Im thinking about skipping KoR and moving right to Wormcrawl Fissure, here why:
-My players are overpowered and the campaign is seeming to be to easy on them. I think a couple level jumps might be good for them. (they are overpowered cause there stupid dm gave them too many magic items).
-I kind of want to move the story along, We only have another month before summer, and I'd like to finish the campaign before then
-KoR doesn't seem to be a needed module in the plot.
So, we ended our session right before the time travel in Library of last resort. What I think I will change is, the Druids will summon the great heroes (the pc's) to delay the forces of Dragotha. The druids will use this delay to get the Phylactery and give it to the PC's. So instead of hiding the phylactery in the rift, they will give it to heroes from the future. This way Dragotha won't be able to get it. The druids will then let on that it will be up to them to kill Dragotha if he ever rises again. From there, we move straight to the Wormcrawl Fissure.
Anything important my campaign will miss if I do this?
KoTR is one of a few that I think gets short changed because of the word count. A lot of really cool role-playing opportinies can be explored (particularly between the PCs and the different Giant factions) and some of the best fights can be had in this module. Its strange, but for as much as is going on in this war, there seems to be so much more Greg "V for Violence" Vaughn wanted to include but couldn't.
Well besides missing out on the cool factor of being in the middle of a siege between Dragons and Giants you might want to include the information the ghost Alastor Land imparts to the players at the entrance of the Vault at some point.
Perhaps Balakarde can give the narration?
BTW my group just finished KOTR on Saturday and they loved it. While the battle with the Mother Worm and Bazzamael was fun I as the DM enjoyed watching the party scramble for the hills when Vermonix and his two companion dragons came at them.
We skipped it at first, but the PCs, having just defeated Dragotha, now have to astrally project themselves to the giants' city, destroy the phylactery, and still get back to the Spire in time to head off Kyuss. So, although they're now 19th level, they'll be just right for KotR because they won't get a chance to rest in there--they've got to clear the whole thing in one run.
You'll need to work in Dragotha's phylactery somehow. Even if the PCs destroy him in the Wyrmcrawl Fissure, he'll just reform. He might even reappear to aid Kyuss in Dawn of a New Age. That phylactery, which Dragotha and his minions have been unable to locate (much less destroy) has to somehow get broken.
The druids will give the pc's the phylactery, then they will jump forward in time with it. Sort of an intriguing way of hiding something.
But, I was thinking that it would be sad to miss some of the KoR dragon battles so I am thinking something like this.
-The players awake in this "dream" in the past, in front of an entrance to a cave.
-The druids say something like, "Great Heroes, who will take this phylactery from us, and perhaps strike the final blow to dragotha, you must stop the invading army while we fetch the phylactery"
-The druids go into a dungeon, they put up an abjuration spell on the entrance, but beyond that the players are the only ones stopping the army from going in and getting the phylactery fist.
-Players fight the army (swords of kyuss and the boneyard from LoR, and a few of the dragons from KoR), their back is against the entrance to the cave...
-Sometime in the fight the druids come with the phylactery and the players "back to the future" bringing it with them.
-When they see Tenser next, he offers to destroy it, and tells the PC the next step is to kill dragotha.
Well its a really nice adventure but I think this is a good solution if your players are overpowered.
FYI, this little modification turned into the best module of our campaign so far. I ended up "beefing up" the dream sequence at the end of LoLR. Basically the players had to protect a cavern entrance while the druids went to retrieve the Phylactery. I had 3 waves of those Swords of Kyuss undead (about 40 in total) plus a 6 of those gargantuan baddies. After that, my players were really tired, and then came the dragons (took em from KotR). Had 3 deaths out of 4 by the end of it. But then the Druids finnally came back with the Phylactery and the last PC went back in time, only to find his comrades back to life and at 1 hit point. It was an incredibly fun, 3 hour battle.
Now its time for Into The Worm Crawl Fissure.