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As a player who's played through 10/12 of the campaign, I'd say it's not worth it. There are far more better APs out there and out of all Paizo APs I've played/DMed (Savage Tide, Shackled City, Legacy of Fire, Council of Thieves, Second Darkness, Kingmaker), this one is the worst. Well, i'm glad to hear that the Paizo APs get better and better. I wouldn't expect anything less from such a great company.
Oh I bought the hardcover and love it, but I am running it by play-by-post, so the pdfs would be so much easier for me..... I had all the original print magazines, but bought the Hardcover when i decided for sure i was going to run SCAP. In the end, i bought pdfs of all the magazines specifically for the ability to cut & paste both text and images straight from the source. So in the end, i paid for SCAP three times over. . .and it was worth every penny.
I guess I need to get the pdfs of the magazines instead of the hardcover! Well, all the text from the magazine pdfs is available to you for free on the RPGenius site mentioned above. But i won't discourage you from buying things from Paizo, in fact i recommend buying the Hardcover and the magazines too, if it makes you happy.
What were the high points and low points, in your opinion? High Point:
I'd have to say that the high point of the campaign was when Vhalantru's true nature was revealed to the heroes. High Point:
Bhal-Hamatugn was really fun for me as a DM, since i was allowed to pull out all the stops and really try to make things brutal for the heroes. I think this was the hardest my players had to work in the entire campaign, and they left Bhal-Hamatugn without losing a single party member. Low Point: A large portion of the later chapters were a bit of a drag for me as a DM. It's not that they weren't interesting adventures, it's just that my group began to kick the crap out of nearly every encounter. I kind of felt like the only real threat was fumbling a saving throw at a critical moment (which led to a few deaths). With a fair amount of work on my part, i perhaps could have made the later encounters more of a challenge. . .but in the end, my players probably enjoyed kicking so much butt. I'm not sure if this is problematic of the SCAP's later chapters, or if it's simply problematic of 3.5 D&D in general at the higher levels.
All of my text was either typed by me or copy & pasted from the Dungeon Magazine pdfs. I've posted all of the read aloud text at the RPGenius SCAP site. Just follow the link for each chapter and you'll see a file called "SCAP Chapter # Descriptive Text". Those are the files you need.
Something similar happened in my campaign, so i can at least offer a little background information. The original owner of the Lucky Monkey was named Orin Marsh, and although i am not sure that the adventure states for certain that he's killed in the events of Flood Season, i did assume that he was in my campaign. The adventure doesn't make any mention of heirs to ownership of the roadside inn, nor does it detail who in Cauldron might be interested in the place. All of this is really up to you. I would encourage you to allow your group to make the Lucky Monkey their own, with whatever obstacles you see fit to make them work toward that prize.
Congratulations!
Considering that, from Living Greyhawk, the timeline (starting in CY 591 in 2001) was advanced by 1 campaign year for each real time year, the SCAP should start in CY 593, since it was first published in 2003 (Dungeon 97) I give this a thumbs up.
Another death in the final session of my SCAP game, which brings me to a grand total of six deaths. List of Deaths: 1. Triel Eldurast kills the barbarian with a critical hit.
2. Lord Orbius Vhalantru kills the druid with his death ray. 3. Lord Orbius Vhalantru kills the cleric/bard with his disintegrate ray. 4. Decrihni Baiul kills the rogue with Slay Living spell. 5. Moltenwing kills the shadowdancer with his disintegrating breath. 6. Adimarchus kills the fighter with his implosive strike.
Tonight was the final session of the Shackled City Adventure Path. I ran this campaign for six players using Fantasy Grounds (with no voice chat, only text). We started way back in September of 2006. My thanks goes out to all the people who had a hand in putting the SCAP together. Your hard work provided our group with 4+ years of fun.
According to this timeline, the Age of Worms AP begins in 595 CY. Since the events that took place in Cauldron are said to be portents to the coming Age of Worms, i'd guess that SCAP starts a couple years earlier?
Congratulations on the completion of your game!
Yep, tonight as a matter of fact.
Congratulations! You deserve that t-shirt.
Thanks for the journal. I will be following what you have to share, as i too may be converting the Age of Worms in the near future.
Are there any drawback to doing this? I can't think of any reason why this wouldn't be ok. There is a bit of information about the Cagewrights that Kaurophon has to offer the characters in this chapter, but perhaps they could discover it another way.
Yeah, i was sort of hoping that the flavor text would mention his tentacles acting independent of the rest of his attacks or something similar, but no such luck.
Would you rather it be +42/+37/+32/+27 for a full attack with the Ashen Blade? This is not a question of whether or not Adimarchus is challenging enough, it's a basic rules question. When he makes a Full Attack action, he would indeed attack at the rate you list above. . .in addition to his 4 tentacle attacks. I'm asking specifically about his Attack entry, not Full Attack. My impression of the 3.5 rules, after DMing up to 19th level, is that you only get a single attack under the Attack entry. Thus, Adimarchus' 4 tentacles would seem in violation of the basic rules governing Attacks / Full Attacks. Correct?
The demonic form of Adimarchus has the following listed under the Attack entry: Attack: +42 melee (2d6+23/17–20 plus special, Ashen Blade) and +34 melee (1d6+6 plus 1d4 negative levels, 4 tentacles) A single strike with the blade in addition to all four tentacles? Seems like it should be a single attack with either the Blade or a tentacle. Am i missing something?
Is the RPGenius website still functional? All I can get is the frontpage, and all the links say "Sorry, this Module isn't active!" Your writeup is truly genius, and I definitely plan on using it. Thank you!
After three years, three months, and eighteen days, my group finally finished Shackled City. Congratulations!
I've checked RPGenius and I can't seem to find a map of the Riot Scene from Chapter 5, one with the notes removed so it can be blown-up for use with figures. Maybe I'm missing something, but I figured I'd post here and see if anyone can point me to one if it exists. Thanks in advance if you can! I thought i had one, but in searching through my SCAP folder i realized that i ended up using the original with notations. I distinctly recall the players saying "This does not bode well for Skylar Krewis" when they read the map notations. . . My trick was to not reveal the map at all until just after the sh*t hits the fan, then the notations are less of a spoiler. Another trick might be to scan that portion of the poster map that comes with the hardcover. . .but it will be without grid lines.
AH! Now that i look around a little, i realize that the document i'm looking for is one and the same with the 'Alternate Cagewrights'document.
Sorry didn't mean to go through all that, was just trying to remember myself. I'm sure I put a fair bit more detail in my other documents Not a problem, that's exactly what i was hoping you'd do! Do you recall, by chance, what your original document was called over at RPGenius? Lots, if not all, of those files now rest here: LINK I most certainly recall reading your 'Alternate Cagewrights' document, but i do not recall seeing much about the endgame, beyond the idea that it would be much more than "fight Adimarchus and win SCAP", which is exactly what i'm looking to do. One of my players, perhaps two, will be very interested in trying to rescue Adimarchus from both his physical and mental prisons, so i really like what you've dreamed up. Thanks!
Just finished the Foundation of Fire. Funny, tonight should be our final session of FoF. I noticed that in another thread you mentioned some of your 'final changes' to the campaign. I'm curious if those are beyond what you've already contributed, and if so, if you think you'll have time to share them with the community here? Moving into the final stages of the campaign myself, i'm interested in making the ending as climactic as possible, and would love to hear what you have planned, and how it works out.
Reply: I am just about to finish running this chapter, and i noticed the lack of detail as well. The text does not say which Cagewrights hear the alarm, so i ruled that they all did, putting the entire complex on alert. The text does say that the individual members of the Cagewrights do not gather and attack the intruders in force, since they each would love to defeat the intruders and take all the credit themselves. Certain encounters in the adventure describe where individuals might go to make a stand, and others describe when individual cries of alarm or the sound of combat might alert nearby areas. Read the chapter carefully, but in the end, you'll have to decide just how vigorously the Cagewrights try and repel the intruders.
I didn't merge many encounters and have found the single encounters were fairly easy for the heroes to handle. My assumption was that the Cagewrights have just completed the Ritual of Planar Binding and are pretty much exhausted and maybe even a little crazed, thinking that at this point they're pretty much unstoppable. They trust the fire giant and his Flamewarder minions to defend the complex and are certain that no enemy force can destroy the Tree of Shackled Souls or take the Dispersal Collar from the pyroclastic dragon.
If you have trouble locating specific maps, just post here again and i'll happily help you find what you need. On the Life's Bazaar page, the maps you're looking for are: Ghelve's Locks - Scan.zip
Later chapters do not seem to follow the same title format, but they do include the phrase "high resolution" map or jpeg in the description. Hope this helps. (I may try and round up all the edited maps and make them available in one download.)
I plan on using d20pro to run a shackled city campaign. I was wondering if anyone knows of any versions of the dungeon maps that DON'T have traps and secret doors marked. Check out The RPGenius Shackled City Pages. You should be able to find the maps you're looking for by following the links on the main page to the pages for each chapter. Look under the "Gallery" for map related files. If you have trouble locating specific maps, just post here again and i'll happily help you find what you need.
Another death in my SCAP game, which brings me to a grand total of five deaths. List of Deaths: 1. Triel Eldurast kills the barbarian with a critical hit.
2. Lord Orbius Vhalantru kills the druid with his death ray. 3. Lord Orbius Vhalantru kills the cleric/bard with his disintegrate ray. 4. Decrihni Baiul kills the rogue with Slay Living spell. 5. Moltenwing kills the shadowdancer with his disintegrating breath.
Another death in my SCAP game, which brings me to a grand total of four deaths. Spoiler: 1. Triel Eldurast kills the barbarian with a critical hit.
2. Lord Orbius Vhalantru kills the druid with his death ray. 3. Lord Orbius Vhalantru kills the cleric/bard with his disintegrate ray. 4. Decrihni Baiul kills the rogue with Slay Living spell. The rogue sneaks in, masked by the racket of the pipe organ, and, rather than outright stabbing him to death, grabs both of Decrihni's spiked chains off his person and throws them as far away as possible. The mad cleric spins around from the organ and, unarmed, tells the rogue that he will please his 'dark god of madness' by slaying him. The fighter/rogue runs into the room at the first sign of trouble and nails Decrihni good. The rogue then pulls his weapons and gets a solid hit in, bringing the evil villain very close to death. Decrihni acts and casts Slay Living, making his concentration check to avoid attacks of opportunity. He then reaches out and touches the rogue, who fails his save and dies.
Link to an older discussion: Keys of Jzadirune Location of D key: Yauthyb, the leader of the dark ones, has the D key around his neck. It's only listed in his stat block, but not in the adventure text.
It looks like the links to the Adventure Paths from there are broken I also noticed that some of the links to the later APs go nowhere. I don't think they're broken, i think that no one has submitted material for them as of yet.
Basically I was wondering if anyone knows if this site will be back soon or if not if anyone knows of another site with about the same items? The RPGenius had a location and format change. You can still access it via the link below:
I was wondering if anyone had an enhanced pdf of the appendixes of the SCAP? I've gotten tired of flipping back and forth in the book or writing out the monsters/villians on note cards. I was hoping to copy from a pdf to a Word file and break up the baddies via chapter (only on chapter 3). I checked the rpgenius site for one, but no luck. Any help would be greatly appreciated. As far as i know, there is no pdf of the appendices, or for that matter, any pdf of the hardcover book itself. I believe the rpgenius does have word document files containing npc statblocks for individual chapters. For example:
Sorry for the delay, but i've had the distinct displeasure of being sick over the Halloween weekend. . . Rather than emailing all these images to multiple persons, i have submitted the scans to the RPGenius. You should be able to download the compressed folder of images by clicking this link. If you have any trouble, the files are located at RPGenius - Chapter 0: General Resources. The file is called SCAPMAPBOOK.
Charon's GPS, if you provide me with an email address, i will happily scan my map booklet and send you the images.
Congratulations on the completion of your SCAP campaign!
Well, i can now tally up two more deaths in my SCAP game, which brings me to a grand total of three deaths. Spoiler: 1. Triel Eldurast kills the barbarian with a critical hit.
2. Lord Orbius Vhalantru kills the druid with his death ray. 3. Lord Orbius Vhalantru kills the cleric/bard with his disintegrate ray.
So they decided to rest in Triel's room after Skaven cast Phantasmal Killer on one of them and got away? If i were you, I would set up and proceed with the ambush. Otherwise your players will come to believe that they can rest anywhere without consequence.
Congratulations!
Is there anything wrong with leaving it as is and removing the +1? That's exactly what i did in my game, used the template without a level adjustment. I wanted the character 'wearing' the Smoking Eye to think of it as a bit of a burden or taint, but not to actually burden or taint them with a mechanical game disadvantage.
Howdy. I'm the Steve mentioned above. I am currently running Chapter 8 (Lords of Oblivion), and have a little more than half of the 'read aloud' text done for that chapter. Unfortunately, the original Dungeon Magazines did not have 'read aloud' text for any of House Rhiavadi (except for Thifirane's speech and some minor locations), so i had to type all of that by hand. I am struggling a bit with the idea of posting my House Rhiavadi work to RPGenius for the sole reason that i do not wish to share information presented in the Hardcover with folks who are running the SCAP strictly out of the magazines. I'm the guy who posts with the alias "BUY THE HARDCOVER" whenever someone asks if the HC contains more information than presented in Dungeon. My whole point being this: Paizo did a heck of a job on the Hardcover, and they deserve every penny of the price of that book (which, i think, is a lot cheaper now than when it first came out). If you're devoting the time and energy to running the SCAP, then you really ought to shell out the cash for the Hardcover, in my opinion. That said, i would happily share my House Rhiavadi 'read aloud' text with anyone that is running the SCAP from the Hardcover. I will also be posting both the text and images for chapter 8 on RPGenius when my work is complete (minus the HC only text).
Short Sword of Subtlety.
Or, alternatively, you could institute a rule that says that after a certain amount of time petrified by a beholder, only wishes can change you back to flesh. It's heavy-handed, but solves the problem.
The search feature at the top right corner of the main page of the SCAP forums is the best way to find specific threads. The SCAP has been out for a long time now, and there are lots of older threads in the archives. For example, if you search for "level-up", you find a thread about appropriate times to level characters using an XP free system, and some of the problems that might cause. (LINK). I imagine that if you search for "Pathfinder" or "Golarion", you'll probably find some threads devoted to those subjects as well.
The idea of having Aushanna try to conscript one of the PCs into serving her in the Blood War is a very nice touch. This is the way i was leaning if she was to hand the PCs butts to them. After knocking most of the party unconscious, i planned to have her offer to let the heroes live in return for one of them signing away their soul for a set amount of years in the afterlife. I figure that Auashanna would use her time in service to the clerics of Bhal-Hamatugn to her advantage, in a very patient devil sort of way. Fortunately for my PCs, they were able to survive against her and destroy the statue of Blipdoolpoolp before she could come back again.
She is only an Erinyes. Actually, she's an advanced erinyes, and she does have manyshot. She's not at all a pushover. Her ability to use unholy blight to force the heroes out of hiding can get overwhelming quickly. I have been nice and not overused unholy blight in the SCAP, since i think it is a bit overpowered as an at will ability. With only a single neutral character in the group, the blight gets old fast. Aushanna is even deadlier due to the fact that she appears just after one encounter wraps up, and, if the fight with her takes too long, yet another encounter begins. All this can easily add up to a TPK, but. . .SPOILER ALERT!!! Spoiler:
The heroes were sent to Bhal-Hamatugn to get TPKed. They should get the feeling that they're outmatched. As DM, you just have to hope that they're the kind of players that can handle retreat. The party i DM for had to face her twice, and quickly retreated into the corridors so she could not rain down flaming arrows from above. The heroes finally confronted her in a four way intersection and were able to surround and grapple her, doing enough damage that the demon thought twice about facing them a third time. In the end, they didn't kill her, she just teleported away and hid until her summons expired. |