I looked thru a couple pages and couldn't find a thread for this (tho i know they exist) any way with Iron Gods nearly all the way out and a Smurf load of APs out before that, i figured this would be a fun holiday exercise:-)
will come back in a bit to finish my list if someone else wants to start.......
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Here's a copy/paste (with some updates) of my grades from the last time I posted in one of these Threads, from a few years ago when Jade Regent was in the middle of production:
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Shackled City Adventure Path...
Age of Worms AP....................
Savage Tide AP......................(still avoiding spoilers)
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Rise of the Runelords..............
Curse of the Crimson Throne....
Second Darkness....................
Legacy of Fire.........................
Council of Thieves....................(still avoiding spoilers)
Kingmaker.............................
Serpent's Skull.......................
Carrion Crown........................
Jade Regent...........................
Skull & Shackles.....................(briefly halted my Charter Subscription -- Pirates are dumb.)
Shattered Star.......................
Reign of Winter......................
Wrath of the Righteous............I'm currently playing in it!
Mummy's Mask......................
Iron Gods..............................(briefly halted my Charter Subscription again -- "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks" isn't D&D / Pathfinder.)
I was going to then my wife asked me to help build things from gingerbread, and then I smurfing forgot! now im at work:(
edit: Lol its Vengenance will be mine! Smurf:D
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I won't try to rank them all but I will tier them.
Best:
Curse of the Crimson Throne
Great:
Skull and Shackles
Shackled City
Carrion Crown
Wrath of the Righteous
Good:
Reign of Winter
Iron Gods
Mummy's Mask
Zeitgeist
Age of Worms
Council of Thieves
The Wicked Way
Kingmaker
Meh:
Rise of the Runelords
Shattered Star
Savage Tide
Second Darkness
Road to Revolution
War of the Burning Sky
Bad:
Legacy of Fire
Serpent's Skull
Jade Regent
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I'm really loving Iron gods right now personally. RoW is also a great AP, but it's a constant "I'd love to rest and explore, but.. gotta save the world here!".
Of the APs I'm running:
Iron Gods: A (Great start, and the momentum keeps going, places to explore)
Reign of Winter: A- (Classical Epic Quest with a twist, but very linear)
Mummy's Mask: B (Solid adventure path, needs more love)
Wrath of the Righteous: C (Mythic powers make this a power gamer's dream, but difficult to run as is, or augmentation to keep the challenge level without a TPK. It's either impossible hard or instant kill)
I haven't been able to actually get into an AP yet, but I have been following them all as PbPs on these boards. But which ones are actually good highly depends upon the group, including the GM. So for instance, I wasn't expecting to be able to find a good Skull & Shackles PbP, but after considerable searching, I found an awesome one. Mind you, DR Barcas did a massive rewrite of the first chapter to accomplish this, and every other S&S that I found seemed as bad as I expected. So in most cases I will have to give dual ratings. (Again note: following these, not in one. But I do have character concepts for some of them listed in my profile; however, lack of a concept in some cases is not due to a lack in the PbP, but character mechanics difficulty or even difficulty in following in the footsteps of something awesome.)
Rise of the Runelords (August 2007 - January 2008): decent potential; found a decent PbP, but had to search a bit.
Curse of the Crimson Throne (February 2008 - July 2008): decent potential; found an awesome Pop on the first try.
Second Darkness (August 2008 - January 2009): good potential; found an awesome Pop on the first try.
Legacy of Fire (February 2009 - July 2009): decent potential; found a decent PbP, but had to search a bit.
Council of Thieves (August 2009 - January 2010): excellent potential; found an awesome PbP (despite repeated GM loss) on the first try.
Kingmaker (February 2010 - July 2010): good potential; found a good PbP, although this AP seems to need a lot of time to get off the ground.
Serpent's Skull (August 2010 - January 2011): fair potential; found a decent PbP, but this AP seems to require a lifetime to get off the ground.
Carrion Crown (February 2011 - July 2011): decent potential; found a decent PbP, but had to search a bit.
Jade Regent (August 2011 - January 2012): fair potential (self-nerfed by continuity clash with RotL and by dumb caravan and relationship rules); found a couple of decent PbPs, of which the first one died.
Skull and Shackles (February 2012 - July 2012): lousy potential (really hosed by cheesy railroad start and enforcement of pirate activity without a chance to be good), but after I searched through many PbPs, as noted above, I found an awesome one!
Shattered Star (August 2012 - January 2013): decent potential; found a good PbP, but had to search a LoT.
Reign of Winter (February 2013 - July 2013): decent potential (hurt somewhat by the way allying with 1 evil mastermind is enforced); found a decent PbP.
Wrath of the Righteous (August 2013 - January 2014): lousy potential (hurt by cheesy railroad start a day by broken Mythic rules); unable to rate experience properly because PbP campaigns of this keep dying early, even though a small subset seemed promising; needs a major rewrite that includes ditching Mythic rules (and I am not the only one on these boards to say this).
Mummy's Mask (February 2014 - July 2014): fair potential (unfortunately, the encouragement to be more than mere tomb-robbers falls flat); found 2 fair PbPs, plus a more creative one that died.
Iron Gods (August 2014 - January 2015): good potential, but unable to rate experience properly due to campaign dying.
(Non-Paizo) Tyranny of Dragons (August(?) 2014 - ????): hard to rate potential due to lack of information; PbP seems okay so far.
Alas, Tiny Tyrannosaurus is running a fever:( so i'll keep it short and sweet, maybe
these are my favorites, i can't really rank them, as the difference in quality between them all is minuscule:)
Skull & Shackles, i disagree with you here W.E. (tho i'll never agree to disagree:) Pirates Rule!
Mummy's Mask, i love this one almost as much as the first, like Pirates i've always been a fan of the genre
Iron Gods, i admit even i'm surprised with this one:) i was one of those that groaned loudest when it was announced, i was totally wrong, Paizo nailed it! (and i never had nor played Expedition to the Barrier Peaks so nostalgia never played into it, its a genuinely awesome AP)
Reign of Winter, super awesome, if you like faeries and/or slavic folklore this is the AP for you:)
Rise of the Runelords, a classic smurfy good time:)
Jade Regent, one of the best for awesome battle areas and memorable scenes
Shattered Star, a classic like rune lords, but only if you like big ass dungeons, i do:)
Carrion Crown, i've always been a fan of most of the genres utilized for this path, tho honestly it was my first introduction to lovecraft, beyond the goth kids in high school that is (which was not a reliable source, at all! i much prefer Paizo's take on it:)
Kingmaker, super awesome, love the sandbox, kingdom building and the main antagonists:)
Serpent's Skull, better then it gets credit for:)
the rest i don't have (CotCT, SD, LoF) or i don't like enough to include (WotR, CoT)
hopefully Tiny T-Rex is feeling better today:)
edit: i'm calling him Shit List Smurf "You're on da List!" he says:)
I haven't played a lot of APs, but I've liked all the ones I've played.
Rise of the Runelords - classic in every sense of the word, cool story, and the anniversary edition has lots of edits so it's improved over the original in the first place. If Paizo edited all their adventure paths like that, I'd be a happy gamer.
Jade Regent - great story, interesting NPCs, awesome fights scenes, great locations, and a look at parts of Golarion that we don't see much, the caravan system is terrible but it's so easy to replace for a competent DM that I don't worry about it
Skulls and Shackles - I love pirates. It has a fun story, is great for less good parties, lots of memorable locations and villains, and tons of chance for unique and entertaining play. Ship combat is alright, though has some flaws and fleet combat is annoying and complicated, but again it can be ignored. Though the last book as really weird writing.
Carrion Crown - pretty unforgiving, but has a great atmosphere. Nice themes and great use of gothic and horror movie elements. There are some weird parts, like the structure of the villains and the entire fourth book. It's not that I don't like Lovecraft (it's awesome) I was just caught off-guard after three books worth of gothic horror.
Reign of Winter - interesting story and characters. The story can get a little all over the place because you go to so many places, but the overall story is fun and book 5 is a beautiful thing. Overall, worth playing if you enjoy evil fey and witches.
Haven't played any others, but from what I've read of some of them:
Wrath of the Righteous - great concept, but horribly balanced. Though the first book is one of my favorite campaign openings in any adventure paths ever. The opening scene description still gives me goosebumps.
Kingmaker - great for exploration and classic fantasy. Neat locations and the chance to become leaders of a real kingdom. Awesome, though that's all I really know about it.
Shattered Star - neat concept, lots of dungeon runs, cool follow-up to RotR with enjoyable encounters and locations.
Serpents Skull - honestly, don't know much about this one. Sounds like a good concept in a large in-depth area, but I don't know most of the plot.
Don't know much about the rest without going back and reading them all, but they're all at least passable from what I've heard.
Legacy of Fire, Wrath of the Righteous, and Kingmaker, in that order. Iron Gods will probably make the list soon, but I'm waiting for the final chapter.
Well. I would have to say my favorite adventure paths are the two I'm currently running - the Anniversary Edition of Rise of the Runelords, and Reign of Winter.
I had high hopes for WotR, but if I run it I'll run it without Mythic. I'm unsure if I'll get a chance to run Mummy's Mask or Iron Gods, seeing my groups get together once a month for four hours. And while I own Second Darkness, Serpent's Skull, and Legacy of Fire (and about 2/3rds of Jade Regent), they never really ignited my interest like the two I'm running.
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Of the ones I've got, I'll go in order from my favourite to my least-favourite.
RotRL: Excellent. Classic, fun, never stops being exciting and entertaining. My group is still in the middle of it, and it frustrates me to no end that real life has, as of late, been keeping my players too occupied to meet up and play more of this one.
Reign of Winter: Very linear, but that's not a bad thing if the players know what they'll be getting into. The rest of it is fantastic locales and interesting enemies, and I have pretty much no complaints about it.
Carrion Crown: I love the cycling through the various horror genres, and that it manages to stay (mostly) fresh and interesting through all 6 books in spite of the endless undead. My only real gripe is that the final boss uses a complex template, complex class, AND a complex archetype, and can be a nuisance to run, which forces a GM to prep very extensively for the finale (even more-so than usual).
Jade Regent: My only big gripes about this one are the caravan combat (which is easy enough to just ignore completely), and that the 4th book is basically one massive dungeon that serves no purpose other than to get the party levelled up for book 5. The actual plot-justifications for why any part of book 4 is necessary are pretty weak.
Wrath of the Righteous: You're either going to have to work very hard to balance this, or you're going to have to let your players smash through it like superheroes. I'd probably go with the latter option and not mind doing so very much, but the roughness of the mythic rules is still a fault.
Iron Gods: Complicated new rules at every turn, but quite cool if you've got enough patience to accept that all the technology rules are likely going to slow the game down very frequently. My biggest complaint is that the three arcs almost totally require the PCs to decide to keep investigating things on their own initiative. There's very little provided in the way of quest-givers, or motivational plot-hooks.
Skull & Shackles: Fun. Very fun actually. It requires a certain group attitude to not fall apart though. Add to that the the ship rules can be clunky and time-consuming, and (my biggest gripe) that this AP relies so heavily on what are essentially random encounters, and there are certainly flaws to overcome.
Mummy's Mask: I want to like this one, but it just doesn't jump out at me. That being said, I can't find too much in the way of glaring flaws, and my biggest problem with it is that both I and my players simply think it looks too boring to play compared to other APs.
Shattered Star: Very linear, very disjointed, I'm biased against the Pathfinder Society (they're eeeeeeevil!), the AP is a ton of dungeon with only minor RP opportunity built in, and there's no point to it. If the heroes fail in any of the other APs, the world (or at least a local area) is in big trouble. If the heroes fail in Shattered Star (or at least in the first 5 books of it) there's no major repercussions. The big danger only exists in SS if the heroes succeed and unleash it.
My tier rankings:
Best:
Curse of the Crimson Throne
Savage Tide
Age of Worms
Great:
Skull and Shackles
Rise of the Runelords
Shackled City
Way of the Wicked
Wrath of the Righteous
Good:
Legacy of Fire
Kingmaker
Carrion Crown
Jade Regent
Okay:
Reign of Winter
Iron Gods
Mummy's Mask
Council of Thieves
Not my Favorites:
Shattered Star
Second Darkness
Serpent's Skull
{. . .} Shattered Star: Very linear, very disjointed, I'm biased against the Pathfinder Society (they're eeeeeeevil!) {. . .}
. . . And that's why I want an AP that provides an opportunity to set up some Good competition to them (the Aspis Consortium already covers Evil competition). Good competition would be something like a new Andoren Geographic Society. I proposed a new AP for this, but I also have an idea to try it in Mummy's Mask, although this would require buy-in from all of the other players (and the DM) to get it to work. (For this purpose, any decent possibility of reverse-recruiting on these boards, recruiting as a player trying to find other players and a DM inclined to get this to work? Or is reverse-recruiting just considered unworkable?)
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Shattered Star: Very linear, very disjointed, I'm biased against the Pathfinder Society (they're eeeeeeevil!)
But they are such a negligible part of the AP... just say their boss isn't a Pathfinder, don't change anything else about it and... poof! No more Pathfinder Society in Shattered Star. It's like, the easiest fix possible. It's easier than changing the name of an NPC...
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Shattered Star: Very linear, very disjointed, I'm biased against the Pathfinder Society (they're eeeeeeevil!)But they are such a negligible part of the AP... just say their boss isn't a Pathfinder, don't change anything else about it and... poof! No more Pathfinder Society in Shattered Star. It's like, the easiest fix possible. It's easier than changing the name of an NPC...
Eh, I'd more likely take it as an opportunity to allow an evil party.
That being said, the society's presence is a minor gripe. As with Jade Regent's caravan combat, things that merit change, but are easy to change will still make the list, but they don't count hugely against the AP.
Shattered Star is at the bottom of my list not just because of the society; it's there because of the combination of all the faults I listed.
I love Shattered Star personally, but its not for everyone:)
Shattered Star: Very linear, very disjointed, I'm biased against the Pathfinder Society (they're eeeeeeevil!)But they are such a negligible part of the AP... just say their boss isn't a Pathfinder, don't change anything else about it and... poof! No more Pathfinder Society in Shattered Star. It's like, the easiest fix possible. It's easier than changing the name of an NPC...
That.
I ran the entire shattered star and i did remove the pathfinder society like Lord Snow says from the beggining and it didn't have any real effect on the AP.Still i agree with Gluttony it's one of the APs that i really didn't like in it's entirety and i regret choosing to run that instead of something else (like reign of winter).
Kingmaker and Skull & Shackles. I like APs where the PCs work together to build something bigger then just leveling themselves. Be it a kingdom or a fleet. Also I like the sandbox approach they use to varying degrees.
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Shattered Star: Very linear, very disjointed, I'm biased against the Pathfinder Society (they're eeeeeeevil!)But they are such a negligible part of the AP... just say their boss isn't a Pathfinder, don't change anything else about it and... poof! No more Pathfinder Society in Shattered Star. It's like, the easiest fix possible. It's easier than changing the name of an NPC...That.
I ran the entire shattered star and i did remove the pathfinder society like Lord Snow says from the beggining and it didn't have any real effect on the AP.
Still i agree with Gluttony it's one of the APs that i really didn't like in it's entirety and i regret choosing to run that instead of something else (like reign of winter).
It's interesting. I do think that S* has some of the best adventures ever printed in PF (certainly some of the best dungeons) - I'd say #2, #5, #6 are all exceptional, with #4 being very good and #1,#3 above average. Yet still, I too have a long list of APs I'd rather run than Shattered Star, because all those dungeons could start to stifle the fun after a while. Individually though, many sections in the AP are simply awesome.
@Lord Snow
Have you played or run Shatter Star?
I seem to remember you on the shattered star forum but i am not sure.
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Skull & Shackles - I enjoyed this AP much more than I expected to. Granted, we had two awesome DMs running two tables, and they made up a lot of their own material. This was one of the most fun APs, though book one seemed slow.
Serpent's Skull - a lot of people seem to dislike this one, but it's one of my favorites. Sure the dm has to make up some maps, and some creatures are fought often, but this AP has one of the best intros I've seen. I'm a fan of additional rules, like the ship battles in Skull & Shackles. This AP has rules for a base camp for you and your competitors, and both my players and I enjoyed those rules. This AP has a great Indiana Jones feel to it.
Rise of the Runelords - very enjoyable, and relatively easy to run. Good storyline.
Shattered Star - does a good job of tying in to other APs (Runelords, Crimson Throne and Second Darkness). Lots of dungeon crawls. Although I would like to see less dungeon crawls, they do an excellent job of providing a great story to many of those dungeon crawls. By book six, the pcs feel (and are treated like) the powerful high level heroes that they are.
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My favourites:
-Age of Worms (played up to level 17 so far; most adventures were pretty good; the idea of killing a god is awesome)
-Savage Tide (played up to level 9, the story line is very strong; it's very linear but for me that's a feature instead of a bug; the idea of killing a demon lord is awesome)
-Carrion Crown (played up to level 7; liked the first adventure very much; some nice touches in terms of horror atmosphere)
Ones I liked, but didn't love:
-Rise of the Runelords (played up to level 6; the adventures were pretty good but not as tightly connected as I like)
-Serpent's Skull (played up to level 5; adventures were fine but I was indifferent to the concept of different factions looking for a hidden city)
-Legacy of Fire (played up to level 5; again the adventures were fine but I was indifferent to the concept)
-Cure of the Crimson Throne (played up to level 3; the first adventure was pretty good but the game died soon after)
-Shackled City (GMed a game up to level 4 or 5; I like that the adventures center around a single city, but there's too much dungeon-crawling for my taste)
-War of the Burning Sky (played up to level 2 and subsequently read all of the adventures; I like the high concept premise of a world war, but a few of the adventures are clunkers)
My least favourites:
-Council of Thieves (played on and off until level 5; the idea of a rebellion in a city is cool, but the execution was clunky IMO)
-Second Darkness (played until level 2; what's up with the casino bit in the beginning? it seemed like it belonged in a different adventure path)
-Kingmaker (played until almost level 3; I had no interest in hex-crawling and random encounters -- YMMV)
I have not, my opinion on the AP are purely based on the impressions I've got from reading the adventures.@Lord Snow
Have you played or run Shatter Star?
I seem to remember you on the shattered star forum but i am not sure.
I have run it, all of it and i think that it isn't such a good AP, there were some good parts (like book 4) but it's in entirety it wasn't a good one, neither i nor my players greatly enjoyed it.
Shackled City Adventure Path...B
Age of Worms AP....................A
Savage Tide AP......................B+
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Rise of the Runelords..............A
Curse of the Crimson Throne....A+
Second Darkness....................D-
Legacy of Fire.........................B
Council of Thieves....................C
Kingmaker.............................A-
Serpent's Skull.......................C+
Carrion Crown........................A
Jade Regent...........................B+
Skull & Shackles.....................B
Shattered Star.......................A++
Reign of Winter......................B+
Wrath of the Righteous............B
Mummy's Mask......................B
Iron Gods.........................NA
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I have run it, all of it and i think that it isn't such a good AP, there were some good parts (like book 4) but it's in entirety it wasn't a good one, neither i nor my players greatly enjoyed it.I have not, my opinion on the AP are purely based on the impressions I've got from reading the adventures.@Lord Snow
Have you played or run Shatter Star?
I seem to remember you on the shattered star forum but i am not sure.
I am curious. From reading, adventures #2 and #5 seem like incredibly well designed dungeons, with a lot of interesting encounters and locations, with decent amounts of roleplay to keep things interesting. Adventure 6 appears to be a cool high level dungeon with a well developed villain. Sounds like things didn't work out in practice - what went wrong?
I am curious. From reading, adventures #2 and #5 seem like incredibly well designed dungeons, with a lot of interesting encounters and locations, with decent amounts of roleplay to keep things interesting. Adventure 6 appears to be a cool high level dungeon with a well developed villain. Sounds like things didn't work out in practice - what went wrong?I have run it, all of it and i think that it isn't such a good AP, there were some good parts (like book 4) but it's in entirety it wasn't a good one, neither i nor my players greatly enjoyed it.I have not, my opinion on the AP are purely based on the impressions I've got from reading the adventures.@Lord Snow
Have you played or run Shatter Star?
I seem to remember you on the shattered star forum but i am not sure.
Book #2 is quite good although still on the low side of roleplay (as all of the AP) but very interesting but i think that the fact that neither i nor my players have played CotCT really cut away from book 2, still though quite good.
Book #5 on the other hand was very very bad, it was embarassing easy, boring, and with almost zero roleplay, even the final boss was a complete and bad joke, the only thing that was fun in this book was the room with the angel and the demon, that room i really enjoyed and so did my players.
For me the best was book #4, it was that book that the encounters weren't a complete joke, the villan was interesting (and the players learned that), there was a sense of duty, an accomplishment, good RP with interesting NPCs, a very interesting locale and i got to terriffy my players when they thought that they have opened a rift to abyss (they thought they have created another Worldwound).
You can read a little more on what i thought on each book and the AP as a whole here.
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Ah, this definitely explains the disparity. I am currently playing through Crimson Throne, so book #2 of S* just offers more value to me and my group than it did to yous. Additionally me and my group are all fans of Lovecraftians stuff to some degree or another (with me having a poster of Cthulhu in my sleeping room...).
It also seems that a lot of your issues with the AP were the easy battles - I always change the battles as written to make them more interesting/a better fit for the players. More often than not that means making them considerably harder.
Anyway, thanks for the link, I'd definitely refer to your summation if I ever run the AP. (As a side note it seems like an AP well suited to run as an online VTT campaign due to happening mostly in dungeons).
Ah, this definitely explains the disparity. I am currently playing through Crimson Throne, so book #2 of S* just offers more value to me and my group than it did to yous. Additionally me and my group are all fans of Lovecraftians stuff to some degree or another (with me having a poster of Cthulhu in my sleeping room...).
It also seems that a lot of your issues with the AP were the easy battles - I always change the battles as written to make them more interesting/a better fit for the players. More often than not that means making them considerably harder.
Anyway, thanks for the link, I'd definitely refer to your summation if I ever run the AP. (As a side note it seems like an AP well suited to run as an online VTT campaign due to happening mostly in dungeons).
The battles were my biggest problem because if i have a story that interests me and inspires me (as the whole runelords thing does) i can use it to make at a half-decent/enjoyable adventure but i don't have the time to create the encounters and the maps, that's the reason i buy the APs, in addition i prefer (to play or run) APs there is a more focused/railed story. than those with more freedom.
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This is from the ones I've read all the way through. I've played some of them as well. I've put them in order from best to not so best.
Age of worms - best campaign our group ever played. As much a product of the plot as it was of the time of life in which we played it though.
Carrion Crown - a great mash of horror themes. I loved. Reading it, and my players are loving playing it.
Curse of the Crimson throne - great plot and story arcs. One of the best starts to an AP I've read.
Iron Gods - because it's so different for me. A fresh thing at a time when I'm starting to find Pathfinder going stale.
Wrath of the Righteous - the plot and locale rocks for me. I think I'd tone down the mythic aspects of it from what I've read on the boards, but I really like the crusade aspect and bleak nature of the campaign. I'm looking forwards to,running this one day.
Runelords - good, but a bit too traditional compared to the ones above. It will never rock my current players because of that. We're looking for more unique plots now days.
Kingmaker - I loved the look of this at first, but for our group the whole kingdom running thing isn't going to fly. I would do this as the start of a new campaign world though. Have players build from scratch then use that Kingdom as the starter for future campaigns. If this one had come out ten years ago, I would have ranked it much higher.
Legacy of fire - dmed this all the way through. Was great up until all the plane hopping started. City of Brass was wasted potential in this one since you never actually get to use it. Burnt me out on DMing for a long time, which is most likely why I rate it do low.
Others I've either not bought or didn't enjoy enough to comment.
These threads are always fun. I will only list the APs I've run in their entirety (including the Dungeon Paths).
Top Tier (APs which were a blast for both me and my players and which I would run again in a heartbeat)
- Shackled City: An exciting locale with lots of interesting NPCs and a cool conspiracy plot.
- Age of Worms: THE most EPIC AP I've seen in action. This one went all-out to deliver.
- Curse of the Crimson Throne: It's Shackled City with a much cooler BBEG!
- Jade Regent: Ninjas & Vikings, what's not to love?
Medium Tier (APs which did a good job of entertaining my group)
- Rise of the Runelords: A classic for a reason, although it kinda drops the ball in the second half.
- Serpent's Skull: Much better than its reputation, but lots of DM work needed.
- Legacy of Fire: Some railroading and the City of Bore prevent this enchanting AP from achieving greatness.
Bottom Tier (APs which for some reason didn't work out that well)
- Savage Tide: Has some awesome elements, but can really crash towards the end.
- Shattered Star: Despite all the cool stuff, it never soars.
- Kingmaker: Good idea, disjointed and lacking execution.
Good ones, would run whenever an opportunity arises:
-Savage Tide (The epicest of them all.)
-Rise of the Runelords (A well-executed classic fantasy adventure, even if grimdark.)
Cool but have some obvious problems:
-Kingmaker (A good idea, some good installments, too bad the kingdom system is shit, and the BBEG comes from nowhere.)
-Curse of the Crimson Throne (Two adventures' worth of dungeon crawling detour does not improve it.)
-Serpent's Skull (A good idea but needs a lot of GM work to function.)
-Age of Worms (Epic but rather uneven in difficulty, railroad is poorly made at points.)
-Jade Regent (Too much time spent travelling to the good parts where the real plot begins.)
Downright bad, either the whole concept is flawed, or crippling problems with character motivation and/or plot and/or encounter design are present:
-Second Darkness (No real connection between the first two adventures and the rest; terrible encounter design.)
-Skull and Shackles (The naval system is shit, the first adventure easily turns people against it, poor encounter design.)
-Council of Thieves (Uninteresting plot, very terrible encounter design.)
-Shattered Star (The plot pretty much requires players to be stupid, or they won't reassemble a clearly evil and corruptive artifact of doom, installments are nonconnected dungeon crawls.)
-Wrath of the Righteous (The mythic rules are mythic in the scope of their failure, also, too much endless combat by the last third. The plot is OK.)
Meh, I don't really care about the central idea:
-Everything else.
Shackled City Adventure Path...B-
Age of Worms AP....................B
Savage Tide AP......................B+ (I have GM’d this)
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Rise of the Runelords..............A
Curse of the Crimson Throne....B
Second Darkness....................C
Legacy of Fire.........................A+ (I have GM’d this)
Council of Thieves....................C
Kingmaker.............................A- (I have GM’d this)
Serpent's Skull.......................C+
Carrion Crown........................A
Jade Regent...........................C+
Skull & Shackles.....................B
Shattered Star.......................A+ (I have GM’d this)
Reign of Winter......................B+
Wrath of the Righteous............C
Mummy's Mask......................B
Iron Gods.........................B
In each case, some work was required to make it as good as possible. Despite the A+ rating, I replaced one whole adventure in Legacy of Fire, for instance. And Kingmaker requires some attention to the message boards to make it work out well.
Out of the box with no adjustments made, I'd say Shattered Star was the best. But my favorite was Legacy of Fire, followed by Kingmaker.
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It's really interesting to see people's opinions on various APs differ so widely. It really shows how important it is for Paizo to make such diverse plots.
For example, people here (including myself) rated kingmaker fairly low, yet it is one of the most purchased and praised APs they've written according to the developers.
I found Legacy of Fire not so great at the end, but Tarondor gave it an A+.
This thread is an awesome demonstration of why ratings need to be taken with a grain of salt. What might suck for me and my group may absolutely rock your groups world.
Keep them coming folks, I like reading different perceives on things I've run or played through.
I'll be running Carrion Crown, and, well, I absolutely love it. I hope my players will too. I'm creating a crap tonne of handouts for them, including drawings of every prepared NPC. Just making the preparations for running it is fun.
That alone makes it my favorite campaign. Kingmaker was good too, but felt less distinctive.
WotR is interesting mainly because the character I'm pbping in it intrigues me, and the other players are really good as well, but I suspect the actual AP is kinda meh. The GM is likely modding like crazy.
I've played book 1 of RotR and enjoyed it.
But CC is the favorite.
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Age of Worms, Curse of the Crimson Throne, and Wrath of the Righteous.
Here's the thing with Wrath of the Righteous - some folks [like me] will love mythic rules and others will cry about "balancing" and their unhappiness with the rules. I think Mythic Adventures and Wrath of the Righteous took guts and balls to produce ... Jason Bulmahn & Paizo took a serious creative chance and thought outside the box. Kudos for that!
How many of those that decry the system make equally bold creative efforts in their professional lives?!
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How many of those that decry the system make equally bold creative efforts in their professional lives?!
Not really a relevant question. When you are watching a movie you don't judge it based on the question of whether or not you could have done it better yourself (in all likelihood, you like most people wouldn't be able to pull off any movie at all, just about regardless of how much time and money you had), you judge based on whether it's a good movie.
Same thing for game design. I haven't played mythic myself yet, but if it has the sort of issues that many are complaining about, then it has some very serious design flaws that you woudn't expect to see from professionals. I do very much like the idea of mythic, but the execution could very well be lacking, and the people passing the judgment need not be able to do it better, only to decided if it is good or bad.
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Not really a relevant question. When you are watching a movie you don't judge it based on the question of whether or not you could have done it better yourself (in all likelihood, you like most people wouldn't be able to pull off any movie at all, just about regardless of how much time and money you had), you judge based on whether it's a good movie.
Exactly. I don't need to be a gourmet chef to know whether something tastes good or bad, or an award-winning writer or journalist to know if something is clearly written or kinda murky, or have a bunch of platinum records to have an opinion on whether or not the Beastie Boys or David Bowie are more 'classic' than the other.
There's actually no pre-qualifications at all for someone to have an opinion on something. :)
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Not really a relevant question. When you are watching a movie you don't judge it based on the question of whether or not you could have done it better yourself (in all likelihood, you like most people wouldn't be able to pull off any movie at all, just about regardless of how much time and money you had), you judge based on whether it's a good movie.There's actually no pre-qualifications at all for someone to have an opinion on something. :)
I find an internet connection and the ability to TYPE ALL IN CAPS helps immensely tho:-)
And remember when in doubt, add more SMURFS!!!!!!!!!!!! (and a couple dozen exclamation points never hurt anyone:-p)
Fair play SET & LORD SNOW ... you're absolutely right. I've always been a fan of high magic, epic play, and mythic play ... and while I love Mythic Adventures, am probably just disappointed it didn't generate more mass appeal. Mea Culpa!
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Fair play SET & LORD SNOW ... you're absolutely right. I've always been a fan of high magic, epic play, and mythic play ... and while I love Mythic Adventures, am probably just disappointed it didn't generate more mass appeal. Mea Culpa!
As a diehard fan of superhero games, where you *start the game* able to do stuff that a D&D/PF character might never be able to do, I'm not averse to high power stuff.
Epic in 3.X, or Mythic in PF, feels like just another layer of play, sort of progressing orthogonally, instead of linearly, and not exactly 'fat crackling cosmic power of the gods.' For what they were meant to do, which was very much not the sort of power levels I get from superhero RPGs or MMOs, I'm sure they are fine.
Here's the thing with Wrath of the Righteous - some folks [like me] will love mythic rules and others will cry about "balancing" and their unhappiness with the rules. I think Mythic Adventures and Wrath of the Righteous took guts and balls to produce ... Jason Bulmahn & Paizo took a serious creative chance and thought outside the box. Kudos for that!How many of those that decry the system make equally bold creative efforts in their professional lives?!
(1)"Well, at least they've tried" is a suitable excuse for pre-school kids, not people who are selling commercial products.
(2)There is hardly anything bold and creative about the mythic rules. That, in fact, is one of their chief problems. Almost all mythic powers are of "bigger numbers!" and "existing effect X but somewhat better" types.
FatR - I already gave a Mea Culpa so chill out on point one.
Wrath of the Righteous
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(2)There is hardly anything bold and creative about the mythic rules. That, in fact, is one of their chief problems. Almost all mythic powers are of "bigger numbers!" and "existing effect X but somewhat better" types.
Well, I would say that the idea itself of mythic tiers that you can acquire at any level and that advance differently from levels is certainly creative. And, while as you said much of the mythic stuff comes down to simply bigger numbers, some ideas are very good and occasionally bold - like the PCs being sources for divine power and granting spells. I also really like some of the mythic options for monsters.
Some of the ideas are grand. The execution could very well be lacking, but credit is where credit's due.
Way of the Wicked isn't a paizo adventure path, but in my opinion it is the most masterfully written adventure path ever written.
Way of the Wicked isn't a paizo adventure path, but in my opinion it is the most masterfully written adventure path ever written.
Also it's at least 30% longer.
honestly i don't understand the big deal with way of the wicked, i played a part of it, wasn't impressed at all:)