D&D 5E Savage Tide Adventure Path

[solomanii]

Things I learned: Getting to level 20 just isn't realistic for most groups, and at the higher levels, this one turns into a lot of fights, albeit interesting ones, and less role play. You need to have a stop point in mind, or consider chopping down everything past Farpoint (9th level and on), and shrinking it to level 12-15.

This is interesting. My party insists I go from 1 to 20 and like to spend time at level 20 so all my 5e and 3e campaigns have gone from 1 to 20+. I am still a few months away from starting this campaign - assuming my PCs pick it - but since we would go from 1 to 20 will update this thread as we go. Great info here.

My wife plays in my games - thinking out loud - I am sure she would be happy to "collude" with me to play Lavina. Would you think this would work?

 

[humble minion]

This is interesting. My party insists I go from 1 to 20 and like to spend time at level 20 so all my 5e and 3e campaigns have gone from 1 to 20+. I am still a few months away from starting this campaign - assuming my PCs pick it - but since we would go from 1 to 20 will update this thread as we go. Great info here.

My wife plays in my games - thinking out loud - I am sure she would be happy to "collude" with me to play Lavina. Would you think this would work?

This campaign thoroughly can go to level 20, but how it plays depends on your group's style. If played purely as written, the 2nd and 3rd last modules look pretty short and choppy - travel to planar location X, try to enlist the help of hugely pwoerful being Y via bargain or whatever, get in a token combat, leave and move on. If your players are the types to go off the adventure as written here (and they might be - the as-written adventures assume PCs who will be willing to make deals with horribly evil beings like Orcus, and the like, and i don't think that can be relied on for all groups) then basically they drive the plot as they traipse around the multiverse looking for allies against Demogorgon and you hang on by your fingernails and improvise.

Re Lavinia - have a read through the modules before you decide. She's assumed to be off-screen a lot, acting as a patron/adventure hook in Sasserine and a leader of Farshore afterwards, but there's not really a reason she HAS to be in the background. Except as above, her kidnapping is the trigger for Serpents of Scuttlecove and Into the Maw, after the Isle of Dread, but you could potentially come up with something else there. And Lavinia is the one who actually decides to go to the Isle of Dread in the first place, and hires the PCs to go along, you'd need to make sure this happened.

Also, as written (and Paiso confirmed this on their forums at the time) Vanthus is intended to be motivated by an incestuous desire for his sister. The modules themselves aren't entirely explicit about this, but it's certainly hinted at multiple times as clearly as they could get away with. If you decide to go with this angle and have Lavinia as a PC, then your wife would need to be onboard, and would need to know the backstory to it.

 

[solomanii]

Thanks Humble and agree. Will start reading the AP in detail now as its definitely caught my imagination.

 

[toucanbuzz]

My wife plays in my games - thinking out loud - I am sure she would be happy to "collude" with me to play Lavinia. Would you think this would work?

Some groups did, but I wouldn't. Lavinia needs to grow (up) as a person, not in levels, and be a complex mix. Otherwise, players won't care about her and won't be motivated. This makes your job challenging. My Lavinia is influenced by how the party handles things.

• Early on, she is a mix of motivated (to save her family), naïve (to what evils people are capable of), vulnerable (trying to hide how bad things are for her home), and unwavering (she will do what it takes). She loves her brother based off memories of him, not what he actually is, and it should be frustrating, yet rewarding, for the party to bring her around as they dig deeper into what he's done.
• After the Bullywug Gambit, she's seen what weapons and force can do. My Lavinia grabbed a sword and insisted on coming with the party to reclaim her house, even having just been cut badly during a hostage scene. She no longer wants to be vulnerable like that, but she's also not meant to be a swashbuckler. She's not built for it. Still, she begins to become cold. She's willing to see her brother dead. This may trouble some players, to see the change after the home attack, and it should. They're a big influence on whether she keeps that open heart to forgiving people despite their evil, or whether she becomes the type that will make people walk the plank and has no problem ordering death.
• Random, but because Lavinia is in the face of danger, you'll want some good explanations if she dies (e.g. does she have an "insurance policy" to be restored).

Later, you'll want to amend the story to get away from "Lavinia gets kidnapped" and instead make it her choice, possibly motivated by something the PCs have done.

Long story short, this really can't be done too well with a PC, and Lavinia comes and goes in the PCs lives, making her a poor adventurer. She's got a colony to think about, the lives of dozens if not hundreds depending on her.

...Vanthus is intended to be motivated by an incestuous desire for his sister. The modules themselves aren't entirely explicit about this, but it's certainly hinted at multiple times as clearly as they could get away with. If you decide to go with this angle and have Lavinia as a PC, then your wife would need to be onboard, and would need to know the backstory to it.

Definitely. Vermillio's campaign made this a bit more forward by letting PCs later recover Vanthus's personal diaries in which the DM fleshed out the story with imaginary letters to Lavinia detailing his descent into dark acts. While not sexual in nature, they're more than creepy about how his feelings. It goes a long way to explain why (when you run Vanthus in a prequel for example, or when the PCs meet him later) he takes such a severe offense about their closeness to her, and why he disparages his own sister as some sort of "whore whoring for mercenaries." It helps make him an additional layer of vile.

 

[solomanii]

Good stuff. Thanks

 

[Zardnaar]

Where would you locate Sasserine in Eberron?

 

[humble minion]

Where would you locate Sasserine in Eberron?

I'm no Eberron expert, but it isn't a great fit in Khorvaire as written - Sasserine has a bit of the rascally-frontier-outpost feel about it and Khorvaire is mostly pretty settled land. Perhaps you could use somewhere like Stormreach?

 

[Remathilis]

Where would you locate Sasserine in Eberron?

I put it on a Southern island in the Lhazzaar principalities. It's under the control of no prince at this time, and was one of the few free ports during the war. The Dragonmarked Houses have only put a toehold here in recent years.

I put Tamoachan in Q'barra (per Yawning Portal) and made the Isle of Dread an island of the northeast coast of Xen'drik. Scuttlecove will be back in Lhazzaar. The Olmans were a group of humans from Sarlona that worshipped fiends and we're exiled long before the Quori came. (I had another name for them, but I kept forgetting it and just used Olman for it, no relation to the Oerth ones).

 

[toucanbuzz]

For those who converted it do you have your conversion online?

I just uploaded my stuff to the resources page for all my 5E conversions through Lightless Depths. It's not for the faint of heart and shouldn't be a cakewalk.

 

[Zardnaar]

I put it on a Southern island in the Lhazzaar principalities. It's under the control of no prince at this time, and was one of the few free ports during the war. The Dragonmarked Houses have only put a toehold here in recent years.

I put Tamoachan in Q'barra (per Yawning Portal) and made the Isle of Dread an island of the northeast coast of Xen'drik. Scuttlecove will be back in Lhazzaar. The Olmans were a group of humans from Sarlona that worshipped fiends and we're exiled long before the Quori came. (I had another name for them, but I kept forgetting it and just used Olman for it, no relation to the Oerth ones).

Cheers thinking of using Eberron and running Savage Tide or ToA next.

Or I might Midgard it up.

My change would probably focus more on Sasserine.

When Paizo was on fire the first third or half of the APs were great then they kinda fell apart later.