JollyDoc's Shackled City

[gfunk]

Jared was using a couple of songs that were critically important to avoiding a TPK. The first was Insipre Courage (Su) which gave us all +1 morale bonuses on some saves, attack and damage rolls. The second (and most important) was Inspire Greatness (Su) which gives one recipient 2 bonus HD (d10s), +2 competence to attacks and +1 competence to Fort.

Inspire Greatness prevented Pez from dying the second time the dragon breathed on him and it also allowed Gardrid to stand toe to toe with the dragon to the bitter end.

 

[JollyDoc]

I must say, that really was a tough encounter! A dragon out in the open has proven very deadly once again... That's something for Gardrid to talk to his battlerager buddies about! Is he keeping the head or is the damage too great?

Nice ryhming JollyDoc, the crazy hermit really came accross.

Thanks NWK. As Gfunk mentioned, Jared was a key player in this encounter, and I wanted to portray him accurately.

As a side note, when the party began this adventure (which is designed for 4 6th level characters), they were effectively a 7th level party, consisting of six members. Bear in mind, not all of them were 7th level, but that was average party level. So, using the Scaling the Adventure tips in the adventure, I boosted the encounters one notch. There was some discussion as to wheter or not increasing the dragon's age category from juvenile to young was the deciding factor in this battle, and it's a point I'm giving serious thought to, since I have already scaled the remainder of the adventure as well. I don't want to obliterate the party, obviously, but I also want them to be adequately challenged. As of right now, Pez and Gardrid are 8th level. Wathros and Tilly are 7th level (again. They each lost a level as a result of Raise Dead, but subsequently recovered enough experience to regain it). Rusty is also 7th level,and Raphael is 5th (but ECL 6th due to being an Aasimar). I would appreciate any insights on this dilemma, especially from any of you familiar with the adventure and the coming encounters (do not, of course, reveal any information or spoilers please).

 

[Hammerhead]

While I have no experience in running the dungeon path adventures, I wouldn't scale the adventures, even if the PCs are slightly more powerful. When you scale the encounters, the victorious characters gain even more experience points. You then need to scale the encounters in the next adventure to a higher difficulty as well, creating a large amount of work for yourself. It's better to let them be more powerful for an adventure, gain less experience, and have levels appropriate for the next adventure in the series. For example, as 8th level PCs facing ECL 6 challenges, they'll gain less experience and will likely only make it 9th level or so, appropriate for the next adventure.

Besides, looking at how many deaths, near-deaths, and near-TPKs, can you see how an easy encounter or two might be a bad thing?

 

[Neverwinter Knight]

edit: irrelevant post

 

[bbarrington]

JollyDoc,
I'm also running Shackled City and will be starting Zenith Trajectory next week. My party consists of 5 7th lvl characters and a 5th lvl cohort. I too was planning on scaling the adventure but after reading your report I've changed my mind. I noticed you didn't scale the hydra up to 8 heads though. That would have been really nasty.

How does Paizo come up with the character levels for the adventure? Don't they know that four characters going through the entire adventure path would be at least one level ahead? Heck, the 4th adventure is for 8th lvl characters and my PC's are half-way there after Flood Season!

 

[JollyDoc]

Thanks for the tips so far. You have a very valid point Hammerhead, and one I had not considered. Bbarington, originally, I had scaled the hydra to 8 heads, but after the fight with the dragon, I ditched that plan. Things were bad enough already. I'm not sure what the thought process was on these level set-ups for these adventures. Personally, I think that four characters of the appropriate levels might not be able to handle them. However, in their defense, I imagine they had planned on there being at least one arcane spellcaster in the group who would be able to do more damage to the dragon while in the air. A lesson well learned.

 

[gfunk]

Bbarington, originally, I had scaled the hydra to 8 heads, but after the fight with the dragon, I ditched that plan. Things were bad enough already. I'm not sure what the thought process was on these level set-ups for these adventures. Personally, I think that four characters of the appropriate levels might not be able to handle them.

Words of prescience, my friends, words of prescience . . .

 

[sithramir]

I would personally suggest scaling the adventure with all the suggestions they gave in the magazine but keeping the exp the same as it would normally be if it wasn't scaled.

You may see this as unfair to an extent but it has two things that will occur:

1st) They are getting less exp than they would have if they had been the correct level since they are higher level and due to that would not get as much exp.

2nd) They will then end up at the end having the ammount of exp that they were supposed to have or closer to it due to 1.


THEN! I would calculate the exp they would have made if you gave them scaled exp (subtracting what they already got) and use this "extra" exp as bonus exp to given based on role playing purposes, etc.

This way you now can give them the same exp and have them be a bit higher only if you choose to. If you choose not they will end up being where they are supposed to be in the adventure paths. But it also reminds them to worry more about the fun and role playing than the exp from any specific battle.

This works particularly well in my campaign as I do have some power players (and I power play my NPC's) but I like to keep the role playing to a maximum if possible and remind them that this isn't just "I want my lvl 12 this session so lets smite big things quicker".

I don't see that at all in yours but while my role playing is good its not great and it gives me more control of exp without actually cheating them for what they've accomplished.

 

[Joachim]

This works particularly well in my campaign as I do have some power players (and I power play my NPC's) but I like to keep the role playing to a maximum if possible and remind them that this isn't just "I want my lvl 12 this session so lets smite big things quicker".

I don't see that at all in yours but while my role playing is good its not great and it gives me more control of exp without actually cheating them for what they've accomplished.

Oh, Sitramir, if you were actually present at our gaming table on Sunday nights, you would be suprised how many times phrases like that are uttered. The most common one being, "Less talk, more death." (I give ya three guesses as to which famous PC of ours said that the most....)

 

[MoonSaber]

I must say, I am almost afraid of what new things will be afoot this Sunday, giving the events of the last gaming session. Things once again got dicey and we are looking at people likely bringing in new characters...

Be gentle kind sirs