How is Scales of War?

[Waspinator]

Has anyone used the Scales of War path from Dungeon to run a 4E campaign? If so, how was it? Would it make a good intro to the system for both the DM and players?

[Saph]

The guys from the table next to us at our meetup group are playing it. This leads to the entertaining result that we're playing a 3.5 Red Hand of Doom, and they're playing the 4e sequel, at the same time. :)

They've got an average of 7 players, though, so I'm not sure how applicable their experience is going to be to a smaller group.

- Saph

[Waspinator]

I could see how that could be pretty funny. "Don't worry guys, I'm pretty sure you'll win in the end." :D

Anyone else have an opinion on Scales?

[RTGoodman]

I read through the first few adventures of it, and I honestly wasn't that impressed. It didn't really seem BAD, but it didn't seem that great either. I mean, the first adventure (I think) was basically, "Some townsfolk got captured - go rescue them in these caves," which is pretty, well, overdone. The second or third add some stuff with ogres attacking a town pulling wagons full of pitch or something, trying to set fires, which is cool, but that's about all I remember. I may check out some of the slightly higher-level adventures in the AP, but as of now I haven't really been that interested in running it. There is, though, if I remember correctly, a group running it in PbP here, so you could probably check that out for more info.

Oh, one thing I do know is that I like the Characters of War backgrounds for PCs in the Adventure Path - I'm thinking of allowing everyone to pick one even in non-SoW 4E games.

[AgentPaper]

The ogre towing a cart of pitch is actually the second encounter you fight.

[RTGoodman]

The ogre towing a cart of pitch is actually the second encounter you fight.

Oh, well, nevermind - I guess I skipped it on my first read-through when I just went over the in-dungeon stuff and saw it later, thinking it was in the second adventure; if that's the case, though, what is the second adventure?

[Saph]

Well, if you want to read all you can about how Scales of War plays, our 4e group writes up everything from the session into one huge thread on our message board. Link is here.

Be warned; the thread is hundreds of posts long, due to character discussions and side arguments. :P But you'll find some opinion on the campaign material, too.

- Saph

[Thurbane]

This leads to the entertaining result that we're playing a 3.5 Red Hand of Doom, and they're playing the 4e sequel, at the same time. :)

Wait, what??? There's a sequel to RHoD???

Serves me right for not keeping up with 4E news, I guess. I might have to get it and reverse engineer it to 3.5, unless some enterprising soul has already done so...

Spoiler

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...mind you, our group got ganked by the aspect of Tiamat at the end of the original.

[Waspinator]

Well, it's an in-progress sequel. Scales of War is the adventure path currently running in Dungeon magazine and it won't be done for awhile.

Looking at those character backgrounds in Dragon, they do seem kind of neat. Basically a cheat sheet of general character ideas to build on.

[Thurbane]

Ah, I see.

They might collect it as a standalone module after the path is done. If so, I'll get to converting.