Bringing in Pieces of Other APs

[Shaun]

I was wondering if anyone has some recommendations on other AP parts that might have info or good characters to enhance a S&S game. For instance I've heard some people say Serpent's Skull: "Souls for Smuggler's Shiv" has some good NPCs and encounters from the island that could be worked in. From the same AP "Racing to Ruin" has a lot of good info on Eleder if that was to be brought in as a destination. I've also been told that Second Darkness' first book as some good info regarding a house of games and maybe some kind of pirate encounter at the end.

I'm interested in knowing more about any of these topics and if they'd be a good fit, or any other AP books that might offer significant enhancements to be placed in a S&S game.

[Fitzwalrus]

I don't know anything about Second Darkness, but am in a Serpents Skull campaign that has worked it's way through the first half of the AP. The background info on Eleder could indeed be useful if your players wandered that way, and the relationship between Sargava and the Shackles Pirates could make for some interesting situations to work out.

The Smugglers' Shiv part of the first adventure would make a marvelous alternate lead-in to Skull and Shackles, and I've seen a couple of DMs post here that they intended to use it in that manner.

Spoiler:

Have the ship that rescues the castaways be Harrigan's Wormwood, shanghai them into the crew whether they like it or not, and go from there. You'll have to slightly modify the opening scenes from the Wormwood Mutiny to allow for the changed circumstances, and you'll also have to bump up some of the NPC's character levels here and in the first couple of S&S APs to balance what will be your more powerful party. (PCs should come out of Smugglers' Shiv at 2nd level? 3rd?) You'll also have to do something about the Serpent's Skull plot hook on the Shiv: change it to something else, have the Zura cultists be an isolated group that are only active on the Shiv and that the PCs eradicate, or find some other way of integrating it into the Shackles plotline that doesn't send your PCs tramping off into the Mwangi jungles instead of becoming "honest" seafaring folk. ;D

[ferrinwulf]

Essentaily anything really can be used if you adapt it to fit. I have added bits and pieces from varius AP's, sourcebooks, 3rd party adventures and d20 books.

Dead mans chest has an adventure called Island of Bonjo Tomo, tpk games has an adveture called ship of fools yet to use this yet though, I have used a haunted house adventure from Freeport and added the skinsaw guy from Rise of the Runelords to it, the info on Senghor in heart of the jungle is really useful as is Bloodcove and Im thinking of utilizing Razor coast in to the game too. My players are happy to have side treks as we don't use XP, we use the guidlines in the AP to level up so im not worried about the extra XP they would generate.

basically if something you have read takes you're fancy and you can think of a way of using it that fits then I say use it. Chop bits out, change things (many paople of said how thay don't like the undersea cavern in book 2 as its similar to book 1...swop it out and use something else (I used the bonjo tomo adventure above). It may mean a little bit more more work but the adventure will become yours in the end and may even shape itself inn to something else (I think mine is satarting to go in a slightly different route).

[Tom Phillips]

ferrinwulf wrote:

It may mean a little bit more more work but the adventure will become yours in the end and may even shape itself into something else (I think mine is satarting to go in a slightly different route).

(Emphasis mine.) So true!

In the S&S game I'm running, I've added a lot of side content. I greatly expanded the Rickety's section, where I included two jungle side treks: one to visit a moon naga oracle to try and "settle down" all the angry water nagas, and another to follow a pirate's treasure map leading to a ruined tower shrine populated by fiendish monkey swarms and a slumbering carnivorous blob. (Good times!)

For the last four game sessions the PCs have been in Bloodcove, entangling themselves in the intrigues of the local merchant-prince (Gregory Bonedeuce -- from Nick Logue's most excellent Razor Coast campaign -- who recently had all of the city's Aspis Consortium gold agents assassinated) and a local diabolist wizard who has hired the PCs to track down several copies of a strange black book (stealing the plot from the movie The Ninth Gate). So now my PCs are 8th level ... and they haven't even reached Tidewater Rock or Mancatcher Cove yet. Everyone is having a blast.

Getting back to your original question, I'm hoping to add in "Beyond the Doomsday Door" and "Into the Nightmare Rift" from the Shattered Star AP very soon. I think Windsong Abbey in "Beyond the Doomsday Door" (moved into the Shackles of course) is a great location for a piratey dungeon crawl.

Make the campaign your own. It's worth it. :-)

[Jack Rabbit Slim]

Nothing wrong with Frankensteining. Do it all the time.

[Lamontius]

Yeah, getting them into Riddleport for Second Darkness
and the first parts of Serpent's Skull certainly jumped out to me

for my own S&S campaign that I am GM'ing, I have mixed in some of Razor Coast as well, simply re-flavoring it a bit

[brvheart]

I mixed my S&S and Razor Coast games a bit differently. I started everyone off on the Wormwood and split off half of the party to go to Razor's Coast and started a separate game. This has meant that a lot of the PCs are now new in S&S starting book 2. Haven't decided which game will get what 3rd party material yet as I have accumulated quite a bit of it. Someone is going to Ship of Fools that is for sure.

[Gnomezrule]

I am adding a few adventures in and weaving some of Savage Tide into the mix.

[roysier]

We are in book 5 now and I added a number of items that worked well

Bloodcove disguise (PFS scenario duging book 2). (I only used a few of the encounters)

River into Darkness right after Bloodcove disguise (it starts in Bloodcove)

I used TPK's Ship of Fools between book 3 and 4

And I used Razor Coast's Angry Waters between book 4 and 5.

[roysier]

Also, if my group hadn't already played Freeport a few years back I would have added some elements of Freeport into Port Peril to flesh Port Peril out a bit.