I foolishly stepped up to run a campaign for some my regular group... including our forever DM, we have decided to run PF2e the only problems are that I have never done any GMing and that this is going to be all of our groups first foray into PF2e. and I was just curious as to what everyone's view was on the best adventure path was for a brand new GM.
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Honestly, I would - for now - avoid Adventure Paths. There's a few reasons: First, the three APs that are out right now are fairly thematic or require a bit of fine tuning from the GM. Definitely not impossible, but likely isn't something you just pull off the shelf and play, especially with new PF2 players (which is a shame). I'd also avoid an AP just because of the massive time investment when you're all still getting your feet under you.
However! What I do recommend is a little more classic fantasy and still has AP elements. Grab the Beginner's Box and run the adventure in there. It's actually really quite good. Then, transition that over to the Troubles in Otari module. They connect (somewhat) and are dungeon-delving, monster-slaying, base-establishing, classic fantasy.
Finally, there's also the next AP, Abomination Valuts, coming out soon. It's a level 1 to 10 AP that takes place in the same location as the Beginner's Box and Troubles in Otari. You could hold out for that or run Troubles and pick up Abomination Vaults afterwards if the group is still interested in an AP. Bonus points because they will already know the area!
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Got it, so the recommendation is to get the beginners box and then run that adventure and follow up with troubles in Otari.
Beginner Box is tailored to players like you who want a bit of explanations and sidebars and things to help them with their first PF2 GM experience. I think it'd be a great start for you.
Troubles in Otari also has a lot of advice in it. From there, either run PFS one-shots. Or go for Abomination Vaults. James Jacobs is not a bad choice at all to kick off your first AP with.
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I think the most important piece of advice for every AP is: the book isn't sacred, Paizo never intended for you to run it all strictly as written.
Hey now, that sounds a bit useless. Why buy an adventure if you're still gonna have to do all the work? Well it's not quite that dramatic. You don't have to do all the work, but you also shouldn't expect things to be at juuuust the right difficulty automagically (for you, and every other group playing the same AP, whether they're more or less experienced than you...).
So really, feel very very free to just take the adventure as a starting point, and dial things up or down as much as you like. If you think Age of Ashes is too rough - just give the players an extra level, run the whole campaign with the players one level higher. It's not gonna break the game. It'll make things a lot easier, but if that gives you the happy heroic romp you wanted instead of the gritty crawl, then that's a good move for your group.
Personally if I'd run Age of Ashes.. I'd trim about a third of the plot away, and instead insert a LOT of side stories centered around the castle of the PCs. To me it feels a bit as if Deep Space Nine got started on the Dominion metaplot from episode 1, I think it's okay to water that down a bit and put more other plots in.
I suppose near the end of a campaign when the main BBEGs are clearly on the radar you'll get more that every plot is directly tied into the core AP metaplot, but until then, it's really okay to wander around a bit more.
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Personally if I'd run Age of Ashes.. I'd trim about a third of the plot away, and instead insert a LOT of side stories centered around the castle of the PCs. To me it feels a bit as if Deep Space Nine got started on the Dominion metaplot from episode 1, I think it's okay to water that down a bit and put more other plots in.
I agree with everything you say here, but also why I recommend the Beginner Box since there's a lot less tweaking that any new GM would have to do. My own AoA game involved the uniting of local goblin tribes, a player betraying the party to get funding for alchemical supplies, an ancient organization hunting down the players, and a very concerted effort to expand a trade network (along with a spy network) across the region.
Looking back, the books were mostly set dressing.
Got it, so the recommendation is to get the beginners box and then run that adventure and follow up with troubles in Otari.
In addition to this, to make things simple I would even encourage the players to play the four pregens from the beginner box or at least make a limited party with the beginner box options for it and the Trouble out of Otari adventure.
You will have to struggle with less rules / options, a fighter, wizard, rogue and cleric is a good balanced party and will let them get a handle on the rules and differences in playstyle from other RPGs.
Allowing the players to reskin the characters and build out backgrounds for them that they like of course :)
Then use Abomination vaults as your first AP as it is set in the same region and is a dungeon adventure and as such easier to prep / play in. Although this is just my assuming it will be good enough, it isn't out yet.
We started with Extinctiin Curse and honestly I wasnt too impressed. Our GM as far as I know just ran it as is and felt like it really needed a lot of editing to show what makes PF2 good.
Sounds like that is the consensus with most the APs they are great but really have to be changed for the specific group. Some GMs buy APs as an "easy" way out but for them to feel great I think you really have to put in the work still.
I have explained to all my players the problems with running Age of Ashes (I felt that running the first AP of the edition would probably be the most suitable for new DM's) and the fact that DnD and older tactics seem to be deathly they gave accepted TPK's so, I guess I'll run Age of Ashes? as the idea was to run a up to midlevel campaign for our usual player who has been bent over from work for the last 6+ months
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If you're really set on doing Age of Ashes, I would definitely head over to the subforum and look around, maybe ask some questions. Book 1 in particular can catch even a prepared group off-guard.
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Alright, so I’ve been the forever DM for a group but recently had a player who, like you, stepped up to run a campaign. We started with a couple short one shots where she got her feet wet and she is now running Age of Ashes, so as you might gather this thread amuses me. Hopefully I can give you a couple pointers :)
First, the difficulty can be a little wonky at times, most fights are perfectly fine, but occasionally there is one that doesn’t seem balanced right and could go very bad very easily. However, since we had done a few one shots with the same characters our group actually started at 3rd level so we had no problems, in fact I asked her to bump up the monsters a little until we were close to the correct level (the advanced template works well for this).
With this in mind I would consider either starting the group second level or running them through a short group of encounters and leveling them to second them (even if they wouldn’t quite have enough experience from the encounters). This way you can play the rest of the modules pretty mush “as is” without being overly worried about some fights being to lethal. Don’t worry, there will still be challenging fights.
As the group adventures, if you use experience points they will naturally grow closer to the right level over time since higher level characters get less experience from lower level enemies. If you aren’t quite ready for this you can always give them a little extra experience once in a while to keep them about a level ahead until you feel comfortable enough to let the groups’ level drift into place (they’ll likely remain about half a level ahead but that’s perfectly fine)
If you don’t use experience points but instead use milestone leveling, just keep the group leveled one level higher than the module suggests until you decide otherwise.
Note if you have more than 4 people in your group these measures may not be needed since the extra support from the other characters may make up the difference all by itself.
If you want to run a couple encounters to level the group to 2nd level before starting, read over the players guide for Age of Ashes. The town the players start in often hires adventurers to deal with local problems so it’s really easy to create a problem and have the town offer a reward for the players to go handle it for them.
Btw, for your reference, my group has been using experience points, we started Age of Ashes at 3rd level, ended the first book 1 level higher then suggested and are currently on the first half of book 3 and at the suggested level, though I suspect we might still might be about half a level higher and thus may level a little earlier.
Also, as someone mentioned above, use the forums. Since I’m playing in it I don’t look at the one for Age of Ashes but there are quite a few resources in the adventure path threads as well as tips on how to deal with issues that may come up.
Whatever you decide to do, please remember the only thing that really matters is that everyone’s having a good time. Good luck.
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I have explained to all my players the problems with running Age of Ashes (I felt that running the first AP of the edition would probably be the most suitable for new DM's) and the fact that DnD and older tactics seem to be deathly they gave accepted TPK's so, I guess I'll run Age of Ashes? as the idea was to run a up to midlevel campaign for our usual player who has been bent over from work for the last 6+ months
If you are running Age of Ashes, the first book should be mostly okay except for the barghest encounter. Its... Too difficult sort of encounter for that level, the party needs to be either one level higher or monster one level weaker