Why I am giving up on Scales of War

[DNH]

Some time ago I elected to play through the WotC Adventure Path 'Scales of War' with my gaming group. There was some apprehension back then about the lack of a decent plot outline (you all had the same issues) and that it was not really going to work with my campaign setting (Mystara; and it doesn't really but I was giving it a go anyway). Anyway, I went with it and started reading it through, liking it more and more as time went on.

But then reality hit me.

My group meets online once a week to play for three or four hours. It has taken us about ten sessions to get through Siege of Bordrin's Watch, and it was probably about the same for the first adventure (we didn't play Rivenroar but it's the same thing). I had a rough estimate there but I sat down this morning and looked at things a little more closely. I will not go into too much detail here but considering the remaining 16 adventures in the AP, switchover time for my group's other DM/campaign/setting (PFRPG) and downtime where we don't play at all, my estimate puts the Scales of War end-game coming in around Spring or Summer of 2019! Hell, we might have seen D&D *5e* by then. Or to put it another way, if WotC continue to produce APs one after another, they will have published a further six of them by then, and be closing on the Paragon Tier in a seventh! I really don't think it's good to lock our group into doing something, the same thing, however good it might be, for the next ten years.

Now don't get me wrong - I like APs. I like extended story arcs. Over-arching themes, recurring NPCs, all that. Thing is though, to do justice to them, or not even that but just to play through them, it takes time. And time is something my group doesn't really have enough of.

I have put a large amount of work into preparing these adventures (I kinda have to, given that we play online - go Fantasy Grounds 2!) and a part of me is loath to set all that aside, but I feel it's better to cut my losses here and now and move on to do something else with my campaign. I have a few ideas and lots of material that I had been largely ignoring precisely because we would be playing through the Scales of War AP.

I am posting here because I would be interested to know how many other SoW DMs have done the sums. I am hoping you get to play more hours than we do and will not have an issue with this, but you might be surprised how big a time-sink a 30-level AP is going to be.

 

[Obergnom]

I'm neither a SoW nor an online DM, but I now the problem you are talking about fairly well.

My group tends to spend a lot of time doing random things in town (or during travel, or... allways) and we tend to not get as many combats or planed action sequences done per session as I would like. An average dungeon mag adventure would take two month to finish, one adventure of the H-P-E series 3 Month or more.

My advice for you would be, strip the adventures down to the bare minimum of combat encounters and enhance the advancement rate. Maybe you can get down to a level every 2 sessions, that would put a whole AP at 60 sessions... 1 and a half year of gaming. Still quite an investment, but 2011 is not 2019

 

[Grimstaff]

I avoid DMing Adventure Path-style campaigns in general. As you noted, they're an onerous time investment, and railroady by nature. Nonetheless, I see the appeal, or they wouldn't be selling since Dragonlance came along. Some groups like being part of an epic storyline, I just don't find it very inspirational as a DM. I favor a more episodic, or picaresque, play style, that allows me and the players to follow our muses and whims at-will.

When Scales of War first premiered during the free trial, I considered jumping into it, but ended up scavenging it for encounters instead.

 

[jhallum]

I am posting here because I would be interested to know how many other SoW DMs have done the sums. I am hoping you get to play more hours than we do and will not have an issue with this, but you might be surprised how big a time-sink a 30-level AP is going to be.

It's a real issue. I started SoW back in January last year, and play about 4 hours every two weeks as well (actually it's a little more than that), and we are just finishing up with Den of the Destroyer. I think we should be able to get a good way into Chapter 6 with the two sessions we have remaining. Looking at the Adventure Log, we did the first three adventures in about 16-20 hours of time, and the last two in 24-8 hours. At this rate, it will be end of 2011 before we get there ourselves. But, that's a the nature of the beast with a campaign that runs from 1 to 30....does the plot sustain the interest throughout the campaign. In this case, I think it might, I was worried with the end of Chapter 15, and Legacy of Io, but I think I can rework those events enough to get to Those Once Loyal.

 

[hexgrid]

I haven't tried to run Scales of War, but the first thing I do with any Dungeon adventure is figure out how to reduce it down to 6 or so combat encounters.

 

[Wormwood]

I haven't tried to run Scales of War, but the first thing I do with any Dungeon adventure is figure out how to reduce it down to 6 or so combat encounters.

Yeah, I finally figured that out when the party hit 14 or so---after slogging through dozens of overly long and frankly unnecessary encounters sprinkled throughout the series.

I first trim unnecessary encounters, either by cutting them out entirely or by making it possible for the party to circumvent them with skill challenges.

Second, I go through each encounter and replace problematic (game slowing or simply uninteresting) monsters with others more suitable for the encounter. It goes without saying that the Monster Builder is absolutely indispensable at this point.

XP totals are then brought back in line by adding quests, beefing up the remaining encounters, or adding skill challenges.

 

[esparkhu]

I DM a SoW group that plays mostly online, play by post, and occasionally with a live session once every 6 weeks or so. We started in October 08 and are halfway through SoW 5, Den of the Destroyer. To me if feels like a pretty good pace. I learned my lesson after Rivenroar and now trim and tweak the adventures quite a bit. My group has meandered off on completely unexpected directions, but I eventually get them back on track.

I don't think you can blame the adventure path for slowing down your leveling. That has more to do with how often you play and the way your players adventure. For example, sometimes my group has long drawn out debates about what to do next. If they'd just shut up and play, they'd have gone through a decent fight already.

I think you just have to use the adventure path as a template, but have the confidence to trim, improvise, and tailor the story as written to one that suits your group better.

By the way, there is a nice overview Wiki on Scales of War. I find it very helpful for making the adventures more streamlined and coherent.

 

[Truename]

I am posting here because I would be interested to know how many other SoW DMs have done the sums. I am hoping you get to play more hours than we do and will not have an issue with this, but you might be surprised how big a time-sink a 30-level AP is going to be.

My group is finishing up the heroic tier now (just two sessions left, by my estimation) and I'm pondering this very question. Do I want to stop and start over with WotBS, which looks awesome and a lot deeper, or do I want to stick with it? It's taken us about 14 months to get through the heroic tier, and I figure it will be another 2.5 years to get through the rest of SoW. That could well be all the gaming we do.

My big problem with SoW is that it's so two-dimensional and combat-oriented. I just read WotBS #2 and I loved how it had real choices, real dilemmas, and lots of little tips on playing NPCs. It seemed like the choices made here would actually reverberate in further adventures, whereas SoW just has a single thread. Epic tier SoW looks particularly bad... especially the first few.

On the other hand, Paragon tier SoW has a nice arc, mostly solid if railroady adventures, and an awesome conclusion. The SoW plot is meh, but they often have great set-piece encounters. I've been adding little touches here and there to provide continuity, foreshadowing, and the illusion that player choices make a difference. My players love the power fantasy aspect of D&D and are excited to hit Paragon tier, so starting over at level 1 would probably be a downer. And although the heroic-tier conclusion (and the following adventure) are a nice spot to stop, I'd feel a bit like we'd thrown away the time we invested before we got to the better Paragon-tier adventures.

What do others think? Given the choice between finishing SoW (at least through Paragon tier) or switching to WotBS, what would you choose?

 

[Stoat]

What do others think? Given the choice between finishing SoW (at least through Paragon tier) or switching to WotBS, what would you choose?

I don't know much about WotBS, but I'd switch. I guess I'd say that the Paragon tier adventures look like the best that SoW has to offer, but even they ain't great. So far, the Epic tier adventures suck.

 

[TerraDave]

As others have touched on, its not just SoW.

As we all know, 4E presumes 10 encounters per level, or maybe just 8 with some quests and higher then average encounters. So far so good.

The game seems to emphasize, more then ever, playing all 30 levels. In the past, my feeling is that most groups covered 8-10 in a typical campaing. But that is still ok, something to aspire to.

WotC 4E adventures tend to be "heavy", with all the needed encounters, and then some. In contrast to past edition adventures, which tended to be "light". E.g. it may be for levels "4-7", but doesn't actually give you enough by the book xp to cover all those levels.

WotC 4E adventures don't seem to have much non-combat space (litteraly or figuratively). Encounters take big areas, and seem to take over everything.

Last, but far from least, 4E combats presume big, multi-opponent, elborate terrain slug fests for every single fight. Or worse a super durable solo. And that you should be doing about 4 of these in an adventuring day.

Each of these may be good by themselves (except for the lack of non-combat stuff in the adventures). But they add up to a lot time taken up with fighting. Over and over. For 30 levels. Until 2019 apperantly.