|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
So having played this to finish then read pdfs to see what gm changed... Wow, umm... Yeah. I see why lot of things got changed and not just mechanically.
So even from our campaign, its kinda apparent this is bait and switch from compelling "Town Guard" ap to "National security secret agents" AP.
But like... AP would work much better as 3 part one? Heck, the Twilight Four plot would work as four part level 5-15 ap. Final adventure does nothing plot wise that demands it being level 20, most of enemies are lower level outsiders given power boost. You could adapt it to level 15 and change nothing plotwise (kinda think at that level, the grand plan should involve more than just ruling a city. Our gm did fun thing with them literally trying to steal city to Duskfathom)
And like... Its weird when you could literally remove all town guard aspects from plot and barely anything changes? Its kinda clear non lethal thing was added post ap being written to player's guide and ap itself mostly assumes lethal combat. But bigger problem is its framing of pcs being super agents who do everything on their won without backup. Like whole thing of being part of town guard is feeling of being part of organization you can get help from. Named Edgewatch characters as written don't really exist after book 1 and it makes no sense this story wise. Heck lot of them are wasted potential, Lavarsus is treated as sitcom archnemesis you want to see getting his just desserts, but he explicitly does nothing too bad and is just grumpy. That's major waste of "grudging respect" character development plot.
...Sooo yeah the AP is lot of wasted potential. Its very clear it would have been written differently when 3 part aps became a thing, but even then it just doesn't take full appeal of its premise and doesn't care about the npc cast.
I'm kinda wondering if I should now try to do individual reviews of the ap? Its kinda hard to split the overall campaign ethos things to six different parts when I feel like what needs improvement is handling of the campaign. I didn't even get tot he "each book assumes it takes week" super fast pace to fit inside two month festival x'D
(I'm really confused by that aspect: because there is zero reason why the story would NEED to take place during radiant festival besides it sounding neat thematically. Its really weird time frame for level 1-20 adventure
Why does first book assumes it ends on Arodus 3 and final book on Rova 7? That's less than month for entire thing)
Overally, I still like campaign, but man its as written super rough. Its good source of inspiration and encounters to be used though if you ask me
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I didn't follow the timeline. Not even sure why it was included as it only mattered for a few parts of the adventure, mostly in module 1.
I thought it was it was overall a good AP. My favorite part was 5 and 1. 2,3, and 4 had quite a bit of good stuff to work with. Six is like it is because of the high levels, which makes only creatures like outsiders a challenge for the PCs consistently. Probably could have ended the AP at 5 and everyone would have been pretty happy.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I liked the campaign as well and agree with most of your criticisms. It would be definitely better if it wasn't a 6-part 1-20 level AP.
Why does first book assumes it ends on Arodus 3 and final book on Rova 7? That's less than month for entire thing)
If you're referring to the newspaper frontpages, I don't think they are meant to impose a timeline or deadline on you. They are just used illustratively.
|
|
Maybe? It admittedly makes them less useful as cool stuff to show players, but at best you could say book assumes ap takes three months since thats how long radiant festival last. (I do wonder how long ap would last if you run it as literally as possible whenever events say "on next day this happens" upon conclusion of previous event)
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I do also kinda feel like there are some kinda weak plot points (like graveraker is stolen as kinda red herring so it can be used to later implicate Primarch in rather goofy fashion), but there are also some straight up plot holes.
Like book 6 has built in "so assuming twilight four members are still somehow alive, Terimor orders their execution immeadetely upon becoming primarch", but like... At what time Rumormonger has time to be executed if pcs captured him instead of killing him in previous book since she became primarch at same time? And the way adventure words it, Twilight Four members are immediately empowered upon them stealing primach position, so that would mean its not as simple as "kill them" when all of them have been empowered with powers of Norgorber's aspects. It makes much more sense for Terimor to attempt to assassinate them in prison yeah like what is assumed to happen to Skinner.(though that kinda makes prison seem incompetent and create questions for Infector if he somehow survives all attempts to kill him in hunting lodge)
(unless deal was that only whoever sits upon throne gets their god's aspect's gift, but that would make deal EXTREMELY poor for whoever wasn't chosen for that role especially with part that upon death they would become remaining members' daemonic servants :p)
It's also kinda funny that in this ap's timescale, Terimor somehow manages in span of month to from minor architect councilor to convince council to vote her as acting primarch when there are at least two other primarch candidates much more prominent than her in the absalom book. Like... The AP's mystery set up is sometimes goofily simple (they stole massive interplanar excavation machine to... Stick it inside haunted circus tent with blackfinger blight, a body and call primarch there so they could be like "AHA caught you in the act!"), and sometimes its just "Assume something amazing happened, we don't explain it" at wrong times.
Hey, thanks for posting those reviews CorvusMask! I am currently running Agents of Edgewatch (we're at the tail end of book 3) and reading your thoughts have been enlightening / inspirational when it comes to getting some perspective from the player side on things on this adventure as written. I've been homebrewing in a lot already when it comes to this story, but reading your reviews gave me a lot more thoughts for future plans / ideas. So I just wanted to say thank you!
What really struck me was you talking about how the Twilight Four's plan as written makes little to no sense, which was something that had been bothered me and which I was planning on doing something about. Here is what my plan is going forward (spoilering it because it is quite a lengthy post):
I've changed the membership of the Twilight Four a bit. Whilst Wrent Discapiron, Reginald Vancaskerkin, and Oleansa Terimor are still the same, Jonis Flakfatter is no longer a member. Instead Jonis Flakfatter is an honest-to-gods High Priest of the Masked One's Smiling One's aspect, the version of the Masked One worshipped by healers / alchemists, and he has been trying to use his position to keep tabs on the darker aspects of his gods' worship. This means he has some knowledge of the Twilight Four, but not enough to topple them yet. Replacing Jonis I am using the leader of the Varlokkur's (whom was introduced earlier in my campaign as one of the new PCs introduced at the tail end of book 2 is a member of the Varlokkurs), who is the Divine Spell lord of Buldarin.
The Twilight Four's plans are as follows: Steal the rulership of the city by honouring their god. Wrent Discapiron is used the same way as she was originally used, sacrificed a bunch of people to create pools of blood around the city and spread fear and unrest during the Radiant Festival. The Varlokkor leader has secretly been poisoning the duke, who is going to die during the course of book 4 (this is how Jonis Flakfatter got on their trail, more on that later). Reginald Vancakerkin is spreading misinformation and lies with his newspaper. He is also using it to weaken the position of anyone supporting the political opponents of Oleansa Terimor. Terimor for her part will "steal" the duke's daughter's heart, marry her, and make her into a puppet for her own purposes. Thus ascending her to position as "Queen" of the city. What she doesn't know is that Reginald is going to try and usurp her position by swapping his soul with that of the Duke's daughter's so that he ends up coronated to the new Grand Duchess. He might succeed on that as I want him to be the ultimate BBEG (he has so much more of a presence than Terimor in this adventure it is insane).
Now as I said earlier Jonis Flakfatter is the High Priest of the healer god of the city. So when the Grand Duke got sick he was of course called in to try and heal him. That's when Jonis Flakfatter discovered that the Duke had been poisoned. But not being a fool, Jonis did not tell this to everyone as he had no idea who was responsible. Instead he told only the duke and his daughter this, and the duke tasked him with figuring out who is responsible. Jonis has been trying to heal the duke, but the poison used is an extremely potent one he has not seen before, so he will need a lot of time to figure out how to heal it (it's resistant to the usual magical healing methods). Jonis has over the course of his investigation figured out that these Twilight Four must have:
A) A member who is on the council
B) A high-ranking member in the justice department
C) A member with great control over the underworld
D) A powerful divine spellcaster
E) A member who is kidnapping and sacrificing people
F) A member who controls the Blackfinger poisoner's cult
Jonis has mistakenly made the conclusion that Wynsal Starborn (who in my version is the Lord Justice in charge of all the guard departments) is probably one of the Twilight Four, and thus do not trust any of the guard districts at all, fearing they are all compromised by Wynsal's goons. He also believes that Radios, a former gladiator-turned-Arbiter (my version of Law Lords) is one of them. Radios is a new character I invented for the story. Taking inspiration from the description of Rubeis from Lost Omens: Absalom, they are a masked gladiator who people do not know the true identity of. Many rumours surround them, such as one saying they are a clockwork automaton and not a flesh-and-blood person. 50 years ago they were the champion in the Irorium's main annual event 7 years in a row, before stepping down and being made into an Arbiter by the Grand Duke (speculation being that the Grand Duke offered them the position in order to get them out of the arena). Radios has already been a torn in the side of my PCs and he is indeed connected to the Twilight Four, but not on the level of being one of them.
The reason I bring this all up is to explain my version of book 3-5's events. The Twilight Four (now three), knowing the city is hunting for them after Wrent Discapiron spilled the beans know they need to get the city off of their scent again. They are also aware of Jonis Flakfatter's personal investigation and his attempt at curing the Duke, so they want to get rid of him as well. So they are setting up the bombing event with Franca Laurentz having utilized Reginald Vancaskerkin's eye-monster (whom I've forgotten the name of atm) to replace her eyes into believing that she is seeing Jonis Flakfatter and that he has been convincing her to do this bombing. They've also had Radios help her in gaining access to the Irorium, at the same time setting him up to take the fall for the events that are going to transpire. Finally at the end of book 4 they setup Wynsal Starborn and his arrest, having him appear to have murdered Harlo Doleen (in fact I am planning to have the PCs come in just as they see Wynsal Starborn seemingly plunge his sword into Harlo) and having been behind the Graveraker theft (which has been stolen to be turned into a massive weapon of war as a back-up plan to wreck havoc should the Twilight Four need to resort to an actual violent take over instead of the subtle theft).
So my plan for the end of book 4 / beginning of book 5 is for the city's government to believe that the Twilight Four has been dealt with. Radios the "Clockwork Prince" (my replacement title for rumourmonger) and Jonis Flakfatter the Father Infector gets framed for not only the Irorium attack, but also for poisoning and murdering the grand duke. Wynsal Starborn the "Gray Queen" gets framed as the mastermind having conspired to take over the city. The Agents at this point will probably not believe this to be the case since I am hoping they will have had time to speak to Jonis and learn what he knows at this point (the whole section at the beginning of book 4 is going to happen as a result of Jonis believing Wynsal is going to have him killed instead of arrested), and they will probably insist on keeping up the investigation. But the higher-ups in the city will want nothing more than to close the lid on this entire case, believing the agents to have been caught up in the lies of their enemies and tell them to forget about it and go back to work. This will (I hope) lead to a more believeable beginning of book 5 where instead of being disgraced, they hand in their badges and go rogue, which would also appear more appealing to Miogimo (whom I've already started to plant the seeds of in book 3). Also I think that plays more into the cop movie trope of "loose cannon cops who don't play by the rules".
If you read all that, thank you for taking the time to do so. I am sorry for any spelling errors or bad writing on my part. And again I just want to thank CorvusMask for his reviews, as it actually played a big part in me finally putting together all the pieces of what I am going to do moving forward.