Back when Frozen Flame came out, I knew that not only did I want to run it, but that I also wanted to do an experiment: A speed-run. While I have no issues with running Adventure Paths as written, the Paizo content pipeline is an absolute firehose, and there’s more APs out there than I have time to get through. If I could make an AP more efficient to run with no effort, that could help me work on the backlog a bit.
I’m pleased to report that it worked even better than I expected, and I’m eager to try it again, but with a few caveats.
How does it work?
When you run an AP, each book will generally span three to four levels. So, you start a book at level one, and by the time you meet the big bad at the end of the book, the party should be around level four. In a speed run, the party is the cap level for that book the entire time. You don’t have to adjust wealth or treasure, since that tends to even out over time. They’ll be ‘poorer’ at the start of the book, but they’ll have more raw power at their disposal.
Note: The new APs are all one book, so for them, you’d have to figure out how to split them up yourself. You do you, but I’d recommend doing the big jumps right after the big boss fights are done, or just mimicking what previous APs have done.
Why do it?
My initial motivation was to find a way to speed up how long an AP takes to run. Paizo puts out way more APs than I’ll ever be able to get through, so I wanted to find a way to speed up the game without cutting content. As I was running the game, though, I started to realize there were other reasons I could break it out.
- Low concept enthusiasm: Every AP has a concept that it revolves around, and sometimes, players are lukewarm on it. Sure, they want to be in a game, but can’t really see dedicating a year or more of their spare table time to it. Yes, they could just skip that AP, but let’s be real: Game time is also friend time, and they may not want to dip out on social interaction.
- Level one fatigue: Once you’ve been in a few campaigns, you may develop an aversion to the level one character dance. Starting a bit higher will keep players with this issue engaged from the start.
- Big Damn Heroes: Feeling like a Big Damn Hero is super fun, but in many APs, with the scaling, you only hit that point towards the end of the AP. With a speed-run, the players walk into the start of every book with that energy.
- Limited meeting time: If you run monthly games, or your sessions are super short, you may want to compress your games so you’re not running one AP for the next decade.
How does it play out?
So, now that I’ve done a speed-run, how does it play out at the table?
First, the players come out the gate swinging hard and moving fast, like big damn heroes. You can easily double the number of encounters in one session if the group is focused. The first combat or two can be hinky, since the players are getting used to more spells, feats, and abilities than they normally would have, but the lower level of the fights helps counter that and keep everyone safe. After a session or two, most players had sorted their sheets out.
Experienced players had less trouble jumping in the deep end, since they had fought at high levels before, even if they’d never played that exact class. Novice players, though, struggled a bit more, so if you have players who are new to PF2, you may want to nudge them away from more complex classes.
While lack of gear felt weird for the more experienced players, who knew what they should have by that level, it was easily balanced out by the lower level encounters. In fact, had I given them the gear they needed, they probably would have steamrolled too much.
As for player behavior, I found that the group was more eager to do exploration than do an end-run at the final boss. Any time they got a hint of a side quest or a bit of lore, they would chase it down. It’s hard to say if they would have done this without the speed run, but I have seen some of these players get tired towards the end of a book and skip things just to get it over with faster.
The numbers
Frozen Flame took us 37 sessions, each of which took about two hours. Most APs assume that you’ll be running four hour sessions weekly, with a three-book AP taking about six months to finish.
So:
- Non-speed run AP: Approximately 104 hours.
- Our speed-run AP: 74 hours
While that doesn’t seem like it’s a ton faster, the players also completed everything, except for one encounter that most players would likely miss.
Can you do this with any AP?
I would love to say yes, but… no.
After seeing how it played out, I think this works best with APs where the books are gated off from each other somehow. With Frozen Flame, the three books are almost completely closed systems, requiring the party to run through the plot before opening up the next book. Not every AP has this kind of gating. This means that the GMs can focus on the current book, rather than having to worry about the group suddenly leaping ahead.
It’s not necessary, but I could see APs like Abomination Vaults getting chaotic if the players race down to the bottom level as quickly as possible. But hey, maybe you like chaos! You do you. I just like to be ahead on my prep.
Will I do it again?
Absolutely! Even with the update to how Paizo publishes AP’s, that hasn’t turned the firehose down at all. In fact, it’s doubled for me now that I’m getting into Starfinder. So I’ll always be in the market for a way to run pre-written games faster.
Katie Plays Games 