Best: Legacy of Fire (though Kingmaker might surpass that)
Worst: Second Darkness *shudder*
My order:
1) Legacy of Fire
2) Curse of the Crimson Throne
3) Rise of the Runelords
4) Council of Thieves
5) Second Darkness
Which of these following adventure paths is your favorite? which do you think is the weakest? Rise of the Runelords, Curse of the Crimson Throne, A second Darkness, Legacy of Fire, Council of thieves
My opinion: (Strongest to Weakest)
ROTR: Great opening stories. Good Roleplaying. Iconic villains and encounters. Lots of good leads for side quests. Stop the Runelord- Save the world.
COCT: Fun Urban Adventure. Lots of room for heroic roleplaying.
LOF: Arabian Knights Fantasy. Good setpiece battles early on. Exciting cross-dimensional adventure later. Save the world (again).
COT: Decent Urban Adventure. I think I rank it a bit higher than 2ndD because of the Play. This one didn;t really excite me as much as the others.
2ndD: Great start...but the story gets a little muddled later on and a bit railroaded. But you do get the stats on Treerazer in part 5. However, I've used bits of this as side quests in other APs...
|
Which of these following adventure paths is your favorite? which do you think is the weakest? Rise of the Runelords, Curse of the Crimson Throne, A second Darkness, Legacy of Fire, Council of thieves
If the first part is any indication, Kingmaker is going to be #1 by a long shot.
My current order (I haven't played them all, but I have read them all):
1. Curse of the Crimson Throne (Starts getting very muddled at the end)
2. Council of Thieves (Very strong start and middle with a weaker end).
3. Legacy of Fire (Thematically very interesting).
4. Rise of the Rune Lords (I think a lot of this has to do with Paizo finding their voice and the 3.5 ruleset)
5. Second Darkness (Too much hack 'n slash for my group).
|
Best: Legacy of Fire (though Kingmaker might surpass that)
Worst: Second Darkness *shudder*My order:
1) Legacy of Fire
2) Curse of the Crimson Throne
3) Rise of the Runelords
4) Council of Thieves
5) Second Darkness
Would also be my list, though I admit I opted out of Council of Thieves altogether (i.e. never got into it in the first place) when I read the feedback on module #1. I might get the Pett module everyone raves about, but I think that's about it.
And I, too, hope that Kingmaker makes it to the top!
|
I hope that King Maker takes the top spot, but until it is complete, here is my list:
1) Legacy of Fire. A different feel than most paths.
2) Rise of the Runelords.
3) Council of Thieves
4) Curse of the Crimson Throne
5) Second Darkness. If your players are really into the drow, then this one jumps up a few notches.
All of them are good, but I see some taking more work than others to customize to my taste.
My order:
1) Legacy of Fire
2) Curse of the Crimson Throne
3) Rise of the Runelords
5) Council of Thieves
I haven't read Second Darkness, as I'm playing in it, but it's been fine to play 2 adventures in. I was rather disappointed with Council of Thieves: just didn't grab me and I'm having trouble putting my finger on why. Greatly looking forward to Kingmaker now, and just as much o the next adventure path.
|
Well I have every issue of pathfinder, but I've only read 1-6 as I still hope to find DMs to run a path or two for me so I don't want to read them, however, I can rate the concepts and my excitement to play or run them so that's how I'm going to go.
1 Rise of the Runelords
2 Legacy of Fire
3 Kingmaker
4 Second Darkness
5 Council of Thieves
6 Curse of the Crimson Throne
Best to Worst:
1st - Legacy of Fire
2nd - Rise of the Runelords
3rd - Curse of the Crimson Throne
4th - A Second Darkness
5th - Council of Thieves
1st & 2nd place were close...
-- david
Papa.DRB
|
Well I have every issue of pathfinder, but I've only read 1-6 as I still hope to find DMs to run a path or two for me so I don't want to read them, however, I can rate the concepts and my excitement to play or run them so that's how I'm going to go.
1 Rise of the Runelords
2 Legacy of Fire
3 Kingmaker
4 Second Darkness
5 Council of Thieves
6 Curse of the Crimson Throne
I know it's just your opinion, but putting CotCT not only at the bottom but below Second Darkness is just criminal! :D
1) Legacy of Fire (Positives: liberating the village, genies, and a Spawn of Rovagug. Negatives: Getting trapped in two planes twice in a row is a little sketchy.)
2) Second Darkness (Positives: FANtastic 2nd and 3rd chapters, bringing out the Drow. Negatives: Just a tick too railroady)
3) Curse of the Crimson Throne (Positives: The ambiance of Korvosa, Seven Days to the Grave, Scarwall. Negatives: The plot gets a little muddied when the PCs leave the city.)
4) Rise of the Runelords (Positives: Old school feel, Foxglove Manor, the Graul Farmstead. Negatives: It feels like six unconnected adventures weakly stuck together, painfully scary boss fights.)
5) Council of Thieves (Positives: The Sixfold Trial, the Pathfinder Lodge, opportunities to lead the Children of Westcrown. Negatives: How many human rogues and shadows does one AP need anyway? Doesn't feel like fighting the real bad guys.)
|
|
From most to least appreciated (good points; bad points):
1 - Curse of the Crimson Throne (great first half, excellent locations, great atmosphere in the extra-urban adventures; the last part needs some serious custom work, as it's a bit sketchy)
2 - Legacy of Fire (exotic setting, great adversaries, good overall execution; a tad too much planar tripping)
3 - Rise of the Runelords (marvelous overall "sense of wonder", great for overarching travelling campaign, great moments of horror/lovecraftian atmosphere; some adventures may feel a bit disjoined and need some custom work)
4 - Second Darkness (great start, Treerazer!, lots of roleplaying opportunities; last half just doesn't work smoothly)
5 - Council of Thieves (good devilish/decadent atmosphere, Westcrown is full of character, the sixfold trial and the non-euclidean shadow dungeon; for the first half the PCs work as the henchmen of someone else, then things mostly happen negating a proactive role for the PCs)
I'm so glad to see that the only AP I've been able to subscribe to and play is widely regarded as the crappiest. Maybe that's why I don't put as much stock into APs as others do.
You know, I'm all for people ranking their favorites to their least favorites, and pointing out what did and didn't work for them, but one of the things I really hate sometimes is when someone makes comments as if their own personal opinion is a widely held belief, usually by using hyperbole.
It gives the impression that its "common knowledge" that something is "bad," when in fact, some people have a strong opinion, and those that liked the given product, especially if they liked it but it wasn't their favorite, don't move to post said opinion.
Second Darkness isn't my favorite of the Adventure Paths, but its not because its low quality or anything, but the level gaps and the not quite connected set pieces made it feel less like a "complete" campaign to me, and sort of gave the impression that instead of being able to add things into the campaign to personalize it, you were going to have to put things into it in order to run it as a campaign.
It was still a fine product from my point of view, just one that required a bit more work to put together than some of the other Adventure Paths.
You know, I'm all for people ranking their favorites to their least favorites, and pointing out what did and didn't work for them, but one of the things I really hate sometimes is when someone makes comments as if their own personal opinion is a widely held belief, usually by using hyperbole.
It gives the impression that its "common knowledge" that something is "bad," when in fact, some people have a strong opinion, and those that liked the given product, especially if they liked it but it wasn't their favorite, don't move to post said opinion.
Second Darkness isn't my favorite of the Adventure Paths, but its not because its low quality or anything, but the level gaps and the not quite connected set pieces made it feel less like a "complete" campaign to me, and sort of gave the impression that instead of being able to add things into the campaign to personalize it, you were going to have to put things into it in order to run it as a campaign.
It was still a fine product from my point of view, just one that required a bit more work to put together than some of the other Adventure Paths.
I agree it may be one of the "Weakest" Paths, but its still better than most of the other adventures I've seen from other companies.
I'd stack Shadow in the Sky, Armageddon Echo, and Children of the Void against most of the stuff WOTC put out during 3.0/ 3.5 and ANYTHING they've churned out with 4e.
Second Darkness and Council of Thieves are simply the Weakest of the Strongest.
But that's my opinion.
Heh. Oh to be even the worst of the best.
I think what happened with The Second Darkness (have not ran it read some of it and thinking about converting it all to Pathfinder) is they were experimenting with the Set Pieces (glad they went away) and other things. And I think this was the adventure path where the dude flaked on his assignement and it left James and the crew scrambling to get some of them done.
This might be the worst of the best but it still has a great story and some great adventures in it
IMO
Strongest CoCT
Weakest CoT
other three too close to seperate
Strongest to weakest:
1. Legacy of Fire (arabian feel makes this unique, some great new monsters, memorable bad guys, well done plane hopping, 3 wishes per day in the last module)
2. Curse of the Crimson Throne (great city adventure which should cause PCs to love the city, a number of wonderful concepts like the plague and Scarwall)
3. Rise of the Runelords (old school feel, iconic monsters, great intro to Golarion, great AP for a new DM or for a DM with a new players, plus what golem101 says)
4. Council of Thieves (solid start but weak ending, a few great ideas but less memorable moments than the top 3 APs)
5. Second Darkness (read it but didn't see enough of interest to convince me to run it - probably because I don't have a fascination with drow)
1) Curse of the Crimson Throne
2) Second Darkness
3) Council of Thieves (don't like hell)
|
1) Curse of the Crimson Throne - I'm running this campaign right now (albeit with many changes because I'm a meddlesome DM)
2) Kingmaker - It's the first one and I'm already super-psyched about the whole thing. Wish I could play this one.
3) Legacy of Fire - I want someone to run this one for me.
4) Rise of the Runelords - It's fairly iconic, and has some great moments.
5) Council of Thieves - I've stolen a lot of this for my CotCT campaign, and Sixfold trial is hands-down my favourite adventure of all time, my problem is that the path itself doesn't hang together as much as I'd like.
6) Second Darkness - I'm more interested in the support articles than the main adventure for this. Deep Crow 'nuff said.
1. Crimson Throne
2. Runelords
3. Council o'Thieves
4. Second Darkness
5. Legacy of Fire
|
1. Legacy of Fire - The atmosphere was great and the whole path felt fresh.
2. Curse of the Crimson Throne -- Playing this path is what put Paizo on my radar. Our group loved the city and felt connected and motivated throughout. Our DM covered any plot gaps and it seemed to hang together from our perspective. We had a priestess of Desna in the group and the use of Harrow cards added a lot to the game.
3. Rise of the Runelords -- Each chapter is excellent individually, they don't hang together as well as the two I rated higher. There were a good number of PC deaths even in a party of six, but this actually made it feel epic when we finally won out.
4. Council of the Thieves -- We enjoyed the first several, but we might be stopping this for Kingmaker. The group doesn't feel as connected to the city as in CoCT, in fact they have a fairly active dislike for Westcrown and life in Cheliax in general. A Westcrown Chroncile probably would have helped. The Sixfold Trial and the Pathfinder Lodge were hits -- the mayor's party not so much.
5. Second Darkness -- I played this one and then read the rest. I'd tend to agree on this being too railroady. The group rebelled and refused to be transformed - so we stopped there.
Ones that I've liked so far: Curse of the Crimson Throne, Legacy of Fire
Ones that I've been disappointed with so far: Second Darkness, Council of Thieves
I don't have an opinion on Rise of the Runelords; I only got to play about a third of the first encounter before the game ended. :-/
|
|
I know it's just your opinion, but putting CotCT not only at the bottom but below Second Darkness is just criminal! :DWell I have every issue of pathfinder, but I've only read 1-6 as I still hope to find DMs to run a path or two for me so I don't want to read them, however, I can rate the concepts and my excitement to play or run them so that's how I'm going to go.
1 Rise of the Runelords
2 Legacy of Fire
3 Kingmaker
4 Second Darkness
5 Council of Thieves
6 Curse of the Crimson Throne
Um it's a campaign that starts out in Mos Eisley, and then has the group go undercover in the underdark. I also like Paizo's take on the Drow which is the first time I've liked Drow, so yeah, I'm a lot more eager to play or run Second Darkness than I am with Curse which has nothing to particularly draw or excite me.
|
|
Ones that I've liked so far: Curse of the Crimson Throne, Legacy of Fire
Ones that I've been disappointed with so far: Second Darkness, Council of Thieves
I don't have an opinion on Rise of the Runelords; I only got to play about a third of the first encounter before the game ended. :-/
Heh sounds like you were in the same play by post I was in, lol.
Seriously though, I've been running RotR and were starting hook mountain massacre, so far this has been a tremendous AP.
1 - Second Darkness [tremendously good pacing, exciting and different at every turn. It may be railroady, but it's like the Trans-Darkland-ian Express]
2 - Rise of the Runelords [would be first, but has gone a bit long]
3 - Legacy of Fire
4 - Council of Thieves
5 - Curse of the Crimson Throne
|
for me:
Runelords: Classic adventure structure, wicked boss fights, and plenty of exploration of Varisia.
Council of Thieves: Sandboxy urban adventure, with plenty of humanoid opponents. Just a touch too many devils and rogues, though.
Legacy of Fire: Desert setting, really cool NPC's and settings. Moldspeaker thread is a little "1 guy and his assistants" feel.
Curse of the Crimson Throne: urban, cross country, desert, and dungeons. Lots of good stuff, would have preferred to stay in Korvosa the whole time. If I did it again, the whole adventure would take place in and around the city. Some of the best NPC characters I've seen.
Second Darkness. I want to like this one, I really do. The premise is good, the enemy design is good, it just takes a LOT of finesse and acting from the DM to make it feel not "stitched together" Shadows in the Sky has some of the most fun DnD action I've ever seen (Akata & the tower? yeah....)
-t
I've only played through part of legacy of Fire, and I'm currently running a modified CoT campaign. I refuse to rate anything I haven't played more then a few sessions and reading something through just doesn't give you enough of a feel to be honest, but...
I really enjoyed the Council of Thieves. The end of it WAS weak, and it needs a lot of GM maintenance, but the same can be said of any campaign. no AP will ever be THAT comprehensive, and I've really enjoyed it thus far.
What I played of Legacy of Fire was alright. The experience was marred a little by... pugwampi. They weren't funny, they weren't cute, and if your major game design idea is to frustrate the players, well congratulations, you succeeded at doing what game designers have been trying to avoid for years... frustrating them.
|
|
Thank you everyone for your opinions and rating your adventure paths.
1) rise of the Runelords
2) Curse of the Crimson Throne
3) Legacy of fire
4) A Second Darknesss
5) Council of Thieves
I played in the first two parts of the Rise of the Runelords, and also the first three parts of the Curse of the Crimson Throne.
I enjoyed reading the Legacy of fire and A little less so A second Darkness. I don't now why i didn't the council of thieves very much, Perhaps it was the artwork, Im not sure.
Thank you again for your thoughts.
I am however quite excited about the Kingmaker adventure path.
I'm going to offer a different opinion here:
1) Curse of the Crimson Throne. The best AP so far, hands down.
2) Second Darkness [currently GM'ing this. I'm guessing many people here who consider SD inferior didn't play in it. If you did, and still didn't like it - hey, I'm okay with that :) Just saying that there seems to be a sort of general consensus that 'SD sucks!', but only a few people care to elaborate exactly why they think so. If you're interested, I recommend the appropriate thread in the SD forums for an in-depth discussion.]
3) Rise of the Runelords. This one had great potential, but you can't help but notice the flaws (it was the first AP, after all).
4) Legacy of Fire. The first two adventures were great. The rest? Didn't grab me, even with all the nice oriental references. Just a bit 'too weird'.
5) Council of Thieves. I just didn't like the overall story.
Kingmaker is looking excellent so far, however, I'm a little bit wary of a possible disconnect between the later adventures ...
If Kingmaker holds up to its promise, it will either become my new #1 or #2. We'll see :).
Hmmm, My favorite? Rise of the Runelords. Both Curse and Legacy are battling it for 2nd place, while Council of thieves is kind of off my radar right now as I haven't got to look at the big picture. Second Darkness is a bit of a sore spot for me, as the first few were AMAZING. Having said that, the reason it is kind of a burn is the wierd level gap and set pieces, combined with what felt to my group as a massive bait and switch in game style (Cool urban adventure in a theif-centric port ala freeport and the local island machinations to suddenly siding with elves in a war on drow and demons for the rest of their careers)just kind of leaves it cold to us. Sadly I wanted it to work because, well it's just got some damn cool moments and the Drow are the coolest Drow I have seen since the original purple/brown skinned ladies back in 1e (I think it was). The bright side is that I use the Drow city from the 4th volume of the ap as an example of drow cities. :P
I don't now why i didn't the council of thieves very much, Perhaps it was the artwork, Im not sure.
Don't know if anyone else have the same feeling ,but I think the artwork in Council of Thieves is not as good as rest of the APs. Some of the pictures are just...ugh.
As for the AP itself, I would say:
1)Legacy of fire
2)Rise of the Runelords/Curse of the Crimson Throne
3)Second Darknesss/Council of Thieves
Just saying that there seems to be a sort of general consensus that 'SD sucks!', but only a few people care to elaborate exactly why they think so.
???? What?
I'm not sure why you're "just saying that" as there are at least two lengthy threads in the SD forum that make clear the numerous flaws with SD - and pretty much every criticism is accurate. It's long since been covered.
I'm glad you enjoyed it, though.
@ Arnwyn: Since this is somewhat OT, I'll put it in spoiler tags.
What I don't understand is the general negativity, the fact that as soon as someone asks for advice regarding which AP he should GM or play in, there are invariably going to be posts that basically say 'SD sucks' without going into detail *why* it sucks. Now, that may be because those posters think 'It's all been covered before, so I can just keep it short', but that totally ignores the fact that new Paizonians will be urged away from trying out SD from the outset by that kind of statement - and that's something I don't feel does proper justice to both the AP and the individual authors.
I hope I'm making sense here. Its kind of hard around sensitive topics such as this when English isn't your first language.
...one of the things I really hate sometimes is when someone makes comments as if their own personal opinion is a widely held belief, usually by using hyperbole.
welcome to the internet. :-)
@Arnwyn
I have seen far more 'issues' being mentioned from actual in-play reports on Runelords than on Second Darkness, where the majority of in-play reports are quite positive.
Honestly, the only flaw I noticed when running that couldn't be overcome with simple ingenuity was a tendency to railroad. That could be overcome, but depending on the group may not be necessary.
I suppose what I'm saying is that a work can be tragically flawed, and still be monumentally great. The synergies of roleplaying in this AP that can be brought out are tremendous, and should not be discounted so lightly.
My list...
1) Rise of the Runelords - classic themes, excellent starting town, wilderness and dungeon areas, urban adventure, a murder mystery, classic enemies like goblins, giants, dragons, evil wizards, etc. James actually matched his Savage Tide starter which I thought would be impossible.
2) Curse of the Crimson Throne - Probably the tightest plot linking in all the APs (Fantastic plot btw). Best urban based campaign yet.
3) Legacy of Fire - I think I had #3 reserved for CoT previously but the more I read into it the more I like it. Still not crazy about the Pugwampis and the pocket plane in this AP is growing on me. I love the Desert backdrop and flavor (also like Jungle, Aquatic, and Arctic based adventures too). Erik managed to outdo The Whispering Cairn (one of my all time faves) with Howl.
4) Council of Thieves - a great intro to PFRPG rules. The 2nd module is great if your group will ham it up (YMMV). I saw this as an obstacle with my current group. A little more demanding of players from the selfless-RP aspect but it has a great sandboxy start to the campaign.
5) Second Darkness - Probably because I havent sit down with it for an in-depth reading. Ive skimmed through them all. The underdark parts are a big "woot!"™ from me but I couldnt wrap my head around the Oceans 11 casino start.
As to the plot railroady-ness, I cant comment on it until I read more of it.
Slight tangent - All APs follow a main plot for the most part. Side-quests/subplots (set pieces?) are the norm too. I dont agree with the term "Railroad" at all, but its IHMO at that point. Sometimes I have to sigh when people complain about railroadyness in a plot-driven AP, it is an adventure path. YMMV.
Overall, I like all the APs regardless. I havent seen one that I can call bad or shudder/cringe at. :)
@Majuba
Flaws that have been listed, accurate or not, are very difficult to quantify in terms of relevance and effect on the game.
I certainly agree. I'm just noting that people who consider SD to be the weakest of the 5 released so far do have legitimate reasons, and those reasons have been mentioned on multiple occasions. That's it. I'm glad some people have been able to surpass them.