What do you think the hardest ap in pathfinder is right now
~=[,,_,,];3
Probably Slumbering Tsar.
Yep, or age of worms.
I've killed the most players with Emerald Spire, but Slumbering Tsar is dangerous as well.
The Pale Tower in Reign of Winter was pretty deadly for my group; we had five PCs die in the process and had to retreat and try again twice and so far through the first two books of Reign of Winter we've had eight PC deaths.
LMAO. I had to think for a minute, then I realized which AP you were talking about.
To answer the question, Slumbering Tsar, Rappan Athuk, and Age of Worms.
Age of Worms gets my vote. No contest.
I've killed several PC's in Mummy's Mask. The last part of book 2 has the potential to be hellish for an ill prepared party.
Skull and Shackles can be incredibly brutal, especially to our captains, so much so straws are now drawn when the last one dies:-D
Kind of tangential, but how's the narrative in Slumbering Tsar? I'd like to run an AP sometime because I don't really have the energy to homebrew a whole campaign, but it seems like everything is either A) so easy that I have to rewrite the entire campaign anyways or B) a dungeon crawl with no roleplaying opportunities to speak of.
Age of Worms. Messy, very very messy.
I've read through a lot of adventure paths, but the ending battle of Book 2 in Rise of the Runelords (the ORIGINAL one!) has to be the most difficult battle in a "story AP" I've ever seen. ("Story AP" as a way to differentiate from a location-based sandbox like Rappan Athuk where you can walk into an incredibly high CR encounter.)
How does Slumbering Tsar compare to Rappan Athuk in terms of difficulty? I want to run the more brutal one with my players. =D
The hardest one to date? Well, I guess Rise of the Runelords. She's a bit older, set in her ways, and overly concerned with Sin. You'd think that'd make her more fun to date, but it doesn't... :)
Tsar and Rappan Athuk are in the same world and the same old-world style...you're there to kick arse and take names, not really RP. Adding that is the DM's job.
RA is a bunch of dungeons all over the place. It does not compare to the pure threat level of Tsar. Tsar you WILL finish over level 20. RA can be difficult if the enemies organize and you can't retreat if you get over your head, and there's some very hard areas in there...but Tsar is definitely worse.
==Aelryinth
Sometimes it is tough to know how much DMs have customized APs, but here's the death count I recall for various APs:
- Savage Tide ~ 4 (it feels like there were more, but it was so long ago it is tough to remember...)
- Rise of the Runelords ~ 10 (2 in a DM built side encounter)
- Second Darkness ~ 8 (the gleefully murderous DM seemed to have amped up the encounters quite a bit as well)
- Kingmaker = 2 (PCs were also bailed out with Hero Points 3-4 times, and Last Breath was used at least once)
The Kingmaker campaign in particular was run mostly run without amped up encounters. There were some tough fights in there, but RotRL seemed far more brutal overall.
@The Rot Grub - Could you do a spoiler regarding which battle was at the end of Book 2 or RotRL and what you found so tough about it? I've played the AP. I'm just not sure what was in which book.
Book 2 in RotRL has the infamous lamia in the original book, who after casting mage armor and shield had an AC in the 30's against level 6 characters. It was infamously hard if you didn't dispel her.
==Aelryinth
So they nerfed her spell selection in the remake to make her easier to fight, of course!
==Aelryinth
From what I have heard, pre-update Rise of the Runelords is hard.
So are the pre-Pathfinder ones such as Slumbering Tsar and Age of Worms.
I say Skull & Shackles, on account that's where I got to take part in a TPK (Total Pirate Kill).
The hardest one to date? Well, I guess Rise of the Runelords. She's a bit older, set in her ways, and overly concerned with Sin. You'd think that'd make her more fun to date, but it doesn't... :)
Is no-one going to talk about how good this joke was?
The hardest one to date? Well, I guess Rise of the Runelords. She's a bit older, set in her ways, and overly concerned with Sin. You'd think that'd make her more fun to date, but it doesn't... :)Is no-one going to talk about how good this joke was?
I actually thought it would make her less fun to date right from the get go. But, bonus points to Mark for the "to date" play on words...
Age of Worms was pretty swingy from chapter to chapter, if I recall correctly. The Spire of Long Shadows was notorious. I suppose it was because...
The Swords of Kyuss, undead skeletal knights that were "CR 10," which had a supernatural ability that dealt 14d6 damage to all living creatures within 20 feet (DC 22 Reflex save for half damage). They could do this three times per day. You would encounter 3 of them at once, and this ability both dealt damage AND healed all undead at the same time. Brutal!
I have played through both Age of Worms and Savage Tide to completion. They both served up plenty of PC deaths but I think AoW was a bit more brutal.
Our current Rise of the Runelords campaign has claimed the life of a PC six times so far and we are just into book 3. Four of those deaths were due to rolling poorly on saves vs paralysis and the other two were vs the boss that has been mentioned earlier in the thread.