Rescaling Serpent's Skull's "Souls for Smuggler's Shiv" for lvls 4-8


Serpent's Skull


Hey, all!

My group is looking to do a new campaign and were quite enthralled with the idea of shipwreck-survival. We came across the first adventure path for Serpent's Skull, and it looks great...save they want to do characters starting from level 4 and on.

I'm looking at doing basic things like changing the final beast to a dragon of some sort and leveling up the denizens of the island, but what other suggestions would you have to keep the environment challenging?

Also, I have to keep in mind that they won't really have a chance to upgrade their gear with magic so easily (no shops to buy from, no places to properly craft), so normal power level encounters which take into account wealth will have to be downsized or reworked.

Any and all help is appreciated!


This isn't what you're asking for, but book 2 of Second Darkness, Children of the Void, also strands the PCs on a island and is a very good adventure, albeit written for 3.5 rather than Pathfinder rules. It's already written for 4th to 6th level.

EDIT: This thread might belong in the Serpent's Skull forum where you'd get more results from DMs who have run or are running the AP.


This makes me think it would be a good time to pull out "Ye Auld All Yer Items Have Been Taken From Yeez," but...

Even at level 4 caster classes are merely inconvenienced by that, whereas melee classes are handicapped.

Still it might be fun for a lark, you know a Fighter making a club. (No freaking way would I enforce these crafting rules. He might have to sand here and there, and shape it a little but even without ranks in woodworking or whatever you could have a functional club or greatclub in a few hours. Crude spear and sling too.)

This might not be what you had in mind but it is just a thought.


Joana:

This looks pretty good: I might bring this up to them and see what they think. Maybe I'll pick parts from both and make something. Either way, I appreciate your help!

sunbeam:

I would do that, save that all of them know that they are going to be shipwrecked so they are planning on playing classes around that (Monks, Druids, Souldknifes, Kineticists, etc.). I'm thinking of adding in bonuses gained for certain tasks completed kind of like the NPC rewards for building good inter-personal skills.

I'm also looking for any intrigue that I could add to the island, like doing more with the snake-god temple (perhaps having a cult of snake people still living and operating out of it?).


(imo) If they are truly wanting the shipwrecked island atmosphere, then stick with Smuggler's Shiv over Children of the Void. The Shiv is a lot larger of an island and has more going on.

However, you could always combine the themes. Create a cult of serpentfolk within the temple. Have some small skirmishes throughout, and an increasing number of small meteor strikes at night. Eventually they are successful in calling down a larger meteor complete with akata cocoons, which throws the island into chaos.

To go with a pure survival theme, I would add a lot more traps, more predatory animals, and a better defensed cannibal village. Make skills more of a premium to survive via skill challenges (Savage Tide would be a good read here). The PCs/NPCs could try and create their own makeshift village and have to constantly struggle (with skills) in upkeep and defense. For this route, you can make judicious use of Templates (Giant and Advanced Simple will work well early on) and keep a lot of the same encounters, as not everything on the island needs to be constantly challenging.

Using a young green dragon, or even a pair, as the main antagonists would be good too.


My group is finishing up Book 3 of this AP and having read through all 6 books I still think Souls for Smuggler's Shiv is the best of the lot (and definitely one of the best Pathfinder modules overall).

I have some suggestions:

1.) If you have access to Heart of the Jungle and Sargava: The Lost Colony you could raid those resources for more challenging jungle hazards (natural disasters/diseases).

2.) If you want to up the ante on the monsters and you access to the later APs I would definitely check out the "Bestiaries" for more powerful foes that fit the theme (especially Books 2 and 3).

Good luck and I look forward to hearing how it goes!

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