Jade Regent Story Fixes / Changes / Rewrites / Improvements / Suggestions?

[M. Arillius]

The Background:

So very recently I came to these forums hoping to make an informed choice about a pretty expensive purchase (for my rather empty purse, at least). Was Jade Regent viable if Ameiko was a PC (and specifically the only PC in a solo game) and would the story support it? The answer was a resounding yes, so long as I let the player remake Ameiko's stats! So I got the game, read through it, and then went online to look at what people liked and disliked about the game.

What I've Found:

1.) The Caravan system is broken. I've found several sites that offer ways to fix it and have run a few mock battles with myself. It's not perfectly balanced but it's much more fun, now, and with a lot more player choice.

2.) The relationship system sucks. I've found a few fixes for this as well but I won't be adhering to them to strongly. My player is a very strong roleplayer so I'm not too worried about having a system at all. I am, however, going to enjoy them exploring quite a few of the NPC's in the book and some custom ones I'm making. I also plan on giving the NPC's their own storylines, Bioware style, that will increase their effectiveness in Caravan stuff.

3.) I've found 3 plugin adventures from Legendary Games that seem to slot into a few spots. They appear to add a bit in parts of the game that were lacking so that's good!

What I'm Looking For:

Now I'm looking for pretty much anything else. My friend (who is currently running Rise of the Runelords) has found numerous rewrites and expansions individual DM's have done for the game to make it more immersive. I honestly want to give it the same effort. I'm scouring the web in my free time now, but I also figured it'd be prudent to put this question out there...

What did you do to make Jade Regent's story more interesting? What elements did you add or expand upon and how? As DM's and players alike, what suggestions might you make for a Solo game with Ameiko as the lead, in particular? How about more broad changes you did to spice up specific encounters or dungeons? Or third party things you've found that really added to the game? And finally what sort of epic fight would you suggest that could emulate something like Mass Effect 2's suicide mission, using the caravan and general idea of a close nit NPC group as a basis for the idea? I have a few ideas already but I am always open to suggestions.

Anything and everything is welcome as far as advice goes. (Aside from 'don't play Jade Regent'. Money's spent and I'm actually loving what I'm seeing already.) As always thank you to those that take the time to read and reply!

[Rhedyn]

1.) For the caravan system, you could just use normal over land travel rules instead and only look at the caravan system for inspiration about random encounter.
Though give the system another look, our groups big problem with it was that you only need one person to interact with the system, everyone else may be required to roll something, but only one person needs to ever make decisions, so in a one person game it might not actually be that bad.

2.) Yeah, just role-play it.

3.) Sometimes Paizo APs are not super clear of why I am there doing what I am doing, but that might just be my GMs flubbing, I've not ran a Paizo AP. These sessions tend to sink when the GM stops doing prep work. Which you seem to be doing plenty.

I am a big fan of Dreamscarred Presses ultimate Psionics, but I've also heard good things about Path of War from DSP, and the Spheres of Power/Might/etc from someone else if you are looking for more PC mechanics to add to the game.
Occult Adventures from Paizo offers some interesting classes like Occultist and Medium, which would help a solo character be more versatile. The Occultist could do well as a martial/minionmancer and be a one person show. A master summoner is a great class for solo-ing APs, the extra xp plus being a multi-summon focused class leads to experiences like the old Bard's tale where your party was basically just you plus summons.

[gkathellar]

Can't speak to the rest, but dropping the relationship system is an extremely good idea. There is a hilarious writeup (http://designofdragons.blogspot.com/2016/04/winning-game-of-love.html) explaining just how awful and poorly-mathed it is. Recommended reading for anyone who enjoys things being terrible.

[M. Arillius]

1.) For the caravan system, you could just use normal over land travel rules instead and only look at the caravan system for inspiration about random encounter.
Though give the system another look, our groups big problem with it was that you only need one person to interact with the system, everyone else may be required to roll something, but only one person needs to ever make decisions, so in a one person game it might not actually be that bad.

2.) Yeah, just role-play it.

3.) Sometimes Paizo APs are not super clear of why I am there doing what I am doing, but that might just be my GMs flubbing, I've not ran a Paizo AP. These sessions tend to sink when the GM stops doing prep work. Which you seem to be doing plenty.

I am a big fan of Dreamscarred Presses ultimate Psionics, but I've also heard good things about Path of War from DSP, and the Spheres of Power/Might/etc from someone else if you are looking for more PC mechanics to add to the game.
Occult Adventures from Paizo offers some interesting classes like Occultist and Medium, which would help a solo character be more versatile. The Occultist could do well as a martial/minionmancer and be a one person show. A master summoner is a great class for solo-ing APs, the extra xp plus being a multi-summon focused class leads to experiences like the old Bard's tale where your party was basically just you plus summons.

I'm not too worried about the player soloing it. She's going melee bard with a couple 3.5 stuff. She won't be able to win every fight but she has a lot of options for dealing with different things (as a bard tends to have). I was hoping for more story relevant suggestions and ideas, like certain interactions that felt forced in the AP but with this additional scene some DM added it was better, etc. There are a lot of DM write ups of things like that for other AP's but I haven't been able to find much for Jade Regent, since everyone is busy complaining about the Caravan and Relationship rules.

[Florian]

Hm. Ive ran this AP twice so far and actually didn't find anything to alter with the basic outline and story line, because it´s damned rock solid.

I think I mentioned it in the previous discussion of that topic, what I found to be a bit problematic (mechanics wise) was the transition from "west" to "east" when it came to pure RP, languages, skills and being able to use equipment. Put bluntly, you're expected to star out as a varisian Fighter and switch to Samurai as you progress? Doesn't really work....

The sub-system in this AP are not really a problem. Caravan is similar to how Starfinder handles starship combat, in having one major PC and a lot of nearly unimportant side jobs, Relationships are just a gimmick, similar to a side-quest and absolutely not necessary.

[M. Arillius]

Hm. Ive ran this AP twice so far and actually didn't find anything to alter with the basic outline and story line, because it´s damned rock solid.

I think I mentioned it in the previous discussion of that topic, what I found to be a bit problematic (mechanics wise) was the transition from "west" to "east" when it came to pure RP, languages, skills and being able to use equipment. Put bluntly, you're expected to star out as a varisian Fighter and switch to Samurai as you progress? Doesn't really work....

The sub-system in this AP are not really a problem. Caravan is similar to how Starfinder handles starship combat, in having one major PC and a lot of nearly unimportant side jobs, Relationships are just a gimmick, similar to a side-quest and absolutely not necessary.

Well, we have one NPC who has some tutelage about her heritage (Ameiko's slightly altered backstory) so I don't need to worry to much about that sort of transition. I do intend to add a few enemies and small encounters along the way that might give her more info, but I'm actually looking forward to making the west to east transition a stark one that really highlights everything about the eastern setting.

As far as changes go, I've found that in my own experience with Rise of the Runelords at least...

...unless enemies survive, they're rarely introduced before the big climax. My DM, the player who will play Jade Regent as Ameiko, went out of her way to make those bad guys far more prevalent in the story. One example makes it pretty big.

Near the end of the second chapter I was heading to Magnimar. Since I was wearing some of the seven pointed star magic items found earlier in the adventure, the guards saw what I was wearing and had me arrested, suspecting I was in league with murders happening in the city. They brought me before a Justice who eventually found me innocent with some divining, when I pointed out who I was and how I had helped Sandpoint and was currently on that very investigation.

Later on I encountered the Judge again... as one of the bad guys at the mill. In fact, the Judge had clever used the questions and answers he had gotten from me, once he learned I was his enemy, to learn what I was capable of and some of my weaknesses.

It became a tough fight with a clever opponent instead of a random encounter with some spellcaster. It was also a surprise since my DM was pretty circumspect about what she was doing to the point where I had no idea he was a bad guy. He had exonerated me, after all, and it seemed like he was more interested in my tales of heroism then fishing for info. But this small change brought about half a session worth of roleplay and a really cool moment when it turned out he was the bad guy.

Changes like that are what I'm hoping to find. I'm making edits of my own but I'm not a perfect DM and I want to make this a great experience for my friend. They're running my first Adventure Path. Jade Regent will be their first adventure path. So if anyone can help me spice up Jade Regent, even with small suggestions, I'd really appreciate it!