nib's page

Seriously, this was - hands down - the best campaign that money could buy. Only once did I have a similarly thick play experience and that came with a home-brew campaign from a DM who actually writes his own novels, doesn't own a TV and is an avid role-player.

It started off, 2006 on March 8th, 18.00 CET and ended tonight, Sep 27th, 1.00 am CET/DST.

A total of 1 DM, 9 players, 12 party characters (Koroth, Tallia, Vaughn, Ron (NPC), Arri, Kallidos, Blake, Awildo, Paleos (aka Nidrama), Elana, Kaurophon) approximately 100-130 sessions, lasting 4-5 hours on average, more than 1 million experience points given out in total, 3 players, who stayed from the beginning to the end, 2 of which stuck to the same character for the whole campaign, another who was there in the beginning and in the end and ran three different characters (only one of which - Kaurophon - died), one player dropped out early, one dropped out late, but two players of the remaining lot joined late, one of them running the orphaned Smoking Eye to its glorious triumph over Adimarchus.

In the final confrontation, the party consisted of ...
Kallidos, the human Smoking Eye 18th level Bard (ECL19)
Elana, the elf Rog10/Wiz1/ArcArcher8 (ECL19)
Blake, the human Swsh5/Rogue14 (ECL19)
Arri, the gnomish Wiz18th (ECL18)
Paleos/Nidrama, the fallen angel (ECL18)
Ulfgarr, the Dwarfen cleric 18th (ECL18)

They made pretty good progress on the lower levels of Skullrot dispatching Hexavog, Slouva and their henchman with relative ease. Assaulting Dark Myrakul, they came up with a really strong tactics. They had an intelligent sword in their possession which could - in the hands of a rogue - sneak attack undead. They put fly and silence on the rogue, who rushed the cleric, depriving him of a lot of spells and the party wizard proceeded to grapple him with a crushing hand. His buffs should better have included the freedom of movement ... :-\

After he was done, the cage got opened almost immediately afterward. Adimarchus came along and battle ensued.

However, between walls of force and too little damage from regular attacks against a group with a total of about 888 hp, he was forced to try save-or-die effects, which were all countered by a house rule, called drama die (meant to increase tension by creating spectacular moments by doing 2d20 instead of 1d20 the defenses were simply too strong to overcome). A sneak attacking rogue, plus bardic holy avenger action and an Alakast, which became (house ruled) cold iron against Adimarchus made quick work of his demonic shape. The array of cold iron arrows, enchanted with the holy property during notch (Arcane Archer house rule) added their damage for good measure. Fast healing 15 couldn't hope to keep up with that kind of punishment. The worst, however, was the application of Otto's irrestisible dance, forced through the spell resistance with a chunk of drama dice. Between full attacks, attacks of opportunity and the occasional spell, slicing through the resistance, Adimarchus was doomed to be crushed.

In the end, a gigantic session (compared to the average length) lasting 10 hours (not including the breaks) brought about the death/destruction of Dark Myrakul, his demonflesh golem and both forms of Adimarchus within 30 combat rounds.

The general consensus was, that a lot of things could have turned this battle upside down and easily TPKed the group. Lack of drama dice, lack of a bard with the courage (and dozens mirror images) to touch attack a demon prince with above-mentioned spell, lack of a cold-iron alakast, lack of a compliment of cold iron arrows or the golembane scarab earlier, lack of a potent healer, ...

The Shackled City campaign has provided us with great joy and entertainment over more than 3 1/2 years, however, it is nigh impossible to win with core 3.5 rules alone ...

Over and out,
Nib

Hi all,

I am about to let my players face Adimarchus. The are already on Carceri and will learn the location of Skullrot tonight. After a (possible) detour to the rock (Byakala), they will enter the asylum in about two weeks. Any last minute recommendations, someone wants to give ?

Reason is: I've never played high-level PCs, let alone high-level bad-boys and I feel, they may end up having a way too easy time defeating a demon prince, if I'm not prepared.

They've been showing pretty good tactics, Extended Hero's feast every other day is standard. Death ward by Nidrama on everyone as well. Together with a circle of protection evil, they are pretty much immune to all the really dangerous attacks by the run-of-the-mill antagonist.

For example, they didn't flinch much, when Orbius made a second appearance in his highly inflated form, let alone lose a member.

So, how do I best put them to a real test. I'd like to challenge their strategy, but I fear that even the very good armor class and SR of our prince won't be more than a speed bump to them, if I can't somehow slow their team tactics down.

Cheers,
Nib

Dear fellow SCAPpers,

I've got a feeling that the brilliant "add-on community" which gathered here on the boards and uploaded stuff to the RPGenius.com website has slowed down considerably for no real reason.

I agree that the early chapters are probably very well covered by now and any additional stuff is just variations of what others have done already, but for later chapters, especially the ones where the cagewrights start rearing their ugly heads, have very little material online.

I'm quite sure that lots of DMs have added side-treks, quests or the occasional hand-out which could be shared to benefit the rest of us. Even material deemed suboptimal, can be useful by providing a new idea. Sometimes, it's just a spark that's necessary to find oneself putting extra time in the campaign, which pays off in the end.

Please don't hesitate to upload.

I will do so myself in a minute, just to prove the point.

Cheers,
Nib

Fellow adventortures,

I've expressed my ideas about sticking with the original CWs (as opposed to using DD's brilliant alternative ending) in some threads and now have some pieces of info to share with others who have done or intend to do the same.

e.g.

I connected Virian Daraquor with some mines run by Vanderboren or Taskerhil (can't remember who was who).

I put a lot of humiliated corpses between Sasserine and Cauldron (if followed up upon, it would foreshadow Alurad Sorizan).

I definitely foreshadowed Mhad (through the Sasserine side-trek).

Nulin, I was able to put in quite early when the group decided spontaneously to stop an announced hanging (some newspiece I actually stole from some other in-game newsletter) by introducing him as the real culprit, a mysterious killer, who (they actually performed divination at the time) worked with a weapon from the infernal plane. They were able to bust out the innocent scape goat and make an enemy ;-)

I've used Zharik Dhor to make an appearance and let him know about the CWs who "abducted" his girl-friend (Gau Kleeoch) by just making her a good offer. He wanted to rectify the killing of his father, but the party preferred talking and actually (gotta hate/love those high Diplomacy skills) convinced him that they have a common enemy -> CWs. He then parted with some info on Gau.

I slipped them a few names using Kaurophon (my K. was teleported around by Freja Doorgan, knew that two high-level spiritual leaders are members and even had some description of Dyr'ryd, as it was stated in the HC that K. was chosen/selected by Dyr'ryd himself. When the party later discovered the notes of Fetor Abradius, they started to connect some strings and abused the Bard's Bardic Knowledge to get some more CW intelligence.

We're now just after the Rhiavadi house party and they know about 1/2 of the CWs by name and for about half of those, they have a vague idea of what role they play. They know most apprentices by name and/or whereabouts. After finding Thifirane's notes they'll likely repeat the name-game and will receive some more info.

By the time they get to face them in the fiery sanctum, I reckon they will know most, but surely not all of them by name and/or function. I don't think they must know everyone for the adventure to be interesting, otherwise, a clever group could really come up with strategies that make the attack on the sanctum too easy.

Anyway, anyone else who did or is about to do similar things, spread the word.

Cheers,
Nib

Hi,

I'm facing a problem of player absences during chapter 8, where i don't want to "npc" the party more than absolutely necessary. I came up with an alternative session idea:

The party had just killed Jil, but some of the mooks got away to spread word within the LL about the dethroning of one of their most accomplished assassins. At the same time a few other LL agents aren't fully convinced that it is a good idea to play puppets for one fat eyeball named Orbius. Hearing about the group of adventurers that easily defeated Jil makes them believe that the group could be capable of taking on (and getting rid of) said eye-tyrant. Now, the problem remains, how to get the existing info on his whereabouts across to that group without them failing to ignore or outright killing the messengers. And all that against the opposition of some LL superiors that happen to find the beholder arrangement attractive.

The players get to create fresh 7th level rogue-type characters (or DM can supply pre-made ones) and are to find a way to transfer intelligence about Orbius to the PCs.

Event 1: Breaking news

Rumors about a dead assassin spread in the guild until they solidify and it becomes a fact that Jil, high-ranking assassin and one of the direct contacts of Lord Orbius, is dead. Highly suspected are "your heroes" (TM). Ideas about using them as pawns to rid the guild of the eye-tyrant influence are spawning.

Event 2: Intelligence

Players are supposed to find ways to find Orbius hiding place or certain daily schedules, in short: information suitable to set an ambush for the beast, which is what the players want the adventuring party to do.

Event 3: Opposition

The investigations don't go unnoticed and spies are sent to observe the suspicion faction of the guild. If those are not dealt with swiftly and covertly, better spies will follow. At some point, another assassin of Jil's class will attack them with a few mooks for distraction.

Event 4: Break in

Some of the paperwork dealing with orders from Orbius personally are within one of the Jester's offices, where no one has access to. However, as it happens, Jester Velior Thazo is out of office (guess, why :-) ) and his subordinate is desperate for drugs (the good stuff from Sasserine), so there is a chance to get in unnoticed. However, it should require superior team work to make this happen. Extra info: Thazo's current whereabouts.

Event ... : Help out with ideas, I'm about to run out.

Event X-1: Finding the "tools"

Track down and gather intelligence on the party. Contact them or have them observed. Maybe find already available information on them in the LL archives ;-)

Event X: Spilling the guts

The players are to transfer their gathered intelligence in suitable form to the group of adventurers they want to use. Some ideas on how to achieve this:

- stage a murder scene with evidence that a beholder was taking part (get a statue, get some dust from a disintegration, etc.) and put a forged note with directions to house Vhalantru.
- confront the party and risk capture or outright surrender to them, then giving information about the employer directly, hopefully under pressure or using potion of glibness to make it believable.
- play the information into hands of a trusted ally. Requires finding out who actually are trusted allies of the party.

Any other ideas ?

PS: Of course, this will become a write-up for therpgenius.com, if successful, so please advise.

I had thought, this post was eaten by the boards...

Please go there to post.

Thanks,
Nib

Hi,

I've come across a small problem with the SCAP's railroad approach. At the end of chapter 9 (IIRC), the PCs are supposed to search for the fiery sanctum. The hardcover even mentions ways to tell them, if they fail to go searching for it on their own.

Quite the opposite came true in my game. It's after the battle with Ike and they captured him alive and squeezed the name "fiery sanctum" out while interrogating him. Now they are trying to find it. They already suspect it to be beneath Cauldron (some divination said something about deep beneath the volcano).

When they had secured the Soul Pillars, they asked quite strongly directed questions and I thought hard, how to avoid having them find it a tad too early. Eventually, I could defuse the situation by using the divination shield of the tree of shackled souls as an explanation why the questioning failed to reveal useful clues. The final word of the soul pillars told them that they will be able to divine it when "the volcano stirs", which is "connected to the start of the ritual" and vice versa.

For the moment they seem content to find out more about this volcano problem, but what to do, if they have some down time and use it to poke around under Cauldron. How can i use their curiosity for advancing the plot instead of having to run them into dead ends ?

Cheers,
Nib

Hi,

I've provided my group with some red herrings and some valuable information alike as they are now entering the "take matters into your own hands" phase of the campaign. (chapters 7&8 SoSP & LoO). I may have exaggerated a bit on the relevance of said order, when I only wanted to foreshadow Mhad, the vampire a bit more. Now part of the group is convinced that contacting the order might be a good way to find out about the undead (in Liduton) who they think might be related, if not behind the whole "big picture" affecting Cauldron. They are aware of the Cagewrights, but lack the means to go after them since beside a few names they know nothing about them (as it should be, thank you tree of shackled souls for the scrying shield), so they search for other hooks. Of course, they'll get incentives by the upcoming assassination attempt, but just to be prepared, if they don't go after Wee Jas immediately, what role could the Order of the Silver Dream play ? Should I let the group find it at all ? How much information would they have on the cagewrights ? Nothing ? Teaser ? Just enough so that the campaign progresses as planned ?

I know that in principle I can rule anything, but I thought, I'd toss the idea around on the boards to get the best possible solution ;-)

Cheers,
Nib

Hi,

I've got a wizard in my group, who is an illusion specialist (a pain in itself already, but balanced by having conjuration/necromancy as barred schools) and has access to permanency. While he already had cast detect magic on himself and had made it permanent, he now is going to do the same for see invisibility.

Since Shackled City is a complex and challenging campaign, I do not want to discourage min-maxing as long as it isn't too exaggerated, but I do have some worries about how to handle this ability. I also don't want to punish the wizard player for making very sensible choices.

It is bad enough, that since the first permanency the group attitude has changed from "do we need to cast that detect magic now or can it wait" to "(to DM) Is this sword magical ?" - "You don't know" - "I ask the wizard, of course", essentially assuming that the whole group now sees magic as if they were the wizard (and completely neglecting in-group role-playing opportunities, but that's their style). Now I fear the same is about to happen to invisible opponents. Whenever a battle starts, I can either openly state that invisible foes are present or pass a note to the wizard player, which in itself would tell every player that something fishy is going on. The only obvious workaround would be to pass a note every combat, which would lead to the player receiving the note immediately reading it aloud.

Does anyone see a good way out of this ? How have other DMs handled this sort of situation in their groups ?

How is upcoming battle with the assassins and later with Ike going to change regarding the invisibility seeing wizard. Does it matter ? Or is Ike's flame strike a surprise nonetheless and after that he's visible to everyone anyway ?

Thanks for any input.

Cheers,
Nib

Hi,

part of my next newsletter will be dealing with the accouncement of a music band, with a pun towards a certain famous rock band.

I thought I'd share this with the rest of you, maybe you can use it in your campaign as well.

Cheers,
Nib

Happening at the Tipped Tankard

The world famous band Bene Jovus of front man “Jon, the voice” will give a concert at the TippedTankard tomorrow after nightfall. People from all over the Demonscar are familiar with their hits “One wild Wight”, “She can cast a scorching ray”, “Raise your wands”, “Haunted – Dead or Undead”, “Living on a layer” and “I'll teleport to you”. They will be showing off their brand new songs “It's my blight” and “Keep the wraith” for their loyal fans. Admission is free until sundown. Later, 1 silver will be charged per person as long as space allows.

The search for the real Vhalantru
---------------------------------------------

Event 1 - Reaching Sasserine

The party returns from Occipitus and their plane shift spell sends them into the vicinity of Sasserine. Being the major city in the Cauldron region, it offers a wealth of opportunities to adventurers just returning from planar travels with a big treasure bag to boot.

Near town they meet a farmer from the Cauldron environs, who recognizes the group from earlier deeds and briefs them about the most recent news.

Event 2 - Looking for a tavern

They hear about or experience some of the taverns (I actually used Delvesdeep's write up about Sasserine, available from therpgenius.com, which contains a lot of very neat ideas for memorable taverns) and may chose their inn freely. Steering them to a particular one is also an option. (Deep Sleep would fit very nicely)

Event 3 - Gather information

The PCs recognize that Navalant has been seen in the city. They track down the place where he stayed and learn about his motives for coming. It helps if they have already heard about rumors of Vhalantru running the Cauldron show or about the fact that Navalant has been missing in Cauldron for some days / weeks. It strikes them as strange, that he did seem to travel alone and it has obviously NOT been a business trip.

Event 4 - Investigations and visits

The party learns that Navalant just left a few days ago presumably going back to Cauldron. He had visited the Winking Eye on several occasions and stayed at the Deep Sleep instead of the Golden Giant, where he would spend the nights if he were here on Cauldron business. It beomes clear that he was trying to look into the history of a noble that had moved from Sasserine to Cauldron and is now part of the council.

Event 5 - Retracing Navalant's steps

The party learns that Navalant has been doing research on the Vhalantru family. They are told (or find out in libraries) that an old mansion has been deserted for more than 15 years. According to some people who saw Navalant on the day he left, he seemed to have succeeded in what he was trying to do and left deliberately. (In reality, Mhad, the vampire, who had already been contacted by Lady Rhiavadi about the upcoming meeting, had been visiting the "Deep Sleep" proprietors and realized that Navalant was on to something. She dominated him and sent him back to Cauldron, right into his doom, to Vhalantru's doorstep)

Event 6 - Beholder assassin

The party should be encouraged to search the old Vhalantru mansion (if necessary, by NPC tips) and find a long abandoned 2 story mansion with a roof trapdoor and finger thick dust inside. They are bound to stumble across a living room with signs of a battle and a blood stain (aged 15 years) on a door. When they make it down into the basement, they find the Gouger, trapped in the basement (he got down there after using a polymorph potion) and still waiting to kill Orbius, which he was sent to do. They also find the skeletal remains of a long dead person (the murdered real Vhalantru), dead since 16 years.

The advent of that assassin prompted Orbius to make a quick run for Cauldron in disguise of Vhalantru instead of covering up the murder and preparing properly.

That's so far as we've played already, further events (and details about the events so far) will come during the next week.

Comments and tips about the current sequence are certainly appreciated.

Cheers,
Nib

Hi all,

a round of applause and glory to these boards, since without them, my Shackled City wouldn't be half as much fun (and rewarding for the players, who I can feed all sorts of handouts with relatively little time to spend) and it's already a highly above average adventure series.

Anyway, I'm ending chapter 6 now and have never before in my life mastered a campaign higher than level 9 characters. So, in order to keep up with my players who only need to be concerned about one statblock and the attached abilities, I have every NPC at my hands and most of them die on meeting the party, so I have no time getting used to battling with them. Reason for posting is to ask, how many have already played chapters, say 7-10 and can point out interesting threads (I know how to use a search function, but it can only do good, when you look for specifics).

I'd be greatful if someone took the time to pick the most interesting threads about those chapters and linked them here, so I can put more time into preparing the villains than into preparing handouts or thinking about strategy.

I'm already a regular at rpgenius.com, so anything posted there is good to know, but likely already consumed...

Many thanks !

Cheers,
Nib