Our group recently finished Curse of the Crimson Throne and I would like to give my opinion and take on the adventure path.
Overall, the campaign was enjoyable. Mostly, for me, it was the idea that the characters lived and adventured in the same city for a good chunk of the game. This is the same reason why I loved Shackled City so much, because the entire campaign revolves around one city, so the players literally "live" there for the whole game. I particularly like this approach to campaigns because it allows players to really get to know the city and live within in a meaningful and interactive way. They get to know their favorite blacksmiths and shopkeepers, they get to know the mayor and the church leaders (especially those that can raise dead :P ). The city isn't just another loot selling place, it's their home. This idea alone held me enrapt for the first half of the game (the latter half isn't based in the city).
The second thing I noticed is that the campaign is relatively dungeon-light and more event based. This is only good news for me as over the last few years of gaming I've been slowly drifting away from dungeon-based campaigns and more toward event and exploration style games. I still do enjoy the odd dungeon crawl, though, and so this campaign was fairly good to me on this front as well. It was a good chunk of exploration and events, with a light sprinkling of dungeons. Fairly perfect set-up as far as I'm concerned.
The campaign also features some particularly interesting and unique encounters that were fairly enjoyable (then again, every AP paizo has put out has it's share of really cool encounters somewhere in it). The trial of the giant worm Cindermaw was particularly fun, especially after all our preperations, we simply were not prepared for a un-hungry worm! The demilich was nifty if slightly disappointing; it became suddenly clear why the spirits gave us a free avoid-death card. As for our disappointment, it was only because the battle was won rather swiftly for the creature's reputation, but then again, if we hadn't won swiftly, we likely would have lost swiftly. Such encounters tend to be tricky to make totally engrossing so I won't fault any design there.
As a slight aside, the encounter with the genie was hilariously ingenius. Whoever came up with the idea of the genie granting the angry thug's wishes as they fled is a brilliant human being. I was never so amused at being struck dead.
One slight bit of disappointment was the almost total lack of blue dragon or blue dragon-like encounters to be had, given that the real villain was a dead blue dragon. This may have simply been our groups expectations not being met, I for one was hoping for a grand final battle with a blue dragon dracolich (I have the mini for it ;) ). I was, however, fairly impressed with the final villain. I don't think we ever expected to fight such a powerful Bard, certainly not as a final villain! She was exceptionally tough for us in the early and middle of the fight when she still had her Erinyes and Dread Wraith allies. She was a pathfinder Bard too (since we were pathfinder characters I suppose it makes sense) so she was really harsh with her new Paralyzing Song (or Dance, in her case) and she ended up killing the Duelist round one when an Erinyes coup-de-graced him. The DC's on some of her spells and powers were pretty retarded though; our Duelist and just bought a cloak of resistence +4 and had taken Iron Will and he still had to roll natural 20's against some of her powers, which I felt was a little unfair, but I suppose at high level D&D, such things tend to happen. In any case, had I been the DM, I would have been sorely tempted to include one final bout with a blue dragon dracolich at the end of the game. I guess I'm just a cruel DM. ;)
I also enjoyed the Harrow Point mechanic, though it was never really very interesting except for the Strength and Charisma chapter (at least for me). That last ability to force the DM to reroll a d20 roll was very nifty. At one point when the Queen was targeted with a destruction effect (or some such) several of us had the DM continue to reroll his save against it in the hopes she would eventually fail (she didn't, of course :/ ).
Finally, the inclusion of the Harrow Deck of Many Things was a very cool idea though fairly harrowing for us players at that late stage in the game (yuk yuk). Still it was the first most of us and really ever gotten to see a deck of many things in a real long running game so of course we all had to draw from it. Annoyingly enough, while everyone else drew good to mediocre, I (of course) drew mediocre and bad. Thankfully it wasn't bad enough to screw my character really (those 15 1st level accident-prone fighters were pretty funny for 10 minutes before the encounter with the Horned Devil).
All in all, I give the whole campaign a solid 8 out of 10, which is fairly par for the course when it comes to Paizo's adventure paths. Now, me and the Dm have switched up and now I am running Second Darkness for the group. Perhaps when we finish that I will post again on my thoughts and opinions concerning it.
Thanks again for a good game.
We've finished as well. Almost a full year of weekly gaming. I'd give the campaign a solid 7/10.
Highlights:
* Harrow Deck of Many Things. I thought it kind of silly but the players loved it.
* Sial and Laori. Most players trusted neither, one player trusted one, one player trusted the other. Was a lot of fun playing the middle of all that.
* The Arkonas. Bahor killed one PC which made him very hated. Vimanda's successfully fooled the party which was great fun to play.
* Dragon forming at the end. I think all six players said "holy sh*t".
* Erineyes. My players sincerely hate them now and I enjoyed the massive amounts of harassment I dealt out with them.
* Korvosa: Players & I both really enjoyed the city.
* Scarwall: Loved that dungeon adventure, very good feel to it.
Lowlights:
* Ending Is Too Much Combat: We played probably 12 weeks on Crown, all of it combat. That includes skipping Three Face, all the Red Mantis, and Sabina. The climax was a little off due to battle-fatigue.
* McGuffins of History of Ashes: I loved this adventure when I read it. When I was explaining to the players what they had to do, it sounded ridiculous.
* No Real Conclusion: Yeah, you defeat the Queen, but who takes over from there? As discussed in other threads, a more "resistance" type adventure at the end would have been better with some hints as to what happens next in Korvosa.
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Thanks for these notes, guys. Keep them coming. I just started running a group through this last week, so it helps knowing what may or may not work(definitely thinking of reworking the climax so that battles can be broken up with story encounters, especially if it's going to take so long).
Any suggestions on how to integrate elements from the later adventures to the first three?
Very interesting to get a view of the campaign from the players perspective.
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Any suggestions on how to integrate elements from the later adventures to the first three?
I'm still running mine -- the party is almost at the end of Chapter 3, Escape from Old Korvosa.
I would suggest skimming through the later chapters and picking out some names, then do some name-dropping in the early chapters.
For example, I would play up the noble houses a bit more if I were to do the first couple of chapters again. The party cleric was interested in starting his own cult and he and the rogue went looking for land to buy. I told the players that much of the land in and around Korvosa is either owned by the crown and deeded to individuals to develop (vassals and freemen) or owned by a noble house (such as the docks just north of the Citadel which are important for merchant trade).
I also would've played up some of the social aspects of the city in the early parts. Talk about how the noble houses host parties that rotate from home to home (makes Carowyn Manor a bit more macabre) and give the rogue or bard in your party some hints as to the smuggling trade in Korvosa (ties in with the Girrigz, the Hospice, and also the Arkonas).
I keep my NPC encounters fairly dynamic. Instead of memorizing lines to recite to the players, I work on NPC personalities and let the NPCs decide what they're going to say when they say it. More than once I've had an off-hand comment by a PC prod an NPC into a reaction. Perhaps the PC whispers to another PC about how ugly the NPC is and the NPC hears it! Or the PC might make a casual remark about something going on in the city and the NPC's interest is piqued and he's suddenly much more engaged in the conversation.
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I keep my NPC encounters fairly dynamic. Instead of memorizing lines to recite to the players, I work on NPC personalities and let the NPCs decide what they're going to say when they say it. More than once I've had an off-hand comment by a PC prod an NPC into a reaction. Perhaps the PC whispers to another PC about how ugly the NPC is and the NPC hears it! Or the PC might make a casual remark about something going on in the city and the NPC's interest is piqued and he's suddenly much more engaged in the conversation.
Thanks for the advice. I like your technique with the NPCs, too. I tried to do something a little like that in the beginning when they were traveling for the first time, giving distinct personalities to the Gather-Information drone NPCs so that each had their own slant on the information.
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Love this kind of thing too. I'm currently running the Escape from Old Korvosa. I've done a lot to lengthen and change some of the module through character background and fleshing out the NPCs.
I have a paladin of Iomedae that I offered allowed to start as a member of a noble house. I did this allowing them only to read the information on the noble houses, before we got into any other campaign materials. He chose Endrin, and we went from there. I had a half orc barbarian that had fallen for a noble woman and was seeking to solidify that relationship as the game started. I chose to combine the two backgrounds and add in some Lamm. I made the paladins sister kidnapped by Lamm, and the same girl be the love of the barbarians life.
It added a LOT of drama to the end fight with Lamm, as I had her dangling over the water where his gator was, with Lamms hand on the rope to lower her when the PCs arrived to confront him. They were essentially forced to enter the water to rescue her, dealing with both the gator and a reef shark. It was a fairly rough encounter, but they prevailed and it was very exciting.
Also, to involve the nobles more, when the group attained Saviour of the City status for their help with the plague, I granted each PC a boon from a noble house. It was interesting and I was able to grant some boons that were of great roleplay benefit without doing anything to overpower the PCs in combat.
One complaint. Escape from Old Korvosa quite simply doesn't have enough in it to justify the characters making three levels. The next module has the group at 10th level, and I just don't think there is enough meat to justify that kind of jump. I'm adding another serious adventure during the transition from this module to the next to adjust for it. I know the modules arent meant to be complete and we're expected to do some of this, but I was shocked at how little there was in this module for the expected three level jump.
I'm disappointed to hear about the endless combat of the end module, and will be reviewing that hardcore before running it. I want more story and less combat. I'll make adjustments as necessary.
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The more i think about it the more i realise that I'll have to switch out skeletons of scarwall. I don't mind the change of pace a history of ashes presents, but the campaign puts so much focus on Korvosa having all the fun revolutionary stuff happen off-screen feels too cheap. It means more work for me, but 4 of 6 books is pretty good value in my eyes.
The more i think about it the more i realise that I'll have to switch out skeletons of scarwall.
I honestly thought I'd have to, too, so I did. I told the PCs the legend as presented in the path, but I didn't tell them to go to Scarwall. They've been in touch with Khandescus Leroung in Westcrown (the expert on persistence after death described in Beyond the Vault of Souls) and he's researching stuff for them. They're considering tracking down one or more of the other artifacts of Kazavon. At this point, they're teleporting to Ustalav because last they heard Mandraivus might still be around, and they want to ask him some questions.
In other words, I was all set to give my players all sorts of other options, and they're choosing to still do Skeletons of Scarwall. Your players might surprise you, too. :)