Customizing a (4e) campaign ... but a bit lost.

[Ariel Yardena Davidson]

i am actually WRITING a campaign as we speak (but i have to go slow - comp's overheating). The first part's monsters would take place on a coastal area of an abandoned urban setting.
i DO have the map in mind, and that the first episode (the full campaign will be at least 5 or so) involve an NPC/DM and 3 or 4 PCs.

The books i want to use will be DM 1 and 2, PH 1,2, and 3, and MM 1 and 2, along with Adventurer's Vault 1 and 2. Problem is, given that this is a coastal area, i'd like to know which particular books i should use for this episode. What loot books, what expansions besides what i listed.

The map does have a forest portion - coastal forest environment - but it's primarily as follows:

Spanning north and south - beach. As the players move west, the terrain becomes more sandy and wet. As players move east, the terrain becomes more solid - a mix of gravel, sand, and sod. To the eastern edge, there are some houses to explore. To the western edge, a currently unnamed sea. Bordering the northeastern edge of the map is a patch of thick forest that extends further east and northeast - for this map, the sea blocks off further northern trekking.

To the south is more beach, a few more houses wrecked. Also abandoned, but the real urban setting is much further to the east, which won't be covered in this campaign.  

[Rain Yupa]

I wouldn't say there's any books about a certain terrain setting like that. Unless you pull from 3.5, cause they released a series of terrain-focused supplements about 2 years (give or take) before 4e. Like, Shipwreck et al.

Part of DMing is to be creative. You can do this by either skimming all the books you ARE using to see what fits, OR determine what you want already, and see if you can manage it with the tools you already have.

Also note, that with monsters, you can just change the name, tweak the abilities to suit an environment better (fly speed becomes swim speed or whatevs), and you got yourself a new and applicable monster :3  

[Ariel Yardena Davidson]

Good points ... This could take a while xp  

[Arc Vembris]

Ditto, don't overthink the details. Put your energy into the plot. If the party's still low-level, have them encounter surf goblins and rastafarian kobolds. 4e has a wide variety of appropriate encounters for low levels, so just pick something and beach party a-go-go with it.  

[Ariel Yardena Davidson]

Actually, one of my ideas ... Well, um ...






It's a 5-foot-long crawfish. sweatdrop


Also, would it be a problem if i requested that 3 of my friends (who aren't often on Gaia, but might like this guild) to be members?

Names are Trespassers W (or you can pick her alternate account, Stella Meowris), Kallio, and Lysine.  

[Ariel Yardena Davidson]

What sucks is that i want to see what's in MM3 before makign final decisions ><  

[Rain Yupa]

Well, look at the Scorpion and Chuul entries.

Replace the Sting and Reactive Sting with Double Attack (+6 vs Fort, as per Sting's previous attack). Success immobilizes.

Turn the claws into straight +8 vs AC, 1d6+3 damage, or 2d6+3 damage vs an immobilized creature.

BAM! Got your crawfish.

Also, I think Reevinja established that anyone and everyone is welcome 3nodding  

[Ariel Yardena Davidson]

they'll need invites - they have really, REALLY crap internet at this point.  

[SporkMaster5000]

Rain Yupa

Well, look at the Scorpion and Chuul entries.

Replace the Sting and Reactive Sting with Double Attack (+6 vs Fort, as per Sting's previous attack). Success immobilizes.

Turn the claws into straight +8 vs AC, 1d6+3 damage, or 2d6+3 damage vs an immobilized creature.

BAM! Got your crawfish.

Also, I think Reevinja established that anyone and everyone is welcome 3nodding

I very nearly took a straight stormclaw scorpion, stripped the lightning damage, gave it a swim speed, and called it a sea scorpion for Have Sword's current sewer-bound adventure (and only didn't because I didn't want to roll with the minor giant insect sub-theme i was thinking up).

reskinning is so easy in 4e it's ridiculous not to at least try. I think the order of resources you should consider when trying to populate adventures is monsters as written in source books (i'm pretty sure all of them with multiple monster stats have a monsters by level table somewhere), reskinned monsters as written, level-adjusted monsters (following the rules for it in the DMG), templated or themed monsters, and then custom monsters if you really, seriously can't find anything vaguely like what you want (but honestly save the custom jobs for "boss" monsters).

As for seeing the MM3 first, make your decisions now and when you get the book flip through it, if anything looks cool, you'll already have an idea of how you want encounters to work, and you can pull out a couple monsters for new ones, or adjust to fit in anything really cool, and anything you can't fit in you can hold in your pocket for another occasion.  

[Ariel Yardena Davidson]

i do like the attacks for the Large Crawfish, but i want to boost the bugger to something that'd bring up a crew of level 10s to 11 without major aggravation.

As for making minion crawfish, what level would be appropriate?  

[SporkMaster5000]

Wolfram Asher Davidson

i do like the attacks for the Large Crawfish, but i want to boost the bugger to something that'd bring up a crew of level 10s to 11 without major aggravation.

a rejiggered chuul is a lv 10 monster, that seems like it would be perfect.

Quote:

As for making minion crawfish, what level would be appropriate?

a level appropriate for your heroes? if you want the same lv 10-11 players, lv 8-10 would be easy, 11-13 would be moderate and up to lv 15 or 16 would be hard. page 104 of the dmg has info on level ranges.  

[joe-dude667]

I find that when I make encounters with minions, the level of the minion depends on the difficulty of the non minions. Like if it's a boss fight put in some easy minions to serve as canon fodder. Scares the PC's just enough so that they feel like they're doing well when they kill them at the beginning of the battle. That way their moral stays up right till they've used all their good attacks and the solo isn't even bloodied yet. twisted

On the flip side, if the other enemies aren't as tough, I like to put in some harder minions. It's impossible to use them as damage dealers, but if they have high defensive and the PC's on a bad rolling streak, they can work perfectly as "body guards" to block off PC's access to the enemies you don't want going down.

Also I'm a reeeeeeeally cruel DM.  

[JinKazamaru]

yea convert 3.5 stuff its not so hard the ideas are there... prehaps Eberron stuff might perk ideas as well not that you have to use the whole concept take what you like

as for DMing... I'm not that experienced but I enjoy throwing minions... a nice group to make them overwhelmed and using a leader... so the players know what to go after... but making it a pain with terrain... kobolds are among my favorite  

[SporkMaster5000]

JinKazamaru

yea convert 3.5 stuff its not so hard the ideas are there...

it's possible, but can be tricky, especially if you're still getting acclaimed to 4e. you have to be careful that you're only capturing the feel of the original, and not trying to recreate everything it could do exactly.  

[JinKazamaru]

well yes, but what I mean is all that older material can help create fresh new stuff no point wasting good ideas