Thinking of replacing parts of War of the River Kings with Prisoners of the Blight

[Sunderstone]

Book 5s of most APs always seem to need some heavy reworks on my part, probably due to my playing style more than anything.

What I'm not liking...
1) Kingdom building and Mass combat. These will be in the background but he latter seems more prevalent in this volume than any other (understandable as there is a "war" in the title). Omitting this will leave an XP deficit, minor hurdle.
2) Irovetti's Castle. The map has a bazillion tiny rooms, I would have liked a more classic floorplan without every closet. This will likely be a tedious slog without some major overhaul to the map.

What I'm liking...
1) The political intrigue of the tourney.
2) The Abbey, Briar, etc.

What I may do..
I'm thinking of subbing in parts of Ironfang Invasion #5 instead with Arlantia possibly being Nyrissa's insane sister or daughter, maybe going a tad too far with the blight. There's lots of cool evil fey stuff here to fit well with KM.
If I use Irovetti, I may make him a prisoner of Arlantia, possibly caught on his way back to Pitax to prepare for the PCs possible retaliation/assault on his keep. If I do away with Irovetti completely, Nyrissa is simply using Fey and subjugating Humanoid factions to use against the PCs, kind of simpler.

I may use the tourney and attack it at the end. Arlantia's forces take Irovetti and find out his interest in the Abbey and/or Briar. This gives me a second faction trying to get Briar, mostly for the insane Arlantia to use against her sister or mother Nyrissa, to take her place as ruler.
Either way the party has to venture deep into the Blighted lands to free or eliminate Irovetti before he and his kingdom become tools for Arlantia (a blighted Irovetti slave gives her keys to Pitax). Ultimately this throws Pitax into turmoil without a leader and frees up the group to focus on Nyrissa without having to invade Pitax.

Any opinions?

[thenovalord]

really good plan. POTB is the odd one of Ironfang as well, though S.O.S also felt a bit out there

I had Irovetti as a rogueish ally of the pcs so they rescued him

Spoiler for Ironfang

Spoiler:

I have just started GMing POTB. In my KM run Nyrissa actually won in Mod 6 and put the pcs kingdom in a snow globe. I'm tempted to have the Ironfang PCS find it, as 3 of the players did both APs, and bring about a rescue using the Onyx transport stuff, and therefore everyone get to 20th level eventually

[Sunderstone]

Kudos for sticking with the Nyrissa win, the snow globe is a nice touch. Is there a crater where the Stolen Lands were, Or did you just have the realm disappear and leave the wilds behind? What happens to travelers who roam into the area?

Love the link from another AP with the possible rescue.