Looking for a good adventure path...

[arkangel111]

I've got a homebrew game going and i'll soon start college and will graduate in just a couple months. I'd like to keep the game going regularly but as the DM my time is going to be cut drastically for preparation. we play weekly and the group is solid T3 no caster's (their choice not mine).
It's PF with PoW and SoP. I've got a few weeks to get them where they need to be in order to join an adventure path. They are very heavily focused on combat and usually try to solve most problems like an enraged barbarian. Very light on the roleplay, almost 0 most days actually. all are inexperienced level 3 characters.

a perfect adventure path would have:
3-5 levels gained
span about 4-6 months playing weekly
mostly combat focused (mundane)
foster some roleplaying instead of roll-playing despite heavy combat focus
seamlessly integrate in any setting
involve a main dragon BBEG
mostly human campaign
little to no DM prep
FUN

i know its a big list but I figured I'd let you guys try to check off as many marks as possible while giving suggestions. I'm really just looking for ideas so if you can also give me a brief idea why you picked it and what it entails that would be wonderful.

[Allanimal]

a perfect adventure path would have:
3-5 levels gained
span about 4-6 months playing weekly
mostly combat focused (mundane)
foster some roleplaying instead of roll-playing despite heavy combat focus
seamlessly integrate in any setting
involve a main dragon BBEG
mostly human campaign
little to no DM prep
FUN

i know its a big list but I figured I'd let you guys try to check off as many marks as possible while giving suggestions. I'm really just looking for ideas so if you can also give me a brief idea why you picked it and what it entails that would be wonderful.

I think Red Hand of Doom ticks most of those boxes.

[Firest Kathon]

Rise of the Runelords (http://paizo.com/pathfinder/adventurePath/riseOfTheRunelords) may actually match your requests. It's about
an ancient arcane overlord ("Runelord") trying to come back to life, using an ancient kind of (arcane) magic based on the seven deadly sins ("Sin Magic"). Starts with defending a small town against followers of said runelord, then rooting out his (giant) troops and later confronting him directly in his city partially on another plane.


3-5 levels gained
Adventure paths are split into 6 parts, in each part the characters gain ~3 levels. You can play as many parts as you want. Not starting with the first part may require some story set-up to get your PCs involved.

span about 4-6 months playing weekly
Depending on how long your sessions are you could actually manage the whole AP (up to level 16 or so) in that time. We played every 2 weeks about 4 hours and managed the whole AP in about one year. However, our GM later dropped many encounters (because they were no longer challenging to our party, merely a (real-life) time and (in-game) resource drain.

mostly combat focused (mundane)
Check. The majority of the adventure path is "point enraged barbarian in correct direction, ???, profit".

foster some roleplaying instead of roll-playing despite heavy combat focus
Especially in the first parts you have some roleplaying to find out the correct direction in which to point the enraged barbarian.

seamlessly integrate in any setting
Works fine, simply replace the Runelords with "generic ancient arcane overlords" of your choice. The locations in the AP are fairly self-contained (mostly remote towns in the wilderness, one larger city) and could be replaced with parts from your own setting.

involve a main dragon BBEG
One of the BBEGs has a dragon pet, does that count?

mostly human campaign
Yes.

little to no DM prep
I only played it, but DM prep sould be fairly minimal: read the upcoming sections, maybe look up some spells or feats used by NPCs, maybe do some adaptions to fit in your setting. If you use SoP you may have to convert some NPCs, especially in later parts.

FUN
Yes, if you like a combat-heavy campaign.

[ArendK]

Red Hand of Doom, just up the enemy counts and a few bonuses to cover the 3.5<Pathfinder numbers. It's very straight forward and classic.

Kingmaker looks like it might be a good option.

Eyes of the Lich Queen from old 3.5 Eberron is also a solid one. Might take some serious flavor reworkings however.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Red hand of Doom fits most of the boxes but is aimed at starting level 5 (2 levels higher than your target) and should result in 6 levels gained. Also BBEG is a half-dragon with dragon allies serving a dragon goddess. Pathfinderized is not terribly hard but POW may require more adaptation. There are a couple adaptations online but they are more base Pathfinder. I have some further pathfinderized I could share but it's not POW.