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My group and I have recently ended our Planescape campaign and I'm planning on picking up one of Paizo's great Adventure Paths for our next Pathfinder campaign. I'm wondering what kind of settings, adventures and challenges are involved in the various post Rise of the Runelords A.P.s. I'd also like, if possible, to read spoiler free summaries so that I don't ruin all of the APs for myself if I happen to play through one in the future. It's a tough balancing act; trying to learn about the various APs without learning too much about them.
So can anyone help me out? Which APs are the most fun to run? Which are the most fun to play through? Which features the best story and bad guys? Speaking broadly, what elements are prominent in each: political intrigue, dungeon exploration, monster bashing, mystery solving, wilderness adventuring, gritty urban adventuring, subtaranean adventuring, extraplanar adventuring, etc, etc. Thanks for the help!
I just started a Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign two weeks ago...we have our third session tomorrow night. I've been updating it to the PF rules from 3.5, which hasn't been difficult at all to do, except for the very last encounter in the first module (a monster with wizard levels).
I haven't read through the entire AP yet, but I've read through the first one several times and half through the second one, and I've read the Adventure Summaries at the beginning of each module.
My players are loving the setting (as well as the new rules). They've been excited to learn about Golarian, and the paladin of Iomedae has been begging me for more and more information about her.
The AP is centered on the city of Korvosa in Varisia. The entire first module takes place within its borders, so thus far its been an urban adventure. The players have really enjoyed exploring the city and its people. I have the Guide to Korvosa as well, so its been great having a gazetteer like that centered on the campaign we are running. I can quickly give descriptions of places and people as well as plant rumors that are central to the plot of the AP and those that have little or nothing to do with it; thus leaving it to the players to sort it all out!
The plot so far has been excellent. There are often twists to be had and the players have fallen for most of them, which leads to a very gratifying "Aaaahhhhh...." when they discover the truth.
The first night we had a fantastic session in which the PCs fought and beat an old nemesis of theirs. The final fight worked out perfectly with the PCs victorious, but 3 out of 5 of them were unconscious and dying! One player kept saying "Oh man this is intense!" Another said it was the most epic 1st level game hes played.
The second night didn't go so well. I think the PCs got cocky, and left all strategy and tactics aside and tried to brute force their way through the encounters. This didn't work, and the BBG got away, leaving 4 out of the 5 unconscious (all but the semi-pacificst healer).
So I would give a hearty thumbs up to this AP, particularly if you get the Guide to Korvosa as well.
(One note on updating to PF. Since this is in a city, most of the encounters involve humanoid NPCs. In order to keep the CRs the same, humanoid NPCs need to have an extra level added. Under the 3.5 rules an NPC with heroic class levels was CR equal to class level and nonheroic class levels was CR-1. In PF heroic (such as a human fighter) is CR-1 and nonheroic (such as a human warrior) is a CR-2. So as a side benefit you get to make the NPCs a little tougher. This has worked out well so far, especially with the main bad guys. Even the encounter that the PCs lost they should have won if they had attempted other methods, such as trying to be sneakier, or trying to use diplomatic resolutions, or employed better combat tactics such as using a tanglefoot bag against the dex based combatant.)
I've heard good things about Rise of the Runelords and Legacy of Fire. Curse of the Crimson Throne should also be good if you like a more city-based adventure. The only one I've seen mostly lukewarm or negative feedback on is Second Darkness (after the first adventure, anyway). Council of Thieves I've heard very little about.
Rise of the Runelords: In many ways a typical adventure, starting out small, moving toward the big city, then to fantastic locations. There's quite a bit of good creepy horror adventures in there, history, mysteries - any character type fits in quite well at various parts of the adventure. I've run the first two books of this six book adventure with experienced and new players, a good time was had by all. I've perused the entire campaign.
Curse of the Crimson Throne: I've played in the first two adventures. Primarily an urban cmapaign, more politics, revolutionary feelings to things. I liked everything I saw, but don't know much about how it ends up, as I leave it a surprise for future play.
Second Darkness: I've run the first two books of this six book campaign, and played in the first three. It starts out more urban, like Curse of the Crimson Throne, but doesn't stay there. The big pull here is "Drow! And they're bad again!" Everyone knows it's the reintroduction of an iconic monster. Have fun with it! I'm having fun thus far - there seems to be more "gaps" between some books - room to run your own thing, or expand on parts of the story without getting player experience off, but it will require a little more DM thought, it sounds like.
- That's all I've got play experience with. Hope it helps.
The AP I hope to run in the near future for my group of friends is Legacy of Fire. I've read the entire AP and can't wait to run it! The style and feel of it is based on Arabic folklore (genies and stuff like that).
In LoF there are some interesting new monsters. One in particular comes to mind that plays a role in the first adventure.
Which ever one you choose I am sure you will find a fantastic amount of support on the relative message boards here. I've read through the LoF posts and they help not only to clear up any questions I have, but also to enhance the game experience as well (there is no shortage of creative people that visit here).
political intrigue, dungeon exploration, monster bashing, mystery solving, wilderness adventuring, gritty urban adventuring, subtaranean adventuring, extraplanar adventuring, etc, etc. Thanks for the help!
Hm...
General: They all have dungeon exploration of sorts. It just depends on your definition of dungeon. One time it's catacombs under the city, one time it's an extradimensional magic workshop, or a plain old underground oubliette, or....
All have their share of monsters, but also humanoid enemies with class levels. And monsters with class levels aren't unheard-of.
Rise of the Runelords: Good old frontier wilderland/lost civilisation action. A lot of it is in some godforsaken places leagues away from civilisation. There is a little urban stuff, too, but only a little. It also has some great horror themes (a haunted house and some really great disgusting stuff.
Curse of the Crimson Throne: The first half of it takes place in a large city, after that it's some travelling and the mandatory huge dungeon. There is place for intrigue here, and you have to save the city from a huge threat.
Second Darkness: This one's all over: You start by running a casino in a lawless city, travel all over the world, have a great infiltration mission and more than a little Darklands (deep underground) adventuring - and not all of it is "slaughtering your way through godforsaken caverns!" Oh, and this is the first AP where you literally save the world. You learn how and from what at the end of the first instalment, but let's say: Some pretty big baddies are back and they don't plan small.
Legacy of Fire:This one does the first real planar hopping to weird places thing. Beyond that it's a mix of different environments in general. And it's all about a huge big love story.
Council of Thieves: This one is all urban, all the time (well, almost, but you never really leave the city for very long or go very far away). You get to do some intriguing, fight shadow creatures, big huge threats - and you get to play some theatre, too! Break a leg! (That would actually mean getting off light...)
Kingmaker: Up and coming, but from what we hear you get to carve out your own kingdom and defend it from threads from both without and within.
