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For the people who are playing in or running the APs, is there an estimate to the amount of hours/sessions it takes to play one part of the AP?
More specific, I'd like to know about part 1, since it's low level and there is a little more introduction, etc.
Here's the deal:
In September, our current homebrew DM is going to be out for a few weeks, and I'm jumping in the seat with the PFRPG and Council of Thieves. I'm trying to figure out if it's possible to finish the first part with the hope that the players will convince the DM to take a break to continue the path.
Thanks.
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It depends on the chapter. During Runelords it took about 24 to 30 hours of play to go through a chapter. Chapter 4 took a lot longer for some reason probably about 50 hours or so.
In Second Darkness the chapters are shorter and so far even with the set pieces it only took about 12 hours to play Chapter 2 but chapter 1 was longer and so is three.
I hope that helps.
Just to throw in a different perspective: it took us about 30 hours for the first chapter of the Second Darkness. I know one night (3–1/2 hours or so) was a little side trek the DM made up, but as far as I know the rest of it was in the adventure.
My group plays much slower than most groups. They are much more into the roleplay aspects and as such the campaign has taken much longer.
Burnt Offerings - 18 sessions
Skinsaw Murders - 12 sessions
Hook Mountain Massacre - 3 sessions into it and still have not reached Turtleback Ferry.
We typically aim for 4 hour gaming sessions.
The game originally started with just 4 people, but has since grown to 7 players.
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We aim for 4-5 hour sessions.
Burnt Offerings took us 11 sessions. I think, it probably would have gone slower for most groups, but I have a fairly stealthy party who pulled off the top level of Thistletop in a way that would put Navy SEALs to shame.
Skinsaw Murders only took 7 sessions. Having said that, they didn't actually defeat Xanesha so she's going to be back as a recurring.
We're just going into Hook Mountain now, and I intend to lengthen the journey part, having them hit up on some of the sites. I'd like it to be a chance to show off how "frontier" Varisia really is.
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Wow, thanks guys. Puts things in perspective a little.
Because I'm the only Pathfinder nut in the group, I'm going to try to do a lot of the prep work (character gen, history, background, etc) thru e-mail prior to the game. And depending on the beginning of Council of Thieves, maybe set the scene before we sit down to play so we are ready to go.
I didn't get a chance to playtest the rules, but I'm confident that it won't be much of a problem, especially at 1st level.
We're playing RotRL now. Two four-hour sessions (some BS involved so let's call it <7 hours). Looks like it's going to be about four to five more sessions before we're done. So, maybe around 18 hours for my group - four players.
M
Hmmmm, have you decided yet that you're going to get so many different answers that you will be very hard pressed to collate so many wildly divergent data points?
Our group is sloooooooow. Heck, we usually spend the first 20 minutes waiting for the DM to get there, then another 20 minutes watching him eat. If we actually start gaming sometime in the first hour of our session, it's a win for us...
I guess that's OK, everyone it chit chatting about Red Dwarf and the latest blockbuster movie and some book they read and some fight that happened in front of their house and whatever else.
When we finally get down to it, we have about 5 hours left.
Then our DM is beefing up every encounter because we have as many as 6 players (most weeks at least one is absent, but some weeks we have all 6) and because he is convinced that Pathfinder characters are too powerful for normal APs written for 3.5 characters.
So nearly every fight is life or death. Many of them end with the monsters missing almost every attack for the last 3 rounds because if they don't, we will die.
Then we do time-wasting things like the DM wasting over an hour with stuff that could be handled in 2 minutes. Case in point: We had already been to Thistletop and cleared much of it, but had to return to town to rest, recover, and resupply - the Three Rs. When we got back, the bridge was gone. We decided to try to swim for it. What followed was an hour and a half of us not being able to do this as the DM showed us through painstaking climb rolls (well over 50 climb checks for the group, maybe even nearer to 100), then some swimming disasters, then a whort battle, then more climbing, and finally returning to town with our tails between our legs. He could have saved us all that time by simply saying "hey, that water is way too rough, any of you with any ranks in swim know for a fact that you will almost certainly die if you try" and then we would have been on with a new plan instead of that 90-minute waste of time.
Shopping for a dozen arrows must be roleplayed out meticulously, usually consuming a good 15 minutes of our time. God forbid we're stocking up for a long trip; that could take 3 hours of shopping fun.
With all that, we've been in Burnt Offerings since January and we still are - I'm figuring RotRL will be a 3-year adventure path for us...
Wow, my group must be fast. Most sessions are about 5 hours long and we usually spend 2-3 sessions on each module although usually the first and last ones take a little longer.
We did SD in about 6 months, playing about every two weeks, and we are half way through LoF trying to play every weekend (but we've missed a few).
I feel fortunate to be more than halfway through Second Darkness in less than a year. My Runelords game is coming up on two years and has yet to reach that point.
As for hours - Runelords #1 probably took 50 hours, #2 had lots of extras and took about 60, and about 40 into #3. Second Darkness #1 I think finished in about 32-40 hours (with a quick group), after character generation. #2 24-32, #3 32-40, #4 about 20 so far.
Our group has just about completed Burnt Offerings in six sessions, and our sessions are generally about 3.5 - 4 hours long. They still have one loose end to wrap up (someone escaped) but have already explored all encounter areas laid out in PF#1.
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My group plays fast, too. We all contribute to that, and still get in adequate roleplaying.
Shackled City: 12 Months start to finish, playing once a week for 5-6 hours a shot.
RotRL and CotCT: 8 months each start to finish, playing once a week for 5-6 hours a shot.
But I also have to admit it depends on the module. Some we finish in two sessions, others take six or more.
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Yeah, my group normally stays pretty focused and we do long sessions(8-9 hours) which might help, since we aren't having take much time to set up and wrap things up again so often.
We normally finish a module in about 2 sessions though, give or take just a bit depending on just how much combat is in that chapter.
I can't help but comment...lol
guess that depends on your party...Some parties are like a laser beam in their focus and an adventure can be absorbed in a few sessions...sometimes 6-8
Then there is the group without much focus...if you don't lead them by the nose(which sux as a GM) sometimes they can double or even triple the time other groups would take...
My current group...have spent 4 sessions trying to get into Shadowdale...the keep running into things that get them sidetracked...and seem to keep them sidetracked for quite some time... they should have been in town by the end of session One...but now with session 5 approaching...they have yet to even skirt the threshold...
I think finally....I have them where they HAVE to begin to follow at least a portion of the adventure...lol...but we will see
Our sessions go from about 4 till till about 1 or 2 in the morning with some breaks for food and things and we got through Burnt Offering in about 2 and half sessions. I think we will get through the Skinsaw in about a session and half maybe 2
Hmmm ... our group is odd, in that we play one weekend a month, and mix the gaming with all the other yakking and reminiscing good friends do whenever they get together.
That said, we took three and a half weekends to complete chapter one of Rise of the Runelords and Crimson Throne (GM, Two Players with two characters each).
With Second Darkness we added another player (his first time playing rules beyond 2e), the GM is a long time player, but this was her first run GMing for us (who did a fantastic job!!), and my husband was on a night shift for work, all of which changed the dynamics some ... that one took us six weekends to complete for chapter one.
I think, as others have said, it depends on your group and your groups dynamics on how long, but they are not, IMO, weekend blowouts per chapter ... unless you folks have figured out how to go with no sleep whatsoever :)
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Our group is sloooooooow. Heck, we usually spend the first 20 minutes waiting for the DM to get there, then another 20 minutes watching him eat. If we actually start gaming sometime in the first hour of our session, it's a win for us...
I guess that's OK, everyone it chit chatting about Red Dwarf and the latest blockbuster movie and some book they read and some fight that happened in front of their house and whatever else.
When we finally get down to it, we have about 5 hours left.
Then our DM is beefing up every encounter because we have as many as 6 players (most weeks at least one is absent, but some weeks we have all 6) and because he is convinced that Pathfinder characters are too powerful for normal APs written for 3.5 characters.
So nearly every fight is life or death. Many of them end with the monsters missing almost every attack for the last 3 rounds because if they don't, we will die.
HA! If you didn't mention Rise of the Runelords, I'd swear you sat in the game I'm playing in now!
Not to get off track, but not only does it depend on the players but in the game I'm in now, it's the DM. Yes, we've done the 5 hour game session where we explored 1 room. We've done the whole "everybody give me 10 climb checks" Sometimes he sits there staring at all of us waiting for us to do something. And I say "You're the DM, set the scene, tell me what's happening, am I running the game or are you?"
Geez, don't get me started. Anyway, that's the game I'm trying to avoid. There are some good players in my gaming group, and I'm hoping to run a game for them that they deserve.
We've played 10 sessions of the first chapter of RotRL, averaging 4 hours each (they'd be 5 hours but we tend to spend the first hour socializing, eating, and catching up on what happened last time, since we only get to play an average of twice a month). I have 5 players, and we are trying to incorporate some of the new rules, so that slows us down a bit. 2 players are veteran, 2 rusty, and 1 shiny new. We are very role-playing heavy, so our sessions might sometimes be considered “slow.”
I also feel I should mention one player was in the middle of buying a house during the first 5 sessions, and another was in the process of moving his girlfriend in from another town for a couple of sessions, so there was a lot of interruption with phone calls. That, thankfully, has stopped, and things seem to be moving faster. Also, since 2 are parents, at times the kids in the other room need supervising and that takes the player away for a bit (but gives a couple of others a smoke break).
Anyway, our last session ended with them in the middle of the Catacombs, terrified by all the freakish denizens they are finding, and horribly unsure if they even brought the right tools to kill what imagine is down there (thanks to a certain journal). I imagine it will be another 4, maybe 5, sessions to finish, so I'd say 60 hours total. I'm guessing the next chapter will go a little faster.
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Then our DM is beefing up every encounter because we have as many as 6 players (most weeks at least one is absent, but some weeks we have all 6) and because he is convinced that Pathfinder characters are too powerful for normal APs written for 3.5 characters.
So nearly every fight is life or death. Many of them end with the monsters missing almost every attack for the last 3 rounds because if they don't, we will die.
He needs to realise how tough Paizo APs are and save himself some prep. time.
You should send him over here to check out the RotRL section - way more threads on: "OMG this is tough!" than there are asking: "How can I beef this up?"
I'll add that it also depends a great deal on how the GM runs the encounters - I mean the battle encounters mainly. RP can take a lot of time but using all of the little tactical nuances built into the NPC opponents can make the battles last a *lot* longer than if you just toss some minis on the table and do a toe-to-toe fight.
Last session, old Tsuto lived quite a few more rounds than I expected (I've never run a monk, believe it or not). And, since the players brought some town guards with them he had lots of necks to break. He mowed through two guards in two rounds with the party cleric standing behind them looking on with mouth agape and then got even more scared when he brushed off her Command and came at her next ("STOP? Surely you jest? I hope you have better than that, your holiness!")
Some of the bad guys coming up later in the AP are off the hook. I fear my players (non-optimizers, all) will not fare well. Some of those battles could last a LONG time if they do manage to hold their own. So far we've had three (or four?) near-death experiences.
M
Then our DM is beefing up every encounter because we have...He needs to realise how tough Paizo APs are and save himself some prep. time.
Seriously! - He's killing himself by beefing up the encounters. If he'd just leave them alone you'd drop back in level a bit (since there are so many of you) and you'd be challenged from that.
Yeah...the SHackled City was a tough one for sure...the party had 15 deaths total and we had 5 players... no need for beefing there...that Grell made short work of our first Warblade....The Choker got our Rogue...Our Bard discovered his Lycanthropy in the middle of a tavern performance... no beefing needed there
Then our DM is beefing up every encounter because we have as many as 6 players (most weeks at least one is absent, but some weeks we have all 6) and because he is convinced that Pathfinder characters are too powerful for normal APs written for 3.5 characters.
So nearly every fight is life or death. Many of them end with the monsters missing almost every attack for the last 3 rounds because if they don't, we will die.
He needs to realise how tough Paizo APs are and save himself some prep. time.
You should send him over here to check out the RotRL section - way more threads on: "OMG this is tough!" than there are asking: "How can I beef this up?"
Sadly, he's read these forums, and he's taking his beefing-up ideas from threads here.
Another player and I are working on pursuading him to stop beefing up. We can't keep facing CR 7+ encounters with five 3rd level characters...
Then our DM is beefing up every encounter because we have...He needs to realise how tough Paizo APs are and save himself some prep. time.Seriously! - He's killing himself by beefing up the encounters. If he'd just leave them alone you'd drop back in level a bit (since there are so many of you) and you'd be challenged from that.
Our thoughts exactly.
Then our DM is beefing up every encounter because we have as many as 6 players (most weeks at least one is absent, but some weeks we have all 6) and because he is convinced that Pathfinder characters are too powerful for normal APs written for 3.5 characters.
So nearly every fight is life or death. Many of them end with the monsters missing almost every attack for the last 3 rounds because if they don't, we will die.
He needs to realise how tough Paizo APs are and save himself some prep. time.
You should send him over here to check out the RotRL section - way more threads on: "OMG this is tough!" than there are asking: "How can I beef this up?"
Sadly, he's read these forums, and he's taking his beefing-up ideas from threads here.
Another player and I are working on pursuading him to stop beefing up. We can't keep facing CR 7+ encounters with five 3rd level characters...
He is reading my set up for 6 players I bet what is his screen name I might of emailed him my notes
He is reading my set up for 6 players I bet what is his screen name I might of emailed him my notesI really like what you've done, but it's clearly for six bad-ass players.
Not sure. But if I find out, you should send him Elberion's clarification...
Hmmmm, have you decided yet that you're going to get so many different answers that you will be very hard pressed to collate so many wildly divergent data points?
Our group is sloooooooow. Heck, we usually spend the first 20 minutes waiting for the DM to get there, then another 20 minutes watching him eat. If we actually start gaming sometime in the first hour of our session, it's a win for us...
Shopping for a dozen arrows...
Bad form Blake on so many levels.
As the DM in question, I wont even dignify this post with a reply but just say alot of the things your saying are unfair and not all together true.
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We are playing RotRL. We play twice a month for 7-8 hours each time. We have played 4 times and are at the end of the first book. We should finish Burnt Offerings in the the 5th session. The other books should move faster now that we have six players. We started the game with three. Like everyone says, it depends on alot of things.
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How long is a piece of string ?
Hummm sorry...
Following this post I tried to remember all the sessions.
So far in RotRL number 1 we have played 6 sessions of 4 to 5 hours (one of these sessions was for introduction as my PCs did not come from Varisia as a start). I believe it will take 2 or even 3 sessions more to make a good ending.
They did not really waste time (except for gearing which took a bit of time :D) but the thing is they have no healer at all and have to rest very often ...
I believe 35 to 40 hours for this AP 1 should be about it.
Hmmmm, have you decided yet that you're going to get so many different answers that you will be very hard pressed to collate so many wildly divergent data points?
Our group is sloooooooow. Heck, we usually spend the first 20 minutes waiting for the DM to get there, then another 20 minutes watching him eat. If we actually start gaming sometime in the first hour of our session, it's a win for us...
Shopping for a dozen arrows...
Bad form Blake on so many levels.
As the DM in question, I wont even dignify this post with a reply but just say alot of the things your saying are unfair and not all together true.
Ouch!
Evidently, my form was bad indeed.
This session, the first session after my bad form, my paladin suffered 136 damage in our only fight this week. Did I mention I am only 4th level with 38 HP? The cleric spent the whole battle casting heals to keep the paladin on his feet, or get him from negative back to positive, and the paladin used every Lay On Hands and his amulet of False Life, but there really isn't anything a 4th level group can do to keep a 38 HP character alive when he takes 136 damage in 7 rounds.
So, next session I'll be rolling a new character.
I've learned my lesson. No more bad form here, no sir!