Game Masters (GMs) know how difficult it can be to find adequate time to prepare for Pathfinder or D&D games, especially when groups meet on a regular basis. While there’s a deep satisfaction to homebrewing monsters and hand-crafting encounters, many GMs use pre-written campaigns to save on prep time and explore the creative storytelling aspects from another perspective. Pathfinder players have been particularly well-stocked for adventures over the course of the game.
While Paizo publishes standalone multi-session adventures and hundreds of one-shots for its Pathfinder Society living world campaign, their flagship adventure line is the Adventure Path series. These series of linked adventures take players through a long-form, thematic campaign, beginning with their heroic origin stories and running all the way through to the highest levels of the game.
Paizo published Dragon and Dungeon for five years. These monthly magazines included articles and adventures for time-strapped DMs to plug and play into their DnD games. When Wizards of the Coast did not renew the magazines’ licenses in 2007, Paizo retooled the D&D 3.5 ruleset to create its new system, Pathfinder, and began releasing its monthly adventure content as Adventure Paths. Now that Pathfinder 2e has been released and remastered, Paizo could bring back some of their classic stories by updating these First Edition adventure paths to their latest ruleset.
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10
Rise of the Runelords Is the Original Pathfinder Adventure Path
This High-Fantasy Epic Quest Is the Perfect Introduction to Pathfinder’s Iconic Setting
The very first Adventure Path Paizo published, Rise Of The Runelords, is also one of the most popular adventures in Pathfinder. These adventures start with defending a charming seaside town from a goblin attack and steadily reveal greater and greater mysteries until the players are battling an ancient evil returning to the planet after millenia. This campaign establishes much of the history of the Inner Sea region of Pathfinder and serves as a great jumping-off point for many future stories.
This adventure uses classic monsters but makes them its own, such as having goblin tribes that reject reading as they’re afraid that words steal thoughts. Similarly, the big villain of the campaign is an ancient master of Sin Magic, a novel variant on the familiar Vancian magic system of DnD and Pathfinder. While Paizo would return to the threat of these Runelords in two other campaigns, their debut remains a can’t-miss Pathfinder experience and a beloved pillar in Pathfinder’s library deserving of a 2E reprint.
9
Skulls and Shackles Is a Piratical Extravaganza
If Nautical Nonsense be Something Ye Wish, This Adventure Path Delivers
Pirate fantasy is a beloved genre with its own array of stories and themes, and Paizo’s Skulls and Shackles campaign gives players a GM a perfect framework to roleplay those out. This aquatic adventure path starts unconventionally with the players being pressganged against their will to work on a pirate ship, leaving them to mutiny their way to becoming captains and pirate leaders in their own right.
This adventure path has innovative and memorable storytelling throughout, like a druidic stormcalling pirate captain and a whole buccaneer’s regatta. Many of the game’s systems were introduced by this First Edition adventure path, like firearms and pirate mobility aids. They have already seen production in Pathfinder 2e, so converting this swashbuckling adventure is partway finished.
8
War for the Crown Is Full Of Imperial Intrigue
Politics, Spymastery, and Ancient Secrets Twist This Adventure Path
Set in the decadent nation of Taldor, War For The Crown immediately starts with a shock, putting the players in the role of new spies caught in a dramatic assassination attempt that threatens to tear the nation apart. This adventure path is full of spycraft, grand political ambitions, and mighty armies marching under resplendent banners, the sort of high political fantasy that many players associate with roleplaying games.
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The nation of Taldor is a decaying imperial power in the Pathfinder setting, making it a perfect playground for foppish dandies, regal armies, and once-proud houses desperate for a renaissance of their power and influence. For Pathfinder players who want a heaping helping of courtly intrigue in their games, a remastered War For The Crown would be just what the princess commanded.
7
Mummy’s Mask Has Players Explore Pyramids to Stop An Evil Pharoah
This Antiquities-Themed Adventure Is Perfect for Treasure Hunters
Fans of The Mummy and Moon Knight will find plenty to enjoy in this adventure path with strong ties to Egyptian myth and custom. Set in Osirion, Pathfinder‘s land of desert ruins and lofty pyramids, Mummy’s Mask sets the players in the way of a cult trying to restore a forgotten pharoah of ancient and wicked power through evil magic. This thematic adventure is full of sphinxes, scorpion-men, and mummies to slake the thirst of even the most rabid Egyptologist.
This adventure path demonstrates some of the earliest of Paizo’s work at producing inclusive fantasy that extends beyond traditional Western tropes. In Pathfinder lore, Osirion is an unconquered country whose native monarchy fiercely controls its antiquities market, keeping historically and culturally significant relics for Osirion while taxing outside archaeologists heavily on exported discoveries. Paizo continues to explore fantasy from a global perspective, such as with Pathfinder 2E‘s award-winning Tian Xia World Guide, which details a continent steeped in mythology from a diverse range of Asian cultures.
6
Hell’s Rebels Pits Players Against the Powers of a Diabolic Monarchy
Players Lead the Resistance Against a Devil-Backed Status Quo
One of the most interesting political situations in Pathfinder is the nation of Cheliax, an imperial power whose might is secured by their ruthless monarchy who ally with the devils of Hell for their mutual interest. This campaign puts players in charge of a rebellion against such wicked powers, forced by circumstance to become the leaders of a resistance against the cruel rule of the House Thrune over the country.
This highly-reviewed adventure path gave players a classic heroic resistance fantasy and is perfect for fans of Andor, The Last Airbender, or other stories of underground opposition to evil powers. Paizo restored the setting’s status quo in the following campaign: Hell’s Vengeance, Paizo’s only explicitly evil campaign, where the players play anti-heroes in service to the royalty of Cheliax who are called to put down the nation-wide rebellion that follows Hell’s Rebels’ city liberation. Bringing this campaign up to Second Edition rules can introduce a whole new generation of Pathfinder players to Cheliax, villains who players love to hate.
5
Tyrant’s Grasp Was a Fitting Ending to Pathfinder 1E
The Mighty Lich Known As the Whispering Tyrant Is Crucial to Two Adventure Paths
No fantasy roleplaying game is complete without evil undead patiently scheming for all eternity to end mortal life, be it Vecna in DnD or the Whispering Tyrant in Pathfinder. Arguably the closest thing to Sauron in the game, Pathfinder fans first stopped the cult of the Whispering Tyrant in the Carrion Crown adventure path, but Tyrant’s Grasp ups the ante by having the mighty lich-king return – this time with a super-weapon that starts the campaign by sending the heroes to the Boneyard, Pathfinder’s plane of the dead.
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This campaign only goes up from there, steadily escalating its dramatic tension before ending on a note that divided fans but ensured that the characters would be legendary heroes in the campaign world. Like great evil in many stories, the Whispering Tyrant is near impossible to destroy and still haunts Pathfinder in its second edition, making this adventure a great story for those who want to know the full history of the game universe.
4
Strange Aeons Brought a Heavy Dose of the Cthulhu Mythos to Pathfinder
Players Fight Against a Maddening Conspiracy Full Of Eldritch Abominations
For fans of H.P. Lovecraft and cosmic horror, no adventure path is as intriguing as “Strange Aeons”. This adventure starts characters in an asylum with their memories ripped from them. As players unravel the mysteries of their own backstories and their missing memories, they find themselves ensnared in an epic plane-hopping journey that will threaten their sanity as they attempt to prevent the ascendance of an Outer God.
This series creates an epic adventure that could as easily be a Call of Cthulhu or Arkham Horror campaign. The full adventure is dense with references and cameos to the iconic works of H.P. Lovecraft. Players meet the author of the Necronomicon, journey to storied locations like Leng and Carcosa, and face down some of the most iconic monsters from Lovecraft’s strange fiction. While some players find the heroic tone at odds with the original bleak horror of the Cthulhu mythos, this adventure path is perfect for those players who want to see how their Pathfinder characters hold up against the cults of the Great Old Ones.
3
Iron Gods Brings Lasers and Robots to Pathfinder
Players Explore a Realm of Misunderstood Super-Science Run by Barbarians
Pathfinder‘s setting is a glorious mish-mash of different fantasy tropes coexisting side by side to create something truly all its own, and nowhere does that “kitchen sink” setting shine more than the iconic Iron Gods Adventure Path. Players explore the mysteries of Numeria, a barbaric country of brutal warlords empowered by poorly-understood science-fiction technology scavenged from the thousand-year-old remains of a crashed spaceship scattered around the landscape. This novel setting combines dark post-apocalyptic fantasy like Dark Sun with a Fallout level of technology, making for unique challenges and some memorable player options like lasers and chainsaws.
Timing would be particularly perfect for an Iron Gods update with the release of Starfinder 2e. Not only does Starfinder‘s upgrade to the updated ruleset promise to deliver plenty of robots for barbarian players to chainsaw, but the Iron Gods adventure path has a direct lore connection to Starfinder‘s hyperspace plane. Giving newer players the chance to play this Pathfinder particular adventure could deepen their appreciation of Paizo’s dedication to their carefully-crafted lore.
2
Reign of Winter Is a High-Magic Witch Hunt Through Time and Space
This Snowy Epic Has Players Use The Dancing Hut to Find Baba Yaga
Possibly the furthest-ranging Pathfinder adventure path, Reign Of Winter begins as a quest to discover the source of an unnatural mid-summer snow storm. When the trail of wintery magic leads them to Baba Yaga’s chicken-legged Dancing Hut, the players get ahold of the means to journey to the most frigid reaches of the Pathfinder universe.
Reign Of Winter goes truly cosmic in this campaign. Hopping between planets offers players a planetary fantasy on the dragon-controlled icebound planet Triaxus. There is even an epic stop on WWI Earth in the mind-boggling book Rasputin Must Die! This adventure path is one of Paizo’s most beloved creations for a reason.
1
Wrath of the Righteous Is a Mythic War Against Demonic Forces
Players Try to Shut a Hole In the World That Opens Right to the Abyss
If any Pathfinder 1E adventure path deserves to be brought into Second Edition, it’s Wrath Of The Righteous. This adventure path puts players in the shoes of crusaders trying to regroup and wage war against Pathfinder’s demonic plane after a catastrophic loss. This adventure highlights Paizo’s Mythic ruleset and lets heroes take on game-breaking powers in order to become closer to gods than mortals.
Not only is this 1E adventure great in its own right, it has also been translated into an acclaimed CRPG by Owlcat Games. The only other Pathfinder adventure to get converted to a CRPG was the Kingmaker adventure path, which not only got a 2E re-release but additionally got a D&D 5E bestiary for Dungeons and Dragons players who wanted to experience the campaign first-hand. With PF2E’s new War Of The Immortals adding mythic options into Pathfinder Second Edition, this adventure would be the perfect adventure to reprint and showcase the newest edition’s take on mythic play.
