That's exactly what my GM thought. He also wanted us to have more options than just freeing Baba Yaga, so he removed the Geas and added some extra plot to make it a bit less railroady.
If it's useful to you, he removed a big part of the hut rush. We were in an allied keep with the doll thinking what to do with it. We got back home by plane shifting as the hut didn't obey.
We had to fight a small militia from Irrisen to defend the keep and the doll and the whole place was almost destroyed. Then one of our allies stole the doll for his own plans and we had to recover it.
It was way more complex than what I'm saying but it worked fine as it fit what we had being doing during the adventure.
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That's exactly what my GM thought. He also wanted us to have more options than just freeing Baba Yaga, so he removed the Geas and added some extra plot to make it a bit less railroady.
If it's useful to you, he removed a big part of the hut rush. We were in an allied keep with the doll thinking what to do with it. We got back home by plane shifting as the hut didn't obey.
We had to fight a small militia from Irrisen to defend the keep and the doll and the whole place was almost destroyed. Then one of our allies stole the doll for his own plans and we had to recover it.
It was way more complex than what I'm saying but it worked fine as it fit what we had being doing during the adventure.
Those are some very helpful pointers, thank you! :)
I actually liked Reign of Winter part 6. I thought it was quite solid, and in hindsight, I actually liked it more than Rasputin Must Die!. The latter read like a great, fantastically fun adventure, but in execution it fell kind of flat for me and my players. (I had similar experience with The End of Eternity from Legacy of Fire, a long time ago, by the way.)
I can't really lay a finger on why (for Rasputin Must Die!), but maybe it's the problem that always arises when the adventure just flat-out assumes that the players do certain longer stretches in one go, and does not really provide for changes if the players take their time, like the monastery here.
Regarding Hell's Rebels being better than Curse of the Crimson Throne, color me skeptic. As recently told on another thread, I'm currently playing in it, and, while the first two adventures were quite fun, they didn't seem exceptionally so, and now the beginning of part 3 has soured me a somewhat on this Adventure Path.
So, so far I prefer Curse of the Crimson Throne.
Yes, I did. And it's not disconnected at all, the Shoanti are deeply involved with the history of Korvosa, as you most certainly know. I thought A History of Ashes was a great adventure, and I know my players had a lot of fun with it, as did I.
I'm not saying CotCT is perfect, there are certainly issues with leaving the city for a long stretch of time, but I didn't find it problematic, or demotivating, as Hell's Rebels Part 3 has made me feel.
One session in Vyre has actually given me thoughts about "rage quitting" the AP, much to my own surprise. Of course I wouldn't actually do that, because I like to play with my friends. But there is some really heavy railroading going on there, all but forcing characters who are supposedly on the side of "good" to ally with thoroughly disreputable and despicable elements for unknown gains, and I don't like that at all.
Six adventures of only gritty urban nature can be a bit too much of a good thing, too. Some change of scenery isn't always bad. :)
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I have liked Hell's Rebels less well after running it than I did after reading it, but for completely different reasons. (My players actually greatly enjoyed the dinner party in Vyre.) It started in book 2, when I realized that the only way they were going to be interested in most of these NPCs was if I threw them at them, and the uber dungeon crawl in book 4 kind of killed it for me. This is compounded by the fact that I have a player who had come to hate Pathfinder before he even started playing the game and also hates his character. So everything out of his mouth feels like he's trolling my game.
I still like the AP. I love the NPCs and it's a great read. But it's fallen a little flat in performance.
Skull & Shackles... Now, that one I am LOVING playing.
Skull and Shackles is being so far my favorite one to GM. It's totally my style even if I'm not too fond of pirates.
Skull & Shackles was indeed fun to GM, and there wasn't really a dud among its adventures. Only the tactical ship combat was silly. It really made no sense to play out chases, because the PCs always catch the other ship anyway, and the chase is just killing time. Ship-to-ship fighting was even more useless, with ships' weapons doing, what 4d6 damage at most, but ships having 4 digits hit points... We just handwaved that away.
I am doing exactly the same. I solved the ship to ship combat in a couple of rolls and then we'd go into more interesting stuff.
I'm going to start soon with fleet battles and that rules seem to be much better.
Reign of Winter suffered the most in part 3, which I found really atrocious. The BBEG is a cypher. He's there for an evil ritual that is never explained. Why is he doing it, what does he want to accomplish with it, and how long will it take? And what happens if the PCs waste enough time that he should actually finish it? And how did he and his giants get through all these doors that are now closed again when the PCs get there? And it only starts there. You can also pull the helpless damsel that's really an evil hag/witch/whatever in disguise only so often until it gets ridiculous. There is no sense of urgency here for the PCs but the dungeon is 100% static. There is no reason the PCs couldn't take an extended leave here to sell and restock somewhere (it's their last opportunity anyway), and the adventure does not account for that possibility at all. Once again it just assumes the PCs never rest.
Only City of Seven Spears is worse. That one actually killed the campaign.
I loved Artrosa but not as it is written.
My witch is a Changeling and my GM made her receive the call from her mother who was one of the three hags (Grishelmuk), making it be a personal quest more than a random dungeon. He made the BBEG not so important and developed a lot Jadrenka's personality and the hags' motivations, so it ended being a great part.
As it is written... I've never liked mega dungeons a lot so meh.
Regarding Hell's Rebels being better than Curse of the Crimson Throne, color me skeptic. As recently told on another thread, I'm currently playing in it, and, while the first two adventures were quite fun, they didn't seem exceptionally so, and now the beginning of part 3 has soured me a somewhat on this Adventure Path.
** spoiler omitted **
So, so far I prefer Curse of the Crimson Throne.
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Focusing on whether an urban AP "leaves the city" is wrong-headed, in my view. What is important is the purpose the departures serve to the overall project advanced by the AP.
By contrast, the extended trek outside Korvosa over the course of A History of Ashes and Skeletons of Scarwall is about chasing a MacGuffin. I haven't read Curse of the Crimson Throne in a long time, but I'm pretty sure Serithtial isn't as vital to putting Ileosa down as, say, Briar is to the resolution of Kingmaker. It's a perq, but not necessary, at least according to my memory (which could be wrong).
And even if it is necessary, it's emblematic of the fact that Curse's political possibilities are even more limited than Rebels'. In the latter, there is at least lip service paid to the possibility of social revolution (abolition of slavery, disestablishment of the Church of Asmodeus, etc.), even if the developers essentially force a hereditary oligarchy on Ravounel and tie the possibilities of reform to separatism rather than exporting the revolution. In the former, you're explicitly supposed to be restoring the status quo ante, and Korvosa's social tensions are there to be repressed, not harnessed. What I'm saying here is that while Rebels' politics may be a hot mess, Curse's are openly reactionary, an odd choice for an "urban rebellion" AP.
Lol, I admit I haven't been reading the adventure path forums in a while but that last time I was here I remember Magnuskn rewriting his recaps for Wrath of the Righteous sessions, and James trying to moderate his criticisms, so I knew as soon as I saw his post in this thread he would rate that path that worst..lol
For me, none of the Golarion based paths are great, each has at least 1 chapter where things fall down, but there are relative levels of goodness.
My favorites are:
1. Second Darkness
2. Council Of thieves
3. Serpents skull
The worst are
1. Curse of the Crimson throne
2. Hells rebels
3. Rise of The Runelords
4. Shattered Star
5. Reign of Winter
sorry, exchange worst with favorites ..wanted to get some people to start scraeming..what the hell is he thinking..
LoL! You got me! I was about to say that I have enjoyed both CotCT a lot and RoW an even bigger lot.
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My favourites so far:
As GM: Curse of the Crimson Throne. I like to tinker a lot with AP's, and this one had a fantastic story and many parts to tinker with. Have I said that I like to tinker a lot? Also, it was very easy to adapt to our settings.
As a player: Skull & Shackles. Just... wow!!
Ironfang Invasion, Strange Aeons and Hell's Rebels look really good, but I haven't GMed or played them yet. And Hell's Rebels is a hell (sorry for the pun!) to adapt to another setting.
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Just reading, I loved Hell's Rebels and Iron Gods, but running them has not lived up to my hype. I still like them, but I don't looove them quite as much.
My player experience lately has convinced me that Captain Yesterday has been right all along, and Skull & Shackles is the best AP. It's just tons of fun.*
*This is contingent on my character surviving book 4, which we just started yesterday.
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Just reading, I loved Hell's Rebels and Iron Gods, but running them has not lived up to my hype. I still like them, but I don't looove them quite as much.
My player experience lately has convinced me that Captain Yesterday has been right all along, and Skull & Shackles is the best AP. It's just tons of fun.*
*This is contingent on my character surviving book 4, which we just started yesterday.
So two years later, I'm curious if campaign improved for you or if players kept making it less exciting?
(I mean, that is a totally thing that can happen if one PC is trolling gm/being snarky or if players just aren't interested in npcs for whatever reason)