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Just how hard are the adventure paths? I personally think they are brutal:
- An air elemental attacks the party at the top of a narrow, 200-foot high bridge with no rails, easily sweeping them off to their deaths.
- A construct monster several CRs higher than the party is trapped in a small room with them, it is healed by electricity, and the room's primary feature is a lightning rod.
- Grindylows outnumber the PCs nearly 10 to 1 and also hold the home-turf advantage with their underwater, trap-filled caves.
- Incorporeal horrors swarm the party in an abandoned building before they are likely to have any magical weapons.
These are but a few of the deadly things our parties have faced.
Of the four adventure paths my friends and I have played, three of them have had TPKs, some multiple TPKs (the fourth has eaten only half the party). We have yet to finish the third adventure module in any given adventure path (and rarely make it past the second) because our revolving door of new characters no longer hold any connection to the story at hand, causing the players to lose interest.
And I hear it told these adventure paths are designed for 20-point buy characters who aren't optimized? Most of us know the rules well enough to make a decently optimized character (some of us even excel at it), and we have always used 25-point buy too. We even went into an undead heavy adventure with a cleric, inquisitor, oracle and paladin--all who were killed to the man by the end of the first module.
I wanted to ask the community what their thoughts were on the matter. From your own experiences, do you feel that they are brutally hard, or are they a cake walk? Perhaps you've had a bit of both? What do you think contributes to that?
I want to try and determine if we are doing something wrong, or if they truly are that much of a challenge. It seems I'm always complaining about this or that encounter on these boards. Time to find the truth of it.
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The air elemental is instructed to repel invaders in the book (the DM I played under did not have it try to kill us, just repel us). I could see this going either way, however.
The construct has a scenario specific way of being defeated which involves a relatively easy Knowledge check or finding information earlier in the AP.
I don't think I encountered the grindylow situation (although I did run something similiar in a campaign I wrote, and the home turf advantage only matters if the characters are still fairly low level [and I gave the grindylows class levels!]).
Incorporeal horrors at low levels are a good way to remind the wizard to prepare magic weapon.
But yeah, I generally find APs easy. The only deaths I have seen are from DM added random encounters or the party skipping a step and walking into something well above their level (a certain animated triceratops skeleton).
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Are you playing to the tactics listed in the adventure or is the GM throwing that out?
In my experience following the tactics listed brings the insanity down to manageable levels.
Skull & Shackles Spoiler
In my experience deviating from the assumed tactics to "challenge the players" tends to cause big problems.
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Let me add two more:
-A phase spider separating the party in a marsh with extremely difficult terrain when the PCs are level 4
-A ghoul cleric and several ghoul minions in tight caverns with deeper darkness
In my opinion, the adventure paths are designed for unoptimized characters as portrayed by optimized players. The game assumes the characters will be mechanically weak, but that the players have a deep understanding of how D&D works in general and will know to bring along certain equipment, have a certain mix of characters, prepare certain spells, etc.
You can be a lousy Wizard with a 15 Intelligence or something, but you still need to know that you might want a scroll of Gust of Wind to defeat cloud spells.
The abandoned house full of haunts goes from obnoxious and impossible to "easy" if you have someone capable of channeling and packing Disrupt Undead or Hide from Undead in the party.
The APs assume poor strategic thinking (character building), but excellent tactical thinking (choosing the right spells/gear/etc. to bring with you).
I've never actually played in or ran any of the APs with the designated number of PCs. Every table I've run has had around six PCs (or more) and the ones I've played in have been 5-6 PCs. One of those was even gestalt, so it was not even close to a fair measure.
Right now I am playing Kingmaker and it is down to 4 PCs, but the GM opted to use the wounds/vigor rules so once again we're not doing things by the book so I can't really offer you good feedback.
There have been some fairly nasty bits in Kingmaker, but again we're not going by CRB. I don't, however, find the APs to be meatgrinders from what I've read running a couple of them. I usually have to spruce things up to make it interesting (even after adapting numbers to the table size).
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Shurg...I found APs to be kinda on the easy side myself. Yeah the grindyglows are kinda painful when they get a turn...so make sure they don't get a turn. A neg channel cleric at that level pretty much wipes em out. Yeah yeah, party members can get dings a bit unless you have selective channeling or superb tactical movement...but one rounding those bugger is worth a bit of damage for example.
The construct...how was that a problem? It goes...we go...it dies. It's a single freaking critter. Single critters are super easy if your party can do proper damage.
Incorporeal horror are a reminder to low level characters about some low level spells they should want...unless they have arcane strike.
The air elemental...ummm feather fall anyone?
- A phase spider separating the party in a marsh with extremely difficult terrain when the PCs are level 4
- The abandoned house full of haunts...
I remember these. They tore us up pretty good. The phase spider in particular was OBSCENE. So much so that I think our GM had to throw us a bone (a rare treat) by letting us talk ourselves out of it in the end.
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Let me add two more:
-A phase spider separating the party in a marsh with extremely difficult terrain when the PCs are level 4
-A ghoul cleric and several ghoul minions in tight caverns with deeper darkness
In my opinion, the adventure paths are designed for unoptimized characters as portrayed by optimized players. The game assumes the characters will be mechanically weak, but that the players have a deep understanding of how D&D works in general and will know to bring along certain equipment, have a certain mix of characters, prepare certain spells, etc.
You can be a lousy Wizard with a 15 Intelligence or something, but you still need to know that you might want a scroll of Gust of Wind to defeat cloud spells.
The abandoned house full of haunts goes from obnoxious and impossible to "easy" if you have someone capable of channeling and packing Disrupt Undead or Hide from Undead in the party.
The APs assume poor strategic thinking (character building), but excellent tactical thinking (choosing the right spells/gear/etc. to bring with you).
I can kind of agree with this. You have to play well to beat an AP...and I'm okay with that.
I don't really think they are very hard. I'm dm'ing rise of the rune lords right now, and the party is almost to the end of book 1, and so far no real problems for them, and I play the book very strictly. Maybe it's just the paranoia of one the players, but they end up seeing a lot of things coming. 4 players, all stats rolled (4d6, drop lowest), they are a ninja, a zen archer, a paladin, and a bard. Nothing even close to a tpk yet, but maybe the next book is harder.
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When players do not bother to carry backup weapons to cover DR, or be covered when they get stunned or their weapons sundered, they deserve to have to fight an uphill battle. Even at level two, someone should have cold iron, and someone else should have silver. It is not out of the question to have both by te same character even, and in that case multiple people can be so equipped making those fights into a fair fight.
I think a magic weapon was planted near the incorporeal undead, along with a wand of magic missile also close by.
I had no sympathy for my group when they were 3rd level and never picked up cold iron, silver and reach weapons or even a ranged weapon for all of them.
I'm just starting Book 6 of Kingmaker, 20 pt builds, 4 PCs (1 cohort) and we've only had one death, and I think that was from a arrow crit on our Sorceror.
I'm also just starting Book 2 of Shattered Star, we started with 4 PCs and added a 5th all 15 pt builds, no deaths yet, a couple of unconsciousnesses, but no deaths.
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In my opinion, the adventure paths are designed for unoptimized characters as portrayed by optimized players. The game assumes the characters will be mechanically weak, but that the players have a deep understanding of how D&D works in general and will know to bring along certain equipment, have a certain mix of characters, prepare certain spells, etc.
This! Mplindustires sums up my view quite well.
If you're in a group with experienced players, you're likely to do some almost-metagaming. You might buy a silver weapon before ever having encountered a were creature, or a cold-iron weapon before ever encountering an enemy fey, and that might save your butt! Personally, I won't normally buy something until I feel my character would reasonably know of its usefulness. That allows a story to "get" me with each trick one time before I play a trump card against it. I do it because I like the roleplaying value and appreciate the challenge, but I think it's reasonable to assume that most players will behave this way, whether through character or player ignorance. The same type of test occurs for a great many "firsts":
- DR/something
- X kind of monster is immune to mind effects? Um, I shoot my crossbow?
- Poison! We can't cure that yet!
- Night time ambush? Only the half-orc can see!
- @#$%^! Grappled!
- Under water? Can they do that?
- In Corpo Real. Is that Latin for "Totally Unfair Monster"?
- . . . the list goes on
Each of these situations can turn into a TPK, depending on the resources available at the time of the encounter and the ability of the players (not just characters) to deal with them appropriately. And don't forget, while you're trying to figure out how to handle the situation, the baddies are killing you. In the face. With extreme prejudice.
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I've ran the entire RotRL (funny thing Xanesha didn't get a mention in the OP) and I am running Skull'n'Shackles and Jade Regent at the moment. Nobody is complaining about too high difficulty level, and both parties are composed of mostly inexperienced players. Maybe it's matter of my turbo awesome flawless skills at DM'ing, but I'm yet to see an encounter that was "broken" in either AP.
*shrug*
Tangent: I still have this idea that RD is playing with the wrong people, both on GM and player side of the screen.
If you proceed through an AP in the order expected by the writers, you'll generally have the resources needed to meet any particular threat. You'll get that scroll, key, password, wand, treasure, potion, or clue before the encounter you need it for. Otherwise you're going to have a rough time. Unfortunately, that order is not always obvious, and is sometimes quite counter-intuitive.
In "Part 1" of the adventure, the characters are told about a group of bandits threatening civilians in the area. The characters' temporary home is attacked by fairly weak bandits (CR 2 encounter) who leave tracks back to the bandit camp. The obvious thing to do is follow the tracks and attack the remaining bandits. (It's pretty good tactical thinking to go on the attack before the other bandits discover who you are and that you've come to the area with a writ to destroy bandits!)
Unfortunately, the "bandit camp" is a CR 4 encounter is "Part 3" of the adventure. My party didn't TPK on that fight, but it was a close thing! If you look at the Kingmaker forum, you'll see that a great many deaths occur at that point. What you're supposed to do is explore the map from the top down, working your way up in difficulty as you explore farther south.
I feel like this effect is particular to adventure paths rather than the kind of home games I'm more used to playing and running. In a campaign I'm writing for my players, the story will (to some extent) adapt to the players' actions. If they decide to go after bandits early and explore the wilderness later, I'll simply weaken the bandits and toughen the wilderness. The inability of an adventure path to make that adaptation is bound to make for some rough encounters.
In my experience, the difficulty varies wildly from AP to AP and from adventure to adventure. Real "killer" encounters are fairly rare, but are certainly not unheard of (see the deadliest AP encounters thread for examples).
I don't really think they are very hard. I'm dm'ing rise of the rune lords right now, and the party is almost to the end of book 1, and so far no real problems for them, and I play the book very strictly. Maybe it's just the paranoia of one the players, but they end up seeing a lot of things coming. 4 players, all stats rolled (4d6, drop lowest), they are a ninja, a zen archer, a paladin, and a bard. Nothing even close to a tpk yet, but maybe the next book is harder.How did they handle Thistletop? Did you let them back off, rest and come in again?
It seems that the AP's are only easy if you know what is comming.
(skull & shackles) swarms in book 1.
Creative Director
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If you proceed through an AP in the order expected by the writers, you'll generally have the resources needed to meet any particular threat. You'll get that scroll, key, password, wand, treasure, potion, or clue before the encounter you need it for. Otherwise you're going to have a rough time. Unfortunately, that order is not always obvious, and is sometimes quite counter-intuitive.
** spoiler omitted **
I feel like this effect is particular to adventure paths rather than the kind of home games I'm more used to playing and running. In a campaign I'm writing for my players, the story will (to some extent) adapt to the players' actions. If they decide to go after bandits early and explore the wilderness later, I'll simply weaken the bandits and toughen the wilderness. The inability of an adventure path to make that adaptation is bound to make for some rough encounters.
In fact, in Kingmaker, we deliberately built the adventure to be a sandbox. And part of the element of the sandbox style of play is that you CAN stumble into something that's too tough for you; sandboxes are a bit more dangerous in that regard, and that's an element that fans of sandboxes generally like. You COULD go straight to the next implied encounter, but you'll do much better if you take your time and explore and build up your strengths and resources before you do so.
As a player: yet to be challenged in book 4 of Jade Regent or any of the Pathfinder Society Scenarios.
As a GM: Running Kingmaker, have to regularly make things much more difficult in order to keep things interesting. Wrapping up books 2 no PC deaths as of yet, closest was end of book 1.
I like the APs but they aren't exactly tough for my group of veteran players. Most of us have been playing 15yrs or more the rookie 6 years.
Only bad experience with Kingmaker, besides ADD players and GM (my self) was our tank (the healer focus cleric) getting maxed crit by a Kobold with a spear. Dropped her, not killed though, and the player to this day asks if there are kobolds, if not she is fine at starting at level one. Which was what she asked when I asked her about Rise of the Runelords, said nope, crap ton of goblins though (she is thinking about playing a ranger).
Have only played in one AP (Jade Regent) and am DMing one other (Kingmaker). In Kingmaker, they've only lost one character, but they've been beaten up fairly well here and there. In Jade Regent, we did fairly well until book four, then lost half the party.
Have only played in one AP (Jade Regent) and am DMing one other (Kingmaker). In Kingmaker, they've only lost one character, but they've been beaten up fairly well here and there. In Jade Regent, we did fairly well until book four, then lost half the party.
We should hang out :p
I think the Dungeon Mag AP were tougher. Lost someone in Age of Worms (just before it folded) at the half way point.
Had my first death DMing Savage tide in TOD (9th lv)
Playing in Kingmaker just finished the 2nd book and the most dangerous things have been wandering monsters and Serpants Skull only in 2nd book hasn't dangerous.
Don't get me wrong we have all fallen over etc but nothing has looked like TPK us. We have bee playing since the 70s, so are at least experienced, if not expert, but not much into optimising
Honestly, I've been GMing Rise of the Runelords for over 18 months, and, if anything, I've been having to increase the toughness of the encounters. My party regularly steamrolls encounters. The party is currently 10th level. In fact, we had the very first PC death in last night's session-- and that was in a completely homebrewed encounter. (Assassins sneaked into the PCs' rooms in the middile of the night, and attempted to coup de grace them. One succeeded.)
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I find that if your group just runs in head first into all combats, you'll find APs to be much harder. With my fighter, I like to take a cautious approach, with Perception and Knowledge rolls to identify creatures and traps.
Then again, I'm also the only person amongst my younger friends that isn't afraid to fight without armor, so maybe I am crazy.
How did they handle Thistletop? Did you let them back off, rest and come in again?
I remember running this a while ago, and we had a uniquely appropriate party for it: a Polearm fighter, a cleric, a rogue/bard (myself), and an Enchanter.
I had a high enough stealth and climb to get the gate open with the goblins none the wiser. The fighter handled the hordes of goblins with his combat reflexes + lunge, and when we got the to sub-boss . . . the Enchanter charmed him and used his charisma to talk him into staging a coup against the ACTUAL boss.
We completed the whole place in 1 run, and the sub-boss died in the coup attempt.
The APs in my experience are easy if you play smart and use all your tools.
I would add a lowlevel encounter with an archer BBEG who can make enemies flatfooted with some magic item while swarming the party with his goons.
By that any dex based PC is an easy kill.
We're playing in Carrion Crown right now. Of note is we have 6 players and we use 25-point buy.
So far this AP has been challenging but not deadly. The DM has made some modifications to allow for 6 PCs, but we haven't had any deaths yet and we're in book 3. I haven't played or run any other APs so can't comment about others.
Oh, I do recall the single toughest fight we had, and it wasn't even a BBEG. It wasn't even, technically, a monster written into the module . . .
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I died from that archer! We explored more thaion book 1 so we arrived at the archer's place at level 4. Took one hit early but was still over 75% full so I did not feel the need to stop and take a potion. What I feel really did me in was not just the x3 crit with sneak attack but supposedly some ranger favored enermy bonus and deadly aim. All that was enough to take me from over 75% to -14 in one hit. "The Stain Master" became his own greatest stain!. What really messed me up was that we could not figure an easy way past the 15 foot war. So I wore a chain shirt pajama instead of the full plate I bought for fear of not making the climb check. We were told it was a DC 10 climb but none of us realized it should be a DC 0 thanks to knotted rope and a grappling hook. Of course he confirmed his crit when I was wearing a chain shirt pajama.
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Aside from a few specific encounters (Players of the original RoTRL know what I am talking about...), I have not found them to be particularly deadly unless the party skips the recon and charges blindly forward. Or they don't have resonable precautions for the level
I don't remember all of the above, but of the ones I do.
- I ran the first encounter in the OP, and all I can say is who doesn't have a fly potion on them at that level? Particularly when you are approaching something that looks like that?
I don't recognize the rest, but I've found them to be fairly easy if the group is at all focused on the story elements (or the GM is doing a decent job of emphasising them)
I mean, if you are going into a haunted house, wouldn't you expect incorporeal to be enough of a possibilty to prepare for it?
Versatility is the way to go in party buidling.
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Also, optimization is often narrow focusing. Meaning when you play an adventure path that tries to expose you to as wide variety of encounters as possible, if you aren't ready for everything you are gonna have a rough time.
Just because you can tear through the most common encounters doesn't mean you are ready for everything else that might come your way.
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I don't really think they are very hard. I'm dm'ing rise of the rune lords right now, and the party is almost to the end of book 1, and so far no real problems for them, and I play the book very strictly. Maybe it's just the paranoia of one the players, but they end up seeing a lot of things coming. 4 players, all stats rolled (4d6, drop lowest), they are a ninja, a zen archer, a paladin, and a bard. Nothing even close to a tpk yet, but maybe the next book is harder.How did they handle Thistletop? Did you let them back off, rest and come in again?
Mine did.
They cleared the top floor and then retreated to the other side of the bridge to set up a defensive camp, sleeping in watches. When they came back the next day, I moved some of the downstairs upstairs (Orik and the Bugbear) to re-secure the place, but I kind of felt like with PCs holding and guarding the bridge all night, and clearing the goblins, there wasn't much additional reinforcement coming.
They had to retake the fort (Orik and the Bugbear re-locking the gate and arrowing them as they crossed the bridge) but after that they were able to clear through to Nualia, with the only real problem being the Yeth hounds.
It was challeging, and if they played it dumb it could have been deadly, but my players (and myself when I play) are very paranoid.
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We're playing in Carrion Crown right now. Of note is we have 6 players and we use 25-point buy.
** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **
So far this AP has been challenging but not deadly. The DM has made some modifications to allow for 6 PCs, but we haven't had any deaths yet and we're in book 3. I haven't played or run any other APs so can't comment about others.
Ok, now I remember all of these encounters.
I already commented on fly potions for the bridge.
The Construct was tough, but it was also basically the final boss of the book. It was supposed to be tough. And if you did well in the first part of the adventure you have the beast as the ultimate tank. You've been dealing with constructs the whole time, you are going to the place where the guy who made and controlled the beast lives, how can you not be ready for a construct battle if you have been paying any attention at all? You had time in a major city prior to this encounter to prep.
The phase spider wasn't even a speed bump. It was a nova encounter for one thing, and at the end of the day it has a 17 AC and 51 hit points.
As the other person said, stay together and you'll be fine. Readied actions are your friend.
I think it could be the GM or the party, rather than the AP.
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** spoiler omitted **
How did they handle Thistletop? Did you let them back off, rest and come in again?Mine did.
** spoiler omitted **
It was challeging, and if they played it dumb it could have been deadly, but my players (and myself when I play) are very paranoid.
They had cleared the thicket, Gogmurt was annoying but they were able to get past him without too much of a problem. They camped in the thicket with a rotating guard watching the fort planning to cut the bridge if needed.
Orik and the rest didn't know where the party retreated to, they just knew they went across the bridge into the thicket. And frankly, short of just releasing the Yeth hounds to chase the party, it wasn't like they were an overwhelming force. Remember the Tantamort, hermit crabs, shadow, etc..weren't under their control. If I remember correctly, with the thistle and top cleared, It was Orik, the Bugbear, Lyrie, Nualia (who was busy) the yeth hounds and the brothel.
The party was a Ranger with favored enemy goblins, two sorcerers (one going into dragon disciple) and a Barbarian/Cleric with the feat from the original World Guide that made him Full BaB (which I no longer allow, but at the time...). They may have also recruited the Elven Ranger, but I can't remember.
They actually weren't completely spent, they just knew they were getting low on heals and spells and didn't want to push their luck. If the baddies tried to come across the bridge in pursuit, it would have been better for the party with the bottle neck.
They didn't want to go all the way back to town, and they felt like the thickets with the bridge were pretty defensible (the cleric had create water at will, and the thickets seems resistent to fire after the druid encounter)
Seemed reasonable to me.
Personally, I like the balance, though there are times when there can be a series of very easy encounters followed by a really tough one that will throw the group for a loop. And by loop, I mean near TPK. Legacy of Fire did this, and Serpent’s Skull appears to be like this so far.
I’m playing through, Council of Thieves. I don’t get to play very much, and in this case I’m playing four characters, so I’m missing out on the benefit of group collaboration, but so far . . .
• The one time I decide to have a PC scout, I run into the shadowy triceratops. That killed my dwarven bard.
• A malfunctioning artifact blinded the whole party, and then I find out that more vampires are coming behind me. That should have killed everyone, but the DM was willing to let me be a little creative in removing the blindness effect.
Granted in almost every situation, I could have planned better, used a better strategy, or even been more cautious. The curse situation annoyed me the most, but in the end, I like an adventure that is deadly and interesting.
The Shackled City on the other hand was close to not being fun. I played that several years ago, and it just got tiresome getting your behind handed to you in most encounters. That campaign ended in a TPK at 13th, and we decided to leave them rest in peace.
Well, for many a year I was on the side of "AP's are too easy" crowd, but just during the last months I've seen how two groups I was GM'ing for had very different experiences while going through module two of Jade Regent.
The first group, six players, 20 point buy, well optimized characters, were slaughtering everything in their path, even while I was enhancing their encounters with higher CR opponents and such.
The other group, four players, 15 point buy, not optimized characters, were struggling heavily with the standard encounters from the book.
As such I'd say it highly depends on party composition, point-buy and PC numbers. Which should be obvious, but one can only really appreciate it when witnessing the different playthroughs.
I'll agree with RD that certain encounters in AP's are much, much harder than even the "normal" boss encounters, normally when the writer is putting in unusual environments, where the PCs have to struggle to deal with that variable in addition to the normal encounter factors. That Golem RD was talking about turned out to be no problem, though, when the Gunslinger in the party just ripped it apart in two rounds.
One thing I still hope to see less off are time-filler encounters, with opponents who can't even hit well-player player characters. I know that some of those can be a nice morale boost to players, but especially in higher level modules, where there is a "quota" of encounters to level, a lot of writers seem to include those only to fill up the party XP bar, not taking in mind that running those encounters can easily eat up several hours per encounter. I'd personally prefer more roleplaying XP ( i.e. more written-out roleplaying encounters ) to get the PCs to the desired level.
-A phase spider separating the party in a marsh with extremely difficult terrain when the PCs are level 4
Our cleric of Cayden Cailean nearly one-shoted this encounter, but he was enlarged and used his Travel domain power to ignore the difficult terrain. He also rolled a natural 20 with a x3 two-handed weapon (lucerne hammer). Otherwise, I have to admit that this encounter could have turned ugly for us, since the only PC with antitoxins remained behind (it was my stupid character idea that someone had to remain behind to guard the wagon we use to travel). :)