Jade Regent Adventure Path
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4 out of 5 rating for Jade Regent Adventure Path
The pay off is not. The first 3 books are brilliant a great epic journey over the roof of the world. Ruined at the end by grind fest dungeons and bosses who don't stand a chance against the PCs. These days we run APs using 13th age rules and will probably look to run them in 5th edition DnD as well.
The pay off is not. The first 3 books are brilliant a great epic journey over the roof of the world. Ruined at the end by grind fest dungeons and bosses who don't stand a chance against the PCs. These days we run APs using 13th age rules and will probably look to run them in 5th edition DnD as well.
4 out of 5 rating for Jade Regent Adventure Path
I've enjoyed running this adventure path which is a mufti-continent spanning affair beginning in western flavoured Varisia and ending in eastern flavoured Minkai (a Japan analog). I especially enjoyed the first three adventures which is the discovery phase and long journey over the Crown of the World. For the Crown of the World segment I included a slightly modified and expanded version of Legedary Games "Under Frozen Stars" plugin adventure was well received by the group. The first part of the 4th adventure. "Forest of Spirits", when the players finally cross over in the Dragon Kingdoms was also another highlight although the latter part of that adventure was a bit of a grind. We're currently mid-way through the 5th adventure and that is going well. My main quibble with this adventure path has been the caravan rules. The rules simply break after the first adventure because caravans cannot survive "caravan combat" due to the opponents being too strong. I ended up having the players add an additional d6 damage per level of the caravan just to give them a chance. I also allowed various situational modifiers to give their caravan bonus dice or flat bonuses to hit depending on the encounter and the spell or ability that was being used (e.g. channel energy during an undead encounter). I used LPJ Design's caravan rules enhancement which made the ongoing building and maintenance of the caravan a bit more interesting, but those rules didn't address the serious flaw in caravan combat. In the end, I reworked some of the caravan encounters into normal rules encounters. Overall I like this adventure path, but be forewarned that the caravan rules as written do not scale properly as the AP advances. The GM should either hand-wave away the caravan rules or be prepared to modify them.
I've enjoyed running this adventure path which is a mufti-continent spanning affair beginning in western flavoured Varisia and ending in eastern flavoured Minkai (a Japan analog). I especially enjoyed the first three adventures which is the discovery phase and long journey over the Crown of the World. For the Crown of the World segment I included a slightly modified and expanded version of Legedary Games "Under Frozen Stars" plugin adventure was well received by the group. The first part of the 4th adventure. "Forest of Spirits", when the players finally cross over in the Dragon Kingdoms was also another highlight although the latter part of that adventure was a bit of a grind. We're currently mid-way through the 5th adventure and that is going well. My main quibble with this adventure path has been the caravan rules. The rules simply break after the first adventure because caravans cannot survive "caravan combat" due to the opponents being too strong. I ended up having the players add an additional d6 damage per level of the caravan just to give them a chance. I also allowed various situational modifiers to give their caravan bonus dice or flat bonuses to hit depending on the encounter and the spell or ability that was being used (e.g. channel energy during an undead encounter). I used LPJ Design's caravan rules enhancement which made the ongoing building and maintenance of the caravan a bit more interesting, but those rules didn't address the serious flaw in caravan combat. In the end, I reworked some of the caravan encounters into normal rules encounters. Overall I like this adventure path, but be forewarned that the caravan rules as written do not scale properly as the AP advances. The GM should either hand-wave away the caravan rules or be prepared to modify them.
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2 out of 5 rating for Jade Regent Adventure Path
This is the first Adventure Path I ran, shortly after my introduction to Pathfinder. I struggled with it, partly because the rules of Pathfinder were new and overly complex to me, but because it added extra rules to the game that were even more confusing and broken, like the Caravan game play. I really loved the setting and the quality of the books, in both print and artwork. These were new to me and I fell in love with the concept of Adventure Paths. However I also learned to not like them. They are huge and time consuming to play and to really do them justice you have to dedicate 6 months to play them. I think they level people up too fast in the first place, despite having to go through months of play. Some parts are also better than others and the story telling and dialogue were not not consistent, I think due to the fact that different authors worked on different parts. I love the maps and the extra pieces, all the trimming that come extra, flip-mats, cards, etc., but it was actually to overwhelming and bogged my games down. The kids loved the setting like me, but I food myself frequently modifying the game so much for them that I wondered why I even bothered. The overall storyline was decent but fell flat often. I really liked the first part of the series, the mystery and conspiracy element always makes a great hook. The second and third books were good in parts but a drag in others, modification was needed, but overall okay. The fourth part just was terrible, despite starting out pretty good, but it quickly turned into an obstacle course and was very formulaic travel adventure, much like the previous part was turning into and totally lost the flavor of the setting quick. The whole adventure seemed to lose it's way and was not. The next two installments were solid, but still seemed to name drop, but lack cohesion. Major characters. minor characters they all seemed the same. The monsters introduced were okay, some were interesting and exotic, others just frankly not that interesting. The plot hooks, ranged from very poor to very good. There was a lot of missed opportunities and also too much directed adventure and formulaic gameplay. I found overall that this formula for the adventure paths eventually turned me off to the concept of them. I think they would have been better off creating a setting book, fleshing out the geography, introducing new monsters, magics, items, etc. Maybe include a chapter with some plot ideas, hook ideas, etc. Then let me play in that world and make my own adventures. I wanted to like this, loved the potential, but overall we all were turned off by the whole thing.
This is the first Adventure Path I ran, shortly after my introduction to Pathfinder. I struggled with it, partly because the rules of Pathfinder were new and overly complex to me, but because it added extra rules to the game that were even more confusing and broken, like the Caravan game play. I really loved the setting and the quality of the books, in both print and artwork. These were new to me and I fell in love with the concept of Adventure Paths. However I also learned to not like them. They are huge and time consuming to play and to really do them justice you have to dedicate 6 months to play them. I think they level people up too fast in the first place, despite having to go through months of play. Some parts are also better than others and the story telling and dialogue were not not consistent, I think due to the fact that different authors worked on different parts. I love the maps and the extra pieces, all the trimming that come extra, flip-mats, cards, etc., but it was actually to overwhelming and bogged my games down. The kids loved the setting like me, but I food myself frequently modifying the game so much for them that I wondered why I even bothered. The overall storyline was decent but fell flat often. I really liked the first part of the series, the mystery and conspiracy element always makes a great hook. The second and third books were good in parts but a drag in others, modification was needed, but overall okay. The fourth part just was terrible, despite starting out pretty good, but it quickly turned into an obstacle course and was very formulaic travel adventure, much like the previous part was turning into and totally lost the flavor of the setting quick. The whole adventure seemed to lose it's way and was not. The next two installments were solid, but still seemed to name drop, but lack cohesion. Major characters. minor characters they all seemed the same. The monsters introduced were okay, some were interesting and exotic, others just frankly not that interesting. The plot hooks, ranged from very poor to very good. There was a lot of missed opportunities and also too much directed adventure and formulaic gameplay. I found overall that this formula for the adventure paths eventually turned me off to the concept of them. I think they would have been better off creating a setting book, fleshing out the geography, introducing new monsters, magics, items, etc. Maybe include a chapter with some plot ideas, hook ideas, etc. Then let me play in that world and make my own adventures. I wanted to like this, loved the potential, but overall we all were turned off by the whole thing.
Starfox
Adventurer
4 out of 5 rating for Jade Regent Adventure Path
I've only read this adventure path, not actually played it. It is something of an oddball among adventure paths in that it begins as an arctic exploration and ends up in a throne war. Both of these premises are good, and the second especially could be an adventure path in its own right, but mashed together it becomes somewhat confused. The first part is a place for rangers and druids to shine, the last part is for fighters and wizards.
It might be good to explain this to your players before you run the adventure path, or perhaps break it into two stories. The first (arctic trek) part could end up in a Kaidan-style oriental horror game, or actually it could end up in any strange locale. The second part could be the finale of a heroic oriental game, where the heroes have come into their own and finally face the evil government.
Played as a combined whole, I'd advice my players beforehand and give an abstract of the rough plot outline, to avoid a bait-and-switch situation. This said, all the different parts of the adventure look good, there is a running plot inside the party that might prove interesting, and there are quite a lot of flavorful situations and NPCs. There is a theme of destiny and divine right running through the adventure that could be very charming. I'd love this as a player, as long as I'd been forewarned what it was all about.
I've only read this adventure path, not actually played it. It is something of an oddball among adventure paths in that it begins as an arctic exploration and ends up in a throne war. Both of these premises are good, and the second especially could be an adventure path in its own right, but mashed together it becomes somewhat confused. The first part is a place for rangers and druids to shine, the last part is for fighters and wizards.
It might be good to explain this to your players before you run the adventure path, or perhaps break it into two stories. The first (arctic trek) part could end up in a Kaidan-style oriental horror game, or actually it could end up in any strange locale. The second part could be the finale of a heroic oriental game, where the heroes have come into their own and finally face the evil government.
Played as a combined whole, I'd advice my players beforehand and give an abstract of the rough plot outline, to avoid a bait-and-switch situation. This said, all the different parts of the adventure look good, there is a running plot inside the party that might prove interesting, and there are quite a lot of flavorful situations and NPCs. There is a theme of destiny and divine right running through the adventure that could be very charming. I'd love this as a player, as long as I'd been forewarned what it was all about.
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Lwaxy
Cute but dangerous
4 out of 5 rating for Jade Regent Adventure Path
I loved the trek over the ice, and the premise of giving Ameiko her throne, however, there were issues not only with the useless caravan battle rules. For one, Ameiko got too little of a spotlight - something the GM can fix, of course, but it means extra work. Also, some of the dungeon/mountain crawls seem forced, just to have them there. But this is a usual problem with APs.
There could have been more focus on the "Asian" part of the story as well. While the long trek to get there makes perfect sense with the story - a far away land - it takes away from what should have been the main premise. This is one AP that would have needed a module or two more than the usual AP. All in all, it was fun to play and I'm going to run it soon, too.
I loved the trek over the ice, and the premise of giving Ameiko her throne, however, there were issues not only with the useless caravan battle rules. For one, Ameiko got too little of a spotlight - something the GM can fix, of course, but it means extra work. Also, some of the dungeon/mountain crawls seem forced, just to have them there. But this is a usual problem with APs.
There could have been more focus on the "Asian" part of the story as well. While the long trek to get there makes perfect sense with the story - a far away land - it takes away from what should have been the main premise. This is one AP that would have needed a module or two more than the usual AP. All in all, it was fun to play and I'm going to run it soon, too.
mxyzplk
Explorer
5 out of 5 rating for Jade Regent Adventure Path
In this AP you get to travel from Sandpoint (of Rise of the Runelords fame), up through Viking lands, across the North Pole, and to fantasy-Asia to contend with ninjas and samurai. Sometimes a bit disconnected, but always fun. Depends on a good GM to bring the NPCs you travel with to life.
In this AP you get to travel from Sandpoint (of Rise of the Runelords fame), up through Viking lands, across the North Pole, and to fantasy-Asia to contend with ninjas and samurai. Sometimes a bit disconnected, but always fun. Depends on a good GM to bring the NPCs you travel with to life.
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