From a campaign circa 1989, a player had a dwarven fighter whose day job was to be a tax collector. His battle cry: "Death and taxes!"
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My wife and I also had a fantastic time! (She was the person with the shoulder dragon and brightly-colored knitted clothing.) We both want to give many thanks to the Paizo staff, the guests of honor, the other wonderful folks in the gaming industry, and the fans. We've never been to a convention that had such a high ratio of "famous people to not-famous people", and yet everybody was very friendly and accessible. Special thanks go to Dale McCoy Jr. for giving us 8 kender the chance to wreak mayhem on a bar (and indulge my desire to sing a couple of kender bard songs), and to Raylyynsedai for giving us the chance to unravel the mystery of Who Shot J.R.? Lisa and the Paizo staff sure know how to throw a good party. Doug
Please add 2 more. My wife and I are looking forward to our first PaizoCon!
Quite a few cool ways to start a campaign in this thread... Regarding certain classes being more or less effective: yes, that’s a problem. I think a decent way around that is to start everyone at “level zero” instead of first level (as was done in module N4). For example, have everyone start as a commoner, and either start with a certain amount of negative XP (and get your first level when you reach zero XP) or just have everyone go to first level at the end of the adventure. Also, make sure everybody can get either a melee weapon or a ranged weapon relatively early, and then everybody who has either a good Strength or Dexterity score can do well enough in combat. For characters without either, hmm, I dunno, have them find a scroll that they discover they can read? (Maybe a magic item with the read magic spell on it?) FabesMinis’ PBP campaign starting with a shipwreck was using module N4, by the way... I enjoyed reading it and thought he did a very good job. Doug
I’ve only run a couple of campaigns since 1990 (both long-running), but I started both of them this way with the previously-mentioned AD&D Module N4, Treasure Hunt, by Aaron Allston. It’s still one of my all-time favorite adventures. For the 3e version, I remember that I gave players the choice of being a commoner or an “apprentice” in a class. (I can’t remember if I used some 3e apprentice rules or home-brewed rules, but the apprentice choice was more powerful, so I gave the 1 player who chose to be a commoner some bonus XP.) I’d say the commoner option works well because it gets around the issue of monks being better prepared than spellcasters. Also, I tweaked the module to make sure everybody got the chance to grab a club or crossbow fairly quickly, so everybody could be somewhat effective. I really like how this way to start a campaign gives the players a reason to bond right away, and lets almost any character background work. (“Just tell me why your character is near the coast.”) I also tied in the Scourge of the Slave Lords series (A1-A4).
Spoiler:
There is a scene in Scourge of the Slave Lords where the party is captured and the slaver captain makes them kowtow before him. I lifted that scene and put it before the start of Treasure Hunt (where I think it works better than it does in A1-A4 with the party at around 5th level). Then when the party had gained a few levels, I ran A1-A4, and the party already had a built-in reason to hate the Slave Lords when they showed up again.
For module A4, In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords, I added a scene with the Earth Dragon nearly being freed, and he cursed the adventurers to bring them (temporarily) back to 1st level. The “escape from the labyrinth” scenario worked pretty well with everybody at 1st level until they escaped. Yeah, it was heavy-handed, but the party was OK with it because the scenario was fun. I recommend throwing in a few potions of cure light wounds or other healing, since character healing ability will be very limited. In both campaigns, I was lucky enough to have players who loved the challenge of getting out of a tough situation with minimal equipment. One player really let his “inner MacGuyver” loose... Great stuff! Doug
Just can’t resist sharing this one... One of my favorite moments as a DM occurred with a player who had put a few ranks into Profession (Farmer) solely because it represented her background before she became a rogue. The party came across an empty clearing where robbers had ambushed someone recently. The party saw animal excrement beside the road, at which point I gleefully said, “Roll a Profession (Farmer) check!” After the initial surprise, our rogue (who of course never expected to actually roll a Profession (Farmer) check) enthusiastically identified the excrement as coming from 4 light horses, which turned out to be an important clue. Everybody at the table loved it! I agree with the OP, which is why “Roll (Obscure Skill) check!” is one of my favorite phrases.
In our 3.0 to 3.5 to Pathfinder campaign, the backbone has been:
We’ve also had the following long-term characters at various points:
We just picked up a Summoner. One of the interesting things about lurking on the Paizo boards for the last few years has been seeing how other people play the game. Our group seems to be much less typical than I thought at first. We have a great time, though. (Our bard and monk players absolutely love playing those classes, by the way.)
Bards can use UMD to use wands of False Life, gaining at least 1d10+3 to 1d10+10 temp hit points. That's a good idea. Our bard hasn't put ranks into UMD, though, so far.
I’d echo SmiloDan’s suggestions. My campaigns always had a lot of obscure or secret information, and the bard is the go-to guy for discovering it. In addition to Bardic Knowledge, the bard in my current campaign has gotten a lot of use out of Decipher Script, Gather Information and (once he reached 10th level) Legend Lore. Another situation that worked well was having the party encounter potential allies. Diplomacy, Gather Information and Perform all got good use. (One of my favorite moments was the bard acing a Perform check at a feast in Gnome Vale, and being carried 3 feet off the ground in an impromptu mosh pit by wildly cheering gnomes… The PCs got all the help they wanted from the gnomes after that.) In combat, he’s used the Crystal Echoblade from the Magic Item Compendium to good effect. (When using bardic music, add half your bard level as additional sonic damage on each attack.) He uses spells at a distance, but our monk uses a Ring of the Ram for ranged attacks and I think that might work well for a bard too. Our bard also had the low hp problem, along with several others in the party. It seemed to be worse at 7th-9th level than 10th-11th where we are now, or maybe I just got better at picking monsters. I think it helps a little to have multiple opponents of lower level rather than one BBEG because they usually deal less damage. Besides that and the ubiquitous Amulet of Health, I’m not sure what else to suggest. I think our bard has more fun than anybody else, though, so it’s been working for us. Good luck! Doug
I ran the Treasure Hunt module some years ago under the 3.0 rules. I offered the players a choice: either start as a 1st level commoner or start as an "apprentice" in a class. Apprentices had full starting hit points but not everything you get at 1st level (I can't remember the details, but I think they got fewer skill points, spells, etc.). I gave a 100 XP bonus to anyone choosing to play a commoner since it was clearly a weaker option. The one player to pick the commoner option had more XPs than the other players for quite awhile afterwards as a result (it probably should have been less -- maybe 50 XP, but at least she was rewarded for playing a fragile character). All PCs got full 1st level benefits at the end of the adventure, and the commoner player chose her class at that time. Afterwards, I gave the players XPs for the adventure the usual way, so they started the next adventure halfway (or more) to 2nd level. Player feedback was very positive. They liked the sense that the PCs were essentially people off the street, with most having a little basic training but still new at this "adventuring" thing. Good luck with your game! Doug
I don't poke my head out from lurking very often, but I'll do it this time to say... AYE!!
To be honest, I doubt I would have wanted to switch to 4E even if the core books weren’t “incomplete.” The new fluff doesn’t appeal to my tastes anywhere near as much as the Great Wheel. My 3.0 / 3.5E experiences didn’t set me up to want a new edition yet. I’ve been DMing my home campaign since 2001 and we’re just now getting to 11th level. None of the players is interested in splatbooks, prestige classes or powergaming. I feel like I’m not nearly “done” with 3.5 yet, and I don’t want to end our campaign and start over – there’s a lot of mileage left in these characters and stories. All that said, the “missing” classes made it a slam-dunk not to switch for the foreseeable future. Our party includes a monk, a bard, a half-orc barbarian, and an NPC sorcerer. We have a cleric, but her deity is Ehlonna, who’s also missing. That leaves the ranger as the only PC that would be straightforward to convert out of the box. Before 4E, I would have thought my campaign was about as mainstream and generic D&D as any out there. Almost without exception, everything in the campaign was in the core books – no obscure prestige classes, broken feats or the like. Now, I’m not so sure how mainstream we are. I hope lots of people enjoy playing 4E, and it would be a great thing if 4E attracts more people to the hobby. But as for me, I’m looking forward to the Pathfinder Beta release. Doug
As for how the relationship “creates” the campaign, what if Vecna has discovered a hidden secret or prophecy that can be fulfilled if Eclavdra unites the giants? As one possible example, “The Eye will deliver [Big benefit X, e.g. an item, power, event, etc. that Vecna wants] unto the patron of the ebon conqueror, who will unite the sundered kinfolk of giantkind into a terrible fist.” (Or something less over-the-top if it fits your campaign style better.) Then Vecna wouldn’t want to just kill Eclavdra outright when she comes to him, but use her until the prophecy’s fulfilled, and he would of course tell Eclavdra to unite the giants. And maybe Lolth’s found out about the prophecy too and wants to fulfill it herself, as Eclavdra’s true patron? The benefit Vecna hoped to get for fulfilling the prophecy might be tied into whatever you plan to do in your subsequent campaign. It sounds like fun, regardless! Doug
I’ve been an avid lurker on many sections of these boards for more than a year, but the only threads I can’t resist posting on are the Greyhawk campaign threads. I suppose I enjoy the setting just a little bit. :) Oh well, I’ll have at it again. Here are my choices, otherwise known as highlights of the 3.0/3.5 Greyhawk campaign I’ve been running since 2001: U1-3, the Saltmarsh series. Outstanding modules. (I’m enjoying Heathensson’s pbp a lot.) Hommlet and Temple of Elemental Evil can be a lot of fun, but give me Saltmarsh any day. Spoiler:
The light dawning on the party that the house isn’t haunted. Our cleric sweating when she wasn’t sure if she’d cracked the bad guys’ code correctly or had just accidentally tipped them off. Suspense in U3 as the party wondered: where are all the bad guys? Sneaking around, puzzles, plot twists, interesting enemies, some diplomacy and combat – what’s not to like? UK2-3, The Sentinel and The Gauntlet. I’m with Russ Taylor and S.Baldrick on these. Spoiler: Again, lots of mysteries and plot twists. I guess it shows what I like in a module...
Retaking a keep, only to have to defend it against a surprise attack by an enemy army. Our cinematic monk sprinting to the gates and fighting off the enemy vanguard alone until she could slam the gates shut. A1-4, Scourge of the Slave Lords. I ran this after UK2-3 in our current campaign. I think it runs more smoothly if you change Safeton (Wild Coast) to Seaton (Keoland) so it’s not very far to travel.
Spoiler:
I like the scene where the party gets kidnapped, but they’re too high a level by this point for it to work well. So I actually dropped this scene in earlier before U1-3. The party was kidnapped by slavers at the start of the campaign, which gave them a reason to hate the slavers when they ran into them again. I actually ran N4, Treasure Hunt, before U1-3. N4 isn’t Greyhawk but is adaptable with a little work. See FabesMinis’ pbp of Treasure Hunt for some enjoyable reading. Good things about the modules: Spoiler:
I liked how the party could cross off the Slave Lords one by one as the modules progressed. Interesting personalities of the Slave Lords. Figuring out why the slaves never come out of the fortress in A2. The Slave Lords’ aerie in the middle of a volcano. The crazy dash to escape at the end. UK6, All That Glitters… I’m pretty sure this module was added to official Greyhawk canon – I’m sure somebody on this thread knows the details. Spoiler:
Great sense of exploration. Finding a long-lost secret magical passage through the mountains. S1, Tomb of Horrors. Spoiler:
I dropped this one in during UK6’s jungle trek because it just had to be done. I never thought I would run it for campaign PCs, but I figured out a way to get them through it while at least making them earn it. The party completed a side quest that gave them the Wards of St. Cuthbert which essentially gave them some extra lives. (I didn’t tell them how many, of course.) Obviously Tomb works better with expendable PCs, but it’s such a classic Greyhawk module I couldn’t resist. I3-5, Desert of Desolation series. Spoiler:
Not Greyhawk, but I think it can be adapted well enough for the Sea of Dust after UK6 brings the party over the Hellfurnaces. I’m casting Martek as the Penultimate Mage of Power. After that, I’ve got too many modules I want to run and not enough PC levels to run them in: UK7, Dark Clouds Gather. Another UK gem, although it’s not Greyhawk. Spoiler:
I plan to adapt it in the Yatils. I like the aarakocra aerie, and the flying attack on a cloud castle that played in 1E like the attack on the Death Star. WG4, Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun. Ravenloft. G1-3 / D1-3 / Q1 Against the Giants series. It has to be done, of course! Although the purists would probably have my hide, I dealt with rapid level advancement by keeping about 1/4 to 1/3 of the encounters that I liked best in each module and deleting the rest, then redrawing the maps to suit. Whatever works for you, though. Have fun!
D%$#, that was cold! OK, ya got me dead to rights. At least I’m glad I didn’t misread the game posts that badly. Now you guys owe me a beer, or maybe a case! I was roleplaying at least by 1980, so I’ve got 28 years. Almost all as DM, so I oughta be able to figure out when the players are having me on! Doug
DM Heathy only:
Spoiler: I’m completely MORTIFIED. I am SO incredibly sorry, regardless of what cool stuff you do with the rest of the module (and I have no doubt it will be very cool and can mitigate my gaffe as best as possible). This ranks up there with the most embarrassing and horrifying moments in my life, especially because I have a lot of respect for you guys’ skills as DM and players. I screwed up by not reading what was said carefully enough. I couldn’t sleep much last night from distress over this – I’m not normally a person who gives out spoilers (whether or not they’re eventually negated by the DM, as I hope this will be). Please let your players read this when the time is right, or summarize it.
I would do about anything that’s not illegal or immoral to take back that post, or to make it right. If we lived in the same area, I’d take you all out for a beer (or equivalent), or even dinner. Since that’s not feasible, I’ll slink back to my cave and quit messing up your excellent campaign. With many, many apologies,
I gotta tip my hat to you guys. I’ve run this adventure several times with very capable and smart players, and none of them ever got the brainstorm going in that somebody might be faking the haunting. I even gave a few XP to one player who said at the end that this is the ultimate Scooby-Doo module, so I nearly fell off my chair when Tenser first showed up! Great job DMing, too – I agree that the zombie hammerhead shark puppet was particularly brilliant/creepy. Keep up the good work.
I enjoyed a lot of the modules people cited above. I’d also like to give UK module props to:
I’m running UK6 now in 3.5 and looking forward to UK7 after the Desert of Desolation. But regarding to the OP’s tribute to Gary Gygax: Although we’re not running AD&D, we made sure to note and honor Mr. Gygax’s influence on our campaign. When we heard of his death, we had recently finished Tomb of Horrors and the party was resting in Gnome Vale which I had dropped in from Tsojcanth. He will truly be missed. Doug
I like the ideas for Hommlet. I’m a bit late to the thread as usual (don’t get online much except on weekends), but for an AD&D adventure path I’ve always loved the progression: - N4, Treasure Hunt (I’m so glad to see FabesMini is running this -- definitely one of my favorites, and not often remembered)
I enjoyed Hommlet / Temple of Elemental Evil but I like this series even better -- I’ve run them several times in AD&D and now in 3E. I’ve also been fortunate enough to get some long-time players who never played any of the classic modules, so we’re doing them now in 3E. I’ve thought that Cult of the Reptile God and The Assassin’s Knot would be an interesting alternative starting sequence, but I’ve never tried them together. A number of these modules benefit from pruning the number of encounters, in my opinion. One way is to just use the competition versions. Cutting down is even more urgent for 3E conversion due to the level / XP changes – my rule of thumb is to delete ¾ of the encounters and tweak the rest to suit. I know, the purists would have my head! Anyway, enjoy your campaign! Sounds like a great time, and a fitting tribute to Mr. Gygax. Doug
I still can’t think about this without choking up. My thanks go to him for all the wonderful ways he made our lives better. My condolences go to his family and all his friends. As one of my players (the bard, of course) said: “He is gone, but we shall carry the torch… and the sword, and the axe, and the spellbook, and…” Doug
I just DM’d it recently and I agree that it’s still plenty deadly but not as deadly as the original. My group had a great time with it, though. They played extremely well and got lucky when they needed to, so they survived with only what I call the “unavoidable” deaths. I ran the 1E version several times too, back in the day, with similar results. My 1E and 3E players all did very well by following some keys to surviving (oblique and cryptic, therefore pretty minor, spoilers follow):
Spoiler:
- Search for and find an important clue early on (DMs, you know what I mean), and follow along with it as if your lives depend on it. They do.
- Don’t touch anything you don’t have to. - Never be greedy. Greedy players touch things they don’t have to. I agree that expendable characters are the most straightforward way to go, and I never thought I would run it for campaign characters. However, I did hit on a way to run this in my long-running 3E campaign: I ran it “with the safeties on” (but the players had to earn it). I had a side quest for the party before the Tomb, in which after several difficult trials they earned the Wards of St. Cuthbert. These basically gave the party some extra automatic resurrections, plus some other benefits, but I didn’t tell the players what the Wards would do. The Wards weren’t under the players’ control. It was a little video-gamey, but my players enjoyed running their long-standing characters through the adventure, which otherwise I definitely wouldn’t recommend! I agree that adding more backstory around the Tomb is a good idea for campaign adventures. I also threw in a few more monsters, but that’s a matter of taste. We had fun, so I recommend raising a glass to the late, great Gary Gygax and give it a try! Doug
1. No, I don’t plan to convert. My campaign has been running since June 2001 and my players are only now reaching 11th level, so I expect to stick with 3E for at least a few more years. My players include a bard, a monk, and a half-orc barbarian, plus an NPC sorcerer, so there hasn’t exactly been wild enthusiasm about converting. Most of what I’ve seen of 4E leaves me cold.
Thanks for being customer-friendly and for putting out great products! Good luck with your decision. Doug
Cool! Then I’ll throw one more out there, although it’s more work to convert and less canonical for Greyhawk. I started the campaign with a heavily-modified module N4, “Treasure Hunt.” For those unfamiliar with it: the players start out as ordinary people off the street (I had them be 1st level commoners) who get captured by slavers. Their slave galley gets into a terrible storm which finishes off most of the slavers and slaves, then runs aground on an island and the players have to escape. It’s definitely some work to convert. I came up with an elaborate background story for why you could only find the magical island under certain conditions, so it wasn’t on the charts. Also for who the Sea King was (a refugee adventurer from Onnwal carrying on a guerrilla war against the Scarlet Brotherhood, but they eventually found his island and wiped out his people), and the pirate orcs and goblins found their way to the island from the Pomarj. Not strictly canonical, but it worked for us. I really liked the benefits from this, though:
Happy gaming!
If you have players that don’t know the 1E classics (which my players don’t, fortunately for me), here are some more options from my Saltmarsh campaign:
I’m not sure how much use this will be to you, given all the things you’ve got in mind within Keoland already, but it’s been fun for us. Also, those maps are great. I wish I had them earlier, but better late than never. Thanks for posting them! Doug |