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Hello all. I’ve noticed a difference between what my fellow DMs at the local gaming shop and the people on these boards seem to think of this latest edition to the “Shackled City” adventure path. Now I’ve already given my somewhat negative opinion of “Thirteen Cages” in another thread, but for the most part I’ve seen very few posts specifically mentioning whether they thought it was good or bad. In the gaming shop I frequent and amongst the other DMs I know in person running the path I have basically been receiving negative comments about it especially when comparing to past installments. One guy went as far as to say it ruined the path for him. I was wondering what the people who have begun frequenting these boards thought of it?
**In no way is this meant insult the author of the module or the people of Dungeon. I love you guys. It’s just that the consensus that I’ve picked up on this subject seemed to point at a glaring problem and I wanted to start a discussion on the matter.
I have yet to run "Thirteen Cages", but will be in the coming weeks. I do not have any problem with it, nor do I think with any stretch of the imagination that it has "ruined the path", but I can see where some folks may have issues with the Cagewrights' tactics.
Is this what you are refering to by a "glaring problem"?
My group will be starting Thirteen Cages probably in three weeks, and I've been reviewing it as often as I can.
I don't see anything glaringly bad with anything... especially since the party will be using up a great deal of spells on their way in. It will be interesting to see how much they try to hold onto their spells, knowing that they can't stop to rest and recover.
They'll all assume that the worst fight is at the end, and may hold back on some other really big encounters, like the dragon.
My question is about the thin walls:
How do the Cagewrights get around the walls? I might have missed the explanation on that. Do they knock the walls down? Or are the walls easily moved?
I understand that their purpose is to thwart Find the Path spells, but how do they function? Several of the walls provide shortcuts, but if they don't easily open, or otherwise move, how is it an effective shortcut?
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I finally got to sit down and read Thirteen Cages cover to cover. I loved it. It's a mean fight, and will be a very intense test of my DMing skills. I did notice a few things I thought I'd bring up.
1. In room C17, where is the description/notes for the secret room? Is there anything in there, or is it all in the main bedroom?
2. Is it just me, or is the trap in C8 a little low on the CR? I was thinking an 11 or 12 since it's a continual trap.
There was another, but it escapes me right now.
Can't wait for the next adventure path!
I was a little disappointed that the final installments have turned out to be low-budget slugfests with not much in the way of interesting architecture/settings, links to old NPCs, or climatic opportunities.
Adventurers of that level are not even going to follow the old "kick down the door and fight" formula considering the range of magic items and effects they are capable of using.
Overall, I think the Adventure Path started strong but began to fail in the "high-level adventure" range, which is not surprising considering the difficulty of producing challenging and interesting high-level adventures.
Creative Director
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You've hit the nail on the head there, K, about high-level adventures being difficult to write. Since high-level characters do indeed have so many options available to them, it's pretty much impossible to have a high-level adventrue of any significant length cover all the possibilities that can occur. What we try to do instead is present the information in a clear, familiar way, so that when the DM's PCs do something crazy and high level (like sending in a small army of Hookface simulacrums to take down Shatterhorn, or by using greater scrying, greater teleport, and dozens of prep spells to do surgical suprise strikes on specific NPCs while they're baking muffins or whatever it is they do when they're not fighting PCs), the DM will be able to react to the unexpected more quickly.
Keep in mind that it's not over yet. "Asylum," which appears in issue #116, ends the Adventure Path with quite a few climactic encounters and some recurring NPCs from earlier in the campaign.
Also, please consider that like "Foundation of Flame" and "Thirteen Cages" earlier, "Strike on Shatterhorn" and "Asylum" are really just one big single adventure split over two issues. Rather than cut a pair of 30,000 word adventrues in half and try to present them as two 15,000 word adventures, we instead split those two adventures in half and ran them as four 15,000 word adventures over the course of four issues. Not the best solution, I agree, but in the end I think it works well enough.
I just finished running the climatic battle in "Thirteen Cages" and I can truthfully say... there's a reason why the NPCs aren't bunching up in a room. Try running the final fight with 8 PCs, the cleric of Nerull, the Conjurer, the Loremaster, Dyr'ryd, Coalfire, the glabezru, and everything they can summon. Try it, I dare ya! Let's just say it's madness.
Squid
Squid,
Are you saying that you did group everyone together? Or that you thought about it and decided against it?
Either way, I'm interested to know some of the details in the encounters. Did any of the PCs die? Almost die? Did they fight the Dragon? Did they discover the needed artifact to turn off the Tree of Shackled Souls?
Inquiring minds want to know!
Hmmm.... how do I put this?
Yes, I grouped everyone together. Yes, there were 8 PCs. Yes, one of them died. It was... insane. The conjurer and loremaster escaped. The quasit got pincushioned to the Tree by the party's archer. Unfortunately I don't have time to really talk about it right now. I'll post later tonight about it in it's own topic.
Oh, and while I'm at it... one of my party members is casting, pretty much every fight, a Ball Lightning spell, (using action points,) that is Energy Admixtured, Maximized, Empowered, and Energy Subsituted... for a grand total of 270 points of wandering Acid and Sonic damage. Anyone got a fix for this monstrosity?
Squid
Counterspell?
What does it take to exhaust your PCs?!
This week we're finishing "Foundation of Flame". Hookface arrived at the end of the last session. I had prepared both the SCAP version of Hookface and an advanced version of Gargantuan size, because me PCs just almost never fall (and because, let's be honest, I wanted to finally use the mini!)
The PCs have not rested since the adventure began and, after four play sessions (4 hours each), are only now starting to run low. It's clear that clever players can parcel out their abilities to last an eternity.
I bring this up because, I can see the rationale for making them go through Thirteen Cages without a chance to rest up.