# Scales of War Adventure Path...  How is it?



## Pbartender (Feb 4, 2009)

So...  Has anyone been playing through the new Scales of War adventure path?  What do you think of it so far?

I'm trying to decide if I want to collect them up for my next 4E campaign.


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## malraux (Feb 4, 2009)

Pbartender said:


> So...  Has anyone been playing through the new Scales of War adventure path?  What do you think of it so far?
> 
> I'm trying to decide if I want to collect them up for my next 4E campaign.




I'm playing in a SoW game right now.  Thus far we've only just finished the first adventure.  Its not the best thing since sliced gnome, IMO, but not horrid.  Thus far its been a bit dungeon-crawly, but its a new DM and we a playing in a game store, so that's probably a factor.  Of course, since it's all online, collecting it is pretty easy.


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## Wormwood (Feb 4, 2009)

I've run 4 of the adventures so far (Dungeons 156 - 159).

1. Lots of dungeons. 
2. Not a fan of the fact that I, as DM, don;t fully understand what is going on. Now that I have the next three adventures, I have a better idea of what to expect---but I'd rather save the surprises for the players.
3. Not as 'path-y' as I expected. The adventures don't feel as connected as they could be. Yes, certain locales are central to the path, but some of the side treks seem out of place. I'm trusting that all these disparate elements tie into a cohesive whole---but the threads appear tenuous at times. 
4. Some great villains, and some *awesome* combats. 



Spoiler



The final fight in Karak's Lode was particularly exciting


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## Spatula (Feb 4, 2009)

I believe you can still download the first few for free from the WotC site.  So you can check them out yourself.  I've read the first three and been less than impressed myself.

Rescue at Rivenroar - looks like a decent adventure, although the bad guys seem like a grab-bag of random stuff and their actions don't make much sense, but that's easy to change or gloss over.  



Spoiler



The goblins kidnap the townsfolk to feed to the undead - so why don't they do that?  Why do they instead spend 4 days constantly moving the captives around the dungeon?  And yet they give one prisoner to the ettercaps to eat.



Siege at Bordrin's Watch - has zero connection to the first adventure.  Which is a bit strange, as it means the DM has to do work right out of the gate to keep the AP flowing... which kinda defeats the purpose of running the AP to begin with.  Fumbles the setup to the next adventure (see below).  The last encounter looks really cool.

Shadowrift of Umbraforge - gets off to a bad start when it retroactively turns a stock nameless straight-out-the-MM monster from Siege into a named NPC that was supposed to be carrying a MacGuffin.  No MacGuffin, no adventure.  That would have been nice to know when running Siege, eh?  The setup to get the players into the meat of the adventure also doesn't make much sense.  



Spoiler



Namely, there's no reason for the villains to ever be connected to the tavern - there's a portal from the tavern's basement to a warehouse in the city.  No one would ever go from the tavern into the secret chamber, or come out of there, because they can just access the basement and its Shadowfell portal via the warehouse.  I guess the investigation should lead to the warehouse, instead, which after all _does_ have suspicious goingons (goods are coming out of there when no one saw any goods going in).



I've only skimmed Lost Mines and haven't really looked at the others.  The MacGuffin bit from Shadowrift kinda turned me off to the whole thing.


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## RefinedBean (Feb 4, 2009)

I agree with most of Spatula's main points, except I disliked Rescue at Rivenroar quite a bit.  The plot is fairly stupid, the dungeon doesn't give you any helpful hints as a DM on how to change things up, and some of the encounters (



Spoiler



the one with the ochre jelly that comes out of the painting


) are just stupidly implemented.

You'd be better off running something else and then starting things off with Bordrin's Watch, in my opinion.

Take everything I say with a grain of salt, though; I'm a relatively new DM, and this is my first time doing an AP.


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## Rechan (Feb 5, 2009)

IMHO, the only redeeming feature of the whole thing is Den of the Destroyer, which I think is a really decent dungeon crawl, and did a lot with the gnolls.

The previous one, the one in the desert, didn't look awful, but that's it.


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## Simplicity (Feb 5, 2009)

I have to say, I went from being a huge fan of the Paizo adventure paths to being thoroughly disappointed in the new 4e adventure path.  It seems to me that 4e really hadn't hit its stride when the first few adventurers were being constructed and they just came out... meh.

I haven't run them, but that shouldn't disqualify me since I think hardly anyone runs adventure paths anyways.  APs exist for us to read, drool over, and wish we had time and the friends to run it even though we don't.


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## Scholar & Brutalman (Feb 5, 2009)

I've been DMing a group through Scales of War: right now they're in the tower section of Shadowrift of Umbraforge. It's the first time I've DMed in 5 years so I'm fairly rusty. As a DM I like scenarios that give the players strong motivations and the don't rely on the players or the monsters acting against their own interests to make sense.  So far, Siege of Bordrin's Watch has met those criteria but the other two haven't.

Rescue at Rivenroar starts off with a couple of great combats with the raid: the level 8 ogre may be hard on inexperienced players who don't realize that it's essentially strapped to a bomb, but my players had no problems. The dungeon itself is bit of a mess though.

Siege of Bordrin's Watch is a pair of very linear dungeons, but I found it gave my players good motivation to act like heroes, and the dungeons each escalated nicely to their final battle. The final battles were suitably epic, but the designer thinks that a good choice for a boss enemy is an elite soldier several levels higher than the party (see "grindspace".) 

Shadowrift of Umbraforge has some real motivational problems for the party: 

"This looks like a job for...the duly designated authorities!" 

"We've found that there are two enemies that hate each other... so lets watch them fight!". 

And for me as the DM. Weapon smuggling?

I haven't run the last battle yet, but the "elite soldier several levels above the party" problem looks like it will be there again. Again, very loosely connected to the other two.

I get the impression that the authors of these modules didn't really communicate. Or even that these were originally unrelated modules.


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## Scholar & Brutalman (Feb 5, 2009)

Simplicity said:


> I have to say, I went from being a huge fan of the Paizo adventure paths to being thoroughly disappointed in the new 4e adventure path.  It seems to me that 4e really hadn't hit its stride when the first few adventurers were being constructed and they just came out... meh.
> 
> I haven't run them, but that shouldn't disqualify me since I think hardly anyone runs adventure paths anyways.  APs exist for us to read, drool over, and wish we had time and the friends to run it even though we don't.




I actually played all the way through Age of Worms, after which I was no fan of Paizo, or of 3e anymore. As a player I got the impression that there was too much story that only the DM was exposed to. IMO APs are meant to be played, by everyone at the table.


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## Rechan (Feb 5, 2009)

Scholar & Brutalman said:


> I actually played all the way through Age of Worms, after which I was no fan of Paizo, or of 3e anymore. As a player I got the impression that there was too much story that only the DM was exposed to. IMO APs are meant to be played, by everyone at the table.



I played in the flood adventure of _Shackled City_, and then I fled that campaign like my leather armor was on fire. 

I've read through Savage Tide, and that AP looks far more fun. So does the Scarlet Throne one.


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## Wormwood (Feb 5, 2009)

Spatula said:


> No MacGuffin, no adventure.  That would have been nice to know when running Siege, eh?  The setup to get the players into the meat of the adventure also doesn't make much sense.



Oh man, I'd actually forgotten that.

Talk about frustration---I pored over the previous adventure trying to find that [MacGuffin] feeling like an idiot the whole time. 

Unfun.


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## ShinHakkaider (Feb 5, 2009)

Scholar & Brutalman said:


> I actually played all the way through Age of Worms, after which I was no fan of Paizo, or of 3e anymore. As a player I got the impression that there was too much story that only the DM was exposed to. IMO APs are meant to be played, by everyone at the table.




Yeah, but then that's the fault of the DM and not the adventure. A DM that's used to working with published material ((especially material rich with background info) knows how to get that story to the PC's in one way or another so that it doesn't remain in the background and enhances the feel of that particular game. 

Youre right the AP's ARE meant to be played by everyone at the table, but it's up to the DM to serve as a conduit for that material to somehow make it to the players and make it relevant to at least some of them.


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## Truename (Feb 5, 2009)

I'm playing through SoW now. My players are in the final encounters of Siege at Bordrin's Watch.

So far it's been okay.  I ran Rescue at Rivenroar with just two PCs and it was not much fun. Pure dungeon crawl. The initial encounters in the city are okay, but the dungeon has no rhyme or reason. Ick.

Then, with a new group fresh out of H1, I ran Siege. Far better than Rivenroar, linear as others have said, but that hasn't been a problem. The encounters are mostly pretty interesting and I can't wait to run the final encounter, which looks like a lot of fun.

It's serviceable but plain. I've been adding a lot of incidental flavor to make it more interesting. I've also put extra effort into having the monsters do interesting things during encounters, such as figuring out what will happen once the fight goes against them.

Still, it's better than making my own campaign (I'm a new DM and I don't have a lot of free time) and I like the idea of a whole pre-made campaign. I think the players like it more than I do.

Finally, I agree that the editing has been lackluster. A lot of early mistakes, and the writers don't seem to be talking to each other (as someone said). That's gotten better as WoTC has gotten their feet under them with DDI and digiDungeon.


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## delericho (Feb 5, 2009)

Simplicity said:


> I have to say, I went from being a huge fan of the Paizo adventure paths to being thoroughly disappointed in the new 4e adventure path.  It seems to me that 4e really hadn't hit its stride when the first few adventurers were being constructed and they just came out... meh.




Bear in mind that this is WotC's first crack at an Adventure Path (well... technically their second, but those first eight 3.0e adventures were a long time ago). Paizo learned a lot of lessons from Shackled City and Age of Worms, lessons that WotC now have to go and learn for themselves.

Of course, that says nothing for the Scales of War path (I haven't read it and haven't played it, so can't comment). However, I would be hopeful that the next path would be considerably better.



> I haven't run them, but that shouldn't disqualify me since I think hardly anyone runs adventure paths anyways.  APs exist for us to read, drool over, and wish we had time and the friends to run it even though we don't.




I think there's a lot of truth in that. I ran my group through Shackled City, and would very much like to run them through several of the other paths. But there are so many of them out there, and so many other campaigns that I want to run...


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## Spatula (Feb 5, 2009)

RefinedBean said:


> I agree with most of Spatula's main points, except I disliked Rescue at Rivenroar quite a bit.  The plot is fairly stupid, the dungeon doesn't give you any helpful hints as a DM on how to change things up, and some of the encounters (
> 
> 
> 
> ...



No arguement there.  I think the basic outline is sound (rescue the prisoners from the goblins), but the dungeoncrawl is definitely lackluster.  No theme to the opponents, no traps!, and featureless rooms to fight in.  But it's easy to redo the monsters, adding in some traps in the process, and placing terrain in the rooms.

You know, I didn't think of it, but the adventure doesn't tell you how the warband deals with the players as they attack the dungeon.  I guess that's what you meant about "how to change things up."  



Spoiler



I'm changing the encounters to be more goblin and undead themed (making liberal use of Open Grave), and getting rid of the grab-bag monsters in the process.  I think that if I do end up running it, whenever the players retreat, I'll have some of the dead raised as zombies (by the wight) so that they can still occupy their posts.   And cross off one prisoner as payment for services rendered (or to fuel the animation ritual), each time that happens...



EDIT: Another problem with Rivenroar that I noticed - the adventure is designed to take 5 PCs to 3rd level (or maybe just barely short of it) assuming you clear everything out.  But there's only 14? treasure parcels, instead of 20, plus 400 gp in quest rewards (which doesn't make up for the 6 missing parcels).



RefinedBean said:


> You'd be better off running something else and then starting things off with Bordrin's Watch, in my opinion.



I thought that too, since it seems everything from Siege onwards is based in Overlook.  But the story does actually return to Brindol later on, and it looks like Den of the Destroyer actually makes use of the events in Rivenroar, which won't have much impact if you didn't go through the 1st adventure.


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## scrubkai (Feb 5, 2009)

At least reading through them, I was not impressed with the first two modules.

Den of the Destroyer and The Temple Between seem to be much better modules then the first few, and also seem to have started to twist all the plot threads together.

But I haven't run anyone through the modules, so I can't say for sure if they play that way.

(I had hopes that those two modules were a sign things were getting better, but the Fist of Mourning let all the air out of those hopes for me.)


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## Truename (Feb 6, 2009)

scrubkai said:


> (I had hopes that those two modules were a sign things were getting better, but the Fist of Mourning let all the air out of those hopes for me.)




Fist of Mourning looks _terrible_. I'm going to be skipping that one. I'm hoping it was a last-minute effort because of the Seattle snowstorm. It certainly looks it.


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## Ydars (Feb 6, 2009)

I wonder if this is what happens when you decide to contract out your adventure work to freelancers (who were not privy to the experience of creating 4E like Mearls et al)?

I also wonder if this is what you get when you fire half the staff who created 4E because now the bedrock of the system is finished?

My final musing is to wonder whether WoTC will learn from this in the future?

Hhhhmmmmm.


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## Rechan (Feb 6, 2009)

Ydars said:


> I also wonder if this is what you get when you fire half the staff who created 4E because now the bedrock of the system is finished?



Didn't they do the same thing right after 3.0?


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## Ydars (Feb 6, 2009)

They did indeed.

I am now wondering if this might be why it took about 6 years for WoTC to start producing decent 3.5E adventures (Red Hand of Doom etc)?

Forgive my musings..........................


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## Shroomy (Feb 6, 2009)

While the layoffs sucked, they hardly fired half the staff that created 4e.  BTW, here are the authors of the current AP modules:

Rescue at Rivenroar - Dave Noonan
Siege of Bordrin's Watch - Robert J. Schwalb
The Shadowrift of of Umbraforge - Scott Fitzgerald Gray
The Lost Mines of Karak - Greg A. Vaughan and James Larrison
Den of the Destroyer - Rodney Thompson
The Temple Between - Ari Marmell
Fist of Mourning - Robert J. Schwalb

Now, I'm not familiar with James Larrison, but everyone else on that list was deeply involved in the 4e development or is a key WoTC freelancer.

BTW, while I thought that the first adventure had some good ideas in it, I was overall disapointed with its bland execution.  And while I thought "The Shadowrift of Umbraforge" was too railroady, IMO, the remaining adventures are good to very good ("Fist of Mourning" is a fine sidetrek, its just unfortunate that it has nothing to do with the rest of the AP).


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## Cyronax (Feb 6, 2009)

I've read through all of the adventures for this adventure path and found them wanting. They are very very repetitive in terms of monsters used in the early adventures, and if I'd run them I would have altered them significantly. Basically I feel like they just used the Kobold, Goblin, and Orc entries in the MM and rarely if ever bothered to gin up new varieties of these kinds.

The thing I did like about the Scales of War was their Background Options. Its an article in Dragon (one of the early, free ones) which lays out a lot of generalized benefits that are somewhat less powerful than the background benefits in the Forgotten Realms Players Guide, but cool options nonetheless. 

C.I.D.


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## Ydars (Feb 6, 2009)

Hey Shroomy! How dare you inject some actual data into this discussion! That is just not DONE on an internet messageboard.

Seriously though; I do talk some rubbish sometimes don't I ?

What is your explanation for how these adventures have turned out? Do you think they were rushed out? Low priority? Or do they think we will lap up any old nonsense?

I am just completely non-plussed by what WoTC do sometimes.


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## Truename (Feb 6, 2009)

Ydars said:


> I wonder if this is what happens when you decide to contract out your adventure work to freelancers (who were not privy to the experience of creating 4E like Mearls et al)?
> 
> I also I'm wonder if this is what you get when you fire half the staff who created 4E because now the bedrock of the system is finished?
> 
> ...




It's not that bad.

Here's my (spoiler-free) mini-reviews of the seven adventures so far:

1. *Rescue at Rivenroar.* I've DM'd this one. Starts out with a great encounter and quickly goes into tedious, boring, senseless dungeon crawl. Written by Dave Noonan, which makes me wonder if it was a rushed repurposing of one of his dungeon delves.

2. *Siege of Bordrin's Watch.* I've DM'd all but the last few encounters of this one. It's linear and combat-focused, but it has a strong theme and nearly all of the encounters are dynamic and interesting. It includes a complete, well-detailed city and bunch of new monsters.

3. *Shadow Rift of Umbraforge.* Just dripping with flavor and exotic locales. I'm looking forward to running this one. The ending is on some heavy rails, but I expect that I'll be able to fix that. There's a major continuity snafu with the previous adventure, but that's only a problem if you run Siege without reading this one first.

4. *Lost Mines of Karak.* I'm not sure what to think of this. Despite the title, it's not really a dungeon crawl. There's a nice variety of locations. I'm having trouble imagining how it will play out (as I usually do.)

5. *Den of the Destroyer.* Others have praised this one. It's the most dungeon-focused so far, and looks pretty good, with interesting locations, NPCs, and lots of new monsters.

6. *The Temple Between.* This one just looks awesome. Huge, epic in scope, it really feels like a capstone to the heroic tier adventures. The only problem I have with it is that it's supposed to tie together the plot points from the previous adventure, but the big reveal was a surprise to me--and if it didn't make sense to me, what will my players think? I'm left wondering how to foreshadow it.

7. *Fist of Mourning.* Yuck. Feels rushed and disconnected... a lot like Rescue at Rivenroar, in fact. The adventure advises that you can either drop the PCs at the dungeon entrance or use the slow start; the slow start read-aloud text says (I'm not kidding): "So, you have your task. Now you’ve chosen to investigate elements of it." Add in unrelated, reused art and it really feels poor. On the good side, it's optional, and given the snowstorms around that time I'm willing to give WoTC a bye on this one.

*The Adventure Path as a whole:* Except for 1 and 7, the individual adventures are serviceable and some look really promising; the overarching plot seems weak, but there are connecting elements and as DM I intend to play them up. They may work better in practice than they do on paper.


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## Ydars (Feb 6, 2009)

An excellent summary Truename! So just a few bad apples in an otherwise sound apple-cart? 

Perhaps these bad eggs have just tarred the whole AP with the same brush? I read Rescue at Rivenroar and was seriously unimpressed with the ending. I think I have skimmed all the others and all that jumped out at me were the errors and inconsistancies. Perhaps they are worth a revisit.


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## Shroomy (Feb 6, 2009)

Ydars said:


> Hey Shroomy! How dare you inject some actual data into this discussion! That is just not DONE on an internet messageboard.
> 
> Seriously though; I do talk some rubbish sometimes don't I ?
> 
> ...




I think that it comes down to a time and/or a resouce issue, like it usually does when talented people create something mediocre or downright bad; like I said, Rescue at Rivenroar has a lot of good ideas in it, but they aren't executed very well.  I also wouldn't absolve the editors, since its their responsibility to get this stuff right.


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## ki11erDM (Feb 6, 2009)

APs are good for introducing worlds. Pathfinder is a great example, tons of back story and interesting info along with some reasonable adventures. Saying that; the AoW AP utterly killed any interest I had in 3.x and in Greyhawk for that matter and the ST read to be just as bad.

Trying to create an AP in a ‘generic’ world is not going to give you a good product in the end and defeats the whole point of the AP. If I am going to ever DM an AP again I want it to have ALL the information in it I need… I don’t want to have to do any prep work outside of reading it. The current AP in Dungeon is soulless because it does not have a larger world wrap around it and if I am going to spend the time generating that then I am going to spend the time making my own adventures.

I hope they have learned that and will create the next AP in FR or in whatever campaign world they are going to publish after Eberron. I know they want adventures that are easy to put into any world… but they already have that with the rest of Dungeon, they should be using the APs to put a spot light on a world.


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## Spatula (Feb 6, 2009)

ki11erDM said:


> The current AP in Dungeon is soulless because it does not have a larger world wrap around it and if I am going to spend the time generating that then I am going to spend the time making my own adventures.



*shrug* It's set in the implied setting, and details its region fairly well.  The city of Overlook, for example, (from adventures #2-4) has a lot of space devoted to fleshing it out.  In general it follows the DMG advice of starting small and building up the areas of interest from there, which has been good DM advice for a long time now (I think there's some similar advice way back in the 2e DMG).



Ydars said:


> What is your explanation for how these adventures have turned out? Do you think they were rushed out? Low priority? Or do they think we will lap up any old nonsense?



Well, I'm guessing the early ones suffered from the authors being overworked.  Getting 4e out the door, starting up the new Dragon & Dungeon, DDI stuff... when the first batch of adventures were being written, there was a lot of other stuff going on at Wizards.  Plus the rules were still in flux.

But part of that is also that they bit off more than they could chew, I think.  With the DDI in general, but the AP idea specifically.  "Oh, it's just a bunch of linked adventures, how hard could it be?"  Without fully realing all the work Paizo had come to put into the AP concept.  You can see this back when DMs starting asking about getting an overview of the whole AP.  "We don't want to ruin the surprise," was the answer, which showed that they weren't up to speed with how Paizo had evolved and refined the concept.  Or that Wizards hadn't figured out the outline yet, but I believe Ari Marmell has said that that isn't the case (and in any case I'm more likely to believe ignorance over maliciousness).


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## 13garth13 (Feb 7, 2009)

delericho said:


> Bear in mind that this is WotC's first crack at an Adventure Path (well... technically their second, but those first eight 3.0e adventures were a long time ago). Paizo learned a lot of lessons from Shackled City and Age of Worms, lessons that WotC now have to go and learn for themselves.






Spatula said:


> But part of that is also that they bit off more than they could chew, I think.  With the DDI in general, but the AP idea specifically.  "Oh, it's just a bunch of linked adventures, how hard could it be?"  Without fully realing all the work Paizo had come to put into the AP concept.  You can see this back when DMs starting asking about getting an overview of the whole AP.  "We don't want to ruin the surprise," was the answer, which showed that they weren't up to speed with how Paizo had evolved and refined the concept.  Or that Wizards hadn't figured out the outline yet, but I believe Ari Marmell has said that that isn't the case (and in any case I'm more likely to believe ignorance over maliciousness).




Ummm...not to pick nits, but weren't Chris Youngs and Dave N. (pre-axing natch) folks who worked on the Shackled City....in fact, wasn't Chris Youngs (aka Chris Thommason {sp?} )the editor of Dungeon at the time of the Shackled City AP?

This speaks to me volumes about whether they knew in advance what the issues/concerns of a vast undertaking like an AP are, i.e. attempts to fob this off as beginner's mistortune are somewhat off base...Chris Youngs in particular
should darned well have known what he was getting into.

Cheers,
Colin


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## Olaf the Stout (Feb 7, 2009)

Simplicity said:


> I have to say, I went from being a huge fan of the Paizo adventure paths to being thoroughly disappointed in the new 4e adventure path.  It seems to me that 4e really hadn't hit its stride when the first few adventurers were being constructed and they just came out... meh.
> 
> I haven't run them, but that shouldn't disqualify me since I think hardly anyone runs adventure paths anyways.  APs exist for us to read, drool over, and wish we had time and the friends to run it even though we don't.




I'll have to disagree with you that people don't run AP's.  I'm running a group through the Shackled City AP at the moment.  One the players in that game is also playing through the Savage Tide AP in another group.

And judging by how many people post about the AP's on the Paizo boards, I'd say that there are quite a few groups playing them at the very least.

My SCAP is certainly going well at the moment.  It's probably the best campaign that I've ever run.

Olaf the Stout


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## James Jacobs (Feb 7, 2009)

13garth13 said:


> Ummm...not to pick nits, but weren't Chris Youngs and Dave N. (pre-axing natch) folks who worked on the Shackled City....in fact, wasn't Chris Youngs (aka Chris Thommason {sp?} )the editor of Dungeon at the time of the Shackled City AP?
> 
> This speaks to me volumes about whether they knew in advance what the issues/concerns of a vast undertaking like an AP are, i.e. attempts to fob this off as beginner's mistortune are somewhat off base...Chris Youngs in particular
> should darned well have known what he was getting into.
> ...




The idea of doing a series of linked adventures was indeed Chris's idea, and Shackled City did indeed launch while he was in charge of _Dungeon_. I'd go as far as to say that single idea saved _Dungeon_ from going out of print before it hit issue #100, in fact. And Dave Noonan did indeed write adventures for that first Adventure Path. But the majority of developing and editing and work on evolving the Adventure Path concept was handled by Erik Mona and myself (we took over _Dungeon_ at approximately the 3rd adventure in Shackled City's schedule, and I'd been involved in the process from the start, having written the 2nd adventure). What we learned from Shackled City was pretty enormous—and its looking like the current Scales of War AP is going through the same growing pains we went through with Shackled City.

And as far as I can tell, a LOT of folks are indeed running APs. The Adventure Path messageboards at Paizo are consistently among the busiest and largest on our site, and feedback at conventions and via reader mail/email supports the fact that a lot of folk are playing them.

A lot of folk DO only read them or mine them for ideas. And that's fine as well... in fact, one of my philosophies is to make adventures as much fun to read as they are to play.


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## 13garth13 (Feb 8, 2009)

Well then I cheerfully retract my less than informed statements in light of the inside scoop from someone who actually knows what they are talking about   

  Thanks for weighing in, James.

  Cheers,
  Colin


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## Rechan (Feb 8, 2009)

Cyronax said:


> I've read through all of the adventures for this adventure path and found them wanting. They are very very repetitive in terms of monsters used in the early adventures, and if I'd run them I would have altered them significantly. Basically I feel like they just used the Kobold, Goblin, and Orc entries in the MM and rarely if ever bothered to gin up new varieties of these kinds.



I disagree; the second adventure had a _ton_ of new orcs in it. Plus Orogs.

(And I loved the Cave Troll. )


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## Jack99 (Feb 8, 2009)

Rechan said:


> (And I loved the Cave Troll. )




It made my players cry  - it is an awesome monster.


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## Shroomy (Feb 8, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> It made my players cry  - it is an awesome monster.




One of the best things about 4e are the monsters that use PCs as weapons and/or body shields.


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## Wormwood (Feb 8, 2009)

Shroomy said:


> One of the best things about 4e are the monsters that use PCs as weapons and/or body shields.



I'll admit that I've shamelessly copy/pasted that power for a number of different monsters. 

Too damned good to pass up.


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## Rechan (Feb 8, 2009)

Wormwood said:


> I'll admit that I've shamelessly copy/pasted that power for a number of different monsters.
> 
> Too damned good to pass up.



Yeah. I gave it to a Balgura (and made him an elite). Was a great battle.


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## malraux (Feb 8, 2009)

Wormwood said:


> I'll admit that I've shamelessly copy/pasted that power for a number of different monsters.
> 
> Too damned good to pass up.




A hearty THIS to that.  I was building a monster earlier today and was thinking that I wanted to emulate the 3e cloaker ability to split damage between it and the grabbed creature.  After a few short seconds of thought, I brought up the bugbear strangler in the compendium and started cutting and pasting.


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## catsclaw227 (Feb 9, 2009)

Thanks James for popping in and giving your thoughts. 

I am running Scales and it's my fourth AP in the past 3-4 years.  I dig them.  We have done:

1. The Drow War - Mongoose
2. Savatage Tide
3. Age of Worms
4. Scales of War


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## esparkhu (Mar 23, 2009)

*DnD Telephone game*



Spatula said:


> Siege at Bordrin's Watch - has zero connection to the first adventure.  Which is a bit strange, as it means the DM has to do work right out of the gate to keep the AP flowing... which kinda defeats the purpose of running the AP to begin with.
> 
> Shadowrift of Umbraforge - gets off to a bad start when it retroactively turns a stock nameless straight-out-the-MM monster from Siege into a named NPC that was supposed to be carrying a MacGuffin.  No MacGuffin, no adventure.  That would have been nice to know when running Siege, eh?




I've been DMing a Scales of War group and I have to say the whole adventure path seems disjointed. The NPCs and plot don't flow from one adventure to the next.   It feels like each writer works independent of any kind of overarching plan and just tries to build on what has been written before.

Actually it feels alot like a game of DnD telephone.


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## Vanuslux (Mar 23, 2009)

esparkhu said:


> I've been DMing a Scales of War group and I have to say the whole adventure path seems disjointed. The NPCs and plot don't flow from one adventure to the next.   It feels like each writer works independent of any kind of overarching plan and just tries to build on what has been written before.
> 
> Actually it feels alot like a game of DnD telephone.




Yeah, it has a very sloppy feel to it.


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## Primal (Mar 23, 2009)

ki11erDM said:


> APs are good for introducing worlds. Pathfinder is a great example, tons of back story and interesting info along with some reasonable adventures. Saying that; the AoW AP utterly killed any interest I had in 3.x and in Greyhawk for that matter and the ST read to be just as bad.
> 
> Trying to create an AP in a ‘generic’ world is not going to give you a good product in the end and defeats the whole point of the AP. If I am going to ever DM an AP again I want it to have ALL the information in it I need… I don’t want to have to do any prep work outside of reading it. The current AP in Dungeon is soulless because it does not have a larger world wrap around it and if I am going to spend the time generating that then I am going to spend the time making my own adventures.
> 
> I hope they have learned that and will create the next AP in FR or in whatever campaign world they are going to publish after Eberron. I know they want adventures that are easy to put into any world… but they already have that with the rest of Dungeon, they should be using the APs to put a spot light on a world.




Hmmm... I loved the first adventures in AoW, but it did turn into a silly Godslaying Quest at some point, and some of the adventures did not make sense to me. We played a heavily modified version of it in my group, and the DM also included lots and lots of hand-outs that shed more light on the backstory (because if you run it "as is", there's too much stuff going on that will just not make any sense to the players). 

I have to say that the 'Whispering Cairn' by Erik Mona stands out as my favorite adventure ever published in the Dungeon Magazine (Willie Walsh's adventures come as a close second).


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## esparkhu (May 15, 2009)

There is a pretty decent Scales of War wiki with adventure overview and NPC summaries. Feel free to check it out and add to it.


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## Erik Mona (May 16, 2009)

Primal said:


> I have to say that the 'Whispering Cairn' by Erik Mona stands out as my favorite adventure ever published in the Dungeon Magazine (Willie Walsh's adventures come as a close second).




Hey, thanks! That's really high praise, and I appreciate it.

Have you had a chance to check out my "Howl of the Carrion King," the lead-in adventure to the Legacy of Fire Adventure Path in Pathfinder #19?

I'm pretty pleased with it, and early reports are pretty encouraging.

--Erik


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## 2WS-Steve (May 16, 2009)

esparkhu said:


> There is a pretty decent Scales of War wiki with adventure overview and NPC summaries. Feel free to check it out and add to it.




That's a very nice wiki!  Lots of good notes and reminders on potential problem points.


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## Hawke (May 17, 2009)

I like a lot of the individual adventures, but I felt too much that I was having to create the "Adventure Path" myself. To me they mostly feel no different than some of the other Dungeon adventures that might be set in a similar local (for instance, the recent adventure set in Fallcrest). 

Right now I'm doing Temple Between to cap off the heroic... but it looks like I'll be leaving the path to do a feywild hybrid stealing NPCs/encounters from Trollhaunt Warrens/Dark Heart of Mithrendain to work through the first quarter of Paragon. 

I'll probably rejoin the adventure path for Stone-Skinned King and work toward   Raven Queen's Enclave. Not sure if we'll rejoin at that point ... guess we'll have to see how SoW Epic is.


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## Betote (May 18, 2009)

Erik Mona said:


> Have you had a chance to check out my "Howl of the Carrion King," the lead-in adventure to the Legacy of Fire Adventure Path in Pathfinder #19?




If it helps, I'm currently running it, and it's being a blast. I love how the PCs have a more or less clear mission, but no established way to accomplish it. It's full of possible events and places to go.

I don't want to sound fanboyish, but it dethroned Keep on the Borderlands as my sandbox starting module of choice.

It's not the best module I've ever run, though. That place is reserved for The Hook Mountain Massacre. But that's just because I'm a sick puppy


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## fletch137 (May 20, 2009)

The biggest hazard for me and my group in any Adventure Path is the very real risk that characters will die or the players will want to pursue goals aside from the narration of the Path.  Any AP that's strung together too tightly can really derail at the loss of a key character or two, and wouldn't have the leeway to allow PCs to go off and do whatever.

I personally LOVE that Scales of War is more a series of loosely related adventures rather than detailed chapters of a larger story.  Not only is it more generous in allowing new characters to join mid-stream, and even allows enough wiggle room for other adventures more customized to player goals.


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## Connorsrpg (Dec 5, 2018)

Hi all. Looking to run this in 5E. There are some good sources out there. Being tentatively linked does not bother me either, as I doubt we will play much of the path. This is just going to be one hook of several I provide in my sandbox.

Main thing I want to know is, is there ANY reason this starts in Brindol? (I'm only getting ties to the Red Hand). But, it looks like the rest takes place outside Elsir Vale?

Does any of the rest of the AP actually happen in the Vale itself?

Also, I just read first part of Rescue at Rivenroar. I did not see an explanation of HOW the hobgoblins etc got into the city with carts etc to cause this carnage! Brindol is a very well protected town! I think I would use the opening in one of the smaller villages of the vale - especially as it seems you are off out of the Vale anyway. I mean Rivenroar isn't even in there? A long way to be carting prisoners.

Why didn't they use a small village and then Bristol as main town instead of this Overwatch?

is there something I am missing?


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## amethal (Dec 7, 2018)

Connorsrpg said:


> Main thing I want to know is, is there ANY reason this starts in Brindol? (I'm only getting ties to the Red Hand). But, it looks like the rest takes place outside Elsir Vale?
> 
> Does any of the rest of the AP actually happen in the Vale itself?
> 
> ...



It's been a while since I read it, but (apart from the link to the Red Hand, which only applies to the bad guys in the first adventure) there is no reason why it has to be in the Vale at all. From what I remember, the basic "hero tier" plot is that a mysterious somebody is selling a lot of weapons to a lot of different groups of troublemakers, which can happen just about anywhere.

I do like Overwatch. I think it has a pretty cool vibe to it, and is more interesting than generic fantasy town #16842 aka Brindol.


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## Connorsrpg (Dec 17, 2018)

Thanks Amethal. I am starting a new Elsir Vale campaign. I like sandbox games, but I think I will use the opening adventure among others. If PCs wish to follow this up, then perhaps we leave the vale 

Overwatch sounds interesting.


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