Adventure Path Help Please

[klofft]

Am I correct that Dungeon has only had two (4th ed) Adventure Paths: Scales of War and Chaos Scar?

Aside from the "pseudo-AP" that is the HPE series, did WotC officially release any other APs?

I'm presently running a homebrew game (with Dungeon Delve giving me some easy framework for each level) and another game using HPE (though we are still in H1. )

But I'm likely to start another campaign this summer and I wanted to use an AP to simplify my workload and since I have DDi, I don't have to buy anything new if I use one of the ones from Dungeon.

So which one is better: Scales or Scar? I was leaning towards Scales only because my group also played the Red Hand of Doom. (They failed miserably, but it still is a fun memory.)

[And if you really want to sell me on some 3rd party AP, please do so. My group likes a good story, but at the D&D table, they are generally quite content to have lots of fun tactical combat.)

 

[delericho]

My understanding (and I may be wrong) is that WotC have released 2 APs, but they are "Scales of War" and the HPE1-3 series. As I understand it, the "Chaos Scar" adventures are very loosely linked, but not in an Adventure Path as such.

From what I've heard, neither "Scales of War" nor HPE1-3 are particularly well regarded, I'm afraid. Again, from what I've heard, the "Chaos Scar" adventures are considerably better.

There are two other 4e Adventure Paths, although neither is from WotC: "War of the Burning Sky" and "Zeitgeist". My understanding is that these are both very well done. (WotBS was also done for 3e, and the adventures I read from the series were certainly high-quality.)

Finally, there are various conversions out there for Paizo's paths, which may well be worth checking out. As I understand it, these should be easy to find from Paizo's own site.

Again I should reiterate that this is just what I've heard; I have almost no direct experience with the adventures in question. (Except P1 "King of the Trollhaunt Warrens", which did not impress.)

 

[Jan van Leyden]

Am I correct that Dungeon has only had two (4th ed) Adventure Paths: Scales of War and Chaos Scar?

Well, Chaos Scar isn't really an Adventure Path, more like a sandboxy collection of small adventures.

Aside from the "pseudo-AP" that is the HPE series, did WotC officially release any other APs?

I'm presently running a homebrew game (with Dungeon Delve giving me some easy framework for each level) and another game using HPE (though we are still in H1. )

But I'm likely to start another campaign this summer and I wanted to use an AP to simplify my workload and since I have DDi, I don't have to buy anything new if I use one of the ones from Dungeon.

So which one is better: Scales or Scar? I was leaning towards Scales only because my group also played the Red Hand of Doom. (They failed miserably, but it still is a fun memory.)

Scales of War is generally regarded as ... not so good. Some of the adventures seem to be quite good, other are weak, and they don't form a convincing story arc. As Chaos Scar has no comprehensive story, you wouldn't expect it to be good.

[And if you really want to sell me on some 3rd party AP, please do so. My group likes a good story, but at the D&D table, they are generally quite content to have lots of fun tactical combat.)

You didn't expect to post this message on ENWorld without being referred to "War of the Burning Sky" and "Zeitgeist" now, did you?

WotBS is a complete AP from levels 1-30. I has originally been written for 3.5e, but all the adventures have been overhauled for a conversion to 4e. As ENWorld subscriber you can get the PDFs for free. You can also download the Players' and Gamemaster's Guides for free for some more information.

Zeitgeist is the new Adventure Path by ENWorld Publishing which has been written for 4e from the very beginning. It is available to Silver subscribers for free. Both Guides and the first adventure can be downloaded for free, too. Note that Zeitgeist isn't complete yet; only the first three installments are available now.

As Paizo are widely regarded as King of Adventure Pathing, I'd like to add that several conversion of their APs are floating around in the Net. You might want to look for those; just ask your favourite search engine for "Tales from the Rusty Dragon".

 

[OnlineDM]

I'll echo the comments above, adding that I'm currently running both War of the Burning Sky and Zeitgeist. My WotBS party is at level 18 right now, and the Zeitgeist party just got to level 2. They're both quite good (Zeitgeist is the better of the two, if you only wanted to pick one, in my opinion).

Also, with the launch of the Essentials line and the subsequent material, WotC has basically created a heroic tier adventure path. It starts with the adventure in the Red Box (I forget the name), followed by Reavers of Harkenwold from the DM Kit, Cairn of the Winter King from the Monster Vault, and then the stand-alone Madness at Gardmore Abbey. I've run a group through Reavers - Cairn - and now am in Madness, and I've had a lot of fun with it, too.

 

[Quickleaf]

There was a lot of discussion about SoW when it came out, and lots of people have tweaked it too. Consensus seems to be: lots of dungeon crawls, better for casual play, and not as connected as you'd think. http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/249857-scales-war-adventure-path-how.html.

While there are a few good Dungeon adventures, I think you'd really need to do some review reading to assemble a campaign from there. AFAIK the best current adventure/campaign offerings from WotC are Neverwinter, Gloomwrought, and Gardmoor Abbey.

 

[fenriswolf456]

There was a lot of discussion about SoW when it came out, and lots of people have tweaked it too. Consensus seems to be: lots of dungeon crawls, better for casual play, and not as connected as you'd think. http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/249857-scales-war-adventure-path-how.html.

I'm currently preparing to run Scales of War, and mostly agree with the above. I do think the modules are connected more than they seem, but that is more the case that the first few modules tell very little about the overarching plot. I've read and glanced through the entire series, which I would recommend if you plan on running it, as it helps immensely in figuring out motivations of characters and events.

The modules are fairly linear for the most part, and would likely suit a more casual approach. Some of the encounters did seem out of place and so I've tweaked or outright changed them to better suit things. A couple of encounters later on seem very anti-PC in that just a few bad rolls could easily spell a quick TPK, but mostly there seemed to be a lot of good and varied challenges for the PCs to fight their way though.

I can see there being some pretty memorable fights, plus I'm a sucker for the ultimate villain of the AP, so had to give it a go.

 

[klofft]

Thanks everyone.

I posted this thread with a pretty strong preference for Scales and what I've heard and my alternate options haven't really dissuaded me from that. I trust WotBS and Zeitgeist are, in fact, better campaign stories. But in truth, I don't need or want a story that requires the players to do heavy role-playing and/or a lot of memory to keep track of the tale. We're a bunch of middle aged men who are just looking to have fun on Friday night. We want a good story, but we want a lot of kickass action as much or even more. Plus, as noted, most of these players played Red Hand of Doom as well.

I will continue to read up on Scales in preparation to take advantage of all the work many, many other people have done before me. I was fortunate enough to have that when I ran Rise of the Runelords also.

 

[Lwaxy]

I ran Scales of War for 3.5 and PF, and boy does it need work to be more than substandard. The adventures do not tie together that well, but if you have a fitting background story it is cool enough. I had different background stories for both times I ran it and it felt totally different each time.

The first group was in fact, a group of middle aged to old men just wanting to have fun so I made the background somewhat humorous and it worked out nicely.

 

[Unwise]

For the love of sanity do not try to use Scales of War plots to be less work for yourself. I have never in 25 years of roleplaying seen more plot holes and wtf moments in a campaign than that series. Seriously, those old Fighting Fantasy adventures had a more consistent and reasonable plot than some of the adventures in that series.

What really bugs me about it is that I do not know any players that react the way they are assumed to do so in the modules. Not to mention that NPCs do the exact opposite thing that either logic or their prescribed personality dictates. I just ran an entire adventure where the PC and NPC actions were an exact mirror image of what the module suggests and it ran very well.

The worst cuplrit is the Umbraforge adventure, some lowlights include:
- A guy on the run from his crimelord boss deciding to go solo into his bosses fortress rather than just run away
- TLow level PCs follow a guy through a portal to the shadowfell with no compelling reason
- The PCs stop bad guy A from blowing up a factory used to commit crimes against nature to aid bad guy B invading the world. No explaination offered.
- A lifetime criminal sees the PCs fight some random ogres and decides "gee they are noble, I should turn my life around" and turns against her boss.
- The PCs trust this person
- The PCs surrender as soon as more guards turn up
- They let the bad guy solique, then hop into a portal and disappear
- An earthquake just so happens to hit at the exact right moment to let them escape

It is not a bad collection of encounters and monsters though. I just suggest you use only the vaguest correlation to the plots. I am using it in this way currently.

If I had known about WotBS I would have run that instead.

If you want to make Scales of War playable, here is a good start. http://scales-of-war.pbworks.com/w/page/6411252/FrontPage

I also run a Chaos Scar campaign. It is perfect for a beer & pretzels play style. If your players are not very invested in remembering things between games and if they do not always turn up to each session, then I highly recommend it. I lay out a great many adventure options before them, so each session they come in and vote on which one to do. They require next to no preparation, so I just pull up the right PDF and get going. It is also great as it allows players to push on deeper into the scar for higher level adventures whenever they want.

 

[klofft]

OK. But that's a lot of detailed venom for a scenario that is well-established as the worst or second worst adventure in the whole campaign. So I consider myself forewarned. Furthermore, I can't find anything negative about anything after the beginning of the paragon tier.

I get it. It's not the best AP. But I sincerely have a hard time believing it is as bad as people say it is. (And thanks for that wiki link - I would likely use that to help me.)

With all the recommendations for WotBS, I gave it a second thorough looking over and it's just not for me. I WANT a combat-heavy game, I'm not keen on a scenario made for 3.5 being converted for 4, given the paradigm shift in the rules, and the setting is not my thing.

I loved Red Hand of Doom. I loved Rise of the Runelords. I'm really looking for something in that vein.