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I'm very serious about running The Shackled City adventure path, but I might reconsider if it contains too many "dungeon crawls." Published adventures have a tendancy to be dungeon crawls. But the idea of the Adventure Path sounds cool. So, is The Shackled City merely a string of dungeon crawls, or is it fairly balanced between dungeon crawls and other things?
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Well, there are in fact a lot of dungeons in Shackled City, but most of them are really cool! One of the Dungeons is on the 507th layer of the Abyss.
You will also have a lot of opportunities for City Adventures and there are some encounters which happen in the city: Demsonstration Scene, Umber Hulk attack, Earthquake and Dragon Attack on the City, etc...
There is also a fair amount of overland travel.
We had a great time with the SCAP, and my players don't like big dungeons. The first two dungeons are quite huge, but you can easily make them smaller and both are below the city. In the HC there will be an extra adventure after the second installment, but I don't know how it looks like...
I'm halfway through the 3rd module and the only thing I would probably change if I had to do it over was the Kopru Ruins in Flood Season. The dungeon itself was pretty cool but there were just too many mooks. It was a crawl to get through it in every sense of the word. We usually play in 3-4 hour sessions and it took us 3 sessions just to get through all the mooks.
If you decide to play the AP, don't even think about starting it until you get some Tact-Tiles. I can't even imagine what it would be like to play through without them.
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Thanks for the info guys! I was able to glance over the AP adventures in 4 of the Dungeon mags and I decided that I'm going to go for it. I think that the dungeon in Life's Bazaar is WAY too big, but, like you said, I could shrink it up a bit. The dungeons in the other adventures I looked at were quite a bit smaller, which is more to my tastes. This AP looks like it will be an awesome story. I can't wait to run it!
I think that the dungeon in Life's Bazaar is WAY too big, but, like you said, I could shrink it up a bit.
Actually, I didn't have a problem with the Life's Bazaar dungeon. It's actually really cool - lots of cool traps and rooms. It actually moves a lot faster than the Kopru Ruins in Flood Season. Flood Season had too many mooks whereas Life's Bazaar was more about exploration.
The Malachite Fortress moves pretty quick too - once the PC's clear out the hobgoblins, they are free to explore the rest until they get to the Kazmojen's room.
The amount of baddies in a dungeon has more to do with how slow it will be than the actual size of the dungeon itself.
I didn't have a problem with the mooks in Flood Season, but that's because my PCs had a rogue with a Diplomacy and Bluff of +12 and was a member of the Alleybashers, so he talked his way out of most of the combats involving them ...
Ok, so one of your PC's employed a highly unorthodox method of dealing with the mooks? I hardly think that's helpful to those who are going to run Flood Season. I mean how many DM's have had a PC who is an Alleybasher in their party?
A normal party will have to deal with the mooks one by one. This takes time in-game and can get old very fast.
I didn't have a problem with the mooks in Flood Season, but that's because my PCs had a rogue with a Diplomacy and Bluff of +12 and was a member of the Alleybashers, so he talked his way out of most of the combats involving them ...
It's cool you used player background to solve the mook problem in Floos Season. It save you a lot of time reworking the dungeon or rewriting encounters. This is a perfect example of you a DM can edit an adventure to his and his players liking with minimal effort.
Creative Director
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I didn't have a problem with the mooks in Flood Season, but that's because my PCs had a rogue with a Diplomacy and Bluff of +12 and was a member of the Alleybashers, so he talked his way out of most of the combats involving them ...It's cool you used player background to solve the mook problem in Floos Season. It save you a lot of time reworking the dungeon or rewriting encounters. This is a perfect example of you a DM can edit an adventure to his and his players liking with minimal effort.
Agreed; fighting's not the only way to take care of the Alleybashers and other mooks in the Kopru Ruins. In the end, if the fights with the mooks seems to be getting old or dull, you should certainly adjust the adventure to take some of them out. Alternately, if the PCs trip an alarm, you can have a swarm of mooks attack them; they're pretty low level and even a lot of them shouldn't be too much of a problem for a 5th- or 6th-level party. They're fairly undisciplined as well, so if the PCs kill a good handful, the mooks are likely to run off.
Another handy way to get rid of the mooks is to simply have them hear rumors of what the PCs did to their pals at the Lucky Monkey. They may be hired goons, but they're not particularly loyal and money can't buy bravery for cowards. They might abandon the Kopru Ruins in mass. Triel would certainly snap and kill some of them in anger, but the majority would get away. If the PCs are having trouble finding the way in to the ruins, a steady stream of Alleybashers and thugs pouring from the lava tube entrance on the side is a nice clue.
In the end, removing mooks from the rooms doesn't really hurt the adventure, though, especially if your group is composed more of roleplayers.
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Creative Director
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As for Dungeon Crawls...
This genre of adventure is certainly the most popular among D&D players, so that's the main reason there' so many dungeon crawls in the Shackled City Adventure Path. It's not necessarilly my favorite genre (probably 2nd favorite, after urban adventures), but there ya go. When I was developing the Shackled City for its new hardcover incarnation, I took the observations of "too much dungeon" to heart as best I could. I didn't cut any dungeon out, since I knew that other players/DMs like them, but I added in more information about Cauldron and additional encounters so that it's a lot easier to run a more Urban Intrigue-based campaign than it was in the original series of 11 adventures. Mostly in the form of a more detailed description of Cauldron, although here and there throughout the adventure the urban encoutners are expanded (especially as regards the Flood Festival itself).
(And yes... for any prospective authors reading between the lines... at this point, good urban adventures probably have a better shot at getting into the magazine than good dungeon crawls...)
I like the Shackled City idea. I like to see more of the City and dungeon crawls mixed. But, some ocean adventures or adventure paths leading to multiple cities are fun as well.
What would be really cool is to come up with a Neverwinter series of adventures. I love the game. And, the adventures and add ons have been really well done. Could you do a Neverwinter Adventure series?
Let me know!
Ric