Just be aware - it tops out at level 20, i.e. no Epic-tier critters whatsoever. In fact, it's skinny from 16-20.
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Hi Jeremy. It's not uncommon to see a well designed Striker do significantly more damage than other character types, and different tiers as well as different character build strategies can exasperate this. I don't see that as a problem, and while I don't have direct in-play experience with the Essentials line, nothing I've read makes me worried about them being too powerful. In fact, my players and I all think they are under-powered, at least in Epic Tier (which is where we're playing now). The main reason is that the PC's in my group are basically always rolling at least two d20's per round, often more (multiple attacks, and/or re-rolls etc), and critting on 19-20, so 50-60 damage per turn is low for any character... We actually started a leaderboard for most damage per round at 22nd level, and they are now 26th level - every character has been on that board at least once, and it started at 235 hp of damage, and is now at 682 total damage inflicted in one round (on multiple enemies, of course). I think my players also view the Essentials line as just a bit too boring for them - they all love the level of complexity they get out of their PHB-style characters, which gives them plenty of options to chose from each round. Anyway, in my experince (as DM of a campaign that's gone from 6th to 26th level now, over about 2 years of play), Leaders do the least damage by far, but that's the way they are built, they are designed to buff their party and/or de-buff the enemies, while the other PCs do most of the work in kill their enemies. If someone was worried their Leader wasn't doing enough damage compared to the strikers etc, I'd say "play a leader/striker hybrid" - we had two of these when we had 5 players (one was a Str-Cleric/Barbarian, the other a Dex-Cleric/Ranger), and they are both great characters that gave their players lots of fun, as well as helping out the others. If someone was worried their Controller or Defender wasn't doing enough damage compared to the strikers, I'd say they are probably playing the wrong kind of defender for their taste (too defensive), or they are not making the most of the other benefits that come with them (e.g. rituals, greater powers flexibility, better skills for a Wizard; uber AC, hp and surges for a Defender, etc). Every striker I can think of has at least one weak spot - that's the way they have always been, right from earlier editions with the "glass cannon" rogue...
Thanks Jeremy and Stefan, I don't hang out here as much as I used to, but I've enjoyed a lot of your contributions over time too, so it's good to share when I can find a bit of time!
There are plenty more options, and a number of "fixes", but the guts of 4e is exactly the same as it was when first launched. After all, a character still has to chose the same number of feats, powers, etc - just from an expanded list. The basic parameters of 4e are still essentially the same as they always were. So if it didn't float your boat earlier, it's quite possible it still won't now... Thing is, you can't really compare 3.x with 4e until you actually play 4e for a while. A number of my players were quite scheptical about 4e on paper, but once we played it for a while the benefits became clear and a lot of the drawbacks were not as bad as feared. That said, a few of us still play in a 3.5 game which is also fun (and quite different, especially at higher levels). I've been DMing a 4e group since the early-ish days, so over 2 years now, from 6th level to 25th level now. The changes we've experienced have as much, if not more, to do with the PC's being higher level, than any changes or additions to the rules. Also my ongoing tweaking of the rules to ensure any glaring problems we see are ironed out. All the PC's are still pretty much "core" classes, i.e. those released in the first couple of books (Wizard, Swordmage, Cleric/Barbarian, and Cleric/Ranger). As most of them are DDI subscribers, we just pick out little bits of new stuff as it comes along, without even thinking about it really. From a players perspecitive, they probably get as much if not more out of Dragon magazine as they do the books, at least recently (although AV2 and the Power books are "old" now, they certainly did flesh things out nicely in terms of providing lots of options - arguably, too many!) If we didn't have all that flash new stuff from DDI, I actually think our game wouldn't be that much different... The players would have less options to chose from, and be a bit less 'optimised', but they would essentially be quite similar and the experience at the table would be the same. As a DM I'd have more work to do finessing creatures because I wouldn't have as many pre-made monsters from all the monster books to choose from, and I might have more custom treasure, but generally I've tweaked a lot of things from time to time to get a good balance and good play experience anyway, so really the diffence is minimal. The biggest difference, over time, is simply from the PC's leveling up. As they gain levels, the players gain experience in managing a 4e character, and I learn how to DM at different levels of power, we all learn a lot about what works best in actual play. And that changes quite a bit as you go from Heroic to Paragon to Epic... At Heroic, things start off super simple (too simple for some), then towards the end a PC is getting "nearly complete" i.e. they have a full compliment of encounter and daily powers (i.e. higher levels just start swapping them out). It's pretty much the entry level experience for 4e, and potentially a bit simple for players who like things just that bit more complex to keep it interesting (that's why we started our campaign at 6th level instead of 1st). At Paragon tier, the paragon path really kicks things up a notch. Everyone's PC is somewhat super-charged with some cool new stuff, and it's all quite different and fun, e.g. this is where your players really start to love their action points. This is often when the DM first starts to experience just how much more powerful the PC's are compared to the monsters (that's why the monsters have so many more hp!) By Epic tier, the epic destiny adds more cool flavour, and helps drive story, but doesn't add as much mechanical benefit. In fact, levels 21 and 22 are pretty flat, and my players found themselves using their newly beefed up at-wills more often than not because they still had low-level encounters and dailies that didn't do as much damage (that's a flaw I wish could be corrected in the official rules). Anyway, at Epic tier the lessons you learn from Paragon need to be ramped up even more, as the PC's are by now fully kitted out with gear, powers and feats that let them kick in with all sorts of triggered effects. So instead of everyone attacking once per round, it's very common for everyone to be attacking 2-3 times per round, more if they drop an action point. Most standard monsters just don't cut the mustard, so your DM skills need to ramp up to keep it interesting, e.g. make all monsters more like in Monster Vault, damaging / hindering terrain, things in combos, auras and terrain that make it harder for the PC's to just hide away and snipe - you need to turn your encounter design up to 11 in order to lay even a bit of smack on your PC's before they wipe the floor clean of your monsters. Also, the craziness of the 4e economy really kicks in, where a ritual that used to be expensive at a few thousand gp is now chump-change - anything less than a million gp is basically insignificant, so the players can easily go to town (so to speak) and spend on anything they want (items, rituals etc) unless it's trully "epic". This is actually quite fun - playing through epic tier is becoming more and more fun, and truly of Epic proportions, rather than a quick level or two before wrapping up the campaign like it has often been in 3.x (if you ever got that far). I think that the experience we've had wouldn't have been all that different if we'd started only now - sure, creating a character now gives you a heap more options and so takes a bit longer (but is still much quicker than 3.x), but generally once you've got a character to play, the experience at the table is pretty much the same no matter what. You still find that things play out differently than you expected, and fine-tune it all as you go along. In reference to Rituals and Powers, I'd say: Rituals take a bit of adjusting to from everyone's perspective. They are designed quite differently from old D&D spells, so you can't compare them. They are designed to be used outside combat, as often as you can afford to use them. Personally, I've finally house-ruled something I should have a lot earlier: casting a ritual from a scroll is now always a standard action. That soves a problem we had earlier, where the wizard wanted to use a simple ritual during combat but it took way way too long, e.g. he wanted to use Silence to stop a sonic environmental effect, but the rules didn't really allow it (he tried anyway, and failed, which was a downer). I like rituals - they get a lot of use in our game, still pretty much outside of combat, mostly for scouting, intelligence gathering, etc, occasionally for "buffing" e.g. sneaking into an area and setting up an ambush. It's great that a caster can easily access whatever ritual they know without having to rest and change their spell list, it makes the game flow better. The "differences" between powers, or more specifically classes, does indeed get greater as you go up levels. I don't think the new books have changed that much. Yes, the new books have filled a number of glaring gaps, as well as created a number of new things where arguably there were no big gaps to start with. But it's more to do with the paragon paths, higher level powers, and simply the number of powers a higher level PC gets. An 11th level rogue/daggermaster is a vastly different beast from an 11th level fighter/whatever, wizard/, warlord/ etc. The good old PHB still covers a lot of useful ground, especially in my group. So by this stage (paragon), each character has a well defined "niche" they fill, and combos between PC's really start to kick in. Good players get a kick out of working out not just how to optimise their own PC, but optimise their effectiveness in combo with the other PC's. That's a great feature of 4e that's sadly lacking in earlier editions, and its not so evident until you play for a while, especially at Paragon and/or Epic. The only thing 4e is, perhaps, a bit "lacking on", is the extreme lack of anyone's ability to neutralise someone in a single round. This "feature" of 3.x ("save or die", "hit and neuter", and similar things) is something that was quite deliberately taken out of 4e. Overall, that's a good thing, but especially at Epic tier I've found that the PC's have so many "get out of jail free" cards, it's actually very difficult to put a creadible threat on them without going nuts. A lot of fights only go a couple of rounds, and a really tough fight might drop one PC for half a round and severely bloody 1-2 others, but by now they have powers that can even cheat death. And I've majourly increased the threat level of my monsters and encounter designs. It's a tough one to explain, and harder to get the right balance on, because the nature of 3.x, especially at higher levels, is one of the major problems I always saw of it (too easy to kill things with the right spells, and as a DM you either fight fire with fire and kill PC's really easily, or you dumb-down your monsters and tactics, fudge it etc, to avoid one bad roll de-railing your campaign). Anyway, like everything in D&D, as a DM you just need to keep fine-tuning your designs to hit the sweet-spot where things flow nicely and everyone's having a fun time. As has been said already, I'd say a DDI subscription is a far better "bang for buck" than buying the new books. Our group almost never uses a single book at the gaming table, and the same goes for outside the table. Sure, we read the new Dragon/Dungeon articles sometimes, and flick through a new book from time to time, but our primary resourse is always the Char Builder, Monster Builder, and/or online Compendium; the books are secondary to look up more "fluff" etc that's not in the DDI tools.
I've found with my groups over the years, that if I want to stop the PC's just wading in and killing things, I just need to initiate the role-play and let them follow. All the signals you put out should be related to observing and discussing, where anyone can act at any time, not rolling for initiative ("roll for initiative" is always the signal that a fight is on). It also helps if you get your players used to the idea that NPC's can have questionable morals and motivations, but killing them all isn't neccesarily the right answer, and certainly isn't the "right" thing to do all the time. Making sure that your NPC's get a chance to actually speak before you roll for initiative is the key here - once your NPC engages them in intelligent conversation, and you can try to put forward their point of view (even if it's a bit twisted), you'll be surprised how hard it becomes for the PC's to just wade in and kill them! When I ran this encounter, our group had already had numerous role-play encounters previously. My players also know that I often throw dodgy NPC's at them, designed to put them in positions where making a choice is difficult as there's no clear-cut "right" solution; in fact, a number of PC's have had pretty dubious morals. So when they found Harliss, she was surrounded by a number of dead foes, and fighting a few others. From memory, the PC's watched her kill the rest, during which she already initiated a conversation. Certainly I explained the situation, and let Harliss speak, before I gave any players a chance to react. In the end, I made a lot of stuff up on the fly by putting myself in her shoes as best I could (tired, and desperate to get out alive no matter what); they found Harliss to be of questionable intent, but she had useful information, and certainly seemed better than Vanthus, so my players never saw any reason to fight her. As I say, once you engage your players in conversation with your NPC's, it becomes almost impossible for them to decide to just slaughter your NPC in cold blood. Well, certainly that's how my games have turned out over the years, with a broad group of players playing everything from santimonious paladins through to evil rogues.
Jeremy is spot-on. AoW is a heck of a ride, for players and DM. As someone pointed out some time ago on another thread, AoW, beign the 2nd AP, also benefitted from the experience Paizo got from creating the 1st one. Just be aware that it's going to take a long time to get to the end. That said, AoW would work just fine even if you only got to run a few of the adventures - each new adventure brings something new to the table, as far as what the PC's end up experiencing. Oh, and every long-running AP needs some tweaking, usually more the further you get on, as continuity errors / ommissions between adventures always crop up, and you often need to tweak the transitions in order to account for how the last one playerd out, your group's motivations and goals, etc etc.
Yep, we definitely role-played it, just enough to tie up loose ends and see where everyone's PC (and their cohorts) ended up. From memory, I had Zeech challenge the party as a whole, which lead to a PC or her cohort (Melinde the Paladin) taking up the challenge in order to put some Good back into the area. I don't recall if he was killed, but I don't see that he has to be, just defeated.
OK, so here's some rough notes, extracted from my master plan, including notes where the plan changed / something wasn't used in play. My overall conversion strategy was, as always, to combine areas that made sense, to make for larger and more interesting combats, without making it too easy or hard. Overall, these adventures as published were actually a pretty good fit for 4e... Note on The Glutton - my players paid The Glutton off, but swore they would return "when higher level". They never did. I did design a little 'lair' for him though, with the following encounters: Prior to the Glutton: Giant Octopus (solo controller 14) and Astral Storm (blaster 18, re-skinned avernus cinderstorm) Lair of the Glutton: Emraag (Elite soldier 19; Dragon Eel), with his Living Breath (artillery 19) and 3 Kuo-Toa Monitors (skirmisher 16) with/on 3 war sharks (skirmisher 14), Dragon Simulacrum (blaster 15); Could have been fought to subdual, though not in his lair - in his lair, he could lead the PC's into the ruins of the ship, then attack them with the advantage of being able to move more easily. City of Broken Idols (designed for 5 PC's starting at 16th level, but sometimes we only had 4 PC's): note - a lot of the adventure-as-written changed as a result of my players' approach... as always, keep it dynamic! Wandering Encounters - Savanah/Jungle: 2 Banshees (controller 12) and 4 Lingering Specters (lurker 12), soon joined by Kraa’ark Lors the Roc King (elite skirmisher 18, in 4e_Update to 3.5_Stormreach) and 2 Spellwarped Rocs (elite skirmisher 14, from Update to 3.5_Dragons_of_Eberron) who fly in from the mountains - NOT USED Wandering Encounters - Ruins: something wandering from elsewhere within the ruins (e.g. I used a couple of Skinwalker groups due to the way my players bluffed their way in initially, then they got found) Skill Challenge: Making allies of the Pelor Camp (if PC's fight, use 11 Greenscale Hunters, and elite Greenscale Marsh Mystic, MM pg 178) - I didn't run a formal skill challenge here, actually, just a bit of role-play. Enc 1: "Noltus" Returns! - Onailati (elite controller 18; Ghoul Eyebiter, but creating Abyssal Ghoul Hungerer minions), Julajimus (Bloodcry Barlgura with a fear aura, elite brute 18), 4 Skinwalkers (skirmisher 12; Foulspawn Mangler Thrall with Longbows and Dark Toxin), Skinwalker Acolyte (Foulspawn Oracle, artillery 15) and Famine Mist (elite lurker 16) Skill Challenge: Mantru riddle (if PC's fight, use Couatl Star Serpent and 3 Couatl Cloud Serpents, MM2) - the riddle looks pretty stupid actually, so replace e.g. Smoothing Ruffled Feathers (Dungeon 169, pg 52) / just have the PC's explain their past acheivements to show they are those prophesised - NOT USED (the PC's never went there). Enc 2 (if they investigate near the waters around the island): Deinosuchus of Demogorgon (elite soldier 16; add Beast of Demogorgon template to a Feymire Crocodile), Blackspawn Gloomweb (lurker 16), Treant (elite controller 16), Ambush Vine (elite controller 16) - because the PC's flew in quickly and over the water, I only used it as the PC's exited the dungeon, having killed the Aspect of Demogorgon, but they flew away (on their flying horses) in round 1 of the fight. Taboo Temple 1, 2: Xerkamat (Kazrith Demon, lurker 20; fled once the Aspect was killed, so NOT USED), 2 Kopru Behemoth (brute 17), Kopru Mage (artillery 17; re-skin slime mage, making slime alchemical goo), 4 Foulspawn (14 minion solider), Symbol of Suffering (warder 20; the trap was never used as the PC's bypassed it) - my PC's initially bluffed their way past these guards, so only fought a few as they came back out again at the end Taboo Temple 3, 4, 5, 6, 7: remnants of skin walkers - 5 regular (see above), 1 chief (elite skirmisher 18 with ranger powers and gorilla companion). If the Chief is slain, the Skinwalkers flee when bloodied; - mostly NOT USED (they bluffed their way in, a few were later sent after them as 'random encounters', and the remaining skinwalkers fled whenthe aspect was killed) Taboo Temple 11: Pactbroken Curse (disease 15; FRCG) in the idol. This is an example of where I left the 3.5 design intact, rather than worry about trying to make it 'like a 4e encounter'. It worked fine - eventually (on their way out), a PC picked it up and got cursed for a bit. Taboo Temple 12: 3 Ghost Legionnaires (soldier 13), 3 Sword Wraiths (lurker 14), Oblivion Wraith (brute 17). Again, my PC's were by-passing things like this on the way in, and dealt with them on the way out (once the Aspect was killed). Taboo Temple 13: Skill Challenge: Vault of the Sun and Moon; Nimbus Bow (Paragon-tier artefact; a lesser (+4 or +5) version of the Arrow of Fate, Dungeon 172; instead of ammo, it can in fact be a bow or crossbow, and has a bit less powers) - NOT USED Taboo Temple 16, 19, 23: Trapped Corridor with Crushing Manacles (obstacle 15; NOT USED); after 1d4 rounds, joined by Flesh Jelly etc in 19: Carpet of Flesh (elite controller 15) with 4 Kuo-toa Harpooners (soldier 14) ; the harpooners can drag PC's onto the carpet from a greater range; 4 Giant Rolling Boulders (minion blaster 14; NOT USED) also triggers 19 in 1d4 rounds, if not already done. The traps were not used, because the PC's never went that way, but the monsters were encountered elsewhere 'wandering'. Taboo Temple 24: Thogriff the Tiefling Pirate (Cruel Seirrah, elite controller 19; add Diabolic Transformation, pg 87 Dragon 381) riding Dimetrodon (Rage Drake Ravager, brute 15), with Ettin Spirit-Talker of Demogorgon (elite controller 16) and 3 Bloodcry Barlgura (brute 14). This was fun, and my players captured and tortured Thogriff, so later he returned with the gnome etc below (only to escape, never to be seen again). Taboo Temple 29: 4 regular skin walkers (see above), 3 Kopru Behemoths (brute 17; make "fiendish" simply ading resist variable 10), 2 Kopru Mages (artillery 17; see above)Taboo Temple 30: Bebilith (solo brute 18), Chasme (skirmisher 14), Immolith (controller 15) – NOT USED Taboo Temple 33, 35 or 37: Sivis Wordsmith (elite controller 17; add Inquisitor’s Glare (standard; recharge 6) Gaze, Psychic. Close blast 3; targets enemies; +20 vs. Will; the target is slowed (save ends). First Failed Saving Throw: The target is Immobilized, s.e), with Clay Golem (elite brute 15), Fomorian Cackler (elite lurker 17), Cyclops Hewer (soldier 16). Enraged at the PC's taking potential info etc from House Sivis; in fact, he's found a mark of the prophesy ala ECG 267, and is worried the PC's will undermine the Dream's plans ala ECG 229. These guys 'wandered' in to find the PC's elsewhere, with Thogriff (who lead them to the PC's, although I played it as a pretty shaky alliance, where the gnome thought himself the boss, but Thogriff was scared of the PC's so when the PC's started winning he ran away at the first opportunity). Taboo Temple 43: Taboo Temple Kopru (as 29 above) and a Collapsing Path (acid pit, obstacle 17) Taboo Temple 49: Khala the Two-Headed (Aspect of Demogorgon, elite controller 23) and Kala’s 6 Pet Skulvan demons (Turagathshnee, skirmisher 15) - this fight was very nearly a TPK, as the PC's were one down and I didn't adjust it - as two PC's fled (two were unconscious), we called time on that session. Next session, another player was missing but the PC previously missing was back (he just happened to be half-cleric), so he joined the other two for a resurgent, and ultimately triumphant, re-joining of the fight. In retrospect, six Skulvans was too many - 3-4 would have been enough. Serpents of Scuttlecove (designed for 4 PC's, starting at 18th level): As before, expect to be flexible, but also make yourself an expected time-line, especially if your group are not prone to driving all the action themselves, e.g. work out where you expect the assassination attempts to fit in (the adventure has some suggestions, but IMO it's not clear and you don't want to be trying to figure it out during a game session). The order shown below is the order it worked out for us, pretty much as I planned. nb: I'm playing this in Eberron, so changed the Crimson Recruiters to be Warforged soldiers, provided by House Cannith (who the Crimson Fleet had convinced to help them, on promise of helping assassinate the Lord of Blades - that bit comes about later on in my game...) This fitted in with the Farshore invasion, where the Crimson Fleet had already been seen in league with Yuanti as well as Warforged. 3. Red Foam Whaling (Ambush): The Leech (yuan-ti abomination, elite soldier 19, with ring), 3 seventh coil assassins (as above, with arrow), succubus (controller 14). 2.1 Assassination Attempt #1 (Minting House Murderers): 3 seventh coil assassins (artillery 18; yuan-ti sharp-eye) 4. The Birdcage B2, B7 – 5 Sisters of Lamentation Harpies (controller 19, with minor-sustain action to animate anyone 0 hp or less as dominated undead with (surge) hp), Slaymate (brute 19), 6 charmed zombie slaves (minion 17) 2.2 Assassination Attempt #2 (The Gloves Come Off): 3 Seventh Coil Assassins (artillery 18), 1 Seventh Coil Slaver (artillery 18; incanter), 6 Crimson Recruiters (warforged knight, soldier 15) Eberron city map, with the yuan-ti scattered at range (one assassin with slaver), and pairs of warforged charging in from three nearby points. – NOT USED (the PC's, as often happens, went for the jugular as quickly as possible). 5. The Minting House: 3 Seventh Coil Slavers (artillery 18, incanter), 2 Seventh Coil Thunder Serpents (controller 18, sarpacila), 8 Crimson Thugs (human minion 16), 6 Crimson Recruiters (warforged knight, soldier 15) Random Encounter in Scuttlecove: 4 Dire Hunger Monks (controller 16), Angel of Vengance (elite brute 19), Lorishto the Rakshasa (elite controller 21) - in my game, it ended up being the escapees from the minting house fight who summoned (and joined) this group, making for a tough fight sooner than the players expected (they were planning for a longer rest). At this stage, I lead my players off towards the Mournland for a "Side-Trek", to find where the hidden crimson fleet base was located, and also to stop what they thought was an alliance between the crimson fleet and the lord of blades (that was a red-herring, designed to try and get the PC's to kill the lord of blades, which is what house cannith wanted). Random Encounter in western Blade Desert: Firbolg Master of the Wild Hunt (elite skirmisher 18) with 3 Gremlins (controller 17) riding Wild Hunt Hounds (skirmisher 17). Initial Ambush (Blade Desert): Lord of Blades (elite soldier 21), Hilt & Pommel (2 x skirmisher 18), with 2 Warforged Destroyers (artillery 14) in Warforged Titan coach (elite soldier 19), guarded by Ruus Dhakaan (elite skirmisher 18), Tanarukk Steel Warrior (soldier 18), Hill Giant Avalancher (skirmisher 14), Ogre Dreadnought (soldier 14), 2 Stone Thralls (brute 15), 6 Ogre Bludgeoneers (minion 16) - the PC's laid their own ambush (thanks to rituals) and knocked out the Lord of Blades before he even got to act, thwarting my plan to have him escape and lead them to his base in the Mournland... So I had House Cannith troops arrive (on "sand skiffs, met by Lord of Blades troops (hidden in the sands), and a big war errupted, Cannith vs LoB with the PC's in the middle. The PC's were involved in pieces of the fighting, ala the Farshore battles... the two factions' aims were simple - the Lord of Blades' troops fought to ptotect their leader, and House Cannith fought to kill the Lord of Blades and also kill and PC's (to erase any evidence); the LoB was initially against the PC's (because they nearly killed him), but as the fighting went on the PC's actually realised they had been played by Cannith and allied with the LoB... Wave 1: 10 cannith warforged drones (minion 16), 4 riding iron gorgons (soldier 14), charge the PC's Waves 2+3 (the PC's hid themselves and the LoB away to rest and let the two parties fight amongst themselves, so when they finally came back after the main fighting stopped, I combined what would have been two separate waves into a single last effort by the House Cannith survivors to kill the PC's): 2 Slaughterstone Eviscerators (brute 18), Battle Guardian (controller 17), Caller in Darkness (elite soldier 19), Cannith Arcane Ballista (Artillery 19), 2 House Cannith Artificers (artillery 18), Human Dread Assassin (lurker 19), Warforged Wizard (controller 19), 3 Adamantine Vanguards (brute 17). The PC's were helped by the Lord of Blades (somewhat). In the end, the PC's allied with the Lord of Blades, who helped them win the final battle (but only just! - the caller in darkness was a real pain, and the PC's didn't fight together as well as usual). So it was then off to the Crimson Fleet's hidden base (the Lord of Blades just happened to know of its location)... this is where the side-trek finished, and we re-joined the adventure as written. 6. Main Entrance (to the Crimson Fleet's base): phased entrance of the monsters, but one huge melee (i.e. no rests):
D11: Fiendish Eye of the Deep (aquatic beholder eye of chaos, elite artillery 20), Balor Husk (elite brute 20), Topiary Beast Girallon (elite soldier 17), Intellect Glutton (controller 21) The lower levels (again, phased but one big melee):
Main upper levels (phased, but yet another big melee on H1-3 by this stage):
In my game, Wyther escaped the fight on the top decks, and made his last stand as a 'solo' in H3. As I say above, it wasn't an overly challenging fight, but after the pounding I'd been giving the guys, it was a welcome change of pace for them, and showed how Wyther had finally run out of supporters. H4: 2 Yagnodemons (soldier 20), Energy Drain trap on entrance (hits 1/rnd), attacking chest trap (Impersonator Mimic, controller 16) with 8 spawn (minion 16), Cloaker Lord (controller 18). A classic old-school silly encounter, but fun for all. I5: The Seventh (Yuan-Ti Anathema; elite skirmisher 21; escapes at 1/4 hp), 2 yuan-ti abominations (soldier 20), 2 Seventh Coil Assassins (artillery 18), 2 Medusa Shroud of Zehir (skirmisher 18), Disintegration Trap (one-hit wonder, say +23 vs Fort, 5d6+12 dmg + ongoing 20 (s.e.), after-effect ongoing 10 (s.e.)). Surprisingly easy for my group, as they killed the Anathema very quickly. Cold Captain Wyther Level 22 Elite Soldier
From a design point of view I have tried not to make the whole crimson fleet base one huge deadly fight after another, although the way the players tackled it that's exactly what they got for the first half or more. While that's exactly what they wanted - they were looking for the Cold Captain, Vanthus and/or Lavinia as quickly as possible, and loved the epic battles that ensued - in retrospect I think I have them one epic fight too many. Oh well, the PC who got killed two sessions in a row has now been retired (human warlord), and the player is loving his new PC (elf cleric/ranger hybrid with a touch of paladin) - real striker damage, similar healing abilities, just less buffs for the rest of the party. So while the warlord was a pivotal PC story-wise, we've taken care of that just fine (another PC will carry the mantle and try to do what his brother-in-law could not), and everyone's enjoying the change that a new PC has brought. Oh, and lastly, I actually built a 3-D model of the ship (areas E, F, G, H, I), using two battle-mats as a base and for E & F, then plastic down-pipes for the trees, cardboard for levels G, H & I, taped together and propped up here and there with sticks / bent metal. Took a few hours to do, like about a day, but it literally added a whole new dimension to the planning and fighting. Unfortunately I had to transport it from home to where we play, but with a bit of re-work on site it held up OK. In retrospect though, I should have designed it with transport in mind (I had to take it to my friend's place in the car, and it didn't cope well with that!) Anyway, my players loved it, and it helped them plan out their attacks, as well as made the E, F and G fight in particular quite dynamic with monsters shooting across levels, climbing ropes between levels, being thrown off the edges, and so on.
BTW, my group is now towards the end of Serpents of Scuttlecove, so I can post my conversion notes (which include a fairly significant side-trek into the mainland mid-way through) if there is any interest. Another couple of sessions should see the Crimson Fleet demolished, and the PC's ready for Epic level...
Yep, I used a Disease for it, transmitted only through a successful bite... Savage Fever: Your flesh breaks out into a terrible black rash that causes short bony protrusions to extrude from the affected area. As it gets worse, the terrible rash spreads and your mind grows more and more bestial. Level (creature) Disease; Endurance DC [15 + ½ creature’s level] improve, DC [10 + ½ creature’s level] maintain; Improve: you are Cured; Initial Effect: The target only gains half the normal hit points from spending healing surges; Worse: The target cannot spend healing surges; Worst: You collapse into a coma-like state and (immediately) transform gain the Savage Creature Template, awakening and immediately seeking fresh prey. Savage Creature: become Aberrant type, and Elite; gain Darkvision, resist acid 5, Bite attack (at-will; reaction to getting hit; minor action; as basic attack but d6 for M and Savage Fever), and Death Burst (upon reaching 0 hp, Close burst 3, as basic (ranged) attack at -2 vs. Reflex; 5 acid damage @ level 1-10, 10 acid @ 11-20); become Chaotic Evil. For my group, only one ever contracted the disease (multiple times, and it doesn't stack). He shrugged it off the first night. Remember, if you get a disease during combat, you get a save at the end of the fight to shrug it off (I forget where that rule is, but from memory it's in the DMG).
My PCs were newly 13th level vs the big T, but for that fight there were only three of them (!) - the best 3, mind you. And yeah, for swallow, if a swallowed PC can inflict say 40 hp of damage by themselves in one round, they should get spewed out - I forgot to include that bit, because over time the 4e swallow rules have been changed quite a bit. If you include that bit too, it should be fair but still fun (when I ran it, I used the original rules which only allowed basic attacks, with the only way to get out being killing the monster, and that wasn't much fun!)
For a t-rex, I used a couple of different approaches... The first one, when the PC's were new to the Island, was a "young t-rex", where I just took the Fang Titan Drake and took it down to level 14. I then added four terror birds (scytheclaw drakes). The setup was: the t-rex was chasing a bird, with three more waiting to ambush it, but of course the PC's get in the way and look like the easiest meals on offer... That encounter was fine, but not overly tough. The next one, Temauhti-Tecuani, I made into a solo (level 16). I gave him Gorilla Gloves, then the following additional powers:
For the Aspect of Zotzilaha, I think I used an Inferno Bat as the base, with maybe some Red Dragon in the mix. I also added some fire-bats to the encounter (as solo's are a bit flat and easy to kill if all the PC's can wail away on them all the time).
Now, your house-rule for HP is similar to mine, which I use simply to speed things up a little and get away from too many at-will attacks in combats. I'd simply suggest that rather than add flat damage to the monsters, add more dice. The reason being that it's probably better for your players to see you roll heaps of dice and announce big damage, than roll 1d8 and say "23 damage"! Also, the maths is really simple. I use +1[W] per tier, but if your group is starting out, they probably don't have good synergy, so be wary of over-doing it, certainly +1[W] at most for now and up it to +2[W] as required at some point during Paragon tier if you think your PC's are mowing through the baddies without ever having to use surges during a fight. So FYI in my game now, I use 67% hp for monsters, and add +[2W] to all damages, e.g. if a monster attack does 1d10+6, I'd make it 3d10+6. My players have good abilities and synergies, and are good players now, so those changes allow me to actually lay a bit of hurt on them before all the monsters are dead. In a tough fight, one PC often goes down (then pops straight back up again with healing); then again, my players really love for someone to get bloodied and/or fall down below 0 hp, because it triggers cool effects for them now. But of course YMMV - I've got two leaders in my group, and a really good combo with warlord and rogue, plus a swordmage who's part defender, part striker in role. So the PC's can lay down a lot of smack, and can also take a lot of hurt before they are in trouble. As I say, take it easy on introducing changes, it takes a while to get a good feel for what works, and for how good your players skills and their PC's designs are.
For Vile Rigidity, I used Sewer Fever (DMG2, pg 206), a level 13 disease, spread with a claw or bite attack. With the Farshore defense, I played it out in a combo of role-play and "hand waving" (quick DM decisions, based on all the work they did before, and my desire to make it interesting yet ultimately result in the PC's confronting Vanthus), rather than make it a skill challenge, with combats that focused on the PC's where appropriate. Pretty much as written under 3.5, really. In The Lightless Depths, I used the following little Skill Challenge: F1: The Maze (2400 xp regardless of success or failure) Skill Challenge: Level 15, Complexity 2 (6 success before 3 failures) Setup (PC's): You enter a low-ceilinged cavern. This area is little more than a ten-foot-high horizontal crack in the earth, covered with scree and gravel, as well as larger boulders torn loose from the ceiling. Due to the density of these scattered monoliths, visibility is low. Between the stones, patches of colour hint at plant life, suggesting a subterranean pasture of epic proportions. Each of you must choose what your contribution will be to navigating this potential mine-field… Objective (DM): The skill challenge ultimately represents navigating the maze without alerting the hook horrors etc at the end of it. Each PC must choose one “role” (skill) per “round” – many are, essentially, aid another… Each round (which is a section of the maze, say half an hour or so), every PC must make an Endurance check, DC 20, to avoid losing a healing surge due to the combined effects of minor annoyances on the journey. This doesn’t count as a success or failure. Based on their role, each PC can be one of the following...
With each failure, I envisioned a "mini encounter":
As it was, my PC's succedded with 0 failures...
4e doesn't really have broken, cheesy stuff, and the few things that are out of whack seem to get eratta'd reasonably quickly now. Anyway, I agree with Stewart - just let the PC's create a character as per the standard guidelines, i.e. three major magic items plus whatever they want to buy from their allocated cash. For a higher-level PC, they will probably end up a little short on all the "minor" items that a typical paragon-tier PC would have accumulated by now, but it's not a biggie and after a couple of levels it should all sort itself out. For puzzles, I don't see much need for any real "conversion" to 4e - they should pretty much run OK as written. It all depends on whether you like the puzzles that are published in STAP - personally, I think the traps and puzzles in STAP (from the Isle on) leave a bit to be desired, so would probably have changed them if I were running them under 3.5 too. Now, for traps, you should pretty much throw away the 3.5 versions and try to re-work the area to conform to the 4e "standard", in which a trap is part of an overall encounter design, much like a monster really. There are not a lot of traps in STAP, and the ones I remember on the Isle of Dread are either "save or die" types, which do not translate well into 4e at all (and I never liked them under 3.5), or else pretty lame little speed-bumps that won't challenge your PC's at all under 3.5 (possibly just drain a little healing or suchlike). If in doubt, my advice is to just delete the 3.5 trap altogether. If you want to keep it, try and look for something roughly similar in the 4e books (DMG etc), and add some monsters etc, to make an interesting, dynamic challenge... For example, the entrance to the main dungeon in Here There Be Monsters features a collapsing cave if the PC's go the wrong way in. That's pretty boring, really, so for 4e I used a collapsing cave trap, but added four undead (two types of ghosts), sprinked around the whole entrance area, to create a large-sized encounter area where the PC's could get flanked, snuck up on, and potentially run into the trap. I deleted all the other traps from Here There Be Monsters, choosing instead to make the monster encounters as interesting as possible. In Tides of Dread, I rolled the whole "ground level" Temple of the Jaguar into a single encounter: a Giant Anaconda (Feyborn Constrictor, elite soldier 11), with 3 shambling mounds (brute 14), and a trap hiding behind an illusion in the temple entrance (Vicious Vipers, obstacle 10). The idea was to lure the PC's toward the illusion, then have the monsters ambush them and try to push/pull them into the illusion, which was hiding a drop down into the temple (save or fall and take 6d10 damage), as well a swarm of vipers at the bottom. In The Lightless Depths and City of Broken Idols, I had a few encounters that featured a mix of damaging terrain (a passive "trap", but no XP), and traps (active traps/terrain features, e.g. Volatile Haze, Demonic Slime, Deathcaps, Altar of Zealotry, Giant Rolling Boulders, Crushing Manacles. But really, typically my group only sees about one trap per adventure, and even less puzzles - if in doubt, just delete! We tend to focus on role-play and combat against monsters - traps, and more importantly terrain, should just be ways to make fights against monsters more interesting, not the main focus. After all, we're talking about high-level PC's here, getting bogged down on the details of the environment is just going to get boring, focus on where the action's at!
Yep, I've used the outline posted here as a rough base for converting to 4e, and have used from half of The Bullywug's Gambit through to City of Broken Idols (where the PC's are currently about to enter the main dungeon). Firstly, decide what level you want to start everyone at. I ran HTbM with 11th level PC's, as Paragon Tier is a good point to move from the "known world" to the "unknown world" of the Isle of Dread. You could start at 11th or 12th, depending on how much you expect your PC's to do in this adventure and around Farshore etc, and also depending on how far you expect to take the campaign - finishing Serpents of Scuttlecove with PC's just heading into Epic Tier feels spot-on for 4e to me, and is quite workable. If my campaign goes that long, Into the Maw will have the PC's at 21st level. It could be a bit of work for you all getting used to 4e starting at Paragon Tier, simply because that's when the PC's really start to get a lot of nifty tricks to pile on the effects and damage output, as long as they design good PC's and work together well. We started with 6th level PC's, so had a while to get used to it all before it got too complex, but even then taking a month off over Christmas made for a first session in 2010 where the players were quite rusty and things dragged a bit. Anyway, from a DM's point of view, just keep it simple and try to use mainly monsters of aroud the PC's level, +/- a couple, use elites for important "boss" monsters / NPC's, and aim for at least 4-5 opponents in each fight. Use the WotC monster builder, and tweak existing monsters as required (but keep it simple) - I compiled a 1-2 page "battle sheet" in a word processor, that had just the monsters stats, and terrain details, some tactics, and treasure, so I could run combats (and skill challenges) with that, and the rest of the adventure was run "as is". Here's a breakdown of how I converted Here There Be Monsters: Hungry Welcome: T-Rex (fang titan drake, reduced to 14th level), 4 Terror Birds (scytheclaw drakes) Skill Challenges:
Olaguru (Neldrazu, +2 levels, and Invoker template added hence Elite) and 4 Barlgura (+2 levels) try to kidnap Urol (be flexible in who you try to abduct, and plan for the possibility you get no-one). Cave Entrance: collapsing cave (Gaping Maw Trap), with 2 trap haunts, 2 battle wights. For the Shrine of Demogorgon, I used a dungeon adventure, "Fist of Mourning" as a base, as it seemed to fit reasonably well and had much more interesting encounters. Here's the result: F1. False Witch: bulette, firelasher, oni mage F2. Infested Mine: destrachan far voice, 2 warped cultists (fang of yeenoghu gnolls), 4 orc miners (actually gnolls) F3. Entropic Thralls: DELETED F4. Outraged Dead: Kalan the Avenger (duergar skeleton), 2 skeletal hammerers, 2 swarms of baboons (plaguechanged gibberling bunch, +4 levels) F5. Hideous Cultists: deleted Skill Challenge: Congress with the Dead; I ad-libbed this one, complexity 1. F6. Living Statues?: DELETED F7. Beyond the Pale: Obsen, 2 red slaads, 3 horrid spawn - replaced with Olangru (see above) and a Lemorian Golem (level 12 elite controller, customer-built based on some powers from the aspect of demogorgon), and any remaining Barlgura / Gnolls arrive in the second round. I use the parcel system for treasure, using the 3.5 adventure as a guide to what goes where. For NPC's like Lavinia, Captain Amella, and Lefy, I simply created them as per a monster of the level I wanted (e.g. 10). If you've got DMG2, you could treat them as side-kicks or whatever the right term is. Personally, I'm not a big fan of NPC's on the PC's side, so I kept them firmly in the background, and only in a couple of key fights did I ever have them enter a fight, and then I gave them to the appropriate player to run (e.g. Lavinia and a PC got married to the PC Warlord recently, so his player ran her in the fight against Vanthus, and Vanthus killed her, heh heh). I've got notes for the other adventures, and they get a bit better as I improved my systems and experience. The key is to have a vague plan on what you want to acheive, then focus only on the current adventure as far as converting it goes. You'll learn what works and what doesn't as you go anong, so long-term planning of details is likely a bad idea. Good luck, and let me know if I can help with any more detail.
My notes from the time are in the archives HERE - just look through for my posts. Other than that, I only have my fading memory to go by... I've DM'd two new campaigns since then (the latest being 4e, so my memory of 3.5 is fading). FYI, the PC's consisted of an ogre fighter/kensai (big maul, big longbow) at 23rd level (after level adjustment), a human cleric/rogue/PrC at 23rd level (equiv to about 20th level cleric for spells), an elf sorcerer/fighter/PrC at 21st level (equiv to about 20th level sorc for spells), and a human paladin at 21st level (Melinde, from Diamond Lake). While the player of the Fighter considered his character a bit cheesy, personally I didn't think so in fact I thought he needed to be to keep up. Mostly it was a melee-heavy party, with buffing support from the cleric and a bit of versatility from the sorcerer (e.g. limited wish got used a lot, as did some scrolls). While I pretty much allowed any 3.5 books, there was no uber-cheese used anywhere from the PC's; I helped them with their builds towards the end, but no-one went hard-out on the optmisation or abuse of spells etc.
Agree; despite being cheesed up for their CR, Arrow Demons should be toast for a 19th level party. I ran a number of them (advanced a bit, IIRC), with a good cleric, against a group of around 12th level PC's (the Castle Greyhawk super-adventure book), and that was super-challenging, mainly due to the huge damage output of the arrow demons and the fact that demons in general have few weak points (just like dragons). But I suspect that at 19th level, they will struggle to hit anyone unless you advance their HD a lot.
The published setup leaves a very wide range of possibilities... Yes, your players might run though the final adventure as the designers expected, dealing with Lashona at the base of the tower, Maralee before the top, and so on. Or, they might go more along the lines of my players, who decided they wanted to get the drop on Kyuss before he became too powerful, and before they had their resources whittled down getting to him. So they by-passed the tower and just went straight to the top (with a bevvy of summoned help). After a couple of warm-up rounds, they found themselves fighting Kyuss, Lashona, Maralee, etc all at once. It took them a long time to get rid of all these "minions", barely surviving, then it became a bit of a stale-mate between them and Kyuss until, after many hours of real-life time, they finally whittled him down and defeated him, having used nearly all their resources on the way. That was a pretty epic ending, where the players really were scratching their heads on ways to win (playing it out in two sessions helped there). So I guess my point is that a lot depends on your players - how well prepared their PC's are to combat Kyuss, and then what approach they take in the final adventure. As a DM, you can try and prepare for some of that, namely how well designed the PC's are to fight Kyuss etc, but in the end it still comes down to exactly what spells they have on the day, their tactics in the fights, and whether they take out all the "support crew" before they reach Kyuss, or if some are left alive and can come and join in the final battle. You can't predict that, and I think that open-ended nature is a great feature of the final adventure. Overall, I think the adventure is pretty well designed and allows for a wide range of possibilities. It's good to allow the players actions to dictate the overall outcome, including just how hard that final fight is. It's a fitting way to end a very epic campaign. There's only one thing I would quibble with, and that's the severe de-buffing that Kyuss gets if the PC's succeed on various quests before hand. You should expect your PC's to succeed on these, or they are a bit stupid really (and if so, how did you let them get this far in the AP?) So I'd suggest you reign in on the de-buffs. But also trim the "endless healing" cheese that Kyuss has - let himself timestop and/or heal himself only a limited number of times, otherwise your group might be destined for a very long, slow fall if dealing damage is the only way they can defeat him (which isn't unreasonable - he's pretty much immune to 'save or die' stuff as far as I recall). From memory (it was a long time ago now), I let Kyuss cast Heal about three times, and even then it was starting to get pretty monotonous as the players didn't have any other options left to try and take him down except to keep pounding on him - nearly all their cool tricks were used up, and Kyuss just healed himself back up again! But then, my group's PC's were not especially cheesed out builds - they were strong builds, and the players battle-hardened through having played their PC for two years of real-life time, but there were no game-breaking PC's in the mix.
Thanks!
Do you mean in combat? (e.g. not to the death, but some other criteria)
Thanks. I think I've got Crypt of Lyzandred the Mad, but am trying to keep this adventure simple (i.e. smaller) as I'd like to expand the next one out more. Testing the PC's in terms of their previous exploits is a grand idea!
I'm looking for some help in re-tooling the encounter with the Couatl in City of Broken Idols. As I read it, I can't help but think it's lame that such grand immortals are (essentially) waiting for heroes of a prophesy, then to "qualify" as these heroes, the PC's simply have to answer a riddle. It's like a really poor Sphinx encounter... Note: I'm running the campaign in Eberron, where the couatl are pretty important in the scheme of the world, although this doesn't really matter, it's a good fit, it simply underlines the importance for me of having a meaningful encounter here rather than just a dumb riddle for the PC's to solve. And by "encounter", I don't really mean a fight - the PC's have already encountered one couatl previously, and used diplomacy rather than pick a fight... Any ideas on something I could use to make the encounter with the couatl more interesting, and not just solving a riddle to somehow "prove" that the PC's are "worthy"???
I have completed an outline for the City of Broken Idols - I tried to keep it fairly small, 2 levels max, and do-able without an extended rest. Will post if there's any interest. As for The Lightless Depths, my players decided to by-pass the Tear, and take on the Ziggurat first. They then ambushed a scouting group and got some intell, tried a few of their own diversionary tactics, drawing off a few groups of the defenders then picking them off. So a lot of Minions have died, plus a number of kopru and a few demons. There's still a number of defenders at the Ziggurat, so next up I'm using the "screaming buildings" bit, which alerts the defenders. Nearly all the defenders will then run off to look for the PC's, giving the PC's a chance to fight only one or two more groups before they can get inside the Ziggurat, where they will have two fights, ultimately destroying the Bilewretch (which they now know if what creates the pearls, assisted by the kopru high-priest). If they get bogged down, I'll fast-track e.g. turning any more fights into a skill challenge (you can only run the same kind of fight a couple of times before it gets boring and predictable).
For me, 4e is easier to DM primarily because of two quite simple things: 1. Everyone's prep time is reduced, because creating a PC, an NPC, a monster, an encounter - creating everything is just easier, because there are less rules, the rules are more balanced, and also official electronic tools (kept up to date) that help out. This is a core strength of 4e - the complexity is, by and large, moved away from the away-from-table prep time, to the at-table gaming experience. As a DM, you can fairly easily bang out an interesting encounter, and know it will be about as expected. You don't need to create complex tactics before hand, or worry too much about how the PC's migh short-cut your design, as it's well balanced at all levels and really quite easy to make tactics up at the table. Because monsters are much simpler, you don't have to spend an age highlighting all the important little bits you tend to forget or miss in complex 3.x monsters. 2. The main complexities that remain in the game, namely managing combat, are very easily handed almost completely to the players to manage. The game pretty much encourages that, more so than previous editions. This keeps th players more involved in the game, and makes your job as a DM so much easier, so you spend less time keeping track of things, and more time adding interest to the game through colourful descriptions, interesting on-the-fly tactics, and so on. For example my players keep track of pretty much all the conditions they suffer from and inflict, as well as their marks and when they are marked. I write initiative on a board where we can all see it. So I pretty much just keep track of the monsters hit points, and keep the combat rounds flowing if anything bogs down. When it's my turn to do something with a monster, it's really quick, then when a PC is having their turn, I can pay attention and be thinking of my next move(s), any interrupts they might trigger, and so on. I found that in 3.5, being DM was quite a tough, and sometimes frustrating experience, because the rules pretty much encouraged "anything a monster can do, so can a PC", and there were so many rules with poor balance you got a real mix of PC's ranging from hopeless to broken depending on the players ability as well as their desire to push the limits just because they can. So creating interesting, challenging campaigns was hard work, especially at higher levels, because if you just left the players to do their own thing invariably they ended up all over the place and a small number of PC's dominated the group. 4e is so much more collaborative, encouraging players to find synergies, that as DM I can leave it up to them to self-manage and know that they will end up with a good group that can have fun together, and I can just concentrate on creating interesting encounters and plot points for them. Another thing is that with 3.5, it's pretty hard being a DM unless you know the rules really well - usually at least as well as your best player. The only exception is probably if you're using a more modern pre-made adventure with solid design, then run that as-written, leaning on your best and most trusted player(s) for help on complex rulings. With 4e, I don't think you really need to know the rules as much - especially as you should be handing most of the work to your players, so too you can easily have the players know the rules at least as well as you do and it will be all fine. Overall, the 4e rules are simpler anyway, especially as there's no complex spells, and the basic combat framework of "standard, move and minor" actions is simple, clean, and works really well. The main complexity is handling conditions and marks, but as I say, hand that to your players to manage, your game will be all the better for that. To put it another way, with 3.5 I often felt like part of my job as DM was like herding cats, which is tiring and unrewarding. With 4e, as DM I can pretty much leave the players to self-manage, and simply concentrate on the creative parts of being the DM, the bits that make the game more than just a set of fights, but a memorable campaign with great flavour and collaborative stories.
Yeah, I think it's a good swap - my group also doesn't know what a Kopru is, so when they found out they were going under the island to a city full of creatures like the one they fought on the beach way back, they immediately said, "oh, that mind-flayer kinda thing - scary!" So I may as well have made the Kopru mindflayers and been done with it. If you want to add psionics to your game, be prepared for at least one player wanting to create a psionic PC at some stage, and be prepared for a few differing opinions from your players - a lot of people don't know much about psionics in 3.5, but that doesn't stop a lot of those same people having an opinion, often along the lines of "psionics is broken". I added a psionic PC to my old 3.5 group a few years ago, and was pleased with the results. A couple of guys were a bit worried they were broken, but at least they let us try it and see. The end result was fine - he had strong mind-control powers, but nothing over the top, the party wizard was still pretty much the most powerful PC. I added a few psionic creatures for flavour, but not many. The biggest thing was probably the psion my guy came up with having telepathy and that mind sight power alluded to above - that meant the PC's became an awesome scouting group (it also had a ninja and scout in the group), so they surprised a lot of my encounters. But really, a psionic PC is really just "sorcerers the way they should have been", i.e. a narrower range of spells than a wizard, but able to use those few powers in a really flexible way. Lastly, one thing you should be aware of with psionics and mind flayers is that adding levels of psion on top of the basic monster can get pretty nasty pretty quick, so beware of going overboard too quickly.
It's not all that hard to do your own conversion. I'm doing my own conversion of Savage Tide to 4e, based in Eberron - the PC's are level 15 now, nearing the end of The Lightless Depths. So I too think that WotC would think they are better off creating new material rather than re-work old stuff. At best, one could hope for an official "conversion" document along the lines of the last hardback books they did (Elder Evils, Fortress of the Yuanti, etc).
BTW, this topic just came up on the WotC CharOp boards here.
Our DM has been quite vocal about editing errors in the magazines. I'm not quite sure what you mean here, are you saying your DM likes to point out the problems in the adventures, but doesn't seem to want (or doesn't know how) to fix them? Well, this forum is definitely the place to point your DM at. It contains heaps of advice on how to improve the Savage Tide campaign, including suggestions on errata / fixes. A couple of starting points might be: minorQuibblesAndQuestionsReSeaWyvernsWakefinallyRunningSTAPAdviceAndCommentsWelcome A lot of the interesting stuff is also going to be in the archives, so be prepared to run a few specific searches. But ultimately, a lot of it comes down to your DM's preference in running pre-published games. I've had one DM who treats the written word like it's divine inspiration, come down from on high for him to run exactly as written, for better or worse, and it can be a pain. If that's your case too, then you might be fighting an uphill battle. Ultimately, every DM needs to realise that every piece of gaming material is a great starting point, which needs to be tailored to the specifics of your gaming group in order to make it as fun for everyone as possible. I've successfully run the Age of Worms adventure path, so know from personal experience that there are always a few contradictions and mistakes, as well as some glaring holes between adventures at times - the art of moving from a competent DM to a potentially great DM is tailoring the adventures for your group, smoothing over any parts that won't work for your group or just won't makes sense, and generally leading your players where they need to go while making it feel like it's actually all their ideas. I ran some adventures in the AOW almost exactly as written, while one in particular had the first section almost entirely re-worked in order to make the transition from A to B more natural and interesting rather than the tightly scripted "action waits for the PC's to arrive" as written. Anyway, see if you can get your DM to have a good look through this forum - it's absolutely the best place for advice for a DM on how to get the most out of running the STAP. Hopefully a bit of time spent looking through here will inspire your DM to spend a little more time ironing out a few of those kinks... It's a pretty cool set of adventures, but nothing's perfect!
I'm in the middle of running my own STAP in Eberron - have a look through my recent posts and you'll see various snippets. If there's any more interest in what I've done, I'm happy to share, just ask (I'm also running it under 4e rules, but I don't think that makes any real difference as far as the story elements go).
I've only played to 15th level so far, think higher level 4e is similar (but not as extreme) as 3.x was, i.e. the higher level you go, the more pronounced the difference between a well constructed set of PCs and a mediocre set. Note how I said "set of PC's", as 4e really favours a group approach as there are plenty of synergies a well designed group can bring to bear that no single PC can provide on their own. For example the classic combo is a well designed striker, with good magic items, and a good leader. If your players are not familiar with Paragon tier, then some may take a while to exploit all the possibilities. For example in my group I've got a pretty good mix of 5 players, one who's quite new and created a cleric at 13th level, while the rest are playing characters who all started at Heroic tier (mostly 6th level). One guy in particular is always a good PC designer, and his brute rogue is very brutal, but especially so in combo with the warlord. That said, the wizard is a well balanced PC who compliments the others and fills a lot of gaps no-one else can, then the swordmage is part defender part retributive striker, while the Cleric is still finding his feet a bit. So I've got one player whose rogue maximising his choices of powers, feats, and magic items, another whose warlord has finally built a solid set of all-round buffs and extra action grants for the group (not just the rogue), another whose wizard is kind of the jack of all trades, one whose swordmage is fun but not the strongest yet (but who has a couple of future plans that will be good), then the newest guy is still adjusting to Paragon tier and making the most of what his PC can offer - it's not like he's got poor choices, but I think he's still getting to grips with putting it all into play, especially all the combos that are available at Paragon. I'd say that's the major thing at Paragon tier - your players need to get to grips with all the possibilities as far as combos of powers, feats, and magic items - both for their PC, and as a group. Once they have done that, I think fights can be just as quick as at Heroic tier, and they can certainly be heaps of fun. As pointed out in the seminar above, I do think the PC's can go longer without running out of resources, and perhaps the Pc's can seem like they have too many hp / are too hard to drop / make spend many surges. But it all depends on how you design encounters and adventures. For example our group likes a long adventuring day with multiple encounters, multiple milestones etc, so that's not an issue, I try not to have a day with only 1-2 fights. I also aim for more XP per fight, on average, so I've got more monsters to beat on my PC's, and also include terrain as well as traps that damages the PC's - 20 hp damage for being pushed into some nasty terrain certainly gets people's attention! I do run my monsters at 67% hp too, although to be honest sometimes that doesn't seem like enough, even though I add extra numbers to compensate. Certainly I make sure important NPC's are all Elite, as the rogue can usualy put out enough damage to kill most non-elites in a single round, especially if he uses multiple powers and items as well as help from the warlord.
Hey guys, I've only just read this now, and yes it sounds cool, especially letting your players run all the defending forces. Personally, I ran it similar, but more light-weight... I just used the picture of Farshore that came printed in the magazine (from the free pdf enhancement with all the pictures in it, printed a decent size). I then used little markers for the invading ships, and the players told me where they stationed their troops, what kinds of orders they had, and so on. We played out the initial attacks in a completely rules-free way, i.e. I described the invading ships arriving, and the players described what, if anything, they would do about it from their PC's point of view. Once the PC's got into combat, they we jumped to the specifics of that fight, and once it was over I described what else they say going on. For example, initially the players tried to slow down the invaders by planting one of their own ships in the harbour, with native warriors planted either wide on the hills, but I ruled that the ships had far superior artillery (in range and damage) so the natives followed their orders to fall back if losing, then the pirates just advanced and took control of the ship the players left to try and block some of the harbour. From there, the pirates launched their longboats at various points, and their golems also went in, which the PC's saw as the biggest threat so that's where the first "PC fight" took place - a set of golems, then a set of pirate invaders. Most of the pirates went on shore in the one point the PC's left least guarded, at the same time as the PC's fought the golems - channelling the pirates was one of the players pre-planned strategies. But if the Pc's were not involved, I just described how it all panned out, letting them know how their pre-planned strategies worked out based on what I thought was reasonable. Basically, once the pirates got on shore, the defenders had solid plans and better numbers, so the best they could do was get as far into the town as possible for a last stand-off between Lavinia and Vanthus, which the PC's got to just in time, killing Vanthus and routing the remaining pirates. It went surprisingly quick - about 5 hours of play is all it took, and I think it was still pretty epic playing it all out on two levels - the map of the town to show the general view of where all the invaders were (but without any specific rules or rolls), then the tactical map to play out any fights that the PC's got involved in. But for some reason my players didn't attack the boats - perhaps because I made that option look like a folly, with the ships having strong artillery pieces (magical and mundane), the yuan-ti got them a bit spooked, and I also had warforged amongst the crew (my players probably thought these were tougher than your average pirate, which was true). Also, my players had previously discussed strategy, and decided (quite sensibly) that their greatest strengths lay in superior numbers and in having a fortified town to defend. They had also done some divination and knew the invaders were not just pirates but also yuan-ti, warforged, and demons. I think it all depends on what your players come to expect out of your games - in my games, my players tend to expect me to present situation that are realistic as opposed to always winable, so here they no doubt figured that if they just tried to take out all the ships themselves, then I'd let them have it and they would be crushed. Which is about right. Although potentially I'd just use the situation to tie up the Pc's with one ship, and the others would go past them and get into the business of destroying the town while the Pc's are not there to save it. That was basically my strategy for the pirates all along - if they found a point of resistance, the pirates would not get bogged down, a few troops would stay to tie up the defenders, while the rest of the invaders went in elsewhere. That makes sense as far as the pirates go, and it also makes for a fun, dynamic invasion where the Pc's have to keep trying to work out where they should go to next.
Sweet, would love to see it, I'll be needing to convert in early 2010. For the last parts of The Lightless Depths, I have finished converting them as follows: The fight with 6 Hook Horrors and 2 Fool's Breath Mycolids went OK, I had some Razorvine (MotP) scattered about which became useful terrain. When the leader of the Mongrelfolk showed the PC's the hibernating Aboleth, my guys decided to take it to a pool of water and revive it, after binding it in ropes. In its madness it just attacked, and they found it not too difficult to kill (Aboleth Overseer; elite controller 18). For area J, I used it as above but swapped one Rhadogessa Swarm for a Rust Monster Terror Lodestone (controller 14, including a few powers from various rust monsters). The fight went OK but the rust monster didn't get to eat anyone's sword (and the swordmage wasn't worried because he could easily re-form it himself) or armour. I've also made the exit of area J be a cliff face, with a Balhannoth (elite lurker 13) at the bottom in a big cave (it teleported into the Rhadogessa fight, then teleported back out when hit), with a little cave above the bigger one where lurks a Grimlock Ambusher (elite lurker 13). At the end of the little cave it a rope bridge, at the end of which are 4 Grimlock Beserkers (artillery 13 i.e. with longbows). The layout is from an encounter in Three Faces of Evil (2nd part of the Age of Worms AP), so the PC's need to descend one cliff, then decide if they go through the little cave in the middle or the bigger one below, then how they get past the grimlocks. With only a one of PC's having flight, and two having telport, it should be a decent challenge. For sneaking into Golgesmera, and/or finding the tear etc, I've devise a pretty lose Skill Challenge. On fail(s), it could become more of a chase scene, where heaps of other Kopru or whatever are seen in the distance and the PC's must get away (e.g. to the Tear, or somewhere similar) before they get overwhelmed, or just deal with the random encounters - so basically a number of the ideas in the adventure will be rolled into the skill challenge. On success, they can ambush or follow a set of kopru guards, hear/see interesting things, etc. One thing I do want to avoid is needless skill challenges, e.g. destroying the tear is not something the PC's should fail at, so I'll just let them destroy it and move on. For encounters, I've got 4 Kopru Scouts (controller 12, based on an aboleth), carried by 8 Foulspawn (14 minion solider), and 2 Solamith Demons (artillery 15) in tow. The Kopru also have soarsleds (Eberron Campaign Guide) to get themselves around without their pall bearers. Then Rakis-Ka the Soulspike Devourer (elite soldier 16), by himself at first but when it becomes a fight he'll be joined by 2 Maw of Acamar (controller 15), and a Festering Morass (elite brute 16). The other wandering monster encounters all seem pretty lame so won't be used. At Tlaloc's Crater, the Neh-Thalggu Scion (Brain Collector) is a re-skinned beholder (solo artillery 16), with 4 Foulspawn Ragehulks (brute 15). Instead of eye-based powers, it's just spells, but the effects are all the same. Then I gave him a mind-flayers ability to eat a brain, which allows him to cast a couple of spells as a free action too. That seems to get a pretty good 4e version of the 3.5 critter. At Holashner's Ziggurat, the Pc's won't have a fight until they get to Q3, then it will be 4 Kopru Behemoths (brute 17; re-skined Aboleth Lasher), 2 Solamiths (artillery 15), an Altar of Zealotry (lurker trap 15, DMG 92), and Ulioth (elite controller 18; re-skined Aboleth Overseer). The altar also extends the range and scope of their mind control powers (via rituals). Q3 and Q4 are all filled with water. The Bile Wretch (solo lurker 17-18) will be a re-skined Elder Black Dragon, adding an acidic aura, probably with 4 more Foulspawn (15 brute). From there, I think my players will go back to find the Lair of Emraag the Glutton (Elite soldier 19); he'll be accompanied by his Living Breath (artillery 19) and 3 Kuo-Toa Monitors (skirmisher 16) each riding a war shark (skirmisher 14). Again, this bit will all be underwater (pretty sure the wizard has a ritual to cover that, and one PC is a water+fire Genasi).
We ended up with a half-elf Avenger, an elf druid, and a human cleric of the raven Queen. I still feel that there is something missing from the group. Any suggestions on a good fourth member DMPC to round out this group? I agree with Jeremy and co - adding a DM-PC is never a great idea... as a player I've never liked it, and as DM I avoid it like the plague because while creating a PC is fun as DM I've got enough to do focusing on what's important to running a good game for the players rather than stealing their limelight. Adding a companion character could work, as it's simple to run and hence you can find a player who's willing to run it without it being a burden. However... what is it you actually think is missing from the group above? I'm not so sure a defender / tank is actually what's missing, to me this group looks like it should be capable - middle of the road, perhaps, but each of these characters should be solid in their own right and together I'm sure they have some synergies and I don't see any glaring holes... As I see it, the group has someone to lay the beat-stick down (Avenger), someone to control the battlefield and also lay some smack down (Druid), and someone to keep everyone healthy and buffed as well as also lay down some damage (Cleric). The only question would be do they have a good spread of skills and rituals, but if not they can tweak their existing characters. So in theory, I think it's a decent group of 3; certainly quite viable. I'd be careful in upsetting the overall balance by introducing a fourth character - one PC per player is almost always best in my experience (the only other times we've varied from this in my groups, it's usually two PC's each, or one PC and one companion / follower each). So what kind of role, or capabilities, do you think the group lacks? Most importantly, what do the players think?
Yep, I'm certainly no skill challenge expert, but the crux of the good skill challenge is that there must be a difference between success and failure, and failure should always be an option. In other words, if you want the PC's to get some info, it's not a skill challenge, it's role-play where, one way or another, you help guide the PC's towards where you want them to go. If, on the other hand, it's possible for the PC's to not get the info, and perhaps even make some enemies as a result of their failed negotiations, then that could well be a useful skill challenge. A skill challenge is only useful if it can result in at least two possible outcomes, and you want to challenge the players' PC's to determine which path they end up going down. Pretty much like a fight, except ideally there's a higher probability of failure in a skill challenge (as failure in a skill challenge shouldn't be as dramatic as failing in combat - the story will take a challenging twist, but that's about it). The skill challenge experts that I do know of are the crew from At-Will, they have written lots of good advice as well as example skill challenges - here's a link to a starting place, they have others too so have a look around their site:
Nothing wrong with that idea - when I was trying to explain who the Lords of Dread were last night (the PC's were talking to the Trog spirit i.e. the Aboleth), I mentioned the Kopru, and described them, and the players pretty much said "Oh, like mind flayers then". Which they are, really. At least my players are freaked about entering a city full of creatures with domination powers... You can still leave in the weird far-real style critters though, they still work with a mind-flayer theme, in fact, possibly even better. I guess that's the one thing about the Isle of Dread parts of the STAP - they re-use most of the original parts of the X1 adventure, but if none of you players know anything about that, you may as well change it up to make it work better for you all... Kind of like those little gliding ewok-dudes - maybe fine before ewoks actually existed, but use with care now in case you make them a comical part of your game...
Yeah, I'm biased by my own group's PC's too. I mean, my group's daggermaster rogue is pretty brutal by himself especially if he gets in early, but when the warlord and rogue team up and thrown down their good encounter or daily powers, it ends up with 2-3 PC's beating down upon a single monster, which ends up prone, dazed, uncouncious, you name it, it's just like a bunch of nasty punks kicking some poor guy on the ground - the idea of a fair fight just doesn't come into it. Sure, a Cleric can give out some good buffs, but the warlord's ability to not only buff but actually grant additional attacks means that if the PC's want to kill a creature quickly, they can often do that in 1, maybe 2 rounds max even for most elites. The warlord's ability to boost eveyone's initiative, and bonuses on the first round especially if he goes before them, just makes it even easier for the group to really lay down the smack early on, and gain a distinct advantage. Last night, they had two tough fights, but in each the warlord and rogue combined, with a bit of minor help, to take out the toughest monster on the battlefield part-way through round #2. But as I say, it depends on what level your playing, and what kind of flavour your players like best. Most of mine tend to prefer attack over defense, with more risk in return for a chance of winning faster. So the warlord and rogue combo works really well, they can make sure the rogue gets his sneak attack hit in, and potentially grant even more free basic melee attacks to the rogue or defender to maximise the damage output per round. At Heroic Tier, it was all about getting in as many decent hits as possible, whereas at Paragon tier it's more about fishing for critical hits (and sneak attack of course). With a Cleric, I think it would be less offense, and a bit more defense / durability. I actually have a Cleric in my group now; he's just joined, and is probably still getting to grips with how best to make an impact, but looking at it from my DM's chair I do think he offers less overall to the group (lucky the player is running him as much for flavour as anything else). The Wizard dailies are pretty awesome, and its easy for that PC to cover off all rituals with decent Int and Wis (and skill training in nature, as wizards can spare a feat more easily than a lot of other classes). I've definitely noticed quite a change from Heroic to Paragon Tier, especially as the players have swapped around a few powers and feats to really ramp up the party synergies. So the rogue is now all about maximising the attacks per round to get critical hits, while the warlord has many more powers that get the rest of the group extra attacks, bonuses to hit and damage, move people around, plus the usual healing and granting extra saves to keep everyone healthy. That's not to say that the others in the group don't play a useful part, its just that currently it seems the warlord and rogue are the central planks around which the rest of the party fill in the gaps. So I think my group would work pretty well with 3, 4 or 5 PC's, as long as the rogue and warlord were there :-)
Hey this is very cool, I'll probably get a bit of re-use out of the latter part, although just last night I told the guys the Lords of Dread were Kopru, so although the Shadar-Kai idea is good I'll leave it as Kopru. On the plus side for me, the players are freaked about going into a Kopru city, so have back-tracked to look for more info in Barbas. Have you done a similar doc about the City of Broken Idols? I'd love to see that if you do... In terms of my group, last session they had two major encounters: The Burning Pools - Living Cloudkill (elite brute 19) with 3 previous victims: Wailing Ghost aka Banshee x 2 (controller 12), Battle Wight (elite soldier 16), and Burning Vapor (trap: obstacle 11). The acid pools were 5d10 damage per round, and these actually caused a lot of damage to my PC's! The living cloudkill was killed early, as was one of the Banshees. With a lot of luck, one Banshee lasted a long time and caused a bit of fun, but I rolled terribly for the Wight so he only landed one hit. Still, it was a pretty fun encounter, especially pushing and immobilising PC's into the acid pools! The Hanging Forest - Roper Lasher (elite controller 16) and 8 Aberrant Flingers (6 x minion 13, 2 x brute 13). The PC's used their trog guide, and the party rogue pretending to be a sacrifice, to gain a surprise round vs the roper, and then nearly all of them beat the monsters on init too. It helped that the party warlord just happened to speak Primordial and called out to the roper in that language - a lucky break! I caused a bit of fun with my flingers, with four minions arriving on round 1, then 2 brutes round 2, and 2 minions round 3. But the poor Roper was nearly dead on round 1, as the rogue and warlord went to town and the PC's caused nearly 200 hp of damage on him in 1 round (5 PCs, level 14). He managed to grab two PC's, but that didn't stop them killing him next round. I grabbed another PC with a flinger, but failed to throw them off the edge (in fact, the rogue threw a flinger off the edge at one point) F1. The Maze - I used a skill challenge a bit like DMaples. I originally planned to run it until 6 successes, but by the time the players were up to round 3 they had settled into a plan that couldn't really fail, including the use of magic items and rituals as well as PC's using skills they all had really good scores on - at one stage the wizard got over 40 on his Nature roll! So I let them complete it after 3 or 4 rounds. On each failure, I was going to throw in some kind of random encounter, with 3 failures bringing in the hook horrors too, but these were not required. Mind you I was quite prepared to skip the whole side-trek to Barbas anyway, it's only because the PC's insisted on going there for more info that I'm running it. So I'll definitely use this as mostly a role-play opportunity, to make sure the PC's learn about the Kopru City and how to destroy the Kopru and production of the Pearls... F2. The Killing Fields - the PC's stopped, watched the Hook Horrors do a kind of war-dance, and the party rogue (bugbear) did his own war-dance in return (intimidate). That was kinds fun, and mongrelfolk kids etc had a look over the town walls. The party swordmage (fire genasi) then hailed the mongrelfolk, and rolled a terrible diplomacy. A few mongrelfolk yelled things like, "sod off, weirdo" and someone threw a rock at him (missing, of course). So the rogue took a few steps forward, hands raised to show he meant no threat, and started to try his own diplomacy... at which point of course the (stupid) hook horrors charge forward to attack. We're running that fight next session, but my plan is 6 hook horrors (soldier 13), with 2 Fool's Breath Mycolid (artillery 11). Once the PC's get on top of that fight, I'll have the remaining monsters flee or be called off by the town leader.
Yeah, unfortunately that's often the way wilderness travel goes, especially with higher level PC's as if they only get a couple of encounters per day they throw everything they have at them and don't feel challenged, then rest and everything re-sets. At least for me, there are a few interesting role-play opportunities here, and I beefed up some of the fights to be a bit more challenging (though still not especially so, in the end). My guys are currently stressing about how they can deal with a whole city of Kopru though, so have headed back to see the Mongrelfolk to learn more before they enter - that's one weakness of the adventure I've seen - the players want to take out these "Lords of Dread", but have no idea how to stop the production of the pearls, not even any idea about the city's features... at best, they get a couple of NPC's handing them the quest(s) on a plate - it would be better if, somehow, the PC's could figure out more stuff themselves through clues, and make their own conclusions and plans, rather than having to be told by an NPC. Certainly my guys don't feel good about just wandering into a city full of hostile kopru, hoping to stumble into the BBEG's or whatever...
I've been running a group from 6th, we're up to 14th now, and we've usually had 4 PC's but sometimes 5. For most of that time, there was no Defender. Even now, the defender is a Swordmage, which tends to jump around a lot (teleport powers), so he's not the traditional "tank" type of defender; we had a dwarf fighter for one session, which I made up for a player who didn't have time to make anything himself, but as I made a mistake alluded to above and made him too hard to hit and too durable, so both me and the player agreed in hindsight he should have been made more rounded in order to be more effective and also more fun (the same player is now the swordmage, and while he's got the best AC it could be better, but he's keeping his defenses lower in order to be better in other areas like making sure he can deal out good damage). From my DM's chair I'd observe that the group has never really had a typical defender, and it's still a very effective group. Without the swordmage, the warlord was the closest to a defender, although the barbarian and rogue also did their share of keeping the wizard and/or bow-ranger away from harm (usually to the detriment of the rogue's healing surges, but that player likes to live dangerously anyway). Certainly the one thing I'd say is critical is having a good striker, and that as you go up in levels, that only gets more important. The game is just so much more fun when you've got at least one PC who can rip shreds out of the opposition, and the others in the group rally around and help make sure that the striker is set up to do so as often as possible. It might sound a bit like the bad old days of 3.x where some cheese-ball PC build can kill the opposition by itself, but it's not, it's more a case of everyone realising their strengths and playing to them:
So when you look at it that way, my advice is quite simple... In order of priority, to be most effective, and hence most fun ('cause it's not very fun when the game drags out into a slog-fest), the PC's need:
Then whatever the mix, one PC should be able to cast rituals, and have decent Arcana as well as Nature. For example, making #3 a wizard makes this easy. It's hard to cover off all the skills, especially with 3 PC's, but that's not such a biggie. So:
Lastly, I'd note how the nature of the classes changes over time - at Heroic tier, the difference between our rogue's damage output and that of say the defender wasn't so huge. Now, around Paragon, each role is more clearly defined, and I see a lot of player thinking going on in terms of making sure each PC plays its role well, and also that the group has a good spread of capabilities. For example the warlord has dropped some of his old powers that granted saves, because he can do that other ways now, and he focuses on lots of buffing stuff as well as dishing out extra attacks to the group; the rogue can do so much damage now, and adds new ways with each new level or magic item, that no-one else even tries to keep up or pretend they are a secondary striker, they all look to accentuate the strengths that their particular class has that no-one else does; the wizard focuses hard on genuine control spells and getting (and using) lots of rituals; the defender tries to mark as many opponents as possible as much as a "de-buff" than anything else; the Cleric is new and is also focusing on buffs, but I suspect his introduction will eventually lead to a surplus of healing which I'll counter with more hard-hitting enemies and brutal DM tactics to ensure it doesn't become boring ;-) So bear in mind that things change over time... best to worry about the first level or two, and work the rest out as you go along.
The thing that makes 4e great for me, is that it removes the need for much prep time, and increases the amount of things that everyone needs to think about during the course of game play at the table. We all getting older, have a busy job, partner and/or family as well as plenty of other commitments, and can only get together for a few hours every week or two, let alone spare much time for prep in between. So that change, from doing most of your thinking off the table to doing most of your thinking at the table, is fundamental to the success of 4e. Obviously if that's not your cup of tea then 4e might not be for you - I certainly lost at least one player in moving from 3.5 to 4e, but then again he was the player that caused me (and some other players) the most headaches in 3.5 so it wasn't a loss, it was a gain. Having played all editions of the game for some time, I like the balance that 4e has: in some ways it is quite simple and open so you are more free to do what you want, yet it also has plenty of tactical complexities to engage our brains. The key thing is that, until you play a few sessions, it's very hard to appreciate how 4e actually works. Reading things in print, and actually experiencing them, are often quite different - things that you thought would work well, when you read them, might play out differently, as the various subtle factors involved in the 4e system are hard to fathom in their entirety until you see them in action. Especially if you are used to 3.x, as a lot of things just work differently, as the emphasis on things has changed. For example, maximising your chances to hit is so much more important in 4e than it ever was, for all classes, as there is so much more riding on each hit. Then depending on what type of character / role you are playing, other things come into play that differ a lot from previous editions, or example the controller often wants to impose big penalties on foes, and have those penalties last as long as possible (e.g. impose penalties on saving throws), while the leader wants to buff and remove conditions on allies, while the striker needs to find ways to maximise the number of hits and damage per hit, then of course the defender wants to tank effectively. The thing is the way you do these things in 4e is generally different than you would be used to under 3.x, and playing a few sessions is the best way to get your head around all the differences and properly appreciate what to focus on and what looks interesting on paper but doesn't really work. Because, unlike in 3.x where one or two characters can carry the rest of the crew in any given encounter, in 4e it really does require a team effort most of the time. Which I feel is the game's other main strength - it's more of a team game... p.s. great comments above from Jeremy and Stefan, I agree 100%.
Same for all the book-keeping - I basically make sure the players keep track of everything except the monsters hit points - after all, there's 4 or 5 of them and only one of me, why should I have to do all the work? The 4e mechanics support this model really well, there's more complexity in a fight, but if you hand that complexity to the players, as DM you are free to concentrate on stuff that makes a better game, and the players are more engaged and hence having more fun rather than just waiting for their next turn (or worse, concentrating on something else completely). I find that under 4e, there is so much less annoying side-talk, as everyone is actually paying attention to what's going on (there's always potential they might be able to contribute, even if it's not their turn yet).
Indeed, re-skinning, as it's often known, is a very useful technique when converting. And in 4e, you can use the monster builder to tweak your Kruthic's stats to match your vision of Giant Crabs, in just a few minutes. I do this a lot... For example (in my Savage Tide 4e game) I've recently made an advanced dimetrodon (dinosaur) by re-skinning a rage drake ravager - with no changes to its stats at all, it made a decent 4e brute, and its flavour seemed fine with what you'd expect a dimetrodon to be (fast and furious). I even used a rage drake ravager mini, and stuck a piece of red cardboard on the top for its fin ;-) For blackfang Rhagodessa, I took pieces of two other monsters and made a paragon level skirmisher with a grab, bite and scuttle (shift when carrying), and made it inflict damage when you escaped; I also made a swarm version based on some other swarm of paragon tier - took me about half an hour all up. I then copy and paste all the monster stats into a single document, 1-2 pages per fight, so I have the adventure text pretty much as it is for running the adventure, but when it comes to fights I flip to my self-made conversion document and run it from there. The overall effect is that the game plays out pretty much exactly the same, especially if you give some thought to what levels your 4e PC's should be at for which parts of the AP. For example I actually started my Savage Tide adventures around 7th level, starting with a trimmed-down version of the second adventure (which was for around 4th level under 3.5). If it goes to the end, it will finish at 30th level (was around 20th-21st level under 3.5) So I'm very much on Jeremy's side of the fence - you can successfully convert from any edition to any other and make it work. The typical reasons to do so, at least for me, are
For example my Savage Tide 4e game came about because I was excited about trying out 4th edition, but couldn't find anything pre-published that suitably inspired me to actually be the DM, and certainly didn't have time or inclination to try creating anything from scratch. But having successfully run Age of Worms, I thought I'd give Savage Tide a go, setting it in Eberron - the combination of all three elements (STAP, 4E and Eberron) just seemed to click for me, more so than any of them in isolation. As it turns out, we've all enjoyed it, and I've found doing the conversion gives me just enough additional work to do that it flexes my creativity without being a burden on my time. As another example, back when 3.0 came out I ran a group of friends through a conversion of the AD&D (1st edition) G1-3 Against the Giants. It was a bit of a slug-fest, even when I trimmed it significantly, but it worked out pretty well, and was certainly better than my other idea of running them through the Sunless Citadel would have been. So yeah, as DM the most important thing for me is finding a basic campaign idea, and accompanying set of adventures, that I feel inspired to run for my group of players. I love to weave in bits of long-running plots, with recurring characters and themes (some crossing from one campaign to the next), but getting the balance and feel right is most important. With a good set of adventures, which sometimes includes pieces from elsewhere that seem to fit or do that piece better, it doesn't matter what edition they were designed for, you can re-design pieces of them for the edition you are running, and usually when you do they actually turn out better. Especially with 4e, I've found that all the non-combat pieces are pretty well written in the published adventures I'm running, in fact those bits are the main reason I'm running the adventures in the first place. Not to say that they are perfect - you always find a few holes, and also need to tweak or even re-work some pieces completely based on how your campaign is actually shaping up (no plan survives first contact with the enemy intact, and all that, i.e. your game only exists when the players interact with it and take it places you never imagined). But then those kinds of adaptions are what you should do if you were running it in the "right" edition anyway - you always look to improve on the outline the authors have given you. In converting from one edition to another, the primary thing you also get to re-work is the fights - invariably, the extra attention you give it means they turn out better (i.e. more engaging, challenging, and hence fun). To a lesser degree, some non-combat pieces get a similar working over - in examining the old rules and thinking of how to convert them, you see flaws in the author's approach, and look to improve it, usually by expanding bits that are a bit shallow, and trimming pieces that seem superfluous. As a player, I've had the unfortunate experience, more than once, of a lazy DM who decides to just run us through an adventure exactly as written, for better or worse. Invariably we find pieces where it just feels wrong. Now I'm not saying that the DM should have converted those adventures to another edition and they would have been fixed... But I am saying that even if you run adventures as written, you should always spend the time reading it properly and adjusting it in ways that you think will make it more fun for your group. The published adventure is always just the beginning point - a spring-board for the DM to get them (and the players) started. Whether you run it under a different version of rules or not, doesn't really matter much, as to how the adventure plays out - the key is really how much effort the DM puts in to tailor the adventure to make it as much fun as possible for everyone. You could take a 3.x adventure and convert it "as written" to 4e, and I pretty much guarantee it will suck. You could run a "typical" pre-published 4e adventure (WotC) as written, and it would probably be OK, but a bit lacking in the "story" department unless you have some strong story-teller types in the group who come up with fun stuff on the fly. You could run a "typical" 3.5 adventure (Paizo) as written, and it would probably be OK, but a bit lacking in the "fight" department unless you have no min-max types amongst your players. But really, if you take any of these scenarios, and tailor the adventure for your players and their PC's, then you are much more able to make the most of it for everyone. Whether you are converting from one edition to another is, pretty much, irrelevant - doing that adds a bit of work, but overall you should be doing a reasonable amount of customisation anyway, so converting from one edition to another doesn't have to be a large component of that overall customisation workload...
In checking out the origins of the Rhagodessa (it was first published in the D&D Expert Set, I think; it's included in the wandering monster tables of the original Isle of Dread, X1), I found this: http://www.pandius.com/rhagds4e.html I like the "leap off the walls" power, but am sticking with my own version mainly because I prefer an "abduction" build, which meshes with how it was originally published.
Oh, and lastly, as DM don't optimise your tactics all the time - if in doubt, take the risky option rather than the safe option which will likely slow down the battle. For example, don't be afraid to provoke opportunity attacks, ignore defenders marks, let them flank, and so on - let the players enjoy their attacks of opportunity, the fact their marks actually work, and so on - the PC's will then deal out more damage per round, and not get frustrated that they never got to use their cool abilities. Only especially smart and important monsters / NPCs should be treated with the same level of care that a player gives their PC - most monsters should use fairly simple tactics and ignore most of the "if I do this, something bad will happen" options. For example let the PC's track their marks, and just do what you think makes sense for the monster - for example, running off to get the squishy-looking guy in robes instead of going toe to toe with the guy(s) in heavy armour with big sharp weapons...
Revised as follows:
Yep, having at least one good striker in the group makes a big difference. It's like all the PC's could be really defense focused, hard to hit, lots of temp hp, and so on, but with poor damage output, they are going to win eventually, but take a long time getting there - booooring! As the saying goes, the best form of defense is a good offense... I've been DM from 6th to 13th level now, and the group's bugbear daggermaster (brute) rogue is now at the point where, with a little bit of luck, he can put out near to 100 hp of damage in a single round, which is enough to kill a single regulation creature, or bloody most others to the point where a couple of other PC's can finish it off. Sure, he can't do that every round, but he dishes out around 40-50 pretty much every round, give or take, and often a lot more, as he has focused on getting as many attacks in per round (minor action attacks, close blast attacks, re-roll chances, the warlord granting him a free attack), with crits on 18-20, so with great sneak attack damage, and incredible amounts of damage with criticals (which happen a lot due to his multiple attacks and re-roll chances), he's "damage incorporated". At 14th level, he's just picked up ranger multi-class for 2 rounds of 2d6 more damage - he just keeps layering on more and more damage with every new level, magic item, etc. That's exactly what a striker is supposed to do. Without a good striker, preferably two if there's at least 5 PC's, your combats are always going to take longer. The higher up in levels you go, the more pronounced this will become - at low levels a defender can dish damage close to a striker, and perhaps more reliably and at less risk due to being less fragile, at higher levels no-one can get close to the damage output of a well put together striker. The role distinctions become more pronounced at higher levels, at least that's my observation. So yeah, if your PC's are well balanced and decent examples of their roles, fights should not get slower as you gain levels - if anything, I've found plenty of fights go quicker now - a combo of the players getting better at design and game play, the increased capabilities of higher level PC's, and me designing fights that are challenging but not a grind. Personally, I also reduce monsters hp too, and use more of them to balance it out (preferably more monsters that can dish out good damage, like skirmishers). For 4 PC's, I was using encounters designed for 5 players, but using 2/3 hp for each monster. That makes it easier to kill a monster, but keeps up the threat level, and it's really easy to do. For 5 PC's, I'm generally just taking one interesting creature (e.g. a skirmisher), and adding one or two more of them. Although really I'm converting a 3.5 campaign, so generally I'm designing for about 25% more xp per fight than the "standard", and of course 2/3 hp for all monsters. And I use different minions, but that's tangential really, it's just that none of us like the "1 hp minion" idea, especially for higher levels, so wen I do use minions they have 10-20 hp and variable damage, so they hit harder and need a solid hit to be killed in one shot. Anyway, the 2/3 hp and +25% xp rule seems to speed up fights a little bit, and certainly I think it helps make fights a bit more interesting as there's more focus on using your cool powers as generally fights take a couple of rounds less to resolve.
I've DM'd my 4E campaign for about a year now (Savage Tide, set in Eberron), and have found that, once we settled into the new rule-set and the PC's got their PC builds sorted, the actual style and feel of the game is quite close to how it was under my numerous 3.x campaigns. At the end of the day, I'm still running a long, involved campaign, which challenges the players and involves interesting plots and interesting encounters. In fact, I'm running a 3.5 game under 4e rules, and the "feel" of the game in play is about the same as it would have been under 4e... Outside of some specifics around running combat, and an expanded skill-challenge framework (which only gets used occasionally, and quite loosely), I still run the game exactly the same as I did under 3.5, and hence the overall stories that come out of the campaign are pretty much exactly the same. The only real change is perhaps that there is more emphasis on playing the "here and now", rather than the "meta-game". In other words, we still do a bit of preparation before hand (but less than under 3.x), but during actual game play we tend to have more decisions to make, and overall we all have a bit more to do (especially the players). Overall, that's a change I like, especially as we're all getting older and have less free time to spend planning outside of game time. The time spent at the table is more engaging and interesting, easier on the DM, and the group time spent outside of the game is mostly spent with emails catching up on plot details, doing some role-play activity, shopping, etc, rather than planning elaborate PC builds or whatever. The biggest changes for me as DM would simply be in terms of my preparation - I spend less time worrying about any holes in the encounters that my players might exploit, whether something is too hard or too easy, and more time converting and "tuning" the encounters from 3.5 to 4e, to be more challenging and interesting - there are some pretty dull encounters in any 3.x game, and 4e has generally upped the bar in terms of more complex, engaging fights. As a DM, the part of 3.x that I didn't like so much was how players (usually the wizard types, but others from time to time) spent a lot of energy finding the "short cuts" that would win the fight early. With 4e, there is plenty of room for the players to get creative and win more easily, but it's more about the combined group tactics over the course of the fight, rather than the one or two tricks (spells, items, class powers) that kill the baddie with a single shot from a single PC. The closest 4e gets to this is my group's uber-striker, who can dish out enough damage to kill a creature around his level in one round if he's lucky, but that's his role and doesn't imbalance the game at all. From a player's perspective (I've played in a few games, too), I think there's a lot more emphasis on the group under 4e - in 3.x, players would typically optimise their own character with little regard for the group dynamic. In 4e, players tend to optimise their PC's in relation to the rest of the group - more choices (feats, powers etc) are made that help not just their PC but that synergise with the others in their group. Simple examples would be the striker and defender optimising their basic melee attacks because they can get lots of these granted not just by their own magic items but also from the warlord, the warlord choosing lots of powers that buff others and remove bad effects, the wizard choosing powers that forgo more damage in favour of locking down the enemies so others can kill them, ... That's a change I like. In 3.x, it was far too easy for PC's to be wildly out of whack in terms of power, with everyone on a different page in terms of expectations, and it was hard to DM such that everyone felt comfortable with their group and their contribution to it - in 4e, it's pretty easy to get a group of PC's that can work together and feel they all have a useful contribution to make, not just from time to time, but in every encounter. There is a change in complexity between 3.x and 4e. In 3.x, creatures and PC's, especially at higher levels, got pretty complex in terms of what they could do, especially magical ones. For example, a wizard could throw down all kinds of effects, many of which got de-tuned or removed from 4e, and they could use a heap more of the really powerful spells per day (at the expense of running out of spells eventually). Monsters in 3.x were, invariably, more complex, with all kinds of powers and spells at their disposal (even if they never got to use half of them). In 4e, everything, especially monsters, is just more simple, in terms of what its individual suite of powers goes, and in terms of its individual contribution goes. In 4e, it's more about how all these things add up and combine - the PC's are more powerful than the monsters because they have more powers, feats and magic items, and the monsters only give a credible threat because they have more overall hp, can combine in (often) larger numbers, and added together with some interesting terrain they have an interesting combined set of options. There's a bunch of other differences which are really quite trivial on their effect on the actual game play - skills which no-one really took or used anyway (e.g. knowledge architecture? I let my players try dungeoneering instead, and really, I've never had a PC take that skill under 3.x, so at least in 4e they had a chance of knowing enough to help out) - rituals vs combat spells generally make sense and is a trivial difference in how things play out (except you don't have to wait a day for the wizard to memorise the right spell, he can generally cast whatever he wants in about ten minutes max) - plenty of other changes, but the overall effect on game play is trivial. So yeah, overall, 4e feels pretty much the same to me, we still play a campaign filled with fun fights and fun adventures and plots that span a long period of time. There's just more emphasis on how things combine rather than any one piece - the players spend more time working together, and I spend more time putting together monster combos rather than over-working any single NPC or whatever.
Ummm.... I ran AoW all the way through, and the BBEG at the end is Kyuss, the worm-god, pretty much your "typical immortal" really. There's plenty of interesting stuff wrapped around that, but in the end the PC's are fighting a God of some sort, who's trying to enter the world and lay the smack down... The most interesting, or at least different part of the final fight is probably what additional opponents the PC's have to fight at the same time. For example, in my group they managed to have Lashonna there too, which made it especially hard for them - now she was a good example of a somewhat non-traditional BBEG... The players always knew they would end up fighting Kyuss, but they never knew what or who else would be helping him until they got there...
Actually, reading Wells of Darkness gives a lot more info about Ahazu the Seizer, and page 82 gives more powers that could be given to the Tooth. I'm not so sure my monk-based powers are the best now... Something like this might be OK:
It's going very well thank you, and thanks to everyone I've borrowed ideas from... Here's a few highlights from my game so far, in a bit of a random order... My guys have just finished encountering the Trogs, which went pretty well, except maybe because I was a bit tired I was a bit sloppy in running a fight with some 12-14 opponents (B4, B5) and got a bit mixed up as to who was what kind of trog. But generally it was easy to plan out, using the latest version of the monster builder I just quickly edited up Trog Champions and Trog Scourges to level 11, and Blightborn and Chanter to level 13, then assembled a few encounter groups. Prior to that, I made Emraag the Glutton a dragon eel (level 19 soldier), but the PC's simply bartered with him, somewhat fearful of fighting a huge dragon at "only" 13th level. However once they are higher level, they plan on locating his lair (e.g. locate object ritual on the treasure they gave him), and getting their tribute back (likely by killing him). For a fight, I always planned on adding his his Living Breath (also level 19), and about 4 Kuo-Toa Monitors. Note: if the PC's failed the skill challenge (barter), I planned on The Glutton fighting only until he was bloodied, at which point he'd call truce and reward the PC's with a tribute of his own (a magical ring) for their honour and skill. I think he'll be a fun opponent to fight, because his defenses are so high (the PC's will still probably only be about 15th level if they go back later), and the helpers I've added should add variety and extra firepower. Earlier, my guys really enjoyed the whole Farshore and Isle of Dread piece - fighting off Slipknot Pete (and getting Lefty as a sort of cohort for the bugbear rogue PC), then preparing the colony for the Crimson Fleet invasion. As we only play once every 2 weeks, it was over a month of preparation and expectation, some of it done via email which worked well. The PC's were newly level 11, and I made a lot of pirates level 8, so they got to really flex their new powers and feel powerful, which is what the beginning of Paragon should be all about I think. Around the island, I didn't worry about random encounters much except to sprinkle a few in either just before the "big fight", or just after. For Zotzilla (level 12 solo), I used two different types of Fire Bats (level 10), one regular, one with a puff of smoke that the PC's hated. But my guys all had fire resistance, so it wasn't overly tough for them. For Tonatiub the Couatl etc, I made the Giant Anaconda a Feyborn Constrictor (elite soldier 11), with 3 shambling mounds (brute 14) and made the illusion trap have Vicious Vipers at the bottom (obstacle 10). Tonatiub was a Couatl Star Serpent (elite controller 15), and if it became a fight (which it didn't for me), he could have summoned (as a minor action) 3 deva knights-errant (level 11 soldier) + 1 phoelarch warrior (elite skirmisher 12); I included blood rock as terrain. When made friendly, his feather gift functioned as a scroll of consult mystic sages ritual. Just as the PC's exited the little dungeon, they were set upon by a group of Scarlet Brotherhood Monks: a cleric (elite controller 12) with 6 monks (skirmisher 9), all of them custom-built. The players thought the monks would be tough, but alas they were mown down really easily (my poor init rolls didn't help, but I think I needed tham to be at least +2 levels each). On the way back to their ship, just before they got there I had them encounter a pair of demented stegosaurus (bloodspike behemoths, with the relentless killer template applied). Skephilipika the Kopru was an adjusted mind flayer with a druid power (elite controller 12) and his elasmosaur companion a re-skinned shark (brute 10), I also added some "raised" creatures (dead crew were were now monsters under the Kopru's command, lurker 12, based on some plant creature). Temauhti-Tecuani the T-Rex was based on the Fang Titan Drake, but level 16 and made a Solo. I gave him grab and fling powers, hoping to have him pick up a PC or two and throw them into the sticky tar (which burned and immobilised, save ends). He was wearing Gorilla Gloves and Swiftpad Boots. Alas, my dice were having a poor day and he was dispatched relatively easily. Mind you, I wasn't too worried about making too many of these missions overly challenging - the main event was meant to be the Crimson Fleet invasion, with role-play and some minor fights leading up to it. The final invasion was fun - initially I had a Changeling (doppleganger) arrive, disguised as Vanthus, fly in on a "Hippogriff" (Vrock disguised with an illusion by the yuan-ti), flying a white flag to parley. My players definitely didn't expect that, and we had some fun discussions before the PC's knocked him out and captured him, reading the note I planted on him in case they just killed him first (the note said something like, "this is your last warning, let us enter your port peacefully or we will be forced to use strength of arms"). I managed to get my players to fire the first shots, at which point the pirates' superior firepower (including better range) from the boats led to the defenders retreating. Rather than have the pirates simply destroy the place with artillery fire, I had them park the boats near the shore and cover the approach of the ground troops. My players had already prepped their defenders to fight but withdraw when pressed, so it worked out really well... The pirate ground troops were still only 8th level; vs 13th level PC's it was a slaughter, something like 20 pirates killed very quickly (hardly any were minions), but I set it up such that the pirates attacked multiple fronts so the PC's had to keep running around picking off important fights etc. I had warforged and House Cannith artificers manning the ships, but the PC's never tried to board one. The golems were cool - I had three flesh golems and a web golem - that fight was definitely tough and up to expectations. The final fight was Vanthus (elite brute 18) and his bodyguard (lurker 18), with 3 Vrocks. Lavinia was there too - the PC's had just got back in time to see Vanthus arriving to get her. Alas, my PC's assassinated the bodyguard in about one round, and the Vrocks were a bit boring. In retrospect, I should have had some more pirates / warforged run into the fight at this stage, to keep the PC's on their toes. As it was, Vanthus managed to kill Lavinia fairly early on (she was run by a player, whose PC is her fiance), but Vanthus killed a bit easier than me or my players expected - the Vrocks are a bit of a lock-down foe, but don't really have enough damage output in my opinion (especially when my bodyguard was killed so early). Amazingly, we actually ran the whole Crimson Fleet invasion, some six fights plus role-play, in a single 5 hour session (I'd budgeted on it taking two 4-hour sessions). Coming up, I have changed the Burning Pools' black pudding to be a Living Cloudkill (elite brute 19) with 3 previous victims (Wailing Ghost aka Banshee, controller 12), making the poison be Burning Vapor (obstacle 11), and also some Collapsing Ruins (terrain which attacks when you're shoved into it) for the monsters to push people into. The The Hanging Forest has a Roper Lasher (elite controller 16) and also 8 Aberrant Flingers (minion 13), with Razorvine (terrain) to move people into - on paper that's an easy fight, but I'm hoping it will still be fun to mess with the PC's. The PC's will get through the trogs, living spell and ghosts, and roper all in one day, possibly even a random encounter. One thing I do find is that the players really like to have an "extended day", with lots of encounters before they need an extended rest, and at times that is hard to achieve. I've pre-planned two random encounters: a Destrachan Far Voice (artillery 15) with 3 Foulspawn Ragehulks (brute 15); a Bristle Spider (lurker 15) with (re-skinned) Lolth’s Brutal Swarms x 2 (soldier 17); each of these isn't overly tough, and is pretty simple for me to design and run, which is what I think a random encounter should be (save the major prep and complex fights for the set-pieces). From there, it's mostly role-play for a couple of days, with the main fight potentially being with 6 Hook Horrors (soldier 13) + 4 Fool's Breath Mycolid (artillery 11; google Fool's Breath Mycolid for the 9th level version recently posted somewhere). N'glothnoru makes use of illusion rituals (Hallucinatory Creature, Hallucinatory Item, Seeming), and is an aboleth overseer (elite controller 18) if it comes to combat. Then there's the Rhadogessa just before they hit the underground city. I created my own stats as follows, for Blackfang Rhadogessa (created from scratch, using ideas from Ankheg and Umber Hulk) + Rhadogessa Swarms (a modified cockroach swarm). Here's the results: 3 x Blackfang Rhagodessa Level 15 Skirmisher
3 x Rhagodessa Swarm Level 14 Skirmisher
Note: if you are going to use these as the basis for Heroic-tier monsters, you might want to drop the ongoing damage altogether as it's harder to get rid of for Heroic PC's, drop them to be Medium size, and change the Scuttle to shift 2. Also, I'm not sure how often I'll actually get to grab a PC - it might be better to use 4 Blackfang Rhagodessa and only 2 Swarms, to increase the chances of ripping one or more PC's to shreds relatively easily (something that's actually quite hard to do vs Paragon-tier PC's, I've found). I haven't planned out the rest of The Lightless Depths yet, but will be doing so soon. Overall I'm keen to keep it on the smaller size, say only two levels of XP worth, and the same for the City of Broken Idols, so that they can enter Scuttlecove when around 17th level, maybe 18th max. That's because I can see a lot of interesting adventures to be had in Scuttlecove, and I also plan on adding a couple of side-trek mini-adventures before and/or after that too, involving some specific Eberron things such as Lady Vol and the Lord of Blades - potential allies of the Crimson Fleet and/or House Cannith, who the PC's must try and neutralise before they go after their primary target (Demogorgon). The only other major plan I have is for the beginning of Into the Maw, where to get to The Maw, the PC’s must first gain entrance via the Khyber, which has a specific entry point they will be guided to - there's a place in Q’barra, which the black dragon Rhashaak guards, so I'll use that; it’s inland so the PC’s will have to sail up-river (which can be done). Mechanics-wise, I'll make it an Orium Dragon (story-wise, it's a black dragon corrupted by the Khyber). Example guardians would be some minor lizardfolk and/or dragonborn prior, but less obvious stuff nearer and/or with the Dragon, e.g. Couatl, undead (created by the dragon from the heroes he’s killed), Horrid Lion. I've still ot to properly read the Eberron Explorer's Handbook (pg 145-148) for more detail, as well as the ECG (150-151). p.s. I'm loving the Monster Builder - I create my own document with 1-2 page "monster sheets" with just the combat stats and tactics, treasure etc for each fight. Ideally I use monsters exactly as published, perhaps adjusting up or down a couple of levels, and re-skin appearances if appropriate. Occasionally I create my own monsters, if there's nothing even close, but even these typically cut and paste powers from similar creatures. That makes my job relatively easy, and means I don't have to do much scribbling on the adventure itself - when a fight comes up, I just flip from my photocopy of the adventure to my monster sheets.
My players ended up taking the coastal route, on horses that could walk on water (we're playing under 4e rules, so it wasn't hard for the Wiz to get uber-horses conjured up). In the end, I lured them into stopping off in the mainland to refresh water and food, and after an hour or so of walking about, they found themselves trapped in Fogmire, unable to get out until they found the evil taint that was stopping them from leaving. The gargoyles etc aren't really an exciting part of the adventure (in my opinion), so I wouldn't sweat it... if your players are dead-set on making their own way from A to B, which ma players tend to be, then let them go the way they want, and just do your best to make sure they stumble upon the critical (i.e. most exciting and plot-relevant) pieces of the adventure at some point. Even if they get to Farshore immediately, you could easily have them arrive before the pirates invade, then go exploring / on some errand, which of course leads to them being stuck in Fogmire... then when they get back, the first set of pirates are attacking... As I say, it's best to let your players do what they want, and as DM you just see to it that, no matter what, the most important piece(s) come about anyway. Then your players don't feel rail-roaded or cheated, but they still get cool adventures.
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