I liked the format of what I did for Second Darkness, and thought I ought to go back to do the first two adventure paths of that format before I forget too much about them (way too late for Shackled City, Age of Worms and Savage Tide... although maybe with a good summary of each adventure I could still pull it off...)
Rise of the Runelords was Paizo's first adventure path after being cut loose from Dungeon Magazine and having to go on their own. Maybe for that reason, they went with pretty classic stuff, which is both good and bad. Runelords is generally considered by most to be one of the better adventure paths, and one of the ones remembered most fondly by fans. But, of course, being really "classic" means that sometimes it's not really very interesting, and it does predictable things. But not too badly. It really is a good adventure path, and honestly, I think Paizo stumbled across the right format when they made their own publication. The Dungeon Magazine ones were honestly too long. Savage Tide and Age of Worms, for instance, were 12 modules long and went from 1st to over 20th level. That might have been true for Shackled City, but then again, one or two of those chapters might have been added later when it was compiled into a single volume. I can't remember now. Six chapters, from levels 1-15 or so with each chapter being, admittedly, a bit longer than a Dungeon Magazine module, was the right format.
In fact, I'd have gone even further, and had it be four chapters of two slightly slower levels each, but that's probably just me. I think most D&D players aspire to higher level, even if they don't actually play it much. I've done it and the experience has taught me that I don't really want to do it again.
Here's a slightly different take on Karzoug, the iconic runelord who iconically rises. I would have actually done another pass at him, but I'm out of images for the day on ChatGPT, and I like this take. I would just have changed the pattern of the gems on his forehead, and said that his topknot is coming out of a mohawk with shaved sides to his head, and his hair isn't that white; more salt and pepper.
Anyway, what do I think of the various chapters of this AP?
Burnt Offerings: I've actually used the first act of this, combined with another Paizo stand-alone module, for a one-shot. I'm admittedly less interested in the final act; an "assault" on a goblin lair. I admit that it feels very iconically D&D, but not in a good way. It feels tired to me. That said, Sandpoint itself is a great setting, and the first two (of three) acts here are quite good.
The Skinsaw Murders: This is one of my favorite modules period. I really, really like it, although I admit that I'm a bit less interested in the final act of it too, where you go to town and face a boss beyond the one in the haunted house. Naturally, adapting it to fit into another context other than what they intended you to use it for means that some of it won't make sense, and cutting much of the final act has been my solution. But it's just a great module.
The Hook Mountain Massacre: This one is OK. Parts of it, again, are pretty good, while the hillbilly ogres kind of rubbed me the wrong way a little bit. The stuff up by the lake and the occupied ranger fort were pretty good for that kind of thing. There are elements of it I'd borrow, but it started veering into territory that I had less interest in, with more traditional D&D feels at times.
Fortress of the Stone Giants: I don't want to say that I kind of checked out on Runelords by this chapter, but I kind of did. By the time they're talking about how characters can travel via fly or teleport, I don't feel like I understand the game anymore, nor is it in the same genre that I really, really enjoyed in the earlier levels. The attack on the town by giants, and how the PCs can handle that was reasonably well done, I suppose, but it wasn't something that I was as interested in anymore, and the attack that the PCs make on the giants' own fortress just felt like a dungeon-crawl.
Sins of the Saviors: This one felt like a place filler; stuff that you needed to do, mostly in a dungeon, to get to high enough level to do the last module. Very little in this one interested me.
Spires of Xin-Shalast: Here, I'm kind of torn. The high altitude mountain survival stuff is really interesting, as is the Lovecraftian stuff at the destroyed city, which sometimes has the feel of a Mountains of Madness city lite. But it's also a relatively high level D&D adventure and dungeon-crawl, with factions in the dungeons to interact with, and a pretty predictable BBEG at the end. I enjoyed reading it well enough; I don't know how much I'd enjoy playing it, and I know I wouldn't enjoy running it. I did play partially through this campaign once years ago, but the GM got burned out and quit near the end of chapter III, so we didn't get to the final chapters. That was the same GM who ran us through all 22-23 levels, or however many it ended up being exactly, of Age of Worms.
I think that I have certain patterns when it comes to the adventure paths: 1) I don't enjoy higher level play, so I tend to think that the last few chapters require special pleading to be interesting to me. 2) They're still too long, and should probably be cut by at least a third, with slower leveling. Ideally (obviously) I'd have preferred them to be compatible with E6, but I'm not shocked that they're not. 3) Usually around chapter III, IV or V the campaign takes a weird turn, probably on purpose to give it some variety, but it makes the whole section feel a little disjointed and out of place. Making the campaigns smaller would also make them more focused, because there would have been less perceived need to do this. 4) I've long been on record as not really liking dungeon-crawls, and Paizo does tend to include them. Those are usually the parts that I'm most likely to look at trimming out of the campaign.
And those obvious biases impact how I view these adventure paths. Without those biases, Runelords is even better, but for me, it does too many things that I'm less interested in and wish that it didn't. I tend to like the first third or so... maybe almost half of it, and some elements of the finale, and don't care about the big middle section in between them.
The second adventure path, Curse of the Crimson Throne is another very well-regarded one, and considered by many to be one of the best examples of a primarily urban-themed campaign (although not entirely.)
I actually didn't ask ChatGPT to give me all that cleavage. I guess it just assumed that that's what most people want. Which, honestly, is probably true. Otherwise, this is really close to how Paizo also described Queen Ileosa, one of the more complicated and interesting villains. Much more so than Karzoug or Allevrah—or, in most respects, than the even earlier forays with Adimarchus, a Demon Lord of madness (who's sadly not foreshadowed enough), Kyuss, the weird undead demigod or whatever he is, and Demogorgon, the Prince of Demons. Sure, sure, those are iconic villains. But Ileosa is someone you actually see and interact with from the very beginning, and her villainy is perhaps less cosmic and more villainous because of it. None of the adventure paths are perfect, of course, but Crimson Throne is considered one of the best ones for a reason. It was updated to the Pathfinder RPG itself (1e) in a hardback compilation, it was released as an audio drama, an adventure card game, and was even adapted to Savage Pathfinder (although Runelords was all of those things too.) Overall, this one comes highly recommended by me, and I'm actually thinking of how to adapt the whole thing, or at least use it as the backbone of an adaptation, much like how I did with Carrion Crown to Cult of Undeath.
Let's go through it's chapters then, shall we?
Edge of Anarchy: This first adventure is entirely urban, and while it starts off rather small and personal, it gradually gets you involved with the succession crisis and the intrigues and plots of kings and queens and the like.
Seven Days to the Grave: Now firmly (well, I don't know about firmly) on the throne, Queen Ileosa must deal with her first crises, riots, plague and more! But all is not quite as it seems, and there's lots of skullduggery and intrigue to be had.
Escape from Old Korvosa: Now, the Queen is clamping down and proving to be a very bad ruler indeed, and the people, represented by the PCs, can't help but notice that something is very wrong, and getting involved in it. These first three adventures are about as good as these kinds of adventures tend to get. They're well-written, thematically very consistent, and just very well done. The crime lord dungeon-crawl is the only part that I'd lose, but otherwise, I feel like this doesn't need a very strong editing hand to just be a good half campaign. Of course, that's when it decides to go do it's weird mid-point tone shift, which most of the adventure paths seem to have to do.
A History of Ashes: Escaping from the city, you have to essentially join a barbarian tribe to get more information from them. While not a bad idea; this is supposed to be an urban campaign, and this and the next chapters feel a little out of place. If you were to cut back on the length of the campaign overall, the information that you find out here could easily just be told to the PCs by someone in town, skipping the need for this adventure entirely.
Skeletons of Scarwall: Now, you have to go do a totally disconnected dungeon-crawl in yet another remote wilderness location so you can get the special MacGuffin sword needed to defeat Ileosa. Again, this could have been somewhere at the end of Old Korvosa, and you could skip this one entirely too.
Crown of Fangs: Now back in town, you find that things have gotten worse, and the the whole city is rising up against the intolerable rule of Ileosa. Not only is there this exciting uprising to manage, but the assault on the Queen herself, while admittedly kind of an exotic dungeon-crawl, is less intolerable than most, and actually kind of interesting. Somehow the whole finale is the most exciting of them I've read so far, because instead of relying on cheap thrills of doing fantasy stuff that's impossible, you do (mostly) things that are believable and grounded, but certainly in a high fantasy setting against an evil queen who's managed to get her ambitious hands on power that is well above her pay grade.
Now, obviously, I still haven't read most of the adventure paths, but I really like Crimson Throne and suspect that in the end I'll have found it to be one of my favorites.
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