I'm always on the lookout for new material to add to my own campaigns: interesting monsters, NPCs, new feats, and details on areas.
If I'm not planning on running an Adventure Path, per se, is there enough information inside to appropriate to my own campaigns?
Thanks!
Each adventure path includes a short bestiary at the end which provides full write-ups on about 6 or 7 new monsters. There will occasionally be new player elements (feats, prestige classes, equipment, spells, etc.) and very commonly chapters on specific topics relevant to the campaign but which can be used independently of it (1 or 2 chapters per book, usually). Each adventure has quite a few NPCs, but they'll be tied to the plot. You can pluck them out with a bit of work.
I'd say the AP books are of moderate use if you're not using them for the adventures themselves.
Scott's assessment was very fair and accurate. There's lots of nice useable extras, but its still primarily an adventure, so moderate use.
Be wary about the difference between 3.5 and Pathfinder ones, as the old ones may require a tap of work here or there.
I have yet to "run" an adventure path, but I do mine them for maps, NPCs, monsters, etc. This ends up saving me time drafting up such things myself. Sandpoint, Aberian's Folly, the Battle Market, and a few other locations saved me many hours of having to design such locations. That frees valuable time to work on world-building or fleshing out the BBEG's plot.
If an AP issue saves me at least 2-4 hours work, then I figure it was worth the price. YMMV
Definitely worth it. You can cherry pick parts of the adventure for you use in your own game. Could be an NPC or Maps or whatever. The articles on region specific topic are usually general enough to be adapted else where. For example the Hell Knights Prestige Class. The Bestiary is new monster to give you players something different to fight.
The AP is the best bang for you buck I find.
Thanks for the feedback! I'll pick one up and see how I like it. My campaign IS set in Golarion; party just made it to Absalom and as far as they know they need to travel to Katapesh and Korvosa, too.
Yes. If you want you can grab specific ones for the back up articles. If you are interested in hellknights you could grab Council of Thieves 3 and 4 for example
Thanks for the feedback! I'll pick one up and see how I like it. My campaign IS set in Golarion; party just made it to Absalom and as far as they know they need to travel to Katapesh and Korvosa, too.
Well, in that case, Curse of the Crimson Throne and Legacy of Fire (Korvosa and Katapesh) will be very helpful.
Of course, any adventures in Varisia will benefit from the first 3 adventure paths. (ROTR #2 has Magnimar, ROTR #3 has an overview of Varisia, and Second Darkness has Riddleport and Celwynvian/ Mierani Forest as well and info on the Elven homeland of Kyonin and that lowdown on Treerazer.)
Yea, I think they are. For one, all the APs have AWESOME articles in them about various things in Golarion that could probably be translated quite easily into your world (If not, at least, make an entertaining read). Secondly, some of the stuff Paizo does is just devilishly entertaining, in that it is both evil and hilarious (and makes you want to cry a little if you're the PC). Im sure there are examples of this in all of the APs but Rise of the Runelords, specifically, has to be one of my favorite ones for introducing the aforementioned devilishly entertaining tidbits.
All the APs have lots of great info, the Leagcy of Fire had some of the best info dealing with the City of Brass that I have ever seen in my 20 years of gameing. And served up lots of info well for my Eberron / Planescape campaing. That is not saying I use everything in them, but I use enough that I think the are worth it.
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If I'm not planning on running an Adventure Path, per se, is there enough information inside to appropriate to my own campaigns?
You have to be the judge of that yourself. Here is a typical AP issue, AP #25, Bastards.
About 45 pages of adventure... Interesting reading at the least, it's a sort of story. If you are running a low level city campaign and are looking for some encounter ideas you can probably pull something from that.
21-22 pages on Westcrown, the city the story is set in. The city is an interesting place and well written. If you are building your own campaign world I can easily see stealing this whole section and saving some development time. It's a city in decay of sorts.
6-7 pages on Tieflings -> This is a REALLY awesome article. If you want to play with a tiefling character hit this one.
The 6-7 pages of Pathfinders Journal -> A well written story by Dave Gross
6 pages of Bestiary -> 6 new critters each issue.
These are all the pages with actual content, there are other pages with adverts and intro stuff (which is often a great read too). So Roughly half the issue is pure AP and the other half is recycleable to a large extent. It's a bit expensive for a magazine but it's pure content and very high quality. If you subscribe you get the free PDF which mean high resolution art and maps in a PDF you can use for your own campaign as well.
You will also find prestige classes, articles on Paizo's gods, articles on regions, cities, countries, races. Mostly directly supporting the AP but there is usually a lot you can pull.
I suggest the price (roughly $20/ month after the discount plus shipping) is low enough that it's worth a few months try anyhow. :D
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Another thing, check the upcoming issues. #31 starts Kingmaker. Here are the parts:
“Stolen Land,” a Pathfinder RPG adventure for 1st-level characters, by Tim Hitchcock.
A gazetteer of Brevoy, a country of ancient grudges and noble rivalries, by Steve Kenson.
New rules for turning exploration into a different kind of adventure, by James Jacobs.
A new misadventure for disgraced noble scion Ollix Kaddar in the Pathfinder’s Journal, by James L. Sutter.
Five new monsters, by Ed Greenwood, David Hill, Steven Kenson, Rob Manning, and F. Wesley Schneider.
They are all going to be well written and presented. Can you use that sort of thing? I like the idea of rules for exploration myself a lot :D
Another thing, check the upcoming issues. #31 starts Kingmaker. Here are the parts:
They are all going to be well written and presented. Can you use that sort of thing? I like the idea of rules for exploration myself a lot :D“Stolen Land,” a Pathfinder RPG adventure for 1st-level characters, by Tim Hitchcock.
A gazetteer of Brevoy, a country of ancient grudges and noble rivalries, by Steve Kenson.
New rules for turning exploration into a different kind of adventure, by James Jacobs.
A new misadventure for disgraced noble scion Ollix Kaddar in the Pathfinder’s Journal, by James L. Sutter.
Five new monsters, by Ed Greenwood, David Hill, Steven Kenson, Rob Manning, and F. Wesley Schneider.
Hehe, this had me chuckling because two of my players are from Brevoy and met the rest of the party on their journey southward. Now I'm trying to get as much raw data on various parts of the Inner Sea just to have a background to launch the campaign over. Like you said, saves gobs of design time and allows me to focus purely on the action.
There's a lot of information in the campaign setting, but I shall pick up an AP on Friday (my weekly trip to the Strat) and will report back.
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Based on my experience yes, thy are worth getting even if you don't use the main adventure. That is about half the book, while the other half is more generic stuff like gazeteers, stand alone adventures, occasionally a prestige class, and monsters. Like Sebastian pointed out, even if you don't use the adventure itself, it's a great place to raid for locations, NPCs, and encounter ideas.
It's especially worth it if you're a subscriber, because then you get that awesome copy/paste from the PDF.
I've always run in my own campaign world (epic 3.5, no less), but I use the Pathfinder material like crazy.
And stuff like the possession rules from a recent AP, for example, is priceless.
They are worth it.
Even if you don't run the adventure as written you can cut and paste encounters in your campaign.
Then the rest of the book is gold
Adventure Paths can be fun and helpful, but I prefer to run Modules or Pathfinder Society Scenarios because they are shorter and they don't "hijack" the game as much.
You can play a Module or Scenario for a few sessions and then get back to the normal game, whereas the Adventure Paths are more of a longterm commitment.
It really just depends on your preferences.
I'm not a subscriber, I just buy the PDFs that look fun.
Being able to copy & paste is a life saver.
Picking up APs you don't intend to run is dangerous. I was just going to read them and mine them for ideas, and I've ended up running four of the paths (and clearly will be running more of them in days to come).
Picking up APs you don't intend to run is dangerous. I was just going to read them and mine them for ideas, and I've ended up running four of the paths (and clearly will be running more of them in days to come).
+1
They are addictive.
Well, today was shopping day. (And, as a side note, lemme tell ya -- The Compleat Strategist is DANGEROUS place!)
I picked up (among other things), The Legacy Of Fire AP, Part 4: The End of Eternity. I got this for two reasons -- 1) the party just hit lvl 8 and will probably be lvl 9 when they reach Katapesh, enabling me to use anything in the book without much adjustment. And 2)It takes place in/around Katapesh which makes it easy to implement into my campaign, provided there's anything of use in it.
Did I say 'in case of'?! Sheesh -- after paging through the book twice, I think a good 70% of the material here will be recycled in some fashion or another! And that's without running the AP. Great book, and a great compliment to my Guide to Katapesh.
Now I just need the Map Folio! I was this close *holds fingers reeeaaaly close* to picking it up tonight, but I don't need it just yet, my copy of Stormwrack arrived today, and I saw a couple/few new Reaper minis I "had" to have!!
:)
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Well, today was shopping day. (And, as a side note, lemme tell ya -- The Compleat Strategist is DANGEROUS place!)
I picked up (among other things), The Legacy Of Fire AP, Part 4: The End of Eternity. I got this for two reasons -- 1) the party just hit lvl 8 and will probably be lvl 9 when they reach Katapesh, enabling me to use anything in the book without much adjustment. And 2)It takes place in/around Katapesh which makes it easy to implement into my campaign, provided there's anything of use in it.
Did I say 'in case of'?! Sheesh -- after paging through the book twice, I think a good 70% of the material here will be recycled in some fashion or another! And that's without running the AP. Great book, and a great compliment to my Guide to Katapesh.
Now I just need the Map Folio! I was this close *holds fingers reeeaaaly close* to picking it up tonight, but I don't need it just yet, my copy of Stormwrack arrived today, and I saw a couple/few new Reaper minis I "had" to have!!
:)
That is one of my favorite recent AP issues with regards to non-adventure content. Good critters, good Katapesh article (much of which can be extended to a lot of big city locations).
Well, today was shopping day. (And, as a side note, lemme tell ya -- The Compleat Strategist is DANGEROUS place!)
:)
I havent been to the strategist in over a year. Ill likely pass by there soon for some new dice though. I usually try to buy direct from Paizo as Id rather give them my money to help support all things Pathfinder. :)
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It's especially worth it if you're a subscriber, because then you get that awesome copy/paste from the PDF.
I've always run in my own campaign world (epic 3.5, no less), but I use the Pathfinder material like crazy.
And stuff like the possession rules from a recent AP, for example, is priceless.
Also, with the 25% off PDF's for 3.5, I would highly recommend purchasing the pdf's for the first Adventure Path if cost is an issue (Rise of the Rune Lords). Along with the possession rules from AP#28 The infernal Syndrome, Rise of the Rule Lords also has Haunting Rules, a fine article on Magnimar (one of my favorite cities), Desna in depth, An entire section on the ancient lost empire of Thassilon, sin magic, maps of the area, all the NPC's you could want already created for you, etc...
I got these PDF's and what was remaining of the print editions strictly for the purpose of running a -non AP- campaign in Golarion. (Mainly based out of Magnimar).
So, in short, I say yes, especially with the cost of the first three AP's PDF's so low for the next couple days.
CC