Next Adventure Path?

Holy Bovine · Mar 1, 2010

Scholar & Brutalman said:
My only experience with Paizo (Age of Worms) was no better. As a player, AoW felt like it was written for the DM to read, not for the players to play.

AoW had nothing on Shackled City. Gah I hope to never pick up that game we abandoned over a year ago even though my PC was possibly the most fun PC I have ever played (Favoured Soul of Moradin dedicated to boosting his party members - he had no offensive spells until 9th level but everyone walked around with Resist 20 Fire, Cold & Electricity, +3 on saves and I personally had a +11 on initiative). The adventure that killed the campaign had us walking through some demi-plane with one attack on us each day *yawn*.

Having said that Paizo has certainly learned from their mistakes and their first AP once separated from WOtC was quite good.

Pour · Mar 1, 2010

Alternatively, future adventure paths could cover certain levels in a spread across the tiers, say two adventures per tier, or a six adventure arch. I wouldn't mind playing a story told in something like levels 1-2, 7-8, 11-12, 17-18, 21-22 and 29-30.

With something like that, DMs could inject more adventures in between as they liked, or a group could play through just the path and either have time pass between them or not concern themselves with the numbers so much as the level progression.

Eh, just a thought.

RangerWickett · Mar 1, 2010

Some ideas, adapted to 4e from campaigns that worked well for me:

Between Two Worlds. The mortal world and the feywild are drifting apart, and the PCs are charged as the guardian of one of the few mages capable of bridging the gap between the two worlds. What's responsible, who stands to profit from the schism, and what consequences will this have on the world?

(Hint, the royal courts of the fey realm did not like getting kicked out of the mortal world millennia ago.)

You have early adventures when the two worlds are still connected, and the PCs defend the mage on a pilgrimage. People try to kill him, and the PCs get to learn the ropes of how to go between the worlds.

Then the connection gets severed, and the PCs get to come to the aid of a powerful group who needs their help hopping between worlds. In so doing, they stumble across part of a plot that hinges on the worlds being separate.

After this they seek out information from lorekeepers of the feywild, and delve into dangerous ruins to find secrets about what's going on, but an ally betrays them. They have to go on the run, and though both friends and foes are chasing them, the PCs are the only ones who hold the power to reunite the two worlds.

(Oh, and the mage who can bridge between the two worlds can die at any time. If he does, he haunts the PCs like Obi-Wan Kenobi.)
On an Ill Wind. A series of thematically-linked adventures as the PCs work for a group of elemental mages, to collect elemental mana, primarily air mana. In the process they discover several groups striving to locate the same lost secret of a long-dead aeromancer. And just because he's dead doesn't mean he's out of the picture.

Also, the PCs can get the ability to fly and the GM doesn't have to worry about it being overpowered, since most of the bad guys can fly.

I see this one as being more tier oriented. At heroic tier you're just helping your elementalist buddies get the mana they need to create a floating city, and the climax is stopping a sabotage attempt to crash the city as it takes off.

At paragon level you try to stop agents from a hostile nation from acquiring the power to attack your city -- with dragons, tempests, airships, meteors, and more. At the climax you go to the aid of a cliffside city where long ago your elementalist allies defeated a mighty foe, whom the hostile nation seeks to resurrect. They have besieged the city in search of the secret of his resting place.

At epic level, the enemy nation awakens the demonic aeromancer who was imprisoned by the order of elementalists you work for. The foe seizes control of the nation and seeks to open ancient seals that are limiting his power, leading to a climactic flying battle where you defend your city against an assault and then board and take out the villain's aerial battle ship.
Gathering of Champions. At the dawn of time, a mighty primordial sends his minions to destroy the nascent mortal races. Their gods call together the mightiest champions of forty tribes to save the world. It's easy to have points of light when there is no civilization yet.

(Could be trouble because I stole heavily from the book of Genesis and other creation myths, but hopefully it wouldn't upset folks too much if it's given a fresh fantasy veneer.)

Heroic tier is inspired by the Great Flood. In paragon tier, after your previous victory, your tribes unite and build a mighty tower to unify your power, and at the climax the primordial destroys the tower and splinters the races by confusing their tongues, a la the Tower of Babel. In epic tier we switch more to God of War as you and your divine patrons launch the war against the primordials.

Rechan · Mar 1, 2010

Morrus said:
YouTube - War of the Burning Sky Trailer

So when's the next AP, Morrus?

Jan van Leyden · Mar 1, 2010

I'd love a concept involving several shorter story lines, say two to three levels each, with some overlap between them.

Design the adventures in a way allowing to introduce a break, so that the campaign may branch into another adventure.

Develop a framework of NSCs and evil guys who may act at different points in the campaign, using separate encounters and/or skill challenges.

Using this concept, a DM may choose several building blocks for his campaign as well as a larger framework with which to glue the adventures together.

This wouldn't be a AP per se nor a collection of disjunct adventures, but a kit to build your own game from.

RangerWickett · Mar 1, 2010

Jan, War of the Burning Sky is actually sorta set up that way. Depending on how long you want the game to go, you can have the war's scope change.

Starting at paragon tier? Well, first you defend a nation against an invasion, then you go search for an artifact that can defeat the bad guys, then you get said artifact, then you launch an assault on their 'death star.'

Starting at epic tier? First you stop a invasion by an army of monsters, then you stomp group 1, then group 2 of bad guys being controlled by said monsters, then you go into the monster's horrifying homeland to take out the source of their power and renew the world.

Or you prefer just a lowly, short heroic tier? Okay, escape a city under siege to carry a request for help to allies, try to shake pursuit by going through a forest perpetually on fire, then get to your destination and deliver the message (but then have to help protect the allies from an ambush). And if you want an extra adventure, you can climax with the "save a nation from an invasion" that starts off the paragon tier.

Rechan · Mar 1, 2010

I, too, fancy the 3 linked adventures model (Oh, Chimes of Midnight, how I wish to run thee...)

And the tier-based adventure path.

However, if one WANTED to go the whole 1-30 levels, I think another framework for the AP would be interesting:

3 "plots" or stories that are loosely connected or not very connected at all, but are going on at the same time. You would stagger their adventures so that the PCs are always BUSY, but not necessarily on the same plot. So it would look like:

Plot A - Plot B - Plot C - Plot B - Plot A - Plot C - Plot A - Plot C - Plot B.

They would take place in the same general area (or perhaps goals for two plots coincide by location or NPC), but the important thing is that the same Big Bad is not behind all of them, and that the Plots feel different. It gives the impression that the world also is not just static - you have 3 things going on at the same time that aren't connected.

Mustrum_Ridcully · Mar 2, 2010

The H/P/E series has a bad story to combat ratio. Eg., to much combat, too little story. But it's hard actually creating a fully fledged adventure path covering 30 levels and up to 300 encounters with a good story.

So maybe the best approach would be - don't do that. Create one adventure path for each tier. You can still come up with a connection between the path itself, but focus on those 10 levels and create a compelling story for those 10 levels. I would actually say that there should be 1 full adventure - if not more - for each level. A contained story, that covers exposition, convolution, and climax. The story might not be fully contained, and also "bleed" into the next. Maybe the climax also leads to the next exposition. ("The captured sage is free. He tells about a grave danger in the north...")
Don't forget to use twists in the middle part, like finding new allies and new enemies, betrayal, lies and all that.

And, maybe more importantly - make this structure transparent to the DMs, so they know what they are doing and where they are heading.

If they are really good, maybe they can actually interweave the acts of multiple adventures, creating adventure-in-adventure scenarios and have "meta-acts". But that can come later.

Jhaelen · Mar 2, 2010

I like Jan's idea, really dig WotBS, and hope the forthcoming 'Tomb of Horrors' will work well as an episodical adventure.

If WotC was to start new APs I wouldn't want to see anything spanning more than a single tier. 'Scales of War' just was too friggin' long and took up to much of Dungeon's content if you didn't like it.
Actually, it contributed a lot to my decision not to become a DDI subscriber yet.

I'm currently wondering, if there's actually anything interesting left in Dungeon. I'm not a fan of 'Dungeon Delves', and I had the impression, that's about all we're going to see in Dungeon in the future because of the 'smaller articles'-decision. I hope I'm mistaken, though...

Stoat · Mar 2, 2010

I'd prefer if WotC stayed out of the AP business for a while. It's not just that I don't think they're good at it. I'd rather see a number of one-shots than an overarching AP in Dungeon.

I started playing in 1989. I pretty much learned how to DM from reading Dungeon. Every other month, the magazine would have three or four adventures. There was a lot of variety: dungeon crawls, wilderness exploration, mystery/investigation, even a little polical intrigue. There was humor and tragedy. Lots and lots of different types of monsters showed up, in different environments. There were fiendish, Grimtooth-style death traps and crude pits covered with tarps. All that variety was good for my game.

An AP sacrifices some of that variety for consistency, story, whatever. Plus, an AP represents a big time commitment. I'll never run one from start to finish.

So yeah, my vote would be lots of one-shots, the occasional 3-party story arc, and maybe an expansion of the Chaos Scar stuff.

Next Adventure Path?

Holy Bovine

First Post

Pour

First Post

RangerWickett

Legend

Rechan

Adventurer

Jan van Leyden

Adventurer

RangerWickett

Legend

Rechan

Adventurer

Mustrum_Ridcully

Hero

Jhaelen

First Post

Stoat

Adventurer

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