I know I'm jumping the gun a bit here, but I'm thinking of incorporating the Styes in the STAP. I just don't know whether to use it on its own (as a place where my large group can gain a bit of extra XP if they don't have sufficient power to tackle some of the high-level adventures) or as a replacement for Sasserine (probably not given how great the city is) or Scuttlecove (though Styes harbor isn't as good as Scuttlecove's and the Styes doesn't have any resident pirates that I know of).
The other place is Saltmarsh. I find it a bit unfortunate that the only safe city in the campaign is Sasserine and the party leave it behind after only 2 adventures. I feel like I want to save Sasserine for later on, since low-level PCs can't really appreciate what a big city like that has to offer. I think Saltmarsh is a good alternative, but was wondering what changes I might need to make to the first few adventures or the town itself.
Creative Director
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Savage Tide does kind of break the mold for the classic campaign model by starting out in the big city and then moving on to smaller, more rural or wilderness locations. Saltmarsh or the Styes would certainly work as good stand-ins for Sasserine if you don't want to buck this trend, although I'd take care with using the Styes. That place is deadly!
In my current campaign I'm running the Scuttlecove and the Styes adventures in Freeport. Having one city with elements of all three has worked very well so far.
Morrow
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Well, let's think a little more here fella's:
Sasserine fades away after adventure 3 (roughly character level 8 or 9)
Teleport becomes available at level 9. Probably not widely used at level 9, but by level 11 it doesn't take *too* much for a wizard/sorcerer to prepare a few scrolls for a quick foray back to Sasserine.
So you are only looking at a Sasserine blackout from about level 8 to about level 12. Roughly one, maybe two Issues of Dragon. After that, Sasserine should be a great place for the characters to store their Phat Lewtz.
James commented in another thread that in the official geography, the Isle of Dread will be too far away for teleport to work. Now, in my campaign the island is just under 900 miles away from Sasserin, so teleport will be just fine (which is great, IMHO, as I want the players to be able to maintain Sasserine sub-plots if they desire).
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Creative Director
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In issue #141, the journey to the Isle of Dread covers just over 3,000 miles of sea voyage. Of course, a fair amount of that is sailing around the Amedio Jungle. The actual physical distance between the two (as the mage teleports) is about 1,400 miles from Sasserine to the Isle's north shore, so by the time a wizard can teleport that far, he might as well just use greater teleport.
