Is this AP any good?
Also, how much of the AP involves no "Ye old magic shops"
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My opinion of Serpent's Skull is:
"meh"
It's better than Second Darkness, but it suffers horribly from the fact that the adventure that's supposed to be the centrepiece of the AP is, well, crap. City of Seven Spears I am looking at you. You can look up the reviews, I'm not the only one who thinks it's one of the worst Paizo AP adventures ever.
It's not exactly helped by the fact that adventures 4 and 5 are OK at best. The 6th one is rather fun, but you'll bore yourself to death before you reach it.
If you have the time to rewrite CoSS, it could be a great AP. But since the reason I buy APs is to cut my own work on running the game, Serpent's Skull is a big no go for me.
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Agree with Gorbacz.
Adventure 1 is fantastic! Think about running that as a stand alone even if you don't run the whole AP.
Adventure 2 you really have to know your group. How long do they want to play through the grind of a 2 month crosscountry trip? Some good encounters along the way, but you may want to skip random encounters towards the end.
Adventures 3, 4 and 5 I havent' played yet but look - as Gor said - "meh". I'm working overtime to salvage them into something more fun. I'm thinking of running 3 and 4 almost concurrently to breeze through it (and just adjusting the CRs as needed).
The key to making this AP fun is the competition between the racing factions. Have them play a much larger part through the whole AP. And that extra bit is going to require some extra work on your part. (OK, the PCs are here... where are the Pirates? What are they doing? etc).
Just my 2 cp.
Is this AP any good?
Also, how much of the AP involves no "Ye old magic shops"
Since almost all of the AP involves exploration of ruins, it does not really have too much in the way of access to the vast catalogues of magic that some players may be used to. There is provision however for having supplies brought in and so players *could* order up items and have them delivered later.
From a GM's perspective, this AP's execution definitely feels like the weakest AP that Paizo has produced. BUT...I have heard that with the right GM, it can be a blast to play.
Just like any AP, it is what you make of it. This one however, you might have to work just a little bit harder than usual.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Is this AP any good?
Also, how much of the AP involves no "Ye old magic shops"
I've got a group currently in adventure 6 right now.
The first adventure is just hands down awesome. Even if you never intend to run the rest of the AP, the first adventure can be a great standalone.
The second adventure is very railroady - my players called it a "steep sided gully- you can climb out of the provided track with some effort." There are Magick Shoppes, but the PCs won't have very much money at this stage. The overland journey does take enough time that the "crafting items ahile adventuring" rules can be made use of.
In the third adventure the PCs get a camp with a spend limit of 2500 gp. That's their shopping for the rest of the AP, until they get teleportation magic and choose to go shopping in Katapesh. My group did not have the same problems with adventure 3 that some others did, but that may have to do with the logistics of how I ran it.
Our group plays online using maptools, and so my group actually got to explore the city - I darkened the map and let them move a token representing the party around the city. The exploration aspect really helped negate the "just an endless wave of encounters." Also, we use plot-based levelling, so I just leveled them through adventure 3 at a pace such that when they started getting tired of exploring, we started adventure 4.
This is already pretty long but I hope it was helpful.
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My better half, the beautiful Cherry Pi, decided she was going to GM Serpent Skull for myself and several of my core group.
Other than some d6 Star Wars and a little White Wolf, she had never run anything in the this system or setting. She didn't take the task lightly! Initially, her prep-time was nearly 50% of our sessions overall.
I bring up this fact, because I fell it was one of her main keys to successfully running the AP.
You might have heard, SS is a sandbox design with a twist. Unlike KingMaker, with its wide open expanses of land and only the party's compass to decide where to go next,
Serpent Skull's starting setting is an island. By nature, sandbox designs are more challenging to run than your average linear scenarios. We tabled a group of players who collectively have nearly a century of Game Mastering experience, she certainly had her work cut out for her!
We are one session away from completing book three @ character level 10. Just as ryric mentioned, our group was also treasure/equipment/item starved, but T-Port has allowed us match our gear to our CR.
This has, without a doubt, been my favorite player experience in years. Although good, it would be unfair to say that result is entirely due to the AP.
My character concept is Awesome! A throw back to my first D&D character created in 1977. We hand picked some of the finest role players I know, to share the table and the adventure.
To witness Cherry's evolution from a naturally gifted player to a an excellent Game Master has been the icing on my gamer cake!
With only half of our journey completed, we are still having a wonderful time! I look forward to kicking the crap out of the next three books!
Live to Game.
Game to Live.
~@~
Creative Director
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Serpent's Skull, more than ANY other AP (including Kingmaker), benefits immensely from a GM who enjoys and has a lot of experience running sandbox type campaings. In fact... there's less "storyline" in the middle of Serpent's Skull than there is in Kingmaker.
Basically... I think we went too far into Sandbox Mode with Serpent's Skull.
("City of Seven Spears" was intended to be a lot like the old adventure Dwellers in the Forbidden City but due to some unfortunate developments we were unable to provide actual map support for key locations in the ruined city, as they did in "Forbidden City." Were I to be able to go back in time, I would have put a much stronger, more linear storyline into "Seven Spears" and would have moved a lot of the sandbox stuff into a support article. Live and learn, I guess.)
smiles to JJ for posting that
Paizo will not get it right woth every mod and every AP
I feel this whole AP has lacked a lot of 'pace'. It may be the GM just hasnt got to grips with it fully. It has taken us 27 sessions to finish to end of mod 2. Everytime it appeared to get its wheel turning it hit the brakes
Crawling to Ruin, it has felt like
I guess in time if you re-issue each AP 5-10 years down the line as supermods you can tweak here and there
Running it myself now, just finished book 2 and will start part 3 after we have finished another game by a different DM. It is a good AP but it does require a lot of planning to get it right as the feel is not quite there. The city as a barebones structure is there but it needs fleshing out and retuning a fair bit.
I think its an AP for a slightly experiened GM or one that likes to spend a lot of time fixing it to fit thier group. I agree Part 1 is awsome, part 2 is very railroady and far too many random encounters (my party went a different route), part 3 see above, part 4 seems ok but needs tweaking a touch, part 5 is another sandboxy city but it has more plot to it and part 6 has a great ending.
I'm having great fun and it so far ranks as one of my best campaigns iv'e ran. The players are really getting in to it and changing things themselves to make it even more intersting, which is a very exciting challenge if a little time consuming to plan.
So yes, run it if you have a lot of time and like to tinker with things but I woudlnt suggets running as is, it is in my eyes very good though and well worth the effort (the map pack for this is pretty essential too).
Serpent's Skull, more than ANY other AP (including Kingmaker), benefits immensely from a GM who enjoys and has a lot of experience running sandbox type campaings. In fact... there's less "storyline" in the middle of Serpent's Skull than there is in Kingmaker.
Basically... I think we went too far into Sandbox Mode with Serpent's Skull.
("City of Seven Spears" was intended to be a lot like the old adventure Dwellers in the Forbidden City but due to some unfortunate developments we were unable to provide actual map support for key locations in the ruined city, as they did in "Forbidden City." Were I to be able to go back in time, I would have put a much stronger, more linear storyline into "Seven Spears" and would have moved a lot of the sandbox stuff into a support article. Live and learn, I guess.)
thanks for the open words James, thats what makes PAizo so awsome and different.
In my humble opinion the big problem wit "Seven spears" is not the lack of story but the lack of interesting encounters and areas. it leaves to much for the Dm to do and I think most DM's who use AP's don't have the time to do that
Reaper Miniatures
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I'm running this one now, on Wednesdays, and Kingmaker on Thursdays. This one is less interesting than Kingmaker overall, but we have a lot of fun with it. We're about to end Book 2 next week, and I'm looking forward to slowing down the frantic run across the countryside to stop and explore Saventh-Yhi in book 3.
It's all about your group though. My Wednesday night group is from the local high school, and they wouldn't take well to Kingmaker - too much intrigue, not enough stabbing. The intrigue in SS coming from the constant assaults by the Rival Faction means plenty of stabbing, and a real incentive to get to the end.
Likewise, I wouldn't run my Thursday group, gamers in their 30's mostly, through SS. There's not enough story through most of the books, "get there first and explore it quickly" isn't a story. They are eating up the intrigue of Kingmaker, though.
Different Groups, Different APs, same smiles on our faces.
What was the deal with City of Seven Spears? I remember when it was announced that Kevin Krupp was going to be writing it, there were lots of people who got excited. Then later, it turns out that the adventure writer switched/was augmented. I've heard it was supposed to be sandboxy, but many don't seem to recognize it as a sandbox and/or still seem to rate it poorly. I stopped picking up most AP modules after Kingmaker (saving up my entertainment budget for other things), so I haven't had a chance to look at the AP in detail yet. Is it as bad as Jason Buhlman's Second Darkness adventure (the shut-up-and-get-on-the-train-no-you-are-not-allowed-to-do-something-differe nt one)?
hm, where to start
the encounters are not interesting, you have to fight legions of ever the same creatures with identical statistics, there are no encounter areas, no maps, almost no descriptions, no story, the map of the city makes no sense|
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What was the deal with City of Seven Spears? I remember when it was announced that Kevin Krupp was going to be writing it, there were lots of people who got excited. Then later, it turns out that the adventure writer switched/was augmented. I've heard it was supposed to be sandboxy, but many don't seem to recognize it as a sandbox and/or still seem to rate it poorly. I stopped picking up most AP modules after Kingmaker (saving up my entertainment budget for other things), so I haven't had a chance to look at the AP in detail yet. Is it as bad as Jason Buhlman's Second Darkness adventure (the shut-up-and-get-on-the-train-no-you-are-not-allowed-to-do-something-differe nt one)?
City of Seven Spears apparently suffered from an Author Dropout Syndrome. It was just some kind of perfect storm of FUBARs with this adventure.
Also, Jason's Armageddon Echo was quite good, except one bit where the railroad was somewhat too obvious. It has rather stellar reviews over here. The real problem with SD was JD Wiker's Memory of Darkness...
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Ah, I just took a look at the summary of the Second Darkness chapters and realized you were right. There were a number of heavy handed railroad events portions of the AP, but part 5 was definitely near the top for the worst.
Regarding Serpents Skull, how are the support articles? Is there anything in there of particular value (Second Darkness had some pretty sweet support articles, even if the adventure quality was variable)?
The support articles are of the usual stellar quality. I love the articles on traps, juju magic and deity writeups.
I'm running SS as a PBP right now. It's perfect for that I think, because as previous posters had said, you need to breathe some life into it - again, excepting the first adventure which is simply awesome as it is.
Serpent's Skull, more than ANY other AP (including Kingmaker), benefits immensely from a GM who enjoys and has a lot of experience running sandbox type campaings. In fact... there's less "storyline" in the middle of Serpent's Skull than there is in Kingmaker.
Basically... I think we went too far into Sandbox Mode with Serpent's Skull.
("City of Seven Spears" was intended to be a lot like the old adventure Dwellers in the Forbidden City but due to some unfortunate developments we were unable to provide actual map support for key locations in the ruined city, as they did in "Forbidden City." Were I to be able to go back in time, I would have put a much stronger, more linear storyline into "Seven Spears" and would have moved a lot of the sandbox stuff into a support article. Live and learn, I guess.)
James, I love you guys, but I'mma gonna disagree on requiring a linear story. It's not the sandbox nature of three, it's that there are a few things that just don't make sense. If I could go back in time and try and change things... well, it wouldn't work, because you guys don't know me from Adam, AND I'd probably change more important things.
BUT! If you, and I, together, could go back in time and change this particular AP and really we couldn't do anything other than that while changing time around (to use an overly in-depth analysis of the situation as an example), I'd strongly suggest more of a blending of adventures three and four, as well as a series of supports for "If/Then" mixed with more of a timeline. Sandbox is fine. Even the wide-open nature of CoSS is great. BUT, the problem is that there isn't any support for making a story tailored to the PCs. What I'd recommend is the option of finding the Vaults (adventure four) inside of adventure three (a difficult thing to do when you're running them as they come out) while placing a series of responses based on the PC actions. It doesn't have to cover every scenario, just more than is covered now, which basically treats the city districts as static, unwise creatures ripe for slaughter. Also, more detailed maps. Now, all that's a huge request. I'm basically saying take two Adventures, blend them into one adventure, and add more support (all in an AP where two whole pages were dedicated to iconics!), but in order to make CoSS (and VoM) better, they need to be run concurrently. The Radiant Muse is one of the most powerful creatures in the city. It makes great sense for her to be guarding one of the weakest groups in the city in one of the lowest-danger-levels of the city. With that in mind, it'd be perfect to have differing levels of danger across the city, with some tribes far more powerful than others, and thus making a progressive foray into the city a worthwhile level-up experience. ALSO, more detail in adventure two as to who/what goes with you (your caravan, what it can do, and how many/how much is on it, etc).
This approach works well when you consider that's how you guys made Kingmaker both a sandbox and progressive - a "stray too far, and you'll be smacked down, but explore this range at your own pace" kind of thing. That and more support at key encounter locations would have made CoSS (and VoM) much better. Add in a (false) "timeline", like with adventure one of the series, and they could have been positively rockin' it... at least more than it is now. So really, much like Ilmurea, it should probably have been split into two adventures.
Another thing I'd have modified would be how discoveries were made. Now it's too generic. Stay in one district long enough, and you'll win. This encourages a completely static group to do nothing except slaughter their enemies as they come into the city. If, instead, you created a law of diminishing returns, that would virtually demand that PCs explore more of the city and require that they settle and tame it. Again, like King Maker, making exploration a direct, tangible, mechanical benefit (you get more discovery points!).
Anyhoo, that's how I'd be recommending it. Feel free to hire me! :D Also, I do psionics! And stat out deities! ... I just kind of happen to live at the exact opposite corner of the continental United States. That's not a problem, though, right?
REGARDLESS OF ALL THAT, TO THE OP:
Yeah, it's pretty good. Adventure two can be a slog, adventure three is kind of grindy-feeling as-written, and adventure four feels like it should be run concurrently with adventure three, but it's not too bad, for all that. If your group likes hack'n'slash, the middle-three adventures are perfect for you. If your group prefers in-depth RP... hm, perhaps Kingmaker or Carrion Crown would be better.
Although, the RP-value for your fellow Castaways from adventure one is astoundingly great! Of course, then again, so is adventure one!
EDIT: and yes, the support articles are amazingly cool. The concept of what's going on in SS is fantastic. The end-game story is phenomenal. It's getting through the middle that can be tough.
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My better half, the beautiful Cherry Pi, decided she was going to GM Serpent Skull for myself and several of my core group.
Other than some d6 Star Wars and a little White Wolf, she had never run anything in the this system or setting. She didn't take the task lightly! Initially, her prep-time was nearly 50% of our sessions overall.
I bring up this fact, because I fell it was one of her main keys to successfully running the AP.
That is some AMAZING work! VERY nicely done!
I now feel I have to get my butt in gear on my production value. :)Can definitely see where the extra work made the adventure truly exciting.
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Creative Director
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Also, I do psionics! And stat out deities! ... I just kind of happen to live at the exact opposite corner of the continental United States. That's not a problem, though, right?
Heh... actually, all THREE of those would be a problem. We're not currently interested in psionics, we won't be statting up deities even IF we get our Mythic rules of the ground, and being able to physically be in the office 40 hours a week is a requirement. :-P
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I certainly have found I didn't start small by choosing this AP to start with. And I think were it not for:
•my love of lists and spread sheets
•my fear of being unprepaired
•the intimidation of very experienced players that I deeply respect
•my own extended gaming experience
•my luck of having many quality GMs as mentors over the years
•randomly becoming best friends with one of the monster makers for the AP (<3 you NP)
•and my fondness for props and hand outs with a propensity to spontaneously break out into arts and crafts....
I would have been in trouble.
Book 1 was fantastic it had of the first 3 books the best balance for play just enough to push them along but free form enough to allow for interesting outcomes that I have seen very DRAMATICALLY from group to group. Though I have to say I was most shocked at how unbelievably successful a high diplomacy group could be. The down side.... 24 weather rolls, sometimes up to 3 rain severity rolls, 1 disease roll per pc, roll to see what was in the surf that night, random encounters, attitude rolls for NPCs, every shipwreck..... HOLY CRAP it was a lot of % rolls. That's were that "love of lists and spread sheets" came in very handy!
Book 2 this was almost too structured to go into following book 1 as the players had gotten use to forging their own path. also expressing the true interest of each faction and exactly what they were offering was not going well at the start of book 2 I found it is a situation where presenting written offers for each made this a MUCH more entertaining event. I don't believe this or the spirit animal event are played up quite enough. They are 2 things that can deeply guide the outcome of how some roll players develop their PCs. The Faction can turn friends into foe and rivals into brothers. It is something that should be encouraged to tie them to their goal and their new family.
The spirit animals I had some fun with. It was still a random roll but once I had the sub type I looked into the symbolism of the animals listed and matched them to the PC. I gave them mini readings on the one I chose for them giving them a peek at another perspective. Encouraging them to latch on to one of those traits and find a but of the characters soul. ... the colors I added for fun.
we had Green Lion (Lion Shaman halfling, currently replaced, though not dead, by a Human Inquisitor of Abadar). A Blue Zebra (Elf Dragon Disciple), Yellow Porcupine (Half-elf Holy Vindicator of Desna), Pink Elephant (Elf Wizard)
Down side of book 2...... Itombu can go very deadly very quickly....very much a potential TPK! A little too structured... some situations also make it easy to question the hows and whys of going the way that your expected to the "why not just teleport us at least close to there" kind of stuff. And lastly calling it a race turned my game into "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and while that was fun and good for book 2.... it has slipped over into book 3 causing my players to miss the fun bits and wiping out almost all major beasts (though very few of the actual tribes) and 5 spears in just 2 weeks of game time.
Book 3 was HARD! hard to keep players on track hard to keep their xp in balance hard to get timing down. They have well thrown me for a loop many times on this one forcing me to think fast. Think in tactical ways i normally don't. It was not a comfortable situation. Lack of maps while understandable.... very disappointing. The map pack at this point is in my opinion ESSENTIAL! Though discrepancies on descriptions compared to images and the size scaling caused some frustrations. Now with that said I must say it has had more potential behind it then any thing i have seen so far! the problem is so many things would need to be tweaked its very overwhelming to the less experienced GM.
Oh and watch out for District D. There is the potential to bring EVERY MOB in the entire district down on their head at once.... I know because my PCs tried to.
We are about to start book 4 and I must say It looks quite good. I have some concerns about some areas but if I have learned anything it is that I cannot even come close to predicting what is going to happen when my PCs get there. The most thrilling part of this AP to me has been watching the way this plays out. I am as much at the whims of my players as I am to the stat blocks in the books and I have taken to calling this "The Crazy AP" for more than one reason.....
I have glanced trough 5 and 6 and to be honest I don't have any idea how to do half of it. As a new GM I know I have taken on far more than I expected. But I am not a lazy GM. I don't think you can be with this AP and still be successful. roll your 87 random rolls per day in advance, level the NPCs as they level .... you'll regret not doing it by book 3. Visual aids and crazy NPC encounters will make blah moments some of the most memorable moments.... and don't worry everyone hates Gelik it's not just you.
We're not currently interested in psionics...
Oh James, do you hear that sound? That's the sound of my hopes and dreams shattering. You cruel dinosaur you!
Back to the OP: *Ahem* Moving on, I'm about halfway through Book 2 now, after starting the very first session outside of Cheliax's northern city to pick up one recalcitrant PC. While keeping most of the overriding themes and feelings of the castaways, I replaced them wholesale with characters more 'in tune' with my style (not that it was a big change, mostly cosmetic changes and names) and the party responded very well. Moving into Eledar was simple for us, as my group has been with me a LONG time and I cities/wilderness are my forte. I used the locales, but also stirred in some completely unrelated NPC's, locales, and such so that the players could not distinguish 'module' from 'stuff I made'. This, along with a well-distributed response from the Factions, made the faction selection a truly agonizing prospect, although the Good won out in the end and the PFS was selected.
I don't mean to bore you with long details of my game, OP, but instead to agree that the adventure path (as far as I have played and prepped thus far) is incredibly fun IF you keep the laws of cause and effect in mind, and flesh out the city/people/locales with some of your own to offer 'consistency'. If you're looking for a 'game in a package' that will require little forethought to run though, run away very fast. :)
Also, I do psionics! And stat out deities! ... I just kind of happen to live at the exact opposite corner of the continental United States. That's not a problem, though, right?
Heh... actually, all THREE of those would be a problem. We're not currently interested in psionics, we won't be statting up deities even IF we get our Mythic rules of the ground, and being able to physically be in the office 40 hours a week is a requirement. :-P
And once again, I am shunned due to prejudice. Prejudice, I say! :D
Also, to DJCherryPie (and anyone else interested, such as the OP):
One of the things I started doing for Adventure 2 was numbering out the days (with a few options, depending on their speed which was really impressive) in advance, based on what my players were doing, and rolling the random encounters beforehand. That way I could say (as a completely random example I'm pulling off the top of my head that never happened) "day 132*, three encounters, T-Rex, Boggard, and ant swarm. Hm: an antswarm attacking a T-Rex would be a very cool thing for them to come across, so that makes one encounter. The boggard is probably stalking everything so that it can take some of the meat and/or ants once the danger is gone. So! Phase one: characters find T-Rex/antswarm (in between when the two encounters would normally take place). After battle is over, and players are tired, the boggard assaults hoping to gain more meat/treasure and get the exhausted players, perhaps believing that eating their hearts gives him their strengths". That kind of stuff gave me not only a great tool to drop on them unexpectedly, but also enabled me to created interesting and dramatic situations in-game that were memorable, and allowed the PCs to actually act.
While I haven't looked at your stuff in detail, yet, I'm interested to do so. Keep updating us!
*From the time we started the campaign. We actually track days by the amount of time it's taken from the wreck on Smuggler's Shiv. Also, they were well past adventure 2 by day 132.
EDIT:
To Apotheosis: +1
My two cents:
I'm currently running Racing To Ruin.
SfSS went great with my group, and is definitively the best adventure I've run in my 5 years as a DM.
RtR has been fun for now, but it is quite heavy on Railroading.
Personally, I think is the DM's task to translate the feel of exploration and adventure the AP needs to succeed.
Also, I am running the AP on Eberron, which I feel it really adds a lot. I'm not saying by this that Golarion is not a good setting; just that I feel this particular AP is AWESOME for Eberron.
Folks,
I'm running SS and we're currently in the racing to ruin phase. I'd like to thank everyone for taking the time to comment on the AP because it's helped me tweak the adventure to keep the players more interested.
Some things that have helped:
Double-cross by an NPC taking their findings to the Aspis Consortium to set up an immediate rivalry.
The Sargaven faction using bureacratic methods and city guard harrasment to slow down preparation.
False accusation of horse theft just as they were trying to leave Eleder.
I'm going to introduce details of a certain 'lost' Pathfinder in Kalabuto. I think that there needs to be some mystique established early to enable things to flow more naturally later.
I'm going to cut down on the random encounters but add a drawn-out pursuit by Charau-ka.
I've read ahead in the AP and agree with comments about there only being evil allies available later in the path. I'm toying with replacing the demonic types with some fallen/cursed archons.
Again, thanks to all who have posted - it's helpful.