So I'm Starting a new PF game, any Decent Modules people would recomend?

[Katana1515]

My regular group has taken a bit of a leave of absence from RPGs at the moment (work, uni, all those trivial things). Yet I have had the good fortune to run into a few old friends who happened to be looking for their first ever RPG to take part in.

So while I would (humbly) call myself fairly experienced as a DM (and GM of a fair number of other systems). I have a couple of new issues with this game in particular.

1. all but 1 of my players are new to the game, as opposed to my usual group who are all optimising munchkins (and god I love them for it). As a result of my usual companions my baseline difficulty setting for a 'worthwhile encounter' tends to be .... somewhat more extreme than normal? So thats something I am gonna need to find a way to keep a lid on.

2. I am working full time at the moment, and I already joint GM a Roll20 game for my beloved aforementioned munchkins (D20 Star Wars if anyone’s curious). So I am looking for a way to reduce the workload involved in running the game.

The best answer to this question seems to be using an adventure path, pre-balanced encounters that hopefully wont have too high a ratio of PC deaths, and a ready to go story that’s flexible enough to allow the players to experience the advantages a tabletop RPG has over PC games (namely the ability to get away from the rail tracks). My main problem that I would like you wiser folks to resolve (yikes it took me a long time to get around to that) is that i have 0% experience running prewritten adventures.

So I would like recommendations for good adventures for a party anywhere between levels 1 - 6, preferably with a guide to how I can get hold of it in a costly manner.

Also I would like your experiences of running pre written adventures compared to your own material. what’s the pitfalls that I have to avoid? how flexible can I be with a story without it falling apart at the seams?

Thanks for all replies in advance! (and my apologies for the wall of text XD )

[Rezialn]

Way of the Wicked is an evil campaign that runs level 1-20, if you're into the evil campaign business.

[Dyllan]

Adventure paths can be good - although at times they still can be a bit railroad-ish.

I'm currently running a campaign for my 13 year old daughter, 13 year old niece, 10 year old daughter and my wife. Three of the four of them haven't played Pathfinder before. I considered adventure paths, but decided instead to do what I call an "Adventurer's Guild" campaign.

I downloaded every free module I could find for Pathfinder, 3.5 and 3.0, and added a few I had of my own. Then, I had them play as an adventuring party who's joined a local adventurer's guild in a large city. I take 4 or 5 modules of appropriate level, write hooks in the form of ads hung on a board in the guild, and they choose what to do based on that.

Then, once they choose, I run the module. When they're done, they report back to the guild and repeat.

Advantages - very non-railroad feeling - they're actually choosing what modules I run. However, I can give them incentives (higher pay, a tie in to their backstory, etc) in the ads to lead them to the module I prefer, if I have a preference. Easy to run, and they develop links to NPCs from the modules, slowly growing the game world around themselves. I just take notes as I go, and try to tie in those characters from previous adventures from time to time. But the workload is very light as a DM.

As for using 3.0 and 3.5 modules - I find running them as-is to be fine so far, for the most part. The challenge is a bit lower, but the players are new, so that's not bad. Once they get a few levels, they can generally run one CR ahead on modules. And if the module references monsters from the monster manual, use the Pathfinder stats for them. If it's a custom creature, use it as printed, or make small changes on the fly.

I started them with Sunless Citadel (still the best starter adventure I've ever ran or ran in) - sort of railroaded that as a way to prove themselves to get into the guild. You can get that on drivethrurpg for 4.99 in PDF form (which I did).

[Aergoth]

I can't recommend Kingmaker highly enough. It's a quasi-sandbox. With each subsequent chapter the sandbox expands a little. Your PCs eventually become landed nobility, controlling a small kingdom that they have to foster into a larger kingdom againt the depredations of crazed fae, mortal malcontents and the vagaries of fate and nature. The only issues we've had with it thusfar have been that the initial set of rules for kingdom-building are... kludgy? And the replacements in Ultimate Campaign fix some problems, but it's not a really good system to begin with. Recommend looking into the fixes that people have suggested for it or else using the "Kingdom in the Background" sidebar.

Aside from that, it also provides a lot of space for you to expand on the setting and good places for a break from the campaign if need be. Your players conduct some rule for a little while, expanding their territory and then something happens and they go deal with it.

[the clumsy bard]

Crypt of the Everflame.

If you are running a level 1 game with beginners is a great module.

It also has the benefit of running well if you continue the adventure with the same characters. It has semi followup modules.

Crypt of the Everflame - Level 1

Mask of the Living God - Level 3

City of Golden Death - Level 5

They all work together to a degree or so, at least very little work is involved in running them together from one to another.