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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 6590132" data-attributes="member: 3586">Then have fun!I really enjoyed the Hoard/Rise adventures. One thing I really recommend is playing them with milestones: The Rise of Tiamat, in particular, is designed that way.I get much more of an epic feel from Hoard/Rise than I do from Princes, largely due to the scale it works on. Hoard is relatively small-scale, although there's a lot of travelling, as you're just discovering what's going on. One thing to remember is that even as the party are following the treasure, agents of the factions are gathering information on the Cult from other activities as well. However, everything changes after Skyreach Castle. The destruction/liberation of the castle raises the credibility of the party significantly in the eyes of the factions, and that Onthar Frume and Leosin helped sponsor the characters' mission allows them to be introduced to the Council of Waterdeep. From there, it's all about getting a feeling for how dangerous the Cult is from the reports of the council members, while dealing with some of the bigger threats that come up.All of which then culminates in the March on the Well of Dragons.Princes of the Apocalypse is a different beast. It's very close to an old-school megadungeon, although with a lot of modern elements, including advice on how to bring the warring factions to life; something that I felt was greatly lacking from Temple of Elemental Evil and Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. A little bit of scale is given through the side quests in Chapter 6, but I'm not quite getting the same scale of adventure from it as from Tyranny. This is actually a good thing - we don't want all adventures to be the same!The biggest problems with Hoard/Rise come from some of the encounters needing a little more work - probably the one that requires the most attention is the final fight at the Well of Dragons, as it would be nice if there were more guidelines for how the opposition changes dependent on the allies the party has. Structurally, it's very strong. Actually, it's one of the strongest structures I've seen in an adventure. Most of the action flows naturally from one section to the next. Yes, it's relatively linear, but almost every adventure path from Paizo is similarly linear. What Tyranny does well is have your actions have an effect later down the line. What you did with the hatchery in Episode 3 of Hoard of the Dragon Queen factors into what allies you have when you come to the final battle of The Rise of Tiamat. There are very, very few adventures which care that much.Cheers!</blockquote>

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