Anyone has a favorite Adventure Path?

[jasin]

Ditto. I've got them (well, parts 1-5) and I find my brief read-throughs a huge improvement over Second Darkness (the first part of that was botched, and I never warmed to the rest).

What, specifically, is the problem with Second Darkness?

 

[Morrus]

And War of the Burning Sky seriously needs a good presentation here - I followed a banner and there was precious little information.

Really? We have an entire page of information, preview art, two free downloadable books (one for players and one for DMs) which completely outline the entire campaign in exquisite detail, links to reviews, the first adventure [of the 3.5 version] available for free....

What else would you suggest we add, excepting actually giving the entire path away for free? I've certainly never seen an adventure path with a tenth of the pre-sales information we provide.

 

[S. Baldrick]

1st Edition:
The Desert of Desolation series
The Sentinel and The Gauntlet

2nd Edition:
The Storm Riders, Black Courser and Blood Charge.

3.x
The Shackled City

 

[S. Baldrick]

Age of Worms was terrible. Overpowered monsters, tons of undead, and a DM that just can't bring the story or NPCs to life (or straight?). MerricBs blog entry really spoke to me.

I agree with you completely. I really loved the old school references and such but my group never finished it. By the time we reached 15th level or so, one fight would take an entire evening to play out and at least one player character would get killed. If we would have continued, I would have had a player revolt on my hands. As the DM, I wasn't having any fun running it or preparing for it either. It really got bogged down and came to a grinding halt.

 

[Primal]

My own favorite AP (both as a DM and a player) is 'Age of Worms', although I have to agree with Merric's opinions about its lethality and how well it demonstrates the "swinginess" of high level play in 3E. Even though our DM modified it heavily, some of the encounters would have been unbeatable right from the start without fudging the rolls and monster abilities (for example, I think the grimlock barbarian missed my paladin at least 10 times in a row... and he only needed 4 or 5 to hit me). Even though AoW is my favorite because of its strong plot, I wouldn't run it for new players without making sure that there are at least two "melee" types and a cleric in the party (and even then not without adjusting the numbers).

I have high hopes for PF RPG; maybe it manages to eliminate at least some problems in the game's math (which are painfully evident after 10th level)?

 

[roguerouge]

Curse of the Crimson Throne. 4 out of 6 of the adventures involve being in Korvosa. One of the two is a lot of 'wander around and see the sights" kind of adventure, so you can handwave a lot of that, and the other is a dungeoncrawl so you can shorten that at your leisure.

And you can skip the fifth adventure entirely, if you want to get the party back to the city. Give them the trinket and let them run the resistance.

 

[roguerouge]

What, specifically, is the problem with Second Darkness?

Oh, what didn't they do wrong with that one?

Spoiler

Let's start with the business you build up from failure to success, sending the players every signal that they should have their PCs put down roots. They have awesome support for that business: floor plan, descriptions, secrets, and easy rules to improve it. Wonderful city filled with hooks too. Then you leave it in the second module and never return.

Then there's the idiocy at the end of the third module, where I had a long argument on the boards. (paizo.com - Paizo / Messageboards / Paizo Publishing / Pathfinder® / Pathfinder Adventure Paths / Second Darkness Adventure Path / Winning the Battle for Celwynvian (spoilers)) Basically, I don't understand why any tactics-minded player group would send his PCs alone into a different dimension to face an entire army to save a jerk and a scout they just met.... after facing a drow squad, an aboleth and a barbarian back to back to back. It looks exactly like a suicide mission, which it should be if the cunning drow weren't so stupid as to leave not one single person on the other side of the portal. Worse, it's a suicide mission when there's clearly a much better option available: sit tight with a superior forces, reinforcements, and supplies.

Oh, and did I mention that they might not have Plane Shift when making that decision?

Then the fourth adventure came out. Basically, the party goes undercover in a drow city, literally black face. While that could work out Jar-Jar-Binks-does S&M-bad at a table, if it goes okay... the DM gets the work of designing an entire drow city to explore, albeit with SOME help from the module. But, basically, it's the most labor-intensive of all the modules, for kind of minimal gain. I forget. I honestly checked out on that path by the end of that module.

As always, there's good parts to pick in the series... but I can't say that I recommend it.

 

[Morrus]

We really enjoyed Age of Worms, but it did get very slow and bogged down at the end. I attribute that to high level 3E, though, not to the AP.

 

[MerricB]

We really enjoyed Age of Worms, but it did get very slow and bogged down at the end. I attribute that to high level 3E, though, not to the AP.

I think it's a combination; some of the monster selection and design adds to the problems of the system. Kyuss's statblock is a case in point: three pages of stats? Uh, no!

Cheers!

 

[TylerDurden]

AP Age of Worms and new Pathfinder

I am a newb to Pathfinder, never played it but like the concept.

Is the new pathfinder set considered 4e? If not it is still 3.5e and will work with the Age of Worms adventure?

When is Paizo going to update and release a 4e version of AoW?