The reason I ask is that I don't particularly like running high level (above 10th level) adventures (PCs have too many options, combat gets out of hand, etc.).
I'm currently running a Carrion Crown PBEM and plan on making the last battle in Broken Moon the climax of the campaign, thus making that NPC the overall bad guy. I think this is very doable with only some minor changes.
Do the other APs lend themselves to this 'cutting it short and still provide closure'?
I'm particularly interested in Curse of the Crimson Throne and Legacy of Fire APs.
Thanks!
I don't don't think Curse of the Crimson Throne would work very well if you shortened it. You have a pretty good idea who the BBEG is front the get go.
Rise of the Runelords would work pretty well though. Each book is pretty separate from each other and could probably each be run on their own.
Sorry, not sure about Legacy.
Legacy of Fire could work, if you stopped with the Jackal's Price (book 3). You may need to switch up a few things on why Father Jackal goes after the party if you don't use the arc that takes up the later part of the story, but otherwise it seems to end in a good sweet spot before the whole quasi-railroady sucked into the demiplane arc sets in.
I bet you could change Shackled City to end at level 10; you could just make the bad guy from Demonskar Legacy into the guy who has been kidnapping the Shackleborn.
I think you could also end Savage Tide after Tides of Dread (the PCs finally get their revenge on their old enemy and they save the colony from a fate worse than death: the end).
For Age of Worms: the PCs win the tournament and save the Free City from a fate worse than death. You'd probably have to say that the bad guy from Champion's Belt was trying to turn himself into Kyuss for all of the foreshadowing to make sense, though.
EDIT: Out of those three, Savage Tide would probably work the best, I think.
Oh, another idea, for the Jade Regent AP, you could alter the AP so that it ends at AP 51: the Hungry Storm and going into the Pathfinder module "The Ruby Phoenix Tournament" altering things in the module so that the winner of the tournament decides who will rule over the empire. Depending on your whim, you may or may not want to bump up the enemies a level or two to challenge 10th level PCs coming out of the Hungry Storm (the module was made for 9th level characters).
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Curse of the Crimson Throne: As mentioned it could be done, just take out all references to the dragon possessing the Queen.
Instead the Queen is just as ruthless, etc, but on her own agenda. So, there can be a conclusion where the heroes clean up the city, only to discover the Queen has solidified her rule through the chaos. Whether they accept the new Queen's rule (which they helped establish) is up to them.
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Council of Thieves: Could end in the third book, in a climatic battle in Delvehaven where the two end villains are somehow down in the Pathfinder Lodge themselves. Taken them out then and the rest of the AP doesn't have to unfold. Of course, that leaves the Council of Thieves still operational, but perhaps a final, final battle with the Council in the open would break their hold on Westcrown (with damning evidence gained from defeating the two evil siblings/villains).
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Kingmaker: This can pretty much be ended at any time. "And they lived happily ever after..." can drop at a moment's notice.
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Jade Regent: This can be changed to a caravan delivery and hand-off. Basically the heroes will escort Ameiko to the border between Tian Xia and Avistan, either to the Crown of the World or to Goka on the other side. Once there Ameiko will meet with loyalist forces and go off to fulfill her destiny. The heroes have fulfilled the epic escort journey and can return home satisfied their task was done well.
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Carrion Crown: Yup, good ending. Get the villain before he can gather all the ingredients for the ritual. Job done.
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Rise of the Runelords: Could be ended at any time, although tweaking would be needed for some things (like how come Karzoug doesn't appear if nobody stops the soul harvesting, so maybe tone down the soul harvesting aspect).
Cheers!
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Thanks guys, that was the sort of info I was hoping for.
What about the remaining APs? I have no experience with them but could look into them in the future.
Could these APs be cut down and still provide closure?
Second Darkness?
Serpent's Skull?
Skulls and Shackles?
serpents skull is actually best if you drop last two and combine some ideas from 3 and 4, you'll need to put some effort into it but its fun.
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Second Darkness has a great ending at the end of book 3, complete with banquet and prizes for the heroes from their grateful allies. I almost regretted not ending it there, it felt so perfect. All you have to do is make the foreshadowed BBEG from book 1 into the person the PCs fight in book 3.
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You could do Council of Thieves without the council at all. Simply make ending the shadowbeast threat (in its incarnation as a 30-year old Thrune measure) the main goal. Have Ilnerik as the BBEG, reduce his level, and place him in Delvehaven (where he's attempting to personally rid himself of the Morrowfall's influence).
Curse of the Crimson Thrune could have the Arkona family as the BBEGs, instead of Queen Ileosa. Some changes would have to be done, but otherwise that could work as a noble house attempting to perform a coup against a weak, inexperienced ruler through assassination, instigating riots, and unleashing a disease.
SeSk could end after the 2nd mod
CC could end at the end of each mod as they are very self contained monster-of-the-week
I guess with them all just think beforehand and aim for that ending
Skulls and Shackels can end at any point. Just have the goal to be accepted by the rest of the pirates/have your own base/whatever and drop the invasion.
Savage Tide can be ended at almost any point
Yeah, the end of Skulls & Shackles really depends on what your party's goals are.
Escape forced labor and get to safety - End at part 1
Become respected pirates and/or go on a treasure hunt - End at part 2
Join the Pirate Council and/or get your own Island - End at part 3 (though it makes Tessa's tasks ultimately meaningless beyond advancing your goals)
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Runelords can end quite nicely after Book 2. Make Xanesha the BBEG of the whole thing; Karzoug never enters the picture.
You could instead make it end after Book 3: In that version, Barl Breakbones is the BBEG. Again, no Runelord is needed-- just a power-hungry giant.
You could end it after Book 4, with Mokmourian the BBEG. Yet again, no need for a Runelord to actually rise. You'd probably want to nix the whole library beneath Jorgenfist; instead just have a regular giant's treasure trove.
Serpent's Skull can easily end after Book 2 (yay, we found the city!), Book 3 (we found and conquered the city!) and Book 4 (same as 3, extra dungeons).
Can anyone speak to how this might work with some of the newer APs?
Mummy's Mask could end with book 4 - just don't have
Most of the more recent AP's - Reign of Winter, Wrath of the Righteous, and Iron Gods come to mind - are harder to end partway through due to a pretty strong indication fro the get-g of who the BBEG is. You could stop Reign of Winter in Book 5 with some adjustments and Iron Gods in book 2, but of the last 2 years of AP's the only one with a really good partway stopping point is Mummy's Mask
kingmaker can end easily after book 3:)
Shattered Star could possibly be ended beforehand, but it's pretty clear from the start that the job is gather the seven pieces, so you'd have to deal with that somehow. Also not sure about closure.
The reason I ask is that I don't particularly like running high level (above 10th level) adventures (PCs have too many options, combat gets out of hand, etc.).
I'm currently running a Carrion Crown PBEM and plan on making the last battle in Broken Moon the climax of the campaign, thus making that NPC the overall bad guy. I think this is very doable with only some minor changes.
Do the other APs lend themselves to this 'cutting it short and still provide closure'?
I'm particularly interested in Curse of the Crimson Throne and Legacy of Fire APs.
Thanks!
I could easily see the first two books of Rise (Burnt Offerings and the Skinsaw Murders) as being a complete adventure, with Xanesha being the final boss.
The first two books of Second Darkness could be done as a stand alone OR the final four books instead since the two parts of the adventure seem almost unrelated in tone, locale and PC motivations.
Skull n' Shackles could also be ended at almost any time - but if you wanted to do the full campaign, you could either make book 5 the end or skip book 5 and go straight to boo 6. In our campaign we switched them around so that the Chellish Invasion was the climax after the PC's defeated Bonefist and rallied the other pirates to the defense of the Shackles.
In regards to CoT, as mentined, make it all about the Shadowcurse with The Bastards being Ilnerik's goons. Remove the Drovanges and have the climax underneth Delvehaven. Ease up on Thrune being mega-jerks and focus on making the city better.
You could end Legacy of Fire at book 2 as a plot centered around the re-founding of the market town and eliminating threats in the surrounding region.
It would be hard to include book 3 though as that ends in a cliff-hanger and is entangled with the end plot. Book 3 is really glue between the story from books 1-2 and and that of 4-6.
And not especially functional at that. I recommend skipping that book entirely, even if you're running the whole AP.
I replaced it with a heist type deal involving stealing the map back from the Pactmasters. I used the maps from the Pactstone Pyramid module, with a lot of custom encounters.
Here are some thoughts about the more recent APs:
_Strange Aeons_ can be run as the story of how the PCs get their memories back, and end in book 3; you can cut down Count Lowls' level appropriately and add him to the climax. This is essentially what we did, as I don't like high level play very much either. (But watch out for book 3 in this sequence, which can end up with the players feeling that they are just supposed to do what their enemies tell them to do; this did not go over well for our group.)
_Ruins of Azlant_ can end nicely at book 3, as the main questions raised in books 1-3 are answered here; just tone down the foreshadowing of the BBG or substitute the book 3 BBG for him. I think this produces quite a clean, well-structured AP, perhaps more so than the full AP does.
_Giantslayer_ could well end at 2 and be about orcs and a few hill giants: 1-2 makes a reasonable arc. _Iron Gods_ could also end after 2, with Hellion as the BBG. Just cut the foreshadowing that says otherwise. I don't really see a good stopping place after that for either _Giantslayer_ or _Iron Gods_.
_Hell's Rebels_ can end in book 3 or 4, whichever one has the Ball; just let us kill the guy already! (I was the player in this one, not the GM, so don't know which book that is.) I really liked the first half of this but then it became painfully clear that the PCs couldn't actually do anything useful: cutting it in half and letting the PCs act might improve it.
Mummy's Mask could end with book 4 - just don't have ** spoiler omitted **
Most of the more recent AP's - Reign of Winter, Wrath of the Righteous, and Iron Gods come to mind - are harder to end partway through due to a pretty strong indication fro the get-g of who the BBEG is. You could stop Reign of Winter in Book 5 with some adjustments and Iron Gods in book 2, but of the last 2 years of AP's the only one with a really good partway stopping point is Mummy's Mask
Actually, Iron God's could work excellently as a two-book adventure, since it was deliberately written as a trilogy. Remove the references to Casandalee and Unity meant to propel you into the third book and beyond, and you can easily make Hellion the true Big Bad.
_Giantslayer_ could well end at 2 and be about orcs and a few hill giants: 1-2 makes a reasonable arc.
You could do that, but it depends on the players. If they are aware they are playing "Giantslayer" and adjusted their expectations and characters accordingly, you might be better off with also adding book 3. After a giant-free section it allows the players to face a variety of different giants, so they shouldn't suffer from boredom by then.
Book 4 is probably a good candidate to be run on its own. Its theme and execution seems pretty good, but that gets overshadowed by "oh, giants again, and always the same type" if you play it as part of an AP.
Encounters in book 5 look like the author ran out of time - maybe another candidate for a standalone scenario, with heavy modifications from the GM. To a lesser extent, this also applies to book 6 - especially the final boss' evilness should be more obvious to the players.
Hells Rebels looks to have a very natural end point at book 4
In fact that is all I have really looked at since 4 books is the furthest I have ever gone in an AP and that was when life was less hectic
Each individual entry can be run as a standalone adventure. Whether or not one feels closure from the single adventure really has a lot to do with the overarcing themes and how the GM handles it.
For example, running any one part of Shattered Star could feel incomplete as the overall adventure is to collect the pieces of the Sihedron. A good GM can still make it feel complete by inferring that the other pieces are recovered independently of the PCs actions. A less astute GM might leave it more open.
Each individual entry can be run as a standalone adventure. Whether or not one feels closure from the single adventure really has a lot to do with the overarcing themes and how the GM handles it.
For example, running any one part of Shattered Star could feel incomplete as the overall adventure is to collect the pieces of the Sihedron. A good GM can still make it feel complete by inferring that the other pieces are recovered independently of the PCs actions. A less astute GM might leave it more open.
This is an interesting point and one i will consider going forward as there are some very good stand alone books
(And I effectively wasted about 3 years of game time picking reign of winter for book 5 and we never got there )I need to go back and dig up that thread about best / favourite single volumes
My eyes are drawn to Crimson Throne volume 2 for example
Along with the closure part the introduction could also be tough to some of the later books in certain APs - say halfway through a kingdom being constructed or a rebellion being formed
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Along with the closure part the introduction could also be tough to some of the later books in certain APs - say halfway through a kingdom being constructed or a rebellion being formed
Book 3 of Kingmaker (Varnhold Vanishing) would make a perfect single volume adventure.
Imagine a group of adventures coming across an empty village.... how creepy would that be?!?