Savage Tide - How can I abbreviate "There Is No Honor"?

I have a very fluid group of players in my Xen'drik campaign that started the Savage Tide a couple of sessions ago. Their PCs are between the beginning of 3rd level and the beginning of 4th level, and I want to get them on XP par for the rest of the adventure path (instead of two to three levels ahead). I've been scaling There Is No Honor up until now, but I don't want to have to keep doing that for much longer. So I'd like to find a way to abbreviate Part Five of the first adventure. Final note: Sasserine is Stormreach.

They just finished the smugglers' tunnels and their next lead is the Taxidermist's Guildhall. How can I shorten the final part to get them onto the next installment of the series quicker? What are the essential things that absolutely need to remain?
-blarg

ps - We're playing in a few hours. Gleep! Any help would be greatly appreciated.

SPOILERS follow, obviously.

[sblock]It's a pity you got as far as you did before asking, really. My own suggestion would have been to skip Parrot Island entirely, and have their enquiries after Vanthus lead them directly to the Lotus Dragons.

At this point, it's difficult to cut things down without being too obvious - the Lotus Dragons need the numbers to be a realistic threat to the city.

My suggestion would be, first, to trim out all the natural sea caves, including the Ixits, the Rhagodessas and the sea urchins, which will chop out a fair amount of XP straight away. After that, halve the total number of 'mook' thieves in the guild, eliminating the random patrols and trimming the training room down to a cakewalk. Also eliminate either the guard-rhagodessa or the bugbear zombie, but not both, as Rowyn should have some protection. For the final encounter, leave out Gut Tugger or reduce him in power and CR.

When the PCs find Vanthus's notes, they should describe him taking with a large number of the Lotus Dragons to assist in his betrayal of the smugglers. Then, when you run The Bullywug Gambit, periodically describe some of the savage pirates as bearing Lotus Dragon tattoos on their deformed flesh.[/sblock]

Kill 'em all in the next encounter? It'll abbreviate the adventure markedly, I wager.

Otherwise, pay attention to MarkB. You might want to have a lot of encounters surrendering to the party as they realise they're overwhelmed.

Cheers!

Awesome, that's good stuff. Thanks guys!
-blarg

It's ok, really. The group I'm in was about at that level at the point you've described. Then, we realized that the second installment, The Bullywug Gambit, is *really* tough for level 3 characters. Our DM says he feels lucky he let us get a little ahead in XP before there, or there'd've been quite a TPK mess in one part.

-TRRW

Spoilers! You no read!

If I really wanted to abbreviate the Lotus Dragon Guildhall, it'd go something like this:

Party shows up at the Taxidermist's shop. While questioning what's his face, a thug noisily enters from the trapdoor at the back and blustering, "The Lady Lotus says she needs to talk to you down below before she-" Shuts up when he sees the party talking to what's his face. Awkward pause... Taxidermist turns invisible and scrams out the back, thug runs back to the trapdoor and down into the Guildhall muttering, "Oh, crap!"

Players are like dogs, something runs from them and they feel a compulsion to chase it.

When the PCs get below in the Guildhall instead of engaging them in a fight, have multiple thugs flee in different directions. Have Rowyn show up a moment later saying, "What the bloody has gotten into-" gulp, sees the PCs, mutters, "Damn that Vanthus!" and runs to her room leading the PCs on a merry chase through all of the relevant areas (map room with note about the PCs), bugbear zombie, and finally a confrontation with Rowyn and Gut Tugger in her room where she almost immediately quaffs her potion of gaseous form and splits. If you want to have the rahgodessa still, it would make a great diversion there in her chambers while Rowyn makes good on her escape. Or possibly as a guardian of the treasury room instead of the trap.

Anyway, there's my suggestions. That's a quick way of getting through the Guildhall and leading the PCs to all of the important stuff. A few thugs might show up afterward as token resistance, but basically the PCs showing up means "the gig is up."

MarkB, your suggestion worked wonderfully. They got through the guildhall in just under 5 hours. Thank you!
-blarg

blargney the second said:

MarkB, your suggestion worked wonderfully. They got through the guildhall in just under 5 hours. Thank you!
-blarg

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Happy to help - I'm glad it went well.

TheRedRobedWizard is correct, though - there are some tough challenges in Bullywug Gambit, and while your party should be fine at 3rd level, I don't think being 4th level would have made it in any way underwhelming for them.

MarkB said:

Happy to help - I'm glad it went well.

TheRedRobedWizard is correct, though - there are some tough challenges in Bullywug Gambit, and while your party should be fine at 3rd level, I don't think being 4th level would have made it in any way underwhelming for them.

Click to expand...

Correct. In fact, playing through There Is No Honor actaully puts you well into 3rd level, so that it's not unlikely that characters will hit 4th before they're done with the first part of that adventure. One of the reasons the encounters in "Bullywug" are skewed a little tough.

Well, since the original poster got his answer already (and it was what he was looking for), I won't feel too bad posting my own admittedly non-helpful answer.

Q: How can I abbreviate "There Is No Honor?"

A: "T. I. N. H."

Johnathan