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I'm thinking of running this adventure path in the next couple of months: something about the setting and the idea of it is really appealing. That said, the AP seems to have some weaknesses that, if addressed, could make for a more fun experience for all concerned. From reading the AP and what people have said on this board here is my sense of the problems with the AP.
1) Racing to Ruin feels too much like a rail road.
2) The serpent folk kind of disappear in the adventure path, which is troubling because they are the final antagonist of the first adventure and of the last adventure path as a whole.
3) Saventh-Yhi isn't all that well fleshed out, can be boring and the adventures that take place there are needlessly separated.
Some things about Saventh-Yhi just don't make a ton of sense to me--I don't see what the Aboleth adds to the adventure.
It also doesn't seem like there is a lot of opportunity for non-combat resolution of conflict, so many of the groups in the city are unwaveringly hostile to the PCs.
4) For all the talk of the characters being the first to discover the city, NPC pathfinders got there first and end up being really important to the plot.
5) The player's motivation needs to change throughout the AP, though this isn't really addressed in the text. In the first they just want to survive and get back to land. In 2-4 they are in some weird competition? and in 5-6 they need to avert the rise of an evil god.
I have some thoughts on how to deal with some of these issues, but I'd appreciate any suggestions anyone has or comments on any other problems they encountered/forsee with the AP. A lot of people on this board have already taken steps to deal with some of the issues, especially of fleshing out Saventh-Yhi and it seems like the best way to make the Saventh-Yhi portion fun is to play up the element of competition/rivalry with the other factions, so I'll make sure to emphasize that.
I'm thinking of adapting the chase rules to make a kind of overland race. The race would consist of cards with skill challenges on them, but the party's goal is to accumulate a number of cards before the rival factions do, (which represents who gets to Tazion or Kalabuto first). To diminish the railroady-ness of it maybe I'd give the players the choice of two cards where they could see name of the encounter but not necessarily the details of the DCs (so players could choose, for instance, between facing the hungry hippos or the treacherous ford and could make educated guesses about what skills they could use). It would be easy to throw in random encounters into the deck as well. I think I'd still like to use some of the set encounters as well, as well as some way for the pcs to interact with other factions.
I'm less sure how address the fact that scheming serpent folk disappear from the adventure path till about book 5. I guess what makes the most sense is to have serpent folk infiltrate some of the rivals in Racing to Ruin and then work at cross purposes with the PC's while they are in Saventh-Yhi. Maybe they are looking for a way to get to Ilmuria. Because I think the Aboleth is kind of a wasted opportunity, I was thinking of putting something serpent folk related in that pool. Maybe there is an underwater crypt or something that the serpent folk are looking for, or use to unleash some kind of monster on the various groups in Saventh-Yhi.
The other big stumbling block from a plot point of view is how to motivate parts 4 and 5 without having the pathfinders already in Ilmuria. The PC's only find out about the portal because a pathfinders stumbles out of it and book 5 is all about rescuing a pathfinder. I'm toying with the idea of replacing the pathfinder with survivors from the original Saventh-Yhi. Not really "survivors" but undead Zura-cultists who were placed in stasis or something to explain how they survived so long and to tie to the Zura temple in adventure 1 as well. Also thinking about making the Urdefhans into ancient Zura cultists who were cast into Abbadon and transformed there.
I'm not sure how to address the PC's motivations. They get a prophetic vision at the beginning of racing to ruin, but I'm not sure it would make a ton of sense or let them know what is at stake in the following encounters.
I'm probably getting ahead of myself here, but does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions as to how to make the adventure path as enjoyable as possible?
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I'm really only looking about one book ahead when it comes to major "fixes" because of the sandbox nature of the campaign. My group has just become shipwrecked so the sandbox that is Smuggler's Shiv is set and underway, though it is a super solid adventure all on its own.
For Racing to Ruin I am working on a way to make it sandboxy in the second half by taking out the straight-line journey and letting the players, as expedition leaders, choose the best route to Tazion. Once I do that I will sprinkle the area area with encounters so it ends up looking like the Smuggler's Shiv map. That way, no matter what way they go, they will find adventure. I am working on a subsystem that will likely involve points the group can earn as they travel. Each faction will have their own paths chosen and once they all set forth from Eleder the race will be on to see who nets the most points and reaches Tazion first.
I haven't looked very closely at how to personalize the rest of the game because I have a little while before my party gets there and who knows what will have changed by that time. I want to open up the entire thing as a massive sandbox that, with the inclusion of Ilmuria, will be WAY bigger than the party originally believes. They will have free run of the place and the plotline will evolve as the party interacts.
I'm actually planning to run this AP, starting in November / December / January (whenever our current campaign ends). I've been thinking about how to hack the AP and will share my thoughts. I really appreciated your thoughts of how Kline and the other NPCs detract from the 'specialness' of the players. I'm considering how to remove or moderate their part in the campaign.
I'm less sure how address the fact that scheming serpent folk disappear from the adventure path till about book 5. I guess what makes the most sense is to have serpent folk infiltrate some of the rivals in Racing to Ruin and then work at cross purposes with the PC's while they are in Saventh-Yhi.
Now, you have some options here! The first thing to mention is that there are serpentfolk in the center island in Savanth-Yhi. Sort of. There are degenerate serpentfolk left over from the conquest. They're being led by a rakshasa at the moment, but before that were being led by a Serpentfolk enchanter, who's the final encounter of book 2. It might be easiest to replace that rakshasa with another pureblood serpentfolk, who is perhaps leading his people to victory.
Another way to handle it is to have Serpentfolk replace the Maka Hika. In particular, to have a serpentfolk mind control fellow replace the intellect devourer. Perhaps his mind control is so powerful that it over time turns the victim's brain to ooze. He could be on his way to Ilmuria too, but perhaps he finds it easier to simply force them out of the hands of the party.
it seems like the best way to make the Saventh-Yhi portion fun is to play up the element of competition/rivalry with the other factions, so I'll make sure to emphasize that.
I'll have to disagree here. Of the 5 factions, I sort of forgot about two of them until it was too late to implement them, and the others just honestly haven't been too major. While the faction war is cool, I definitely suggest moving the focus to the inhabitants of the spears. They're much odder, and they really show off that idea of exploration. I personally took away the aspects that made it impossible to form alliances. My PCs are currently allied with the boggards and also the charau-ka.
The other big stumbling block from a plot point of view is how to motivate parts 4 and 5 without having the pathfinders already in Ilmuria. The PC's only find out about the portal because a pathfinders stumbles out of it and book 5 is all about rescuing a pathfinder.
Now, book 4 it turns out is pretty easy to deal with. Juliver explains everything, but if you open a door to a crazy underground section of the city, I guarantee the PCs will go in. And if you reveal there's a door and that the PCs have a small part (but not all parts) of the key to get through it, they'll do whatever it takes to find it. Especially since it was so heavily guarded. I gave the PCs a map that said "Ilmuria" on it before they entered there first vault (actually the vault of silence). And then I put "Ilmuria" on the door. They have no idea what Ilmuria actually is, but that's more than enough.
Now, the whole Endo Kline thing: Well, you saw my post. I have no idea how to do this without him. Here's what I have so far:
Have the Serpentfolk capture an NPC. It could be anyone, really. But preferably someone the PCs have grown to care about. It's not about book 5 being a rescue mission, but about book 5 being about rescuing someone who is arguably more important than the PCs ... Okay so I forgot about this post, but while I was walking around I came up with some ideas: Endo Kline could be a morlok. You could have the PCs discover that he needs rescuing halfway through the journey through Ilmuria. I'm revealing the Serpentfolk plan to revive Ydersius before they even make it to Ilmuria. Then, rescuing him would be of obvious importance, as he's the only one who knows the details to defeating them.
PS On a side note, I'm changing my morloks to svirfneblin, to contrast with my friend's gnome character.
Those are some good ideas Shimnimnim. I guess I'll have to play the faction and exploration stuff by ear and see what the players are more interested in.
1) Racing to Ruin feels too much like a rail road. The Race part is, but it's a 60-day race with all the space in the world for a DM to do what ever he wants, I had a blast working in all kinds of unique encounters. Tazion is not, its a small sand box, the the PC can travel with in it and do what they want. Mine went straight to the capstone encounter!!
2) The serpent folk kind of disappear in the adventure path, which is troubling because they are the final antagonist of the first adventure and of the last adventure path as a whole. I never saw this as an issue, nor have my players, but you can easily up there on screen time.
3) Saventh-Yhi isn't all that well fleshed out, can be boring and the adventures that take place there are needlessly separated.
Some things about Saventh-Yhi just don't make a ton of sense to me--I don't see what the Aboleth adds to the adventure.
It also doesn't seem like there is a lot of opportunity for non-combat resolution of conflict, so many of the groups in the city are unwaveringly hostile to the PCs. I'm curious to see how my players work out everything here, I to wonder about the Aboleth, but I'm looking at him as a "power behind the throne" kind of guy. I however, don't see the place as boring and the more fleshing out I get to do the better!
4) For all the talk of the characters being the first to discover the city, NPC pathfinders got there first and end up being really important to the plot. An expedition did find the city first, but they were wiped out and forgotten by history, thus the city became "lost" again, they're not really important at all. If you don't like that aspect then just eliminate it, it really isn't that important.
5) The player's motivation needs to change throughout the AP, though this isn't really addressed in the text. In the first they just want to survive and get back to land. In 2-4 they are in some weird competition? and in 5-6 they need to avert the rise of an evil god. Curious as to why this is a negative?
Bit of a thread necro but I really like Serpent's Skull. My favorite AP to date and I've run it twice. My responses became a little jumbled in my musings:
1. Racing to ruin is my second favorite chapter, next to Soul's for Smuggler's Shiv which is my all time favorite chapter of any AP. Race has so many memorable stock encounters and it provides a nice sense of urgency between the sand box exploration of chapters 1 & 3.
Chapter 4 restores urgency, but I would suggest delaying the catalyst event from City of Seven Spears until near the end of the adventure.
3. Chapter Chapter 3 and 5 leave a lot to be fleshed out. Lot's of repetitive encounters that the PCs will steam roll without modification.
The Aboleth in Savinth is totally skippable. 2/3s of the encounters in Thousand Fangs below are optional, and by the time you get there everyone will probably be ready to focus on the meta-plot and less on sandbox exploration.
2. The serpentfolk come and go, but they do show up in some capacity in every single chapter of the AP.
4. NPCs don't arrive in Savinth-Yhi first. They arrive somewhere near by, but they are not looking for Savinth-Yhi and I don't believe they are aware of their proximity.
5. I really emphasized what I felt were the campaign motivations before character creation. The primary motivation for the first half of the adventure is good old basic fortune and glory. The primary motivation after City of Seven Spears is save the world hero stuff.