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At the start of the pandemic I began reading the first edition era of the Pathfinder Adventure Path. Yes, all of it. Yes, for the first time. I've been busy. :-)
I liked the noncombat material, most of the supplemental articles, and the inclusion of LGBTQ NPCS.
I didn't like the horror material, the abundance of noncore material, and the use of "tasked" and "gifted" (which still irritate after 144 issues).
This has been a nice way to spend time during isolation. I'm looking forward to reading the second edition era... someday.
I'm curious to hear which aps you found most enjoyable.
Favorites were Second Darkness, Reign of Winter, and Return of the Runelords.
Least favorite was Hell’s Vengeance. Evil characters? No, thanks.
Creative Director
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Yay! Thanks for the feedback! Always interesting and informative to know how the experience of reading an Adventure Path plays out. I've long held to the conviction that if you don't enjoy reading an adventure, you probably won't run it, so if an adventure isn't fun and enjoyable to read, we as the writers are failing at the job of creating an adventure in the first place.
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I'm glad to hear this feedback, too. I read all of wrath of the righteous while I had a computer that wouldn't run the game. I enjoyed it so much I tried strange aeons, but I did not like that as much.
I enjoyed reading extinction curse, but I can't rate it very highly. Reading it, I could accept the concept, but it would wear on me as a years-long adventure, I think. I do like the humor. I started strength of thousands recently and it's very good.
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I'm curious to hear which aps you found most enjoyable.Favorites were Second Darkness, Reign of Winter, and Return of the Runelords.
Least favorite was Hell’s Vengeance. Evil characters? No, thanks.
Second Darkness shows the hazard of reading vs. playing.
The break between Children of the Void (book 2) and The Armageddon Echo (book 3) is really bad.
While it reads a great story, it runs into a player perception problem.
* - the first two books are about selfish neutrals running a semi-legitimate business.
* - books three and on, however, require heroic do-gooders.
That shift proved more then most players could take (not knowing the underlying connections).
the abundance of noncore material,
Personally, this is one thing I think is a very strong point in Paizo's favour and I wish everyone else did it too. Having been running pre-published modules and quasi-APs before there were APs - especially in coverted AD&D modules - for decades, one thing that was always VERY noticable was the that almost everything (in almost every RPG, not just D&D) was all basically mostly constrained to core rules, with the occasional extra. This automatically made the PCs special, because they had access to everything that wasn't in the core rules (including a lot of the better stuff - core 3.5 is especially unbalanced and unfavourable to noncasters).
The quantum leap of Paizo putting up EVERYHING on Nethys was, in my opinion, as much a masterstroke as 3.0 was over AD&D itself and I can't understand why it hasn't become the industry default. Because that meant they DIDN'T have to do that in their adventures, like they did if you had to expect everyone to physically have the books to use something in a pre-written adventure. That means more varity for the DM (because there's a point at which "another NPC wizard/cleric" gets really old, nevermind you end up having to revise their sub-par core spell list on top) and it provides a bit more immersion - and, of course, ensures that noncore PCs at least stand some chance of getting some magic items by default.
Least favorite was Hell’s Vengeance. Evil characters? No, thanks.
I haven't looked at Hell's Vengeance myself, but mostly because we're not exactly short of evil parties in rotation. Yes, in the plural. We have 1/3 3.x fantasy parties (the oone being the Dark Lord's uncover dirty black ops team), plus the replacements for the twenty-year real-time-long Rolemaster/Spacemaster party (which is incidentally Evil, since the premise is sort of explore-y, Stargate-like and the power which had the most detail and thus required the least amount of effort to prepare just happened to be the high-tech magical space liches (ironically a DOWNGRADE from the previous random adventurers)) and, techincally, the one D20 Star Wars party in rotation - though we havn't played it in many years - is an Empire commando fighter squadron like Evil Rogue Squadron. (We have actually played more Empire parties than non-Empire parties over the years in Star Wars...)
3rd party Way of the Wicked is on my list of APs I have bought and intend to run one day, but first the group needs to survive long enough to run the ones I really, really want to run, which includes Irpon Gods and what I'm currently working on, incorporating basically ALL of Paizo's released Osirion material alongside AD&D Deserts of Desolation into one mega-campaign.
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I'm curious to hear which aps you found most enjoyable.Favorites were Second Darkness, Reign of Winter, and Return of the Runelords.
Least favorite was Hell’s Vengeance. Evil characters? No, thanks.
Perhaps ironically, Reign of Winter works just fine with Evil characters (I also rate it highly, but one significant reason for that is that it lets you go ham on White Guards, a development that is only slightly undercut *ahem* in Lost Omens lore).
Perhaps ironically, Reign of Winter works just fine with Evil characters (I also rate it highly, but one significant reason for that is that it lets you go ham on White Guards, a development that is only slightly undercut *ahem* in Lost Omens lore).
Out of curiosity (since I've not kept up with the PF2 lore), what happened there that's different from the PF-era lore?
Did they retcon away some of the RoW stuff?
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Perhaps ironically, Reign of Winter works just fine with Evil characters (I also rate it highly, but one significant reason for that is that it lets you go ham on White Guards, a development that is only slightly undercut *ahem* in Lost Omens lore).
Out of curiosity (since I've not kept up with the PF2 lore), what happened there that's different from the PF-era lore?
Did they retcon away some of the RoW stuff?
Canonizing that Anastasia sits on the throne of Irrisen, as part of PF2's "some heroes 'won' every PF1 Adventure Path and we had to make some decisions about their endings" thing.
Zimmerwald isn't a big fan of the Romanovs.
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Perhaps ironically, Reign of Winter works just fine with Evil characters (I also rate it highly, but one significant reason for that is that it lets you go ham on White Guards, a development that is only slightly undercut *ahem* in Lost Omens lore).
Out of curiosity (since I've not kept up with the PF2 lore), what happened there that's different from the PF-era lore?
Did they retcon away some of the RoW stuff?
Canonizing that Anastasia sits on the throne of Irrisen, as part of PF2's "some heroes 'won' every PF1 Adventure Path and we had to make some decisions about their endings" thing.
Zimmerwald isn't a big fan of the Romanovs.
Nor their lackeys (Romanova brought some of those with her).
Nor their lackeys (Romanova brought some of those with her).
Where does it say that?
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Nor their lackeys (Romanova brought some of those with her).Where does it say that?
There are White Russians in Irrisen who came over from Earth. I believe a 2e PFS scenario from Season 2 deals with some.
There are White Russians in Irrisen who came over from Earth. I believe a 2e PFS scenario from Season 2 deals with some.Nor their lackeys (Romanova brought some of those with her).Where does it say that?
They also brought …
* - Cream* - Kahlúa
* - Vodka
… and …
* - Ice Cubes
Nor their lackeys (Romanova brought some of those with her).Where does it say that?
Likely added by the GM to improve the balance of the encounter.
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There are White Russians in Irrisen who came over from Earth. I believe a 2e PFS scenario from Season 2 deals with some.Nor their lackeys (Romanova brought some of those with her).Where does it say that?
Thank you, I found it, it's in #2-08, "A Frosty Mug", it says, though, that it was Baba Yaga who brought over the Russians, not Anastasia.
Thank you, I found it, it's in #2-08, "A Frosty Mug", it says, though, that it was Baba Yaga who brought over the Russians, not Anastasia.
Why did Baba Yaga bring them over and when did she do it (before or after the RoW AP)? Was it to provide Anastasia some company/back-up or for other reasons?
Thank you, I found it, it's in #2-08, "A Frosty Mug", it says, though, that it was Baba Yaga who brought over the Russians, not Anastasia.
Why did Baba Yaga bring them over and when did she do it (before or after the RoW AP)? Was it to provide Anastasia some company/back-up or for other reasons?
This is what the adventure has to say about this:
Following Queen Elvanna’s attempted coup of her mother, Baba Yaga brought to Irrisen a new queen, Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanov, from a land called Russia on a faraway planet, along with several Russian soldiers, a band of whom settled in the Irriseni town of Zharchovsk.
They just came with Anastasia, here's the text from the scenario:
"Following Queen Elvanna’s attempted coup of her mother, Baba Yaga brought to Irrisen a new queen, Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanov, from a land called
Russia on a faraway planet, along with several Russian soldiers, a band of whom settled in the Irriseni town of Zharchovsk."
Thank you both for the lore update! :)
Are they just "NPC scenery" or do they play a role in the PFS module mentioned above? (Feel free to put any information in a spoiler box if necessary.)