AP3 Savage Tide - skeptical

[Arnwyn]

The more I read about Dungeon's AP3 (Savage Tide), the more skeptical I am about it. For me, there seems to be some serious re-use problems that will make it more difficult to fit into one's campaign.

I'm not going to say anything about the story, as we have little info on that (and it does indeed sound cool). But the big problem for me is with adaptation - AP3 seems to want to use a bunch of pre-existing locations introduced in Dungeon and other sources (eg. Isle of Dread from X1 and Dungeon, and Scuttlecove from Dungeon) that we may have already used, placed, and modified in the past (I know I have - IMC, Scuttlecove isn't anywhere near the Isle of Dread). Further, I think re-visiting certain places that may have already been over-tread isn't as conducive to a good AP as it could otherwise be.

I would have preferred them to not re-use and regurgitate things we've already seen, and instead have new creations for the adventure path.

(And finally, I'm also whining because I found Age of Worms to be, overall, inferior to Shackled City due to related geography problems. But I'd hazard a guess and say I'm likely the minority on that one.)

But I'm just gripin' and worrying at bit (gotta keep up with Internet negativity, donchaknow). I love Dungeon regardless!

 

[Festivus]

Couldn't you just change the names and locations?

 

[Arnwyn]

Couldn't you just change the names and locations?

Indeed - that's exactly what I'm going to have to do.

But there's often a large amount of work that goes along with that (eg. integrating the Age of Worms AP was very much a struggle and time-consuming for me, though eventually I did work out something satisfactory for my campaign, and got brand-new mapped and detailed locations [Diamond Lake, Alhaster] to make up for it).

But "struggle" and "time-consuming" kind of sucks. Especially when something brand new could have been created, just like the other APs.

 

[ssampier]

Don't all published campaigns have that problem? If an adventure uses Waterdeep, for instance, you and your players have undoubtable made changes to the default Waterdeep.

 

[JoeGKushner]

It's really only going to matter if you have a player whose some type of campaign nazi or using the same characters from different paths in the same campaign world.

"Yeah, it's the Isle of Dread. This is Greyhawk 615 so no, none of your past actions have effected this game world."

 

[hexgrid]

Indeed - that's exactly what I'm going to have to do.

But there's often a large amount of work that goes along with that (eg. integrating the Age of Worms AP was very much a struggle and time-consuming for me, though eventually I did work out something satisfactory for my campaign, and got brand-new mapped and detailed locations [Diamond Lake, Alhaster] to make up for it).

But "struggle" and "time-consuming" kind of sucks. Especially when something brand new could have been created, just like the other APs.

This is why, when using something like an adventure path, I tend to design the campaign world around the adventure path, instead of the other way around. The way I see it, if I have to do a bunch of extensive "adapting," I've defeated the purpose of using a pre-written campaign in the first place.

 

[James Jacobs]

Savage Tide will be MUCH easier to integrate into an ongoing campaign than was Age of Worms, since the majority of Savage Tide takes place at the edge of civilization or beyond. That said, I do understand that it might be difficult to use the Isle of Dread or Scuttlecove or Sasserine if you've already placed them elsewhere. Changing names is the easiest way to address this problem. I'm fairly certain that Scuttlecove will be pretty different than it's incarnation in issue #95, if only because rulership of the city has changed hands (the Ur-Priests have moved on and the most dangerous den of evil in town has been removed, so new factions have siezed power there.) Given a name change, it should be fairly unrecognizable to your PCs.

 

[Arnwyn]

Savage Tide will be MUCH easier to integrate into an ongoing campaign than was Age of Worms, since the majority of Savage Tide takes place at the edge of civilization or beyond. That said, I do understand that it might be difficult to use the Isle of Dread or Scuttlecove or Sasserine if you've already placed them elsewhere. Changing names is the easiest way to address this problem. I'm fairly certain that Scuttlecove will be pretty different than it's incarnation in issue #95, if only because rulership of the city has changed hands (the Ur-Priests have moved on and the most dangerous den of evil in town has been removed, so new factions have siezed power there.) Given a name change, it should be fairly unrecognizable to your PCs.

This helps a whole lot - thanks! Scuttlecove was indeed my biggest concern (as I mentioned above - in my massive long-running FR game, the Isle of Dread is nowhere near Scuttlecove [though the Isle of Dread is definitely "at the edge of civilization"]).

I don't know if you can answer this yet or not, but I'll ask anyways: is the map of Scuttlecove the same as in Dungeon #95 or is it different in any way?

Skepticism fading... fading...

 

[James Jacobs]

This helps a whole lot - thanks! Scuttlecove was indeed my biggest concern (as I mentioned above - in my massive long-running FR game, the Isle of Dread is nowhere near Scuttlecove [though the Isle of Dread is definitely "at the edge of civilization"]).

I don't know if you can answer this yet or not, but I'll ask anyways: is the map of Scuttlecove the same as in Dungeon #95 or is it different in any way?

Skepticism fading... fading...

Scuttlecove (as we're placing it in the context of Savage Tide) is "near" the Isle of Dread only by comparasion to other locations; it's still well over a 1,000 mile journey between these two locations. Scuttlecove is FAR closer to the mainland than it is to the Isle of Dread. As long as you placed Scuttlecove in a tropical zone, you should be fine. If not, renaming Scuttlecove shouldn't be a HUGE problem.

The map of Scuttlecove will be similar to the one in Dungeon #95; it'll be more densly packed with buildings, I expect, but the shape and key encounters will mostly be the same.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Scuttlecove (as we're placing it in the context of Savage Tide) is "near" the Isle of Dread only by comparasion to other locations; it's still well over a 1,000 mile journey between these two locations. Scuttlecove is FAR closer to the mainland than it is to the Isle of Dread. As long as you placed Scuttlecove in a tropical zone, you should be fine. If not, renaming Scuttlecove shouldn't be a HUGE problem.

The map of Scuttlecove will be similar to the one in Dungeon #95; it'll be more densly packed with buildings, I expect, but the shape and key encounters will mostly be the same.

The more I hear about this, the more this sounds perfect for my group. I'll be using Freeport for Scuttlecove (which seems like a popular option from what I'm hearing) and since it's set on Praemal (the world of Ptolus) a wild jungle island "way down south" fits in just fine at the barely defined edges of the map.

So psyched.