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Hi all. My group and I have been playing D&D since forever (we are all above 45 yo). The next-to-last campaign was D&D 3.5, the Age of Worms AP. A couple of us (myself included) hated that AP because quite a few scenarios involved just combat. When you've been playing for 30 years, rolling dice in order to kill monsters becomes boring very fast.
The last campaign was D&D 4.0, but a couple of us hated the game mechanics. Also, the DM had to enhance all monsters we met, because we've become very effective in managing our characters and most vanilla combats were too easy for our optimized builds.So now I'm looking into Pathfinder. The question is: which AP would you suggest for a very jaundiced group of players? We would love it if it had little combat and lots of investigation, traps, mysteries, puzzles. A bit of role playing would be nice. An unusual environment would be a plus, because we've been saving fantasy worlds for a while now :)
All of the APs involve a fair bit of combat, especially at the higher levels.
Rise of the Runelords (3.5) has a lot of role-playing early on and some negotiation and alliances in Sins of the Saviours. But it is very old school D&D so lots of dungeons rather than exotic locations.
Curse of the Crimson Throne (3.5) is primarily urban with some detours out into the badlands. There can be quite a bit of interaction between the PCs and NPCs and there is some investigation.
Second Darkness (3.5) has quite a lot of uncovering and infiltration to go with the combat but ther eis quite a jerk in terms of tone change half-way through. There's Darklands (Underdark) involvement for the exotic locales.
Legacy of Fire (3.5) is an Arabian themed story. This is definitely the most exotic with demi--planes and the City of Brass featuring as locations.
Council of Thieves is the first Pathfinder Path. It features one module with a fantastic amount of role-play, interaction and investigation (the Sixfold Trial) but the rest is standard urban fare.
Kingmaker is an open AP with a lot of exploration and you have to manage a town. This one might be what you're looking for as it's the least like a standard AP. And if you can't get intersting encounters out of taming the wilderness and setting up your own kingdom...
Serpent's Skull is the current AP (first two parts released) so far. Its got exotic locations (the Mwangi Expanse) and lots of interation and mysteries, plus a race against rivals who you can't just up and slaughter. It's kind of like an Indianna Jones movie in presentation so far.
Carrion Crown is the next AP and is set in Ustalav. It's Gothic horror-theemd so it might be the best one for you, but it won't start to be released until February, so might be too long to wait.
Hope that helps.
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I've not seen Age of Worms, so I'm not sure how it compares to the independant APs, but just as written, all of them are relatively combat heavy.
Note that I said as written. If your GM is willing, there's every possibility to deal with a lot of the combats through roleplay or other methods.
As for something unusual, probably Kingmaker fits best - I'ts a campaign about forging a kingdom from the wilds. You could certainly play up the courtly intrigue side of it.
Hi all. My group and I have been playing D&D since forever (we are all above 45 yo). The next-to-last campaign was D&D 3.5, the Age of Worms AP. A couple of us (myself included) hated that AP because quite a few scenarios involved just combat. When you've been playing for 30 years, rolling dice in order to kill monsters becomes boring very fast.
The last campaign was D&D 4.0, but a couple of us hated the game mechanics. Also, the DM had to enhance all monsters we met, because we've become very effective in managing our characters and most vanilla combats were too easy for our optimized builds.So now I'm looking into Pathfinder. The question is: which AP would you suggest for a very jaundiced group of players? We would love it if it had little combat and lots of investigation, traps, mysteries, puzzles. A bit of role playing would be nice. An unusual environment would be a plus, because we've been saving fantasy worlds for a while now :)
Council of thieves sounds like the best bet for your group, IMO. My second pick would be legacy of fire (still quite combatty but the setting might be a change of pace for you). My other second pick would be kingmaker - the 'build a stronghold and claim territory' might bring back fond memories for your group from the early days.
I was going to suggest Legacy of Fire for an old school group. I haven't played or run the AP, but just knowing that it includes a trip to the City of Brass should get any old-schooler drooling. *grin*
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I've not seen Age of Worms, so I'm not sure how it compares to the independant APs, but just as written, all of them are relatively combat heavy.
...sorry to hear that. You're really missing out. Age of Worms is still one of the best APs as a whole in my opinion.
Spend some time reading THIS to see what I mean.
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My main goup is all in their mid 40s + as well (a few older). We've all be playing since the 70s.
I ran Age of Worms as well and I agree that it was too combat heavy. So much so that at a certain point, the play seemed to feel a lot more like a boardgame and a lot less like a RPG. Still, I enjoyed a lot of Age of Worms, especially the first four modules in that AP. Shadows of Longspire? Not so much. By that time, the grind was on and fun was becoming less and less a factor during play.
I am playing Kingmaker now and have run Council of Thieves. I would recommend Council of Thieves if what your group is looking for is less combat, more role-playing in terms of balance between the two.
All Pathfinder APs feature combat, but in terms of the ratio of RP to combat, Council of Thieves provides the highes RP to combat ratio of those APs released to date, imo. This is largely a consequence that the level arc for the campaign is 1st to 12th level, whereas most of the other Pathfinder APs end at 15th to 18th level. (The Dungeon APs each ended at 20th.)
The push for more experience points is, accordingly, not there in Council of Thieves to the degree it is present in the other APs. The older Dungeon Magazine APs that Paizo released, which were all designed to end at 20th level, were especially combat heavy as a result.
I would also note that nearly all APs have an XP point gap at some point in their volume structure. That is, the books as presented do not provide enough XP to reach the next level required in the next volume in the series. The GM is expected to supplement their own encounters to close this "XP gap".
There is nothing that requires a "XP gap" to be closed with combat alone. There are other possibilities.
If you are the expected GM of the AP, I suggest you listen to Episode #006 of Chronicles: Pathfinder Podcast where we review the first volume in the Council of Thieves AP, The Bastards of Erebus. We have also recently reviewed Kingmaker 1: Stolen Land so you can listen to both episodes and decide which of the two APs might be best for you and your group.
The podcast episodes may be downloaded here.
I would probably recommend Curse of the Crimson Throne. I haven't played all of it, but from what I've seen, quite a few conflicts can be resolved through diplomacy or scheming rather than just out-and-out fighting.