My players decided to skip chapter 4 entirely. By that I mean their characters were morally outraged at the idea of having to earn the respect of the Shoanti in order to save the women and children of Korvosa. In the end, they strongarmed the Sun Shaman into surrendering the information leading to Scarwall.
While I am annoyed at this turn of events, they did raise some good points regarding the morality of the situation
So my question is this:
WHAT WERE THE WRITERS THINKING????????
Are the shoanti REALLY supposed to be so stupid/heartless/stubborn, or is this just an excuse plot to pad out the adventure path?
Also, where are the stats for the sklar-quah chief and the sun shaman?
I feel like they're supposed to be high level, but I couldn't find stats for anyone but Krojun and some Thundercallers (no burn riders either)
I'm pretty sure that's exactly what Book Four is (meaningless padding), and why it falls completely flat unless your players for some strange reason really like the Dances with Shaoti angle. They really should have made Kaer Maga the focus instead, if they wanted an "enemy of my enemy" story arc. Much more interesting locale with a much larger range of options. But, well, much too late for that now.
Just ignore the Shaoti and move on. It's what our group did as well, and the game was better for it.
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My second GMing of Crimson Throne hasn't yet reached History of Ashes, but in the first play through I heavily rewrote it.
The book has a lot of great material with which to craft a meaningful and enjoyable portion of the adventure... it's just that Respect Point subplot isn't it. The strength of the book is interesting characters, locations and scenarios, and I'd encourage GMs to try and use them to craft their own reason for the players to engage with the shoanti.
My approach was someone more dramatic: I actually had all the relics of Kazavon scattered around the Cinderlands, as I had Koja Eyes-Aflame be the only one to walk out of Scarwall while Mandraivus stayed behind to guard it. Koja hid the relics around the Cinderlands, and the PCs were tasked with recovering them, and having them ritualistically blessed (well, 'placed in magical containment fields') by the shaman to ward the PCs from the worst of the curse of Scarwall. Each of the major events in the Cinderlands was another relic to recover: Koja was the ancient hero who escaped Cindermaw's gut after he embedded a relic in it. The chamber of the Havero plays host to another relic. And so on.
(You can actually ignore the normal list and create whatever number and type of relics you want. Hauling the skull of a colossal dragon around is a little impractical, for example).
It also meant that as the finale, to the adventure path, my PCs got to actually destroy Kazavon, which was a lot more satisfying all around.
My second GMing of Crimson Throne hasn't yet reached History of Ashes, but in the first play through I heavily rewrote it.
The book has a lot of great material with which to craft a meaningful and enjoyable portion of the adventure... it's just that Respect Point subplot isn't it. The strength of the book is interesting characters, locations and scenarios, and I'd encourage GMs to try and use them to craft their own reason for the players to engage with the shoanti.
My approach was someone more dramatic: I actually had all the relics of Kazavon scattered around the Cinderlands, as I had Koja Eyes-Aflame be the only one to walk out of Scarwall while Mandraivus stayed behind to guard it. Koja hid the relics around the Cinderlands, and the PCs were tasked with recovering them, and having them ritualistically blessed (well, 'placed in magical containment fields') by the shaman to ward the PCs from the worst of the curse of Scarwall. Each of the major events in the Cinderlands was another relic to recover: Koja was the ancient hero who escaped Cindermaw's gut after he embedded a relic in it. The chamber of the Havero plays host to another relic. And so on.
(You can actually ignore the normal list and create whatever number and type of relics you want. Hauling the skull of a colossal dragon around is a little impractical, for example).
It also meant that as the finale, to the adventure path, my PCs got to actually destroy Kazavon, which was a lot more satisfying all around.
Dragging the head of a GARGANTUAN dragon, on the other hand, is exactly how they managed to frighten the natives into revealing their secrets (but not before Krojun lost his temper and attacked the party...don't worry, he'll be coming back for revenge after the chief has him raised and he gains a few levels and he rethinks his TERRIBLE RAGE POWER CHOICES).
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Given the historical dynamic between the Sklar-Quah and outlanders...
They're really not meant to be friendly or welcoming, and yes, they really don't care about the women and children of Korvosa, since it's a city built by what they (not inaccurately) see as outland invaders upon what they (not inaccurately) regard as stolen land.
The Shoanti were enslaved by Thassilon, ravaged by its fall, and then treated as vermin to be swept aside by the Chelish colonial project.
Some Quahs have chosen to make accommodations- the Sklar-Quah have not. They're the bitter-ending holdouts clinging to the godforsaken Cinderlands with both hands.
I don't recall a lot of Good alignments on these guys- they're a fairly harsh and unforgiving neutral, and the PCs come to them on behalf of people they see as enemies (especially since the Order of the Nail, which used to hang out in Korovsa all the time, routinely tries to kill them).
So the Sklar-Quah have absolutely no reason to care about a bunch of people they generally never see and are culturally reared to regard as enemies. The people of Korvosa are suffering? Well, things are tough all over, especially when you live in the Cinderlands.
Personally, it was the part of this adventure I liked the best.
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While I haven't gotten to this point with my group yet I already plan changing the contents of the adventure dramatically. Instead of focusing on the Shoanti at all this chapter is getting replaced with an adventure where the party frees Kroft from being captured by the Hellknights and unravels more of the mystery of what is going on with Ileosa.
Scarwall is probably changing as well to take place in the dungeon under Castle Korvosa or one of the other dungeons under Korvosa. For a city sitting on a mountain of ancient ruins it's disappointing that the adventure path doesn't really incorporate them much.
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Given the historical dynamic between the Sklar-Quah and outlanders...
They're really not meant to be friendly or welcoming, and yes, they really don't care about the women and children of Korvosa, since it's a city built by what they (not inaccurately) see as outland invaders upon what they (not inaccurately) regard as stolen land.
I don't disagree at all - the fact that the Sklar-Quah should be fairly hostile is appropriate.
However, the respect plot essentially works out as:
Premise: There is a friendly clan, neutral clan and hostile clan. The hostile clan has information you need.
A) Talk to the friendly clan to be given the quest.
B) Emulate a rite-of-passage of the neutral clan, to 'win their trust' and obtain a spokesman the hostile clan will believe.
C) Emulate the heroic deeds of an ancient hero of the hostile clan, to 'win their trust', and be able to talk to them.
D) Be told that this information is for "members only", so perform a ritual to become honorary members of the ex-hostile clan, and be given the information.
It's not that work and diplomacy shouldn't be needed, it's that having the PCs parrot the actions of shoanti heroes, rather than their values, expressly for the purpose of getting what they want from the tribes rings hollow to me, and many of my players. The respect point minigame never actually requires genuine respect from the PCs.
It can be made to work, with the right player group, but many will find it ruffling their feathers, or outright offensive (in at least one case with our group). Hence, I preferred to reconstruct the overarcing plot, but keep many of the same elements, and in so doing made the overall objective a little more... worthwhile. As it stands the Sklar-Quah don't have information that couldn't be more quickly and easily obtained via magic.
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Yeah, my group will be finishing the Trial of the Totem tonight, and the majority of this book has fallen flat with them. They've been good sports and gone along with a lot of things throughout the campaign so far because they know that I don't have time to make significant changes (or we'd be playing an open-world campaign). However, the whole "leave the city and jump through hoops for the Shoanti" has worn out its welcome. I'm hoping that the Vault raid will get them back on board enough for the trip to Scarwall. Otherwise, I'm going to have to use the holiday season as downtime and tweak "Fortress of the Nail" to be the next part of the plot.