Thoughts on the AP so far?

[OmegaZ]

I've only read through book 1 entirely and it seems...fine. Certainly functional with some really cool parts, but kinda lacks direction imo (a better impetus for the PC's to do any of it would help). How do books 2, 3, and 4 look so far? I've skimmed books 2 and 3 and they look neat, but I'm hesitant to buy the 4th book.

[considerably]

The introduction in book 1 was a little weak in terms of establishing a narrative reason for getting the PCs on board, but they seem to acknowledge that in the Player's Guide:

Player's Guide wrote:

This Adventure Path relies, to a certain extent, on a group that actively seeks out adventure rather than one who waits for NPCs to approach them with tasks to perform. The first two adventures have a bit of “quest-giving,” but the plots and conspiracies the PCs uncover increasingly suggest next steps and adventuring goals without someone telling the PCs what to do.

Obviously some GMs and players may not like that, but Return of the Runelords clearly carries on the tradition from Rise of the Runelords, in that the characters are intended to be arch-typical heroes.

That aside, Book 1 is otherwise a pretty good adventure. Adam Daigle did a good job I think; he teases and foreshadows a lot of plot points that will come up in later books. The Peacock Manor sequence is probably the highlight of this book - it should be interesting for players to come up with a plan and a GM to adapt to that!

Book 2's first half is really interesting. A good GM could really push this sequence over the top and make it a very memorable "who-dun-it" kind of thing, maybe by adding a couple of extra NPCs. The second half of book 2 is a dungeon crawl, though a seemingly good one. It cribs heavily from a specific dungeon in Dungeons of Golarion, which is pretty cool.

Book 3 is my favorite so far. It has a lot of call backs to Rise, you get to treck around the major cities in Varisia, and several of the plot beats seem relatively easy to adapt to your PCs, to weave in personal stories etc. It also has a length RP encounter at a festival-type thing which I'm really looking forward to.

Both book 2 and 3 have a lot of "dead time" where your players are traveling or otherwise have some freedom to roam without hard-coded plot penalties. For a GM who wants freedom to add in their own content, I think, these are well-suited.

Book 4 spoilers:

I have not fully read book 4, but it is basically a mega-dungeon. Each floor is vastly different, though, so it shouldn't be too repetitive. The payoff in the end of book villain makes it worth it, I think. I think slaying a god after trudging through multiple floors a dungeon to reach the him will feel pretty cool. Book 4 also has a clever encounter at the beginning that plays with time a bit, which seems to be a theme of the AP. I think most GMs will have fun running that encounter.

[captain yesterday]

It seems a bit cluttered, I guess, like they're trying to cram all these different story lines in.

But there's still two more books coming out so I might change my mind.