I need some suggestions for great low-level urban adventures. I'm looking for something dramatic and dynamic right off the start, not exactly easy to find at 1st level. These are experienced PCs who have seen it all before; I want to blow their dice away.
Suggestions for awesome 1st Level adventures from just about any published module ever are welcome. I have all of Paizo's adventure books, about 4/5 of the PFS Scenarios, all of Dungeon Magazine and a host of other published adventures from which to pick. I can't see the forest cuz all the trees are in the way: I'm overwhelmed with too many choices so I'm coming here for ideas.
The adventure will take place in Korvosa a year-and-a-half after Curse of the Crimson Throne and a few weeks after another long-term campaign in Korvosa/Varisia ( in which vampires from Ustalov (from Carrion Crown) invaded, Queen Ileosa was resurrected, Runelords Sorshen and Krune were almost awakened, and the PCs accidentally raised the city of Xin from the ocean floor.)
Now, a couple weeks later, a new group of 1st Level Korvosans need an adventure to get a new campaign off the ground, giving them enough experience to draw the attentions of Sheila Heidmarch so she can send them on a grand quest that will make them legends in their time (by preventing the rise of all the Runelords).
We won't start for another few months, and I'll be scoring the upcoming AP for material as it comes in each month starting August -- I just need a great 1st Level adventure, urban setting, to get started.
ALL suggestions appreciated!
Ooh, "Murder's Mark" is one I hadn't yet thought of.
I've been looking at the second of the 'Free Port' trilogy, "Terror in Free Port," since it has fewer pirate motifs than 'Death' and 'Madness.' I'm also taking a close look at "The Styes" to see if I can find a way to Level it Down.
With these to pull from I should be able to have fun coming up with a good Homebrew adventure in Korvosa for 1st Level PCs that will lead to the campaign Macguffin.
But keep 'em coming!
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EDIT:
Oops, I was confusing "Murder's Mark" with "Dawn of the Scarlet Sun." But it's all good.
I second the mention of the Green Ronin Freeport material. Really excellent stuff in all their books.
Urban adventures (especially low-level ones) are a real favortie of mine. When Judge's Guild first published the City State of the Invincible Overlord (late 70s? early 80s?) we jumped into urban adventures with a vengeance. Back then, random encounters were a big thing, but our DMs usually found some way to link up the adversaries or allies we met on random encounters with whatever plotline he was running.
The basics of urban adventures involve "the job". Either the players make their own decision to ask some existing NPC for work and proving themselves, or the DM placing one or more patrons in their path, who want them to do something for them. The job can be delivering a macguffin, going to get a macguffin, delivering a message and returning with a reply, escorting someone somewhere, or going to a destination and performing a specific service. The only limit is your imagination, as long as it's an open-format sandbox-style campaign.
Of course, if you're planning on working your players up to an earth-shattering climax dealing with returning Runelords and such, the early adventures should serve several purposes:
- familiarizing the PCs with the setting (NPCs, places, cultural peculiarities, etc)
- allowing the PCs to start flexing their muscles and feeling successful
- introducing thematic elements that will become more important later in the campaign.
Even if you decide to use a pre-written adventure or module, you'll want to shape and adapt the situations, adversaries and rewards to suit your goals later in the campaign.
I need some suggestions for great low-level urban adventures. I'm looking for something dramatic and dynamic right off the start, not exactly easy to find at 1st level.
Looking through my bookmarks, this is an article how to start a campaign dramatically. A majority of the 10 proposals should work for an urban campaign - and they are not bound to any specific town.
@ Paul J at home,
To help give me a break from DMing (and time for me to work on the campaign, one of the Players is going to run both Portent's Peril and The Green Market as homebrew one-shots before we start the campaign. I'll obviously have to run a 'quiet' PC since I've DMed them both for PFS, unless he dramatically changes the Scenarios.
I am thinking about taking some time to go through those season 4 PFS Scenarios (since they're in Varisia) to see if any others will help me out.
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@ Wheldrake,
I won't be able to use City State because one of my players knows it almost as well as I know it (having both DMed campaigns around it so many times over the decades that many elements are ingrained into us). City State is also more of a campaign primer, I just need a quick couple adventures that I can manipulate and adjust and draw from to use as an intro into the campaign I want to run.
But hell yeah!, I'm with you all the way in love for City State -- it was actually the FIRST thing I thought of, too: 'Boy, I hope I can find an adventure like 'City State' to start out with.
I'm wondering how the urban adventure you run now will prep the players and their characters for crushing the Runelords later?
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So, I don't want Sheila Heidmarch to go to some no-name 1st-Level scrubs with the mission of Gotta find the Seven Shattered Stars of the Sihedron to complete the Artifact that will prevent the rise of the Runelords. She'd go to Absalom and get some heavy-hitting PFS bad-asses.
But if my 1st Level PCs in Korvosa have a little urban adventure, unrelated to anything with Sheila Heidmarch, and at the end of which they find this weird-looking shard -- and gain a couple levels -- they can be led to Sheila Heidmarch to find out what it is. And then, with one Shard in hand, a few levels under their belts, and a vested interest in the thing they've found, Sheila Heidmarch can tell them what the Shard is and have them go find the rest. ....That's where I'm at right now in concept and design (Obviously I can change as needed while I develop this thing.)
Think of the way the published Shattered Star AP is designed, Sheila Heidmarch sends the PCs to find the missing Pathfinder who has one Shard already -- then when they find her and the Shard, they start looking for the others.
In my case, I want them to be random, ambitious young folks in Korvosa who get caught up in a fun-raucous adventure, at the end of which they'll find this unknown Shard. That'll be the MacGuffin for the whole campaign. They want to find out wtf it is -- probably so they can sell it for lots o' gold -- and while no one knows (in Korvosa, in Kaer Maga if they go there, in Riddleport if they go there, etc) what it is, they hear maybe the Pathfinder Venture Captain in Magnimar might know. And they'll get to Sheila Heidmarch on their own time.
This way, my PCs aren't 1st Level when they start tracking down the Shattered Stars of the Sihedron -- and they only accidentally found the first one.
...In other words, the real campaign doesn't start at 1st Level.
Hope that answers your question.
"The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh"
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It's one most of the group know very well.And only two years ago my buddy DMed a campaign in Saltmarsh based partly on the old 'U' Modules and mostly on the write-up from the 3.5 DMG 2 that's so awesome. ....I wont be able to use it.
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Then there's the PFS adventure I played in (I unfortunately don't remember the name) where the PCs are sent to a Varisian town to root out a political spy and return them safely to Absalom, while also secretly gathering info on what they know.
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This sounds vaguely familiar; maybe I DMed it a few years ago in PFS. I'll go through my Scenarios to see if I can use it. I assume it was season 4.
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Finally, if you're planning to do the Runelords AP there are little mini-quests that are meant for level 1 PCs who survive the initial start of the AP to get to know the town of Sandpoint. Perhaps take your inspiration from these?
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I remember the 'side quests' published during the Second Darkness AP, one of them I really liked. But Sandpoint?
Maybe you're talking about some adventures in the hardback RotRL -- I have the six softbacks.
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@ Sheepish Eidolon,
Hey neat, thanks.