Are there any plans to make higher level adventure paths available any time soon?
None have been announced, so no. It would be neat to see though.
OK...thanks....it seems like an oversight
Yeah, there was a lot of talk on launch how they "fixed the math" to make high-level play fast and fun, so I'd like to actually see the adventures (both APs, but SFS scenarios as well) to show off what the game can do.
Honestly it will probably depend on how well Signal of Screams sold, being an unconventional AP that doesn't start at 1st level.
Honestly it will probably depend on how well Signal of Screams sold, being an unconventional AP that doesn't start at 1st level.
Or.. they could just release adventure paths that go from 1-20 like they do for pathfinder :)
However right now with so many adventure paths that drop of in the mid lvl range it would be nice to see a few non horror campaigns to finish off that climb to 20 for some groups.
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Or.. they could just release adventure paths that go from 1-20 like they do for pathfinder :)
I'm not sure how well the high level pathfinder modules sell. 1-20 is a huge commitment for any gaming group, especially if high level play breaks down like it did in D&D 3.5E.
That said, a couple three/four-part 13-20 APs would be an incredible addition if they sold reasonably well (especially if they were SFS-compatible, giving high level society characters something to do to finish off their careers).
Anyway, I LOVE horror-themed adventures, so they can take one of the high level APs and base each book on... let's say... Hellraiser, Dark City, and... okay, Cabin in the Woods. Just go whole-hog with it.
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At the very least some modules taking characters through two or three high levels at a time: 14-15 or 14-16, 17-19 and 20.
I would love to see a paizo team member comment
I would love to see a paizo team member comment
They can't really comment on unannounced products, so all they could really say is that it is something that they are monitoring for feasibility.
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Or.. they could just release adventure paths that go from 1-20 like they do for pathfinder :)I'm not sure how well the high level pathfinder modules sell. 1-20 is a huge commitment for any gaming group, especially if high level play breaks down like it did in D&D 3.5E.
Statistically most groups dont get that far but they must sell decently well as most Pathfinder APs have that range and I believe the first new Pathfinder 2.0 AP goes from 1-20 as well. Why they chose to limit the range the way they did for Starfinder has always been a head scratcher for me. I got on board with Paizo back in the day because I loved their Adventure Paths and the fact that I could have a complete campaign that takes my PCs as far as they want to go.
Regardless it is what it is but im all onboard for either more higher level mini campaigns to cap off their existing ones or to see them expand future APs to include high lvl play.
Probably what it would take is for a large number of fans to be running high level games in public spaces, getting the customer base primed for higher level play. Compared to a lot of modern games this system is very crunchy (although I know old school gamers like us consider the rules streamlined) which can be intimidating to the average group. The top end of RPG systems has a well deserved reputation for being disastrously hard to balance. Ironically if the die hard fans and content creators show up in force showing that they can run at that level, that will likely then create the demand for the product required for it to be a solid financial investment for Paizo's limited release schedule.
Is any of that nerdery making sense?
For the record I thought Signal of Screams was brilliant. I like horror stuff and thought the science fantasy Hellraiser twist was really cool. But I would also be happy to play other genres at high level as well.
Are the six-part APs really only up to 13th level? The PF ones run to about 17th and I'm just a bit bewildered that the three-part and six-part seem to only go to 13th? (Do they even go that far, or is it just 12?)
There were a few PF APs that only went to ~15.
Still, I would love to see a couple of three parters from 13 on, or six parters that go higher.
Right now, if my group want to keep going instead of starting a new campaign, I'm thinking of upgrading the encounters in signal of screams via the NPC tables, but that's going to take some work.
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Are the six-part APs really only up to 13th level? The PF ones run to about 17th and I'm just a bit bewildered that the three-part and six-part seem to only go to 13th? (Do they even go that far, or is it just 12?)
Pathfinder APs are 100 pages which have about 54 reserved for adventuring and rest for articles. Starfinder APs are 68 pages where about 34 are reserved for adventuring and rest for articles.
Thats kinda why we have been asking for two 3 part aps that goes past 13 or 1 that covers 13-20 <_< Its not feasible to have single 1-20 starfinder ap unless they temporarily increase page count or don't have any articles I suppose
I mean, maybe I'm in the minority; I hate to disappoint Paizo, but I basically don't look at the articles in the PF AP at all unless they're directly related to the adventure (I mean, source material counts as that and all - to a degree), so for my personal money, they could certainly crop *some* of the articles (especially the fiction stuff, I don't look at that at all, with all due respect...)
Or in the specific case of Starfinder, just have a few higher level modules (there's a handful for Pathfinder, one or two which I picked up as something I could run for a party after an AP).
A lot of the starfinder APs contain player options, gear, mystic connections, new PC races, new starship weapons, etc.
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I mean, maybe I'm in the minority; I hate to disappoint Paizo, but I basically don't look at the articles in the PF AP at all unless they're directly related to the adventure (I mean, source material counts as that and all - to a degree), so for my personal money, they could certainly crop *some* of the articles (especially the fiction stuff, I don't look at that at all, with all due respect...)
Or in the specific case of Starfinder, just have a few higher level modules (there's a handful for Pathfinder, one or two which I picked up as something I could run for a party after an AP).
They've discussed this from time to time over the years and one thing worth noting is that page-for-page substitution doesn't correlate with equivalent cost.
Meaning a page of fiction is less strain on the developers/editors/layout team than a page of adventure (plus it can be outsourced to a different pool of freelancers than the pool of adventure writers cranking out modules, PFS scenarios and AP instalments).
I'd much prefer the backmatter to be in a different product line so that we could have longer, more fleshed out adventures but there's more to it than just "drop some pages of that stuff and add some more to the adventure", unfortunately.
So noted. Nothing it is ever that simple is it?
Yeah, unfortunately. (I’d love an official high level Starfinder story arc too).
Presumably it’s the same with Starfinder as with Pathfinder. As I understand it (from several publishers) first level adventures always sell better than anything else and generally the higher the adventure goes, the worse the sales (true for standalone modules or high level, later instalments of a series of modules). As such, trying a high level story arc is probably very risky - giving up on the revenue of a new 1-6 story in hopes a 13-18 does just as well is probably something to try when they’re not also taking on the risk of a relaunched card game and a new edition of their flagship product.
In general, I think it’s more likely to get something the closer it can fit with paizo’s Regular schedule. The first AP took a year but now that they’re coming out monthly, perhaps they may chance their arm at one nine issue AP or something (or an 8-4 breakup). They’ve also tried two back-to-back three part APs, so I’d like them to try a stand-alone 1-6 and 13-18 pairing at some point.
It’s also seemed to me that a one-off level 13 module would be worth a shot to test the waters, at some point. That’s outside their usual production schedule, but given Starfinder still seems to be doing well, perhaps the market is strong enough to give it a try..
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Honestly it will probably depend on how well Signal of Screams sold, being an unconventional AP that doesn't start at 1st level.
I know this is an old comment, but I wanted to note that -- I love high level adventures and unconventional level adventures, but I didn't subscribe to Signal of Screams because I generally hate horror roleplaying (with rare exception), and certainly don't want to GM it.
And this is one of the problems of proving the value of high level (or "odd" level adventures) by sales. There are so few, you have to hope the subject matter of the ones that exist suit your needs and preferences. And I think while I've tried to buy high level modules and adventures to support them when I can, there's ones I also know I will never use and I am not going to buy something I'll never use. And unfortunately I think one of the challenges of high level play is tailoring an adventure to a particular party or theme based on how they got to high level and how they want to use their near godlike abilities. It's extremely hard to make a "pleases everyone" adventure for high levels in particular.
At the same time, I fully understand there's no other metric than sales that a company can reasonably use to determine popularity. I just hope that they do understand correlation is not causation in this case. (Although I know a lot of people like horror so perhaps that in fact boosted SoS's success).
(Although I know a lot of people like horror so perhaps that in fact boosted SoS's success).
It certainly made me buy the AP when I would not have purchased it otherwise.
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I know this is an old comment, but I wanted to note that -- I love high level adventures and unconventional level adventures, but I didn't subscribe to Signal of Screams because I generally hate horror roleplaying (with rare exception), and certainly don't want to GM it.
For what it's worth: same here. I specifically avoided SoS because psychological horror isn't my bag. If there were a high-level AP, say levels 13 - 20 or something, I'd be pretty seriously tempted, again depending on flavour and theme.
Developer
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Hey folks,
Just want to hop on here to reiterate that the Starfinder team does pay attention to these forum posts and we are hearing you! As has been stated previously, our data suggests that higher-level content doesn't sell as well as lower-level adventures, but that doesn't mean we haven't completely dismissed the idea. Of course, I can't announce anything at this time (as there is nothing to announce).
That being said, I'd like to know what KIND of high-level adventures would you like to see. Do you have a preferred sci-fi "genre" for such adventures? Would you prefer the return of an old threat or a brand new one? Do you want to save the Pact Worlds or would you want to travel to a new system? How would you feel if these adventurers ended with a major change to the setting?
Just call me Dr. Frasier Crane, because I'm listening!
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My main motivation for wanting to see high level adventuring in Starfinder is to get context of WHAT high level adventuring in starfinder is. Like, do you move from medium sized starships to large and larger spaceships with huge crews? Do you fight entire empires? Do you fight space demon lords? Etc. If The Swarm's hivemind can be defeated at level 12, then what the heck level 17 party would fight?
Thing about my tastes is that they are varied as hell :P I like all 1e aps theme wise. I just like variety in general and having refreshing flavors instead of everything being the same.
I'm okay with major changes to setting though, but I think those things work better in level 1-15+ aps like 1e had, it'd be anti climactic if major force is perma dealt with in single 1-7 ap for example since the faction wouldn't have gotten "long" ap about them.
I know its kinda problem that I'm fine with everything, but thing is that different things have different benefits. If high level AP is setin Pact Worlds, then that is great at show casing what kind of high level campaigns you can have without moving outside of pact worlds. If its in the vast or near space, well, exploring new stuff out of pact worlds is cool too.
If I had to list some of specific plotlines I'd like to see eventually, I'd say next ones(unfortunately not all of the ideas are super high level specifically, but some of them are I think):
1) Invaders from unknown dimension/plane! Mostly because I love those scifi thing where you don't know what is attacking you and you learn slowly through entire story what the enemy even is. Enemies could be from another galaxy too I guess.
2) Lost in spaaaaaaace. Getting into some sort of weird accident and being lost in another galaxy or really far away from Absalom Station(with drift bringing you into another drift beacon) would be cool flavor wise.
3) shipwrecked the AP. I know this ap would have problem of lacking the spaceship combat, but maybe it could be replaced by vehicle combat or something? Either way, survival ap in hostile planet is cool idea that would be fun to see.
4) AP featuring evil deities or demigods. Like making protecting planet from invading malebranche?
5) ancient threat from age of Golarion /pathfinder 1e returning.
6) Planar AP, ap where you spend more than one book fully in one of the planes.
7) AP really focused on mysteries of specific planet in golarion.
8) Planet eater featuring AP. Because huge ass monsters that consume planets is such scifi trope it will always be featured somehow :D Cool thing about monsters on this scale is that you can feature whole ap inside them
For my money, I am pretty easy on whatever (as I'd be playing it as a PC), but I think something that, if not actively self-contained, was flexible enough to be used as and end-cap to the existing APs would be fine.
I can entirely understand not going up to 20th - 17-ish the APs do is plenty enough to get the PCs to have a bit of time with some of the top-end toys; heck even another couple of levels would be okay.
Maybe something like a two-part mini-AP, rather than three, for higher levels could be one option - but really, I think even just a stand-alone module or two (like we have had for PF, what's that one I actually have the hardcopy of...? Witchwar Legacy, that's it) would be fine.
(I mean, I can't speak in any more detail than that, as we're only starting Starfinder for the first time on Monday - well generating the party, anyway - so I haven't much of a clue about what the APs are about (and nor should I!))
My group personally doesn't really care what the subject is about when it comes to high level APs, we're just feeling kind of starved when it comes to high level play.
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I really liked the Moonscar module as far as high level pathfinder play goes.
So for high level adventures
- Liberating a planet or system from devils or demons
- Going in a race against a Drow House and a subset of the Corpse Fleet to find a lost ancient automated fleet that could either be a valuable asset to the Stewards (or some other pact world do-gooders), the way for this Drow House to rise to prominence over the others, or for the Corpse Fleet to become an even bigger problem than they already are.
- Helping a bunch of Planetars who go stuck in the Drift carry out their mission in Hell
High level play? OH YEAH!
1) H.P. Lovecraft Mythos. Nyarlehoptep is in the setting, dealing with his/her/it/their schemes is definitely in the Starfinder wheelhouse. Finding a lost beacon in a system where there is no sun, just Azathoth. A water planet in the vein of Innsmouth where the people start getting fishy (and I'm not talking Kalo). Hopping in a level 20 starship and fighting Cthluhu amidst the frozen ice chunks of a shattered ocean on the planet you just destroyed to try to kill a sleeping Great Old One (you failed and woke it up).
2) Outer Planar Shenanigans. I doubt you can use Planescape stuff due to copyright, but Thinking With Portals seems like a fun high level adventure... dealing with the philosophical battles of the Great Ring of Planes sounds like an appropriate challenge. What is the afterlife like in the Starfinder universe? Do the gods and demons fight over the souls of wizards and scientific geniuses in order to gain power and prestige among the eternals, or do they have altogether more esoteric battles in the modern era?
3) Marooned! The players find themselves crash landed on a planet much like Old Golarion, with technology limited to what they brought with them and the limits of their old UPB replicator. As they explore and make allies with the local monarchs and petty lords, they find that other stranded spacefarers have backed opposing factions and are manipulating events behind the scenes. The back matter for these could really flesh out magic items (including armor upgrades), archaic magical weapons, spells, and fusions. By the time the PCs have repaired their ship, they have uncovered a plot that threatens the safety of countless lives in the galaxy at large, and they are the only ones who can stop it... The final battle could involve fighting the Tarrasque' (or its non-copyright alternative) with a spaceship...
Stranded in an area of space without drift travel. Cut off from civilization. Unknown horrors, forcing players to get crafty. UPBs are a rare commodity since they're not easily accessible on their own.
Just weird, hostile alien life of any sort really.
I've been considering writing a 3p adventure path for levels 13-20 actually. About a stellar empire attempting to genocide three other stellar empires but strangely enough leaving the PC's home system alone.
With intentions of large space battles, infiltrations, and various planar interactions galore
Also in high level play, consider that the PCs own a ship that will eventually be capable of going toe to toe with many races' battleships and dreadnoughts.
Them owning that small, but very capable ship is a plot hook in itself.
I think either liberating a system being invaded by hell, or tangling with the dominion of the black are some of the better choices when it comes to high level play.
Possibly with a PC instigated major fleet action.
You could visit the Veskarium, places in the near space and the vast all in short order.
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That being said, I'd like to know what KIND of high-level adventures would you like to see. Do you have a preferred sci-fi "genre" for such adventures? Would you prefer the return of an old threat or a brand new one? Do you want to save the Pact Worlds or would you want to travel to a new system? How would you feel if these adventurers ended with a major change to the setting?
These are good questions!
I agree with CorvusMask that big changes to the setting, like taking down one of the major threats, fits better with a long AP where you can savor the journey from "oh god that's so big" to "now we're just as big".
On the other hand, a 3-book AP or an AP starting at high level with no strong assumption about what the PCs did before, kinda needs a way to hit the ground running. Introducing an entirely new threat could be hard. Branching to the side of existing things could work well here. "This particular infernal duke", "a rear admiral of the corpse fleet", "this one planet that's trying to shake off the yoke of the Azlanti Star Empire".
Shorter APs have an advantage in that they don't need to change scenery quite as often to stay fresh. Whereas staying on one planet in a 6-book AP might be a stretch, a 3-book Once Upon A Time In Akiton AP could work fine.
An issue that long APs tend to have is that you start out at level 1, deal with some rats in a cellar problem, and it spirals into you being the one that has to save the world. You just kinda have to suspend your questions of "why is this our responsibility", "shouldn't we escalate this to the experts". A 3-book AP should make it much easier to avoid this irritating feeling of responsibility creep.
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Just call me Dr. Frasier Crane, because I'm listening!
*pours sherry for two*
I shy away from styles like horror, psychological tension and suspense, conspiracy, etc. Totally get that a lot of people go for that tone, but the grim-dark stuff isn't my cup of tea. (If I wanted to be constantly fighting off corruption I'd play Warhammer, heh.) Clear-cut bad guys like Dead Suns' Cult of the Devourer and Corpse Fleet were great! Always looking over your shoulder for Greys..less enticing for me. (Again, though, all just my personal opinions. It's definitely a central theme of sci-fi.)
Echoing Ascalaphus, I also encourage you to start APs at higher level. I really like the idea of a 3-parter, which is much more easily digestible for a group that only plays 2 - 3 hrs a week. That said, if there were a cool idea for a 6-parter that started at lvl 8 and went to lvl 20...I could get pretty excited for that, if it wasn't a dark tale of eroding sanity!
To some of Jason's great questions: returns of old threats > new threats IMO, but it's a close thing. Cool new mystery bad guys are neat! I'm fairly agnostic to the question of "in pact worlds vs not," since there's so much cool stuff in both. Coolness is a more important consideration than "where in the galaxy" imo. Like, the final mission in 1-16 Dreaming of the Future takes place in a solid core of a sub-zero liquid moon orbiting one of the gas giants in the Pact Worlds - that could be anywhere in the galaxy, but it's still super cool :D
The biggest question here, I feel, is the one on major changes to the campaign setting, to which I resoundingly answer, "yes please!" It's great when an AP can have real, meaningful change on a setting. Like, I am in love with all of the "campaign world updates" that are coming to Pathfinder 2E, and I encourage Starfinder to do more of that! Really tackle some of those central sacred cows! I know that Paizo is hesitant to do so because of how much it undermines home campaigns, but feeling like your characters are actually doing something is epic, and exciting.
Building on that, I'm also in favour of leveraging the vast years of material from Pathfinder and Golarion, in Starfinder products. I know that a large part of Starfinder is "Golarion's gone, The Gap is unsolvable, but look at all these cool news things!" but I love the connective bits between the two settings. The more that callbacks can exist without, like, alienating people who haven't played Pathfinder, the better, imo. Like....maybe a ship in the drift finds a rolled up carpet floating around in the drift and brings it back to Absalom and oh s*%# now we have the Hao Jin tapestry or something. (Unless that got cataclysm'd...I haven't played much Pathfinder Society stuff from recent years.)
So, put it all together, and you get adventures that are epic, with a central mission that's best (or only) possible in Starfinder - but still dripping in Paizo IP. Just making stuff up here, but like, what if: Shelyn's experimental R&D group gifts bleeding-edge magitech reality-reinforcing algorithms & self-propagating sanity stabilizers to a plucky band of heroes, which allows them to venture beyond reality to find what happened to Dou-Bral out there - with a divine mandate to see if it can be undone. I would buy that :D
If I could stress anything as most important, I really like the way that magic, technology, and the craziness of the Pathfinder/Starfinder cosmology can interact, which is only made possible in Starfinder's future setting. Like, really lean-in to that science-fantasy central concept. Take some traditional fantasy concepts (like dragons, or crusades) and plop that into a far future setting, flavoured with the Starfinder/Paizo IP setting we all love, and see what craziness pops out (cybernetically enhanced dragons are planning to technomantically use the drift to excise and annex part of the Mountain of Heaven, and a loose digital alliance of Sarenites, Iomedaeans, and Triunites has formed to repel their assault in both the physical and a matrix-style digital world.)(OK re-reading that sounds like horrible buzzwords stapled to a fantasy AP...may need work. But you get the gist.)
Anyways. Thanks for dropping into this thread, and sorry that that turned into a wall of text, haha.
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I'm still very inexperienced with Starfinder, but high level stuff I'd like to see:
1) Return of old nemesis... Yes! Cool for those who have been building up their characters from the beginning and want to play them some more.
2) Space &/or planar/unknown territory exploration. High levels may mean you don't have to worry about some basic survival concerns but that means the story can focus on the weird and the wonderful and the dangers you can discover. Weird terrain, environments, wild magic zones, etc -- stuff that would screw over low level PCs but challenge high level ones in a fun way.
3) Space war and/or empire management. Sure, you have near godlike capabilities, but you also have to keep the whole fleet and/or planet you are protecting alive. Do you lead armies or try to face the enemy alone to protect them? A good one to explore campaign subsystems as well as put high level characters in appropriate positions of authority for their capabilities--while also making them responsible for things low level PCs couldn't be.
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3) Space war and/or empire management. Sure, you have near godlike capabilities, but you also have to keep the whole fleet and/or planet you are protecting alive. Do you lead armies or try to face the enemy alone to protect them? A good one to explore campaign subsystems as well as put high level characters in appropriate positions of authority for their capabilities--while also making them responsible for things low level PCs couldn't be.
I second this.
We played a Starfinder campaign from 1st to 20th level and the combat and other tactical stuff worked pretty smoothly for us. However, that does mean that not much changes beyond the numbers being higher.
Expanding the scope-of-action of high level PCs is a great way to portray their power, I think. At low levels you should be dealing with functionaries and agents but high level PCs may be able to force audience with the head of the stewards or be able to address the Pact Worlds Council to head off/start a war.
The APs have kind of pegged "save the solar system" threats as appropriate for twelfth level characters, so it probably has to move beyond that in some way (either to "save the galaxy" or perhaps to other planes and/or to more subtle/political spheres of conflict).
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Perhaps a 13th-17th level module or three-part AP that can be utilised as a sequel to any of the 1-12APs which involves having stewardship of a newly planned colony solar system.
Kind of "You folks have saved the Pact Worlds from <whichever threat featured in the most recent AP> In gratitude, here's a charter of exploration/colonisation - now go and do some galactic kingmaker."
Diplomacy/Trade/Conquest/Defence/New Technologies/Extra-planar Shenanigans...would all be new frontiers that underline the PCs now have political clout as well as cooler weapons.
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I think high level ship combat needs some serious reworking (or the shipbuilding rules need an overhaul).
In our 1-20 game we built the well-known heavy shielded, ball of death and stopped bothering to level it up after about tier 14. The DM threw two of the highest tier ships in the Core Rulebook at us and they never penetrated our shields before they were both destroyed.
One solution we aim to try if we ever do a full 1-20 Starfinder campaign is to level up the ship every two PC levels (kind of like computer tiers). We think that will solve the problem and might also deal with the need for a DC adjustment that the FAQ introduced.
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I've personally limited turret weapons to light weapons for ships sized large or smaller. That helps a bit.
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I've personally limited turret weapons to light weapons for ships sized large or smaller. That helps a bit.
Yeah, we went through a few permutations in terms of limiting how one builds a ship. (turrents was one limitation that jumps out, but the benefit of investing in shields was another area we found relatively unbalancing). We wanted something that was as close as possible to the rules in the book - "advance your ship every 2 PC levels" was simple for us (and we also figured we could then use the DCs from the book for starship combat, since PCs are effectively going to be much better).
I think if they're going to produce high level content, starship combat will need a serious revisiting. It's too easy to build a ship way, way better than anything in the books (if you focus purely on combat effectiveness). As I say our tier 14 ship destroyed two ships of tier 18 or 17 (can't remember exactly) without ever suffering damage.
Hey folks,
Just want to hop on here to reiterate that the Starfinder team does pay attention to these forum posts and we are hearing you! As has been stated previously, our data suggests that higher-level content doesn't sell as well as lower-level adventures, but that doesn't mean we haven't completely dismissed the idea. Of course, I can't announce anything at this time (as there is nothing to announce).
Alright, then please enter another data point into your survey data: I won't be buying any Starfinder material unless there are high-level AP's to play with. I was pretty damn keen on buying the adventures and sourcebooks after the CRB release, but after learning about the level cap of level 13 in your AP's, I've abandoned the idea completely.
My group and myself simply are not interested in only playing to mid-levels and since I am pretty well occupied with my full-time job, I don't have the time nor energy to write my own stuff.