What I would honestly recommend is grabbing the humble bundle that's advertised on the top-left corner of this site right now and, for $15, you get the entire Season 5 of Pathfinder Society scenarios. Flip through the 1-5 tier scenarios and grab some ideas from there.
Generally speaking, an adventure usually includes a few CR = APL encounters, then some non-combat (skills, puzzles, whatever) stuff, and a CR = APL+1 or APL+2 encounter as the "boss."
My go to basic stuff assuming level 1 PCs is skeletons specifically bloody ones, dumb, memorable, sets up a cool BBEG oh and gelatinous cubes, sure they are tanky but it's a lot of fun for ranged characters to shine versus those things
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A good first encounter should be aiming to set the tone of the campaign, and get them into it without killing them or stressing them out. I'd suggest an encounter of CR equal to the average party level, with maybe 4 or 8 plot relevant enemies. What's plot relevant depends on you. (This is also assuming you have a party that's at least somewhat diverse. If you have a weird group, like five wizards, you might need to adjust the encounters with that fact in mind).
(Word of warning: Avoid orcs. Orcs look like a start-of-campaign enemy, but they're a bit unbalanced. Orc encounters go wrong a lot easier than most monsters I've seen, and that doesn't make for a good start to a campaign.)
Yeah I can vouch for the orc thing the first game I ever ran was a TPK because of orcs and poor rolls from my PCs
There's only one place to start - the Crypt of the Everflame! It features so many classic fantasy elements; wilderness travel, mystery, and forces beyond our mortal ken!
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For a long time our campaigns started with the same fight (practically).
The group is lost in the woods, when they come across goblins.
Though tbh,I kinda ruined it the very first time we played d&d. Gm let us pay any race and I wanted to be a minotaur. He said "So you guys are lost in the woods- "and I cut him off and said "no I'm not. "
3.5 minotaurs had a special ability, they simply cannot be lost, and know exactly where they are. Less than 2 seconds before I argued with my gm.
It's an old hat, but I have really enjoyed starting a few of my campaigns off with the old bar room brawl. It is a tried and true way to bring the PCs together, gives a chance for different classes to explore their tactics in a variety of ways (fist-fighting, diplomacy, intimidate, low-level crowd control spells, etc.), and has a low chance of killing the party as the damage should be non-lethal unless the PCs really escalate things. Plus it gives a plethora of avenues to follow as far as campaign story.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
For a long time our campaigns started with the same fight (practically).
The group is lost in the woods, when they come across goblins.
Though tbh,I kinda ruined it the very first time we played d&d. Gm let us pay any race and I wanted to be a minotaur. He said "So you guys are lost in the woods- "and I cut him off and said "no I'm not. "
3.5 minotaurs had a special ability, they simply cannot be lost, and know exactly where they are. Less than 2 seconds before I argued with my gm.
Looks like Pathfinder Minotaurs have this too.
Anyway, it just goes to show . . .