Looking for Module Similar to Emerald Spire

[Krell44]

Greetings,

My son and I want to start co-GMing a PFS adventure for a few family members and I was looking for something similar to an Emerald Spire dungeon crawl which would be a good introduction to the new players on how basic gameplay functions, and also streamlined for my 10 year old son who wants to try GMing.

Specifically, looking for a series of play sessions where each character would receive 3 XP (full level) for each completed scenario. I have been tipped off to Thornkeep, but was wondering if there are additional ones out there to look into which are PFS sanctioned.

[Natertot]

Krell44 wrote:

Greetings,

My son and I want to start co-GMing a PFS adventure for a few family members and I was looking for something similar to an Emerald Spire dungeon crawl which would be a good introduction to the new players on how basic gameplay functions, and also streamlined for my 10 year old son who wants to try GMing.

Specifically, looking for a series of play sessions where each character would receive 3 XP (full level) for each completed scenario. I have been tipped off to Thornkeep, but was wondering if there are additional ones out there to look into which are PFS sanctioned.

Maybe try Dragon's Demand.

Nate Meyers
NYC PFS GM/Player

[Hawkwen Agricola]

Other than Dragon's Demand; Tears at Bitter Manor and Plunder and Peril are modules that offer 2 or 3 chronicle sheets. For a longer term game, similar to Emerald Spire, I suggest one (or more) of the sanctioned Adventure Paths.

[kinevon]

For a new GM, as a single module play, consider Crypt of the Everflame. It has some really nice sidebars explaining the mechanics of Pathfinder, and is designed, at least at the beginning, for new 1st level PCs.

[Vinyard Vaughn]

kinevon wrote:

For a new GM, as a single module play, consider Crypt of the Everflame. It has some really nice sidebars explaining the mechanics of Pathfinder, and is designed, at least at the beginning, for new 1st level PCs.

You might want to consider following "Crypt of the Everflame" with "The Godsmouth Heresy" as another fairly contained (and easy to GM) dungeon crawl for level 1-2 characters.

Then bridge the gap to the next dungeon "Fangwood Keep", which is for 4th level chars with either the "Masks of the Living God" the direct follow up to "Crypt of the Everflame" (and 2nd part of the "Price of Immortality" trilogie) or with 3 easy/dungeon heavy PFS season 1 scenarios (#39 "Citadel of Flame", #49 "Among the Dead" and #55 "The Infernal Vault" come to mind), if the cult aspect of "Masks of the Living God" is to much for the younger family members.

And when you're there go directly in "City of Golden Death" at 5th level to finish of that trilogie. That should keep you busy and in dungeon-heaven for quite a while.

Also stay away from "Thornkeep" because its just a really bad designed dungeon. Awful, but thats just my two cents.

[Calenor]

I had a lot of Fun GM'ing Plunder and Peril, ...

its a nice bump from 3-7 as you can get 4 full Module Sheets for it.

And i like the Pirate Storyline a lot, my Group asked for a Homegame(non PFS)add on. :)

[Brother Fen]

Sebastian Schirrmeister wrote:

kinevon wrote:

For a new GM, as a single module play, consider Crypt of the Everflame. It has some really nice sidebars explaining the mechanics of Pathfinder, and is designed, at least at the beginning, for new 1st level PCs.

You might want to consider following "Crypt of the Everflame" with "The Godsmouth Heresy" as another fairly contained (and easy to GM) dungeon crawl for level 1-2 characters.

Then bridge the gap to the next dungeon "Fangwood Keep", which is for 4th level chars with either the "Masks of the Living God" the direct follow up to "Crypt of the Everflame" (and 2nd part of the "Price of Immortality" trilogie) or with 3 easy/dungeon heavy PFS season 1 scenarios (#39 "Citadel of Flame", #49 "Among the Dead" and #55 "The Infernal Vault" come to mind), if the cult aspect of "Masks of the Living God" is to much for the younger family members.

And when you're there go directly in "City of Golden Death" at 5th level to finish of that trilogie. That should keep you busy and in dungeon-heaven for quite a while.

Also stay away from "Thornkeep" because its just a really bad designed dungeon. Awful, but thats just my two cents.

This is a great suggestion. Just finished GM'ing Crypt of the Everflame and the Godsmouth Heresy. We're currently in the midst of Masks of the Living God. Makes for a fun campaign.

Note that Masks of the Living God is not a dungeon crawl and much more of a subterfuge type of mission. It's great for a change of pace, but if you want more dungeon crawls, you may want to just skip to the next one.

[Galnörag]

if "like emerald spire" means dungeon crawls and coherent / continued story, then +1 dragon's demand. It was a classic module, and we had a lot of fun with it. Alternatively you could run some of the PFS scenarios that are three parters, the Season 5 Osirion stuff, or Season 6 Scion's of the Sky Key both are fun.

[Sarvei taeno]

if your looking for dungeon crawl hack in slash similar to emerald spire id recommend thornkeep, For pfs play it is str8 forward dungeon crawl. More experienced players tend to try and get away from it cause without the story(which is not part of sanctioned play) none of the floors have a coherent story line it is a simple hack in slash.

Id highly recommend crypt of the everflame, mask of the living god and city of golden death. they are my favorite set of modules. Each 1 is lil tougher than the 1st to run, each is designed to push players to develop tactics and team work.

Personally i disliked godsmouth heresy because the story wasnt as catching and it dragged out with each locked door.

[Muser]

If going the Price of Immortality route reconsider the final chapter. While the setting is top notch the actual module is very bad. It's needlessly unforgiving, has very little wealth to offset the deadlyness, consists largely of unbalanced random encounter tables and barely has a story.

YMMV though.

[Chris Mortika]

Sebastian Schirrmeister wrote:

Also stay away from "Thornkeep" because its just a really bad designed dungeon. Awful, but thats just my two cents.

Steve, you're welcome to your opinion, but I think that Thornkeep is a classic "village of Hommlet" style adventure. It suffers from a very tight page-count, which keeps it from being brilliant, but it's still one of the best town-and-dungeon adventures Paizo has produced.

[Muser]

Thornkeep is a great adventure but organized play restricts it a bit too much. It'd be gread to play around in the starter town and really get into the backround of the dungeon, but there are slots, etc to consider.

[Tarondor]

I enjoyed Thornkeep.

Although it was written for 3.5, I think one of the finest Dungeon delves of all time is still Monte Cook's The Banewarrens.

[Jeff Merola]

I also liked Thornkeep, with the exception of the Dark Menagerie. It just needed a lot more page count for the fluff to really fit together and be interesting, and it's a dungeon designed for level 5 characters sanctioned as a 5-7, so unless your party all falls on the low end of the range they probably won't find any of it remotely dangerous.