Gearing Up to Run Serpent's Skull


Serpent's Skull


Our group will be starting Serpent's Skull super soon and we are all so pumped!

I'm running this for some experienced players (going back to 2E days). However, we've never really gone beyond CRB when it comes to Pathfinder.

Right now the party consists of 4 PCs but everything is still in development:

Halfling Cavalier; Beast Master Archetype; Order of the Dragon

Dwarven Monk; Flowing Monk Archetype; Cleanliness, Chains, and Truthfulness Oaths

Human [Mwangi] Witch

Gnome (or Halfling? -TBD) Oracle

As a GM I am wondering what advice those of you who have run the AP before might have, esp. based on this party; AND, we may add one more PC (if so, what would best round out the above?). Once again, super-excited!


Make sure you do lots of prep, random encounters, maps, treasure etc. Some of the latter books the combat can get a bit samey, with hordes of one type of mook for multiple encounters. I gave up on tracking XP by the 3rd book, so I could focus on scattering randoms to break up the monotony.
As for the party, try and impress the healing side of the group needs to be up to level. There is a lot of disease and poison in this AP.
Again, I can't stress the prep enough, there are a lot of good ideas on this board.

Good Luck


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If you're looking for serpent-themed campaign and player material, check out the Grimoire Viperian from Magic Skull Games.

The book has a great deal of snake-themed material ideally suited for the Serpent's Skull adventure path (or post-adventure path adventures), and a ton of generic-themed material that can be dropped into any campaign.

Just some of the snake-themed material from the book:

Exciting "Golden Age" or "Lovecraftian" style backstory

The book includes a backstory supporting much of the new serpent-themed material and rules, which can be used to spawn adventures and plot devices in just about any campaign, whether it's for expanding the Serpent's Skull AP or creating your own snake-themed campaign.

Shapeshifter base class:

A new base class focused on shapeshifting abilities such as alter self, shapechange (similar to a druid's wildshape - so many snake forms are available), forms of the mythical beast, dragon form, giant form, special form powers, favored form ability enhancements, and more.

The shapeshifter base class great for characters who want a pure shapeshifting melee-oriented class that is far more than a mere spell-less druid or a shapeshifter ranger archetype.

The class is perfect for many of the villains in the Serpent's Skull adventure path, especially the serpentfolk, or any serpent-themed villains in any campaign.

Monsters:
New deadly venomous snake types with much more powerful poison and realistic poison side effects. Drop these into nearly any Serpent's Skull encounter, especially the wilderness sandbox areas.

These are much deadlier than their standard Bestiary counterparts and will rightly put new fear of serpents in your players and make combat with them exciting and memorable. There are also suggested rules for using these deadly snakes in summoning spells and with druid shapechanging abilities.

Black Mamba
Krait
Gaboon Viper
King Cobra
Spitting Cobra
Rattlesnake
dire version of all the above

Other new snake-themed monsters include...
serpentine medusas
scaly otyugh
trog ettin
trog troll
xocouatl (evil necromantic couatls)

Monster templates such as...
half-serpents
sentient serpents (with levels or sorcerer or other classes - these make great minions for serpentfolk bosses, or can even be introduced as new sub-bosses - they're the last thing most players will expect!)
vampiric serpents
amphisbaena serpents
hydran serpents
serpentine undead
snake-vomiting undead
viperian dragons

Supernatural Signs of Evil templates such as...
Sign of the Vile Serpent (apply this template to any of the serpentfolk or their minions to create unique foes with unexpected and cool serpent-themed powers).
Sign of Death
Sign of Evil, and others

Prestige classes:
Serpent Warlock, Serpentine Necromancer, Serpent Temple Warrior, Serpent Druid, Silent Adder, Python Master, Cobra Master, Snake Clan Warrior, Snake Cult Leader, and Viper Assassin.

Any of these can be used to spice up the serpent-themed adversaries and their minions, or allow your players to select them for their own snake-themed characters.

Spells:
Serpent Strike, Amphisbaena Call, Speed of the Mamba, Summon Snake Swarm, Summon Venomous Snake Swarm, Serpent's Wrath, Virulent Venom, Ghost Serpent, Serpent Reflexes, Serpent Sneak Attack and Serpentine Whip, and Wall of Serpents.

These spells are great for a serpent-flavored campaign, and many are designed to go along with the prestige classes and other new material in the book.

Eldritch Path Feats:
Secrets of the Beast and The Secrets of Terror.

Magic Items:
Cobra Scale Armor, Mamba Scale Armor, Viper Scale Armor, Serpent Scale Cloak, Python Spear, Serpent Strike Weapons, Snake Flail, Strangling Snake Whip, Weapon of Deadly Venom, Snake Animal Totem Headdress, Banner of the Supernatural Sign.

And as I said before, a ton of additional material from all these categories that is not specifically snake-themed.

Thanks from Steve at MSG!


If you get the chance to read through the whole thing first, then do it. Then read it again.

Plan. Plan. Plan.

Run some of the lesser random encounters as an 80's montage!

Weather. Make it rain, make it hot, jungel fog. Make up some cards and put some weather condition rules on them. Then just drop them on the play area at the start of the fight to reminde everyone of the conditions.

Forshadowing some of the future models early can really make the whole thing shine brighter.

Use the NPC's. They can be your voice and drop the players some hints.

When in doubt watch an Indiana Jones movie. It helped me.

Good luck.


The first AP is the best of the series for a play it as written AP.

Take admonishments to pre-read and plan in advance seriously. Set things up so that you can have serious rivalry taking place during 2nd and 3rd books of the AP. Modify things based on your players likes dislikes.

I used dreams/nightmares to do some foreshadowing you may want to focus on the oracle for that if the idea appeals to you.

I modified the Mwangi to give them all purple eyes (Southern Azlanti's)and added a serious racial bias to the colonials to up the tension with our one Mwangi character.

If you're going to add one more character give them a heavy dose of knowledge skills. A rogue with interest in antiquities and perhaps some family ties to antiquities dealers could work.

Liberty's Edge

I second the above about making sure you have a good healer. It isn't the damage, but the conditions that will kill you in this AP. Lots of diseases and poisons and other sources for ability damage, sickened, nausea, etc. We spent a ton of money on restoration and lesser restoration spells and even Heal scrolls until our cleric was high enough level to cast them. A Wand of Lesser Restoration will be a life saver, but IIRC they give you one as loot fairly early. We used it and bought another.

In regards to the witch, it might be advisable to warn the player up front that this AP has a lot, I mean a lot, of foes that are immune to mind-affecting effects. We are on Book 5 and we have a Mwangi witch in the party. She has gradually shifted her spells to compensate for the immune creatures. The witch is a powerful and versatile class and they can totally get by in this AP. Our witch has certainly been a valuable member of the party, but has been frustrated at times too.

The witch IS one class that gets access to the Remove Sickness spell (along with cleric/oracle and druid). This spell has literally saved our lives on multiple occasions. If your players aren't familiar with it (It's in Ultimate Magic), you might drop in a scroll somewhere. That way the witch could add it to her familiar. Whether she choose to prepare it is her problem...


Well you have an Oracle so that's the healing covered, this is one AP that really demands a dedicated healer.

No Rogue? While not essential there are parts of the AP where you'll suffer without one.

Ibayboy has just completed running us through SS and we suffered from lack of healing until our Sorcerer took leadership and got us a cleric NPC to follow us around healing us up, constantly!

Until then my poor Alchemist had been covering healer as well as Rogue.

We had two Half-orc fighter types, an Asimar Sorcerer and my Elf Alchemist, or "Two morons, a mongrel and me!" As she put it.

Funnily enough she also covered the diplomat role for the party :).

DBH


DBH wrote:

Well you have an Oracle so that's the healing covered, this is one AP that really demands a dedicated healer.

No Rogue? While not essential there are parts of the AP where you'll suffer without one.

Ibayboy has just completed running us through SS and we suffered from lack of healing until our Sorcerer took leadership and got us a cleric NPC to follow us around healing us up, constantly!

Until then my poor Alchemist had been covering healer as well as Rogue.

We had two Half-orc fighter types, an Asimar Sorcerer and my Elf Alchemist, or "Two morons, a mongrel and me!" As she put it.

Funnily enough she also covered the diplomat role for the party :).

DBH

It is funny you mention all this because we are one session in and the party is now finalized. The player who was considering an Oracle rolled up and Alchemist instead. The fifth player rolled up a "Sword and Board" Fighter.

Liberty's Edge

long-staff sixpenny striker wrote:


It is funny you mention all this because we are one session in and the party is now finalized. The player who was considering an Oracle rolled up and Alchemist instead. The fifth player rolled up a "Sword and Board" Fighter.

Well, then I suggest your party get really cozy with Jask as soon as possible.

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