As my campaign progresses, we are quickly approaching the conclusion of the heroic tier of adventuring. In fact, on our next session, I expect the pc’s to be almost at the threshold between tiers, and if that’s the case, I’ll just bump them up to paragon. My justification in doing so is simple: one, because my next session will feature the climax of the heroic tier adventures in my campaign, and two, because I realize I have shorthanded my players when it comes to quest xp. I’m not going to add a few extra encounters after my climactic encounter just to get the few extra experience points that’ll put them at 11th level, it’s not necessary.
New DM Tip: As a new DM, I ran into this quite often, where I feel like I’ve gimped the pc’s out of XP and treasure. Be mindful of this as you plan your tiers. If you hand-wave your wilderness travels often for example, give them xp for assumed lower level encounters that may have taken place out in the wilderness. This is an easy way to account for missing xp along the way, or speeding up their level progression if your play time is limited. Remember to account for treasure if you go down this route. If you’d like, use this sheet to plan your level progression.
So, we’re finishing off the heroic tier. What’s the plan for paragon? First, some campaign background. My intention with this campaign was to follow WOTC’s published adventures as much as possible. I really liked the idea of what seemed like a showdown between Orcus and The Raven Queen. An epic battle between a goddess and a demon lord, with the PC’s in the middle, seemed like a nice campaign to embark on. So I ran “Keep on the Shadowfell”, but then had to take a detour into homebrew territory due to “Pyramid of Shadows” and “Thunderspyre Labyrinth” not really matching the whole Orcus/Raven Queen angle.
New DM Tip: Remember the scope of the tiers. As you design your own campaigns, be mindful of the heroic tier goals vs. the paragon tier goals. At heroic, the PC’s are taking on quests with local repercussions. Use these to build the PC’s up in different parts of the world as heroes, far more powerful than the general population, but not yet superhuman in power. They are strong yes, but they are not quite incredibly so.
I designed a home-brew adventure in order to fill he gap created by not using the H2 and H3 adventures from WOTC. I had some misguided Shadar-kai feel that the Raven Queen doesn’t stand a chance against Orcus, so they devised a plan to destroy the world, in order to leave nobody for him to conquer and turn into undead. They will do this by freezing the world, as an ultimate tribute and sacrifice to their queen of winter. The PC’s get wind of this, and move to stop the plans of the Shadar-kai.
From there, they are sent by the powers that be to face an even bigger threat: in an ancient undead city in the mountains (Rahesh, from Dragon Magazine) there’s a library that holds a tome believed to hold The Raven Queen’s real name, something Orcus is desperate to get a hold of. In this library the heroes will face the climactic end of their heroic tier.
So, as they progressed in fighting the Shadar-Kai, they became known in the sorrounding towns and cities, eventually leading them to take on the task in Rahesh. Here, they’ll face a far greater challenge than ever before, and cementing their status as heroes of the land, paragons.
My intention is to pick up the Orcus storyline again with “Demon Queen’s Enclave”, so what I’ll do before they are of appropriate level to get there is run the “Tear of Ioun” trilogy from Dungeon Magazine, and a couple of other side quests. Although they don’t have anything to do with the Orcus storyline, they fit my campaign more organically than the H2-P1 series of adventures. The Far Realm storyline will be completely different from anything the PC’s have faced, I can tie in the goddess Ioun to the library at the end of the heroic tier climax, and the challenges will show the PC’s how different the stakes are now.
New DM Tip: If you have a campaign arc in mind, don’t be afraid to mix and match different adventures or angles into it, thereby giving the players some variety. Even if something seems like an inappropriate fit, you can always find a way to make it work. Look at what I’m doing, for example. I’m taking the “Tear of Ioun” trilogy, and making it fit my non-far realm campaign by simply linking Ioun to the Library in the encounter. If you read up on Ioun, libraries are her thing. With a little tinkering, I can make it work.
From then on, it’s the rest of the published adventures for me, and once I finish those, then I’ll create a completely original campaign. I just wanted the experience of running published adventures before diving head first into those waters. And yes, I’m aware that I could have taken my advise and made H2-H3-P1 fit my campaign, but I just didn’t like the plots all that much. :p
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Mike
September 29, 2009
I’ve played through all the published adventures up to Nightwyrm Fortress so far with the same general campaign arc as you. I’ve had to modify it a little bit but in general I have a consistent theme. They could have made it a LITTLE more cohesive but overall I think it works. For now, at level 18, I see a consistent story all the way to 30 which isn’t bad.
Tyson J. Hayes
September 30, 2009
The first game I ever tried to run was a homebrew that I was making up. It worked, but I struggled coming up with material. My third time being a DM I am using a prebuilt as a base to get my players moving and will then delve off into my own stuff from there.
Personally I am finding it easier to start with a prebuilt so I can focus more on the characters and getting to know them and can then tailor the rest of the adventures to their needs. It’ll also allow the players to help guide the story as they can begin planning out arcs for where they want their characters to go.
Kameron
September 30, 2009
I plan on running H2, but not H3. Instead, I’m going to modify the 3.5 Red Hand of Doom megamodule to be a second Blood War, using the Bloodreaver slavers from H2 as a vanguard of the new army. I’ve already given one PC a hook concerning the Bloodreavers based on his background, and H1 provides a connection between Kalarel and the slavers. I may still throw out a hook to H3 at the end of H2, as my players have expressed a desire not to follow a strict plot path, but it certainly doesn’t have a strong thematic connection to the H series or the following series.
newbiedm
September 30, 2009
@Mike: There are very, very loose connections to the modules though, that’s what bothered me about them, but towards the later adventures, they seem to get back on track… @Tyson: I started with a prebuilt to get the hang of Dm’ing… it may be a little too much to learn/create at the same time, in my opinion……. @Kameron: There is a 4e version of Red Hand somewhere on the ENWorld boards, you may want to look into it…
Stormgaard
September 30, 2009
I started out last year running Kobold Hall out of the back of the DMG. After that I moved on the Treasure of Talon Pass (from free RPG day). And only after those two mini adventures did I actually try my first “real” module, Scepter Tower of Spellgard.
That’s when I quit running published adventures. Where Kobold Hall and Treasure of Talon Pass were very straight forward, Scepter Tower was anything but. This made sense. Kobold Hall and ToTP were “for beginners” types of adventures – very basic and very linear. SToSG was for the more advanced DM and I could see what they were coming from. They wanted to give you lots of options. It almost seemed as if they wanted to give you more options than you COULD use even if you wanted to. They didn’t want to stifle your creativity as a DM.
The only problem with it IMO was that it was so free form that it left me wondering why I needed it in the first place. Turns out I didn’t. After about 2 or 3 sessions into it I took over the storyline completely and abandoned the rest of the module. It was easier for me to make up the story from that point on rather than try to glean anything else from the module.
And it wasn’t just the fact that it was too “Free Form”. It was also the fact that I had to reconstruct every single combat encounter in so they would balance with the party. I was doing all the work anyway, I may as well let myself have fun with the story while I’m at it.
That being said having operated for the better part of a year outside the framework of those published adventures I’ve had to do my homework in terms of Forgotten Realms lore and in coming up with a coherent and compelling backstory that will carry the characters all the way to level 30. Right now they’re starting out Paragon tier in the city of Waterdeep trying to take the city back from followers of Tiamat, which will (should) have greater implications further on down the line involving Tiamat Herself at level 30.
In terms of pure mechanics I’ve found that you really have to throw the book at them once they hit Paragon. Whereas before in Heroic an encounter that was APL+5 would challenge them, now I’m having to throw APL+10 to give them a run for their money (to honestly risk a TPK). Take that with a grain of salt though because my crew tends to be a bit overgeared.