Newb Friendly Adventure Path Suggestions

[Milo v3]

I'm going to be running a pathfinder game but with university don't have as much time to prepare adventures for my group, so was planning on using an adventure path, but I have no idea which I should attempt to use.

My group has two people who are new to d20, so it'd probably have to be low-level but I'd prefer something starting in the 3-5 level range if possible.

Is there any adventure paths that'd be suitable?

[weckar]

Crypt of the Everflame and it sequels are pretty straightforward and fun.

[Tommy_Dude]

I say this to everyone just starting out. Rise of the Runelords is a great starter AP, and many of the chapters are quite modular as the BBEG is only ever hinted at up until the end of book 3 I believe.

[Nibbens]

I say this to everyone just starting out. Rise of the Runelords is a great starter AP, and many of the chapters are quite modular as the BBEG is only ever hinted at up until the end of book 3 I believe.

THIS! (I need ten characters to post, so...) THISTHISTHIS!

[Ssalarn]

I say this to everyone just starting out. Rise of the Runelords is a great starter AP, and many of the chapters are quite modular as the BBEG is only ever hinted at up until the end of book 3 I believe.

Second... errr... Thirded. Rise of the Runelords has the fewest fiddly bits of just about any of the APs, has an acceptable amount of room for the PCs to breathe and explore things in their own way without getting railroaded or going the opposite direction and derailing. It's also a great example of a pretty "classic" D&D adventure, with a good progression and the right number of different terrains and creatures.

Jade Regent is pretty solid as well, but the caravan rules are an add-on that you may or may not want.

[Novawurmson]

I'll throw another recommendation for RotRL. I GMed the whole thing. For one member of the party, it was his first campaign ever; another player had been playing pen and paper RPGs for almost a decade. Everyone in the party had a blast.

[killem2]

Way of the Wicked by fire mountain games is actually very basic in nature. Most of the encounters, I'd say, 95% of them in the first book are straight humanoid battles. Very easy to get them into the mix of the game.

[skypse]

I also suggest Rise of the Runelords. I'm DMing it right now, my group is close to finishing the first book. 4/5 players are complete newbies both in d20 games and pathfinder. For 3 of them it is their very first pen and paper attemp and all of them are enjoying the campaign as well as myself. It has a really solid story with many twists, and also gives a lot of space for both the players and the DM to do stuff on their own and create side-stories.

[Milo v3]

How fast are PC's expected to level in Rise of the Runelords, since it seems to start at 1st level.

[weckar]

One problem you may see from this thread: Everyone and their mother has played Rise of the Runelords. You may want to check with your group if anyone has.

[Milo v3]

One problem you may see from this thread: Everyone and their mother has played Rise of the Runelords. You may want to check with your group if anyone has.

They haven't played any adventure paths or premade adventures before.

[Ssalarn]

How fast are PC's expected to level in Rise of the Runelords, since it seems to start at 1st level.

It depends on party size a bit, but it's about once every three encounters. I believe we were level 5 when we finished the first book...?
A bigger party that covers less of the side stuff and isn't very good at investigating will finish the AP at about 16th level, while a 4 man group that hits up all the optional and hidden stuff shouldn't have a problem hitting 20.

[skypse]

a 4 man group that hits up all the optional and hidden stuff

Mainly this. My party consists of 5 adventurers as I said above, and they will be finishing 1st book at lvl 4 soon because they have missed the XP of 2 key RP points. However, the xp "loss" they suffered is minimal which means that with the first or second encounter in the second book, or even during downtime in between books, they should be able to reach 5 without any problems. The book itself says (in the anniversary edition which I recommend you play) that the PCs should be 4-5 levels by the time they finish first book, and 17+ by the time they finish the whole campaign. Keep in mind that "4" and "17" are the minimum levels considering that the group doesn't find any hidden stuff and don't bother with any of the optional material.

[ghanjrho]

Every Paizo AP (at least all the ones I've looked at) has a level track in the front of each book, listing what level the party should be at what points. If you don't want to bother with XP tracking (which is entirely reasonable in Pathfinder), you can just level them up when the track says. It's what I'm doing now in the RotRL I'm DMing (it's my first time behind the screen).

[Milo v3]

Anyone have any secondary suggestions?

Since it turns out the Rise of the Runelords I got was apparently the old 3.5e version and I have no way to obtain the pathfinder version.

[Ssalarn]

Anyone have any secondary suggestions?

Since it turns out the Rise of the Runelords I got was apparently the old 3.5e version and I have no way to obtain the pathfinder version.

Jade Regent is fairly fun, and if you don't want to deal with the caravan building rules, you can kind of hand-wave that and just add in some CR appropriate random encounters. And they're not too hard to learn if you want to take the time to use them. My group actually had a blast building their caravan and I ended up adding some NPCs at various points they could hire on to flesh it out.

Ummmm.... One of the issues I'm bumping into trying to come up with new suggestions is that most of the good APs also have pretty substantial subsystems added on that you may or may not want to use...

Crypt of the Everflame, Masks of the Living God, and City of Golden Death are a pretty fun set of modules that take you from 1st-7th level, and they're pretty good.

The Dragon's Demand also goes from 1st to (I believe) 7th level and is both fun and pretty iconic, with a wizard's tower, damsels in distress, kobold warrens, a monster infested swamp, and a dragon at the end of it all.

[Skya]

My personal list of " want to run that to my player at some point" is:

- The Mummy's Mask
- Serpent's Skull
- Second Darkness

I flip throught them quickly and they seems to be fairly "normal" adventure to DM.

[Ssalarn]

My personal list of " want to run that to my player at some point" is:

- The Mummy's Mask
- Serpent's Skull
- Second Darkness

I flip throught them quickly and they seems to be fairly "normal" adventure to DM.

I was not a big fan of Mummy's Mask. It has a lot of areas that are either trivially easy or absolutely brutal depending on your group and their skill, both in making characters and playing the game. I've been an adventure path subscriber for some time, and I canceled after the first book of MM because I just didn't want to own it.

We're playing Iron Gods now, and it's a blast. Definitely not "classic" fantasy gaming, what with the laser guns and electric chainsaws, but it is super entertaining, at least so far. As a disclaimer though, we're also using it to playtest an upcoming Dreamscarred Press companion book to the Technology Guide, so that may be increasing the fun we're having to a level we wouldn't have otherwise experienced. Hard to say.

I actually really like Wrath of the Righteous, but it uses Mythic Rules, has an underlying system tracking how your party handles various moral choices, uses the mass combat rules, and is basically a nightmare for new players.