The most telling thing about this adventure for me is that when I read it through, only two encounters stood out to me and got me oohing and ahhing about them, thinking about how I would present it to the players. Neither of these encounters are actually in the adventure, as they were the Kelpie's Wake, which definitely won't show up, and the ooze ship, which you can have show up if you want.
This adventure is a satisfactory adventure, but there's really nothing unique about it other than "You're pirates! Isn't that cool?" It relies entirely on the fact that your players will be infatuated with the idea of being pirates (which they may be!) to make up for the fact that there's nothing really that interesting going on.
Unless your players truly love the opportunity to get revenge on Mr. Plugg* and plot that mutiny, there's really nothing fun in this adventure unless they make that fun for themselves, since the fact that they're pirates doesn't mean a whole lot for this part of the adventure path.
*And I imagine some groups will be apathetic about him, it's a fickle game manipulating the emotions of your group.
Don't get me wrong, it's a solid adventure, it's just nothing special. And when I'm paying 20 bucks, I expect something special.
Unless my players truly love this AP when we play through it, I probably won't be buying the rest.
~I've since played through the initial part of this adventure with the players.. And so far, they can't even remember who Plugg is, and they laugh at Scourge (who has so far managed an uninterrupted string of natural 1s whenever he tries to whip them.) On the other hand, they love Conchobhar and being pirates, rigging games and winning bet. All in all, after playing it, I still settle on three stars.
