Shackled City: Week Ten

[JoeGKushner]

Joe-

Are you trying to say we are a bunch of hack'n' slashers?

Anyway, great game thus far and excellent DM'ing all around.


Scott

Well.... ritual warrior is fighter based, soul knife is fighter based, scout/fighter is well, fighter base, you are the lone mage, and one rogue, who has some social skills.

Combat 4
Diplomacy 1

Roll the dice!

 

[Sunderstone]

I just started running "Drakthar's Way" last sunday and my group has cleared most of the first map north of the fissure (they missed areas 12A, 13, 14). I thought we had an imminent TPK when the party bashed in the door to 9D and their Wizard tossed a Burning Hands inside. The entire Skirmisher force of 9A-9D started surrounding the area by pouring into the corrider from 9A and wading through the fire and smoke in 9D, opening with a few Javelins.
The hiding Sneaks from 12A fired a few crossbow bolts (one a confirmed critical) and dropped the Wizard (-2 hp). Noticing the Goblins coming into the corridor from 9A and not knowing how may were down the corridor near 12A, they dragged the fallen wizard into 9D and barricaded themselves in, trying to force the goblins through only one entry from 9B.
Through the smoke and fire (the fire only lasted for the first 2 rounds or so), the remaining three killed nearly every skirmisher through that chokepoint, 4 of the Skirmishers bashed the door into 9D and met a similar fate as did the 3 Sneaks behind them.

One of the best and most fun gaming nights we've ever had in our 15-20+ years playing together. The Shackled City has been excellent in every way so far.

Some people mentioned alot of "Dungeon Crawls" etc. That may be so, but ultimately it falls to the players and DM to build on that and make it memorable. Thankfully, I have been blessed with great players/friends. They can turn even the most combat-oriented scenario into an excellent opportunity for role-playing. They play off eachother constantly (easy to do with long time friends).

Someone mentioned that the SC campaign makes alot of use of the lesser used skills such as Diplomacy, Intimidation, etc. This is just one example of how great this campaign is. So far my players have picked up on this and have been using the non-combat skills more than I thought they would.
They have mingled in with Cauldron inhabitants, developed a strong friendship with Terseon Skellerang, Skylar Krewis (thinking ahead), etc. The Wizard has even practiced her Alchemical skills with Vortimax Weer, and for a small fee each month has managed to negotiate for limited use of the lab in his shop after business hours.
Theres alot to build on for a great long term campaign.

Along with the Dungeon Crawls, there are alot of other types of adventures that the party will take a direct part in. Tracking rampaging creatures loose in the city, riots, the political changes, discovering the Cagewrights plans, eventually leading some of the evacuation efforts much later in the campaign, etc. There is alot of non-crawl in here.

NPC-wise this campaign has some of the best in any product. My group has really taken a shining to Cauldron. They especially like Jenya, Terseon, and Vortimax. They absolutely love Jill of the Last Laugh (whom they have met very briefly twice). Flesh these NPC's out as much as you can.

The campaign is difficult. Period. Especially with a 4-man party. The first group TPK'ed at Kazmojen in Life's Bazaar (2 killed and 2 captured). The new party has rescued the remaining survivors and were joined by one of them (the halfling rogue).
For a small party I suggest staying with the 4 main classes (Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, Wizard). Our Rogue has been keeping his Use Magic Device skill maxxed and carries a Wand of Cure Light Wounds as a backup healer.
Thankfully, another friend of mine will be rejoining us from the first TPK, he's making a Bard. I plan on using him fully to uncover stories/legends of the area that I think may be useful to promote the story more.

Sorry for the long winded post, but I couldnt help myself. I havent enjoyed running a campaign this much since the Planescape, GDQ, and Night Below days.

Late Edit***
My party's current composition in case anyone was curious (they just hit level 4)....
Morak Mithriltooth (Dwarf Ftr4)
Kruk (Half-Orc Clr4)
Smileon Griblingtine (Halfling Rog4)
Chalyndria (female Half-Drow Wiz4)

They will be joined next session by a 4th level Bard.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Sunderstone, thanks for sharing. Sounds like you're a little ahead of the game.

My party just finished up the first adventure so we got four weeks worth of play out of it. Then again, I think a big part of that was the sheer number of secret doors and the size of the gnome city.

By this time, the party is 3rd level. At the end of the session, they were fourth level. They got on the elevator and moved on down to the Malachite Fortress. Weren't really hiding or anything and just moved in and kicked A and took names.

Because I use action points and reserve points, the party decided that since they were close to next level (ah, the dreaded meta gaming!), that they were going to spend those action points in style. Man, it was a slaughter fest for the common goblins and hogbolins of the area. They must've killed sixteen to twenty-two or these suckers! They wound up taking almost as much damage from some pit traps.

I liked the use of fire beatles to illuminate the level. Pretty smart.

The real 'big' fight if you will, wasn't in the common area, but when they encountered the half-dwarf/half-troll. He and his howler managed to knock out a few of the players before being put down. Ironically enough, the one who did the most damage in this case was the mage whose burning hands and a couple of magic missile spells were some of the only things that could consistently hit the dwarf with his high ac!

The party managed to free the children and get their gold from the church of Saint Cuthbert at last.

They still have a few spots they want to explore so next week they'll be doing some underdark exploration and that's when I'm adding the Fane of the Drow. I figure that they're 4th level and it's a perfect opportunity for me to add it. I'll just throw it to the north of that one passage in the Fortress that leads to the Underdark anyway. One of the good things about the city of Cauldron is that it's easy to add little under dark encounters.

 

[Sunderstone]

Are you skipping the "Drakthar's Way" part of the campaign in favor of "Fane of the Drow"? Just curious.
Being that your party is already at 4th level, you can pretty much head to "Flood Season" if you wanted to. By doing Fane or Drakthar's before "Flood Season" you may end up with a party slightly ahead of the challenge curve.
Granted some parts of the campaign can be abit tough, most of the scenarios are perfect for the recommended levels.

By the way, my group moves very slow through a module as well. Mostly it's character interactions, we are slightly more Roleplay oriented than Hack and Slash. It took us 5 sessions or so for "Life's Bazaar" (they even missed a few rooms in Jzadirune and the Malachite Fortress including the one with a decent amount of treasure) and 2 sessions so far for "Drakthar's Way". We are comfortable with the "as long as it takes" approach and are having a great time.

 

[The_Gunslinger658]

Hi-

Joe, You forgot to mention that Gary Owens the Elf Wizard killed an ogre with his mighty long bow!! Oh ok, so the creature took damage from the other guys, but still it was way cool.

Ya, that Half Dwarf/ Half troll was getting real pissed, I hid behind eric's character to force the Dwarf to go through him to get to me!!

And are group name is kinda goofy, the Raven Blades, I prefered the gangsta deciples personally.

Great game and I just barely passed my exam today, hmmmmm maybe I should have studied instead of gamed..............ya right.


Scott

 

[JoeGKushner]

Are you skipping the "Drakthar's Way" part of the campaign in favor of "Fane of the Drow"? Just curious.
Being that your party is already at 4th level, you can pretty much head to "Flood Season" if you wanted to. By doing Fane or Drakthar's before "Flood Season" you may end up with a party slightly ahead of the challenge curve.
Granted some parts of the campaign can be abit tough, most of the scenarios are perfect for the recommended levels.

By the way, my group moves very slow through a module as well. Mostly it's character interactions, we are slightly more Roleplay oriented than Hack and Slash. It took us 5 sessions or so for "Life's Bazaar" (they even missed a few rooms in Jzadirune and the Malachite Fortress including the one with a decent amount of treasure) and 2 sessions so far for "Drakthar's Way". We are comfortable with the "as long as it takes" approach and are having a great time.

I will not be replacing Drakthar's Way. Fane of the Drow will just be another place for the players to gain some power.

I'm not... bound be what's in the book and have no problem making adjustments to the CR/ECL of the encounters as I've had to tweak this already due to the powers of the players(maximum hit points, action points, etc...)

Glad to hear that you guys are having a good go of it. Sounds like Drakthar's Way should provide them some more diversions but I'm pretty sure, with whip in hand, I'll be able to move the players thought Fane in one session. (Crosses fingers.)

 

[FickleGM]

Thanks to the sconce, I got the first module done in 1 session. Praise to the sconce!

"Stupid sconce, you robbed me..."

My group also completed that module in one session (much to my dismay).

 

[JoeGKushner]

So I decided I wanted to run some of the Fane of the Drow. In Life's Bazar, threre's a section that leads to the Underdark. I had some dwarves from the dwarven fort wait for the party to come back in and clean up some of the spots they missed and offered them the humans that they left behind last time in exchange for clearing out the mines and other monsters in the underdark. Being a pretty good group that knew out of game that I just wanted to see how the adventure went, (Fane of the Drow), they went with me.

Seems to be some stat block errors in here that others have caught.

The drow wizard is listed as a CR 6 when he should probably be a CR 5 (wizard 4 levels + 1 for drow CR).

The CR on the monsters is supposed t obe lowered one to account for their poor equipment but they have a bit of masterwork stuff and even some magic items!

I've run the first two maps so far and was annoyed by a few things.

1. The dwarf set up. No names are provided for any dwarves who might be doing the hiring. In addition, unless I glossed over it, no guidelines on how much treasure the dwarves would offer the players is provided.

2. The description of the rooms/monsters. Sometimes there is an elaborate description except for the thing getting ready to eat your face! Second thing is that for some monsters that they included in the book for stats, they provide NO description at all. Bad WoTC! No cookie for you. I was looking at the Draegoth and wondering... is that the thing from Lords of Darkness? Gee, wish I had that book with me now!

3. The selection of miniatures includes material from the very first set, as well as from a set that's not even out yet! Argh!

The important thing though is that the group is enjoying it. They finished two of the maps and it took about three hours. We generally start at sixish and run till ten, but there were a few smoke breaks between the larger combats and a few quick breaks to flip the map over, gather miniatures, etc... It looks like this will take about six, maybe seven hours to run the whole thing through.

 

[Grand_Director]

You might be interested to know that I am going to run the Fane as a side trek after Zenith Trajectory. I would have run it before but I really didn't want too much to distract from the mission (of course I ran a side encounter anyway, Sadie from Dungeon Magazine #93 Critical Threat). Massive flooding has cut off the route home and the players are forced to take another path home. They are a little high level to play it, but after the meat grider that is ant SC adventure, it will be a nice change of pace.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I'll be including the encounter from the Weapons of Legacy for the Mind Blade weapon. Won't happen to sixth levelish though or maybe I'll have 'em ambush the lower level PC's as a group as opposed to by himself... now I'll have to think about it!