Dance of Ruin's page

As much as I would like a copy of this, please please please do not make it part of an existing subscription.

+1. I really hope that Paizo will throw international subscribers a bone here, as the situation Antony described is even worse in other EU countries (because of higher import taxes). If this were to become part of my subscription, I would easily have to pay something between 150 and 200% of the original purchase price.

Apart from that, while I know Paizo's business model relies heavily on subscriptions, I wonder where the idea came from to include 'beginner' product into existing subscription lines (i.e., sell the beginner set to customers who - in many cases - will own the vast majority of sourcebooks Paizo has published for PF)? This (forgive me for saying so) seems somewhat counterintuitive to me.

First, I want to stress that this post is in no way a criticism of either the SD AP (which I <3) or the editorial decision to shorten the adventures (which I can understand). Still, there have already been several posts on the subject that the AP feels 'rushed' in certain places. I would put it another way: There are a lot of promising ideas, but most of them are left for DMs to flesh out. Therefore, when I use the term 'weak spots' below, I don't mean to disrespect the respective author's work - I just want to start a discussion about what could be done to yet improve the AP further.

That being said, I would like to ask the community for their input. This could probably work out as follows:

1a) Identify the AP's 'weak spots',
1b) Discuss what exactly makes a particular part unsatisfying to DM and/or play,
2) Fill in the blanks with our own ideas, hooks, et cetera.

Would anyone be interested in this? If so, I would very much appreciate your help and your ideas.

To start, I will list the AP parts that stuck out for me:

- RIDDLEPORT: Sure, it is a drow-themed AP. Still, I feel that there is a lot of work being done setting up Riddleport as an adventure background, but the PCs only spend very little time there and (probably) don't return there over the course of the AP. I think something could be done to remedy this by padding out the whole first chapter, e.g.: giving the PCs more missions to accomplish before the betrayal by Vancaskerin. Also, the whole 'competing crime bosses' party could be played up. Any suggestions as to what adventures (from Dungeon magazine or otherwise) might come in handy here? What plots have you cooked up to make Riddleport more meaningful?

- THE ELVEN CHOO-CHOO TRAIN: As with some others on these boards, I am having a slight problem with how the whole 'now you are drow, go' part is handled. I can especially see problems with players whose characters have 'mercenary' motivations. Any suggestions on how to make spying for the elves more attractive for any kind of character?

- THE DARKLANDS: Again, there is a lot of background detail given, but the PCs are on a constant timer because they have to find out about Big A's plans. While that is probably okay in Zirnakayin itself, the elf gate could drop the party further away from the big city, thus creating space for more underdark-themed encounters. I think it would be a good idea to maybe establish two more factions of Darklands inhabitants besides the drow, and making it possible for the PCs to ally with one of them, so that they can have a fallback position, should things in Zirnakayin turn sour. Suggestions for this or other Darklands encounters? One excellent idea I read on the boards was to integrate 'The Chasm Bridge' from Dungeon #101 into the AP.

I'm looking forward to your thoughts. And sorry if my English is somewhat clunky, I'm not a native speaker :-).