Council of Thieves was the first Paizo Adventure Path to be released fully under PF1 (the ones before were for 3.5), and it holds a special place for me as the first AP I ever ran. I ran it for my home game over nearly two years, and the campaign is one we still talk about today.
While the AP has its faults, it also has some great elements that could work at any table. In fact, I’ve stripped it down for parts several times, and I’ve broken out some scenarios multiple times. Hell, I ran one scenario multiple times for the same people because they wanted a chance to run through it again.
If you strip CoT for parts, what should you grab?
Book One: The Bastards of Erebus
One of the biggest things to steal? The town of Westcrown. It’s a city of decaying glory, run by thieves with noble titles, kowtowing to a demon lord they think they control, filled with citizens who are scared to challenge the status quo. It’s made for a group of adventurers to come in and set things right… somehow.
Also, there’s this fantastic table for randomizing tiefling features! I still break this out when I need to generate a description for a tiefling on the fly. It has random cosmetic features and random abilities that could be ported over to PF2 reasonably easily.
Finally, there’s a dungeon just the right size for some low-level characters. If your players need to break into a hideout, the Bastard’s lair is just big enough to be a challenge but small enough not to run on empty by the end.
Book Two: The Sixfold Trial
THERE’S A PLAY! Y’all, this is the reason I wrote this post in the first place. The freaking play is fantastic. The premise is that a director wants the action on stage to feel ‘real,’ so he hires people to fight against real challenges rather than actors fighting against special effects. There’s even a real play with lines to read out!
If you run the play, I highly recommend running through the audition because you can end up with some hilarious castings when the fighter whiffs and ends up as the romantic lead or the druid accidentally crits and ends up as the seductress. Also, audition for the succubus part rather than having it played by an NPC since you don’t need that NPC going forward.
There’s also a dinner party, which can be a terrific set piece if you need your players to hobnob and get some plot hooks. There’s a system for impressing various NPCs, and you can easily change out the AP-specific clues for your own.
Finally, the Asmodeon Knot is a bizarre dungeon built in the Ethereal Plane that can be put anywhere since it’s built in the plane between planes. It has lots of unique challenges that are better solved by brain than brawn, but also some things that just need to be punched in the face.
Book Three: What Lies in Dust
This book has another terrific set-piece: The Devildrome. A famous (think WWE) summoner accepts all challengers and has been undefeated… until now. The prize can be whatever suits your plot best, from a MacGuffin to a meeting with someone important yet out of reach.
Also, another favorite that I’ve used several times: DELVEHAVEN! An abandoned Pathfinder lodge filled with haunts, mysteries, and traps just begging for a group of idiots to run in and check it out. I got several sessions out of this, and completing it felt like a real accomplishment. Also, at the end, the players had a fabulous lodge all to themselves!
Book Four: The Infernal Syndrome
As you get further into an AP, there’s less to grab since many scenarios are heavily intertwined with the plot. This book, though, has a vast dungeon that’s a bunch of fun and would be easy enough to put under any questionable individual’s house. There’s a mix of straight-up fights, social encounters, and traps to give everyone in the party something to do.
Book 5: Mother of Flies
Walcourt is a big ol’ abandoned mansion where several vampires have settled in. It’s well worth reading over their motivations because they all have interesting backgrounds and motivations, and it’s possible to do more than just stab your way through the mansion.
Book 6: The Twice Damned Prince
This is a good book, but I couldn’t find anything to grab from it since it’s very much caught up in resolving all plot threads. This is fairly normal when pulling apart APs for content: The further in you go, the less there is to grab.
Final Caveats
The maps… hoo-boy. These were made before VTTs were omnipresent, and people either printed them or drew them on flip maps. The baked-in gridlines don’t always line up, and the quality if you extract them isn’t great. You’ll want to upscale them (my handy guide here) or see if someone else did updates. You’ll also need to edit some of the images to remove references to secret doors, which are baked into the image.
As for conversion, don’t stress out about 1:1. Take a step back, look at the theme and level for each encounter, and grab your Bestiaries for something close enough. Even the “special” creatures only need a half-assed paint job to get by. The most important thing is that the fight is reasonable and fun.
And that they befriend the wee constructs living in Delvehaven. Just LOOK at them! How could you not adopt them into your party?!
Katie Plays Games 