Looking for less combat heavy AP

[AM]

Hi all,
I would like to run a new AP. I know Rise of the Runelords, Curse of the Crimson Throne, Second Darkness and Wrath of the Righteous, but I'm looking for something else. Something less combat heavy than those. With a more developed plot, more intrigue, more social challenges, with fewer dungeon crawls or fighting legions of enemies.
Is there an AP that might fit those conditions?

[captain yesterday]

first of all, all APs are going to have plenty of combat and plenty of role playing opportunities.

Skull & Shackles is close, it is very role-play focused, and has plenty of intrigue and back room shadiness

Council of Thieves is more Urban, a bit dungeon-y in the first few books but does have outstanding roleplaying moments.

Kingmaker is what you make of it so if you like sandboxes thats a good choice (tho if you don't have it already good look finding a hard copy)

Reign of Winter, has had a ton of great moments for my group currently and recommend it to anyone and everyone, especially if you like dark faery tales (who doesn't!)

Shattered Star also has great moments for role playing but does have a few dungeons here or there;)

jade regent is also a great one:)

[Seth Parsons]

Council of Thieves is probably what you are going to want to look at most closely, but remember that the AP's can (and in many cases should) be altered to fit both the GM's and the player's likes and interests.

[Charlie Brooks]

Council of Thieves has a huge role-playing set piece in Book Two. Books Three, Four, and Five are fairly combat-oriented, but Book Six has a lot of freeform stuff going on and plenty of role-playing opportunities.

[Wiggz]

captain yesterday wrote:

first of all, all APs are going to have plenty of combat and plenty of role playing opportunities.

Skull & Shackles is close, it is very role-play focused, and has plenty of intrigue and back room shadiness

Council of Thieves is more Urban, a bit dungeon-y in the first few books but does have outstanding roleplaying moments.

Kingmaker is what you make of it so if you like sandboxes thats a good choice (tho if you don't have it already good look finding a hard copy)

Reign of Winter, has had a ton of great moments for my group currently and recommend it to anyone and everyone, especially if you like dark faery tales (who doesn't!)

Shattered Star also has great moments for role playing but does have a few dungeons here or there;)

jade regent is also a great one:)

Seconded on Skull n' Shackles - lots of opportunity for out of combat skill use as well.

Of course, to make any AP more RP-focused its on the GM to take the many hooks and subplots they have an expound upon them...

[Duiker]

Reign of Winter has plenty of combat, but with some DM discretion as to removing encounters that just exist for the sake of fighting, there is a mountain of material that roleplay oriented players can dive into and creatively avoid a lot of the combat.

[leo1925]

captain yesterday wrote:

Kingmaker is what you make of it so if you like sandboxes thats a good choice (tho if you don't have it already good look finding a hard copy)

No to kingmaker, it doesn't has a developed plot, it doesn't has intrigue and it barely has a a couple of social challenges.

Could all these things work in and be present in the kingmaker AP? yes, are they present in the books? no
So if you want to create your own stuff but want a sandbox to put them in then you can use Kingmaker for that.

Now to what you (OP) are asking, maybe CoT and Jade Regent.

[captain yesterday]

kingmaker is what you make of it, it can easily be all about courtly intrigue, especially with a good GM. i GM it for 10year olds and their favorite parts are kingdom building and courtly intrigue also faerie intrigue goes a very long way!

[thenovalord]

We finished kingmaker. Lots of non combat stuff IF the players input well, and you have lots intrigued on the go

All the pc's provided stuff for behind the scenes and it made it all the better

Player input will always make a great game no matter how good/ bad the material you build it from

[Wyrd_Wik]

I find all the aps combats need to be thinned to avoid grind and my groups while they enjoy rping are still pretty combat oriented. A lot of excess combats are there purely for the xp to fit the rules so if you're handwaving xp this becomes easier. Also just attempt to insert rp alternatives to the combats with hints or clues to the players that maybe they can bribe their way out of this or somehow trick their opponent as opposed to throwing down. I've found JR to be a good rp with lots of built in rping opportunities and an easy AP to thin the combats. Though if you're interested in JR I'd recommend replacing Forest of Spirits with the Ruby Phoenix Tournament

[gamer-printer]

For 3PP adventure paths, there is Rite Publishing Kaidan: Curse of the Golden Spear trilogy (levels 5 thru 7) as an introduction to the setting with each module: The Gift, Dim Spirit, and Dark Path. Like Jade Regent AP, it involves a party of "western" PCs visiting the exotic far east. The Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG) is an archipelago of islands made so you can add-it as a plug and play setting into any world setting, including Golarian (I'd probably stick it into the sea not far from Minkai itself.)

Although there are lots of combats, its not all hack n' slash. There are individual challenges between one opponent to one PC, with the other PCs having ways to sway the battle. There's a pit fight also between one PC and one NPC. There is the defense of a small mountain town against a gang of bandits.

There's a haunting mystery location called the Cursed Ryokan, as a way station along the road that the party may become trapped in and must fight ghosts, ghouls and haunts and solve a mystery in order to escape.

There is some politics and instances of diplomacy in the first half of the first module, trying to get the necessary bureaucratic traveling papers to allow the party of foreigners in country to complete their mission.

There is a full mix of all types of gaming situations that don't involve combat (though still can, if you run it differently) throughout that mini-AP.

Kaidan is unlike any setting you or your party has ever adventured before. There is even a free one-shot module called Frozen Wind, you can check out to learn more about Kaidan. Make sure you read the reviews on all products to get insights into what is really inside each one!

[Tangent101]

There is an entire segment of the 3rd book of The Mummy's Mask that is research rather than combat. Though they do coach the research into die-rolls that could be considered similar to combat.

[S'mon]

One issue: while the PC classes are somewhat balanced in combat, out of combat they have widely divergent abilities. A Bard and a Fighter are not in the same room when it comes to social challenges. You can moderate this a bit by emphasising roleplay over diplomancer dice rolling, and don't make NPC friendlinss dependent on Diplomacy rolls (Diplomacy was a terrible skill in 3e, pity PF didn't modify it IMO). This might annoy a player who's invested resources in diplomacy (etc) at the cost of combat effectiveness, but if you've told the players upfront that it'll be a roleplay-heavy game that might be ok.

All the APs are designed to mix combat with other stuff. Skull & Shackles looks like a good one for delegating most combat to NPC followers and focusing on RP and leadership issues; Jade Regent to some extent also. But Paizo isn't likely to publish a 'no fighting' AP for PF, it deviates too far from what the system is built for.

[MrVergee]

S'mon wrote:

Paizo isn't likely to publish a 'no fighting' AP for PF, it deviates too far from what the system is built for.

S'mon is right, there is plenty of combat in all the APs, but some of them lend themselves more to roleplaying as well. I'm currently running my version of Curse of the Crimson Throne, which is an urban campaign and lends itself nicely to more social interaction. We've only had one combat in our five last sessions for example, although there will definitely be parts that will be more combat-heavy as well.

Anyway, I set out to GM a campaign that includes more roleplaying and I told my players which skills would be useful in the campaign (like diplomacy, bluff, sense motive ...). You can read about our adventures in the campaign journal logs, here, if you want a taste.

As other posters have said, there are several APs that lend themselves to extra roleplaying, but it will be the DM's task to make it happen. If you and your group dig that, it is definitely worth the effort.

[Zeqiel]

captain yesterday wrote:

first of all, all APs are going to have plenty of combat and plenty of role playing opportunities.

Skull & Shackles is close, it is very role-play focused, and has plenty of intrigue and back room shadiness

Council of Thieves is more Urban, a bit dungeon-y in the first few books but does have outstanding roleplaying moments.

Kingmaker is what you make of it so if you like sandboxes thats a good choice (tho if you don't have it already good look finding a hard copy)

Reign of Winter, has had a ton of great moments for my group currently and recommend it to anyone and everyone, especially if you like dark faery tales (who doesn't!)

Shattered Star also has great moments for role playing but does have a few dungeons here or there;)

jade regent is also a great one:)

I've yet to run S&S, but I can second this as well. The writeup, particularly in the first two books, is designed to be extensively social in nature. While players can, theoretically, bludgeon their way through the whole story in a traditional fashion, a LOT of the storyline is lost if they do so. It's really designed for a more interactive storyline, which I found refreshing considering its original theme.

[Calydria]

Carrion Crown is ostensibly very combat heavy, but most of the modules can be very easily modified to make a heavily rp-focused AP.

HoH:

This was so long ago I am now a bit fizzy, but I remember this having some really tough battles and being one of the harder ones to cut down. Still, lots of rping with the local townseople to gain their trust and with a possessed evil guy.

TotB:

Awesome roleplaying and investigation. Creepy. With a little modified there is a chance to run a trial (albeit with counsel committing the dire sin of risking appearing as a witness...). There is a big dungeon bash at the end, but this could be cut down. Some of the encounters are tricky rather than bashy anyway.

Broken Moon:

Bashy toward the end, but lots of opportunity to roleplaying. Investigate what the Whispering Way was doing in a hunting lodge, then immerse yourself in werewolf politics.

WoftW:

Again, smash happy is lots of places, and kind of like fighting your way through a twisted zoo. Easy to play up the roleplaying, though, by places the emphasis on the creepy residents of the town and the investigation into what is wrong there and playing down the final slog.

Ashes at Dawn:

A vampire murder mystery. Again, lots of combbats, but I cut them down and placed the emphasis on investigation. Throw in some more noble families and a couple of loose ends. Also an opportunity to explore Caliphas and introduce the BBG and other characters.

SoG:

Track down the BBG, rescue his captive from a desecrated monastery and then confront the BBG on the Gallowspire. Unfortunately, this is a combat slog and I am finding this the hardest to make rp heavy. I have changed the monastery to more of an infiltration exercise (PCs have undead anatomy cast on them to 'blend in') and will work in a grad confrontation with their allies at the foot of the Gallowspire so that they need to do an ME3 gather your allies thing.

So, not the naturally heaviest RP adventure path, but easy to convert without a huge investment of time.

Re Kingmaker - I am playing a very rp heavy version of this, but the roleplaying is on a grander scale - diplomacy between nations, a big civil war to resolve, that kind of thing. The day to say stuff can be pretty sloggy and a bit 'find your own adventure'. We like it, but it's certainly not like LARPing with dice.