Ruins of Azlant, how is it?

[The Painted Oryx]

I'm a new GM and looking at picking up this AP, wondering if anyone's run and how it compares to the other APs? I havent seen too many reviews on the issues so just wondering if anyone had any thoughts?

Cheers!

[ericthecleric]

Hi! Here is a link to the sub-forum for that AP. I hope that helps!

[TheDarkDM]

If you want one random person's opinion, as someone who has only read it, I think Ruins of Azlant is a fantastic premise that forgets what's interesting about the pitch around the halfway point of Chapter 2. The whole Roanoke disappearance beginning and traversal of ancient ruins is cool, but the focus shifts pretty quickly to stuff that's about as thematically boilerplate as it gets. For example, there's an npc late in Chapter 2 that was alive during the height of the Azlanti empire and witnessed Earthfall, and there is no support for the PCs to interact with her beyond getting a temporary McGuffin. If your group really, really likes Aboleth in particular then maybe there's something in there. But you'll also be forcing your group to endure about 50% of the combat encounters being underwater.

[Haldrick]

Generally the AP is very good. We are having great fun with it. It does have some issues.

The original exploration of the colony had too many intelligent humanoid like monsters for my taste.

Some of the encounters in Book 2 appear overpowered for the party levels.

The party find the first wave of colonist disappeared. But then nothing is done about this till the start of the 3rd book, when suddenly the party is expected to rush head long into a rescue, weeks after the original abductions.

There are some story issues in the underwater city. You many want to read the specific treads about that.

None of these are insurmountable, and many may well not be noticed by players as opposed to GM's

[Captain collateral damage]

I'm about to start book 3 with my home game and so far it's been great! Your party will need to be prepared for underwater combat, Azlanti stuff, an long adventuring days, but I very much recommend this AP. :)

[ratcatbo]

It starts of really strong but starts to lose steame around mod 4 than the plot gets littel convoluted

[HedwickTheWorldly]

Captain collateral damage wrote:

I'm about to start book 3 with my home game and so far it's been great! Your party will need to be prepared for underwater combat, Azlanti stuff, an long adventuring days, but I very much recommend this AP. :)

I'm about to wrap this AP up with my party, and I want to warn you to do some prep work before you head into Book 4, if you can. It felt like a meaningless side-quest book to my party, who expressed frustration that one of the NPCs was basically just making them do a fetch quest in order to tell them what they needed to know. There's also not much reason for the adventurers to go to the underwater city in the first place, but there are some fun NPCs and neat interactions there, so I wouldn't change that part.

Thoughts I have about getting the whole thing to feel more organic:

Book 4-6 Spoilers:

Consider moving the fight with Ruinquake to Book 4 instead of waiting until Book 6. It feels a bit forced in 6 anyway, and Seaspike doesn't actually do anything of note, so PCs have more than likely sold it by then anyway.

Additionally, I would give the Mezlan a bigger role, and maybe make the whole thing with the Deep Merfolk lady about it, rather than the PCs, because he's a great NPC, and he would want to help anyone trying to thwart Auberon.