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Are they still doing high level APs? I don't mind using two APs, but I do like the high level game. Stopping at 10th to 12th is pretty boring. Run your character to midlevel, then never see what they can do at higher level? That's not particularly fun. You toss your character away and start a new AP? I don't like that.Curtain Call (the one after wardens of wildwood) is a 11 to 20 AP, and James Jacobs hinted that there are 2 more 11-20 APs in development. I am almost certain one of those coincides with the mythic content coming in war of the immortals.
Glad to hear that. They finally made the game very playable all the way up to 20, be terrible that after finally creating a version of the game playable to 20 without extensive modification they stopped or slowed production of content to get you to 20.
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I'm VERY excited for you all to eventually see the mythic rules Creative has come up with.
I'm VERY excited for you all to eventually see the mythic rules Creative has come up with.
Deeply curious at what shape they are going to take.
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I'm VERY excited for you all to eventually see the mythic rules Creative has come up with.Deeply curious at what shape they are going to take.
Yep, same here. In a game which prices itself on being balanced all the way from level 1 to 20, I hope this was a priority for mythic rules as well. This time around.
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Yep, same here. In a game which prices itself on being balanced all the way from level 1 to 20, I hope this was a priority for mythic rules as well. This time around.I'm VERY excited for you all to eventually see the mythic rules Creative has come up with.Deeply curious at what shape they are going to take.
I don't even really care if it is a little busted, as a treat. Shifting the ~50/50 success for many things to being a little more in favor of the player could feel kind of nice. Not saying a ton, but a few points.
Beyond that, I really liked the conceptual implementation of Mythic in the Owlcat game. I know that it wasn't for everyone, but I thought becoming some variety of immortal or barely-mortal was neat. The PF1 implementation with Trickster and whatnot never really sang to me.
All that said: I'm pretty optimistic and excited for later today.
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Now that the stream is over and things are announced...
We're not doing a single Adventure Path about War of Immortals. We're doing at least two—Curtain Call and Triumph of the Tusk.
The events of War of Immortals is a big deal, and it's not going to be something we do one adventure about and then move on. It's changing the fundamentals of the setting in a significant way, and it'll continue to have effects going forward. (But not exclusively!)
An analogy I shared in-house is how Rise of the Runelords introduced a forgotten nation of powerful wizards that ruled thousands of years ago. That revelation was behind the plot of that first Adventure Path, but that's a big deal in-world that ended up getting several adventures, Adventure Paths, comic books, character options, and more over the years to follow.
Did the stream mention what level range that Triumph of the Tusk will be? I know Curtain Call starts at 11th and I think Prey for the Dead (the next standalone adventure) is 14th level.
I wonder if part of the reason there are many more 1-10 3-part APs than 11-20 ones thus far was that Paizo wanted to save some high level campaigns for War of Immortals.
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Triumph at least starts at 3rd level based on the product page.
I also just wanna say, despite being one of biggest proponents here of 6-part APs, I think the way the team has decided to do this is fantastic. Having two (and probably more?) completely separate adventure paths all related to the War of Immortals actually makes it feel more impactful than if it was just a single 6-part AP. This way, we’re getting to see how it affects a bunch of corners of the world, and seeing a variety of stories told surrounding the event.
Now I’m just hoping whatever comes after Triumph will incorporate those mythic rules, but Triumph itself sounds like an incredible premise for an AP.
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I also think waiting to design adventures with the mythic rules until they are fully in print. rather than try to adventure design while the rules are being written makes a lot of sense, and getting players involved in the narrative of the godsrain first is a very sensible move.
I'm someone who likes a lot of different styles of adventures in my campaigns rather than sticking to a single theme the entire time. Stringing together a few shorter APs sounds like a good way to get that variety.
However, I've also grown to like a good thru line. What are people's thoughts on an AP that skips levels. Like, Vol. 1 is levels 1-3, then you do some other adventures before Vol. 2 kicks off at level 8 or something. The whole thing goes to 20, but sporadically.
Something like Eden Odyssey's Wonders Out of Time (for 3.5) if anybody remembers that. It's a favorite of mine.
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Will mythic rules be used? And is there even any intention of making an adventure that requires mythic rules?Yes; Triumph of the Tusk is a 3rd to 11th level Adventure Path, with the PCs ending at 12th level.
As was stated on stream and reiterated effectively by posts in the very thread you're in: no, and yes, respectively.
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Thank you. I apologize for the clarifying question, it’s just that English is not my native language, and I got confused in the discussion, so I decided to ask a clarifying question.As was stated on stream and reiterated effectively by posts in the very thread you're in: no, and yes, respectively.Will mythic rules be used? And is there even any intention of making an adventure that requires mythic rules?Yes; Triumph of the Tusk is a 3rd to 11th level Adventure Path, with the PCs ending at 12th level.
You're fine, I'm sorry for answering so rudely.
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I'm someone who likes a lot of different styles of adventures in my campaigns rather than sticking to a single theme the entire time. Stringing together a few shorter APs sounds like a good way to get that variety.
However, I've also grown to like a good thru line. What are people's thoughts on an AP that skips levels. Like, Vol. 1 is levels 1-3, then you do some other adventures before Vol. 2 kicks off at level 8 or something. The whole thing goes to 20, but sporadically.
Something like Eden Odyssey's Wonders Out of Time (for 3.5) if anybody remembers that. It's a favorite of mine.
This was tried way back in the 3.5 days in Second Darkness as book 2 ended at a lower level then 3 picked up with the idea that GMs could fill in the gap and if i recall correctly it was EXCEEDINGLY unpopular. Not to say that it is an experiment that could not be tried again, the jump in tone between those 2 books of SD and other difficulties in that ap might have also led to the animosity.
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Yeah, the experiment of an Adventure Path that skips levels in the middle was something we tried out, as Vorsk mentions, way early on. It was not popular. We won't be doing that again. Instead, if we've a story that wants to play out over different levels and skips in between, that'd be something we explore in the standalone adventure line, now that those are all hardcovers with a minimum pagecount of 128 pages. And in fact we already did something like this in that line, with the Doomsday Dawn playtest adventure.
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I know Domsday Dawn is a bit funkily paced because the goal was to stress test PF2E as an emerging system, so is there any possibility we would see the adventure recompiled with knowledge of the rules at some point?
Sure. There's a possibility for Any and All of our older adventures being recompiled like this, kinda like what we did recently with Crown of the Kobold King. No such adventure has been anoucned yet, but Doomsday Dawn is high on my personal interest list. That said, something like this would likely take the place of a brand new adventure, and since we're only now getting the new phase of hardcover adventures started, I'm hesitant to do anything like that anytime soon.
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This was tried way back in the 3.5 days in Second Darkness as book 2 ended at a lower level then 3 picked up with the idea that GMs could fill in the gap and if i recall correctly it was EXCEEDINGLY unpopular.
Oh yeah, I remember that. Heh. Good rebuttal.
And I'd love a more cohesive redo of Doomsday. The Aucturn Enigma and Dominion of the Black where a couple of the little Pathfinder seeds we'd gotten that intrigued me the most, and I was kind of bummed they got used up in an edition test.
But otherwise, that's exactly what I'm talking about: A long-running thread that characters keep returning to over their careers until the full mystery is solved.
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Ive appreciated the condensed adventure path model. Fist of the Ruby Phoenix and Outlaws of Alkenstar are two of the first instances of me ever finishing adventure paths (as a player or a GM). Actually seeing a story through to the end through the vagaries of real life and scheduling has been really cool. I hope the 1-20 people can get more bones thrown their way (or more connective tissue as James alluded to) but for the purposes of a higher percentage of people actually COMPLETING a story, I'm very pleased with the new model. I've finally gotten to ride the high that stable tables experience when completing long form campaigns; it's a hell of a drug.
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The only thing that I think could really be nice for the shorter APs is if GMs could get a little more guidance on how to make different APs potentially fit together, but I think the overall player community is probably a better generative source for that than any one person at Paizo needs to be. The forums are a great place for that to happen.
A lot of GMs want a 6 part level 1 to 20 adventure to reduce the planning/prep load on themselves, but still offer their players the promise that they will watch their character develop over an entire 20 levels of character arc in play. “Just make new characters for a new campaign” will be unsatisfying for those GMs and players. Higher level starting AP player’s guides haven’t dialed in “don’t feel overwhelmed making a new character for this campaign that fits in narratively with the rest of the party, has appropriate but thematically relevant equipment, and doesn’t feel generic compared to a character that went through X levels of actual play” yet. 7 dooms tries out some incredible stuff…but at a cost to Paizo that is unrealistic for every AP and not just James Jacobs special product of love.Some things I think could help are if special uncommon and rare items, artifacts, archetypes, spells, or other special abilities from lost omen products could specifically be called out as available and encouraged in players guides, possibly offered as Deere bonus stuff. Like mostly APs that tend to offer that stuff start at level 1 thus far. (Strength of thousands, gate walkers, sky king’s tomb). Offering new Archetypes in the back matter of high level AP books, especially books 2 and 3 is really too late for players to build characters around those unique choices. I get you can’t offer all that stuff in players guides, for free, but making high level APs where players are supposed to have dark archive special powers or artifacts already will help a lot with some if that integration.
I imagine some fun, interesting stuff like this is planned with the APs that will be...
This has been exactly my frustration as a player with the higher-starting-level APs like Ruby Phoenix and Stolen Fate, as well as high-level standalone adventures like Night of the Grey Death, which I've said before feels like the capstone of an AP the GM has to write the first five books for themselves. I feel perfectly content with the shorter, more concise APs that start at first level, as most other fans have been, but the only one that has felt like it can easily transition to a second AP in terms of narrative has been Abomination Vaults, and even then there's difficulties because the shift in narrative for some of them is rather jarring (looking at you, Ruby Phoenix).
Besides, a lot of the higher-level APs have come with backgrounds of their own meant to tie the PCs directly to the plot, making it feel more coherent if it's treated as a standalone. But then that necessitates writing 10 level-up's-worth of backstory for any PC you make for it, and trying to keep that backstory in harmony with the narrative themes and ideas of the AP would essentially require having read it before you start playing, which defeats the whole purpose of playing in the first place, since its generally polite to suspend your knowledge of an adventure you're playing in that you've already played, GMed or read before! This is why I've honestly never liked playing games that start out with higher-level characters, because I feel it's hard to gauge just how much writing I have to do so I don't produce something as memeable as the Rankin-Bass adaptation of The Return of the King summing up the events of the first two books with "Frodo and Sam had many adventures..."
Granted, this isn't going to be an issue for players who aren't as obsessive-compulsive about their character's narrative arc aligning with the AP's to elevate the shared story as I am, but yes, I've long wanted something like the CYOA sequence in Seven Dooms' Player's Guide to structure a party of non-1st-level PCs so they feel like they actually belong in the narrative aren't some complete randos who just wandered into a plot they don't fit into. AND I'm aware that's not feasible for all future APs, especially since Seven Dooms begins at a MUCH lower level than the other high-level APs.
So yes, I feel Curtain Call's approach is a step in the right direction. Though part of me also feels like it's hard to see how it will stick the landing of establishing a narrative thru-line, especially with the AP's spotlighting of Norgorber making it feel more appropriate as a sequel to the...controversial Agents of Edgewatch AP (which is likely a non-starter as it was a full 6-part AP on its own anyway).
It's one of those things where I get why the new direction is happening, especially as it's produced some of the most popular APs to date, but I do feel frustrated that some of them feel less "narratively accessible" because they start in what the character progression system assumes is the "middle" of the character's narrative you now have to include in their initial biography to show theyre experienced and the adventure you're actually playing isn't their first rodeo, or if you have the party from one AP that started their career move into a different narrative, you run the risk of creating something like The Big Lebowski or The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, where you have outsiders wandering into a genre they don't belong in, which works in those cases because that juxtaposition is intentional to create humor or examine genre conventions, but creates an incoherent narrative if you're playing it straight.
I don't mind the lack of six part APs. Some of the six part APs don't feel like they fit together very well with Extinction Curse and Age of Ashes being two of the PF2 line that did not have a great connecting arc (in my opinion). I figure with 3 book APs, they can tie the stories together better.
I hope they keep including APs to get you to level 20. My players hate ending characters at level 10 to 12. Not fun at all to have this character you've built up get put on the old character heap before you've seen what they can do at high level.
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I don't mind the lack of six part APs. Some of the six part APs don't feel like they fit together very well with Extinction Curse and Age of Ashes being two of the PF2 line that did not have a great connecting arc (in my opinion). I figure with 3 book APs, they can tie the stories together better.
I hope they keep including APs to get you to level 20. My players hate ending characters at level 10 to 12. Not fun at all to have this character you've built up get put on the old character heap before you've seen what they can do at high level.
We have no intention of not doing Adventure Paths that end at level 20. The three I'm currently working on (starting with the just-announced soon-to-be-out "Curtain Call" and continuing with the one I'm currently developing and the one I'm outlining) are all high-level Adventure Paths that end at level 20.
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We have no intention of not doing Adventure Paths that end at level 20. The three I'm currently working on (starting with the just-announced soon-to-be-out "Curtain Call" and continuing with the one I'm currently developing and the one I'm outlining) are all high-level Adventure Paths that end at level 20.I don't mind the lack of six part APs. Some of the six part APs don't feel like they fit together very well with Extinction Curse and Age of Ashes being two of the PF2 line that did not have a great connecting arc (in my opinion). I figure with 3 book APs, they can tie the stories together better.
I hope they keep including APs to get you to level 20. My players hate ending characters at level 10 to 12. Not fun at all to have this character you've built up get put on the old character heap before you've seen what they can do at high level.
Excellent.
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I'm someone who likes a lot of different styles of adventures in my campaigns rather than sticking to a single theme the entire time. Stringing together a few shorter APs sounds like a good way to get that variety.
However, I've also grown to like a good thru line. What are people's thoughts on an AP that skips levels. Like, Vol. 1 is levels 1-3, then you do some other adventures before Vol. 2 kicks off at level 8 or something. The whole thing goes to 20, but sporadically.
Something like Eden Odyssey's Wonders Out of Time (for 3.5) if anybody remembers that. It's a favorite of mine.
Kinda highlight one of the issues with 6 parts APs, filling 6 volumes with contents can be difficult.
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Kinda highlight one of the issues with 6 parts APs, filling 6 volumes with contents can be difficult.I'm someone who likes a lot of different styles of adventures in my campaigns rather than sticking to a single theme the entire time. Stringing together a few shorter APs sounds like a good way to get that variety.
However, I've also grown to like a good thru line. What are people's thoughts on an AP that skips levels. Like, Vol. 1 is levels 1-3, then you do some other adventures before Vol. 2 kicks off at level 8 or something. The whole thing goes to 20, but sporadically.
Something like Eden Odyssey's Wonders Out of Time (for 3.5) if anybody remembers that. It's a favorite of mine.
Especially if that idea doesn't really lend itself well to six volumes. One that immediately comes to mind is Giantslayer—that one would have probably done better as a high-level 3 part Adventure Path, because at low levels, giants are simply things you shouldn't be fighting at all, let alone in numbers.
But also, there are some 3 part stories that in hindsight should have been 6 part ones—Stolen Fate comes to mind there...
I feel pretty confident at this point that we're on the right track at picking stories that fit well into a 3 part format, and as we get into the groove of a better balance between low and high level, will be able to supply folks with more and more options for them to pick and choose combinations of Adventure Paths that can bring them from low level to high level. We're only just now getting started in print on that with Curtain Call's release, so by this time next year, I'd love to hear some feedback from folks who miss the 6 part ones if things like Curtain Call and Spore War are doing better at giving options to continue your low level campaigns.
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I was a fan of Stolen Fate, but totally agree that it felt rushed. I’m not sure if I mentioned it in my review of all the APs on reddit, but each book had one chapter where you quickly run through a series of unconnected encounters where each one gives you a new card. This resulted in those sections feeling like you’re sort of just going down a checklist.
I’m not sure the same AP premise stretched out over 6 parts would have worked though, because I suspect the card-collecting mechanic would get pretty old doing it all the way from level 1 to 20.
What the AP needed from my POV was 2 things.
First, an element of actually tracking down the cards rather than a portal taking you immediately to each of them. This could have been a great opportunity for more investigative elements to come into play, use of the research/influence subsystems, etc. The Harrow Court’s portals are stupidly OP, and take away much of the sense of accomplishment that finding the cards would otherwise provide.
Second, I would have loved to see more people involved in the Harrow card hunt outside of the Unmatched. As it stands, there are very few NPCs to roleplay with who aren’t one-off encounters. Multiple factions of evil characters hunting the cards down as well as other heroes trying to do the same could have given the same feeling as Fists of the Ruby Phoenix. A group of card hunters that the PCs love could be killed off-screen and had their cards stolen for even more motivation!
So I think that if the structure was kept the same (harrow court teleporting you everywhere you need to go, largely unrelated encounters, etc.) then the AP would have been far worse as a 6-parter. But if the scope of the story was expanded in ways described above, it could have worked really well as a 6-part AP.
Especially if that idea doesn't really lend itself well to six volumes. One that immediately comes to mind is Giantslayer—that one would have probably done better as a high-level 3 part Adventure Path, because at low levels, giants are simply things you shouldn't be fighting at all, let alone in numbers.
But also, there are some 3 part stories that in hindsight should have been 6 part ones—Stolen Fate comes to mind there...
** spoiler omitted **I feel pretty confident at this point that we're on the right track at picking stories that fit well into a 3 part format, and as we get into the groove of a better balance between low and high level, will be able to supply folks with more and more options for them to pick and choose combinations of Adventure Paths that can bring them from low level to high...
Remember that some of the 1st Edition AP also have this problem.
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Remember that some of the 1st Edition AP also have this problem.Especially if that idea doesn't really lend itself well to six volumes. One that immediately comes to mind is Giantslayer—that one would have probably done better as a high-level 3 part Adventure Path, because at low levels, giants are simply things you shouldn't be fighting at all, let alone in numbers.
But also, there are some 3 part stories that in hindsight should have been 6 part ones—Stolen Fate comes to mind there...
** spoiler omitted **I feel pretty confident at this point that we're on the right track at picking stories that fit well into a 3 part format, and as we get into the groove of a better balance between low and high level, will be able to supply folks with more and more options for them to pick and choose combinations of Adventure Paths that can bring them from low level to high...
For sure, but we weren't in a position in 1st Edition to be meddling with the Adventure Path formula, because it was still being refined, but also because we had FAR fewer folks available to work on them and a lot of those 1st Edition Adventure Paths only happened because folks like me, Wes, Rob, Crystal, and Adam worked 60 to 80 hour weeks now and then to get them finished, and didn't have the benefit of two decades of prior experience to build upon.
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I really appreciate the quicker 'churn' we get on settings and themes with the varied AP lengths; it's no fun to sit out that whole line for half of or even an entire year, while the constant novelty is really appealing.
More APs means more chances for the really striking ideas - so that when a trip to, say, Arcadia or Numeria comes around, Average Joe gamer who wants his elves in European castles isn't sitting things out for too long while I'm feasting, and vice-versa.
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As someone who gets all the aps though I do kinda wish it was three aps per year instead of 4 xD But yeah there is no point in forcing ap to be six parts if it doesn't fit six parts. Edgewatch in retrospect could have been either two different aps, three part edgewatch ap, three part starwatch ap or even two part edgewatch ap, 4 part starwatch ap. And I feel like the starwatch plot would have been more natural as 5-15 level ap than 1-20.
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I really appreciate the quicker 'churn' we get on settings and themes with the varied AP lengths; it's no fun to sit out that whole line for half of or even an entire year, while the constant novelty is really appealing.
More APs means more chances for the really striking ideas - so that when a trip to, say, Arcadia or Numeria comes around, Average Joe gamer who wants his elves in European castles isn't sitting things out for too long while I'm feasting, and vice-versa.
Exactly this.
Gaming (which I rarely have enough time for now) is what introduced me to genres beyond those of Tolkien. Who wouldn’t want to be a Mongol lord astride a horse with a hawk and bow at their side? Or what’s not to love about a paleofiction involving mammoths, magic, and ancient gods?
What gets me is that the worldbuilding for the official pathfinder setting is hugely deep- but only for 2.5- continents. I’d like to see more adventures and adventure paths branch out and that’s a lot easier through small, short visits than long, committed jaunts.
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I'm glad to hear the six part APs aren't gone for good because I really enjoy that length and being able to tell such a sweeping story, but it definitely requires a story that actually fits that length and sometimes that just isn't appropriate.
Shorter stories are nice to start and end things more often, but we play every week and can do a 6 part AP in under a year and a half, so that makes the 3 part ones feel relatively short and like you're just getting to know a character before its gone. Especially with how many of them are low level, and dear god after 30 years in the hobby am I sick of always starting at level 1.
Ruby Phoenix was such a breath of fresh air because of the "sure, bring whatever crazy backstory you want" nature of it.
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I'm glad to hear the six part APs aren't gone for good because I really enjoy that length and being able to tell such a sweeping story, but it definitely requires a story that actually fits that length and sometimes that just isn't appropriate.
Shorter stories are nice to start and end things more often, but we play every week and can do a 6 part AP in under a year and a half, so that makes the 3 part ones feel relatively short and like you're just getting to know a character before its gone. Especially with how many of them are low level, and dear god after 30 years in the hobby am I sick of always starting at level 1.
Ruby Phoenix was such a breath of fresh air because of the "sure, bring whatever crazy backstory you want" nature of it.
I do like that Wardens of Wildwood and Triumph of the Tusk start at 5th and 3rd levels respectively.
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I really appreciate the quicker 'churn' we get on settings and themes with the varied AP lengths; it's no fun to sit out that whole line for half of or even an entire year, while the constant novelty is really appealing.
More APs means more chances for the really striking ideas - so that when a trip to, say, Arcadia or Numeria comes around, Average Joe gamer who wants his elves in European castles isn't sitting things out for too long while I'm feasting, and vice-versa.
Exactly this.
Gaming (which I rarely have enough time for now) is what introduced me to genres beyond those of Tolkien. Who wouldn’t want to be a Mongol lord astride a horse with a hawk and bow at their side? Or what’s not to love about a paleofiction involving mammoths, magic, and ancient gods?
What gets me is that the worldbuilding for the official pathfinder setting is hugely deep- but only for 2.5- continents. I’d like to see more adventures and adventure paths branch out and that’s a lot easier through small, short visits than long, committed jaunts.
Some PFS scenarios do the small, short visit thing.
Might be too short though.