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So, those few of you who recognize me know that I am a huge fan of slower level progression, and campaigns for characters lower than 10th level. (am currently running a game where one of the 11th level characters is dishing out upwards of 150 points per round. Not the player's fault by far, just another symptom of the "build" trend. Like everyone's character is a Magic deck)
Anyway, this is what I purpose. I, with the assistance of other like minded people here on the boards perhaps, will attempt to create an "Adapting the Adventure" post for every adventure in the SCAP. My goal will be to enable conversion of the campaign from a 1-20th level story line to a 1-10th level storyline. The number of adventures will be the same, and this would accomplish each of my individual goals, a 1-10th level campaign, with slower level progression. The campaign would take about as long in real time to run as did the previous version. Most of the accessories can still be used.
Let me know what you think. How valuable would you as a DM find a thread like this? Do you think the people here at Paizo will mind? Of course if this is successful and works out well, then I would seek to do the same for the other adventure paths as well.
I would be using the information on the AP as set down in the hardcover.
Let me know what you think and if any of you might be interested in assisting me. Also, while I am a big proponent of everyone being able to express their own opinions and such, and by posting this I am in no way suggesting that my particular view on advancement speed and level progression is in any way better than anyone elses. If you reply, please refrain from pointless negativity. Thanks.
Tam
If you reply, please refrain from pointless negativity. Thanks.
Er...darn. How about some pointless positivity?
I love how 3e makes high level play viable and likely in a campaign. I love how the game changes duing a campaign from the struggles of common folk with heart to the epic mythologies of living legends. And I love how Shackled City is built for this.
Just sharing the love. And good luck with your project! :)
If you reply, please refrain from pointless negativity. Thanks.Er...darn. How about some pointless positivity?
well, that was pointless :P
I think you should check with your players before you make such a sweeping change. D&D is all about the players/characters and their stories and not so much about the DM.
It's funny you should mention about changing the levels for Shackled City. I just recently started up a new SC campaign and have every intention of revamping the levels to make the campaign from 1-10. I was hoping that after finishing the Shackled City campaign I could start the Age of Worms campaign, taking that campaign from 10-20. I had wanted to do both campaigns with the same characters. Any ideas on changing the campaign that you have I would greatly appreciate it.
Rinna
While I have all the adventure paths, I'm light years away from running any of them. I sympathize with the aims of your projects (I and my group are also fans of lower level campaigns and slower level progressions) and might make use of your work if one day I found the time to run an AP, but I unfortunately am not in a position to contribute to your project.
Good luck!
While I don't plan on limiting my players to 10th level I also share your opinion that the current edition of the game does advance players incredibly fast. In my experience players don't have the same opportunities to grow into their character, familiarize themselves with their new abilities, power etc and gain allies/enemies before they are already gaining new abilities/powers/problems etc
So what I have done is to half the XP gained.
My hope with this is to slow down level advancement so the players had more time playing their characters at each level and so they can make those much needed allies/contacts at lower levels.
This will (fingers crossed) also give me a chance to slot side quests inbetween each offical adventure in the Path. These mini-adventures have been and will be a chance to expand each players background and allow me to provide addition foreshadowing opportunities for the campaign.
I write up the Demonskar Ball and Sasserine (both on the www.RPGenius.com site) for this exact reason.
Anyhow I for one would be very interested to see what you come up with with your 'Scaling the Adventure' sidebars.
Delvesdeep
Delvesdeep, your approach seems good, but be careful that you also have to halve the treasure, or your characters will end up with twice the anticipated treasure for their level as they deal with twice the expected number of encounters to reach each next level.
Delvesdeep, your approach seems good, but be careful that you also have to halve the treasure, or your characters will end up with twice the anticipated treasure for their level as they deal with twice the expected number of encounters to reach each next level.
Good Advice. I've tried to get around this one by introducing new skill, feat and ability training and an esculating fee attached to each. So far this has kept the parties treasure down to an appropriate level.
Magical items are another matters though. I am going to watch this carefully and if I feel the additional magical items that the characters have obtained on their side quests is unblancing the game I'll switch them in future advetures. I'm taking a wait and see approach with this at the moment.
This is the first time I've attempted something like this so I'm interested in how it will pan out.
Thanks again for the advice
Delvesdeep
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So what I have done is to half the XP gained.My hope with this is to slow down level advancement so the players had more time playing their characters at each level and so they can make those much needed allies/contacts at lower levels.
This will (fingers crossed) also give me a chance to slot side quests inbetween each offical adventure in the Path. These mini-adventures have been and will be a chance to expand each players background and allow me to provide addition foreshadowing opportunities for the campaign.
Delvesdeep
I intend to run SCAP with the same developed house rules that I run in my existing campaign. A system that I borrowed from the newly enjoyed Dungeons & Dragons Online game.
In short: xp is not derived from monster killing. Thereby it takes the onus away from players who feel they need to kill everything in order to earn xp and advance.
Instead each completion of quest or campaing related goal has a fixed XP assigned to it. As it applies to SCAP is that the DM assigns an XP amount to many variables: such as "impressing persons at the ball" or "befriending a potential specific ally" or "winning over the gnome locksmith to give out info as to who stole the children" etc. (im using vague references as I have yet to read most of the setting so far).
This allows the DM to advance the game as he/she sees fit. This can drastically slow down the advancement of the game and allow for many side plots and quests to branch off of the main: thus allowing for more developed stories and progression of character development.
Conversely, Most players I've been in contact with (and I'm sure many of those out there i haven't, including yours) does like to see some sort of "Numerically" based advancement for their character so that they feel they've accomplished something tangible (instead of something merely aesthetic which we as DMs know is its own reward).
Thus I have borrowed the "rank" system from DDO. Each character level is divided into three parts. In order to advance to level two, the character must earn the needed xp THREE times (as opposed to five in DDO). However, each time that amount of XP is reached they gain a class or race based enhancement/ability.
Most are small numeric bonuses to a skill, or attack or saving throw roll that the player chooses for his character. That way the character does become trivially better at something, but nothing game-balance shattering.
Once he/she gains another 1000, they go to Rank 2 and gains another boost. Then at 1000 more they level to Level 2. Then they need 2000 more xp to get to Rank 1, and so on.
I wrote an extensive list in Excel and categorized by race or class based ability enhancements the required level needed to take it, and Most allow themselves to be taken again (stacking the bonus) with a listed number of levels needed to be gained before being allowed to take it.
For instance: Rogues at 3rd level can choose to take a +1 to damage when dealing sneak attacks. Again not going disrupt balance, but its something tangible that the player looked forward to gaining. Then at 6th level he can take it again, or another enhancement.
This also goes to adding diversity to the characters. No two rogues are going to be the same since they may prefer different enhancements; while one rogue chose the +1 damage when making sneak attacks, the other one chose a +1 bonus to his move silent and Hide checks.
I have already visualized using this system in SCAP which allows for me to play with adding in a bunch of now SCAP material or story/character development based material and not have to worry about the PCs becoming too high of level for each given section of the book.
The way I do it in my existing campaign is Each quest/module the PCs complete, they gain a Rank. This allows also for much more modules and quests, and dungeon magazine adventures to be played. I was always annoyed when the characters would level too high and all these cool Dungeon Mag adventures would be released for 4 levels lower than they were. Now I run three Dungeon quests at each level before the characters advance.
The one thing that you need to look out for, as someone pointed out, is the potential for too much wealth acquired by the PCs (if they're getting the treasure of three modules per level). How I corrected this is two fold: first, magic is so abundant in weapons etc that they can't really be sold. Frankly, who cares the party has 20 +1 LongSwords; they can only use one at a time, and since they're worth very little to sell, it doesn't really gain them alot by selling them. Barter is very popular in my current campaign, so they usually trade them for other reasons, like voyage on a ship, or information, or safe refuge, or having a clerical spell cast on them when it's needed; and two, most of the cool magical items that would be found in a module are instead end quest gifts by the givers of a particular quest; and usually its one item for the group, so I'm not giving out magical items to the whole party - its usually an item that the party can use as a "party". For instance, I ran the Dungeon quest (cant remember the name) where the PCs go out to sea to recover a missing ship that suddenly reappeared on the horizon; the benefactor: Aubreck asked that the PCs recover a chest with his magical trinkets in it (some Figurines of Wondrous Power among other things) that were dear to him. As a reward, Aubreck gave the party a Silver Raven Wondrous Item that they party still uses occasionally to send a message. A very non-balance breaking but cool trinket that aids the whole party.
Sorry for the length of the post, and sorry if it doesnt help you, but I figured I'd share my attempts at a slower progression too. Regardless, i do not intend to stop at 10th level, but I did successfully slow down advancement, but not disgruntle players in doing so. AND as I said, took the onus off of killing things, thus provoking more role-playing encounters. FYI the current campaign they all just made 6th level and they really enjoy the Rank and Enhancement system.
Robert