Alternative follow ups to Book 1

[Lanathar]

I am currently looking at playing Book 1 as a stand alone adventure and giving the players options with what to do afterwards

I am not sure if this is the right place to ask but what might be some good choices to follow on with that make some degree of sense given the location?

Ideas so far would be to move into Skull and Shackles either through Raiders of the Fever Sea or Plunder and Peril (which both ultimately lead to Book 3 of that AP)

There is also a 2E module set in the Mwangi Expanse for level 5 characters due next month (I should note that I am looking at a 2E conversion)

Are there some other ideas? What are common instincts for PCs at the end of the first book survival module? Or are them some other hooks I might have overlooked?

[Gark the Goblin]

The hooks as written are pretty vague if memory serves (somewhat clarified in Racing to Ruin). One of the things that immediately springs to mind is to stay on the island after destroying the altar, perhaps to settle it with people from Vidrian. It's a pretty strategic location if you've got good pilots - could be good for defending Vidrian from aquatic threats like Free Captains and Cheliax.

I'm actually not that up on published adventures but I want to remember there was one involving lizardfolk just south of the Laughing Jungle?

[Sunderstone]

When I was going to run the Skull and Shackles AP, I was using Shiv as a prelude (after it they would be rescued by the wrong boat so to speak).
I revamped Shiv to stay at level 1 by making various changes to encounters. This would of course require milestone XP.

I still have my notes on a text file if you are interested. I can copy paste some of the changes I did.

[Lanathar]

Thanks for the offer but I don’t think I will want to keep people at level 1 for that long on the Shiv

Skull and shackles as a follow on would definitely be an option but probably through cutting book 1 and maybe even book 2 as well

Perhaps an extremely truncated book 1 might be possible where they are picked up at level 3 or 4 with the pirates not realising that they can’t push them around that easily . But I think it would be tough to strip them of gear etc

I am intrigued about what you were planning with the chupacabra and yarzoth in a game that stayed at level 1 though

[Sunderstone]

Lanathar wrote:

Thanks for the offer but I don’t think I will want to keep people at level 1 for that long on the Shiv

Skull and shackles as a follow on would definitely be an option but probably through cutting book 1 and maybe even book 2 as well

Perhaps an extremely truncated book 1 might be possible where they are picked up at level 3 or 4 with the pirates not realising that they can’t push them around that easily . But I think it would be tough to strip them of gear etc

I am intrigued about what you were planning with the chupacabra and yarzoth in a game that stayed at level 1 though

In a nutshell:

The major changes were to eliminate Yarzoth and the Temple completely as they were headed to S&S AP anyway. The Chupacabra was out too (possibly replaced with a CR3 instead), along with the caves below the Thrunefang camp. Klorak loses one Barb level and stays the leader of that group answering to no one. There are further smaller modifications to most of the other encounters for balance too.

I wanted the island to feel more deserted than it is.

My players enjoy the low level stuff and prefer to stay at each level a tad longer than a more rapid leveling pace. I had to modify our RotR game for this.
I actually contemplated starting this as a 0 level module, kind of like the Goodman Games stuff back in 3.0 with characters taking NPC classes like Warrior, Adept, Expert, etc. at minus xp. Once they reach 2000 xp, they would go into their regular classes at level one.
They loved the 0 level start back in 3rd Edition.