First of all, let me just give a huge thank you for keeping 3rd edition alive, fun, and thriving, and thank you greatly for the amazing Adventure Paths you have released :)
I wonder, though, if there will ever be another Adventure Path that ends when the characters are approaching 20th level, or even moving into epic levels?
It's obviously hard to balance encounters of such high levels in adventures, and I wouldn't want you to do them often, but once in a while could be nice :)
Creative Director
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First of all, let me just give a huge thank you for keeping 3rd edition alive, fun, and thriving, and thank you greatly for the amazing Adventure Paths you have released :)
I wonder, though, if there will ever be another Adventure Path that ends when the characters are approaching 20th level, or even moving into epic levels?
It's obviously hard to balance encounters of such high levels in adventures, and I wouldn't want you to do them often, but once in a while could be nice :)
Rise of the Runelords got folks close to 18th. And I'm hoping to get things up to about 18th level with the next AP, Kingmaker.
if there is anything i would like to see change in the AP are higher level adventures. I like allot of the high level monsters and it is a shame that I just use the APs I wont see allot of them.
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It's just so much harder to make meaningfull scenarios and encounters on the higher levels. You can't just take a standard dungeon crawl, buff the monsters to CR 20, and call it a day. it has to be... you know... epic. High level characters have the means to topple kingdoms and change the change the face of the world. There are very few things in Golarion that would prove difficult to handle for a 20+ lvl party, and defeating any of them would have a high impact on many aspects of the world as we know it.
One alternative is to take the players away, to forgotten continents, other planets or planes or some such, but that could easily become a boring hack-journey, as it is difficult to establish lasting and meaningfull relationships (read roleplaying opportunities) in a world where most of the enemies are capable of destroying nations. It gets ridiculous when they keep coming up with new things that can threaten Superman with cryptonite, and so does yet another generic supervillain threat to the PCs' neighborhood.
I think that what I'm trying to say is that high lvl characters have a tendency to be proactive. They are the movers and the shakers, they do stuff to the world, they don't just sit on their hands and wait for stuff to happen. And that's what most APs and modules are about: Something happens to the heroes, or to the local village, or city or whatever, and they react.
The best way to make an interesting high-lvl campaign, where the players get a chance to be proactive, is to write it for specific characters, so that you can create obstacles that they are meant to solve with their personalities, not with their stats. Political maneuvering, moral dilemmas, personal ambitions, secret plans, romances and vendettas. And you can't have anyone else write that story for your group. You have to do it yourself.
Rise of the Runelords got folks close to 18th. And I'm hoping to get things up to about 18th level with the next AP, Kingmaker.
Is that related to Neverwinter Nights module?
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First of all, let me just give a huge thank you for keeping 3rd edition alive, fun, and thriving, and thank you greatly for the amazing Adventure Paths you have released :)
I wonder, though, if there will ever be another Adventure Path that ends when the characters are approaching 20th level, or even moving into epic levels?
It's obviously hard to balance encounters of such high levels in adventures, and I wouldn't want you to do them often, but once in a while could be nice :)
Shackled City went ALL the way to 20, if I remember right. (My copy ships soon)
And it's available from this site in wonderhappy hardbound version.
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Creative Director
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Shackled City went ALL the way to 20, if I remember right. (My copy ships soon)
And it's available from this site in wonderhappy hardbound version.
All three Dungeon APs went to 20. In fact, Age of Worms and Savage Tide dipped into 21st level. Of course... a Dungeon AP had about 275,000 words an AP whereas a Pathfinder AP has only 200,000 or so words, so that's part of the reason the Dungeon APs went for longer.
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All three Dungeon APs went to 20. In fact, Age of Worms and Savage Tide dipped into 21st level. Of course... a Dungeon AP had about 275,000 words an AP whereas a Pathfinder AP has only 200,000 or so words, so that's part of the reason the Dungeon APs went for longer.Shackled City went ALL the way to 20, if I remember right. (My copy ships soon)
And it's available from this site in wonderhappy hardbound version.
Aha! That explains a great deal. Thank you.
All three Dungeon APs went to 20. In fact, Age of Worms and Savage Tide dipped into 21st level. Of course... a Dungeon AP had about 275,000 words an AP whereas a Pathfinder AP has only 200,000 or so words, so that's part of the reason the Dungeon APs went for longer.Shackled City went ALL the way to 20, if I remember right. (My copy ships soon)
And it's available from this site in wonderhappy hardbound version.
Ahh that makes allot of sense
Shackled City went ALL the way to 20, if I remember right. (My copy ships soon)And it's available from this site in wonderhappy hardbound version.
Yes, I have the hardcover Shackled City, plus complete Dungeon's for Age of Worms and Savage Tide; the Pathfinder ones haven't been that high yet though, which is why I wondered if there would be another :)
Thinking a bit more about it, I suppose 3 APs ending at epic levels after 7 APs total is probably enough :P
Very nice to hear that Kingmaker is going to reach 18th though :)
Edit: On a related tangent; would Paizo consider making single follow-up adventures to Adventure Paths as part of the Pathfinder Modules line, or would that just not be profitable enough? The ending of Second Darkness could easily lead into an adventure of its own, for instance.
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Creative Director
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Edit: On a related tangent; would Paizo consider making single follow-up adventures to Adventure Paths as part of the Pathfinder Modules line, or would that just not be profitable enough? The ending of Second Darkness could easily lead into an adventure of its own, for instance.
We might try that some day, but the worry is that that would self-limit our potential customers for a module. Also, the modules are a place for us to explore adventures and plots and locations that AREN'T on screen in an Adventure Path, and since we only do 6 of them a year we don't really have a lot of wiggle room to "waste" one on an AP tie-in. Maybe some day, though...
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Another thing I would point out since it has not been brought up yet. James and others have said in other threads about this. That high level adventures don't sell as well. Even the last few AP books tend to drop off in sales some, which i know before they mentioned was a concern with doing a high level AP and or a return to mini AP.
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I'd like to see high level APs or at least a few very high level modules that could tie in (but not rely on) previous APs.
Just pulling a random idea out of a hat with no knowledge of what's to come from the remaining 4 Council of Thieves installments: An AP set for a couple levels higher than CoT plans on leaving the PCs, where the PCs travel elsewhere in Cheliax to deal with some great diabolical threat; it doesn't require you to have played CoT, but it could include a paragraph of how to tie it in to a post-CoT campaign.
Another thing I would point out since it has not been brought up yet. James and others have said in other threads about this. That high level adventures don't sell as well. Even the last few AP books tend to drop off in sales some, which i know before they mentioned was a concern with doing a high level AP and or a return to mini AP.
that is weird, is that cause games fall apart or something.
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I think that what I'm trying to say is that high lvl characters have a tendency to be proactive. They are the movers and the shakers, they do stuff to the world, they don't just sit on their hands and wait for stuff to happen. And that's what most APs and modules are about: Something happens to the heroes, or to the local village, or city or whatever, and they react.
I beg to differ - I am running the Council of Thieves and they HAVE to be proactive. It was a little frustrating as a new DM to convince the characters to do the adventures. The only "happening to the heroes" is the gentle prodding of two NPCs to proactively DO something.
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Kingmaker: the next superawesome AP where the PCs actually run their own kingdoms in the River Kingdoms area. See the newest Paizo catalog.
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Another thing I would point out since it has not been brought up yet. James and others have said in other threads about this. That high level adventures don't sell as well. Even the last few AP books tend to drop off in sales some, which i know before they mentioned was a concern with doing a high level AP and or a return to mini AP.
I think that they don't sell as well because a lot of long campaigns just fall apart due to personal reasons.
If they Start at say, level 10 or 15, they could have high level adventures that people would buy.
In order for high level or epic to sell, you can't continue a long adventure - gaming groups often don't stick around that long.
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Just pulling a random idea out of a hat with no knowledge of what's to come from the remaining 4 Council of Thieves installments: An AP set for a couple levels higher than CoT plans on leaving the PCs, where the PCs travel elsewhere in Cheliax to deal with some great diabolical threat; it doesn't require you to have played CoT, but it could include a paragraph of how to tie it in to a post-CoT campaign.
That would require a lot more Cheliax, when they want to develop other parts of Golarion.
Give us MWANGI and World Wound!
Just pulling a random idea out of a hat with no knowledge of what's to come from the remaining 4 Council of Thieves installments: An AP set for a couple levels higher than CoT plans on leaving the PCs, where the PCs travel elsewhere in Cheliax to deal with some great diabolical threat; it doesn't require you to have played CoT, but it could include a paragraph of how to tie it in to a post-CoT campaign.That would require a lot more Cheliax, when they want to develop other parts of Golarion.
Give us MWANGI and World Wound!
+1 i want Mwangi
All three Dungeon APs went to 20. In fact, Age of Worms and Savage Tide dipped into 21st level. Of course... a Dungeon AP had about 275,000 words an AP whereas a Pathfinder AP has only 200,000 or so words, so that's part of the reason the Dungeon APs went for longer.Shackled City went ALL the way to 20, if I remember right. (My copy ships soon)
And it's available from this site in wonderhappy hardbound version.
Psh! Like 75,000 words is that much harder to write... In 10th grade I did a 75 word paper before my first period class started when I got to school. I called it Sunkist. It went like this. Sunkist contains water, high fructose corn syrup, etc. until I had 75 words! Just do that 1000 times and you have level 20.
Sunkist oranges are only CR 1/12. You'd have to kill a whole lot more than a thousand of them to reach level 20.
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Another thing I would point out since it has not been brought up yet. James and others have said in other threads about this. That high level adventures don't sell as well. Even the last few AP books tend to drop off in sales some, which i know before they mentioned was a concern with doing a high level AP and or a return to mini AP.that is weird, is that cause games fall apart or something.
Don't know why, was only commenting on it. Since paizo has stated before that is one of the reasons.
Give us MWANGI and World Wound!
*wants the World Wound BADLY*
...Okay, as a GM I have an obsession with demons. And chain-reaction detonating balors. And seriously overbuilt Mariliths. Anyway, I personally would love a high level Adventure Path beyond 18th, because I'm fortunate in that my gaming group does stick around. For some reason, despite the fact I'm the youngest member of the group by a good 6 year margin.