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3.5E was incredibly dependent on level. Low level went fast, high level went very slow. Very very slow. 4E evened that out a lot more, but the default was "slow", alas. Still ran high-level combats a LOT more quickly than 3E. PF2 may be a bit more fiddly than 3.5E (there are a lot of things...

Although PF2 may define exploration and role-playing better, if combat takes too long, you don't have enough time for them. :) I can't speak to how long PF2 combat takes; certainly in our short time with AV, I don't think it took that long. I can speak to how long 4E combat took, and that was a...

There are certain combinations of characters that will make any D&D group struggle to work, unless there are a lot of accommodation by the DM, regardless of whether it's a published or homebrew adventure. The design consideration is more something you should do anyway: allow more than one...

Yep. :)

I had a very poor experience trying to run my 5E group through Abomination Vaults using PF2. It turns out that there are things that they don't vibe with. :) My general impression of PF is that it wants a much larger rules buy-in from both GM and players. If you have more casual players, then...

I've been looking for 13th level 5E adventures to place in a more sandbox environment of my ongoing campaign, and it's really hard. "Oh, this one requires a glacier... pity we're far south", etc. Most adventures are actually rather specific, even the ones that present sandbox environments. The...

I actually finished running Kingmaker. In PF1. It's what convinced me that Paizo (at least the crew there at the time) were incompetent at designing rules. And barely competent at writing adventure paths. This isn't to say that there isn't good stuff in Kingmaker - there definitely is. The...

Wizards managed to talk themselves into so many problems with imprecise terms. I don't think that going full 3E keyword happy is the right move, but then they try to rule on the game as if it still used that format!

Apparently there is. :) How much of the market it appeals to is a different factor. Cheers, Merric

It's a bit hard to say whether they were cut or underdeveloped. There do seem to be numerous problems with the modern Wizards approach to adventures (and I mean mainly the last few). I've called out how their monster encounters don't work on battlemats or VTTs before. And the errors in The...

Given I've run a lot of the published Wizards adventures without extra work, it's entirely possible. But I have a skill set that makes doing so a lot easier than for many (or so I gather based on many comments I've seen on message boards!) Cheers, Merric

Nope. Doesn't work that way. There is a LOT of overhead for projects. A project's cost doesn't scale linearly with page count.

There's so much left unsaid in the rules! As you go forward it becomes defined as "encountered in the wilderness", and I really miss the B/X split of "Encountered in Lair or Wilderness" and "Encountered in Dungeon". Although the OD&D rules do note that the numbers in Monsters & Treasure are...

30 orcs! Wow! I'm amazed any survived! Cheers, Merric

I think it isn't a megadungeon. Instead, it's designed as a quest dungeon - you're exploring it to complete a quest, not doing expeditions to find what is there. I was running Castle of the Mad Archmage from Joseph Bloch, and that is far more a megadungeon. No real plot, although you can add...

My group got so frustrated with the PF2 version, but I'm sure it's a large part based on how unforgiving PF2 is. And the early part of AV has a lot of fights where the PCs are outmatched using the PF2 system. Also TOO MANY FIVE-FOOT CORRIDORS! (argh). Cheers!

Likewise, I don't think Rappan Athuk is a megadungeon. It's just a big dungeon. One thing that I really want with megadungeons is an area for level 1 characters, and I find that several high-profile big or mega dungeons (Undermountain, Rappan Athuk) lack that area! It frustrates me (especially...

It has a few issues. One problem is that it was developed with the playtest stats, and it runs FAR better with them than with the final monster manual. (Some CRs changed a LOT!) And also, there are a lot of people who can't handle the thought of a linear adventure (even though each section has...

There are a LOT of good adventures. There are many many people who should not run published adventures or talk about them. They're better off designing their homebrews or improvising. Cheers