Simple fun varied adventure path

[hanez]

Hi, I am hoping you can help me choose from a new(er) AP.

I haven't been back to Paizo in a while, I homebrewed my last couple campaigns after getting burnt out on kingmaker, but here I am again browsing APs that occurred after it.

I am looking for something a bit more straight forward, which doesnt take as much planning from me, I was interested in Giantslayer, but I am not sure if my players would be as interested in the same type of NPC for that long, so something varied would be great. While I like to challenge my players with some roleplaying, I find they like straight forward stuff as well, so anything overly bent towards non combat roleplaying I may have to skip or modify.

Also, I'd like an AP that is "easier to run". In the past I have purchased APs because I wanted to save on work. But with some APs they had so many NPCs, so much backstory, some much prose about the world altering plans of the BBEG, that after an hour I still wasn't sure what the adventure would be. I am wondering if there is an AP with a little less of this (but obviously not so simple that it is simply a few dungeon crawls tied togetger).

Is there an AP after kingmaker you would suggest I check out?

PS - my favourite AP pre kingmaker will always be age of worms, great starter town, standard lizard type adventure after that, then off to the free city to fight in an arena. And all pretty straight forward stuff the whole way too.

PPS - After some reading, and previewing... Strange Aeons sounds promising. Although maybe I am just a sucker for the starting hook

[Yakman]

Lotsa different types of bad guys in Strange Aeons, no doubt.

You might want to check out War for the Crown. There's lots of RPing, a pretty wide variety of adventure types, and an unexpected BBEG (but in a good way). MOst of the NPCs are confined to a single book, although you can bring them in and out of the broader story.

Ruins of Azlant might be another good candidate, but there's a ton of NPCs in some of the books.

[deuxhero]

Strange Aeons is relatively straightforward

Strange Aeons in two sentences:

Count steals memories of the PCs for ritual with great old ones and throws the PCs in an asylum. They escape, chase after him, getting their memory back in the process, find him and stop him.

The main obstacle is the GM needs to figure out the PC's backstories (as the player's guide mentions). There's some material to work with, but working in some more unusual options might be a challenge.

There's also the Northlands Saga which, for better or worse, has fairly disconnected parts (to the point the final bad guys aren't mentioned before the last module). This was a result of the middle being written first and the later parts being made from notes instead of the original author.

Way of the Wicked is also an option for third party AP. A lot of the bad guy's plan is explicitly given to the players because they're knowingly working for him. The parts he doesn't tell them are pretty easy to understand and the good guys are pretty straight forward.

If you wanted a bit off the beaten track, Eberron's Forgotten Forge (in the main setting book)>Shadows of the Last War>Whispers of the Vampire's Blade>Grasp of the Emerald Claw series fits what you want and takes the players from 1-8/9 (I forget). All the Eberron rules stuff has been converted to Pathfinder.