What adventure path to run?

[DM Mathpro]

What adventure path would you suggest running for a group completly new to pathfinder. I've been playing it for about 2 years now and have every adventure path since Second Darkness in full. I've recently agreed to DM a group that is brand new to Pathfinder and most(all but one player) are still new to pen and paper RPG's in general. They have some LARP experience(I think) but I know this generally doesn't affect pen and paper games.

As far as intersts of the group go I think Carrion Crown, Jade Regent, or Kingmaker would get interest(probably in that order). I hesitate to run Kingmaker because they're new and really need more guidance than I think the AP gives(its sandbox after all).

I know the Gothic flavor of Carrion Crown would be a big hit with the group but I struggle with running this because I'm also playing in this and don't really want to get ahead of my group. We're almost done with book 1 in the group I play in so I doubt my run group would catch up but both will be run bi-weekly so it might be a possibility.

Any suggestions on what I could run?

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

Kingmaker is actually not bad for a new group since they can take things at their own pace and there is a lot of great advice right here on the boards.

Council of Thieves is pretty good because it caps at a low-level which will give your players enough proficiency to "graduate" to an AP that finishes higher.

[Timothy Hanson]

I was going to say Carrion Crown until you go to the part where you are playing in it. I think the AP should be fully read before you start with it though, and that would not be possible in that situation.

My only other experience with APs is Serpents Skull (which I love, but a lot of people have beef with) and Jade Regent. Jade Regent seems pretty solid though. You would have to break my rule a little bit with the whole it not fully out yet issue, but you would only get a good 2 or 3 sessions in until you could finish reading it, so that would not be such a big deal.

You might also want to consider running the mini-APs that some of the modules make first. This will allow for people to get a feel for the game, and work out some kinks before the commit to the long hall of a larger AP. Might help them make more memorable characters in the long run.

[Melissa Litwin]

My group really enjoyed Kingmaker. We got to explore at our own pace, and the out-of-game stuff was a lot of fun. Hex maps filled in with colored pencil, city maps, etc. We also had a lot of fun with some of the kingdom stuff

Spoiler:

Book 1 or 2, I forget which, you're supposed to go clean up a troll incursion. Every month of in-game time you don't, you make a roll to see if your people get angry with you for leaving marauding trolls in the countryside. We claimed we sat on "ridiculous rumors of trolls which are obviously completely and totally false" for a whole year in-game until we could be bothered to get off our butts and deal with it. Never failed a roll!

Carrion Crown is a good adventure for a very heroic-type party. If they want to be mercenary or just not-good (not evil, just not goody-two-shoes help all innocents good), CC is not the right AP for you. My DM might be making it rougher than he has to, but it's been ugly a few times when we struggled to justify why our characters would take the plot hook.

Those are the only two PF ones I've had any experience with. I ran half of Legacy of Fire, but it's 3.5, so converting it is a challenge and not one I'd suggest you take on for new players. Some of the fights are truly brutal. My group is about to start up Jade Regent and I've heard really great things, so I'm excited about that. Also the pre-module is We Be Goblins and who doesn't want to run around causing mayhem as a green-skinned, voracious monster for a bit?

[evilash]

I would actually NOT recommend running Kingmaker, since it's alternate rule system for kingdom building is such a big part of the AP. Carrion Crown or Jade Regent without the caravan rules would probably be the best ones, or alternatively Legacy of Fire if you are up for the job of converting it to PRPG.

[Icyshadow]

I side with evilash on not reccomending Kingmaker. Me and my group just got frustrated with the kingdom building rules since to us they seemed kinda ambiguous in many ways. I myself am going to try out Council of Thieves, and Legacy of Fire seemed pretty good from what my friend had shown.

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

I've been running Kingmaker with a group of new players for going on 2 years now. JBE's Kingdom Building rules are quite concise and do the job, so long as you're cool with an abstract system and tone down the magic item economy stuff (which by the way there is plenty of advice on how to do so right here on these boards). You could also ignore the kingdom stuff entirely, push it to the background and have the players describe their kingdom without worrying about the stat building part of it.

[DM Mathpro]

Well my players have decided to do Jade Regent. This should be interesting. We might be doing character creation tonight but only 3/4 players can make it so we might wait.

[Prophet of Doom]

I'd read through the descriptions and see what floats your boat. Most of the paths are very concept specific. The only one most everyone seems to hate is Second Darkness, and don't play Wrath of the Righteous unless you can do god-like characters.

Having said that here are the one's I've played or run: Mummy's Mask is really fun, Runelords is classic old school, Jade Regent offers a lot of variety but needs a lot of filling in of missing bits, Reign of Winter is fun but will require the game master to do a lot of roll playing. Personally, I want to do Serpent's Skull next. . . because Africa.

[Liegence]

Iron Gods. Because... Aliens.

[Casey Hudak]

You are not giving any relevant advice to the OP. This thread is three years old. They've likely already finished running a full adventure path at this point. Start a new thread where you tell people what adventure paths they should run if it strikes your fancy, but please don't drag a thread like this one screaming back from the dead. It clutters the front of the advice page.