Lord Snow's page

so far the party has gone as far at TBG, and are just about to start hacking frogmen apart. as a note, we are using the PFRPG rules, and they are a pary of six. halfway through the first game session, as they were disposing of the bleeding corpses of Soller Verk (who died fast and easy, the battle ending after 3 rounds) and his thugs, I realised that I will have to bump up the difficulty. well, here's some of the jucey results:

PCs name: Willie

Class and level- fighter 1

Encounter - Levinia's vaults

Cause of death - some really bad fort saves

details:
to increase dificulty, I added a single iron cobra (for a total of two) as a guardian.
the fighter (who had a low CON score of 12)cautiocly, but the two deadly assain constracts leap from cover and sneak attack twice, both injecting poison. the fighter withstands the damgae and dosent even drop unconcious, but fails both saving throws. he gets bitten again and drops to -2 HP, just in the same round when his CON drops to one :)

PCs name: known as "James"

Class and level: rouge 2

Encounter- under parrot islend

cause of death - attempting awesomness.

detais:
the party encountered three reavenous zombies (which I converted to gouhls, because I didnt feel like trying to invent a new PFRPG stat block). the rouge's path to combat was blocked by a pair of party members (the PCs were standing in a narrow corridor and the gouhld in another corrider, that crossed the PCs one). he pulled off an epic stunt, rolling past both of his comrades and samursaulting above a gouhl (natrual 20 on an acrobatic check to move through occupied spaces), easily dodgin the AoO. however, when it was a gouhls turn to act, it paralized him with its claws. James was down in the following round, assaulted by a pair of gouhls. they both loosed their saving throws and began to devour his remains at once.

PCs name: Loui the 16th

Class and level: druid 3 (animal companion: a lion called "kittie")

Encounter: a final showdown in Kraken's Cove

Cause of death: a nasty thought experiment

Details:
I decided to spice things up in Kraken's Cove, and added an encounter with M'koa, a sorccerer of the dragon bloodline who was serving aboard one of the crimson fleet's ships. he was 2nd level, with the spells enlarge person and mage armor. two body guards alawys aid him, both just normative sevage pirates with greatclubs instead of scimitars. so the nasty sorccerer casts enlarge on himself and another body guard, and mage armor too. the fight was long and bitter, the pary just about startched to their limits even before it started from previous encounters. evantually, when M'koa was left alone on the battle field, he managed to crit Loui, thus killing him (with the goery description of biting the poor druid's head off).

Hmmm.
It came to my attention that previous to this adventure (And not including the RPG superstar module), each of the modules in the PFRPG line was designed for higher levels than the one previous to it - beginning with "Crypt of the Everflame" and concluding with "The Witchwar Legacy". Now, with "The Godsmouth Heresy", we are back to a 1st level module. is this part of a new releasing schedule in which there will be arcs of modules (not necessarily connected by plot or anything) with increasing playing levels? that is, will the next module be for, say, 4th level and the one after that 8th level and so on, until a high level adventure comes to wrap things up followed by a low level adventure

So... does anyone have something to say about this module? does it actually feel lovecraftian? is it a Carnival of Tears gore feast, or a Hangman's Noose macabre? just cause no one reviewd this yet...

Awesome idea, and good objective playtesting. I do hope that the idea would be taken and used in the APG, since it would give me a reason to play alcehmist.

The Alchemist is a bold design choice. It's a lot less traditional alchemy and more like the "alchemists" from World of Warcraft and other computer games (some Western game I played was a lot like this) what with the bombs and mutating and all. It'll be controversial; I like it OK but wish it was less on the "powered by the alchemist's magical aura" thing, to me one of the reasons to have an alchemist character is to lay on the pseudoscience.

My main concern with the alchemist is that it seems weak. The limited number of bombs a day and limited extracts mean he's like half a spellcaster. And the mutagens (I agree this needs to be renamed - how about elixir?) just don't work enough - the cleric BAB/HD plus the mutagen boost still doesn't quite make them a useful fighter even when juiced. I'm afraid that over the course of an entire adventuring day, and especially as they go up in level, they will be quite weak.

On the Inquisitor - this class seems like an odd mishmash to me. It's partly trying to be Buffy, but seems like it's also trying to be a paladin of any alignment and also trying to be a marshal. It seems unfocused and also very close to/redundant with existing classes - seems like a little bit of multiclassing in the pally/cleric/ranger area would step on its toes pretty hard. My recommendation here is to very strongly clarify the vision for this class and then tweak it to fit that vision, as it's definitely not coming across in the current version.

I really do think that those two are the weakest link in the chain of new classes to appear in the APG. the MMORPG fell of the alchemist is... annoying. if I would want to feel like I'm playing WoW I'll play 4E, not PFRPG. The Inquisitor is just boering, since he presents nothing new and just tweak many other abiltis of other classes. mah.

thank you, Mr. Peterson for his swift replay and Mr. Spicer for his advice. however, I might have not been clear enough with my question (and am sorry for that- the advice still helps).
the kind of Item I'm talking about is not a piece of colourful background(well, not only that, anyway). it is hard to explain my meaning without revealing anything about the idea I have in mind, but here goes:
lets say there is an item that is very useful when negotiating with foreginers who speak diffrent languages, but it is large and clumsy and probably not worth carrying around when the PCs go out to adventure. however, if for example they have a diplomatic mission that envolves communicating with barbarians who only speak their own tongm and are near enough an embassy large/important enough to own said item, they will immidatlety think of asking premission to use it. in such a way the item comes into play when the PCs interact with a challange that has to do with it. the only diffrence between this example and my own idea is, I belive, that my item will use a mechanic that can not be easily solved with a spell or class power.
does that count as an item that the PCs cna not use? 'cause I have plenty of other ideas browing in my head and even though I like this one the best maybe it is better to just skip it and focus on the devlopment of another item?

again, huge thanks for all advicers in this thread.

if I may, I would like to get this thread back on its original tracks.
I checked through all the previous top 32's, and noticed that all of the items are basicaly adventuring gear or combat orientad.
is it not recommanded to create an item which the PCs probably never use in a dungeon crawl/will probably have no need of owning, but might ery well encounter?
for example, if i design a magical tapestry (which I'm not) that has no adventuring use but could be commonly found in the households of rich nobles or marchents, and has some awesome effects to it (again, having nothing to do with combat, skill checks, spell casting etc.),but it will spice up the setting, will it work for the contest?

Indeed, wells of darkness is one of the weakest moduls ever published by Paizo. it was so bad, in fact, that I simply decided to stop buying further volumes of Dungeon and simply come up with my own way to end the campaign (as a fact I didnt really like evreything as written from the point where the PCs leave the Isle of dread- after City of Broken Idols, as it is, so my revisions are preety heavy).

how could you make it better? "rewrite it from scratch" is my only answear.

As a fact we work very well as a team and communicate perfactly. that is not my point. let us say we are up to the challange: we beat evreyone else, won the competition and written the adventure, togather. will we be able to share the credit, or is this a sort of a "evrey man for himself" kind of contest?

me and a friend of mine, live in isreal. unlike me, my friend is a native english speaker, who resided in the U.S during most of his childhood. while I do have basic control of the english language and a realtively large vocabulary for an Isrealian, I will never be able to use it quite as easialy as an amarican. Many times, my understanding of spelling and grammer is not sufficent to compete against another talented writer who happens to be Amarican (or British, or Australian or wahtever).
My friend is very excited about my idea for submission this year and eagerly agreed to help me with the langauge issue through all of the competition and even (shall we happen to win) during the writing of the full adventure. while he claims to have no quarrels with me taking all the credit for whatever achievment we might reach, I already feel a sort of guilt for abusing him, in a way.
I guess my question is, will we be able to split the credit? I will compete through this avatar, and shall we win be the adress for the paychecks (which we will split between ourselves with no overseeing by Paizo) and all that stuff (contract signing etc.).

the only thing I ask for is that he will recieve a mention just as I do. is that possible?

we just had us a couple of gory sessions with TINH (we just started our way with the campiagn a month ago). here goes:

Name of PC: Cheetie
Class: Fighter 1
Race: Gnome
encounter: the guardians of the Vendarborn vaults
Cause of death:
we are playing the campaign with PFRPG rules and the group consists of 6 players. So... I decided to add a second iron cobra to the room.the first one shot itself right at Blacker, who was the first to enter the room. Cheetie, being the noble soul that he was, rashed stright in to aid his comrade, and was attcked by the second serpantine construct, and poisond by it. as he kept failing his CON saves the group fought the snakes, not one of them having anything to do to stop the poison. meanwhile Cheetie was beaten a second time- being poisoned again.
he died with extreme agony as his CON score droped to 0, screaming his suffering.

Name of PC: Blacker
Race: Halfling
class: fighter 1
encounter: a new trap to the defence of the vanderborn safe
cause of death:
having low HP from the fight with the iron cobras, Blacker tried to answear the riddle. I added a spear trap that springs if a wrong combination is inserted. he was wrong and the spear got him square in the chest, piercing his heart and killing him instantly.

name of PC: Han
Class: Rouge 1
Race: Halfling
encounter: under parrot island
cause of death:
not having the patince to update the ravenous pirate zombies to PFRPG, I used the stats for gouhls. as the party entered area P1, three of the undead chraged them and started to claw and bite the druid. displaying impressive acrobatic prowess, Han rolled past the flailing stuff of his friend and the snapping jaws of the gouhls, to a position where he could flank one of the vile abominations with the druid and sneak attack him. he fumbeld that roll, however.
one of the gouhls turned upon him and paralyzed him with a claw attack. a round later the poor rouge dropped unconcsious with -3 HP. the gouhl failed his will save and immidatley began to rake Hnas flesh. one round later death came to the young adventurer.

I do not belive that there is much of a problem here.
first, you are assuming in your post that all summoners would have at least 16 as their charisma scores (and strongly hinting that an 18 charisma score is likely). there's a name for this type of charracters- Minmax PCs. so, surprise surprise, a minmax could be very powerful in certain aspects of his character. do not forget though, that by having a solid BAB and hit dice and the abilty to weare armor, the summoner shoul be expected to perofrm well physically in a combat, not just stand back and cast spells like a wizard.

also, its not like a 1st level summoner can cast 8 1st level spells a day or something, he can cast summon monster 1 6 times and another couple O spells. that's fine, because its not very modifiable. helpful, but not offering any tatical adventage aside from strength of numbers, which is only helpful under certain conditions.

the description text claims this is an adventure for 16th level PCs- is this true? is PF going high level?

for verious unfortunate reasons, I find myself being forced to cancel my PFRPG subscripton for the time. leave my AP subscription as it is.
-thanking you for your continual patince and great customer service, and hope to be able to support you again,
Lord Snow

when I have subscribed to the PFRPG product line I also formed a new shipping addres for it, diffrent from the one I used so far. from some reason, the system ignored the change and the core rulebook was sent here:
2228 Kittyhawk Dr
Plano, TX 75025-6071

when as a fact I wanted it to get there:
P.O box 75
Ein Vered
Zip Code 40696
Isreal

having discoverd the mistake only recently I ask that the proper changes would be made, and that the bestiary (Order #1270670) be sent to the correct addres.
-thanks!

question: I am just about to run a Savage Tide adventure path, and am considering to use this adventure as a mini "sidetrack" that will occur before the events that are described in "There Is No Honor". would I be easily able weave it into the area of the Cursed Shores?
any suggestion and comment would be useful.
-thanks!

for me? it is neither. while I love many of the changes and additions made to 3.5 in the PFRPG rules, and Golarion is a solid published campign, detailed and large, none of them are worth 50$ as they are. it's the style I like. Im young and new to the game (it seems evreyone here has played for five thousand years and playtested the first edition of the game, while I can count only six years of mildly intensive D&D), and was used to the rather crappy products of WotC. when I was introduced to the wonderful, flavorful, grimmy world of PF in the form of the CotCT AP, I knew gaming will never be the same again. since than I am hooked to the mature, realistic style that PF excels in.

Mr. Jacobs, thank you very much for your swift and detailed answear. details like those you shared are exactly the helpful kind of things that can help me (as a DM) and others to understand not only Paizos' way of work but also the feeling of Golarion.

I assumed from the beginning (and fully agree) that the porpuse of humanizing the world was to create familiarty and sympathy with the audiance (who are, hopefuly, at least mostly human...).
however, this approach does create some gaping holes in the inner logic of the campign setting. even though the human are dominant, they mostly treat other races as equels and the issiue of a "ruling race" is never addresed. I mean, it dosent seem that anyone living in Golarion cares about things being that way. hack, it might look like nobody even noticed.
when the european folk came to afrika, extreme xenophobia made them alienate the locals and tag them as "barely human". their technological superiority and better organizition lead to slavery. would it be so strange if humans would teat races that are actually not human like they sometime treat humans with a diffrent skin color? dosent seem far fatched at all to me... so why is there no referance to the humans being so obviously powerful over other races?
thanks again!

There is something which I have noticed and followed for some time now, about the population of Golarion. it seems (when considering the sheer amount of human NPCs in moduls and APs and PF journals etc.) that mankind are the dominant spicies on Golarion (not like we are in real life earth since there are many more civilaistions aside ours, but still). in another thread James Jacobs said that it is so (confirming my suspicion) and added that it was porpusfully so.
my I ask why? and do people like it that way? because I personally enjoy worlds where humanity is bet one of many and humans are not that important. feels more fantastic, somehow.

I'm talking about all those feats that grant you a bonus for a specific skill. let's look at Acrobatic for a moment. the rulebook reads:
Benefit: You get a +2 bonus on all Acrobatics and Fly
skill checks. If you have 10 or more ranks in one of these
skills, the bonus increases to +4 for that skill.

the formula repeats itself in all of them, but I find the entire "if you have 10 ranks you get a further +2 bonus". what exactly does this means?
if I have 9 ranks in fly skill, and aqcuire the Acrobatic feat. I should only get a +2 (my rank is lower than 10), but after the +2 is caulculated I have +11, which supposedly gives me acses to the +4 bonus. furthermore, what if I take the feat, and than three levels later my fly rank reaches 10? will I get the extra +2 than? or does this extra bonus is only avilable if you had 10 or more ranks upon choosing the feat?

I am a little concerned about this volume of CoT. the overall qualty is great, intreducing a great plot and some awesome new creatures, splendid encounters and fantastic art- Iv'e come to expect those from Paizo, so I see no need to further comment about them. evreyone knows they are there.
I do, however, feel that things are being a little rushed. huge XP awards ensure that the PCs will scale up level with no need to actually fight through many encounters to achive it. I mean, 1,200 XP award for compleating the first encounter?
I mean, think about it. in CotCs' EoA the players faced 7 major encounter areas (spoiler):

as well as verious random encounters. SDs SitS had a similar number of encounters. in Bastards, wev'e got three. seems like there is barely any action going on.

why is the main adventure so... short?

I, as well as many others as it seems, would be very excited to take part in the CoT AP as a player. add my name to the pool.
just to be completly fair though, I know a thing or two about the plot already-

if that bothers you, maybe you should not allow my to play...

Lord Snow wrote:

hello
I have just now attempted to subscribe to the PF roleplaying game and had to stop halfway throught the order.
while trying to change the shipping addres a screen with the estimated shipping time of each of the products I should expect to have from my subscription. however, I found that the following entry:

1x Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook (OGL)
1x Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook (OGL) Hardcover

as if they were two diffrent products, each with its own price and shipping rate. just to prevent future misunderstandings: I wish to have a single hardcover copy of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook through my subscription alongside with the matching free PDF file. how shall I counter the problem?
-thanks!

You do not currently have a subscription to the Pathfinder RPG, nor do you have a preorder. Therefore, you will need to create your subscription and complete the ordering process. I'm not sure what the above display is referring to, however, you will need to complete an order for the subscription to get any book at all.

...and you will want to get your order in soon (as in today or tomorrow), since the first print run is nearly completely sold out.

thanks,
cos

-thanks a lot for your time!

James Jacobs wrote:

That's not an indication of "elves being dumb" though. It's an indication, honestly, of the game not handling mass combat well. If you want to have a huge elven invasion of the Land of Black Blood, go for it! That's just not something we could really handle the scale of in a single volume of Pathfinder, and it runs the risk of robbbing the PCs of the opportunity of being the heroes of the whole AP.

No matter what the metagame reason for it, it does produce the strong impression that the elves are idiots and not worth saving. This is damaging to the emotional impact of the game.

A couple of alternative suggestions:

Allevrah has done a bang-up job of sealing off the Land of Black Blood so that no one can get there. One of the adventures provides a means whereby the PCs can get there, but they have to go RIGHT NOW and don't have time to head for Kyonin to get help. (Alicavness' Demon Lady is the Mistress of Gates, so having her involved here makes a lot of sense to me.)

This didn't work for us at _Armageddon_ because it wasn't made clear to the PCs that they had to go right now, but I think it can be made to work, and would avoid the dreaded mass combat (which I totally agree is undesirable).

Or--a suggestion due to my frustrated player--the Elves _do_ send a team to take out Allevrah. They don't want PC help; this is an internal Elven matter. But then that team fails--it would be good to sketch in the reasons why; I suggest internal treachery--and there is no time for anyone else but the PCs to act.

Or--at some point, an NPC such as Hyalin is headed for the Land of Black Blood to make Allevrah bump up the schedule. He has to be stopped _now_ or it's all over. But when the PCs get to the Land of Black Blood they are trapped there, unable to return to Kyonin for help.

Whatever the solution, for my particular group it would have been a complete game-wrecking disaster to have the Kyonin scenes at the beginnings of modules 5 and 6, because it is so hard to...

hello
I have just now attempted to subscribe to the PF roleplaying game and had to stop halfway throught the order.
while trying to change the shipping addres a screen with the estimated shipping time of each of the products I should expect to have from my subscription. however, I found that the following entry:

1x Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook (OGL)
1x Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook (OGL) Hardcover

as if they were two diffrent products, each with its own price and shipping rate. just to prevent future misunderstandings: I wish to have a single hardcover copy of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook through my subscription alongside with the matching free PDF file. how shall I counter the problem?
-thanks!

So my brave PCs have done cleaning the monastery and they did it quite well, except for one little faliure: they have allowed King Mokknok to escape and lost his trail. no two days have past since than and they are already nosing around the edges of Kalmarane. I am looking for the best way to use king Mokknok against them, something nesty and evil that he will cause to teach them Pugwampis should be feared.
anyhow, I thought that maybe he will elart the gnolls of Kelmarane to the presence of the PCs, or maybe hell just stick around the monastery doing harm (I thought of having him murdering the old camal caretakers/cooks, but that just seemed sadistic).

if any idea comes to your mind, please. do share it with me. I want to make the little royal basterd something memorable.

the product description reads: "by Paizo stuf". does this mean that what it sounds like (all of the stuff working togather to make the adventure) or that a writer havnt been assienged yet?

Just wanted to say one thing: please stop inventing new races all the time. its annoying and frankly rather pointless. I would truly dislike any sort of rulebook that features many new races (or many new races being added over time), since I belive the core races are more than enough.
PrCs are fine in limited quanteties, and only when the themes are cool.

Chuck Norris can kill two stones with one bird.

Chuck Norris didn’t cry when Bambys mother died.

Chuck Norris doesn’t have bags in his Windows Vista.

Jesus may have walked on water, but Chuck Norris swam in the earth.

Here is a little story about Chuck Norris:
one day a man came to Chuck and told him, "Chuck Norris, I know of a thing that you cannot accomplish."
Chuck smiled at him. "What is it, son?"
"Well", says the fool, "I bet you cant create a rock so immense you yourself could not lift it".
Grinning, Chuck Norris threatened the stone into creation, and indeed he could not lift it.
"Good", said the man, "now try to lift it."
With no effort at all, chuck did.
Do you know how he did it?

Oh.

My.

God.

I think I might just had a geekgasm. You guys are unbelievable. Just the day before I was thinking that yes, the APs are great, but the same old adventuring style is starting to get old. I hoped that maybe for the next AP I could see something different. Now, with KM AP coming... I know I'll get exactly what I wanted. Being daring and new and fresh is what I see as the greatest values of PF, and the initiative of trying to change an already successful formula of APs takes all that. Good job.

Seltiel is in for sure. Lem also sounds likely enough, and I'll bet my monie on Harsk any time. as for the fourth member of the gang... I think a rouge is called for.

I remember, two years ago in a little house, me and a couple of folks were playing D&D. our DM had this wierd house rule that said that when the time comes to roll initiative, only one person in thr group rolls, and it apllies to evrey one.
after a time, we noticed the the rouge was very lucky when it came to initiative- hence we gave the roll a new name: intiathive.
CoT reminded me of that.

oh, and first post!

Thank you for your quick replay!
This is really awesome- I think that things like this are what give your APs and modules such a special voice. The fact that the themes is there, left for the DM to interpritate and shape his own moral into the story with the powerful tools he's given makes me happier with the product than with any other adventure I've ever read.
Do you have any suggestion how to further emphasis this themes? For example, I'm planning to inflict at least one of my PCs with lycanthropy. The everlasting struggle he'll face trying to control "the beast inside" could be great. Also, one of the PCs is a cleric of Erastil, and perhaps something with the "animal" aspect of the his god's nature could be corrupted or something, into "beast".

Again, thanks a lot!

I'm now running HotCK to my players, and we are all having a great time.
Re-reading more carefully through issues 1-4 of this AP, I must say that a recurring aspect became clear to me, and that I don’t know how I have missed it before. In all of the adventures, savagery and animalistic fury takes a strong part during the course of events, and of course the legacy of Rovagug certainly prompts the same themes as well.
As it seems to me, this AP is about the deference between beasts and men, between savagery and civilization, killing and slaughtering. The gnolls, the Unchosen gnolls, father Jackal (who is a villain because he is no more than a jackal- a beast- in a mans' skin) and Dashki are all dine examples of this idea. I am planning to give it a really important role in my game, because I believe that morals are an important part of each story, and am very delighted to have such a wonderful topic to discus about with my friends.

So, did anyone else notice this? Is it intentional? Will it continue to be integral in the latest to installments of the AP? Will people want it to?

P.S
sorry for my lacking english, I'm not a native speaker.

My son who is about to be 10 caused a mess with this module with his Ranger (level 2). He actually talked to the Otugyh and convinced him they were friends and would kill whatever had harmed him (hence the big boss).
It was a first as he usually does not roleplay and waits on combat. The result was the players being quite prepared for later combats with an NPC that gave them a safe haven in the sewers.
We ran this with PF#13 in a special SEWER SUNDAY that had the players very very tired of sewers and lining up in a line.

My god, Tito Leati is seak. I'm now reading through City of Broken Idols... and I can see TPK's in just about evrey other page.
I have a questionor two about some of the encounters, though.

1. If chief Achcauhtlis' (area 3) melee section of the stat block says what I think it does, than he can attack nine times during a single turn using a full attack action. nine times. am I sane, or am I wrong?

2. (area 1): "The Wastrilith is bound to Kahla... allows the aspect to obsevre... and use him as a focus for his spell like abilties..."
when using this abilties, should I use the DCs as if they were used by the Wastrilith or by the aspect?

At least for DM's it is.
the following spoiler tag should ward off any reader who is yet to know the details of the module.
Now:

-thanks!

hello
I would really like to take part as a player in a RotRL PBP campign, and if any is runing I would appricate joining it.
is there a RotRL DM looking for players\who dosent mind adding another one to his group?
-thanks!

Lord Snow wrote:

I read most of EoE today, and found it hard to believe that this is Nelson's first serious published material. the module is solid, interesting an cool. The cat Spooky is maybe the most awesome familiar ever.
And, of curse, dagger throwing water chicks are always welcome in my game :)
So congregations, Jason Nelson, and god speed in your future endeavors.
BTW, does anybody know if more superstars will be writing PF adventures?

Jason's actually had a few adventures published in Dungeon, and has worked on several other Paizo projects for us as well (such as the hardcover PCCS and the Osirion Companion).

so, I never took part in a PBP yet, and am looking forward to start playing.
Now, I don't now anything about the PBPs here in Paizo, and I would like to know a two things:
First, where could I find games?
Second, is there a possibility of joining games that already started?

I read most of EoE today, and found it hard to believe that this is Nelson's first serious published material. the module is solid, interesting an cool. The cat Spooky is maybe the most awesome familiar ever.
And, of curse, dagger throwing water chicks are always welcome in my game :)
So congregations, Jason Nelson, and god speed in your future endeavors.
BTW, does anybody know if more superstars will be writing PF adventures?

So... readin the blog today, I couldn't help but notice a very Big red dragon tail slapping poor Velaros. guess there's a dragon in LoF now, too.

The Battle Market scene could be the most problematic part of the adventure, since as mentioned above; all PCs should be there for the final showdown against the gnolls.
However, simply dropping all of the battle markets' combatants at the PCs at the same time as heavily not recommended, since battles with more than a dozen NPCs at the same time tend to be tiresome and unsuccessful even when you only have 4 or 5 PCs, not nine. the best advice that I can give is boosting up the levels\hit dice of key NPCs such as that Ogre whose name I don't recall right now, and maybe even give all the gnolls the stats used for 1 level ranger gnolls in House of the Beast.
During the body of the adventure there is less of a problem. Send a group of PCs to work on the set piece, while the other is exploring Kalmarane. After that, as suggested above, alternate groups of PCs through different roles as explorers, aggressors against the gnolls of Kalmarane and guardians in the monastery- all of the PCs shall have plenty to do

good 'nuff fer me, laddie!

wait... if there is no good dragon in the LoF AP and the Council of Thieves AP outline, does that mean you guys already know what will the next AP be about and what key NPCs will we see there? thats nice...

I realize that it is important to the Paizo stuff to include at least a single dragon in each of the APs- and I love it. I think that dragons give a sweet and classic taste to the stories when they are not overused.
However, I am really starting to expect a good aligned dragon NPC to come along sometime. Battling dragon beddies is all very well, but I imagine that they are not the only dragons with significant influence on event. I would really enjoy seeing one in the LoF AP, since I'm going to run it. I understand it might be too late to make changes now, but maybe a good dragon could have a place in Council of Thieves?
Does anyone feel like me? If you do, Aye for metallic dragons!

Class: Human Wizard (illusionist) 7 and Fighter 2/Ghoul 5 (from Libris Mortis, side quest stuff. Don't ask :P)

Instead of changing the character you had in mind, why won't you speak with your GM and ask him to change Tempest? The powers she grants could quite easily be swapped with others, more suiting for your character. I, as a GM who is about to start running this campaign, would have very certainly done so.

But that's just how I personally see genies though: great power, but tons of rules upon rules waiting to trip you up.