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I noticed this a lot in Shackled City and it seems to be happening in RotRL as well. The passage of time between adventures seems waaay too fast. I always imagined it taking a character a good 15-20 years at least to make the high levels, not a year. I'd like to see an Adventure Path that takes half a century or so to complete (game time not real time!) Leaves soooo much more room for character development and such (families, careers, reunion tours)
This has come up before. You could try doing a search.
My recollection was that there will be significant dead time between each part of the adventure. Enough to craft magic items etc. Still thats normally no more then a month or so.
Still this opens up a space for you to do a little modification of the AP and change things so that years might pass between the different adventures and it should not be that difficult to manage as a significant pause is built in.
My strong feeling is this going to have to be your modification and not something that the design will generally support. I've heard of this style of gaming (were the adventurers reach 20th level in the 50s and 60s) but I think its extremely rare. By far the vast majority of players play with a faster pace.
I noticed this a lot in Shackled City and it seems to be happening in RotRL as well. The passage of time between adventures seems waaay too fast. I always imagined it taking a character a good 15-20 years at least to make the high levels, not a year. I'd like to see an Adventure Path that takes half a century or so to complete (game time not real time!) Leaves soooo much more room for character development and such (families, careers, reunion tours)
While I like the idea of my characters being high level while they are young enough to enjoy it, I have always thought it was odd that a character took 20 years to make it to first level and then one or two to make it to 20th :)
Creative Director
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Passage of time in a campaign is something that each player seems to have a different opinion on. As a result, we generally try to avoid putting timers on campaigns. While a specific Pathfinder adventure may assume a timeline, the amount of time that occurs between adventures is left to each group's GM to determine, as best fits his group's play style and preferences.
Some groups prefer a campaign to cover decades of time. Others rush through and do an entire thing in a few weeks.
The basic assumption for Pathfinder adventure paths is that each adventure covers about a month, so each of our adventure paths covers about six months game time. If that's too slow or too fast, by all means adjust as necessary. Events in one AP are self-contained enough that they won't really impact the events of others if timelines start to get really long.
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Also, if there are months, even years between "chapters" of an adventure path, doesn't that mean that the "heroes" should have done some other adventuring in between "chapters?"
I mean a fighter, rogue, ranger, and barbarian aren't just going to sit around and play cards the whole time... well maybe the rogue would, while picking pockets and doing other shadey things that get him XP.
No, big time gaps don't work unless the Adventure Path is designed so that chapter 1 ends and you're and X level and chapter 2 beings and it's designed for characters of Y level. Meaning the DM has to come up with in between adventures.. and if you stagger things like that, what's the point of an adventure path.. just play the regular GameMastery modules and alter them homebrew style just enough so that there's a single "master" that all the final bosses in each module serves that the PCs will eventually have to confront.
Leaves soooo much more room for character development and such (families, careers, reunion tours)
... characters of shorter-lived races dying or at least becoming old enough to retire (not every character's a Cohen, not every party the Silver Horde).
Plus, with campaign-spanning plots, it doesn't always fit to have decades between adventures. Not only because the characters won't just idle away the years, but also because of the villains. What are they up to? They do some stuff that takes years to achieve to move towards the next step and the heroes will do nothing to stop him?
I know, I know, sometimes the villain will lie low, or the years between the campaigns will consist of the heroes trying to piece together the puzzle that is the villain's plan, but that should not be the norm.
This has always been a tough point for campaigns: How fast in campaign time does it take for people to gain levels? As with a lot of issues, it depends on many factors. If the DM uses the optional training rules, that will slow things down, as will allowing/providing stretches of "down time" for PCs to enchant magical items, use Craft skills, research spells, etc. The DM can also use these stretches for PC-NPC interaction and breathe life into the local community. This is complicated when the DM runs a coherent AP-style plotline, instead of series of unrelated (or mostly unrelated) adventures. As stated, the bad guys don't stop their plots to wait on the PCs.
Active adventurers will gain levels quickly ("that which does not kill me, makes me stronger"), compared to non-adventurers. As a DM, I like to have one or two months of game time pass (on average) for every level gained when the PCs are actively adventuring. I also encourage non-adventuring activities that establish the PCs as part of the community (establishing/helping a local chapter of a PCs deity, working with the local government, starting/expanding a business, learning establishment, charitable organization, etc.).
For NPCs that don't actively adventure, or only rarely do so, having one to five years of game time (depending on how often they adventure or otherwise stretch themselves with difficult situations) pass for every level gained works fairly well. A (human) warior who survives 25 years of routine activity in a town watch or as a caravan guard might look forward to retiring as a 12th level character (or might switch to expert and become a merchant himself at some point).
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When your villain is an immortal lich, he probably starts to look at time a lot differently from the PCs do.
I mean, he's not going to rush around contacting everyone and getting all his ducks in a row 'immediately'. He's going to take some time to 'feel out' his underlings, and make sure they're competent before he works himself into their plan.
As a group, we've abandoned the XP 'reward'. It is completely unnecessary for us. We share DMing duties, and we agree before hand when we're going to level. This means we can 'enjoy' each level and as a DM we don't have to worry about one too many goblins so the boss battle becomes a cakewalk because the PCs have a higher level spell they've never used at that moment.
This lets us level when it is appropriate based on our deeds and story purposes. This also can help a campaign 'run long'. You can put more side adventures in if they're not going to cause you to level up.
When your villain is an immortal lich
Not every villain is immortal. And that's the problem. You can't make every villain immortal just because going from 1 to 20 in a year is too fast for you.
This lets us level when it is appropriate based on our deeds and story purposes. This also can help a campaign 'run long'. You can put more side adventures in if they're not going to cause you to level up.
Still, an adventure will expect a certain speed of progression, unless you want to rebuild lots of enemies so the party isn't turned into a fine mist. And you might to rebuild stories, because the new, weaker villains can't do what they were supposed to do to make the story work like this.
Contributor
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The problem is that most PCs only interact with the villains at the climax of their plots. While the immortal lich is "laying low" and "feeling out his minions", the PCs have no idea he even exists (most likely). They only interact once said minion has been trusted to a job, like stealing an artifact.
The thing about an adventure path is that it tends to be one plot arc, which is at its crux. Sure
The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings have a similar timeline. The Lord of the Rings takes, what, two years from when Frodo leaves his house in the Shire to the end of the story? All this despite the fact that Sauron (effectively immortal) was biding his time and rebuilding his forces for a long time before that.
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Creative Director
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My way of looking at it: of the millions of creatures and people and intelligent NPCs on the world... only four to six of them are player characters at any one time. They're special, as a result, and part of what makes them special is the fact that they CAN hit 20th level fast, whereas the rest of the world does not.
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My way of looking at it: of the millions of creatures and people and intelligent NPCs on the world... only four to six of them are player characters at any one time. They're special, as a result, and part of what makes them special is the fact that they CAN hit 20th level fast, whereas the rest of the world does not.
Then the question always comes up of "what after that?" two years later are they epic in their level 40s fighting gods and soloing demon lords?
I think I'm gonna put a big chunk of downtime in/around the third adventure so my players can really enjoy controlling the Fort. Maybe 5 or 6 years.
But since we're seeing right now only little bits of the arch-nemesis' plans anyway in RoRL it's not like the PCs are going to be sitting around with their thumbs up their butts because they won't really have a clue to who the archnemesis IS for a good long while.
And even if they did, it can still take lots of time. I'm a player in the 3.5 Expedition to Castle Ravenloft and we've been in Barovia for like 3 months and have still barely explored the castle.
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What comes after that? Simple, retirement, not in the game world, but for you and playing that character. You put the characters away and start new ones. There reaches a point in every characters "life" that you just have to stop playing it and start anew.
If you want to play the same character for the next 10 years I suggest not wasting anymore money on supplements and making homebrew campaigns where you and your friends sit around the table and B.S. or ONLY roleplay social encounters for 90% of the time. That way, you don't gain any experience or get anything done.
James and the gang have already said, it's 1-15. IMHO when the AP is over you have a choice, you start new characters OR you reset the characters to level 1 so you can continue to use them, keeping their history, their friends, alliances, etc. in tact but having them usable in the next 1-15 AP.
I really hate the "then what" question. No single gaming product aside from World's Largest Dungeon and World's Largest City can continue for a year or more if you have regular game sessions. Once a product is over so is the campaign and the characters you used it in.
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I really hate the "then what" question. No single gaming product aside from World's Largest Dungeon and World's Largest City can continue for a year or more if you have regular game sessions. Once a product is over so is the campaign and the characters you used it in.
Last campaign I played lasted for over 3 years, and those were 3 books, not 6. I concede in the 'then wat' questions though. After an AP it's time to tie up all the loose ends from alterations to a story and put the pc in the npc categorie (unless we find a short adventure specifically designed for those level op pc's that doesn't impact their storylines for too much).
Our last bunch of heroes became the sort of mentors for our newer pc's and those that didn't got cameo roles.
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Three books in 3 years huh? What were they, cause that's 1 book a year. I'd love to know what book took your group that played on a regular basis a year to complete.
As it stands Rise of the Runelords is approximately 300 pages long. Approx. 50 pages per issue is AP material.
Now the recent Forgotten Realms campaign, 3 books, approximately 150 pages each long, took my group only 2 months to get through the first two. That's 4 games of 4-5 hours a week to complete 1 books. We haven't started on the 3rd book because it just came out, but maybe we're just fast.
My way of looking at it: of the millions of creatures and people and intelligent NPCs on the world... only four to six of them are player characters at any one time. They're special, as a result, and part of what makes them special is the fact that they CAN hit 20th level fast, whereas the rest of the world does not.
So every setting is an "instance" of Pathfinder, then? The upshot of this would seem to be that not only are adventurers more special than non-adventurers, but that among adventurers that the PC's are the best of the best in the world. Granted I have a mighty fine player group, but it seems a lot to expect them to be paragons of the entire setting. Certainly I've had a range of NPC's in the games I've run--some who have caved before the PC's like paper dolls in sissy dresses, and others who have outsmarted, beguiled and hammered PC's into goo.
The PC's are the only special guys out there makes Pathfinder feel a bit like mookworld--a big sandbox where the PC's should just rule over the slow-witted sheep that surround them. Seems like a hard world to sell.
I mean, why would they ever meet their match in a world like that? If they're that good, and that special...shouldn't everything else be kind of blah by comparison?
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Creative Director
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The "special" part about the PCs, in my mind, applies only to the speed at which they advance and become powerful. There are plenty of foes for them in Golarion to tangle with, but for the most part, those foes either took lots of time to become powerful or were "born powerful" (as is the case for higher CR monsters). I'm sure there are other NPCs in a world who advance quickly, actually, as in the case of rival adventuring parties or recurring villains.
But a campaign isn't about them once it's being played. The "stars" of the campaign are the PCs, and that does indeed mean they're pretty special.
And of course... I only use this line of thinking to explain WHY a PC might achieve 20th level in a year or six months, and only if one needs a reason. Personally, I don't need a reason. PCs can hit 20th level that fast because, for me and my players, the game's more fun that way.
My personal druthers would have events unfold as they unfold--all of this stuff happens in the chronological order it does, the stakes getting ratcheted up higher and higher until the final confrontation.
I'd award the characters the usual 300 XP a session and let the chips fall where they may. There's a dragon? Well you better play smart and give it your A-game. There's mountains full of stone giants? Well you better come up with a plan then.
I like the idea of the setting unfolding in six month intervals, but I'd probably play it just like that--with characters progressing about what they would in six months.
Now to be not entirely without heart, were I to play a historical (erhem...module) campaign like this I would probably start them out at about the level I'd want them to be for the whole thing and scale the battles to fit. More goblins! More ogres! They'd be a bit overpowered at the front end and just scrapping through the last parts. I think level 10 would be about right to start.
Then again, it might be fun to start them off as first level characters and just let them sweat. Heh. I'm a bad, bad man.
My personal druthers would have events unfold as they unfold--all of this stuff happens in the chronological order it does, the stakes getting ratcheted up higher and higher until the final confrontation.
I'd award the characters the usual 300 XP a session and let the chips fall where they may. There's a dragon? Well you better play smart and give it your A-game. There's mountains full of stone giants? Well you better come up with a plan then.
How long are your sessions, and how many times to you hold one, per month?
I find this approach intriguing, but many of my players greatly prefer to have the dice roll on "their" side of the screen, which means the dice land as they may.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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My plan, which my players don't suspect...
I'll advance them through Burnt Offerings as a fairly normal pace. Then slow down to half xp awards with skinsaw, stretching it out with other adventures. This will keep them 3-9th level for a longer period of time. Also I'll likely keep a month between pathfinders. Maybe have Alden send some masterwork items to his 'love' run an adventure where Shayless gets in trouble and the party has to rescue her (more likely someone with Shayless gets in trouble and they rescue her as a side effect).
I'm working on taking the gazetter in #1 and purging the secrets and levels from it, then giving it to my players, so they can get to 'know' sandpoint better.
Count me in as one that would enjoy lengthening the time of the AP. I've never done something like that before, and I want to give it a go this time. My last campaigns have run almost like seasons of 24...
I'll be running RoTRL using True20, which already removes XP in favor of ad hoc levelling.
So, for those interested in slower levelling up, why don't we work up a time progression?
My way of looking at it: of the millions of creatures and people and intelligent NPCs on the world... only four to six of them are player characters at any one time. They're special, as a result, and part of what makes them special is the fact that they CAN hit 20th level fast, whereas the rest of the world does not.
Yeah this is how i look at it.
I also feel like it is just part of the game and don't worry about it ;)
How long are your sessions, and how many times to you hold one, per month?
Every Saturday, 4-11. We catch dinner together usually too though, so that knocks out an hour or so--plus we tend to chat beforehand, well lots. My campaign journal is posted, if you're interested in reading along. It's not Runelords, per se, but it's set in the same timeline, down south around Korvosa.
I find this approach intriguing, but many of my players greatly prefer to have the dice roll on "their" side of the screen, which means the dice land as they may.
Oh, me too. I'd just kill 'em. Have the dragon swoop by and bite one of them right in half. Heh! Then the stone giants would show up.
That's what they get, stupid third-level party...