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Run it for the most part as written in the module. Depending on how interested the party is in the schemes of their enemies it will flow at different rates. When I ran it the adventure went something like this:
-The assasins attacked and after an initial few rounds of catching the party sleeping they were beaten down and killed.
-Speak with dead attempts, along with some questioning of Cauldron's underworld lead them to question the priests of Wee Jas. When they were prevented access they busted their way in.
-The party beat down everyone inside and eventually fought Ike himself. Evidence found during this raid hinted that Ike was working for others and that the dungeon existed.
Okay, so far everything has kind of flowed together. I can see how you think that the icy tunnels are their own seperate adventure and in a way they are. My party rested at least a day before they went in. Some partys (if they don't feel like it) might not investigate any further. In this case, give them some downtime and move right on the Lords of Oblivion. Nothing that happens in the dungeon directly effects the Cagewrights so they will just continue one with their plans even if the party takes a break.
I should note that I did not include the half-dragon at all in my campaign. Unless the party goes out of their way to learn the name and history of the black dragon in Zenith Trajectory then they are not even going to know who the heck his son is. If it seems like a role-playing encounter that the party would enjoy then by all means include it. But the party is going to have plenty of combat in this module so don't include him just to have a fight.
It seems a little... disjointed. Like a collection of encounters strung together, rather than a single adventure. The fights look good and challenging, but could easily be separated from each other, and the dungeon crawl is really completely unrelated.
Have others found this to be true? And does anyone have any suggestions on how best to run this?
thanks in advance,
Waldo
As long as you're running this chapter as part of the AP, it's not really a problem, is it? They're just a bunch of loosely connected events that relate to the overall story arch. They stress that the PC's are becomming local bigwigs, and that things happen to them because of it. Some of the events (especially the half-dragon) basically happen only because of the PC's previous actions.
If you look at Lords of Oblivion and Foundation in Flame, the adventures there follow a similar format. Just treat them (and the other adventures leading up to 13 cages) as seperate, but related events.