Council of Thieves AP (Spoilers)

In a few weeks when Ironwolf finishes running out current Kingmaker AP we are going to switch DMs to me and I'm going to run Council of Thieves for them. I'm excited to get back to running something completely based in one city. I've run games in Thieves World city of Sanctuary with great success over a decade ago and there are just certain aspects of the city campaign that are tough to do in a normal Pathfinder campaign.

The first thing I'm doing is preparing a different feel for each district of the city. I'm going to over emphasize the differences so that travel between the different sections will seem a little more like traveling to a new place. I'm also going to create sub communities in different areas especially for the non human races. I also hope to show the different ways the races react to curse of the shadow creatures and deal with the many issues of Westcrown.

I have many goals on how I want to shape the city, the people, and the campaign. I really want a living environment and I hope that I'll be able to capture that in a city that is not as well defined as what I'm used to. The old Thieves World box set did a great job of describing the city in additional to all the stories and novels written about it. So, I had a lot more material to work with. To help aid me I've got the seven citybooks flying Buffalo produced in the 80's and 90's to help flesh out the many different places.

To the AP itself. What has worked for others and what hasn't? What changes would you make and how do you think it can be improved? Any pitfalls or parts of the AP that just need to be gutted? And sections of awesomeness that really need to be foreshadowed and expanded on to their full glory?

I haven't changed the feel of the city, but I have had several sidetrack adventures at the beginning of the story. For anyone not used to the place, or to Golarion as such, it is hard to get in the mood (said the players) so we've inserted a few fairly basic city incidents (Hellknights trying to arrest a friend of the PCs, a thief almost killing one of them etc) to get them to know the city and its people. I also had them meet the horse dealer uncle from the 1st part of the adventure beforehand when they needed to buy a pack animal.

The societies I flashed out a bit were the tieflings and the half-elves. We had PCs from both races in the group so it made sense. Other than that, I did a 2 session build up towards the real adventure start, as none of the PCs would just have followed some woman to a hideout without knowing some background info. In these 2 sessions, they found themselves in a part of the city they didn't know thanks to a small riot they wanted to avoid and learned of the good side of Westcrown (how life could be without so much surpression) and in the end rescued a Hellknight from a mob of criminals claiming to be freedom fighters. The latter wasn't planned but it sure added to the atmosphere.

Also, if you can, run short 1-1s with each PC before they meet each other to establish their connection to the city.

This post will contain spoilers, you have been warned.

I"m currently part of the way through book 5, so here's stuff I've noticed. Alot may have to do with my poor DMing skills so take it all with a grain of salt.

Book 1
The opening and the sewer chase is a little weak. You have to make sure your players get/like the buy in or write a new one. And the sewer chase needs cleaning up and improving.
My players really enjoyed the ambush.
The dungeon is alright, though you may need to make some of the rooms larger if you have a large group.

Book 2
My players really enjoyed the play. I would definitely recommend actually doing the play with the full script, it really adds a lot. The party/feast should probably be played up, make it seem interesting/cool.
The Dungeon is cool, though some of the rooms are rather confusingly laid out, and some of ways to advance/interact with the rooms isn't exactly clear so you may want to forshadow that or just straight up modify it.

Book 3
I really enjoyed this book. It might break down if your players don't like investigating things. I might add additional enemy types to the monk group (can't remember it's name). Delvehaven is cool, I'd play up the creepy atmosphere to really make it special.

Book 4
The only problem I had with this book is that my players kept asking why they were there, but if your players are being "heroic" that shouldn't be a problem.

Book 5
Seems weak, if you have NPCs that the PCs have made friends with use them instead of Jarvis and his family. I'd make an effort to change up some of the enemies, they can get rather repetative.

Book 6 (haven't run yet).
Probably be a good idea to try to bring some of the locales in it up before this book if you can. And there may be some issues with the players needing to work with the HellKnights after the actions of book 1, so something may need to be done with that. Having introduced some of the noble families and made them more important may also be useful.

The biggest problem of the campaign as a whole is that it seems like it's about trying to get rid of the shadow beasts, so my players have focused on that, and are now questioning why dealing with the council of theives is worth doing, so drawing a connection between the two earlier would be helpful.

Crothian,

As you probably know, we have extensively reviewed and dissected the Council of Thieves AP on the podcast in episodes 6, 10, 14 and 17 of Chronicels covering the first five volumes of the Adventure Path. We'll get to epi 6 in a few months time, too

I believe the ability to listen to all of those episodes will prove invaluable to you in considering where your Council of Thieves AP is going to go and how to get there. I would point out our suggestions for fixing the opening encounter, which can go terrribly wrong with a lot of players.

In terms of renovation, some major reworking needs to be done in the first volume, particularly for all of the reasons set out in our review. It's the weakest link in the AP, both in its beginning and in its conclusion. (The middle is pretty good though.)

In terms of major contributions you should be thinking about now, I would spend the most time on the Children of Westcrown and making them "real". Prior GMs have done a fair bit of work in fleshing out those characters (about which essentially ZERO info is provided). Use your Goggle-Fu to find those community authored documents online and use them to build upon in a way that seems best to you.

In terms of the City Districts Sanctuay et al ... The biggest problem with Council of Thieves AP ultimately, is that it is a bait and switch AP. The actual city based thieving elements of the campaign are almost entirely negligible and MIA. "Shadows of Westcrown" would have been a more appropriate name. The AP never lives up to the preconceptions its title engenders in both the GM and players. I seriously think that title is the single biggest mistake Paizo made with that AP. It sounds petty, but I nevertheless believe it to be true.

My point: you can find yourself spending an incredible emount of energy trying to re-fashion CoT into what your preconceptions were expecting. CoT will never fulfill those expectations as the square peg won't fit in that round hole. If you try and make it fit into a shadowy Sanctuary styled grim an gritty urban campaign where Hanse Shadowspawn would feel at home, - you'll spend a crap load of time doing it and you'll never be happy with the result. That's because CoT, as written, just isn't about that. Instead, listen to the podcast episodes, re-read the AP and get comfortable on what the AP, as written, is really about and work on improving the AP that Paizo actually wrote -- instead of spending a CRAP LOAD of time on trying to radically re-make CoT into something its atual title suggests but which the AP itself never really delivers on.

I would play up the terror that goes with being outside in Westcrown at night though. That's something that the entire AP conveniently shunts aside when it wants to, as if it the problem was a wizards' familiar that is only sometimes remembered. I'd make the night terrors on the streets of Westcrown more real and pervasive, were I you. That is something that AP actually does deliver on -- so you should be more consistent about how that aspect of the AP is presented. Yes, even when it is inconvenient to do so.

Oh -- make sure to get Blood of Fiends when it is released in April. It is an AWESOME book for use with CoT and is probably the finest Players Companion Paizo has ever released. Big thumbs up for Blood of Fiends.

BobROE said:

Book 1
The opening and the sewer chase is a little weak. You have to make sure your players get/like the buy in or write a new one. And the sewer chase needs cleaning up and improving.

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Not your DMing skills. We skipped the chase with one group for the most part and made it comical for the other, it is just a filler that's not needed unless your players are into that sort of thing

Lwaxy said:

Not your DMing skills.

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I appreciate that, but this is the first really long form campaign I've run, and it's exposed alot of flaws in my DMing.

I'm not changing the feel of the city or turning it into a Thieves World feel. I'm just giving it more of a feel then what they present. I also want to add more places like shops and taverns for the PCs to have access to.

The sewer chase scene I'm thinking of changing to a horse back carriage chase through the tight city streets.

Crothian said:

The sewer chase scene I'm thinking of changing to a horse back carriage chase through the tight city streets.

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Ooo, neat.

I've been running CoT for a while now (just started on chapter 5 a few weeks ago). I've been working in sub-plots since, as a stationary campaign, you have plenty of opportunities to do so. The PCs all inhabit a neighborhood (stolen from a Dragon magazine neighborhood for Greyhawk published during Age of Worms) with one running a business, two others working for businesses, and the 4th having fallen in with Yakopulio (his pimp) to become a cosplay halfling barbarian/ranger gigolo. I did not see that one coming...

Two of the PCs have also become involved in the Bellflower Network, taken from the Factions Guide. They're now part of an "underground railroad" for halfling slaves to ship out to Andoren.

Since the party is 3/4 small, I've played up the Whitechin subplot idea from chapter 1 as a means of funneling size-appropriate gear to the PCs. Since Whitechin himself remains at large, it's about time to inject him again with some new gear upgrades.

The PCs really enjoyed playing out The Seven Trials of Larazod, complete with script. They have also started clearing out the junk from Delvehaven, using it as a retreat to turtle-up when they had some crafting to do and they were a bit concerned about a succubus they met but didn't fight.

I've replaced Jarvis Alebrecht with a previous contact of theirs from another chapter to help ground them in names they know.

With a couple weeks or so of Kingmaker left tonight I'm giving out some homework for the CoT campaign. Each player is going to get a print copy of the players guide and more importantly I'm loaning out my copy of Pitch Black to the players that have not seen it so they can better understand what darkness means in Westcrown.

Crothian said:

I'm not changing the feel of the city or turning it into a Thieves World feel. I'm just giving it more of a feel then what they present. I also want to add more places like shops and taverns for the PCs to have access to.

The sewer chase scene I'm thinking of changing to a horse back carriage chase through the tight city streets.

Click to expand...

Spoilers Below