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Hey all, I just ordered the Shackled City AP book and expect to be running the campaign withing two or three weeks with the 3.5 rules. As of right now, I have three players. One is considering a human fighter and one is thinking about an elven rogue. The third is undecided, but wavering between human paladin, human cleric, and dwarf ranger. All three are open to new character concepts to make the party balanced.
What are your thoughts? Can the party make it with only three players? Should I run an opening adventure to give them a little extra xp? Will the absence of either a divine or arcane spellcaster mean disaster?
Thanks. This AP looks great.
What are your thoughts? Can the party make it with only three players? Should I run an opening adventure to give them a little extra xp? Will the absence of either a divine or arcane spellcaster mean disaster?
Having a blast with this AP so far - sure you'll love it!
If you're running it as is, then the loss of a caster won't be too bad; the loss of a thief will hurt more. Things will need scaling back as you're running with less players, but there is some good advice in the hardback to help you with this.
You could run an adventure before chapter 01, that's what we did and the extra XP was welcome with a smaller party. It is pretty easy to insert a "travelling through the wilderness" adventure, with the heroes heading to Cauldron, as a "Chapter Zero" opening. You might want to shy-away from the encounter tables in the book though - most of them will eat a freshly generated party, no trouble.
Don't forget to post here and tell us all how it is going!
Peace,
DoD - Kev
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I ran SCAP a couple years ago with 3 players. It petered out after chapter 3 for unrelated reasons, but it was tough. I'd recommend using Pathfinder by the way, it definitely ups the power level of many of the PC classes and the PF cleric has a lot more healing power.
You might consider having your players go gestalt. My players weren't willing to take on the extra complexity though.
SCAP is fairly well tuned for 6 3.5 PCs. Running with 3 will tax them pretty heavily. You're going to have to give them something extra. Either levels, loot, extra character options, something. Remember that 3 characters get half the actions of 6 and that's a pretty serious deficit, even if you give them extra power in other areas.
I ran this AP with only two PCS in 3.5, all rule books allowed, so my players had very well built characters. Having only two characters on the good side is a bit tricky, so I resolved that by adding one (or at times even two) NPC(s) to the party. The advantage of this is that you can choose which character that is, so you can pick someone who has something to do with the ongoing adventure (people like Alek Tercival, Kaurophon). We ended up with having Anna of the Stormblades as a sort of permanent member to the party, which was nice, because her bardic abilities and buffs allowed the PCs to shine even more.
I have a different suggestion. Have the pre-adventure occur completely in the city. There will be several opportunities to adventure through the surrounding jungle and mountain environs later on.
Although Cauldron is the underlying basis for the adventure path, almost all of the adventures take the players out of the city to adventure. Underground dwellings, abandon fortresses, and secret passageways. For a campaign that features an urban setting, there isn't enough urban adventuring.
The pre-adventure should involve the backstories of each character. For example, the family of one character owns an apartment building that's being haunted and asks the character and his violent friends to investigate. Turns out that the ghost is played by someone in disguise, played by a member of the thieves' guild The Last Laugh. Further investigation reveals that the building is wanted by the noble Vanderborens and they hired the Last Laugh to do this. The building contains a secret that involves a seer with a touch of madness who lived there 200 years ago, and is an ancestor to one of the other characters. Something like DaVinci code or National Treasure, where more secrets of the town's history are discovered to be tied to the player characters or the NPCs of Cauldron.
While designing this pre-adventure (or even if you aren't going to do this,) be sure to 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 greater detail about urban settings.
In regards to only having three players, 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 three players, then I recommend that you find ways to power them up. Using the classes from the Pathfinder RPG instead of D&D 3.5 is a good start, as they have all been slightly enhanced. You can also have them simply start at 2nd level, and using action points, and especially the gestalt rules can really help. I had the four players in my game gestalt their characters with the NPC Aristocrat class, and that seems to be just right. Gestalting with aristocrat has had the effect of shoring up each character's weaknesses rather than granting additional strength and greater complexity for the player. There were several close calls, but only a few deaths throughout the campaign. And having the characters start from the upper class gave them a slight social power-up.
The campaign also provides several NPCs that can adventure with them. Fario and Fellian are obvious examples, but there's also the cleric Rufus whom they save in the first scenario, and the people they rescue at the end of the first adventure can also include a helpful adventuring NPC that would complete them. Someone whose from one of the Cauldron organizations and directly affected by the events that occur in the beginning of the second adventure. Each NPC should be "guest stars" and only hang out when the adventure happens to intersect with their interests. For example, Fario & Fellian are called away on Strider business at the beginning of the second adventure, but rescued NPC steps in because he's investigating the disappearance of his missing family member who's also a second cousin to one of the PCs.
Interestingly enough, the existence of the Stormblades (described in Chapter 3) provides a safety net for the campaign. If the players are in dire straights and are about to be defeated, the Stormblades can come in from behind and take down the imminent threat. Although the PCs are saved from death or capture, it comes at the very heavy cost of being saved by their douchebag rivals who hold them in utter contempt and will use this opportunity to humiliate them forevermore. Plus the Stormblades will take the lead in completing the current adventure.
The RPG problem with rescuing players from a TPK is that the players resent being rescued by NPCs because it removes the threat of significant failure, which removes the "game" from the roleplaying game, and it can make the NPC the real star of the game instead of the PCs. So here's a way to avert this by dialing it up to 11 and have the rescue be a fate worse than death for your PCs while saving your game at the same time.
I've ran this campaign twice, so I'm too full of advice for new DMs running Shackled City. Please excuse my threadcrap; I just can't help myself!
Have all of the characters be from Cauldron, or at least the adjacent areas.
Cauldron is the inobvious but ever-present character in the Shackled City adventure path. When the players involve themselves in Cauldron's comings and goings, they will get the feeling that the town is a living breathing place and will enjoy it so much more. I found that Cauldron is the best feature of this Shackled City adventure path, which is one of the best adventures I ever ran.
I really believe that the campaign works so much better when the characters are from Cauldron, with a campaign NPC or two incorporated into their background. The player's emotional buy-in into the campaign increases when they are out to "save my home" instead of "save the city", or "help my childhood friend, who is the cleric of my church" instead of "help Jenya", or "find my missing brother" instead of "find kidnapped kids."
Really, why have the PCs be from anywhere other than Cauldron, or the adjacent towns? If they are from somewhere else, will they ever go back there during the entire run of the campaign? No!
Find a way to connect them to the NPCs or the organizations in the Shackled City campaign. Having their characters be children of the named NPCs is a great way to do this. They could also have a relative who is a member of the Last Laugh, or have one of their parents suffer from a debilitating mental affliction that has them spouting nonsensical prophecies. This will deepen their connection to the city and it's people.
In the game I ran, one PC was the daughter of the Lanthenmires, another the niece of Zenith Splintershield and her mother is a master architect and member of the Chisel, another the wife of Vortemax Weer, and the fourth was the daughter of the proprietors of the Tipped Tankard Tavern and became high priest of the Church of Pelor, expanded from the shrine that it was.
Helping each player assign their PC to an NPC citizen or family already defined in the campaign has really integrated the characters to Cauldron in very rewarding ways. This has also provided an excellent venue for foreshadowing of upcoming events and to connect the players directly to the overall plot.
Not only should their backstories be based in Cauldron and be intertwined with it's peoples and organizations, but they should also already know each other. Each character should have a pre-existing relationship with at least one of the other characters and share some history.
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. Tell your players that this campaign is primarily an urban campaign and to expect a lot of dungeon crawl, a good amount of social challenges, and a little bit of wilderness adventure. The social skills are crucial for acquiring information from NPCs, citizens, and organization; also for overcoming social challenges and investigative mysteries. The knowledge skills that can be useless in other games are valuable here. K:Local, K:Nobility, K:History, etc. Without these your party will be mushrooms: kept in the dark and fed bullpoo. Regular druids and rangers are out of place. Urban druids (from Dragon #317) and urban rangers (found in Unearthed Arcana) belong here. Particularly an urban druid that has an animated cauldron for an "animal companion". However, there's also a LOT of tough combats in this campaign, so don't neglect the fighters and other heavy hitters!
I hope my suggestions are helpful. Let us know what happened in your game later on.
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Having the PCs be locals is certainly a route I'm thinking of. I have one player interested in being a traveler looking to set down roots (missionary of pelor) but that might work just as well if the character is actively trying to become part of the city.
I was going to set the preview adventure outside of the city. But now that you suggest it, Gimenez, saving an inn or other beloved local business or helping out family is a great idea and a great way for the PCs to meet if they create characters with no ties to each other.
Thanks everyone! I'm biting my nails till the book arrives. 12 days seems so long!
The reason I (and a lot of DM's, I think) started their campaigns outside the city is that it gives you a chance to have the players visit the Lucky Monkey when it's still up and running, and especially to have a chance to meet Shensen before her rescue in Ch. 3. I had the players come across one of Maavu's caravans from Sasserine during the end of an ambush by hillfolk, so the characters rescued one of the caravan drivers, thus making a potential ally in Maavu's organization, and I introduced a hillfolk bad guy who will reappear during the attack on the Lucky Monkey. Also, one of my players runs a half-drow druid who was *thrilled* to meet another half-drow. I certainly see the point to doing a preview chapter in the city, but there's something to be said for what seems to have become the traditional Chapter 0 as well.
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But if you don't like that idea, just let Jenya travel with them as an NPC healer.
Yeah. Reading the responses here I'm thinking I'll include "guest star" npcs from time to time in particularly vicious parts of the AP. This'll ease up on some of the strain and give the PCs more of a connection to Cauldron if they get to know and rely on certain npcs.
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So we've begun the campaign.
It's a spectacularly beautiful book. The adventures are amazing, the setting is superbly detailed, the plot is wonderful, and the players are having a blast.
The only problem I might foresee is they may be gaining XP too fast. They are in Jzadirune right now, and XP is pouring in left and right. They ran into trouble with the mimic, but I had Fario and Fellian come to their rescue. Now the half-elves are traveling with them and they're evening out the XP awards.
Because there are only 3 characters, they get bigger shares of XP when they defeat tough monsters. Is this making them too powerful? Or should I allow this and let them be a little "ahead of the curve" for those tough monster fights when only 3 PCs is a hindrance?
The SCAP is designed for 5-6 PCs. If you have only 3 PCs there should be no problem. Let them be 1 or 2 lvls above the suggested and they may have a chance to survive the big fights.
The side effect is, that with being 2 lvl higher than suggested the PCs get less XP for their enemies and they will get not too much XP for being 3 PCs only. So that should work fine.
I've recently begun SCAP with 3 Gestalt PCs. I have a witch/rogue, a ranger/fighter, and a paladin/fighter. We haven't got to Jzadirune quite yet, so I don't quite know what I'm in for with this group in alot of combats, but so far the roleplaying has been excellent.
I am adjusting everything as I go along, and updating it all to PF, which means tougher NPCs. But, I am down-scaling the largest dungeons, because my PCs would kill me if I threw them in a dungeon with over 60 rooms!
I started the PCs with some intro adventures to compensate for the xp trimmed from Jzadirune, and help tie them to the setting better.
I am trying to retain alot of the difficulty, but adjusting the scale to fit three PCs. I converted the Skulks and gave them a level of warrior, which pushed them into the CR1 range for pf (no where near a CR2 monster!).
I am also using medium xp progression, but will make sure PCs are at appropriate levels along the way. Will scale-back the amount of magic items as needed throughout.
Basically, I am doing alot of work editing the AP for my group, but it has been worth it, and I can still get-in 2, 4-6 hour, sessions a week!
Also my PCs notice the little details I throw in for them (like things I know they like, or things tailored to their character), and then they know I pay attention to their characters.
After the third adventure, I stopped keeping track of experience points. I found that there are points in each adventure where leveling feels right. For example, after Jzadirune is cleared in the first adventure, and also at the end of each adventure. Just look forward to the first page of the next adventure to find what level the party should be at the start.
For three players, I'd have their characters between one and two levels higher than the adventure expects the party to be.