My Kingmaker campaign is coming to a close next week after about two years, and I've been trying fo find new adventures to play next. Of the available alternatives, my players more or less seem to favor Reign of Winter, but I'm not really happy with the way it has turned out so far. The adventures are solid, but they don't really get me as excited to run them as others have—maybe it is the "grim fairy tale" flavor that's not doing anything for me. Besides, after a disappointing and ultimately aborted run with Serpent's Skull (for another group), an AP that didn't really turn out as promised, I feel hesitant to start another AP before it is fully published. Wrath of Righteous suffers from the same issue, and is too far off. Another AP that seems to find support among my players is Shattered Star, but I'd rather save that for my other group which has played through Rise of the Runelords and is currently playing Curse of the Crimson throne, and I'm not sure I want to play the same AP with two groups, especially if that's bound to be concurrent. Personally I'd like Skull & Shackles but this brings along some extra rules and management issues that are similar to what Kingmaker has, which we are just finishing, and some of the players are hesitant to have to use subsystems like fleet management and battles again so soon. One player has even stated outright that he is not at all interested in playing this AP. Earlier APs are out, as one of my players is a GM himself and has read all of these APs and even run some of them.
So, I'm a bit at a loss what to bring up. Maybe not even an Adventure Path for now, but I don't know what would be a good chain of adventures to use.
So I'd be thankful for any advice.
when we finished KM we started SeSk and JR.
Because all 3 are quite random encounter/wilderness it sort of spoil some of it for me. I was very 'jaded' with the sandboxyness
There are also all filled with mini games, which again didnt fully click after facing so many of them
Id go ShSt or CC
The extra rules and management stuff you're talking about in Skull and Shackles are nowhere near as complicated as Kingmaker. Like all of these extra systems that are added into APs, you can easily just not use them and play around them anyway. After running Kingmaker for my group, I quickly realised that all the management stuff just doesn't suit their playstyle, and I will be completely avoiding that sort of thing with Skull and Shackles. I've read through all six books, and as far as I can see, it should be extremely easy to do so.
Besides, pirates are cool.
Who doesn't like pirates?
Nobody, that's who.
If you have access to the dungeon magazines, I think that Savage Tide is probably the AP that I still think is the best one to date. Carrion Crown and Jade Regent seem to be your only other pathfinder AP options besides Skull and Shackles based on your post.
Alternatively you could do something like the Kobold King trilogy or the trilogy that starts with Crypt of the Everflame.
There's plenty of stuff for pathfinder that is not done by Paizo that is good as well. If your group is into old school dungeon crawl type stuff then Frog God Games has some good material like the Slumber Tsar campaign or Rappan Athuk, which are available fully converted to pathfinder.
You might also consider a conversion of James Jacobs' 3.5 adventure, "Red Hand of Doom", which is really a mini campaign or perhaps Monte Cook's "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil." Expedition to Castle Greyhawk and Expedition to Castle Ravenloft are other 3.5 adventures that could be converted to pathfinder fairly easily and look good (though I don't like the encounter format of those adventures).
So shoot me, because I'm offering an alternative to a Paizo AP.
Rite Publishing offers Curse of the Golden Spear trilogy (link points to first module only) which occurs in the Kaidan setting of Japanese horror. Somewhat like Jade Regent, it involves a party of 'western' adventurers visiting the exotic far east. Unlike Jade Regent, the modules aren't about getting there, rather the first one begins after having arrived by ship.
It's a trilogy covering levels 5th, 6th and 7th, designed for a party of 4 adventurers. This is a creepy, dark horror oriental world. It may or may not be for you, but being only 3 modules offering a shorter AP, it might be worth the look.
According to all the reviews, all 3 adventure modules are 5 star rated - nothing less than 5 stars by any of the reviewers, which is worth noting I think.
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I have also been having some trouble selecting an AP for my group. But I believe we have finally settled on playing Way of the Wicked. It is an evil themed AP and looks very cool. Also, the reviews here on the Paizo boards have been excellent.
http://paizo.com/products/btpy8q8e/discuss?Way-of-the-Wicked-Book-One-Knot- of-Thorns
Zenlike,
Greetings! My name is Gary McBride and I wrote "Way of the Wicked". Glad to hear you've decided to run the campaign.
If you have any questions about the game, I'd be delighted to answer them as time permits.
I'd also urge to post brief descriptions of your sessions. I love to read records of actual play.
But regardless, thanks for choosing "Way of the Wicked" and I hope you and your friends have a great campaign.
Have fun being the bad guy.
Gary McBride
We're kickstarting our next adventure path "Throne of Night" right now!
I'm playing Way of the Wicked with my third group actually. We've been having a lot of fun so far, so I can fully recommend it as well.
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Zenlike,
Greetings! My name is Gary McBride and I wrote "Way of the Wicked". Glad to hear you've decided to run the campaign.
If you have any questions about the game, I'd be delighted to answer them as time permits.
I'd also urge to post brief descriptions of your sessions. I love to read records of actual play.
But regardless, thanks for choosing "Way of the Wicked" and I hope you and your friends have a great campaign.
Have fun being the bad guy.
Gary McBride
We're kickstarting our next adventure path "Throne of Night" right now!
Thank you! I've been following some of the threads involving Way of the Wicked. I'll make sure to post some play reports once things get into full swing.
Warrant,
Thanks for the kind words! I'm glad you're enjoying "Way of the Wicked" and if you do run, I'd love to hear about your game.
Gary McBride
Fire Mountain Games
Jade Regent probably is a good bet, although it has the caravan rules whose combat side just sucks as written and needs to be changed in some way (and that is not an personal statement, the developers admitted that they hadn't playtested them AT ALL and that they simply don't work as intended).
The AP forces you to do some additional leg-work to flesh out the main NPCs, as the writers did about nothing aside from the first module to help you out in that regard. But having them all the way with the party helps really a lot to build a cohesive story with people the players care about.
Chuck the relationship sub-system, too, there's way too many GM's who have complained that their player min-maxed the hell out of it and that the actual character interactions suffered because of that.
I've run Carrion Crown to completion and it is a pretty decent AP. You can read my review here. It's full of spoilers, of course.
I haven't run Skulls & Shackles, but I wasn't a fan at all about the ship combat system, simply on the merits that a.) most new AP sub-systems from Paizo so far were written with design flaws which made adjusting them a necessity. Moreover, the sub-systems encourage that one or two players ( normally the most numbers savvy ones ) do all the work while the others sit around and wait that they can do stuff again.
I'd recommend Shattered Star, but I completely understand that you want to wait for the other group to run it... I basically plan the same for one of my two groups.
All in all, I'd probably recommend Jade Regent or homebrewing it.
Unfortunately all the APs previous to Skull & Shackles are out, because, as mentioned in my original post, one of my players is a GM himself and has read them.
Jade Regent in particular has various reasons against it: the aforementioned player is himself running it as a GM, I am a player in yet another campaign of that AP, and, personally, as a GM the Tian-Xia stuff doesn't really appeal to me.
Carrion Crown suffers from similar reasons, the player has read it, and I am not at all interested in running a gothic-horror-by-the-numbers campaign. That was a dry 12-month stretch of AP volumes for me that I wasn't really even interested in reading.
I have already run the Dungeon APs, so those aren't an option either.
It would require a bit of work on your end, but you could always hunt down an old "Night Below" boxed set for AD&D and convert it to Pathfinder. It was a great campaign that I very much enjoyed running (but one of my players had been in it so in the end I chose to go with Reign of Winter instead when that came out). You'd have to find replacements for the Illithid and Kuo-Tuan, but that's not TOO difficult.
Unfortunately all the APs previous to Skull & Shackles are out, because, as mentioned in my original post, one of my players is a GM himself and has read them.
Then aside from that AP, it really only leaves you with 3PP APs, as the aforementioned Way of the Wicked.
Jade Regent in particular has various reasons against it: the aforementioned player is himself running it as a GM, I am a player in yet another campaign of that AP, and, personally, as a GM the Tian-Xia stuff doesn't really appeal to me.
I really think the Kaidan setting of Japanese horror AP (The Curse of the Golden Spear trilogy), to be a great short campaign run, except that it's definitely in the realm of oriental setting gaming, which for some reason doesn't fit your idea of fun. However, it's also very much a horror setting, so in a way it's kind of cross between Tian Xia and Ustalav (Carrion Crown).
Have you considered Razor Coast - a kind of Polynesian Skull and Shackles with better ship rules?
I don't know all the 3PP APs, but it looks like that's what you're going to need - it's just a matter of which one(s).
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What you might want to consider is doing a short, 3 moth campaign, then looking to see if Reign of Winter as a complete campaign works for you?
Either you can pick something up, or potentially ask one of your players to run sometihng if one of them is interested? The GM who I play APs with will do that, one of our players did a short Werewolf game between RotRL & Second Darkness, and Mask of Nyarlathotep between that and our present Serpent's Skull game.
Unfortunately all the APs previous to Skull & Shackles are out, because, as mentioned in my original post, one of my players is a GM himself and has read them.
Jade Regent in particular has various reasons against it: the aforementioned player is himself running it as a GM, I am a player in yet another campaign of that AP, and, personally, as a GM the Tian-Xia stuff doesn't really appeal to me.
Carrion Crown suffers from similar reasons, the player has read it, and I am not at all interested in running a gothic-horror-by-the-numbers campaign. That was a dry 12-month stretch of AP volumes for me that I wasn't really even interested in reading.
I have already run the Dungeon APs, so those aren't an option either.
Maybe Serpent's Skull? You mentioned you'd tried that with a different group (and ran it as it was coming out by the sounds). Now you've had a 'dry run' and know how it all pans out, perhaps you'd be able to mold that into something they'd like? (I'm generally very Euro-centric in my fantasy, but am very much enjoying the change of pace/style. The sandbox nature of Smuggler's Shiv and Saventh-Yhi being a feature rather than a failing, as it turns out).
I actually really liked the start of the Serpent's Skull campaign, but not so much the way the whole campaign turned out later. And I think it really falls apart in City of Seven Spears. That adventure as basically unusable as written and I didn't feel motivated enough to rewrite it into something that is more than just seemingly random encounters in nondescript environments and "to conquer this district you have to kill 200 its denizens" (felt more like Risk than an RPG). So no, I'm not going to run that again.
I still have hope that we can actually play Skull & Shackles. Three of the players are now favoring it, one hasn't really spoken up, only the fifth player was still holding out against it, but maybe he'll still relent. :)
Anyway, thanks for all the good idea so far!