Like Everyone Else, I need help choosing an Adventure Path

[Mahavira]

Well, we're switching to Pathfinder from 3.5, our more regular DM wants a break once the current campaign is done (shackled city, in the second last chapter), so I'm 'volunteering' to DM an adventure path. From the summaries, I have interest in (no particular order):

Second Darkness
Legacy of Fire
Serpent's Skull
Carrion Crown
Jade Regent

I'm getting the updated Rise of the Runelords hardcover in June, but plan on foisting it on someone else.

I will be dealing with a party of 3.

I am given to understand that Second Darkness is actually 3.5, which will mean a certain amount of conversion (and fast track xp). While "Dark Elves and Meteors" sound like a very strong concept, the path doesn't seem highly thought of.

I am less enamored of the concept of Legacy of Fire, but genies are a different focus. It is also 3.5.

I gather Serpent's Skull et al are full fledged Pathfinder (what xp track to use?), which makes life considerably easier (and for a first pathfinder game this is a meaningful factor), and while it's hard to argue with snakemen, classic horror, or westerners visit the orient (not something we've really done in 20+ years of gaming) I'm curious what people think (or if there's a tight conversion of Second Shadow on someone's webpage).

[DM Mathpro]

You are correct taht Serpent's Skull, Carrion crown, and Jade Regent are all full pathfinder adventure paths so no conversion is necessary. They are suggested to be run on the Medium xp track and in the beginning of each book(module) the writer suggest the progression of the group but this is just a loose suggestion(though I tend to stick to it, much to my players annoyance).

I've run everything but Second darkness on your list and am currently playing in a carrion crown game. I would suggest staying away from Second Darkness and Legacy of Fire just because of the extra work it would take to convert over to Pathfinder.

I find Carrion Crown the easiest to run because there is a lot less the GM has to keep track of.

In Jade regent you have to track romance scores(unless you scrap this machanic, though I wouldn't) and caravan status and also have to run several NPC's that develop more like PC's as far as the story is concerned.

Serpents Skull(at least in the first book which is all I've run) there is also a lot of tracking that has to take place which means extra work for the GM.

If you're into doing the extra work the extra depth added to both Jade Regent and Serpents Skull if your players buy into the different additional systems will be well worth the work.

[Paul Watson]

Second Darkness and LoF are both 3.5, yes. All Pathfinder APs use the MEdium track. As you noted, 3.5 are best simulated with the fast XP track.

Second Darkness has a couple of screeching swerve to the plot. If your players are fine with that (and with helping people who are a~%$@&!@s towards them without much explicit reqard, which is a challenge given how th AP starts) this could go well. But beware the screeching turns.

Legacy of Fire is a good path. Pretty solid, but it does have two planar adventures back to back that can strain the patience of those who prefer to keep things in Golarion. Also Arabian Knights flavour so some tradtiional concepts work less well.

Jade Regent hasn't finished eyet so hard so fully assess. However, the Caravan rules as written DO NOT WORK. The adventure itself looks very nice, but you as the GM do have to put in quite a bit of work to make the NPCs relevant.

Carrion Crown is pretty linear. There is a bug in the Trust mechanic in the first adventure (you have to do everything, including some obscure things, perfectly to get the "Ok, they like you" level of trust so it's probably better to RP that. Pay attnetion to party set up. Clerics or similar are practically a must given the number of conditions you're likely to end up dealing with. It also suffers from the 6 episode long chase. The PCs don't actually catch up until the last module and that cvan be frustrating. The head bad guy comes a little out of the blue, so you'd best be prepared to give some foreshadowing.

Serpent's Skull starts of really strong, but the exploration of the city can easily drag. The lost city could do with a LOT more development as the GM has to wing a lot of the things. Also Books 3 and 4 should probably be run somewhat concurrently to get the best feel of things.

All are good APs. I would say LoF or Carrion Crown would be best but only because Jade Regent hasn't finished yet. I have a persoanl phobia about getting into APs before reading all six parts. Don't let the fact that I'm concentrating on the negative put you off. Just warning you of the oft-reported problems.

EDIT: And you would ask about the ones I haven't Played. If you wanted to know about Curse of the Crimson Throne (brilliant but 3.5), Council of Thieves (Not so much) or Kingmaker (Great as long as the players like a bit of self direction and micromanaging a kingdom)

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

From your list: Carrion Crown is the most highly lauded with the least amount of GM fiddliness. I recommend saving Jade Regent for after someone runs Rise of the Runelords. Serpent's Skull opens strong but increasingly requires more GM input (To me this is a feature, to others it's a bug).

Legacy of Fire is great, with only 3 players you don't really even need to convert it at all (just add CMB/CMD scores and call it a day). Second Darkness has problems on the plot level which are often harder to fix. The quick solution is to have an all elf party.

[Mahavira]

Based on what people are saying, Carrion Crown and Serpent's Skull sound like they may work best for my group as a start. Once I've actually read the first of each, I'll poll the PCs to see what interests them. Thanks for the feedback.

[Diamond B]

DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

Second Darkness has problems on the plot level which are often harder to fix. The quick solution is to have an all elf party.

Of course! I can't believe I missed such an obvious solution. I've been avoiding running Second Darkness, because I know my players are the type that would have a problem with it's "dangerous curves". However, an all elf party reduces those curves significantly, still far from perfect, but now it's a bit more workable.

*reconsidering next AP*

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

Diamond B wrote:

DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

Second Darkness has problems on the plot level which are often harder to fix. The quick solution is to have an all elf party.

Of course! I can't believe I missed such an obvious solution. I've been avoiding running Second Darkness, because I know my players are the type that would have a problem with it's "dangerous curves". However, an all elf party reduces those curves significantly, still far from perfect, but now it's a bit more workable.

*reconsidering next AP*

I should point out that I'm not the first to come to this conclusion. There's a lot of invaluable advice on the SD board to aid a GM running this as an Elves only game.

[Douglas Muir 406]

Mahavira wrote:

Based on what people are saying, Carrion Crown and Serpent's Skull sound like they may work best for my group as a start. Once I've actually read the first of each, I'll poll the PCs to see what interests them.

A heads-up: the first module of Serpent's Skull is (IMO) maybe the best first module of any AP. It's got a brilliantly simple concept:

Spoiler:

The PCs wake up shipwrecked on a beach with little or no equipment, not entirely clear about how they got there. They have to figure that out, explore the island (of course it's an island), make friends or enemies with some NPCs who got shipwrecked with them, deal with monsters, disease, bad weather, the island spirits, pterodactyls, and savage cannibal tribesmen, and finally do a short dungeon crawl to confront the person responsible for it all.

It's basically "Lost" reworked as D&D, and it's great.

However, the consensus is that while the first module is terrific, the rest of the AP isn't nearly as good. The term "grind" gets used a lot.

Carrion Crown starts off much more traditionally -- the PCs are in a village near a dungeon complex, whence come various spooky goings-on. It does have a super nice opening scene: the PCs are all friends of a particular NPC... and he has just died, so they're all pallbearers at his funeral. Some tweaking is desirable (the trust mechanic, and also you may want to introduce the BBEG early) but it's fairly minor.

Doug M.