Scales of War - Feedback and Advice

[Ryujin]

I'm just finishing the Heroic Tier of SoW as DM...

It's okay, but nothing real special and there are definitely some oddities to the series...

For many of the adventures, it feels as if the writers didn't follow the advice the DMG gives for designing encounters and rewarding treasure.

Often, it seems as if there wasn't a very good concept of the overall scheme of the campaign, and little communication between the contributing authors. Played straight up, it feels more like a string of stand alone adventures only tenuously connected by common NPCs and locations (and sometimes not even that), rather than a distinct campaign.

We did have to deal with one TPK in the second adventure (be careful with the cliffside stairs -- the enemy's crossbowmen have a push that in conjunction with a 150' fall is deadly to 3rd level characters).

We didn't play through the whole thing, but certainly found it light on treasure when compared to the recommended (and needed) treasure parcels.

 

[Pbartender]

Thanks, guys!

I was looking for adventures that had a Frontier/War theme, a bit darker in nature (trying to emulate some Dragon Age vibe). The first adventure I came across was Heathen from Dungeon 155, which I actually liked.

Something else you might consider...

If you can find a copy and don't mind doing a bit of extra work, consider running a conversion of the original Red Hand of Doom. It takes place in the same general area (the Elsir Vale), and Scales of War was supposed to be a sort of sequel to it.

It was written as a "mega-adventure" rather than an adventure path, and so has a better continuity. Also, it's has a much better plot for a war campaign, and is considerably less railroady over all... Especially if you have creative players and a flexible DM.

My wife DMed it for us a few years back, and it still ranks as one of our all-time favorite D&D campaigns.

 

[The Antra]

Yes, that´s exactly what I was considering. Reading through the Red Hand of Doom and perhaps weaving everything into a bigger thing, perhaps involving a 10-year span.

(Then again, I may be too ambitious here... LOL)

But the way it seems, the main problem is that it wasn´t thoroughly planned from the start. I will read the Heroic Tier and see if I can strengthen the weave between the modules. If I can create a solid Heroic Tier AP with it, I think I´ll start DMing it, even if I have to turn from it afterwards.

Thanks again, everyone!

In time, which adventures do you consider the high points of the AP? And which are the low points?

 

[The Antra]

BTW, I always tweak the encounters and the treasure, so balancing things out really doesn´t bother me. My main consern is (and always is) the plot and how it develops along the AP.

 

[Pbartender]

In time, which adventures do you consider the high points of the AP?

The highest point of our SoW campaign, that wasn't something I added in or changed, was Rufus the Necromancer who fast became a favorite NPC of everyone in our group and will join the ranks my recurring NPCs.

I made him the only arcanist in town with widely available magic items, whereas the dwarves of Overlook guard their magic making secrets closely. I portray him using a bad imitation of Peter Lorre, and give all of his potions, rituals and magic items the oogiest, creepiest descriptions possible -- "You slug down the healing potion, which tastes like an odd combination of vomit and black licorice, and has the consistency of half-melted jello mixed with watered-down tapioca pudding." He once accepted the corpses of the PCs' slain enemies as payment for information he provided, and he once offered to sell them zombie mules when they needed a way to transport several tons of raw residuum ore.

My players have developed a distinct love-hate relationship with him, but he has the widest variety and the best prices, so they keep coming back.

Best NPC in the campaign.

 

[Riastlin]

In time, which adventures do you consider the high points of the AP? And which are the low points?

Of the adventures I've run so far, Siege of Bordrin's Watch is by far the best. A couple of really fun fights in there (though I changed the stairway fight a bit to make it so the fall wasn't insta-death) and the pacing worked fairly well.

The worst for me, was Umbraforge. The adventure makes a lot of assumptions as to what the PCs will do, and as a result, comes off as very railroady. I ended up keeping most of the encounters but reworking much of the "story" of it in order to give the players choices and to avoid some of the blatant railroading.

Others that I've read, but have yet to get to, that look good include: Temple Between, Mottled Tower, and Haven of the Bitter Glass. I'm still reading through Alliance at Nefelus, so can't really comment after that.

I do have to disagree a bit with the earlier sentiment that the arcs are not connected, etc. I can't speak for the Epic Tier since I have not gotten that far yet. However, the heroic and paragon tier arcs while clearly separate arcs in and of themselves are also related. Essentially, the main villain of the Heroic Tier is basically the "advance man" of the main paragon tier enemy. Now of course, I don't know if this continues or not through Epic, but knowing the general story of Epic tier, there again seems to be some connection.

I will admit though, that if you want to really tie it together, there will be some work required on your part, but as I suggested above, I actually think that's a good thing since every group has different motivations. In contrast the above poster who mentioned the Necromancer, my group could care less about the names of the assorted merchants. So even though, Rufus can be made into an excellent NPC, he's nearly useless for my game in terms of story, etc. On the other hand, Captain Aerun and Bram Ironfell are getting substantial play in my group as I've introduced both of them early and both are now handing out missions to the group (necessitated in part by two near-tpks).

I think the biggest potential problem in tying everything together is that the path assumes that there are no tpks and that at the very least there's some original PC throughout. Even that though is fairly easy to counter act. The path is not perfect to be certain, but I think it is definitely very useable, particularly if you are a bit cramped for time. Unfortunately, I cannot comment on War of the Burning Sky as I have not read any of it.

 

[jhallum]

We are about halfway through Haven of the Bitter Glass (8/18).

The high point so far has been the end of The Temple Between, the players ate it up.

The low point was the string of encounters at the end of Mottled Tower. Too much like a railroad, and too many encounters in a row.

The big thing that I would change about the APs is to remove a few combats and try to make them more RP oriented. The combats are far too involved, and do take some time. Cut back on having 5-6 combats in a row, or if you do, minimize several of them, and it might remove some of the monotony...

 

[Goonalan]

I just DMed 6/18, lessons learnt are to make the scenarios connect a whole lot more than they actually do- as other people have said here.

I read through all of the scenarios first off and wrote up a flowchart (as best I could- it turned into a mess), I've replaced a few of the NPCs along the way with PCs from my campaign world, same for places and bad guys.

The thing is the series has to be very generic (so everyone can play it), you need to make it more specific- so the places and people the PCs are fighting for initially are of value to them. Make sure you spend the time getting the PCs settled in their home world- give them things to defend, and if you can work them in (which I always do) take the characters backstories and find something in each of them- some secret, or revelation- now work this into the scenarios- make them personal.

I changed Brindol to Fallcrest (a place my players were familiar with), had one of the prisoners taken be related to one of the PCs. Same for many of the other scenarios- each one had something to help at least one of the PCs personal quests...

Make it more important that they succeed, and connect the scenarios up a lot better than they are at present- I did this by using one of the PCs as a conduit (the player wanted to get into politics (he wants to rule the world actually)). He's useful in that I can have him 'learn things'- usually a little of the DM only info, just snippets to make him feel he's the one with the info- as long as he's stirred up about things then the other players (particularly as they know that there could be another clue to their personal quest in the offing...).

Motivate them, make it personal.

Cheers Goonalan

 

[Colmarr]

For what it's worth, I've been slowly reviewing my way through SoW encounter-by-encounter on my blog, starting here.

There's also some good info and tips on this wiki.

Best of luck!

 

[The Antra]

Thanks, guys!

Yes, I´ve been reading the modules and so far I believe they work, albeit with a lot of "customization". As Goonalan pointed out, I have every intention of making it my own campaign, stablishing stronger and more recurrent NPCs and making cities and places matter more to them.

I´ll post back here as the experience goes...

And Colmarr, that´s perfect! Definitely a side read while I move through each part of the Adventure Path.