I noticed recently that my Pathfinder group has now been running for more than a year. That's a bit terrifying, especially as Pathfinder is more of a system that I endure rather than actually like. I run it mainly for the players, and so that I can see how good the adventures are. We've finished both the Council of Thieves and Kingmaker adventure paths, and now we're playing through the Way of the Wicked, an adventure path for evil characters by Fire Mountain Games.

So far, we've been having a lot of fun with it. We're approaching the end of the second adventure, the group is 8th level, and enjoying fending off adventurers as they attempt to complete a ritual. The adventures have required a lot of adjudication from me as the judge, because actually running combats between the intruders and first level minions belonging to the group is something I don't particularly want to do, but a little common sense goes a long way – as well as thirty years of experience with D&D.

I'm very happy to see that the sixth part of the adventure, The Wages of Sin, is finally available. I was terrified that it would be released after we reached it, but such is not the case. Indeed, our recent sessions have been very disrupted by holidays, work and travel. One of my players is in England at the moment, so we've just lost three sessions in a row!

As is my standard procedure with the Adventure Paths now, I'm happily ignoring any mention of XP and just giving levels to the players so they stay at about the right place. I see that there are a few subsystems for running evil organisations as well, but – again – I'm happily ignoring them. My experience with such rules (Fame Points in Council of Thieves, the Kingdom rules and Army rules in Kingmaker) is such that I expect them to be badly developed, if they were at all, and winging it would be better. They occasionally make a useful first approximation, but not much more than that. Rules that are really a game into themselves require a lot of testing, and most role-playing companies don't have the time – or the skill – to do it properly.

Because the group are evil, I'm actually not so worried with the lack of balance against the monsters, although a group of good adventurers did manage to give them some trouble. The lack of balance between actual characters is, at this point, something that the players can worry about rather than me. The only player who really seems to be pushing the boundaries is Michael, with his fighter dealing about 25-35 points of damage per round. It's not so bad now, but it was when he was first level and his damage was still very high. He's achieving the damage through a two-handed weapon which he power attacks with, without power attack penalties to hit and with bonus damage. Only one attack per round, but 2d12+20 or thereabouts is pretty impressive.

My 4E campaign should soon enter the ultimate section of the Tomb of Horrors, and my AD&D campaign is reaching level 9. So, all's good in my gaming world.