Player Guide: Volume 5 - Crash and Burn
Levels: 9 to 11 Tone: Everything goes wrong. Then it gets worse. Then you get angry. What you need: Creativity, resilience, and trust in your crew.
Fair Warning: This Volume Is Rough
Volume 5 is the darkest stretch of the campaign. Bad things happen to your characters. You will lose resources. You will feel cornered. This is intentional, and it is temporary.
Your GM has a plan. The story goes to hard places so that the payoff in Volume 6 hits harder. If your character is suffering, lean into it. Some of the best roleplaying in any campaign comes from the moments when everything falls apart and you have to figure out who your character really is.
Survival Mode: What Happens When You Lose Everything
Early in this volume, your crew's situation changes dramatically. Without spoiling exactly how, here's what "survival mode" looks like mechanically:
What Changes
| Normal Play | Survival Mode |
|---|---|
| Walk into any shop and buy gear | Limited access; some vendors refuse service |
| Bank accounts and assets available | Financial access restricted |
| Move freely through public spaces | Recognition is a constant risk |
| Black market contacts available | Contacts may go cold |
Skills That Keep You Alive
| Skill | Why It Matters Now |
|---|---|
| Stealth | Avoiding attention is no longer optional |
| Deception | False identities, cover stories, blending in |
| Diplomacy | Convincing reluctant people to help you anyway |
| Survival | When civilized options dry up |
| Thievery | Sometimes you take what you need |
| Crafting | Improvise, repair, and make do |
| Medicine | Professional healing may not be available |
The crew's most important resource is each other. When external support disappears, internal teamwork is what keeps you going. Aid actions, shared knowledge, and creative problem-solving matter more than ever.
Racing and Chase Mechanics
This volume includes high-speed vehicle encounters. Here's how chases work in PF2E:
Chase Structure
Chases are run as skill challenges, not standard combat. Each round, you make a check to navigate an obstacle:
| Phase | What Happens | Example Checks |
|---|---|---|
| Obstacle | GM describes the hazard | Hairpin turn, debris field, narrow gap |
| Check | You roll an appropriate skill | Piloting (Crafting), Acrobatics, Perception |
| Result | Degrees of success determine position | Crit success = gain ground, crit fail = fall behind or crash |
Key Points
- Multiple skills work. A hairpin turn might use Piloting (Crafting), but a clever player might argue for Athletics (brute-forcing the turn), Perception (spotting the line early), or even Deception (faking out a pursuer).
- Vehicle condition matters. A damaged vehicle imposes penalties. Keep your ride functional.
- Passengers contribute. You don't all need to be driving. Co-pilots can Aid, gunners can shoot, and engineers can coax more speed out of failing engines.
Practical tip: If your character has no vehicle skills, think about what you CAN do during a chase. Shoot at pursuers (Strike), navigate (Perception), stabilize the vehicle (Crafting), or keep the crew's morale up (Aid with Diplomacy).
Underground Encounters
Expect to spend time in places where the rules are different. Criminal arenas, back-alley deals, and desperate fights in locations where nobody calls the authorities.
Arena Combat Tips
- The crowd is part of the encounter. Their reactions can help or hinder you.
- Nonlethal options exist. PF2E lets you deal nonlethal damage with any melee weapon (take a -2 penalty on the attack roll). Some encounters reward restraint.
- Environmental hazards are common in arena settings. Watch for traps, obstacles, and terrain that changes mid-fight.
Dealing with Criminals
- Gather Information (Diplomacy) works differently in the underworld. You're not asking politely; you're trading, bribing, or threatening.
- Underworld Lore or relevant Lore skills give you an edge in understanding criminal hierarchies and codes.
- Reputation matters. How you handled previous encounters affects how criminals treat you now.
High-Level Combat: What Changes at L9-11
Your characters are becoming genuinely powerful. Here's what's different:
New Capabilities
| Level | What You Get |
|---|---|
| L9 | 5th-rank spells (casters), class feats that define your combat style |
| L10 | Ability boosts, skill increases, new ancestry feat |
| L11 | 6th-rank spells (casters), class feats that are truly impressive |
The Math Shifts
- DCs climb into the high 20s and low 30s. A DC 28 check is standard for this tier.
- Enemy tactics get smarter. Creatures at this level have reactions, auras, and special abilities that punish predictable play.
- Healing pressure increases. Damage output from both sides is higher. Medicine checks between encounters are essential.
- Buff/debuff stacking is critical. A -1 here and a +1 there adds up fast. Demoralize, Bon Mot, flanking, and Aid become more valuable, not less.
Practical Combat Tips
- Identify weaknesses. Recall Knowledge is not optional at this level. Knowing a creature's low save or vulnerability can turn a brutal fight into a manageable one.
- Spread your actions. The worst thing you can do is attack three times. Strike, support action, Strike is almost always better than Strike, Strike, Strike.
- Position matters more. Flanking, cover, elevation, and difficult terrain can swing encounters dramatically.
- Save your Hero Points. At these levels, going down is more dangerous. The Wounded condition stacks, and dying values climb fast.
"Things Look Bad"
There will be moments in this volume where the situation feels hopeless. Your characters are outgunned, outresourced, and outmaneuvered. This is a feature, not a bug.
What to remember:
- The narrative supports you. Your GM is telling a story about falling down and getting back up. You are meant to survive this.
- Allies appear in unexpected places. Keep your eyes open for potential friends. Not everyone is an enemy.
- Creativity is rewarded. The "correct" solution to many encounters in this volume is the one you invent. There is no single right answer.
- Character growth comes from struggle. The person your character becomes on the other side of this volume will be more interesting than the one who went in.
Last Updated: 2026-04-09