I bought the SCAP book off Ebay for 40 bucks, and am still waiting for it to be delivered. I was wondering what everyone thought, overall, about the adventure? DM's and player's opinions welcome, as well as any tips, etc. Thanks.
I was wondering what everyone thought, overall, about the adventure? DM's and player's opinions welcome, as well as any tips, etc. Thanks.
SCAP is a hard adventure set for six players, thus I should recommend you to allow characters with good/very good habilities if your group is less than six and/or use Action Points. Besides, for any other suggestion, just take time to read posts in this messageboard. It is full of very good ideas.
You should also take a look at this webside where you'll find planty of homemade material:
http://therpgenius.com/default.aspx
Hope this helps
I've been DMing from the SCAP (plus using suggestions from this board and from the website mentioned above) and my group of players and I have been having a blast. I suggest reading through the entire thing first at least once, and reading through some of this message board, so you have an idea of the key villains and allies and some interesting "supporting characters" and then weave these into your players' character backgrounds before they start.
I asked each player to write up a possible character background. I took what they wrote and filled in the details with various personages, great and small, from the Cauldron region, so they'd have more personal connection to these people as the game developed. It's worked great so far.
For example, one player made a gnome rogue and wanted to be someone coming to the city to see the world and stay with her uncle. I made the uncle be Keygan Ghelve, and explained that her family doesn't live in Cauldron because they fled 75 years ago from a magical plague in the gnome undercity. Her uncle is one of the few gnomes who remained behind.
Another player wanted to play a fighter who was a former Town Guard who was thrown out because of drunken behaviour. I added to his background that the reason he had started drinking so much was that he failed to stop the murder of several town guards killed by one of their fellows, Triel Eldurast, and he didn't get any promotions after that. Terseon Skellerang is the one who ended up firing him.
Doing this type of thing adds personal connections to the characters and promotes roleplaying mixed in with the combat and other fun.
In general, I liked the adventures. The only problem I found with it is the hard time I had convincing my player to stay in or around Cauldron for so long. Usually, my group has a tendency to want to wander off and explore the far reaches of the globe. With an entire adventure path centered around a single city, I had to "change" some of the areas to accomodate my nomadic group.
And, although I really liked the gnomish fortress in Life's Bazarr, I found it pretty big for a first level adventure... I had my players advance a level or two before they entered it.
Ultradan
Ultradan
I recommend that you have all of the PCs come from Cauldron, or at least the adjacent areas. If you can find a way to connect them to the NPCs or the organizations in the campaign, this would be a great way to make this game about them instead of the city. Be upfront with your players about how this is a difficult campaign intended for six characters that has killed many characters in other campaigns. If you have less than six players, then I recommend that you find a way to power them up a little bit. Either by starting them at 2nd level (having them go through a pre-adventure), using action points, or the gestalt rules if you have three or less players. I have four players and I'm having them gestalt with the NPC Aristocrat class and that seems to be just right, as I have had some close calls, but no deaths yet.
Just in case you only read the first couple of sections before running the game, check the BACK of the book for suggestions for the DM about how to run the game, some options for players to select, along with some suggestions that you can give your players about how each class plays out in this campaign. For example, pointing out that this is primarily an urban campaign can signal players to build their characters more toward NPC interaction, and that playing something like a bard could pay off more here than in other kinds of campaigns or that a druid may feel out of place (although the Urban Druid from Dungeon #317 would fit especially well, particularly one that has an animated cauldron for an "animal companion".)
Read the section in the Dungeon Master's Guide (or the SRD) about running a game in an urban environment. There's some good advice in there. The Dungeon Master's Guide II also goes in to detail about urban settings.
I also advise to be upfront with your players about what kind of play you expect from them. For example, I informed my players that I wasn't interesting in running evil characters, or characters that didn't care about anything, or that were lone wolfs, or existed to mess with the other PCs or me. I want to run a game about a group of PCs who can trust and rely upon each other, and that cared about the fate of their city, and were generally heroic. Now I do have a PC that is a CN rogue, but has been a valued and trusted member of the party. I am giving her some opportunity to be cleverly roguish against some NPCs so that she can stay in character.