The Scales of War, part 4
by Greg A. Vaughan with James Larrison
Possible Spoilers
The next installment in the Scales of War Adventure Path is here! As Overlook prepares for war, a long-lost mine has been discovered, ready to supply the city with the resources it needs to prepare its defenses. It's up to the PCs to find a route to the mine and secure it for the powerful Ironfell clan.
The city of Overlook stands at the base of the Stonehome Mountains at the farthest western reaches of Elsir Vale. This age-old redoubt was the center of the ancient dwarf kingdom that once dominated the vale but which faded into obscurity generations ago.
Though little is remembered of this lost kingdom, its folk ventured far and wide in their day. One dwarf clan -- the Ironfell -- made forays in search of mineral wealth in the deserts beyond the Thornwaste to the southwest of Elsir Vale. There, they established a mine they called the Karak Lode, after the first dwarf of Clan Ironfell to fall in its defense.
Over long years, Karak became a legendary source of wealth as its folk pulled rich deposits of gold, silver, and other precious metals from beneath the desert sands. A supply depot was established at the desert's edge to service the caravans traveling between the mine and Elsir Vale, but the location of the Karak Lode was kept a closely guarded secret. Only oath-sworn members of Clan Ironfell ever made the final leg of the journey across the sands.
The city of Overlook stands at the base of the Stonehome Mountains at the farthest western reaches of Elsir Vale. This age-old redoubt was the center of the ancient dwarf kingdom that once dominated the vale but which faded into obscurity generations ago.
Though little is remembered of this lost kingdom, its folk ventured far and wide in their day. One dwarf clan -- the Ironfell -- made forays in search of mineral wealth in the deserts beyond the Thornwaste to the southwest of Elsir Vale. There, they established a mine they called the Karak Lode, after the first dwarf of Clan Ironfell to fall in its defense.
Over long years, Karak became a legendary source of wealth as its folk pulled rich deposits of gold, silver, and other precious metals from beneath the desert sands. A supply depot was established at the desert's edge to service the caravans traveling between the mine and Elsir Vale, but the location of the Karak Lode was kept a closely guarded secret. Only oath-sworn members of Clan Ironfell ever made the final leg of the journey across the sands.
Anyone else having problems?
And now I'm logged into Insider and it's telling me I need to subscribe to download it....
What gives?
Edit - Worth mentioning that I do have a subscription...
The link is broken for me.
Anyone else having problems?
Well, the link goes to the PDF for me, but the Adobe Reader opens with an error saying "The file is damaged and could not be repaired". I am logged in with my subscription, if that matters.
At first glance, I like the adventure. It's got a nice tie to the original RHoD (in particular, I can't wait to spring that on one my players, the one who ran it for me in Living Greyhawk). A familiar face starts it off, and there's a few interesting characters introduced as well.
I wonder how much of the anger in this AP is directed at a listless beginning and fairly generic module. RaR was pretty boring compared to the fun stuff that's been happening at Overlook.
(At least I was able to get everything else now I've managed to pay for my subscription.)
The link is broken for me.
Anyone else having problems?
My link in this thread, or the link in the article?
I didn't attempt to open the article last night, I only put up the thread because I was up and knew it was going to be up soon, so I waited for it to go live made the thread then went to bed.
After reading the posts I tried my link and it worked, then I tried to open the article (Firefox 2.0.0.17) and it opened without a problem. It was a little slow, but it gave no errors.
If you are having problems posting the browser you are using with the problem usually helps.
Edit: Nada. Still broken.
Steve
I received the same "file damaged" message when I came to the office this morning. I'm not sure what caused it, but I redeployed the file and it's now working in all my tests. If anyone has further problems (or those who had problems, now don't), let us know.
Steve
*cheers!*
Thank you Steve!
My download went pretty smooth early this morning. I encountered one case of "corrupted file"; then, started another download and it came through fine.
Of course, I'm one of the lucky ones experiencing another download problem (noted elsewhere). I had to use a "work-around" so I wouldn't see a page full of gibberish.
I have no comments on the adventure itself (haven't read it, not yet). I'm holding back running Scales of War until the full Adventure Path is released ;). Right now, I'm just "collecting" stuff.
And it's better, which is nice. Still more or less utterly unconnected with the others (at least 2 and 3 had a tenuous connection), but it definitely ramps up in difficulty. One of my main complaints about these is a lack of monster ecology explanation. For example, the second to last battle in #4 involves 5 different monsters, only one of which has an Int above 1, working in coordinated manner. There is no explanation for this, no ur-controller with the power to sway men's minds, they just all happen to be in this room together, and they just happen to *choose* to fight in a way that maximizes their strengths. Some would say this is to be expected; I say it ruins the PC's ability to correctly evaluate threats. Swarms of vermin do not have intelligence; they attack a target (the nearest barring something amazing). Their aura simulates the outliers nibbling on others; they do not "stay in the middle of the battle to maximize the effect of their aura."
One really nice thing about the adventure path (in the spirit of saying something nice before you say something not-nice) is the environments for the battles. Someone has been very creative in designing cool places for PC's to fight; and 4E really allows that to shine (aside from the asinine placement of the heated pipes in the Dark Foundry). And the 4th installment shows off shifting sands, stairs, elemental chaos, brambles, and crevasses quite well.
All this having been said, however, I'm still very frustrated at the clear lack of careful editing of these pieces and even clearer lack of a comprehensive plot line. They just don't feel tight or well-thought out, and the editing is atrocious. I mean, I had to Google the original Elsir Vale map from Red Hand of Doom to figure out where Overlook was in relation to Brindol (we won't mention the non-appearance of Castle Rivenroar on the RaR map). Poor maps, poor descriptions, the lack of monster ecology I mentioned above all make these feel like standard dungeon crawling/clearing to me and my players, and that's not why we're here. We're here for an epic storyline we can feel a part of, and that we can watch develop as time goes on. As far as that goes, everything we've seen thus far is filler.
So, to sum up: the Adventure Path thus far is uneven in many ways. While it is a great showcase for the possibilities of the 4E combat system, it is thus far not showing is anything from the rich tradition of D&D role-playing and story telling. Here's hoping we'll see a strong return of that in the 5th and future installments of Scales of War, and that someone, ANYONE, reads the errata threads and goes back to fix some of the glaring errors.
Storm
So, to sum up: the Adventure Path thus far is uneven in many ways. While it is a great showcase for the possibilities of the 4E combat system, it is thus far not showing is anything from the rich tradition of D&D role-playing and story telling. Here's hoping we'll see a strong return of that in the 5th and future installments of Scales of War, and that someone, ANYONE, reads the errata threads and goes back to fix some of the glaring errors.
Thanks for your input. Having played through Age of Worms and Savage Tide, the first few modules weren't terribly interconnected and seemed more like random adventures centered around an area. However, maybe I'm misremembering.
Judging by the first 4 installments of Paizo's adventure paths, on interconnectedness and the feeling that it's a continuous plot, how are they doing? Editing concerns don't bother me, and I'm probably going to tweak or completely change most of the encounters anyway, it's the overall feel I was looking for.
Judging by the first 4 installments of Paizo's adventure paths, on interconnectedness and the feeling that it's a continuous plot, how are they doing?
In RotRL, the connection is tenuous until Act 4. In Act 2 and 3, the Greed sigils appear as a reoccuring theme, kind of like the Dharma Initiative symbols in "Lost". Overall, it's not a direct line between any of the 6 modules.
For that reason, The Lost Mines of Karak was pretty disappointing to read. I feel like part 3 started to build some momentum - it tied in to some degree with part 2, and it has some stuff that should be a continuing story. But then part 4 pretty much kills that, and it feels like it's back to random dungeon generation.
Hopefully the dwarven combat encounter leads to something in the adventures down the road. Else, it seems quite like a waste of time, since it doesn't advance the plot...
In The Temple Between, some dwarves have an active dislike for the party because of the fight in this module. Unfortunately, the author of TTB got the name of the clan wrong, and labelled them as being of the same clan as the guy who hired the party to go to the mine... you'll want to watch out for that.