I have been eyeballing the Jade Regent AP for awhile. I have briefly looked over the modules and have lurked a few of the threads here, but I am bringing this project to the forefront of my gaming initiative. I am a huge fan of modifying the APs as well as sometimes mashing them up.
I currently am running a Curse / Kingmaker mash-up on these boards, and I am looking at Jade Regent now. I am on the agreeing side of some of the people that I would have liked to see more of Minkai in the beginning half of the AP.
I have read about the dangers of Ameiko as well. I am considering moving her "destiny" of the AP to another character (PC likely) but I am worried about that PC over-shadowing the other PCs (but then again that is similar in Kingmaker with the "Ruler" PC).
So what I am getting at is that I would like to hear about the modifications to the AP that other people have used. Additional modules and where they were inserted.
What am I working on right now is bringing the AP strictly to Minkai and replacing the Caravan rules with the Kingmaker rules as they struggle to build a "rebellion" against the Jade Regent and return the rightful heir to the throne. Any suggestions towards achieving that goal would be welcomed.
I will post as I come up with information to achieve this (I need to do a more complete read of the AP again).
I am already running the Kingmaker AP and have no plans of using the Kingmaker story-line in any shape except I want to use the Kingdom Building aspects and keep the AP entirely in Minkai. These are the suggestions that I am looking at right now. I have been through several of the forums so I am generating some base-line ideas right now. I wonder how important Jade Regent #1-3 is to the overall story of the fight against the Jade Regent (other then getting the 'Heir' there which in this case would already be in Minkai).
I am sort of looking for a part Forgotten Kingdom, part Romance of the Three Kingdoms mixed with a Samurai Epic here. I am reading through several of the older 'oriental' themed modules from varies sources to see if I can lift a core story and layer over some of the earlier Jade Regent #1-3 moments for the story-line (finding Suishen, the Seal, etc).
I am also planning on mixing in several other modules as well like The Ruby Phoenix Tournament and there was suggestions to use the Pathfinder Society "Quest for Perfection" Trilogy. I also have several L5R things (like Legacy of Disaster), and the old TSR OA1-7 pdfs (plus FROA1 Ninja Wars).
Your ideas sound great! If you want to give the heir role to a pc and you are afraid about that pc over-shadowing the others, how about working with your players to make the pcs a family? Or a samurai clan bound with blood and honor ties? That way some of them will be potential heirs (without any deus ex amatatsu seal) and your pc heir won't be the most important pc in your story. They don't even need to be a family, think about Guan Yu, Liu Bei and Zhang Fei. Liu Bei is a cool character, but I don't think he over-shadows Guan Yu, or Zhang Fei or Zhuge Liang...