High Level Intro Scenario for PF RPG

[MrZweig]

HI,

I am looking for a good adventure to play through with a group of friends which are more or less new to PF RPG. They asked me if i could GM a short Adventure (4-5 hrs) where they would start with higher level characters (e.g. level 3, 5 oder even 10). It will be more just for fun for an evening to see how Pathfinder players at higher levels.
Most of them played through the Price of Immortality trilogy but some of them just want to play once in a while, when they're at home!

Does anyone has some good advice there?
If i'm right, there would be some PFS Scenarios which would fit (Silent Tide?)

kind regards,

Zweig

[Atragon]

Hmm, you might consider the Destiny of the Sands free RPG day module. I'd be cautious of higher levels as the number of character abilities could be overwhelming. Alternatively, you could pick any of the 1-5 or 3-7 PFS scenarios and use the level 4 pregen characters.

[gbonehead]

I've always been partial to The Feast of Ravenmoor which is for level 3.

All depends on your group. That one has an excellent mix of roleplaying, investigation, and combat, in my opinion.

Be careful of the endgame, however, as it can get deadly for an inexperienced group - make darn sure they don't split up :)

[Magda Luckbender]

It seems like a terrible idea to introduce people to Pathfinder RPG starting with high level characters. That's a bad idea in so many different ways it's hard to count. The above commenters didn't explicitly say so, but note how they directed you toward modules at the very low end of what you suggested.

You know best what your group will enjoy. That said, here are some reasons why introducing new players (regardless of their XP with other RPG systems) starting with high level characters is a bad idea:

* Pathfinder and 3.5 have many subtle differences. Those differences are smaller at low level, and larger at high level.

* High level characters are much more complex than low level characters. Starting at high level forces your players to deal with maximum complexity right at the start.

* There's a world of difference between a high level character that's been worked up via many sessions, compared to a high level character created at high level. Characters who level up 'organically' will tend to be more effective, better built, and easier to play.

* People frequently post 'problem game' threads to the Advice board. Very frequently those problems originate because the group started with high level characters. Most of those problems simply would not manifest had the PCs leveled up gradually, instead of starting at high level.

I could go on with a lot more reasons, but you get the idea. This is all said with the full understanding that you'll do what you want, regardless of advice :-)

[ParagonDireRaccoon]

MrZweig wrote:

HI,

I am looking for a good adventure to play through with a group of friends which are more or less new to PF RPG. They asked me if i could GM a short Adventure (4-5 hrs) where they would start with higher level characters (e.g. level 3, 5 oder even 10). It will be more just for fun for an evening to see how Pathfinder players at higher levels.
Most of them played through the Price of Immortality trilogy but some of them just want to play once in a while, when they're at home!

Does anyone has some good advice there?
If i'm right, there would be some PFS Scenarios which would fit (Silent Tide?)

kind regards,

Zweig

Are comfortable with writing your own adventure? That might work better for players new to PF- any published module is going to assume a little bit of optimization and a certain amount of system familiarity for higher levels. You could model it after an adventure you like (relatively short to work for one session) and include a couple interaction/roleplaying scenarios, a few combat encounters, a few traps and puzzles, and a boss fight at the end.

Other options include using a level from The Emerald Spire, the levels are mostly self-contained. Or you could use a low-level PFS scenario (I particularly like Severing Ties from season before last) and scale it for the level your group would like.

[NOG the Demoralizer]

I would also suggest something around level 5 as an intro, I agree with many people that around there you hit the sweet spot of character development, fun encounters, and don't yet start running into advanced mechanics and abilities. That said, I would suggest looking through the PFS scenarios as you mentioned, look for things that lie in the 3-7 or 5-9 range. You can scan down the list by season and look for those with high ratings that fit your level range, and then read up on the descriptions and pick something that is good for your group. Who knows, maybe you will all turn into PFS members after the fact.

Season 4 (the season I played the most) standouts for me were green market gamble, blackros matrimony, and golemworks incident.

Season three scenarios I remember liking include haunting of hinojai, sewer dragons of absalom, and at the higher tier (maybe better for later) red harvest. If they are game for a 3 part adventure that starts at low level I highly recommend the quest for perfection trilogy.

Season two and one I don't remember much, and I didn't play much season five.

The other option would be to wait a week and start fresh on season 6 with level 1 characters and start up running them as they come out, that would let you participate in the meta plot which adds a cool dimension to the game. You wouldn't really have any reviews to go on, but finding something new has its high points too.

Finally, look into the shared GM files for anything older that you still run, and for feedback on any module (8-14 hours) or adventure (4-6 hours) that you pick. You can probably find all the info you might need to run pretty much anything with some seach-fu on the message boards.

Hope that helps.

[MrZweig]

Quote:

It seems like a terrible idea to introduce people to Pathfinder RPG starting with high level characters. That's a bad idea in so many different ways it's hard to count. The above commenters didn't explicitly say so, but note how they directed you toward modules at the very low end of what you suggested.

You know best what your group will enjoy. That said, here are some reasons why introducing new players (regardless of their XP with other RPG systems) starting with high level characters is a bad idea:

* Pathfinder and 3.5 have many subtle differences. Those differences are smaller at low level, and larger at high level.

* High level characters are much more complex than low level characters. Starting at high level forces your players to deal with maximum complexity right at the start.

* There's a world of difference between a high level character that's been worked up via many sessions, compared to a high level character created at high level. Characters who level up 'organically' will tend to be more effective, better built, and easier to play.

* People frequently post 'problem game' threads to the Advice board. Very frequently those problems originate because the group started with high level characters. Most of those problems simply would not manifest had the PCs leveled up gradually, instead of starting at high level.

I could go on with a lot more reasons, but you get the idea. This is all said with the full understanding that you'll do what you want, regardless of advice :-)

I completely agree with you and also with the fact that level 5 is the max level i would start, because that is the sweet spot in character development! I'm just doing it because my group/friends asked for it and i would like to see how it goes.

I appreciate all your answer; they did help a lot! I'll reply as soon as i managed to do the session and review what i did then.

Zweig

[gbonehead]

Magda Luckbender wrote:

* There's a world of difference between a high level character that's been worked up via many sessions, compared to a high level character created at high level. Characters who level up 'organically' will tend to be more effective, better built, and easier to play.

This. A thousand times this.

I've run both one-off high-level games and long, long running games that have gone to a very high level, and I detest games where people create a high level character from scratch, as the amount of unrealistic min-maxing that goes on literally disgusts me.

On the other hand, the uber-high-level games where the players played all the way through were a blast.

When I used to run high-level tables at conventions with pre-gen characters, players often complained that I used straight classes without the usual min-max level dips often seen in high-level 3.5e builds, but it made for a much more realistic, enjoyable table.

In any event, not an issue for a level 3-5 table :)

(however, if you do want a significantly higher-level game, I recommend Tomb of the Iron Medusa quite highly - it's a very well done dungeon crawl for level 14, which avoids some of the issues with high-level one-off games. If you want more old school and slightly lower level, the Temple of Final Sacrement in Rappan Athuk is pretty darn good and has a definite Tomb of Horrors vibe. It's for about level 10.)

[Thanael]

Check out Adventure Quarterly. It's Dungeon Magazine's spiritual successor and features one high level module per issue.