I'll be running this with a group in college very soon. The book arives on wednesday, and we will start the week after. 2 members of the group are new, and two are very expeirenced. It's not the new ones I'm worried about. I'm very liberal about what I let people play. The two new ones are a elan and a halfling, but the others are a Dragonkin and a Werebear. I've figured out how to handle the ECL to balance things out (one won't come in untill fourth level and the other is level 0 untill level 4), but I'm worried if such unique and most likely powerful PC's could have a drastic effect on the campaign? I've heard this campaign can be pretty nasty, so, should I be worried about them dominating it, or can I rely on the badguys to be fine if I play them well? For the record, I don't plan on pulling a single punch.
You shouldn't run into too many problems with some powerful PCs in the first adventure. There were some tricky encounters that could go really bad for a group of 1st level characters. By the time that your ECL characters gain levels and are adjusted to the level of the adventure, that initial boost of power should have levelled out.
Now, having said that, I think what's more likely to cause trouble for the group is when players rely on an ECL race's abilities to compensate for levels in a character class. An unbalanced group class-wise has been the cause of some TPKs, if I recall correctly.
It shouldn't be too bad if the werebear is meant to be the party "tank," replacing a fighter or barbarian, and if the dragonkin can contribute as well. That would leave your halfing to be a rogue and the elan to be the caster (psion, I presume?). If your party is going to rely on the werebear or dragonkin to take levels of cleric or wizard after they make up their ECL, they won't be effective casters, being a 1st level caster at 5th, or something.
My two groups that went through Shackled City were a little odd (drow, bugbear, hobgoblin, hengeyokai), but with only a +2 ECL, it was manageable. I remember a post where an entire group was made up of monster races from Savage Species, but their lack of cohesive character levels doomed them early on.
Out of curiosity, what are the character classes for each character, and what size werebear will the PC (medium- or large-sized)?
Ah,I think I see what you are getting at. The Wearbear is large, and plans on taking levels of fighter or barbarian. He is definitly going to be the tank. However, something else you said worries me. The Halfling is definitly going to be the rouge, and the Elan is going to probably go psion, the player who has the dragonkin wants to make him a cleric of Bahamut. I just realized that dispite added power to the group, they will be seriously lacking a healer. Any more advice?
There's the possibility of Rufus from the Temple of St. Cuthbert accompanying them as an NPC for a few levels in gratitude for their intervention on his behalf during the opening encounter. He could stay with them until the group has a solid enough foundation to take care of itself, or just until they finish the first chapter and have returned the missing children, so that the Jenya and the temple can claim to have taken a very direct hand in the matter. After the first chapter, they could probably get by fairly well just by devoting a lot of money to keeping well-supplied with healing potions and scrolls, especially with the discount on such items that Jenya will offer them after they've returned the children. Finally, when the Dragonkin starts gaining levels as a cleric, just advise him to stick with spells that heal and/or buff the party, rather than trying to offensively affect enemies, since his caster level is always going to be 4 or so levels lower than the recommended party level for each adventure. Feats like Practiced Spellcaster, Spell Penetration & Greater Spell Penetration would be a must at later levels if he wants to be able to affect any Spell Resistant enemies with his magic.
I'm in kind of the same boat. I anticipated only having three players for the SCAP and I allowed a centaur wizard (ECL +3), a drow bard (ECL +2) and a half-dragon cleric (ECL +4). I figured they'd need all the help they could get.
I ended up with two more players joining the game, and now the party is standard size and they have three very powerful PC's among them.
As it turns out, it went okay--the party flubbed the encounter at Ghelves and the Malachite Fortress and Jzadirune ended up alerted and prepared several ambushes by organizining the dark creepers and stalkers and giving them a team of tough hobgoblins from down below to buff them up.
Kazmojen and his howler put down two PC's before he was finally defeated, but it was a very tough fight, even with the "tougher than normal" PC's in the party.
My advice is to play the bad guys in the various dungeons as living, breathing, REACTING, creatures. Too often still in D&D and even Dungeon, it's kind of assumed that the monsters just hang out in their respective rooms, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee until the PC's arrive.
My view is that creatures in dungeons know very well that they might become a target and would have alarm and guard protocols set up. My players know that if they alert the dungeon to their presence, the crap is going to hit the fan really fast if they don't beat feet and rethink their tactics.
Right now, my players are approaching the Lucky Monkey in Flood Season. You can bet your bottom dollar that all those Alleybasher rogues and fighters are going to be much better organized and will hit the PC's 'en masse, led by Tongueeater, if the party is not "super careful."
That's how you balance this out, I think....make your monsters and bad guys as smart as, if not smarter than, the PC's, tactically.
There's the possibility of Rufus from the Temple of St. Cuthbert accompanying them as an NPC for a few levels in gratitude for their intervention on his behalf during the opening encounter. He could stay with them until the group has a solid enough foundation to take care of itself...
This is probably the best idea. I used many of the NPCs to fill in gaps in party dynamics several times when I ran this campaign. Not only does it fill in a gap, but having an NPC helps build ties to the city itself.
One of my groups was short on fighters, and enlisted the aid of Skylar Krewis in Life's Bazaar. I introduced him as a 2nd level fighter, and called him Private Krewis. Then later the PCs find out that Skylar got promoted to Seargent, in large part because of his involvement in saving the orphans. Eventually Skylar became the new Captain of the Town Guard when the Skellerang was found dead in the aftermath of Foundation of Flames.
It also gave the players a view of what life "could have been" if they hadn't been adventurers, and took up a position in the city itself.