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I'm starting a brand new low level campaign that I'd like to lead into Sons of Gruumsh (starts a level 4). I'd like to start the campaign at level 1 or 2. Are there any recommended pre-made modules for these levels? The setting is Eberron, but I can easily adapt modules to this setting.
A Dark and Story Knight is a good one for "wilderness random encounter."
A module specifically for 2-4 level characters is The Secret of Bone Hill. It might need conversion though. Level 1 is always iffy, I would run were-rats and their dire rat pets, or Kobolds and monitor lizards.
If you can find any copies from the Dungeon Crawl classics. They are available online from shops like EnWorld and Amazon as well as for free in the darker corners of the internet. There's something like 50 different scenarios, all stand alone adventures. Each one is labeled with the appropriate levels. Good one to start with is Idylls of the Rat King for levels 1-3.
The Devil Box was the first adventure I ever played, and I'm planning on using it to start the campaign I'm running for my friends. It has a bit of combat, a good amount of interacting with NPC's and a town for them to explore. The enemies are wererats and a powered down chain devil. Worked pretty well for a group of level 2 characters.
And yeah, I suggest starting at level 2 instead of level 1, just so the characters are able to a bit more from the start.
Be very sure you want to start the PCs that low. The game is very deadly (housecats!) before that.
Why not use the lvl 1 ebberon module? The name escaped me at the moment but should be easy enough to find, it id part of a trilogy.
I may start with Dark and Stormy Knight, as that one's recommended often. I'll check out Bone Hill but I'm lazy and don't want to spend time converting things if that's necessary.
Idylls of the Rat King has some pretty bad reviews. I'm not too sure about buying it without looking at it first.
I can't find "The Devil Box" on google searches. Do you have any links to this module?
I've never had problems running level 1 campaigns. I'm aware that a lucky critical can end a life so I'd prefer starting at level 2, but if a great premade starts at level 1 then I'll run it.
Idylls of the Rat King has some pretty bad reviews. If you're going to run a Dungeon Crawl Classic (which I love, personally), you are waaaay better off with Into the Wilds or The Lost Vaults of Tsathsar Rho. Both are for levels 1-3 I believe.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mauther
I've never run the early level campaigns, I usually start around level 4. Sad to hear Idylls got bad reviews, I thought it won some awards when it first came out. But I love the format of the DCC's and the balance is pretty solid so I'd recommend them regardless of the individual title.Quote:
Originally Posted by Deimess
I'll second the suggestion of The Forgotten Forge (in the back of the campaign setting) and Shadows of the Last War (the sequel). I ran a group through those with good results, and it should bring them up to level four. You then always have the option later to finish the last two in the series if you want to keep running modules after the Sons of Gruumish (though you may need to up the difficulty or skip the level four one).
A Dark and Stormy Knight is decent as well, if a little on the short side IMO, and has the advantage of bringing the group together from different backgrounds if you need to do that. (Though why they are in such a remote location still needs explaining).
These have gotten good reviews and I'm leaning towards this. What did your party look like?Quote:
Originally Posted by Madcrafter
My group currently seems to be: Changeling Spellthief, Human Warblade, and two undecided.
Having enough spellcasters for the spellthief to have fun is a small concern, but something I can add myself to modules.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x...030530b&page=1
That has been my friend for a long time. :smallbiggrin:
I'd recommend changing A dark and Stormy knight a little bit. Unless your players are very new, the Dark Knight being a zombie is a bit of a letdown.
Also, Something's Cooking in the Kitchen has been a blast each time I've run it. Especially the kitchen fight: two thirds of the party opened up with melee and took splash damage but almost killed the thing. The other two opened up with fire attacks. 3 rounds of concentrated fire attacks later, they were wondering why it wasn't dead. THEN they tried again with melee... :smallbiggrin:
A year later, taht fight still brought a strong reaction out of them.
My party was a duskblade scion of House Cannith (who later went renegade mastermaker) and a monk from the principalities (who became a hellfire warlock). They were decently optimized, both specializing in burst damage output. They had good survivability (though they were allowed to get greatcoats from the iron kingdoms setting, giving DR 5/blud, as well as eternal wands of cure light wounds (even though its not an arcane spell)) but combat didn't tend to last that long because of the damage output, which helped. Only fatality was from a Wail of the Banshee trap in the last module (which I ran as the third portion of the story, changing the second level one into a ninth level adventure).
As for adding some more spellcasters for the spellthief, it sounds like a good idea. It may help up the difficulty too if you find they are going through the encounters too easily.
A monk and a duskblade handled these modules just fine? I guess I'd really have to up the difficulty then.Quote:
Originally Posted by Madcrafter
Mind you they had damage reduction enough to negate most attacks at level one (since most of the damage in the module is slashing as far as I can recall), as well as wands to heal back to full between encounters. Perhaps "decently optimized" was the wrong way to put it. They were absolutely astounding for the class combinations they chose to play. By level 6 they were easily killing monsters 2 above their ECL in a single round (especially the monk/lock, he was vicious). So in essence, yes the modules were a little easy, but my group tends to favour the high powered play.
If you're running Eberron I highly recommend the Forgotten Forge/Shadows of the Last War combo. They are low level but have an epic scope and are hella fun. The only problem I've had is players tending to die in the middle of Shadows of the Last War. Being level 2 in the Mournland is a bummer.
True, the DR 5 item and wand must've helped a bunch. Monk/lock is an interesting combo but I have no idea how that works. Still, I can buff up the encounters on my own if necessary.
I've decided to run Forgotten Forge + Shadows of the Last War. These two look good and got good reviews. Thanks for the suggestions!
I was wondering if anyone continued the series with Whispers of the Vampire Blade and Grasp of the Emerald Claw? I've read so far that the former has a bad, railroad-y plot, while the latter is a solid adventure.
Personally I quite like Grasp, nothin' like temple raiding in Xen'drik and a giant robot to get the blood flowing. We didn't run Whispers though since by that time the group was way to high a level for it.
So I just ran The Forgotten Forge in its entirety today. It ended up being a flop. I think it was a combination of player disinterest in the setting that they had no previous knowledge of, my stumbling at times due to not being intimately familiar with everything myself, and finally a fairly uninteresting module itself.
My take on the module:
SpoilerDid a good job of easing me (the DM) into the setting, giving just bite-sized pieces of an overwhelming setting. Two houses mentioned, one kingdom, little nugget of information about Lord of Blades and Mournland, and you're good.
Makes no attempt to suggest why the party is walking together on a bridge in Sharn, but I didn't expect it to. I ended up adding an introductory scene where the PCs are all applicants for a security job on the university campus, as they've been heightening security due to "disturbances." The strange oddball group were all terrible candidates for the job and were all thanked and promised to be contacted if they got the job. They left the interview at the same time, hence why they were all at the murder scene together.
The "hook" (if you can call it that) to get the PCs involved was awful. After the murder and interrogation from the cops, a mysterious figure pops up out of nowhere and tells them that if they're interested about what's "really" going on, they should meet some random person at a tavern? And then he leaves and refuses to give any other information? He doesn't even have a name? How does he "disappear"?? I removed that terrible hook and instead added that many curious passerby's and witnesses came down to the crime scene, and the party saw that certain people were taking interest in them and subsequently approached. No nameless entity that disappears or nonsense like that. They were hired precisely because they showed in that fight that 1) they absolutely do not hold allegiance to the Lord of Blades 2) they're capable for the mission.
The rest of the module was pretty meh. Nothing particularly exciting. My group was bored and I was fighting for control too much.
Finally, Saber was lethal. I wasted the first two rounds because I missed with the flaming crossbow bolts, but 19 AC, 28 hp, DR/2 adamantine and a vicious attack? Ouch. I even ignored his DR and lowered his HP to 22. He can knock out most level 1's in a single attack, one that's pretty likely to hit, I might add. Finally, the module lists his touch AC as 19. It's actually 11. I missed that error until near the end of the fight and by then it cost the life of one PC (though if I kept the starting HP and DR, they wouldn't have stood a chance regardless).
Overall, I think the module is a good choice if 1) the players are particularly interested in this setting 2) DM modification to smooth out hooks, make the first few battles more interesting, and nerf the final fight.
In the end, it seems my players want to move away from Eberron and back to my homebrew in the traditional D&D setting. Guess I won't be running Last Whispers after all. More work for me :smallannoyed:
For Eberron, don't use wererats, weres are rare in the setting.
SpoilerFor the Forgotten Forge, the Touch AC problem is covered in the errata.
That's a shame. My group has almost always played in eberron so I never really considered the "introduction" that the module gives. Interesting take though. I agree with some of the concerns you mentioned. Never looked that hard Sabre, so I didn't realize he was so strong... my group caused him to flee in one hit. I agree its not all that exciting, so maybe isn't the best choice for an introduction to the whole setting, despite being in the campaign guide and all.
The plot hook I've ever seen occurred in "Pit of Loch Durnan" from a 3.0 world called "The Hunt: Rise of Evil"Quote:
Originally Posted by Dralnu
The party is drinking in a tavern (and is second level), "When suddenly a man in farmers clothes approaches your table. You can tell he's a farmer because his hands are callused, he smells of manure, and is carrying a pitchfork. He says to you "Hail travelers, I can see that you're well equipped and experienced, I desperately need your help. Will you travel with me to my village on the opposite end of the country to help? It should take 2 weeks to walk there, so bring plenty of food. The mayor can explain the problem when you get there."
Well that was the general gist of the man's speech. And the module really didn't want to explain anything until the party arrived.
So what level is your party now? Maybe we can suggest something else.
Id suggest Death in Freeport and its continuation. They were very fun for me.
After hearing your plight, I'd like to re-recommend DCC#28: Into the Wilds (for levels 1-3). I've heard nothing but good reviews and DCCs are very nice to new DMs and do a very good job of balancing. They also do a good job of fitting in with almost any campaign setting.
I've read and played through The Lost Vaults of Tsathzar Rho but wouldn't recommend it as much because the opening encounter is a mutant CR 3 Ogre who is likely to one-shot any character (a little better since the mod is meant for a party of 6)
I'm sorry to hear that you didn't like it. I can see how it could be an issue if the party isn't prepared/interested in the setting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dralnu
One of the things to remember about Eberron is that you as a DM do not bring the party together. The players figure that out amongst themselves and let you know why they're an adventuring party and how they formed. It gets that whole "you're in a tavern, when suddenly..." stuff out of the way.
The only issues I had with Forgotten Forge were the swarms, but then one of the NPC's warns them about it so ususally the trouble is due to the party going in unprepared.
Personally I think Whispers of the Vampire's Blade is the best in the series. Yeah there's some railroading, the entire module is a long drawn out chase scene with set piece battles. The player's go into it knowing that, though, and have the option to turn the adventure down. The set peice battles are frickin' amazing. FRICKIN' AMAZING!
After Whispers, Grasp of the Emerald Claw was really kind of a letdown, IIRC. Not bad, but it didn't have quite the epic swashbuckling feel that the other's had.
The only issue I've had with Shadows of the Last War was survivability in the Mournlands. No healing spells + no natural healing is really tough on 3rd level characters. Especially when there are traps/mobs dealing 3d6 damage on a hit. I've solved this by having the NPC they meet before heading in offering some provisions at a discount - notably a few bottles of Goodberry Wine and an an enchanted rope that can by used (like a wand) to cast Rope Trick a few times. I also let them know during char gen that they're going to want arcane casting of some sort.
I think my critique may have sounded like I blame the module. Really, I think the module was good. The session was a flop more because the players were uninterested from the start rather than the module being bad. I loved the flavor of it and there was an interesting variety in locations and fights. Aside from one weak hook and a powerful end fight, both which the DM can easily correct, the module was very solid and I would recommend it to others. Something like Fluff: 10/10 (amazing, my favorite setting so far), Plot: 4/10 (standard "fetch" quest but a weak hook and all enemy NPCs lacked any character), Encounters: 7.5/10 (great variety but doesn't go above and beyond, final boss may need tweaking)
The main problem was only one player who cared about the game. He was interested in studying the journal and was paying attention / had questions for Elaydren. He was the only reason for any real plot progression. Everyone else was mostly disinterested, with one person in particular being incredibly disruptive to the game despite being asked by myself and other players to pay attention. Elaydren couldn't even give half of her potential information because the party was being so immature that she sent them away early. Name drops like "Lord of Blades" didn't pique any interest, they never asked about it, so they learned nothing and treated the module like a pure hack n' slash. I started the session very excited but the mood at the table felt pretty insulting and in turn affected how much effort I put into DM'ing.
I never had such issues with my evil campaign. People seem interested and we all have a great time. I guess it helps that the disruptive player isn't in that group. The problem is that we can't run the evil campaign because we can't get everyone together at the same time, so my players asked me to run a new campaign. I spend a huge amount of time preparing sessions for my evil campaigns and just don't have it in me to do the same for a second campaign as well, which is why I've turned to modules.
It seems the players have nixed Eberron as an option, which is unfortunate. I would've liked to continue the modules with more preparation involved than last time. I'll look into Death In Freeport and Into the Wilds. I'm thinking about starting a little higher level though, maybe level 3. I ended up insta-killing a player in Forgotten Forge with a 20 damage crit from Sabre and I don't want to repeat that again. Honestly though, I don't feel up to DM'ing for this particular group for a while. The last session has left a sour taste in my mouth.
I'll take this opportunity to mention a 1st level adventure I wrote for 0one Games called The Skullcrackers. It's an urban adventure set in 0one's "Great City" but it wouldn't be hard at all (in my opinion) to transfer it to Sharn or any other major city.
You can get print on demand copies from 0one's website; and PDFs can be acquired from the publisher's site, Paizo's store, and Drive Thru RPG.
The adventure I started my campaign with was The Burning Plague, which I found to be fun.
Some nice traps, easily tweakable encounters, kobolds...it's a good first dungeon. The final fight can be tough if the group has bad rolls, but it's helped by the 5th level cleric having near abysmal stats due to getting hurt by his own plague. XD
All in all, I thought it was a fun, quick introductory adventure I used to get the group working together. Which they had to, 'cuz otherwise the kobolds would kill people who tried to Leeroy.