Not Paizo, but the Way of the Wicked AP has been pretty difficult. So far everything has required a lot of planning, role play, and a decent amount of luck.
Oh, and by the way I think that Way of the Wicked is probably the best example of fair difficulty among adventures from 3.0 to PF. Age of Worms or RotR or even RHoD are difficult because a good number of encounters early on are just sudden difficulty spikes that kill less than competent and optimally prepared parties, particularly if villains act somewhat sensibly. Way of the Wicked makes all major acts into sandboxes. Success is not the matter of luck, I disagree here, but of planning and of PCs' proactivity. Each sandbox after perhaps the first module gives quite enough resources to curbstomp the supposed opposition. If you do everyting perfectly or near that, by the middle of Part 3 you'll have a force of badass and mostly loyal minions that can clear many encounters by itself, particularly if GM allows more of them than Grumblejack to gain a few levels in the course of your adventurers. But if PCs are lazy, don't bother with gathering information and seeking out allies, or are poor diplomats/roleplayers, they will be constantly facing bad odds, at least until the levels where a competent party just goes beyond the impossible and the CR system stops working.
Judging from RotRL and RotRL anniversary i have to say that either the PF adventures are purposely made easier than the 3.5 OR the PF system buffed the PCs more than it buffed the monsters (in the transition between PF and 3.5).
My group has played through most of the AP's. Skulls and Shackles had the most player deaths including 5 in one game session during book 4.
But overall no matter how much I up gun stuff the final book of each AP is always a cake walk for the PC's. They just get too powerful. At level 15 they are taking down CR 24 creatures in just a few rounds.
This is going to go against the grain.
IF you play Wrath of the Righteous and buff the enemies with the same mythic type abilities for Humanoid NPCs as you do PC's....it can get really nasty (basically, who hits first in a battle, wins the battle).
This is a LOT of work though...and plays all those nasty mythic tricks people talk about...on the players instead.
This can mean you have anywhere from a 25% to 50% chance of a TPK every mythic encounter that occurs post book 3.
Of course, that's a LOT of work and reworking of the combats, with a LOT of buffing and stuff...so not really the pure AP that you'd want.
Most other AP's can be deadly and challenging, depends on who the GM is.
If you go with AP as it is written with not heavy modification...I haven't played enough of them to say which is toughest yet, RotRL has some possible TPK moments though, and probably as far as the unmodified ones we played, that's been the toughest...though we played it under 3.5 rules with that AP instead of the AE one.
I can't imagine Giantslayer would be easy with a party of 4 and 15-point builds. Mummy's Mask does not seem as difficult through the first 2 books, IMO.
So, no mention of Crimson Throne at all... does that just fall in the middle of the pack? Or is it at the low lethality end of things?
The Scarwall section can be particularly brutal to some groups.
Kingmaker. I have 37 dead PCs in my graveyard notes, and they didn't even finish book 5. That ranged from failing swim checks after investigating an earth elemental dug tunnel from thieves that stole the kingdom's treasury under the lake, to attacking a grizzly bear and trying to use command spells to order it to stop, and putting up a rope trick inside of Irovetti's palace for 15 hours and letting Irovettil gather up all of his minions, prep, and then blitz the party with rogues and his generals. Harkgulka critically hit a charging cavalier with his club due to reach and killed him, plus the dancing lady killed 2 with her charming dance.
So, no mention of Crimson Throne at all... does that just fall in the middle of the pack? Or is it at the low lethality end of things?
Crimson Throne's difficulty depends a lot on how you convert the 3.5 stuff to Pathfinder. I've been using pfsrd when it's available and some fan conversions when not. I'm also running with a five player party, which makes things easier for the PCs.
Now that it's being re-released and updated to PF, I expect it's going to get a lot harder.So far I think my party's toughest fight was
The Party is now in book 4 and I don't see anything that they should be too worried about.
|
It also depends a lot on party composition.
Anyway, that combat encounter just flat-out didn't happen and it wasn't the only one. They also made friends with Beiriwash later. And several incidental monsters along the way.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
A few factors to consider here.
1) Stat build and number of PCs. Using the recommended 15 point buy (my preference too btw), makes every starting AP chapter potentially lethal. Min/Maxxers help a little but not much at this point buy with 4 PCs barring a party full of classes that can heal like Paladins, Clerics, Druids, Oracles, Witches, etc.
Having more than 4 PCs also significantly reduces the danger level.
If you look at most of the complaints about APs being non-challenging on the forums, there is a pattern. Most are using a 20+ point buy build with more than 4 PCs on top of it.
2) "Save or Possibly Die" encounter mechanics. I know Paizo doesn't have many of these but some creatures combined with a single missed roll will do you in at early levels. A Ghoul with paralysis + failed save for example, could potentially end your AP before it starts if it ends with a TPK.
3) Gung-Ho players. Do i even need to explain the "No Retreat, No Surrender" types? :P
Some do this on purpose when they get bored of a particular character. You can usually spot these coming from early on and valhalla sendoffs can be interesting if run right.
Example 1) is solved by using the right build/number of PCs. If you have a large group, your GM has to get his hands dirty and adjust all of the encounters. Not a dealbreaker for me when it comes to larger parties.
Example 2) is usually fixed by a GM screen and some kindness, but balanced by his/her opinion of his players. Stupid player decisions shouldn't always be a get out of jail free card.
3) Unfixable to a point without some OOC discussion before and through the campaign. Some players just like rerolling alot.
No votes for Rappan Athuk? Not that it's really an AP, more a hack-&-slash killfest dungeoncrawl.
APs that have finished coming out since the last post (April 7, 2016) in this thread before yesterday's Necromancy:
Hell's Vengeance (was part way out in April 2016)
Strange Aeons (already mentioned above)
Ironfang Invasion
Ruins of Azlant (only part way out so far)
Known upcoming APs:
Ruins of Azlant (the rest of it)
War for the Crown
Return of the Runelords (don't know if this will be near the top of the list for hardest/most challenging, but it should be)
Of what I've run (which is a lot):
1. Reign of Winter, hands down, most PC deaths of any AP I've run.
2. Strange Aeons has gotten very very close more than a few times. Several deaths have been avoided by sheer luck or very smart tactical choices.
3. Shackled City (3.5). First dungeon is a monster, super easy to die.
4. Rise of the Runelords, classic is as classic does.
5. Mummy's Mask can be brutal, but if you play genre savvy to tomb raiding, not so bad. Play fish out of water types to the genre.... deadly.
And on the flipside, for least dangerous (to my group at least):
Shattered Star, 3 manned, 15 point buy, healing cleric, sunder barb, shadow illusionist wizard. No deaths. Final boss killed in round 1.
Giantslayer: 4 pcs, unchained rogue, grapple brawler, aether kineticist, vermin druid. Only one death halfway through, and that was from a willing tactical mistake for the sake of roleplaying. Final boss died out of initiative, CdGd while sleeping.
We've found Giantslayer less than challenging, too. Mostly because of loot, IMO, but also because the party is really optimized for killing things with reach, particularly giants. I'll find out how the end boss works shortly, however.
Now that I'm a bit better at running games, I'm expecting Ironfang Invasion to be difficult.
Haven't seen this myself (except in filtered form in Giantslayer PbPs that I have looked at), but I have heard on these messageboards that
|
Haven't seen this myself (except in filtered form in Giantslayer PbPs that I have looked at), but I have heard on these messageboards that ** spoiler omitted **
the glass cannon podcast interview the author. he was asked why he jammed all these super hard stuff into the module, and he straight up admitted that he didn't have time to playtest parts of it before submitting it to paizo.
still, i think giantslayer 2 is a great adventure. very fun stuff.
Haven't seen this myself (except in filtered form in Giantslayer PbPs that I have looked at), but I have heard on these messageboards that ** spoiler omitted **
One encounter in book 1 is a TPK as is, and the final stretch of the book is arguably unplayable as is. There's one bit in book 2 that could cause some parties trouble, but it quickly becomes a cakewalk after that.
Book 1 is otherwise fantastic, just mechanically impossible without GM intervention. I agree overall, too, Yakman.
How much GM intervention do you need (minimally)?
|
|
Haven't seen this myself (except in filtered form in Giantslayer PbPs that I have looked at), but I have heard on these messageboards that ** spoiler omitted **
One encounter in book 1 is a TPK as is, and the final stretch of the book is arguably unplayable as is. There's one bit in book 2 that could cause some parties trouble, but it quickly becomes a cakewalk after that.
Book 1 is otherwise fantastic, just mechanically impossible without GM intervention. I agree overall, too, Yakman.
if you actually play the orc ferocity rules on all those fights... i dunno if a second level non-optimal party can get through book 1. i never played it, but it's just fight fight fight fight fight... thoughts?
Surprised I haven't seen more mentions of serpents skull. That ap killed so many characters and eventually tpk'd us in a hilarious way. I won't give away the details but let's just say we took over 100d6 and were vaporized instantly within a single round.
How much GM intervention do you need (minimally)?
** spoiler omitted **
if you actually play the orc ferocity rules on all those fights... i dunno if a second level non-optimal party can get through book 1. i never played it, but it's just fight fight fight fight fight... thoughts?Haven't seen this myself (except in filtered form in Giantslayer PbPs that I have looked at), but I have heard on these messageboards that ** spoiler omitted **
One encounter in book 1 is a TPK as is, and the final stretch of the book is arguably unplayable as is. There's one bit in book 2 that could cause some parties trouble, but it quickly becomes a cakewalk after that.
Book 1 is otherwise fantastic, just mechanically impossible without GM intervention. I agree overall, too, Yakman.
The first time I ran it I did not use orc ferocity. It was maybe my 10th session as a GM (other than "fight of the week" stuff), so I wasn't up to speed on running complicated combats. The second time, entangle. Ugh. I made different mistakes for this one, however.
Age of Worms has one battle that is designed to be impossible, but also not necessarily won. A few of the battles are rather tough, but on the whole it is not very deadly. The BBEG, despite its power, wouldn't have gotten to act unless the DM had tripled its hp, when we played.