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The goal of this thread is to establish a consensus rating of the Paizo PFRPG Adventure Paths that may be ultimately compiled into a chart for reference by GM’s trying to figure out what adventure path to play.
Did you GM or play Council of Thieves in its entirety? If so, please post your ratings here so they may be tallied for in a final posting that will show the results for all the adventure paths.
Please rank Council of Thieves on a scale of 1-10 for each of the following categories (half points allowed):
1) GM Ease of Play: This category relates to how ready to play “out of the box” an adventure path is. Are there enough maps? Are the encounters properly detailed? Is a great deal of work required to play the modules? Readily scale-able? (1-10)
2) Synthesis of the Story: Does the story-line flow through all the modules in a way that leads the players along the path while not being so obvious as to knock them over the head rail-road style? (1-10)
3) Role-play Friendly: Are there enough opportunities for role-players to delve into the soft side of the game? Are there opportunities for well executed role-play to have a positive impact on the story line? (1-10)
4) Combat Design: Is the adventure appropriately powered for four well designed 15 point buy characters? Are there TPK-prone encounters that will probably disrupt the campaign? Will the players cruise through to the point of boredom? (1-10)
5) Fun factor: Did you have fun GMing the campaign? Did your party have fun playing the campaign? (1-10)
Not going to go through a detailed response to each section, but seeing as we have 1 session left, I think I can weigh in. I was the GM for our campaign.
1) GM Ease of Play - 9
2) Synthesis of the Story - 4
3) Role-play Friendly - 3 for out of the box, 8 for potential
4) Combat Design - 7. There are a couple boss encounters that are pretty easy (Liebdaga). Overall, there are a decent mix of challenging and easy encounters.
5) Fun factor - 9. I heavily modified the campaign, mostly to improve on points 2 & 3. The fact that I enjoyed modifying the campaign and thought CoT was a great scaffold makes this score high. I think without heavy modifications, it would be more of a 5.
My group's not finished yet, but I'll bite.
1) 4. The unnecessarily huge amount of background information is scattered through the modules and contradicts itself frequently. You have to make a study out of it to get a clear picture of what's supposed to be going on. The maps are unusable as handouts and the layouts of the mayor's mansion as well as Walcourt look as if they were designed by Numerobis.
2) 4. The story is really disjointed and doesn't make much sense right from the start. Before I stopped following it (for the most part), my players got very frustrated at times. Take module 2 for example: The play itself is great. But the plan involving it to get into the mayor's party is much too complicated.
3) If you straighten out the plot, it's an 8. Unedited, it's a 5. You can find several good roleplaying opportunites, but the inevitable frustration among the players will lower their motivation to do so.
4) 6. There are a few very hard encounters for a standard party with PB 15 to be found, which could end in a TPK. It gets harder without a standard party, especially if there is no Cleric.
5) 4. Like Scaevola, I had to heavily modify the campaign, including changing the order of the module, dropping the last one and changing the plot. I may be dropping module 4, as well. (Which is a pity, because it looks to be the best of them all. Unfortunately, it doesn't fit well in the campaign.)
While Cot can be modified, it's a lot of work. You have to dig through a lot of chaff to get to the core of the matter before you can start cutting things.