Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 asmodeuslore Nov 10, 2009 7:35:49	Dungeon 172
#2 hawke Nov 10, 2009 21:55:39	A quick read through, but I definitely like this one more than the last. I was a little confused as to the villain involvement, but I thought the breaking of the seals was pretty neat flavor. Knowing this adventure's plot, I think I will definitely start setting some seeds earlier in the campaign about a "concession" contingent that wants to make peace even if it means giving a great deal of power/control away to Tiamat. Perhaps that contingent being in favor during the course of this adventure could sell the players as needing to be secretive bit a bit more - add in some roleplaying with the arrow at the end to try and convince them to take the war to the completion. Interesting possibilities, I'm eager to see where this adventure path goes.
#3 jffdougan Nov 11, 2009 9:33:15	I predict 3 things for the remaining 3 adventures: 1) The party will kill the last two of Tiamat's 5 exarchs (blue and red, if I've been tracking correctly). 2) The ultimate battle will be with Lady Greed herself 3) Amyria will become the new avatar of Bahamut. I'll speculate that the Birdman from Lost Mines might be how Bahamut got summoned in a mortal form and destroyed, but who knows whether that will be revealed or not.
#4 Misroi Nov 12, 2009 12:59:47	Definitely the blue, though they've already encountered the red exarch. One thing I'm very disappointed that was not addressed: what do you do if you have a divine character who worships Bahamut?  I forgave Grasp of the Mantled Citadel for not having this information in its pages, as Bahamut's death takes place in the conclusion.  However, Legacy of Io does not mention what to tell players that worship Bahamut.  Obviously, their powers still work, so someone is answering their prayers.  Is Bahamut truly dead?  Does Amyria house his essence?  Are they destined to become Bahamut?  None of these? I realize they'll answer what becomes of Bahamut in the next few months.  Still, a sidebar on what's going on should have been included, even if they have to dance around the subject due to the way they're handling the AP.
#5 oldben Nov 12, 2009 18:28:11	I feel like there were some great adventures in the paragon level, but now it seems like the story has become a bit meandering again.  Spoilers Spoilers Spoilers Also, I concur about the critique regarding the lack of world-info. after Bahamut's death.  Overall, according to the adventures, it seems like the multiverse has stood up pretty well.  What's the big deal?  Besides bad guys are bad and so good guys must stop them, what is the motivation for the PCs to fight Tiamat?  She did her bad thing, what is her next plan?  Where is the world-upheaval, the heavens being sundered in two, the fall of Bahamut's faith, etc? Adios
#6 balhaza Nov 12, 2009 19:10:05	Spoilers.... I guess what the Scales of War developers are trying to do is leave up all those open-ended questions for us DMs to fill in and do whatever we want. Some people might like having Bahamut not having that big an influence, whereas others playing something like Chris Perkin's Io'mander might have terrible consequences happening. Legacy of Io, while I understood what it was trying to do, didn't sit well with me. The fights and encounters were quite bland, discounting the epic level creatures, which to be honest, you can pop them into much more interesting situations. One image, however, did stick well with me, the image of an old man conversing with a sphinx. Otherwise, if the characters are morally aligned, and this adventure does presume they are good, why on earth would they go around fighting the good divine characters without a qualm? The pact with Asmodeus, one that apparently the players are not supposed to know anything about is poorly vague. Bahamut's dead, it is the head temples of all three gods, and if they can provide some proof of their quest and their affiliation with Bahamut, why would the leaders of the temples not listen to them? Because it would disrupt the excitement of fighting good divine characters? Because it would not have a pretense of moral ambiguity in the adventure? I don't know. Recently I have been listening to the podcasts and one of the goals of Dungeon is to do the DM's work for it. Scales of War so far has been inspirational, and indeed, it did do much of the work for us. These recent two, however, merely left us with massive holes to fill in.
#7 warmunky Nov 17, 2009 2:26:52	Spoilers.... I guess what the Scales of War developers are trying to do is leave up all those open-ended questions for us DMs to fill in and do whatever we want. Some people might like having Bahamut not having that big an influence, whereas others playing something like Chris Perkin's Io'mander might have terrible consequences happening. Legacy of Io, while I understood what it was trying to do, didn't sit well with me. The fights and encounters were quite bland, discounting the epic level creatures, which to be honest, you can pop them into much more interesting situations. One image, however, did stick well with me, the image of an old man conversing with a sphinx. Otherwise, if the characters are morally aligned, and this adventure does presume they are good, why on earth would they go around fighting the good divine characters without a qualm? The pact with Asmodeus, one that apparently the players are not supposed to know anything about is poorly vague. Bahamut's dead, it is the head temples of all three gods, and if they can provide some proof of their quest and their affiliation with Bahamut, why would the leaders of the temples not listen to them? Because it would disrupt the excitement of fighting good divine characters? Because it would not have a pretense of moral ambiguity in the adventure? I don't know. Recently I have been listening to the podcasts and one of the goals of Dungeon is to do the DM's work for it. Scales of War so far has been inspirational, and indeed, it did do much of the work for us. These recent two, however, merely left us with massive holes to fill in.  ^^^This.  I'm running the Scales of War and immediately said "Welp.  Guess I'm either going to have to reskin this somehow or else figure out how to run it without my Cleric of Pelor or my Invoker of Ioun.  If Avandra had been the third Goddess involved, we'd lose the Avenger and Bard, as well.  So...yeah.  Looks like the artifact will be in the Nine Hells or something, or maybe scattered...one in the Hells, one on the Prime, one in the Astral Sea, and one in one of the Celestial Realms run by Kord or somebody.
#8 buufreak Nov 26, 2009 10:18:17	Spoilers.... I guess what the Scales of War developers are trying to do is leave up all those open-ended questions for us DMs to fill in and do whatever we want. Some people might like having Bahamut not having that big an influence, whereas others playing something like Chris Perkin's Io'mander might have terrible consequences happening. Legacy of Io, while I understood what it was trying to do, didn't sit well with me. The fights and encounters were quite bland, discounting the epic level creatures, which to be honest, you can pop them into much more interesting situations. One image, however, did stick well with me, the image of an old man conversing with a sphinx. Otherwise, if the characters are morally aligned, and this adventure does presume they are good, why on earth would they go around fighting the good divine characters without a qualm? The pact with Asmodeus, one that apparently the players are not supposed to know anything about is poorly vague. Bahamut's dead, it is the head temples of all three gods, and if they can provide some proof of their quest and their affiliation with Bahamut, why would the leaders of the temples not listen to them? Because it would disrupt the excitement of fighting good divine characters? Because it would not have a pretense of moral ambiguity in the adventure? I don't know. Recently I have been listening to the podcasts and one of the goals of Dungeon is to do the DM's work for it. Scales of War so far has been inspirational, and indeed, it did do much of the work for us. These recent two, however, merely left us with massive holes to fill in.  Thank you so very much! I mean, the idea of this game is to be open and creative, yet everyone is acting like they are completely bound to that which is in the books and magazines. Have an imagination, kids! Think outside of the box. If you want to make your Platinum Clerics now worthless, do it. If you want them to keep their power because Bahamut isn't really dead, do that. But its your game, so you have to decide. Even if the books are to help take some of the work out of it, it doesn't mean you can sit back, relax, and read it all from the books, because all PCs can do the same thing, anticipate everything that is coming, and thus the game grows stale.
#9 Neutronium_Dragon Nov 27, 2009 9:56:38	> However, Legacy of Io does not mention what to tell players that worship > Bahamut. Obviously, their powers still work, so someone is answering their > prayers. Is Bahamut truly dead? No one has to answer their prayers, but that's true at all times - divine power in general comes from faith and investiture, allowing the character to directly tap the power of the astral sea on their own initiative, not from direct divine intervention every time someone casts a spell. Invokers might be a bit more put-upon, but as the invoker article showed, even a dead god's power remains strong enough for them to tap, so a Bahamut-oriented invoker wouldn't have any problems either.
#10 blackplauge Nov 29, 2009 14:28:19	...  I'm running the Scales of War and immediately said "Welp.  Guess I'm either going to have to reskin this somehow or else figure out how to run it without my Cleric of Pelor or my Invoker of Ioun.  If Avandra had been the third Goddess involved, we'd lose the Avenger and Bard, as well.  So...yeah.  Looks like the artifact will be in the Nine Hells or something, or maybe scattered...one in the Hells, one on the Prime, one in the Astral Sea, and one in one of the Celestial Realms run by Kord or somebody. I think that reskinning this adventure to involve other deities just because you have a character who worships Pelor, Ioun, or Erathis is doing those players a disservice.  Even amongst the worshipers of a good deity there are bound to be factions and rivalries between said factions.  The combination of characters who worship Pelor, Ioun, or Erathis and the situation in Legacy of Io gives you the opportunity to bring that fact to the surface and exploit it.  The better solution is to react to your player's attempts to handle the situation non-violently by modifying the adventure as needed.  The characters, after all, are epic at this point, and thus of fairly high standing in the world.  They may be able to make political deals and trades that enable them to unlock one or more seals without fighting the guardians.  Said processes, however, shouldn't be easy.  They should be at least as difficult as the combat needed to destroy the seal by force (and carry a commensurate reward). Of course, this goes back to Balhaza's criticism in that the adventure design should have provided for this possibility.  By describing the seal guardians they way he did, Daniel has made them into 2-d paper cut-outs for the party to burn, tear, or simply knock over.  Some thought should have gone into figure out what the motivations of the various guardians are and how they might be convinced to break the deal with Asmodeous and let the Arrow of Fate out.  Combat may still have resulted if the party failed to make the proper concessions, but that shouldn't be the automatic way the encounter goes.