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I'm one of the significant number of DMs/Players that like the idea of a campaign taking a long time from the character's perspective. Perhaps it is the result of playing earlier editions of the game, but I don't have much fun when we level every session. And I know I'm not alone.
Playing a long campaign can be a lot of fun, and if the DM is good and level progression is not that fast, the character can do so much more than in a quick campaign. I know Paizo wants to help us support the game that we want to play, so I thought I would bring up one concern.
If each adventure expects the PCs to level more than once in the course of the adventure, it isn't really possible to slow that kind of rate of advancement.
My request is that in stand-alone modules the writers assume that the PCs will be the same level throughout. Since giving XP at the end of an adventure is pretty typical, it shouldn't be a difficult solution.
The Adventure Path is much more difficult to modify. I don't know if others would support, but even having each book have one set level and then a skip with the possibility of some time passing.
Thus, the first AP could assume that the PCs are 3rd level throughout (but the DM could start at 1st and advance to 3rd by the end, if so inclined). The next AP might start at 5th level (but again, a DM could start lower and advance).
This would tend to make the early challenges in the adventure tougher for characters that don't use slower advancement rules (since they'd wait to tackle the adventure until they've done other things to make it to 5th level). This would allow the DM to insert other adventure in the 'between time' from one AP to another. Even fast advancing DMs might prefer this since they can fit a little more in if there is a 'skip' of a couple levels between adventures.
Thoughts, comments, criticisms? I'll take them all with equal enthusiasm.
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Oh, yes please, here's another vote for slower advancement.
A lot of people assume slow advancement is something only proposed by a harsh DM, but I'm speaking as a player here.
In SCAP, there were points at which I had trouble keeping track. Around the Demonscar/Soul Pillars point, we levelled three times in three days. OOC, of course, it was several weeks of play, but to the PCs, it was a matter of waking in the morning with new abilities, three days in a row.
It got even faster from there; the Fiery Sanctum we did in one go, with barely a pause for breath. The DM brought the vilains from Shatterhorn in as reinforcements, and we wiped out the whole gang, levelling up three times in less than 15 minutes (PC time).
I've enjoyed the game, but my sense of disbelief is severely strained.
I am a fan of slower advancement.
As for the APs, they can stay as they are. I am doing running the gang thru Rise of the Rune Lords.
They are still in Burnt Offerings, but they have also been thru D0: Hollow's last hope, and are most of the way thru D1: Crown of the Kobold King. I have replaced Sandpoint for Falcon's Hollow, with very little work (mostly changing last names of the kids).
Once they finish Burnt Offerings, they will do Carnival of Tears at Turtleback Ferry. I set up that the witch in the swamp near Sandpoint has access to a "Fey" road and will send them to Turtleback Ferry without their consent (evil GM grin).
Once back in Sandpoint, I will start off the second part of the AP.
So, with a bit of work on my part, the players don't even know what is part of the AP, or even if I have added something to the AP (I love the free PDFs, no way for the players to know what is from what with only a few printed pages in front of me).
As well, the PAIZO staff has already said that they will be putting out Pathfinder Modules in the area of the APs. This at the request of several of us who prefer the slow advancement path.
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My request is that in stand-alone modules the writers assume that the PCs will be the same level throughout. Since giving XP at the end of an adventure is pretty typical, it shouldn't be a difficult solution.
I would say that giving out XP at the end of the game session or at the end of the encounter is way more typical then at the end of the adventure.
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In 20+ years of gaming in three states and several cities I have never played a game that only awarded XP at the end of the adventure. It is almost always at the end of a session or end of a story milestone.
But I have not played everywhere with everyone... just my personal experience.
And I prefer games that change the pacing from slow to fast to medium to whatever. A variety of tempos creates excitement and expectations.
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I would say that giving out XP at the end of the game session or at the end of the encounter is way more typical then at the end of the adventure.
For my STAP campaign, I've gotten away from session or module XP and gone entirely to awarding XP after each encounter. It seems to be working out well for us.
-Skeld
Until 3e I gave XP at the end of each adventure...
But as I said before in a thread I started, I dislike the 13.3 encounters per level rule... and dislike is a rather harmless word.
In my group my players asked me to change the level progression, and so I did. For every character the switch comes at 12th level. I give them a bonus of 60k xp and start using the UA table, and only that table, still using the original DMG XPs for monsters.
12th lvl will be their hell level (to use an old EQ term), but they are happy with that.
I'd love to see XP awards for monsters in Pathfinder go down, so that characters can actually experience the levels and get to know their characters in years and years of play :)
I'd love to see XP awards for monsters in Pathfinder go down, so that characters can actually experience the levels and get to know their characters in years and years of play :)
Even with the slow progression XP chart?
I'd love to see XP awards for monsters in Pathfinder go down, so that characters can actually experience the levels and get to know their characters in years and years of play :)Even with the slow progression XP chart?
The chart is ok, but I still don't like the hunking amount of XP certain critters of a specific CR get
The chart is ok, but I still don't like the hunking amount of XP certain critters of a specific CR get
It may be that I am a bit slow tonight, but I don't see what your issue is.
If your objection is simply the amount of XP that each creature gets, then just reduce the amount that you give out, by say 10 or 20 percent (or more if that is to your liking). No matter what Pathfinder ends up with, you can be sure that some will feel it is just right, others that it is too much and the last group feels that it isn't enough.
If it is the average number of encounters needed before you level, what are you proposing as the new average?
I think the APs should stay where they are. They're being released over a period of 6 months, and should give you about 6 months worth of play time (which, of course, can never be achieved for everybody, since everyone plays at his own pace). They should be whole campaigns that go through all levels of play - or, at least, most: Low, mid, high. They should end with 15th-level characters or better.
I'd be all in favor of slower advancement as well.
But given that many people enjoy a fast rate as well - why not split the difference, and write the Pathfinder APs after the switch as following the Medium chart? Then a sidebar (like the old Dungeon "scaling the adventure" ones) could give tips on using fast or slow advancement instead.
I'd be all in favor of slower advancement as well.
But given that many people enjoy a fast rate as well - why not split the difference, and write the Pathfinder APs after the switch as following the Medium chart? Then a sidebar (like the old Dungeon "scaling the adventure" ones) could give tips on using fast or slow advancement instead.
While I like the idea of and it would work quite well would this really work though? It seems to me the players would just always be behind the 8 ball, always a level or 2 behind where they should be but they would still progress through the game just as fast. Thus "Fast" progression becomes Easy, and Slow progression becomes Challenging but the pace of the game remains the same.
I think what the OP had in mind was that instead of having 10 encounters for a given CR you have 20. The only way I could see achieving this would be by adding optional encounters to the AP with the caveat that they should be skipped if the player is following a slower XP progression.
Personally I love the idea of spreading out the gameplay and making leveling up a bit more of a reward.
I would love to see slower advancement.
The PCs in my RotRL game should have gone up 3 levels in a single extended combat sequence (RotRL #5 main dungeon) but the player actually refused the last level--it was the straw that would have broken the camel's back for him. This is *way* too fast for him. As a player I'm much less tolerant than he is, and I basically am not willing to play any AP as written after our experiences with SCAP. There need to be 2-3 scenarios in between each module to make it bearable.
You can't get this by twiddling with the charts, though. There's only room in one issue of Pathfinder for a certain amount of material, and if that much material has to advance the PCs three levels, things will feel rushed no matter how you play with the numbers. The only things that would help me would be AP episodes that did not assume so many levels of advancement, or that had ample space for inserting side adventures. (RotRL #5 is a worst case. There was no way on earth the PCs could go on a side adventure while conducting a fight inside an inescapable planar prison....)
James Jacobs has suggested that he might do a slow-advancement AP eventually. I'd jump at it--though I can't claim that this would improve sales as we buy all of the APs even if they aren't really runnable for us (CotCT wasn't).
Mary
This is a good thread. I've yet to run any of the actual adventure paths, starting w/ SC, but it's been a worry in the back of my mind how to slow down the assumed level of progression when I get to them. Maybe it's b/c I remember earlier editions, but I never liked the speedy level progression of 3.x. So far, w/ single-adventures like DCC or Dungeon adventures, I've been able to control the leveling up (e.g., 4-6 adventures before the party gains a level). That said, that's not what 3.x supports, so I don't fault people for thinking that's extreme.
The problem w/ simply slowing down the exp the DM gives out is that the AP modules assume the characters will gain levels rapidly. Unless you can figure out how to slow that down--maybe w/ Side Trek-type adventures--it might be more work than it's worth.
Another poster's Goldilocks analogy is, of course, spot on here...but it does make it difficult to run the APs as is if you prefer slower progressions.
If I had my druthers, they'd be written so that there's a natural break between leveling spots, suitable for a DM who likes a slower pace to throw in a variety of side adventures if they want. (I don't use XP in my game, though, so all I really care about is a logical place that says "LEVEL UP HERE", e.g. not in the middle of some mega-dungeon, preferably.)
If we hadn't all decided to use the "fast" track in order to see how the abilities work and characters evolve for this playtest, most of my group is pretty good with slow advancement. I rarely ran 3.5 campaigns "as is" as far as XP after the first one I ran, when I was shocked at how fast it advanced.
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This is very interesting.
We're testing a three-tier experience system in the Pathfinder RPG, and I'm pleased to see how many folks, like me, prefer a more leisurely game.
Honestly, I would be entirely willing to have a slower progression. Even something like 1 level per issue of Pathfinder would be reasonable to me, like an AP from 4th to 10th level, for example. It's be pretty cool for a non-save the world type plot, as well, since the PCs won't be superpowered at the end.
I just find that it's hard to reconcile a realistic world with people who go from being a mage's apprentice to a Grand Wizard in a year.
Plus, I often find that the levelling rate is so fast that as soon as you're starting to get used to your new class features, you level up and gain even more class features. It'd be nice to slow things down, I would think.
So if there were an AP that had a slower level progression, I would totally buy it.
Just sayin'. :)
Is this an issue with the characters (ie they go up 1 level per gameday and reach 20th level after a few weeks in the field), or players (ie for every 2 hours of play you spend 1 hour levelling up)?
And what would be a reasonable amount?
ie for players 1 level every say 20 hours of play? 40, 100?
for characters 1 level every adventure, 2, 4?
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Thanks for the comments and feedback so far everyone, and thanks Erik, for chiming in. One of the things I love most about Paizo is the fact that I know I'm listened to, even when things don't go my way. I thought I would try to clarify a few points I hoped to make in the first post.
I fully agree that some players/DMs/groups like levelling quickly and others (like myself) prefer a more leisurely pace. I think it *IS* possible to cater to both groups within a single AP.
A module like Sins of the Savior is a good example of a 'problem adventure'. It assumes that you're one level (12th) when you begin the adventure, and several levels higher when you end the adventure (14th). This works fine for groups that prefer a fast rate of advancement, but does extremely poorly for a group that likes a slow rate of advancement. Some adventures may be extremely difficult to complete if there is no advancement. A group that started at 12th level may not be able to finish if they are still 12th level at the end. A group that began at 13th level would do extremely well in most of the chambers and have a tougher time in some of them.
One possible solution is to 'assume' that the PCs are 13th level the entire time they are in the dungeon. That means that if you're playing a fast leveling group, you'll have a tough time when you first enter, but you'll quickly earn enough XP to advance to 13th level. Before you leave, you'll hit 14th level (and some encounters may be a bit easy). A slow advancement group's DM will make sure they're 13th level when they start (by inserting filler material between Fortress of the Stone Giants and Sins of the Savior) and they won't advance at all while they're in the Dungeon. Then the DM will again insert material between Sins of the Savior and Spires of Xin-Shalast to ensure the PCs get to 15th level before they begin.
Does this make sense? Essentially the 'slow' and 'fast' are assumed to be the same average level throughout, the only change is that the 'average level' should be where most encounters are set to, not 1/3 at average -1, 1/3 at average, and 1/3 at average +1. If an adventure assumes more than 3 levels, it gets even harder.
I tried SCAP, and my problem was going from the Gnome Fortress to the Dwarven Fortress. I believe the PCs needed to go from 1st to 4th in about that time. I remember it being extremely fast and it did strain belief. Avoiding a situation like that is ideal.
Now, I don't expect Paizo to accomodate slow advancement within the AP. By allowing 'branch points' for the DM to insert material, the slow advancement DM can run extra adventures to get the PCs to the point that they should be before starting the next AP.
I ran only one side adventure during Rise of the Runelords (an exploration of an island to recover a pirate's treasure in the Varisian Gulf) in part to introduce some of the characters in Sandpoint and to provide a bit of a change of pace before what seemed to me a lot of Dungeon Crawls). My impression is the players enjoyed that diversion, and I regret I didn't work harder to fit a few more in.
So, my thought is that if the AP doesn't assume that the PC must level during the course of the adventure to succeed, a slow advancing DM can use it more easily, and a fast advancing DM can use it as well. The only difference between them is that for a fast advancing DM the villain's plot will move to the next stage in a week while for the slow DM there may be several months or even a year before the next phase can start.
For example, if I were to run Rise of the Runelords again, I would break out the timeline to cover something like 5 years of time. There would be the awakening of the Runelord (start), about 3 years later would be the beginning of attacks by giants (and clues to what was going on in the AP from the beginning), a year or so to gather enough clues to get to Runeforge, and then almost another year to 'finish up' in the Kodar mountains. I think that if that were the 'timeline', I would have no trouble 'filling the holes' with plenty of great adventures that would make the characters more 'complete'.
And of course, that's just my preference.
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For example, if I were to run Rise of the Runelords again, I would break out the timeline to cover something like 5 years of time. There would be the awakening of the Runelord (start), about 3 years later would be the beginning of attacks by giants (and clues to what was going on in the AP from the beginning), a year or so to gather enough clues to get to Runeforge, and then almost another year to 'finish up' in the Kodar mountains. I think that if that were the 'timeline', I would have no trouble 'filling the holes' with plenty of great adventures that would make the characters more 'complete'.
Yes, this is exactly what I try to do. The storylines sometime prevent it, so sometimes advancement is built in whether you want it or not. I've gotten rid of XP altogether (and am just advancing the PCs with the overall campaign as needed), however, so we tend to just roll with it. :)
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This is very interesting.
We're testing a three-tier experience system in the Pathfinder RPG, and I'm pleased to see how many folks, like me, prefer a more leisurely game.
It would also be interesting to have a count of how many prefer each.
By optimizing 4e to one style of play over the others, WotC has made the rift between 'gamists' and 'toyists' as stark as I've ever seen it. I outright crave having some idea of the percentages on each side.
Yeah, going up a level every three games doesn't really give one enough time to soak in a good game world.
Sam
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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This is very interesting.
We're testing a three-tier experience system in the Pathfinder RPG, and I'm pleased to see how many folks, like me, prefer a more leisurely game.
Add me to the list. Living Greyhawk's roughly half-core rate suits me pretty well (faster at low levels, which I also like). Running Age of Worms, I'm finding people have been levelling up faster than they can get used to their new powers.
My group also prefers a slower rate of advancement. We take three to four years to complete a campaign.
So far we've played Shackled city, with something like 20 extra adventures, especially during the lower levels.
In our current Age of Worms campaign the level of advancement is just slightly higher, but still a lot slower than normal.
That's why it is always nice to have some stand-alone adventures or single old Dungeon scenarios at hand to expand the campaign.
One possible solution is to 'assume' that the PCs are 13th level the entire time they are in the dungeon. That means that if you're playing a fast leveling group, you'll have a tough time when you first enter, but you'll quickly earn enough XP to advance to 13th level. Before you leave, you'll hit 14th level (and some encounters may be a bit easy). A slow advancement group's DM will make sure they're 13th level when they start (by inserting filler material between Fortress of the Stone Giants and Sins of the Savior) and they won't advance at all while they're in the Dungeon.
That's actually a good idea.
Paizo could go one step further and have a whole "Sidetreck" line that fills the gaps for those who prefer slower rates, or have Pathfinder Modules that supplement the current path with fillers (which nevertheless work perfectly fine on their own).
This is very interesting.
We're testing a three-tier experience system in the Pathfinder RPG, and I'm pleased to see how many folks, like me, prefer a more leisurely game.
I'm one those as well. Before Pathfinder RPG was announced I was working on my own XP chart to slow things down a bit because I found it irritating that in my campaign leveling up was occurring through a few random encounters just traveling overland to the adventure site.
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One possible solution is to 'assume' that the PCs are 13th level the entire time they are in the dungeon. That means that if you're playing a fast leveling group, you'll have a tough time when you first enter, but you'll quickly earn enough XP to advance to 13th level. Before you leave, you'll hit 14th level (and some encounters may be a bit easy). A slow advancement group's DM will make sure they're 13th level when they start (by inserting filler material between Fortress of the Stone Giants and Sins of the Savior) and they won't advance at all while they're in the Dungeon.That's actually a good idea.
Paizo could go one step further and have a whole "Sidetreck" line that fills the gaps for those who prefer slower rates, or have Pathfinder Modules that supplement the current path with fillers (which nevertheless work perfectly fine on their own).
Ooh man, that would be like something else! Revisiting something that was damn good to start with. I can see Paizo jumping on that one. Call it, Pathfinder Lost Adventure Paths #1 They could have excellent springboard points siting exact times in the original pathfinder AP from which to insert the new Adventure Path with "tie-ins" included. They could also make them stand alone as well.
Wow, what an idea. Only on these boards. They would have my money on that one.
Step aside Adventure Path, here comes Campaign Path. That will be some mega bound book they would someday release as the deluxe edition of the first 6 adventure paths in Pathfinder, plus supplements, plus Lost Paths, plus etc. You know it is coming...
Cheers,
Zuxius
My two cents.
I'm using the fast progression chart to run RotRL. It seems to fit my preferred advancement pace perfectly. So far we've played 3 game sessions, advancing a level after every game session. Going from Burnt Offerings to the Skinsaw Murders the characters will be in 4th or 5th level. We play about once in 1-3 weeks and all of the players are 30ish of age working people, so the "years and years of getting to know your character" is pretty much out the window. In my opinion running a full AP should take around 6 months to 2 years of real time / 20-40 game sessions, during which time the characters should advance from level 1 to level 15-20.
Also, I really don't see the need for different kinds of advancement schemes in the actual AP books. If you want to advance at a slower pace (=less Xp per encounter), just plop in sidequests between every "official" episode, so that your party is of the required level for the actual AP modules.
Honestly, I would be entirely willing to have a slower progression. Even something like 1 level per issue of Pathfinder would be reasonable to me, like an AP from 4th to 10th level, for example. It's be pretty cool for a non-save the world type plot, as well, since the PCs won't be superpowered at the end.
I just find that it's hard to reconcile a realistic world with people who go from being a mage's apprentice to a Grand Wizard in a year.
Plus, I often find that the levelling rate is so fast that as soon as you're starting to get used to your new class features, you level up and gain even more class features. It'd be nice to slow things down, I would think.
So if there were an AP that had a slower level progression, I would totally buy it.
I agree 100%. When my group converts to PRPG I will probably try to use the slower XP progression chart. And even that may just be too fast for our taste, in which case we will tweak it further.
Now, I don't expect Paizo to accomodate slow advancement within the AP. By allowing 'branch points' for the DM to insert material, the slow advancement DM can run extra adventures to get the PCs to the point that they should be before starting the next AP.
And to make it even more appealing to Paizo, my suggestion is that when they release a new volume of the Pathfinder AP they also release one or two Pathfinder Modules that are suitable to insert in these 'branch points'. I would totally buy them at least :)
EDIT: Oh, I see that KaeYoss already posted this idea. But at least this shows that there are more people that are insterested in this :)
I also like the fast advancement (so that, even with my irregular playing schedule, I still have a chance to play a character from level 1-20 before I die).
But I think it's a valid point if people don't like leveling up at some inopportune time in the middle of a big adventure. So it makes sense to schedule in some significant "down time" in the middle, not just between adventures.
My two cents.
I'm using the fast progression chart to run RotRL. It seems to fit my preferred advancement pace perfectly. So far we've played 3 game sessions, advancing a level after every game session. Going from Burnt Offerings to the Skinsaw Murders the characters will be in 4th or 5th level. We play about once in 1-3 weeks and all of the players are 30ish of age working people, so the "years and years of getting to know your character" is pretty much out the window. In my opinion running a full AP should take around 6 months to 2 years of real time / 20-40 game sessions, during which time the characters should advance from level 1 to level 15-20.
Also, I really don't see the need for different kinds of advancement schemes in the actual AP books. If you want to advance at a slower pace (=less Xp per encounter), just plop in sidequests between every "official" episode, so that your party is of the required level for the actual AP modules.
Creative Director
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We try to make our Adventure Paths serve multiple masters... but sometimes that doesn't work out as well as we want. Specifically, we want to present a solid story with interconnected plots between adventures, but we also want to do so in a way that lets each GM decide the speed of the game. For the most part, each and every Pathfinder Adventure Path installment ends at a point where you can have a break in the action from anywhere between 1 minute on up (to a year or even more), in which you can let your PCs do other things... including going on other adventures. If you want to do a slower XP advancement, this is a great time to add in other adventures (although in this case I'd recommend that, if a party's going to go through an AP Installment at one level... they start that installment at one or two levels higher than they should since it's better for them to be the right level for the second half and overpowered for the first rather than the other way around).
Starting with Pathfinder 13, the Second Darkness Adventure Path installments will be about 10 pages shorter. We'll also be including a bonus set piece adventure to go along with each that you can use to expand the primary adventure, but you can use other adventures just as well. What this means is that the adventures themselves will have more points for "expansion" if you want to use a slower XP advancement.
My personal preference is for a slower advancement as well... but there's a lot of folk out there who prefer fast advancements. Once we make the switch to Pathfinder RPG, we'll be assuming the middle track, since that makes the APs easier to convert to slow or fast.
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My personal preference is for a slower advancement as well... but there's a lot of folk out there who prefer fast advancements. Once we make the switch to Pathfinder RPG, we'll be assuming the middle track, since that makes the APs easier to convert to slow or fast.
Excellent, I think the speed of the middle track is pretty good. Instead of having 13.3 encounters equal to the average party level to level up, there'll be 20 encounters, which seems pretty reasonable. Sounds to me like a good way to please everyone. Then if someone wanted to play a slower advancement campaign, they would only need to add 10 encounters per level instead of 17 encounters. And if someone wanted to switch to fast, they only have to remove 7 encounters. So it seems to be pretty good for everyone!
Once we make the switch to Pathfinder RPG, we'll be assuming the middle track, since that makes the APs easier to convert to slow or fast.
What will that do to the level range? Still about 1-15 or will it go down to something like 1-10? Because I really wouldn't want that. Neither would my players.
What will that do to the level range? Still about 1-15 or will it go down to something like 1-10? Because I really wouldn't want that. Neither would my players.
It means that they can start making old school adventures like "Against the Giants" where you have a room filled with 50 bugbears.
;-)
Once we make the switch to Pathfinder RPG, we'll be assuming the middle track, since that makes the APs easier to convert to slow or fast.
Awesome!
What will that do to the level range? Still about 1-15 or will it go down to something like 1-10? Because I really wouldn't want that. Neither would my players.It means that they can start making old school adventures like "Against the Giants" where you have a room filled with 50 bugbears.
;-)
Wouldn't make sense, though. Bugbears are loners. They're not found in rooms. They're usually not found at all. You only find their victims, or part of their victims ;P
Plus, 50 of anything? Fireball and forget.
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We try to make our Adventure Paths serve multiple masters... but sometimes that doesn't work out as well as we want.
One concern I would have about adventures that are specifically designed to 'supplement' the AP is the question of whether they're 'optional' or 'part of' the AP. As you can see from my subscriber tags, I'm pretty much buying it all anyways, but I can understand someone who buys the entire AP feeling that they were left out because there is an 'unofficial part' that everyone else includes that costs more money.
So, my hope would be that they wouldn't tie into the AP thematically, necessarily, but there could be some possible 'hooks' that tie into the AP. Just brainstorming here, but there are geographical locations that could be used as another adventure. For example, near Sandpoint ther is the Devil's Platter and the Brinestump Swamp that are never really used as part of the adventure. Those two could be used as a basis for a 'stand-alone' adventure that could be easily tied in to the AP. For example, in Devil's Platter a group of hobgoblin warriors have been making a play to take over the goblin tribes in the area, except for the Thistletop goblins. Any number of possible reasons and consequences follow, so the PCs 'clean out' the area. Or new undead have been leaving the Brinestump Swamp. After encountering Aldern Foxglove, the PCs suspect that something in the swamp was turning people into undead. It turns out that Aldern wasn't one of theirs, but a secret cabal of death worshippers are raising an army of undead - and that is but the beginning of their plan as they will soon march on Magnimar...
Again, those are just examples, and I could write those kinds of adventures. But if Paizo does it for me, all the better. The problem for me is that we started Rise of the Runelords before I had all the books, so I wasn't sure what tweaks would be possible. Usually I prefer to wait until the AP is fully available so I can customize it. But if Paizo is sensitive to the concept and 'leaves room' for my modification without endangering the plot, so much the better.
One concern I would have about adventures that are specifically designed to 'supplement' the AP is the question of whether they're 'optional' or 'part of' the AP.
I'd say the extra adventures should be extra, not part of the AP. I'd say they take place in the same general area and have the proper level to fit in. Maybe even some minor links, but it shouldn't be anything that is required to solve the AP or understand what's going on.
I dont know about the idea of a mini adventure (10 page) optional add in as part of the pathfinder path. But I do like the idea of a list of 'hooks' or further development suggestions such as the two suggested by Dead DMwalking