Adventure Paths. The Good, Bad, and What were they thinking?!? (Spoilers)


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There are currently six APs with the seventh (Serpent's Skull) just released to subscribers. What's your opinions about them? Favorites? Few you want expanded? What were they thinking on some of them? Share!

Rise of the Runelords
Goblin raids on the coastal town of Sandpoint presage a growing danger in the ruin-choked wilderness of Varisia. An ancient evil stirs to waking life in the distant mountains, drawing crazed murderers, inbred ogres, warlike stone giants, and creatures fueled by the power of sin into an epic conflict destined to create a new generation of heroes!

Curse of the Crimson Throne
The city of Korvosa is perched on the edge of anarchy—the king is dead, and rumors whisper that his young queen might be responsible! This urban campaign of decadence and dark dealings casts the heroes against plagues, barbarians, riots, and worse!

Second Darkness
A strange shadow lurks in the sky above the city of Riddleport, and the doomsayers take it as a sign of the approaching end of the world! The true menace comes not from the skies above but the benighted passages of the subterranean Darklands, leading the heroes on a sweeping quest that begins in a star-struck city, weaves through ancient elven ruins, and unmasks the terrible secret of the dark elves!

Legacy of Fire
Long ago, two warring armies of genies fought on the slopes of Pale Mountain, and the world shook under the power of their wishcraft. Today, the armies are wakening, and one potent efreeti warlord is ready to pick up where he left off! This outrageous, inventive campaign takes the heroes to all corners of the desert land of Katapesh and beyond, with journeys to strange demi-planes and even the fabled City of Brass!

Council of Thieves
Once the seat of mighty Imperial Cheliax, the decaying metropolis of Westcrown now stands wrecked and ruined, haunted by mysterious shadow beasts and besieged by the agents of the nation's new diabolical rulers. Amid this chaos, a growing schism in the city's influential Council of Thieves threatens to tear Westcrown apart unless a new group of heroes rises from the ashes of empire to chart a new destiny for the lost souls of the city.

Kingmaker
The wild and dangerous Stolen Lands lie in the northern reaches of the River Kingdoms, realms ripe for the taking! Yet those who would become rulers of these new lands will soon learn that claiming a kingdom and keeping it are two different beasts. Can the heroes protect their lands from jealous and deadly enemies?

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

RotRL - Very good

Classic "let's be heroes, visit exotic locales, kill interesting monsters" deal.

CotCT - Freaking awesome

The city, the villain, the plot, the best dungeon crawl, the best writers, it's all here.

SD - /facepalm

Starts OK and takes a nose dive towards the end. A painful lesson: if you write railroads, you better sure make that the rails are invisible.

LoF - Very good

Planar Arabian Nights fun ! Not up everyone's alley (is up mine, certainly) but very stylish and epic.

CoT - /facepalmish

Reverse of SD - the first adventure stinks. Also, it feels rather bland compared to sheer epicness of the previous APs. Still, the Sixfold Trail is the best adventure of all the APs

KM - Freaking awesome

Sandbox done right. Best shot at "let's be kings" theme, ever. Final adventure is a mind-blower.


RotRL - 9/10 (when it came out) & 7/10 (now)
Under 3.5 there were a few published adventure arcs released but this was absolutely full throtle awesome. Looking back on it now, Pathfinder has really grown into its own monster and the end of the adventure path (for me) began to feel a bit "ZOMG bigger explosions!" But I still recommend this to anyone wishing to start down the path towards being a devoted thrall of all things Paizo.

CotCT - 9/10
This AP was the perfect proof to me that Paizo was going to take care of business in a way that Hasbro wouldn't/couldn't. I loved GM'ing it in a big way, and some of our group's (we're talking 15 straight years together in our current incarnation) most memorable and talked about NPC's and combat encounters came from CotCT and were run with no tweaking from the print.

SD - 6/10 (very genre specific)
This AP was really cool in theory and was the first full Pathfinder rule-set campaign. It's major failing is that the story and subject matter were focused in a direction that you either jumped at or were sort of...meh...about. We passed on this one, but other GM's I've talked to had a hard time keeping their players invested in completing the campaign as written. But again...we were able to pass and quickly get into Paizo's next AP so boohoo right? Additionally, the articles in this AP outside the adventures were cool.

LoF - 6/10 (very genre specific)
Legacy of Fire had some of the same mojo that Second Darkness did. It was a top notch adventure path as long as it was what you were looking for. I ran this one knowing that my group doesn't share quite the love I have for the subject matter and it brought down my fun a bit towards the end. Still...solid, very focused campaign with great articles.

CoT - 4/10 (seemed to fill pages rather than a campaign)
This one missed the mark for me. There didn't seem to be any major mechanical failings or lack of old fashioned hard work put in by the Paizo crew but it just rattled off my shingles and off into the stormy night. I personally think it was sort of a burn-out point for some writers and the big intake of breath before the second coming of Space Jesus 2099...aka Kingmaker...

KM - 10/10
What more is there to say? I told people after running Death on the Reik for our group back in the day that I'd never have that much fun with sandbox style play again. I was right time and again, and my own efforts always seemed to fall short. Paizo rocked my (explitive deleted) world with this one. They have put out a product that has FUN new rules, a perfect blank slate on which to paint nearly any picture imaginable, and it can scale up or down on a whim. It will be really really really hard to equal or exceed this for me.

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 8

Overall thoughts:

I'm growing tired with one particular pattern in the APs. The fifth adventure is always a huge dungeon complex (with the semi-exception of Kingmaker; Irovetti's palace is a big dungeon by Kingmaker's standards, but pretty reasonably sized elsewhere) that contains some McGuffin needed to kill the final boss, weaken him, destroy his allegiances, etc. About half of the time, this adventure is written by Greg Vaughn. The seeming exception is Bayt-al-Bazan in Legacy of Fire, but the module is still McGuffin centered (albeit a McGuffin that the PCs don't get to use or keep) and what's needed to put Jhavul in his place is the XP gained by that meaningless dungeon crawl. Seriously, there is no point to that adventure beyond the XP.

The first or second adventure is generally the strongest, which makes sense, as you want a good hook to get players interested and keep them coming back. Council of Thieves has the weakest first adventure, only beat out by Memory of Darkness as the worst of the entire line. Fortunately, The Bastards of Erebus had a "we didn't budget the XP in this well; here are some sidequest ideas to keep the PCs on par", which were all pretty darn good, and I used to effectively replace 2/3rds of BoE when I ran it.

I am sympathetic towards but annoyed by the "broken promises" effect, where a loose end will be mentioned as having a discussion on it in the next issue, but is seemingly forgotten by the time the next issue comes 'round. Examples include Rolth's revenge in Curse of the Crimson Throne, the ruby key from Leng in Legacy of Fire and the rebuilding of Pitax in Kingmaker. The double agents in Council of Thieves (introduced in The Infernal Syndrome) get some mention: not in much detail, but it's appreciated nonetheless. Being able to patch these together would be an excellent use of the two pages if Paizo does decide to drop the iconic stats from the APs.

High level Adventure Path volumes are absolutely insane in all the right ways. The vampire space octopus and time machine in Rise of the Runelords, Illeosa's blood simulacra, the abyssal harvester in Second Darkness, the wishwarps in Legacy of Fire and the entirety of Sound of a Thousand Screams are all the sort of thing I love about D&D. Once the adventures break level 14 or so, all the brakes come off. More craziness like this please!

Of note on that last one: Council of Thieves never reaches that high a level, but it gets its gonzo factor out of the way pretty early. Murder plays, Escher-esque shadow dungeons and a nuclear reactor powered by a pit fiend and containing devil-Wonderland? It makes the last adventure seem sedate by comparison, even if the final battle takes place atop a statue of a god weeping tears of fire.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Herbo wrote:
Stuff about APs

Actually, SD was 3.5ed. CoT was the first PFRPG one.

Also, Death on Reik ... Salute to a fellow WFRP player ! :)


Hey guys, this isn't in a specific AP thread. Can we spoiler big stuff, please? I'm running a couple of these and some big ticket moments have been disclosed here already. Thanks!

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 8

Treppa wrote:
Hey guys, this isn't in a specific AP thread. Can we spoiler big stuff, please? I'm running a couple of these and some big ticket moments have been disclosed here already. Thanks!

Considering the spoiler-inherent nature of "let's discuss all of the APs!" it might be a good idea to declare the whole thread spoiler country. Can the original author change the thread title to reflect this, or is that mods-only?

Dark Archive

Demiurge 1138 wrote:


Considering the spoiler-inherent nature of "let's discuss all of the APs!" it might be a good idea to declare the whole thread spoiler country. Can the original author change the thread title to reflect this, or is that mods-only?

Mod-only. Already passed the "Edit" time frame.

EDIT: Mods notified and have updated the title.


Thank you, mods! Good call... now we can talk freely without all those... players... around.

RotRL: Our group started this one, but it ended quickly because the DM was highly offended by the incestuous half-ogre clan and their shenanigans. Frankly, a lot of that AP seemed to be "Saw" movie material, which I think was their stated intent. For us, it didn't work and wasn't enjoyable as a D&D game. This was our one "what were they thinking?" adventure.

CotCT was a pretty good run, but leaving the city was an issue. The feedback from that problem may have influenced Paizo's decisions in CoT. The mood of the piece, set against a plague-ridden and strife-torn city, was excellent and consistently tense. It seeemed, though, that battles were either really simple or total disasters. Maybe it was the dice.

SD I started prepping but have only been able to run two sessions to date. I did a lot of work tying backstories in to Riddleport to avoid such a huge RR job, and warned the players in advance that this would not be a Riddleport adventure. My intent is to make the drow and elven sections very high fantasy feel, very old-school and escapist. This is a good example of Paizo's complex backstories and the difficulty for a DM to reveal as much of it as possible ('cause it's cool) without long story-telling sessions. I try to work other events, documents, and conversations in to expose the story in dribs and drabs, particularly if I can work with individual players via email and have *them* tell the group what they've found. It's time-consuming, but adds richness.

CoT Just finished our first session and boy, am I doing a lot of backstory work on this one to set the player's comfort level with the layout and goings-on in the city before the story takes off. Our first session was actually our third get-together with lots of emailing in the background.

Overall, I love the adventures' plots, characters, and most battles. There's a lot of paperwork going through all the volumes to pull together comprehensive cross-reference lists of people, places, events, rules, and regulations. Some important general information tends to be embedded smack in the middle of an encounter. I invariably miss something and find it while running, meaning that the way things have happened to date is impossible and I have to fudge to set things right. It's irritating.

OTOH, the AP fora are gold mines for the DM and can help avoid lots of problems later in the adventure. The Paizo community cooperation is half the reason to buy the AP's!

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber
Gorbacz wrote:

RotRL - Very good

Classic "let's be heroes, visit exotic locales, kill interesting monsters" deal.

CotCT - Freaking awesome

The city, the villain, the plot, the best dungeon crawl, the best writers, it's all here.

SD - /facepalm

Starts OK and takes a nose dive towards the end. A painful lesson: if you write railroads, you better sure make that the rails are invisible.

LoF - Very good

Planar Arabian Nights fun ! Not up everyone's alley (is up mine, certainly) but very stylish and epic.

CoT - /facepalmish

Reverse of SD - the first adventure stinks. Also, it feels rather bland compared to sheer epicness of the previous APs. Still, the Sixfold Trail is the best adventure of all the APs

KM - Freaking awesome

Sandbox done right. Best shot at "let's be kings" theme, ever. Final adventure is a mind-blower.

Gorbacz has pretty much the same reactions I did to every AP. Just add in an extreme fondness for The Infernal Syndrome in Council of Thieves and its pit fiend nuclear plant.


and kingmaker pretty much encourages the whole -lets be beneficial to the community, thingy that heroes sometimes get into ;) Hel, in many ways you create the comminity in the first place... and strike down tyrants and nasty people...
While being busy defending the homeless, orphans and widows.... and actually gain something else than a thanks for it re: not plundering the failed colonies ;) ... or not massfireballing the enemy city under evil rule into cinders just to create a diversion.

And nowhere, so far, being told to ally with evil.
Well, some suggestions like letting the barbars have that blade of war or letting the evil tyrant saty in power (fat chance!).
Well, some minor issues like having mercy on bogdwellers and kobolds. But if combined with seeking to teach them goodness.. its certainly an AP wherein virtue can shine.

JJ even goes pretty far in DISCOURAGING taxmoney fraud :D

..which reminds me where i got the idea of mages creating wealth, take BPs for rawmaterials, craft items, sell items for BP.. use profit for even more profit :p

expanded into ..Take students and start a order of Casters of Virtue (have to spend 10 days a month crafting or casting for society, shared crafting skills & teaching bonus master crafter feats (saves another 25% on matrials) gains virtuous respect in society, housing, materials etc)


RotRL - Looks great, but #4 through 6 aren't my cup of tea. I really like #1 to 3. But, the unavailability of #1 and the strange unwieldy encounters of the later issues (6 gargantuan rune giants in a room that can fit two of them) make it unable to be run by me at the moment. I would love to have the entire AP updated to Pathfinder in a hardcover later-- I'd buy it at the drop of a hat and run it for my players then. But, not when I have to run Burnt Offerings off of a PDF.

CotCT - Has been great so far. I drew all of Scarwall out and a lot of the game was a lot of fun. Playing the last session this upcoming Tuesday night, and then I get to extend it past that to 20, so this should be memorable.

2D - Ran it. It felt disjointed and weird. I ended up condensing down Memory of Darkness since it was _so bad_ , but #1 through #3 were a blast for my players. I honestly liked it a lot up until #5, and then, well, when it gets bad, it gets bad.

LoF - I want to run it in the future, but a local GM ran the first book for a group of friends. I don't know if I can run it again now. We had such bad memories of the game that it feels like it's ruined it for us.

CoT - Played it. Am I the only one who really liked it? #1 took us two sessions to play through, and I agree that it was pretty lackluster and kind of meh, but the rest of the books up through #6 were great. I liked the gritty urban themes of the books, the fact that almost every dungeon was an Urban Ex run, and when the AP left the city, we left for not even half of one book. It was a nice change from CotCT's two-book soujurn from society. Honestly, I like this AP a lot and it's one of the only APs I'd run again in the future. Maybe it's just my inherent love for levels 1-9...

KM - Playing in a game right now. I like the concept but the execution of a lot of the combats bugs me. Being able to rock into a short CR = APL fight at maximum capacity is boring for me, and boring for the GM. Until #3 we hadn't even seen a "dungeon" that lasted more than ten rounds. Now we're about to face down Vordakai, and I'm glad the game has amped up in difficulty. I can't wait to smite a lich.

SS - Looks great. I'm going to be playing in a game of it after CotCT, but from what I've heard from my friend, it's amazing. I hope the rest of the books keep it up to par, because from what I hear, #2 to #6 take place in the wilderness. Everyone in the party is worried we'll never see civilization but that the modules will keep giving us trade goods to sell, and by #6 we'll be carting around a wagon train of gems and useless magical items.


RotR - Played it, awesome, 9/10; 1-3 are the best and 4-6 are good

CotCT - Played it, awesome, 9/10 - overall I enjoyed it more than RotR but Chapter 4 is such a damn railroad I can't go 10/10.

SD - Great first 2 chapters, then left turn into a totally different campaign. #5 is plain bad but I think it's the conjunction of "you were a pirate or street criminal" to "you are selflessly killing drow for the elves" is the real problem - write a new intro or new ending and it's better; I GMed the first parts of SD to lead into a Freeport campaign and it was great used that way. 6/10.

LoF - Haven't played or run it yet, but it seems cool. Estimate 7/10.

CoT - Looks iffy. They just didn't grab me for some reason, though I have no objection to the general theme, setting, and whatnot - the hook just didn't inspire me. Maybe it was because of adventure 1. Prolly a 6/10.

KM - Looks really awesome. I predict 8-9/10 depending on the PCs.

SS - Can it be the missing 10/10? Maybe so!!! I can't wait for this one. Chapter 1 was definitely good.

CC - Also looks fun if not genius; I suspect an 8/10.


Why I will always love Second Darkness is that I looked at the episode precis, and thought "okay, so it's Elves vs. Drow. It starts off in an urban environment and involves a big rock. Here are the six tropes and twelve events that will transpire," and it's got them all. It's not going to sell with everyone, but that's awesome.

I have trouble rating each, if only because "inconsistent" seems to be the watchword. Within an AP, quality varies, and it's worst when the stitching shows.

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RoTRL: I'm running it for the second time (different group), and I find it very enjoyable. Some NSFW (snerk) moments, but really really good as an introduction to all things Golarion. It needs some works on behalf of the DM, though. 8/10.

CotCT: my favorite AP. City scenes in the first half are awesome, the country-trek has great moments of culture shock with the Shoanti, Scarwall! The last adventure needs some serious work to build up street scenes and whatnots. 9/10.

SD: didn't really like the first adventure and the fifth one, but the others are OK. Drow are back to scary level, and not wannabe reformed BBEGs. Some railroady moments and some very open ended ones, with a good number of opportunities both for carnage and roleplaying. The Underd... Darklands are once again an awe-inspiring place. Lots of good stuff to pilfer. 7/10.

LoF: my second favorite AP. Almost perfect in any level, even if the "oops you're not in Kansas!" trick can be nasty when pulled twice in a row. Nonetheless, the plane hopping adventures are absolutely great. Exotic, inspired, without any relevant issue to solve. 9/10

CoT: auurgh. What were they thinking. Some of the adventures run with the PCs following plans formulated by NPCs or with the NPCs doing the data gathering work and sending the PCs "on errands", others take the characters to a spectator level with events running with or without them involved. The whole Sixfold Trial adventure and the hag-spiced battle are fine, though. Also good articles troughout the whole AP (eg. the Hellknights one). 5/10.

KM: sandbox campaign on steroids. While as a DM I really enjoyed reading it, I fear that my players will find the relative lack of a strong overall theme confusing, a problem accentuated by the humongous number of side quests, subplots and stuff going on. However, it is also a jewel of experimental design and a very strong backbone for any DM who has a long-spinning story that could fit in a frontier land. 8/10.

SS: I was not really enthralled by the jungle themed AP, but the first issue, the Indiana Jones approach and the colourful serpent folk proved me wrong. Looks quite the challenger for LoF. */10


RotRL: Running this second time now and I'm enjoying every moment. Great AP overall eventhough 4-6 need some rewriting (mainly cut off encounters and add more roleplaying scenes).

CoCT: I've read this AP through as DM and I love it. Korvosa and its secrets are awesome so I can't wait to run this to my players. Can't really say what works yet but I don't think that big changes are needed.

SD: I was player in this AP. Can't say that I hated this but can't really loved it. #1-#4 and #6 part were OK with some problems. Too much railroad parts imho.

LoF: Read through as DM and I LOVE this AP. Setting is awesome so is backstory. Templars of the Five Winds are one of my favorites, so cool. ^^ My favorite at the moment evehough RotRL is close to this.

CoT: Can't say anything about this. Have not read or played this one. Little brother says its awesome but hook doesn't inspire me.

KM: I've only read first part but it was really good. Can't wait to get other chapters to my library and to run this. Looking very solid AP.

Sczarni

I've run most of them, played in the rest, since Savage Tide.

My thoughts:

RotRL: Relaunches the idea of Heroic Fantasy Gaming. Starts with Goblins and a sleepy little town, ends up in a fabled "City of Gold" and a doomsday engine run by a power mad Wizard.

Only faults come in at the higher levels (seriously, if you go left, fight the BBEG, and WIN, you still lose because you didn't flip the switch down the righthand path?)

7.5-8 / 10

CotCT: Great individual adventures, with memorable NPC's and tough fights throughout.

Faults include: leaving Korvosa for the huge scavenger hunt. I can understand wanting outside backup when you're going against the BBEG Queen, but still, keep it in the city and have them come to you.

Skeletons of Scarwall, while fantastic as a stand-alone dungeon crawl, really grated on my nerves, coming after History of Ashes like it did.

8/10

SD: Drow, Darklands, Time Travel, Pirates, and riding a tower down a hillside. What more needs to be said?

Some very sick fights in there, though, and overall, well-laid-out adventures, but the start does note "lead" into the end very well.

Faults: A Memory of Darkness really needs better set up for the PC's to swallow the hook. Some Elves need to be friendly/trustworthy, or you end up with groups like ours, fighting to the very end, just to be the ones with their hands on the doomsday "kill the elves" button.

6.5-7/ 10 (could be 10/10, with right DM style, though)

LoF: Genies, deserts, city building, and lots of awesome fights in cool scenes. Very well scripted, beautiful book layout, and the foreshadowing actually pays off towards the end.

If you know you're getting into a desert based, genie-flavored AP, great. If you're in the dark and expecting orcs & dragons, not so much.

Probably the most evenly-challenging AP thus far.

8.5/10

CoT: PF Rules, so that's cool. Some really neat new mechanics early on, like Fame Points and a well-designed Random Dungeon mechanic.

#1 lacks some of the "punch" of say, Burnt Offerings or Children of the Void, but if you play the NPC's up and really get the PC's to buy into the "freedom fighter" angle, it works. Can take a little wiggling to make it happen, but again, tell your players what to expect and let them work WITHIN the confines of your suggestions.

This is NOT the AP for "lone wolf" "dark corner" type folks who just want to slay for pay. Know that, and half your battle is done.
This also runs to lower levels than the others, which is kind of a let down, and the BBEG & Friends really need to be tweaked if you have serious powergamers or a large group.

8/10

KM: I admit, I'm biased. I love sandbox type adventures, and this delivers in droves. Well executed, detailed encounter maps, multiple win conditions for almost all the encounters, and written instructions NOT to pull punches if the PC's wander in over their heads. What more do you need?

If you still need more, just get KM 1 and read it...you will be hooked, as almost any DM will, I assume.

Did I mention, you get to create, manage, and RULE your own nation? Sweeeeeet.

9.5/10


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Just finished running Rise of the Runelords at college. Solid effort, and it certainly did the job of introducing me and my players to the world of Golarion and getting us all very excited about it. It's a very standard story, but by the same token, a very classical one. The later issues suffer from a lot of slowdown, particularly Fortress of the Stone Giants. Honestly, I think massive dungeon crawls should probably be minimized--Runeforge is actually a pretty good design for the ones you do have, since each individual wing is relatively small. For the record, the Leng Device in the last one is only stated to summon Mhar if Karzoug wins.

Second Darkness and Council of Thieves are both weak APs to my reading. SD's disconnect between its opening adventures have already been touched upon. CoT , despite containing one of the most awesome adventure concepts ever in 'The Sixfold Trial', is rather disjointed as a whole. Reading through, it never felt like the 'La Resistance' campaign it was advertised as, and the main villains and their organization was incredibly poorly set up.

Kingmaker, to borrow a phrase from earlier in the thread, is jewel of experimental design, and the concluding adventure is easily my favorite high-level adventure. The AP is going to require something special on the part of the players and the DM both, though.

Curse and Legacy are definitely my favorites that have been published. Their urban and wilderness focus, as opposed to the continual dungeon crawling of Runelords, allows for more party diversity. They're excellently crafted stories with compelling villains. Curse, in particular, introduces some of my favorite new mechanics and storytelling aids, like Harrow Readings and the Shingles Chase.


Second Darkness is just a big "what were they thinking"? They get the party to really like Riddleport, then suddenly transition the action far, far away with an adventure that didn't really run that well with my group.
Moving the action into the Cinderlands in Curse of the Crimson Throne was also not so good. And Fort Rannick is somewhat problematic, in my oppinion, though hardly the worst of these issues.

Paizo Employee Chief Creative Officer, Publisher

Cool thread. Thanks for the feedback, guys!

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Erik Mona wrote:
Cool thread. Thanks for the feedback, guys!

Wait? When did the tyrannosaurus rex mutate into a one-eyed statue?

Kidding aside, there's also a similar discussion over at EN World and rpg.net. Kingmaker has definitely struck a struck a chord in a lot of folks.


joela wrote:

There are currently six APs with the seventh (Serpent's Skull) just released to subscribers. What's your opinions about them? Favorites? Few you want expanded? What were they thinking on some of them? Share!

Rise of the Runelords
Goblin raids on the coastal town of Sandpoint presage a growing danger in the ruin-choked wilderness of Varisia. An ancient evil stirs to waking life in the distant mountains, drawing crazed murderers, inbred ogres, warlike stone giants, and creatures fueled by the power of sin into an epic conflict destined to create a new generation of heroes!

Disclaimer: Anything I do not speak on is something I have no experience with.

I only got to play the first chapter of this one. My DM did not have the time to convert it, but I was really enjoying it. I might convert it and run it myself one day.

Quote:


Legacy of Fire
Long ago, two warring armies of genies fought on the slopes of Pale Mountain, and the world shook under the power of their wishcraft. Today, the armies are wakening, and one potent efreeti warlord is ready to pick up where he left off! This outrageous, inventive campaign takes the heroes to all corners of the desert land of Katapesh and beyond, with journeys to strange demi-planes and even the fabled City of Brass!

I don't own this one either, but the story sounds fun. I will probably buy it one day when Paizo stops taking my lunch money. <shakes fist angrily as the Paizo goblin runs off with my money again>

Quote:


Council of Thieves
Once the seat of mighty Imperial Cheliax, the decaying metropolis of Westcrown now stands wrecked and ruined, haunted by mysterious shadow beasts and besieged by the agents of the nation's new diabolical rulers. Amid this chaos, a growing schism in the city's influential Council of Thieves threatens to tear Westcrown apart unless a new group of heroes rises from the ashes of empire to chart a new destiny for the lost souls of the city.

This one was cool because I got to play a druid for the first time ever, and I my character actually had a reason to fight for the city. I wish I would have had more of a notice on the number of undead though.

I am DM'ing Kingmaker now. Good times, good times.

My DM said something about expanding CoT, so I am guessing the end is not complete enough. Maybe I should stay out of this thread now that I think about it, until CoT is done.


joela wrote:
Wait? When did the tyrannosaurus rex mutate into a one-eyed statue?

(You're getting Erik and James mixed up. Erik had a different one-eyed avatar before.)


I liked several of the individual adventures of Second Darkness (Endless Night is quite cool, for instance, with its infiltration/secret agent vibe). My main gripe with it is that there are several times in the AP where I see no actual reason for the PCs to continue onwards (aside from general curiosity or their inherent goodness).

For instance, at one point they are asked to deliver a message to an elf camp, where half the elves are indifferent to them while the other half are more or less hostile to the idea of outsiders. Then, for some reason, the PCs are expected to not only join the elves in war, but also go on a pretty suicidal-sounding infiltration mission for them? If I delivered a message to a war camp and got such a lukewarm welcome, I'd go straight back home to my successful Riddleport business rather than join in.

SD is the only AP I've not thoroughly enjoyed all the way through though; all of the others are very well-written, and with good cohesion between the individual parts. Although each tends to have one not-so-stellar part, the awesomeness and uniqueness of the good parts more than weigh up for them :)

Paizo Employee Chief Creative Officer, Publisher

I decided to switch my avatar to a piece of art that Paizo owned as well as to something that was more reflective of the Pathfinder era rather than the Dungeon era, glorious as it was.


In declining order of excellence:

Kingmaker: Their best yet and they really needed it after the (IMO) poor modules of PRPG era. Sandbox is a unique hook that you can really see the authors rise to the challenge of providing a narrative while still allowing for lots of player creation of plot. (For example, if they don't deal with the BBEG of the Varnhold Vanishing, well, you have options for the BBEG of the finale.) Great low intensity rules for Kingdom building and war. Flavorful setting, lots of NPC support, really comes alive. The most support for collaborative storytelling.

Curse of the Crimson Throne: Their best linear adventure path. A superb BBEG who's a presence throughout the guerrilla campaign of freedom-fighting in an urban setting. Very solid barbarian culture woven into the narrative seamlessly. IMHO, the fifth adventure is a missed opportunity which I've posted on at length. They should have had that adventure be entirely about leading the Resistance against a superior foe; instead we get a well-made dungeon crawl to collect a plot coupon, which becomes tedious because it's the first of three such missions that end the series. You'll have to provide the freedom fighting, but that's probably easy for you to do.

Rise of the Rune Lords: The first adventure is outstanding: superbly drawn starter town, iconic difficult fight in the catacombs, introduction of their most fun monster (Paizo Goblins), touching and well-drawn BBEG. Next is the second best haunted house of the 3.5 era (after Cage of Delirium), then an excellent pulp horror adventure. Some linkage problems in 4 and 5, but ends with an epic number 6. The new Kaer Maga book supports dropping the fifth adventure if you desire for the Seven Swords module. BBEG requires careful handling to make presence known. Their third best adventure path.

Legacy of Fire: The first two adventures are outstanding, with varied combats, interesting new foes, and two detailed locales. The sixth one's kind of neat as well, with a sort of "see it all with new eyes" appeal. I hate plane-hopping, however, and the fourth and the fifth adventures are both plane-hoppers, with the added annoyance of duplicating the same adventure structure: escape the plane. The fact that one's a world and another's a structure is not a factor.

There's a big gap in quality here. After this point, you're just salvaging useable pieces.

Second Darkness: At the time, I thought this was going to be the worst of the APs; I was mistaken, unfortunately. There's massive structure problems here. There's the opening adventure, which signals to the PCs to make their home in Riddleport, only to forcibly yank them away for the next five adventures. In the third adventure, revealing the background history for why the apocalypse is coming requires the PCs, after four grueling combats, to stupidly follow a superior force into an unknown collapsing demiplane when they might not have planar travel. The only thing that doesn't make it suicidal is the fact that the drow are played as tactical novices who don't leave a rear guard at the entrance to their hideout. The very worst in railroading. The next adventure requires you to create an entire civilization where they only sketch out some of a city. A massive time-suck. Then the next adventure features NPCs who are depressed and actively resist interaction. To top it off, the final battle gifts the DM with a battle royale featuring more than a dozen high-level spell-casters and spell-casting demons. The last adventure is hoop-jumping for the PCs, although there are useable parts for the DM to nick. Again, the first two adventures are the best.

Council of Thieves: An adventure path set in Cheliax in which neither the Hell Knights nor the Church of Asmodeus nor the Infernal Bureaucracy are major players. I blame the editors entirely for this one. Such a waste. The second adventure is the best one, with an entire play to use. A great, innovative adventure that I plan to nick. I don't plan to use anything else from the adventure path, not even the maps, which are unusable.

After these two APs back to back, along with uninspired PfRPG modules, Kingmaker was the only thing that stopped me from dropping my subscriber status entirely. Fortunately, Kingmaker comes through for me.

Silver Crusade

roguerouge wrote:
...introduction of their most fun monster (Paizo Goblins)...

*A pugwampi wipes a tear away and leaves the room...*

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

FallofCamelot wrote:
roguerouge wrote:
...introduction of their most fun monster (Paizo Goblins)...

*A pugwampi wipes a tear away and leaves the room...*

Good. Pugwampis are best driven away and forgotten.

Silver Crusade

Lord Fyre wrote:
FallofCamelot wrote:
roguerouge wrote:
...introduction of their most fun monster (Paizo Goblins)...

*A pugwampi wipes a tear away and leaves the room...*

Good. Pugwampis are best driven away and forgotten.

My players love them.

In a "love to hate" kind of way...

In fact how can you not love the little critters? They are so much fun.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Pugwampis forever !

Grand Lodge

It's the marketing. The Goblin Song is awesome. If the pugwampis had something akin to it, they might be the running, but until then
"We be goblins, you be food!"

James Jacobs wrote:

Best.

Thread.
Ever.

In reference to THIS THREAD,

Silver Crusade

I could write one if that helps?

Does anone have Paul McCartney's number handy?

I'll settle for Ringo Starr at a push...?


Rise of the Runelords
I thought the first two adventures were great. The goblins at the beginning just had so much personality and The Skinsaw Murders is probably my favourite horror-style adventure ever (which is a genre I'm not usually very interested in). Hook Mountain Massacre just wasn't my thing though and I couldn't seem to get back into the flow of the AP after that.

Curse of the Crimson Throne
Looks like a lot of fun to me, but it's the one AP that any of my friends have shown any inclination to buy and potentially run after I took advantage of a Paizo sale to buy him the first adventure and the Harrow deck. So I'm avoiding looking at it in the hopes of playing through it one day.

Second Darkness
I loved the beginning of this AP. Riddleport was a great town and running the inn makes for an interesting little side game. Children of the Void is one of my favourite adventures ever and the island is full of interesting elements. I don't dislike the latter parts as much as some others, but I agree that it's quite a jarring switch of focus. I think when I run it I'll try to keep some alien elements from Children of the Void going through the AP. I'll also make sure to keep the elven npc's from the first couple of adventures around if the pc's befriend them, which will hopefully make them more inclined to help the elves!

Legacy of Fire
I don't really know anything about this AP to be honest. I found out about Pathfinder with Second Darkness (those books looked lovely sitting on the shelf at my FLGS!) and ended up checking out Runelords. Legacy of Fire was halfway through at that stage so I concentrated on catching up with SD and RotR, then subscribed from Council of Thieves. I'll check it out one day if I ever catch up with my reading...

Council of Thieves
It all seems competent enough, but this AP just never grabbed me. There are some interesting elements, but I just never really got into the overall story. The play in the second adventure was pretty neat, but apart from that the whole thing almost felt a little bland. Which seems an odd thing to say for adventures in a devil worshipping city full of fiends! I've never been all that interested in outsiders having major roles though, so maybe this was never going to suit me...

Kingmaker
Now this is more like it! At this stage I haven't read all of the books in detail, but I'm a huge fan of the idea and the execution. It's full of interesting little bits and pieces to expand the game and just ends up feeling very unique. I particularly enjoy that characters get to do things like run a kingdom from early in their career. I like how leadership is relatively low level in Golarion unlike some other settings and this really shows how leaders don't have to be all around level 20.

Serpent's Skull
Obviously this has only just started, but I like what I've read so far. Exploration into the unknown is one of my favourite adventure types and I'm really looking forward to seeing what plans are brewing.


Erik Mona wrote:

the Dungeon era, glorious as it was.

indeed. *sniff*


Keep in mind my group tends to have short attention spans and we try to finish each AP in about 6 months. Any longer and people start to get bored. Part 6s tend to have lots encounters cut out.

Rise of the Runelords
I have read through this one but not played it. Parts one and two are great and would be fun to either run or play. No one in my group would object to part three but I think it would take some effort to run this one and get the right feel for it. Part 4 is where things starts to run into problems. While I really like the assault on Sandpoint I could pass on the stone giant fortress. Some big dungeon crawls can be fun but I can see this one ending poorly. The bad guys are plentiful and have just have too many hp and it turns into an endless slugfest. Part 5 could be interesting if you could build up the politics between the factions but as another slugfest - not so much. I would dread part 6. Rune Giants? A battle against 4 of them would fill an entire session.

Curse of the Crimson Throne
Another one I'd love to run or play - especially the first three parts which, once again are the best.

Second Darkness
This is the first one I've actually played. We played it with 6 players using the beta rules so much of it was rewritten to account for our greater power. Part 2 had some great moments. We were terrified of the space monsters and our defense of the tower was quite the nail biter. Things seemed to go downhill from there. There were some truly epic battles in part 6 and being a drow in 4 was pretty cool. The reason most people rate this one poorly I think is the railroadiness, and the weirdness of part 5. This one isn't bad, its just most of the rest are so much better.

Legacy of Fire
This was the last time we played using 3.5 rules and the DM basically said anything goes. We had 6 players with various D&D experience. The first adventure was a real meat grinder with several near TPKs and a graveyard full of dead PCs. Again the early adventures were lots of fun but part 3 seemed really short. We finished it in 1.5 play sessions. The plane hopping was interesting at first but became a bit frustrating after a while. There really is no place to re-equip and the equipment dependent classes were really feeling the pain by the end of part 5. Speaking of part 5, that dungeon crawl took longer to finish then any other adventure we'd played until Kingmaker (which is starting to look like it may take as long as AoW). We had fun with this one though and there were lots of epic moments especially towards the end. Genie wars!

Council of Thieves
I have mixed feelings on this one. We started this one just after the first adventure was released and that caused issues as Paizo was fell behind and we had about 4 sessions of filler letting Paizo get a bit a head of us again. We made this AP fun but I'm not sure it was great as written. The bard in the party spent the whole AP building a power base for himself and in the end after the final battle assumed the mayorship of Westcrown with the house of Thrune's blessing (little did they know what they were getting into). The pathfinder side of this AP (artifacts and shadows) was nice to see and made sense but the whole thieve war with the CoT didn't really come out until the very end and we were still left scratching our heads a bit.

Kingmaker
We are still fairly early in this one. We are being very methodical in our explorations which is slowing us down a bit. We are having fun building up our kingdom and having some good debates on what to build. My only concern is that we may get bored since there doesn't seem to be any real story thread to this one. So far so good though.

Serpents Skull
I looked it over quickly and it looks interesting. If I get the DM mantle again after Kingmaker, I'll probably run this or CotCT depending on ho this one turns out.


Though our group tends to consider all published adventures to be too railroading for our tastes I am gearing up to run Kingmaker. I think it's important to thank Paizo for being willing to try deviating from the norm.

I mentioned the following in another thread but I think it's worth repeating here. For groups such as mine I do think its worth Paizos time to create AP compendiums containing all the extra rules and background material but not the adventure. As the APs stack up it feels like we're missing out on more and more but it's just to expensive to buy them as is when we're not going to be using half the book.


Gorbacz wrote:

RotRL - Very good

Classic "let's be heroes, visit exotic locales, kill interesting monsters" deal.

CotCT - Freaking awesome

The city, the villain, the plot, the best dungeon crawl, the best writers, it's all here.

SD - /facepalm

Starts OK and takes a nose dive towards the end. A painful lesson: if you write railroads, you better sure make that the rails are invisible.

LoF - Very good

Planar Arabian Nights fun ! Not up everyone's alley (is up mine, certainly) but very stylish and epic.

CoT - /facepalmish

Reverse of SD - the first adventure stinks. Also, it feels rather bland compared to sheer epicness of the previous APs. Still, the Sixfold Trail is the best adventure of all the APs

KM - Freaking awesome

Sandbox done right. Best shot at "let's be kings" theme, ever. Final adventure is a mind-blower.

I seem to follow Gorbacz's tastes in APs (in most of Paizo's books, actually), so I'll quote his post. I'll also add:

RotRL: Agreed with another post that this AP shows it's age. When it came out it was around 8/10, but I'd say it's no more than 7/10 today.

CotCR: A good 9/10. The city campaign and visible villain are great - only the weird slog outside the city holds it back (Scarwall makes up for some of this, though). The Harrow sub-game was especially nifty, and even though the deck is an additional purchase, it really is a great accessory for this AP, and is integrated into the campaign fairly well (and reasonably often).

SD: 4/10 All criticisms of this AP are more than valid, and more than fair. It's bad. Bad (almost) all over. Even the awesomeness of Riddleport and the space-monster island doesn't make up for how bad this AP is (in fact, it accentuates it, as the bait 'n' switch is just that much more painful).

LoF: This gets a freakin' awesome from me, and ties Kingmaker as the best that Paizo has to offer. Arabian + Planar = win. 9.5/10

CoT: Yuck. While #1 skimmed well, after a heavy reading (and playing) it really is quite poor. #2 is the best in the AP, but otherwise it's all pretty lackluster. The "Fame Points" subsystem was really neat, though, and adds a couple of points to my score. 6/10

Kingmaker: What everyone else said. 9.5/10

Serpent's Skull: Hmmmm.... not sure how I feel about it yet. I need to review #1 more. From what I've seen, it hasn't jumped out at me as a lot of #1's have.


I'd just like to say thanks to the OP and everyone who's posted for this thread - it's exactly what I've been looking for. I've recently subscribed to the APs, but really needed a consensus on the ones that have gone before. Great stuff.

Dark Archive

Troubled_child wrote:
I mentioned the following in another thread but I think it's worth repeating here. For groups such as mine I do think its worth Paizos time to create AP compendiums containing all the extra rules and background material but not the adventure. As the APs stack up it feels like we're missing out on more and more but it's just to expensive to buy them as is when we're not going to be using half the book.

This does seem to be happening. The GMG has the chase rules and haunts rules etc. Traits are in the APG...


Nevynxxx wrote:
Troubled_child wrote:
I mentioned the following in another thread but I think it's worth repeating here. For groups such as mine I do think its worth Paizos time to create AP compendiums containing all the extra rules and background material but not the adventure. As the APs stack up it feels like we're missing out on more and more but it's just to expensive to buy them as is when we're not going to be using half the book.
This does seem to be happening. The GMG has the chase rules and haunts rules etc. Traits are in the APG...

True but I'd like to have access to the extra background fluff that has appeared in the adventure paths. I've been impressed with whats been in the first two Kingmaker books that I've picked up and imagine theres equally cool stuff in the other ones. like I said though they are too expensive to buy just for that content. Especially as I live in the UK so I have to pay for three people's profit margin on each book (Paizo's, distributor and retailer). It might work out to a reasonable price to just buy it from this website but then postage is a fortune and customs might charge me for the honour of having my package checked for import duty (a friend ordered a couple of miniatures from reaper and customs opened the package decided he didn't have to pay any import duty but charged him £40ish for doing so).

Dark Archive

Troubled_child wrote:
It might work out to a reasonable price to just buy it from this website but then postage is a fortune and customs might charge me for the honour of having my package checked for import duty (a friend ordered a couple of miniatures from reaper and customs opened the package decided he didn't have to pay any import duty but charged him £40ish for doing so).

I am also in the UK, I had the AP subscription from issues 1-27 and never paid VAT. Books are Zero rated, so you should be fine, so long as you don't order other stuffs.


Nevynxxx wrote:
I am also in the UK, I had the AP subscription from issues 1-27 and never paid VAT. Books are Zero rated, so you should be fine, so long as you don't order other stuffs.

What's it costing you at the moment in sterling?

Dark Archive

Troubled_child wrote:
Nevynxxx wrote:
I am also in the UK, I had the AP subscription from issues 1-27 and never paid VAT. Books are Zero rated, so you should be fine, so long as you don't order other stuffs.
What's it costing you at the moment in sterling?

Had to cancel around January, so I'm afraid I can't tell you.

I almost certainly will be picking up again with the AP after SS, my finances should have stabilised by then.


Regarding Kingmaker: I would caution people starting on this one to limit item creation, ESPECIALLY if you use 3.5 materials like Magic Item Compendium. Near infinite down-time and new item-creation rules that allows anyone to make anything as long as you pimp your spellcraft makes for a VERY overpowered party.

I was foolish enough to allow all 3.5 materials, and with the spells, items and plethora of feats from those books, combined with some hardcore min/max players, this train is barely even in the same plane of existence as it's rails.

We are currently at the beginning of part4, but as it stands, they could easily kill everything in part 5. In most cases before the baddies would even get to act on the first round. Means lots of work for me, and the classic 3.5 optimization arms race I have come to loathe.

Oh, and part 6 is probably the best darned adventure module I have seen in my 17 year history of game-mastering.


Just curious, what's the party against in the 6th module? Just subtypes, please, I'm not yet sure whether I'll DM this or someone else, so no spoilers. :D


Erevis Cale wrote:
Just curious, what's the party against in the 6th module? Just subtypes, please, I'm not yet sure whether I'll DM this or someone else, so no spoilers. :D

Richard Pett's evil brain...and some First World creatures.

Sczarni

Erevis Cale wrote:
Just curious, what's the party against in the 6th module? Just subtypes, please, I'm not yet sure whether I'll DM this or someone else, so no spoilers. :D

Not sure of the exact #s, but there pretty much a little bit of everything.

Fey, undead, dragons, outsiders, magical beasts, animals, and aberrations are all in play.

Maybe some more, but like everybody has been saying, it's fantastic


Plaug the Merely Adequate wrote:
Richard Pett's evil brain...and some First World creatures.

Truly a ferocious opponent.

Dark Archive

Lilith wrote:
Plaug the Merely Adequate wrote:
Richard Pett's evil brain...and some First World creatures.
Truly a ferocious opponent.

Offer it alcohol?

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