New to Pathfinder - Got my book, now what?


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion


Hey all, I'm an old gamer, started with the Red and Blue boxes of AD&D in the early years and have been playing everything from White Wolf to Shadowrun since then.
Now, I'm trying out Pathfinder, mainly because I like where the 3.5 rules stood, and the world looks great. (Also, because the 4ed book scared me WHERE ARE MY CHARTS???)
But my question is what would be a good introductory story arc that I could use to level a small group of casual players? Some have the rulebook already, and are familiar with the game, but where can I look to find my "Keep on the Borderlands" type of adventure that can work us into the ruleset nice and easy?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!


Well I haven't used either of the suggestions below but they might fit the bill.

The first is a single adventure, the first PFRPG one I believe.
Crypt of the Everflame

My other suggestion would be the first PFRPG adventure path, Council of Thieves. The players guide is available as a free download here.

I think either of these would be a good start, but not knowing your group I don't know if individual adventures or an adventure path would be best.

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CaffeinatedGamer wrote:

Hey all, I'm an old gamer, started with the Red and Blue boxes of AD&D in the early years and have been playing everything from White Wolf to Shadowrun since then.

Now, I'm trying out Pathfinder, mainly because I like where the 3.5 rules stood, and the world looks great. (Also, because the 4ed book scared me WHERE ARE MY CHARTS???)
But my question is what would be a good introductory story arc that I could use to level a small group of casual players? Some have the rulebook already, and are familiar with the game, but where can I look to find my "Keep on the Borderlands" type of adventure that can work us into the ruleset nice and easy?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Pick up Crypt of the Everflame :) It is designed for first level chars, and was built from the ground up with the PFRPG rules. I've glanced at it, and I very much like what I see.

Now, if you're wanting to really dive in with both feet, check out one of the APs. You will begin as first level chars, and progress through hell and high water until the completion around 15th level or so :) I personally love Curse of the Crimson Throne, but it was written pre-PFRPG, so would need tweaking here and there. But it would just be some tweaking, as I can attest, having started this campaign under 3.0, migrated to Beta and now into PFRPG ::chuckle::

Council of Thieves is the first fully PFRPG out.

Welcome to the fun!


CaffeinatedGamer:

I'll echo what the two other posters suggested above… Crypt of the Everflame would be a great place to start. I have not ran it yet (but plan to), but I have read it from cover-to-cover. The adventure hook for the module is not my cup of tea, but other than that I believe it lives up to being a great introductory module to showcase the PFRPG.

1) It's for 1st level characters
2) It is written by the author of the core rules
3) It is designed to showcase several changes and rules made and included in the game
4) It has the bare bones of a small town included with a little background info to flesh out
5) It provides you with 4 sample 1st level characters

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To add to this, Crypt of the Everflame has two forthcoming sequels, so you can take the same PCs through three different adventures (the other two being Masks of the Living God in December and City of Golden Death in March) depending how often you play. It you play weekly, you may consider the Council of Thieves AP instead, since it will start at first level and take the PCs to a much higher level with new material being released monthly instead of every other month, and the first two installments are already available.


yoda8myhead wrote:
To add to this, Crypt of the Everflame has two forthcoming sequels, so you can take the same PCs through three different adventures (the other two being Masks of the Living God in December and City of Golden Death in March) depending how often you play. It you play weekly, you may consider the Council of Thieves AP instead, since it will start at first level and take the PCs to a much higher level with new material being released monthly instead of every other month, and the first two installments are already available.

Ahh… didn't know that! It must be said, even if you plan on running a longer campaign like one of the adventure paths, I'd still recommend playing this one 1st to "get your feet wet". You can do this as a one-off, or segue into a longer campaign after its completion.


While Crypt of the Everflame is the first module that makes full use of the Pathfinder rules you may also enjoy "Hollow's Last Hope"
http://paizo.com/store/downloads/pathfinder/pathfinderModules/35E/v5748btpy 82qz

This is a FREE 1st level adventure which you can download immediately. It was the first adventure that my group played and we really enjoyed it. We're following it up with Crown of the Kolbold King
http://paizo.com/store/downloads/pathfinder/pathfinderModules/35E/v5748btpy 7wix

We're nearly done with that module. I'm going to try to fit in a quick self created module and then we'll move right into Revenge of the Kolbold King which is another free module
http://paizo.com/store/downloads/pathfinder/pathfinderModules/35E/v5748btpy 83w1

If everyone survives that then we're going to wrap it up with "Hungry are the Dead"
http://paizo.com/store/downloads/pathfinder/pathfinderModules/35E/v5748btpy 85en
That module continues the story line. However, the module "Carnival of Tears" also fits the Falcon's Hollow story line so we may fit that one in as well.
http://paizo.com/store/downloads/pathfinder/pathfinderModules/35E/v5748btpy 80op

I have noticed that to run the older modules (everything before "Everflame") there are references to the 3.5 monster manual. Most of the stat blocks are there, but you may need to reference the 3.5 monster manual from time to time. In fact, in the stat blocks they make a reference to the page in the Monster Manual that references that monster. For example, this : (MM 72) means "Monster Manual page 72".

So if you have the 3.5 books and you want to try out a very well written free module then "Hollow's Last Hope" is a great starting point. For many of us "Last Hope" has become "The Keep On The Borderlands" of Pathfinder. It's the first module that many of us ever ran and it holds that place in our memory the same way "Keep on the Borderlands" does for those of us who started with the Blue and Red boxes.

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