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I am, for the first time ever, running a Pathfinder campaign. I'd prefer to start with a premade campaign or adventure path that I can adapt to my story, the specific details of which are extremely vague – the first couple of levels, they're interacting with a coup to gain control of a city that must end with them having a certain artifact. (I'm worried about missbalancing, etc.) These are PCs without any particular sense of morals. Any suggestions?

Clarification: the city has an existing, working, stable gov't. There is a coup to overthrow that gov't (or preferably, to take mental control of the mayor).

RESCOPING: I am NOT looking for adventure paths, I am looking for self-contained modules of the form "go to X, do Y" (e.g, go take steal $OBJECT from goblin hoard at $OUTSKIRTS) that can be plugged into any adventure with minimal modifications. The specific type I'm looking is either in a city, or next to one.

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I'm probably going to close this question unless it gets a lot more specific. As it stands, I'm not sure what you expect to get in terms of answers other than "every single low level Pathfinder adventure, or heck even non-Pathfinder ones, with maybe a city mentioned in them, or maybe not." (As proven by that's what you're getting in answers.) See our rules for system-rec questions (you're asking for adventures not systems, but it's still a shopping question). meta.rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/1070/… – mxyzplk♦ Oct 19 '12 at 20:59
OK, please consider how to rework this question to allow people to scope their answers. I'll reopen once it's edited. – mxyzplk♦ Oct 20 '12 at 0:28
@mxyzplk: better? (sorry, I was away for a while) – Glycan Oct 22 '12 at 19:55
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Sorry man, again, "any adventure in or near a city" generates a huge list. Read the link provided above and also meta.rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/1475/…; jump into chat and have people help you scope this down if needed. – mxyzplk♦ Oct 22 '12 at 20:30

closed as not a real question by mxyzplk♦ Oct 20 '12 at 0:27

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

4 Answers

up vote 6 down vote

This is pretty vague, probably too vague to answer - people will suggest just about anything given those parameters. Having said that, your minimal one-line description sounds like the overall plot of the Curse of the Crimson Throne AP from Paizo.

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Uh, that's kind of the point. I'm leaving my exact details vague so that I can go with what seems the 'best' instead of what fits my tight plot. – Glycan Oct 19 '12 at 10:53
And, as I pointed out in the clarification, initial anarchy doesn't really work. – Glycan Oct 19 '12 at 10:57
You can use the module and adapt it to your desires. Start the game before the initial anarchy and then make the players interact with the groups who want to kill the king and take over the city. All other Adventure path I know will require you additional work so this is the closest answer you can get IMHO. – MrJinPengyou Oct 19 '12 at 11:10
Yeah, I'm not sure what you want if "vaguely similar" isn't enough for such an unclear set of requirements. – mxyzplk♦ Oct 19 '12 at 21:01
up vote 1 down vote

You could use the Blackmarsh setting I created. The Elves are in control of the main human settlement of Blackmarsh and there a lot of resentment towards them. And campaign's background readily allows for a unusual artifact to be feature. The present day landscape of Blackmarsh was created in its prehistory by the Mountain that Fell. Which brought with it, among other things, strange artifacts and creatures.

It works pretty much with any edition of D&D. And has various hooks that can be used for a entire campaign ranging from 1st to 20th level.

And it is free to download and has a setting reference document you can use.

Pathfinder has several adventure paths you may want to check to see if any of use. They guide a campaign from 1st to 20th level so are very helpful to a novice referee.

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up vote 0 down vote

Depending on just how tied you want your adventures to be to your overall plot, you could grab some of the low-level Pathfider Society mods and modify them.

As a secondary suggestion, I believe the first part or two of the Second Darkness Adventure Path could easily be altered to suit what you want. Of course, Second Darkness was written for 3.5, not Pathfinder, so needs a little more work to convert.

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up vote 0 down vote

You might be able to incorporate the first sections of the Shackled City Adventure Path from Paizo. It was written for 3.5e, but should be fairly easily adaptable. It has a well developed city structure and government, as well as a number of factions vying for control of the city that you can draw upon for the opposing sides in your proposed coup.

It's a well developed full campaign book that will take characters from levels 1 through nearly 20 if fully played through. There's a lot of action that takes place outside the city, but much of that is focused on higher levels than the first few.

Our own group played the full campaign a couple of years ago and we found it to be one of the best developed campaign books we've ever come across.

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