It has been about 8 years or so since I really delved into Pathfinder. I left early one to run a lot of 1e or 2e games. Kinda feel like I went down that road as far I want and know I really want to dig into Pathfinder. I missed the majority of the run of Pathfinder, and since now it is almost a closed game guess I should dip my toes in it.
So a few questions for basically a newcomer to the game. First, of course, the main reason to return is the ease that pathfinder gives in it the selection of adventure paths. I ran the rise of the runelords and the beginning of the legacy of fire. Which adventure path is the easiest to run? Life is too busy for something I got to put too much work into changing so it runs fine.
Lastly are the core classes still playable in the later adventure paths or was their sort of an escalation of difficulty. I was hoping to stick pretty close to Core tell I get my feet under me.
I don't know that their is a lot of difference in 'ease of running.' Some have specialized rules for them that are more (Kingdom building in Kingmaker) or less (Caravan in Jade regent) successful and learning and managing those can be an additional challenge. Most benefit from some customization for your party, but you don't have to. Some are better than others, or at least better for some people/groups than others, but I don't think their is much difference in 'difficult to run.'
By and large I would say that Pathfinder has avoided power bloat pretty well. I don't think the newer classes are more powerful than the core ones (with the possible exception of the original summoner, the spell list they got was a little OP, unchained summoner is better, and if you have any players that want to play rogues I higher suggest the unchained rogue instead of the core one, it is a much needed upgrade.)
Of course more options can be a bit of power creep even if the overall balance is pretty much the same. If you have 10 feats in a game and 2 are great, 8 are average and 2 are horrible and supplements increased that to 30 feats, 4 are great, 16 are average and 10 are horrible, there hasn't exactly been power creep but a character that gets 4 feats is going to be more powerful with the supplements than not. It isn't that extreme though.
I don't think their are any paths that wouldn't function just fine with a core only group.
The real issue for customization is that the paths expect a fairly mediocre degree of optimization. I would consider the groups I have been in for paths to be only mild optimizers, but even that made most of the combats pretty easy. Usually I have ended up throwing the advanced simple template on everything to make it enough of a challenge to be enjoyable which is not 'no work' but not very very much.
Avoid Kingmaker. The kingdom stuff will drive you nuts with all the book keeping, and it eats game time for little benefit. Though, I think it also produces better characters. You get a lot more invested in the character when you make decisions that shape the kingdom.
For what it's worth, you can run KM without even touching the kingdom building rules. A kingdom's lack of direct impact on the adventure was by design.
KM does take the exploration and the side quests a bit too far, though. It doesn't make much sense for kingdom rulers to be looking for roc eggs for a chef in town, for example. But the overall adventure is great.
I don't know that their is a lot of difference in 'ease of running.' Some have specialized rules for them that are more (Kingdom building in Kingmaker) or less (Caravan in Jade regent) successful and learning and managing those can be an additional challenge. Most benefit from some customization for your party, but you don't have to. Some are better than others, or at least better for some people/groups than others, but I don't think their is much difference in 'difficult to run.'
By and large I would say that Pathfinder has avoided power bloat pretty well. I don't think the newer classes are more powerful than the core ones (with the possible exception of the original summoner, the spell list they got was a little OP, unchained summoner is better, and if you have any players that want to play rogues I higher suggest the unchained rogue instead of the core one, it is a much needed upgrade.)
Of course more options can be a bit of power creep even if the overall balance is pretty much the same. If you have 10 feats in a game and 2 are great, 8 are average and 2 are horrible and supplements increased that to 30 feats, 4 are great, 16 are average and 10 are horrible, there hasn't exactly been power creep but a character that gets 4 feats is going to be more powerful with the supplements than not. It isn't that extreme though.
I don't think their are any paths that wouldn't function just fine with a core only group.
The real issue for customization is that the paths expect a fairly mediocre degree of optimization. I would consider the groups I have been in for paths to be only mild optimizers, but even that made most of the combats pretty easy. Usually I have ended up throwing the advanced simple template on everything to make it enough of a challenge to be enjoyable which is not 'no work' but not very very much.
It is great to hear that they avoided the power bloat over a decade. Really refreshing.
We would be a very casual group. If we worried about things being too easy maybe start at 15 points buy instead?
The paths are designed for 15 point buy, however, I'd recommend 20 point buy but maybe have a cap on how high and/or low you can take any stat. Any class that really needs more than a couple decent stats struggles on lower point buy, and the most single ability dependent classes are the 9-level casters, which tend to be the most powerful anyway, especially mid to late game. Maxing out at 16 before racial and no dumping below 9 (before racial) would probably achieve what you want while still allowing a lot of viable options for characters.
The core classes are still relevant and viable today, so in that respect power creep shouldn't be an issue for you. The bigger issue with sticking with core-only is that some classes (rogue, monk, and to a lesser degree fighter) really didn't get much support in the core rulebook and only started to shine after they got some love in later publications. The strong and well-rounded core classes, however, remain brutally effective in today's Pathfinder with no new content required. To this day most of the best options for Wizards come from the core rulebook.
Now, there has been power creep for monsters over the years, but not in the way you might think. The baseline stats of monsters are roughly the same as they were back in the day - similar HP, AC, attack, damage, etc - but they tend to have way more special abilities now. A typical monster statblock from a more recent bestiary might easily have 3 or 4 abilities while a similar monster from bestiary 1 might have only 1. In other words, monsters aren't so much more powerful as they have more tricks up their sleeves these days.
The biggest problem you'll have with using the new adventure paths is that a lot of them casually use content from newer releases. Whether that's a new monster from a recent bestiary, an NPC with one of the newer classes, or one of the optional subsystems. So if you do pick a newer adventure path you'll probably need to learn at least a couple new rules.
In terms of recent adventure paths that I've read, I have a bit of a soft spot for Strange Aeons. It uses cosmic horror themes, but at its heart it's still a fantasy adventure and when push comes to shove that's the side it falls on.