I'm about to start DMing this adventure path (the original version, though using Pathfinder rules) later today and wanted to ask the collective intelligence of the forums for pieces of your wisdom.
I have already decided to enact a couple of changes on the first adventure, based on wonderful and numerous threads here:
- Will run the festival for a time, give the PCs chance at the games (including the awesome Dragon Race!).
- The Pyro Goblins encounter will happen at the Rusty Dragon; goblins will be throwing improvised molotov cocktails willy-nilly.
- Ameiko will be suffering from a terrible debilitating poison (as part of Tsuto's plan of disabling the people who could prove troublesome to his plan), which will probably take her quite a few days to recover.
- Shalelu (who is a mentor figure for a female ranger PC) will be captured and held prisoner at Thistletop.
- Ameiko and her (drunk) father will have a confrontation in the Rusty Dragon before the whole Glassworks thing (so to expose more of that particular situation).
Do any of you guys have any advice about running this path? Anything you wish you had changed but didn't, or things that you did do to smooth things out?
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I don't think you need the mods you are throwing out there, as they may add more complication than they are worth.
Burnt offerings is one of the smoothest running books I've even used. Some of the later books need massaging, but this one you can pretty much run as is.
The only issue we had is that Thistletop is a long slog for low levels without a lot of spells and heals.
I do not believe I'll get there (Thistletop) today, but would you suggest any work-around? Maybe dropping in an infamous wand of cure light wounds?
My group tends to hate long dungeons, so I generally trim a bit here and there, group monsters up when possible, etc. That whole dungeon is my personal nightmare.
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You could split the Thistletop (forest) and Thistletop keep, and make them 2 individual dungeons so PCs can have a break.
Basically this, although I had those left in thistletop be able to reinforce when the PC's left, so it just became a two day siege.
The players will know a long slog is coming, it was more the casters running out of spells than anyone running out of healing.
HangarFlying: I did consider but couldn't get a really good idea of the updates. To be honest, one of the reasons I wanted to start this AP is that I bought the books extremely cheap at my hobby store last year. I think if it balanced the potential TPK encounters, brought the difficulty level up to PF standards and updated 70% of the art (I'm extremelly off-put by the NPC images - goblins, Sandpoint residents, etc) I would buy it. It's actually been sitting in my shopping cart here and at Amazon for almost a week.
Malag and Ciretose, that's a good idea, maybe even split in 3 dungeons (Forest, Top and Dungeon) preferably each one with a "goal" or objective (so they'd feel they'd accomplished something after finishing each segment apart from "kill goblins, get XP").
So, I probably ended up digging my own grave, but today we gathered to get concepts straight and finish sheets. They were built with a 25 point-buy, but the group is hardly optimized. The party:
Cathryn "Cat": Half-elf ranger (Two-Handed Style). She actually has a STR of 10, and a high Dex, and uses an Elven Curved Blade with Finesse (she'll get Power Attack at level 2 regardless of requisites from Two-Handed Style).
Yet unnamed: Human Paladin. Low Dex (10), high STR (18), medium con (14) greatsword + Power Attack. He'll deals loads of damage, but has a mediocre AC (15). I expect him to fall around A LOT.
Alec Sczarni: Varisian Cleric (Sarenrae). Repentant bandit, low STR/high Dex, plans to get into the Dervish Dance train. Sun and Good domain.
[Can't seem to remember]: Tian Wizard (transmuter). Very High Intelligence (19).
I'll probably get a few mock combats to ascertain their combat capacity. Wish me luck!
@HangarFlying: Sadly that's not the case. I live in Brazil and imported gaming stuff are few and far between. I haven't bought the new one already because conversion and taxes on a simple PDF end up more than doubling the cover price. I'd rather throw in a few extra bucks and get a physical copy from Amazon, but that takes quite some time (at least a couple months for delivery) and ends up terribly expensive (equivalent to 120$ or more). So I'd better be sure it's worth it. Sadly, as of now I am not.
Did they replace the artwork? The goblins, Sandpoint NPCs and major villains (Nualia, Lyrie, Orik, etc).
They changed some of the drawings, kept others. Some examples from Burnt Offerings:
They reused the pictures on (old page numbers) pages: 5, 8, 14. They replaced the warchanter art (less "yuck", still goblin-y). Drawings with thick outlines (usually, these were of NPCs) are all out, replaced with new drawings. Most portaits are now full figure.
That should give you a general idea.
Edit: Shalelu, Tsuto, Erylium, Koruvus, Ripnugget, Bruthazmus, Orik, Lyrie, Nualia: all new. Mostly, it's the same basic appearance, such as clothing, but different art style, and some are significantly different, but they are recognizable if you were familiar with the old material (which you are, I'm just using an overcomplicated expression to describe the magnitude of difference) and looked at the new stuff without the old stuff on hand for comparison.