Island: except there's also an entire island to explore and a pivotal pirate's feast to host. The cyclopes ruins only takes up 10 pages (including map) of the 56 page adventure. Under 1/5 total.Price: also contains pirate council meetings, more islands to explore, a fleet battle, and the only way you get 25+ dungeon room is if you combine the Black Tower with the BBEG castle (the castle alone is only 21 rooms if you include the perimeter encounters). The island at the end, including everything on it, takes up 13 pages (including map) of the 56 page adventure. Just over 1/5 total.
Hurricane King: I can't speak for this one yet since I'm still waiting to get a copy.
All told, this looks to be a matter of just seeing what you want to see. As I said, these modules are about as "Crawly" as many of the ones you listed originally as "truly good ones" (Hook Mountain Massacre, Wake of the Watcher, etc.). In fact, some of those have dungeons that take up considerably more of the adventure than any of the ones in Skull and Shackles.
All of the "dungeons" are shortened these days in real space by simply removing most any description of monsters. It's a piscodaemon, please open book XYZ..
Island : The entire island is the "Dungeon", not just the inner complex... You have to clear mostly everything (own fort, beaches, inner castle) for going into phase II, e.g. succeeding at all. One is free to choose which room/location to pick, but you have to finish them, since you have the possessive ghost taking your PC's choices for you, if you refuse... and the Island : pages 10-38 (of p6-51).
And ... let's better not delve into that 2nd part "comedy" pushing the player entirely on the reactive to the... activities of an unknown NPC "who will infiltrate". Simply selling the rum or slaying the Nereid severly sabotages this script. I'd appreciate the Eel more, if he had been introduced, instead of as a Bond-ish superspy with omniscience (say : like who exactly is going to serve drinks...). The party scenes : Plot ===> reaction, Plot ===> reaction etc.
IMHO : Dungeon + (unchangeable) script
Price : Fleet battle, plus a scripted pirate meeting. then chopping through the - albeit interesting - castle (p.39-52)to finally meet your... pirate captain enemy.... well on the battlements, but at least a stylish place
Boardgame + Dungeon
Hurricane : pre-scripted meeting (I mean, what would happen to the plot, if they actually "made" the Hurricane King act.. Debuff, + dominate person ?) ===> Beat the fleet ====> get "asked" into going for kinghood... battle through the dungeon.
Boardgame + Dungeon p.18-44, (of p.6-44 for the adventure)
hmmmm... too few dungeons for a ships and islands setting ? Well - of course it's my impression, and I can see the design appeal of keeping everything in one restricting location, but... I woudld wish it was different *shrug*
Dungeon discussion aside, I do agree AP 4 does suffer from a reactive script and major plotting issues with the Nereid. I'm definitely with you on that one.
Also, I'll take your word on AP 6 for now. (BS delays from the local supplier have currently left my FLGS frustrated and me without the first half of my August order - damn you Lion Rampant!)
For AP4 I didn't bother to mention the Chelish fort since it wasn't brought up in the discussion, but yes that adds more dungeon to the page count (though I did make note of the middle dungeon for AP 5).
Here's what it comes down to for me - I agree there is definitely more dungeon than some people had hoped for. I also agree it's way too much dungeon for those who really just wanted an "open seas" exploration campaign. However, when it comes to "crawliness" and dungeon pacing, I think these modules are on par with most of Paizo's other modules and that includes some of their "best".
I think it's really just a matter of perception and expectation. A few examples:
Hook Mountain Massacre:
Soul's for Smuggler's Shiv:
Wake of the Watcher:
Really, there are only a few shining exceptions of non-dungeon based modules in the AP line. Such as The Sixfold Trail, and even then they don't get away clean:
So, I don't disagree with you that Skull and Shackles has a bunch of dungeon crawls, which may be too many by some standards. However, by the standards of previous APs it's completely fine and so I wouldn't call this AP any worse than any of the rest. It works for some and not for others, just like every other AP out there.
I'll echo many of the previoius posters and say that separate and apart from my issues with the individual parts of the AP, the whole thing just failed, for me, as a "pirate" adventure, which was what it was sold as. There was so much potential and opportunity here for something different and instead we simply got dungeon after dungeon again.
The finale, for me, was also a major fail. The big event everything was supposed to lead to is the prelude, and then the "finale" is a fight which the party is railroaded into whether they want it or not. I would have thought more of an emphasis on raising a fleet, recruiting alllies, but what we had seemed a bit perfunctory.
Heck, we only had one treasure map adventure, which required the clearing of two separate dungeons.
There are so many great fantasy sailing movies this AP could have drawn from (PotC, Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts). A pirate adventure HAS to send with a big ship battle, and I would have loved to see six finale battles, each different and amazing. Didn't get that.
This one goes in the "miss" column for me, unfortunately, which is sad since I was really excited. I just don't have the kind of time needed to "fix it" (though I am amazed and humbled by those here who do have the time and post their ideas, awesome work) which is why I get the APs.
:(
I'm curious how by Part 6 my players will feel. For the moment I find myself in agreement with Block Knight. Sure, there *are* dungeons but I don't think there are too many. Nor do I find them particularly big.
My players to varying degrees will humour me by playing this (when I eventually run it) because a) they won't have to DM and b) they know I've been itching for a pirate campaign (whatever the ruleset) for a long time now.
But knowing my players, over the course of *a whole campaign* rather than just say 1 module, they will very much enjoy "getting out of the car" after:
* being press-ganged on a ship for weeks
* being Raiders of the Fever Sea for... months?
Part 5 ends in big fleet battle.
Part 6 starts in big fleet battle. With a little tweaking, it can end with the fleet battle instead or as well.
I agree that a player handout or 2+ of treasure maps and clues would have been nice and no-brainer appropriate. But on the face of it, Skull & Shackles amply satisfies my pirate itch. About the dungeons, such as they are, I fully expect Pathfinder adventures to have rooms with monsters who must be relieved of treasure. The current Sinbad show and even the Disney PotC had characters on land and in ports. Other movies may well take place fully on board a ship. (Master and Commander - but even they were happy to stop at the Galapagos). But that's 1 module. The whole campaign at sea? Don't think that would fly with my players at all. I fully expect Pathfinder piracy to have pirates Pathfinderized. No complaints on that score at all.
I remain prepared to concede any of these points after actual play. Can't wait. :-)
I'd like to join back into the discussion regarding Book Six but my copy still hasn't arrived at my FLGS. :(
Once it does, hopefully I'll see what all the fuss is about in the finale.
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Our group is still in the early part of Raiders of the Fever Sea, but already I am injecting more piracy and lightening the dungeons a bit. Here is what I intend to do:
More (and more exotic) ships to battle, chase, be chased by, etc... I'm throwing a Pathfinder Magus' ship, a Ratfolk plague ship, the hollowed Dragon Turtle Submarine Vikingson described above, a sunken bone ship captained by the lich Raugsmada and her undead crew, and others I haven't thought up yet. I'll also be using a fair number of the optional ship encounters from the AP itself. That Mercane floating magic shop? Yes.
In Raiders, I'm changing a number of things. Isabella Locke isn't in league with the Sahuagin she's competing with the PC's to find Mancatcher Cove. It leads to a race to find the island and a combat filled chase across the island (involving a dinosaur stampede ala King Kong) to the cove. I'm shortening the dungeon itself down to a couple rooms and a massive battle with the Sahuagin since it is too similar to Riptide Cove in the first book. I want underwater action involved, but not a 3 session dungeon crawl.
Tempest is pretty dungeon light. I will add some more piracy in here for sure, though.
I like Island of Empty Eyes for the most part, except I want a bit more island exploration, negotiation, establishing a base of operations stuff. So I plan to provide an avenue for negotiating with the cyclopes, getting a truce with other intelligent creatures on the island etc... I also plan to have some opportunistic raiders and pirates show up that have to be driven away. More Pirates!
In the Price of Infamy I'm keeping the black tower stuff as I'm tying it into the plot that I've written, but Harrigan will be leading the fleet against the party not some patsy. They'll get to fight him on the Wormwood not in a fort. I'm excising his fort entirely from the game. At the end of this book I also intend to put a confrontation with the Hurricane King on the Filthy Lucre (see my plot).
In between the last two books I'm putting an underwater adventure hunting for the wreckage of the Naiegoul at the bottom of Jeopardy Bay. Why did underwater stuff disappear entirely after book 2?
From Hell's Heart is being inverted. It will begin with going through the fort only to find that they're too late and the Hurricane King has sailed. Then there will be a climatic battle in the Eye of Abendego with the Chelish Navy, the Hurricane King, and a resurrected Harrigan, throw in some sea monsters and no one will be complaining that the campaign ends on an anti-climax.
but already I am injecting more piracy and lightening the dungeons a bit.
Good stuff! Definitely sounds better than what we were given.
I play d&d for dungeon crawling, if I want something else there are 40 years of other RPGs to chose from.
I play D&D for the fantasy setting which includes dungeons but not entirely dungeons.
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I am reading through 4 right now. It is a cool dungeon but it is a dungeon . . . and a lot of dungeon at that. I prefer small intense dungeons to gigantic complexes where every section has a new enemy waiting as if in the history of the world no room is just an empty old room.
All of the chapters so far have had ships to prey upon in the back. So I think there is room to add a lot of piracy but they leave it to the players to seek it out or the GM to dangle the carrot. Also there are several X marks the spot treasure maps in every chapter they are almost complete there just to tease you but they are there.
I really would have liked a more free form nature to things. Something I intend to add with my players. Let them chase their own goals.
As for the Island in 4 I don't mind that they get an island nor the added expectations (many pirates after a certain point took a stronghold or "retired" to live off their riches).
I will definately be adding Vikingson's and Dudemisters suggestions.
I have had in my head a huge paddle boat powered by coral golems (moving them like hamsters in a wheel) eversince I saw the name "Coral Golem."
Soooo having finally read through book 6 Dudemiester is right the plot needs to be broken up and a less than likeable Kerdak needs to be played up.
I am thinking of making Kerdak older, having been the king for a good long time, haveing drunk the stuff that keeps you young twice from what I understand, but he is due for a new dose. He is aging and afraid to show it. He is cowardly personally so he acts in force and overwhelmingly so. In his older years he has taken to a far more lucrative life than just simple Piracy rather he has turned to extortion. He takes money from all sorts of trading interests granting them temporary passage to not get looted. "Free" captains are expected to honor the aggreements and get a nominal percent of the money. Don't worry he will always hate Cheliax. You can loose your Letter of Marque by raiding protected ships in the Shackles. Not to mention there is a lot of preying on other pirates because Kerdak wants to keep the protection racket going. Pirate bounty hunters and so on.
So there is some tension between the Free captains who want to be honest Pirates and Kerdaks syndicate. When the Chels invade. Kerdak denouces everyone allied with the party who is fighting them. The party fights the Chelish invasion. While Kerdak secretly abandons Port Peril and Fort Hazzard in favor of a secret island location for Lucre Hold with huge amounts of treasure. The PCs are well respected by some but the chaos of war, being denounced and the skittish nature of pirates leaves the PCs with only the allies they initially had.
They then will sail on Port Peril fight a virturally leaderless Bonefist armada, take the city, raid Fort Hazzard only to find Kerdak's gone. The PCs allies want to them one of them Hurricane King but no one will stand against Kerdak while he still holds the crown.
Clues direct them to Lucure Hold which was Kerdaks stronghold before becoming Hurricane King. So now they need to find the Hold and face Kerdak.
I plan to have a follow up adventure. I'm fairly confident that my players will find a way to send Kerdak after the invasion. My best player is playing a Bard who is the captain, and I'm sure that by that level the only way he can't convince Kerdak to do something or maneuver the scenario so that he feels forced or even just mind control him is if I DM fiat, which I won't do. So Kerdak will sail out and get crushed, leaving the pc's to defend the shackles. Tis also means that the crown will be lost, so the final challenge of the campaign will be to recover the crown. Whoever can will be the new Hurricane King.
After reading through the books, I think I'm in the "likely never to run this" camp. The reason for me is that it feels like there is a disconnect between the aims and philosophies underlying the AP. A big part of the life of a pirate is freedom, which conflicts with the claustrophobic nature of a dungeon crawl, and the overall tone of paizo's writers leans heavily toward the dungeon more than anything else. I'm not saying they're necessarily bad, or that no one else could possibly have fun with this AP. Just that for me to run it would mean heavily modifying it to the point that I might as well write my own.
I do think the idea of a sandbox runs counter intuitive to an AP. The more freedom and determining thier own destiny the players pursue the less they are going to keep to script. I think that if you use a lot of the random encounters and included prey listed in each chapter you can get as much or more play time than if you just stuck with the AP as presented. I think with smaller locations and less static monsters waiting to be plundered by PCs would fix most of the "yet another dungeonness." Narrow the Saughain complex to one or two big fights and a few rooms can get you back on the seas while preserving the plot. The same goes for many of the locations. Seriously most locations have guards and people on watch, yet the flow of the encounters still follows a room by room encounter situation. Ring a bell, send the whole host running to arms, get all those extra crew people off the ship and make for faster quicker combats. Rather than just the 5 officers get off the boat leaving known PIRATES with the ship and loot while they go into battle against Saughain and Cyclopes and so forth.