Paths and Modules - Ratings??

[Khartoum]

So, we are just about to start another path and I realized we jump into them and hope for the best.
Yes, on Paizo we see the star rating and all, but its based on about three guys that decided to say something.

So, I thought that there might be (or should be) a page where you actually have hundreds of reviews or ratings on each product (like IMDB)

Any suggestions?

(also, any great modules out there? We're giving Giantslayer a go meanwhile..no spoilers)

Thanks !!:smallbiggrin:

[the clumsy bard]

Are you looking for a specific level for modules?

In the mean time I might suggest the Hollow's Last Hope line of adventure modules, the are independent modules but can be played with each other in a sort of adventure path ish way.

Hollow's Last Hope - 1st level

Crown of the kobold King - 2nd level

Carnival of Tears - 5th level

Revenge of the Kobold King - 5th level

Hungry are the Dead - 6th level

I ran all of these, I chose carnival of tears over revenge of the kobold king, but I think its all personal choice.

[Nibbens]

I like the Rise of the Runelords... But that's the only one I've played/ran. lol.

[ArcanistSupreme]

I like the Rise of the Runelords... But that's the only one I've played/ran. lol.

Same. It's got some plot holes and weird inconsistencies, but the characters are fun and so far (we've almost made it through Chapter 2) I've only had to make minor adjustments.

[Khartoum]

Are you looking for a specific level for modules?

In the mean time I might suggest the Hollow's Last Hope line of adventure modules, the are independent modules but can be played with each other in a sort of adventure path ish way.

Hollow's Last Hope - 1st level

Crown of the kobold King - 2nd level

Carnival of Tears - 5th level

Revenge of the Kobold King - 5th level

Hungry are the Dead - 6th level

I ran all of these, I chose carnival of tears over revenge of the kobold king, but I think its all personal choice.

The Kobolds sound like Parts of 1-3 modules?

I'm not looking for anything in particular.. thank you though.

I'm mainly wondering if a page that rank the top 100 modules or paths is available..

[Khartoum]

Same. It's got some plot holes and weird inconsistencies, but the characters are fun and so far (we've almost made it through Chapter 2) I've only had to make minor adjustments.

Adventure paths in my opinion are very unbalanced, minions are weak and bosses are hard (some of them anyway)

I end up modifying encounters depending on my party's level (for instance, I might switch ghouls to ghasts) if your party is powerful I end up upping CR +1 or +2 and still keep loyal to the module's storyline..

[Nibbens]

Adventure paths in my opinion are very unbalanced, minions are weak and bosses are hard (some of them anyway)

I end up modifying encounters depending on my party's level (for instance, I might switch ghouls to ghasts) if your party is powerful I end up upping CR +1 or +2 and still keep loyal to the module's storyline..

I find myself doing similar things, editing and changing things around a bit. Something that irks me is the continued reliance on 1 creature +2 or +3 CR higher than APL as a "boss encounter," while there are no minions or lesser cannon fodder around to even out the action economy. I frequently make this change by reducing the firepower of the "boss guy" and adding several lower CR creatures as fodder. (Unless, of course, the boss wouldn't have minions with him due to story reasons). For example:

Aldren Foxglove/Skinsaw Man/The Hurter boss is one that i feel would be ruined by inclusions of minions. Besides, if Iesha gets to him first and the party gets to see her kill him (which is what I did) it's a climactic ending without the "fight" which is so common in D&D. This ending was a nice change of pace since the entire section of the Foxglove Manor is so unlike the hack and slash nature of D&D anyway.

[9mm]

out of the APs, Carrion Crown is my favorite. Mostly because it does a very good job of logically stringing the parts together into a cohesive whole compared to most other APs.

[Khartoum]

I find myself doing similar things, editing and changing things around a bit. Something that irks me is the continued reliance on 1 creature +2 or +3 CR higher than APL as a "boss encounter," while there are no minions or lesser cannon fodder around to even out the action economy. I frequently make this change by reducing the firepower of the "boss guy" and adding several lower CR creatures as fodder. (Unless, of course, the boss wouldn't have minions with him due to story reasons). For example:

Aldren Foxglove/Skinsaw Man/The Hurter boss is one that i feel would be ruined by inclusions of minions. Besides, if Iesha gets to him first and the party gets to see her kill him (which is what I did) it's a climactic ending without the "fight" which is so common in D&D. This ending was a nice change of pace since the entire section of the Foxglove Manor is so unlike the hack and slash nature of D&D anyway.

Yes, your usual minions are just a waste of time really... and letting all your effort go into a boss is damn near depressing when he is dealt with a save or die and dies.

Most memorable combats involve teams of bad guys, different strengths that mirror parties... also, would be great if there was some effort into spell selection for enemies and Nps.

So... yeah, no website huh? hehe

[Nibbens]

So... yeah, no website huh? hehe

Huh? What do you mean?

[Khartoum]

Huh? What do you mean?

Sorry, I was referring to the original Post, about there being a website that ranks and provides reviews (other than the actual place they sell them on..which is not saying much).

[Ssalarn]

Rise of the Runelords is probably Paizo's best "classic fantasy" style AP. On the whole it's well written, interesting, and the challenges are just about right for a group of mid-level system mastery players. You'll need to tweak it up for high op groups, down for low, and if there's not a cleric or oracle capable of channeling positive energy, there's one or two encounters in the first book you'll need to tweak a bit. All in all though, I'd give it 5/5 stars.

Iron Gods is really cool, but has a lot of sci-fi stuff that some people might not like. There's laser guns, chainsaws, androids, evil AI super-computers, armor that transforms from a light shirt into technorganic plate mail, aliens, mutants, the whole works. If you're into that sort of thing, it's an awesome adventure, though the access to some of the weapons can get a little crazy (the chainsaw has a base crit range of 17-20 and deals 3d6 base damage, pretty nasty once you slap on improved crit and find away to boost your size), but I found that it was actually an adventure where all the technology kept martial characters on an even footing with casters for a greater portion of the game. Some of the encounters are a little wonky balance-wise, and there's things that most party members will be unable to pick up on unless the group starts with an android in the party, but it's incredibly fun, and that's an opinion shared by everyone I've played it with. 4/5 stars, bumped up if you like a little sci-fi peanut butter in your fantasy chocolate, bumped down a star if that's not your thing.

Jade Regent is a really interesting Asian-inspired AP that gets less interesting the more 9 level spell casters there are in the group. It's a real "Tier 3" kind of adventure, something that really appeals to a group of well-rounded-but-not-Tier-1 adventurers. The optional caravan rules are really cool and something my group enjoyed, while the relationship building rules are really going to depend on the group. I've run the AP twice, and the first time around I ended up dropping them because it got...weird, and the second time around the party was played by a group of mature roleplayers and it really helped enhance the story. The biggest problem with this AP is that unless you tweak things a bit, it's not really about the adventurers, but instead is a story about (primarily one of) the NPCs, with the party playing the role of Guy Friday. 3/5 stars, +1 if you've got a group that both enjoys and has the maturity to really leverage the relationship system to grow the story.

Shattered Star seemed to be one a lot of other people really liked, but I just couldn't get into. The story felt weak, the encounters mostly trivial with the occasional nearly impossible and nothing in between... Just not my cup of tea. It felt like it was trying (and failing) to hit a Final Fantasy 4 kind of vibe, which I would have loved if it was a little more successful. I'm going to be generous and say 3/5, appealing more to people who prefer classic dungeon crawlers over RP opportunities.

The Mummy's Mask is good, though it does get a little "Stargate-y" which may or may not be your thing. Not so much like Iron Gods with all the tech, but there are going to be pyramids tied to advanced, lost civilizations and competing groups of archaeologists. Lots of puzzles here to, many of them extremely dangerous for low level characters. The first time I tried running this with new players they all ended up dead at the bottom of a shaft before successfully exploring their first tomb. 3/5, +1 if you've got a group of experienced players who like classic puzzle dungeons.

Wrath of the Righteous is actually really good. It's a classic good guys campaign, where you're helping armies of paladins drive demonic hordes back through a tear in existence. There's legendary weapons that level up with you, allies and enemies who do a good job of enriching the story, and awesomely written "cinematic" sequences to help set the stage. It's biggest weakness is its reliance on two less-than-perfect subsystems; the Mythic rules are intrinsically intertwined with the story, and it also uses the mass combat rules from Ultimate Campaign (which I am not a fan of). The Mythic rules issue is that they're not the best balanced rules out there; I found that I typically needed to bump the CRs up by at least 1 for pretty much every encounter after the first book was completed. The mass combat rules are just cumbersome to teach to a table full of players with little payoff; I ended up replacing the mass combat sections with separate encounters that had the party raiding supply lines, freeing prisoners, targeting enemy leaders, etc. while the main battle was occurring, with the party's success or failure on their missions determining the outcome of the battles. There's also the smaller issue that many of the story rewards are based on how well your party plays good guys; a single Chaotic Neutral or Evil PC can **** the whole group over and prevent the party from receiving critical story rewards. If you've got a GM willing to put in the time to adjust encounter levels (or your group just has more fun being a wrecking ball of goodness) and either teach or replace the mass combat system, and a group that's ready to be the Good Guys, this has the potential to be a 5/5 star AP. If any of those things aren't true though, this takes a quick dip into the 2-3 star territory.

Kingmaker has a really cool premise and awkward execution. You get to build a kingdom, and the kingdom-building rules are actually really fun (even moreso if you incorporate the revised and expanded kingdom-building rules from Ultimate Campaign). It's very sandbox-y, has a good mix of politics and monster-slaying, and doesn't care about party alignment. Of the two times we played this campaign, the best was when the kingdom had a Lawful Evil tyrant as party leader and king. The biggest issue (and also a selling point when looked at from another angle) is that the campaign happens over a huge swath of time, and it's very rare to have multiple encounters in a single day unless you start shoving lots of non-story-relevant random encounters in the mix. This means that the unmodified version of the AP favors casters to a ridiculous extent, allowing them to go all 15-minute adventuring day with little to no consequence. This is a campaign that can potentially rub martial/caster disparity all up in the martial's faces in some of the worst possible ways. All that being said, I really like this one and would give it 4/5 stars, with an admonishment to carefully consider group composition.

Reign of Winter gives you deadly northern terrain, obnoxious fey, World War I era tech and events, and of course, Rasputin and Baba Yaga. At low levels, the terrain itself can be as much a challenge to an unprepared party as the actual enemies. Some of its biggest flaws are that there are some very railroad-y events that feel like the party's being railroaded, which some players will really find disagreeable. 3/5 stars, +1 if you like giant weasel companions and trench warfare.


A couple 3pp APs I really enjoyed-

AdventureAWeek's Rise of the Drow is amazing, but it'll have a few parts where it kicks the party's ass pretty thoroughly. APL+3 encounters right out the gate, fast zombies, spiders that can turn you to stone, and that's before you even get out of the adventure intro! 5/5 stars.

Firemountain Games' Way of the Wicked is an evil AP where the party works to overthrow a paladin king. If the premise isn't enough to hook you right there, it starts with a prison break, has the opportunity for the group to recruit a half-fiend ogre who quickly became one of my group's all time favorite NPCs, and encourages Lawful Evil Antipaladins. 5/5 stars, but I strongly encourage you to follow the AP's advice and disallow Chaotic Evil or Chaotic Neutral characters.