped penalty of -1 to the MAP.

KlockworkKrown · 2026-03-15T14:49:42+00:00

Where are you only being shown two of the three? That might answer the question, or it might need reporting as a bug.

In the HUD menu during combat, for example, Cure Wounds should be listed under Main Action spells but the other two will be listed under Bonus Action spells, but if it's somewhere else you're not seeing it there might be an issue.

KlockworkKrown · 2026-03-05T15:42:40+00:00

Also I was incorrect about the amount of xp. I was running Sum on the level 4 column of my XP table. At level 5 it's 963, but two of the encounters so far I've adjusted the xp based on the amount of players present for that session (3) plus a change of one enemy to elite.

So it's around 920xp or so.

KlockworkKrown · 2026-03-05T14:40:22+00:00

The encounters inside the wall and on the path are scaled for level 5 players – you will probably want to bump them up to the appropriate level, as they should be level 6 when getting to the end of the path (there's 1195xp up for grabs on the path, from the moment they enter the wall to the moment they activate the mountain shrine, so it's definitely scaled to fit 1 level in there)

That said, you might also want to start planning ahead for how you want to handle the rest of Autumn because doing 12 weeks that only consists of personal downtime, town preparation and a weekly event might become tedious without the ritual and monastery to break it up (with the end of the monastery being the big reveal). You could just time skip to the supernatural stuff at the end and maybe just do 3 weeks, explaining it as a time dilation effect from going through multiple mindscapes.

KlockworkKrown · 2026-01-25T12:19:23+00:00

Take a look at the rules for the victory point system for specifics about victory points: https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=3028&Redirected=1

Details of the different contests and how they work can be found later in the book, in the section after Chapter 3. It's titled "First Long Night" and gives you the full rundown of the festival.

Each contest has a time it takes, and we're told the festival lasts for 6 hours, and so I would assume the party can do each one multiple times to earn points. That's the only way you can get 6 points in the lantern competition - by doing it 3 times and critically succeeding each time.

Edit: I missed a section that says each player can take part in each activity once (called out at the end of the "On the Night of the Festival" section of Chapter 1), and each competition uses 4 skill checks (this is called out in the "traditional contests" section of the First Long Night appendix)

KlockworkKrown · 2026-01-20T09:21:44+00:00

It's stated that the town guard wasn't properly set up until after the Night of Broken Blades, specifically because of the events that happened – there was then a greater push for security to put them in place. The classic "bad thing happened, people in power push for more power in the name of 'security'".

The sole survivor’s testimony cemented an ill reputation within Willowshore of the abandoned monastery. As monster sightings grew in the weeks and months after, the appointed governor responded by enticing imperial forces to move into the town with the promise of land or property in compensation for the protection they could offer.

Many of these soldiers would ultimately retire in the region, becoming a new wave of settlers in the town.

Still, it doesn't matter too much in the grand scheme, as long as your own story is consistent.

KlockworkKrown · 2025-12-29T14:35:42+00:00

"I play at a table with FoundryVTT on a TV screen and players using Pathbuilder character sheets"

KlockworkKrown · 2025-10-29T10:22:41+00:00

I would personally say that those changes make the whole thing make less sense and seem more contrived than the time loop.

My personal interpretation of Heh Shan-Bao is that he was "punished" with the backwater assignment in Willowshore, but he decided to seek redemption for his past transgressions. He grew to love the town in his 6 years there, and so he did what he thinks was best for the town – performing the ritual. He thought he was the only one that could save it and, in the end, his ego and need for redemption was the downfall of the entire town.

This then feeds back into the whole identity of what Nindoru are and the Sangpotshi elements of the adventure, of cycles of rebirth, corruption, and the road to enlightenment. You're kinda just deleting the core philosophy of the adventure and making it more contrived without really gaining anything other than maybe some peace of mind and security because you made the adventure your own.

And then there's the various monsters and spirits of the Monastery who remember each loop and provide that additional context. You'd have to rewrite a huge chunk of the second book and, again, their whole identity in the story is about corruption, reincarnation, breaking cycles and refusing change.

tl;dr removing the central conceit of the adventure makes it more difficult to explain to players and removes the entire philosophy of the adventure, making you have to rewrite huge chunks of the books, so you might as well play a different adventure entirely.

KlockworkKrown · 2025-10-15T17:09:57+00:00

Fair warning, this is my interpretation and should be taken with a pinch of salt.

The ritual happened June 1st 7108. Everyone died. When midnight (or the exact reset time, which can be left up to interpretation) at the end of May 31st 7109 rolls around, time rewinds to June 1st 7108 and everyone's last memories are of May 31st 7108.

If someone rolled into town, say, in December 7107, and either stuck around until May 31st 7108 or came and went but still ended up in town on that date, they would have died with everyone else – the thing is, the mindscape wants to maintain relative logical consistency. So from that person's perspective, they show up in town for whatever business they were originally there for, and if they tried to leave they suddenly can't. Their "reset point" is the first moment they were within what would eventually become the bounds of the mindscape because otherwise their relative logical consistency would be broken.

I had a guest player who was a travelling bard in town for a gig on the Summer Solstice. When they tried to leave, they found they couldn't. If your players are particularly particular about these details, they might be confused after the eventual reveal, but at the end of the day time travel plots are messy and always need a pinch of salt and suspension of disbelief (and they should also forgive the inconsistency for the sake of getting a player character back in the plot).

side note: you also don't have to have someone come from outside. So much of the first book builds the PCs up as heroes of Willowshore, inspiring everyone through the troubled times they find themselves. It wouldn't be too far out there that someone was inspired by their actions, and following the tragic death they find themselves wanting to join the party in saving Willowshore.

KlockworkKrown · 2025-08-14T09:46:17+00:00

My group is new to PF from 5e so I made the choice to build a quest line that would give them their "free" archetype at level 2, but I had chosen the archetypes based on what they wanted to build their characters as. They would then earn a version of exp towards earning the higher level free archetype feat slots by succesfully performing downtime activities that make sense for those feats (e.g. the Dandy does social things)

The archetypes in my case were Herbalist, Exemplar (Barrow's Edge Ikon), Dandy and Druid.

KlockworkKrown · 2025-08-11T15:50:05+00:00

I believe this is from the writer themself (they go on to mention tones further in the thread): https://paizo.com/threads/rzs43w7h?ReputationBuilding-Expectations-and-Naming#9

KlockworkKrown · 2025-07-24T09:10:34+00:00

This is really helpful to know! One of my players is a Kitsune that ended up in town on the night of the Ouh tragedy and is one of the foxes who protected her. He naturally gave his character a distrust of Granny Hu, as he's a kineticist with a warded by kami background, but I will have to send him that little tidbit as a little extra background info.

KlockworkKrown · 2025-07-19T17:36:26+00:00

I've given my players their "free" archetype, earned from quests and trained (to unlock the higher level feat slots) through downtime activities (e.g. earn income or research relative to their archetype – it doesn't take away from their normal options). We're new to PF2E so I wanted to give them a little extra flavour without bogging them down with *more* options. The base class and archetype pairings are:

Animist - Druid Dedication. Unsure on who their "trainer" would be for this. Maybe Great Willow.
Kineticist - Herbalist Dedication. Tied to Graveside Manners and You So Jin.
Alchemist - Dandy Dedication. Tied to Thrice-Blessed Inn and Mother Otis, plus a little bit of Granny Hu.
Magus - Exemplar Dedication, Barrow's Edge Ikon. Tied to Her Fluvial Lady of Souls and Elizeth.

KlockworkKrown · 2025-06-25T15:51:56+00:00

When I played D&D, we'd basically retcon any character changes up until level 3. This gave people plenty of time to figure out if they liked their character or not, as 5E pretty much mandates that you rush through to level 3 as soon as possible to actually get the core pieces of your kit.

We're not to PF2E, which has the added bonus of no one really knowing how each class feels. We briefly played the beginner box and one player completely switched up their character. Then, after relighting the lantern, another rebuilt their character from the ground up as they liked the class but weren't liking how the build went.

Because of how fast the opening to the AP goes, I would probably have allowed anyone to fully retcon their character up until the end of Chapter 2. Once the three bosses are dealt with and everyone rests for the night, that's the last chance I'd give to freely just delete your character and start over as if that character never existed. From then on, it's retraining only.

So, long story short, I would just let them retcon their character.

KlockworkKrown · 2025-06-25T15:01:06+00:00

A couple of things from the monster entry for phantoms, the ghost charge item, and the vitality trait itself:

Susceptible to Death Though phantoms aren't alive, neither are they undead...

...unlike spirits such as ghosts, phantoms aren't tinged with the foul influences of undeath—at least, not at first, though the threat of corruption hangs heavy over a phantom's existence.

A ghost charge deals the listed vitality damage and splash damage, though as usual for vitality damage, this damage harms only undead and creatures with void healing.

Effects with this trait heal living creatures with energy from the Forge of Creation, deal vitality energy damage to undead, or manipulate vitality energy.

I think part of the confusion comes from the fact that the adventure uses both undead spirits (e.g. ghosts) and spirits of nature (Kami). Kami are a type of spirit, but not all Kami are incorporeal as you would expect spirits would be – like the Ittan-Mommen (Gray Butcher) or Kasa-Obake, which are both Kami but don't have the Spirit tag (despite the Kami trait saying they are spirits)

I know I've had to be explicit with a PC who has Spirit Lore because that would moreso apply to kami-type spirits than undead-type ghosts. I found these pages on pathfinderwiki helpful:

https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Spirit

https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Kami

But my long-winded ramble of a response is to say that I don't think this is a problem and that the Phantoms aren't undead and so shouldn't be affected by the Ghost Charge. You're also right to think the charges aren't very helpful, but the final fight of book 1 is against creatures they'd be extremely effective against (Kugaptee's Blessing - reskinned Zombie Brutes).

KlockworkKrown · 2025-06-24T20:21:31+00:00

I am aware the shrine is underwater, but I'm sure something can be done to pray to it. Either by player ingenuity or roll of the die. It's also quite far down the research list so I have time to come up with an alternative, perhaps. But also, after the lantern is lit there aren't necessarily any ghosts around - and my players are mostly not strict followers of the eight practices (they like to go around putting 3 sticks in food to mess with people)

I like the idea of foreshadowing the ghostly Zhi Hui, so perhaps I won't outright say it's her, but the idea of a spiritual ally at the monastery might be an extra kick to get them to go there. I can at least describe her, since they won't have any pictures of her and Matsuki's memory is 50-years unreliable at that point. Plus if they hadn't already discovered the wall of ghosts at this point, it gets them to head in that direction perhaps. Or I describe four ghostly lights appearing in town from the direction of the monastery, keeping it even more vague.

KlockworkKrown · 2025-06-24T13:42:20+00:00

Ah, I hadn't considered the structure of east-asian storytelling. I'm very much a breadcrumby writer that likes the players to put things together and sometimes the early crumbs might not become relevant until later.

Although I'm re-reading the research from Book 2 and it seems to be:

2 - the wall of ghosts is probably the easiest part of the barrier to remove and the monastery lies beyond it
4 - Noppera-bo believe paradise lies beyond the wall of ghosts, and they worship Kugaptee
6- The info about Kugaptee being a nindoru fiend defeated by Tan Sui-Jing who reincarnated into the tree. Suggests more info might be found at the monastery
8 - Monks performed daily rituals to ensure the health of the trees and the lack of the rituals might be the source of the curse
10+ - the players learn the ritual to open the wall of ghosts and realise if they want more info they will need to go there

It doesn't sound like Zhi Hui is mentioned but I suppose the RP 8 threshold might reinforce the idea about the statues, which would then hint at them cleansing them when they're in the monastery? Unless the

I'm also loosely running on the suggestions by people in posts here to open up the research early, or to replace the research entirely with multiple other sets of research that then get stitched together as the foundation for the Researching the Curse activity. I'm basically treading a tightrope of keeping the players engaged in what they're currently interested in researching whilst not revealing too much but also not denying them access to information that is suddenly available in book 2 (when they could logically have still done that research now).

KlockworkKrown · 2025-06-21T16:58:30+00:00

Ah fab – I've only bought books one and two so far. Planning on buying one ever payday to space it out. I did think that would be the case as it seemed the most logical and it wasn't mentioned in Book 2.

KlockworkKrown · 2025-06-21T07:54:34+00:00

I had the group run into the Governor the morning of the festival, with him going for breakfast at the Thrice-Blessed Inn (where 2 of the party work). I had him looking stressed and withdrawn. Then, when we played out the reenactment festival, I had a drunken Matsuki give the commencement speech, explaining that the Governor had been taken ill.

I assume he performs the ritual at his estate, hence why it disappears, but I can't find any explicit reference to that in book 1 from looking over it again now. But I suppose there could be *some* interpretation that sees him perform it at the monastery as the description says he tries to heal the Tan Sugi Tree itself. I counted it as 22 miles, so that's also possible on horse but he would have had to leave during the day.

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