[PF] Adventure Paths

[BiblioRook]

As a relatively inexperience DM I've been finding value in falling back on pre-made adventures and whatnot. So far I haven't ran much more then a few one-shots, but looking ahead I've been trying to keep my eye open to the possibility to an ongoing campaign that my cousins (who I run games for) will inevitably want me to run. But I feel kinda spoiled for choice as I'm not sure just what one to go into.

With about a dozen or so Adventure Paths for Pathfinder (those six volume campaign books), I was wondering if there was a convenient summery of each that would get me a good idea what the campaign would be like, such as what the focus would be (such as plot or what the players would be facing in-game). Or failing that, if someone who is experienced with the different Paths could give me the lowdown.

[Deathkeeper]

Rise of the RuneLords: Taking down ancient magical beings known as the Runelords, as you might have expected. It's clearly well-liked considering it's had its own re-done book
Curse of the Crimson Throne: As far as I know, it's a lot of urban action, and the plot regards the throne of Korvosa, which is seemingly cursed, as its rulers have a habit of dying.
Second Darkness- Starts at a pirate city and then goes to another continent
Legacy of Fire- Middle-Eastern-based, with lots of Genies
Council of Thieves- Urban, lots of demons, devils, and evil Outsider action
KingMaker- Focuses on building a kingdom and such, as the name implies
Serpent's Skull- Indiana Jones/Tarzan inspired, exploring a jungle environment often and investigating Serpentfolk activity as it escalates
Carrion Crown- Stereotypical horror tropes. I love this one.
Jade Reagent- Eastern-based, in the Asia-expy Tian Xia (I may have misspelled that)
Skull&Shackles: Pirate campaign. Not much more to be said.

Those are the ones whose PDFs I have. Sadly, I haven't read all of them and can't give you very detailed descriptions save for CC, LoF, and SS, which I've read all of. The other Paths I'm even less familiar with. I can get more specific if you're interested in those three.

[AzazelSephiroth]

LordDeathkeeper`s summaries are pretty decent for a starting overview, plus if you check out the paizo website you can download a free player`s guide PDF for each path and it gives some great background into each one for both a player and a DM.

From personal experience I can say that the Kingmaker path was amazing- Classic D&D exploration of untamed wilderness, the ability to become rulers or your own kingdom with all the control of building it, or there are rules for having it happen on the side if they are not into the micro-management:smallwink:. The backdrop of a powerful evil fey invasion is very well written and the last book is probably one of the coolest finales ever!

Rise of the Runlords is also a fantastic one- even more classic D&D feel, home town heroes, starts with goblin attacks and finally culminates in epic world saving quests. Lots of beautiful background and a full home city/town for them to live in/love and protect. And the new hardbound edition is super classy:smallcool:

My personal suggestion is Kingmaker for the epic or Rise of the Runelords for the nostalgia! But I have to say I think all of them are high quality products!

edited for grammar-sigh my fingers are not as fast as my brain:smallredface:

[BiblioRook]

Well that answers one of the questions I neglected to ask in the first place, I was actually wondering if any were involved with fey. Kingmaker didn't really grab my interest at first but now I might have to look into it. Serpent's Skull and Second Darkness also sound like they might be pretty interesting, if it's two things I'm fond of it's Indiana Jones and pirates. Surprisingly despite my interest in pirates I'm actually not that interest in running Skulls & Shackles, probably because I'm currently playing it it.

[KutuluKultist]

Concerning Second Darkness, I don't think it works as a campaign at all. There is a harsh thematic break between the first two adventures and the final four. In the beginning the PCs are supposed to be out to make money and work at/take over casino in a wretched hive of scum and villainy, but after the second adventure, they are supposed to go to great length and personal sacrifice to help very unlikeable elves against drow.
If you want to run it, run both parts separately. 3-6 work best with a primarily elven group, which will provide background and motivation.

Concerning Serpent Skull, I think that it has a great first adventure: being stranded on a cursed island with lots of exploration and survival, tropical climate, ancient ruins, cannibals & ghosts. The second adventure is nice, if nothing special, but once you get to the heart of the AP, it becomes a repetitive, uninspired mess presented as a serious of boring combat encounters, where I would have expected a lot of information, archeological handouts and ways for the players to piece together the threat they are up against. Instead, there is an NPC, who has already found out everything that is important and just tells the PCs what to do. I guess if you put a lot of work into it, you can turn this into something nice and memorable, but the late adventures, as they are, are just a mess.

Concerning Jade Regent, it suffers a bit from the Last Samurai syndrome: You get to out-asian the asians.

[BiblioRook]

Concerning Serpent Skull, I think that it has a great first adventure: being stranded on a cursed island with lots of exploration and survival, tropical climate, ancient ruins, cannibals & ghosts. The second adventure is nice, if nothing special, but once you get to the heart of the AP, it becomes a repetitive, uninspired mess presented as a serious of boring combat encounters, where I would have expected a lot of information, archeological handouts and ways for the players to piece together the threat they are up against. Instead, there is an NPC, who has already found out everything that is important and just tells the PCs what to do. I guess if you put a lot of work into it, you can turn this into something nice and memorable, but the late adventures, as they are, are just a mess.

Really? Aw, that's disappointing. I'm something of a skill nut and one thing I was rather pleased with in Skull & Shackles was a fair focus on skill checks. Sure they were mostly boring mundane chores, but I still liked the effort. So I'm really surprised that what all that interest in skill challenges didn't carry over to other Paths...

[ThiagoMartell]

Shattered Star seems pretty cool, specially for being so different.

[KutuluKultist]

Really? Aw, that's disappointing. I'm something of a skill nut and one thing I was rather pleased with in Skull & Shackles was a fair focus on skill checks. Sure they were mostly boring mundane chores, but I still liked the effort. So I'm really surprised that what all that interest in skill challenges didn't carry over to other Paths...

Well, the first adventure has a lot of opportunities for creative skill use and skill challenges while people are trying to survive: building shelter, gear, getting food, getting odd natives to cooperate, moving around the wilderness,...

[Alleran]

From what I've experienced of the Adventure Paths (specifically Rise of the Runelords, Curse of the Crimson Throne, Skull & Shackles and Jade Regent, the last of which is in-progress; I have the first three Shattered Star books but have yet to play them), my opinions:

- RotR feels old-school. While some of the information in it doesn't quite gel with later details on Thassilon and the development of Golarion, IIRC the reason it was set so far in the past was because they wanted to have a lot of space to do other things, which is fair enough. You start out as adventurers saving a small town, and slowly work your way up to discovering ancient treasures, monsters and villains, the latter of which are awakening. If I were running it again, with everything that has been developed since then for Golarion, I'd probably alter some of the Knowledge details and let the players get access to more information about what they're dealing with, possibly giving them the chance to skip some things.

- CotCT is a bit different because you start out (more or less) guessing the identity of the BBEG. Beyond that, however, I can't give a great deal of information, since my players all decided they were going to be evil scumbags for this adventure path and sided with the BBEG instead. Ultimately they failed when the BBEG turned on them (should have seen that one coming...), so we didn't get past the third book in that AP. We declared it "discontinuity" for our "personal Golarion campaign world" (so to speak).

- S&S is all about yarr, we be pirates, me hearties! Start out being press-ganged, wind up as pirate lords. It's solid. Just don't think you'll get away with playing paladins in a campaign like this, or many Lawful Good characters in general. It doesn't quite fit the tone (which I found amusing, since Alahazra, the Pathfinder iconic Oracle, is LG and was used in the artwork...). You can get away with playing as Chaotic or Neutral Good characters, though. Chaotic in particular, since you're technically up against Cheliax for some of it, and they venerate (primarily) Asmodeus, who happens to be Lawful Evil.

- JR is progressing. Up to the third book in the AP, and it's been pretty good so far. Ameiko does verge on a Mary-Sue character from time to time (since it's about getting her to become Empress unless you decide to gank her and take the throne yourselves), and I think the "romance" mechanics were unneeded, but I'll have to see how that turns out when it's being played through rather than just read through.

As for the others, I've heard that Second Darkness has a problematic atmosphere shift and that Serpent's Skull isn't put together very well, but haven't played either.

[BiblioRook]

What's Shattered Star about? That's the newest one, right. A few of you mentioned it but didn't really say anything about it.

[KutuluKultist]

What's Shattered Star about? That's the newest one, right. A few of you mentioned it but didn't really say anything about it.

It's a treasure hunt after pieces of an artefact in the employ of the pathfinder society.

[BiblioRook]

Well now, coincidentally just yesterday I was able to find a copy of Part 1 of Serpent's Skull for just $3 (As well as Part 3 of Skulls & Shackles for the same)! What luck! Though as much as I kinda feel like I should be starting these adventures from the beginning, I think my players might be getting tired of low levels and would probably want to start a new game at at least around level 4 or so. So I'm going to have to get some Part 2's I guess. Still a pretty amazing find though.

[Ryulin18]

I'm currently running the rise of the runelords campaign with the anniversary edition. It's fantastically detailed and both the combat and story runs really well.

I 5/5 it.

[Corlindale]

I'm a big fan of Carrion Crown. I've played through all of it, and I'm now in the process of GM'ing it.

It has great atmosphere, and a lot of variety between modules. I like how each chapter represents a distinct, iconic horror-theme. We took a vote on favourite modules after playing through it, and we particularly liked the first 3. As with almost all adventure paths I've seen, it does get a little too "dungeon-crawly" towards the end.

It's a little lethal in places, and a bit stingy on the loot, but I find that it serves to reinforce the survival-horror feel they seem to be going for.