Pathfinder 1E Prepping for Pathfinder: Council of Thieves (spoilers!)

[sheadunne]

Of the APs our group has played/ran we have found Council of Thieves the least satisfying. I believe it is also the only one to end before level 17 (12 or 13th level I believe). We're just about wrapped it up now and can't wait for it to be finished

Shackled City
Age of Worms
Savage Tide
Council of Thieves
Kingmaker

 

[Crothian]

It's been satisfying and fun for us but as a DM I make sure the game is that way so I add things, edit things ,and fix the problems in the AP. I feel a DM needs to have that in his mind when ever we run a published adventure. I'd not want to run something as long as an AP and not be having fun and enjoyment for all with it.

 

[MerricB]

We concluded Mother of Flies on the weekend; another two-session adventure in this AP from Paizo. Dave missed this session, so we had a Rogue, Cleric, Sorcerer and Ranger (archer) playing.

The group continued down the 5 foot corridors in the thieves’ den to a room I completely misunderstood from the map (C16). There are actually stairs up to the upper level of the house there, but it looked a lot more like a split-level room to me. So, we played it as such and the group had to find the secret way to the upper level. (The maps are pretty in this AP, but not always functional). In any case, the room had four dark creepers and a dark stalker. As it was only 15’ wide, it also wasn’t particularly easy for sneak attacks to me made – especially as only Michael’s rogue made his way into the chamber and he could use Uncanny Dodge to avoid being flanked. Greg used his bow, and the Morrowfall dispelled the attempts the dark folk had to make the chamber dark.

More empty chambers – and a pit trap – beckoned, but the party were now alert to the traps in the building and easily avoided them. Another room of thieves was basically handwaved away: Greg was killing two a round with his Deadly Aim, and they couldn’t flank Michael. Neither Tim nor Lee were actually getting actions before all the thieves were dead. Level 4 rogues? Not so much a threat for level 10 characters.

The group ran into a shadow rat swarm (CR 4, dead in one round) and found the old undead guildmaster (CR 8, dead in two rounds). Greg has become familiar enough with Pathfinder that his ranger/fighter is doing a lot of damage to creatures that don’t have damage reduction: 1d8+11 with each of up to four shots (rapid shot + many shot). And against undead? 1d8+15, due to ranger bonuses. This is a big change from the early version of his archer who was hopeless against all DR 5 monsters. It did mean death for a lot of 29 hp rogues, though.

With the group having explored the bottom level, they found the secret path to the upper level, and Michael was turned invisible and used his incredible ability to sneak to ambush the two rogues on the upper level. With surprise he killed one, and then won initiative and killed the other before he could react. It was a lovely moment of supreme competence from Michael’s character.

More rogues waited in a side chamber, but they were surprised and slaughtered. A group of dark ones likewise didn’t survive the party attacking. I had more hopes for the Council of Thieves’ wizard, Sandor the Strange, but Lee cast invisibility purge, and that was pretty much that. Lee’s spell selection has been exemplary this adventure; he doesn’t get to attack much, but he is very good at overcoming the threats.

From there, it was down into the depths (the entrance was on the upper level and bypassed the ground level altogether) and an underground cavern with a lake. I felt like I was playing the original version of Betrayal at House on the Hill. Two chuuls attempted to kill the party, and proved one of the bigger threats of the adventure, at least until Lee used freedom of movement to make sure Michael and Greg could attack without being grabbed. The chuuls did quite a bit of damage, but not enough to take anyone down.

The shadow mastiffs on the dock gave themselves away by baying and alerting the vampires deeper in the cellar, and paid the price as Tim fireballed them from the safety of the water.

The group then successfully avoided most of the threats on this level, instead moving directly to engage Silana, a vampire sorcerer. She also didn’t survive long (Greg has silver arrows) and her fleeing gaseous form alerted them to the location of the secret door to the greater lair below. It took a few rounds, but Tim’s sorcerer was able to trick the door into letting them through.

This led to a dry well, and an encounter against a Calikang (a six-armed giant), who guarded a great host of treasure. This encounter lasted a massive five rounds, and ended up with Lee engaging the Calikang in melee as Michael used spring attack and Greg arched it from range. The treasure was ignored as the group unerringly made their way to the final encounter against Ilnerik, once of the Pathfinder Society, now a vampire – and the lord of the shadowbeasts. I thought this battle would be an anticlimax – I was quite wrong about that!

Mind you, the major reason it wasn’t an anticlimax was because Greg used the Morrowfall against Ilnerik in the first round of the battle which blinded Greg and left Ilnerik (thanks to his evasion and high Reflex save) quite unharmed. Lee took the Morrowfall from Greg and – apart from using Death Ward and Restoration to help the group – fired a lot of sunbeams at Ilnerik that did absolutely nothing. Ilnerik needed a 1 to fail those Reflex saving throws!

Ilnerik, meanwhile, cast haste on himself and engaged (mostly) Michael and Tim. Lee eventually moved to flank with Michael and the sneak attack damage kicked in – which was really needed. Greg, blinded, just used his wand of cure light wounds to help Michael. Greg’s blindness probably prolonged the combat three rounds – I can’t see that Ilnerik would have survived long under Greg’s withering bow attacks. (Nor would have Ilnerik done well against Dave’s fighter who has specialised in trip attacks – just as well Dave wasn’t here!) Once Michael could finally sneak attack, the combat didn’t last much longer.

And, with that, the penultimate adventure of the Council of Thieves adventure path was over. This particular adventure was terribly underwhelming: there were way too many boring combats, the exploration of the thieves’ guild was mostly dull, and lacked interesting tricks and traps. The group picked up a lot of treasure, rescued some NPCs and discovered a copy of the contract they needed to separate the Drovenge siblings in the final act, not to mention finally getting rid of the shadow beasts that had been plaguing the city, but I really would have liked it to be a more interesting journey there.

 

[BobROE]

And, with that, the penultimate adventure of the Council of Thieves adventure path was over. This particular adventure was terribly underwhelming: there were way too many boring combats, the exploration of the thieves’ guild was mostly dull, and lacked interesting tricks and traps. The group picked up a lot of treasure, rescued some NPCs and discovered a copy of the contract they needed to separate the Drovenge siblings in the final act, not to mention finally getting rid of the shadow beasts that had been plaguing the city, but I really would have liked it to be a more interesting journey there.

My party is just in the process of getting through this section (level 2 clear, working their way through level 1).

And while a lot of the fights are rather... grindy... for enough of the fights my players do something cool to make it entertaining/memorable for them.

 

[billd91]

More empty chambers – and a pit trap – beckoned, but the party were now alert to the traps in the building and easily avoided them. Another room of thieves was basically handwaved away: Greg was killing two a round with his Deadly Aim, and they couldn’t flank Michael. Neither Tim nor Lee were actually getting actions before all the thieves were dead. Level 4 rogues? Not so much a threat for level 10 characters.

I believe that's partly the point. This is becoming a point of distinction for Paizo APs. I first noticed it in the Shackled City Campaign. In areas where you can expect there to be a substantial number of mundanes/normals, Paizo offers up a situation in which the players get direct feedback on just how far they have advanced. They get a set of encounters that would have been tough for them several levels ago and get to utterly mow through them.

As a DM, I think this is a nice contrast with encounter that are always set up to push the PCs to the limit or consume a regular 20% of their resources.

 

[Crothian]

Interesting is understating it.

Of course, you can blow up the mayor's house any time you like to distract them. It's best to do it just as they do something they know they shouldn't, just to give them the "did we do that?" moment!

Cheers!

They went ahead with the plan to rob House Drovenge. This worked out very well. One PC specifically targeted and gained a relationship with the young female Drovenge who of course will turn out to be one of the big bads for the campaign. Sine she and her brother are plotting to over throw the Council of Thieves I had her of course hating the her parents and grandfather. I made the ruler of the house older for a reason you'll see below.

She helps by telling them about something very valuable her grandfather just bought and he liquidated some items from the house to do so like art and jewelry. This really had the PCs curious for what kind of item would be so important to him that he needed to raise fast cash and try to do so without people noticing.

They plotted the robbery and planned well. They did it on a big holiday so most people would be out of the house and then with their great skills (each character in the game is a skills based class) They sneaked in, disabled traps, and used all the dispel magic scrolls they had gathered to break into the safe. Inside they found the famed sun orchid elixir.

I wasn't planning this from the beginning but I think it helps the campaign. Drovenge was able to get the Elixir a little of a year earlier (so about a month or two before we started the campaign) and this is what set things into motion. His plan was to take over the city, become mayor and then take the Elixir and be in power for many decades.

The PCs still it and once they figure out what they have they know it is a big victory for them. To cover their tracks they ended up framing the halfling Dealer so he got arrested and eventually died in custody.

Near the end of the session I had the mayor's house explode and then we will deal with that this session. While they are busy defeating the Pit Fiend there will be plenty of things going on in the city as the power play of the brother and sister is going into motion.

 

[MerricB]

As the characters returned from defeating Ilnerik, the Council of Thieves (or, more correctly, the siblings Ecarrdian and Chammady) set their plan into motion for taking over the city. I'm still not sure what the plan is, but it involves a lot of smaller things that the PCs can stop.

Before going any further, I'm going to demonstrate the biggest problem this adventure has: your standard 'tough guy' in the Council of Thieves, the Council Captain, is a Rogue 8/Assassin 3 with a shortsword attack of +11/+6 and a shortbow attack of +14/+9. Very rarely were they encountered in an area that allowed them to use their shortbows, and so the +11/+6 was trying to hit the PCs with an AC of about 30. (Of course, even with ranged attacks they'd have to deal with cover bonuses to AC most of the time... so scarcely better).

The standard attack of a CR 10 monster is about +20.

The Nightmare Begins
The first indication the characters had of something being wrong were the fires. Shortly thereafter, they were attacked by a pride of Hellcats, so they knew something was wrong. Alas, for the Hellcats, Greg's archer ignored anything less than full concealment (they had partial) and Dave just ran in and happily tripped them. A couple of rounds later they were all slain, and the group returned to the Rebel Alliance Safehouse to discover what was going wrong.

Janiven and Arael were up to date with the news - of course; it's their primary function in the AP - and it seemed that Ecarrdian had set in motion his final game plan. Oh, and the ruling house of Cheliax had finally started paying attention to the chaos in Westcrown and were sending in General Vorune to sort things out. If the PCs could settle things down first, he probably wouldn't be so harsh on everyone.

Getting the Support of the Nobles
The Rebel Alliance leaders suggested that if the players could gain the support of some prominent Noble houses, that might help them convince General Vorune that Westcrown could actually govern itself. Luckily, two of the noble houses - living in the same building! - were ripe for the plucking. At least Eccardian thought so: that explained the doppleganger terrorising one family, and the Council Thieves terrorizing the other.

Actually, it didn't: the doppleganger has nothing to do with Eccardian. It's like the manor they live in is cursed or something! Not to worry - the players were on their way!

The manor is split in two (some hasty brickwork, one feels) so that one of the noble houses can rent one side out to the other family. The party entered using the sewers, and in a very lucky coincidence, discovered the body of Delilee Ciucci, the daughter of the Ciucci family above, who'd been murdered and replaced by the doppleganger. Thus, when they bluffed their way past the butler upstairs and saw "Delilee", it was fairly simple for them to expose her for the fraud she was, and gain the trust of the Ciucci patriarch.

Then it was on to the other household, where the group saw through the fake Council of Thieves guards fairly easily, then forced a confrontation. One Council Captains (see above) and four CR 3 thieves and 12 CR 1 cutpurses were not a threat. "Hit and run" tactics require the thieves to be able to hit, and that wasn't going to happen.

With the thieves killed, the group gained the support of the Mhartis family as well.

And now, a Horned Devil!
For more amusement, I rolled upon the random encounters in the bestiary for this instalment and generated a Horned Devil. It's been a long time since I was running 3.5E, and it didn't immediately click that this could be a problem for my party. CR16 isn't too tough, is it?

Well, this was the most dangerous fight we had in the last two adventures. The players were eventually successful - helped along by the evasion ability of Michael, who could avoid the fireballs the Devil threw at them. Tim already had his fire resistance up, so eventually the Devil just went toe-to-toe with Dave.

The Hellknights
"After the PCs have successfully made 5 Fame checks for whatever reason, they are contacted by a messenger and informed that Paralictor Chard wishes to speak to them at Taranik House immediately."

I'd like to point out this paragraph from The Twice-Damned Prince because it shows some of the dreadful editing of the adventure. Guess how many Fame checks are made in this adventure. Yes, that's right: five (not counting those in this section), some of them are optional, and one of them should come towards the climax of the adventure. This encounter never triggers as written.

Instead, the group decided (probably with some prodding from Janiven) to find out why the Hellknights were being so quiet. It probably had something to do with the false accusations of murdering nobles and the schism within their ranks; the Paralictor was actually quite forthcoming, as (as part of his crisis of faith) he thought the players would probably help restore order to the city.

A little later, the Hellknights would come under siege from their own Council of Thieves, and the PCs were called in to help. The biggest threat were the three Council Captains - one of whom actually managed to shoot Dave with a human-slaying arrow. (Dave was the one human in the group). Unfortunately for the Captains, Dave also had a good Fortitude save, and that was it for the attempt to destroy the Hellknights.

The Blacknapes
Kidnappers were terrorising the folk of the poorer quarters! Could the group save them? Well, considering that the kidnappers were fighter 4/rogue 2 with AC 18, hp 53 and unarmed strike +9 (1d3+5), the answer was "yes!" Michael's thief hung around the area enough to trail them back to their base, and the result from there was predictable.

The Nobles Pitch In
The Council, getting worried with the heroes' progress, tried to lure them into a trap. They forged a note from a noble and sent it to the safe house. This led to the group entering an inn frequented by nobles and... noticing the ambush laid for them because the group has really good Perception checks. Poor Council Captains - not only were they attacked by the heroes, but the nobles joined in as well. Hilarious.

The Undead Rise
Although Ilnerik had been destroyed, the Drovenges still held a few undead creatures amongst their allies, and some of them (indeed, the animated "Bastards of Erebus" from the first adventure) had kidnapped and killed a number of people - including the father of Calseinica, the young actress from "The Sixfold Trial". She came to the heroes desperate for them to do something about it. They were easily able to find the lair of the Bastards - now mohrgs, and attacked.

It was a somewhat tricky challenge, but fireballs, channel positive energy and Dave's incredible attacking ability counted in the party's favour.

However, they weren't the only undead around! The devourer Irimeian was the major threat in this part of the city, and the group next went to confront her. This looked more dangerous than it ended up being, mainly because Greg and Dave can do an insane amount of damage - Irimeian's 133 hit points weren't that much of a barrier to their determined attacks.

The last major undead creature they were to fight was a ghost: the ghost of a Hellknight heretic. The group actually went to her lair to find the living Hellknight on the request of the Paralictor, but instead they discovered that she'd killed herself and become a ghost. Funnily enough, for most of the combat that ensued they didn't realise she was a ghost! She did get to dominate Dave though, which was fun. Until he broke free of her control and slaughtered her. Which was after the first command to attack Lee.

That was all we had time for this session; I rather enjoyed it (despite the horribleness of the Council Thieves), and only one session was left in the campaign: as the group finally ended the threat posed by Ecarrdian Drovenge!

 

[Crothian]

We are going to finish book 4 this week. The players have also been planning on putting a Mayor into power s we might skip the video game point accumulation of book 6 and just role play it out. I've identified a number of influential people (22 NPCs) around Westcrown so if the PCs do choose to do this we can have them playing politics and try to influence things their way. Failing that or if they get bored there book 5 is ready to start.

 

[MerricB]

We are going to finish book 4 this week. The players have also been planning on putting a Mayor into power s we might skip the video game point accumulation of book 6 and just role play it out. I've identified a number of influential people (22 NPCs) around Westcrown so if the PCs do choose to do this we can have them playing politics and try to influence things their way. Failing that or if they get bored there book 5 is ready to start.

It'd probably be better than what actually *is* in books 5 & 6.

From a recent blog entry I've written:

...the most disappointing thing came from a lot of the high-level threats the party had to face. In particular, the Council Captains; the elite 11th level NPCs that the BBEG had working for him. There are a *lot* of them in the final adventure, and it's worth pointing them out because it really shows the drawbacks of the 3E/PF system of NPC/Monster creation. Basically, PF says "if you follow all these steps, the final numbers will end up as a CR X encounter." Compared to 4E saying, "these are the numbers for a CR X encounter. Go and customise as you like."

And here's the thing: 3E got it wrong, and PF just continues the problem.

Here are the important stats for the Council Captain:

Human Rogue 8/Assassin 3 - CR 10
AC 19, hp 79, F+5, R+13, W+3
Melee: +11/+6 (1d6+3)
Ranged: +14/+9 (1d6+3)
SA: Sneak Attack +6d6 +6 bleed
Ft: Deadly Aim, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Vital Strike

and here are the stats that the Pathfinder monster manual says should be about where a CR 10 monster should be:

AC 24, HP 130. Attack +18, Damage 33-45 per round, Ref +13, F+9, W+9

Notice quite a bit of a gap there? Yeah, there is. The Ranged attack is also a bit of a problem, as it's very, very likely in this series for there to be cover, making it 4 lower.

If you made up the stats of the Council Captain and then assigned a CR, the actual value you'd get based on the average stats would be about CR 6. No wonder the 12th level party had no problem with them.

 

[MerricB]

After 14 four-hour sessions of Council of Thieves, we've reached the end of the adventure path! The players have gone from being rebels to being... well, let's not get ahead of ourselves, should we?

When we left our brave gang, they'd just finished dealing with most of the undead aiding the Council of Thieves. There was just one left, though they didn't know it at the time. However, he would find them...

The Celestial Toymaker
Reports came in of a mad dwarf toymaker who had used his automatons to close off some streets; the automatons would attack passers by and walk off with perfectly ordinary wheelbarrows to build a barricade.

Interestingly, the group didn't deal with this problem with fighting: they managed to convince Rolan the Mad Toymaker that he definitely had the solution, and they'd take the automatons to help fight the upsurge of crime.

Oh, boy.

The Return of the Vampire with One Shoe
Since we last saw the snobbish and unlikeable actor, Thesing, he'd had something of a life-change. By which I mean he'd been found by Ilnerik and turned into a vampire. And, being Thesing, he blamed one group of people for his changed situation: my players. So, when they were heading down a street in the evening after dealing with the Toymaker, he ambushed them. Him and his three vampire spawn.

At least, Thesing *tried* to ambush them, but the party has a high enough Perception that they noticed him beforehand. He attacked, but the high AC of the party defeated him (another creature whose attack bonus is somewhat under what is needed). So, he fled - badly wounded - as his spawn were destroyed. He returned to his lair to lick his wounds.

The automatons got their first (and only) use in combat in this encounter, and one proved exceptionally effective: scoring a critical hit with its first attack! Unfortunately, it happened to be against another automaton. They got placed in storage after that.

Thesing had made his escape! Unfortunately for Thesing, the group still had the shoes they stole from him during The Sixfold Trial. Using them as the focus of a Scrying spell, they tracked him to his lair during the height of the day, and staked him. Such was the life and death of Thesing Umbero Ulvauno - a loser all the way.

I rather enjoyed that - especially the unexpected resurgence of the 'shoe' joke from the earlier adventure. Yeah, Thesing wasn't much of a threat, but there were greater threats ahead, weren't there?

Janiven in Trouble
Just to stir things up, Janiven then got kidnapped by the Council of Thieves. More divination magic was called for - and following that, the group grabbed a barge and used that to travel down the canal to where Janiven was held, dubbing the barge "Home One".

There was an invisible imp on guard outside the warehouse where Janiven was held, but the group (once again) has high enough Perception checks to spot him in advance. At which point he was attacked by Dave, Tim and Greg. Dave did about 7 damage. Tim did about 20 damage with a lightning bolt. Greg? He crit twice (even with concealment miss chances) and did over 200 points of damage to the poor imp. Which had 19 hit points before it was attacked.

With such damage output, any combat against the tiefling holding Janiven would be an anticlimax, so the tiefling just surrendered. Wise choice. (Her stats are almost ok, except for having an attack bonus 5 points too low).

The Devil's in the Details
It was time for some harder fights, so the group now went up against two groups of devils causing problems in the city: some Hellcat Cavalry, and a group of Erinyes.

The Hellcats were scary: the group managed to sneak up on them, and Michael sneak attacked one to kill it, but after that the Hellcats each attacked one of the PCs. Greg and Tim were grabbed by their attacks, which is not a good position for the archer and sorcerer to end up in.

Tim then demonstrated his new spell: Chain Lightning. Amazingly, he managed to ace the Concentration check to cast while grappled, and did an amazing amount of damage to the hellcat. Not quite enough to kill it, so he attacked it again the next round. His stoneskin spell was keeping the hellcat from significantly damaging him, and the resulting explosion certainly lit up the neighbourhood (and destroyed the remaining hellcats).

The Erinyes fight - against four of the devils - was made quite interesting by the True Seeing of those tormentors. Trying to sneak up invisibly? Yeah, doesn't work so well, Tim and Dave!

Unfortunately, the Erinyes are CR 8. You want a challenging encounter in Pathfinder? Having a disparity of four between the individual CR and the party's APL is not the way to go. They just don't have the hit points to withstand Tim's Chain Lightning and Greg's bow attacks.

The Sister Betrayed
It was now time to deal with Chammady and inform her that her soul was forfeit if her brother got what he wanted. How could the party track her down? Oh, by magic, of course!

(I was getting utterly sick of the 'you need to find them by magic' line by now. It doesn't get repeated all that much, but, although it does show that the adventure is written with Pathfinder's magic system in mind, I don't like there not being a non-magic way of finding this material out).

So the group reached where she was hiding, then fast-talked their way past her lover (very nicely done by Greg), and Greg went down alone - except for Michael, hiding in the shadows - to confront Chammady. Greg is playing a low-Charisma character, but role-plays a lot better than that. Thankfully, his Charisma will be better for his next character (a Paladin). In any case, he said *exactly* the right things to Chammady, and gave her the copy of the contract that doomed her soul to Hell. And rolled a 20 on his Diplomacy check. Sometimes things just come together.

Chammady insisted that she should be able to convince Ecarrdian to abandon her plan, and Greg was amenable to that. So, Chammady gave up the location of Ecarrdian, and the group then travelled to the final confrontation.

The Final Confrontation
Ecarrdian was attended by a high-level devil cleric of Mammon, an Earth Genie, and several Council Captains. Well, we've seen how dangerous the Council Captains were (not at all), and the Genie never got a chance to act before Greg skewered it with several arrows. (CR 7, hp 85 - yep, no chance).

Chammady did get to confront her brother, and Ecarrdian made his choice: to repudiate her and condemn her to hell. So, the final fight was on. His cleric companion, Melavengian, used Hold Person to successfully negate Dave, but Lee used Freedom of Movement in reply. Then Lee cast Align Weapon to make Greg's bow "good"... and Melavengian was cut down.

This was one of the few combats of the last couple of adventures where I thought the characters would be pressed, and they were - for two rounds. After Lee and Greg got together, however, and Dave attacked with his holy weapon, Ecarrdian could not stand long. He used Improved Feint to badly wound Michael, but was about to move into defensive/Combat Expertise mode when he was cut down.

The combat might have lasted three rounds. That's long for this campaign!

And Finally, General Vorune
The threat had been dealt with, and - of course - General Vorune of the Cheliax Empire arrived the next day to pick up the pieces. The group was summoned before him, and Greg (once again) gave an excellent summary of what they'd actually done to control the situation.

Then we got to the climax of the entire adventure path: What would General Vorune decide? What was the fate of Westcrown?

It came down to a die-roll. With modifiers based on how the characters had done through the entire adventure path and the final adventure in particular. The group rolled the d20 - getting a 19 - and I looked up the result in the book...

Martial Law: The citizens of Westcrown do not see the PCs as heroes, but neither do they blame them. They certainly don’t look to the PCs as leaders, and see no true option among their own. General Vourne institutes martial law and leaves a significant number of his troops stationed in Westcrown to rule. Over the years, Westcrown recovers from the events in Council of Thieves but continues to atrophy and diminish. In time, this once-proud city will become little more than a glorified fortification used by the House of Thrune as a port for their navy. Westcrown’s legacy of art and culture will be gone forever.

Yeah. To hell with that.

I took the best option - the heroes become the new rulers of Westcrown, and the House of Thrune basically takes a hands-off approach to the city. The group hadn't done *everything* correctly, but I dislike Paizo's method of "point accumulation" throughout the adventures intensely. Especially as the were some point accumulation options that relied on the DM adding more stuff than what was in the adventure.

EDIT: As it turns out, I probably miscalculated the total. This wasn't very surprising, as the adventure is really, really poor at presenting the awards in a manner that makes them easy to find, and keeping track of a running total of points over the weeks and months of the campaign is tricky, especially when they are so erratically awarded.

The Final End
So, that was the end of our play through the Council of Thieves adventure path. It didn't impress my players that much, and it impressed me even less. If I can, I'll get some reactions from my players after they've had time to think about the series.

Next week, we start on the best-received adventure path of them all: Kingmaker. Wish us luck - we'll need it!