A big fan of a Level 10 AP Arc

[Crossbow57]

This might not be a popular opinion in general, but I wanted to toss this thought out while it was fresh in my mind -

I've run a number of Pathfinder APs over the years and the one thing they all have in common - my groups and I never finish them. With gaming groups that only get together weekly (at most!) for 3-4 hour sessions, the campaigns go on for YEARS of real time. The closest I got was the Rise of the Runelords, which I ran for 6 years and then the group fell apart due to you, know... people moving on with their lives. haha.

I, for one, am a big fan of a 3 part, complete story arc that ties everything up and together over 10 levels of experience. I know there are one-off modules, too, but even though a "mega-dungeon" isn't really my style, it opened my eyes to the possibilities.

I'd love to see more APs with that 3 part concept in the future.

Thanks for all the great content!

[Andostre]

If you're up for searching, there's plenty of discussion on these forums about how and when to end certain APs early. The BBEG of certain books can be re-written to be the final battles of the entire campaign with very little modification.

I can't claim that this is easy to do for every AP, but Kingmaker is one example that comes to mind where it is easy to do. One of the complaints about the AP is that the BBEG isn't foreshadowed enough and seemingly comes out of nowhere from the PCs perspective, but the silver lining to this is that you don't really have to consider them if you decide to end the AP early. The end guy of Book 3 can be re-purposed as the BBEG of the entire campaign, but others have also used the final conflicts of books 4 or 5 as ways to wrap up the campaigns.

[CorvusMask]

I mean, I got online weekly for four hour session and have consistently finished ap parts in little bit over a year. But I digress, I just feel like I should point out that even if you consistently play weekly for 4 hours, different groups finish in different times.

I don't disagree about the 3 part aps having important purpose(I don't want them to only make 3 part ones, but they make good shorter intermission games or "test out new group if you want to run them longer thing" dealio)

[Steel_Wind]

Well, our problem is that we don't finish our AP runs. We usually do. Sometimes we have not because of a GM marriage, but that's been rare.

In one case though (Giantslayer), I shut it down after Vol 3. Now, to be fair, I added a lot to Giantslayer, but in the end, that AP is like most other APs over the course of time:

The Front Nine is Better than the Back Nine.

Simply put, the first 3 volumes of an AP tend to be where the best part of the APs are. The last 3 volumes? Rarely is that the case.

Yes, part of that reflects the "sweet spot" in the game rules itself. That speaks to a lot of the underlying reason, right there

Also, rarely doesn't mean "never". I think Vol 5 of Curse of the Crimson Throne (Scarwall Castle) was excellent and in the Anniv Ed., it's even better.

So it's not that later volumes can't be good; they just tend not to be.

Add on to that the very real intrinsic problems of high level play presented in PF1 (jury's still out for me in terms of PF2, we'll see), the length of a campaign, the attraction of the bright and shiny new...

And it might be that the 3 vol APs have much to recommend them. While I will still get the 3 volume high level APs, I have to admit, the chances I run them? Low; very low. High level is not my jam.

My guess is that over time, Paizo will see that the 3 volume low level APs are simply going to sell better. As the trend in the hobby seems to be away from longer epic campaigns and towards more casual play, my guess is that by 2023, we'll be seeing more 3 volume level 1-10 APs.

[CorvusMask]

While I agree that three final books of any ap tends to be heavily broken in favor of players because of 1e mechanics, sometimes the AP books for finales ARE best ones. Like besides RotR and Crimson Throne which are most consistently great APs, I can confirm that while book 4 and 5 of Strange Aeons are bit meh, book 6 is really well written and flavorful to the point players played along with mansion stealth mission thing despite knowing full well they could take on everyone there easily xD

[The Raven Black]

I could see the 3 volumes high level APs selling better actually. They take just as long to play, can be written just as well PLUS you get to play with all the shiny toys.

[Davor Firetusk]

In terms of level Starfinder already moved in the direction of typically ending at lower levels. Overall having a diversity of product lengths is a good end point regardless of individual preference. I will say that I think one underappreciated tension with high level APs is not purely the power level. If PCs are interacting with some level of agency (and keep in mind I actually dislike sandbox games) there is naturally going to be more opportunities and need to customize the AP to your players at higher levels. Some of it is pure narrative chaos as it were and some of it reflects the PCs increasing power opening up new options. When I ran Strange Aeons for example I thought book 4 was fine, but I cut out a very superfluous side quest and book 5 was OK though I had added an encounter with a villain who had become reoccurring that made it rather memorable. On the other hand my play through of Hell's Vengeance went way off the rails by book 4

[Enrif]

I like the prospect of some 3 part APs now and then. Especially if they do both 1-10 Level and 11-20 Level APs, they then could be mixed and matched to create unique experiences.
The upcoming Fist of the Ruby Pheonix is an excellent idea that could be put after nearly any other AP.

Down the line a few years, and imagining we may have four low level 3part APs and four high level 3part APs, which would ordinarily only four APs to play, through the mix-and-matching it would be sixteen APs worth of possibilities to match them.

[CorvusMask]

Just to note though I'm not convinced that starfinder aps end at lower level purely because they sell better.(I imagine 3 final books of starfinder aps still sell worse because most people aren't going to buy final three if they didn't buy parts before that)

Like I run Dead Suns in 5 months. Starfinder APs are MUCH shorter than 1e aps in page count. And starfinder actually works also in high levels as far as I'm able to tell, so I think in starfinder's case limit is mostly because of page count.(though even with larger page count I dunno if they could fit 1-20 in six books due to way starfinder exp works compared to 2e, at least without doing similar shenanigans what the only two 1e 1-20 aps did)

Anyhoo I hope first of ruby phoenix still has campaign backgrounds in player's guide because I'm definitely not gonna run it with same party as Abomination Vault :D

[AnimatedPaper]

Steel_Wind wrote:

Simply put, the first 3 volumes of an AP tend to be where the best part of the APs are. The last 3 volumes? Rarely is that the case.

I 100% agree. I've often been tempted to stop after volume 2 really, though the PF2 ones have seemed more interesting so far.

That said, probably my favorite entry in either Starfinder or Pathfinder has been Starfinder 32: The Starstone Blockade. So I also agree with you that this is a tendency, not an absolute.

[The Gleeful Grognard]

Crossbow57 wrote:

I've run a number of Pathfinder APs over the years and the one thing they all have in common - my groups and I never finish them. With gaming groups that only get together weekly (at most!) for 3-4 hour sessions, the campaigns go on for YEARS of real time. The closest I got was the Rise of the Runelords, which I ran for 6 years and then the group fell apart due to you, know... people moving on with their lives. haha

I recommend working on your GMing speed, changing up how things are played. Because that is very slow pacing.

It took my completely new to PF2e (including myself) group 30 sessions to deal with the first 3 volumes of age of ashes, 4'ish hour sessions (realistically it was 6-8 sessions per book once used to it). Everyone brand new to the system and two were new to RPGs in general, this includes entire sessions devoted to RP content.

This is not a dig at you, but a repeating pattern I see in your complaint and one that if solved might let you enjoy some of the longer adventures.

For the record I actually agree they would do well to release two split adventures a year if possible (like abomination vaults and fists of the ruby phoenix) and one full length AP. Just for different reasons than the ones presented in you OP.

Steel_Wind wrote:

Simply put, the first 3 volumes of an AP tend to be where the best part of the APs are. The last 3 volumes? Rarely is that the case.

Yes, part of that reflects the "sweet spot" in the game rules itself. That speaks to a lot of the underlying reason, right there

I am not sure how true that is, in PF1e later sections often played worse because the rules had issues but I am not sure they were often written worse.

In PF2e Age of Ashes and Extinction curse both have all their best parts in the last 3 books imo (I am sad AoA has such a poor book 1, it will really hurt its legacy)

That said, my experience running PF2e high level play has been nothing but positive so far. Players get noticeably stronger but not to silly broken levels and are generally pretty easy to challenge without building specifically to counter.

[aett]

I'm relatively new to the whole Paizoverse, having only played 2e for the last several months and only reading 1e and SF, so I don't know if this is a good idea or not: why not a short AP that is along the lines of 3-12 (or 4-13, etc)? That way you can play with some more abilities while also seeing your character grow from nearly the beginning.

[the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh]

For what it may be worth, I find shorter APs much harder to get enthusiastic about or get player involvement with, and hope they do not become more than an occasional thing. The major selling point of an AP to me and the groups I have run, particularly the ones that go to 20, is "a single campaign that can cover your character's entire career"; winding that down a couple of levels earlier than 20 has been workable as apt, but not at 10, and very much not starting at 11 with characters one has not taken all the way from their beginnings at first level.

(In an ideal-for-me world, we would be talking about pairing a three-part AP with a nine-part one that used whatever the appropriate value of Epic was - probably something like the last few chapters of Savage Tide, because I can quite see how level 30 characters could hardly help changing Golarion beyond recognition; but I have an inkling what a huge amount of work that would entail and am not pinning any hopes on the concept.)

[vagrant-poet]

I mostly started hacking APs to be the most compelling 3-4 volumes worth of material so that games could conclude, so having an AP already designed for that is ideal for me.

I'd love two see a pair of 3-part APs every year, 2 3-parts and 3-six parts should provide everyone with content they want.

[Kasoh]

I am not particularly a fan of the 1-10 AP arc. I prefer the story provided by a long AP.

However, I was recently glad that we have a shorter AP in The Abomination Vault because one of my players outright refused to join a 1-20 2e campaign, but agreed to a shorter 1-10 game.

[Unicore]

I think that the 1-10 APs in particular are really going to shine, and become popular if they are written as well as abomination vaults. I think they will create a lot of interest in modules that start at level 10 too. Maybe it will also help GMs build up enough of a core “world” around their party, that home brewing, without having to create everything, will become more popular as well.

Writing your own encounters in PF2 is a lot of fun, very easy, and can be incredibly rewarding for players. You can really go wild with dynamic terrain and environmental effects, and not have to worry about how difficult it will be to codify how it works even in edge cases, like Adventure writers often have to do. I am interested to see how they effect people’s approaches to playing pathfinder.

I am also curious about how the level10 to 20 AP will go. My initial gut feeling is that players won’t like them as much because it will be harder for characters to develop along with the story, but with how well PF2 works at higher level, maybe a lot of players will enjoy getting to jump right in as Heroes and get to play with the powerful toys.

[Steel_Wind]

Unicore wrote:

I think that the 1-10 APs in particular are really going to shine, and become popular if they are written as well as abomination vaults.

Well, AV1 is brilliantly written and designed and I do think it is Paizo's best work in more than half a decade. James Jacobs has also said that as he contributed so much to the back matter of the book as well, he ended up putting more of his own work into AV1 than any single issue of PF:AP, ever. All of which probably explains why AV1 is so strong, right there.

I guess there's Chris Perkins at WotC and Wolfgang Baur at Kobold; they've both been in the business longer than James by year count. But they also both have been out of the pure adventure writing/developing/editing as a full-time gig for quite a while. I don't think there is anybody actively employed in the business with more cumulative full-time experience at this than James Jacobs has now -- and if there is? It's a really short list. He's a master of his craft.

So the fact that AV1 is so good really comes down to that I think. I was not nearly as great a fan of Vol 2, but really, that's not being fair to Vanessa Hoskins. I take issue with a few of the extracurricular plots in AV2 -- and the squeaky wheel gets not only the grease, but the words spent on posts deconstructing it, too. Still, I enjoyed a great deal of her dungeon as well.

As for SRM's contribution? We'll know soon enough. I like Stephen personally and I generally like his work, so I expect to like it, too.