Savage Tide, Shackled City and Morphic control

[Alleran]

Savage Tide and Shackled City being two of the long-running adventure paths in the Dungeon Magazine, of course.

Has anybody DMed (or are currently DMing) a group through either of these? What sort of experience was it? Were encounters balanced, or did they need some adjusting?

And for those who've reached the end, what did the players go on to do, presuming that they gained control of the Gaping Maw (Savage Tide) or Occipitus (Shackled City) layers of the Abyss? Did they try and turn them to light and good? Delve into the black depths of evil? Something else?

(And if a player assumed control of the Gaping Maw, did they wind up manifesting two intelligences? A DC 30 Will save isn't all that hard to pass, after all.)

Also, in the case of Savage Tide, becoming a Prince of Demons means you have morphic control over the Gaping Maw, and for Occipitus you need the Smoking Eye template. How do you normally treat the "morphic control" that PC controllers of the two layers have? Essentially the same as something with divine ranks in its own plane? As a pumped up version of some spell or another? Or something else?

EDIT: Additionally, how do you normally treat morphic control over other planes? Does anybody allow it for, say, a self-created demiplane?

[Ankhman]

my players are standing right in front of the secured cage of adimarchus on top of skullrot .. ;)

mhm balance-wise i think, shackled city is balanced for a 4-player-group with an occasional need for adaption. the more players, the more you have to tone up the fights. sure there are some situations, that can lead to an easy groupkill, but that's up to you to handle.

the cleric of lathander has sacrificed himself in occipitus and thus got himself the eye-template. he already said, he'll try and change it back to something good, but they still have to defead adimarchus.
i don't think, that we'll tackle the results of that right after, because we take a break from that campaign. but i would handle it as divine rank 0 on that plane plus the starting of a siege from some of the other planes. before level 20 he didn't had the mental power to start controling the plane. and even now he has to learn slowly, what to do.

[Mordokai]

I'm currently playing ST(as a player) and we're only managed to gain access to Vanderboren vault under castle Teraknian. So far, things seem balanced :smalltongue:

However, I know the whole adventure and to be frank, some parts of it seem like the authors were pretty much hoping for TPK to happen. Namely, most of the Isle of Dread. Getting to Farshore is hard enough and defending it is no piece of cake as well. However, the biggest offenders in my eyes are The Lightless Depths and City of Broken Idols. Especially some parts of the later seem to almost scream TPK. That the whole two adventures are pretty much a drop in story for constant fighting is not much of encouragement for me as well. I don't know what Tito was thinking when designing Khala. It's end fight tactics(as suggested in the adventure) are pretty much there to kill the whole party.

I hope we get to test the whole module personally and can give you more info later :smallsmile: But if/when that happens, it will probably be too late for you :smalltongue:

[Alleran]

However, I know the whole adventure and to be frank, some parts of it seem like the authors were pretty much hoping for TPK to happen. Namely, most of the Isle of Dread. Getting to Farshore is hard enough and defending it is no piece of cake as well. However, the biggest offenders in my eyes are The Lightless Depths and City of Broken Idols. Especially some parts of the later seem to almost scream TPK.
The group I'm probably going to run it for aren't really into optimisation, though there are five of them (two paladins, a druid, a summoner and an avariel elf rogue) with a possible sixth (cleric of Selune). So you'd definitely suggest toning that part of it down significantly?

[Calmness]

Okay I put some spoilers for those playing or planning to play Savage Tide.

Our group played part of Savage Tide too, and while we didn't have too much trouble with Khala, the freaking Super Marilith later on who hits like a truck would have killed us if not for DM fiat. It is the one who had Lavinia captured. Of course, part of that was my fault for understimating her and not activating Giant Size before charging like a dumb half-orc, but still, it is a pretty tough fight.

Also, the last encounter with Vanthus, when he is in a cave with incorporeal monsters is a joke. Vanthus only has like, 100 hp or so which just doesn't cut it against level 15 adventurers. I don't think his build is very good either. I have little respect for fighter/rogue multiclassing.

But man, the armor he drops is sweet! :smallsmile:

[Ankhman]

suggestion for SC from me .. when you think, they are to stumble into some nasty end .. let them do some intelligence or wisdom checks and give them the "bad idea!!!!!"-look of a concerned DM. mask that with some checks in not so catastrophic situations.

some points i remember, that could easily kill your party ...

- both fights with valantru .. especially the second one. nasty bit, because it can hit them completely unprepared and even at level 17 or 18 it can prove deadly.

- the bossfight with the dracolich at the pillars of souls would had resulted in a partykill if not for the immune-to-fear-eefect of the heroes feast from the cleric

- same for the bossfight in the cathedral of wee jas

[Mordokai]

The group I'm probably going to run it for aren't really into optimisation, though there are five of them (two paladins, a druid, a summoner and an avariel elf rogue) with a possible sixth (cleric of Selune). So you'd definitely suggest toning that part of it down significantly?

Toning it down... I'll put it this way. You'll see yourself how much trouble your party will have coming to there. By then, you should have enough experience to know better than I do. Be ready to do your part as DM and tone the encounters appropriately as needed.