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Hi there,
Somehow personnally I lately got the feeling that a certain aspect of your APs might prove to be a problem for some players and DMs on the long run:
Put shortly: Who wants to save the world all the time?
At least my players grew pretty tired of high level adventures by now (and it is not only due to the increasing complexity of high level stats)..
Don't get me wrong: We love to roleplay, therefore we love interconnected adventures (ie APs), but we long for the old times when you weren't high level after the equivalent of one whole AP.
I know that I can insert side track after side track, but what would that do to the story line and which sense in *subscribing* to APs?
In short: I love your work, I'd really like to keep on playing them and therefore I kindly ask: Is it possible to publish APs with slower average level increase which don't end in a 'save the world scenario'?
Thanks in advance for your feed back!
Guenther
PS
... And for those interested in chiming in: Please stay respectful towards opinions about the game differing from yours.
Creative Director
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Part of the problem is, of course, that by the time you're high level... the forces and creatures and events you'll be interacting with are so potent and powerful that saving the world kinda creeps in there anyway. And if you go on six adventures... well, the way the game works, you'll be high level by the end of adventure four.
That said, we ARE trying to keep this plot at a minimum, since that was the plot for Age of Worms and to a certain extent Savage Tide.
For Rise of the Runelords:
For Curse of the Crimson Throne:
For Second Darkness:
One option, of course, is to only play an Adventrue Path through to part 3 or part 4. Each adventure itself ends at a natural stopping point for a campaign... you'll just need to keep this in mind and adjust some of the earlier encounters to cast the big bad end guy of whatever adventure you plan on ending it on as the end guy rather than a mini-boss. You can certainly still use the Pathfinders you don't use in this event for additional background material, new monsters and stat blocks and ideas, or additional artwork to show your PCs.
Part of the problem is, of course, that by the time you're high level... the forces and creatures and events you'll be interacting with are so potent and powerful that saving the world kinda creeps in there anyway. And if you go on six adventures... well, the way the game works, you'll be high level by the end of adventure four.
How about the occasional AP that doesn't take the heroes too high in level then, James?
Maybe do one from 1st level thru 10th...or 12th? Basically, end it a little earlier so our heroes can then run through a second AP that goes from 15th thru 25th. Or maybe allow us to spin them off into our own homebrewed AP or string of adventures.
If you do something like that, it gives GMs and their players more options. Essentially, they can use that one AP to go from 1st to 10th...and then retire the PCs and start over with new ones for a different AP. Or, if you've also got an AP that starts out at a higher level, they can keep those original PCs and keep right on adventuring through another one.
Personally, I think that would maximize your "coverage" for different play groups. And I know you guys have things pretty far planned out so far. But maybe consider that as you get further along in the production cycle...
Just my two-cents,
--Neil
James Jacobs,
I'm fairly happy with the way things are.. but in the spirit of brainstorming...
How about an AP that doesn't go as high in level (as Neil suggested), but still has a fair number of 'activities' and 'role-playing situations' that would still require 5 or 6 books?
I don't even know if that's possible.. but just to elaborate, player rise in level with CR rewards, right? From a design standpoint, can you have pages of content that offer a role-playing reward without necessarily a CR reward?
Odd little example from Rise of the Runelords. (Spoilers from my campaign, relevant to the discussion of role-playing rewards versus CR rewards):
Cyrdak gives her the practice and showtime schedule, and it of course conflicts with their visit to Habe's Sanitarium (and would also preclude her from going to Hambly Farm later on).
It's a painful role-playing choice, where the PC bard must decide if she wants to follow her dream, or go with her friends to follow that dream of well, saving Sandpoint in the process.
And right in the middle of it, my PC Druid says, "You know, ironically the only way to improve your acting skills is to go out and fight more powerful monsters."
And you know he is right!
I'm not suggesting that you not have monsters and perils... but is there a way to create more role-playing problems than CR Rated problems?
Again, personally I like the current schedule.. but I am trying to brainstorm using the Original Poster's concern.
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Creative Director
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How about the occasional AP that doesn't take the heroes too high in level then, James?
That's certainly a possibility... but not one I want to try before we get Pathfinder "established." Once we're three APs in... the baseline formula will be solid and we should be able to start tinkering with that formula. Complicating this, though, is the fact that a 1st - 10th level AP would only be three volumes long... either that, or it would have a lot of really short adventures. A 3-part AP might be doable though...
In any event, all of what you mention is certainly brewing in my brain. The 1-15 level range is certainly not set in stone... although it is for Runelords and Crimson Throne, more or less.
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Not that I'm against roleplay.. but 6 volumes of it? Take a quick look at the adventures. Each adventure is about 60 pages.. that's 360 pages per AP. Now look at the stat blocks, roughly in Burnt Offerings, you have 15 pages of stat blocks, that's 90 pages per AP of stats. Now if you're role playing more then dungeon hacking, you don't need maps, that's another 5 pages per adventure.. 30 pages per AP.
So.. out of 360 pages you have..
30 pages of map
90 pages of stats
--
120 pages of hack & slash setup
That's 240 pages, roughly 40 pages of adventure that still includes regular art, monster art, and the encounter info for each area of the map. Just to replace all that information you're talking about an adventure the size of a GAMEMASTERY module.
I don't know about you, but I don't see how they could fill 40-60 pages with mostly RP stuff.. that'd feel too much like I'm looking at a choose your own adventure book or one of those noob introduction games.. roll the dice and if they get this, this happens.
If Paizo is really interested in trying a Roleplay focused adventure, more talk and less hack, I suggest trying it in a GAMEMASTERY module first.
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Hi James,
Hi Neil,
Thanks for your answers!
James, thank you for your insights into the next APs' plots.
You are right: When players are high level, they look for high level villains and get caught up in high level plots. No way to prevent that.
For that reason my question was: Can you imagine some APs circumventing this dilemma by stopping before high level?
A solution could be as Neill suggested to create one low - mid level AP and a follow up mid - high level AP.
Advantage: clear split between low and high level AP parts.
Disadvantage: Each AP only appeals to part of the target group - that would be us.
Maybe another viable approach: one major (non world shattering) conflict and two APs describing it from different angles/ at different locations. DMs could combine both into one major AP or play them individually. E.g. Two different arms of a major crime organization make an appearance, One military conflict with two completely different missions. For a change both APs could be at same level and give DMs completely new opportunities of choice!
I'd like the APs to stay surprising and innovative, not only in plot terms, but in matters of adventure path design., too. That way we would keep on wondering about the plot as well as how and for how long it will unfold.
As Neil wrote: just my two cents. ;-)
Cheers,
Guenther
Hi James,
Hi Neil,Thanks for your answers!
No thanks for me? Even though I attempted to engage the topic? With a tone of mutual respect? I addressed it to James, but it wasn't exclusive.
If Paizo is really interested in trying a Roleplay focused adventure, more talk and less hack, I suggest trying it in a GAMEMASTERY module first.
Respectfully, I think you're misplacing your concern. *I* suggested that, but there's little evidence that anyone but you paid it any attention. ;)
Actually, I'd like an AP that goes all the way up to 20, not just to 15.
1-20 Covers all bases, and you can always stop before you get to the end. Of course, it means that you don't get to finish the whole story, which can be a negative.
My idea: Have a "double AP" with two climaxes - one after the third book, the other after the sixth. Both halves tell more or less their own story, but the stories are connected.
Example: In the first 3 books, you deal with some evil sorcerer. At the end of #3, you'll have defeated him(always provided that you succeed, of course) and the story is more or less over.
And then, in #4-6, the heroes are again called together by the Pathfinder society, who have been looting the sorcerer's tower for information and all that: They found a book containing a profecy that foresaw the evil sorcerer dying, but coming back from beyond due to some nasty ritual he has previously done. So now they have to deal with an evil, returned-from-the-grave sorcerer-lich.
You'd have your connected adventure with #1-3, another with #4-6 (any adventurers could look into the lich thing, hearing that he was some evil guy in life who has been killed recently). And they form one big super-adventure together.
Actually, I'd like an AP that goes all the way up to 20, not just to 15.
1-20 Covers all bases, and you can always stop before you get to the end. Of course, it means that you don't get to finish the whole story, which can be a negative.
My idea: Have a "double AP" with two climaxes - one after the third book, the other after the sixth. Both halves tell more or less their own story, but the stories are connected.
Example: In the first 3 books, you deal with some evil sorcerer. At the end of #3, you'll have defeated him(always provided that you succeed, of course) and the story is more or less over.
And then, in #4-6, the heroes are again called together by the Pathfinder society, who have been looting the sorcerer's tower for information and all that: They found a book containing a profecy that foresaw the evil sorcerer dying, but coming back from beyond due to some nasty ritual he has previously done. So now they have to deal with an evil, returned-from-the-grave sorcerer-lich.You'd have your connected adventure with #1-3, another with #4-6 (any adventurers could look into the lich thing, hearing that he was some evil guy in life who has been killed recently). And they form one big super-adventure together.
It's an interesting idea. But don't you find that each Chapter has it's own decisive finale anyway?
And that the 'new threat' usually manifests in the beginning of the next Chapter? EDIT: So each one can be played as a stand alone, with a little work? I'm thinking of Pathfinder, where none of them end on a cliffhanger (that I can recall anyway, I'm fuzzier on the later Chapters).
I am not disagreeing with your idea, but I invite you to elaborate further. I'm not sure I understand. And thank you!
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Respectfully, I think you're misplacing your concern. *I* suggested that, but there's little evidence that anyone but you paid it any attention. ;)
The same argument still applies if you're only talking about a 3 volume adventure path. It's just too small and honestly, a lot of people aren't very good at roleplaying.
I've played the same adventure, Barrow of the Forgotten King, with two different groups recently. One group spent a lot more time roleplaying, investigating, hanging out, etc. in town while the other found out where the evil is and went swords swinging into the tomb. And the funny thing is, the sword swingers, well 2 of them generally are good roleplayers but didn't see the point in investing the time.
I don't think ending the adventures paths earlier would really serve to make everyone happy. However, I do think that the idea of not running it as high makes a lot of sense.
As others have mentioned each chapter of an AP does have a distinctive ending to it, so it shouldn't be too hard to stop at that point. However, there would still be a lot of loose ends to tie up. So I can understand some reticence to this.
There was a discussion back in the SCAP board a while back about what good "outs" were during the campaign. I found this discussion really hit on the solution here, and that is to use this community to help you identify 'outs' during the AP and then identifying what loose threads there would be and how you could tie them up if you were ending at that point.
I am not convinced that it would be best to use space in Pathfinder for this, but these boards are an excellent place for it.
Sean Mahoney
The same argument still applies if you're only talking about a 3 volume adventure path. It's just too small and honestly, a lot of people aren't very good at roleplaying.
I've played the same adventure, Barrow of the Forgotten King, with two different groups recently. One group spent a lot more time roleplaying, investigating, hanging out, etc. in town while the other found out where the evil is and went swords swinging into the tomb. And the funny thing is, the sword swingers, well 2 of them generally are good roleplayers but didn't see the point in investing the time.
Alright.. Sorry, didn't mean to minimize your point.
Balance is obviously a key factor here. Especially in light of your experience. Your sword swingers never felt the investment was worthy of the role-playing.
I'm not disagreeing with you, but all I can think of is James Jacob's comment that all he can do is 'make an adventure that will make the most people happy.'
I don't know what that is.
I don't think ending the adventures paths earlier would really serve to make everyone happy. However, I do think that the idea of not running it as high makes a lot of sense.
As others have mentioned each chapter of an AP does have a distinctive ending to it, so it shouldn't be too hard to stop at that point. However, there would still be a lot of loose ends to tie up. So I can understand some reticence to this.
There was a discussion back in the SCAP board a while back about what good "outs" were during the campaign. I found this discussion really hit on the solution here, and that is to use this community to help you identify 'outs' during the AP and then identifying what loose threads there would be and how you could tie them up if you were ending at that point.
I am not convinced that it would be best to use space in Pathfinder for this, but these boards are an excellent place for it.
Sean Mahoney
Excellent post Sean.
These boards could be used to find logical stopping points throughout the Paths.
One option no one has mentioned is changing the emphasis of the campaign. RotRL could very easily be changed into a classic revenge story — someone close to the PCs is killed during the festival and they work their way up the villain-tree to avenge the death. The "rising" is simply a MacGuffin to move the PCs from one stage to the next. This is exactly the formula used in about a zillion kung-fu movies...
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Actually, I'd like an AP that goes all the way up to 20, not just to 15.
1-20 Covers all bases, and you can always stop before you get to the end. Of course, it means that you don't get to finish the whole story, which can be a negative.
My idea: Have a "double AP" with two climaxes - one after the third book, the other after the sixth. Both halves tell more or less their own story, but the stories are connected.
Example: In the first 3 books, you deal with some evil sorcerer. At the end of #3, you'll have defeated him(always provided that you succeed, of course) and the story is more or less over.
And then, in #4-6, the heroes are again called together by the Pathfinder society, who have been looting the sorcerer's tower for information and all that: They found a book containing a profecy that foresaw the evil sorcerer dying, but coming back from beyond due to some nasty ritual he has previously done. So now they have to deal with an evil, returned-from-the-grave sorcerer-lich.You'd have your connected adventure with #1-3, another with #4-6 (any adventurers could look into the lich thing, hearing that he was some evil guy in life who has been killed recently). And they form one big super-adventure together.
Reminds me of the Fire Emblem series, where there are two parts connected by a link. At the end of the first part, you say "Wow, that was epic" and at the end of the second part, you say "The first part was epic, but that was just EPIC" I think the two part APs would really work well.
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Hi James,
Hi Neil,Thanks for your answers!
No thanks for me? Even though I attempted to engage the topic? With a tone of mutual respect? I addressed it to James, but it wasn't exclusive.
No offence was intended, Watcher!
When I wrote my answer there were only these two answers, and after sending it other duties prevented me from reading all the new replies which had arrived in the meantime.I am positively surprised that so many readers already contributed to this thread - many new ideas so far!
E.g. I am also interested in a more roleplaying oriented approach - I feel that PCs after the low levels usually have gained some roleplaying experience, too - not just new feats, spells, and hit points. So you can certainly expect them to be up to more demanding roleplaying situation.
Of course Sir Urza is also correct, though. Stats really make up a considerable part of the game and D&D adventures traditionally rather lean towards the fighting heavy side. I know different examples from Germany (100 to 360 page adventures with multi rule system stats), but those are rare in comparision to Paizo publications.
Reading on and certainly not ignoring anyone's posting,
Guenther
These boards could be used to find logical stopping points throughout the Paths.
For Rise of the Runelords, you could make the main villain Mokmurian instead of Karzoug. Mokmurian, instead of being Karzoug's tool, could be attempting to re-establish the Empire of Thassilon under stone giant (his) control. The sihedron rune, in this case, is being used to repower the runewells around Varisa, giving Mokmurian ready-made sources of magical power and sinspawn reinforcements. The raid on Sandpoint was to determine the location of the runewell, not to find Karzoug's spy.
It's an interesting idea. But don't you find that each Chapter has it's own decisive finale anyway?
Yes, they're playable as stand-alone products, too.
I guess what I mean is that you tie up all (or most) loose ends at halftime.
I do think that it wouldn't take that much effort, since a lot of it is done already. Just add a bit of extra effort and market it as the "Dual Adventure Path" or something.
Reminds me of the Fire Emblem series, where there are two parts connected by a link. At the end of the first part, you say "Wow, that was epic" and at the end of the second part, you say "The first part was epic, but that was just EPIC" I think the two part APs would really work well.
Sorry for the threadjacking, but how are those games? I saw that there's a Wii game in that series. Do you know if it is any good?
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For Rise of the Runelords, you could make the main villain Mokmurian instead of Karzoug. Mokmurian, instead of being Karzoug's tool, could be attempting to re-establish the Empire of Thassilon under stone giant (his) control. The sihedron rune, in this case, is being used to repower the runewells around Varisa, giving Mokmurian ready-made sources of magical power and sinspawn reinforcements. The raid on Sandpoint was to determine the location of the runewell, not to find Karzoug's spy.
An excellent point, though I know my players really do enjoy long-lasting, epic storylines. Will certainly be sticking with the whole AP here, but with additional sidetreks and supplementary storyline material added to customize it for my group.
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Sorry for the threadjacking, but how are those games? I saw that there's a Wii game in that series. Do you know if it is any good?
Reminds me of the Fire Emblem series, where there are two parts connected by a link. At the end of the first part, you say "Wow, that was epic" and at the end of the second part, you say "The first part was epic, but that was just EPIC" I think the two part APs would really work well.
I love the fire emblem series for gameboy and wii. Thought they were all fantastic, and I would highly recommend them.
No offence was intended, Watcher!
When I wrote my answer there were only these two answers, and after sending it other duties prevented me from reading all the new replies which had arrived in the meantime.
Please ignore what I said Guennarr. It was ill considered and foolish. I can be mecurial and rash. I too am enjoying the thread. All is well and no hard feelings.
Yes, they're playable as stand-alone products, too.I guess what I mean is that you tie up all (or most) loose ends at halftime.
I do think that it wouldn't take that much effort, since a lot of it is done already. Just add a bit of extra effort and market it as the "Dual Adventure Path" or something.
(nods)
Seems like a fair idea.
I guess when I go back and re-read Guennarr's original post, I wonder if the solution addresses the stated problem. Without sarcasm- isn't an Adventure Path in Two Parts, broken out over 3 chapters each, actually just one Adventure Path with special attention paid to a mid-path climax?
That this soultion is just a matter of convincing oneself that's it's okay to just run half of the Adventure Path and call it good?
I guess I'm wondering if that works on paper, but will be hard for people to do practically, without a true finale.
I encourage disagreement or counterviews. I don't know the answer.
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I guess when I go back and re-read Guennarr's original post, I wonder if the solution addresses the stated problem. Without sarcasm- isn't an Adventure Path in Two Parts, broken out over 3 chapters each, actually just one Adventure Path with special attention paid to a mid-path climax?That this soultion is just a matter of convincing oneself that's it's okay to just run half of the Adventure Path and call it good?
I guess I'm wondering if that works on paper, but will be hard for people to do practically, without a true finale.
I encourage disagreement or counterviews. I don't know the answer.
I am wondering, too. ;-)
My proposals further above obviously didn't meet much interest.
And my real approach so far in actual play was even more dramatic: I considerably slowed down level increases for my players - first because of their relative D&D inexperience, later because they really enjoyed more to play at low to mid level. They felt that the game lost touch to the "surrounding low level" world at high levels (again: that's *their* opinion!).
I fear that Paizo would never go so far to touch the "holy cows" of core rules in any way (-> here: rate of level increases). But I keep on wondering: If there is this audible minority who is not interested in high level play, why not give them now or then APs to be happy with?
So far I used to dm single adventures before and tried to combine them to a resemblance of a story line. I'd prefer APs which allow to stay longer in the low to mid level region of play, though.
It was some time ago that I payed closer attention to all the 4e rumours: But if things didn't change in the meantime, then 4e is supposed to make players rise even faster than before. Assuming *that* Paizo sometime will decide in favour of 4e: How would you guys address this problem then? For by then either your APs would have to considerably shorten, or you'd easily cover even bigger level spans than right now: 1 4e-AP = 15 levels?
Just being interested in your opinion and clearly aware of the fact that any change (if at all) can only take place from AP #19 onwards...
Overextending my 2 cents again... ;-),
Günther
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Guennarr, from what I've read, every fighter (for example) is the same from levels 1-9, it's when they get to Paragon levels... 10-19, that they start becoming their "own" character.
So yeah, the level cap for the AP are definitely going to need adjustments.
But then again, we haven't see the XP chart. Instead of 1000 XP for level 2, you might only need 500 XP.
There's a lot of questions still unanswered, I would be very surprised if level 30 in 4E required a significant more about of game play then level 20 in 3E though.
I'd just like to add to the idea that's occasionally thrown around the boards for a 3-issue Pathfinder AP. Since we're at least a year away from seeing anything but a 6-issue AP, how about testing the waters w/ a 3-issue story arc in GameMastery instead? Those worked out really well in Dungeon, and I'd love to see their equivalents in GM.
I'd just like to add to the idea that's occasionally thrown around the boards for a 3-issue Pathfinder AP. Since we're at least a year away from seeing anything but a 6-issue AP, how about testing the waters w/ a 3-issue story arc in GameMastery instead? Those worked out really well in Dungeon, and I'd love to see their equivalents in GM.
D0, D1, E1 - All are in Falcon's Hollow and the levels are right.
Guennarr, from what I've read, every fighter (for example) is the same from levels 1-9, it's when they get to Paragon levels... 10-19, that they start becoming their "own" character.
That can't be right. Tell me you misread something. It sure would encourage people buying more books with more characters, uh, I mean, classes, to play.
I wonder if the solution addresses the stated problem. Without sarcasm- isn't an Adventure Path in Two Parts, broken out over 3 chapters each, actually just one Adventure Path with special attention paid to a mid-path climax?
That's what I'm thinking. It's mostly what we have now - they just tie up more loose ends between 3 and 4 (it probably wouldn't even be that much of an effort), and put some marketing into the mix. Sometimes success depends only on telling people what they're getting more explicitly.
What about a six issue AP that only goes to 9th or 10th level, but to pace it right, allow your writers to go into more details on encounters, surrounding territory, personalities and roleplaying notes?
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Creative Director
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What about a six issue AP that only goes to 9th or 10th level, but to pace it right, allow your writers to go into more details on encounters, surrounding territory, personalities and roleplaying notes?
Because that treads dangerously close to overwriting. It's easily possible to go too far into unnecessary description and clutter up the text; this tends to make the adventure harder to read (since it has too many digressions) and therefore less fun to run. Like a person, an adventure is at its most healthy somewhere between being emaciated and obese.
In any event... I am tinkering with methods to vary up the length of adventure paths as regards what levels they cover. And that includes reading these messageboards. Keep in mind that the Adventure Paths that go from 1st to 20th level were among the most popular things Paizo's ever done, so it's a bit scary going in and fixing what might not be broken after all. So far, seems that people are generally excited about Runelords not going all the way to 20th level, but there HAS been some backlash from readers who prefer the 1st through 20th level model. For Crimson Throne, we aren't going to change that formula, really, although we might for Second Darkness. Stay tuned!
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eww I love this thread. So many ideas and ways to do things.
I really like the idea of splitting things up by level range.
A low level Adventure
A mid level Adventure
and a high level adventure.
This allows the Players a chance to really grow and experience different things.
However, I think that formula is more appropriate to the Gammastery line than the Pathfinder line. For Gamemastery I would love to see adventures come in trilogies. J1 Entombed with the Pharaohs just wasn't enough! I want MORE MORE MORE!
But for Pathfinder I would like to see an AP START at level 10 or so and end about level 25. No one has done this well. Paizo could do it amazingly well, I have no doubts. I would not imagine the market would support many of those, maybe just once in the Pathfinder line would be great.
Course if you guys do switch to 4E don't forget to scale it :)
Another suggestion for a lower-level AP.
Add another "flavour" article to each of the 6 issues of the AP, and shorten the adventures by that page count. Maybe an extra deity focus (or two) over the arc, articles on neigbours of Varisia, etc.
Or else REALLY increase the font size ;)
Another suggestion for a lower-level AP.
Add another "flavour" article to each of the 6 issues of the AP, and shorten the adventures by that page count. Maybe an extra deity focus (or two) over the arc, articles on neigbours of Varisia, etc.
That makes them less adventure and more split-up campaign accessory. And it seems wrong that you should get more background material than actual action.
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Guenarr's post above hits the nail right on the head for me. I thought the whole experience award/level progression thing in the core books was specifically part of that which is not OGL (thus its absence in the SRD)? If that's the case, you could just slow the whole xp/level advancement down but still tell the same amount of story in a 6 chapter format. This seems like a very elegant way of steering clear of the 'save the world syndrome'. As long as the story stays fresh I think you could do 6 volumes of AP and only advance to 10th or 12th level.
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Guennarr, from what I've read, every fighter (for example) is the same from levels 1-9, it's when they get to Paragon levels... 10-19, that they start becoming their "own" character.That can't be right. Tell me you misread something. It sure would encourage people buying more books with more characters, uh, I mean, classes, to play.
Sadly it's true.
Heroic levels (1-10) are the starter levels that get the character the "basic" skills they need to be their class. Basic adventures.
Paragon levels (11-20) let the character become the type of character you intend him to be... say an Elven Bladesinger for example (a kit in AD&D, a prestige class in 3.0/3.5, and now a Paragon tree in 4E.) Save the city/country adventures.
Epic levels (20+) pretty much speak for themselves. Save the world adventures.
Note, save the world literally means that. Runelords wasn't a save the world type adventure since Varisia was the only thing threaten by his rise.
Heroic levels (1-10) are the starter levels that get the character the "basic" skills they need to be their class. Basic adventures.
But surely you can customise those characters somewhat. Different spells (or whatever), feats, skills.
Guenarr's post above hits the nail right on the head for me. I thought the whole experience award/level progression thing in the core books was specifically part of that which is not OGL (thus its absence in the SRD)? If that's the case, you could just slow the whole xp/level advancement down but still tell the same amount of story in a 6 chapter format. This seems like a very elegant way of steering clear of the 'save the world syndrome'. As long as the story stays fresh I think you could do 6 volumes of AP and only advance to 10th or 12th level.
I would pay for this. I'd be willing to pay 2x or 3x as much for this, in fact. The fast advancement rate is absolutely the worst part of 3rd Ed. for my group. It's currently killing our RotRL campaign (I'm proud of having gotten as far as we did, but the game is really suffering from the advancement) and we are discussing drastic ways to try to slow down CotCT.
I'm much more interested in a 6 issue adventure that covers levels 1-10 or so than in a 3 issue adventure. And I'm really not excited by suggestions that I should just throw away modules 4-6 of each AP. We may end up doing that with CotCT, but darn it, all that good stuff goes to waste!
Mary
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Add me to the list of people who think that the standard rate of adveancement in 3rd Edition has been too fast.
Yes, it's fun to pop levels.
But I've seen player characters who have never gotten to use some of their signature powers or abilities. How much fun is it to be a 9th Level rogue without once getting the opportunity to disarm a trap?
We need more time at each level.
There are two ways to slow down advancement: award less experience and possibly wealth per encounter (since consumables will get more use at each level with an increased number of encounters) or use more encounters that have low CR opponents (with corresponding lower XP awards) but are still challenging due to numbers, tactics, terrain, etc. (just setting up situations where all of the opponents in an encounter have a couple rounds to prepare can make a huge difference in how tough the encounter is). Also, add plenty of social interaction with NPCs, both to get the players involved in the campaign world (developing their characters' personalites as well as their stats) and to reduce the number of XP awards per gaming session (if the PCs only face 4-6 encounters per session, it will take 2-3 sessions to gain a level going by the "13 encounters" rule of thumb).
I like 3e's speed of character advancement. Since it's a level based system, a slower progression would mean that the characters would have long dry spells where they don't develop at all mechanically.
Getting new abilities doesn't mean that you lose the old ones. You can still use them. I know I never thought that I didn't have ample time to use my characters' abilities.
In a system where you get small changes regularly, it's not so bad if big differences take time.
You could, of course, do something like the partial advancement Monte Cook suggested in McWod: You don't advance from level to level at once, but in 4 steps. One of the steps is special abilities, one is HD and saves, one is Skills, and one is BAB (or something close to that).
Add me to the list of people who think that the standard rate of adveancement in 3rd Edition has been too fast.
Put my name on that list too. For whatever it's worth.
Put my name on that list too. For whatever it's worth.Add me to the list of people who think that the standard rate of adveancement in 3rd Edition has been too fast.
While I tend to agree in principle, it is this advancement rate that made Dungeon's APs possible. And for that reason alone, I'll stick with the 3e rate.
Greg
While I tend to agree in principle, it is this advancement rate that made Dungeon's APs possible. And for that reason alone, I'll stick with the 3e rate.
Greg
I agree with Greg here. I agree in principal, but I don't know how you get around it.
KaeYoss also makes some good points a few posts up- you always need some progression. The problem is in how much progression? 3.5 appears to give it in meaty chunks.
Another game might give steady slower progression, but then that would be a different system... and that's a whole other can of worms.
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Creative Director
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I've been tinkering with some ideas on how to do a full 6-month adventure path that only levels up characters twice per adventure, so that by the time you finish the last one, your characters will be 12th (13th after you finish the last boss fight). This keeps the entire campaign to what Dungeon under Paizo identified as the low- and mid-level band. Of course, this WOULD require us to include something in the first two adventures that say something like this:
"When handing out XP for the encounters in this adventure, divide the total award in half to keep the PCs from leveling out of the challenges."
Since Pathifnder's not d20, but is instead OGL, we can tinker a bit with the advancement rates. I'm just worried that if we do that, then everyone who prefers to HURTLE through the first 3 levels will hunt me down...
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I've been tinkering with some ideas on how to do a full 6-month adventure path that only levels up characters twice per adventure, so that by the time you finish the last one, your characters will be 12th (13th after you finish the last boss fight). This keeps the entire campaign to what Dungeon under Paizo identified as the low- and mid-level band. Of course, this WOULD require us to include something in the first two adventures that say something like this:
"When handing out XP for the encounters in this adventure, divide the total award in half to keep the PCs from leveling out of the challenges."
Since Pathifnder's not d20, but is instead OGL, we can tinker a bit with the advancement rates. I'm just worried that if we do that, then everyone who prefers to HURTLE through the first 3 levels will hunt me down...
Couldn't you slow down the sweet spot levels a little more? Cut the xp for the 5th-8th level adventures and only level up at the end.
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I've been tinkering with some ideas on how to do a full 6-month adventure path that only levels up characters twice per adventure, so that by the time you finish the last one, your characters will be 12th (13th after you finish the last boss fight). This keeps the entire campaign to what Dungeon under Paizo identified as the low- and mid-level band. Of course, this WOULD require us to include something in the first two adventures that say something like this:
"When handing out XP for the encounters in this adventure, divide the total award in half to keep the PCs from leveling out of the challenges."
Since Pathifnder's not d20, but is instead OGL, we can tinker a bit with the advancement rates. I'm just worried that if we do that, then everyone who prefers to HURTLE through the first 3 levels will hunt me down...
Hello James,
your proposal sounds very good for me!
I understand that there will be always other OGL fans who are totally into the advancement aspect of the game, but obviously there are some DMs and players here who prefer to stay longer in the mid regions of levels/ who somehow disbelieve the speed at which players earn new levels according to 3.5e rules.
I propose to give it a try.
If only one AP per year was done that way and the other one was rather high level, surely everyone would appreciate the diversity of level ranges and challenges offered by your adventures, wouldn't they?
Another compromise to meet the objection mentioned by you could be to start the AP at level 3 or 4: You'd scratch the low levels and the high levels, but most of the AP would be mid level (assuming that the mechanism for slower advancement would be used).
Cheers,
Günther
I propose to give it a try.
If only one AP per year was done that way and the other one was rather high level, surely everyone would appreciate the diversity of level ranges and challenges offered by your adventures, wouldn't they?Another compromise to meet the objection mentioned by you could be to start the AP at level 3 or 4: You'd scratch the low levels and the high levels, but most of the AP would be mid level (assuming that the mechanism for slower advancement would be used).
Cheers,
Günther
James,
I agree with Günther. If I am to understand (having not been there myself), Paizo developed the concept of the Adventure Path in the first place.. And now has developed a business model around it, in Pathfinder.
I completely understand that you would want the first couple AP's to follow the formula perfected in Dunegon magazine. After the 3rd or 4th AP, it might time to experiment again.. particularly since there does seem to be feedback supporting it.
(Unlike my lamented Underwater AP :D )
Maybe this would be a good Gary Teter poll? To test the interest level.