Worst (or least good) Adventure Paths and why?

[Elricaltovilla]

I've seen a few threads on here looking for suggestions on what APs are good to run, which ones are the best, etc. but I wanted to pose the question from the opposite end. Which Adventure Paths should be avoided? Which ones don't measure up? Are there ways to "fix" them and make them more enjoyable and what made them so bad in the first place?

[Ssalarn]

Kingmaker has some big issues, the largest of which is that for the first half of the game you either have to shove a bunch of random encounters in or it breaks hard for spellcasters who can nova pretty much every session with no fear of consequences. Basically kicks martial/caster disparity up a couple notches.

Wrath of the Righteous has issues related to subsystem abuse. It uses Mythic and mass combat rules, both of which are not terribly well developed in PF core. You basically need to go through and bump the CR of every encounter by an extra 1 for every two mythic tiers they have (rounding down) to have decent encounters with the mythic party, and either live with it or go through and patch up mass combat for that to be a smooth experience

Reign of Winter has a reputation for being brutally hard for some groups; generally this is because the environment itself is working hard against the party during a fair chunk of things. Make sure your players read the AP player's guide for this one.

[icefractal]

Kingmaker has issues, multiple of them, but I hesitate to put it on any "worst" list when it's the most enjoyable one I've played by far.

Just from the ones I've played, personal opinion:

Crimson Throne (some spoilers):The first several parts (in the city) were fun. The long part where you go out in the desert wasn't; I rather would have stayed in the city and built up the rebellion underground than go mcguffin-questing. Something to do for non-urban characters? Why the hell are you playing a non-urban character in this AP anyway?! And wouldn't you have gotten bored during the previous 40%?

Rise of the Runelords:
Was fine. Fairly treasure-scarce for the first several books, be advised. One issue, that didn't arise but threatened to - there are several points in the plot where the players could shortcut big chunks of the plot, or even end the entire AP massively early. It's not that likely to happen, but it is possible, especially if certain enemies are captured alive. So - either make some changes so that doesn't happen, or have a backup AP ready in case.

I don't think I'd call either of these among the worst though.

[Elricaltovilla]

Part of what inspired this for me was a review of Second Darkness I read on the paizo site that made it sound like a pretty poor adventure path. Then I realized I'd never heard anyone talk about the AP on these forums, so I wondered if it was true, and if so, were there more AP's like it that just didn't... measure up?

[deuxhero]

I imagine Second Darkness being 3.5 and not PF is at least partly responsible for its lack of popularity. Legacy of Fire and Curse of the Crimson Throne don't get mention much here either to my memory.