After finishing the Occulus demon today (the paladin smited him with a triple crit: yes meaning he rolled 20 on 3 dice in one roll, a 1 in 8000 chance , for 125 dmg!), we wrapped up the GoW today.
Now my problem. I will have to move soon, so no time to finish the whole AoW. I thus decided to run SoLS and PoR and then jump directly to lvl 20 and play dawn of a new age. I think the adventures in between are nice, but could be left out and the story would make sense anyway; although I will tell my players what "happened" in between). I thought this to be a better idea, than play until I leave and leave the campaign unfinished.
Alas, it is not even enough time for these three adventures. So I have to cut down on encounters and have to do so heavily. Now I ask for your opinion what you think could be cut and what should really stay in these two adventures.
Spire of Long Shadows:
Of course I will leave out the devils' attack, probably all the Nagas. What else do you think?
Prince of Redhand:
I think I will leave only the big celebration, maybe Ilthane's lair (but it is a long time since I read the adventure, so tell me if anything else must stay).
Dawn of a new Age:
I think here anything could be cut, except the Spire and the fight against Kyuss (if everything fails, I will just make them fight Kyuss alone at Lvl21).
I am grateful for your help, I will read through these and make my own list, anyway, but am happy to take advice.
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Spire of Long Shadows:
Of course I will leave out the devils' attack, probably all the Nagas. What else do you think?Prince of Redhand:
I think I will leave only the big celebration, maybe Ilthane's lair (but it is a long time since I read the adventure, so tell me if anything else must stay).Dawn of a new Age:
I think here anything could be cut, except the Spire and the fight against Kyuss (if everything fails, I will just make them fight Kyuss alone at Lvl21).I am grateful for your help, I will read through these and make my own list, anyway, but am happy to take advice.
SoLS -- So much of this is combat -- basically you could take out anything that doesn't directly lead to a vision. I would especially leave out the 3 knights of Kyuss found in the three rooms in the bottom level. Most/All of the worm nagas could be left out. Even the guards outside the ziggurat could be left out.
PoR -- Running this now and even Ilthane's lair doesn't give much more to the story. The feast looks fun and I will be running that tomorrow. So much of the PoR is simply information gathering.
Can't really help with DoaNA. Haven't read too much of that one yet.
You're skipping over the Wormcrawl fissure entirely, which I think is fine. But what might be fun is to fight Dragotha. I mean Dragotha dude! I'm not quite sure how to tell the story so that they get Bucknard's fragments to help them with that fight, and those fragments are probably key. But Tensor could easily muster a crew to go in and nab Dragotha's phylactery after they emancipate the Library of Last Resort.
Ok, my ideas are coming faster than I can type. How's this: Players go to PoRH and learn location of Library before the feast (somehow). Lashonna urges them to head to Wormcrawl to get Dragotha after the feast. This gives time for a)Lashonna to nab Kyuss' monolith (and explain why it's not in Redhand when the PCs arrive and b)lets Tensor free the Library while the PCs are feasting. The PCs head to the Tabernacle of Worms hoping that Tensor and crew can find and destroy Dragotha's phylactery before the PCs finally meet the dracolich. When Library is freed, Bucknard's spirit joins the PCs as part of the deal, so that they've got a chance against Dragotha and giving them directions to the Tabernacle. You could trim out most of the Tabernacle and just have the PCs teleport into the chamber where Dragotha is (which is what Bucknard did too).
Perhaps Dragotha tells them of the theft of the monolith and Lashonna's complicity. Anyway, after the dracolich is dead, it's a race back to Alhaster and directly up the spire to face everyone there. Thus, you pretty much get two major battles after PoRH: Dragotha and Kyuss. You might even explain that Bucknard or some effect of the Library boosts the PCs by...4 levels. :-)
As for the other stuff in SoLS, yeah, I'd get rid of those nagas. Maybe some of the wormswarms down at the bottom of the hole too. And definitely the naga sorceror. Keep in the fight with Kelvos and also the spellweaver. I'd keep in the fight with the other two Knights of Kyuss too, but only because they look like fun to run as a DM. You might increase the story XP in the Spire too. I don't think that it will matter too much for the fights in the spire, nor will it be too big a deal for the fun in PoRH and it will definitely help you out later on trying to get them to the appropriate level for Kyuss without a DM deus-ex-machina "you're all now level 21!".
Truth be told, you could have Tensor going after the Library while your PCs are in the Spire. Maybe no one knows where Dragotha is (except of course for Lashonna) which is why the PCs need to travel to PoRH to talk to her. Lashonna can tell them where, and as they arrive at the edge of the rift, Bucknard's spirit joins them (however you want to work that) and tells them how to teleport directly into the Tabernacle.
Sorry for my really scattered thoughts. My brain isn't really working today (I'm at home, sick). I hope that you can pull a few kernels out of this mess.
Basically, I like the idea of Tensor sharing some of the load. It is kind of more realistic. It makes it seem as though Tensor is fighting alongside of the PCs in a race to save the world. Tensor can be at the Library while the PCs are in the Spire, and then Tensor can be going after the phylactery while the PCs are in Redhand. He can tell them about the mighty things that he had to do to help. "Check it out, I had to battle a freaking TITAN to open up that damned Library. Stupid druids. And then, while you knuckleheads were living it up with Prince Zeech, I got caught in the middle of a battle between a whole city of giants and an armada of dragons! And through all of that, I'm trying to find two stupid little keys to open the vault where the phylactery was stored. Why design the vault like that? Stupid druids."
Good luck. I may be in the same boat as you as far as having to rush things a bit, so please let us know how it pans out.
Thanks Eltanin,
I wanted to drop Dragotha, but with your advice I might squeez him in :-)
Thanks Eltanin,
I wanted to drop Dragotha, but with your advice I might squeez him in :-)
You could also replace Lashonna in the last adventure with Dragotha, thus eliminating the need to run Wormcrawl Fissure.
My recommendation is to skip Prince of Redhand, run SoLS, Wormcrawl Fissure, and DoaNA. PoR has little purpose other than to meet Lashonna and find out about the Library of Last Resort, anyway.
Maybe place Dragotha's phylactery in SoLS, guarded by the Harbinger. From there send the group directly to Wormcrawl.
Whatever you decide, good luck!
Actually the party was the one thing I, personally, was really looking forward to as a great opportunity to role play and a change after all the dungeon crawling. I think it is also important to send the PCs to Redhand, so that they get a connection to the town where Kyuss will resurrect, sure as I will have to cut all the, save the town's people, it might not matter too much, in the end.
Anyway thanks for your advice.
The last three adventures were all really good ones which we all enjoyed a lot, it would be a shame to drop any of those three completely. You can certainly trim them right back though, and make sure you don't dwell on trivial combats which the high-level PC's should whizz through. Even with a small amount of trimming, you should get through each of the last three adventures with about 12 hours game play each - less if you really trim them back hard.
Library of Last resort would top my list of adventures to drop. Prince of Redhand is a great set-up for the end game, so just a session on the role-play pieces dropping any combats would be really good for continuity.
If both you and your players know you have a deadline, you should be able to get through quite a bit each session. So work out your drop-dead date (so to speak), figure out how many sessions you have left, and work from there - for example we played weekly 3-4 hours per session, and so using that model if I were you I'd need about 13 weeks to finish it - say 14 allowing for an extra session in the last adventure (we spent about 5-6 hours just battling Kyuss, then you still need half an hour for the post-adventure wrap-up even if you skim through it fast).
Good luck, and enjoy!
..., you should get through each of the last three adventures with about 12 hours game play each - less if you really trim them back hard.
That's the problem, if we are lucky we have that much time. We only play 2-3 hours once a week and there is christmas, when everybody will be gone and then we cannot be sure if we can play each week (maybe I still have to go to Britain for a week hand in my thesis), etc. So I would rather trim the adventures now and have some time left in the end, than playing the "good" stuff (I agree it is a shame to drop them) and not being able to finish. Maybe I could convince my players to set aside a weekend session, perhaps two, but I do not count on it (everyone working, family, kids, exams).
But I found a method to heavily cut down SoLS, have all the visions and still show the players what Kyuss is all about. Most undead etc. will be in stasis for the day of Kyuss' return. So PCs will always have to be afraid, when and if they wake up. The only fights, I think will be the overworms, the spellweaver lich and some Kyuss knights. And if I really have time in the end I could have my players deal with DoaNA, maybe kill Lashona or something. For all the off-stage action I will bring back Auric and his band but leave the big stuff for the PCs.