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Each adventure path has its own difficulties. I would suggest picking the one that will best hold your players' attention. My players loved Rise of the Runelords although I bypassed books 2 and 3 because we had a few very young players at the time. I replaced those with some work of my own to make sure the PCs were at the right level for the 4th book. The beginning in Sandpoint was a real pleasure to run.
The next few adventure paths would require you to do some converting from 3.5 to the Pathfinder rules.
I have found Kingmaker to be very easy to run, although you will have to deal with the kingdom building aspect of the adventure (which you can minimize if you want to).
Are you sure your group is committed to seeing an adventure path through to the end. If not, you may want to start with a few of the individual modules that can easily be tied together to create a short adventure path.
Carrion Crown is pretty easy to run, and easy to get into.
Hard as balls though in some spots.
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I would suggest a low cost entry of a module before getting into the cost of an AP. if you do eventually go AP, maybe after several mods and or whatever free adventures you can find online, check that you can even get a full AP in the same format before choosing which. The new edition of Rise of the Runelirds would be cheaper than buying all six volumes of a more recent or new AP. Take a hard look at buying the PDFs to save money. Ask your players if they have already played any mods or APs. You can also consider buying inexpensive pathfinder society adventures, each of the last few years had a common theme to each year, so consider buying an early year 2,3 or 4 and then decide weather or not to continue.
By the way, I loved reading Rise of the Runelords when it first came out. I tried DMing it but I had too many players who could not handle my constant correcting of all of their attempted cheating. We were not the right mix of GM and players. Some people act like they like it when they are corrected because it means they will never make the same mistake. Truth be told, when they have poor memory of how stuff works and/or poor reading comprehension and never understood stuff to begin with, people do not like being constantly corrected, especially in front of other people. Funny how they blame someone else for the mistakes they create themselves.
I recently began playing King Maker as a PC and loved most of it. Only advice I can share with it though since I have not had the chance to read it is do not be a slave to the random encounter tables. Take a moment and ask yourself before unleashing them, is this a suitable challenge for the party. Also be carefull with the night time attacks when all but one of the party is sleeping. My group had at least 1/3 fights where we were attacked at night(even when we do not use a campfire so as to attract less attention), this means people on the floor who have to take a move action just to stand up. Also prevents medium and heavy armor since sleeping in those leaves you waking up with fatigue. Also double taxes the spell casters. They have to keep a spell slot unused to have available at night but than cannot refill that slot in the morning because replenishing spells do not replenish if cast within the last eight hours.
Carrion Crown is pretty easy to run, and easy to get into.
Hard as balls though in some spots.
But it has some player motivation problems. I see it myself in the game I play in and read it from others. Often there is the situation where you ask yourself: Why am I doing this? And in the end the only viable answer is: Because I, the player, wand to play a roleplaying game and this is it. No real character motivation.
But it has some player motivation problems. I see it myself in the game I play in and read it from others. Often there is the situation where you ask yourself: Why am I doing this? And in the end the only viable answer is: Because I, the player, wand to play a roleplaying game and this is it. No real character motivation.Carrion Crown is pretty easy to run, and easy to get into.
Hard as balls though in some spots.
True, it really depends on how deep you try to pull the players in.
The first part's easy: Because my character knows the deceased, but it all kinda falls apart when they're asked to investigate Harrowstone and from there it takes some finagling.
But in my opinion it works well with minimal changes, just try to introduce the main villain early to make it personal, and give the players a good incentive to carry out each mission (an NPC they like is killed, the angry mob forms and shoves them into the prison, some other reason).
I would second Shattered Star, simple and straight forward quest reward system for majority of it. Rise might be good, but can be one of the hardest AP. Kingmaker is good as well (why I am a subscriber to the APs) but the sandbox can be hard to run at times. Carrion Crown is a good kill the evil thing (Undead mostly), but has some tough moments in it as well. Especially the first AP and then the last AP and the whole city of the damned/tower of doom bit.
I do not have a great knowledge of all the APs but here my 2c.
Avoid Kingmaker, you would have to change the randon encounters, the sandbox nature means the party can walk into encounters they are not strong enough to tackle. Its an AP that requires the party to know when to run! Not good for inexperienced players.
I have only seen the first two parts but I would consider Shattered Star
I'm rather new to the GM role but I want to give it a shot. Any advice on which adventure path to run with moderately inexperienced players? Thanks in advance
hollow last hope is one introductory and very funny
if you insist in start with aptry Burnt Offering from Rise of the Runelords
this is quite easy, without pretencious adding rules, a lot of fun, a lot of encounters, and there is a probability of 15% you dont get fun (provided by player´s factors)
Another possibility is a "mini-AP", which doesn't go all the way to L 13 or higher, but instead stops in the "mid-levels" (L 5 to 8, although your mileage may vary). That's enough exposure to give relatively new players a taste of running characters from humble beginnings to a point where they have some power, and a new GM the chance to try running a short campaign (as opposed to a single adventure).
One example is a trio of connected PF adventures: Crypt of the Everflame, Masks of the Living God, and City of Golden Death. Together, they take a group from L 1 to L 5 or more.
Another example is the series set in Falcon's Hollow, in Darkmoon Vale in Andoran (as mentioned above by Judas 147). Some of the modules are only available as PDFs. In order, the series is: Hollow's Last Hope, Crown of the Kobold King, Revenge of the Kobold King, Carnival of Tears, and Hungry Are the Dead. One thing to keep in mind with these particular modules is that they were written for the 3.5 rule-set. On the other hand, Darkmoon Vale has its own sourcebook - useful for home-brewing further adventures!
Or you could just dive into a full-length AP. :)