Pathfinder 2E Pathfinder 2 Sandbox or Travel Adventure

[Reynard]

I started a Abomination Vaults campaign (as GM) to learn the Pathfinder 2 (Remaster) rules, and I like it well enough but something i did not count on is being kind of burnt out on dungeon exploration due to a year of alternating running and playing a 5E Rappan Athuk game.

I don't want to abandon this game because the group messes and we are having fun, but I would like to get out of the dungeon for a while. I am looking for recommendations of a relatively short (3 or 4 session) adventure involving overland travel and exploration that I can insert into the AB campaign. The hook doesn't matter -- I can have the PCs need to go get something or whatever. But since I am still learning PF2E(R) I would prefer a published scenario for this "first outing". It doesn't have to by by Paizo but would preferably work well within the expected design constraints of PF2E(R).

Thanks.

 

[KidMidnight]

You could look at "Troubles in Otari", which is a series of 3 adventures meant to be run right after the Beginner Box. The adventures are level 2, 3, and 4, and involve some wilderness travel.

I haven't played or run them (yet), but I did run the Beginner Box and we rolled right into "Abomination Vaults" immediately afterwards. Now that the party's nearly level 4 and getting a bit burned out on the dungeon crawl, I've thought about interleaving the "Troubles" adventures with more AV exploration, just to break things up. I'll have to adjust the level of difficulty for them, but that's not too hard in PF2E.

 

[thullgrim]

Maybe The Fall of Plaguestone. It has some issues in terms encounter balance, it was the first thing published for PF2 and suffers from being written tandem. The encounters are overturned but fixable and a quick check of the Paizo forums or the Pathfinder Discord would probably sort it out right quick.

 

[thullgrim]

You might also check the PF2 Pathfinder Society scenarios. While designed for a single session each you might be able to string something together.

 

[Velderan]

You could look at "Troubles in Otari", which is a series of 3 adventures meant to be run right after the Beginner Box. The adventures are level 2, 3, and 4, and involve some wilderness travel.

I haven't played or run them (yet), but I did run the Beginner Box and we rolled right into "Abomination Vaults" immediately afterwards. Now that the party's nearly level 4 and getting a bit burned out on the dungeon crawl, I've thought about interleaving the "Troubles" adventures with more AV exploration, just to break things up. I'll have to adjust the level of difficulty for them, but that's not too hard in PF2E.

My group is currently halfway through level 6 and a good chunk of the way through the Laboratory level. They haven’t complained about the dungeon crawl, but I’ve noticed they really dig into the side quests that have them spending time in town and interacting with the NPCs so I might also chop some bits out of Troubles in Otari to give them a bit more to mix it up.

 

[KidMidnight]

My group is currently halfway through level 6 and a good chunk of the way through the Laboratory level. They haven’t complained about the dungeon crawl, but I’ve noticed they really dig into the side quests that have them spending time in town and interacting with the NPCs so I might also chop some bits out of Troubles in Otari to give them a bit more to mix it up.

I think I haven't done a great job highlighting the NPCs in town. I wanted to avoid the info dump of "here are the 26 people whose names you need to know" and was introducing them gradually, but probably without enough of a hook to make them memorable. I wrote up a cheat sheet for the players (locations in town, who they've met, main quest & side quest info, etc.) which will hopefully make Otari more interesting.

We also switched from playing 3 times a month down to 1 (the other GM was ready to run the last segment of our multi-year 5e campaign!), which made it hard to remember what was going on anyway. So we're going to wait until the 5e game is complete, then go back and play AV more regularly.

 

[Velderan]

I think I haven't done a great job highlighting the NPCs in town. I wanted to avoid the info dump of "here are the 26 people whose names you need to know" and was introducing them gradually, but probably without enough of a hook to make them memorable. I wrote up a cheat sheet for the players (locations in town, who they've met, main quest & side quest info, etc.) which will hopefully make Otari more interesting.

We also switched from playing 3 times a month down to 1 (the other GM was ready to run the last segment of our multi-year 5e campaign!), which made it hard to remember what was going on anyway. So we're going to wait until the 5e game is complete, then go back and play AV more regularly.

I provided my players the guide Paizo made available and one of them latched on to some of the info, wanting his character to be from Otari and we came up with some immediate connections for him. Two of the players went with connections to Wrin from their past to bring them to Otari at her request. I'd need to dig through my notes for the other 3, but they didn't really have major connections and were just passing through as things started.

The group started forming bonds with the townspeople since I encouraged them to use different vendors in town to sell stuff.

Spoiler: NPC spoiler

They actually were starting to become friends with Carmen Rajani prior to him stealing the sword. They hadn't met the mayor, so they were sympathetic to his complaints about the mayor's hold on power and some of his gripes made sense to them since they were handling all the town's problems without much connection to the mayor. It made his arson and theft of the sword that much better when they had to deal with it.

 

[KidMidnight]

I provided my players the guide Paizo made available and one of them latched on to some of the info, wanting his character to be from Otari and we came up with some immediate connections for him. Two of the players went with connections to Wrin from their past to bring them to Otari at her request. I'd need to dig through my notes for the other 3, but they didn't really have major connections and were just passing through as things started.

The group started forming bonds with the townspeople since I encouraged them to use different vendors in town to sell stuff.

Spoiler: NPC spoiler

They actually were starting to become friends with Carmen Rajani prior to him stealing the sword. They hadn't met the mayor, so they were sympathetic to his complaints about the mayor's hold on power and some of his gripes made sense to them since they were handling all the town's problems without much connection to the mayor. It made his arson and theft of the sword that much better when they had to deal with it.

I think we also have suffered a bit from playing the Beginner's Box first, just in that they made characters for what we thought was going to be a one-shot trying out a different system, so nobody worried too much about character backgrounds or motivations - just finding a class that interested them and figuring out the mechanics.

Only after we played PF2e and enjoyed it (especially with the amazing Foundry modules) did we decide to play AV. I did share the Player's Guide for the AP with them, but I'm not sure anyone really dug into it. Maybe I can suggest they take a look at it when we get close to playing again, and find a couple NPCs or places in town that they can have some connection to - either retcon, or based on something that happened. They did sample a bunch of experimental drinks/potions for Magiloy, for instance, and one of them took the alchemist multiclass archetype, maybe he could be an apprentice at the shop.