| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Each AP I've run has gotten a massive overhaul, some more than others. The least modified was probably Curse of the Crimson Throne, which was pretty close to being run out-of-the-box. The most was Council of Thieves, in which I replaced more than half of the first module, added multiple recurring NPC allies and enemies and dramatically changed how the McGuffin worked.
For all adventures I run, AP or not, I spend some time tweaking statistics. My games are run with rolled stats and pretty experienced players, so I like to spice things up by optimizing monster feats, spell selections and so forth.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I mostly add extra NPCs, put more emphasis on stuff that captures the players' fancy, and omit optional chunks. With Curse of the Crimson Throne so far the PCs have avoided about 1/4 of the potential encounters. I find 'unused potential' is a very useful technique for creating the feel of a living world, especially when NPCs do some of the stuff PCs didn't, or the monsters survive and stick around for later. With Rise of the Runelords it's mostly been about moving NPCs around so they're not encountered in their written 'default' locations; this makes the setting seem more dynamic.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Just had a long chat with a member of one of my gaming groups about this. We have to personalize and tailor the crap out of the APs. Some consider this a fault but we dont mind because it makes the story a little bit ours. However, another memeber of the same group has sworn off the APs and PF/D&D as a GM because he can not run them page for page and has no desire to tailor or personalize.
As for personal experience I ran CC fairly close to the books. I made pretty small changes here and there to persoanlize. However, I didnt care for book 5 and compeletely re-wrote that book. It was a big undertaking but worked out really well at the table. I am looking at running Mummy mask in about 6-12 months from now and will probably persoanlize that one quite a bit from what I have read so far.
To tailor/persoanlize or not is up to the individual and/or groups. Some folks feel if they are buying the product it better work page for page. Others like myself see them more as a set of stat blocks and a story outline. There is no right way to do it. As long as it works and you have fun that is all that matters.
I tend to change things to reflect the party...sometimes a little...sometimes a lot.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I usually have a large group, so I tweak the encounters in spots to make it a challenge, not all of them, but enough to provide a fun battle. I usually keep the enemy NPCs just as they are, but beef up the encounter with appropriate numbers to make the fight an appropriate challenge for their APL. I use a lot of resources for this, but one that is surprisingly good is File the Serial Numbers Off. Your PC will marvel at the unpredictable nature of you"NPCs".
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I mostly change / add NPCs to bring the action closer to the PCs. Some of this is done when I first laked to my players about their characters background, befor finalizing it (RotRL examples: The dandpoint sage became a dwarf and a past tutor of a dwarven cleric/sage, two varisian cousins that spend a good chunk of their childhood in Sandpoint were friends with the Vinder Girls, Shalelu appears in the background of a half-elven character), some of the work is done during play (players show more interest in aan unimportant npc then in an important one they might switch places, etc).
Sometimes I add / change quests to forward a PCs personal development.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I tweak mechanics a bit, and orchestrate things so the PCs wind up interacting with NPCs a bit more than they might otherwise, since the NPCs tend to be very good and interesting in most APs, but I don't meaningfully change the plot, though the PCs could if they wanted to, I suppose.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I am invariably tempted to change a lot out of each game I run. Between the fact that my group has our own homebrew setting and races, alterations I make to suit the plot and interactions to the group, and other tweaks I ended up making for one reason or another, the Kingmaker game I'm currently running had taken on several completely different turns from the original books, with only the barest skeleton of the plot still resembling the original.
I imagine the same will happen for pretty much all future APs I run.
i change very little other then treasure composition
I tweak encounters to be more effective against my party. Every party is a little different, so it's necessary to adjust enemies to be more fitting.
I tweak encounters to be more effective against my party. Every party is a little different, so it's necessary to adjust enemies to be more fitting.
i play with kids and my wife who is a beginner, also i started a 17+ year break from DnD when it was 1st edition then got back in on the tail end of 3.5 edition, and tried 4th edition before i discovered Pathfinder.
so i don't need to tweak much as we aren't tactically inclined:)| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
A good bit, actually, as the situation demands and the opportunities arise. The great thing (for me, at least) about AP's is that I can take all of the free time I might have spent developing the campaign and instead spend it on tweaks to customize and personalize encounters and NPC's.
Here's an example of the kind of rework/additions I've done in an AP...
Added a side adventure to Bag Island where the PC's helped Rosie's cousin (twice removed on her mother's side) overthrow the corrupt leadership of that island.
Added a side adventure involving the Master of Gales and the Cult of the Eye who, secretly funded by Chelliax, were manipulating him into dispelling the Eye of Abendengo.
Switched out most of the events in books five with book six, specifically, having the PC's oust Bonefist before supporting Fairwind's bid for the hurricane crown so that she could rally the free captains against the invading Chellish fleet.
I made similar types of changes to Rise of the Runelords and Wrath of the Righteous, the only other AP's I've run.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Gonna be running Carrion Crown for a group of beginners to Pathfinder (one player has played Pathfinder), but they have experience with 3.5 edition, though they thankfully don't seem to be eeking out as much power as they can.
So far, I haven't changed much (second attempt at an AP after DMing one last summer where I realized a player read the module and was looking at a map of Kingmaker, which made me end it there), but we haven't started playing yet. First game is tonight, and it will be my first time DMing since about 2003 (I don't count that Kingmaker game). Only thing I have changed so far is the HP amounts. I don't do the average thing for creatures. I roll each creature's hp, and use that for their total (max hp for 1st level PC class, then roll each additional HD, taking the roll if it is higher than the average).
We will see how it goes, and I will adjust things if needed.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I usually re-tool a few things here and there for the party. When I ran Runelords, I had to beef up most melee encounters due to our extremely optimized barbarian. Healing up wasn't usually a problem with our cleric of Sarenrae that was extremely optimized as a heal-bot. At the same time, the PCs were very weak at range: the wizard was a universalist item crafter, and the party skill-monkey was a multiclassed ranger/rogue who didn't really excel at either combat or disarming traps.
I swapped out a few encounters here and there for better-fitting encounters from other adventures. (I stole a lot from Shattered Star.) I re-tooled some villains (e.g. changed the BBEG from Book 2 to a human vampire), added extra content (mostly re-tooled PFS scenarios), and generally tried to fit in the PCs' backstories into the plot whenever I could. I even added a recurring villain-- a former PC whose player moved out of town and became a minion of the BBEG of the AP.
When the PCs took a shine to a throwaway NPC, I beefed up that character's presence-- or even swapped out that NPC for one from the module.
I very much changed up the loot, making sure that the PCs would get at least some items from their wish-lists.
So, yeah, you really do need to personalize an AP in my opinion for the best player experience.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Running Council of Thieves, I have made a lot of changes. I would say roughly 40-50% of what is going on is homebrew with the AP as the skeleton. I have added multiple subplots, enhanced NPCs, added recurring villains/themes. I have mostly kept the original enemies and encounters and basic plot though.
My Rise of the Runelords campaign was also fairly customized, using a lot of community created content to help. Unfortunately, half of the players moved away, and the campaign fell apart.
I think you really need to do a lot of customization for the AP for them to be truly great campaigns. They give a great skeleton, with good basic plots and encounters, but if you don't take the time to tailor them to your group and make them your own, I think they fall kind of flat. I am in a Skull and Shackles campaign where the DM has not really done much customization beyond tweaking difficulty, and the experience overall has ended up being pretty bland and not terribly fun (in no small part because all of the players have characters that are reactive/not-very-piratey).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yes, I alter the APs. There are a couple of reasons for that.
First, my tabletop group were in a pre-existing campaign and had reached levels 3-4 before I decided to put them through Reign of Winter. Thus I've modified the game for four players and two NPCs (one of which will likely become a cohort). I also decided to add the Mythic Rules, which has also forced further modifications of the AP.
My second group which games over Skype started Runelords at level 2, so I modified stuff with Advanced Templates and extra numbers. I've recently added Mythic to that game as well (but the Mythic will advance much slower than the RoW game).
Second, I allowed rolled stats. The Skype group has very high stats (I upped the stats for players who rolled poorly as otherwise they'd have died off). I've since figured out the point-buy to reach parity (+2 per stat for the RoW game, +3 for each stat for the Skype game) so monsters will be more evenly balanced as a result.
I modified Mythic.
First, only +1 boost to stats at the 2nd Tier (and other even Tiers)
Second, I'm nerfing several Mythic Feats, like Mythic Power Attack.
Third, I overhauled the Critical Hit system; currently it does full damage without needing to confirm for a x2 crit, but I'm thinking of altering it instead so it works like non-Mythic Vital Strike - you only get extra weapon dice if you confirm a critical.
Fourth, it takes five Mythic Points to get a Standard Action at the 3rd Tier.
Small note: Mythic Endure Elements is nearly broken. Nearly, because it doesn't let you look through fog, so the players can't use fog cloud or obscuring mist as ambush tools.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Mostly I modify treasure (tailoring it to the PCs) and alter bad guys/encounters.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I run a group of 6 (4 of whom all have at least 10 years or more of gaming experience), and therefore have no choice but to modify things like encounters and treasure to make sure I'm challenging them and rewarding them appropriately.
I always set out to run things "as-written" plotwise, but with the knowledge that my players will force me to adapt at a moment's notice, which I am more than fine with. They tend to do things... creatively... which keeps me on my toes. I really need to be familiar with the books, and be willing to improvise quite often, which ultimately leads to lots of unplanned personalization.
I'm currently running them through Way of the Wicked, and due to one of my experienced player's background and actions in book 1, there is now a significant subplot that is carrying through that has absolutely nothing to do with the books themselves, but my group is equally riveted by it. The fact that they main campaign is still on track allows me to utilize my free prep time to add more and more substance and depth to things like that.
The way I figure it, there is only one reason NOT to personalize an AP: because you lack time. And even then it's iffy. ;)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
i was able to turn carrion crown into a harry potter fan fest with very little effort. The irony being im not a big fan of harry potter (my daughter and friends however are)
Presently, I find myself running Rise of the Runelords, with Skull and Shackles bad guys, while foreshadowing a homebrew Underdark/Ilvarandin campaign.
So... A lot.
I modified Mythic.
First, only +1 boost to stats at the 2nd Tier (and other even Tiers)
Second, I'm nerfing several Mythic Feats, like Mythic Power Attack.
Third, I overhauled the Critical Hit system; currently it does full damage without needing to confirm for a x2 crit, but I'm thinking of altering it instead so it works like non-Mythic Vital Strike - you only get extra weapon dice if you confirm a critical.
Fourth, it takes five Mythic Points to get a Standard Action at the 3rd Tier.
Small note: Mythic Endure Elements is nearly broken. Nearly, because it doesn't let you look through fog, so the players can't use fog cloud or obscuring mist as ambush tools.
Are you doing this for a Wrath of the Righteous campaign? It sounds nice, if it works.
I personalize a lot...
And by that i mean i never run a pre-made adventure path.
Are you doing this for a Wrath of the Righteous campaign? It sounds nice, if it works.I modified Mythic.
First, only +1 boost to stats at the 2nd Tier (and other even Tiers)
Second, I'm nerfing several Mythic Feats, like Mythic Power Attack.
Third, I overhauled the Critical Hit system; currently it does full damage without needing to confirm for a x2 crit, but I'm thinking of altering it instead so it works like non-Mythic Vital Strike - you only get extra weapon dice if you confirm a critical.
Fourth, it takes five Mythic Points to get a Standard Action at the 3rd Tier.
Small note: Mythic Endure Elements is nearly broken. Nearly, because it doesn't let you look through fog, so the players can't use fog cloud or obscuring mist as ambush tools.
Actually, no. While I'd like to run WotR, my two groups (one a Skype group, the second half tabletop, half Skype) are not even halfway through their two different APs (Runelords and Reign of Winter), which I've chosen to add Mythic to.
That said, I've been watching to WotR boards and noting the multiple problems people have had with it. I've put thought into what could reduce these problems and lessening the "rocket-tag" aspect of the game.
Two of the big problems seem to be the Swift Spellcasting (when you consider the Feat requires +4 spell levels to be a Swift spell, allowing a Swift Spell for one Mythic point is definitely broken) and massive amounts of damage caused by critical hits. The latter requires a significant reworking of critical hits, thus my idea on Vital Strike-style criticals.
And I think any element of Mythic that replicates Hero Points on the cheap should become more expensive.
Skull & Shackles i've added a lot onto because i want to milk it:)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Most APs, I run more or less as is, except for adjusting for party size and composition. I change some encounters to make them more dramatic or interesting, the same as NPCs.
The more sandboxy the AP, the more I switch things up, the worst bring Kingmaker. I just didn't like the side quests in Kingmaker at all. Many of the quests didn't make sense to me on so many levels (like the amount of reward given for returning some ingredient or item that some NPC was interested in, or being some glorified messenger), so I make side quests more appropriate for a party of heroes and rulers, which meant nearly changing all the side quests.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I probably fall in the middle. I generally customize and add to the AP to meet player expectations and work their backgrounds into the overall story. I also add a lot of my own ideas, NPC etc, steal from other GM on this site etc. I have omitted encounters and story elements that didn't fit for my group.
I think personalizing is the most important job any GM can do when preparing and running an AP. You also need to adjust as the campaign moves forward. If PC's become attached to a particular NPC that's not fleshed out in the source material then build on it. An escaped minor bad guy with a two line paragraph that escapes your PC's can become a memorable bad guy. That caved in tunnel on the AP Map can be yours to expand for some wicked cool idea that's been floating around in your head.
Personalization is what makes AP's more fun for everyone!! And allows DM's to let their personal creative juices flow!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Customize to make the pcs, not the npcs, the centre of the adventure
Tweak items to match players stuff
Change encounters if the AP over uses one monster too much
Change all goblin encounters as PF goblins make me cringe!
how would you like your goblins? The flappy footed cannon fodder they were before! Im just curious is all:)
Drawn differently
Non comic
Leave humanoids with ridiculous anatomy to GW!!
Bit OT now
alas i dont know what GW or OT stand for
Games workshop
off topic
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I tend to make changes to accommodate my players and to flavor to my group's tastes.
However, my desire to add customize and add-to an AP is always tempered by my desire to play through the mater ial in a reasonable amount of time.
-Skeld
This sums myself up as well. I customize based on player backgrounds/subplots and group directional interests.
Example1:In Savage Tide, the group wanted more Olman stuff on the Isle of Dread, they got it.
Example2:In Kingmaker, they wanted a more involved Kingdom Building subset with greater involvement. I overhauled the City/Hex system, and expanded how Kingdom Events worked as well as adding a colorful list of NPCs for interaction, cohort/kingdom role recruitment, and political intrigue.
Skull & Shackles i've added a lot onto because i want to milk it:)
Eh, I found S&S to be rather skim and runny.
Jade Regent's milk, on the other hand is creamy and sweet, perfect for cereal.
Skull & Shackles i've added a lot onto because i want to milk it:)Eh, I found S&S to be rather skim and runny.
Jade Regent's milk, on the other hand is creamy and sweet, perfect for cereal.
I love them both equally:)
Jade regent because i like to travel by car (i've driven across the US 5 times)Skull & Shackles because i've always loved Pirates, Outcasts, Rogues and the Anti-Hero
they are both quite different but equally good and both scratch an itch i've had for role-playing campaigns going on 29 years:)
I change certain parts of the story and certain NPC's in various ways, but I don't normally change the story to fit the party unless it is to lower or raise the CR of battles.
As an example of nobody picks up ranged weapons they are just going to be in trouble versus fliers.
I'm running my players through Rise of Runelords and I'm doing huge over hauls. This is the first AP I've GMed and as a whole I'm pretty disappointed by how "straight forward" the AP runs. While I don't have that much GMing to this point (about a year and a bit), I've been playing pathfinder for a while or watching youtube games and have certain expectations of what a good adventure should have.
*Most of the puzzles can be decided by rolls of a dice
I rebuild puzzles all the time, so they can only be solved outside the dice. Players need to use ingenuity, maths, physics, real world knowledge or other skills to solve puzzles. This gives players more to think about and is great for people who are capable of thinking outside the square.
*Nearly all the encounters can be won by just hitting the enemy, without tactics
My players are at level 6 pretty much all the fights to this point won by hitting them in the face. A complete lack of tactics should not be ingrained into players. So I've been adding things like concealment, difficult terrain, encounter changing spells (invisibility, entangle, obscuring mist, fly) and so on. Even at this point I feel my players are still under prepared due to the prep and planning they do.
*Too many empty and pointless rooms
I fail to see why there are so many room with nothing in them, after the first indoor location everyone quickly got tired of:
"we open this door, what do we see?"
"An empty storeroom"
*Severely under powered encounters
I completely removed one section because I couldn't see a story connection and generally combine or remove encounters.
A level 6 party has exactly 0 difficulty with defeating level 1 monsters even in large groups. Most of the time my players can kill enemies in a single hit due to the level disparity, while monsters need a ridiculous natural 19 or 20 to hit (this is even after max hp on monsters).
*Too many single enemy encounters
A complete failure to understand action economy, I have a classic ability to roll low on initiative and after several bosses were one rounded ~ sometimes without ever getting an action in, I started rebuilding boss encounters.
*Plot connection between books is too weak, story has lots of weak elements.
The biggest weak sauce exposition is "you find a letter with the next clue", even worse is the supposed twist that the bad guy you thought was in charge: wasn't, is a Hollywood trope that should be avoided at all costs. Feeding links and story in all the time is important.
*Treasure values as written are excessively high
My players have 20+AC with monsters and roughly +8 attack.
Monsters have 12AC to 18AC with +3 to +5 attack.
Bosses generally have 20AC and +10 to attack.
Most of my players can hit monsters on rolls of less than 8 and succeed while monsters need rolls of 18 and above to hurt them. My players are also able to one shot most enemies.
Bosses as a whole are actually weaker than my players. Further more for every one attack the boss gets to even swing, players are capable of returning twice as many back.
Right now I'm trying to scale back the party's treasure so future encounters can have a chance of actually offering a challenge but this is a classic example of power creep coming into play.
*As a whole the AP come across to me as too simple
A combination of the above factors but also a comparison between the Shattered Star AP I'm playing in and the Crimson Throne game I'm occasionally playing in.
|
|
I really enjoy amateur game design so fiddling with APs is a lot of fun for me. For example, in my Serpent's Skull game I created some subsystems and really am playing up the wilderness survival aspect. I told my players that their primary antagonist is the environment and it has worked out really well so far. The players have all really enjoyed the survival aspect of the game.
I have made alterations and subsystems that haven't worked so well but my players get that I fold, spindle, and mutilate the rules and they roll with it if one of my fiddly bits doesn't work. I usually correct or drop the bits that don't work.
There used to be a time, such as my Shackled City campaign, that ended up being about 50% original content including a complete, ground up redesign of city central to the setting. Now I look forward to the flaws in a given AP because it means I really get to dive in and get my hands dirty making my own content but having the skeleton of the AP to build from. I can't wait for the party to get off Smuggler's Shiv in my Friday game and delve into the Mwangi Expanse, that will require some fiddly fun. :D
I tend to...modify the living hell out things. The last time I had an Adventure Path I used elements from Legacy of Fire combined with parts from Purge the Unclean, a trio of Dark Heresy adventures, combined with my own homebrew story of a mechanical race that was attempting to build there own God and achieve sentience, and the player's interaction would determine whether this was a good thing or a bad thing.
So...not quite as standard?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I've run RotR and CotC with minor changes and modified just a bit to fit into my homebrew world. I ran Kingmaker and let the players run riot enough that the end result was that the adventure had more to do with four siblings trying to recover the soul of the fifth, who had made a rather poor deal with a demon for power.
But now, my Adventure Paths are pretty much unrecognizable from the originals. I mashed together Age of Worms and Carrion Crown, set them in 1992 and gave them a Mayan flavor. Now, I'm running Serpent's Skull as a modern conspiracy against reptilians while simultaneously running Legacy of Fire on the other side of a portal between worlds ( I will also be borrowing liberally from Mummy's Mask and I swear this time I'll fit the Sixfold Trial in).
I also run all mine using the Savage Worlds system, so I don't have to worry about XP or balance, and tend to do all the non-story and non-setting prep in about 15 minutes before the sessions begin. At this point, the Adventure Paths are pretty much there to provide a rough framework and give me something to fall back on when I run out of steam.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I haven't gotten around to running an AP yet. However, I've strung together all the Falcon's Hollow/Andoran stuff (Hollow's Last Hope, the Kobold modules, Hungry Are the Dead, Carnival of Tears, the Last Baron moddules, the Pallid Plague) Most of my changes to the modules themselves were simply converting them to Pathfinder and maybe playing around with their levels to make all of them fit in. The Pallid Plague PFS scenario (note that I don't play/run PFS, was just using this for a home game) was the first one I altered substantially- swapping out the existing evil god cultists for a sect of crazy blight druids who were being displaced by the Lumber Consortium. I also made the plague already having broken out in Falcon's Hollow and injected some investigation elements and some random encounters into it. Took longer than I expected (lasting several sessions), but I think it was generally worth it.
Most of the changes I made were actually between modules, such as adding a Dungeon module (Bogged Down, Dungeon 91) after Hollow's Last Hope (Bogged Down, Dungeon 91. Summary: some bog mummies wash up and afflict people with mummy rot- I switched the mummy rot out for the Black Scour Fungus from Hollow's Last Hope.(Disease and undeath was a big theme I was injecting into the game, culminating with the Pallid Plague).
I may throw in an expanded Wingclipper's Revenge (Dungeon 132) as a sort of final send off for this series, where all-out war between the fey/druids and Kreed/the Lumber Consortium comes to a climax. That is, if my players don't assassinate Kreed first (then again, the Consortium might send along somebody worse!)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It depends on the AP and the group. From the APs I've ran a quick overview:
1. CoCT - nothing signficant save cosmetic changes for History of the Ashes re the setting (made the Shoanti homeland more Mongolia in winter with volcanoes)
2. Carrion Crown - wove alot more plot points to make Petros more of a presence throughout the campaign. Also books 5 and 6 went through a lot of changes mostly taking cues from what interested the players.
3. Savage Tide - again mostly unchanged save the last three adventures were greatly condensed, I think we left off around 15th level.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Second Darkness: I had to update to Pathfinder, and I wish I had gutted the 5th module.
Kingmaker: Removed all the kingdom building stuff somewhere into the third module, it just made the thing drag, and while mechanically tedious it didn't actually make the game feel more real.
Carrion Crown: I messed with some of the NPCs, stretched out the progression a bit and wove Carrion Hill and the Harrowing in, the first between module 1 and 2 and the second between 3 and 4. I have a group of 4-6 and so a lot of dynamic stat block adjustment had to occur to scale encounters to be challenging.
Wrath of the Righteous: Removed mass combat part way through book two for the same reason as kingmaker.