Shackled City: In My Hands

[DaveMage]

I just ordered it (Shackled City), from the US, no less

Amazon didn't have it, Barnes was sold out, so I had to go FNSLGS.

It's too late to ask, really, but hopefully stiggybaby is a reliable shopping place? Total damage was close to 55 euros. Not _too_ bad, and even that is mostly due to exhange rate.

I've had good luck with stiggybaby.

 

[ShadowDenizen]

Well, I have this in my hands, and intend to start running it next week.

My party has been brainstorming, and they decided they want to do an all-Cleric party, of all things!

I realize this is a challenging adventure path, and so, I'm seeking advice from people who've played through this, as well as other "veteran" 3.5 DM's.

Questions:
1) Could an all-cleric party survive through this module? Or will the lack of muscle, divine magic, and thiefly skills cripple them befire they even start?

2) How would I introduce them to Cauldron? My initial thought was that there was to be some sort of "Ecumenical Conference" to be held in Cauldron? Anyone else have any thoughts on how to integrate an all-cleric party?

 

[JoeGKushner]

All cleric party?

Depends on who they are clerics of. Since it already has Wee Jas, Kord, and St. Cuthbert built int, those should be very easy to integrate into the game.

Part of what you might want to do to ease the party's suffering, is strongly suggest that they have some multi-classing for at least a little of the areas' they'll be weak in. Heck, if you're not adverse to beefing up some of the compeition, giving the characters the option of playing.... man, can't think of the variant from Unearthed Arcana that let's players in essence gain two class abilities at once... wouldn't be a bad idea.

Outside of that, I'd use a lot of NPC's to help the party along. Paladins, faithful of the church, etc... Since Wee Jas is the god of death and magic, her church having a mage or two isn't out of the question for example.

 

[iwatt]

All cleric party?

Depends on who they are clerics of. Since it already has Wee Jas, Kord, and St. Cuthbert built int, those should be very easy to integrate into the game.

Part of what you might want to do to ease the party's suffering, is strongly suggest that they have some multi-classing for at least a little of the areas' they'll be weak in. Heck, if you're not adverse to beefing up some of the compeition, giving the characters the option of playing.... man, can't think of the variant from Unearthed Arcana that let's players in essence gain two class abilities at once... wouldn't be a bad idea.

Outside of that, I'd use a lot of NPC's to help the party along. Paladins, faithful of the church, etc... Since Wee Jas is the god of death and magic, her church having a mage or two isn't out of the question for example.

It's called Gestalt characters.

But I wouldn't worry about the all cleric party. If you're going with a single class party, the most powerful combo of all is the All cleric party. What you might do is tweak the classes for the different gods, to emphasize the differences. Swap class skills, remove bonus feats (medium armor, heavy armor, shields) and study alternatives to turning undead.

Even if you don't want to go to the trouble of tweaking, just having the clerics from different gods/domains will do the trick:

Warrior Cleric: War/Strength/Destruction domains. You'll probably see them rapidly multiclassing with fighter. Possible alternatives to turn undead: bonus divine feats (Might, Vigor, Shield).

Scouting Cleric: trickery/Travel/Time domains. This is the worst cleric (except for good domain choices) in the sense that clerics aren't skillfull. Remove turn undead and give them more skill points.

Arcane Cleric: All you need is the Magic domain and to seed the adventuer with enough magic items only he can use. Remove turn undead and give him bonus metamagic as a Wizard (or mayeb a slower rate?)

Turning Cleric: The typicla bane of evil, dedicated to destroying undead and healing party members. Probably the worst choice of all in an all cleric party. Would make him more useful if you provide alternates for turn undead for the other cleric types, and if undead featuer a lot in the game.

 

[ShadowDenizen]

Hmmm.
Interestingly, that's almost exactly what came up with! Except he also added a "Summoner" type of cleric. (They haven;t sent me any of the specifics of their ideas yet, just generalizations.)

Would it make sense to have one of the churches in Cauldron entreat other churces to help with the rash of abductions? This should get the PC's right into Cauldron, and segues nicely into "Life's Bazaar" and the adventure proper.

 

[iwatt]

Hmmm.
Interestingly, that's almost exactly what came up with! Except he also added a "Summoner" type of cleric. (They haven;t sent me any of the specifics of their ideas yet, just generalizations.)

Would it make sense to have one of the churches in Cauldron entreat other churces to help with the rash of abductions? This should get the PC's right into Cauldron, and segues nicely into "Life's Bazaar" and the adventure proper.

Ok summoner cleric: Doesn't erally need the heavya rmor since he's calling most of the help he'll need. I'd just simply remove the heavy armor (leave medium and shileds though) and give the cleric the Augment summoning (without taking SF conj) and trade the turn undead ability to be able to spontaneously cast all the summon spells.


Anyhow, be prepared for a very powerful group though. One of the balancing fatcors of clerics is the fact that so many "potential" spells are never used since so much spell power goes to healing. With so much healing potential....ther'll be a lot more alternat spells around. The war cleric will uber-buff himself, as will the rogue/cleric. The arcane cleric will blast more often, etc...

 

[ShadowDenizen]

Well, thanks! You guys've reassured me a little that it won't be as bad as I thought.

I'm terribly at gauging the "harshness" of modules just by looking at it, but this one seems pretty challenging. So maybe this party will actually be OK.

I thought, for the barest second, for allowing gestalt characters, but quickly disabused myself of that notion.

 

[Jack of Shadows]

So I guess what I'm really asking is does this adventure path turn into Planescape? Can a cleric of Pelor, a barbarian, a rogue, and a wizard all adventure around fighting evil without interdimensional doorways popping up around every corner, are there demons named Bob sitting down to have tea with Devas, and the average adventurer is expected to know what a Babau is at 1st level and what kind of toppings they like on their pizza.

--fje

Big NO,

There is very little plane hopping but there is a planar related BBEG. Most of the story is centred around the local BBEG lieutenants and the like and you don't even deal directly with them until after halfway through the campaign. SC is definately mainline D&D. The great thing about it is that a lot of creatures from MM2 and the rest are used instead of tired old standbys. This really gives it an old school feel because the players are back to "what the heck is that!" There's some great history and sideplot material in the campaign and a Bard will have a field day with all the obscure knowledge that can be revealed. I've been running this baby for just over a year now and it's been a blast.

I HATE Planescape stuff with a passion but I LOVE SC.

Jack