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Thought I'd post this up here to share. So I've been running STAP for nearly a year now and saw that the group while enjoying the campaign was not really onboard for going all the way to lvl 20. That and high level stuff began to weigh down the sessions. So I began thinking how to wrap up the storyline prior to the abyss adventures.
I had made several adjustments to the campaign as I went along. It's only a three person party (psion, ranger, cleric) and at the beginning of SoS were 14th level. So to wrap up the path I took a smattering of the last several adventures and threw them in an abyssal blender.
So the rundown was SoS pretty well started off as written. Lavinia had been abducted by Vanthus and the party comes to the city to make contact with Harliss. I ran the ambush at Red Foam Whaling and then the changes began. Harliss had made contact with a higher up in the Crimson Fleet. I yanked Orgosh from Into The Maw and made him in charge of 'human resources' for the fleet. The lich was responsible for creating undead slave labour and was the jail warden of Scuttlecove though he was as much of a prisoner as his wards. His phylactery was being held as ransom and was in the possession of a nasty little marilith (not the one from Into the Maw just straight out of the MM). So after the party crashes the marilith's lair the lich snatched the phylactery. The party nearly tried taking it back but decided against it for the time being. They then discovered from the lich that the master pearl is indeed in Scuttlecove in the main palace of the Crimson Fleet. Vanthus returned from the dead sacked the other pirate lords (now dread wraiths under his command) and has taken up residence in the palace.
The lich's slaves had constructed a secret tunnel into the pirate's palace in case he had ever needed a back door. For the palace I just used the map of Divided's Ire. So I got rid of the fleet location entirely. The lich promised help to take down the wards surrounding the master pearl by casting through a shrunken bullywug head (which also allows him to keep tabs on the party) which he proffered to the party. The lich promised furthermore that he can safely destroy the master pearl.
Orgosh however is in fact an agent of Orcus that not only wishes to see Demogorgon's plot foiled but also to acquire the master pearl and study it for his own sinister purposes. Once the party takes down the defenses and obtains the pearl the lich will quickly turn on them.
So thus forging an uneasy alliance and accompanied by Harliss the party descended through the tunnels leading into the palace fending off filth demons that had taken residence and penetrated into the palace.
After overcoming dread wraiths etc the party found a brutalized Captain Wyther (changed this character slightly, making him and Vanthus' relationship far more stormy). The Captain had contested the death knight's seizure of power and for this he has been kept alive to amuse the psychotic Vanthus while he waits for the savage tide to be unleashed. The party however left him chained up and charged on into the Crucible area. Which was a pity since the good captain had vital information as to how to destroy the master pearl... (and as for the matter they had picked up Khala's notes from City of Broken Idols but after setting off one magic trap on them has refused to touch them...)
So without further ado the big battle broke it on the bridge with Vanthus using his nightmare steed to rain blows down upon the party while three shadow demons attacked. The battle worked quite well. Luckily for the party two of the demons were dispatched quickly due to Banishment, Destruction and unlucky rolls. The cleric and Harliss still get to enjoy a good amount of vile damage. Once able to focus their energies on the wounded death knight his corpse was sent plummeting down into the burning lake below.
We left off there but for the last, last session they will need to enter the shrine at the centre of the bridge which opens up into an extradimensional sanctum. There once overcoming the wards and traps they will still need to contend with Ghorvash, (not as potent as in Prince of Demons but still a CR 18 glabrezu) who has been upgraded to a bit more of the top agent for Demogorgon on this plane of existence (aside from ensuring Vanthus' fall from grace Ghorvash was also responsible for some of the events that led to the first savage tide on the Isle of Dread). Once after that assuming they find a way to destroy the pearl and evade an angry bullywug lich the path will be concluded.
I was curious if anyone else has done a edited ending for the path?
It sounds fair enough--if they don't want to play the whole thing through then you seem to be coming up with a fair solution to it. Basically having a conclusion makes a campaign more satisfying and all that.
For my part I was thinking of ending it using the material for Scuttlecove. What I want to do is this:
The pcs have intimation of a pirate attack but no idea when it will come. Meanwhile though they are very concerned about the Shadow Pearls and once projects are underway that will defend the colony they head for the source.
The adventure on the plateau will be leveled down and will take place before Golgismorga. In part this is because my pcs have identified it as the likely source of the evil going on. Then once they defeat the cult of Skinwalkers they will discover the pyramid entrace, the troglodyte community living in it and will descend to discover the source of the material for the Shadow Pearls, and ideally destroy it. Finally they manage to return only to discover that Vanthus has manage to sneak into the colony and abduct Lavinia. This is a blunder since the pcs will be able to attack the fleet as it rallies at Rats' End for the advance on the colony. If they don't do a preemptive strike (I'd be surprised if they didn't) then Vanthus attempts to lead an attack on Farshore with Lavinia in chains in the hold of his ship. So it will be the big climactic battle of the adventure path.