I was curious if anyone had done a primer for Cauldron for their PC's for this campaign.
I will be starting this campaign sometime soon and was looking to see if one had been done.
Otherwise, what would be good info to let the PC's know for when we start, especially if they are to be local.
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Otherwise, what would be good info to let the PC's know for when we start, especially if they are to be local.
What a coincidence; I just bought Shackled City this weekend and am trying to figure this out as well. So far I've just been skimming through the book, looking over all the art and reading anything that catches my eye. The book is very well done, and I'm looking forward to getting my group started on it. I was planning to eventually settle down and start compiling notes of "safe" player knowledge, but will also check back here to see how this thread turns out.
A little background, just for fun: the group I'm running is one experienced player, two fairly new players, and one who's very new. They're going through Box of Flumph now, as an intro for the newer players. Planning to run them through Mad God's Key afterward so they can really be comfortable with their characters before being whisked away to Cauldron.
Since there are only four of them, and Shackled City is a "very hard" campaign designed for *six* characters, I'm considering giving them Companion Spirit (from DM Guide II) to help with AC and healing, and also maybe hooking them up with a NPC support-type character, possibly a Bard.
Still sort-of-new to the DM thing, though I've been playing for a long time. Running a couple of adventures before Shackled City is as much for my benefit as theirs; I want to do a good job with the campaign, and this gets me into my groove before we get embedded into a campaign-length storyline.
There are two helpful NPC trailing the PC pretty much from the begining. Fario Ellegoth {Helf ftr/Rog} and Fellian Shards {HElf rog/clr} are members of the Striders of Fharlanghn and trail the PC's after they are charged with finding the orphans. They will show themselfs to the PC if they get themselfs into a jam. They initally claim to be looking for a friend of thiers that was kidnaped a few weeks ago. They give the discription of an elf who is on the list...I forget which one. Latter in the campaign if the PC prove that they are on the side of good and can be trusted they will let them know there true mission. This is easy to do durring the first part of flood season when the party rescues Shensen. Shensen is another member of the Striders.
Another being Alex the paladin of St Cuthbert could also help in the first two missions. He leaves town around the start of flood season and the party has to save him in Deanonskar. My point being that there are several NPC that can help the party from time to time that could tie into the campaign better IMO than a spirit companion.
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My point being that there are several NPC that can help the party from time to time that could tie into the campaign better IMO than a spirit companion.
Appreciate the feedback! I'll look into those NPCs as I do prep work for the first SC adventure.
Part of my concern is finding the right balance of difficulty; I like to run four-player groups, and one of the first things I read in the hardcover was that the campaign was designed to be a tough campaign for six characters. With three new (or fairly new) players, I'm trying to make sure things are smoothed out to be just challenging enough without being frustrating or overwhelming. Once I know the adventures better, I'll have a better idea how to handle it.
Thanks :)
I understand your concern. The campaign was originally set for 4 players......same dungion with a LOT of player deaths. I am running the campaign with 6-7 players, 6 currently with no plan to fill the last slot as the game flows better with six. You WILL kill players in this game.....If you don't you are not playing the monsters to thier potential, and/or cheating dice rolls to keep them alive. I am curently in the middle of Zinith Trajectory and have had three PC death. Two were from the 7th player who was voted off after the second death as his play style didn't work with the rest of us. My point is that this is a chalenging campaign. You may want to make the rolls for your players as to thier local traits.....NEW to the campaign and located in the player creation appendix. One that I liked for new players was longshadowed. The character will automaticly stabalize if he is taken to negitve hit points but healing magic dosn't work as well on him. In other words the only way to kill that player is to take him to -10 hitpoints in one hit as he will not bleed out...which is the way most PC die in my campaigns. Anyway look at the traits and see if any of them fit your PC's.
I would probably do it myself, but I am not a very good judge of what seems relevant for PC's. I just on't want to give them info that she shouldn't even know yet.
Anyone have suggestions for this?
I'm ramping up my group for our chargen session in early September, but I've already got them interested with our campaign blog.
Feel free to check out my campaign precis here:
http://www.randomdialogue.net/gaming/shackledcity/2005/08/campaign-precis.h tml
Great, Thanks! That was what I was looking for.