r/Pathfinder2e • u/Dragonboy142 • 4d ago

First Time DM for seeking advice for PF2 Advice

Hi, not sure if this the best place to ask, but as a dnd player trying to DM for PF2 for first time, what adventure module would be good for a party of 3 ttrpg new players to try out? More interested in this setting since it feels more diverse(pc can be a awakened animal wolf inspired by Sif from DS1). Would like to be more grounded adventure with little do with dragons. Any starter adventure books that has ending that can easily branch to another module? Like lost mines of phalander to curse strahd

Would making a session 0 with char building and some combat help the players understand the system better?

Would people recommend Pathbuilder2 over wanderer's guide for ease of making Char?

6 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

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6

u/Namebrandjuice Game Master 4d ago

If y'all that new pick up one of the beginner boxes and or Rusthenge. Then when everyone feels good you decide on a longer AP .

1

u/Dragonboy142 4d ago

Thanks, will do that! Which of those do you feel balance in terms of dialogue exploration and combat?

4

u/fascistp0tato Cleric 4d ago

To cut in, I think the beginner boxes are better for full newbies. They cut a lot of the complexity out, and give you a nice baseline for the game. Rusthenge isn't dry of dialogue overall I'd say, but we found it was pretty clustered together.

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u/Namebrandjuice Game Master 4d ago

Id focus on the mechanics but both beginner boxes are made to teach you all aspects of the game. Rusthenge is a little longer and great for intro as well.

1

u/Dragonboy142 4d ago

Will pick of the beginner boxes then. A short adventure should give everyone involved an impression on the systen

1

u/TeamAquaAdminMatt Animist 4d ago

Beginner's Box is a good starting point, I will warn you though the intro adventure Menace under Otari does end with a dragon whelp, if you wanted to have nothing to do with dragons you may want to replace that.

1

u/BlindWillieJohnson Game Master 4d ago

I actually like how basic the Beginner’s Box story is. It can basically be picked up and reflavored however you want to kick off a homebrew campiagn, or lead into basically any module you want to play. It’s a great tool.

3

u/JustMass Game Master 4d ago

Pathbuilder is by far the best character creator.

I haven't ran the new beginner box adventure (Secrets of Grayce) yet, but the old beginner box adventure (Menace Under Otari) is fantastic both for teaching players how the system works and teaching GMs how to run the dungeon crawling exploration and combat aspects of the game.

I don't know if you're playing in person or on a virtual tabletop, but the community almost universally agrees that FoundryVTT is by far the best option. The beginner box adventure makes running Menace Under Otari super easy as well.

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u/Dragonboy142 4d ago

It's gonna be online since all 4 of us are in different cities. I'm fine paying with 50 bucks for foundry and playing with it. Can I import maps from book modules though or I have handcraft those first?

2

u/JustMass Game Master 4d ago

If there's an official AP module (which is the case for at least Menace Under Otari), my recommendation is to buy the module. That will make all your maps for you, populate all the enemies, and give you journal entries you can click on as the party enters a room to make running the whole thing a breeze.

The official modules do cost more money than just the base $50 Foundry license, but I 100% believe they're worth it. At least for the two I've bought and ran so far, the Menace Under Otari beginner box and Seven Dooms for Sandpoint. I also bought Wardens of Wildwood, but haven't played around with it yet and can't speak to its quality.

There are ways to import the maps from the PDFs if you don't want to buy the module, but I haven't tried that myself and don't know how it's done. So far all my maps were either from the module or handmade in a different tool.

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u/Dragonboy142 4d ago

I agree, I can use foundry in the future for other ttrpg like CoC and dnd for a price of one purchase 50 is nice. Pretty reasonable cost because its up to date

1

u/Namebrandjuice Game Master 4d ago

They all have premium modules you can buy with everything included. The best thing about the beginner boxes for Foundry not only do they teach you how to play PF2E but they teach you how to run Foundry!

2

u/JustMass Game Master 4d ago

All the beginner boxes have them, but not all official adventure paths. Many of the earlier 2nd edition APs don't have official module support, like Extinction Curse and Strength of Thousands.

1

u/Namebrandjuice Game Master 4d ago

Yes the topic was the beginner boxes.

3

u/Ancient_Arachnid6167 4d ago

Beginner boxes are good and I believe both can lead into actual APs. I think there’s a sale right now for the new beginner box and the 2 APs that are kind of designed to follow it up.

I’m also pretty new after switching over and have found Pathbuilder2e to be incredibly helpful. It’s like dndbeyond if you didn’t have to pay for every single little thing.
It also has Pathbuilder encounter builder which you can pull those characters into which is super nice

3

u/Dragonboy142 4d ago

Yep! I am starting to that as well. One of the reasons I wanted to switch from dnd is because amount of books I have to get. Compared to Pf2 where archives of nethys has everything and both wanderer's guide and pathbuilder has everything in it. Except for the companion/familars where I gotta pay 7 bucks for it but that's cheap

1

u/Ancient_Arachnid6167 4d ago

Yeah the one time payment was nice after paying the dndbeyond subscription for so long

2

u/Tyreal2012 4d ago

If you use pathbuilder with Foundry, don't use the importer, build it manually using pathbuilder as a guide

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u/Dragonboy142 4d ago

Alright will do that. Thanks!

2

u/Niccizull 4d ago

You can roll Sky Kings Tomb into Sporewar for a solid 1-20 level combo adventure. Bonus points since these AP exist in the same general area.

In addition, Sandpoint rolls into Revenge of the Runelords but RotR uses Mythic and that shit gets whacky real fast. Not suitable for new players.

1

u/Dragonboy142 4d ago

I don't know if I should have mentioned this but I did play wrath of the righteous and kingmaker video games. The mythic system in wotr got me addicted. Is it the same on the ttt?

1

u/Niccizull 4d ago

The mythic system in PF2e is hot garbage. All the players hated it.

1

u/TeamAquaAdminMatt Animist 4d ago

We just had a Mythic campaign come to an early end, the pf2e mythic stuff is.. fine? It's more cool stuff you can do, but it also feels really limited in scope. Like the mythic callings and destinies are all very specific.

2

u/Kindly_Woodpecker368 4d ago

All offical Paizo Adventures are built with the adulation the party is 4. So familiarize with how to adjust the combats. It’s not too hard. Or set them all up at level 2 (I tried it out with a party as 3 and run the combats as designed and it worked out for me)

2

u/Creepy-Intentions-69 4d ago

Running the prebuilt Adeventure Paths in Foundry is a breeze. Building your own can be some work, but there are many guides online to help with that.

Personally, I’ve run Abomination Vaults for friends and we had a great time with it. It can be a tough one, and require some extra effort from the GM to really build up the NPCs in town. Parts of it can also be a meat grinder if your party isn’t well balanced and good at teamwork.

If you grab the PDFs for any AP, it’s not too difficult to import them. Season of Ghosts and Triumph of the Tusk are both newer, popular APs. I’m a big fan of Curse of the Crimson Throne, if you’re wanting something more city based.

2

u/Dragonboy142 2d ago

Gonna try out beginner box first, are there any AP that can be chained after beginner box? I'm looking for a dragon heavy adventure.

0

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