Dungeon 163: Beyond the Mottled Tower

[Spatula]

Haven't read this yet, but according to the notes at the beginning, it's supposed to take the party from level 11 to halfway through level 12... but as near as I can see, there's no treasure in the adventure. At all.

Is the party really supposed to miss out on 15ish parcels? Or did I miss something when I skimmed it?

 

[MerricB]

Haven't read this yet, but according to the notes at the beginning, it's supposed to take the party from level 11 to halfway through level 12... but as near as I can see, there's no treasure in the adventure. At all.

Is the party really supposed to miss out on 15ish parcels? Or did I miss something when I skimmed it?

Check page 47 - one big treasure trove of 4,000 gp and magic items of 13, 14 & 16.

Still seems light.

Cheers!

 

[catsclaw227]

Check page 47 - one big treasure trove of 4,000 gp and magic items of 13, 14 & 16.

Level 12 parcels include Items 16th, 15th, 14th, 13th and about 26,000 in monetary treasure.

I am guessing that this is the 1/2 of level 12 treasure. I will fill the rest of the adventure with a full 10 level 11 parcels.

 

[FourthBear]

Yes, and the Path adventures to date have been pretty straightforward with the parcel system.

My main gripe about this module is that it has the primary problem of all of the previous SoW adventures to a magnified degree: encounters, areas and challenges that would make perfect sense in a straightforward adventure, but the plot and background has complications and twists that only seem to serve to confuse and weaken adventure, IMO. If the main villain in the adventure was just on a simple revenge or power seeking plot, the actions might make some sense. But with the rather odd motives given to the villain, the actions are just absurd. And the actions and motives of the primary NPC target of his attention are just about the silliest and most nonsensical I've seen. I'll going to have to do significant plot doctoring on this one. I couldn't run some of this one with a straight face.

Most of the adventures in the path would be so much better, plot-wise, if the authors didn't seem to feel the need to toss in complications and ulterior motives. Because almost all of the ones they've given don't make much sense.

 

[Neil Bishop]

(snip) Most of the adventures in the path would be so much better, plot-wise, if the authors didn't seem to feel the need to toss in complications and ulterior motives. Because almost all of the ones they've given don't make much sense.

Frankly, I don't think this attempt at an adventure path is anyway near the standards set by Paizo. Even Paizo's first attempt, Shackled City, was "tighter". I don't think it is a question of a new ruleset; there just needs to be a stronger gatekeeper maintaining editorial control.

My main beef is, IMO, too often creatures that are unrelated in a story-sense are tossed together into the same encounter, but I find that a general fault of 4E so far.

 

[Hawke]

I find it tougher to go through these to get a sense of adventure plot with all the flipping between the content and encounters. For fairly straightforward adventures, I don't see a big need to break it up like that... especially when vital pieces are in the encounters and not in the main text. The ulterior motives and such complicate that further! Why use this format anyway?

 

[Truename]

I had a different impression than the rest of you--I thought this was one of their strongest so far. I haven't done a deep read, but I was generally impressed by the encounters. I particularly liked the first skill challenge (on p22). I liked how they combined the skill challenge mechanics with a tactical map, timeline, and specific things to do. Many of the other encounters had interesting and/or dynamic terrain and look like a blast.

The NPC behavior others have complained about seemed perfectly on target to me; the NPC was introduced long ago and the issues the NPC has are nicely foreshadowed in The Temple Between. Unless I'm thinking of someone else.

 

[FourthBear]

The NPC behavior others have complained about seemed perfectly on target to me; the NPC was introduced long ago and the issues the NPC has are nicely foreshadowed in The Temple Between. Unless I'm thinking of someone else.

We're talking about the same NPC. Spoilers blacked out below:

Spoiler

Yes, Megan Swiftblade is briefly encountered in The Temple Between and noted to be jealous of the PCs' success. I will note that Megan's brief intro description in Siege of Bordrin's Watch doesn't mention this aspect of her personality, but instead emphasizes her protectiveness of her fellow adventurers and her dedication to the protection of innocents. I'll also note that all of the Freeriders have to be in on this secret keeping foolishness, including a dwarven, no-nonsense cleric of a good deity.

In any case, having her be jealous enough to treat the PCs poorly when she's been guarding a site that has been poisoned with many who talk against the party isn't too bad. However, in Beyond the Mottled Tower, she and the Freeriders are noted to have learned that Sarshan was the one supplying mercenaries to General Zithiruun in his attempted conquest of Overlook. They also know Sarshan is going to be using something called blood chaos as retribution against the vale. She and the Freeriders then do not tell anyone else about this. They are then subjected to no fewer than three assassination attempts. They still don't tell anyone about Sarshan or the threat to the vale. The Freeriders decide to split up their party, thinking this would be safer. Through unclear means, Megan communicates with the Overlook authorities to the effect that she'll tell them who was behind the mercenaries in the assault, but only if they agree to protect her.

Megan decides to hide out in her home town. There is an extremely violent catastrophe in her village that threatens numerous innocents, involving something that could reasonably be called blood chaos. Megan is hurt, forced out of hiding, her home village badly threatened and rescued by the PCs. The PCs then must make several Diplomacy checks to *coax* her into telling them that Sarshan was behind the mercenaries in the General's assault and that he plans to use blood chaos to revenge himself on the vale.

I have a hard time describing the number of things that make the above a complete Idiot Plot. Why don't they tell? This is treason against the Vale! They know about a upcoming plot to harm the people of the Vale *and* a responsible party for an assault on Overlook that claimed the lives of soliders and innocents. If they are jealous of the party, don't *tell* the party. Tell the authorities! Second, they then decide that the best response to three assassination attempts is to separate and hide, rather than simply telling their secret and removing the most probable cause of the assassination attempts. Megan also decides to hide out in her home town. Brilliant. Now she's put innocents in her home town at risk. Third, the secret she's keeping isn't even a good secret! Geez, the party and Council should have guessed that Sarshan was working with the General freaking ages ago! He was gathering mercenaries and sending them into the world back in Umbraforge and he even told the party that they should expect a disaster in the Vale! I can't imagine the laughter and groans around the table:

Megan: My secret? OK, I'll tell you at long last. I've survived assassination attempts, risked my home town, but I've always kept this incredible secret! The person behind the mercenaries was....was...Sarshan!

PCs: Uh....you're joking right? The same Sarshan who's been involved in every darn adventure we've had in this? Of course he was working with the General! Who else? Man, i thought we might get something interesting out of this.

I've gone on more than long enough, so I won't even start in on how stupid this whole adventure makes Sarshan look. (Dude, you haven't got a secret worth keeping and your actions to remain anonymous are moronic.)

 

[crash_beedo]

Frankly, I don't think this attempt at an adventure path is anyway near the standards set by Paizo. Even Paizo's first attempt, Shackled City, was "tighter". I don't think it is a question of a new ruleset; there just needs to be a stronger gatekeeper maintaining editorial control.

My main beef is, IMO, too often creatures that are unrelated in a story-sense are tossed together into the same encounter, but I find that a general fault of 4E so far.

This is pretty spot on with my take on SOW so far as well; the plot doesn't seem very tight compared to the Paizo AP's. WOTC's decision not to preview the campaign is partly to blame as well.

SOW has some interesting pieces, compelling locales, diamond-in-the-rough villains, etc, but I'll wait until the whole campaign is published and re-evaluate it then. More of the Elsir Vale story is being told each installment, and I think a DM will be able to streamline some of the convoluted plot points, emphasize the correct story points and villains to improve continuity, etc, once they see the whole cloth. I kind of see it like the 3 blind men and the elephant... no one is creating the big picture of the elephant, just a trunk, a tail and a leg. There's a sense the individual contributors aren't 100% clued in to the whole story.

Besides, had someone plugged it into their campaign starting with SOW 1, they might not have realized there were Orcish Badlands right on the other side of the mountains, or a trackless desert waste just to the southwest... you couldn't even build an accurate campaign map until halfway through the heroic tier. And as the campaign expands into Paragon and Epic, the "world" map may expand as well.

 

[FourthBear]

Despite my criticisms of the plot threads in Scales of War, I should note that I still plan on using the adventure path. I've had some similar issues with the Paizo adventure paths (the role of the Ebon Triad or Celeste in either of the first two adventure paths, for example), but Mottled Tower really is the worst example I can recall. I think the Scales of War adventure path can be very easily made into a much stronger campaign simply by making the threats more overt and removing many of the "secrets" that the authors are continually inserting into a otherwise fairly straightforward campaign. So easily that it's practically maddening that they continue to try and make an urgent and thrilling adventure/war tale into a mystery/conspiracy campaign, when they clearly lack the editing, communication and time to do so well. IMO, in a series such as this, with rushed deadlines and multiple authors, you should confine most of the mysteries and secrets to be introduced, developed and resolved within the individual adventures, not over the campaign.