I haven't actually played or run any APs all the way through. This question is for those who have.
How long did it take you to complete the entire AP? How often did you play and how long was each session? Did you keep all the same players all the way through?
I'm just curious.
I haven't actually played or run any APs all the way through. This question is for those who have.
How long did it take you to complete the entire AP? How often did you play and how long was each session? Did you keep all the same players all the way through?
I'm just curious.
It took us about three and a half years to finish the Shackled City AP and we're about a quarter of the way through the Savage Tide AP, having played about 2 years. We play about one session a month (kids and other thing called life get in the way) for somewhere between four and eight hours. In all, it took us about 40 sessions to complete the Shackled City AP and we've just hit the tenth session of Savage tide. Of cvourse, the party has been side tracked a bit (something I recomend btw). Generally, I calculate about 12 hours per installment of the AP, which comes down to 3 sessions of. A 6 issue AP would take you about 18 sessions of play time. That's if the party keeps on course. If they deviate (and they allways will), I would add one or two sesions per deviation. This is accounting for the fact that you will skip certain parts of the AP.
Oh yeah, and we've been gaming together for over 14 years now. So we pretty much kept the players all the way through. Characters, now that's a different story.
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My group just finished Curse of the Crimson Throne about two weeks ago. We started in September 2008. The group was four players, one of whom was new to D&D. We met weekly from 7:00-10:00, very consistently. (We took a few weeks off due to holidays and scheduling conflicts, but probably played about 9 weeks out of 10.) The players were the same the whole way through, but one of us got a new job and could only attend the 2nd half of each session for the last 4 months or so.
We started with the Pathfinder Beta rules and converted to the full Pathfinder system when it became available (which was somewhere around the end of the 2nd adventure, if I recall correctly).
I didn't throw in a lot of sidequests or really extend the adventure much, but I didn't throw out much, either.
Running the numbers, that's about 30-35 sessions, for a total of about 100 hours of play.
Hope this helps!
My group is in the middle of Chapter 4 of Rise of the Runelords. We meet every two weeks and game for about 6 to 8 hours. Its been about two and half years. Do to work, kids, or holidays, we do cancel the occasional session.
The only thing is I do add a decent amount of extra stuff, usually involving roleplaying, so we have not stuck exactly by the AP. As long as players are having fun those extras can take up several sessions before we are back on track where the AP thinks we should be.
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I've played in a Second Darkness game that met every other week and lasted about a year & a half.
I'm currently still playing in the Rise of the Runelords game that has been going on since before Alpha Pathfinder, when it first came out. It was every other week, though we didn't always meet. That game has had a lot of turnover, only the DMPC and me (DM's girlfriend) are original characters. I *think* we just finished book 5 of 6. The DM and the players are trying to finish the AP to start Kingmaker soon.
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Just finished book three of Curse of the Crimson throne. Been playing since October last year weekly with an average session lasting 4 hours (sometimes longer but we've taken some weeks off due to exams, kids and holidays). I'd estimate we've played 40 hours ish. We're taking a hiatus (To avoid GM burnout). I'd estimate another 40 hours before we're finished (although i am removing book five, I'll be running something else in its place). Should take us all up about 8 hours to finish.
About late October to late April for Council of Thieves, I believe. Our group plays once a week 6-6:30pm to around 2am, and we finished most of the books in that AP in about two sessions.
Late April to present for Curse of the Crimson Throne, again, same time frame. 10 weeks so far and we've just started The Skeletons of Scarwall. About.. 80 hours for that game?
I'd say it takes our group about 100-120 hours to finish an Adventure Path? We roleplay often and joke around often but the group as a whole is dedicated to getting things done. We don't mess around.
It took me about 2 years to run through Rise of the Runelords. We played roughly every other week, but had to skip sessions from time to time. I'd say roughly 40 sessions of about 6 hours each, so 240 hours?
We just finished the 4th book of Curse of the Crimson Throne, which took exactly 25 sessions of about 6 hours each (checked my logbook.) So that's 150 hours so far. It will probably take another 50 hours to finish the campaign.
Mostly the same players throughout, though there was a little switchout and we went from 5 players to 4 halfway through RotRL.
My group spent about 1 year to complete Age of Worms, playing for about 6-7 hours every other week. We spent roughly 5 similar-length sessions to complete the first book-and-a-quarter of Curse of the Crimson Throne before RL set in (two of the playgroup changed jobs/shifts) and we had to abandon that campaign (at least for the foreseeable future).
Thanks, guys. That's pretty much what I wanted to know. I was curious if anyone was finishing APs before the next series was out, and it looks like most people take longer to finish one than it takes to put them out. Good information to know.
How's abut online? I'm running two games online. The first is "Red Hand of Doom." The players post at least once a day, and at the rate we're going, it will take at least two years to finish (going from 5th to 11th level.)
On the other hand, I'm also running a Savage Tide Adventure Path. Same number of players, but they post faster. This game average 21 posts a day compared to RHoD's 11 posts a day). At the rate we're going, that campaign will take us 2.5 years to go 20 levels!
Heck, in 33 years of gaming, I've never seen a campaign go above 13th level, so we'll see!
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Thanks, guys. That's pretty much what I wanted to know. I was curious if anyone was finishing APs before the next series was out, and it looks like most people take longer to finish one than it takes to put them out. Good information to know.
In my experience, if you play a solid 6-8 hour session, every week, and don't miss a session, you might be able to play a current six volume adventure path so that you could "keep up" with the APs and so be able to start a new one in roughly six months time.
That's just theory though. Where the rubber meets the road? Does not happen often at all. People take two to three times that amount to finish a six volume AP in real time.
Not all the APs take the same time to play, mind you. In particular, the 1st to 20th APs of the Dungeon Magazine era took far longer to play than the six volume arcs do now.