Is it just me or does it seem that the adventure paths seem to follow a pretty logical path up till the 4th issue, and then they seem to diverge from the previous ones.
Take the CotCT, for the first 3 issues, it was more of an urban setting and then comes 4th issue and suddenly the group is out in the wilderness. It is like missing an episode of a TV show and coming back and think, "What the heck happened? This isn't the show I was watching."
The RotRL had the same feel, at least to me, it suddenly changed and the second half of the adventure didn't have the same feel as the first half.
Is this something we can expect to keep happening?
That's... harsh, man.
Jumping the shark indicates a vast world of suck, not a sudden change in venue.
That's... harsh, man.
Jumping the shark indicates a vast world of suck, not a sudden change in venue.
Actually it indicates when something has reach a high point and then does something, usually unbelievably, out of character in a hope to keep it going. It doesn't have to suck, but it is often seen as out of "character" for what has happened previously.
Director of Brand Strategy
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I've never heard that term before...I assumed this was a Logue Razor Coast tie-in.That's... harsh, man.
Jumping the shark indicates a vast world of suck, not a sudden change in venue.
It's actually a Happy Days reference.
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Wikipedia says: "Jumping the shark is a colloquialism used by U.S. TV critics and fans to denote the point in a TV or movie series at which the characters or plot veer into a ridiculous, out-of-the-ordinary storyline. Shows that have "jumped the shark" are typically deemed to have passed their peak, since they have undergone too many changes to retain their original appeal, and after this point critical fans often sense a noticeable decline in the show's quality."
So I have to agree that there are connotations of poor quality. The way I understood it is that the "jump the shark" moment is when you realize that the show (or RPG, or whatever) will never be the same, and will never be as good as it was when you loved it.
[
It's actually a Happy Days reference.
Ironically, Happy Days never had any authenticity to lose.
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As I said in the thread about the impressions regarding "A History of Ashes", I find the change of setting and pacing quite refreshing.
After 10 levels, staying in the same city - which is spiralling downward quite fast despite the efforts of the characters - can become trite, if not downright frustrating.
So, welcome completely new atmosphere.
The same can be said for RotRL, where after a progression of loosely linked adventures set in a relatively confined setting, the PCs are forced to tackle the big bad guys and face exeedingly strange and alien menaces (a horde of giants, a themed dungeon complex, an almost alien city from 10k yars ago).
Perhaps this is even more blatant, as the runelord problem suddenly becomes a very tangible threath, as opposed to the vague hints found before.
To me, having a break in the overall theme of a campaign or even a strong change of the same has not necessarily a negative connotation nor does equal a bad/strong-armed narrative intrusion.
Rather, it offers new problems and new solutions, other than the obvious possibility of using different challenges and locales to explore.
Is it just me or does it seem that the adventure paths seem to follow a pretty logical path up till the 4th issue, and then [the settings] seem to diverge from the previous ones.
It makes a certain amount of sense in terms of power level. Generally I like to have low level threats close to the characters' starting point and high level threats further away in terms of distance. It stretches the imagination a little bit to keep saying:
"I know you just cleared out a dungeon underneath the village of Omlette, but guess what -- there just happens to be another, even higher level dungeon buried beneath the village! But don't worry; after that we'll have a change of pace and a force of dragon-riding giants will attack the peasants of Omlette in order to...er...seize its valuable strategic location, close to a bunch of buried dungeons."
As I said in the thread about the impressions regarding "A History of Ashes", I find the change of setting and pacing quite refreshing.
After 10 levels, staying in the same city - which is spiralling downward quite fast despite the efforts of the characters - can become trite, if not downright frustrating.
So, welcome completely new atmosphere.
While I can see that, I also can see players designing their characters around an urban setting, only to find themselves out in the wilderness. The PCs in that case would seem like fish out of water.
Im falling behind with CotCT. Ill probably read all 6 when the set is done.
But maybe taking the PCs out of the city and into the wilderness and having them feel like fish out of water is the point and part of the challenge.
But I havent read them yet so I dont know :)
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Director of Brand Strategy
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While I can see that, I also can see players designing their characters around an urban setting, only to find themselves out in the wilderness. The PCs in that case would seem like fish out of water.As I said in the thread about the impressions regarding "A History of Ashes", I find the change of setting and pacing quite refreshing.
After 10 levels, staying in the same city - which is spiralling downward quite fast despite the efforts of the characters - can become trite, if not downright frustrating.
So, welcome completely new atmosphere.
That's sort of what makes the latest adventure so full of win. Even with a feat or two dedicated to city adventuring, a 10th level character is still a 10th level character, no matter the environment. I tend to shy away from PCs built specifically for a given game. It's just too meta for me. I like that the AP sort of forces PCs to get away from that, or suffer the consequences.
Ok, *waves little white flag* I guess it is just me that feels like they are in a folgers commercial.
"We have secretly switched the regular urban adventure path for a wilderness adventure path, let's see if they notice."
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Director of Brand Strategy
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Ok, *waves little white flag* I guess it is just me that feels like they are in a folgers commercial.
"We have secretly switched the regular urban adventure path for a wilderness adventure path, let's see if they notice."
It doesn't seem inorganic at all to me. The PCs need to find something to save the city, but if it were in the city to begin with, that's sort of too easy. And not as much fun. So they have to make an epic and heroic journey into dangerous lands to retrieve it.
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Creative Director
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...I also can see players designing their characters around an urban setting, only to find themselves out in the wilderness. The PCs in that case would seem like fish out of water.
That's actually the entire point of "A History of Ashes." The PCs are pretty high level at this point, and after a steady diet of urban adventures for 10 or so levels, throwing them into the wilderness hits them with a brand new challenge beyond just hitting them with tougher monsters.
It's also worth remembering that while the change in location happens at the halfway point physically (part 4 of 6)... it's not the halfway point in the campaign, since the PCs are 10th level by this point and will probably end up 15th or 16th at the end, not 20th.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Ironically, Happy Days never had any authenticity to lose.[
It's actually a Happy Days reference.
Oh, man, I hope you're not disrespecting the Fonz.
It's also worth remembering that while the change in location happens at the halfway point physically (part 4 of 6)... it's not the halfway point in the campaign, since the PCs are 10th level by this point and will probably end up 15th or 16th at the end, not 20th.
Perhaps, but the way the xp is set up, characters level up in the first couple of levels faster than they do later on.
My group has run AoW and RotRL with me as GM and SCAP with me as player.
Every single game, the push to move the PCs away from the initial setting has been met with resentment and disengagement. It just doesn't work for us. This was particularly obvious in AoW, where the game really sparkled when I could keep it in and around Diamond Lake (I ended up writing a lot of side adventures there) but became flat and listless as soon as the PCs were forced elsewhere. The PCs never connected with or cared about Alhaster at all, despite my best efforts.
RotRL was a little bit better, but my player said strongly that I should have forced module #3 to occur near Sandpoint, not far away: he disliked being taken away from known NPCs and situations and asked to interact with a whole new set (who were not half as richly developed, either). Responding to that, I forced part of #5 to occur near Sandpoint, and I'm glad I did.
We really play for intensity of PC/NPC interaction, and in our hands, moving the PCs just breaks things up and weakens the game. The only campaigns I've seen that handled it well moved the PCs from one well-developed locale to another, and gave them plenty of time to get their bearings in the new locale. The APs don't do this.
Having thought about this, we knew that for our Korvosa game we did *not* want the PCs to have to leave. It was one of many points that convinced us to run a Korvosa game that was not recognizably CotCT, and having now seen _History of Ash_ I'm glad of it. That would not have worked for us at all. The PCs could have been forced to do it, with great difficulty, but the game would not have remained fun.
It all depends on why you're playing--if you like travelogues and new scenery, moving around is great; if you want long-term NPC interaction it's really harmful.
Mary
It all depends on why you're playing--if you like travelogues and new scenery, moving around is great; if you want long-term NPC interaction it's really harmful.
Mary
Good point.
Why is that a bad thing? Nyuknyuknyuknyuknyuk!!!
Oh, man, I hope you're not disrespecting the Fonz.Ironically, Happy Days never had any authenticity to lose.[
It's actually a Happy Days reference.
Yes, I am. But I'm not disrespecting Henry Winkler, revered member of the Emerson College class of 1967.
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I've never heard that term before...I assumed this was a Logue Razor Coast tie-in.
You're looking for jumped by the shark not jumping the shark. :)
Perhaps, but the way the xp is set up, characters level up in the first couple of levels faster than they do later on.
uhmmm shouldn't it still take x number of appropriatly CRed encounters... where the x is the the same at 1st level as it ias at 10th or 15th or even 20th... I am pretty sure that is how the 3.5 game is set up...
It all depends on why you're playing--if you like travelogues and new scenery, moving around is great; if you want long-term NPC interaction it's really harmful.
Mary
Doesn't absence make the heart grow fonder?
We really play for intensity of PC/NPC interaction, and in our hands, moving the PCs just breaks things up and weakens the game. The only campaigns I've seen that handled it well moved the PCs from one well-developed locale to another, and gave them plenty of time to get their bearings in the new locale. The APs don't do this.
It all depends on why you're playing--if you like travelogues and new scenery, moving around is great; if you want long-term NPC interaction it's really harmful.
Mary
In this case, the travel permits fostering a closer connection to an NPC from episode one.
uhmmm shouldn't it still take x number of appropriatly CRed encounters... where the x is the the same at 1st level as it ias at 10th or 15th or even 20th... I am pretty sure that is how the 3.5 game is set up...
Perhaps, but the way the xp is set up, characters level up in the first couple of levels faster than they do later on.
Yes and no. Yes, if you only face creatures of CR equal to your level, then what you say is true, that you need to overcome 13 1/3 such encounters. But if you face higher level encounters, especially for 1st and 2nd level parties, you get more xp and thus level faster.
Now usually a party that is 2 levels lower than the CR should get twice the xp they would get for a CR that is equal to their level. For example a 5th level party that over came a CR 7 creature gets 3,000 xp, if instead they had over come a CR 5 creature they would have gotten 1,500 xp. Why does that matter? Because 2 creatures of a given CR are equal to an EL of 2 more than the CR (any time you double the number of creatures, you increase the EL by 2). SO a 5th level party should get the same xp for defeating two CR 5 creatures (EL 7) as they get for defeating one CR 7 creature (EL 7).
Now that doesn't happen for a 1st level party. If a 1st level party defeats 2 CR 1 creatures (EL 3) they get 600 xp, but if they defeat 1 CR 3 (EL 3) creature they get 900 xp, not double the standard amount (300 xp), but 3 times it. Overcoming a CR 2 creature gives a 1st level party twice the xp, not 1.5 times it as usual. Now true a 1st level party may only face CR 1 or less creatures, but I think that is pretty unusual, though admitedly the pathfinder modules have been pretty good about shooting for that.
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Director of Brand Strategy
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Having thought about this, we knew that for our Korvosa game we did *not* want the PCs to have to leave. It was one of many points that convinced us to run a Korvosa game that was not recognizably CotCT, and having now seen _History of Ash_ I'm glad of it. That would not have worked for us at all. The PCs could have been forced to do it, with great difficulty, but the game would not have remained fun.
But they return to Korvosa after their journey across the Cinderlands into Belkzen. That is, if they survive. Even this wouldn't work for them?
Having thought about this, we knew that for our Korvosa game we did *not* want the PCs to have to leave. It was one of many points that convinced us to run a Korvosa game that was not recognizably CotCT, and having now seen _History of Ash_ I'm glad of it. That would not have worked for us at all. The PCs could have been forced to do it, with great difficulty, but the game would not have remained fun.But they return to Korvosa after their journey across the Cinderlands into Belkzen. That is, if they survive. Even this wouldn't work for them?
One module would certainly have been better than the lengthy or permanent departures of the previous APs.
I don't know how long _History of Ash_ would take to run. For us, the longer the worse, and the more levels that pass the worse. If it's fairly tight and quick, maybe it could have been okay. But after three bad experiences with this in a row it just didn't seem worth trying a fourth time.
One thing that bothers me is that relationships with NPCs often seem to fall apart if the PCs go up too many levels while no longer in contact with them. We saw this in RotRL and AoW; both APs bring the PCs back to their home base after 5-6 levels of advancement, and in both cases we had trouble picking the NPC relationships back up after such a dramatic change in the PCs.
But the other problem we'd have had with _Ash_ is that the GM said, right up front, "Make characters who are committed to Korvosa and will stay there." Otherwise the natural response to events in modules 1 and 2 is to leave town, probably never to return: the place is, after all, going to hell in a handbasket. But then module 4 requires you to leave. There are in-game reasons, to be sure, but it still seems very likely to us that either the PCs won't be willing to go, or they will "leave their hearts in Korvosa" and be less than sparkling to play elsewhere.
"Your hearts are in Korvosa but for the city's sake you must go elsewhere" is a perfectly reasonable plotline; it makes both logical and dramatic sense; but as a player, I just wouldn't be willing to do it again after unpleasant and frustrating experiences three APs in a row. I want to be doing what my PCs are actually interested in doing, not be forced into interacting with people they don't know in a part of the setting they don't care about. (Not to say that the Cinderlands aren't interesting. But I didn't make a party of light-footed explorers! Otherwise they'd have been gone two modules ago.)
Mary
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Is there a case to be made for a 'PC Stable' of several characters per player, with different backgrounds, different classes, different outlook?
They can alll be affiliated, loosely or tightly, as you wish, so that if the game requires a change of mood, or scenery, the other team can step up for a few sessions, and be seen doing their part in the overall plot.
You can have your full-plated dwarf with his fear of water, who guards his city, and a second character as the dashing sea-captain who sails to the mysterious island to search for the cure for the plague (or whatever this AP requires). And every other player in the group can do the same, with a 'City Team' and a 'Wilderness Team', running parallel missions, and occasionally meeting up to swap information.
This prevents players with responsible positions feeling forced to act out of character, allows players to swap party roles (so no-one feels resentful at having to play a specific class for two years), try out an unfamiliar class/race/build, and spreads out some of the workload between sessions. Playing a spellcaster can be a lot more bookkeeping than a melee type; having a month off, playing a relatively simple PC, allows a player to level up his city-wizard, pick spells, cost magic items, etc, and give his brain a rest!
It also means the total XP for the whole path is shared out further, so a DM can insert side-encounters or roleplay episodes to fit the PCs in each location, without worrying that doing so will upset the party level for next chapter.
Any thoughts?
Is there a case to be made for a 'PC Stable' of several characters per player, with different backgrounds, different classes, different outlook?
They can alll be affiliated, loosely or tightly, as you wish, so that if the game requires a change of mood, or scenery, the other team can step up for a few sessions, and be seen doing their part in the overall plot.
[snip]It also means the total XP for the whole path is shared out further, so a DM can insert side-encounters or roleplay episodes to fit the PCs in each location, without worrying that doing so will upset the party level for next chapter.
Any thoughts?
It's going to depend on a couple of things.
--How attached are your players to their characters? For this to work, probably every player has to do it; otherwise the PCs who are played all the time will go up levels too fast compared to the others. Some players become very attached to their one character and it will be hard to make them switch.
--How do your players handle characterization? I'm already finding that AP advancement is too fast for me to do a really good job; if I had to play 3 PCs, each one only every 3rd session on average, I'd have no characterization left at all. Some players seem able to do most of their characterization-building up front at character design time, and this approach would probably work better for them.
--How much tailoring is the GM going to do for specific PCs? I remember a game I ran in college with 6 players where every time I wrote a plot thread for a specific PC, that player would suddenly miss a session. It was frustrating. Here you can have the same effect if the player chooses to play the wrong character.
It wouldn't help me at all; if I were interested in switching all the time I would be doing Dungeon scenarios, not an AP. But there may be groups for which it's a good idea.
Getting the XP right will be a royal pain, though. It's hard to insure that the different PCs get equal air time, and if they don't, eventually some of them will be the wrong level. If I were going to do this I'd give out levels, not XP. (But we do that anyway.)
Mary
uhmmm shouldn't it still take x number of appropriatly CRed encounters... where the x is the the same at 1st level as it ias at 10th or 15th or even 20th... I am pretty sure that is how the 3.5 game is set up...
Perhaps, but the way the xp is set up, characters level up in the first couple of levels faster than they do later on.Yes and no. Yes, if you only face creatures of CR equal to your level, then what you say is true, that you need to overcome 13 1/3 such encounters. But if you face higher level encounters, especially for 1st and 2nd level parties, you get more xp and thus level faster.
Now usually a party that is 2 levels lower than the CR should get twice the xp they would get for a CR that is equal to their level. For example a 5th level party that over came a CR 7 creature gets 3,000 xp, if instead they had over come a CR 5 creature they would have gotten 1,500 xp. Why does that matter? Because 2 creatures of a given CR are equal to an EL of 2 more than the CR (any time you double the number of creatures, you increase the EL by 2). SO a 5th level party should get the same xp for defeating two CR 5 creatures (EL 7) as they get for defeating one CR 7 creature (EL 7).
Now that doesn't happen for a 1st level party. If a 1st level party defeats 2 CR 1 creatures (EL 3) they get 600 xp, but if they defeat 1 CR 3 (EL 3) creature they get 900 xp, not double the standard amount (300 xp), but 3 times it. Overcoming a CR 2 creature gives a 1st level party twice the xp, not 1.5 times it as usual. Now true a 1st level party may only face CR 1 or less creatures, but I think that is pretty unusual, though admitedly the pathfinder modules have been pretty good about shooting for that.
I think this is all true but I think there is another angle as well. In my experience lower level PCs, in 3.5, can usually handle some pretty tough encounters early on. Often fairly easily taking on encounters that are a couple of EL higher then their average level. What I have found with my group is that, after, about 10th level the monsters get a heck of a lot nastier. They start having all sorts of viscous things like save or die attacks and powerful poison. I play with some pretty munchkinizing players and suddenly realized that I had to start really dialling back the EL of the opposition once they passed 10th level. I went from pretty routinely throwing encounters at them that were up to three ELs above their level to using ones that were a mix of their EL or their EL+1 simply because the monsters themselves were dramatically nastier.
Low level monsters, on average, just tend to do hp damage to PCs and players can find a thousand and one ways to counter something as basic as hp damage. Lower level monsters also tend to mostly be bags of hps and again its fairly easy for PCs to optimize builds that dish out the hp damage. With the transition from monsters of CRs 9 or less to monsters with CRs greater then 9 you start to really see a shift in the ways and means that monsters attack the party. They usually have something thats capable of really messing up a party and stuff that can attack every player in the party. The PCs basic defencive tactics start to get really strained and the danger of something going wrong jumps dramatcially.
All of this reduces how much XP the players get per encounter and slows their advancement down.
Wow, Mary, you guys really have issues with "The Crossing of the First Threshold" and "The Road of Trials" steps in the Heroes' Journey.
Wow, Mary, you guys really have issues with "The Crossing of the First Threshold" and "The Road of Trials" steps in the Heroes' Journey.
I'm forty-five years old. I've been playing D&D since I was fifteen.
There are times you want to do something other than the Hero's Journey after that many repetitions. (And you always have the problem in D&D that it's the Hero's Journey, not the Heroes' Journey; the structure gets rather strained by having 4-6 people in it anyway.)
There are also times you want the trials and journeys to be more interior, more psychological, less literal. For that I find that a relatively stable setting is better for me.
In the last analysis we all play for fun; this is mine.
Mary
Wow, Mary, you guys really have issues with "The Crossing of the First Threshold" and "The Road of Trials" steps in the Heroes' Journey.I'm forty-five years old. I've been playing D&D since I was fifteen.
There are times you want to do something other than the Hero's Journey after that many repetitions. (And you always have the problem in D&D that it's the Hero's Journey, not the Heroes' Journey; the structure gets rather strained by having 4-6 people in it anyway.)
There are also times you want the trials and journeys to be more interior, more psychological, less literal. For that I find that a relatively stable setting is better for me.
In the last analysis we all play for fun; this is mine.
Mary
I'm not criticizing. After all, not all of the steps even have to be there in the Heroes' Journey in the first place, and certainly one step isn't "better" than the others.
The Hero's Journey is a good hook for a campaign, but it's not the only thing a campaign can be based on. It's a good tool, but one that has been overused since Star Wars in 1977, especially in regards to movies.
I find this subject very interesting because it is an important issue. There is nothing wrong in a campaign with players going all over the place, but the post raises a valid point. Does every AP need to be "exapansive?" Or can it based on a single locale?
The most interesting campaigns to me are the ones that take an angle and really push it. An urban intrigue adventure should take place in a single city and stay there. An arctic exploration campaign should not sidetrek into the tropics. However, I am not surprised that publishers get scared at the idea of such an extreme limitation. They wonder if not having "X" means it'll turn off prospective buyers. Therefore, they diversify and try to meet every segment of the market out there.
I think the real question then is whether Paizo would benefit if they did "push the envelope" when it comes to settings like this. If they market it as something (arctic adventure, urban adventure, underdark adventure, etc) should they stick to it and not have 1 or 2 issues of the AP detour from it? Of course, not every AP would be defined by its location.
But I do agree that it's often disappointing when the PCs move away from a well developed locale, and you no longer have the well developed NPC's to generate real interest and involvement.
The most interesting campaigns to me are the ones that take an angle and really push it. An urban intrigue adventure should take place in a single city and stay there. An arctic exploration campaign should not sidetrek into the tropics. However, I am not surprised that publishers get scared at the idea of such an extreme limitation. They wonder if not having "X" means it'll turn off prospective buyers. Therefore, they diversify and try to meet every segment of the market out there.
I think James discussed this explicitly with regards to RotRL. For the first Pathfinder AP they didn't feel they could afford to turn off anybody, so they made an AP with a kind of weird assortment of scenarios, settings, and flavors--some horror, some dungeon, some military, some urban, and visiting large swathes of Varisia.
A fair number of people felt the AP suffered for this, but I understand the need for such a strategy early on. I had been hoping, though, that CotCT could take more risks in that regard. I hope Second Darkness does; if it's only 3/6 or 4/6 Underdark it's going to disappoint my player.
Mary
Fonzie put on shorts (the first time ever on the TV show Happy Days) and answered a challenge by a beach boy alpha male. Fonzie got on waterskis and went over a floating jump, sailing gracefully over a partially contained man-eating shark.
Fonzie is shorts, jumping sharks was the beginning of the end for Happy Days... but the show lumbered on for a few more years.
Edit: I see head-eatin' yoda beat me to the punch.
Ironically, Happy Days never had any authenticity to lose.[
It's actually a Happy Days reference.
The first year was filmed, not videotaped, with no studio audience. It was very much like American Graffitti and had a quiet dignity. Well worth seeing.
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Creative Director
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I hope Second Darkness does; if it's only 3/6 or 4/6 Underdark it's going to disappoint my player.
Mary
So you know what you'll be getting into... the generic locations for the six parts of Second Darkness are: (warning: some pretty big Second Darkness spoilers ahead!)
1: Urban/Near Surface Caves
2: Wilderness/Rural/Near Surface Caves
3: Wilderness/Ruined City/Shadow Plane
4: Darklands (Urban: drow city)
5: Urban/Wilderness
6: Darklands (wilderness)
So technically, Second Darkness is 1/3 Darklands. If you're looking for a campaign that spends its entire length underground, this was never an Adventure Path that was going to fufill those desires.
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Creative Director
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A fair number of people felt the AP suffered for this, but I understand the need for such a strategy early on. I had been hoping, though, that CotCT could take more risks in that regard.
Judging by the numbers we're seeing on Pathfinder 1 year later... the strategy was the correct one. We've exceeded even our highest expectations with Pathfinder's success at this point, and that means going forward we CAN do some more unusual stuff. In fact, I suspect that the early campaign in a year (the AP that runs from February through July) will generally be the one where we do an more exotic or unusual Adventrue Path, and the latter campaign (August through January; the one that debuts at Gen Con) will generally be a more traditional one. Which is why we decided to go with AP4 being set in Katapesh and to have it have a more exotic "Egypt meets Arabian Nights" feel and to hold off the more traditional AP we had planned for Cheliax to take place in late 2009. (NOTE: Just because AP5 is currently scheduled for Cheliax doesn't mean that won't change... but AP4 being in Katapesh is locked in at this point.)
Is it just me or does it seem that the adventure paths seem to follow a pretty logical path up till the 4th issue, and then they seem to diverge from the previous ones.
Take the CotCT, for the first 3 issues, it was more of an urban setting and then comes 4th issue and suddenly the group is out in the wilderness. It is like missing an episode of a TV show and coming back and think, "What the heck happened? This isn't the show I was watching."
The RotRL had the same feel, at least to me, it suddenly changed and the second half of the adventure didn't have the same feel as the first half.
Is this something we can expect to keep happening?
You don't read intro text or Foreward to each AP do you? The reasoning for these decisions, esp. CoCT #4 was concisely explained at the start of the publication.
I see the topic has already been hashed out in thread above, so I'll leav it at this: read the pre-text, it isn't just module filler!
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A fair number of people felt the AP suffered for this, but I understand the need for such a strategy early on. I had been hoping, though, that CotCT could take more risks in that regard.Judging by the numbers we're seeing on Pathfinder 1 year later... the strategy was the correct one. We've exceeded even our highest expectations with Pathfinder's success at this point, and that means going forward we CAN do some more unusual stuff. In fact, I suspect that the early campaign in a year (the AP that runs from February through July) will generally be the one where we do an more exotic or unusual Adventrue Path, and the latter campaign (August through January; the one that debuts at Gen Con) will generally be a more traditional one. Which is why we decided to go with AP4 being set in Katapesh and to have it have a more exotic "Egypt meets Arabian Nights" feel and to hold off the more traditional AP we had planned for Cheliax to take place in late 2009. (NOTE: Just because AP5 is currently scheduled for Cheliax doesn't mean that won't change... but AP4 being in Katapesh is locked in at this point.)
James, I like this approach. Basically every year we get one traditional AP and one exotic/non-traditional AP. I think its a good mix. I also agree that the GenCon AP needs to be your Flagship AP for the year, as that will be that gets a lot of attention.
PS...looking forward to hearing more about AP4!
Which is why we decided to go with AP4 being set in Katapesh and to have it have a more exotic "Egypt meets Arabian Nights" feel and to hold off the more traditional AP we had planned for Cheliax to take place in late 2009.
Woohoo! Katapesh is the perfect place for my favourite SRD monster: the mercane!
Hmm, maybe if there aren't any mercanes in Katapesh I can talk my players into playing an all-mercane party. Level adjustment +7 isn't too much, right?
Is it just me or does it seem that the adventure paths seem to follow a pretty logical path up till the 4th issue, and then they seem to diverge from the previous ones.
Take the CotCT, for the first 3 issues, it was more of an urban setting and then comes 4th issue and suddenly the group is out in the wilderness. It is like missing an episode of a TV show and coming back and think, "What the heck happened? This isn't the show I was watching."
The RotRL had the same feel, at least to me, it suddenly changed and the second half of the adventure didn't have the same feel as the first half.
Is this something we can expect to keep happening?
You don't read intro text or Foreward to each AP do you? The reasoning for these decisions, esp. CoCT #4 was concisely explained at the start of the publication.
I see the topic has already been hashed out in thread above, so I'll leav it at this: read the pre-text, it isn't just module filler!
Ok, I went back and read it over, and it seems as if you didn't really get my point of the post, otherwise I doubt you would have pointed me to reread it, which didn't reduce my concern but instead increased it. After reading it, it seems now more to me that this adventure was included just to show off the barbarians than a concern for the story of the AP.
Which is why we decided to go with AP4 being set in Katapesh and to have it have a more exotic "Egypt meets Arabian Nights" feel
w00t! I'm looking forward to this one soo much!
tfad