Pathfinder 1E Your Pathfinder campaigns - running Adventure Paths, published adventures, or homebrew?

[MerricB]

Yeah, that was another issue I had with the APs I've played. We played the 3.5 Rise of the Runelords and some of the encounters there were fine, but some of them would have blown away casual players and one of them did blow us away (TPK) even though we've played for 20+ years. Same thing in Serpent's Skull (although our GM was very good about making allowances that at least gave us a chance).

The end boss of Kingmaker is a case in point. AC 51. Huh?

 

[ggeilman]

The end boss of Kingmaker is a case in point. AC 51. Huh?

And? Orcus and the end of Rappan Athuk is AC 55, but he is not meant to be defeated.

 

[timASW]

I've mainly run home brewed games in pathfinder published setting areas. Darkmoon Vale and the city of strangers specifically. The published adventures and such for those areas are present and the players can and have picked up a few as hooks but the majority of the time gaming has been spent on actual adventures in those locales that i brewed up myself.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

We tend to avoid Adventure Paths as we have some idea for an overarching story built directly from the PCs that start the campaign, and fine tune it to them. Modules are used for basic dungeon and monsters, but a lot of the big back story and sometimes up front story is modified to fit the over-arc. And some are just homemade. By the time the campaign is done, the modified modules and homemade ones as a whole feel like an adventure path.

 

[ggeilman]

Well I am currently running the latest version of Rappan Athuk and the Slumbering Tsar Saga. Will be adding the Razor Coast to it when it comes out in the spring. I think that should keep the players busy for at least the next several years as I have about 2000 pages to draw on. When I need to fill in a few monsters I have the Tome of Horrors Ultimate Edition on top of the 3 Bestiaries.
There is but one overall story arc. Find and defeat the followers of Orcus. Since August, 10 are dead so far. The Dungeon of Graves is living up to its name!

 

[S'mon]

The one thing I've been irked by is the "end-boss" encounters. You can be merrily cruising along in the adventure and the BBEG comes up like a brick wall. Its fine for the hardcore players who want a tough end fight, but it annoys the heck out of my casual players (and me).

Heh - yeah, this a major issue IME. The big problem is that the APs are written like videogames and you HAVE TO beat the chapter/level end boss to unlock the next set of content. But you can't (and shouldn't) save/reload like in a videogame. Just played through Burnt Offerings with four newbies (I was the Cleric) and we twice got pasted by sub-bosses (Ripnugget & Nualia) - only my willingness to heroically yell "Run Away!" and some kind GMing prevented TPK. I was doubtful we could beat Nualia even on second go around, only an inspired Command - Approach! and a fluke failed Will save did it. OTOH the end bosses just sat in their lairs waiting for us to have another go at them, very videogamey. I don't own Runelords but my impression of the APs I do own is that they tend to be written like this, the writer just assumes the PCs will win first time and progress on to the next piece of content, but 3e/PF is a very variable sort of game and such assumptions are dangerous IME. 4e is more predictable, another reason I think the AP approach works better in 4e.

 

[ggeilman]

I don't have an issue perse of big boss encounters, but they should not be a stopping point for the campaign. The players should be able to recognize an encounter too tough for them to handle and be prepared to live to fight another day. There should be other opportunities for them to gain the XP needed to defeat them.

 

[gamerprinter]

While I primarily run my own homebrewed adventures, I have converted one of my past personal campaigns into a published campaign and setting. This is how I developed Kaidan setting of Japanese horror and published the Curse of the Golden Spear trilogy of modules for PFRPG (see The Gift, Dim Spirit and Dark Path). So since sometimes I publish homebrews, I guess I do both homebrew and published adventures, it is so for me when they are the same thing.

 

[DaveMage]

I don't have an issue perse of big boss encounters, but they should not be a stopping point for the campaign. The players should be able to recognize an encounter too tough for them to handle and be prepared to live to fight another day. There should be other opportunities for them to gain the XP needed to defeat them.

Exactly - which is why I'm preferring the Rappan Athuk/Tsar style to the APs. If the PCs run away, it's OK - there's plenty more to do. If you run away in an AP, well, the GM might have a ton more work to do to bring the game back to the AP.

Now that's not to say the APs aren't great products - they are - but the ironic nature of them is that if you're a new GM running it for new (or less skilled) players, you may have a lot more work to do than if you're running it for awesome players who know how to handle tougher challenges.

 

[innerdude]

I use the Golarion campaign setting, but all of the plot / NPC / encounter design is my own.