Adventure Path vs. Season [Spoilers Probably]


Pathfinder Society


Hello,
recently I had a little discussion with my players about a certain topic: Adventure Path versus Season, what shall we play? As a starter group, with some pnp experience, even Pathfinder experience.

I already found a thread discussing starter modules and such. But it doesn't seem to answer my questions.

We are looking for something that fits our group and have several ideas what this should include.

Pure Pathfinder would be prefered. 3.5 conversion to pathfinder, I'm not even sure what this would mean for an adventure path, but as a GM I would prefer a cleaner approach. Seasons 1-5 would need conversion as well, but it doesn't seem like a lot of work.

I'm not entirely sure which adventure paths would need to be converted, but the often recommended "Rise of the Runelords" is described as such.

Looking through the chronicle sheets of the same adventure path (availabe here). This adventure path seems to have "holes" in player progression, by which I mean there seems not enough chronicle sheets associated with the adventure path to straight level through it. 10 levels seem to be missing. While this is may be good thing, as those "holes" could be filled with a bit of diversity in form of other modules. It also seems a bit much. As the adventure path seems not to be rewarding enough. The same is with the module "The Dragons Demand", mentioned in the thread I linked. The module recommended for starters needs another module to be played alternatively to reward enough chronicle sheets to level through it all. Yes one could play a pregenerated character to make level jumps, but that can be hardly interesting and isn't immersive at all.

Scenarios on the other hand reward every 4 hours of gameplay with experience and offer a continous storyline. Which may not be a broad enough experience following the same plot contiously. Also while 4 hours sound like a reasonable amount of time, by my experience its a bit short: if you want player interaction, fleshed out NPCs, scenery and such. You can of course combine scenarios and handle time at your leisure. Add a little flavor to story gaps and such. But then I wonder if this is enough? Most criticism is about rushed content, with too many fights and less oppprtunities to roleplay.

So my questions in the end are:

Which adventure path is recommendable, for a starter group looking for a whole experience and preferable with less conversion issues (3.5 to Pathfinder Society)?

Which modules are recommendable as filler?

And how much do adventure paths and modules suffer from too less experience for the content given?

Where can I get a review of the the Pathfinder Society Seasons?

4/5

PFS Season "Story So Far" provides a bit of info about each season until the current one.

The majority of APs do not need to be converted from 3.5. Rise of the Runelords was re-released and I think it had all the conversion included. You can find information on APs in the Adventure Path section of the store. They're ordered chronologically there. I'm not sure when the conversions stopped, but anything from Kingmaker on down should be fine.

If you have a consistent group of players and want a consistent narrative, I would recommend an AP over scenarios. Scenarios are episodic in nature and tend to ignore the in-between time that occurs between scenarios. I'm currently running Hell's Rebels and I think it's awesome.

Dark Archive 4/5 5/5

If you run an AP you can run it in Campaign Mode however you would like an then assign chronicle sheets to a Society character of your choice. Your are correct that this may create level gaps in this second character, that you would then have to play some scenarios or modules with. This might make sense if you generally had a regular group, but wanted to enjoy some PFS play at conventions. If your just playing at home and are unlikely to do conventions or public play then I wouldn't even worry about chronicle sheets or trying to report. I'd just grab an AP that looked interesting and go.


Serisan wrote:

PFS Season "Story So Far" provides a bit of info about each season until the current one.

The majority of APs do not need to be converted from 3.5. Rise of the Runelords was re-released and I think it had all the conversion included. You can find information on APs in the Adventure Path section of the store. They're ordered chronologically there. I'm not sure when the conversions stopped, but anything from Kingmaker on down should be fine.

I might buy older stuff in a local store out of a grab box. But by now I expect not much of a hassle with the conversion process.

Serisan wrote:
If you have a consistent group of players and want a consistent narrative, I would recommend an AP over scenarios. Scenarios are episodic in nature and tend to ignore the in-between time that occurs between scenarios. I'm currently running Hell's Rebels and I think it's awesome.

Thats exactly what I'm afraid of. Thank you for your time!

Davor Firetusk wrote:
If you run an AP you can run it in Campaign Mode however you would like an then assign chronicle sheets to a Society character of your choice. Your are correct that this may create level gaps in this second character, that you would then have to play some scenarios or modules with. This might make sense if you generally had a regular group, but wanted to enjoy some PFS play at conventions.

Well thats us and I'm afraid the method you suggest wouldn't exactly be what we are looking for. In that case we could just play our regular homebrew game. But I'm glad that the lack of experience reward isn't just my imagination.

Davor Firetusk wrote:
If your just playing at home and are unlikely to do conventions or public play then I wouldn't even worry about chronicle sheets or trying to report. I'd just grab an AP that looked interesting and go.

The whole reason why I decided to introduce Pathfinder was the rule exoskeleton and plots it provided. So I could exchange expiriences and stories with other GMs. Also my playerbase was a bit torn over different GM styles. The promise of a neutral option through premade stuff was a bit of a peacemaker for us.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

APs are designed with one continuous group in mind, Society scenarios are meant to meet the needs of people playing with a constantly changing table.

You'll notice the level ranges of scenarios in a season aren't a neatly ascending line. Getting the story in chronological order with a single character is tricky; these scenarios were written with the idea that people would periodically start a new character. You have to imagine all those characters occasionally discussing things around the water cooler in the grand lodge and then when they share their stories the bigger picture starts to emerge.

I think APs are better suited for your needs; the AP itself covers the whole journey of a character through the story and levels. The sheets with XP you get for PFS are just an extract of it, for a secondary character. It's just an extra. The primary character playing the AP doesn't need side adventures to progress through levels, the XP from all the stuff happening in the books should be enough for that.

Scarab Sages 5/5 5/5 *** Venture-Captain, Netherlands

As the others have said, you dont need to use the chronicles for Adventure Paths if that is all you are playing. Adventure Paths have the option of earning XP the old fashioned way (defeat an encounter, gain X XP), or using waypoints for leveling (if players finish the dungeon, they level up). Of course they leave you free of using your own way of leveling too if you want.

If you and your players are looking for a great story, but dont plan on playing any PFS, using the PFS rules is not necessary. It would leave you with a lot more freedom.

Dark Archive 4/5 5/5

The thread below has some pre-sorted ideas for running campaigns using just scenario's. While in general scenarios are very episodic there are some definite links between them.
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2r7ae?Pathfinder-Society-Campaign-Paths

It sounds like that provides the combination you are looking for. And as a plus it is pretty easy to switch up GMing in that type of environment with the PFS rules.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

Waypoints are awesome. I hate it when the GM says, "Ooh, you're just short of leveling. Here are some infernal squids to battle. Never mind that you're in the desert. These guys just showed up and you need to kill them so you can get better spells."

I much prefer the PFS and waypoint leveling systems. So much easier to deal with.

I will say that I actually like the concept of a PFS campaign from scenarios. It's nice to finish things and complete them. It's nice to be able to trade off GMing from time to time. Although the breadth of an AP is great, I really love the wild and crazy variety of PFS scenarios and modules.

Hmm

Grand Lodge 4/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

If our weeknight group ever stabilizes again, it would be nice to get back to our Season 0/1 run with my warpriest version of my holy vindicator. We were almost to second level...


Davor Firetusk wrote:

The thread below has some pre-sorted ideas for running campaigns using just scenario's. While in general scenarios are very episodic there are some definite links between them.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2r7ae?Pathfinder-Society-Campaign-Paths

It sounds like that provides the combination you are looking for. And as a plus it is pretty easy to switch up GMing in that type of environment with the PFS rules.

Thank you very much, this is most useful and I will give my players the link for discussion.

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