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It has its share of problems, but none of them are impossible to overcome.
I personally think it works better if truncated, running books 1-4 (with 3 and 4 as a big old sandbox), make the Gorilla King the final boss after the McGuffin as well as a force of Serpentfolk. A fun short campaign with two sandboxes and a fun race in the middle.
This adventure path is very open ended and very narrow at differnent times with a number of transitions where the party's focus has to be made to shift. Players, having free will, can make these shifts difficult to execute.
With the players I game with, trying to play this AP exactly as written would result in some stilted and awkward play so the AP has been modfied, ad-hoc, to emphasize things that interest them and competitors that they don't like.
If you're going to DM this AP I'd suggest you expect to have to modfiy things to challenge and interest your party, especially in #2 and #3. (Haven't made it to #4 yet.) If you're looking for an AP to play exactly as written I'd be a bit hesitant.
Personally, I'm very much enjoying running this AP and most of the changes I've made have been removing encounters followed by working to build rivalry/common cause with the other factions.
Well the first book is arguably one of the best modules for 1st level characters ever published by Paizo and I think there is hardly anyone around here who could say something really bad about it.
The second book gets pretty railroady and feels a little like unused potential at some places but overall is still a fun "get their first!"-style adventure.
As for the third book: I think this particular part of the AP got the least love from our fellow adventureres for being so vague in many places and not providing the degree of detail in most encounters that some people wanted to see. I am currently running this book for my group and while I share some points with the people who don't like it we are all in all having a great time. You can see how our sessions went, I keep a journal here
Book 4-6 I cannot say anything about because I don't like to review modules I have only read and not played yet.
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Well the first book is arguably one of the best modules for 1st level characters ever published by Paizo and I think there is hardly anyone around here who could say something really bad about it.
Sounds like a challenge to me.
I thought Souls for Smugglers Shiv was merely OK. I would put Burnt Offerings, Howl of the Carrion King, Stolen Lands and (especially) the Haunting of Harrowstone as much better first modules for an AP.
SFSS fails (like most of Serpent's Skull) in being a grind. The diseases are a real pain for the players, there are very few interesting encounters until you get into the centre of the island and the shipwrecks are a disappointment being almost exculsively populated by the same undead over and over.
On the plus side the big set piece encounters are decent, particularly the temple at the end, but up until that point it is a grind. It averages out to decent but not spectacular IMHO.
For the OP these are the issues with the AP as a whole:
1) Some players may not see the necessity to ally with a faction and may feel forced into doing so.
2) Racing to Ruin is one long series of random encounters when it should have felt more like a race between the factions.
3) City of Seven Spears is one long grind with very few roleplaying opportunities.
4) The rival factions don't do anything. At all. They are just window dressing if you play the campaign as is.
5) The motivations for many of the factions are weak. Other than the Pathfinders most have money on their minds but Saventh Yhi doesn't have anything worth taking (see point 9).
6) For all the buildup about your party being the first to discover Saventh Yhi it turns out that a random Pathfinder got there first which totally undermines the PC's achievement.
7) The tests that the Gorilla King gives you in book 4 are ridiculously difficult.
8) Yarzoth in book 1 notwithstanding, the Serpentfolk hardly turn up until book 5.
9) The gear you get in the campaign is very poor. This campaign was supposed to be a treasure hunt yet there's very little treasure to actually find. One guy on this messageboard said that he was taking on the BBEG at 17th level dual wielding a +2 and a +1 sword.
10) For a campaign that took cues from Indiana Jones there are surprisingly few fiendish traps, this was an opportunity lost.
SFSS fails (like most of Serpent's Skull) in being a grind. It averages out to decent but not spectacular IMHO.
That's not how we experienced it. There are the fellow castaways as well as Pezock who make for excellent roleplaying opportunities and there are lots of things (eerie glowing surf, devil of red mountain, ghost captain) that help to transport the "Lost" feeling if used to full dramatic effect. The module is a constant fight for survival for the PCs with diseases always being a serious threat in addition to the critters and evil inhabiting the island.
1) Some players may not see the necessity to ally with a faction and may feel forced into doing so.
You should see to it that there is some hook built in with the PCs to join a certain faction or use the NPCs to make the group become involved with one. There is the "get the cargo through"-trait that could easily indebt a PC with the Aspis Consortium. An aspiring Pathfinder can fit into any group, the ship that finally saves the group might belong to the Free Captains, Jask's freedom in exchange for a government service and so on.
2) Racing to Ruin is one long series of random encounters when it should have felt more like a race between the factions.
May be true but again depends on the GM and how he puts pressure on the PCs. When my group found the bodies at the shadow demon encounter they knew they had to speed up. There are plenty of things the Sargavan government can do to hinder the PC to even leave Eleder or make their stay in Kalabuto difficult.
3) City of Seven Spears is one long grind with very few roleplaying opportunities.
Not true. The faction stuff alone gives ample opportunities.
4) The rival factions don't do anything. At all. They are just window dressing if you play the campaign as is.
They do whatever your GM makes them do! She has all the tools and motivations at her disposable to make the factions become more palpable with some hints and hooks already written in the module.
5) The motivations for many of the factions are weak. Other than the Pathfinders most have money on their minds but Saventh Yhi doesn't have anything worth taking (see point 9).
This is true. Especially the Red Mantis who are only after retrieving a single artifact don't fit in with an expedition of the same size as the others. But that can be easily changed. The Free Captains are even worse though, there are probably far easier ways to make enough money to join the council that don't involve so much inland exploring.
6) For all the buildup about your party being the first to discover Saventh Yhi it turns out that a random Pathfinder got there first which totally undermines the PC's achievement.
My group didn't feel like that at all. After all, the achievement is to reach the city and live to tell the tale which until now noone managed to do.
7) The tests that the Gorilla King gives you in book 4 are ridiculously difficult.
Not there yet but they sound indeed very difficult. But what would you expect from a character like him?
8) Yarzoth in book 1 notwithstanding, the Serpentfolk hardly turn up until book 5.
Completely true.
9) The gear you get in the campaign is very poor. This campaign was supposed to be a treasure hunt yet there's very little treasure to actually find.
I guess this is a very subjective point, my group is very happy with the stuff they find.
10) For a campaign that took cues from Indiana Jones there are surprisingly few fiendish traps, this was an opportunity lost.
Still not there yet, but it seems book 4 should have quite a lot of unique, deadly and creative traps. At the very least there is whole arsenal of traps in it that the GM could place anywhere she wants.
All in all I would recommend Serpent Skull to any group who likes slashing more than solving mysteries through social means but still care for some meaningful roleplaying with opportunities for intrigue on the side.
GMs should be warned though that if they don't use the tools the AP hands them creatively it might become a complete grind. But who doesn't like a challenge? :)
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I just started preparing to run the first adventure for my group. So far it does look really interesting, and also seems to capture that 'Lost' feel. We're all pretty excited, and I think as long as I don't drop the ball we should enjoy it.
Generally, the adventure paths seem to start off with a bang.
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You should see to it that there is some hook built in with the PCs to join a certain faction or use the NPCs to make the group become involved with one.
Hmmm... I'm fairly certain many groups would hate that. "Here's a faction you have to go with them." That would cause player revolt in many games.
The point is (and this has been commented on elsewhere) that some people feel that the factions are forced upon them and the players lose control of their own choices. They become employees rather than adventurers and that's not cool.
Not true. The faction stuff alone gives ample opportunities.
Where exactly? In the non-existent "this is what the other factions are doing in Saventh Yhi" section of the book?
As written City of Seven Spears has one roleplaying opportunity. One. Even then that opportunity is with an insane Lillend. The book goes out of its way to discourage diplomatic and roleplaying solutions preferring to promote a "kill em all" attitude.
They do whatever your GM makes them do! She has all the tools and motivations at her disposable to make the factions become more palpable with some hints and hooks already written in the module.
Ah well now this is the difference. Of course I can create encounters with the other factions and add things in but that should be my prerogative not a necessity. The AP itself gives no actual scripted encounters with the other factions other than a single vague encounter in Kalabuto. That for me is not enough.
A certain level of GM work should go into running an AP, that's a given, but the main issue with Serpent's Skull is the level of remedial work that is needed. Neither Racing to Ruin nor City of Seven Spears provide any guidance as to the motivations or activities of the NPC factions, it is left exclusively to the GM to create. That's bad AP writing, sorry.
My group didn't feel like that at all. After all, the achievement is to reach the city and live to tell the tale which until now noone managed to do.
Except of course for Juliver and Eando Kline who got to Saventh Yhi first which undermines all the work that the PC's have done in the last two AP volumes.
Not there yet but they sound indeed very difficult. But what would you expect from a character like him?
A unassisted DC 25 strength check? Followed by a DC 35 Perform, Diplomacy or Bluff check and a single combat against a CR 14 opponent at 10th level. There's difficult and then there's practically impossible.
If you are having a great time with it then more power to you. For me it was just a grind and that's what a lot of people have found.
YMMV
I didn't mean 'force' them to join a faction but rather nudge. And maybe there will be different motivations within the group leading to difficult decisions and compromises. At no point was it necessary in my game to tell the players what to do, they were in control the whole time and chose their own path.
With faction stuff I was talking about scenes that happen at the PC's camp, strategic meetings with the faction leader and in-game discussions about the camp scores.
For the adventure to incorporate detailed set-piece encounters with each and every rival faction either would have blown the module out of proportion or would have made it necessary for the PCs to choose a particular faction (which would really be railroading and disempower the players).
True, Juliver and Eando might water the success down a little but still even these two have hardly seen anything in Saventh-Yhi and have a completely different tale to tell (one in which the PCs will become major protagonists) so I predict no hard feelings from my players.
I am a little worried about the Gorilla King challenges as well though and I'll comment on that after we have run this encounter.
As I have said, IMHO people who felt this AP was a grind had a 'grindy' GM. It really isn't that much work to liven the modules up because the situation is perfectly set up. You don't have to write stuff in advance, things will happen naturally and as long as the GM keeps the situation as a whole in the back of his head she will be able to react in cohesive and interesting ways ad-hoc.
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Except of course for Juliver and Eando Kline who got to Saventh Yhi first which undermines all the work that the PC's have done in the last two AP volumes
If you read the background carefully, Juliver and Eando find Ilmurea first, by exploring from underground. They did not enter from Saventh-Yhi and had no idea it was above them.
A unassisted DC 25 strength check? Followed by a DC 35 Perform, Diplomacy or Bluff check and a single combat against a CR 14 opponent at 10th level. There's difficult and then there's practically impossible.
My group managed to make both the strength check(exactly), and the Diplomacy check(with about a 50). The single combat did not go their way. Characters should be about 12-13th level when they get to the end of Vaults anyway, not 10th.
To go back to the original topic, my group just finished the AP a week ago. We had a lot of fun with it. I did make some minor changes; one thing I did was to make levelling plot based, and I didn't track XP. This made it feel less grindy as the PCs did not feel penalized if they avoided encounters. This also let me cut out some of the repeat "it's four more [enemy]!" type encounters to keep things interesting.
We played over Maptools so the exploration aspects of the AP were really fun. They liked actually exploring the map of Saventh-Yhi, which I had darkened out. I think the exploration aspects would have been less fun and trickier to manage without this.
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Except of course for Juliver and Eando Kline who got to Saventh Yhi first which undermines all the work that the PC's have done in the last two AP volumesIf you read the background carefully, Juliver and Eando find Ilmurea first, by exploring from underground. They did not enter from Saventh-Yhi and had no idea it was above them.
Exactly. I was actually more irked by the ghost that found the city first. But it was an easy fix really. I just pushed him out of the valley to the island at the top of the waterfall. Then changed his diary entries to read "I know the city is around here somewhere. I'm close, I can feel it!" Actually made him out to be more of a sympathetic character (aside from murdering his mates of course) once the PCs realized how close he was when he was devoured. Shrug.
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And my players never once felt like they were FORCED to join a faction.
Once I sat down with them and discussed the sheer logistics of a DEEP (2000 mile) jungle expedition and researching, catalouging and removing an entire CITY'S worth of relics, they knew it would be beyond their means. They were more than happy to have faction support for an undertaking this large. Shrug again.
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I was thinking about the Gorilla Kings contest. I wanted to know what would happen if you take the pregenerated characters and have them attempt these tasks. I will admit that the characters would be higher level by the time they face the king, but still.
The Test of Strength. Fighter: Modified STR of 20, with Bull's STR it bumps up to 22. I guess you could add Guidance to help a bit. That means to pass the test you'd have to roll 18, 19 and 20. That's pretty tough. There might be something else the party could do, but I'm not seeing it. By the way, the AP says that the King does it with his STR 25 to show them how easy it is. That means he had to roll an 18 too. The real test would have been to see who could do it first. But that's not as interesting I suppose.
I consider this one a Party loses. But it's the first and they still have a chance. In fact this adds some tension to the game.
Test of Storytelling: Cleric: Diplomacy of +13. If you for some reason had access to Eagle's Splendor (though why you would is questionable) you could bring that up to +15. That means success on a Natural 20. However, the party can help by adding other (+6 for three other people, even more with npc's. Is there a max on aid other?) and an additional +6 based on how you do this. So there is a possibility that the cleric with help could get a +27 without any magic to make this roll. That's very doable.
So assuming the party works together and plans this out, they most likely lose one and win the next.
Test of Combat: Hmm, Versus the Fighter, Ape wins hands down. AC 29 versus Fighter's best attack of +19. So his best attack is 50% and gets worse from there. Ape on the other, his weakest attack is a +16. That hits fighter's AC 24 with a roll of 8. His best attack of +26 hits with a roll of 2. This isn't a challenge of skill versus skill, it's about math. The odds just favor the ape.
Now Ape versus Wizard: Wizard wins fairly easily. Round one cast fly. Round two wall of force to keep king in place and then fireball and wand of magic missile until defeat. Not exactly exciting, but would get the job done. Only ranged attack the ape has is a spear.
The party would have to think about what the King is best at, melee combat and send him against someone who can get out of his area of effect and stay out of it. Any other character in the party I think would get crushed worse than the fighter. The gut reaction would be to send the fighter to his doom. So the average party would most likely fail this one.
So the right choices here and the party wins fairly easily. Make the wrong decisions and party get's the crap beat out of them. Keep in mind that just means they have to be more creative later on. The king doesn't enslave them or kill them.
I can see why some players and DM's would hate this, I like it. It should be a place for thought and planning. This could be a great moment for the players.
After a year and a half, my PbP is finally finishing up Smuggler's Shiv so this interest me a bit too.
After looking at the rest of the AP, it seems like there are a lot of viable mash-up options available if the AP as-written doesn't appeal:
Kingmaker: Asphesteros has a good thread around here with turning Book 2 into a Kingmaker-like campaign.
Council of Thieves: I could easily see someone substituting the pirates who are bleeding Sargava dry in place of the threat of Cheliax. Indeed Sargava becoming weakened could open up the threat of re-occupation by Cheliax.
Jade Regent: This most strongly resembles the homebrew changes my own game took. Instead of the party escorting a royal to Minkai, our group was escorting a royal to Sargava to take over as governor when they got shipwrecked on Smuggler's Shiv.
Crucible of Chaos: This standalone module is based around uncovering a lost city. If you really wanted to truncate things, you could probably replace books 3-6 with this module.
I think that Serpent’s Skull has received a bad rap.
When I ran Soul’s of Smuggler’s Shiv, my players loved it.
None of us used any metagaming vs the NPCs. That is, it wasn’t automatically the PCs that did and decided everything while the NPCs stayed in the background.
The players didn’t know the classes of the NPCs at first (with the exception of Gelic and Jask, who told the PCs straight up). The players were frightened of Sasha for quite a while.
Each NPC had their personality expanded upon. When a PC got sick, the PC stayed in camp while one of the NPCs went out with the exploration party. This had everyone participate in exploring, camp duties and getting sick. The NPCs got an equal share of treasure (yes, I augmented the loot a bit).
Examples: Ishirou didn’t talk, he expressed himself by grunts (expressive grunts), with the exception of two phrases when he pulled out his map. Sasha, well, she got excited by combat and would trip the male that was most effective in that fight into the bushes for some fun - it was fun watching the male characters trying to impress her in fights.
Because the NPCs were all involved in everything, the factions part is an easier sell (also, in my group, Yarzoth got away - stole the boat the castaways had just about finished and she will haunt them throughout the AP)
Selling the factions. Even with the notes that were recovered from Yarzoth and even if one of the PCs can read Azlanti, you can understand every word, but without the context, the text can be jibberish.
Without googling it or looking anything up in a book, can you translate the following (hint, they are all cowboy terms):
"Light a shuck"
"Lineback Dun"
"Ditty Bag"
"Dog House"
"Drygulch"
"Necessary"
Because I am evil, the location of Tazion was lost, so I had the PCs go on a side quest to find a Pathfinder who had brought back a Tazion city emblem, while the sage that they had hired translated the text. This sage hired a lovely young lady called Jenivere (yes, it is Yarzoth, as she too needs the proper references - I did say that I was cruel right?)
This means that I have at least 3 ways for others to find out about things, the NPCs, Yarzoth (after all, if there is fighting going on, it will delay the surface dwellers) and the sage talking to his buddies in the club after a long day translating text. Hence, Factions are believable and do not feel like a railroad.
Add in what Jenner2057 said about the logistics, and add in that the factions will likely be able to buy and bring in new magic gear, and the players will likely like having the support of a Faction.
This AP has a fair bit of sandbox to it, with hints and suggestions by the writers. This is not everyone’s cup of tea.
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I actually posted a response on Friday but the board ate it. Oh well.
The thing to realise is that none of the Paizo AP's are bad. However there are some that are better than others in the eyes of the general playing public. It's a matter of taste, I want a tight well told story, I couldn't care less about exploring X to get to it. This is the same instinct that has me prefer Dragon Age to Oblivion.
The point is that I prefer my AP's to present a story for my players to follow, a purpose beyond mere survival or investigating X for the hell of it. The reasoning in Serpent's Skull is poor it goes something like this:
1) Band together with NPC's to survive
2) Find location of fabled city X
3) ??????
4) Profit!
Sure the factions have a motivation but the only real motivation for the PC's is money and fame (unless they are all by some fluke pathfinders). My players never felt much motivation to go to Saventh Yhi, they had just been through hell on Smuggler's Shiv (5 player deaths and a shedload of disease will do that to you) and they didn't feel motivated to tramp into the jungle to deal with something even more dangerous.
If City of Seven Spears was a fabulous adventure I would have less of an issue with the AP but let's face it if you rated all of the AP volumes 1 to 51 with 1 being the highest, City of Seven Spears would probably rank either 50 or 51. Realistically only Memory of Darkness rivals it for the bottom spot.
A lot of my dislike comes from bad personal experience. My players motivations for the campaign were tremendously low. Souls for Smuggler's Shiv was slow and uninteresting. This started because my players hated the castaways. This was my failing I suppose but I was trying to follow what it said in the plot and I played them as unfriendly and wary initially. This did not go down well and the campaign never really recovered, a lesson for Jade Regent I suppose. Worst of all though was the fact that it was a meatgrinder, I had an early TPK and within 4 sessions one of my players was on his 3rd character. But for a piece of luck my players would also have TPK'd at the cannibal camp. Bad NPC relations, multiple deaths and the misery of constant disease led to my players to feel put upon rather than heroic.
So when I confronted a battle weary party with the idea of heading to find the fabled lost city, rather than Mummy/Indiana Jones enthusiasm I was hoping for there was more of a resigned "yeah sure, whatever" attitude. From that point knowing that the next two AP volumes were pretty poor I just jacked it in in favour of Council of Thieves and Carrion Crown.
Compare this to Carrion Crown where the same players started investigating stuff in the second book before they were even asked because they were that enthusiastic. My players have loved Carrion Crown, it's been fabulous and if I have happy players I'm a happy GM.
Back to Serpent's Skull. If my players had some concrete reason to head to Saventh Yhi beyond a vague "it might make you rich" then I wouldn't have a problem. The players should have some big damn heroes motivation but that doesn't turn up until Eando Kline arrives in book 5. If the players had some inkling that going to Saventh Yhi would stop a BBEG then I would be OK with it but instead we get flimsy faction motivations which were not exciting for my players.
Actually a heroic party (particularly a CG one) would have better motivation to stay around Sargava to stop the exploitation of the natives. That has cropped up on the boards a bit.
Of course you can change things, write in new encounters and alter plotlines and motivations. I do this all the time in my AP's to make it more appealing to my players. The issue here though is that after bad experiences in book one and the woolly nature of book two and three altering things would be less like sticking a band aid on a wound and more like performing massive invasive surgery to get my players back on board. I work full time, I run AP's because I don't have time to do this much work. That's the issue, the AP is just too much effort to get it right.
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My party's experience with the Gorilla King
The test of storytelling went well for the party -- the sorceress had many, many ranks in Diplomacy and the paladin backed her up. I had the Gorilla king say he was unsure if the story pleased him, to give some tension (and he's not very nice). The test of combat was over fast - the Paladin/sunder monkey won initiative and ripped him apart piece by piece. Broken falchions, armor and soon, bits of the King went flying everywhere.
The AP so far is still going along well. My party likes some railroading, as most as getting off work and don't like much grinding on combat. They much prefer dealing with NPCs by sleazing past through diplomacy or stealth. Random encounters can just bore them to tears.
The 1st book was good - they immediatly said they weren't going to make a camp and just took the whole gang on a march into the jungle en masse. They did spend a week recoverign in the grove before dealing with the last two encounter areas. 2nd book was the drag, as they didn't really want to go trekking through the jungle -- who can they meet in the middle of a jungle? Saventh-Yhi made things interesting again as they soon began dealing with all the factions, then Yog'Goltha, The Hissing Dead, Haigan and the Gorilla King. The party diplomancer used the near-simultaneous disasters to gather the remnents of all the factions and make one big camp and is brokerign a deal to make most of them happy.
Now they're in Ilmurea and I just know the only thing keepign the paladin from jumping Izon is she thinks she needs to stay on the Railroad (I really don't mind if she goes for his throat, and I'm having him get more insulting each conversation).
For my group the Maze is the next step and it's led to a lot of lethargy. Dungeons are boring to them since Eando's rescue I've instituted a new policy, 'Do this to hit the next level'. By hook or by crook, they get the Ultimate -- er, Ancient weapon, they ding.
SS was the first AP I've ever ran and the second time I have been the DM, so I don't really know how it stacks up to other APs. (Also I have only played PnP games two times before this, so really no idea.)
However, I found it a blast to run. There was some fun rp stuff on the first island with npcs and bird guy. I fleshed out the npcs personalities a bit, they really like Gelik and Sasha a great deal. In fact Gelik became a follower later on in the AP.
I used that to not make a side plot going on to get them to dislike certain factions. Such as Red Mantis kidnapping Sasha instead of her just hanging out with them. Also they liked two factions so I let them roleplay, roll different diplomacy checks to get them to work together...etc.
Basically, what I like about this AP was the amount of tools there was to work off of. I dropped anything that they weren't liking and worked on what they really were liking.
The main thing I changed was added more breadcrumbs until book five leading them toward the Serpentfolk. I think that is really where they failed from a writing perspective. They kind throw one in there, then don't bring it up forever. Its a long campaign, especially with a lot of the sandbox nature of it, people will forget stuff.
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Well, as mentioned, one of the largest obstacles for me, was establishing drive for my characters. Once they left Smuggler's Shiv... it was hard getting them out of Eleder.
Me: So, you start to look for what you need to go on an expedition!
Them: Eh, let someone else handle it.
Me: What? Why?
Them: We're tired! Besides this city needs our help!
Me: What about, fame, glory, treasure?
Them: Eh...? Meh.
Eventually, of course, I was able to overcome this and sell them on the importance that they do this instead of others, but it took some doing.
The basic problem is that you're not playing one, solidly connected adventure, as you are three.
Effectively, here's how the story parses out:
* Soul's for Smuggler's Shiv [stand alone adventure, could be done independently of others]
* Racing to Ruin, and City of Seven Spears and Vaults of Madness [a set of related adventures, however the last two really should be one, larger adventure... also, they're grindy]
* Thousand Fangs Below and Serpent God's Vault [these should, too, be run as one contiguous adventure]
In reality, you could make three sets of PCs and run them through the three different sets of adventures, and it would almost work better than having the adventures work exactly as written.
Serpent Skull isn't a bad Adventure Path... but it easily can be. Both the overly-rail-roady Racing to Ruin and the ridiculously meat-grindy City of Seven Spears is a tough sell, as written. Effectively, plan, plan, plan, plan, plan, plan, plan and plan some more without skimping on the planning. Use the evocative scenery to your advantage. Make things feel real, important, and urgent. Drop reminders, occasionally, and hints from future things to past references. Make sure you have your contingencies covered. KNOW your players' characters and their motivations. Tie those personal motivations into the over-all structure. If you put in a lot of work, Serpent Skull can be good, or even great. However do know that SS, as written, unlike most APs, takes a lot of exactly that: work. Much more so than any other AP I've seen or played. And be careful. Your players can get whiplash between sand-box and rail-road, if you pull it on them too rapidly.
Some ways to help out:
* Racing to Ruin
- - Plan everything ahead. Roll all the random encounters, combine them sometimes, stretch them out over others, but have them rolled up for specific locations/days and then run them on those dates, regardless. Presume when the PCs save time, they skip days. Having these prepared in advance makes them far, far, far more easily interesting than "Oh, another random encounter today... hurray." which Racing to Ruin can be.
- - MAKE THE FACTIONS INTERESTING. As written, they're very boring. (Poor General Rotilius never even gets a piece of cover art! They snubbed him!) Give them an actual size, let the PCs know who and how many there are, give them a few notable personalities (other than just the leader as described and the random NPC from the island) that let the PCs be interested and feel connected. I've got some suggestions somewhere, I'll try to dig them up.
* City of Seven Spears and Vaults of Madness
- - More than anything else written here, combine these two. COMBINE THEM. They need to be the same adventure. Do not wait to introduce Vaults until the end of CoSS. There are plenty of ways. One way I did so was when the PCs used their allies to assault the Boggards, afterwards all the PC's allies (or their bodies) were accounted for, but a few. While looking around, they found a sinkhole with a rope, and the dead NPC at the bottom. That led them to the Flooded Vault. Another, while fighting the Rakshasa, he used Dimension Door (and his ring of Water Walking) a few times to escape. They tracked him and killed him... as he rolled to the bottom of a pit, they located a second cave: "The Indomitable Redoubt of Kalid-Shah". Discovering hints of "the Illaghri" from the Charau-Ka (fearful ramblings and prayers for protection from the shaman), yielded more of an interest when later on they actually found it. Also, don't arbitrarily hide the things. Nothing irritated one character more than literally spending hours searching and marking every single cave entrance in the economic district (the district they start in, by the way) and suddenly finding "whoops, I missed one" (referencing the Vault of the Body Thief; I didn't have book four the first time through). They accepted that, but it was still frustrating for character reasons. You can totally invent arbitrary reasons why they can't get in, however (such as big, honkin' iron doors). Just be prepared for that to be a distraction. Also be careful - when you do this they may run into things too big for them to handle.
- - MAKE THE FACTIONS INTERESTING. Remember that bit I noted in Racing to Ruin, above? Now they get to shine! Now that you have five (or fewer or even more) factions, allow them to interact! Some build friendships ([Pirates and Pathfinders], [Pathfinders and Sargava], [Sargava and the Aspis Consor- er, I mean "Ivory Cross"] and [Aspis Consortium and Red Mantis]) which makes for very interesting dynamics when you factor in their rivals/hated enemies as well (Pirates v. Mantis, Consortium v. Pathfinders). Make the dynamic... well, dynamic, not static. Have camps move periodically. Do things that are interesting. Make the Gorrilla King a faction that's collecting things like other factions, but instead of raids, have him foist his "competitions" on the other factions (enforced by raids). Eventually, the Red Mantis should end up in the religion district (troglodytes), the Pirates in the Farming District (boggards) the Constortium in either the military or farming district (Charau-Ka or Boggards, respectively, clashing with the pirates often in the latter), Sargava in the military district, and Pathfinders in the Economic or Artisans Districts.
For the whole campaign:
* I recommend creating a timeline of your own - "Day X, presuming the PCs don't stop Y, then Z happens". Keep this semi-secret from your players (they know there's a clock, they just don't know what).
* Make more interesting, if functionally dubious (for the PCs) treasure. Coins are dull. A magical whatsits that does blarg (completely useless to an adventurer, but great for an <insert sedentary job here>, and could be sold!) makes great treasure. "Oh, look: more coins, and a mundane super-fragile fan worth a few hundred gold. Joy." does not.
- - related: I suggest putting more treasure, but also giving reasons for the PCs to put it back in (money sinks). It makes them feel wealthy, but with taxes, dues, and social benefits (building materials, etc) doesn't unbalance things unduly. This is entirely dependent upon your players, of course. I've got mine (down to one right now) planning on being Sargava's governor for Savinth-Yhi (and Ilmurea) so she's basically investing a metric ton of treasure and gold into making the places as fabulous as possible, renovating everything, rebuilding, and the like.
* Make more possibilities for social "wins". As currently written, there's really few viable social "wins" - one found in City of Seven Spears (which involves an insane no-longer-good outsider), and two in Thousand Fangs Below (both of which involve putting your trust into evil, murderous, creatures of pure vileness). This makes things difficult. I strongly suggest you see what you can do about that.
* Don't be afraid to adapt. Simply put: don't play it as-written. It doesn't function well. What's written are great bones to make a good adventure story out of. It's not a good story on its own.
I hope these help! Sorry for the walls of text!
My group loved Smuggler's Shiv, was interested by RtR, and loathed CoSS enough for me to end the campaign there without even finishing the book.
Their reasoning was that there was little to no motivation for their characters past RtR to work on anything.
Smuggler's Shiv had an obvious motivation - escape the island
Racing to Ruin had - Get to the city first, though my players ignored this for a few sessions in favor of - Attempt to overthrow The Savagaran government and/or destroy the slave trade, then picked up the main thread as OMG they want to kill us RUN FOR THE JUNGLE!
In contrast they felt the hook of - wander around the city waiting for stuff to happen didn't appeal. Also the significant spike in the encounter difficulty (both perceived and actual) got to them as well.
This I feel is partially my fault as GM as I could have taken the time to develop some additional material to give the players reasons but I didn't make the effort at the time.
Serpent Skull strikes me as a promising adventure that just needs some serious elbow grease from the GM to tailor it to his/her group to make it good.
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In reality, you could make three sets of PCs and run them through the three different sets of adventures, and it would almost work better than having the adventures work exactly as written.
Actually, this is exactly what I've got planned. The higher level characters who were intent upon getting to Eleder to stabilize the city simply don't have time to go off on an expedition. Therefore, they are specifically commissioning Ieana* to lead the expedition an their behalf. Ieana then hires the 2nd group of adventurers.
Thus, a new party of adventurers is being specifically hired for the purpose of going on an expedition while the existing characters engage in some Kingmaker-style business. That right there takes care of the motivation vs obligation issue that more than a few GMs have encountered. :)
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I actually really wish I'd played it off that way, Laithoron, however I happened to get the idea only after my trials and tribulations with my players. I kind of did that later - I had one character reborn as Savith (with some memory issues and associated level loss), which granted a huge boost to the drive to get things done for her.
And it's exactly the point: the players cleared out the Shiv and wanted to keep it and build it like Kingmaker. Also Eleder.
Nice use of Ieana, by the way!
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One thing that I did for motivation, was to turn Yarzoth into the BBEG. She will replace the serpentfolk cleric in the last installment of the AP. She quite easily escaped at the end of the Shiv, pretending to be Sasha, who had played with the pyramid up top (being bored), when the PCs used the gaseous form to arrive in the upper chambers of the temple.
My players want revenge and payback on Yarzoth, for the shipwreck, for almost killing them in the temple, for stealing their boat. It will get worse when they realize that the sage's assistant was her, and that she will be interferring with their race.
I also had a player start off as a pathfinder on their confirmation mission, just starting out after finishing their three years training. Add in a few nifty Azlanti Ioun stones, and the PCs are interested in learning more, finding a lost city and exploring it.
Nice, Mistwalker!
When a player joined the Pathfinders and got their first Wayfinder and ioun stone, it really helped them gain some motivation. It was still a bit of a drag - Eleder is just such a huge temptation.
I also used Yarzoth, however that's extremely campaign-dependent. If she's killed (she narrowly was in mine... and then was later), that's it. It's really hard to justify bringing her back (although fortuitously, I managed to more or less accidentally seed this as a possibility due to my own players' actions in other things, so I can do so that way to). I am, however, thinking of running it with both Yarzoth and the other guy to bump up the challenge rating.
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Well if you're dead-set on using Yarzoth as a BBEG, it's not too hard to say that agents of the Coil are sent to recover her body and raise her. Especially if she's the only one that can do the ritual at the end.
Just make sure you drop some hints that this has happened so your players don't scream foul. I wrote up additional notes in Issilar's journal that this had happened (and that Yarzoth had passed through Tazion) but you could also have them find some of the Coil's human collaberators in Eleder as they're passing through to get her body on Smuggler's Shiv. Shrug.
And frankly, I think having one BBEG as a reaccuring villain helps to bring together the 3 very separate parts of the AP that others have pointed out. I even dropped hints of a prophesy in the Eleder Archives and in Issilar's notes that only the Chosen One could restore their Headless God. So in addition to racing the others factions, they've been chasing Yarzoth and while exploring Saventh-Yhi they're also looking for clues where the heck she'd gone to.
Just provides a bit more motivation for the AP.
NOTE: And most of the ideas of the above have been taken from other postings here. Don't want anyone to think I came up with that stuff all on my lonesome. :)
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All and all I thought it was pretty good. I think one of the thing that gave it a bad rap is, at times it bounces between fairly sandboxy and fairly railroady. So people that really like one of those over the other will both have issues with parts. My only complaint is it got a bit to mega dungeon crawly to me near the end. It wasn't bad, I was just hoping for something a bit different with more of a sandboxy lost city above ground to the last few.
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I believe most of the problem lays in the DMs and players. After reading the reasons for all the 'bad rep', and after playing for a long time D&D and other very different games, I think the issue arises from one really bad methodology that tends to occur almost exclusively on D&D tables.
The DM and the player don't discuss the theme of the adventure to be played before said adventure starts.
Most tables, in my experience and from what I seem to read here, just let the players create any character they feel like without considering what the adventure is about.
I talked with my player before running SS, and explained that it was an adventure about exploration and discovery. We never had a motivation problem.
I do not believe the AP to be perfect, obviously (I modified RtR quite a lot), but it seems to me that most of the problems people had with it would have never had appear if the DM had just sat down with the players and explained the theme and feel correctly in the very beginning.
Going with some of the great ideas that Doug M. made, I would like to try this AP with the piecemeal armor system from Ultimate Combat. A strong emphasis during the beginning.
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I've been thinking about this and I really think Major is onto something. For players (and the DM) to really enjoy SS, they've got to love exploring. Not so much "kick in the door, fight, take stuff, rinse, repeat", but really more "What's around the next bend in the island?" "What's in the next block of buildings over the valley ridge?" etc.
Because at it's heart, I think that's what SS is about: exploring and discovering the unknown. First Smuggler's Shiv, then Saventh-Yhi then Ilmurean. And if your players don't enjoy that, then they're probably not going to enjoy SS.
NOW, where I agree CoSS DOES fail, is there's a disturbing lack of "unknown" for the PCs to find in a city as large as Saventh-Yhi. Yes the inhabitants are detailed wonderfully, and yes the Spears and mysteries surounding them can be (slowly) discovered, but the rest of the city leaves a lot to be desired. This is fertile ground for a DM willing to go the extra mile and flex his creativity... or to check out the other threads here where folks have discussed adding more "wonder" to the Lost City. :)
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I've been thinking about this and I really think Major is onto something. For players (and the DM) to really enjoy SS, they've got to love exploring. Not so much "kick in the door, fight, take stuff, rinse, repeat", but really more "What's around the next bend in the island?" "What's in the next block of buildings over the valley ridge?" etc.
Because at it's heart, I think that's what SS is about: exploring and discovering the unknown. First Smuggler's Shiv, then Saventh-Yhi then Ilmurean. And if your players don't enjoy that, then they're probably not going to enjoy SS.
NOW, where I agree CoSS DOES fail, is there's a disturbing lack of "unknown" for the PCs to find in a city as large as Saventh-Yhi. Yes the inhabitants are detailed wonderfully, and yes the Spears and mysteries surounding them can be (slowly) discovered, but the rest of the city leaves a lot to be desired. This is fertile ground for a DM willing to go the extra mile and flex his creativity... or to check out the other threads here where folks have discussed adding more "wonder" to the Lost City. :)
And +1 all the way. :D
I'd say Ilmurea lacks this too, somewhat, but it's less because a) the section at the back, and b) it has a stronger plotline to pull the players through.
This is relevant to my interests.
We started SS last year and spent 4-5 months of real time on that damned island. And then our group split for unrelated reasons. I have wanted to restart the AP using a different 1st level adventure for some time.
Needs so much work. My player (yes I solo) finds adventures like #3 incredibly tedious and unappealing.
The first, third and fifth adventure are very similar in concept so if your player doesn't like half of the AP from the start you might want to reconsider running it altogether.