Basically I am wanting to know what you think the most difficult AP's/campaigns are. I know not all of us have played 5 so give what you got.
I have DM'd AoW and Kingmaker, and played Shackled City, Rise of the Rune Lords, and Council of Thieves.
I think so far it is in this order from most difficult to easier
1. AoW(I found the regular fights in SCAP to be harder, but AoW had more difficult boss fights, and more deadly traps.)
2. SCAP
3. Rise of the Rune Lords. (I want to try this one again. After my ninja died and I switched to cleric things got a lot better.)
4. Kingmaker(I am DM'ing this one. The boss at the end of book 3 was a potential TPK, but the others don't seem so scary. The high level random encounters could wipe a group if they dont run away and the DM rolls above 90%
5. Council of Thieves. Sometimes we got in trouble due, but those were more during endurance areas, such as the play(that is all I can say without spoilers, than in boss fights.
PS: If you go into specific details use spoilers to not ruin the run for others.
Savage Tide gets an honorable mention due to rumors(of it being on par with AoW and SCAP) I have heard, but I have yet to play it or DM it.
Just to clarify: are you asking about the relative difficulty to play through as a player/party of characters (tough foes, hellish traps, difficult mysteries to solve, etc.), or about the relative technical difficulty to run as a DM (lots of prep time, too many minor NPCs to keep track of in the background, complicated battles to run with multiple foes, etc.)?
|
Mostly I agree with you, I have only DM´d 2:
Age of worms ended in a TPK, and now we are playing Shackled city with some close calls. My impresion is that SCAP is tougher but the PC playing SCAP now are more maxim. so they are not dead yet, if the PC of the AoW have played this AP i´m sure that the very first chapter had ended in TPK, we have only played the first third of both so i canot say about how difficult are in latter parts. The greater difficulty in regular fights in SCAP is VERY noticiable, and the difficulty of boss fights in the first third of both is also higher in SCAP
Just to clarify: are you asking about the relative difficulty to play through as a player/party of characters (tough foes, hellish traps, difficult mysteries to solve, etc.), or about the relative technical difficulty to run as a DM (lots of prep time, too many minor NPCs to keep track of in the background, complicated battles to run with multiple foes, etc.)?
I mean to play through as a player/party of characters.
My assessment (from the most difficult to the least difficult) of those APs with which I'm familiar:
1. Age of Worms. Lots of "Screw You" encounters that will murder a suboptimal or underprepared party, if played to the hilt. Some encounters that just are straight-up exceedingly tough. Very few, if any, anti-optimized enemies.
2. Savage Tide/Shackled City. Don't have much hands-on experience with either. Initial adventures are pretty tame, compared to things AoW throws at you right from the start, at least. Don't like Shackled City, because BBEGs revealed in the final adventures, must act completely braindead to give PCs a fighting chance, instead of stopping their meddling permanently at early stages. (Not that this problem is completely absent from other APs, but here it is particularly blatant, because level 17+ enemy bigshots literally are in the same city.)
3. Rise of the Runelords. Mostly pretty tame, but with several massive spikes in difficulty on bosses, because while many enemies are anti-optimized, some are custom-built monsters with somewhat dubious CRs, or exploit the CR system. In particular, the boss run in the end the second installment is lightyears beyond the rest of the adventure.
4. Red Hand of Doom. As RotR, but with more humanoid mooks as opponents. Some areas suddenly become extremely difficult, though, if you replace default stupicidal enemy scrips with something more reasonable. Like, reacting to the sounds of combat right beyond their windows.
5. Second Darkness. Overpowered encounters are practically absent - although a few can move into this category if played to the limit of creatures' abilities, too many of the enemies are humanoid NPCs, and too few of the latter are casters. Enemies need to act smarter than scripted just to prevent AP from being a total cakewalk.
From my experience it goes like this:
1)RoTR - this is a campaign i am currently DMing. Thing to note is that i am min/maxer in heart, simply love them numbers, and being how job of converting things to PF was solely on me, i played here and there with some of the monsters. Even without that - creatures i didn't change that almost TPK'd them
We are still on PF #4 at the moment.
2)Savage Tide - this was DM'd by a friend who is min/maxer as well, it was tough, but nothing too horrible except last boss where we almost got TPK'd.
3)Shackled City - some did die here, wizard once
A lot depends on individualized factors by table.
Core Rules only:
Age of Worms
Rise of the Runelords
Savage Tide
Shackled City only one person I know thought it was appealing. Campaign died before it got off the planning stage.
PF Core only:
Kingmaker
Serpent's Fang
Council of Thieves