Adventure Paths (AoW & ST AP) Hardcovers

[Testament]

Age of Worms needs big rewrites for three adventures, unfortunately: Encounter at Blackwall Keep, The Sinister Spire, and Dawn of a New Age.

I keep hearing horror stories of how groups abandoned AoW after Sinister Spire.

Cheers!

Frankly, if anything in Age of Worms needs a rewrite, its Three Faces of Evil. Encounter at Blackwall could do with some tweaking to not be so damned dull, and while Spire of Long Shadows is tough, its survivable if players remember that there's no time limit on it and they can safely retreat.

Dawning of a New Age I can't say, we haven't hit it yet.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

Spire of Long Shadows and Encounter at Blackwall Keep

Well, I err..modified Encounter at Blackwall Keep . I tripled the number of normal lizard men. That made things interesting! But my PCs still won.


And Spire of Long Shadows...yeah , I thought I would have _major_ problems with this one. But my PCs had become very tactically minded by this point, and they got through it without a single PC death. The magic items they had previously gotten from Tenser helped quite a bit.

I agree though, that both adventures need changes. Especially Spire of Long Shadows...I'm not a big fan of all the visions with XP bonuses...way too much exposition for the DM.

I am sure these ch

 

[ShadowDenizen]

I'd rather follow Paizo into the future rather than WotC - I like their work better, frankly.

I'm leaning that way as well.

I'm the type who typically buys Adventure and/or Setting Books, as opposed to endless splat books.

So, I'm actually kinda hoping that Paizo DOESN'T convert. (I'm thinking odds are they will, but I can hope, right?)

But I'm going to stick with WotC if its really putting out this 4e SRD. Paizo isn't jumping out there to involve a community or encourage third parties to support their settings / games.

While Gleemax is a good idea (in theory), I'm not sold on their execution thus far. Seems like they jumped the gun by about six months or so, IMHO.

Also, remember Paizo is also a MUCH smaller company, without the broad shoulders of a parent company to watch over them.

And I think the Paizo community on their boards is invaluable. I've gotten TONS of cool ideas for all three AP's off their forums.

While I'm loving pathfinder, I'd find it a whole lot cooler if Paizo was encouraging everybody and their dog to do work on it, rather than Paizo being the only source. I'd like to be able to purchase a twenty page take on a single human culture of the Pathfinder world, or an expansion on the ecology articles, but that product is too niche for Paizo to be willing to work on and sadly the source content is closed so no such product will ever exist.

Give it time: the setting just launched! I think Paizo will certainly be expanding their world.
They're already discussing the 2nd AP, and planning the 3rd!

And that's the benefit of their new format; with smaller paths, they can explore more of the world and it's cultures in a much shorter time.

Age of Worms needs big rewrites for three adventures, unfortunately: Encounter at Blackwall Keep, The Sinister Spire, and Dawn of a New Age.

Mentioned before, but I'll add TFoE to that list, as well. (Though I'm not so sure about Blackwall Keep needing a re-write; I think it's OK to let the PC's revel in their powers for an adventure, and realize "Wow! We're so much more powerful now than when this whole mess started!)

 

[RatPunk]

Mentioned before, but I'll add TFoE to that list, as well. (Though I'm not so sure about Blackwall Keep needing a re-write; I think it's OK to let the PC's revel in their powers for an adventure, and realize "Wow! We're so much more powerful now than when this whole mess started!)

I believe it has been mentioned before by James and/or Erik that that was kind of the point of the beginning of Blackwall Keep. The siege at the keep was never really meant to be much of a challenge.

 

[Twowolves]

WotC finds itself unmotivated to give permission.

Are they "disinclined to acquiesce"?

I think WotC's guys are pretty good at mechanics, but Paizo's guys are pretty good at stories.

These the same WotC guys that did the MMIII?? Um... ok....

 

[Greyson]

Paizo is Better

I'd rather follow Paizo into the future rather than WotC - I like their work better, frankly.

Me, too. There is a quality about Paizo's work that is hard to explain - it's just better in some intangible way. The Age of Worms adventure path is my favorite adventuring product of 3rd Edition.

I have not heard of anyone "abandoning" Age of Worms after "The Spire of Long Shadows". I like that adventure as written, as I did all of them. I am looking for another group to run through Age of Worms again before June.

It is disappointing that neither Age of Worms nor Savage Tide shall see hardcover status. But, I have all of the issues (with a duplicates of my favs). That's all ya need to enjoy the adventure paths.

 

[James Jacobs]

An Age of Worms hardcover would certainly need to be rewritten, and possilby expanded, if we were to do a hardcover. It's certainly not a perfect campaign, and there's a lot of room for improvement. Erik and I have certainly talked at length about how we'd expand it, revise it, and even where we might add in some additional short adventure parts. Simply slapping the 12 adventures between hardcovers and shipping it would be a poor decision.

I'd love to see a hardcover in print, but unfortunately that's looking like it'll never happen.

 

[sckeener]

I'd love to see a hardcover in print, but unfortunately that's looking like it'll never happen.

I'll flip-flop and be optimistic. After all if WotC is smart, they'd be looking for the Win-Win with all the 3rd party suppliers. There are plenty of stories that WotC, being the image of the game, can't publish or has to stay away from because of image.

That is...if they plan to make money.

 

[Erik Mona]

You know, upon review I was a bit crabby the last time I posted to this thread. I have every reason to believe WotC wants Paizo to support 4th edition, and it is very likely we will do so.

I don't know if the new rules will be appropriate for a straight-up conversion, but Age of Worms was definitely very popular with the audience, and such a product would sell very well indeed.

We'll see what happens.

In the meantime, we're focusing on Pathfinder which we own lock, stock, and barrel. The ability to do hardcovers, support products, miniatures, etc. is a huge advantage to us under the new paradigm, so while I cannot promise further support for our _old_ Adventure Paths, I _can_ promise unprecedented support for our new ones.

--Erik Mona
Publisher
Paizo Publishing, LLC