Adventure Path

[BobROE]

Thought I'd also share my thoughts on the ones I've read (seems to be something those of us from Toronto do).

I'm currently running CoT, and I think Steel Wind has done a good job of describing it's ups and downs. Though I think Book 3 is better than Book 4. It maybe from my poor DMing, but my players were more invested in the events of book 3 than 4.

Book 2 is really good, though the dungeon can be a bit of a headache to run.

Overall I'm really enjoying it alot, and hopefully my players are as well (haven't heard anything to the contrary).

Now the rest I've read, but haven't run (hoping to do KM next).

Kingmaker: Looks cool, I think it will really depend on if your players buy into it or not.

Serpent Skull: I really like Books 1 and 2 (though 2 is a bit of a railroad). Book 3 is a bit of a disaster from the point of view of what's in the book and what needs to be fleshed out by the DM (which is what makes me wary of running SS as a campaign). Book 4 looks alright and really should be combined with book 3. Books 5 and 6 look like slogs to a degree, but good DMing could fix that.

Carrion Crown: I really like the looks of Books 1, 2, and 4, though I worry about the end of 2. I'm not as down on 3 as some are, but I can where the complaints stem from. Book 5 just didn't seem to hang together very well. Book 6 looked alright, but my lack of lots of high level play makes it hard to judge.

Jade Regent: I'm not huge into the asian thing, though not enough to be turned off by it. I liked Books 1-3, and think 3 would be really cool to run (once you fix some of the subsystem issues), so far Books 4 and 5 just haven't grabbed me, I don't think they're bad adventures or "too" asian to be appealing, I've just found them boring. I think that the whole "clash of cultures" thing needs to be played up to make them more interesting. Book 6 isn't out yet, so I can't make any determination on that yet.

Skull & Shackles: Looks cool, might be a good campaign for my players, since they're usual response to things that annoy them is to stab them in the face...

 

[humble minion]

Having read through most of them...

A common problem with many of APs is that the PCs start in a wonderful, lovingly-detailed location, which they are encouraged to have ties to, family in, relationships with local NPCs, and which they then almost never return to. Later APs do improve on this front though. Another frequent issue is that the APs will often set up the group on a collision course with one of the great evil powers of Golarion - the Whispering Tyrant, the ancient runelords of old Thassilon, a beast of Rovagug, Treerazer, a dead snake-god, a wyrm dragon, etc etc etc - and then wimp out and have the final confrontation be against some crippled lesser version stripped of most of their power, or wannabe, or minion attempting to reawaken the REAL bbeg, because Paizo doesn't want to take their APs to 20th level (I darkly suspect the reason for this is that PFRPG didn't actually manage to address the broken maths of high-level d20 in any meaningful way and they know full well this was the case, but that's neither here nor there). This could be a major frustration if your group gets the wrong expectations over the course of the campaign.

Runelords looks good, there's a nice variety of enemies and scenarios from investigation to haunted houses to open large-scale battles, though #5 looks like a bit of a dungeon-crawly slog to me (ymmv on whether that's a good thing). Not sure how the final bbeg will stand up solo against a solid group of PCs though, it could be a letdown. Also, while #6 looks like an awesome adventure, it probably needed more fleshing out of the location to do the slightly sandboxy-y structure justice.

Kingmaker will depend hugely on the GM imho - because of the non-linear structure, there's lots of mini-adventures and micro-dungeons with a couple of rooms and a monster or two, which give some kingdom-building advantage when they're completed. Could me monotonous unlesss handled well. As others have mentioned, #6 seems tacked on the end as an afterthought.

Serpent's Skull is heavily site-based, PCs will probably spend most of the final four advantures in the path in the same two closely-related locations. Which is an advantage because they're well fleshed out (a lesson Paizo learned well from runelords #6) and a disadvantage because those sites are very isolated which means PCs will either have trouble acquiring gears, spells, disposing of loot etc, or else will be blipping back and forth across the continent like maniacs once transportation magic becomes available.

Carrion Crown has some nice ideas which don't work out too well, just from a look over. THe bbeg comes out of nowhere with no foreshadowing whatsoever (the authors even admit this in #6 I think, and admit it was a mistake). The overarching plot is thin, and depends on a series of unlikely coincidences in the first few adventures. There's some poor organisation too - the PCs spend all of #4 trying to retrieve an item that's vital to the plans of the bad guys, and presumably succeed - but then the plans go on as normal in later adventures as if it'd never happened. The assumed course of PC action in #5 will be very problematic for paladins or certain priests, and lethal if intelligent NPCs are played even moderately intelligently if PCs don't follow the script. And the structure of #6 is just odd - the majority of the adventure is dedicated to a single preliminary site, while the big final confrontation in one of the most legandarily evil and dangerous places in Golarion seems like an afterthought. Also, if Wind Walk works the same in PFRPG as in D&D3.x (I don't actually know off the top of my head!), then a huge part of #6 is completely bypassable.

It's a long time since I've read Second Darkness, but you'd really need to looove drow, since there's a horde of them. Bit of a turnoff for me personally, but again, ymmv. I've got a vague recollection of there being issues in the final couple of adventures with important, powerful NPCs being hit hard with the stupid stick to make the plot work. And the first couple of adventures assume you're self-interested street scum, while the last few only really work with altruistic capital-H heroes.

Legacy of Fire has a nice strong theme all the way through, and doesn't stick you with fighting the same critters (serpentmen, undead) continually either. But while some individual bits are great, there's back-to-back advantures and #4 and #5 where the PCs are trapped on other planes and can't return, and I'm not at all sure how that would play.

Curse of the Crimson Throne and Council of Thieves are both heavily city-based, but one thing neither of them have is a genuinely intrigue-centred module, which I think it a glaring hole. It's always 'a bit of intrigue but then the PCs solve it by violence anyway'. Skeletons of Scarwall is a giant dungeon module full of undead, what it's doing shoehorned into a city campaign just before the climax I'll never know. Anyway, it's ages since I've read them both so I won't try to comment on them too closely or I'll get them horribly confused....

Some of the cooler-looking single adventures in the series (again, judging from a readthrough rather than a playthrough..)
Skinsaw Murders (there is that one legendary killer encounter though...)
Hook Mountain Massacre
Spires of Xin-Shalast (with the above reservations)
Seven Days to the Grave
Shadow in the Sky
Howl of the Carrion King (just for the gremlinny critters!)
End of Eternity
Sixfold Trial
Souls for Smuggler's Shiv
Trial of the Beast (thought the first encounter is kinda pointless and the last is seriously morally skeezy if played out as written)

 

[IronWolf]

Kingmaker will depend hugely on the GM imho - because of the non-linear structure, there's lots of mini-adventures and micro-dungeons with a couple of rooms and a monster or two, which give some kingdom-building advantage when they're completed. Could me monotonous unlesss handled well. As others have mentioned, #6 seems tacked on the end as an afterthought.

Agreed that Kingmaker success likely depends greatly on the GM. Though I guess that could be said for a lot of the APs. I know it highlighted some weaknesses of mine as a GM.

As for Book #6, I think it gets a bad rap. It definitely has the potential to seem to come from no where, but I think a lot can be done to prevent that. I know I've been dropping many hints all the way from book #2 and on about some of the nature of the threats that will manifest in book #6. With the foreshadowing I have done so far, I think it will play pretty well.

My group has only just dipped our toes into starting with last week's session. It seems to be hitting the chords I want it to. And I have heard some reference to some of the events that took place earlier, so I think the players are making the connections.

We will see how it turns out once it is complete, but I excited about book #6.