[PF] Adventure Path For A Noob GM

[lfarbstein]

Hello there everybody. I am a noob when it comes to GMing. I have only had one "test session" To see what it was like. It went really well and both me and my player enjoyed it every much. I did the "We Be Goblins" One shot adventure from Paizo. It was a good time.

Now on to business. I want to keep GMing and my player want to make there own characters and start on a continuous adventure. I was thinking about using a Paizo pre written adventure path. The whole campaign divided into 6 books. They are all really well written. But which one do you think is best for a new GM. Which one would be easy for me to manage so my players can have a good time.

I really dont want to let my players down. So I would like your opinion, which adventure path do you think is most noob GM friendly? Thank you all very much in advanced.

[ArcGygas]

Do not attempt Kingmaker. There's a lot of micromanagement for GMs in that one. It's pretty high on the difficulty scale in all honesty.

But, beyond that, all of them are good. I highly recommend the Serpent's Skull or Rise of the Runelords.

[Kol Korran]

i know of one fairly new DM to PF who tried out Rise of the Runelords and it worked well for him. heard a few good reports of it by others as well, though not new DMs. the only thing against it i've heard is that it's one of the first PF adventure paths, and it doesn't give all that much attention to later material published.

i haven't heard anything about serpent skull. sorry.

i'd suggest not buying the whole 6 modules at first. buy 2, and see how it goes. it might be that your players don't like this sort of campaign, in which case you'll need to start another. best not to invest to greatly till you know how the players like it.

good luck to you and your new group!

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Do not attempt Kingmaker. There's a lot of micromanagement for GMs in that one. It's pretty high on the difficulty scale in all honesty.

But, beyond that, all of them are good. I highly recommend the Serpent's Skull or Rise of the Runelords.
I'd second this, but also add Carrion Crown to the list of difficult ones. It doesn't have AS MUCH micromanagement as Kingmaker, but each adventure introduces some kind of temporary mechanic you need to keep track of, like the Trust score in the first adventure, and Sanity rules in the fourth. Plus there's the fact that it's a horror campaign, and as such you NEED to be good at creating atmosphere.

[Novawurmson]

I'd just like to add that Rise of the Runelords was meant for 3.5, not Pathfinder. I'm currently running it with a Pathfinder group, and I'd highly recommend updating most of the combat encounters. The folks at the PF srd have done a pretty good job of updating all of the encounters (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/fan-conversions/paizo-adventure-paths), but you should make changes yourself. A few of the fights (the worst of the top of my head being Xanesha (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/unique-monsters/cr-10/xanesha)) need to be dialed back, and a few could use the difficulty bumped up a bit. However, most of RotRL is great for both players and the GM.

- - - - -

I love Carrion Crown to death and can't wait to run it XD

[CreganTur]

Carrion Crown is definately one to stay away from until you have good experience. The DM for the group I'm in is running it- he's by no means new, but he's just a little less experienced than most of the players. He didn't handle a few things well, which led to some frustrating sessions for us players. Not only are there strange things to keep track of, like the trust system, but the trust system is broken (confirmed by the writers). It also has a bunch of non-standard monsters.

I know this may not be helpful, but I cut my teeth as a player under some really good GMs who all did homebrew, so I learned how to run a custom campaign from them. The important thing about being a GM is coming up with a good plot, giving the players fun and challenging encounters, and helping them move the plot forward.

[Corlindale]

Rise of the Runelords is quite ok, I ran that myself as a fairly new GM. Easy to run, but as others have said you need to be mindful of difficulty spikes at some points, and steamrolls at other points. Xanesha is particularly evil, and I would suggest nerfing her unless your players are very optimized.

I'm running Serpent's Skull at the moment, not sure it's all that beginner-friendly, since there is quite a lot to keep track of in chapter I with all the different NPCs tagging along with the party - as well as the sandboxy nature of the chapter, which makes it harder to predict what your pcs will do.

[lfarbstein]

Thank you all for the feed back. It has been very helpful. I was thinking of doing Rise of the Runelords beforhand, and now you guys have reassured me that it is the right decision. Runelords it is!

I do have one more option. The Beginners Box is for sale for cheap at my game shop. Would that be a good buy? Is the campain to easy? I have very exprenced player so would the beginners box be... well... to simple for my players. I know It would be good for my GM skills but how about my players?

Runelords or beginners box?

[Novawurmson]

Quite a bit of it is free to preview (http://paizo.com/beginnerbox).

It's got a lot of positive reviews online, but I haven't bought it myself, though I was eyeing it at my local hobby shop...and bookstore.

If you want to do a full campaign, I would say Rise of the Runelords is the better decision. If you're not sure if you're going to like DMing and just want to dabble with it, the beginner's box might be worth a thought.

I haven't bought it myself. Anyone have a more informed decision?