I picked up the Ptolus City by the Spire book by Monte Cook about a month ago.
I read or scanned through the entire book. Over all I'm quite impressed. Of course at 670 pages and weighing 2.9kg (about 6 pounds) it's hard not to be impressed. Lots of graphics, lots of text. It's a bit overwhelming in fact. In some ways it's nice to have everything in one place, but the book is so heavy it makes reading in bed a bit of a chore.
The really good thing is that I'm getting to use it in our new campaign. Our group was going to do something with one of the other players as DM, but he changed his mind. We discussed some campaign options, everything from Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, to the Savage Tide Adventure Path in Dungeon magazine, to the Red Hand of Doom mega-adventure. We agreed to give Ptolus a try.
One thing I initially liked was that there was supposed to be adventure content from levels 1-20. I didn't want to have to spend a lot of time preparing each week. But after trying to find something to start the players off at 3rd level I realized there may be less there than meets the eye.
The initial adventure path takes the PCs from 1-4. At that point you can follow the Night of Dissolution path. That's basically what I wanted. Except that I think I'm going to have to fill in with 'random' encounters or sidetrips. In fact, since Night of Dissolution starts at 4th I'm having to squeeze the players into the grand finale of the initial adventure, rather than pull something else together. I had thought to do the Rat's Nest location, but thats not very heroic. Perhaps I should have started the PCs at 4th level, but it was their choice to start at 3.
I'm a bit unhappy about the thought of having to pull together additional encounters and side adventures to fill the recommended gaps in the Night of Dissolution. But perhaps it will let me take the PCs goals and desires into account and customize some material for them. Tough to do with most published adventures.
One nice thing is that there are quite a number of detailed locations. eg. a Rat's Nest full of rat men that low level PCs can go in and clean out. This and other locations are detailed enough (maps and room contents/NPCs) that they can be run as encounters or mini-adventures.
So perhaps with a little bit of extra work this will be an interesting and interactive campaign.
