Finished Wardens of Wildwood... the struggle is real.

[Mark Reyes]

Bramblebear sent me after running this campaign. The minisystems were altered to make them run faster and they were still a slog. The plot didn't make much sense and if several GMs have to collaborate to run it there's something wrong. Grats on making way too many NPCs to care about. The best thing I can say about this AP is I will never have to run it. The GM and follow players are the only reason I made it through this.

[shroudb]

First and foremost I want to thank all my fellow party members that helped us slaughter all the nastyies in the campaign, and Bramble for running it, as well as Niktorak and Ironbear that helped him prep and made awesome maps for us.

That said, my honest review after finishing this campaign:

Starting with the good:

a)I absolutely loved the level range. Skipping the first few levels, and just slightly touching on "higher levels" is a great concept. It alieviates the tedius few levels for us that have played rpgs for 30 years and don't love them, gets high enough that you can do some of the "high level stuff" without putting pressure on the GM about getting stuff that can really derail them (no matter how balanced pf2 is, especially for newcomers from other games, high level is always more challenging to run).

b)the wildwood is a beautiful place with many different beings for allies and antagonists. Book 1 in particular helps set a nice tone (although that gets crushed pretty soon as you start book 2/3).

The bad:

0)We need an AP that DOESN'T start with a gala.

a)Need less, and better designed subsystems.

There's 0 fun in having something say "you get Stupified 1 from reading too much, and you need 1 week downtime to stop being Stupefied." Especially when there are special clauses that straight up disallow your abilities to interact with said debuffs.

Like, imagine if you play a healer that can remove conditions and having the book saying "nope, you may remove a condition from having your brain turned to that of a frog's, but you can't remove it from reading too much"

b)Narrative holes/continuity.

Someone should have double checked the campaign, because there are dozens of times that things simply make no sense. You have the escapee pathfinder that led the enemy, but somehow now can't lead you (and you instead have to do a subsystem to get the same information that for all intents and purposes she should already have). You have to keep the werebear from eating the baddies, but you can't simply move her away for the 1 day that the baddies will be there. Let alone the druids not only siding with the undead, but going alongside her mass torture of every inhabitant of the forest as "sure, ok, it's probably for the best, right?".

There are too many holes to cover here, but as a lot of things in this campaign, you simply have to shrug and ignore to finish the campaign "as written".

On a similar vein, a lot of parts are absolutely disjointed. Breaking the pace and immersion as you hop from one irrelevant thing to another.

c)unaswered plots/page space/npcs

There are blatant questions that raw are left unaswered. Important questions that every PC will ask, like "who killed the arch druid" are left unaswered.

We know that this is due to page space limitations, BUT on the other hand, you have 100 npcs in there and 20 different, new subsystems, taking that page space.

For minor npcs, there is simply no reson to take so much space. Even if you want to make the world "more alive", a basic name, description, and a sentence or two is enough for any GM to fill the rest.

For systems, we already have plenty in the rulebooks, no reason to create a dozen more just for a campaign, taking up that space.

Instead, this space should have been used to keep in the quests that could give closure to vital questions left in the adventure, questions that those npcs will ask you.

d)failed sense of urgency.

In the whole campaign there is supposed to be a feeling of urgency. From running away from enemy armies, to chasing down artifacts to get them before the enemy, to trying to establish rebel forces, to trying to catch up the mastermind before she does the bad thing...

BUT

The same subsystems suddenly gives you WEEKS of in-between that feel like you are doing absolutely nothing. Like, your enemies amass forces and you spend 1 month in a library, or you are trying to chase her down and you have to spend weeks in a city to build trust. Going on week long patrols instead of actively doing anything to help the war effort. And literally numerous other examples. It simply becomes a joke.

---

Overall, I'd say that the campaign is runnable IF, and only IF, the GM is willing to put a ton of work to homebrew a lot of stuff just to make sense. But if you are looking for an AP that you can prep quickly and run, this is not it.

[ScottDestro8]

Currently I've run through 4 official Paizo adventures completely, Abomination Vaults, Blood Lords, Season of Ghosts, and now Wardens of Wildwood. For my experience in BL and SoG I was the DM, so I think I have a greater overall understanding of their stories compared to the campaigns when I was just a player. Still trying to account for that though the story of WoW has to be one of the most disjointed I've run through in any system.

The flow of the books feels terrible to consider, the first was the only one where I found myself actually invested in the overall story, and I think that's because I thought it was going somewhere. But laid out now, having finished the game and knowing kinda well which parts were made by the DM and which were official, I just don't see anyone who likes getting invested in their campaigns enjoying this one. There are soooo many NPCs, most of them having only surface level lore or even reason for being noted, yet they are noted and stick around like they're supposed to be memorable. The motivations of the villains only feel like they work if you suspend disbelief and reason purposefully, appear stupid rather than actually villainous at most times.

For people who want a campaign of a turn your brain off and experience the pathfinder system/world in a campaign that can seemingly be done extremely quickly if a DM doesn't add to it, then this works. However for a group that want an actual, meaningful roleplay experience and a believable saving the day story, this campaign seems lacking compared to almost every other one Paizo has put out.

[Stupid Sexy Athenor]

First and foremost, I want to thank Bramble, the other players and other GMs (Nik & Iron) who were involved in the campaign. If you're looking for some amazing Pathfinder content to watch, these guys are it. To say this AP was a labour of love is an understatement and without them it would have ultimately fallen off. To give context to my thoughts I will preface with the following: I have currently played all of the 1st edition APs and a majority of the 2nd edition APs. With that being said I believe that I've seen what Paizo can achieve and what they're capable of, unfortunately Wardens of Wildwood (WoW) does not reach that standard.

**WARNING!!!! I WILL BE SPOILING MAJOR PLOT ELEMENTS, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!**

I want to start by saying there are some really good elements of WoW.

1. The setting is amazing, and you could definitely play some interesting woodland/forest characters that would fit nicely into this campaign. The Wildwood has so much lore and interesting locations so it's great to finally see these being used in an AP. Books 2 and 3 also see us visit a realm of shadows and the plane of wood respectively which are very cool set pieces.

2. The AP starting at 5th level is a breath of fresh air and allows for your players to reach those class feats and abilities not often seen in your classic 1 - 11 AP. The additional 2 levels allow for the higher-level play and are a good stepping stone for those who haven't played in the 11-20 range.

And now for the bad:

1. Oh boy the ending of this is so bad... As a TTRPG veteran going on nearly 25 years of playing, I've seen some bad endings to modules/APs/1-shots, but this takes the cake. Defeating a villain that the party has been chasing since the start of book 2 only to have an influence sub-system thrown at you the second you finish combat is horrible. The victory is hollow, and should the party roll poorly enough for said influence system the AP ending is the equivalent of "rocks fall, you die."

2. The sub-systems seem to make up so much of the AP and ruin the flow of any meaningful progress. Do get me wrong, I think some sub-systems are good but it's almost as if anytime the writers got stuck, they'd throw in a sub-system. If you or your party doesn't enjoy sub-systems, especially those that seem pointless then WoW is not for you.

3. Plot holes are plentiful, and questions raise in the AP are discussed once and never thought of again. WoW feels like it was written by 3 separate people that never spoke to one another about the direction the story was going. Whilst other APs have similar issues, it's very noticeable in WoW and makes the experience of running the AP so draining. Some examples have previously been mentioned in this thread, but a critical one is "Who attacked the Wildwood Lodge at the end of Book 1." It became a running joke in our campaign and having read through the AP, this question is tossed in the pile of 100 others that go unanswered.

4. NPCs do not develop with the party and are very surface level. Beyond the DM putting in a significant amount of effort, these NPCs are just background noise and don't provide anything meaningful to offer the PCs. Despite this, Book 1 does the best of introducing so many characters at once, however Books 2 & 3 really struggle to find meaningful NPCs for the party to interact with. Also, the decision to have the Wildwood side with a Grave Knight is just beyond silly and is just so difficult to make believable.

I could continue but I ultimately think what I've said is enough for most people to understand WoW and the struggles we've had with it. I would avoid this AP, it will leave most players feeling disappointed and GMs frustrated with its inability to tell a cohesive story. Paizo really missed the mark which is disappointing considering how interesting the setting is. I would highly recommend picking up another 2ed AP instead and avoiding WoW without serious prep and forewarning your players that it struggles to tell a "heroes' story" and there will be a lot of plot holes that go unanswered.

[AnikiTony]

Wanna start by saying thank you to Bramble and the folks who got us through these adventure paths. It is probably one of my favorite sit downs and gaming I've had in while thanks to the energy brought to the table and some elements of the AP.

The initial start this path caught my attention. A preface of a setting that I think of as enchanted forest or nature with a bounty of magic is something I was looking forward to. The festival and games taken place in the first path was so much fun I looked forward to more.

As participating in the full AP I slowly saw myself feeling not fully satisfied with the later paths. Some answers left open-ended for the GM but there were a lot of stories that felt like there should have been some guidance to have a conclusion for a variety of NPCs and quests.

I think the numerous NPCS were charming and I felt myself rooting for the Swiftmane Siblings and even Khasprickle which I found shocking but there was little growth compared to other APs I've played (SoT, Trouble in Otori, etc.)

If you have a GM who is creative and flexible with an AP like this I say run it. It gives you and the table more freedom in what you wish to do in this. Fill gaps where you see fit and hopefully you get to a fun conclusion. Thank you again to the folks at our table. The journey was arduous but it's still one of my favorite weekly games thanks to the creativity of both DMs and the players alike.

[Hilton]

I'm GMing WoW and my players are loving it.
I tried to make clear how fear and hate, for all the abuse the forest had been through, can make people take bad political decisions, and that once you give power to someone it's not so easy take it back.

Their group have no druid (actually, not even a primal caster), what is comical sometimes, but they basically intended to play ecoterrorists and now are trapped defending the status quo, because the villains are too radical

The NPCs are many and they loved most of them, the subsystems are some of a burden sometimes (the Prismati game was very confuse), but we're having a good time.

Now I agree some errors did make to this AP. For example, at book 2, chapter 2, there's an NPC at Event 9 whom you rescue.
That same NPC appears at Event 12, again needing help - this single Event is the worst written I have seen. There's no explanation of how the NPCs got at the place, or why at all, and one of them was saved in an previous event!

All in all, as always, most of the fun is in the players and the GM. We're enjoying this story, but I will surely make some adjustments here and there.

(and sorry for any english mistakes, it's not my first language and I'm fighting autocorrect at my phone)

[Kiltreiser]

"I tried to make clear how fear and hate, for all the abuse the forest had been through, can make people take bad political decisions, and that once you give power to someone it's not so easy take it back."

Seriously, this. Yes, there are some plot holes (which any DM can work around pretty easily), but the overarching story is just *so* relevant right now that it's hard not to get involved. My party are having great fun going into book 3, and I've had a blast running it. Great setting, really interesting characters (not too many at all), a fun mix of combat, subsystems, roleplay, etc. This AP does not deserve all the hate it's getting. It requires adjustments, like literally every single AP out there, but not hugely more than any other.