This past weekend, my wife, 11-year-old son, and I played the 1993 Dragon Strike game by TSR. I was the DM and the other two played heroes. We had a ton of fun. My son had so much fun, we played it 6 times in 2 days. I have not seen him so enthralled by a game before.
My wife and I love the Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. With how great my son responded to Dragon Strike, we are looking to branch out into the Pathfinder world.
What would I need to buy in order to play the adventure path? From what I have found, I would need the Adventure Path Book and the Pathfinder Core Rulebook. What else is needed?
About the adventure path book itself. Is the path a complete adventure meaning it shows maps, when monsters appear, map objectives for the heroes, etc.? Does it provide narratives for the DM to read to the heroes? Example: In Dragon Strike, the DM has a map showing where and when monsters appear along with which monsters or NPCs have specific information. The adventure book lists the map areas with what is found in each area and if there is special decription, such as "in this room has an old woman holding a crossbow in her lap".
How would the adventure path play with 2 hero players? Would the difficulty need to be lowered? Play 2 characters each? I saw the mention of a gestalt character and it being more powerful than normal. What is that and would it work?
Lastly, what is the difference between a campaign setting book and an adventure path book?
The Adventure Path, Core Rule Book and Bestiary should be enough to run Rise of the Runelords.
An Adventure Path is a set of adventure modules (called Chapters) linked together to form one story.
A campaign setting book is a region of a game world explained more in depth, talking about countries, etc their lands, people, locales...
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The Adventure Path book and the Core Rules are absolutely necessary to run Rise of the Runelords. Outside of that, all you need is easy access to the PRD, where you can find pretty much all the stats for the monsters your PCs will encounter, from rank-and-file goblins to the storm giants in Xin-Shalast. Paizo has done a very good job of keeping the barrier to entry as low as possible in that regard. There's all sorts of things that you may want to look at picking up if there's a lot of interest in the AP - maps and pawns both spring to mind - but those two are pretty much non-negotiable.
Rise of the Runelords is a complete adventure, starting with 1st level PCs to roughly 17th or 18th level. There's a complete story in its pages, with dungeons populated with deadly traps and hungry monsters. There's NPCs both friendly and antagonistic, and "this room has an old woman holding a crossbow in her lap" isn't indicative of Paizo's level of detail. More like, "the PCs may be able to surprise these two goblins, as they have gorged themselves on the pickles they stole from the larder and are sleeping off their binge."
As for your player issue, there are problems with having only two PCs. PF is a cooperative game, and makes some general assumptions about what you will have in your group at certain levels. In general, there are four bases that need to be covered - tankiness, skill monkey, arcanist, and holy man. At some point during the course of the game, if you don't have one of those four, then you will have difficulty.
There are ways around this, and you've addressed most of them. You can lower the difficulty, which means dropping the number of monsters encountered, but might also mean removing class levels from some baddies. Playing two characters each would solve the balance issue on your end, but new players are often overwhelmed with options on one character, let alone two. Gestalt is an (unofficial) option, and one I don't care for. In short, you're leveling up in two different classes at once.
Finally, a campaign setting describes the world, but an adventure path describes a story taking place in that world. The Inner Sea World Guide tells all about all of the regions in the Inner Sea, the gods, many of the factions all vying for power, the regions and how they interact with their neighbors, etc. Rise of the Runelords focuses on a very small region of the Inner Sea, Varisia, a true frontier area with a moderate amount of settlement, where an ancient evil is stirring, long forgotten by modern civilization.
One last thing I'd suggest - since your family is new to the game, you might want to try running a module first before committing to an AP. A module, like The Harrowing or Carrion Hill is a much smaller investment of time and resources than a full AP like Runelords. Heck, I've been running my Runelords game for over two years now, and we've just recently finished the first half.
While it's certainly a good idea to have, you don't technically need the Core Rulebook as all of that information is available for free online on the SRD.
The AP book, preferably the Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition will be required to play.
Other books might be useful (particularly the Bestiaries), but again, everything really relevant can be found on the SRD.
The AP books will show maps, stat blocks for most monsters (but not all--again, see the SRD for the rest), the treasure that the party finds, and will generally provide text descriptions for most areas. They do not usually provide narratives meant to be read aloud. For example, the text description will usually describe a room but not the monsters in it. The AP books will provide the story, but only in a format meant for the GM to read. It's your job as GM to provide the narrative, and adjust it based on what the characters actually know and have done.
APs are balanced for 4 players. Gestalt would help, but I wouldn't recommend that for new players and you'd still need to adjust the balance to handle the action economy imbalance. The basic issue is that Gestalt characters are more powerful and able to do a wider variety of things, but can still only perform so many actions in a given turn.
Each player playing two characters would probably be a better approach to the balance issue.
A campaign setting book describes a portion of the world, which in Pathfinder means Golarion. Some describe a particular region or nation, while others will describe organizations or a particular category of monster. Think of them as background details.
An AP will include some of the backstory that a campaing setting book provides, but will primarily contain the actual meat of the adventure. This means maps, stat blocks for monsters and NPCs, treasure, and such.
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You may need the bestiary books for monster stats. Bestiary 1 should be good but there might be 1 or 2 monsters in bestiary 2. If you have a laptop or tablet with memory space, I would recommend buying the pdf version due to the price difference (9.99 for pdf v. 40 or. 50 something for the hardback book.
A few gaming stores sell roll out maps that you can draw on. Not a must but very useful with wet erase markers. Some GMS buy grid paper at Lowe's or Home Depot so they can keep the maps for later use.
If money is not as much of an object, gaming stores do sell the bestiary 1 and rise of the runelords monsters in cards to call form that can be used with a base to use for bad guys.
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One last thing I'd suggest - since your family is new to the game, you might want to try running a module first before committing to an AP. A module, like The Harrowing or Carrion Hill is a much smaller investment of time and resources than a full AP like Runelords. Heck, I've been running my Runelords game for over two years now, and we've just recently finished the first half.
Personally, I'd recommend We Be Goblins! which is short, very fun (particularly if everyone does goblin voices), and free. It also includes 4 premade goblin characters for the players to play.
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I will second the notion that rise of the runelords can be a very time consuming AP. Even if looking at the leveling in terms society play in which every 3 4-5 hour segments will gain a level and having a 4-5 hour session each week, it can take between a year and 1 1/2 years to complete if you speed through without many talking delays. Just something to think about.
You will probably want to buy a Beastiary I PDF for one simple reason...it has ART.
There's going to be nothing more fun then flicking up a big beastie on your screen, turning it around to your son, and saying, "Now, you get to fight THIS."
==Aelryinth
If you can use online sources, I would make buying the strategy guide a bigger priority. I have found that it is very useful for new players and people who are new to a core class.
You're all in for a real treat. Runelords is a fantastic, epic adventure that became a classic nearly upon its release.
If you are brand new to playing I would suggesting starting off with the module Crypt of the Everflame, then a few* more modules just to get the hang of some rules, and how PF adventures are written.
*how many is up to you of course.