I just received the new hardover and it is beautiful! This is exactly how a complete level 1 to 20 campaign should be put together. The artwork is great, and I really like how you have added portraits for all of the main characters and scattered them through the book where they are needed. I'm also really glad that you added Drakthat's Way, and I like it.
Two things bother me about the hardcover. One is minor: I would have liked to see more advice about starting out the party, which character classes are useful, which are not (ranger and druid obviously), etc. The level suggestions are given, but the sidebars for adjusting the level are gone.
The other one is more serious, and I hope it is not replicated in Age of Worms. There are way too many dungeon crawls! Just looking though the adventures and including the new one, seven of the twelve adventures are pure dungeon crawls or almost entirely dungeon crawls. Very few of the adventures involve significant outdoor encounters, and nine of the adventures have significant portions where characters delve into the earth around Cauldron to root out evil. There just isn't even variety here, and some character choices are clearly suboptimal, like ranger, druid, and paladin.
I really hope this isn't the case for Age of Worms, but the early signs are not good. We've had three adventures so far, and two of them are entirely or almost entirely dungeon crawls. The third one was a much better mix and involved a fair amount of overland travel. I hope at least that Age of Worms is less than half dungeon crawl, and that there is a lot more exploration, outdoor travel, and city intrigue.
Why do you think a paladin is a suboptimal choice in this campaign?
Why do you think a paladin is a suboptimal choice in this campaign?
Because even with the pokemount, he doesn't get that many opportunities to use his mount. Dungeon crawls plus city encounters mean that the mount is not often used. The Ride feat tree is a waste for the Adventure Path.
If the setting of a certain part of the adventure bothers you so much, why not change it? Why not change "Test of the Smoking Eye" into a different adventure, focusing on an long wildernis trip, perhaps into the jungles, or the mountain range?
Just adopt some of the encounters and creatures out of the "Test"...I could do it in a few hours.
You can't write an adventure path and please everyone all the time, but this stuff is flexible enough where you can adapt any part of it to whatever YOU want for YOUR game.
If the setting of a certain part of the adventure bothers you so much, why not change it? Why not change "Test of the Smoking Eye" into a different adventure, focusing on an long wildernis trip, perhaps into the jungles, or the mountain range?
Just adopt some of the encounters and creatures out of the "Test"...I could do it in a few hours.
You can't write an adventure path and please everyone all the time, but this stuff is flexible enough where you can adapt any part of it to whatever YOU want for YOUR game.
Test, I don't count as a dungeon crawl - you are moving around outside on a demiplane, after all. That's the easiest one to convert. Life's Bazaar, for example is hard to convert.
It would be nice to have had the page number instead of just "see Apendex 4" in the stat blocks...Just something to consider fot what I hope will be the upcoming Age of Worms Campaign Hardback.
ASEO out
Good point James. How about this for a Life's Bazaar conversion into a partial wildernis adventure?
The skulks take the orphans into a smaller Jzadirune and the PC's find clues that Kazmojen's slave market is actually located in an old abandoned town a few miles from Redgorge. The skulks used the pulverizer automatons to drill a new passage through the mountain that emerges at the base of the volcano along a well concealed game trail.
The party's rangers and druids have a field day summoning animals and tracking the skulks as they move about by night thorugh the valleys and jungles, have some minor encounters along the way, including foiling a skulk/dark creeper ambush along a forbidding game trail during a starless night (with rain and thunder?)
The party eventually arrives at the abandoned town, a sodden, rotting affair of overgrown log cabins abandoned long ago. A deep well in the town is actually an entrance to the Deepearth and Kazmojen has installed an elevator. He sells his slaves here because he feels forcing his customers from the Underdark to come to the surface puts them at a psychological disadvantage for negotiations...
...voila...Life's Bazaar includes a cool wildernis crawl.
James,
I found the numerous treks around Shackeled City can provide ample opportunities for wilderness adventures. I scoured the D&D website and found some prewritten adventures to fill in while the characters journey to the dungeons. I agree that there are too many dungeons under Cauldron, so I moved Karran-Kural to the mountains south of Cauldron. It makes more sense that an icy tomb/lab would be located in glaciers and frozen wasteland to me. Here is an outline of these adventures.
Note that the Haunted Village is now ripe with opportunities for clerics and undead combat, the fozen trek to the mountains is a survivalists nightmare, and several waterbourne treks are included - even a desert is around Shatterhorn.
Arrive on the coast of the Amedio Jungle – Village of Camiram (Seawell)
A Wreck Ashore
Bad Light
Journey to Cauldron – Unfamiliar Ground (adv. in Dungeon)
A Dark and Stormy Knight
Arrive in Cauldron – Life’s Bazaar
Find the Missing Wands
Flood Season Begins
Death at the Lucky Monkey
Return to Cauldron – Dry Spell
Flea market, Itinerant Flea Market?
Hunt Begins -Investigation
Shopping, darling… Magic Shop
City Scenes
Dinner
Sinister Informant at the Sinister Fountain - Hah!
The Old Kincep Mansion
Ways of the Sword?
The Hanging Tree
Into the Korpru Ruins
Zenith Trajectory
Umberhulk Attack
Dinner and a Deal
The House of Metage (role playing for fine clothes to wear to dinner)
City Scenes?
Dinner at Cusp
Journey to Crazy Jared’s (about 3 day’s worth of wilderness type adventures –mostly role playing)
The Hillside Farm
The Misty Vale
Something’s Cooking
The Ettin’s Riddle
Base of Operation
The Blasted Heath
The Old Stone Bridge
The Ruined Tower
Journey to Pit of Seven Jaws
Road to Nowhere
Use the waterfalls cavern map from dungeon 122 May
Journey to Bhal - Hamatugn
Dragonsbreath Basin
Spider, spider…
Test of the Demonweb?
Bhal-Hamatugn
Wilderness adventures on the way back to Cauldron
Fallen Angel?
The Alchemist’s Eyrie?
House of Harpies?
Alek Tercival
Legacy of Aramitana – when the characters want to rent a home
Demonskar Legacy
Chaos in the streets riot
Tygot’s Old Things
Ministry of Winds?
Haskin’s Manor
Thicker than water ???
Journey to Redgorge
Hill of Ravenous Beasts
One Last Riddle
Eyefor an Eye?
Fang?
Part of the Pack?
The Old Stone Bridge II
The Coldstream Bloomery
The Old Gristmill
Redgorge Village
Redgorge and The Chisel - the Village of Relmornth - the Monsters of the Moon
First Appearance of dead Guys on Parade? And nasty Surprises
Jungle Journey
Ill met on the river of Dreams
Tower of Deception?
Shoals of Intrigue
The Old Oak Tree
Voice of the Destroyer
Test of the Smoking Eye
Return to Cauldron
Eye for an Eye
Temple of Redcliff 10
To Quell the Rising Storm 10
Road to Oblivion 11
Self fulfilling prophecy 11
Woodland Cottage
Welcome Back
Tarsus’s Banquet 10
Sheeps Clothing 11
Thicker Than Water 9 - 12
Lochfells Secret (on coast) 14
Matters of Vengence 14
Black Rain 15
Assasination
Investigation
Interlude
Death and Magic
Respite
Weaving a web of evil
Journey to Ruins of Karran-Kural
Ghosts of Aniel
The Kingsfields
Lest Darkness Fall and Start at the End and Treasure of the Black Veils
Altar of Ghostly wealth
Part of the Pack?
Fallen Angel?
Ill Wind in Friezford 14 (Haunted Village)****
Harvest of Evil
Stone Dead? 14
Black Rain? 15 assault on temple of st cuthbert
The Kaorti Ubercyst
Cult of Tharizud
Mind War
Frozen Whispers
Viroe’s Aerie
A question of Ethics 12
Fiat Accompli 12
Frozen Whispers
The Cave of Icy Wonders
Into the Frozen Waste
Tower in the ice
A Frigid Demise
Winter’s Heart Glacier
Crumbling Hall of the Frost Giant Jarl
Ruins of Karran – Kural
Cave of Spiders 9
Environmental impact 8
Road to Oblivion 11
Stone dead??? 14
Haunting Lodge 17
The Brass Trumpet
The Greenleaf Shop
Party at House Rhivadi
House Vhalantru
Hunt for Vhalantru
A Meeting of Minds
The Mountain Awakens
Hookface
Thirteen Cages
Revelations and Descent
Fiery Sanctum
Force of Nature 17?
Strike on Shatterhorn
Denziens of stone Bog
Twisted Wood
The shadow Glade
The Thunder Below 17
Demons
Eye of the Sun
The Crawling Jungle
Shrine of the Feathered Serpent
All adrift on the Dune Sea
Desert Sands
Monks of the Burning Tiger
Ruins of Shatterhorn
Picture from dungeon 116
Under Shatterhorn
Force of Nature 17 WeeJas excuse
War of Dragons 18
An Icy Heart 18?
Asylum
Spawn of Madness
Research Orthrys
Skullrot
I have the following very minor complaints meant to be taken as suggestions for the Age of Worms hardback:
1) There's no adventure synopsis. Take Demonskar for example. I have to read that entire adventure to find out what happens that affects the plot.
2) No campaign synopsis. To get the idea of the overall campaign, you basically have to read everything.
Since I already had all the mags I didn't expect much difference. However, what I would have liked to see is the small block on auras and sounds that PCs hear and see at the beginning of each section.
We need a Shackled City Overload now Paizo. Get to work now! :-)
I got the Shackled City Book last week (monday) and was thrilled about it. The artwork is great. I love the new map booklet and particularly the "after the fire" map. It's a great book (especially since it puts all those adventures in one easy to access location), but I do have a complaint.
First, why did they remove the aura/sound stat blocks? I'm going to assume it was to save space to allow more new content but still...those were sooooooo useful as a DM. I ran the finale of TotSE on Sunday and thinking I wouldn't need the magazine version, I just brought the hardcover. The wizard of the party (permanent detect magic) started asking about the nexus of evil and the lich and I start furiously thumbing through the book. Ended up just winging it, but the information was so detailed in the magazine, I felt like I missed out.
I'm not sure if the book was exactly worth it, considering I already bought the other magazines. Then again, I am a completist and it would have driven me mad if it wasn't in my possession. Once again, kudos to the paizo staff for making this book happen.