SKT Chapter 3: DM Feedback needed (Spoilers)

[Clone]

I've found myself in quite the predicament in regards to Storm Kings Thunder's Chapter 2 end and all of Chapter 3.
My party recently finished Chapter 2 and just received the quests handed out for them to explore Faerün and see what there is to see before continuing the plot in Chapter 4.

My first question is: How did your players find the quests?
Did they like the quick and relatively easy quests to keep them doing something while they explored, or did the lack of progression towards anything besides magic items and coin irritate them?
I will be mixing my own subplots into the story and spicing up the Giants' Ordning problem, so there will be plenty for them to do, but I'm unsure that the simple Chapter 2 quests are satisfying on their own. What were your players' general thoughts?

My second question is: Were there any areas across the Sword Coast featured in Chapter 3 which you used in your plots? Any city, forest, roadside, cave system etc which you took from the book and turned it into something much bigger?
I have my own plans to make some locations feel like actual places with their own problems, but I worry about all the locations I don't focus on while also worrying about making the smaller locations seem more important than the main story. I've run homebrew up until this adventure and the plain SKT plot at this point doesn't seem like my players would be crazy about, but I worry about changing too many things.

Any and all feedback is appreciated, thanks!

[Torgairon]

I'm currently playing in an SKT campaign that's...presumably near the end, we're closing in on the big bad out on the sea, but I think I generally understand the structure of the adventure well enough to comment.

at my table, the DM is very inexperienced; he got into D&D by joining some of my homebrew games before I mostly started running modules and this is his first large-scale campaign. the way we handled the more open part of the adventure was simply to ping from giant stronghold to giant stronghold, hill giants to stone giants to frost giants to big reveal of BBEG. I've generally enjoyed the campaign and give the DM a lot of slack because he's newer and learning, but I would advise not to do this and to not feel bad about emphasizing the smaller quests. the smaller quests are what should give the players reasons to care about the Realms and what's happening in the world you're running for them, and they give you opportunities to flex your creative muscles without upending the plot. my DM openly told us that he was looking to get us to level 7 ASAP to keep the game on a strict schedule, and this came at the cost of letting us players feel like we had any agency or freedom to take interest in the smaller quests that he was fine telling us about, but didn't seem to want to flesh out in any meaningful way. he might have had the same fears you do about boring us, which is a real shame.

I would advance the idea that the main plot for SKT is exhausting and plain; fighting giants is stressful, assuming the DM is playing them intelligently, and also you do a lot of it until the big twist. I might err on the side of getting a few sidequests in while you can and allowing them to be somewhat leisurely as well, because once the party knows the twist they shouldn't be wanting to stop and take side trips. my party, after learning about the real plot at work, ended up having to detour back to yartar to learn about the kraken society and where hecaton might be, and it was unbelievably tedious because nothing in yartar rated highly on the radar of 5 level 10 PCs and the DM was very clearly only doing it to dispense plot-centric info. we ran a combat with lord drylund where his very nefarious and thematic octopus trap room was defeated by one (1) otiluke's resilient sphere and my patient wizard PC while she shouted down his ship's corridor to the rest of the party. after that he dispensed the info, and then his dark patron zapped his brain and he died so we couldn't learn any more relevant info. if my DM ever reads this, I'm nothing but grateful to be able to play in a campaign rather than DM, but...man.

I hope you got something constructive out of this rant-disguised-as-advice.

P.S. I also hated harshnag and the adventure's seeming dependence on him. since he appears to be indispensable, make him personable as all **** and a fun companion while he dominates all the combat. my DM played him in a very understated and neutral manner, which was far outshone by his overstated HP and damage.

[SirGraystone]

One town I made sure to have the group stop was Yartar and the gambling ship there, so when they see the token in a later chapter they had already seen one before.

[thoroughlyS]

My player's went through Triboar, and received information regarding all but one quest. The party was intrigued by the letter of recommendation for Citadel Felbarr, and decided to do the other quests on the way to the Citadel. It was kind of like a road trip.

[Stygofthedump]

You sound like you have done some homework, you’ll be fine. My group (I was DM) did feel a bit lost in this chapter. It’s really an exploring/levelling time.

Agreed, foreshadow the gambling chip.

I skipped the oracle quests as we had already done 12 months and I wanted to move it forward.

Then Hashneg turns up. (I had the diviner see him save them from a dragons breath in the future early chapter 3 so they were aware he was friendly - spoiler, he went toe to toe with big bad while they eventually ran).
My party liked Hasneg and were sad later. Make him good humoured and slightly amused by small folk antics as well as kind of a strong silent guy.