Ok, so I am a veteran DM of 3.5 but a bit rusty, and a somewhat new Dm of Pathfinder, which is why I started with an Adventure Path. I'm now at the point where my NPCs have entered Karlsgard. Until then everything went well, except the Brinewall dungeon was WAY too long. I had to nix some encounters and fusion others because my players were getting fed up.
But then I've hit a snag - the Aril's Hammer. So, the book says "Your players are not going to be dumb enough to sail a stolen boat into Karlsgard." The problem is - my players have no indication who those vikings are at that point of the adventure, no indication there is a whole organization of ninja wanting their death (all they know is that there are big demons far away), and no way to know this boat belongs to anybody else than viking raiders.
So, of course they took the boat. But they did not sail it mind you: they used a few days and their Profession: Carpenter to jury-rig a set of wheels to carry the boat. Not one to deny my players to use their skills in a clever way, said okay. But then they got even more clever, and removed the name of the boat - it is only a matter of changing a plank after all. So okay, the Rimerunners will probably know it is their boat, but they have no proof. Anyway, I give them the NP and all that.
Then, they try to sell the boat.So starts the haggling for the price part - but surprise, the price for a keelboat in the PFSRD is much higher than the price in the AP. So we lost half-an-hour looking for the correct price in the books, and then I twisted the situation to remove the boat from their hand - I had the guild buy it back in exchange of the PCs becoming partners in the guild (which means that the FS now have tabs on the PC). But that is a huge derivation from the AP.
Problem is, now they got this idea that they can probably look for a boat instead to go to Tian-Xia, and they started looking at the maps in the Inner Sea Guide, and where like: Hmm, why would we bother going through the fricking inhospitable North Pole (must I say I'm playing this game in Northern Quebec - my players knows what cold is) when we can just do what Christopher Columbus only dreamed of - sailing west over Arcadia and landing on the other side of the world! And the worst part is, from a geographical point of view, they are right.
So, my question is:Why should my players go over the Crown of the World instead of just doing a Chris Columbus? As for the "because Sandru will not want to leave his caravan behind", my players characters hates Sandru (mostly because they are jealous of him) and will have no trouble coercing him. So, is there something I could had that would make the Journey to the Crown of the World necessary, or must I railroad them?
Also, I took all that time posting my story to exemplifies a point: this Adventure Path is fun, but the boat is nothing but trouble.
