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So we have finally finished the Jade Regent, We started 17 December 2013 and finished at the beginning to this year. We have a small group with 3 rotating GMs, each running his own AP. We generally do a book from an AP before another GM takes over.
We started with
Romulas Half Orc Inquisitor
Yasumar Human Barbarian
Zaruket Gnome Summoner with Tec the eidolon
Cathugar Human Oracle
Cathugar was replaced mid way in the 2nd book by Me Sung Human Warpriest. Cathugar died on the road to the stronghold. So the party was heavy on combat power and after Me Sung addition lacked a full caster. I thought this would blow up in their faces, but it never did.
So, lets start with the obvious I ditched the caravan rules. The relationship rules withered on the vine due to a lack of support/interest. Most of what I have to say has already been mention on these boards.
Book 1
This was generally excellent. The introduction, sudden change from goblins to undead. The journey could have been made more interesting (by they have space constraints) Brinwell was fun. The first books of Adventure Paths tend to be very solid and this was no exception
Book 2
This was a solid book. Good but not great. The investigation in the town was a bit railroady but totally acceptable. The Stronghold was challenging and the party liked the ninja in a Viking land thing. I removed the Hellwasp swarm. The poor troll went down without any of his story getting told.
Book 3
The start is all good. The there is nothing except the spires at the top of the world and dead mans mound apart from random encounters, which are for the Caravan Rules was not great. Lots of DM input needed.
The spire at the top of the world was one of the toughest fights in the AP. Because of the environment factors, the opponent and my parties composition it was brutal, until the bady rolled a 1 vs a sound burst, the villain fell to the floor and died in a round.
Dead mans Mound
I turned this into a holding action against swarms of undead while NPCs and some party members did an occult ritual taught to them by the ghost. Once activated it sent pulses of positive energy out for 2-3 miles killing the undead hord
Book 4
The roll playing in the city was great. At this time, I split the caravan most of them went back to the west. Amekio (obviously) and Koya stayed. The prince had fixated on Shalelu. So she and the rest of the caravan went in a different direction to Amekio as a diversion (I seriously wanted to reduce the number of NPCs at this point)
As has been discussed many times the big dungeon was a slog.
Book 5
This book had great potential. But lost its way in the execution. None of it was bad, it was just average. Some of the opponents were well designed
The oni attack at the end was very underwhelming
Book 6
The well of demons was a slog. There are some well designed encounters in there but what a slog.
The city again suffered in the execution. A sand box with situations loosening the bonds between the big bad four would have been great. What we got was OK , just not great.
The palace not being warded against teleportation seriously speed up the end.
The final fight was over quickly. The Eidolon charged the airwalking Oracle. The Summoner has “see invisibly” up and glitterdust’ed the Ninja which seriously nerfed him. The party was optimised for close combat JR and the Oni died quickly
So in summary I think this was a wasted opportunity. An oriental AP would have been great. In face we got half of one. Including 2 dungeons which could have been anywhere.
The Caravan rules were under developed, this was not a serios problem except in Book 3 which required serious work from the GM. I did enjoy running this and am about to start Iron Gods
You were playing this for 13 years?
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We played a little over 12 hours a month (weekly three-hour sessions) and it took me less than two years, even with extra content (Under Frozen Stars, Ruby Phoenix Tournament, etc).
I guess my style of GMing is just ruthlessly efficient...
My Jade Regent campaign took 2 years of weekly 3-hour game sessions.
We finished the Rise of the Runelords adventure path in summer 2012. I decided to continue the campaign to 20th level by adding the Witchwar Legacy module and some homebrew adventures, but to give myself time to prepare and to have fun with the new Advanced Race Guide book, I ran The Brinewall Legacy as a single module during fall 2012. After we finished the extended Rise of the Runelords campaign in summer 2013, some of the players from The Brinewall Legacy wanted to return to the Jade Regent adventure path, so we did in September 2013. We ended in March 2015. I chronicled those last 5 modules at Amaya of Westcrown.
I had added the Ruby Phoenix Tournament module. I had considered adding Under Frozen Stars but never purchased it.
In contrast, these days I run 7-player campaigns rather than 5-player campaigns, though they are still 3 hours weekly. The larger groups in combat and the extra quests I add to generate more experience points extend the campaigns to 3 years.