So due to various ******** drama with the group I normally play with on Saturday nights, I'm thinking of stepping entirely away from those guys and running something for my best friend and some others.

I've got quite a few Pathfinder supplements including the core book, advanced player guide, ultimate magic, and some setting books (I really like their setting).

Does anyone have any experience with the Adventure Paths?

There were a few (Carrion Crown, Legacy of Fire) which sounded interesting, but I'm specifically looking for something that would work (or easily adapt) to a group of probably 2-3 adventurers, and a GM (me) who's completely new to that side of the table. Aside from a few Champions: New Millenium games about 13 years ago, I've got no experience GM'ing.

I think my DM is using a heavily modified one, extensively using some of the lore they set up for the Andoran region... it's pretty intense and I've been thoroughly enjoying it. They've really got some impressive lore laid out for some of the areas.

Pathfinder is probably my favorite setting so far for tabletop.

Agreed. I was a big fan of Forgotten Realms with D&D, but I can't stand the 4e stuff - there's just no detail to the world anymore, due to their "all the lore comes in the novels and from the players" philosophy with the new system.

Golarion's quickly becoming my new favorite world, even if I'm not the biggest fan of the 3/3.5e system.

We're thinking of trying something with Pathfinder. I like that item creation doesn't cost XP in this system - something that pissed me off about 3.0 and 3.5.

If you go for an adventure path, the Council of Thieves series seems pretty awesome. It's very urban (all centered around one city and its outskirts), and has a lot of variety to it. The second adventure is basically a huge play for the characters to act in while they're infiltrating someplace. Reminded me of FF3/6..

That said, if your group's more into straight dungeon crawls, it's probably not the AP for you :D I guess some of the earlier ones (Rise of the Runelords) had a more "classic" feel.

I'm going to be DM'ing my first Pathfinder module this coming weekend - Crypt of the Everflame. Looks like we'll probably have five players, so I'll have to scale up the encounters a little bit, since the module is made for four first level players. So far it looks like a good balance of fighting and puzzle solving, so everyone should have something that appeals to them.

Boy am I glad I checked on how to scale up adventures before Saturday - we ended up with SEVEN folks. Fun so far, tripped through it a bit, but I'll get better.

I never did end up actually running anything, it all kind of fell apart. Not that it really began..

But yeah, glad you're at least enjoying it :P

We had a bunch of new stuff on pre-order from Amazon, and it seems that Paizo and Amazon have had a falling out, because the orders are all getting cancelled. Looking into it further, will post anything I find...

A lot of the stuff on Amazon isn't coming directly from the publishers, but other suppliers.. a lot of the gaming companies (Paizo and FFG) end up shipping to actual brick & mortar gaming stores before sending to suppliers who then supply online stores.

I'm divided on it.

On the one hand, I really liked that doing anything permanent with magic required the use of XP. Whether it was magic items, creating golems, Permanancy. I thought it was a fantastic way of representing the caster sacrificing a piece of himself in order create something that lasts.

On the other hand, everything is just much easier when you know all the players in the party have the exact same amount of XP and will pretty much continue to always be the same level as each other.

So from a "mechanics representing roleplaying" standpoint I prefer the 3.5 method. But from an "ease of play" standpoint, Pathfinder is better.

We had a house rule in our D3.5 campaigns that divided the exp cost for items amongst all players in the group. So instead of just the caster paying it, everyone paid a part for it. Works amazingly well.

That's a pretty good idea.

I guess I just don't like the idea that in Pathfinder you can just go "well, I've got the feat, and a pile of gold, guess I can make any magic item I want". I feel like there's should be another resource at play there besides purely cash.

It also always bothers me how the crafting of the items themselves was never relevant to making magic items. The most powerful magic sword in the game can still be made by someone who can hit a 15 on a smithing roll.

Kinda makes the whole concept of the famous master smith kind of pointless.

I rather like that house rule. If we ever run a 3.5 campaign again, I'll have to bring that one up.

My group's Pathfinder house rules let the creater of magic items spend 'time', or life-force in the form of aging. So they don't lose experience, but they do get older quicker. This is one of the reasons why Elven crafted items are so prolific compared to other races. Also why Liches have an edge with nasty magical items.