"Adventure Paths": Which should I do?

[Darrin Drader]

My main beef with RotRLs was actually the 5th module. I sped it up and cut out a lot of the material to move the story along. I saw it as a real potential slow-down in the campaign.

I'd agree with this. My group and I felt that there was too much empty space and too many repeat encounters. I ended up dropping a clue in-game to steer them towards the information they needed so we could move on. I do think that the idea of a mega-dungeon was ambitious, but it was ultimately a little too much dungeon for the amount of space available.

 

[fletch137]

If you're willing to consider Age of Worms, I'm going to try to direct your attention to Savage Tide. In my eyes it's far superior to Age of Worms, not suffering from the same overflowing of undead enemies across the entire campaign and benefitting from a very diverse set of adventures from urban adventures to underdark exploration to city-building to wilderness exploration. It's really truly great. And if you can get your hands on the accompanying Dragon magazines, there are a bunch of articles that expand on the ideas in the adventure to get your players more involved in the campaign too.

Unfortunately, I haven't found the perfect AP for me yet since then. Curse of the Crimson Throne probably comes closest, but I already have pages of notes on how I'd change it up a bit to be closer to what I like.

Of the ones you mentioned, though, I can only comment on Kingmaker and Age of Worms and even then I can't say I've played either of them (two tpks in the early days of Age of Worms killed that campaign. It's murderously hard). Aside from some really shiny moments, though, both of them read kind of tediously. Like I mentioned, AoW gets into an undead rut and features a steady stream of NPCs ready to tell you where to go next. Meanwhile, Kingmaker tries to make an entire campaign out of "let's go see what's in *this* hex". It's possible they play better than they read, but those are my first impressions.

Hope any of that helps.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Kingmaker does indeed look fairly awesome.

My other suggestion (of the paths not listed) would be Curse of the Crimson Throne. An urban Adventure Path with plague, undead, shapechangers, and politics. Kingmaker is the only path that has come close. (Kingmaker may even surpass it - I do not yet have the whole of Kingmaker to compare.)

Both are very, very good.

The Auld Grump

 

[IronWolf]

Kingmaker certainly deserves a look. We're starting it next month and seems to hold lots of promise!

Rise of the Runelords seems to get good feedback and from what I have read of Legacy of Fire, it looks like it could be fun too. Council of Thieves seems to get the weaker reviews.

 

[Karmacoma]

Of the ones you listed, I'd go with Age of Worms. The first adventures need very little preparation, and it will fill your purposes better. As a bonus, you'll be running some classic places and adversaries, as the Free City (of Greyhawk), Dragotha and Kyuss. Worth it.

If you are going to run Age of Worms, it would be very nice to have access either to the old City of Greyhawk boxed set, or the new Wizards of the Coast module, so you get a full map to the city. If you also can get any of the 3E gazetteers, better.

As others have pointed out, Rise of the Runelords is another classic adventure path worthy of consideration. It also needs very little prep time because it was one of the first Golarion materials and so everything that you need to run it is in the books of the adventure path. If you have acces either to the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting or the gazetteer, better.