Which is your favorite Adventure Path?

[Zinovia]

For those who have had the chance to compare them, whether by playing through them, or just reading them in Dungeon and other sources (Such as WotBS here), I have several questions.

• Which do you like best?

• Which would you recommend?

• Do any suffer from having weak ties between the various chapters, which are usually written by different people?

• Are some more suited to a given playstyle than others? i.e. how much roleplaying vs. combat heavy stuff is there? I'm not personally interested in large scale war tactics for instance, but the higher levels of WotBS sound like they get into that.

I have been reading about them for a little while now, but haven't had a chance to get my hands on any yet. I've thought about starting one, but there's also the issue of 4E coming out soon, and I'm not sure I want to invest in a 3.5 AP. On the other hand, if it's a great story, and well-integrated, then it may be worth converting. Thanks for your opinions.

 

[Flynn]

My favorite Adventure Path, by far, has to be Bad Axe Games' Slavelords of Cydonia. Designed for Grim Tales, but playable with either D20 Modern or D20 Fantasy, it's a fantastic jaunt into a planetary romance campaign. The book covers adventures from 1st level to 20th, all flowing in one lengthy Adventure Path that was truely ahead of its time. As it was written by the same author throughout, it does not suffer from any sense of disconnect between adventures.

If you are looking for straight v3.5 action, I'd suggest you consider either "Savage Tides" or "Rise of the Runelords" by Paizo, or (if you like lots of Drow goodness or a Path that runs from 1st to 30th level) the "Drow Wars" trilogy by Mongoose Publishing. I have not played any of these, but I have heard excellent things about all of them.

Hope This Helps,
Flynn

 

[balterkn]

I'll echo the "Savage Tides" adventure path, especially the first portion through "Tides of Dread" (very coherent plot and build up - the rest integrates well, but isn't my personal style as much - I'm less fond of planar hopping adventures)

If you're up for upgrading old adventures, the old GDQ series is an excellent adventure path. It is the classic adventure set that helped to set up Drow as the big-baddies they are now.

I'm also a fan of the old slaver lords (A-series) adventures. The end of A3 is too "high handed" for me, but there are ways to modify the adventure so that the A3/A4 transition doesn't work as badly. A4 is a fun adventure, but getting the PCs to the start of it is the hard part.

If you like dark plots, I'd go for the Paizo D0, D1, and E1 linked set, which are all adventures that take place in the Darkmoon Vale of their world. I'd recommend this set over the published adventure paths (D0 is a free download!), not because I don't like the AP, but because these adventures are for those with a limited budget. Someone trying out that path, should (IMNSHO) have a good idea if they want to invest in the rest of the adventures or move into the Pathfinder series (which I did).

 

[blargney the second]

I'm playing through Savage Tide, and it's glorious. Well-written adventures that hang together properly, and some very cool cinematic action scenes.

 

[GlassJaw]

I really enjoyed (reading anyway) the first half (modules 1-3) of Rise of the Runelords. Parts 4-6 were definitely a disappointment.

I ran some of Shackled City and read most of it and overall, I liked what I ran and where it was going, although I did tweak some.

As Flynn pointed out though, Slavelords is awesome, and definitely breaks the mold of the other adventure paths. For one thing, while it does have an overall story arc, it's almost completely non-linear. It requires a fairly skilled GM though because it's heavily story-driven and requires the GM to fill in a lot of the blanks.

 

[Arnwyn]

Savage Tide, by leaps and bounds.

Then, in order:
2) Shackled City
3) Age of Worms
4) Rise of the Runelords

Not familiar with any others.

 

[RangerWickett]

• Do any suffer from having weak ties between the various chapters, which are usually written by different people?

As the director of the War of the Burning Sky campaign saga, I've personally gone over every adventure after they've been turned in to tie them together smoothly and compellingly. I do have it kind of easy, because since the heroes are helping out during a war, the people they take orders from can give them missions, but each mission develops from the previous one and builds toward the climax.

• Are some more suited to a given playstyle than others? i.e. how much roleplaying vs. combat heavy stuff is there? I'm not personally interested in large scale war tactics for instance, but the higher levels of WotBS sound like they get into that.

In my opinion, combat has no value if there aren't roleplaying scenes that lead into and develop from it. I've tried to make sure the heroes never have a fight with an important villain they first don't get a chance to talk to. Some adventures are much more roleplay-oriented (adventure three is based in a city where you have to acquire allies for later in the war), while others are full of combats with pockets of roleplaying (adventure eight sees the heroes attacking a sort of 'magical research laboratory,' akin to assaulting the Death Star), while most have a mix.

We decided early on that we had to allow the option of massive combat in the series -- after all, it's a war, and some players are going to want to command an army -- but never are you required to run massive battles. Usually the heroes are performing critical tasks while a battle goes on around them, or leading a small strike team against a remote enemy outpost, or doing reconnaissance to find the enemy's weak point.

I know how tedious running dozens of NPCs can be, but so far we've only had two instances of that, in the 4th and 9th adventure. Each time the heroes are with a group of about two dozen allies, and they have to hold territory against oncoming enemy forces, while other groups on their side are busy defending other areas in the same battle.

The first time it's much like a traditional war, with infantry and artillery and cavalry -- very Braveheart-esque. By the second time they're 16th level, and we felt the heroes deserved a chance to strut their stuff God of War-style, hewing through dozens of enemies apiece.

There are occasions where the heroes have the chance to take command of whole units and do the Sun Tzu thing if they feel like it, but it's not required. I think most players get their kicks being Leonidas fighting in the midst of a horde of foes, rather than being Xerxes and managing units from afar.

I think that if, by the end of the campaign saga there's any aspect of 'war stories' that we haven't dealt with, I'll be a little disappointed in myself. But ultimately we wanted to make a great series of adventures that would be fun to play, and have a memorable story.

I've also read the first three issues of Rise of the Runelords, and the Savage Tide path, and they both were cool*, but if you want a campaign where the heroes' actions visibly and publicly change the world, and where your players will get to become legends, you should pick up War of the Burning Sky.

* I also read the synopsis of Slavelords of Cydonia, and it sounded ridiculawesome.

 

[Psion]

I really enjoyed (reading anyway) the first half (modules 1-3) of Rise of the Runelords. Parts 4-6 were definitely a disappointment.

That's (almost) the opposite of my take.

I liked 1, but really didn't like 2 and 3.

I thought 4 was awesome, and 5 and 6 really good. I thought about running just 4-6 as a shortened adventure path.

My general comments about other adventure paths:

• Rise of the Runelords - I like the innovation; it's like tapping into third party products let Paizo stretch its wings. As mentioned, I don't like the theme of 2 and 3, but 4 and on are really good.
• Shackled City - Good. Along with Age of Worms, one of the most dungeon oriented. The city setting is probably the most emphasized here, though. The players should not treat everything as if it is going to be fought, or they will die (which I consider a plus.) Definitely, get the hardcover over the magazines; it adds and adventure and supplemental material, and reworks some aspects of some adventures.
• Age of Worms - Has a cool, creepy mood, but very deadly and very reliant on the party banking on a lot of protection magic.
• Savage Tides - Of the dungeon APs, has the most non-traditional play. Sure, there's a few dungeons, but there's also seafaring, wilderness jaunts, piracy, and organizing forces for mass combats. I like the variety.
• Slavelords of Cydonia Really cool, with the added bonus of being usable with D20 Modern or other D20 games. Politics, armies on the move, planetary romance setting that departs from strict D&D tropes.
• War of the Burning Sky Another cool one with a very open plotline and flexible entry and exit points, and posits the cool scenario "what would mass war on a fantasy world be like." However, there are still a few adventures left that ENPublishing needs to get out.

One downside for me of most of these is the 1-20 level format, which is a bit long for me. I like somewhat shorter adventure series, like Necromancer Games' Shades of Gray (which runs from 1-12).

Ptolus also has an inline set of adventures running from 1-20, but I am not familiar with all of those and I was sort of disappointed with Night of Dissolution. Banewarrens is excellent, though.

Then there's the megadungeons, like Worlds Largest Dungeon (has some good sections, but some of the founding assumptions need to be waved off though), and Rappan Athuk Releoaded (which is more a 4-death path than 1-20 path. )

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

My favorite Adventure Path, by far, has to be Bad Axe Games' Slavelords of Cydonia. Designed for Grim Tales, but playable with either D20 Modern or D20 Fantasy, it's a fantastic jaunt into a planetary romance campaign. The book covers adventures from 1st level to 20th, all flowing in one lengthy Adventure Path that was truely ahead of its time. As it was written by the same author throughout, it does not suffer from any sense of disconnect between adventures.

I'll second that. Plus, it does a superb job of keeping enough sandbox elements (and providing the hooks to use them) to keep it from being too linear. AP's can be neat, but they suffer somewhat I think from being a little too railroady. It's kind of unavoidable to some extent, as theres no way to accomadate the wide array of things players can do to screw things up over 20 levels, but I think Slavelords handles it very well.

 

[SavageRobby]

I assume you're talking d20. Of those, I've read through most of the Paizo ones, and Pathfinder is definitely a cut above.

For non-d20, check out Savage Worlds 50 Fathoms. Its a plot-point book (slightly different than an Adventure Path in that its much less scripted, but still provides an end-to-end campaign) that reads a lot like Pirates of Carribean, only much cooler and with way better magic. (It could probably be converted to d20, although you'd have to fudge some aspects to handle high level characters.)