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I've been hoping for one of these...wish I had the time to write one, but a book with a different chromatic dragon as it's primary villain maybe with an aspect of Dahak being the overall bad guy...could use lots of kobolds at low levels, dragon cultists, half dragon NPCs and maybe even be a mythic campaign where you have to fight major different color dragons at the end of each book to gain tiers...
Wish I had time to do this myself...
Sounds like giantslayer that is quite heavily criticised
I think the plot would seemingly have to be similar - dragon invasion.
Perhaps tie to Hermea and have the gold dragons eugenics experiment be designed to counter a draconic threat (that is a way of justifying mythic)
The advantage it has is that like you mention there are cultists and worshippers that can vary the enemies
Also dragons have more mobility and ranged potential than giants what with spells, breath weapons and flight
Now how to overcome a gunslinger tearing through everything with touch targetting (like in giantslayer)...
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A paladin would be highly destructive as well....But I think with spells, a gunslinger can be somewhat neutralized...the smite ability of a paladin would be tough to deal with...
I love APs..I like reading and playing through them, but here is my criticism....The "bosses" are always out action economized by the players....you'd have to mitigate the paladins destructive capabilities, while accounting for the other players...you'd have to have several tough fights in order to make them spend their smites, or have several tough NPCs with the BBRG...too many fights at the end of books are against 1 guy...
Paizo (or at least our fearless dinosaur overlord) have said that a dragon based AP isn't feasible for them.
Giantslayer, despite being a really well written AP, has been heavily criticized (many times accurately) that the enemies get too repetitive and combats become either a cakewalk or a slog.
That said, some sections of the AP are brilliant and I highly recommend listening to the Glass Cannon Podcast if you aren't planning to play it yourself.
But to answer the original question, as far as I am aware every AP has at least one dragon combat, but they tend to either be in service to a greater evil or a side encounter and not the BBEG.
I'd love a campaign with an ancient wyrm as the main villain. Maybe we'll see it in 2.0, one can hope.
I’m running Giantslayer and listening to the GlassCannon it wouldn’t be hard to add a major dragon foe to every book but the first one. I actually plan on doing that.
Paizo (or at least our fearless dinosaur overlord) have said that a dragon based AP isn't feasible for them.
Giantslayer, despite being a really well written AP, has been heavily criticized (many times accurately) that the enemies get too repetitive and combats become either a cakewalk or a slog.
That said, some sections of the AP are brilliant and I highly recommend listening to the Glass Cannon Podcast if you aren't planning to play it yourself.
But to answer the original question, as far as I am aware every AP has at least one dragon combat, but they tend to either be in service to a greater evil or a side encounter and not the BBEG.
I'd love a campaign with an ancient wyrm as the main villain. Maybe we'll see it in 2.0, one can hope.
Isn’t feasible ? What was actually said on this ?
Is this something to do with dungeons and dragons ?
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It may have something to do with the fact that dragons as enemies are either laughably easy for parties of a roughly equal CR to defeat or the fact that if played by a particularly nasty DM completely un-fun to fight.
IE just flying by every few rounds to strafe parties that failed to sufficiently prepare for the possibility of a flying enemy.
I always have trouble running them in various paths.
For instance I added the mythic agility template to the dragon in Hell's Rebels and as a result if I wouldn't have knee-capped them that encounter would have ended up being a tpk (easily).
On the other hand I did the same thing when I ran Rise of the Runelords around the same level and they steam-rolled it.
They are a difficult encounter to run (for me at least).
It is ultimately about that oldest of bugbears (which pf2 might address) of action economy that tends to make them kind of a lackluster encounter. Same thing that can make single wizard encounters kind of a pain.
Paizo (or at least our fearless dinosaur overlord) have said that a dragon based AP isn't feasible for them.
Giantslayer, despite being a really well written AP, has been heavily criticized (many times accurately) that the enemies get too repetitive and combats become either a cakewalk or a slog.
That said, some sections of the AP are brilliant and I highly recommend listening to the Glass Cannon Podcast if you aren't planning to play it yourself.
But to answer the original question, as far as I am aware every AP has at least one dragon combat, but they tend to either be in service to a greater evil or a side encounter and not the BBEG.
I'd love a campaign with an ancient wyrm as the main villain. Maybe we'll see it in 2.0, one can hope.
Isn’t feasible ? What was actually said on this ?
Is this something to do with dungeons and dragons ?
If I wasn't lazy, I'd go dig up a quote from James Jacobs, there's been a couple of these threads but the answer is always the same.
It's less a question of mechanics as narrative. Pardon my paraphasing, but there's a number of concerns. The big issue is a campaign full of dragons would make dragons feel less rare and special in Golarion. And nobody at Paizo has come up with a dragon focused AP that they're excited about despite trying several times. That's the gist I got anyway.
This does leave a nice space for 3rd party and homebrew. I'd love to see a dragon focused campaign, especially incorporating the less common dragons like outer, esoteric, and planar.
Paizo (or at least our fearless dinosaur overlord) have said that a dragon based AP isn't feasible for them.
Giantslayer, despite being a really well written AP, has been heavily criticized (many times accurately) that the enemies get too repetitive and combats become either a cakewalk or a slog.
That said, some sections of the AP are brilliant and I highly recommend listening to the Glass Cannon Podcast if you aren't planning to play it yourself.
But to answer the original question, as far as I am aware every AP has at least one dragon combat, but they tend to either be in service to a greater evil or a side encounter and not the BBEG.
I'd love a campaign with an ancient wyrm as the main villain. Maybe we'll see it in 2.0, one can hope.
Isn’t feasible ? What was actually said on this ?
Is this something to do with dungeons and dragons ?If I wasn't lazy, I'd go did up a quote from James Jacobs, there's been a couple of these threads but the answer is always the same.
It's less a question of mechanics as narrative. Pardon my paraphasing, but there's a number of concerns. The big issue is a campaign full of dragons would make dragons feel less rare and special in Golarion. And nobody at Paizo has come up with a dragon focused AP that they're excited about despite trying several times. That's the gist I got anyway.
This does leave a nice space for 3rd party and homebrew. I'd love to see a dragon focused campaign, especially incorporating the less common dragons like outer, esoteric, and planar.
Book 4 of reign of winter is dragons, drake riders and dragonkin - so that planet has material to be looked into
It may have something to do with the fact that dragons as enemies are either laughably easy for parties of a roughly equal CR to defeat or the fact that if played by a particularly nasty DM completely un-fun to fight.
IE just flying by every few rounds to strafe parties that failed to sufficiently prepare for the possibility of a flying enemy.
I always have trouble running them in various paths.
For instance I added the mythic agility template to the dragon in Hell's Rebels and as a result if I wouldn't have knee-capped them that encounter would have ended up being a tpk (easily).
On the other hand I did the same thing when I ran Rise of the Runelords around the same level and they steam-rolled it.
They are a difficult encounter to run (for me at least).
It is ultimately about that oldest of bugbears (which pf2 might address) of action economy that tends to make them kind of a lackluster encounter. Same thing that can make single wizard encounters kind of a pain.
I see your point
I added two age increases to the dragon from book 2 of Reign of Winter because I had two paladins and two fire toting wizard and then a 5th player
But I killed 3 players - two from bull rushing off the tower (saved by hero points)
It was exactly like you said - a fine line between mass death and ridiculously easy
As it stands my end of book 3 Hells Rebels group are probably going to have a bad time against a well played dragon...
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James Jacobs did make the 3.5 modules Red Hand of Doom, which focused on dragons. Problem is to do this it had to be about the scheme of a god of evil dragons, which doesn't really exist in PF anymore (Tiamat will no longer be mentioned since her as a dragon goddess is too close to WotC property), evil dragons are too over the place on law/chaos axis to assign them a demon or devil pseudo-deity in her place, and would have to be a repeat of something that's already been done by them.
What's Dahak, chopped liver?
Creative Director
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Paizo (or at least our fearless dinosaur overlord) have said that a dragon based AP isn't feasible for them.
Until it IS feasible. Age of Ashes is pretty dragon-themed. It's not a "DRAGONSLAYER" Adventure Path, as there's not dragons to slay all the time in every adventure, but its themes are very very dragony.
Dragons have specific role in Golarion, and that's not the same role they play in Dragonlance or Eberron or Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms—they're less "all over the place" than the D&D settings, since we try to make dragon encounters be significant and dragon NPCs be unique and memorable.
For an Adventure Path, the plot of "slay the dragon" isn't workable, since that means that there's 1 dragon at the end of 6 parts, which means the first 5 parts aren't very "slay the dragon" themed. This plot works MUCH better as a large stand-alone adventure. See "The Dragon's Demand" for an example.
Age of Ashes is dragon themed, but it's not a dragonslaying campaign. Your PCs WILL encounter dragons more than once in the course of Age of Ashes, and some of them you'll fight and slay, but some you won't and some could go either way.
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Thank you James Jacobs...Another question...everyone but myself in my group doesn't want to switch to 2e..for various reason, mostly that we have a ton of APs we want to do in 1e and being a bit of an older group (been gaming together since college in the 80s) they don't want to learn a new system. That being said, I want to continue my AP subscription because there are stories I'd like to continue exploring...how convertible to 1e is stuff going to be?
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Creative Director
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Thank you James Jacobs...Another question...everyone but myself in my group doesn't want to switch to 2e..for various reason, mostly that we have a ton of APs we want to do in 1e and being a bit of an older group (been gaming together since college in the 80s) they don't want to learn a new system. That being said, I want to continue my AP subscription because there are stories I'd like to continue exploring...how convertible to 1e is stuff going to be?
There's nothing in a 2nd edition Adventure Path story that won't work in 1st edition, and vice-versa.
You won't need to convert the story or the structure of the encounters or any of that. You will need to convert the mechanics.
As for how hard or how easy that'll be... you'll need to wait and see I guess for the final rules to be out in August.
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Thank you James Jacobs...Another question...everyone but myself in my group doesn't want to switch to 2e..for various reason, mostly that we have a ton of APs we want to do in 1e and being a bit of an older group (been gaming together since college in the 80s) they don't want to learn a new system. That being said, I want to continue my AP subscription because there are stories I'd like to continue exploring...how convertible to 1e is stuff going to be?
You probably want to direct this question to the design team, rather than (or I guess now in addition to) the Creative Director.
Speaking as a completely uninformed and cynical person (so take the following with a Mhar-sized mountain of salt), I would guess that it will be difficult to convert PF2 monsters and NPCs to PF1, first because PF2 is doing away with PC/NPC/monster transparency as it existed in PF1, and second because doing so will serve as incentive to buy and learn PF2.
Paizo (or at least our fearless dinosaur overlord) have said that a dragon based AP isn't feasible for them.Until it IS feasible. Age of Ashes is pretty dragon-themed. It's not a "DRAGONSLAYER" Adventure Path, as there's not dragons to slay all the time in every adventure, but its themes are very very dragony.
Dragons have specific role in Golarion, and that's not the same role they play in Dragonlance or Eberron or Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms—they're less "all over the place" than the D&D settings, since we try to make dragon encounters be significant and dragon NPCs be unique and memorable.
For an Adventure Path, the plot of "slay the dragon" isn't workable, since that means that there's 1 dragon at the end of 6 parts, which means the first 5 parts aren't very "slay the dragon" themed. This plot works MUCH better as a large stand-alone adventure. See "The Dragon's Demand" for an example.
Age of Ashes is dragon themed, but it's not a dragonslaying campaign. Your PCs WILL encounter dragons more than once in the course of Age of Ashes, and some of them you'll fight and slay, but some you won't and some could go either way.
I knew that at some point the T-Rex would show up and set the record straight. Apologies if I misconstrued your words... please don't eat me.
Speaking for myself only, if Paizo does write a dragon themed campaign (especially if it's not just a dragonslayer AP), I'd be all about that.
To be fair, every AP I've read has done at least some justice to the background and motivations of the dragons that show up in it. But that's just the quality writing I've come to expect from Paizo :)
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I remember creating a Dragon based adventure, basic start was that a village was calling for adventurer's to deal with a Kobold Problem, whom are working for Hatchling Green Dragon & a Kobold Green Dragon Sorcerer.
The green Dragon Hatchling has a sweet tooth thanks to a Kobold Rogue named "Phlyk" whom had stollen sweet rolls from the human village on the day of the Hatchlings ...well Hatching. So it has ordered the Kobolds to the front to attack under the guidance of the Kobold Sorcerer to put the humans where they belong, under the ruler-ship of the Kobold Tribe (which are under the command of her Green Majesty of course)
Most of the kobolds are Warriors built towards Archery so Generally CR 1/2's at level 1.
The Kobold Sorcerer if I had kept the game going was going to be working with other magic users, kind of a early Arcane Society with a Dragon Theme to them.
Although it wasn't the intent, the ol' Age of Worms AP in Dragon Magazine was actually a pretty good dragon-slaying AP. They weren't in every adventure, but where they were peppered in, they were each different from the others but still a dragon battle.
The next adventure was a battle against a single adult dragon.
A couple adventures later, you find that dragon's lair and battle it's three children. In play, a fight against a single adult dragons is a lot different than a fight against a trio of younger ones.
At one point, there's an invasion of dragons. There's some dragonswarm business going on in the background and a number of one-on-one fights with individual dragon "officers."
Finally, in the penultimate adventure, you battle a vampiric silver dragon (who you might have believed was helping you) and *the* dracolich.
Like I said, it wasn't even the point of the AP, but the number and variety of dragon encounters, from fingerling swarms to roleplay and betrayal to epic lichiness, was great.