I am new to Pathfinder but really want to play.
I bought the Beginner Box at a con earlier this year and am finally getting serious about it. I am just going to bite the bullet and learn to play by being the GM.
For more published adventures, do I need to start somewhere in particular - is there a flow?? I don't understand.
Adventure Paths - are these published monthly? How long are these adventures? Are they one shots or extended games? Can I go back and purchase past editions? Are they ALL connected or do they "reset"? Are they even connected at all??
Standalone Adventures - this makes more sense but I may be oversimplifying it. Are these one shots?
The published Adventures are all standalone, but are usually a fair bit longer than a one-shot, usually spanning 3 or 4 levels of play. Adventure Paths come out monthly, and are premade campaigns either 3 or 6 books in length; the 3-volume ones span either levels 1-10 or 11-20, while the 6-volume ones span the full 1-20.
So, with adventure paths, each set is its own unique adventure. Each adventure is effectively split into 3-6 separate books to help with workflow, but they are all intended to played together in a row. So the AP "Quest for the frozen flame" is designed for you to play broken tusk moon, then lost mammoth valley, and then burning tundra. Usually, different adventure paths aren't supposed to interact with each other that much, as they are lvls 1-20 adventures in there own right, but certain lvls 1-10 adventures and lvls 10-20 adventures are designed to work together to make one big lvl 1-20 adventure, like abolation vaults being designed to lead into fist of the ruby phoenix. Standalone adventures can vary, but while they can be one shots, they can also just be shorter campaigns that go between 1-4 levels.
Pronate11 wrote: Usually, different adventure paths aren't supposed to interact with each other that much, as they are lvls 1-20 adventures in there own right, but certain lvls 1-10 adventures and lvls 10-20 adventures are designed to work together to make one big lvl 1-20 adventure, like abolation vaults being designed to lead into fist of the ruby phoenix. There's nothing other than convenient level ranges linking Abomination Vaults with Fists of the Ruby Phoenix. If you really want to take the heroes of the megadungeon to the other side of the planet for a martial arts tournament, you can, but there's 0 narrative or thematic links between them. It's as connected as Quest for the Frozen Flame or Outlaws of Alkenstar - which is to say, not at all.
In 2023, a second 11-20 AP is coming out, Stolen Fate, that seems like a little more of a traditional adventuring high-level campaign, and should weld on a little easier than FotRP (which I want to be clear, is a great AP, but works best with level 11 characters made for it).
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keftiu wrote: Pronate11 wrote: Usually, different adventure paths aren't supposed to interact with each other that much, as they are lvls 1-20 adventures in there own right, but certain lvls 1-10 adventures and lvls 10-20 adventures are designed to work together to make one big lvl 1-20 adventure, like abolation vaults being designed to lead into fist of the ruby phoenix. There's nothing other than convenient level ranges linking Abomination Vaults with Fists of the Ruby Phoenix. If you really want to take the heroes of the megadungeon to the other side of the planet for a martial arts tournament, you can, but there's 0 narrative or thematic links between them. It's as connected as Quest for the Frozen Flame or Outlaws of Alkenstar - which is to say, not at all.
In 2023, a second 11-20 AP is coming out, Stolen Fate, that seems like a little more of a traditional adventuring high-level campaign, and should weld on a little easier than FotRP (which I want to be clear, is a great AP, but works best with level 11 characters made for it). Ah, sorry, I was just repeating what I have heard from this forum and other people. I have not actually played either AP. I was under the impression that they took place very close to each other. I guess I was wrong.
Paizo publishes pre-written adventures of many lengths.
From the longest to the shortest
Adventure Paths (APs)
Usually 6 separate publications for a single story that take characters from level 1 through level 10 or level 11 through level 20.
But some of the APs are only 3 sections long.
Stand Alone Adventures
There are separate publications that are complete in themselves.
Organized Play Scenarios
Quests
Short adventures meant to be played in one or two sessions
Scenarios
Mid length adventures that often follow a story arc, but are useful as stand-alone adventures as well.
You don't have to be a member of Organized Play to buy and use any of that material. If you're just getting started, you might want to run a few quests and/or scenarios after you finish the Beginner Box adventure.
Or you can jump right in to a longer (sometimes up to a year, or more of playing time) Adventure Path
As far as Adventure Paths are concerned they generally are made in a loose chronological order. The start dates are when first book in an AP is printed/released (there are some exceptions); But the dates might change depending on the players and how you handle things in your game. If they are connected to any other campaign they will let you know in book 1. For example: Hell's Rebels and Hell's Vengeance are happening at the same place and time, and both take place 6 years after the start of Council of Thieves: So if you run Council of Thieves
As far as start location, flow, and stuff about where things take place. Generally both adventures and adventure paths will tell you the start location, the location where the encounters take place, and the very rough strokes about how to get to each relevant location. These locations might be shared by different adventures taking place in the same region, specially for major cities which are often used as a hub (Ex: Absalom is a huge city that is a good place to start adventures of various levels).
As far as "reset" I am not quite sure what you mean. But if you are saying that they assume the previous AP didn't happen, I would say no. The writers are pretty good at making sure that any relevant info from past campaigns are made part of the future campaigns.
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* P.S. Due to the differences in game editions don't push yourself to play/convert PF1 adventures and adventure paths since they have completely different balance. You can always treat Pre-PF2 adventures and campaigns as past lore, history, and myths.
Yeah. Pathfinder's world, Golarion, is a living world. It advances in time along with our own, and if there are any major story events from one Adventure Path to the next then they are assumed generally to have happened. Details might be fuzzy so as to allow groups who played through those adventures to make a mark on their personal worlds, but by and large each issue is assumed to have been resolved.
That being said, you really don't need to start with any particular Adventure Path. Even ones that are linked together thematically, or have shout-outs to previous adventures, can be played just fine by new players. (Think of those moments as extra things for long-time players to pick up on rather than information that newer players are missing out on.)
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I'll add to say if your players liked the Beginner Box and want to keep their characters and story going, Troubles In Otari is a small set of adventures and Abomination Vaults is an Adventure Path both set in Otari.
I personally picked up both and ran them in the same campaign and it worked really well. Because of running simultaneous content the characters sometimes levelled up faster than assumed but pf2 encounter system naturally reigns in xp gain if you ate higher level so overall it corrects. And it's nice for players to feel a bit more powerful every now and then.
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