Longest APs In Campaign Time (not time to play)?

[TigerTiger]

Hi all, I was wondering which APs provide for long periods (months or years) of in-game time, so PCs can mature, get older, train, craft items, etc. rather than having a PC race from 1st level to 15th in a few weeks? For the avoidance of doubt I’m talking about campaign/in-world time, not how long it takes to play the AP in real life.

I know Kingmaker suggests a year or two of in-game time can pass between each book in the path, and Rise of the Runelords is also episodic enough to allow for the passing of months or years in-game. Are there any other APs that either explicitly call for long periods of time to pass or that could be easily adapted for that (maybe Skull & Shackles)? A lot of the APs feel to me like there is an implied timer on them (or allowing them to stretch too long would defy logic), although James Jacobs has said that is not the intent.

Thanks in advance!

[zimmerwald1915]

TigerTiger wrote:

Hi all, I was wondering which APs provide for long periods (months or years) of in-game time, so PCs can mature, get older, train, craft items, etc. rather than having a PC race from 1st level to 15th in a few weeks?

Hell's Rebels and Hell's Vengeance are supposed to start in 4715 and to culminate in 4717.

[Shisumo]

Kingmaker could quite easily cover a decade, though there isn't a canonical timeframe that I know of.

[Kasoh]

TigerTiger wrote:

Hi all, I was wondering which APs provide for long periods (months or years) of in-game time, so PCs can mature, get older, train, craft items, etc. rather than having a PC race from 1st level to 15th in a few weeks? For the avoidance of doubt I’m talking about campaign/in-world time, not how long it takes to play the AP in real life.

I know Kingmaker suggests a year or two of in-game time can pass between each book in the path, and Rise of the Runelords is also episodic enough to allow for the passing of months or years in-game. Are there any other APs that either explicitly call for long periods of time to pass or that could be easily adapted for that (maybe Skull & Shackles)? A lot of the APs feel to me like there is an implied timer on them (or allowing them to stretch too long would defy logic), although James Jacobs has said that is not the intent.

Thanks in advance!

Around my tables, the average in game time is six months to a year, depending on how much the party feels like it can wander about.

Carrion Crown took 6 months of game time, there abouts.
Mummy's Mask took three months-ish to get to book 5.
Wrath of the Righteous took about a year to get to Book 5 (including a six month time skip after retaking Drezen)
Hell's Rebels took about a year (13-14 months, I think.)
Ironfang Invasion took two or three months to get to the end of book 2, then I TPKd the party.
Skulls and Shackles took 4 months or so to get to book 3 before I had stop GMing 3 games a week.
Rise of the Runelords I didn't bother keeping track of in game time except that it was probably only a couple of months.

Of the ones I've played or ran, Skulls & Shackles and Hell's Rebels allow for the most time off.
Ironfang and Mummy's Mask have early scenarios where you don't want to wait around.
Wrath of the Righteous has a gnarly timer in book 6, but also has room for downtime before that.
Carrion Crown has a plot where you're chasing down a cult, so how rushed you feel probably depends on the group.

[zimmerwald1915]

What does the timeframe look like on Strange Aeons?

[TigerTiger]

zimmerwald1915 wrote:

What does the timeframe look like on Strange Aeons?

I haven’t played through it, but my impression is that it is one of those “chase” APs, where the PCs are trying to catch up to the BBEG but are always a step behind him.

This is what I mean by the APs feeling like they’re on a timer even though JJ says that’s not the intent. I just can’t see my players feeling comfortable with training, crafting items or doing some bespoke/unrelated side adventures when e.g. they’re supposed to be racing to catch Count Lowls!

One counterexample that comes to mind is the Legacy of Fire AP. I think you could easily put a significant amount of downtime after each of the first three books in that AP. In fact, the AP recommends a year of downtime between books 1 and 2! It’s only in the fourth book that the PCs get on the “non-stop rollercoaster ride to the end.” Which actually is fine - I don’t mind some AP books needing to follow right after the other, I’m just looking for campaigns where the characters do occasionally get a break to go do their own thing for a while.

[voideternal]

zimmerwald1915 wrote:

What does the timeframe look like on Strange Aeons?

One of the books in Strange Aeons takes a few months to resolve, but the other 5 books are completed as fast or slow as the players manage.

Edit: There's some over-world travel time between certain parts of a number of books, so that might add a few weeks in addition to the one book that locks down a few months.

[Vorsk, Follower or Erastil]

Ruins of Azlant allow for a large bit of downtime. The missing colonists are a thing through the first 3 books, but there is no real way to find them beyond the plot happening and book 2 can take weeks. As PCs may wish to wait for boats to come and go to sell items its easy to see weeks or months between or durning books. Hell the need to rush is not really made clear till then end of book 5 when they learn of the BBEG now knows where the super McGuffin is and they need to go stop him from using it.

[PossibleCabbage]

zimmerwald1915 wrote:

What does the timeframe look like on Strange Aeons?

It's legitimately the shortest AP period in terms of "total time elapsed in the diagesis".

Specifying why would be a serious spoiler I don't even want to put into spoiler tags.

[Tallow]

Skulls & Shackles, definitely.

With all the ship travel you can do, that can take months to travel from the Shackles to Sargava, for instance, this one can take several years in game, easily. We just finished book 3, and are on campaign day 379. And if you have a crew, you have lots of item creation downtime while sailing.

Kingmaker is specifically designed to last years. Especially if you use the kingdom building and maintenance rules. The books all specifically give you space to do several months of kingdom building without adventuring or forwarding the plot. This allows for lots of item creation downtime.

[Mathmuse]

I noticed while running the Iron Gods adventure path that the PCs have no reason to hurry after the 2nd module.

Spoiler:

In that module, they learn that they ought to seek out Casandalee. However, Casandalee lived 500 years ago. Though she was an android, her life span was similar to a human and she must have died centuries ago. The party was really searching for her notes.

They also learned that the final big bad guy Unity, an intelligent computer, had been working on its evil plan for 500 years. The plan was close to completion, but the party had no way of knowing that. It could have just as likely needed another 100 years.

Their only active adversary was the Technic League. Their use of aliases let them easily hide from the Technic League during downtime. Their risk of encountering the Technic League only occurred while adventuring.

Therefore, whenever the party needed to upgrade their gear, they returned to their hometown Torch and spent two months crafting. The in-game time for my campaign was one year.

I think the in-game time for my Jade Regent campaign was 9 months. They had to travel from Varisia to Minkai on a different continent, so they spent about 6 months traveling.