Pathfinder 1E Have you played or run Paizo's Adventure Paths?

[GlassJaw]

I will come back to an AP again in the future, but I think given that I run on average only about once ever 3 weeks, a full campaign to 20th level is out of the question for me in the future. A 1st to 12th level campaign, otoh, would be just fine.

That's pretty much my take as well. I ran about half of SC and it just got too much. I hate high-level play in 3ed. Pathfinder is supposed to run from 1-15 so I'd probably be more inclined to run that if I ever ran an AP again.

 

[kenobi65]

In the middle of #3 of Age of Worms. Our group doesn't meet very often (once a month, if we're lucky), but it's our intention to play it all the way through...given that our last campaign took 3 1/2 years to go from level 1 to 20, we'll be at it for a while.

 

[Crust]

I've been running Age of Worms on FR's Sword Coast since March of '06. We're currently at party level 11, and the group recently won the Champion's Belt games in Waterdeep.

I've also been able to work in other modules, some that I've dusted off from years past and some new ones I had to include: Dymrak Dread, Sons of Gruumsh, and Dungeon's "Vampire's of Waterdeep" modules by Eric L. Boyd. The group is about to infiltrate Ilthane the Black's lair, and I'm using Xak Tsaroth from the DL module Dragons of Despair as the dragon's home.

I love Paizo's adventure paths. They give busy DMs a solid foundation upon which he/she can build so much. They're invaluable.

 

[ShadowX]

From the many responses I gleam a targeted opprobrium at the high-level portions of the campaigns. Is this actually poor module construction or a combination of how hard high-level D&D is to run and the lengths an adventure must traverse to challenge high-level PCs?

 

[S. Baldrick]

Spire of Long Shadows pretty much killed my AOW campaign with a TPK and frustrated players... even with the baiting from me that a) it was really going to be very tough, and b) the next leg of the adventure would be much more roleplay intensive. We moved on to play a freeform campaign set in Ptolus.

I definitely feel your pain with Spire of Long Shadows. We had 5 character deaths and the fights that just seemed to drag on and on. Everyone, including myself as DM was just glad to finish it up and put it away. We are taking a break while someone else runs The Savage Tide. I am hoping that The Prince of Redhand will revive the Age of Worms Campaign.

 

[DM_Jeff]

I ran the Shackled City hardcover from start to finish, it was a great game once I snipped out all the empty/useless rooms fromt he first few dungeons.

I'll be starting Pathfinder 1 in Jan 2008. At one point I'll no doubt do Savage Tide but there's not a whole ton of love for Age of Worms from what I read so I may skip that one.

-DM Jeff

 

[MerricB]

From the many responses I gleam a targeted opprobrium at the high-level portions of the campaigns. Is this actually poor module construction or a combination of how hard high-level D&D is to run and the lengths an adventure must traverse to challenge high-level PCs?

It's a combination. High-level D&D is a pain to run - I'm pretty good at it, but even I balk at having to run 5 different level 14+ NPCs against the party (as you get in Library of Last Resort). There's a lot of dice and adding up, and the spell effects can be... odd. It's got it's attractions, but I'm really looking forward to 4e on that front. And the less said about spell-wielding dragons the better.

However, it doesn't really excuse some of the adventure design. Spire of Long Shadows is awful design. I keep hearing of groups who reached it and then abandoned the campaign after it. (The only adventure that I think has worse design is Encounter at Blackwall Keep, and that's because lizardfolk are not a threat for level 5+ PCs).

Kings of the Rift really doesn't make much sense. I rather like Into the Wormcrawl Fissure, though it's main plot is poorly presented (IMO) - the individual encounters can be rather nice. Dawn of a New Age isn't that bad, but is ruined by every monster being Immune to Crits and Sneak Attack. The net effect of which - especially considering the Big Bad is also immune Crits - is to make the rogue think "why am I here?"

Cheers!

 

[Rauol_Duke]

I ran my once a month group throught SCAP and AoWAP with great results. Now I am getting to play (yipee!!!) in the STAP with the same group. We have just finished Tides of Dread and I'm having a blast. Paizo's adventure paths are the most well-put-together campaigns I've ran/played in 3.x edition. I'm glad to see them continuing in the form of Pathfinder .

 

[Squire James]

I have run games for all 3 AP's so far, so without further ado...

My Shackled City campaign ended with a TPK about half-way through... at a pretty bad point because "Secrets of the Soul Pillars" was almost completely based on events that happened earlier in the series. I salvaged the final advenure in a different high-level campaign, but that was the best I could do with it. I considered the series a bit weak from Soul Pillars to the second-last adventure anyway. The party wasn't interested in basking in the illogical glory of the beholder-with-weird-templates.

My Age of Worms campaign started out well. The PC's loved to hate Diamond Lake, so much so that they left town early in the second adventure and never came back! Perhaps I was not excited enough about it, or not good enough at improv, but it never got on track after that.

My Savage Tide campaign is still on-going. We are in the middle of the second adventure, and none of the current PC's are original PC's. It was good that they put this decent second chance for everyone to hate Vanthus in this second adventure, or I'm not sure if this one would have survived! This campaign's is on a thin rope, but I have some hope for it. I had to cheat to keep a character from being killed in one round this week, though, and I hate doing that.

 

[FunkBGR]

I've run SC three times now - two to completion (one with magazines, one just completed this summer with the hardcover).

I've run Age of Worms twice now - once to around 8th levels with two groups doing it at the same time (split them down the middle and adjust levels accordingly. Prince of RedHand adjusted down by 10 levels - actually works well). Started second group about 3 weeks ago.

I'm okay at high levels too - I tend to keep track of stats and know what I'm going to be doing. I tend to view pre-fab adventures as guidelines to what's supposed to happen, and the higher in level they are, the more of an outline they are.