Less Episodic City of Half-Dead

[jimmythecomic]

Hey there!

So, I'm starting up this adventure path in a few months, and just read through "City of the Half-Dead". Great stuff! However, my players tend to be happier if they're presented with multiple avenues of investigation, so I'm working on some ideas on how to make it less of an episodic dungeon crawl, and give the players more decisions on what/how to investigate things.

I've brainstormed a few rough ideas, but I also wanted to see what sort of things you guys and gals have done to expand the first book a bit.

My rough thoughts:

-I want to bring the Necromancers group in first session. I'm thinking they don't know which tomb contains the relic they're looking for, so I want to have them sniffing around each of the adventuring groups, to try to find out what sort of things they've grabbed. Late night raids on their rooms from ninjas, that sort of thing.

-I want one of the other adventuring groups to pick up a "Mummys Curse", that's causing party members to die, something for our players to either look into, or ignore for their own benefit. This could be an actual Mummy Curse, or it could be a Scooby-Doo style adventure where it's the cult trying to discourage these investigations.

-I want a ghost from the first dungeon to tell the players of a treasure located in a dungeon they aren't allowed to visit. So, they've got the choice of sneaking in under cover of nightfall, or cutting a deal with the adventuring group who drew that straw.

That's all just spitballing, what sort of things have y'all done? Or, any thoughts on my ideas?

[Pan]

I love the ghost idea!

I played up the clerics being none too happy about groups going into the necropolis. I made it clear to the players that the clerics would be very displeased to find out some adventurers were going off their chosen path. They understood that doing so meant they had to deal under the table with the other adventuring groups or sneak in at night. They chose to do a lot of RPing with the other adventure groups so there was plenty of opportunities for them. I think that made for a lot of choice and interesting adventure for the players. Seems you are on the right track.

Don't forget about the gang of ghouls in the necro as well. I think you can have a lot of fun with them. They could even be behind the "mummys curse" side adventure you want to plan. I had them set traps that the party had to discover while moving about in the necro. They would discover them and set them off and I would have the ghouls reset the traps again later. The players had a fun time figuring out who was behind that.

Idea #1 is cool and sounds like fun. Id be careful though if the PCs capture the cultist and alert the authorities you will need to work around that.