Everyone cries out for "Urban" adventures, but when Paizo created a truely urban AP, not many people seem to like it very much (it is usually ranked just slightly above Second Darkness).
So, what I am asking is, why don't more people like this AP?
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Like Second Darkness, it's kind of a bait and switch thematically.
Second Darkness starts in Riddleport with the PCs in the employ of a down-on-his-luck crimelord and ends up being a quest to help the elves save the world from drow. This is jarring and hard to build character motivations around.
Council of Thieves has similar problems. People go into it assuming that it's going to be about a resistance group taking Westcrown and striking back against Thrune but ultimately it's about keeping a usurper infernal element from taking over and maintaining the status quo.
Now, both of these APs are still a blast - I've gotten 2/3 the way through CoT and am midway through the first book of Second Darkness - but for players and DM going in expecting one thing, it's disappointing to get the other.
I don't know, it's one of my favourites. I plan to return to the game that I had walked out from.
Yes, I walked out from a Council of Thieves game. The DM was the reason why I left, not the Adventure Path.
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Like Second Darkness, it's kind of a bait and switch thematically.
Second Darkness starts in Riddleport with the PCs in the employ of a down-on-his-luck crimelord and ends up being a quest to help the elves save the world from drow. This is jarring and hard to build character motivations around.
Council of Thieves has similar problems. People go into it assuming that it's going to be about a resistance group taking Westcrown and striking back against Thrune but ultimately it's about keeping a usurper infernal element from taking over and maintaining the status quo.
This makes sense.
The first adventure does set up the heroes to be a resistance cell (much like the French Resistance in WWII). So even if the AP did not overthrow House Thrune, the players would reasonably be expecting to strike a blow for freedom.
But, yes, the heroes end up struggling to maintain the status quo.
Depending on how they do in the campaign itself, they either succeed in doing so to some extent, or fail at it completely.
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Like Second Darkness, it's kind of a bait and switch thematically.
Second Darkness starts in Riddleport with the PCs in the employ of a down-on-his-luck crimelord and ends up being a quest to help the elves save the world from drow. This is jarring and hard to build character motivations around.
Council of Thieves has similar problems. People go into it assuming that it's going to be about a resistance group taking Westcrown and striking back against Thrune but ultimately it's about keeping a usurper infernal element from taking over and maintaining the status quo.
This makes sense.
The first adventure does set up the heroes to be a resistance cell (much like the French Resistance in WWII). So even if the AP did not overthrow House Thrune, the players would reasonably be expecting to strike a blow for freedom.
But, yes, the heroes end up struggling to maintain the status quo.
That's not quite right. The PCs are recruited by a group that wants to make things better for the people of Westcrown by getting rid of the shadowplague, mainly. They don't want to overthrow House Thrune (even if Janiven tends to get carried away). The problem is that description and player's guide to The Bastards of Erebus are misleading.
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1. Expectations management: I wanted a guerilla war against Hellknights, devil, Asmodean inquisitors and diabolists, I've got ... some noisy kids with daddy issues.
2. Adventure 1 is wonky. The opening is not a "bang", but a whimper.
3. It's Pathfinder RPG ruleset, but since APG/UM/UC were still way off, it's a "core only" AP.
4. And the greatest crime of the AP: It's an urban AP set in a city that has *NO SOURCEBOOK ABOUT IT*. C'mon, Kaer Maga, Korvosa, Absalom, Magnimar, heck, even the Cities of Golarion settlements have all had marvellous sourcebook treatment, whereas Westcrown gets a couple of pages in a 32page player-oriented Cheliax book. This alone is enough a reason for me not to run this AP unless a Westcrown book pops up on the horizon someday.
Our entire issue with it was that the expectations were that the PCs were going to be independent, care-for-no-one-but-themselves, semi-evil people. Both my wife and I love to play good-aligned characters, and the kids really wanted an "evil" campaign where they could get away with murder. The description of CoT sounded perfect!
And yet the whole idea is, "Help this resistance group because it's the right thing to do!" The motivation for non-good PCs was totally lacking. And why would good PCs want to help Westcrown at all? Or even to stay there?
So while the fights, the dungeons, the rewards, and so forth were there, and there were some truly brilliant moments (the opera, anyone?), the problem is the players' suspension of disbelief. "Why would my character help these people? Ever?!?!"
We never managed to convince a single player that his or her character would help. They just manage to make Westcrown too deplorable, and the resistance fighters too whiny.
Also how the story is set up. The big thing is ending the Shadowcurse with the Drovanges and other stuff circling around it. However the Shadowcurse gets ended in book 5 and Book 4 has the party go haring off under the Mayor's mansion. Some people re arranged things with the books going 1-2-3-5-4-6. It makes more sense to go end the shadowcurse right after getting the Morrowfall. This also lets the PCs enjoy the benefits of ending the curse instead of getting rocketed into the endgame.
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I like it. But it does take some GM love to smooth things out and make sure expectations are calibrated. That and given the nature of the setting, every player would need to be able to work together well and keep a low profile when needed.
A couple of friends are running it as a solo game and it's produced some fun stories so far.
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Also how the story is set up. The big thing is ending the Shadowcurse with the Drovanges and other stuff circling around it. However the Shadowcurse gets ended in book 5 and Book 4 has the party go haring off under the Mayor's mansion. Some people re arranged things with the books going 1-2-3-5-4-6. It makes more sense to go end the shadowcurse right after getting the Morrowfall. This also lets the PCs enjoy the benefits of ending the curse instead of getting rocketed into the endgame.
I had also heard people doing 1-2-3-5-6-4, leaving the escaping Pit Fiend as a dangling loose end, after the "big bad" has been dealt with. :)
Our entire issue with it was that the expectations were that the PCs were going to be independent, care-for-no-one-but-themselves, semi-evil people. Both my wife and I love to play good-aligned characters, and the kids really wanted an "evil" campaign where they could get away with murder. The description of CoT sounded perfect!
And yet the whole idea is, "Help this resistance group because it's the right thing to do!" The motivation for non-good PCs was totally lacking. And why would good PCs want to help Westcrown at all? Or even to stay there?
So while the fights, the dungeons, the rewards, and so forth were there, and there were some truly brilliant moments (the opera, anyone?), the problem is the players' suspension of disbelief. "Why would my character help these people? Ever?!?!"
We never managed to convince a single player that his or her character would help. They just manage to make Westcrown too deplorable, and the resistance fighters too whiny.
Sounds like you were having the opposite problem that most groups were having.
Because most Heroic types want to do something about the state of affairs in Cheliax (see the French Resistance comments above).
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There were some cool ideas to it. The Chellish opera was brilliant, for example. But the plot stringing events and the whole conspiracy together is kind of weak. That may leave a lot of room for a GM to work in other city-based adventures (which I did), but a lot more advice could have been given along those lines.
I think the adventure would probably play better now that Ultimate Campaign is in people's hands, for example. This is a great location to have downtime and PCs involved in or running businesses. In the game I ran, we had a gnome witch who ran a fortune teller/herbalist shop, a dwarf monk jeweler who worked at the family jewelers, a halfling rogue who worked as a barker for a puppet show, and a halfling barbarian/ranger from the Mwangi expanses who worked as a cosplay gigolo (I kid you not).
One thing I did was steal some Greyhawk material that appeared in Dragon Magazine back when Paizo was running the Age of Worms path. There's a detailed neighborhood there that I used extensively.
Council of Thieves also suffers a bit from having fairly weak encounters/opponents. Many of the Council thieves the PCs will run against will be little more than speed bumps. That's OK for a lot of encounters when the PCs are high level, but even the level-appropriate encounters can be pretty weak compared to a 4-PC party. I rearranged some feats on a number of creatures to give them a little more offensive bite.
This particular adventure path can really benefit from taking a leisure approach to your gaming. It's fairly short if you grind through the encounters but that won't give the PCs much of a chance to get into good relationships with the underground organization at the heart of the PC's involvement. If your group is OK with sessions that may have no fighting in them at all, in the interests in forging relationships with the NPCs, then this AP can play really well. If your players are dungeon crawlers, maybe not so much.
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It's my favorite AP, but we changed it a LOT.
We had the PCs be the last heirs of a minor noble house whose big goal was regaining power and gaining more--so that the idea of becoming Mayor of Westcrown, instead of coming out of left field at the end, was the culmination of a campaign-long plan by the lead PC.
As a nice side benefit, this meant that the PCs looked at the Children of Westcrown as dangerous troublemakers. The only reason they'd overthrow House Thrune is to take its place! (Which is where we might be going with the post-AP continuation of the game--we'll see how that works.)
We reversed 4 and 5, and broke up 6 to scatter it through 3-5, and added Savage Tide 1 and 2 plus some side adventures. This allowed the GM to build up the BBG's plan a lot, and for the PCs to have time to diligently investigate it--from about 3 onward they knew they had a shadowy enemy who was going to wreck Westcrown, but it took them a long time to find out who, partly because they naturally confused Eccardian and Ilneric.
The PCs were a mix of borderline neutral/evil folks, as you might expect from Chelish nobility. One of my favorite roleplaying bits was that the lead PC became somewhat less evil over the course of the game, as she developed a personal stake in Westcrown's wellbeing. But she tended to regard her better impulses as temptations, and for a long time she kept blaming the Good party NPC, Calsienica. "I can't torture the guy. Calsienica wouldn't like it." No one got to hear that actually *she* didn't like it.
I agree that Westcrown could use a sourcebook. Figure on doing a lot to build up the noble families, the Temple of Asmodeus, and the general political situation if you want to run it as a political game (as we did).
Also, the player hook for module 2 is really, really weak. The PCs need to do this bizarre risky thing to get into Aberian's Folly--but there is nothing stopping them from just getting into Aberian's Folly, besides which they are not really motivated to get in there in the first place. In retrospect, Aberian could have asked the PCs to do the play in return for patronage--that would have worked a lot better for us (they'd have jumped on it).
My lead PC ended up as (a) Mayor of Westcrown, (b) married to Aberian, and (c) the head of the Council of Thieves. That pleases me more than any combat goal I've ever accomplished--though finally getting Eccardian after three near misses was also excellent.
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^^^^
Gotta say, even if it isn't the most popular AP Council of Thieves sure has produced some fun player stories over the years. :)
I was sorely tempted to port Khazrae and her situation into my both my Shattered Star groups before two of one group's players started Council of Thieves. Probably still going to do it for the other group. It's just too ripe an RP-opportunity to pass up.
Marrying Aberian! Hope you made him better looking than he was in the AP.
I've run the entire adventure path, and these were the problems I had:
1. The backstory is a lot of fun. Very few characters are left without motivation and some kind of knowledge of the bigger picture. Unfortunately, they also tend to die before they can impart any of their knowledge to the PCs. Frequently I found myself without any way to get interesting and/or critical information to the players without inventing something in in the scenario. Puzzle solving without clues is a pain, and the whole AP is a puzzle-solving/conspiracy story.
2. The AP isn't very scalable. We have a large group (7 players!), and they make mince meat out of the encounters. Unfortunately, since most of the encounters are in-doors, in reasonably sized rooms, you can't really add bad guys to make a fight more challenging, because you run out of physical space.
Don't get me wrong, we had a good time. But the AP just wasn't very well put together.
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I agree with those who feel this campaign is much better if expectations are managed, and the shadow plague takes centre stage. And I'm intrigued by the suggestions of altering the order of the adventures.
However, I also found that Books 1 & 6 were just not my cup of tea. Both seemed far too disjointed, with too much onus placed on the GM to draw the players into what little plot is there.
For me, Books 2 & 4 were brilliant. Book 5 was a little slow, getting bogged down in the main encounter location. And Book 3 was a lot of fun, but several encounters had the players crying foul ('young' shadows? their CR drops, but they are probably tougher than standard).
Further, Shadows as a thematic monster contributed to more problems in my group. I remember problematic shadow fights in at least 4 of the Books, and at least 1 direct PC death and 1 indirect. In my opinion (influenced by my players), shadows break the CR system a bit. The problem is that a PC's defences don't really scale up against a shadow the way they do against almost every other foe, because shadows make Touch attacks doing Ability Damage. Similarly, the amount of damage PC's can do to them only increases at about half the normal rate. So when the designers add more shadows to make a challenging encounter, it can become far more difficult than expected. So when this is one of your recurring monsters, it can sour folks on the AP.
That said, being up front about the shadow focus of the AP may lead to better party design to combat them.
A wand of Mage armor can provide reliable AC buffs. Some could be gifts from appreciative sponsors.
Perhaps now that Ultimate Campaign is out, that one can take things towards making the AP a 'Liberate Westcrown and Cheliax.
Some have talked about how they focus more on the 'cleaning up' of Westcrown instead of the 'make things better for the common person' theme that is supposed to be done. There is the 'Whatever Aroden' game and one that has ended where the PCs pretty much restore the status quo while cutting out the deadwood
My thoughts on the matter.
1.Thrune decides that Westcrown has become an embarrassment and sends the PCs to slap it into shape because..
1a:Shadowcurse has gone from populace control to more a tool of the Council for their own ends.
1b.Nobles more interested in orgies and murderplays which leads to the Infernal Engine going pear-shaped due to mayor not paying attention.
1c.Unregulated crime such as the Infernal Bastards
1d.Rebellions in the making such as the CoW
2.PCs go in and meet up with Hellknights and aid them in escorting Areal to prison. Fend off attack by CoW.
3.After this PCs are sent to arrest/wipe out the 'resistance'. They then go after the Bastards.(Can't have freelance gangs mucking up the place.)
3.PCs use Trials to get into Mayor's Mansion at the request/order of a Cheliax Pathfinder to get access to Delvehaven. Meet guests, gather evidence and see how things are melting down in The Knot.
4.Do various side-quests for goodies and Xp. Enter Delvehaven and get Morrowfall.(May very well not be able to use it due to alignment conflict)
5.Infernal Engine goes blammo. Dispose of Mayor and head in to rout the Council and possibly negotiate with Pit Fiend to leave.
6.Learn about Eccardian and Chammedy, since they have been screwing things up, they must be disposed of. Ilnerik is disposed of due to Shadowcurse becoming a liability.
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I am GMing CoT and I love it... Because I changed it SO MUCH.
What I did. I pushed the RP to the max. I created colorful personalities for the Children of Westcrown and spending time with them or sending them on missions unlock special abilities for them. For example Rizzardo has connection on the docks allowing the PC to buy selected stolen goods for a reduced price. Amaya the glassblower becomes a bard level 1 and can then make potions for the party for free under some conditions.
To add a level of danger I killed several Children of Westcrown. Fiosa had the runecurse on her. Gorvio was killed by 2 evil PCs. Sclavo's murder appeared to be a suicide by hanging. Larko was killed by Janiven because she thought he was a traitor. Ailyn Ghontasavos was killed by shadows.
Each PC has their one motivation to join Janiven. A tiefling evil rogue PC joins the CoT as an agent of Oberigo the loyalist in book 3 and must act as a spy in the Children of Westcrown. His long-term goal is to go up the ranks. He now has the rank of Captain in the CoT because he became the leader of the Children.
A Red Mantis PC has been hired by Chammady yet he doesn't know. His first target was Arael (thus explaning why there was a change in leadership in the Children) and his second is Evander Salisfer, one of the noble loyalists the Drovenge kids want to eliminate.
A chaotic neutral cleric of Calistria is under the influence of a succubus because he accepted her Profane Gift in book 4 so she will try to corrupt him. He could become evil and all of a sudden channel negative energy.
The only good guy left the group because he could no longer be associated with such folks. The straw that broke the cammel's back was when they made a deal with an aboleth (I ran the module from Shore to Sea in the middle of book 3) and thus gave Gerlath's kid to the aboleth as a dominated slave in exchange to having more money and being taught how to unlock the powers of the Azlant magic items. Since then, he rode back to Westcrown but had a big side-quest in Belde to help the villagers from the Paracount Marcellus Thurivan.
CoT is basically helping the Nazis against the Mafia
Do elaborate what you mean by using such a metaphor.
CoT is basically helping the Nazis against the MafiaDo elaborate what you mean by using such a metaphor.
If I may ... The heroes struggle to maintain the "status quo" in a LE Society.
I agree with that. LE doesn't mean some hive of scum and villainy. A LE Hellknight could arrive and be appalled at the lack of discipline with the current troops and want to burn out all those drug dealers and bribe takers that are embarrassing the 'good name' of the Hellknights. Make sure the taxes are properly collected, get the walls rebuilt(trains run on time.)
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4
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CoT is basically helping the Nazis against the MafiaDo elaborate what you mean by using such a metaphor.
I didn't write it but I think it's pretty plainly worded:
Thrune = Nazis
Council = Mafia
You're kicking a little problem in the butt so the huge, evil, devil-commanding nation can keep its status-quo in a grossly hedonistic and crumbling city.
I like the juxtaposition of good guys inadvertently serving adversarial interests, but I know it's not everyone's cup of tea.
While it would of course need some redoing in areas, the PCs might even team up with Eccardian and Chammedy. The biggest issues are the Infernal Engine and Shadowplague. Ilnerik seems to be the easiest to deal with since he can easily get too big for his britches and be making his own power-play and an undead ruled city no doubt clashes with what Thrune wants.
I am curious how possible would it be for the PCs to be opposing the children of westcrown? some of my players like to play more loyal chelish people, or members of the church of Asmodeus. So I am curious, since allying with revolutionaries is probaly not a goal for them.
While it would of course need some redoing in areas, the PCs might even team up with Eccardian and Chammedy.
This can become even more likely (in my experience) once the PCs learn that ultimately their goals can be seen as gaining civil rights for tieflings.
Yea. The big problems of course are the Infernal Engine going boom and the attacks in the city. Removing direct sabotage on the engine could work, with the explosion happening due to the Mayor slagging off.
The whole Infernal Contract could be scrapped.
Convincing the twins to dial things back and keep to stealthy killings on the old guard could help keep things calm(er).
The thing about CoT is that it's a classic Bait-and-switch, but many players come in interested in the plot that's supposed to be derailed. It's been a while since I read through it (and since I'm currently playing it, it's gonna be a while before I do so again), but IIRC, the story does make the mistake of letting itself be almost completely derailed until the end, where the players have the opportunity to advance their original goal if they played their cards right.
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I've GMed CoT through to conclusion. I changed some things (nothing as big as changing around the order of the modules) and overall my players really enjoyed the AP
Here are my thoughts on why CoT is unpopular.
It's inconsistent:
The first book is low key; it doesn't really provide strong motivations in the PCs.
The second book (especially the play) is very very good, but the story is contrived (do this, to do that, to get there, so you can do this, etc.)
The third book feels like it should be a one-off module (it could easily be a PFS module TBH)
The fourth book leads to an epic conclusion that wouldn't be out of place as the climax to an AP (ahem! PIT FIEND?!) and leaves players with a 'ok, so what now...?' feeling.
The fifth book has to follow on from the fourth - a difficult thing to do - and focuses on dealing with the shadow beasts in the city - with the CoT sort of tacked on. The Shadowbeasts could easily be the main plot of the campaign (and my players actually thought they were!)
The Sixth Book is the reveal that basically explains the Drovenge family and their 'big plan' - which the PCs have disrupted (without realising it). It struggled with delivering a threat to the city greater than the one in book 3. It was dramatic, sure, but in danger of being an anti-climax, without proper prepping.
There are highs and lows throughout but it does fell like 6 modules that could easily be run separately with a couple of metaplots (Drovenges, AOHL, Shadowbeasts, Crux) tacked on as clue to hold them together.
The 'Council of Thieves':
My players are experienced gamers and the 'players guide' and name of the AP set expectations about the AP that took too long to really fulfil. Six months after starting the AP and they were asking me 'so what do the COT really have to do with this then?' - they were interested in the answer, but also frustrated that there wasn't as much interaction with the Council. Because there weren't answers coming, they started making up their own ones - some of which proved more interesting that the reveals later.
It's really not evident that the Council is involved and the players had to have faith that somehow they are. It's a bit of stretch. Even then, the CoT comes across as just a bit of tool used by Eccardian - and a weak one.
Rename it "Shadows over the Twilight City" and reset expectations :D
The Metaplot:
Or should I say plots. It felt like every author had their own plot and somehow these were all stitched together like some Frankensteins Monster (I know, thats Carrion Crown... ;) ) and in places it really showed. In fact some of the books contradicted each other and I got a really sense that the detail of the story wasn't actually fully understood by the authors until close to the publication of each part. Make sure you read the whole thing before playing (though I say what about all APs)
Each of the metaplots could have been a decent separate adventure, without muddying the waters each is trying to swim in...
The City:
It's all about Westcrown, and I really wish it had been given more love. As Garbocz said - Westcrown NEEDED a decent sourcebook. For the AP to be successful, the PCs need to care about Westcrown and everything needs to be done to make it come alive. In play it was what I spent the most time doing. "This is YOUR city and YOU are the only ones that can save it"
Oh BTW, do NOT use a roll to dictate the fate of the city in Book 6. I did, and it was a mistake. The ending was the best one, but that's not the point. All down to a dice roll (even with heavy mods) after all that effort by the PCs? Forget it.
Summary:
Look, I really enjoyed it and I know this comes across as hyper-critical. I haven't read many other APs and am currently running my second (Kingmaker), and CoT provided a year of fun gaming. I can understand why people consider it one of the weaker APs though.
If the GM puts a bit of time in (not a lot, I didn't rewrite it from scratch), there is a great adventure there to be enjoyed. That was my experience, and I really don't want any thinking I regretted running it - I didn't. If taking all the above into account, it's a hell of a lot of fun, with some great set pieces, and overall is a very memorable experience. I'm happy.
If you want to read my own recap its here...
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The shadowbeast thing is dangled over your head like a carrot over a donkey, but you can't do anything about it until part 5! The plot also seems a bit unrealistic starting with part 2. You're starring in a death play to hopefully get invited to the mayor's party to hopefully get the chance to explore his manor which possibly has an extra planar vault which possibly contains the Chelish Crux which you can hopefully open to possibly find out the secret to getting in Delvehaven which possibly has information about a Pathfinder who possibly knew why Shadowbeasts were released on Westcrown.
I recently noticed that The Chelish Crux riddle is basically what the AP is about: to frustrate the players. While the riddle is too bloody hard for even an optimized wizard to solve with help from his friends, Mechalibur describes the problems with the AP.
I'm seriously thinking about leaving out part 4, ending the whole mess after part 5 and letting the players decide if they want to tie off any loose ends.
Yes, it' star too much "Sorry Mario, your princess is in another castle!", Mechali ur is right.
It CAN be a lot of fun, and there are good ideas in the judge thread and the podcast Pathfinder Chronicles.
Over all, if you fix the opening scene and drop book six, you'll be much better off.
Out of all the APs, I feel that this one lends itself the best to DM interpretation and player interaction. For example, in mine, a player was largely inspired by the Assassin's Creed games and felt the canals of old buildings of Westcrown gave this character inspiration life. While not exactly Ezio Audtiorre, the PC ended up a Rogue/Fighter (Free Hand)/ Monk/Shadowdancer. Basically, he wanted a character that did everything through mundane means (as little magic as possible other than static bumps), with some of the Shadowdancer abilities being the only supernatural ones he possessed. Basically, kind of like Batman, but also part Ezio (with bits of his actor personality thrown in). His Shadowdancer abilities became tied to Sian (who ended up becoming his nemesis, surviving the second module) as well as the Shadowcurse and Marrowfall. Since I knew he had planned on advancing as a Shadowdancer, I had him fight the advanced, Vampiric Sian in Book 5, stealing her shadow companion when he killed her, giving a cause for his new level and abilities. It also made me have maps for the player's residences, since they knew that the council sending assassins was a very real possibility. (I ran with this in book 6)
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I am reading it right now and my idea is making the whole solution inside Delvehaven a incedental sub-quest that the players would think they done by accident. The subcast of revolutionaries will ask help for a lot of sub-missions that would put the players in the right place. As they explore everything anyway, they wii proabily think they found the dungeon levels by accident and go in thinking they are breaking my plotline when they are in fact doing the main quest.
I don't think the whole revolution against Thrune is lost, as in the ending ...
And maybe it's just me, but this AP seems to have a crap load of ability damage and negative levels. Really irritating to deal with as a player.
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Carrion Crown is worse, at least in the early parts. In the second module..
And maybe it's just me, but this AP seems to have a crap load of ability damage and negative levels. Really irritating to deal with as a player.
The players also receive a crapload of magic items to alleviate that.
And maybe it's just me, but this AP seems to have a crap load of ability damage and negative levels. Really irritating to deal with as a player.The players also receive a crapload of magic items to alleviate that.
Huh, not in my game. Maybe we missed some treasure, or the DM changed something. We did get one restoration wand, but we used all the charges in the same session :|
Well, my group doesn't even have a cleric and they didn't use them all.
Well, my group doesn't even have a cleric and they didn't use them all. ** spoiler omitted **
But, lesser restoration does not help with level drain.
Well, my group doesn't even have a cleric and they didn't use them all. ** spoiler omitted **But, lesser restoration does not help with level drain.
Well, that's what the wands of restoration are for.
The AP does, indeed, provide for this in the early books. Later on, the PCs are kind of on their own.
I'm currently running an offshoot of this one. Remember the ruins mentioned in the first book around page 8? Yeah, they went there, so I had to create an entire part of the world not in the module. In 7, 4-6 hour sessions, they have not completed the material in the first book.