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.

 

[Velderan]

On the upside, maybe the big players are finally moving away from campaign length adventures. I think one big long adventure per tier of play is a good compromise and move back toward "adventures" instead of "campaigns."

While I generally like what Paizo makes for APs, I'm in full agreement here simply because I don't have time to run everything they release that sounds fun. Smaller adventures with a more focused story arc that are easier to run due to smaller time commitment and cost less to produce and sells for less so (hopefully) the publisher makes more by selling more copies.

I currently have 3 APs (Season of Ghosts, Kingmaker, Battlezoo's Jewel of the Indigo Isle) that I absolutely want to run and the unfortunate reality is at most I will possibly run one of them. Maybe none of them depending on what releases between now and when we're looking for our next AP sometime next year.

 

[Reynard]

While I generally like what Paizo makes for APs, I'm in full agreement here simply because I don't have time to run everything they release that sounds fun. Smaller adventures with a more focused story arc that are easier to run due to smaller time commitment and cost less to produce and sells for less so (hopefully) the publisher makes more by selling more copies.

I currently have 3 APs (Season of Ghosts, Kingmaker, Battlezoo's Jewel of the Indigo Isle) that I absolutely want to run and the unfortunate reality is at most I will possibly run one of them. Maybe none of them depending on what releases between now and when we're looking for our next AP sometime next year.

Hit 2 birds with one stone and set Kingmaker in the Indigo Isles?