Cauldroun/Shackled path Dungeon series?

[gfunk]

Just leave the adventure as it is, let the PCs flex their muscles a little. If you change the CR, then the PCs will continually be ahead of the curve in terms of level, making it necessary for you to modify every module.

Yes, Life's Bazaar may not be challenging, but you can give your players a false sense of security . . .

 

[Big Jake]

It won't hurt at all starting at 3rd level. Some of the early encounters might become very easy, but the rest of them should still be challanging. If you decide to begin at 1st level, it would be good to have them at 2nd level before they go under Cauldron... the extra hp will do them wonders.

If you do start at 1st level, you could run a short "pre-adventure adventure." You could easily use "The Devil Box" in Dungeon 109. Change to city to Redgorge, have the PCs hired by Maavu Arlintal (described in The Demonskar Legacy) to escort a shipment to Redgorge for selling at the market during the events of "The Devil Box."

Okay... I have a lot of suggestions. I've run two groups through the series up to The Test of the Smoking Eye, and I've learned a few things.

1. Read through all of the adventures before you even start the Life's Bazaar. Make a list of NPCs that the players should know about, but don't include class levels or alignments. My list is broken down by authority figures, religeous leaders, merchants, and then other notable people (like the Stormblades).

2. Introduce as many of the important NPCs as early in the adventure as possible. After the first encounter with the street thugs (in Life's Bazaar), introduce "Private" Skylar Krewis (who is introduced as Sergeant Krewis in the Demonskar Legacy), and he can become thier point of contact with the town guard, and they can "cheer" for him when he gets his promotion (probably because of his involvement with your party members).

By the end of Life's Bazaar, they should know Alek Tercival, the clerics of their patron churches, at least one of the tavern owners (you can guide them to always picking the same one), and most of the shop owners (especially Skie, if you let them sell magic items).

Oh, and give them each a map of Cauldron, so the can see where they are living. Eventually, give them the maps of the surrounding area and the new maps as they learn of new locations. There is a map shop in the city, so you can even use that as a means to spread this information.

3. Make sure your players understand the laws of the city... if they just go and kill someone in the streets, they should be arrested, and possibly put on trial. Tax them at the begining of every other adventure (maybe 100 gp each). The tax problem plays a big part of the adventure path, so you should make sure they feel the pain of the city dwellers.

Do your best to have them interact with the NPCs. Let them feel like it is their city. Be open to their character's goals in the city. I have a Ranger with the Vow of Poverty feat that is running a soup kitchen; a rogue that started a smuggling operation via the waterways under Cauldron (her cohort is an aquatic dwarf); a fighter/sorceror that runs his own alchemy shop; and a wizard that started a wizarding guild (No Sorcerors Allowed!) Of course, thier endeavors often gain them more taxes to pay!!!

4. Run side quests inbetween the major adventures. You can choose pre-made ones or make some that will suit your players. It could be a useful way of linking the story together without seeming overly "episodic." You can show a better flow of time. Instead of just "about a month later, you are contacted by Jenya," you can have them investigate a mysterious illness in the city, or have them do a little encounter in the forested areas outside of Cauldron. I've used adventures from WotC website to throw in the inbetween. You can run adventures similar to what they will encounter, or already encountered. Maybe one of the bad guys escapes and comes back after a few months of preparation.

These are just my initial suggestions on overall game play. I'll post my other comments separately, as they will all be long. And maybe a lot of others can use this information as well.

 

[Big Jake]

Sample Player's Handout

CAULDRON

Authority Figures
Lord Mayor Severen Navalant, male human
Lord Orbius Vhalantru, male human (advisor to the Lord Mayor)
Terseon Skellerang, male human (Captain of the Town Guard)

Religious Leaders:
Sarcem Delasharn, male human (high priest at the Church of St. Cuthbert)
Jenya Urikas, female human (prestess at the Church of St. Cuthbert)
Alek Tericival, male human (paladin at the Church of St. Cuthbert)
Ruphus Laro, male human (cleric at the Church of St. Cuthbert)
Asfelkir Hranleurt, male half-orc (high priest of the Temple of Lordly Might, dedicated to Kord)
Omar Tiskinsen, human male (high priest of the Church of Kord)
Kristof Jurgensen, male human (cleric at the Shrine of Pelor)
Embril Aloustinai, human female (high priest of the Cathedral of Wee Jas)
Ike Iverson, human male (cleric at the cathedral of Wee Jas)
Shensen Tesseril, female half-drow (attendant caretaker of the chapel of Farlanghn at the Lucky Monkey)

Local Merchants:
Keygan Ghelve, male gnome (owner of Ghelve’s Locks)
Vortimax Weer, male human (alchemist and potion brewer at Weer’s Elixers)
Phalian Gurnezarn, male human (blacksmith and proprietor of Gurnezarn’s Smithy)
Bjellkir Zanathor (proprietor of Zanathor’s Provisions, a general store)
Rivek Mol, male human (proprietor of The Tipped Tankard)
Halpeen Welvihk, male human (proprietor of The Drunken Morkoth Inn)
Tippys Surefoot, female halfling (proprietor of Sure Foot Livery)
Artus Shemwick, male human (cook at the Tipped Tankard)
Skie Aldersun, female gnome (owner of Skie’s Treasuries)
Tygot Mispas, male halfling (proprietor of Tygot’s Old Things)

 

[Big Jake]

Here's some suggestions for specific adventures:

Life's Bazaar

Give the players a copy of the Player's Handout #2: Map of Jzadirune. If they don't find it rumaging through Keygan's stuff, he could volunteer the information. I had one party with the map, and the second one without it. The second party floundered around a lot, and we spent (wasted) a lot of time mapping on the go. A lot has changed since the map was made, so the map gives away no secrets, and it really helps move the game along.

As mentioned above, parts of this adventure can move rather quickly. You may want to give your players some extra healing capabilties to make sure they can heal up before the last big fight. I simply gave a wand of cure light wounds to the party's druid.

Don't rush through the city adventuring. Let your players get a feel for their surroundings.

And to get them ready for some future encounters:

If you have a paladin in the group, make sure he becomes fast friends with Alek Tercival. Alek can confide in another paladin, and the group can learn early on of his motives. Since Alek is only a 4th level paladin as a 9th level character, your paladin will quickly become a higher level paladin. At the point, Alek may open up and confess his admiration of the devotion that your player has shown, and speak of his feelings of inadequacy. (Alek hasn't really been gaining levels slower than others, but he needs more xp to level as a paladin because of his five levels of aristocrat.)

The more that your players understand the NPCs that they will meet, the better prepared they will be when called upon to help. My players spent a great deal of time on the first adventures making sure they were well paid for their services, but when they found out that Alek was in trouble, they left as soon as they could to help. After they were well out of town, I pointed out that they weren't being paid, and the did a collective "oh, yeah."

Flood Season

Most importantly, here are the locations of the missing wands:

1-K24, Skaven has one in his possesion
2-K25, behind the false back of the book case
3-K33, in the harpoon spider's lair
4,5,6-K36, either with Triel on in her treasure chest
7-K41, in the pit trap
8-K56, with the quasit

Your character will more than likely NOT find all of the wands. That's okay, because the town doesn't necessarily need all of them, but less than four could cause fatigue and worry with the clerics in town.

My first group didn't kill Skaven (he escpaed) or the harpoon spider, so they missed those two, but they found the rest. The second group didn't encounter the quasit or make there way into room K25, but got the rest.

Both groups fell into the pit trap and found that wand. Both groups lost a PC to Skaven's phantasmal killer.

Second: before you start the adventure (going to the Lucky Monkey) encourage the PCs to participate in some tournaments during the Flood Festival: swimming contests, fencing, bardic performance duels, etc. I used some rules in City Works (by Mike Mearls, published by Fantasy Flight Games) to run several events, and award xp for participation, and a bonus if they win any competition.

 

[Big Jake]

Still more suggestions for specific adventures:

Zenith Trajectory

I think the most important part of this adventure is actually how you end it. Your players may become (or even start out as) suspicious of their employers. After a week (in game) after they return Zenith, have the doppleganger appear to the players as Zenith, but returned to sanity. I had him deliver a speech like:

"Thank you for you efforts in freeing me. I owe you a debt far beyond what my father paid you. The problems between my father and I run deep... I am afraid that we have not yet worked out our differences. We are returning to our ancestrial home in hopes of resolving our problems, and bringing him back to health."

It gives the players a (false) sense of completion, and that they've done a good act. It might even encourage them to keep up ties with other NPCs if they feel "rewarded" with a satisfying ending.

Crazy Jared is a potential wealth of information. If he casts legend lore on Zenith (after they free him), you can give little hints as to what's in store. "Ah Zenith, my long faithful subject, I marked him at birth to be a great influence in Cauldron..." Of course, they will also believe Jared to be quite loony, and whatever he says by this time may just be tossed off as nonsense.

In the battle with Zenith, Zenith kept throwing out some good Star Wars-esque lines to the Paladin: "Yes! Strike me down and take my place of power!" "Bring your hate to the surface Sir Paladin, and show me your wrath!"

It actually unnerved the party.

The Demonskar Legacy

Most important (I think): make sure the players have met all of the key people in this adventure several adventures ago. This is the adventure that sets the PCs on their way to the finish line. Once they meet up with Alek Tercival at the end, there is no turning back.

At the end of the adventure, drive home hard that they can not return to Cauldron. They might want to go somewhere to purchase equipment, and you can let them find a nearby convient city to meet thier needs before continuing.

And last (for now):

Test of the Smoking Eye

Make the most of describing Occipitus. Your players should feel very uneasy about all of it. Ground soft as skin that "bleeds".... forests that look like exposed rib cages or pubic hair....

At the last trial, the characters might ask you what would happen if one of them simply sacrifices himself. A very good answer to keep them off balance, is that the mummy proctoring the test says "Then one of your allies will be chosen by the will of Occipitus." In both cases, the party members deliberated quite sometime before someone decided to throw himself in.

The other thing...

Kaurophon is way too obvious of a potential threat. My first party saw through him so quickly that the end encounter was over faster than Kaurophon could say "oops."

So, for my second party, I simply made Kaurophon a NG sorceror that truly wished to help the party, in hopes of being able to simply live out his life on Occipitus after one of them claims ownership. His half-fiend blood will always make him detect as evil, so the players will still not trust him. (My paladin was so against travelling with an evil NPC, I actually had to have an avitar appear to him and tell him to go and protect Kaurophon.)

Instead, I teamed up a rakshasa with some teleporting demons. The rakshasa learned all he could from the party secretly, then made himself appear like one of the party members (it was an NPC that I had been running along with them, but it could be anyone without any special ability). The rakshas turned invisible, cast darkness on a pebble, then teleported in with a demon to surprise the party. The demon telported out with the character in question, and the Rakshasa simply goes along with the party from that point.

I did the switch after the first trial, but before they got to the fields to start the second trial. If you pull the switch on one of your players, just let him/her act normal with all of their normal attacks, then at the end, take over their character and reveal as the rakshasa.

You don't want your player to cry foul, so have the "real" character travel back to the Cathedral of Feathers, or convieniently find his way to the party. Give that player all the xp he earned while (unknowingly) being the rakshasa to make sure he stays leveled up.

Also, to make the whole thing work well, do things to make sure party members do not trust Kaurophon, but don't let him break the alignment that you give him. He's still anxious to complete the tests. He still listens to every secret as closely as he can. He still tries to urge the players on to greater danger... not to kill them, but becasue he's truly afraid that someone else might finish first.

If you try to switch out one of the players, find a way that that player loses all (or most) of his equipment... especially any weapons that the rakshasa can't use (holy weapons, bows of strength, etc.). Have the switch happen while they are sleeping. That way, the character will have to use someone else's weapons or something, and it won't be obvious to anyone that he's not himself.

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This is as far as I've played with my groups. As I finish the other adventures, I'll post more. But, from here on out, I think the most important thing is that the characters feel that they are losing important parts of their lives as Cauldron sinks deeper and deeper into trouble. And that they can feel the joy of finally defeating the evil that has been using them for so long.

 

[nahualt]

Thank You!!

THANKS BIG JAKE!!
I was on the process of doing the NPC list myself, and all your suggestions are right on the marker.

my players have already done 3rd level characters and I will run the adventure as is, no CR adjustment. Let them go easy on the first one.

I'm in the process of reading all the adventures so I can introduce further story seeds early on. To help tie the characters more with the city one of them ( a rougue) has inherited a small trade business in the city and will start with the laughing guild extorting for money, the other are going to be tied to the church(One paladin, one cleric), last one will come seeking the spell knowledge from the ruins under Cauldron(elven mage). So I think I'm set, I will start Life's Bazaar next weekend.

BTW: loved the Trogdor easter egg in Zenith trayectory..hehehe my players are gonna laugh with that one..

once more thanks..

 

[Big Jake]

Hey, no problem.

I'm glad to see you have a paladin. My first group didn't have one, and in the second group, the paladin was a huge impact.

Good luck on your game... let us know how it goes, and if you end up with any other suggestions for the rest of us.

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I was thinking about Alek Tercival again, and I realized that I had divulged almost all of the information about him to my party paladin a little at a time. I also made it a point to let the party see him early on, and then later meet him after he drank the elixir from the spellweaver complex.

Alek of course was stronger, and was very "pumped up" by the offering from the "trumpet archons." And when the party met the trio offering the elixir, they all drank of it without hesitation. It was fun.