I normally don't use modules, but I've come to notice that some of the Adventure Paths include new rules such as the Romance and Caravan rules in Jade Regent and the Kingdom making rules in Kingmaker.
Then there are the AP bestiaries. How useful are those? Will most of them be reprinted in Bestiary 3?
So, which AP adventure have the best supplemental material in them? And are they worth the money if that is all you're going to use them for?
,Matt
Hard question to answer, I guess it depends what you are after. For instance many of the creatures in B2 were from APs like the Carrion Golem and Umbral Dragon were from Curse of the Crimson Throne however the problem with the B2 releases is that they don't have all the fluff that's from CotCT as shown here you'll see that the part that said "Umbral Dragons of Golarion" is the fluff text I took out of CotCT and pasted there as everyone loves a little bit of fluff.
Some of the older monsters are very interesting and depending on the campaign very fun. For instance CotCT part 6 has the Mobogo, a giant 3-eyed frog that has ties to the Boggards. It's seen as one of their god's first creations but they never talk on the subject to confirm or deny the Boggard's questions.
That's the campaign I'm running and was the first I started doing conversions for d20pfsrd so those are the ones that come to mind at first, but there are others too. Others that have been missed and others that didn't get the fluff text as I said. It's the same with the new APs there are some really awesome creatures like in CC part 4 with many different abberations that would be perfect for a H.P.Lovecraft setting, but don't appear in that AP.
Imho the best material for bestiares out of all the APs are the oldest ones, but that's not to say some of the new ones have some interesting material too.
It really depends on the volume. If you aren't running the entire AP, you don't need to get all of them. For Kingmaker, the first to volumes I feel are worth getting for the kingdom building rules. And the sandbox elements that are easily transferred to other sandbox games.
I'd have to look it up, but one KM volume has the rules for warfare (4 or 5 I think.) The caravan rules for Jade Regent are mostly inside the Player's Guide.
Not all of the monsters will be reprinted in Bestiaries. Even those that do won't be reprinted within a year of the original publication.
I can say as a GM of mostly my own material, I still get a lot of use out of the AP subscription.
I'd have to look it up, but one KM volume has the rules for warfare (4 or 5 I think.) The caravan rules for Jade Regent are mostly inside the Player's Guide.
Yeah, you're right. It's one of them but I'm not sure which. I'm sure 6 has some units as I've been looking at them, however I don't know which part the rules of warfare first appeared.
Yeah, you're right. It's one of them but I'm not sure which. I'm sure 6 has some units as I've been looking at them, however I don't know which part the rules of warfare first appeared.
I'd have to look it up, but one KM volume has the rules for warfare (4 or 5 I think.)
I do think there are some units in part 6, but the bulk of the warfare rules appear to be in Part 5. They are an appendix to the adventure, not an article to itself.
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Just to add another perspective: I'm one of those people who doesn't play/run the APs most of the time, but I'm still subscribing to the AP line. One reason is the the adventures contain a lot of material I can steal for whatever game I'm actually running. But the second (and for me: main) reason are the additional articles, be it because they present new rules, new setting material or just because of the fiction. No matter what the articles are about, they always contain thought-provoking material and expand the setting. I would have to look through all of them to identify weaker issues but generally I consider them all worth their money
Now it seems that your mainly asking for rules material in which case my opinion may not be of much use for you. And while I'm a bit hesitant to say this: if you're just interested in new rules additions like the Kingdom making rules in Kingmaker, you may be better off looking for 3rd Party Products covering those rule aspects. For example the Book of the River Kings line by Jon Brazer Enterprises which basically recollects the rules material presented in the Kingmaker AP.
But as I said before: Even if you're running your own adventures in your own homebrewed world the APs contain a huge amount of material to use apart from pure rules so I'd still consider them worth their money
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The second and fifth volumes of each AP have details of one of the major gods so that's worth a look. Also as WormysQueue said they are excellent sources of stat blocks, maps, artwork and single encounters for you to use in your own games.
Whether that is worth $19.99 I'm not sure but it may well be worth picking up the PDF.
The second and fifth volumes of each AP have details of one of the major gods so that's worth a look. Also as WormysQueue said they are excellent sources of stat blocks, maps, artwork and single encounters for you to use in your own games.
Yeah, there are some awesome things about the different deities and they have stats for outsiders that serve patrons. CotCT part s has the Lawgiver which serves Abadar and part 5 has the "Prince in Chains" which serves Zon-Kuthon and before it was "altered" it was the great spirit wolf, Thron. Father of Dou-Bral and Shelyn. Very sad backstory about how he recognised it's son return as Zon-Kuthon, but the prince of darkness then bounded him in chains, dragged him away and then he became that thing.