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.

 

[AlwaysMerlin]

I like this change. It has me considering renewing my subscription for the adventure paths.

It’s cheaper to buy the books from an online store with a discount+free shipping but getting the PDF and paying for shipping once makes that a wash.

I also prefer a single book that should have less story issues that need fixed while running the game.

 

[darrenkitlor]

I am pretty sure the monthlies are $30 currently, so you are saving $10.

Yes, mothlies are 30. An adventure path is 3-6 of those, so it was 90-180 previously.

I think this change is better for shops. A bunch of irregular order APs inevitably take up too much space. That’s why the LCG format moved away from smaller, piecemeal expansions to larger formats.

 

[Retreater]

Hmmm. I'm struggling to find something negative to say about this change - and that's something coming from me.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

This will reduce the "excitement" for a new release every month, so instead the hype cycle will need to be deeper and broader for the quarterly release. Whether this will result in greater net profits in the short and long term remains to be seen...

What I'm wondering is whether the single quarterly adventure will still be written by different people across spans like the AP volumes were (at least in the older days)? I did not like it, as there was often a different emphasis in what was important when different creators/designers were writing the different volumes. So I hope these single volumes will also be written by a single person