Switching Paths and "No Honor" skippage?

[Cacophonik]

I've a dilemma, and I'm hoping y'all can help me out. :)

My adventuring group is fresh into 3rd level, as a result of saving Cauldron from the menace of Skulks and Half-Dwarf/HalfTroll Slavers. I recently found out that at least one of my players has bought *and* read the SCAP book, and so I am resolved to switch paths to the Savage Tide. of course this has the added bonus of fitting in with the backgrounds of two nautically-oriented characters in a much neater fashion than SCAP did...

Anyhow, would you recommend sending this party of 4 3rd level characters thru a beefed up (and probably somewhat condensed) "No Honor", or would it be preferable to skip to "Bullywug Gambit"?

If you recommend skipping to "BG", any recommendations on what plot points to keep or rebuild (and ways TO rebuild) from "NH" ?

Thanks in advance!

-Caco

[cthulhu_waits]

I would say the two most important things from TINH are Vanthus and Lavinia. Their relationship is a core part of the campaign. TINH sets up Vanthus very well, giving the PCs a real reason to hate him bigtime. So trying to work something like that in would be a good idea.

The rest of TINH, all the Lotus Dragon stuff, is very cool but not essential to the campaign as a whole.

Of course I'm probably missing something major here...

[Steve Greer]

Cacophonik, you have an excellent opportunity to switch tracks and develop a relationship between your PCs and the Jade Ravens. In TiNH, Lavinia sends the Jade Ravens, her parents sellswords, to Cauldron to collect on some debts and other miscellaneous stuff. Your PCs having made a name for themselves somewhat in Cauldron, the Jade Ravens could approach them and let them know that their patron, Lavinia Vanderboren is in need of some extra muscle with all that's been going on in her family lately. The Jade Ravens could confide that they aren't sure if they are going to continue working for her. In fact, this job to Cauldron may be the last the do for her. They don't won't to leave her high and dry, thus they approach the PCs.

Of course, the Jade Ravens would return to Sasserine and reconsider quitting (perhaps with some behind the scenes offers from Lavinia for increased pay).

You can very easily run the adventure as is from there, but omit the initial meeting between the PCs and the Jade Ravens or tweak it a bit (instead of leaving to Cauldron, they could be just returning).

I wouldn't worry to much about adjusting the adventure other than maybe adding a few more bad guys to each encounter area.

Anyway, hope you have fun with STAP!

[DMaple]

I'd personally want to run the PC's through some beefed up but shortened version of "There is No Honor"

Start as normal, have the

a) Liberation of the Blue Nixie - Perhaps the levels of the thugs (War 2, CR1), or let the Rhagodessa escape early without being burned or attacking the thugs instead of the PCs.

b) Visit to the vault - Add another Iron Cobra.

c) search for Vanthus and Parrot Island, add some more zombies and have them attack in larger groups, make Veldimar Krund a 3rd level cleric (CR 6, careful how many zombies he's encountered with) and have him have cast Desecrate on the whole dungeon, that will make the CR1 zombies more of a challenge (for no more XP, I'm evil like that).

d) Make the Lotus Dragons bit much smaller (this is where you can really hack it down), get rid of the Crucible and the torture chamber and the raymen things, keep Rowyn, Gutripper and a few other Lotus Dragons, have them together so Rowyn doesn't need to be advanced any. You can probably get rid of the taxidermists as well (you'll need to edit the Player handout in that case), because while very cool it doesn't add much to the whole plot.

My reasons...
a) Blue Nixie is foreshadowed for later sea voyage.
b) Journel introduced, more foreshadowing and shows Vanthus is a crook even more.
c) First encounter with Vanthus (if you don't have this the players never actually meet him until after the sea voyage), also illustrates what a total git he is. Plus the ravenous zombies are cool real Dawn of the Dead feel to them. Grapple Bite... "Brains!"
d) Introduces Rowyn who appears later, recurring villans are one of the best parts of this Adventure Path.

After that you can probably cut down the Bullywug gambit as well, reduce the number of Savage XXXX encounters, but keep Ripclaw, Brissa and Harliss in. I'd probably lose Navesh, and area K12.

Then reduce the number of Bullywugs that survived the assault on the mansion and you'll have them all 5th level for the Sea Wyvern's wake.

[terok]

Since my players had no interest in starting at 1st level, I actually started their background as they had already run through No Honor. I gave them a synopsis of the first adventure including appropriate gold and let them start in BG.
They liked BG and had a blast churning their way through the savage pirates and then the Bullywugs.

Of course they had no run their characters before this start so that may not work for you.

[Fiendish Dire Weasel]

I think DMaple has pretty well summed it up. You NEED at least some core parts of TINH, but there's certainly nothing stopping you from trimming parts out, and beefing up the encounters that are present.

I ran TINH with 8 2nd level characters, that can't be much different that what you'll be dealing with. Good luck!

And keep your players out of the source material!!

[lin_fusan]

I started the STAP with "There is No Honor" and 2nd-level characters. They are on the verge of becoming 4th and are at the end of TINH.

I jumped up the CR/level of the encounters by 1 (then 2 when they levelled) and I'm not sure if that was a good idea. For CR 3 creatures it was OK, but higher CR doled out a bit more XP than I thought.

I also added more zombies for the Parrot Island encounter and that also added more XP than I wanted.

What I found interesting was that the difficulty didn't change too much except with the rhagodessa and the zombies, because my party doesn't grapple well, so a grapple-combo attack pretty much guaranteed extra damage.

"Boss" fights with Vark and Krund were easy because they were straight fights.

However, the increased Sneak Attack, as well as level-appropriate magical items for the Lotus Dragons drastically increased their damage potential. Three thieves with +2D6 and a single potion of invisibility each dropped one or two characters.

Upon reflection and reading this post, I probably should have simply cut out unnecessary encounters and kept the plot points only.