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Hey Folks,
What's your favorite Chapter Six of any AP? If you have more than one, you can list them in order of preference. Please be specific in you can.
Transparency: We learn from studying the work of others. There's a lot to be learned from trap design, use of templates, and monsters with class levels. Balance of story versus combat. That's why I am asking.
If you want to say why that chapter 6 is a favorite, I'm all ears, but a short answer is a good answer too. No essays required.
What not to do: Please don't tell me you don't like high level adventures and what the "sweet spot is". Please no editorials on what Paizo should do in the future (I have no say in that). Please don't argue with each other but respect that people have different opinions. Just tell me YOUR opinion.
Bear in mind this is *me* asking and not Paizo. If you want to speak to them, feel free, but pretty please also answer my question too.
Thanks in advance, I appreciate t!
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I am torn between Sanctum of the Serpent God and Pyramid of the Sky Pharaoh. I thought about it and I would say that the locations in these two chapters (and the two AP's overall) are my favorite, and what sets them apart from the other final chapters.
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My favorites:
Shadows of Gallowspire: Brandon Hodge absolutely kills it. The only issue I have is that Occult Adventures wasn't out yet.
The Twice-Damned Prince: This is how urban adventures should be written. The spread of events across Westcrown, and the PCs' responses, are a great build to the climax and its aftermath.
Sound of a Thousand Screams: I don't care much for the rest of Kingmaker, but the awesome and evocative events of the final book make me want to run it.
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I'd say Sound of a Thousand Screams, it is really unique and the BBEG was challenging. For my group book 6's fall apart allot because they are way too easy even when I the GM buffs the hell out of the bad guys.
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Dead Heart of Xin is pretty sweet, you get to save a city, the main guy interacts with the party the whole time, a wide selection of adversaries, cool treasure and artifacts, you see key moments in Xin's life that shaped him and the campaign almost as if you were there.
I could keep going, but I'll just stop there :-)
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As the only book 6 I've run, I (and my players) had the exact opposite experience. That it just seemed like a random collection of tasks to do while other stuff was going on around the PCs. It may be an adventure that varies widely based on how it's run.
The Twice-Damned Prince: This is how urban adventures should be written. The spread of events across Westcrown, and the PCs' responses, are a great build to the climax and its aftermath.
That describes pretty much all of Council of Thieves, unfortunately. ^_^
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Dead Heart of Xin is pretty sweet, you get to save a city, the main guy interacts with the party the whole time, a wide selection of adversaries, cool treasure and artifacts, you see key moments in Xin's life that shaped him and the campaign almost as if you were there.
I could keep going, but I'll just stop there :-)
In my love for Shadows of Gallowspire, I forgot about The Dead Heart of Xin.
Well said. ^_^
As the only book 6 I've run, I (and my players) had the exact opposite experience.
Bob, is there one you do like? There is no disqualification if you just read one that you really liked.
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Ok, I’ll give you my top three.
1 The Divinity Drive
2 The Dead Heart of Xin
3 Pyramid of the Sky Pharaoh
These were my favorites, because they kept the theme from the rest of the path. For example, the final of Kingmaker was vastly different from the previous adventures (AKA No longer sandboxy). Overall, I loved Kingmaker, but the last part miffed me a bit. It was a great adventure, but it felt wrong somehow. Another, part 6 of Carrion Crown, Shadows of Gallowspire drove me crazy because of the amount of haunts used. I love haunts, but in much more moderation. YMMV though. Nice question!
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I'm not so keen on big dungeons in the last parts of an AP. Small ones are ok but high level parties have so many variables its hard to do dungeons right by that point.
While going through the list of APs all of the part 6s have some serious flaws. That said, I really enjoyed playing or running:
Kingmaker - a series of varied and awesome boss fights. The BBEG was annoying since we had trouble doing anything to her due to massive saves and AC but she had trouble hurting us as well since she was solo. The battle lasted forever but the rest of the module was great.
Second Darkness - the BBEG guy was great! Probably the most fun final battle we've had in a PF AP. Massive battle with lots of strong enemies.
Council of Thieves for the final battle coolness factor. We had fun playing this one but none of the players could follow the story line at all. I suspect the last part was modified since one of the PCs was working on becoming mayor so after we dealt with the siblings we had to secure the town before the forces of Thrune arrived.
My least favorite ones:
Serpent's Skull. Two massive dungeons in back to back chapters? No thanks. We killed this AP half way through chapter 4. The ending did look interesting though.
Wrath of the Righteous. After the pure Epicness of chapters 4 and 5, the final chapter seemed to lose some steam.
I don't like being rushed into the final chapter. Usually the PCs are sitting on tons of loot and having the opportunity to trade it or craft new stuff is appreciated. Having the Mercanes show up in the late chapters of Savage Tide was a nice way to get the high end gear that you need for the final parts.
I find quite often by part6 the party is getting tired of the AP/Pathfinder/high level play. Looking through the list of AP we've ended the APs early in some cases, condensed the last chapter in most cases and only played it as written in a few.
I'd like to vote against Council of Thieves. Just terrible, not so much an adventure as a loose collection of notes, and anti-climactic after the much better books 4 and 5.
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I've got two:
Sound of a Thousand Screams - Probably my favorite finale of any AP, but admittedly part of this is because it involved the First World heavily, and I love fey-themed stuff! However, I also loved that the PCs actions had ramifications throughout the adventure. The fact that they could do this and cause that to happen gives them a feeling of accomplishment well before the adventure climax occurs, and it's always significant when the players can feel like their actions actually mean something! I also loved that the threats in this adventure were often real. My players are a pretty tough crew, but this has not been a walk in the park for them at all. A fantastic completion chapter for a wonderful AP!
The Dead Heart of Xin - I think Brandon Hodge has become one of my most well-loved adventure writer because he's mastered the art of pacing and PC significance. A lot of what I love about this AP has been described above by captain yesterday. What's most awesome about all of it though is that it shows how Mr. Hodge continually evolved his adventure writing based on feedback from those that ran his past adventures. He listened to the players and wrote an adventure that gave them what they asked for. Again, player actions throughout the AP and the adventure adjusted its play. I love it when this happens. Another thing I loved about it was the opportunity for roleplay encounters throughout . . . it wasn't just a slugfest.
Great thread, Mr. Groves! Best of luck in the continual honing of your craft! I'm a big fan of your stuff, as well!
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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Spoilers abound below.
I have GMed Shadows of Gallowspire and played in Crown of Fangs and The Empty Throne, though the last was highly modified from the original so I feel I can't accurately judge it.
Of those, I would rank them: 1) Shadows of Gallowspire, 2) Crown of Fangs, and 3) The Empty Throne.
Shadows of Gallowspire is a textbook high-level adventure. IMO, the key to high level design is not to negate the PCs crazy abilities that would break lower level adventures, but rather, to make those crazy abilities the entry requirement for the high level adventure. In other words, without the PCs and their superheroic powers, the plot doesn't advance. It makes those abilities meaningful, and therefore rewarding. Gallowspire hits this pitch perfect. The witchgate networks don't let the PCs bypass all the travel encounters by teleporting; oh no, they ensure the PCs hit the encounters (unless they use wind walk or some other clever PC trick). Renchurch is a great high-level dungeon, with plenty of atmospherics, lich widgets, effective and thematic haunts and traps, and hard encounters that make sense given the "dungeon ecology." Gallowspire and its environs, particularly the Marrowgarth fight in the ruins in the mortuary tempest, is one of the best encounters in the AP. My only beef with Gallowspire is that the published Adivion is, relatively speaking, a chump--nowhere near as difficult as some of the encounters leading up to him. And he should be stupid hard--which he is in Brandon's unpublished encounter notes, which he has courteously posted here in the forums.
Crown of Fangs was good--I liked the sandboxy approach to Castle Korvosa. I liked the Sorshen tie-in of the Sunken Queen--Ileosa drawing on the power of her spiritual predecessor--but the location itself seemed to fall flat.
I'd have to say, however, that my favorite "Chapter 6" is actually Chapters 11 and 12 of the Savage Tide AP. Ch 11, Enemies of My Enemy, brings together some of the most iconic NPCs in Greyhawk/Planescape lore, and the PCs have broad options as to how they accomplish their overall goal. And they really need all the resources at their 20th-level disposal to pull it off. Ch 12 pulls out all the stops with a full out invasion of the Abyss and a boss fight against, literally, the BAMFinest BAMF in the Fiend Folio.
I will say that dungeon crawls are super hard to design for high level characters without negating their abilities by some unbelievable contrivance. Bad design: you can't teleport because it breaks the dungeon. Better design: you can't teleport because plot reasons. Great design: you need to teleport (or burn some other high level resource) to beat this adventure. For instance, in Renchurch, you have no hope of resting there and no hope of finishing it without rest. There's just too many encounters. So the ability to use magic to bug out to a safe resting place somehow effectively says, you can't play here unless you are this tall. Even when Brandon negates some PC abilities by fiat, e.g. the ability to just fly to the top of Gallowspire, he does in in an amazing way (a storm of waves of incorporeal undead? yeah I buy that and it's AWESOME). Similarly, STAP Chs 11/12 just give you an epic problem, some external resources, and step back and say "you're 20th level, figure it out."
About your specific points: trap CR does not scale well past around 8 or 9. Most high level traps are a couple of wand of CLW charges and that's it. Traps that inflict other status effects are good, particularly if they're guarded by something hungry. Haunts seem to scale better, but if you're not in Renchurch they can be overdone. Monsters with class levels are harder to run, but I feel they're a good way to breathe new life into old critters... although if you're 16th level fighting ogres, it's not quite as awesome as fighting actual CR 16 monsters with no class levels, because you could kill ogres at level 2. It doesn't matter so much that these are SUPER ogres. They make good mooks, but what's more memorable, a fight with 6 ogre fighter 8s or a single nightwalker?
Sorry, Jim, you did get an essay. I passionately enjoy high level play but it is harder to design for, and I've done a lot of thinking about how to make high level play more tenable. Hope this is useful if you've waded through it.
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I ended up giving my opinions on all the Part 6 adventures in addition to my top few. I did this mostly based on my memory of the adventures since I figured what did/didn't stick with me without re-referencing things would be a helpful gauge of things on some level. There aren't any that I actively disliked; I think even the weakest Part 6 AP modules were decent, but I think some were certainly stronger than others. Here are my opinions, grouped by general preference-level:
My top favorites, excellent:
1. The Divinity Drive
Pros: Fantastic main villain and end-fight location in Unity and the Godmind. Excellent setting and themes. Loved how well the sci-fi stuff was handled. The ship sections were each interesting but fit well into a greater whole, creating a large, but connected and compelling, dungeon. Interesting encounters and treasure. Presented an appropriately large starship (with a support article touching on the rest) rather than downsizing the Silver Mount to fit it all in one module (I'd like to see the rest of it, but I'm by-far a fan of it remaining huge rather than it getting chopped up to all be crammed in one AP module). The ability to create a deity. Part of an overall-excellent AP.
Cons: Didn't include info on helping Casandalee sort out her mental issues that it was implied would appear at some point.
2. Sound of a Thousand Screams
Pros: Excellent, out-there setting with lots of creativity and active weirdness. Evocative planar elements. Interesting, unique enemies. Good enemy variety / selection.
Cons: Disconnected some from the adventure path before it; normally this would be a larger hit, but the setting's evocative nature is strong enough to offset this.
3. Crown of Fangs
Pros: Excellent NPCs (particularly villains); I'm a fan of Sabina, Togomor, the Belier Devil, Ileosa, and Kazivon. Presented an appropriately-large castle instead of a downsized-to-fit-a-module one. PCs had a lot of latitude in how they approached the castle. Interesting final area in the Sunken Queen. Ties up my favorite AP plot well. Part of an overall-excellent AP.
Cons: Overshadowed some by Gallowspire, which is another, even-better huge castle right before it; the undead-versus-not-undead natures of the places keep this from being a big issue, though. Similar to The Divinity Drive and Silver Mount, I want to see the rest of the Grand Mastaba sometime. Didn't include the the info on what happened if the necromancer from earlier in the Path lived that it was implied to include.
Second grouping, very good:
The Dead Heart of Xin
Pros: A solid dungeon to cap an adventure path of solid dungeons; doesn't break theme. Good environment with the risen island and ruins therein. The Clockwork Reliquary has excellent visuals and is generally cool. I like the clockworks. Good use of a devastating event without ruining a wide range of places.
Cons: NPCs not really memorable beyond Xin (who is more of a monster/plot-device than an active NPC at this point).
Pyramid of the Sky Pharaoh
Pros: Had by far the best old-school vibe of any AP end-segment; I seriously felt on some level like it was an Egyptian-themed successor to the Temple of Elemental Evil on some level. Very good dungeon crawl. Good use of the elemental segments in the dungeon. Stayed strong with being on-theme for the AP.
Cons: Compared to some of the ones I ranked higher, this is pretty much *just* a dungeon crawl, and it's one in an AP that doesn't have that as as-much-as a central theme as Shattered Star. It's still very good at being what it is, though.
The Witch Queen's Revenge
Pros: I like the overall themes / setting. Baba Yaga is a huge plus. The whole room of thrones with the former witch queens. The potential to rule Irrisen or shape its fate. The plot hooks in the Continuing the Campaign bit.
Cons: Overshadowed by the two modules prior to it. Despite having positive overall impressions of the adventure, I don't remember many of the side-encounters/events in it beyond the main parts.
Note: I think on some level I'm biased to like this module since I like some of the other parts of its AP so much and like Baba Yaga and Irrisen in general.
Descent into Midnight
Pros: Very cool setting; I liked the Land of Black Blood as a whole. Proper epic tension and stakes on the final fight. Good use of the main villain. Good enemy diversity.
Cons: The taunting marilith, while not something I inherently object to, was weirdly timed. Some of the encounters seem less connected to the Adventure than others; I don't fault the variety, though. Has lots of flavor but lacks some of the 'polish' of some of the other AP finales.
Shadows of Gallowspire
Pros: Very atmospheric. Renchurch does well as a necromantic cult base. Gallowspire is an epic setting for a final fight.
Cons: The entire AP suffers from lacking a strong main villain who is connected to it throughout. Adrissant is just kind of there to be a final villain to fight at Gallowspire. Having said that, if looked at as an individual adventure instead of an AP cap or as the cap of a string of adventures against The Whispering Way (where Adrissant is just the final member to take down), it regains a lot of strength. (I'm aware that there are expansions online that increase his role, they fix a lot of the problem here; I'm noting this stuff since the print version is what most people will see, though).
Third grouping, good:
The Final Wish
Pros: A good adventure against an established final villain; revists stuff from earlier parts of the AP well. Manages to perform solidly without any big hiccups. Cool design for Xotani. The romance angle is a new and interesting one for the main villain.
Cons: Doesn't really shine in any aspects beyond being generally solid. NPCs beyond the final boss and Xotani aren't too notable.
Spires of Xin-Shalast
Pros: Memorable endboss. Mhar Massif and Xin's face carved into it. Capstones the AP well and remains on-theme with it. Generally a solid adventure. Presence of Leng.
Cons: The city gets skipped through rather quickly and is somewhat low detail compared to what's there. Some of the encounter choices as to what was or wasn't fought seem kind of weird. NPCs beyond the final boss aren't too notable.
The Empty Throne
Pros: A solid adventure with a solid set of villains with interesting relationships between them. Good at staying on-theme with the later parts of the AP. The NPCs down in the place with the former emperors were cool.
Cons: Minkai and its capital don't get enough screentime earlier in the AP for this module to have the impact and success that it could have.
City of Locusts
Pros: The giant demon war engine. The ability to close the Worldwound. The setting, scope, and opposition. I love what the AP shot for even if I think it missed the mark in some of its actual execution.
Cons: The two adventures before it that take place in the Abyss manage to eclipse this one in setting quality/scope/epicness. The adventure feels weirdly restrained about throwing the PCs against the Demon Lord; Deskari is presented as essentially-optional compared to Areelu Vorlesh and closing the Worldwound. This is the mythic AP and I think it should revel in it; it stays a bit more timid than I'd like in what it throws the PCs up against. Mechanical balance is kind of wonked and treats the Mythic PCs as weaker than they are.
Fourth grouping, mediocre:
The Twice-Damned Prince
Pros: I like the devil-related portions of the themes. I also really like the Mammon support article and the new Kyton.
Cons: It has, in my opinion, the weakest presence-wise final boss of any AP. The Drovenges never managed to impress me throughout the AP, and I felt Ilnerik made a better villain overall. The AP-titular Council was toothless, and the stakes of the adventure felt weirdly low for an adventure saving a city from devils. The environments in the module never really impressed or took things to an appropriate end-point grade of location; they remained general Westcrown city environments like seen throughout the AP. None of the major NPCs stood out to me as extremely memorable. Suffers some from being the ending to one of the weaker APs overall.
Sanctum of the Serpent God
Pros: Serpentfolk are cool, as is the overall 'stop the ancient evil deity's resurrection' plotline.
Cons: Ydersius never felt appropriately divine or menacing; he really suffers from having arrived earlier than Mythic. All demigods, and frankly, most of the quasideities, who have appeared so far seem more notable than his resurrected self here. The module was suffering from bad momentum; the AP derailed from the 'good' zone a lot earlier, and the later parts were never epic enough to make up for it. There were some decisions that, if handled in a different context, could have been cool: For example, the swarms of lower-power enemies that PCs could just hack through. In the right context, those could have been a fun way to show how PCs were powerful. With the weaker earlier parts, it just came off as iffy scaling. All-in-all, the module never seemed to deliver enough on the cool themes it could have had, though I don't think that's specifically this module's fault; the bar for it just got raised to make up for earlier issues.
Fifth grouping, not reviewed:
Shadow of the Storm Tyrant
I haven't spent enough time with this yet to feel comfortable ranking/reviewing its high/low points.
I'd like to vote against Council of Thieves. Just terrible, not so much an adventure as a loose collection of notes, and anti-climactic after the much better books 4 and 5.
It's not a vote. I appreciate the thought but I would rather hear what you do like for a chapter six. Please?
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@Charlie, Sub-Creator, Lord Gadigan, awesome posts!
(As were previous ones)
I should have said I welcome essays but don't want to demand them. I love to hear about why they were awesome. Soooo helpful. The comments about Gallowspire especially.
I just didn't want to go negative. But i get that a little is necessary to contrast.
Reading and taking notes!
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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It's not a chapter 6, but Rasputin Must Die! as an example of excellent high level design came up in this thread.
Good encounter pacing, including map design and enemy tactics, gives the GM flexibility to increase or decrease difficulty as needed.
This occurs toward the end of Rasputin Must Die!, where Rasputin is in a big, open encounter area with 3-4 other roughly CR=APL encounters. So if the players are batting 1000, the GM can combine multiple encounters into a bigger, more challenging one. Conversely, if they're not doing so well, later encounters can hang back a bit for any number of in-game reasons so the PCs can deal with things piecemeal. It also helps to reward stealthy PC tactics.
The same thing is going on in Shadows of Gallowspire in Renchurch, where Lucimar is a kind of wild card that can be added to any other encounter to increase difficulty. And of course, if the GM wants to increase difficulty even more, there's always a chance that Lucimar brings another roomful of badguys with him (when I ran it, I did this with the bodaks and ghost necromancers in the chittering skulls room, forcing the PCs into a fighting withdrawal). Or for another roomful of badguys to hear what's going on down the hall and respond on their own initiative.
This kind of thing is useful at all levels of play, but particularly helpful at higher levels, where the CR system as a difficulty metric breaks down somewhat. If a group of high-level PCs have absolute control over the pace of encounters, they can easily bring all their buffs and nova abilities to bear and trivialize encounters that would otherwise be challenging. Good high level design puts encounter pacing back in the GM's hands.
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I've run Serpent Skull, Kingmaker, Shattered Star and Jade Regent. So here are my thoughts on those specific ones.
Serpent Skull: To me Sanctum of the Serpent God was interesting enough but just felt terribly unconnected to the first four books of the series. I really enjoyed the concept of the long defeated God rising once again but my players were reluctant to embrace the change of goals that happens between book 4 and 5. Also the heavy emphasis on dungeon grinding did not play to my strength as a GM.
Kingmaker: Sound of a Thousand Screams was fantastic! Having learned to read the entire AP before running this one helped a great deal as I did a lot of foreshadowing for Nyrissa. As such my players were deeply invested in confronting her. Also the exotic 3rd World environment allowed me to go wild with descriptions and really build up that fairy tale quality to the story.
Shattered Star: Dead Heart of Xin was wonderful as well. Even though the villain is largely disconnected from the rest of the story, the story makes up for it. As I ran the game, Xin came across as a somewhat sympathetic character that opened up many inter party RP moments in how to approach him. I thought he was powerful and fitting of End Boss status in a way I didn't feel with Ydersius.
Jade Regent: I enjoyed the story elements especially with the visitation to the Emperors graveyard. However by facing a host of largely familiar monsters it seemed to deflate some of the exotic feel that Jade Regent promised. The Final boss fight also felt underwhelming as this might have been the weakest BBEG in all my AP experience.
I'm currently a player in Giantslayer and the Mummy's Mask so looking forward to how those will play out.
I will caveat this by noting that while I collect many, I try not to read them until I start running them. That way I can actually be a player in most of them still.
So the three I have read to the end, ranked:
1) Legacy of Fire. Genie Wish War, how is that not awesome?
2) Second Darkness. Delve into the underdark to stop the apocalypse, yes please. This is a close second.
3) Kingmaker. I really didn't like the tacked on feel to this adventure. It just didn't follow through on the themes. It may be interesting as an adventure on its own, but I'm debating replacing it with either Empire of Ghouls or Court of the Shadow Fey. Still haven't decided which.
I've played Serpent's Skull, but we went on permanent hiatus in book 3 or 4.
I'm halfway through Wrath of the Righteous. It may shoot up there when we get to the end, but that'll be many months from now.
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Order of preference having been the screen monkey:
1st) Brandon Hodge's Shadows of Gallowspire and Dead Heart of Xin. Rasputin Must Die! is the best Pathfinder adventure written in all of the PF issues that I've bought (everything from Age of Worms through Reign of Winter).
2nd) Richard Pett's Sound of a Thousand Screams.
3rd) Legacy of Fire.
4th) Second Darkness tied with RotRL (regular edition).
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1.Dead Heart of Zin..it wrapped up the path by incorporating people and events from the previous adventures, and had a suitably epic big bad..
too often I find the sixth chapter feels like an add-on ..I felt that way in kingmaker, pirates, white witches council of thieves and a few others
2. rise of the runelords..stopping the runelord of greed,,great conclsion after long buildup
3. legacy of fire, good end mitigates a crappy part 5..not sure if that why it stands out..usually part 5's of the best.
Best book 6 instalments
Empty throne
Crown of fangs
Dead heart of xin
All three feature memorable epic encounters but also possess a good mix of rp, diplomacy and most importantly players have meaningful choices to make in resolving the adventure.
In contrast with a lot of praise in this thread for Gallowspire I found the adventure a meat grinder dungeon crawl with no opportunity for meaningful player choices, while I Used some of the encounters when I ran it I significantly overhauled the adventure to provide some more sandbox elements
Hm. No love for the Skull and Shackles book six? I mention this because I'm starting a S&S game, so it's in my head.
Honestly, I've yet to either play or run a full game through the sixth book of any of them, which makes me sad.
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Sound of a Thousand Screams - Kingmaker
A lot of people seem to like this capstone book AP, I have no idea why. Kingmaker is the only 6th book I've run through so far, if this is what's considered 'good' I'm scared for anything else. The villain is by far the weakest aspect of this book, who has nearly no agency at all within the adventure, simply passively waiting for the PCs to come kill her and not even giving an epic fight. Aside from that, the rest of the book feels horribly tacked on, it has next to no relationship to books 1-5 except to use them as a backdrop for the first part of book 6 and be forgotten in the second part.
-Lackluster, passive villain
-Poor narrative link to previous books
-Lack of memorable NPCs, or use of previously memorable NPCs
-Bad encounter layout (very easy to skip huge parts of the book)
-Radical shift in story themes
-Anticlimactic finish
It does have some good end level optional encounters though.
That's the only end level book I can comment on unfortunately.
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My top 3-
Spires of Xin-Shalast- A villain who has been foreshadowed adequately, in a legendary "lost" city, with hints of greater dangers out there,and...come on. Fighting the Evil Wizard in his private sanctum? Just good clean fun.
Crown of Fangs- Purely because CotCT rocks my socks- yet again, the enemy is one we've known from almost Day One, and toppling her from the throne of Korvosa is viscerally satisfying. Some of the nuts and bolts mechanical things were a bit... uneven, but the plotting and the final throwdown were a sheer delight.
Pyramid of the Sky Pharaoh- Not much to add to the love it's already gotten here. Just rock-solid on-theme enjoyment.
I've currently got a group in The Spires of Xin-Shalast, but I've also read Pyramid of the Sky Pharaoh, as I've got a group working through book 3 of Mummy's Mask, and The Divinity Drive, since the group going through Runelords is gonna do Iron Gods when they've finished.
Based on this limited experience, I'd have a hard time picking between Pyramid and Divinity Drive for the one I like better. Both look like they're going to be fantastically fulfilling capstones to their respective paths. I will say that I've been disappointed with Spires, though. It starts off pretty strong with the haunted cabin and stuff, but it feels like it starts to lose steam once it gets to the titular city, since it's so huge and there's just enough material in the AE version to be tantalizing, but not enough to properly cover the whole thing, which is entirely understandable given the size and scope. It makes me wish that some earlier bits had been cut (I'd hesitate to say Runeforge because that was my personal favorite part. Perhaps some of the Hook Mountain stuff, but that was really neat too. Basically, Spires feels like a victim of its predecessors success in that regard) and dedicate a whole book to establishing a base camp in the lower city and exploring/taming it and the whole last book to Karzoug and his whole mountaintop fortress area. As it is, for players to have a satisfying Xin-Shalast experience I would think that either the GM has to see it coming and do a lot of extra prep-work (which is a reasonable expectation for some, though not all) or just kind of hand-wave the city to get to the parts that have better detail.
Actually, now that I think of it, this is almost the exact reason why I think book 6 of Iron Gods looks like it will work so well. Book 5 is dedicated to the city of Starfall and all the prep-work for the final dungeon and confrontation, and book 6 contains almost nothing extraneous to the task at hand, leaving all the valuable page space for Silver Mount and its denizens. I think I would be finding the same issues as I do with Runelords if, for some reason, books 5 and 6 of Iron Gods didn't split out like they did.
Pyramid of the Sky Pharaoh works very much like Iron Gods with the exception that there really isn't any outside area to the final dungeon (because of the nature of the final dungeon and its placement) so there isn't a split necessary, and that last book saves all its page space for the big set-piece that is the final push.