Planned changes to WotR (Spoilers, Obviously)

[Artofregicide]

So, if you've seen my other post, you're aware that Mythic is going to be the biggest change I'm making to the AP.

But in terms of the AP itself, I'm overall a pretty big fan. I don't plan to make a huge number of changes, but below are edits I have in the pipeline:

Book 1: I love the beginning, but the whole Mongrelfolk aspect is kind of random and unrelated to the rest of the AP. Instead of encountering the Mongrelfolk, the PCs will be "saved" by Hosilla and Ivory Templars who attempt to abduct them back to their secret underground lair. Depending on how that shakes out, it'll either be a jailbreak scenario or the party will track the baddies back to their lair. This will actually be the Ivory Templar HQ in Kenebres.

I plan to replace many (but not all) of the generic tiefling encounters with low ranking Ivory Templars. It feels weird to me that so many tieflings just default to fighting for the Abyss despite being non-aligned by nature.

I am considering having a period of roleplaying before the official AP start, I'm just not sure how to pace that. But the party having any at all connection to the ruined city seems better.

Book 2: I will probably adjust or just remove the mass combat. Nothing wrong with it persay, but it will likely kill the pacing and honestly I'm not a huge fan of how the mass combat rules work.

Book 5: Encounter with Iomadae may be changed to a different deity, if relevant. But reworking the whole scene and save the damage for PCs who are intentionally obtuse. To be clear, not a deity fawning over the PCs because they're such special snowflakes but also not playing trivia or loud noises.

Book 6: Rework the Storm King fight so it isn't an embarrassing stomp. Broadly, Deskari begins very actively working against the PCs.

Suggestions and thoughts welcomed.

[Kasoh]

I got a lot of good mileage out of the Mongrelfolk. Thematically, I don't know exactly why they're there except to really hammer the point home about how awful this war has been for the generations of people fighting it. They are people whose ancestors were kicked out of society for something they had no control over, live in terrible conditions and are exceptionally short lived--yet they still stand up to fight against the evil and corruption of the world.

For mass combat, yeah. Its not great. But they do kind of need the army to take Drezen. I ended up abstracting most of it. The PCs were in charge of an army and they had the army fight things, which they would win. In the book it suggests giving the PCs stuff to do in the fight, but I took it a different direction: Dealing with prisoners, unhappy soldiers, discipline and etc. I made running the army almost all role play encounters that happened in camp.

The encounter with Iomedae needs to be carefully considered based on the make up of the group. I kept Iomedae because it was her herald who needs the rescue and had an Iomedaen child of divinity. Aside from the 'Iomedae summons the party to give a quest' I didn't use much of the written encounter.

Fun alternatives are of course, Noticula (Already showed up. Depends on how much fun you want to have with her Redeemer Queen aspect. My game had a Redeemer Queen worshipping PC so Noticula was quite present), Arazni (There is a whole lot that can be done with Iomedae and Arazni), Desna(Plays a minor part already and has a history of killing demon lords), Sarenrae (well, she wants to help), and Calistria (Because breaking into a prison and rescuing The Hand would get her an invite to Iomedae's Holiday Office Party)

Yeah, Storm King needs some back up. The most fun I had was the collapsing floor and dispelling fly spells.