Looking for some advice, this is my first time running a game. My players are actually having a ton of fun with it and the player who usually gm's for our group says he's having a blast playing and has been inspired to make changes to his game so I guess I'm not doing a bad job.
That said, they keep skipping all the content that I think should be fun and interesting and go straight from one hack and slash fight to the next:
I was excited to run the rooftop chase with Trinia but my stealthiest player scouted out the rooftops beforehand and blocked the window exit of Trinia's room while the rest of the party successfully stealthed up the stairs kicked in the door and cast web before Trinia had a chance to wake up.
In Seven Days to the grave on day one the players crafted a periapt of health and argued that immunity cures disease rather than just preventing infection and then spent every consecutive day crafting another and distributing them to Archbanker Tuttle, Cressidakroft and Dr Davaulus in that order. So the plague basically never happened and the cultists were playing catch up trying to find a way to assassinate the party crafter (unsuccessfully) and enhance the plague to work around the periapt.
In escape from old Korvosa I made the mistake of letting them be in the room when Marcus tried to assassinate the queen. They all beat him in initiative and managed to grapple him before he could loose his arrow despite me giving him 3 hero points. So the Queen never got shot.
They sent their stealthy scout into Vencarlo's house and both she and the mantis assassins failed the check to notice each other so they just left the empty house without exploring it any further.
And worst of all the skipped blood pig! They all drank invis potions and stealthed/flew their way into Pilts palace at night and slumber hexed him in his bead before he got a word in.
I think you shot yourself in the foot on a couple of these.
An immunity to disease is not an instant cure for a disease (presumably they were putting these on diseased characters for 1 round instead of making one for every diseased citizen). It merely suppresses the effects - the virus still passes through your body, but doesn't deal you the damage (and making the Fort saves to discover exactly when it's cured is mostly pointless).
With Marcus, he should have been entitled to a surprise round on everyone, unless the party were specifically expecting him to shoot the Queen.
None of that helps you for what's been, of course, but a good thing to do is ask yourself this - if the plot appears to be easily foiled by relatively simple player actions, isn't it likely that the NPCs involved could have thought of them and reacted appropriately?
Is the cult of Urgathoa really likely to put out their complex disease plan if it can be undone by 3 copies of an easily obtainable magic item (if you assume Periapt's of Health work like yours did)? Wouldn't they have thought that through if the world worked that way? Would Endrin really have tried to take his shot at the Queen while standing in a room apparently within grappling range of 4 PCs just waiting for him to make a move, or would he have waited for a better time?
Now, some of these are quite legitimate. There are half a dozen ways to foil Trinia's chase (which passes the 'does the world really work this way' test because she's desperately and hurriedly fleeing out a window, not enacting her long thought out complex escape plan).
It's like some of the common rules 'exploits' that sane GMs should pretty much immediately disallow. If you could Create Water in someone's lungs and drown them, suddenly a cantrip is really deadly. Is that working as intended? If all diseases can be cured permanently by just putting on a Periapt of Health for a round, why doesn't every major temple in a city already have one and just charge parishioners to put it on for 6 seconds?
An immunity to disease is not an instant cure for a disease (presumably they were putting these on diseased characters for 1 round instead of making one for every diseased citizen). It merely suppresses the effects - the virus still passes through your body, but doesn't deal you the damage (and making the Fort saves to discover exactly when it's cured is mostly pointless).
I tried to argue this but gave up when the player who is usually our GM started citing developer posts. I didn't want it to turn into a drawn out argument and decided to roll with it. I decided to have the cultists each work on ways to enhance the disease, Ramoska went into the sewers and took wererat blood samples to compare to vampire blood and turned blood veil into a curse+disease like mummy rot, Rolth researched a way to make those killed by the disease come back as plague zombies, and Davaulus (whom I had replaced with the Bee-Man of Bellis) Looked into infecting bee stings with the disease. Each sacrificed a leukodaemon to finalize their alterations. I think it worked out pretty well.
With Marcus, he should have been entitled to a surprise round on everyone, unless the party were specifically expecting him to shoot the Queen.
Most of the party would have made a perception check to see him going for the bow and it would have wound up the same but this is a good idea. In my version of the events Marcus hasn't planned things out, he just fly's off the handle. Earlier in the story I had him kill another sable company member in front of the PC's for letting blackjack rescue a fake Trinia from the chopping block. I think my plan to fix this is going to have Yzahnum make an early appearance and attack the queen disguised as blackjack. The Queen will defeat him but spare his life if he bends the knee to her. The PC's will watch this play out from a distance so they don't interfere. This way the queen gets to intimidate everyone with her new found power and at the same time create the propaganda of her being merciful and forgiving to those who swear to serve her.
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In Seven Days to the grave on day one the players crafted a periapt of health and argued that immunity cures disease rather than just preventing infection and then spent every consecutive day crafting another and distributing them to Archbanker Tuttle, Cressidakroft and Dr Davaulus in that order. So the plague basically never happened and the cultists were playing catch up trying to find a way to assassinate the party crafter (unsuccessfully) and enhance the plague to work around the periapt.
You should bone up on the crafting feats. On day one your party should be 4th level. The periapt is CL 5. Also, it takes 8 days to craft one. Reverse is right, immunity does not mean cure.
In escape from old Korvosa I made the mistake of letting them be in the room when Marcus tried to assassinate the queen. They all beat him in initiative and managed to grapple him before he could loose his arrow despite me giving him 3 hero points. So the Queen never got shot.
Again, Reverse is right. Marcus definitely should have had a surprise round. Honestly, this event should be run as a stage play with the party strictly an audience. There is nothing stopping you from playing it out by making it a story that they are only witnesses too. When I get to that stage, that is how it will be done.
I honestly think you are being roughed up by your players taking advantage of a green GM. Your regular GM should be showing you more respect than he appears to be. His arguments are wrong, stand up to him. Don't argue during game play, make a ruling, stand by it for the session. Revisit between game sessions. Make a final decision at the next game. You, as the GM, has the last say in every ruling. That is what the GM is supposed to do. You tell a story, adjudicate the actions of the all the characters, PC and NPC, and you make rulings. Don't be afraid to make them and stand by them.
The number one rule of running a game is this, "It is your game, run as you see fit, not as others tell you it should be run."
Why were the PCs anywhere near Marcus? Isn’t he supposed to be close to the queen. And they have no status that would allow them to be close to her at this stage
You are being bullied by your players
The disease thing is outrageous and is simply them trying to munchkin their way out of what is supposed to be a severe challenge and the meta plot as well. As GM what you say goes - no arguments . Especially when vital to the meta plot
Also periapts are rather expensive to craft. They should have struggled to afford it
There is a large element of your players skipping the fun stuff because they are trying to game the system to avoid challenges entirely not to beat them. I don’t think that is the intention of the rules or game in general
Why were the PCs anywhere near Marcus? Isn’t he supposed to be close to the queen. And they have no status that would allow them to be close to her at this stage
I've modified the story quite a a lot. I wanted to get the players more involved with the queen, to flesh her out as a person rather than just some enemy hidden in a castle. To that effect I had Cressidia bring her to a small council meeting to provide testimony on their findings during "edge of anarchy" (In my version of event the players uncover a drug ring involving Boule, Lamm, the cowhammer boys and Devargo whose tatinted drugs are fueling the riots) This is also when the players decided to return the queens brooch. The players are seen as heroes for quelling the riots and stopping the drug ring and are therefore brought in as consultants to the queens council when the plague hits and when Old Korvosa revolts.
I ran the scene with blackjack rescuing the Trinia scapegoat from execution as a cut-scene and I thought the lack of player involvement made it kind of lame. So I decided to have the Marcus scene take place during a council meeting the players happened to be attending.
How did they get the time to craft the Periapts? Making 3 of them would take 24 days and pretty much the entire 7 Days to the Grave plot would conclude in Ileosa's favor within 24 days. At a minimum Old Korvosa would get cut off enabling you to run Escape without any issues.
You'd also need access to Remove Disease spell which is a 3rd level spell so 7th level caster. PCs are like 4th level when the plague hits.
As for Trinia, my players tried to get to her window to block off her escape but the Shingles proved too difficult for someone unfamiliar with it to navigate and by the time the party triggered her Alarm spell she was out the window (with an illusion left behind) and running away. Eventually they captured her and handed her over to Croft then showed up at her execution and ensured she would never escape with Blackjack while winning major points with Ileosa as they carried out the execution of her personally.