I'm preparing a new campaign and I'm trying to decide between SCAP or AOWAP. I do have all the Dungeon issues for the AOWAP. I would have to purchase the SCAP book if I decide to go with that. I'm planning to set this next campaign in Greyhawk.
Any suggestions or preferences between the two? I'm kind of leaning toward AOWAP because I own all the Dungeon issues, though SCAP looks very cool. Any feedback would be appreciated.
I think the good folks at Dungeon magazine benefited from the Shackled City Adventure Path when they wrote the Age of Worms. The adventures are a bit more cohesive, things link together a bit more succinctly, etc. I think Shackled City is decent, especially after being edited for the hardcover, but for my money AOW is a bit more in line with the archetypal D&D campaign and more Greyhawk specific.
My warning with either of them is to break up the dungeon crawl heavy elements with other encounters. Cut a few rooms that you feel are extraneous from each dungeon and add in town encounters, role playing situations and player motivated actions. Do their characters want to try going someplace a bit out of the way on the path? Side adventures are a good idea in either path, just to make sure that they are properly equipped and experienced for later adventures while cutting extraneous encounters from the pre-published adventures. That's my two cents, hope it's helpful.
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I'm preparing a new campaign and I'm trying to decide between SCAP or AOWAP. I do have all the Dungeon issues for the AOWAP. I would have to purchase the SCAP book if I decide to go with that. I'm planning to set this next campaign in Greyhawk.
Any suggestions or preferences between the two? I'm kind of leaning toward AOWAP because I own all the Dungeon issues, though SCAP looks very cool. Any feedback would be appreciated.
I also think that Age of Worms was a big improvement over the Shackled City. They really learned a lot from the first go round and it really shows up in the quality of the second AP. My only suggestion to it is really sort of the same as James. It is really helpful to sprinkle the campaign with some sidequests and forays into town for gear and such between some of the heavier dungeon crawls. Otherwise, I would say that AoW is a huge improvement over SCAP.
I would suggest Age of Worms for all the reasons listed above and the fact you get some of the classic charaters and items from 1st edition D&D i.e. Dragotha, the Hand of Vecna and Kyuss himself.
AoW is almost certainly the better campaign, as most will tell you.
That said, I think SCAP has one thing that AoW doesn't -- a richer setting. IMO SCAP's focus on and around Cauldron allows players to become more engaged in the setting and NPCs.
For whatever it's worth.
Jack
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Well, while I'm a bigger fan of Shackled City than Age of Worms, I'd try to offer objective advice:
If your players are newer, and are likely to want to adventure from a "home base" with support from allies, then Shackled City is your best bet.
If your players are familiar with the history of Greyhawk and its' campaign setting, and are more independant-minded, then Age of Worms might be better.
Thanks for the replies and suggestions. I like that the AOWAP has Greyhawk goodies from 1E in it. I like adventures that have an old school feel to them. I think I will go with the AOWAP.
Thanks for the overview of each. It helped me make up my mind.
*blinks as i misread the topic, and now can't shake an image, unsure how well it would work but.....*
Shackled Age of Worms.....blending the two paths....level advancement would be accellerated and a bit problematic..but...hmmm......there just may be something, there...
*blinks as i misread the topic, and now can't shake an image, unsure how well it would work but.....*
Shackled Age of Worms.....blending the two paths....level advancement would be accellerated and a bit problematic..but...hmmm......there just may be something, there...
That's actually something I'm thinking about doing. I'm playing AoW, but once it's done, I may tinker with the setting a tad and use it as a follow-up to SCAP. Diamond Lake could easily a mining village near Cauldron. I know that there is an arena battle, and I've placed a large, well-run arena in Hollowsky. Kyuss' old temple is in the area... I think it could work. Of course, I haven't read the AoW AP, so it may not work either. :)
Well, I only haved the last couple of the first Adventure Path modules, but I have recently managed to incoroprate a kind of "Return to Shatterhorn" into my Age of Worms campaign.
You see, I specifically hate the thought of teleporting everywhere, it takes all the fun out of travel, so in my game you can only teleport to somewhere you have actually been to originally.
So in my game, ships have been taken from Magepoint to Sasserine, and from there the group has gone by horse to Cauldron, all the while looking for anyone who knows exactly where this Spire thing is. I eventually had one of the adventurers who defeated the Cagewrights say something like, "Yeah, I think I remember some ancient fresco map on the walls under Shatterhorn - didn't think much of it at the time, but I'm sure it had something on it that looked like that cactus-thing you call the Spire of Long Shadows..." Yep, the map from the Shatterhorn adventure, with the names of places deleted etc.
So now the group is half-way through the ruins of Shatterhorn, which have had most of the monsters deleted. I just kept the Demodand in his secret room, and decided he trained up a fiendish monk geletinous cube as per the recent wizards web site article (for a laugh) - a lot of the traps have been smashed, and the other survivor underground is the snake construct. Oh, and I kept the above-ground encounter, but took out the hill giant, and had one of the orcs found in a room with a piece of pie (the party druid backed off, but she rolled badly on diplomacy so the orc was convinced she wanted her pie so attacked). All up, a fun bit of mix and match, with a bit of a light-hearted theme for a change.
I heard that there were some articles in Dragon about the AOW. Are these necessary to run AOW?
I think both paths have there strengths and weaknesses but in my opinion Shackled City AP is the better adventure. Cauldron is such a rich vibrant city with a huge array of interesting recurring NPCs. Roleplaying is extremely easy with sucha backdrop and the players form a strong link with the location not just the task at hand.
Another strength of the SCAP is the main villian - Vhalantru. The fact that the party meet him in the first adventure and then, unbeknownst to them, have him continuely manipulate them for a long period of time in another guise before finally clueing into his superfudge is fantastic.
Another great plus for the path is that it has already been compiled and put into a Hardcover. This has made running the campaign very easy and enjoyable with everything together.
Finally becasue it was the first path with the largest quanity of people playing it, there has been a huge stockpile of resources, maps, pictures, side treks, support material etc written by DMs to help run it. A site called RPGenius has been put together containing hundreds of free downloadable material to help run the adventure.
Either way it sounds like you have already made up your mind but when you do finish the AOWAP make sure you run through the SCAP - it is a sensational campaign.
Delvesdeep
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I think both paths have there strengths and weaknesses but in my opinion Shackled City AP is the better adventure. Cauldron is such a rich vibrant city with a huge array of interesting recurring NPCs. Roleplaying is extremely easy with sucha backdrop and the players form a strong link with the location not just the task at hand.
Another strength of the SCAP is the main villian - Vhalantru. The fact that the party meet him in the first adventure and then, unbeknownst to them, have him continuely manipulate them for a long period of time in another guise before finally clueing into his superfudge is fantastic.
Another great plus for the path is that it has already been compiled and put into a Hardcover. This has made running the campaign very easy and enjoyable with everything together.
Finally becasue it was the first path with the largest quanity of people playing it, there has been a huge stockpile of resources, maps, pictures, side treks, support material etc written by DMs to help run it. A site called RPGenius has been put together containing hundreds of free downloadable material to help run the adventure.
Either way it sounds like you have already made up your mind but when you do finish the AOWAP make sure you run through the SCAP - it is a sensational campaign.
Delvesdeep
Not to quibble overly much, but the main villain in the SCAP was Adimarchus, Demon Prince of Madness not Vhalantru. Orbius Vhalnatru was at best a lackey of the Cagewrights, and not even that high up in their organization. He was a good recurring Villain but certainly not at the top of the food chain.
I agree with you about the Hardcover, but disagree that it had the largest quantity of people running it because it was first. The reality in my mind is that far more people have run AoW because the idea of the AP had been around for a bit by then and people who subscribed to the magazine but didn't do anything with the SCAP decided they would give the AoW a go. That is sort of what happened with my group. We didn't try the SCAP until the hardcover came out because it was a relatively new concept to us, but with AoW, we jumped on it from the first issue. I was a player in both and from that original group I know of at least 3 DM's besides myself that are running their own STAP campaigns. So to me it seems that the number of people playing these adventure paths is going up with each successive one. Thus, I would find it hard to believe more people have actually played the first one. JMHO.
Again not to quibble too much because the SCAP was still a great campaign, but IMHO they learned so much from it that AoW blows it out of the water completely.
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I heard that there were some articles in Dragon about the AOW. Are these necessary to run AOW?
They aren't necessary, but extremely helpful. I would say if you have seen the Savage Tidings article in Dragon 348, then you have a good idea of the kinds of things that the Worm Food Articles bring to the table. If you don't want to track down all of them there are a few that are especially good. There is one that has a list of cohorts the players can have from Diamond Lake, and those cohorts are actually PC's from Erik Mona's AoW campaign. Another one is the suggested creatures for the Gate spell towards the end. That Undead hunting Solar was a huge help when we fought Kyuss at the end. My elf wizard summoned that particular Angel and promised him 50 years of aid in his battle against undead in return.
There was another one that had a Kyuss worm based prestige class etc. They definately add an extra dimension to the game, but I wouldn't say they are strictly necessary.
Not to quibble overly much, but...
I love it when people do this. It's like 'I'm sorry but..' or I agree with you 100%, but...' - you may as well not said the first part at all because as soon as you throw in a BUT in practicularly discounts what you have said up to that point. Not to quibble though....;)
..the main villain in the SCAP was Adimarchus, Demon Prince of Madness not Vhalantru. Orbius Vhalnatru was at best a lackey of the Cagewrights, and not even that high up in their organization. He was a good recurring Villain but certainly not at the top of the food chain.
I guess I should have clarifyed this a bit more. While Adimarchus is the ultimate villian and the cagewrights the group running the show from the shadows they are not the most memorable nor interesting villian. Vhalantru stands head and ...well he doesn't have shoulders but a long way above both these villians.
Vhalantru spends most of the campaign in a completely different guise possibly even 'assisting' the group while pulling the parties strings and manipulating the city towards the goals of his faceless leaders (who only become known just before the party kill them).
Of course this is all my opinion and you are intitled to your own and it seems clear that you are an Spawn of Kryss through and through. All I am really saying is that many people like to believe that the SCAP is AOWAPs poor cousin because it came second and that the writer learned from the first paths mistakes. And while I do believe they created improvements in the second installment I don't think they did so in every instance. To me the setting city of Cauldron is the biggest strength of the SCAP. I also believe that the work created by Dms to support the AP on such sites as RPGenius is sensational and I would even agree, I match if not better than what was presented in the Dragon magazine to help support the AOWAP.
I agree with you about the Hardcover, but disagree that it had the largest quantity of people running it because it was first. The reality in my mind is that far more people have run AoW because the idea of the AP had been around for a bit by then and people who subscribed to the magazine but didn't do anything with the SCAP decided they would give the AoW a go. That is sort of what...
The Hardcover is a huge strength and drawcard for the Path. The AOWAP just doesn't have it, plain and simple. They probably will eventually and I will be snapping it up when it is available but, as was shown with the SCAP, they make mistakes with the adventures in the magazines and iron these out when they compile them.
All in all though the Adventure Paths are a sensational concept and a great pulling card for DMs and players alike. I think they all have their own strengths and weaknesses but I find it too easy to say that each path will be better than the previous one in every way. They are all different, with different moods, feels and elements.
My advice is to play them all :)
Delvesdeep
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Not to quibble overly much, but...
I love it when people do this. It's like 'I'm sorry but..' or I agree with you 100%, but...' - you may as well not said the first part at all because as soon as you throw in a BUT in practicularly discounts what you have said up to that point. Not to quibble though....;)
..the main villain in the SCAP was Adimarchus, Demon Prince of Madness not Vhalantru. Orbius Vhalnatru was at best a lackey of the Cagewrights, and not even that high up in their organization. He was a good recurring Villain but certainly not at the top of the food chain.
I guess I should have clarifyed this a bit more. While Adimarchus is the ultimate villian and the cagewrights the group running the show from the shadows they are not the most memorable nor interesting villian. Vhalantru stands head and ...well he doesn't have shoulders but a long way above both these villians.
Vhalantru spends most of the campaign in a completely different guise possibly even 'assisting' the group while pulling the parties strings and manipulating the city towards the goals of his faceless leaders (who only become known just before the party kill them).
Of course this is all my opinion and you are intitled to your own and it seems clear that you are an Spawn of Kryss through and through. All I am really saying is that many people like to believe that the SCAP is AOWAPs poor cousin because it came second and that the writer learned from the first paths mistakes. And while I do believe they created improvements in the second installment I don't think they did so in every instance. To me the setting city of Cauldron is the biggest strength of the SCAP. I also believe that the work created by Dms to support the AP on such sites as RPGenius is sensational and I would even agree, I match if not better than what was presented in the Dragon magazine to help support the AOWAP.
[b]
I agree with you about the Hardcover, but disagree that it had the...In truth I am really enjoying STAP more than either SCAP or AoW although I am on the DM side of the screen this time around. We are only one module in, but this AP is going to be something special IMHO. I do very much agree with you that all the AP's have been great campaigns, and it is like comparing lamborghinis to ferraris. It just depends on what you like better, but both are great cars. Same thing here. I didn't mean to come across nearly as confrontational as I probably did.
Its all good :)
I'm really looking forward to playing the STAP too, unfortunately I think that will be in 2012 judging by the pace of our SCAP campaign to date and after playing through the AOWAP. You will have to let me know if the STAP is so good that it warrants skipping the AOWAP altogether.
Delvesdeep
Thanks for the replies.
I'm pretty excited about running the Age of Worms. Especially after looking at my Domain of Greyhawk map from the 2E Player's Guide and noticed that all the locations in the first few advetures where on the map! Diamond Lake also follows the description that was in The Adventure Begins.
I have to thank Erik Mona and James Jacobs for a job well done and feel that they are putting the soul back into D&D.