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I've discovered that one of my players is starting school at the beginning of June, and I have the daunting prospect of squeezing the final five adventures into eleven sessions.
My current plan is to condense the Prince of Redhand into one session (essentially just the party, with Belakarde's notes providing most of the info they miss), and severely cutting down Library of Last Resort and Kings of the Rift. Will my players lose too much of the experience this way? I think the real meat of the high-level adventures are the trio of Lashonna, Dragotha, and Kyuss, but I don't want them to get burned out on the action.
I know how it is to feel that kind of crunch for time. Truth be told, Prince of Redhand might very well be the first adventure on the chopping block. I wouldn't gloss over Alhaster's backdrop completely--otherwise the impact in Dawn of a New Age will lose some meaning--but depending on your players, you may need to nix the deep story involvement, and focus on the action.
Consider the estimated levels your characters should be at for each adventure. If they seem like they would be a little shy, bump up the reward a bit. Consider awarding more "story" awards to get things moving. As it stands, my players are far ahead on the curve for experience, and if your players are also, don't worry about ditching an encounter or two. Furthermore, consider awarding situation bonuses for major combats, that can further offset being at a lower-than-recommended level. Perhaps an additional +1 to hit, and +1hp/level when bonded with Balakarde's spirit, for example.
Another adventure--loathe as I am to admit it--that might need to be abridged is "Kings of the Rift". This adventure can have the players running back and forth, getting into frequent and difficult ambushes. While its one of my faves, it's a time-eater.
Finally, I'd make the Tabernacle of Worms more easily accessible, and travel through Wormcrawl Fissure faster. The anxiety a party can have in this dungeon can result in slowing the game down--good for brewing up some healthy player-paranoia, but bad for a game on the clock.
It's very tough, I know, to decide what from this amazing AP stays, and what has to get cut. (I'm sure the editors know far better than any of us!) But look for what gameplay elements your players enjoy most, and focus on that first. Everything else can take the back seat.
My advice would be to make the party go fast, remove the trials from Library of Last Resort (or make them fairly trivial), and for Kings of the Rift, skip right to the Keep instead of worrying about random outside encounters with dragons & giants. Also, lose the chimeras from the Wormcrawl Fissure, and the warlock/wyvern combo.
This is off topic, but I couldn't help but open this thread. Trick was a really fun movie!
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I've discovered that one of my players is starting school at the beginning of June, and I have the daunting prospect of squeezing the final five adventures into eleven sessions.
My current plan is to condense the Prince of Redhand into one session (essentially just the party, with Belakarde's notes providing most of the info they miss), and severely cutting down Library of Last Resort and Kings of the Rift. Will my players lose too much of the experience this way? I think the real meat of the high-level adventures are the trio of Lashonna, Dragotha, and Kyuss, but I don't want them to get burned out on the action.
To expedite the story, condense each "episode" into three parts. Find the key element to each "act" and have that be the one encounter you actually play out. As for the stuff that was skipped, turn that into an opportunity to give a narrative. Let the characters make suggestions on how they'd deal with the obstacle and work that into the narrative. Each skipped encounter has an EL rating and the EL section of the DMG tells you how much an encounter should drain party resources relative to the party level. You can use this as a guide to suggest adjusted current hit points, how many charges from the wand of cure light wounds have been spent, which spells were cast, etc. This way the players still get the "feel" of running the whole adventure but get to the key plot/story elements faster. You'd need to arbitrarily choose when the PCs gain a level so their power stays congruent to the adventures.
This is potentially a bit of work to prepare for but the effort should be worthwhile to you and your players.
Good luck!
As an alternative you can ask if the player headin' off in June could continue the game through an online venue.
If it's just one player, maybe you should just arrange for a heroic exit in his last session and carry on without him. You can send him the campaign journal as a consolation. If this puts you short on bodies to tackle the big three, you can always arrange for an NPC to join the party--either one of the interesting people they meet (the Ominous Fabler sans transformation, or Zulshyn would be candidates) or one of your creation. There's too much cool stuff in these adventures to abridge, IMO!
Edit--a villainous exit could also be planned. I.e. he could undergo an unpleasant transformation or clandestine replacement, and unleash himself on his mates in his last session. (Of course, if you played HoHR as written, you might have already used your alotment of perfidious betrayals for the campaign.)
Edit--a villainous exit could also be planned. I.e. he could undergo an unpleasant transformation or clandestine replacement, and unleash himself on his mates in his last session. (Of course, if you played HoHR as written, you might have already used your alotment of perfidious betrayals for the campaign.)
The villainous exit is right up my alley - consider that one vote from me.
This character has been an implant from Lashonna as "insurance" - but gets discovered along the way or something.
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Thanks for the suggestions, especially on what specifically to trim. I think we can squeeze it out just in time.
If they weren't so far into the adventure, I would probably give the character the heroic/villainous exit, but the group is fairly small, and I'd rather not bring in a third-act wonder just for the last few sessions.
(Also, for this character, the villainous exit would be hilariously obvious. Right now, the others see him as a cold-blooded killer who talks to inanimate objects.)