Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I must say I am incredibly dissapointed with the hardcover edition of SCAP. After running it for about 5 weeks the large flaws in it have become more and more apparent. The biggest being encounters that just plain suck to DM, and parts of the book aren't converted to 3.5. I'm just plain dissapointed with it now and I'm not going to continue running it.
How about some details on these "large flaws" and encounters that "just plain suck." It's a lot easier to not write you off as a troll if you provide some reasoning supporting your opinions.
Sebastian
I must say I am incredibly dissapointed with the hardcover edition of SCAP. After running it for about 5 weeks the large flaws in it have become more and more apparent. The biggest being encounters that just plain suck to DM, and parts of the book aren't converted to 3.5. I'm just plain dissapointed with it now and I'm not going to continue running it.How about some details on these "large flaws" and encounters that "just plain suck." It's a lot easier to not write you off as a troll if you provide some reasoning supporting your opinions.
Sebastian
I'm going to second Sebastian. State your issues please.
I must say I am incredibly dissapointed with the hardcover edition of SCAP, etc. etc.
Just thought I'd mention that the 10 people that have reviewed this product here on the Paizo site gave it an average rating of 5 stars out of a possible 5 stars. I haven't seen it or gamed any of it, but are you sure you aren't mistaken? That's a rather glowing series of reviews. It seems odd to me that your opinion is so diametrically opposed.
I'm one of the people in Aaron's campaign, and we've noted several problems so far (BTW - I post here as my DM has linked this particular discussion to our group message board). Please keep in mind I have not read the adventure as published - I've played it and we've discussed it as a group, so there may well be things I don't know about because of that...
How is a vampire who has ALL the abilites of a full on vampire a CR 5 critter? I mean, it can still dominate (against our fighter types he's got a 50-50 chance of succeeding every time), can still summon a pile of wolves, has crazy DR (could only be hurt by 2 of or 5 party members - though our mage was able to do SOME damge with spells) and can turn gasseous?
Why was the main fight in the first chapter fought by a guy NOT PROFICIENT in his weapon??
Why does there not seem to be enough magic for a party of the appropriate level- and a lot of the magic that does exist has a curse on it..?
Why are there a million traps in one dungeon, with the chance of finding the keys - but if you bypass the traps with the keys, you can't get the exp as you are supposed to (according to the DMG) as the party would then by insanely high level for the part they are in?
Will see if I can come up with the rest of our issues as I remember them - Aaron might know a few more.
Creative Director
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I'll try to answer these questions without spoiling the adventure too much...
First of all, Drakthar is a tough villain, no doubt. He doesn't actually have all the powers of a full-on vampire, but he's still a menace. His hit points are actually rather low for a creature of his CR, and dominate can be defeated by any of the protection from alignment spells.
I assume the guy you're talking about not being proficient in his weapon is Kazmogen? In which case, he IS proficient in the urgrosh; he's half dwarf, remember. He gets the weapon familiarity all dwarves get, and treats teh urgrosh as a martial weapon. Since he's a dwarf fighter, he's automaticaly proficient with the urgrosh.
As for there not being enough magic for the party; I'm not sure where this complaint is coming from. It's true that a fair amount of the magic items found in Jzadirune are tainted, but this is a feature of only one dungeon (in a campaign with close to 2 dozen "dungeons"); as the campaign continues, trust me. There's MORE than enough magic to go around, and if no one in the party likes what they find, there's plenty of opportunities to spend it on magic you do want, be it in Cauldron or Sasserine or further afield.
As for the traps in Jzadirune, I agree with you there. Jzadirune is a really tough dungeon to start out with, and if I were designing it from scratch I'd personally tone down the number of traps. That said, one of the things a DM should do when he runs a store-bought adventure is tailor it for his campaign. You wouldn't want to run an adventure full of undead for a group with no clerics any more than you'd want to run a trap-filled adventure for a group that has no way to deal with traps, right? When we publish adventures in the magazines (or in hardcover form), we simply don't have the luxury to tailor the game to one specific type of party, so we try to make sure that all character classes have a chance to shine. Jzadirune's one where the rogue gets this chance.
Anyway, I'm sorry to hear that you're not having fun with Shackled City; I hope you stick with the campaign, but if you aren't enjoying it, it's probably best to quit now and move on to a different adventure?
Well, the chapters 1 & 3 (Life's Bazaar & Flood Season) were written before 3.5 was published, so there might be some things that were overlooked there when they converted it. Since I ran those two from the magazine before I had the hardcover I haven't looked closer at them after that.
As for the traps the DMG states that you get experience for traps even if you bypass them. In my book finding and using a key is bypassing a trap and I gave my PCs experience for that. I only gave them experience for each unique door, or they would gain way too much experience.
As for the vampire I guess that's from chapter 2 in the book? Since I didn't run that (we were already done with chapter 4 when I got the hardcover) I can't really comment on it. I would guess though that there were something about that encounter that made it a lower level encounter than stated in the MM.
In conclusion I would just like to say that there's errors in this book, as in most published books. That's why I as a DM go through each chapter before I run them, so I have the opportunity to correct anything that wrong. There's also ample material on these boards on how to make various modifications to the campaign.
All in all though, it sounds as if this campaign doesn't suit you and your group. It's unfortunate since my and my groups experience is a very positive one, but that's the way it is sometimes. If you don't enjoy your experience my advice would be to abandon the campaign, sell the book on eBay, and spend you money on something that better suits you and your group instead.
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Creative Director
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The biggest thing that upsets me is it's not 3.5 like it says it's in the book, the stat blocks in the end of the book aren't broken down into the types of armor they have. The spell book in jzadirune isn't 3.5 it lists several spells that aren't 3.5.
Shackled City actually IS 3.5. However; the first adventure or two were originally written in the few months before 3.5 released. When I went through the adventures and updated them to 3.5, I did my best and it distresses me that some 3.0 gremlins made it through.
That said... the stat blocks give all monster and NPC armor classes as their normal, touch, and flat-footed values. This is standard practice for all 3.5 products. The only 3.5 products that break down armor further (listing where bonuses come from) are full monster stat blocks, which if you'll check Appendix 1, you'll see all over the place.
As for the spell book in Jzadirune containing "non-3.5 spells," well, that's an error. A very minor error, but an error nonetheless. Although if we're talking about the same spellbook, there's only one spell in that book that's got this problem.
I must say I am incredibly dissapointed with the hardcover edition of SCAP. After running it for about 5 weeks the large flaws in it have become more and more apparent. The biggest being encounters that just plain suck to DM, and parts of the book aren't converted to 3.5. I'm just plain dissapointed with it now and I'm not going to continue running it.
As a DM of over 10 years experience, I must say that I am getting my money's worth out of the SCAP hardcover. I've tailored the campaign to make it exactly what we want to play, and my players have never been happier. Each and every week my players and I are excited to play, and find another facet of Cauldron to explore.
Regardless of whether or not you play the adventures 'by the book' there remains a wealth of information a DM can use.
The book contains maps, ideas, NPCs, new monsters, new feats, new spells, new prestige classes, the stat blocks for villains, and 12 adventures.
If you can't scavenge anything in this book to spark your imagination or use something for your own campaign, you're either illiterate or lazy.
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How is a vampire who has ALL the abilites of a full on vampire a CR 5 critter? I mean, it can still dominate (against our fighter types he's got a 50-50 chance of succeeding every time), can still summon a pile of wolves, has crazy DR (could only be hurt by 2 of or 5 party members - though our mage was able to do SOME damge with spells) and can turn gasseous?
I'll just comment on Drakthar, from a DM's perspective in how it ran in my campaign. My players have no cleric in the mix, which means that they went up against him with no divine aid. The first time they encountered Drakthar, our party's warlock had split off from the group and was about 50 feet down a tunnel from the rest of the party. Drakthar arrived, in Dire wolf form, and quite predictably, killed the warlock. But the fact is, the character was alone and injured at the time, so it's no surprise Drakthar took him out.
The second time the characters fought Drakthar, they were well prepared for him. Despite his powers and vampire abilities, he has an incredibly low set of hit points. Two good hits, one from our archer and the other from the dwarf fighter, combined with a couple of spells from the wizard, pretty much took him out. Then it was simply a matter of locating his "coffin" and finishing him off.
So I really don't think he was significantly harder than any other CR 5 "boss" character. Like most major antagonists, how dangerous they are is directly proportional to how prepared the party is when they encounter him. And one of the "puzzles" in Drakthar's Way is for the PC's to figure out they are up against a vampire before fighting him, not finding out after the fact.
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Hey there...... I have a solution for you if you are terribly unsatisfied with you SCAP hardcover. I will purchase it from you. I am in Iraq and look forward to returning home within the next month to run this campaign for my group after a year and a half hiatus in our game. I have been looking on ebay for copies of the book to purchase, and been outbid a couple times, but I am patient, I have time. If the current auction I am participating it falls through I will be more than happy to take this burden off your hands. Let me know.
shanelwalden@yahoo.com
Tam
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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So, to summarize, the "large flaws" are:
1. The CR system, which is more art than science, and upon which many a flame war has been based, didn't give the precise numerical rating to the challenge that the group felt was warranted.
2. The DM doesn't understand racial weapon proficiencies. Nor does he appear to understand that an urgosh is "some kind of two-handed weapon." Dual weapons can be used as two-handed weapons or as a one handed weapon and a light weapon. That's why they are (almost) worth a feat.
3. There's not enough loot.
4. Jzarduine has too many traps.
5. A boss type monster has low CR guardians.
6. One spell in one book in one dungeon (out of twelve) wasn't converted to 3.5.
Did I miss any other "large flaws?" Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying SCAP is perfect, I'm not even saying it doesn't have flaws, but for someone who came ranting and raving about how terrible it is, this is a pretty weak list.
Of the six complaints, I would say only 4 is a true weakness of the product. There are too many traps in Jzurdine. It's annoying and not very much fun to play. Removing them is a pain because the dungeon already has too many empty rooms as it is and the PC's lose xp w/o the traps.
As for the rest, 2 is not a problem of the module. 1 and 5 are armchair quarterback comments. Maybe it's just my group, but everytime an encounter goes against them in a large way, they complain that the CR is wrong. And as for a high powered minion having low powered lackies, I don't exactly see how that is a flaw. Maybe the guy likes to have weak minions that can be easily bullied.
Finally, 3 and 6 are so easy to fix that it hurts to think about it. Not enough treasure? Pull out ye old dmg and roll on the table a few times. Is one spell wrong in one spell book? Replace it with another spell.
To summarize, I'd like to hear what exactly is so bad about the SCAP. As has been mentioned, just about everyone else on these boards who has run the game has had a good experience. These boards are an amazing reference for those planning to run the game, and if you can provide them with details of what didn't work for you, that would be a great service to the community.
But this ridiculous sense of outrage over minor details is obnoxious at best.
Sebastian
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Indeed it is rare for a DM not to modify or ignore parts of an published adventure if he does not like it. I do it all the time. I still can't get over the idea that there DMs out there who just start to play the adventure straight without reading it over carefully and then blames the publisher/writer for any flaws or typos that appeared. I played SCAP before the hardcover came out and though i didn't like the test of the smoking eye and asylum adventures,it was no problem for me just to ignore it and ended the campaign with strike on shatterhorn.
Next time read before buying the product.
Hey there...... I have a solution for you if you are terribly unsatisfied with you SCAP hardcover. I will purchase it from you. I am in Iraq and look forward to returning home within the next month to run this campaign for my group after a year and a half hiatus in our game. I have been looking on ebay for copies of the book to purchase, and been outbid a couple times, but I am patient, I have time. If the current auction I am participating it falls through I will be more than happy to take this burden off your hands. Let me know.
shanelwalden@yahoo.com
Tam
Shane,
Thanks for your service. I am a retired SFC and like the rest of america look foward to your return.
Most of the complaints I just don't see as real problems.
As for the traps in Jzadirune, my players never even tried to open any of the gear doors unless they had the keys, and they still got more than enough experience. They knew the gear doors were trapped from the outset because of the divination riddle and because Keygan told them. They enjoyed looking for and finding the various gear door keys, which opened up new areas of the dungeon for them. They were actually a bit ahead in experience by the time they finished Life's Bazaar.
Why wouldn't Drakthar want weak minions that can easily dominate? I don't see that as a problem.
As for the one spell in one spellbook that wasn't converted, that's just way too nitpicky. It's like a typo, easily fixed.
As for the dangerous nature of Drakthar, he is not as powerful as a normal vampire. He's tough, but he should be, considering there are so many clues to the party that they are facing a vampire before they run into him. My group bought a silver magic weapon, alchemical silver, holy water and wooden stakes before even entering Drakthar's Way. The cleric prepared protection from evil to cast on the fighter types to protect them from domination. Any party expecting to face a vampire should have prepared at least one or two such spells.
But I'm sorry to hear this group is not enjoying this adventure. Too bad for them, because my group is having a total blast with the adventure path. We have played nine sessions so far (they just faced off against Drakthar), and my group has grown steadily from three players to seven players over that time. All of them are ejoying the game and have developed great characters that fit in the setting.
We've been enjoying the combat scenarious a lot, but also the roleplaying opportunities. The gnome rogue is the niece of Keygan Ghelve and is hiring a barrister to defend her uncle in his trial for assisting the kidnappers. The bard faced off in a musical competition against Annah Taskerhill that put her to shame before the whole marketplace. The fighter was able to sort out some problems the party ran into with the town guard with his old buddy Skylar Krewis (the figher was kicked out of the Guard for excessive drinking). The dwarf cleric came to Cauldron to find the fate of Zenith Splintershield and enjoyed the chance to slaughter the goblins in the Malachite Keep. Etc., etc.
There is something in this adventure path for just about everyone at almost every turn, though like with any published adventure, the more the DM and the players put into it, the more you get out of it.
Wow - didn't realize that disagreeing the this isn't the best thing since the wheel was such a crime - We appreciate James' comments, but vitriole like this just isn't necessary.
Interestingly, noting from a lot of your posts below, you didn't actually read what was written, as your "summaries" are wildly wrong in a lot of cases - allow me to clarify.
So, to summarize, the "large flaws" are:
1. The CR system, which is more art than science, and upon which many a flame war has been based, didn't give the precise numerical rating to the challenge that the group felt was warranted.
It isn't the CR per se - its the fact that a creature was included in an adventure that was beyond the capabilities of most of the party members to deal with. The thing has CR magic AND silver so in our group the archer could do AT BEST 4 HP damage, and the fighter could do 9 - many times the archer could do nothing. Our mage is multiclassed so at this point he had a whopping 2 offensive lvl 1 spells and color spray didn't seem to do much against the vampire. Finally, the dominate ability is countered by protection from alignement spells -assuming you have them available when you fight him. I have a problem with encounters that rely on the avilablitly of specific spells or abilities to have a chance. What if the group has no divine spellcaster??
2. The DM doesn't understand racial weapon proficiencies. Nor does he appear to understand that an urgosh is "some kind of two-handed weapon." Dual weapons can be used as two-handed weapons or as a one handed weapon and a light weapon. That's why they are (almost) worth a feat.
He misspoke on the two-handed weapon - he ran it appropriately as a dual weapon, but admittedly didn't realize that he was automatically proficient in it.
3. There's not enough loot.
No - nothing to do with loot - everything to do with how encounters are structured. Higher CR creatures assume in a lot of cases that the appropriate level PCs will have access to the means to defeat them. This includes things like magical weapons, scrolls, potions and armour. Level 4 PCs should (according to the DMG) posess some sort of magic armour/weapons. Our party has a magical scimitar - that's it. PCs without magical weapons/armour/items/etc are going to be overmatched by equivalent CR creatures in many cases because they simply can't hit it or damage it. So no - not a case of not enough loot - its a case of weakening the PCs so they don't stack up to encounters like they should - and note that I'm not suggesting things should be EASY - just that they should be fair.
4. Jzarduine has too many traps.
Again - no - the traps weren't the problem. The issue is including things in an adventure that normally give out exp, but you can't realistically award the xp for avoiding the traps as it unbalances the game. The beef (as with the ideas above) is that this book/adventure has NOT been balanced appropriately for the PCs in it. What would you say if every 4th encounter the DM said "Sorry guys - I know you used up resources, hit points and time, but because the game is poorly written you don't get any experience or reward from this encounter"? It would be crap.
5. A boss type monster has low CR guardians.
There wasn't a complaint about this - not sure where you got that from other than it was mentioned as part of an explanation of something else.
6. One spell in one book in one dungeon (out of twelve) wasn't converted to 3.5.
Um - again, as noted above, we are only part way through the second dungeon - I don't know what's going on in the rest, and what's been converted or not - just as we mentioned.
Did I miss any other "large flaws?" Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying SCAP is perfect, I'm not even saying it doesn't have flaws, but for someone who came ranting and raving about how terrible it is, this is a pretty weak list.
I was unaware that your opinion on why we should or shouldn't be enjoying the game is necessary - whether you feel the reasons are weak or not is irrelavent. Aaron posted to see if anyone else had the same impression/ problems, and it seems not. We posted our issues and you've made an attempt to belittle them and pass them off as "rantings" - thanks for your constructive input.
Finally, 3 and 6 are so easy to fix that it hurts to think about it. Not enough treasure? Pull out ye old dmg and roll on the table a few times. Is one spell wrong in one spell book? Replace it with another spell.
Great - since you seem to have the free time, how about doing it for us. We bought a predone adventure as we didn't have time to be doing it all ourselves. I NEVER expect things to be perfect - I've DMd a long time, and know things often have to be changed on the fly - but some things just shouldn't be missed - like power/game balance.
As has been mentioned, just about everyone else on these boards who has run the game has had a good...
We are glad for them - though it doesn't really help us with our problems. Please remember that pointing out that "everyone else" didn't have problems doesn't make ours go away. It does, however, make people reluctant to come to the boards to try to find solutions to them when posts are going to be attacked
Anyway, I'm sorry to hear that you're not having...
Thanks James -we were actually using SCAP as a break from AoW (which we are enjoying!), so we're going back to that soon - we may pick up SCAP later on to see if things are better. We didn't want to just drop it without finding out if others had the same issues or if it was something we were doing that could be corrected -we did spend money on this after all so we wanted to try to make the best of it!
And one of the "puzzles" in Drakthar's Way is for the PC's to figure out they are up against a vampire before fighting him, not finding out after the fact.
Ahh this was part of our problem (and may just have been the issue with our group). We couldn't find out anything about him. We interrogated the goblins, but because they were dominated, they wouldn't tell us anything. We tried speak with dead, but they kept making their saves. We heard a "wolf" howl in the dungeon, but none of us knew what it was, and the Druid's familiar could only tell us that it wasn't "natural". FInally, because we had a wolf, it could track the scent directly to the vampire - hence it was the 3rd encounter we had in the dungeon. Once it started, we didn't recognize that he was a vampire until we were already in hand to hand -he had already dominated the druid, the fighter was down and our thief was mostly dead. We did manage to pull it out (so yes -we all survived - but that wasn't the issue), but would like to have retreated but couldn't without losing over half the party - which seemed pointless at that juncture...
As for the dangerous nature of Drakthar, he is not as powerful as a normal vampire. He's tough, but he should be, considering there are so many clues to the party that they are facing a vampire before they run into him. My group bought a silver magic weapon, alchemical silver, holy water and wooden stakes before even entering Drakthar's Way. The cleric prepared protection from evil to cast on the fighter types to protect them from domination. Any party expecting to face a vampire should have prepared at least one or two such spells.
Just wondering what "clues" were available in your campaign that pointed at this. As I mentioned earlier, we didn't have any indication what we were coming up agianst other than it could magically influence goblins..
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And one of the "puzzles" in Drakthar's Way is for the PC's to figure out they are up against a vampire before fighting him, not finding out after the fact.Ahh this was part of our problem (and may just have been the issue with our group). We couldn't find out anything about him. We interrogated the goblins, but because they were dominated, they wouldn't tell us anything. We tried speak with dead, but they kept making their saves. We heard a "wolf" howl in the dungeon, but none of us knew what it was, and the Druid's familiar could only tell us that it wasn't "natural". FInally, because we had a wolf, it could track the scent directly to the vampire - hence it was the 3rd encounter we had in the dungeon. Once it started, we didn't recognize that he was a vampire until we were already in hand to hand -he had already dominated the druid, the fighter was down and our thief was mostly dead. We did manage to pull it out (so yes -we all survived - but that wasn't the issue), but would like to have retreated but couldn't without losing over half the party - which seemed pointless at that juncture...
Yeah, finding out Drakthar's nature can be difficult, especially if they miss some of the early clues. Our group wasn't 100% sure he was a vampire until after losing our warlock in the first encounter with him. But they were on the right track with the clues.
First, they determined that the owner of the bathhouse was under some form of enchantment (a basic sense motive check that can be made after talking to someone for a minute or so.) They had Jenya break the enchantment so Orak was free to explain what had happened to him. Thus, even from the start the PC's knew they were dealing with something that can charm/dominate.
They also had some of the goblin graffiti translated and one message they clued in on was "Drakthar is dead, long live Drakthar!". That clued them in on it being a form of undead possibly. Since no one in the party was a cleric, they asked Jenya what she might know of undead that can dominate. Vampire was suggested at this point.
Finally, when the warlock was ambushed by Drakthar, the rest of the group arrived to find a dire wolf sucking the blood out of the warlock. This actually almost threw the party off since, as players, they thought Vampires could only shift into normal wolf form. For a brief moment they thought the undead clues were red herrings and they were dealing with some form of werewolf (ogre possibly). In any case, whether it was vampire or werewolf, they went ahead an procured silvered weapons for their second foray into the tunnels.
But I can see your point. Played well, Drakthar can be devestating on unprepared parties. But I think that's part of the point with this adventure. His tactics indicate that he likes to toy and terrify his victims by picking them off slowly. In my game that was quite successful. But I can see where it can be frustrating for a player.
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3. There's not enough loot.No - nothing to do with loot - everything to do with how encounters are structured. Higher CR creatures assume in a lot of cases that the appropriate level PCs will have access to the means to defeat them. This includes things like magical weapons, scrolls, potions and armour. Level 4 PCs should (according to the DMG) posess some sort of magic armour/weapons. Our party has a magical scimitar - that's it. PCs without magical weapons/armour/items/etc are going to be overmatched by equivalent CR creatures in many cases because they simply can't hit it or damage it. So no - not a case of not enough loot - its a case of weakening the PCs so they don't stack up to encounters like they should - and note that I'm not suggesting things should be EASY - just that they should be fair.
I actually want to agree with you here. Right now my player's are in the middle of Flood Season and they still seem ill-equipped for their level (currently 5th). They have been pretty thourough in the adventures so far, but they just aren't finding the magical weapons/armour and miscellaneous items they need to keep pace with their level. This is partly due to the fact that there have been a few items they refused to take (Orak's decanter of endless water, for example), but also because masterwork gear seems to be the gear of choice in the first 2 adventures.
Even the amount of money they are finding, when divided amongst 6 PCs, hasn't been enough for everyone to buy appropriate magical gear. It seems that a lot of the treasure they are finding, to date, has been the expendable kind (potions, scrolls, wands, etc...). So far I think there is one suit of magic armour (studded leather), a couple of magic shields, and one or two magic weapons (daggers I think). None of the major front-line warriors has a magic weapon, since they can't afford the 2300 gp + cost of most weapons.
For me it's a small issue, since I can make the necessary changes to the treasure found to compensate. But I did notice it to be a bit of a problem in the first 2 adventures. Without modifications by the DM, they leave the player's a little unprepared for the challenges of mid level. The less I need to change in an adventure, the better.
Sean Brown, though I disagree with most of your criticisms of Shackled City, I agree with you that you are entitled to your opinion about it and should feel you can voice it without being subject to personal criticism.
As for Drakthar's vampire nature, my group guessed he was a vampire the moment they read the graffiti about "Drakthar is dead, long live Drakthar" and "Drakthar is lord of rats" or something like that. Though they weren't really sure at first, as they thought he might be a wererat (since they fought the wererats when they went to Orak's bathhouse). Still, either way they went to buy silver weapons. Also, after fighting the lemures in Life's Bazaar, the barbarian had decided to buy a silver +1 two-handed sword by selling his other items. He had time to get one made because the adventure suggests giving the characters time to do what they need for a week or two before starting Drakthar's Way.
Once the group captured and questioned Orak at the bathouse, they realized after a sense motive check he was dominated, which further suggested they faced a vampire, and further prodded the cleric to get protection from evil. Note, a wizard or sorcerer can cast protection from evil, not just a cleric. With the time the characters are supposed to have before going to face Drakthar, any wizard or sorcerer should be able to get a scroll of protection from evil if your party lacks a cleric. Now if your character has no cleric, wizard or sorcerer, then you are missing so many basic spellcasters that the DM should realize that he has to adjust the adventure some to your unorthodox party composition.
My campaign is in the middle of Flood Season at the moment. I was having a few of these concerns myself. Especially Drakthar. That DR made me nervous, but when my party finally encountered him, I ran him as is. After a few rounds of not damaging him, the cleric of Wee Jas (oh that's gonna be fun later on isn't it?) managed to get a stupendous rebuke undead roll on him. The party regrouped and started thinking about what they knew about undead. Then someone came up with the idea of using Cure spells against him. And sure enough they had him on the ropes not too long after that. Many of my players in fact told me that the fight with Drakthar was one of most challenging and most fun they'd had in a long time. Book did it's job if we all had fun, right?
I was also nervous they weren't getting enough treasure for their levels. In fact, I was about to drop them an extra reward on them. (One of the player's characters is a Lathenmire... was going to play the "we gave your sister some money for her adventuring party...") But then every character started regularly shopping at Skie's. They were starting to ask her to order and were paying for +1 weapons. So I'd say the treasure distribution is just right.
And as for that one spell in the spellbook that's 3.0 instead of 3.5? Well, ours went something like this.:
"That spell isn't in the Player's Handbook."
"Oh, well substitute Spell X with it."
"Ok"
Sean Brown, though I disagree with most of your criticisms of Shackled City, I agree with you that you are entitled to your opinion about it and should feel you can voice it without being subject to personal criticism.
Thanks - I sincerely appreciate that :)
As for Drakthar's vampire nature, my group guessed he was a vampire the moment they read the graffiti about "Drakthar is dead, long live Drakthar" and "Drakthar is lord of rats" or something like that. .
Our group never got those quotes - from what I could see from what our DM was doing, it looked like the grafitti was randomly rolled - was that the case, or just what he was doing? If it were random, this would seem to be another issue - clues like this can make a big difference, no? We also thought he was a wererat/sorcerer after fighting the lycanthropes outside the bathhouse - later a werewolf after hearing the howl. We tried to "undominate" the underlings, but Jenya didn't have the ability it seemed...
Still, either way they went to buy silver weapons. Also, after fighting the lemures in Life's Bazaar, the barbarian had decided to buy a silver +1 two-handed sword by selling his other items. He had time to get one made because the adventure suggests giving the characters time to do what they need for a week or two before starting Drakthar's Way.
We actually spent the time recovering from the previous battle - we didn't actually start any of the next adventure until a least one (if not two) weeks had past..didn't know anything happened until this point..
Once the group captured and questioned Orak at the bathouse, they realized after a sense motive check he was dominated, which further suggested they faced a vampire, and further prodded the cleric to get protection from evil. Note, a wizard or sorcerer can cast protection from evil, not just a cleric. With the time the characters are supposed to have before going to face Drakthar, any wizard or sorcerer should be able to get a scroll of protection from evil if your party lacks a cleric. Now if your character has no cleric, wizard or sorcerer, then you are missing so many basic spellcasters that the DM should realize that he has to adjust the adventure some to your unorthodox party composition.
As you can see at this point, a series of events led to the fact we had no idea it was a vampire - our cleric/ wizard (2/2) didn't have the spells available, we didn't have any silver items, let alone magic, and didn't know it was a vampire until we were in the thick of things , with 3 out of 5 party members down - escaped only by luck really (and I'm sure a bit of DM fudging to keep the campaign alive). Had we realized at any point before having people down, we would have fled to try to buff up, but knoledge came too late - and I still haven't seen any clues that could have helped us - I am interested to know why your group felt the goblins/Orik was dominated and not simply charmed, and why they felt it was a vampire and not a spellcaster (as we thought)?
I do see how, with the right information, things might have been a bit more "even" shall we say - I hope someone can enlighten me about the grafitti..random or not??
My campaign is in the middle of Flood Season at the moment. I was having a few of these concerns myself. Especially Drakthar. That DR made me nervous, but when my party finally encountered him, I ran him as is. After a few rounds of not damaging him, the cleric of Wee Jas (oh that's gonna be fun later on isn't it?) managed to get a stupendous rebuke undead roll on him. The party regrouped and started thinking about what they knew about undead. Then someone came up with the idea of using Cure spells against him.
We did that as well - however, as I mentioned, we had already suffered significant damage, and most of our cure spells had been used to heal the wounded party members. Remember - we have a lvl 4 druid and a level 2 cleric - not an abundance of cure spells here..we rely heavily on cure potions which cost $$
And sure enough they had him on the ropes not too long after that. Many of my players in fact told me that the fight with Drakthar was one of most challenging and most fun they'd had in a long time. Book did it's job if we all had fun, right?
This is absolutely true for your group - and we are trying to make it true for ours.
I was also nervous they weren't getting enough treasure for their levels. In fact, I was about to drop them an extra reward on them. (One of the player's characters is a Lathenmire... was going to play the "we gave your sister some money for her adventuring party...") But then every character started regularly shopping at Skie's. They were starting to ask her to order and were paying for +1 weapons. So I'd say the treasure distribution is just right.
Well - unless I'm mistaken, Skie's place for us was a "you see what's available, and if not, come back later and see what's there then" kind of place. Even selling everything we found in the dungeons, we had to scrounge to buy the +1 scimitar after getting our hands on all the healing we could.
And as for that one spell in the spellbook that's 3.0 instead of 3.5? Well, ours went something like this.:
"That spell isn't in the Player's Handbook."
"Oh, well substitute Spell X with it."
"Ok"
I'm sure by now you and most others have realized this wasn't anywhere near close to being the main problem - it was one of many we encountered, and listed because we've only played the first dungeon and a half - we (the players) have no idea if this repeats itself later on (and it shouldn't) so it was mentioned. I hope the horse is sufficiently dead so it can stop being flogged on this one.
My post wasn't intended as a flame, I'm sorry if you guys took it that way but I am dissapointed for the above reasons. I did make a mistake about Kazmojen but about the 3.5 conversions and Drakthors CR. It's not just me who feels this way but if the first two chapters have gone this way, I've read ahead and the third chapter looks like it's sizing up to be the same. What am I to do? Telling me my reasons for being dissapointed aren't good enough is as much of a flame as anything. Thanks to those who had helpful and insightful responses.
Aaron,
I'm curious, what kind of preperation do you put into your sessions? From this post I get the impression you haven't read through the entire book yet.
I'd love to share my experience with running this campaign. Many of the other DM's here would do the same. It's no coincidence that this thread is pretty active at the moment. Because your players are reading this, it's probably best to do it elsewhere, though. Many of the threads on this board deal with modifications DM's made to the campaign. there's an entire site called the RPG genius (linked here) full of modifications, PC maps and many other DM aids. There's a lot of errata on this board as well, although I don't believe anyone has gathered it into one big compilation... yet.
Aaron, with the adventure path (this one and Age of Worms) my advice to you would be to definitely try to at least read through all the intro and concluding the adventure sections for all chapters and skim through the middle parts of each adventure for the whole book first. Otherwise you lose the main advantage of using the adventure path, which is that you can foreshadow future events, introduce major NPCs long before their main time in the spot light comes up, and introduce things from throughout the adventure path into your player character's background or side stories so they have more meaning when they come up. It also allows you to give PCs a bit of advice when they create and develop their characters, such as telling a ranger what favored enemies are not likely to be useful at all throughout the campaign, or telling the party they should really have at least one member who can find traps, etc.
Wow - didn't realize that disagreeing the this isn't the best thing since the wheel was such a crime - We appreciate James' comments, but vitriole like this just isn't necessary.
Vitriole? Who started the entire thing? Why on earth would you start a negative thread on a messageboard dedicated to the positive discussion of the SCAP hardcover, if you didn't want to hear what people had to say about it?
I particularly enjoy these gems: "In all honesty I don't need to provide reasons..." or "I prepare 1 chapter at a time, I don't have time to read through the whole book. I shouldn't have too either it's not like I'm an in-experienced DM, it's just with the way the book was layed out there should be no problems going chapter to chapter."
When people respond to these well-thought out responses this is what we get: "I was unaware that your opinion on why we should or shouldn't be enjoying the game is necessary - whether you feel the reasons are weak or not is irrelavent."
And then you whine that you are being attacked? That's a little like the pot calling the kettle black, isn't it? Present us with a specific problem and we'll do our best to fix it. To employ another oft-used phrase; If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen, boys.
The graffiti about town is rolled randomly. You might not have found the graffitti that is was a good hint. "Drakthar is dead, Long live Draktha" though is written on the wall at the bottom of the stairs immediately when you enter. Either your DM missed it or your PCs don't read goblin.
3 out of your 5 characters were down? Funny, but the book explicitly gives 3 different ways in which Drakar attacks. All 3 ways say "after taking down one foe, he turns gaseous and withdraws".
The graffiti about town is rolled randomly. You might not have found the graffitti that is was a good hint. "Drakthar is dead, Long live Draktha" though is written on the wall at the bottom of the stairs immediately when you enter. Either your DM missed it or your PCs don't read goblin. ".
Thankfully one of my group did read goblin - this should be one of the recommendations at the start of the adventure path so that you can make sure that one of them can do this....
Once you are 'in the dungeon' you will find the graffiti everywhere, so they will be able to read all of it at once....
Actually, what got me into a LOT of problems were the 'cursed' items in Jazadrune (spelling)....
Identify has changed DRAMATICALLY in 3.5.... How did you allow your characters to discover which items were cursed?
Aaron and Sean,
I apologize if I came off as being "my way is better." Wasn't my intention at all. I was showing you how I handled those situations that you considered to be problems in an attempt to help you have a more enjoyable campaign.
It is unfair, however, to expect the adventures to run perfectly. Every printed adventure I've ever seen recommends that you at least familiarize yourself with the adventure prior to running it. There are some encounters I didn't run because I didn't think my particular batch of players would enjoy them.
Ultimately, if you aren't enjoying the adventures, my suggestion is to not play them. Do as one of the previous posters recommended: sell the book and find something more suited to your tastes.
My mistake I thought we were discussing the adventure path's positive sides and short fallings, I do appologize to those who beleive it is thier holy bible and cannot be flawed. Appologies all around. *bow* *bow* *prayer* *prayer*
Aaron, read some of the messages on this board. No-one thinks the adventure is perfect. If it where , this board would hardly see any trafic. The AP still requires a lot of time and effort on the DM's part to run smoothly. As others have pointed out, the more time you put into it, the better (and more fun) it will become, both for you and your players.
Actually, what got me into a LOT of problems were the 'cursed' items in Jazadrune (spelling)....
Identify has changed DRAMATICALLY in 3.5.... How did you allow your characters to discover which items were cursed?
Augury makes a decent "detect curse" spell. The players paid Jenya to check each item with the question "What will happen if I successfully use this magic item?". Then the returing "Woe" or "Weal" would give a strong indication that it's cursed or not. Skie was very appreciative that the players had all of the items checked before selling any of them to her. That scored a lot of points with her.
Identify has never been able to detect a curse on an item, with the exception that the identifier becoming cursed during the process of identification.
Actually, what got me into a LOT of problems were the 'cursed' items in Jazadrune (spelling)....
Identify has changed DRAMATICALLY in 3.5.... How did you allow your characters to discover which items were cursed?
Augury makes a decent "detect curse" spell. The players paid Jenya to check each item with the question "What will happen if I successfully use this magic item?". Then the returing "Woe" or "Weal" would give a strong indication that it's cursed or not. Skie was very appreciative that the players had all of the items checked before selling any of them to her. That scored a lot of points with her.
Identify has never been able to detect a curse on an item, with the exception that the identifier becoming cursed during the process of identification.
For my group; they sympathised with Fario and Fellian(Striders) and gave them some informations in exchange they told them about some possibilities of curses on magical objects found in Jzadirune(informations from Meerthan).
My mistake I thought we were discussing the adventure path's positive sides and short fallings, I do appologize to those who beleive it is thier holy bible and cannot be flawed. Appologies all around. *bow* *bow* *prayer* *prayer*
That's not how you started the thread. You basically made a statement: "I'm just plain dissapointed with it now and I'm not going to continue running it."
You follow it up with: "In all honesty I don't need to provide reasons other than the ones stated above."
While you did follow up with examples, the tone of your response says to me that you're here more to complain and less to find answers.
These aren't the kinds of things that one posts to have a discussion. Quite honestly, they're...well, trollish. If you're having problems with the book, ask pointed questions and you'll get good answers. If you make vague, negative comments, you'll get the kind of response you've gotten -- guaranteed.
It sounds like you were hoping to get a product that would require very little prep time and the SCAP book isn't fitting the bill. Personally, I've never found a better ready-made campaign than the Shackled City Adventure Path, except perhaps the Dragonlance campaign, and I've been gaming since...well, it's been a long time. ;-)
But I'm not everyone. Admittedly, I spent a lot of time preparing for my campaign, including gratuitous use of the SCAP resources site linked elsewhere in this thread and this message board itself. It's really paying off and that's about the only advice I can give to you: If you plan on running any more of the adventures, spend more time preparing. That way, you can post your questions here and get them answered before you play instead of after.
There is a ton of great advice in the Shackled City threads. Avail yourself to it.
Good luck.
It isn't the CR per se - its the fact that a creature was included in an adventure that was beyond the capabilities of most of the party members to deal with. The thing has CR magic AND silver so in our group the archer could do AT BEST 4 HP damage, and the fighter could do 9 - many times the archer could do nothing. Our mage is multiclassed so at this point he had a whopping 2 offensive lvl 1 spells and color spray didn't seem to do much against the vampire. Finally, the dominate ability is countered by protection from alignement spells -assuming you have them available when you fight him. I have a problem with encounters that rely on the avilablitly of specific spells or abilities to have a chance. What if the group has no divine spellcaster??
Drakthar may have been "beyond the capabilities" of your group, but I imagine there are groups containing a cleric with the Sun domain and Improved Turning that treated Drakthar as a speed bump in their journey through the SCAP, rather than a true impediment.
I agree that any encounter that requires specific spells or specific special abilities -- that is not tailored for a specific group, i.e., it's a home game -- is a bad encounter. However, this is not one of them. Drakthar is tough for the unprepared, but a silver greatsword costs 230 gp and a scroll of magic weapon costs 25 gp. Given the number of creatures in the Monster Manual with DR, anyone who's going to fight with weapons should have silver and cold iron, at the bare minimum. It's just the nature of the game and both are eminently affordable by 4th level.
Now, if you don't have any spellcasters at all or the monster requires adamantine at 4th level, I don't know what to tell you...
From this thread and others, it sounds like there were a number of things that didn't work out in your favor to combine for a bad scene. Not understanding what your party was up against was a bigger problem, though. Until you know what to use, all the cold iron in the world won't help, eh?
protection from evil (and its ilk) is on the spell list for both wizards and sorcerers, not just clerics. If they choose not to learn it -- or memorize it -- well, there are always scrolls. At a mere 25 gp a pop, they are well worth the coins spent.
No - nothing to do with loot - everything to do with how encounters are structured. Higher CR creatures assume in a lot of cases that the appropriate level PCs will have access to the means to defeat them. This includes things like magical weapons, scrolls, potions and armour. Level 4 PCs should (according to the DMG) posess some sort of magic armour/weapons. Our party has a magical scimitar - that's it.
Yes, they should. I was concerned that my group wouldn't be getting enough treasure from the adventures to be properly equipped, so I combed the first three adventures for anything that could be considered treasure and I put it into a spreadsheet. I didn't count certain things, like the treasure on the durzagon encountered at the end of the first adventure because it's written so the party won't fight him in most situations. (I counted the armor, weapons, and ammunition found on bad guys, in case it matters.)
After surveying my spreadsheet, averaging it out for 6 players, and consulting my trusty DMG for what it says about character wealth, I concluded that for the first two adventures, it's pretty much spot on, even taking into account a half-buy back for most items. (I can't remember how I counted the Vanishing items.) The third adventure, with all its masterwork items, actually seems to be too much.
Maybe you didn't find the treasure rooms in Jzadirune and the Malachite Fortress. Maybe the buy back value in your campaign is reduced. Maybe you didn't gather up all the weapons and armor you found. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
All I'm saying is that without knowing the specifics of your campaign, I believe the treasure is there.
We did that as well - however, as I mentioned, we had already suffered significant damage, and most of our cure spells had been used to heal the wounded party members. Remember - we have a lvl 4 druid and a level 2 cleric - not an abundance of cure spells here..we rely heavily on cure potions which cost $$
I'd suggest cure scrolls instead as they're half the cost and both the druid and cleric can use them. Not useful for a fighter, but there's a tradeoff somewhere, eh?
Well - unless I'm mistaken, Skie's place for us was a "you see what's available, and if not, come back later and see what's there then" kind of place. Even selling everything we found in the dungeons, we had to scrounge to buy the +1 scimitar after getting our hands on all the healing we could.
There are several possibilities here, but they're going to be dependent on your DM. I made it so that any +1 item is available at Skie's at any time. If your DM doesn't want to go that route -- too many magic items on hand, say -- he can always allow you to order what you want from Skie's and have it arrive in a month or so. (If he pushes you out the door to the next adventure before your stuff comes and leavs ill-equipped, shame on him.) Treating Skie's as a place that's only what-you-see-is-what-you-get makes it really difficult on the players.
There's also Coryston Pike, if you saved her from the vile slavers. Coryston has connections through her family that can help PCs get what they want. I believe this little tidbit was only in the web enhancement from life's bazaar in the downloads sections: http://paizo.com/dungeonissues/97/97WebEnhancement.pdf
I wish you the best of luck in Cauldron!
Thank you, Jeffrey, for your thoughtful comments.
The graffiti about town is rolled randomly. You might not have found the graffitti that is was a good hint. "Drakthar is dead, Long live Draktha" though is written on the wall at the bottom of the stairs immediately when you enter. Either your DM missed it or your PCs don't read goblin. ".That would be the latter - no one in our group reads goblin. We got the stuff in town translated, but couldn't do anything with the stuff in the dungeon. :(
Actually, what got me into a LOT of problems were the 'cursed' items in Jazadrune (spelling)....
Identify has changed DRAMATICALLY in 3.5.... How did you allow your characters to discover which items were cursed?
This hosed us as well. I missed one session, and at that time, the group never thought to tell Skie about the "curse" on the items. I show up next week to find Skie is looking for us - wants he money back for the cursed items she was sold, and we had to pay restitution for the curse. Now she won't buy any items from us...which drastically reduces our ability to get $$.
Depends on what you mean by "down" - our Druid was dominated and out. Our fighter was unconscious (brought back up after the druid got (and made another saving throw). That was the only two I can remember (if I said three it was in error). AT this point though our mage was out of spells, and our thief had just shot his 11th arrow at a single goblin before killing it - and was now out of arrows (this had nothing to do with the adventure - just bad luck - but since the thief couldn't overcome Drakthar's DR, it was kind of moot). I was the second fighter and was "fine" though limited in the damage I could do - 1d8+6 I recall - so I could do between 0-4 dmg per hit depending on luck.
Had we been able to read goblin or had we been able to retreat things would likely have been different. I don't consider these to be "flaws" of the game itself - more (as posted above) that the part would have to have access to certain spells and items that were never really included in the game. Perhaps I'm a bit old fashioned, but whenever I DM'd I always made sure that that PCs had access to (ie - found or read about) the way to defeat an upcoming monster.
BTW - just curious how all your PCs found out the weakness of vampires? Did everyone ask Jenya (assuming she knew..), or did many groups metagame and simply rely on player knowledge - it was moot in our game as we never got that far, but was curious.
[From this thread and others, it sounds like there were a number of things that didn't work out in your favor to combine for a bad scene. Not understanding what your party was up against was a bigger problem, though. Until you know what to use, all the cold iron in the world...
Thanks for your comments - very helpful to be honest, and you are right - there were things that simply "didn't work out" which may have contributed - one of the reason I like to come and point out our problems to see what everyone else thought...
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(Off Topic,............... again)
I don't think my offer to purchase your SC supplement earlier met with a positive response. Even so, I thought I would be prudent to mention that my offer is not longer valid as I got a copy off of ebay at a great price. Thanks anyway, and I hope you find a way to enjoy what promises, to me anyway, to be a great campaign.
Tam
Well, to add my 2 coppers here I do have to concur with others in this thread, reading the entire AP would be advisable. Now since I've not played nor DMed any of the Shackled City I can't comment on any strengths and/or weakenss or just plain old party bad luck that took place but I did read through the latter part of the path and it looked like an enjoyable romp for a party or at least a flashy death to talk about at the cons.
BTW - just curious how all your PCs found out the weakness of vampires? Did everyone ask Jenya (assuming she knew..), or did many groups metagame and simply rely on player knowledge - it was moot in our game as we never got that far, but was curious.
This question is being discussed in this thread.
I agree,
Im also disapointed with the adventure.
After +- 10 sessions we are at the middle of flood season but already read the entire book.
* ALMOST only hack and slash. You cant solve ANYTHING in this campaing without a sword, Unless its mean to be. There is no space to deal with enemies. Theres no space for mercy or diplomacy.
* Dungeons and Monsters are way too powerfull and crowded. Once a combat starts... its almost impossible to do not Alert 1/2 of every dungeon.
* Pretty much straight forward, since almost anyone knows a shit about anything. And when someone knows there are strict rules to do not tell anything to pcs.
* My players have a felling that they are just moving ahead and still puzzeled without a SIMPLE hint of WTF is goin on.
* Old news.. but the thing i hate most this days is.. "Check apendix 4"
I belive its a great story. I got overly excited after i read the entire module.. i tot that it would be a great adventure to run. But now i am and killed 4/5 of the group yesterday i realised that its a great adventure for DM, ebcause there are plenty happening in BG. but for teh players.. till they get close to 11th.. its pretty much... do as they said.