I noticed that the last two AP's, Carrion Crown and the recently started Jade Regent, both are designed so that the party ends the campaign at level 16, i.e. level 15 is the last "active" level the players are going to experience.
Beside the point that this kind of penalizes the spontaneous full casters, as they don't get to experience level eight spells, I see this as a result of Paizo having determined that all their AP's should use the medium XP track. This also tends to clutter up the AP's with "grind" encounters, which was very, very noticeable during Serpent's Skull.
Might I advocate for trying the fast XP track for the next AP, Skulls and Shackles? That way there could be less combat-heavy modules and player characters might still reach level 18, or maybe even the vaunted level 20.
I noticed that the last two AP's, Carrion Crown and the recently started Jade Regent, both are designed so that the party ends the campaign at level 16, i.e. level 15 is the last "active" level the players are going to experience.
Beside the point that this kind of penalizes the spontaneous full casters, as they don't get to experience level eight spells, I see this as a result of Paizo having determined that all their AP's should use the medium XP track. This also tends to clutter up the AP's with "grind" encounters, which was very, very noticeable during Serpent's Skull.
Might I advocate for trying the fast XP track for the next AP, Skulls and Shackles? That way there could be less combat-heavy modules and player characters might still reach level 18, or maybe even the vaunted level 20.
The decision isn't to use a particular XP track. Rather the decision is to basically end the APs having attained the mid teens level-wise. Based on player demographics Paizo is aware fewer groups play into high levels than those who don't. By definition level 1 is more common than level 20. The decision is thus basically an economic one; provide the product the customers will buy.
I'm pleased to see a recent uptick in releases of higher level modules personally. I hope they're selling well so more get written. I'm DMing two different groups, both at 12th level, so more material is always welcome.
Creative Director
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I noticed that the last two AP's, Carrion Crown and the recently started Jade Regent, both are designed so that the party ends the campaign at level 16, i.e. level 15 is the last "active" level the players are going to experience.
Beside the point that this kind of penalizes the spontaneous full casters, as they don't get to experience level eight spells, I see this as a result of Paizo having determined that all their AP's should use the medium XP track. This also tends to clutter up the AP's with "grind" encounters, which was very, very noticeable during Serpent's Skull.
Might I advocate for trying the fast XP track for the next AP, Skulls and Shackles? That way there could be less combat-heavy modules and player characters might still reach level 18, or maybe even the vaunted level 20.
When we build an Adventure Path, the storyline itself as well as the physcial number of encoutners our writers can squeeze into their 40–50 pages of adventure is what sets the level range. As a general rule, that means that over the course of 6 volumes, you'll go from 1st level to 15th/16th level. We never know for sure until we get to that last adventure, though, since building an AP is somewhat organic. Sometimes we miss the mark and end up with an AP that only hits 13th or 14th level. Sometimes we reach 17th or 18th level.
We say 15th/16th for these product pages because that's our best guess, based on the average results we've reached over the past 10 APs or so.
The "Grind" element isn't as much a push to get more and more encounters in to hit our target for the next adventure as much as it is different authors' methods of building and writing adventures, frankly. When we get feedback that folks didn't like a particular adventure, we take that to heart and take steps to try to avoid that in the future, but it's hard to do sometimes. Serpent's Skull in particular saw us trying some new elements inspired by the great reception we got in Kingmaker for sandbox elements, but in retrospect, we went TOO sandbox with a few adventures in Serpent's Skull.
The reason we do medium track APs is because that way we keep things more flexible. If we went with fast track APs, then folks who prefer the slow track would have a MUCH harder time adjusting things.
That said... we did track out what a fast track AP would look like, and as it turns out... a fast track AP would only get us ONE more level—aka, an average of 16th-17th level instead of 15th-16th level. Not sure one level is worth marginalizing one whole third of the three options for XP progression we offer, frankly.
Thanks for the info, James. :) I just hope that Jade Regent will end up at a bit higher level than level 16, my players are of the sort that will complain a lot about not being able to get to level 20. ^^
And, yeah, I noticed that the fast XP track is lagging behind the medium one by one level just now.
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Creative Director
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Thanks for the info, James. :) I just hope that Jade Regent will end up at a bit higher level than level 16, my players are of the sort that will complain a lot about not being able to get to level 20. ^^
And, yeah, I noticed that the fast XP track is lagging behind the medium one by one level just now.
Of course, just because the core rules offer 3 advancement tracks doesn't mean you can't make up a 4th one. If you really want to hit high level, just divide the XP requirements for the fast track in half. You'll need to adjust a lot of encounters along the way, of course...
Of course, just because the core rules offer 3 advancement tracks doesn't mean you can't make up a 4th one. If you really want to hit high level, just divide the XP requirements for the fast track in half. You'll need to adjust a lot of encounters along the way, of course...Thanks for the info, James. :) I just hope that Jade Regent will end up at a bit higher level than level 16, my players are of the sort that will complain a lot about not being able to get to level 20. ^^
And, yeah, I noticed that the fast XP track is lagging behind the medium one by one level just now.
Bleh, one of the main reasons that I buy AP's is that I want that work done for me by you. :p Oh, well, I guess it's not that different from having to calculate what the advanced template does to normal monster stats... ^^
That said... we did track out what a fast track AP would look like, and as it turns out... a fast track AP would only get us ONE more level—aka, an average of 16th-17th level instead of 15th-16th level. Not sure one level is worth marginalizing one whole third of the three options for XP progression we offer, frankly.
I don't really have a dog in this fight. I don't necessarily want fast track or 20th level adventures. But my math-sense was tingling and I had to chime in.
It is wrong that an AP designed for the fast track would only come in 1 extra level higher. That assumes that an AP produces a set amount of experience and comparing that number on a different track. That isn't the right way to do that calculation.
An AP designed for the fast track would start designing encounters for level 2 players earlier, and therefore start giving out more XP per encounter from that point forward. This effect would increase until the roof was blown off the joint.
For simplicity, let's assume that every encounter in the AP is average CR for the desired track. That means that CR 2 encounters would start at the 14th for fast track and 21th for normal track.
A player on the fast track would reach level 20 after 253 encounters. A player in a normal track AP would be level 14 after that many encounters. Since most AP goes beyond that level, there would need to be Epic level stuff at the end of a 6 issue AP on the fast track.
Question:
What does "grind" encounters mean?
Question:
What does "grind" encounters mean?
When you fight a monster just to get XP, and it is not really needed to advance the story. It would be like if you need 1000 XP to level so I as GM throw in that one fight just to get you the level.
When you fight a monster just to get XP, and it is not really needed to advance the story. It would be like if you need 1000 XP to level so I as GM throw in that one fight just to get you the level.Question:
What does "grind" encounters mean?
Ok and most poeple like that?
Ok and most poeple like that?When you fight a monster just to get XP, and it is not really needed to advance the story. It would be like if you need 1000 XP to level so I as GM throw in that one fight just to get you the level.Question:
What does "grind" encounters mean?No, hence "grind", probably derived from "daily grind" (n) - everyday routine, esp. monotonous.
In video games it's the monotonous wandering around, typically in a small area, killing random encounters until you finally reach the level you want/need.
Ok thank you.
I think that i have seen that in Kingmaker and didn't like it, so Serpent skull also has that?|
Creative Director
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Ok and most poeple like that?When you fight a monster just to get XP, and it is not really needed to advance the story. It would be like if you need 1000 XP to level so I as GM throw in that one fight just to get you the level.Question:
What does "grind" encounters mean?
I'm actually not sure what the ratio is of people who like it or not.
I do know that there are players who care more about fighting and gaining XP than they do about the world or the storyline, though.
That said, we DO try to avoid "grindy" encounters in Pathfinder Adventure Paths, but sometimes our authors do not, and it's not always possible to fix those problems when they occur.
The situation in Serpent's Skull was even more complicated, in that we mis-read the desire for truly sandbox type adventures—turns out, people want sandboxes that tell stories for the most part. Which is kind of what I had assumed, but didn't know for sure until we got reviews back on the later parts of Serpent's Skull.
The problem is that grind type encounters take up a LOT less room that plot or story heavy encounters... so the fewer grind elements an AP has, the lower level it will reach at the end. As a general rule.
Balancing the two is tricky.
I just want to say that me and my players much prefer APs the way they currently are - ending about 15ish. We tried level 15-20 play with 3.5E, and it resulted in awfully long combats, whereas we'd rather spend more time roleplaying.
That being said, I also use an "ad hoc" xp system, adjudicating whenever the PCs should level up (according to the insight provided at the start of each AP volume), which allows me to cut out the fights I feel unnecessary story-wise (mostly what I consider to be "grind" fights).
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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I would actually define grindy differently. Combat v. story is only one element. The additional (but probably not exhaustive) elements of what make something feel grindy to me are:
1) Ease - Encounters that are easy, but don't convey how awesome a character are, seem grindy. Lots are dice are rolled, the outcome was predetermined.
2) Repetitiveness - I like lost of little monsters at once, and I like encounters which blend into each other of have small breaks between them. But the same monster over and over again is lame.
3) Lame rewards - Lame rewards not just gear, but no story upshot, no cool story, nobody saved, etc.
In KM (which I GMed and really enjoyed), a lot of the hex encounters distinct from the bigger set pieces felt grindy. In the first couple books it felt less so. The weather was bad, so that was a constant risk. The random encounters were deadly so conserving resources was a big deal. PCs were fragile.
By the later books PCs were not fragile. They also needed to conserve fewer resources. It took a day to explore a hex so even with 1 random encounter for entering, 1 for exploring, and the actual thing in the hex, that was three a day. Usually three a day at APL or less. Higher level characters are not often challenged by so few, relatively weak challenges.
Also terrain matters so much more at higher level because it is subject to manipulation. The grindy parts required more GM work to generate terrain (including traps, and difficult terrain, and 3d structures and the like) and changes (adding templates, HD, etc).
By contrast the really tough or more story related encounters were more influential. I.e. they had troll random encounters from level 1 to the end of the second book. I hand waved the original troll who killed their horses and took their rations into a significant NPC (boss from book 2). Same for will o wisps. Those were also fun because they started hard (nigh impossible really) and eventually became less so, really showing the power curve.
The situation in Serpent's Skull was even more complicated, in that we mis-read the desire for truly sandbox type adventures—turns out, people want sandboxes that tell stories for the most part. Which is kind of what I had assumed, but didn't know for sure until we got reviews back on the later parts of Serpent's Skull.
There's more than one way to build a sandbox. I wouldn't call SS the only way to do a "true sandbox" and that by SS failing that "true sandboxes" have failed. For example, I would consider the gazetteers that you publish to be a kind of sandbox. I would also consider complicated NPC relationship charts (like we saw in Tower of the Last Baron, or the Ascanor Lodge parts of Broken Moon) to be a kind of sandbox. Personally, I'd love to see a lot more of these kinds of sandboxes than the "box of monsters with a location attached" sort of sandbox.
The problem is that grind type encounters take up a LOT less room that plot or story heavy encounters... so the fewer grind elements an AP has, the lower level it will reach at the end. As a general rule.
Balancing the two is tricky.
Depends on the level of detail you want to go to.
For example, a "grind type" encounter will usually have a description of the terrian, a Bestiary reference, then some basic tactics/morale. However, it's still up for me as the GM to decide how exactly I'm going to attack the party, avoid AoOs, and do all the other niceties of combat.
I would like to see "story encounters" presented a little more like this. Give me an overview of the city/location, and give me the motivations/biases of the NPC, and give me a sketch of how that NPC will go about doing it. Once the PCs get involved, I'll obviously have to improv, but that's okay - I'm the GM, I'm supposed to be able to handle that. What I don't need is extensive read-aloud monologues, or detailed "if you ask this, they will respond with that" rubricks. Also, not every NPC that is plot-critical needs a custom statblock (those take up so much room!). Cite me a page reference from the GMG's NPC gallery, and take it from there.
Just my personal customer feedback. :-)
Piggybacking on Erik Freund's feedback, I feel a little sour when I see a whole page or more of "NPC answering specific questions" in a module. They're done well, with good voices, but...
Maybe it's because I have a background in acting & improv or maybe it's because I'd rather see another page of intriguing encounters/settings or even a player friendly map for outdoor/city play, but I don't think the questions/answers portions earn their space. This is doubly true when it's recycling data from the background section/DM portions.
So, maybe parts of the background section could be put in the voices of relevant PCs (and be readable to the PCs should need arise, perhaps even tagged by numbers for reference) and/or
maybe there could be an NPC interaction stat block (esp. for important noncombatants) along the lines of:
Voice/Personality/Traits: Happy, whiny, oily, charming, taciturn, devout (Perhaps with a trademark phrase)
Goal(s): What they want, and why
Tactics: Lies? Money? Appeal to honor? Seduction? Threats (implied/overt)? Magic? Exile?
Plot Connection: Info? Contacts? Obstacle? (This would be the bulk of the stats)
Triggers: Example: Angered if misunderstood, attracted to Elves (+2 Dipl. for Elves), will report to so-and-so if Intimidated (time varies depending on success of Intimidate), DC 15 Diplomacy wins info 1-4, et al.
(Yes, 'triggers' probably needs a better name.)
Relevant stats/skills: Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Knowledge, Languages, alignment reading, interaction stats (Heck, Str if it's an armwrestler), HD, & Saves (for the PCs magic).
If I recall, there was an early AP that had a quick overview of several NPCs the party had to interact with that had a similar setup of pluses/minuses and key info, each being only a paragraph or two. That's all I need, but perhaps I'm in the minority.
P.S. I do like the NPC backstories, and the flavor even tertiary characters are given. It's the extensive Q&As only that I'm addressing as an issue, and a minor one at that given the excellent writing.
Thanks, JMK
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Creative Director
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Piggybacking on Erik Freund's feedback, I feel a little sour when I see a whole page or more of "NPC answering specific questions" in a module. They're done well, with good voices, but...
While having a background in acting and improv is certainly helpful... not every GM has that background, and therefore the question/answer lists we sometimes do for NPCs is helpful for them.
But it also serves another purpose—it's easier and more interesting simply to read. A stat-block-like list of notes might do the same thing, game wise, but they're not nearly as fun to read, nor are they as good at promoting the overarching story of the adventure. And they do it in a way that isn't just a wall of read-aloud text—it actually, I suspect, ENCOURAGES GMs to present the information as a question and answer session with the PCs, which can help GMs who aren't as comfortable with ad lib or improv run the adventure.
I would vastly prefer APs to run from 1st-17th, or even to 20th, rather than having them end at 15. One of the reasons I love APs is that they are long-running campaigns of epic scope--and part and parcel of that is seeing the full spectrum of PC abilities coming into play. The party wizard getting a ninth level spell or two under his belt is really satisfying to me, whichever side of the screen I'm on.
Admittedly, this matters slightly less at my table, where I never use XP; I just tell my players when to level up. But when I run Carrion Crown or Jade Regent, I am sooner or later going to have to rewrite a lot of statblocks to better fit them to oppose a party of higher level than the adventure anticipates.
It's a compromise, because for every GM who has to up-power those last adventures to get to 18 or 20, there's one like me who has to cut them down to 13 or 14 (currently doing that with Kingmaker 6).
I think it's good that not all the APs hit the same level range. Then if a particular group dislikes one AP's ending level, there's always the next AP.
I would be upset if Paizo started writing to the fast track, though. We already need to add about a module's worth of extra material to each AP module to get pacing that works for us; any more would be overwhelming, especially for modules written to be run as one brief, tight adventure. In RotRL #5 the PCs in my game went up two levels *in a day*. This doesn't work for us at all, but there was no obvious way to slow things down once the PCs were in that location. If RotRL #5 had been written to advance the PCs 4 levels rather than 2, I don't think I could have run it at all.
But it also serves another purpose—it's easier and more interesting simply to read. A stat-block-like list of notes might do the same thing, game wise, but they're not nearly as fun to read, nor are they as good at promoting the overarching story of the adventure. And they do it in a way that isn't just a wall of read-aloud text—it actually, I suspect, ENCOURAGES GMs to present the information as a question and answer session with the PCs, which can help GMs who aren't as comfortable with ad lib or improv run the adventure.
Thought you'd say something like that, and that's perfectly fine by me especially re: encouraging said GMs. I back your play (you've never done me wrong, ever), but would like to clarify.
I disagree about the Q&A's being more fun or promoting the story more than whatever replaces them. Yes, the stat block may be more boring, but a stat block would use less space, leaving more room for other flavors. (Given unlimited space, or online extras, I'd want the Q&As). The space could be spent helping flesh out some of the other NPCs or advising DMs on some alternate paths their PCs may take. Add that many recent Q&A sections have been interviews with evil creatures (VERY EVIL: drow, vampire lord, genocidal half-fiend, high level CE divine caster, etc), where the PCs are as prone to kill as converse.Everything's being translated through the GM to the player. Any story-promotion would still make its way to the player.
I would like to see a level 20 AP also, but I dont know how good it is for Paizo to do it. I can handle the last 5 levels though if they front me the first 15.
I don't see the issue. It's easy fixed. Award a 1 level bonus after each part of the AP.
Then the enemies have to be adjusted. Some people don't have the time or inclination to do it.
By the later books PCs were not fragile. They also needed to conserve fewer resources. It took a day to explore a hex so even with 1 random encounter for entering, 1 for exploring, and the actual thing in the hex, that was three a day. Usually three a day at APL or less. Higher level characters are not often challenged by so few, relatively weak challenges.
Wait, you read the 15% chance while staying a day or night and the 5% while entering the hex as [b]mandatory[/] encounters? ^^ No wonder it seemed grindy to you. :p
I would like to see a level 20 AP also, but I dont know how good it is for Paizo to do it. I can handle the last 5 levels though if they front me the first 15.
I actually think the last five levels are the most difficult, because the power level of PC's has gone through the roof. Challening characters with level nine spells is something which I found very difficult when I was GM'ing my homebrewn campaigns, which is why I hoped some AP'S would do the heavy lifting for me. After all we pay the guys here at Paizo just to do that for us. :p
I'm actually not sure what the ratio is of people who like it or not.I do know that there are players who care more about fighting and gaining XP than they do about the world or the storyline, though.
That said, we DO try to avoid "grindy" encounters in Pathfinder Adventure Paths, but sometimes our authors do not, and it's not always possible to fix those problems when they occur.
The situation in Serpent's Skull was even more complicated, in that we mis-read the desire for truly sandbox type adventures—turns out, people want sandboxes that tell stories for the most part. Which is kind of what I had assumed, but didn't know for sure until we got reviews back on the later parts of Serpent's Skull.
The problem is that grind type encounters take up a LOT less room that plot or story heavy encounters... so the fewer grind elements an AP has, the lower level it will reach at the end. As a general rule.
Balancing the two is tricky.
I can understand that, and personally i prefer the "the fewer grind elements an AP has, the lower level it will reach at the end", but i would like more if there was an AP that could have both.
I understand that this isn't an easy task to accomplish and the only "easy and simple" way i can think of doing it is by making an AP with 7 parts instead of 6.
In KM (which I GMed and really enjoyed), a lot of the hex encounters distinct from the bigger set pieces felt grindy. In the first couple books it felt less so. The weather was bad, so that was a constant risk. The random encounters were deadly so conserving resources was a big deal. PCs were fragile.
Having played the whole Kingmaker (except the last battle), i have to say that the only levels i felt fragile were the 1st and maybe the 2nd, at 3+ we were quite strong and the AP didn't really challenge us, in fact it was too easy.
By the later books PCs were not fragile. They also needed to conserve fewer resources. It took a day to explore a hex so even with 1 random encounter for entering, 1 for exploring, and the actual thing in the hex, that was three a day. Usually three a day at APL or less. Higher level characters are not often challenged by so few, relatively weak challenges.Wait, you read the 15% chance while staying a day or night and the 5% while entering the hex as [b]mandatory[/] encounters? ^^ No wonder it seemed grindy to you. :p
In my group we used the percentages as written and most of the times they were easy encounters with no ties to the main story and yes they felt quite grindy.
We find that the solution to a lot of the "grindy" Kingmaker encounters is not to run them. We started that at the very beginning. "Hey, you have a random encounter...roll roll...with your dinner!" (Elk, deer, boar, etc.) Now that we're somewhere around KM 4 or 5 with 10th level PCs, we probably play out only 20% of the rolled encounters. I do make sure to *mention* every single one, though, or the player will get a distorted idea of how dangerous a given area is.
I don't see the random encounters as providing most of the interest in Kingmaker; they're there to make the wilderness wild and keep the PCs from taking the map for granted, and for us they work for that. The interest is in the setpieces and in what the GM can elaborate around the setpieces. It's not an enormously interesting sandbox as written, but it's easy to make more interesting just by connecting up the dots.
In my experience, you can scale a module up or down about two levels, but beyond that you will have to rewrite it. The *kinds* of threats level 10 faces are not the kind level 5 faces, and it can feel really false to the world if you ignore that. We had an experience of that with a module side adventure recently. The GM had done a good job of cutting it down mechanically--the PCs were able to handle all of the threats--but it didn't *feel* like an adventure for their level, and it was hard for the PCs to make good threat assessments--common sense and world knowledge assured them that the foes were much too hard for them. We'd have been better off with a module aimed closer to the PCs' actual level.
So an AP written for 1-13 is *not* going to be an easy conversion to 1-20, or vice versa. Some of the later adventures will need a complete rewrite or they are likely to feel very awkward and contrived. (I hope I can get away with it with Kingmaker, because I certainly can't, as a GM, run #6 for the level it wants. We'll see.)
I would like to see a level 20 AP also, but I dont know how good it is for Paizo to do it. I can handle the last 5 levels though if they front me the first 15.I actually think the last five levels are the most difficult, because the power level of PC's has gone through the roof. Challening characters with level nine spells is something which I found very difficult when I was GM'ing my homebrewn campaigns, which is why I hoped some AP'S would do the heavy lifting for me. After all we pay the guys here at Paizo just to do that for us. :p
I agree it is time consuming and difficult, but AP's normally last 6 months or more. I can handle 5 levels in 5 months. I do understand that 5 high levels are not the same as 5 low levels.
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Creative Director
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In my group we used the percentages as written and most of the times they were easy encounters with no ties to the main story and yes they felt quite grindy.
Hmm... usually when we include wandering monsters with percentage chances, we try to also include language to the effect of: "Feel free to adjust these encounter rates if you want fewer or more monsters." In other words... part of what I assume a GM is doing when he's running an adventure is that he's maintaining an eye on how much fun the players are having, and if he notices that they're getting tired of "grindy" encounters or the like, he should stop inflicting those types of encounters on the PCs as often or for a while.
No published adventure is a perfect fit for any group. They all require and DEPEND on the GM to make adjustments to them in order to maximize the entertainment for his particular group's interests, skills, and idiosyncrasies.
I suppose we should and could have been a bit more blatant about saying "don't overdo the wandering monsters; use them as a tool, but when that tool gets boring or old or predictable, set it aside and focus on different parts of the adventure."
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Creative Director
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We find that the solution to a lot of the "grindy" Kingmaker encounters is not to run them. We started that at the very beginning. "Hey, you have a random encounter...roll roll...with your dinner!" (Elk, deer, boar, etc.) Now that we're somewhere around KM 4 or 5 with 10th level PCs, we probably play out only 20% of the rolled encounters. I do make sure to *mention* every single one, though, or the player will get a distorted idea of how dangerous a given area is.
I don't see the random encounters as providing most of the interest in Kingmaker; they're there to make the wilderness wild and keep the PCs from taking the map for granted, and for us they work for that. The interest is in the setpieces and in what the GM can elaborate around the setpieces. It's not an enormously interesting sandbox as written, but it's easy to make more interesting just by connecting up the dots.
In my experience, you can scale a module up or down about two levels, but beyond that you will have to rewrite it. The *kinds* of threats level 10 faces are not the kind level 5 faces, and it can feel really false to the world if you ignore that. We had an experience of that with a module side adventure recently. The GM had done a good job of cutting it down mechanically--the PCs were able to handle all of the threats--but it didn't *feel* like an adventure for their level, and it was hard for the PCs to make good threat assessments--common sense and world knowledge assured them that the foes were much too hard for them. We'd have been better off with a module aimed closer to the PCs' actual level.
So an AP written for 1-13 is *not* going to be an easy conversion to 1-20, or vice versa. Some of the later adventures will need a complete rewrite or they are likely to feel very awkward and contrived. (I hope I can get away with it with Kingmaker, because I certainly can't, as a GM, run #6 for the level it wants. We'll see.)
All of this is very, very wise observations. Especially the part about it being difficult to scale adventures too far from the levels they were designed for. Not only does going more than, say 2 levels from the adventure require you to replace most of the monsters... but the STORY might need replacing. A 3rd level murder mystery is going to break if you run it with 5th level characters who have access to speak with dead. And a 4th level epic journey from one side of the jungle to the other breaks if you bump it up to 9th level when characters have access to spells like overland flight or teleport.
So yeah... adjusting 1st–16th level AP to be a 1st to 20th level one isn't as easy as it sounds. Unfortunately for those who prefer 1st to 20th level APs (myself included), those types of APs just aren't really physically possible for us to do in our current Pathfinde format... by which I mean, a six part monthly format. And that format has proven to be one of the MOST successful things we've done here at Paizo, so I doubt it's going to change any time soon.
All of this is why, starting with Kingmaker, we began putting in those "Continuing the Campaign" articles in every final volume of an AP, of course. By giving GMs some inspiration, some new rules, and some stat blocks, hopefully we can help them keep a 1st to 16th level AP going for at least four more levels...
In my group we used the percentages as written and most of the times they were easy encounters with no ties to the main story and yes they felt quite grindy.Hmm... usually when we include wandering monsters with percentage chances, we try to also include language to the effect of: "Feel free to adjust these encounter rates if you want fewer or more monsters." In other words... part of what I assume a GM is doing when he's running an adventure is that he's maintaining an eye on how much fun the players are having, and if he notices that they're getting tired of "grindy" encounters or the like, he should stop inflicting those types of encounters on the PCs as often or for a while.
No published adventure is a perfect fit for any group. They all require and DEPEND on the GM to make adjustments to them in order to maximize the entertainment for his particular group's interests, skills, and idiosyncrasies.
I suppose we should and could have been a bit more blatant about saying "don't overdo the wandering monsters; use them as a tool, but when that tool gets boring or old or predictable, set it aside and focus on different parts of the adventure."
I don't know if there was such a thing in the book or not, i was not the GM in that game.
But you might have a good point there, the GM was (for some reason) following the AP to the letter, almost blindly i have to say and for some reason he didn't want to deviate even a little from what was written.
All of this is why, starting with Kingmaker, we began putting in those "Continuing the Campaign" articles in every final volume of an AP, of course. By giving GMs some inspiration, some new rules, and some stat blocks, hopefully we can help them keep a 1st to 16th level AP going for at least four more levels...
Those are pretty good, by the way (especially when you intersperse it with a few stats here and there and the like).
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RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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In my group we used the percentages as written and most of the times they were easy encounters with no ties to the main story and yes they felt quite grindy.Hmm... usually when we include wandering monsters with percentage chances, we try to also include language to the effect of: "Feel free to adjust these encounter rates if you want fewer or more monsters." In other words... part of what I assume a GM is doing when he's running an adventure is that he's maintaining an eye on how much fun the players are having, and if he notices that they're getting tired of "grindy" encounters or the like, he should stop inflicting those types of encounters on the PCs as often or for a while.
No published adventure is a perfect fit for any group. They all require and DEPEND on the GM to make adjustments to them in order to maximize the entertainment for his particular group's interests, skills, and idiosyncrasies.
I suppose we should and could have been a bit more blatant about saying "don't overdo the wandering monsters; use them as a tool, but when that tool gets boring or old or predictable, set it aside and focus on different parts of the adventure."
I don't know if there was such a thing in the book or not, i was not the GM in that game.
But you might have a good point there, the GM was (for some reason) following the AP to the letter, almost blindly i have to say and for some reason he didn't want to deviate even a little from what was written.
Actually I skipped most of them. My point wasn't that random, wandering monsters suck. It was that the scripted events in hexes were often boring because there were too few encounters in the day. Because it takes a whole day to explore a hex, most hexes had MAX 3 encounters per day (entering, exploring, actual content).
In practice I cut out most of the exploring when it ceased to be fun.
That has to be one of my biggest complaints about the adventure paths that I have played and ran. They are full of Grind or what I call "thug" attacks. They are very straight up encounters that any decent party won't have any problem beating with a minimum of effort. I find them a waste of time and wish Paizo would cut some of the other items in the adventured path and flush out the encounters better. Usually I have to go through and change or add to the thug attack encounters to make them interesting. For example instead of fighting 10 Orc fighters over and over. I may change a couple of the fighters into spell casters, give them some consumable equipment like poison or potions and toss in a leader/boss. You would be surprised how a glitterdust or even a slow can change the dynamic of a fight. It does take a few hours for each book to do this. One of the reason why I don't DM as much as I could.
... adjusting 1st–16th level AP to be a 1st to 20th level one isn't as easy as it sounds. Unfortunately for those who prefer 1st to 20th level APs (myself included), those types of APs just aren't really physically possible for us to do in our current Pathfinde format... by which I mean, a six part monthly format. And that format has proven to be one of the MOST successful things we've done here at Paizo, so I doubt it's going to change any time soon.In my experience, you can scale a module up or down about two levels, but beyond that you will have to rewrite it. The *kinds* of threats level 10 faces are not the kind level 5 faces, and it can feel really false to the world if you ignore that. We had an experience of that with a module side adventure recently. The GM had done a good job of cutting it down mechanically--the PCs were able to handle all of the threats--but it didn't *feel* like an adventure for their level, and it was hard for the PCs to make good threat assessments--common sense and world knowledge assured them that the foes were much too hard for them. We'd have been better off with a module aimed closer to the PCs' actual level.
So an AP written for 1-13 is *not* going to be an easy conversion to 1-20, or vice versa. Some of the later adventures will need a complete rewrite or they are likely to feel very awkward and contrived. (I hope I can get away with it with Kingmaker, because I certainly can't, as a GM, run #6 for the level it wants. We'll see.)
Right! I think that the adventure paths are great as they are, and I'm glad Paizo isn't going to muck with the format - heck, they're my replacement for both Dungeon and The Dragon, and that's fine by me.
On the other hand, there's this "Part 7 of 6" idea out there ...
:)
Frankly, I can't see Paizo expanding what they do until they grow just a bit, and I'm not sure they're ready to do so yet. But then again, maybe once they've got enough of the rules system under their belt, they can take just a wee bit of a breather and work on some higher level stuff.
Thing is, it's not like someone who was writing level 1-10 stuff is just going to pop in and start writing stuff for levels 15-20. It's a whole different skill set, and a steep learning curve.
Either way, I'm all for adventure paths in the 15+ range, however we end up getting them. I'm just hoping their decision doesn't fall on the side of "oh well, I think we won't do above-20 rules after all."
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All of this is why, starting with Kingmaker, we began putting in those "Continuing the Campaign" articles in every final volume of an AP, of course. By giving GMs some inspiration, some new rules, and some stat blocks, hopefully we can help them keep a 1st to 16th level AP going for at least four more levels...
I found this to be a very helpful addition. For roughly 16 levels the authors hold us by the hand and give us everything we need for a campaign (which is great). At the end, there's some room until 20 and having those tips on what COULD come next is like taking off the training wheels.
After 6 adventures, a GM should have a pretty good feel for the theme of the AP and hopefully lots of their own ideas they can use in tandem with the advice of the authors to make those last 4 levels interesting. It's after volume 6 of an AP that really allows you to make it your own.