Thought about what we've come up with so far
John Hofmann
We seem to be spending the bulk of the time worrying about player options. Anyone who's ever DMed knows that the DM spends at least 2 or 3 times as much time preparing as players do. Anyone else think it would be wiser to come up with more DM material than player material? The whole game, especially in 4e, revolves around the players and the players get most of the support from WotC and now 3rd parties as well. It also seems that most of the people who post to messageboards and mailing lists are DMs and not players.
I'd love to see this group collaborate to spec out some interesting, iconic Mystara locations in 4e terms. The game is new and there are already 3 books supporting players (PHB, Adventurer's Vault, Advanced PHB) with at least 1 more in the works (that martial handbook and I think there's one or two more of those slotted up). I think we're flush with player options but I see DMs starved for attention. They get crappy, short adventures from DDI and really crappy, long adventures like Keep on the Shadowfell.
That's just a thought.
Marcelo Dior
We seem to be spending the bulk of the time worrying about player options.
I have to agree with you, John. So I'm going to post those ideas that I've developed for my Red Steel campaign.
It's really nice to see people brewing up new races and classes, but what I, as a DM that has only one night per week to play, needed was to cut myself some slack. So, instead of using new races (or re-creating ones), I just decided to use the new 4e ones as 4e versions of the Red Steel-specific ones. Like that:
- Races:
Lizardmen from the Bayoul - they're actually dragonborn. Take everything concerning the three lizardfolk created by Herath and replace "lizardmen" by "dragonborn". Period.
Rakasta - The eladrin fits like a glove to the thundecat-like race of the kingdom of Bellayne, so players that want to make rakastas just need to use eladrin stats. Logically, there aren't no eladrin on the Savage Coast. Why should be?
Tortle - This one needs some tweaking, but not much. Just take the warforged from Dragon Magazine #364 and ignore or change what doesn't fit. The warforged components, for instance, could just be tortle-only weapons that they attach to leather or metal straps on their limbs or even to their shells.
Lupine - At first I considered using the tiefling, but the two races aren't really at all alike, so now players that want to play with the lupine just use the half-elf stats. What about "real" half-elves? Well, since I've changed the elfs in my Savage Coast to something really fantastic, using their looks from the Dreamcast game «Draconus: Cult of the Wyrm» (with thin antelope-like horns and long, pointy white-gray beards, but no moustaches), there was no reason for miscegenation between elfs and men: the two races just became really alien to one another.
- The Setting:
Instead of converting some place, I just took what was ready on the DMG and WotC website and put it in the Savage Coast: the Nentir Vale, sugested base of operation for PCs (and the place where the three -- or six -- first 4e official adventures takes place), became Terra Leãoça, just southwest of Bellayne. Any and every reference to Nerath now reads as Herath.
- The Immortals:
I use the "Immortals/4e God Equivalency" from http://pandius.com/imm4egod.html
- Legacies and the Red Curse:
Spellscar from FR 4e. Period.
- MD
--
Visite o blog Notícias da Terceira Terra: http://marcelodior.blogspot.com/
David Knott
You raise a good point. I think the focus has been on
player information for two reasons:
1) As you mentioned, most of the 4E products
published to date have been player focused.
It is easier to work on things for which you
have many examples than few examples.
2) Some of the player work is needed as
background for any conversion work. For
example, the standard races and classes
are the building blocks for NPC opponents
-- and it is also useful to have an idea of
the sorts of abilities that the PCs are
likely to bring to an adventure. For
example, I would not set up a situation
for which short range teleportation is
an easy way out if I know that eladrin
and/or warlocks just might be in the
party.
Anyway -- I think you just volunteered to start
work on an adventure path. Are there ESDs
available for all of the B series modules?
How about for the compilation B1-9 In Search
of Adventure? Taking an inventory of the
available Mystaran Basic level modules
might be a good place to start. Here are
some of the possible adventure paths I can
see using:
B1-9 has three adventure paths, all of which
start in Threshold and end in Specularum in
Karameikos. Since one of the paths takes the
party into Darokin and Alfheim, that path can
be used with a wide variety of other starting
points. All of the adventure paths end with B6
The Veiled Society, from which B10 Night's
Dark Terror leading into X1 The Isle of Dread
seem to be the obvious continuation.
B2 Keep on the Borderlands makes a fine
standalone module that starts in the frontier
fortress of Castellan Keep. I am rather partial
to the idea of starting with this one -- it is
considered one of the classic D&D adventures.
Since it showcases many of the iconic low
level monsters, it should be one of the easiest
to convert.
DDA1 and DDA2 start players out in Thyatis City.
It should not be too difficult to guide the party from
those adventures to The Lost City in B1-9.
Glantri: Kingdom of Magic has an adventure set in
the Great School of Magic. I could see using that
adventure and a few from Gaz 3 before the party
tackles the original B3 Palace of the Silver Princess.
If you have any of the gazetteers, you may want to
peruse them to see if you like their lowest level
adventures as the starting points of adventure
paths. There is plenty of material to convert or
build into an exciting adventure path, so don't
let the fact that nobody has yet gotten very far
with any of them stop you from taking the first
steps.