Hello
I am at this moment looking for one of the pathfinder campaigns that you buy. Personally, I feel that a lot of them feels like dungeon crawl, hack n' slash and constant fighting.
Which one do you think, has the fewest constant fighting and has the best opportunities for roleplaying and advancing your characters through more dimensions than blood, gore and fighting.
I have played Rise of The Runelords and the two first scenarios was really good. But after that the constant fight began - sadly.
So which one do you think?
I thought Council of Thieves would be mostly roleplay, but it's fairly well balanced. Most sessions have been a mix of RP and fighting, and we've had one session of entirely RP and one of almost entirely fighting.
This ought to be in the adventure path section of the forums (General discussion).
There will always be combat in a pathfinder AP, but I have found kingmaker to have a great deal of non-combat in it. The exploration, as well as kingdom building offered ways to advance that didnt involve violence. There was even some public discourse and dealing with ruler type problems that involved most if not all roleplaying. And the dungeons (such as they are) have been so far rather small, and combat encounters rather spaced out (both geographically and timing wise). I am not sure if that was my group or not, but if you just cut out the random encounter table and have the party level according to the story, there is decidedly more roleplay and less combat in kingmaker then any other AP i have played in.
I thought Council of Thieves would be mostly roleplay, but it's fairly well balanced. Most sessions have been a mix of RP and fighting, and we've had one session of entirely RP and one of almost entirely fighting.
While there is lots of roleplay in council of thieves (I loved book 2), there were some pretty extensive dungeons at the end of books 2 and 3, and 4 is almost all dungeon. Book five also has a rather significant dungeon as its second half.
I will second Kingmaker. A number of the encounters can be handled by combat or through roleplaying. It is also easy to add roleplaying situations to the AP. I have added a few RP encounters to foreshadow future events.
Thanks for the answers so far..
I have just gone tired on all the nearly wannabe wow mentality on roleplaying games.. I will look at it :)
I will second Kingmaker. A number of the encounters can be handled by combat or through roleplaying. It is also easy to add roleplaying situations to the AP. I have added a few RP encounters to foreshadow future events.
Indeed, there was alot of roleplay dealing with a certain trouble maker, and we have formed a council (as opposed to having a monarch) and created a constitution, as well as debated laws and policy in character. It has been one of the most roleplay filled campaigns my group has ever done.
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Thanks for the answers so far..
I have just gone tired on all the nearly wannabe wow mentality on roleplaying games.. I will look at it :)
to be fair, dungeon crawling hack and slash pen and paper games predate the personal computer let alone wow.
Not wanting to muddy the waters too much, but to be honest, all of the APs have both dungeon bashing and role play opportunities to the max.
Anyone remember the magnificent SHackled City - my guys were a nightmare, took me nearly 3 weeks to coax them into the shop that starts it all.
Just about any modules/adventure paths you try will have dungeons in the mix, its a staple of fantasy gaming. Even forests, cities and towns could be called "open air" dungeons.
The amount of role play versus dunegon bashing I find is more to do with the group, and what the group enjoy.
For me, I'm chomping at the bit for the next AP that will start soon - the snippets we have been told thus far have really whetted my appetite for this one.
*I jump on the bandwagon*
Hear-ye! Hear-ye! Kingmaker, if you let it, will seldom put you in a dungeon crawl. That is particularly true for my group once we got to the actual kingdom building.
In general, APs tend to have less dungeons in the first half, and then more dungeons in the 2nd half.
The first two books of the following APs are filled with great RP and mercifully light on dungeon-crawling:
- Rise of the Runelords
- Curse of the Crimson Throne
- Second Darkness
- Council of Thieves
- Kingmaker
All of them "get their dungeon on" in book 3. Really, your best bet is to pick an AP beginning, and then do the rest of the "campaign" with modules or stuff of your own creation.
AP backhalfs really are grindfests for the majority. :-/
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A lot of AP's have a rough format like this:
Book 1: Explore an environment, do lots of mini quests.
Book 2: Explore/Social/Investigation scenario ending with a mini dungeon.
Book 3: Exploring somewhere new or somewhere that has changed- Travel often involved.
Book 4: Expanding Golarion: Something new that adds to or expands on Golarion lore.
Book 5: The Big Dungeon.
Book 6: The Final Confrontation, strikes against various enemy strongholds.
Of course this is not a hard and fast rule and there are many exceptions to this but this rough format is often used. (CotCT follows this format exactly and LoF and CC are very close to it as well)
A lot of AP's have a rough format like this:<snip>
Runelords follows that almost exactly, and Council of Thieves is pretty close.
I think Second Darkness and Jade Reagent probably deviate the most, but even then, not by a whole lot...
I'll throw in another vote for Kingmaker here. It is, after all, kind of difficult for a party to build their own kingdom without a fair share of roleplaying along the way - and roleplaying of a sort some groups might not see much of otherwise. How often does the chance to be the movers and shakers in a region come along, after all? As has already been pointed out, the dungeons in Kingmaker are mostly short little things, so it's easy to emphasize the exploration and roleplaying aspects of the kingdom much more.
I'd also like to mention Jade Regent. While some of the dungeons in this one are admittedly pretty big, I've found that it's pretty easy to streamline them by leaving out some rooms or omitting the more "filler"-type encounters that bring nothing to the story. The main roleplaying draw to this one comes from traveling halfways around the world with a small group of NPCs I've seen likened to a mobile community/home base . This gives the players plenty of time and ample opportunity to form bonds with the campaign's main NPCs (which the Player's Guide itself strongly encourages), along with a changing backdrop of interesting and exotic locales to roleplay in as the caravan moves along from one land to the next on its journey.
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A lot of AP's have a rough format like this:
Book 1: Explore an environment, do lots of mini quests.
Book 2: Explore/Social/Investigation scenario ending with a mini dungeon.
Book 3: Exploring somewhere new or somewhere that has changed- Travel often involved.
Book 4: Expanding Golarion: Something new that adds to or expands on Golarion lore.
Book 5: The Big Dungeon.
Book 6: The Final Confrontation, strikes against various enemy strongholds.Of course this is not a hard and fast rule and there are many exceptions to this but this rough format is often used. (CotCT follows this format exactly and LoF and CC are very close to it as well)
Wow this is spot-on
Of course this is not a hard and fast rule and there are many exceptions to this but this rough format is often used. (CotCT follows this format exactly and LoF and CC are very close to it as well)
Hmm... unless my memory fails me, the 'big travel' thing was in #4 of CoCT rather than #3.
Other than that, strike!
