Paizo Ends Pathfinder Adventure Path Softcovers, Switching to Quarterly Model

Paizo is ending its line of monthly Pathfinder Adventure Paths, with a new quarterly hardcover replacing the long-running product. Paizo announced the change yesterday on its blog, with the shift beginning next year. The new hardcover Adventure Paths will be a minimum of 256 pages and will have a retail price of $79.99, which is cheaper than the cost of purchasing four softcover adventure paths. Paizo also stated that they'll release one Adventure Path starting at Level 1, another ending at Level 20, with the remaining two falling somewhere in between. Each Adventure Path will cover 9-10 levels of play.

The first two Adventure Paths announced for this format are Hellbreakers and Hell's Destiny, which both cover the upcoming war between Andoran and Cheliax.

The Pathfinder Adventure Paths series started as an evolution of Paizo's monthly Pathfinder magazine series. To date, Paizo has released 222 Pathfinder Adventure Paths. Early Pathfinder Adventure Paths were for campaigns that lasted six issues and typically encompassed Level 1-Level 20 play. However, more recently, the Adventure Path structure has shortened and grown more flexible, with shorter length campaigns with more variable levels of play.

 

[Parmandur]

One downside I thought up discussing adventure publishing is the chapters of the traditional AP. Just becasue the AP has 6 chapters doesnt mean all of them have to be run. Smugglers Shiv is a fave of mine, but id never run the entire AP.

Will the quarterly big books be chunkable for folks who are more module driven and less entire campaign focused?

Don't see why they wouldn't be, any more or less than before. WotC has been putting out long campaign books thst are easy to break apart as modules for over a decade now.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

If anything I think it'll give each AP a more festival atmosphere, in terms of release hype, just because it won't be a continuous bleed, and people will have more time to digest each thing before the next thing comes out-- whether or not they make it through all three volumes in that time.

I hadn't thought of that.

And realistically, I am sure there were a few groups out there who played every volume of every PF AP as it came out - but that's some serious commitment; and I bet the number who did that for 100+ months is in the single digits. Realistically you'd need to be playing weekly to get through the modules in good time. DM's gotta be on their toes too. ALSO in a couple of the APs I have read through, sometimes plot lines in earlier books that seemed important faded later (side plots in particular).

 

[payn]

I hadn't thought of that.

And realistically, I am sure there were a few groups out there who played every volume of every PF AP as it came out - but that's some serious commitment; and I bet the number who did that for 100+ months is in the single digits. Realistically you'd need to be playing weekly to get through the modules in good time. DM's gotta be on their toes too. ALSO in a couple of the APs I have read through, sometimes plot lines in earlier books that seemed important faded later (side plots in particular).

Aye, I spent 10+ years running PF1 era APs and didnt hit them all. We played every other week and it took us about 1.5 years to finish an entire AP.

During my time plugged into the PF community some folks would blast through an entire AP in 3 months!

I was subbed up for a good deal of the time then, and a few APs to this day havent been run yet. Though, I unsubbed once or twice too as the AP didnt interest me. One of the things I liked about the line was that if I didnt like what was coming up, id not wait long for something else. So, imagining someone on board for the entire trip is hard to do.

 

[payn]

Don't see why they wouldn't be, any more or less than before. WotC has been putting out long campaign books thst are easy to break apart as modules for over a decade now.

Maybe. I am not a fan of WotC offerings so I cant imagine it. I can kinda do so with Paizo, but again, this is a big change and we dont know what the new format will look like.

 

[Jahydin]

I'm all for this. All my APs I've ran in the past are all falling apart, so been digital only for years. This might get me to go physical again.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

Smugglers Shiv is a fave of mine, but id never run the entire AP.

I have a campaign outline drawn up that starts with Souls for Smugglers Shiv, continues into Tomb of Annihilation, goes through a mix of the two last chapters of Sepent's Skull and then have one or two unrelated adventures and then gets into Return to the Tomb of Horrors

 

[cranberry]

I think for most busy adults, quarterly makes sense.

I'd like to see a wider variety of their adventures available on Foundry. As someone mentioned above, there seems to be noticeable level gaps.

 

[Parmandur]

Maybe. I am not a fan of WotC offerings so I cant imagine it. I can kinda do so with Paizo, but again, this is a big change and we dont know what the new format will look like.

The main criticism of the WotC books (who it must be noted post-Perkons are largely being written by Paizo alumni) is about their overarching structure, precisely because the connecting material is thin and easy to remove the component modules.

I don't see why the format change would change the writers ability to make modules interchangeable.

 

[Justice and Rule]

I don't generally play APs, but it's probably a better change on the whole than not. Like, one of the reasons I'm generally more skeptical of APs done in installments is that I can start a game without actually fully knowing what I'm setting up. There's the possibility that I mix up some backstory, add something that conflicts somewhere else, etc. Obviously it's still possible (I'm guessing there will be certain APs that go 1-10 and have a follow-up book that goes 11-20), but being able to look ahead is a very nice thing. I am also someone who prefers hardcovers to softcovers, so that's definitely a point in its favor for me.

One downside I thought up discussing adventure publishing is the chapters of the traditional AP. Just becasue the AP has 6 chapters doesnt mean all of them have to be run. Smugglers Shiv is a fave of mine, but id never run the entire AP.

Will the quarterly big books be chunkable for folks who are more module driven and less entire campaign focused?

I do kind of wonder this, but in a different way: a lot of APs have gazetteers for the areas they take place in and such. I wonder if people will be more willing to put some money down to get an AP if it comes with a good amount of supplemental material that is useable.

 

[payn]

I don't generally play APs, but it's probably a better change on the whole than not. Like, one of the reasons I'm generally more skeptical of APs done in installments is that I can start a game without actually fully knowing what I'm setting up. There's the possibility that I mix up some backstory, add something that conflicts somewhere else, etc. Obviously it's still possible (I'm guessing there will be certain APs that go 1-10 and have a follow-up book that goes 11-20), but being able to look ahead is a very nice thing. I am also someone who prefers hardcovers to softcovers, so that's definitely a point in its favor for me.



I do kind of wonder this, but in a different way: a lot of APs have gazetteers for the areas they take place in and such. I wonder if people will be more willing to put some money down to get an AP if it comes with a good amount of supplemental material that is useable.

Maybe, I know that supplemental material had its detractors because they felt like it was less adventure. Part of where the “APs meant to be read not played” meme nonsense comes from.