Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder Adventure Path: How Successful?

[ggroy]

Bingo.

And why do it?

As strange as it may seem, there are a lot of people who won't touch a product that they COULD use with little difficulty if it's not for their game system. I'm not one of those on certain types of books like sourcebooks. (Adventures on the other hand... I generally tend to avoid.)

Stamping it 4e could expand the product base. Now, wither it could expand it enough to justify antoher print run of a different product, that's another question that I don't know the answer too.

One unorthodox way of doing this without doing another printing, would be to make a deck of monster cards from the Paizo books like "classical monsters revisited", "dragons revisited", "dungeon denizens revisited", "classic horror revisited", etc ... with the monster statistics in 4E format on the cards.

 

[JoeGKushner]

And Paizo already does other things in card format...

 

[ggroy]

In my experience so far, the main stumbling blocks in translating the 3.5E Paizo AP's to 4E involves converting the monsters and other badguys/bosses correctly for an encounter. Generic monsters can be taken straight from the 4E monster manuals. More powerful badguys aren't always so straightforward since they may have powers which could be implemented as an at-will, encounter, or daily, along with possible action points and/or second winds. I end up rewriting them using the rough guidelines in the 4E DM guide for more powerful badguys fitting a particular type of class.

For the most part, the rest of the stuff can be used unchanged or modified slightly, such as skill checks, saving throws, etc ....

 

[NiTessine]

Never had a Dragon or Dungeon subscription, but I started subscribing Pathfinder with the Second Darkness AP, after buying all twelve that came out before that.

Top-notch stuff. I've picked up most of their other Pathfinder stuff at least in PDF, and am planning to subscribe Pathfinder Companion and Pathfinder Chronicles soon.

 

[Dice4Hire]

In my experience so far, the main stumbling blocks in translating the 3.5E Paizo AP's to 4E involves converting the monsters and other badguys/bosses correctly for an encounter. Generic monsters can be taken straight from the 4E monster manuals.

I do use some 4E monsters in my 3.5 games, and overall it works well, but not always. Some monsters are wildly different power levels from what they used to be, and you have to know the rules very well to balance encounters. Paizo knows 3.5, and their Pathfinder series, but I am not sure how well they know 4E. Certainly on a player or DM level, but on a designer and developer level? I'm sure not, as Paizo has hitched their cart to a different horse.

I just don't think it would be easy or quick to suddenly go form 3.5/PF to 4E. Especially after nearly a whole year of going the non-4E route, with customers who prefer that route.

 

[catsclaw227]

Out of curiosity, why?

I would do this PM if I could, but I cannot.

Maybe I am misremembering your like of DMing 4e? I could be confusing you with another that has talked about their experiences as a 4e DM.

And being a 4e DM and not subscribing to or trying DDI seems odd, since it has proven to be such a valuable tool to most other 4e DMs I know and many that post here with regularity.

 

[JeffB]

I'd say it's fairly obvious that PF's Adventure Paths have been successful and Paizo puts out a quality product. I checked out some materials (the monsters book, a couple of the PF adventures. as well as the Golarion setting book) locally and they were very well done, though they did not capture my interest.

For my own part I sub'ed back when there was only THE Dragon, and Dragon mags. Then laid off the mags for many years (due to being out of gaming) until the last year or two of 2E. Re-subbed to Dragon, and then to Dragon & Dungeon for the first few years of 3E's existence into 3.5. 3.x has it's own sort of flavor and caters to certain styles of gaming/gamers I cannot relate to/with, and so I found the magazines/adventures far less useful/entertaining over time cmpared to the 2E years I subbed. So they got dropped.

As for the APs, and subscribing, I'm not a fan of the format regardless of system. I don't play 3.X /PF so defintely would not buy/subscribe to one of those, nor would I buy one for S&W, S&S, BFRPG, or 4E( D&D games I love) The fact that the current DDI version of Dungeon is half adventure path each month is another nail in the coffin of why I won't sub (the others being WOTC just generally unable to produce adventure material I like/use , but mostly the lack of VTT).

Bottom line- I like variety, and am not a fan of long drawn out adventure campaigns/story arcs- I def prefer the pulp short story, or novella route ala REH - smaller, non related (except for perhaps the recurring villian) adventures (I'm also not a fan of the old school Mega Dungeons ala Zagyg/GH either).

 

[GlassJaw]

I was a Dungeon subscriber and loved the magazine even when I wasn't DM'ing or actively gaming.

When Dungeon went away, I continued my subscription with Pathfinder to check it out. I really enjoyed the first three modules of the original AP. After that, I was somewhat disappointed with the high-level adventures.

I canceled after that, due to my disappointment with the ending of the AP and the fact that I didn't need more modules.

I'm still keeping an eye on what Paizo releases but since I don't need another campaign setting, have more than enough 3ed modules than I know what do with, and that I won't be migrating to Pathfinder, my Paizo purchases in the near future will probably be minimal.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

I was a subscriber to dungeon/dragon, and I used the "extra money" to have them send me old, oop copies of those magazines rather than switching to pathfinder.

I wanted to continue on with dungeon, as I wasn't a huge fan of adventure paths, and pathfinder didn't offer me what Dragon did (or so I thought). I wanted snippets (individual adventures I could link and also articles on the game).

I fought hard on the gleemax forums for the new magazines to become appropriately transitioned replacements, and after it became clear to me that they were not going to be (prior to the release of 4e), I gave up.

Eventually, I had collected enough other modules (dungeon crawl classics, necromancer games', freeport, etc) that I didn't need snippets anymore. Adventure paths became appealing to me again, in that they were a way to see how others developed an entire story. So I started subscribing and haven't canceled since.

I plan to continue even after the transition to the new ruleset, though that is more of a negative than a positive for me...at least now, when I haven't yet seen it. Once I see it, that may change.

 

[johnnype]

I really like what Paizo is doing not only with the AP series but with the entire Pathfinder Chronicles line. Their material is at least as well produced as WotC's. However, I'm very much on the fence about which edition to continue with.

Right now I'm thinking of resubscribing with the next AP (Council of Thieves) as it will focus on Cheliax, a region in Golarion I'm particularly interested in. Along with that I'd probably buy the Princes of Darkness book(s) detailing devils in the setting, as well as the Cheliax Companion.

Two books I'd be very interested in seeing from Paizo include an updated Pathfinder Campaign Setting (one that includes some or all of the excellent companion material) and a new set of psionics rules. Much has been said about psionics on the Paizo message boards but I get the feeling James Jacobs really has no interest in it at all. I know he says he likes psionics but it needs to be his way or the high way. He is in charge so I suppose it's his call. If he can make it better fantastic but the bar is set pretty high depending on who you ask.

As far as 4E is concerned, I'll be damned if it doesn't look appealing. Something about the streamlined feel of the rules makes it appear a lot more fun than the rules bloat of the past.