Since we started playing 4th edition (a couple of years ago now I think) I've been trying to work out what it is which frustrates me about the adventures WoTC produces. We played our way through the first few Scales of War adventures and are working our way through the H1-E3 arc (just about finished P3 at the moment). I just read through the zero level adventure "Temple of the Weeping Goddess" and it has apprentice-type characters "rescuing" an aspect of a deity. This just seems completely at odds (in my mind anyhow) with the whole point of playing zero level characters.
It struck me that the main trouble I have is that the players are involved in too much 'high power stuff' too early - the scope of what they are actually doing, even at low levels, involves things like planar portals and plots with really quite far-ranging consequences - things which don't really gel with how I understood the tiers to be designed.
I quite like the things we've been doing at paragon tier in the P1-P3 series of modules there's a bit of jumping back and forth between the shadowfell, different other worldly stuff and so forth. Presumably the Epic tier modules are also going to be 'tier-appropriate'. I just wish they'd restrict the scope of their heroic tier stuff to plots with a smaller scale. It's not a huge problem as DM, since I have the Paizo offerings which convert easily enough, but we have other DMs for our group and a few low level modules designed for 4th edition would be welcome.
In order to make this a more constructive post - does anyone have any suggested 4th edition modules (from Dungeon perhaps - I dont always read them, since the Chaos Scar series didnt really fit with what we're looking for) which avoid this issue? Low level, Heroic Tier modules without planar portals, jaunts in the shadowfell and other more 'paragon-y' tropes?
(The slaying stone is my favorite WoTC heroic module, for example, although even in that, the macguffin is just too much, in my view, for first level PCs to be interacting with).
I've noticed the same thing myself as I'm (as a player so no spoilers) about halfway through Scales of War. Its not a game breaker by any means and there where some good elements in terms of story with Sorshin (sp?) in the heroic tier. In fact I had to be dragged through the first few portals kicking and screaming because I was terrified for my characters life (what do you mean go to the Place of Fire? We are only 9th level!).
Its not so much that it does not work at all its just not really my preference in terms of campaigning. I mean personally I take most 'planar' campaign elements and actually stick them in my material place when I'm DMing unless there is a very good reason not to. Mainly because I actually think that 'adventure in the plane of fire' is not as cool as adventure under an actual freaken active volcano and so often the 'fire plane' adventure could actually be stuffed some where in the fantasy world and just be a really cool feature that may well inspire repeated appearances in later campaigns in my fantasy world.
In any case when I'm deciding to b~!#% about WotC adventures its not really these elements that are the biggest problems. More focus on story and presentation is really where they need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. Serously the Chaos Scar is basically the 'wrong' direction to take with adventure writing IMO. OK its not wrong if there are other types of adventures out there as well but there really was not so much in that regard. Fortunately there is increasing evidence that they are figuring this out so we have seen some stuff that looks pretty good come down the pipeline recently.
I've noticed the same thing myself as I'm (as a player so no spoilers) about halfway through Scales of War. Its not a game breaker by any means and there where some good elements in terms of story with Sorshin (sp?) in the heroic tier. In fact I had to be dragged through the first few portals kicking and screaming because I was terrified for my characters life (what do you mean go to the Place of Fire? We are only 9th level!).
Its not so much that it does not work at all its just not really my preference in terms of campaigning. I mean personally I take most 'planar' campaign elements and actually stick them in my material place when I'm DMing unless there is a very good reason not to. Mainly because I actually think that 'adventure in the plane of fire' is not as cool as adventure under an actual freaken active volcano and so often the 'fire plane' adventure could actually be stuffed some where in the fantasy world and just be a really cool feature that may well inspire repeated appearances in later campaigns in my fantasy world.
In any case when I'm deciding to b!%~% about WotC adventures its not really these elements that are the biggest problems. More focus on story and presentation is really where they need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. Serously the Chaos Scar is basically the 'wrong' direction to take with adventure writing IMO. OK its not wrong if there are other types of adventures out there as well but there really was not so much in that regard. Fortunately there is increasing evidence that they are figuring this out so we have seen some stuff that looks pretty good come down the pipeline recently.
Yeah - I'm also finding the story side better (and had a similar antipathy towards the Chaos Scar idea). It still bothers me that zero level characters are interacting (at some level) with aspects of deities though. I really quite liked the look of the zero level character rules, but the (what I would presume to be 'typical') zero level adventure they put out concurrently really crystallized for me why I prefer adapting Paizo's modules. I'm hoping that someone has noticed some 'low key' heroic tier adventures I've missed.
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I found that I have to tweak the plot lines between modules in the Scales of Wat to suit my group and tie NPC's to the story more strongly. There isn't as much story continuity between episodes as I would have liked.
Paizo still makes better adventures, and AP's in particular. It's all the background stuff that's missing in Wizards modules. Paizo had way more experience at this when Scales of war was done though. Hopefully WotC are making inroads in that area of things.
It doesn't bother me nearly as much as it used to though, since I quite like creating little bits of story to go with modules now. I also regularly lift modules and cool combats and place them into the Campaign. That's the benefit of alarge store of digital modules though, it allows me to quickly scan through and insert something if I think it's better than the actual modules encounter.
I found it wierd about the plane hopping aspect early on as well, but the players in my game actually thought it was cool. I guess that's a preference thing.
Cheers
In all fairness, from what I've heard HS1 & HS2, and the Essentials Adventures (something about the Iron Circle) do a bit better in getting off the combat rails, but in reality, I find it best to just do your own stuff. Grab something like Hammerfast or the Monster Vault:Threats to the Nentir Vale, or one of the locale books and build something off the lore from those.
I quite liked HS1 (I like most things I've seen done by Logan Bonner) and I also thought the essentials adventures were a significant improvement on their earlier efforts - I'm enjoying Gardmore Abbey too. Nonetheless, even HS1 had an over the top macguffin for heroic tier characters (imo) - I didnt mind Vor Rukoth, but Hammerfast was also just a little too much for my conception of a heroic tier setting.
It's not really a problem, given Paizo's output of adventures, it's just something I'd never really put my finger on before. No doubt it's just a preference for a lower magic and/or grittier style of adventure at low levels compared to the adventure writers' tastes. My problem in playing through H1-E3 was that the paragon tier jaunts to other planes are a little ho-hum if you've been jumping through portals to other-worldly realms since level one.
The large number of combats is always a problem with pre-made adventures, in my view. Even Paizo tends to have more than I'd like - meeting that ever present need for PCs to level appropriately.
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I agree Steve, the sheer number of combats really comes back to their model of levelling via Experience. You can get around this by doing away with Experience and levelling as appropriate or having faster track experience posibilites ala Pathfinder. You have to adjust the wealth model to suit as well though.
Anything that is premade though will follow the guidelines in the rules for levelling based on experience, so they tend to have large amounts of experience.
Technically, you could build an entire sesssion where experience is given as story rewards and skill challenges instead though, and level this way. I think the module designers need to realise this or at least use this more as they write these scenarios. It may appeal to more folk that way (at least the folk who enjoy the Pathfinder series of adventures more at any rate.)
Cheers
I actually remove encounters from published modules when I don't feel they are necessary. Then again, I don't track experience points in 4E either. I just tell the PC's when they level since everyone will have the same amount of XP and should be the same level all the time. The game becomes a lot less structured this way as well (in a good way), and time is only spent in combat when I feel the combat is essential to the story. The rest of the time is spent roleplaying and exploring.
I also don't hand out all the treasure parcels either. Usually I have anywhere from 1-3 that are not included each level. I don't find this impacts play a lot either.
Has anyone had any experience with War of the Burning Sky from EN Publishing ?
I did part of it as a PBP. I liked it, but I end up getting busy and had to drop out. Some reviews hail it as one of the best AP's rivaling Pathfinder AP's. Other people consider them railroady, but some of that came back to GM's adjusting things. Overall it is considered a decent to good AP. I want to run it one day, but I would want to convert all the NPC's first.
Agreed. The xp system of D&D is a weakness. It really forces published adventures to have a glut of extra combat encounters that are totally unnecessary to advance the story, and in my mind combat encounters that don't advance the story should only be used very rarely.
Officially doing away with this model of advancement would make the game much better for telling stories. However, at its core D&D isn't really about telling fantasy stories- it's about killing monsters and taking their stuff. The game has evolved a lot since 1E, but there are still plenty of mechanics that make it difficult to move far beyond this premise, and the xp mechanic is certainly one of them.
I agree Steve, the sheer number of combats really comes back to their model of levelling via Experience. You can get around this by doing away with Experience and levelling as appropriate or having faster track experience posibilites ala Pathfinder. You have to adjust the wealth model to suit as well though.
Anything that is premade though will follow the guidelines in the rules for levelling based on experience, so they tend to have large amounts of experience.
Technically, you could build an entire sesssion where experience is given as story rewards and skill challenges instead though, and level this way. I think the module designers need to realise this or at least use this more as they write these scenarios. It may appeal to more folk that way (at least the folk who enjoy the Pathfinder series of adventures more at any rate.)
Cheers