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Hey, just wanted to say thanks for all your ideas. I ended up running the last couple sessions mostly as Lintecarka suggested, with them first taking out the Chelish navy then infiltrating Fort Hazard and killing Ezaliah before he enacted a ritual that would have sacrificed the population of Port Peril to Asmodeus (needed to put a timed element of danger in so they didn't just starve out the invaders in the fort). Now that he's Hurricane King, their Capt. started restricting access to black powder and becoming appropriately despotic.

I thought we would be done the campaign, but everyone still seems attached to their characters and wants to hit higher levels so I'm gonna take a break and let someone else DM for a level or two before delving into the 'continuing the campaign' hooks and coming up w/ some of my own high level adventures. Might have the dragons from that one dragon isle invade or maybe adapt the tomb of horrors as a 'ultimate treasure' dungeon lure. If anyone had any good high level pirate exploits to share let me know.

Despite flagging a bit in the home stretch, I had a great time w/ this adventure path, second only to Curse of the Crimson throne. The first 3 adventures were particularly good and its been fun watching the group rise in power from press ganged to pirate lords.

Ah, I like the suggestion to use uncle Ezaliah, I almost forgot about him and he screwed over one of the PC's in his backstory. Maybe he could have Harrigan or Kerdak's bound spirits fight for him in the final battle, as he didn't sound like much of a combatant himself.

Anyone have an idea for what the Ilizmagorti pirates might want for their aid? It feels like Red Mantis run pirates should have some sinister side motive but I might be overthinking it. Building a temple to the Mantis God maybe, though secrecy is more his (its?) style. Thanks for the ideas

Hey all, I've mined some great ideas from these forums over the years and hope people could help me brainstorm.

My group has made it through almost the entire adventure path, have recently killed Harrigan and returned to their town of Rumhaven on the Isle of Empty Eyes where they fought the remainder of his forces who had attacked the island while they made an early beeline for Harrigan's base directly. So their town took some damage and they lost a portion the small fleet of ally's they'd built up.

Upon learning of the oncoming Chelish invasion fleet, they sent a magical message warning the pirate council. I had Tessa respond saying that the Hurricane King utterly disregarded the warning, trusting in his might and the power of the Eye. Instead of setting sail in a rush to Port Peril, their Capt. convinced the other PC's and crew to sit tight and let the Chelish Navy attack Port Peril and take out the Hurricane King, who they have little respect for. They're not full on evil, but are pretty ruthless and amoral, and don't care much about Port Peril, having preferred to focus on their own island, which they've invested a lot into building up.

So, right now it looks like the invasion will pretty much succeed. I guess Kerdak gets taken out and the fight is with the Admiral.. wish I'd kept Harrigan around, they had more of a connection to him. What does a conquered Port Peril look like? Is the navy just gonna wipe most of the population out? I guess the admiral's ship will have cannons now, but we haven't been using the ship to ship combat rules and I suspect they'll attack by air so I don't know how to make that seem scary. I was thinking that the Ilizmagorti pirates might show up at the PC's island with a fleet and offer to strike with them while the Navy's resources are expended, I doubt they'd want Cheliax to have too strong a foothold in the region.. maybe have them extract some future favor from the group, but what? Maybe Besmara's priests with their old (mostly forgotten) shipmate Sandara Quinn can make a last minute appearance, along with the other surviving pirate lords?

The group have 2 main vessels and a handful of other ships, their flagship is their quickest ship w/ the most upgrades, they recently acquired a second ship that can fly, though without too much speed or agility. But neither I nor the players were much interested in the ship combat or fleet combat rules so I don't know how to make this stuff feel relevant.. I guess I can narrate the battle and handwave stuff as they fly into the admiral's ship to confront the enemy. The group is mostly rogues and fighters with one bard and not much magic utility.

I think I'm just feeling a little burnt out but want to have a satisfying climax and could use some suggestions or any ideas you guys might have to help craft a cool ending.. thanks in advance!

I just wanted to say that I totally stole your idea (though using the names in Shenchu Bay from the Isles of the Shackles setting) and my group had a fun time robbing the warehouse and fighting monks. They stole some gunpowder but didn't blow up the cannons. And the leader of the enclave survived, so they have a new enemy.

I'd love to hear more tales of your group's adventures, as this is a particularly good sandbox of a campaign and I'm looking for any good quests to fill up book 2 and raise their infamy and plunder. Tidewater Rock doesn't seem that exciting to me, especially as they'll eventually get a whole different isle, so I may skip it in favor of more sidequests. What did you end up doing with Scrimshaw and Anna?

Now that my players are on their way to Rickety Squibs I need to start preparing for more sandboxy sailing exploits. I know the setting stresses the importance of the deal between the Shackles and Sargava, with the pirate lords getting a big payment to allow the nation's ships through. Do they simply avoid those w/ Sargavan flags? It seems that every merchant would fly them then. Is there a constantly updating log of approved ships? Maybe some magic solution that I'm not thinking of? I'm considering having a ship from Sargava be a possible encounter, making them choose whether to loot it or follow the 'rules' of the Shackles.

Anybody run into this issue before? Any good miscellaneous advice for this part of the AP? I'm considering cutting out ship combat rules and the weird rules for infamy in favor of a more narrative glossing over of sea chases.. did your players enjoy those aspects of the campaign?

Hey all, I recently bought this AP to help start a new campaign but haven't read through it all yet and had a few questions.

- I'm thinking of banning teleport and maybe wind walk, justifying it as magical interference from the Eye of Abendego. I don't know my party's make up yet, but it seems like the spells cut travel out of the game and I want them to feel attached to their ship. Would this interfere with the later adventures in the path (such as assumption characters will have access to it or a villain needing it to escape)?

- One player is considering playing a ranger, what would you recommend for favored enemies in this campaign? His backstory doesn't incline him toward any particular foe, though I'm thinking humans is a safe choice.

- I've heard that the map's distances are kinda small, and it does seem like it would only take a few days to traverse across the entire shackles. Has this a been an issue for people? If so, any thoughts on what to change the scale to? I don't want to mess up a further adventure, but also want to loan around my copy of the setting book and tell them accurate distances up front.

-Finally, I know people on these boards mainly use the pathfinder rules, but I'm going to run this adventure as an intro to 5th edition. Has anyone had more luck finding a good conversion (particularly of ship combat) in their internet travels than I? Any other tips for starting the campaign? I'm definitely going to read through more of the path and these boards, just wondering about any advice.

When you have shield cast on yourself can you use two-handed weapons? A longbow? Thanks in advance.

I generally love the 3.5 / Pathfinder rules, but must say that high level play is where they break down. I haven't had the problem some have w/ caster/martial disparity, as my players seem happy to deal out the mega damage martial classes have at these levels. However, DC's for spells are generally either trivial or very hard for characters to pass. There are tons of buffing spells on both the enemies and PCs to keep track of. Creating meaningful challenges for your players is difficult when they have the full array of spells at their disposal. You will spend hours creating NPC's that will die in one round, and if you don't have a ruthless tactical mind you may not play your evil wizards and devils w/ the intelligence they're supposed to have. Combat often slows to a crawl.

All that being said, my players still like the game and enjoy using their high level abilities. As a DM whose campaign is reaching 15th level and seeing some familiar problems as the last time we hit these levels, I get frustrated. Not sure there is a solution, a lot of these issues seem pretty hard coded into the base rules themselves. I do wish there were more high level adventures out there, could cut down some of the crazy prep-time required.

I just want to chime in to support some of those odder subsystems. Playing blood pig and knivesies (with some house rulings to rough out the edges), and having note cards w/ different options on them for the rooftop chase are some of the most fun times my players and I had. They were things I never would have considered on my own and I'd argue they are worth the added effort to figure out. That said, you're the best judge of your players and if they complain about this stuff that takes time from the 'real' adventure, maybe they're best left out.

Also, browse the forums for your chosen path; there's a lot of good ideas and collective DM wisdom to be found there.

Thanks for the advice all. We generally have multiple encounters a day, but they are fought quickly and after fights the pc's tend to rush onward to the next encounter so their minutes per level spells still factor in. This was possible because they were cleaning out a dungeon, now that the adventure takes them back into the city to conclude the storyline I think they may resort to teleporting in then out when threatened or debuffed. I think I need to start doing the same to them, and have more buffed up enemies teleport to them to initiate combat, (something I've avoided doing a lot of til now). His huge ac is still difficult to overcome w/ more numerous foes, but maybe dispel magic can turn the tide.

To those who were wondering about his build, I don't have his character sheet right in front of me, but I've looked over it before and it seems correct (he got gravity bow from a magus arcana that lets you learn wizard spells). Key feats include imp. snapshot, clustered shot, precise shot, & rapid shot. He enhances his bow to have holy and a smattering of other elemental damage types. Casts, shield and interposing hand for cover and fights defensively. Potentially casts greater invis., fly, greater magic weapon, and gravity bow. No save is particularly weak.

There should really be some kind of guide to high level pathfinder.. I like the system a lot but around this point in the game it gets hard to intelligently play multiple complicated enemies with large spell lists and buff's at their disposal.

He rarely uses those abilities, so yes I suppose he could be doing more damage using hand to hand. Between gravity bow, rapid shot, haste (from the group wizard) and a bunch of other enhancements he puts on his bow, archery seems powerful enough. He can usually get a full attack in and just inch 5ft each turn in and out of cover while flying invisible w/ an ac over 40. Anyone have answers for this tactic other than spells? Just left an undead dungeon so at least some of them could have lifesense.. just feels odd having to have casters almost every fight so I can negate his massive advantage with dispels or wind walls.

I think I'm just not as big a fan of (or as skilled at) DMing high level combat, and his tactics are giving me a taste of why.

Most answers seem to be spells, I guess I need to insert more spell casters into the mix of enemies. They tend to be terrible because the magus readies an action to hit them and they will likely lose their spell. But at least that's not a round of full attacks. Maybe I'll throw multiple mid level mages at them.

I have a 14th level magus with a focus on archery who is tearing through my encounters with ease. Though one would think that downplaying the melee aspect would weaken the class, between numerous buffing spells, improved snapshot, and clustered shots making damage reduction trivial he dishes out tons of damage. Worse, he is very difficult to damage or threaten; often improved invisible and flying in and out of cover behind the rest of the party; when fully buffed and fighting defensively his ac goes over 40. The rest of the group is strong but not optimized to this extent, and at times I think they feel a bit overshadowed. I feel that the kind of monsters I'd need to threaten him might be too powerful for the rest of the group to handle. He always makes a point of the fact that eventually his buffs end and that he can only be that powerful for so long, but in my experience at high levels characters can dictate the terms of a day and go rest when needed. As I look through the last adventure for Curse of the Crimson Throne, I'm not sure what to add to make things somewhat of a challenge.

At the same time, I know that crafting and optimizing a character is a big part of the enjoyment this player gets from the game, and everything he's chosen have been from paizo books and taken to perfect his desire for a wizard archer. I don't know that I want to necessarily nerf his character.. Anway, anyone have this problem before or any advice on how to challenge him more in combat?

I have a pc who has the fire subtype w/ vulnerability vs. cold (you take +50% damage from cold) and now has a ring of immolation that halves cold damage that you take. Does anyone know what order I'm supposed to figure out the effects? I'm tempted to just rule that the abilities negate one another and he has normal resistance to cold, but I know the math is different looked at that way.

For arcane casters you might bring up the possibility of using something other than a traditional spellbook. Spells need not be written in normal language. In the past I've had players use detailed notches and carvings on a staff or even tattoos which could get around the whole 'how am I hiding all these thick spellbooks' issue.

As for pc deaths, I would hesitate to try and make each death a super-powerful moment of sacrifice.. as long as the encounter you've designed feels balanced just let the dice fall as they may. The players themselves should be the ones who attach great meaning to a death. I went a long time before ever killing a character and when it happens part of me does feel bad for the player. But I know my players enjoy the element of danger and risk that comes from the possibility of dying.

The only other advice I can think of is to make sure your players are on board w. the general idea of the campaign. Having little to no freedom can be really frustrating for some people. That said, I think its a cool campaign idea, good luck!

I was worried about this w/ my group and upped its hit points while stressing that the worm was considered holy in Shoanti culture.

But I think you can keep going without much difficulty. They'll be viewed as powerful warriors, but ones who slew an almost divine creature. Use this as the justification for making them hold up the totems, to fully earn the clan's trust.

Hmmm... sounds like everyone left the clerics in. Probably a good idea as the group doesn't have a cleric of their own for restoration spells, just a druid. More than the players not trusting them, I think I just wanted to leave them out to spare myself the headache of running 2 spellcasters and the adventure at the same time. With a large group this will likely slow the dungeon crawl down a lot...

Oh well, I'll just have to not be lazy and prep their spells well. Maybe they can hang back and let the group do most of the fighting, though that will make them even less trustworthy. I really should've had them meet Sial last adventure, but if they side against him no big deal. Any tips for keeping combat moving w/ this many PC's and DMPC's? I'll probably have to up the enemy count a bit too.

Hey all, thanks for the advice a few months back. I have another question and figured I'd bump this thread rather than make a new one. (BTW I ran the rakshasa's as written; they killed one but never uncovered Glorio, now I have a potential ally against the queen who's Evil might have to be ignored)

I'm running my group through sidequests to get them up to 12th level for Skeletons of Scarwall. Has anyone ran that adventure and just ignored Laori and Sial? Obviously I'd have to change the one door only they can open, but I hate running DMPC's and my group often has 5-6 characters already, including a very powerful magus (imp. invis. and clustered shot are both really good). I'm tempted to just downplay the Zon-kuthon stuff and have them brave the castle alone, without a cleric. Other than missing some potential roleplay opportunities, think this idea will work out?

Thanks for the advice all, I never thought of bless weapon potions or oil. Part of me is tempted to just run it straight with no changes and see how they handle it.. but I'm somewhat of a softy at heart and may give them an out.

I'll let you know how it turns out; last time we played the monk had a chance to shine during blood-pig and the bard dressed as Blackjack to gave a rousing speech denouncing the Emperor who they managed to grapple and tie up. Next time we play they're taking the ex-emperor to the Arkona household, where Balor will be very pleased with them. I'll have to have him really toy with the man and think of some cruel torture, but it will probably take place 'off-screen' so that the players aren't too tempted to attack him. At this point they just see him as a decadent noble w/ some thieves guild ties.

Yeah, I am worried more about the 2 siblings than the henchman Rakshasa. My group is feeling cocky coming from 7 days to the Grave, where a similar optional-hard-fight (the nosferatu wizard) was dispatched w/ little problem. I wouldn't mind hard bad guys, but not being able to do any damage whatsoever to a foe quickly leads to player boredom and disengagement in my experience. I'm especially worried about the monk, a class played by a new player that seems frankly underwhelming so far.

NobodysHome, you talk of getting in a crit every round or two to contribute damage, but 1-in-20 odds (granted, with 3-4 attacks a turn) don't seem too conducive to this. Maybe I should've recommended the power attack feat more strongly.

Ultimately, I'll continue to make Glorio a helpful NPC (they parleyed w/ him before going to Scream's house) and he'll shift any blame onto his sister. They have reason to distrust her and hopefully can take her down.. maybe I'll add a good spear to the Emperor's loot so they'll have something that can hurt Rakshasa's.

Ok, they have a gnome bard, gnome druid w/ small cat companion, half-orc wizard, two weapon ranger, monk, and possibly a magus that split his focus between archery and melee. The bard's song will help, but they usually overcome obstacles by picking away lots of little bits of damage at a time. The ranger's favored enemy humans helps a lot in this adventure, he'll probably notice first that the Rakshasa's are not who they seem as he won't be dealing as much damage. When they shapechange will detect magic pick that up? My thought was no since its a natural ability but I could be wrong.

I could drop some piercing and good items into the Emperor's loot, but that feels kind of contrived, and they just got Blackjack's secret stash. Generally they pick spells from the core rulebook; I wasn't familiar with Versatile Weapon.

I am starting to run my group through this adventure and am wondering if Rakshasas might be too difficult, specifically their 15 damage reduction plus spell resistance. My group has 5-6 people but is not too optimized: no cleric for align weapon, it's main fighters are a two-weapon ranger, a monk, and sometimes an archer-mage; none of whom are consistently cranking out a lot of damage in one hit. If I convert the Rakshasas to pathfinder rules they have even more hit points.

Anyone have ideas to make this beatable, or am I worrying over nothing?

Jason, any general idea why you're sure the players will burn Eel's end? This might be one of those times when an out of character DM hint is useful to stop a campaign derail, especially if they don't realize how serious arson can be. Burning the main ship with drugs getting brewed onboard might not be seen as too bad, but all the others are filled with civilians and near enough that they'd likely catch fire.

That said, maybe they can pull if off without getting caught if they use stealth & magic. Speak with dead won't work if they aren't seen.

In most campaigns I run there is a large taboo against bringing kings back to life. Aside from them being happy in the afterlife, those who succeed them want their time to rule. Raising the dead may have led to wars of succession in the past between those who've both been legally crowned. "I'm still king!" vs. "Who knows what got brought back from the other side, I'm crowned now".

In this instance, Eodred's soul had no unfinished business and he thought he died of natural illness, well some kind of illness. Why return?

Thanks for the ideas all, I ended up having some of the druids preaching at the docks (previously played as somewhat of an ineffective joke) contact the party's druid about a rising unnatural presence arising beneath the city. This ties into a chain of sidequests involving Thassilonian ruins reawakening old guardians (in response to the rising power of Kazavon (sp?) that they detect). Since she is a city raised druid, she can succeed where they cannot.

As for the plague temple, I think I'm worried about nothing.. after all, if some guards do go check it out when they rest they'll just get killed and the party will have to check it out the next day. At the rate we're playing (a good amount of roleplaying, but some folks w/ shorter attention spans so games don't last for the 5+ hour sessions I'm used to), it'll be a long time til we get there.

I also wanted to say that the chase scene was pretty great and got a good response; I spent awhile time writing up a bunch of chase cards so I'm glad the time didn't go to waste [ok, I fudged one will save vs. sleep in the 1st round, but played the rest straight] and eventually Trinia failing a check did her in and she was surrounded.

The group believed her and tried to hide her in the party necromancer's apothecary. When Sable Co. w/ wizard's in tow grabbed her they uncovered his stash of bodies (one of which was Lamm's) and skeletal guards- Kroft sending them to the dead warrens is her price for not revealing the deed proving the house is his; it takes a necromancer to catch a necromancer after all.

I'm getting close to the end of Edge of Anarchy, the rooftop chase will start of next session and I've got a pile of custom cards ready to go. I've got a group of 5 (though schedules clash and only different configurations of 4 or less have shown up so far.. the nice thing about city games is that its easy for pc's to drop in or out so far), with 3 people who have never roleplayed before enjoying themselves. They even managed to broker a truce between the city and some worker's rights groups (who will be betrayed once Ileosa reveals her evil side). I just had a couple of issues that others might weigh in on.

- How can I craft some character hooks for a gnome druid? I warned the player that this would be a city campaign and druids aren't very well liked in town, but she is one of the new players and I didn't want to tell her she couldn't play as the class she had her heart set on. She's an orphan that escaped Lamm and spent years on the streets before freeing and bonding w/ her leopard. Any ideas on side quests that could interest her? The bard is into social justice stuff (future blackjack maybe?), the elf archer researches the ruins the towns built on, the wizard has an apothecary shop, the ranger trades furs and skins he hunts in his spare time... but the druid is at a loss when I ask what she wants to do in a week of downtime.

-Looking ahead to the next adventure; correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like the party is meant to rest in between fighting the doctors in the Hospice and heading into the Temple below. I feel like my group, who now has ties to the guard, if they were to rest would head right to the guard or even the castle and say "Hey, we uncovered who's spreading the plague.. go get em." They're not unheroic, but it seems a reasonable thing to do. How do I handle this potential problem w/out skipping the last bit of the adventure or giving a lame out of character reason (guys, the boss of the adventure is there, please go fight her). Worse, what if they don't rest when they need to and go down and get slaughtered? Haven't DMed in awhile, so these kind of questions trouble me.

Thanks for reading this wall of text.. if there's any other advice or things you wish you ran different please let me know.

As a perpetual DM, I always say I want a chance to play... but the few times over the last few years that I've played I have to keep a critical voice inside my head quiet. "No, don't just read the boxed text verbatim, look at us as you talk." "Eh, I don't think this monsters really being run correctly" "Bleh, what a boring railroad plot" "I would do x y z different" etc.

I try to look at it as insight into mistakes I might be making without realizing it, as well as realizing that my friends have way less experience behind the screen as me. It wasn't til I was a player that I realized how much long 'flavor text' descriptions of rooms could cause players eyes to gloss over, and to summarize in more casual (yet somewhat evocative language) what was important about an area.

Also, (not necessarily bad, but notable) I tend to make boring pc's that push that main plot along as I can see where its likely headed, rather then fun ones that create their own stories.