I'm thinking of running this adventure path in the next couple of months: something about the setting and the idea of it is really appealing. That said, the AP seems to have some weaknesses that, if addressed, could make for a more fun experience for all concerned. From reading the AP and what people have said on this board here is my sense of the problems with the AP.
1) Racing to Ruin feels too much like a rail road.
2) The serpent folk kind of disappear in the adventure path, which is troubling because they are the final antagonist of the first adventure and of the last adventure path as a whole.
3) Saventh-Yhi isn't all that well fleshed out, can be boring and the adventures that take place there are needlessly separated.
Some things about Saventh-Yhi just don't make a ton of sense to me--I don't see what the Aboleth adds to the adventure.
It also doesn't seem like there is a lot of opportunity for non-combat resolution of conflict, so many of the groups in the city are unwaveringly hostile to the PCs.
4) For all the talk of the characters being the first to discover the city, NPC pathfinders got there first and end up being really important to the plot.
5) The player's motivation needs to change throughout the AP, though this isn't really addressed in the text. In the first they just want to survive and get back to land. In 2-4 they are in some weird competition? and in 5-6 they need to avert the rise of an evil god.
I have some thoughts on how to deal with some of these issues, but I'd appreciate any suggestions anyone has or comments on any other problems they encountered/forsee with the AP. A lot of people on this board have already taken steps to deal with some of the issues, especially of fleshing out Saventh-Yhi and it seems like the best way to make the Saventh-Yhi portion fun is to play up the element of competition/rivalry with the other factions, so I'll make sure to emphasize that.
I'm thinking of adapting the chase rules to make a kind of overland race. The race would consist of cards with skill challenges on them, but the party's goal is to accumulate a number of cards before the rival factions do, (which represents who gets to Tazion or Kalabuto first). To diminish the railroady-ness of it maybe I'd give the players the choice of two cards where they could see name of the encounter but not necessarily the details of the DCs (so players could choose, for instance, between facing the hungry hippos or the treacherous ford and could make educated guesses about what skills they could use). It would be easy to throw in random encounters into the deck as well. I think I'd still like to use some of the set encounters as well, as well as some way for the pcs to interact with other factions.
I'm less sure how address the fact that scheming serpent folk disappear from the adventure path till about book 5. I guess what makes the most sense is to have serpent folk infiltrate some of the rivals in Racing to Ruin and then work at cross purposes with the PC's while they are in Saventh-Yhi. Maybe they are looking for a way to get to Ilmuria. Because I think the Aboleth is kind of a wasted opportunity, I was thinking of putting something serpent folk related in that pool. Maybe there is an underwater crypt or something that the serpent folk are looking for, or use to unleash some kind of monster on the various groups in Saventh-Yhi.
The other big stumbling block from a plot point of view is how to motivate parts 4 and 5 without having the pathfinders already in Ilmuria. The PC's only find out about the portal because a pathfinders stumbles out of it and book 5 is all about rescuing a pathfinder. I'm toying with the idea of replacing the pathfinder with survivors from the original Saventh-Yhi. Not really "survivors" but undead Zura-cultists who were placed in stasis or something to explain how they survived so long and to tie to the Zura temple in adventure 1 as well. Also thinking about making the Urdefhans into ancient Zura cultists who were cast into Abbadon and transformed there.
I'm not sure how to address the PC's motivations. They get a prophetic vision at the beginning of racing to ruin, but I'm not sure it would make a ton of sense or let them know what is at stake in the following encounters.
I'm probably getting ahead of myself here, but does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions as to how to make the adventure path as enjoyable as possible?
