Currently it looks to me like we're up to 25 Adventure Paths, with the latest being Bastion of Blasphemies and Waking Tigers and then Vaultlines coming up. Is this correct?
This used to be easy to track even when (as I have lately) I fail to keep up. This time I had to run all over the place trying to figure this out. :-(
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
From the Wiki, looks like 4 in D&D 3.5, 20 in 1e, and 23 currently out in 2e. Bastion will be #24, Vaultlines 25, and Tigers 26.
Meaning, as of the end of this month, there will be as many 2e APs out (though most of them half as long) as there are pre-2e altogether!
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I wouldn't count three or one issue adventures as AP, personally, they are more like Adventure Driveways or Adventure Back Alleys. Too short to be an interesting story, too long for a one shot and to be honest a waste of printing material.
But I'm just old, yearning for the good old days, so don't take me serious
Having run, played, or heavily prepped 12 of the 24 pre-PF2 APs, I cannot name a single one of these 6-book APs that didn't have at least one book that just didn't need to be in there. There are some storylines which justify 6-book APs (Wrath of the Righteous probably needed that much space, for example), but I think basically all of the pre-PF2 APs I'm familiar with could be put into 3-4 books without losing much of anything in their story.
Hm. The wiki apparently doesn't count "Kingmaker Second Edition" as a 2E Adventure Path.:-(
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Makes a certain ammount of sense, it also doesn't list Rise of the Runelords or Curse of the Crimson Throne as 1e APs, even though they got collected aas such. Seems to be going off the magazine publication order, hardcover remasters are rolled into the original publication.
Having run, played, or heavily prepped 12 of the 24 pre-PF2 APs, I cannot name a single one of these 6-book APs that didn't have at least one book that just didn't need to be in there.Couldn't disagree more; there are APs with pacing issues, but there's not a single chapter in any 6-part AP that strikes me as superfluous, and if anything I think some of the recent 3-parters could really do with being a lot longer - Stolen Fate and Revenge of the Runelords in particular have sequences that I would much rather have seen expanded, and just about anything using chase or infiltration rules feels like it could have been at least as effectively done in more detail.
I take it you never played Council of Thieves or Serpent's Skull?
Creative Director
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I get that, but IIRC it is not actually in any way needed for the AP itself. Come to think of it, same could be said of the Crown of the World part too.Indeed, Forest of Spirits in Jade Regent too.Tastes, they do vary. I love the House of Spirits in that.
Jade Regent is not ONLY the "defeat the bad guy in Minkai" Adventure Path. A significant part of the campaign is about the journey, which includes everything between Varisia and Minkai. From where I'm sitting, books 2, 3, and 4 were kind of half the point of the story. Whether or not folks were in the mood for a journey or wanted to skip to the end is another story.
That said, this was also the first time we ever introduced in play anything to do with Tian Xia, so we also wanted to take time and do some world building. It was also a different world for the real world back then, and prevailing wisdom was to "ease" into non-Eurocentric stories and realms by starting somewhere familiar and gradually working toward Tian-Xia. Today, when the zeitgeist of gaming is more eager to explore other cultures than they were a decade ago, and now that we've had all those years to build more lore, if we were to present Jade Regent we'd make sure to market it as being a journey first and a destination second, or maybe not do it at all and instead have the entire Adventure Path set in Minkai.
But all THAT said, there's always going to be differences in opinions. What group A hates, group B will love. That's always been the case, and it's one of the big reasons we adjusted our Adventure Path cadence to doing 3 part stories rather than 6 part ones—so that if an Adventure Path that wasn't to a group's taste stared they didn't have to wait as long for the next one.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Way I see it, Jade Regent is a 3-part story :
Book 1 and 2 involve the PCs in the story and explore the background that leads to the rest of the AP.
Book 3 and 4 are about the travel there with adventures along the way that however do not relate IMO to the rest of the AP.
Book 5 and 6 are about the core of what led to the AP and resolving it.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Way I see it, Jade Regent is a 3-part story :
Book 1 and 2 involve the PCs in the story and explore the background that leads to the rest of the AP.
Book 3 and 4 are about the travel there with adventures along the way that however do not relate IMO to the rest of the AP.
Book 5 and 6 are about the core of what led to the AP and resolving it.
I view Jade Regent as united around a theme of heritage and tradition. Some of my players, realizing that they were starting far from Minkai, created characters from Minkai or from other parts of Tian Xia or descended from Minkaian ancestors. They wanted this to be a Minkaian adventure path from the beginning. I chronicled my campaign at Amaya of Westcrown.
Book 3, The Hungry Storm, had nothing directly about Minkai, but it did highlight the dangers of the trade route to Minkai surveyed by Amatatsu Aganhei. I had replaced Ameiko with her half-sister Amaya, an ancestor oracle, who knew the trade route from the memories of her Amatatsu ancestors. I tried to keep a link to the Amatatsu legacy active. Book 4, Forest of Spirits, began direct experience set in Tian Xia though not Minkai itself. As James Jacobs said, the adventure path was gradually introducing Minkai. I highlighted that path of discovery rather than the quest to reclaim the Jade Throne, because my players were eager to learn about the fantasy realm based on Japan and its myths.
Way I see it, Jade Regent is a 3-part story :
Book 1 and 2 involve the PCs in the story and explore the background that leads to the rest of the AP.
Book 3 and 4 are about the travel there with adventures along the way that however do not relate IMO to the rest of the AP.
Book 5 and 6 are about the core of what led to the AP and resolving it.
I view Jade Regent as united around a theme of heritage and tradition. Some of my players, realizing that they were starting far from Minkai, created characters from Minkai or from other parts of Tian Xia or descended from Minkaian ancestors. They wanted this to be a Minkaian adventure path from the beginning. I chronicled my campaign at Amaya of Westcrown.
Book 3, The Hungry Storm, had nothing directly about Minkai, but it did highlight the dangers of the trade route to Minkai surveyed by Amatatsu Aganhei. I had replaced Ameiko with her half-sister Amaya, an ancestor oracle, who knew the trade route from the memories of her Amatatsu ancestors. I tried to keep a link to the Amatatsu legacy active. Book 4, Forest of Spirits, began direct experience set in Tian Xia though not Minkai itself. As James Jacobs said, the adventure path was gradually introducing Minkai. I highlighted that path of discovery rather than the quest to reclaim the Jade Throne, because my players were eager to learn about the fantasy realm based on Japan and its myths.
Books 2 & 3 should have been replaced.
Rather then the caravan across the Arctic, Book 2 should have been set in Tien Xia.The second half of Book 1 should have been the sea journey; despite Brinewall being an excellent dungeon.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I dunno. I like Jade Regent the way it was written.
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I kind of liked that the first exposure to Tian Xia was a big overland journey from Avistan... the place where us as PF players/DMs had spent so much time. It was a bit of meta-ness with characters leaving the old behind and traveling to a new land.
I was far more disappointed that the caravan rules didn't work. But that's a tale for another thread, as they say.
|
Creative Director
|
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
The caravan rules having that disconnect was an unfortunate side effect of events on the ground in real life disrupting the production cycle. That sort of thing happens. Originally, I was going to run the entire Adventure Path and I had plans to support the caravan subsystem more robustly (along with the relationship subsystem), to set it up as a roving "home base" so that no matter how far the PCs traveled, they'd always have somewhere comfortable and familiar to retreat to. Sort of playing the same role a town like Sandpoint plays in "Seven Dooms for Sandpoint." My original plan involved having multiple caravan-related side quests, exploring additional NPCs in the caravan as we continued, and then having that culminate in Minkai with the PCs having to help the eclectic group of travelers they picked up find new homes and integrate into the society.
But those plans pretty much collapsed as I had to shift away from developing the Adventure Path pretty much immediately to instead work on the Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition hardcover. (A similar thing happened with the Strange Aeons Adventure Path and Curse of the Crimson Throne.) The job of running and developing the adventure path in both cases fell to a different employee who had to hit the ground running and I did my best trying to coach them and prepare them for those plans, but not everything came to fruition.
I still feel like they did a great job developing both Adventure Paths, especially given the not-perfect "jump scare" situation of having to leap in to develop a different person's concept for a full-length campaign, and in both cases it was the right call because those two compilations ended up being very successful products as well. And in a lot of cases, the insights and additions those developers brought to those campaigns IMPROVED on the vague plans I had for later on in the series. I'm forever grateful and thankful they were able to complete the stories I'd started up but due to real world circumstances was unable to see through to the end.
We've since gotten a LOT better at planning ahead and having enough folks on staff to cover the projects we wanted to create, and haven't had to do this sort of last-minute developer switcharoo for a LONG time, thankfully!
Related to 2nd Edition APs, when does the Remaster actually start?
Also, do any of the pre-remastered PF2 APs need ... "remastered"?
|
Creative Director
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Related to 2nd Edition APs, when does the Remaster actually start?
Also, do any of the pre-remastered PF2 APs need ... "remastered"?
The first remaster Adventure Path was Wardens of Wildwood.
Whether or not you as the GM remaster Adventure Paths on your own when preparing them for play is up to you, but it's not necessary if you have access to the pre-remastered monster stats and all that. In a lot of cases, replacing an OGL monster with a remastered one is a tricky process. My suggestion is to NOT do this for your home games and simply play them as-is, using the pre-remaster statistics and making the small number of adjustments you need for monsters as necessary (this mostly comes down to giving a monster an Athletics check if they grapple, or adjusting alignment-based damage reduction and effects—for the vast majority of monsters no extra work is needed).
I feel the better way to compare what we got from PF1 and PF2 as far as APs are concerned would be the level gaps covered. As in, for PF2 APs, 6-book APs cover 20 levels and 3-book APs cover 10.
Perhaps, but a few Pathfinder 1e APs should have been three books.
|
Creative Director
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I feel the better way to compare what we got from PF1 and PF2 as far as APs are concerned would be the level gaps covered. As in, for PF2 APs, 6-book APs cover 20 levels and 3-book APs cover 10.Perhaps, but a few Pathfinder 1e APs should have been three books.
And a few Pathfinder 2E APs should have been six books.
Not everything gets to be perfect once you factor in everything else around producing something for print that isn't just writing, alas.