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

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

We are playing all 3 adventure paths, and are already through with Shackled City. Another one as the Shackled City DM is running Age of Worms, and the Shackled City DM is running Savage Tides.

I liked Shackled City a lot, so far. It was pretty hard at the beginning because we started off with a suboptimal group and only 3 players. We had a Ranger, a Barbarian and a Bard to begin with. Without a Cleric, the Barbarian died to quickly, so I rolled up a Fighter instead. Later, a new player came to the group and played a Cleric, and I think since then (and some "Leadershipping"), the group worked pretty well.

I enjoyed the campaign a lot. This is partially due to the good DM, but also because it was an ongoing storyline and our group managed to be pretty important part in it. The Bard got the plane, my Fighter became city mayor (thanks to the Bard), so the characters felt important.
I still know that I learned to hate Save or Die effects in the game a lot, because it just happened to often. My "favourite" encounter with this was this:
My Fighter's soul and body was stolen by one one of the NPCs (I guess readers of the book know when this happens, I only know the player side) at the end of the last encounter. This sucked a bit, because, well, there was nothing I could to. Anyway, the solar/planetar/angel/celestial creature thingy that aided us indirectly in the past came down to help us. This was the beginning of the new adventure. She just told us the "great plan" and of the dangers to come. I was to play her character for the time being.
The Bard decided to investigate some items in the room the last fight had taken place in. Triggered a trap. Several characters made their Fortitude Save against a death effect. My temporary replacement character failed. AAAAARGH! Okay, it was fun, in a way, because, you know, dying without any enemies around, before anything actually happened, well, it doesn't happen often. Well, a true resurrection later, and this was fixed.

Age of Worms suffers a bit from the DM, I think. The other one has a better way to describe the events and the plot. I had to pass a few sessions, so I am not actually up to date. I know the campaign has proven pretty deadly (we are again only 3-4 players, with 25 point buy!), and one of our on-going jokes is "Who will die today!" (more often then not, it appears to be the Duskblade). Taking Leadership did also help this group, even though it causes a major headache for some (The Duskblade player has a Cleric cohort..)
I am playing a Cleric/Radiant Servant of Pelor, and I figured out that Turning Undead is pretty useless unless you twink out your turning levels somehow.
I think the strange worms that can turn you undead (if that's what they do, I never encountered them before the party began to burn itself to counter these beasts) well, annoying.

Savage Tides has been pretty good so far, except for one tragical encounter:
Exactly during the scene where one of the passengers is infected with a Slaad, our Druid player was missing. Consequence is: What could have been a simple Heal check nearly lead to a TPK during the combat, and my Warlock character died an ugly dead on an unnamed shore... All his plans on "conquering" the dear Lady Lavina destroyed...)
Well, I rolled up a new Warlock - despite having mostly the same abilities, with a distinctively different personality...

Both in Savage Tides and in Shackled City I loved the encounters related to the enemies plotting to kill us.
In Shackled City (I guess the whole thing was planned by the adventure designers) we caught our enemies in a meeting, discussing our demise, and destroyed them in a very challenging fight. (The assassination attempt a while before that was _very_ different, and could have lead to an TPK)

In Savage Tides, we were supposed to get caught in the dungeon where Lavinas Brother trapped his "comrade". Well, we found he dungeon just because we went a little bit exploring the isles, and we ensured that there was no cheap way to keep us inside (not that it would have made any difference, but we so paranoid to hide our boat and the disc that blocked the entry).
Later, when we infiltrated the underground camp/guild (whatever it was called), we found the place where the enemy was _supposed_ to plan our demise (it was a lot of fun for our DM, as I think there were even hand-outs describing the plans that never happened). Except he couldn't because they never got in a place where they would be made aware of our plans.
Thanks to a magical item found in the adventure (summoned some kind of Earth Elemental a few levels above ours) and pretty tough fighting, we also managed to kill most of the enemy gangs troops.

So, if I may make a suggestion for further adventure path: at some time, the player characters should be known as a force to be reckoned with, and including some signs or encounters that this is the case is fun. It's probably the next best thing to introducing a real recurring villain (which rarely works in D&D).

 

[jdrakeh]

Very interesting. It seems that as APs progress toward higher levels, fewer people are playing them. Hmmm. . .

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

To echo Erik: This is indeed a great and helpful thread!

As for why things skew away from high level, I suspect the main reason is that high level play is just too complex and unfortunately not as much fun as a result. Also... you've got to account for attrition, either from TPKs that take the fun out of a game on down to groups just getting tired of a campaign. AND: It takes a long time to finish these things; in our office Age of Worms campaign, we just recently started Champion's Belt, and we started playing that campaign before the first adventure came out!

Looking at our sales, we've certainly seen the same trend there; more issues sold at the start of the campaigns than at the end.

Anyway, them's the main reasons that our first Pathfinder campaign doesn't go all the way to 20th level.

I might add at this point: Our group is desperately looking for good high level adventures! We are always forced to stop at Levels 16-18 tops, because there are just no more adventures available by then.

A good solution might be to take a cue from the D&D 4 design ideas: Have a "heroic" adventure path going to 10th level and coming to a fulfilling conclusion. Then have a "paragonic" (if that's the adjective) adventure path going to 20th level, that has some plot/NPC hooks allowing the characters from the first adventure path to go on...

 

[catsclaw227]

I ran STAP for a group up through Sea Wyvern's Wake, and unfortunately I moved, so that is being put on hiatus until we can schedule and decide the best wayto play it online (i.e. use some kind of VTT.) The group loved it so far, and they have all the usual stuff going on: Hatred for Vanthus, loathing of the annoying Avner, and one PC has a crush on Lavinia.

There is No Honor was a really fun adventure, because they felt like they really were heroes at low level after the it was completed.

Bullywug's Gambit had 3 different adventures, really, and they all came together well, bring them into a closer relationship with their patron.

The Sea Wyvern's Wake was great, they really felt the strain of being on a long and grueling ocean voyage (though I did stretch it out quite abit). Lots of great NPC intrigue.

I hope we will get to run Here There Be Monsters online sometime really soon.

Since I have settled into my new home in North Carolina, we have started playing AOW and are only two game sessions into Whispering Cairn. I wanted to start with Runelords, but alas it wasn't out yet when we started this one and the players love their PCs and their relationship to Diamond Lake, each other, and the background story.

Who knows, maybe if there is a TPK sometime later, we can play the other one, but so far, I really like AoW so far.

Age of Worms: Currently running this, we're at Spire of Long Shadows, and yeah it's nuts (the adventure, not the AP). This is the best AP, IMO. Whispering Cairn ruled, and up until now, all of the adventures have been great. WC and Champion's Belt in particular were fun. Looking forward to Prince of Redhand.

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).

What is it about Spire of Long Shadows that I should look out for, and what recommendations would you make so that the adventure is more game-friendly?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

oh, I just remember something: The aggressive birds on the isle and the encounters with them were pretty boring. These animals had no interesting feature at all. Fighting dinosaurs would have been cooler.

 

[The_Universe]

I haven't played anyof them, but I absolutely want to play Savage Tide, and would be willing to give Age of Worms a try.

 

[Agamon]

What is it about Spire of Long Shadows that I should look out for, and what recommendations would you make so that the adventure is more game-friendly?

Here's the deal: The adventure is ladden with new monsters that take up a heck of a lot of magazine space. However, as an adventure in the AP, the PCs need to level up twice before moving on. A much shorter adventure makes this a challenge. So two things resulted. One, A lot of XP is given out for events where the PCs learn something, but no real encounter occurs. Two, the short-ish dungeon is deadly. Very, very deadly. Taking on more than one encounter without full resources is grounds for a PC death (at least).

I'm going to shorten the adventure further and just give out the XP that they would gotten from the adventure as is. Rest, fight, rest, fight, rest, fight, die just isn't a lot of fun.

 

[wildstarsreach]

I have played age of worms beginning to end, shackle city to 8th so far, savage tide to 16th so far and war of the burning sky to 5th so far.

 

[Steel_Wind]

I too am observing how the data shows that there is a consistent drop off of players who start an AP vs those who finish it.

I think there are a number of factors here that work against finishing a campaign. Boredom can set in. Difficulties in keeping the players together. TPKs. And yes, high level play in D&D has its fans - but it sure as hell has its enemies too.

For my own part, I embarked on running a 1st to 20th level 3.5 RAW campaign with boundless optimism. Like all things, where the rubber meets the road as you play along is the real test.

When you are into a campaign for two years and there is another year or more left to go...and your enthusiasm is waning...it seems like a very different proposition then when it started.

It's gratifying to read how many people played it through. But when the numbers seem to indicate that the last third of the campaign is being finished by a third of those who started it (regardless of AP) - something in the data is pointing to real problems.

Perhaps at Paizo, the best way to deal with that is to look at building in potential climaxes to the AP a little earlier. So that if players want to treat the thing as Season 1, Season 2 and Season 3 - they can play Season 1 and 2 and get the sense of some completion of the story at that point.

Which is not to say it's a full resolution. The final third should be there for people who want to play it and it should MEAN something to them. But making things happy for the high level players can be done while still meeting the needs and expectations in terms of satisfying story resolution for the low to mid level players.

All promises to the contrary, I expect that the delineations between low, mid level, high and epic level play will continue to persist in 4E.

(Yes - I was in Indy for the unveiling of 4E when Chris Perkins assured all of us there that the "sweet spot" would be there for 1st through 30th level in 4E. In case the recording of the presentation missed it, there was a LOT of snickering and "yeah rights" that came from the back of the room when Perkins promised that. I didn't believe him then - and I don't believe him now, either.)

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I personally haven't played or run any of the AP's. I read all of the SCAP adventures when they first came out and they seemed like a lot of fun. I have the hardcover and will probably run my players through the SCAP once our current campaign concludes a couple of months from now.

I also have the issues for the AoW and ST AP's. I haven't read much of either of them but I dream of one day running both of them as well. At the moment there seems to be a lot of great adventures that I want to run. It's a pity I'll never be able to run them all.

Olaf the Stout