I've been platooned into running a second D&D game in the near future by my hobby club. Given that, I wanted a mostly self-contained set of adventures to run this group on, but I also wanted something easy to run, meaning minimal stating-prep for me if time constraints tighten a bit. So I'm thinking about using one of the two newer Adventure Paths from Dungeon. I have all of Savage Tide in print, and can go out and buy the rest of the issues of Age of Worms as downloads from Paizo at a reasonable price ($55). My question is, which of these paths runs better? I'm talking in terms of correct difficulty level (my group looks to be a bit less then optimized, so bear that in mind) story, variety of opponents, ect. I have the first part of the Age of Worms path (Wispering Cairn) which seems rather hard. Are the rest of the adventures in the series as punishing to no-optimized parties?
Which Adventure Path to go with?
- Thread starter R_kajdi
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Festivus
First Post
Having run both Adventure paths for a little while, I can tell you this. Age of Worms will kill them. If Whispering Cairn doesn't get them, the Spire will.
Savage Tide on the other hand seems a bit more forgiving in the difficulty department thus far (we are just wrapping up the Tides of Dread adventure), but still there are plenty of TPK opportunities.
With either of these adventure paths bear in mind that they take a long, long time to complete, and they are very railroaded plots (less so with Savage Tide but it's still there). For running adventures where you don't have to do a lot, these are great, but my players and myself get frustrated a bit when they want to go a direction opposite the main plotlines... it suddenly becomes just as difficult as running any other adventure.
Savage Tide on the other hand seems a bit more forgiving in the difficulty department thus far (we are just wrapping up the Tides of Dread adventure), but still there are plenty of TPK opportunities.
With either of these adventure paths bear in mind that they take a long, long time to complete, and they are very railroaded plots (less so with Savage Tide but it's still there). For running adventures where you don't have to do a lot, these are great, but my players and myself get frustrated a bit when they want to go a direction opposite the main plotlines... it suddenly becomes just as difficult as running any other adventure.
Desdichado
Hero
Depending on your DMing style, both of them can be brutal PC killers.
But neither of them have to be. It's more a question of your style than anything else. In particular I think the problem is worse with Savage Tides (IMO) because it presents itself as this swasbuckling pirate adventure path, at least at the beginning, and then it brutally punishes any PC who tries to behave like a swashbuckling pirate.
But in terms of "which one is more likely to kill my characters" I'd say they're both about equal.
But neither of them have to be. It's more a question of your style than anything else. In particular I think the problem is worse with Savage Tides (IMO) because it presents itself as this swasbuckling pirate adventure path, at least at the beginning, and then it brutally punishes any PC who tries to behave like a swashbuckling pirate.
But in terms of "which one is more likely to kill my characters" I'd say they're both about equal.
WizarDru
Adventurer
Personally, I'd go with the new Pathfinder adventure path; Burnt Offerings is a swell adventure with great production values. True, it's not out yet, but the first book covers roughly 1st-3rd/4th level and is mostly self-contained.
Also, note that different adventure paths make different assumptions about party size, when using any of them.
Also, note that different adventure paths make different assumptions about party size, when using any of them.
Zurai
First Post
There's still plenty of TPK opportunities in Rise of the Runelords.
SPOILERS FOR FIRST TWO MODULES OF RISE OF THE RUNELORDS!
[sblock]Malfeshnekor will demolish any 4th-level party that tries to fight him; the only thing that saves a TPK is the fact that he can't leave his room. In the 2nd module, the haunted house has many save-or-die traps, and the final boss is about as brutal as Malfeshnekor except she isn't prevented from chasing the PCs down[/sblock]
That said, I too heartily recommend the Pathfinder AP (Rise of the Runelords is the first/current one). The only sticking point is the price, really.
SPOILERS FOR FIRST TWO MODULES OF RISE OF THE RUNELORDS!
[sblock]Malfeshnekor will demolish any 4th-level party that tries to fight him; the only thing that saves a TPK is the fact that he can't leave his room. In the 2nd module, the haunted house has many save-or-die traps, and the final boss is about as brutal as Malfeshnekor except she isn't prevented from chasing the PCs down[/sblock]
That said, I too heartily recommend the Pathfinder AP (Rise of the Runelords is the first/current one). The only sticking point is the price, really.
Festivus said:
My group has found that Age of Worms is much less lethal if you import the Action Point mechanic from Eberron.
It helps to both make those crucial saves and to drop big bads one round early by nudging your to-hit roll just over the AC (often the difference between life and death).
Glyfair
Explorer
Indeed, Paizo was bragging about how brutal first issue of Pathfinder was.Zurai said:
If you have players with less than optimized characters (and are "less than optimized" sort of players), I recommend either trying something else, adjusting everything down, or else just prepare them for a bloodbath sort of campaign.
Agamon
Adventurer
Zurai said:
Weird. Nobody died in WC in my AoW game, I thought it was one of the best modules of the path (currently playing Prince of Redhand, and that is totally awesome). The first death in AoW didn't happen until the paladin thought it was more important to take down the spawns of Kyuss in the 3rd adventure and ignore the Kyuss worm crawling on him.
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