I am doing a homebrew campaign and the main storyline right now is there are these bandits called the midnight blades who have become a major crime syndicate in the areas around neverwinter (triboar, yartar, etc..) and my players are trying to destroy the organization. I’m starting the campaign with the fouled stream adventure from the new DM guide book and my main issue is figuring out what level to start the storyline at and how to get the storyline started. I want to get them to around level 12,ish also to buff up the later stages of the campaign I am planning on making factions that can be recruited to my players side but if they are to slow to recruit then the enemy recruits them. Any tips would be great thanks!
I would recommend leveling up by milestone, once they achieve something important that progresses the story forward then they get that reward. This should help them in wanting to progress the story more. Also as the DM you can get a few of your key events lined out ahead of time so they flow better. I had a group under xp leveling and they just went around killing people. It got out of hand and derailed everything. Since then I've done milestone.
With what level to start at, it depends what you have planned with difficulty for monsters in the beginning. Level one is good if you have a party of new players or not super experienced players who are trying out a new class, as it’s relatively simple and easier to pick up mechanics that way. Otherwise, id recommend starting at level three due to it allowing for subclass abilities and a decent amount of hp/spell slots/spells/etc to start off with. Also, if your party members have played before, ask them what’d they’d like to do if you are unsure. With how to start it, it could making the organization do something to harm them, whether directly or indirectly. It can be worked into backstories (killed/robbed/hurt something important to them) and they discover the group is in the area, maybe they have an important treasure they are delivering for an important noble and the organization takes it and now they need to retrieve it, and as they attempt to do so, realize that the must defeat the organization for the good of others. Generally to start: make them care. Make an interesting hook as to why their characters are trying to take them down. It doesn’t all have to be laid out at the start either. Instead, it could be the foundation for information or events that make them want to take them down early. Also, I’d agree with the milestone leveling. Leveling with xp can be hard to track and leveling by session can cause them to progress to quickly.
Don't rush to start the "main" plot or you might have players single-mindedly rushing to finish the campaign. Especially if you plan to have a campaign about recruiting factions, I'd start off with some chill intro sessions where the party get introduced to the existence and skills / abilities of the different factions.
This intro period allows the campaign to flow more naturally with the players choosing for themselves who to recruit rather than you as the DM having to have an NPC tell them who to recruit. It also allows them time to bond with one or more NPCs which gives you easy hooks to make them hate the badguys - by having the badguys do something to the NPCs the players like.
For a long-term campaign, you mostly want to plan out the escalation arc. For instance the party might start out finding out about petty thugs or pickpockets, then be targeted by assassins or "the muscle" as retaliation, maybe this escallates to a high-stakes illegal fighting ring or gambling den, or human / monster trafficking, or alchemical/ explosives laboratory, and only then do they find out about the BBEG headquarters.
Alternatively, you could have the criminal investigation more in the background and instead have different factions require the players to solve their problems before being convinced to join.
Thank you for the plot stuff as well that’s gonna help. The factions I’ve thought of are the neverwinter city watch, goblins and if I go insane then xanathar
For XP, I came up with a system where I give approximate XP in chunks, although that system doesn't work unless the adventure is almost perfectly linear. It works great in the intro of a campaign, though.
So my main plan for the campaign right now is to start the actual bandit storyline adventures in triboar but my main issue is that I’m trying to make some sort of hierarchy and they face the basic thieves and criminals then move up to that groups leader then move up to their leader and so forth but I’m not sure how to scale it by level because by the time they end up in triboar they’re gonna be level 2
Don't rush to start the "main" plot or you might have players single-mindedly rushing to finish the campaign. Especially if you plan to have a campaign about recruiting factions, I'd start off with some chill intro sessions where the party get introduced to the existence and skills / abilities of the different factions.
This intro period allows the campaign to flow more naturally with the players choosing for themselves who to recruit rather than you as the DM having to have an NPC tell them who to recruit. It also allows them time to bond with one or more NPCs which gives you easy hooks to make them hate the badguys - by having the badguys do something to the NPCs the players like.
For a long-term campaign, you mostly want to plan out the escalation arc. For instance the party might start out finding out about petty thugs or pickpockets, then be targeted by assassins or "the muscle" as retaliation, maybe this escallates to a high-stakes illegal fighting ring or gambling den, or human / monster trafficking, or alchemical/ explosives laboratory, and only then do they find out about the BBEG headquarters.
Alternatively, you could have the criminal investigation more in the background and instead have different factions require the players to solve their problems before being convinced to join.
I have thought about it and the way I’m going to start introducing the bandits is a merchant or a noble will ask the party to deliver some goods from point A to point B and on the way they run into the bandits who are trafficking monsters and after they do some investigating then they will run into an illegal monster fighting ring which the organization is sending monsters to for funding and they have to destroy the fighting ring in some way. In terms of boss fights I was thinking of an elder grick as a monster boss and a half orc half ogre who runs the ring along with several other smaller fights. For the grick I want to add some personality and make it kind of like the Grom battering ram in LOTR so they are all chanting its name as it comes out of its cage.
I have never utilized XP because trying to keep track of it is an absolute joke. Just go by milestones instead. When I ran my first campaign, I literally had only the setting written and an idea of the final boss + the party the players were with. Everything else including battles I improvised on the run based on what the players did and wanted to do. They never realized I was doing that and I learned a ton about what to actually prepare for the future and what to just improvise.
When I ran my first campaign, I literally had only the setting written and an idea of the final boss + the party the players were with. Everything else including battles I improvised on the run based on what the players did and wanted to do.
I did something similar, I planned out general ideas for battles / encounters in different areas of the map or different stages of the plot but all the specifics I prepared the week before the session where they encountered it. This was so I could adapt to the style of play my group liked as well as adapt to whatever level they were when they decided to go somewhere. Some examples:
1) I planned a mine in the mountains where they had accidentally dug into a ancient temple where a vampire was imprisoned and thus allowed the vampire to escape. Depending on their level it might have been a generic vampire, or one with powerful magic items and a few class abilities, it might have been alone with some spiders or it might have turned some of the miners into thralls.
2) I planned a Fey nation undergoing a civil war between the Seelie and Unseelie courts, their introduction to the conflict would be an encounter with a scout / messenger / spy from one side being hunted by a small group from the other side, another encounter was for a larger group from one side to arrive and try to claim a location where the party was resting, another encounter was for one or other side to try to capture them and try to force them to either sign up with them or be taken as prisoners of war. Each side I made a list of 10 different creature types with CR from 3-12 that were members of their army that I could pull out for these encounters.
3) I planned a super-secure city they would have to break into to steal something, the best route was a secret sewer entrance but that had a huge monster in it they could either run past or kill - this could have been anything from a Hydra to a Guardian Naga to an Ancient Dragon depending on their level, alternatively they could climb across a sheer cliff to a hole in the wall to sneak in but there would be a colony of some type of flying creature nesting along the cliff - these could have been anything from Giant Vultures to Awks, or they could try to acquire disguises to deceive their way through the main entrance by visiting various bars / clubs and talking to a bunch of NPCs then mugging some other NPCs for their clothes / security passes - the NPCs they had to mug could have been anything from bandits to trained assassins and archmages.
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I am doing a homebrew campaign and the main storyline right now is there are these bandits called the midnight blades who have become a major crime syndicate in the areas around neverwinter (triboar, yartar, etc..) and my players are trying to destroy the organization. I’m starting the campaign with the fouled stream adventure from the new DM guide book and my main issue is figuring out what level to start the storyline at and how to get the storyline started. I want to get them to around level 12,ish also to buff up the later stages of the campaign I am planning on making factions that can be recruited to my players side but if they are to slow to recruit then the enemy recruits them. Any tips would be great thanks!
Ps. Another issue is xp I’m having trouble calculating it because I’m running with five players. Should I just level them by sessions?
I would recommend leveling up by milestone, once they achieve something important that progresses the story forward then they get that reward. This should help them in wanting to progress the story more. Also as the DM you can get a few of your key events lined out ahead of time so they flow better. I had a group under xp leveling and they just went around killing people. It got out of hand and derailed everything. Since then I've done milestone.
With what level to start at, it depends what you have planned with difficulty for monsters in the beginning. Level one is good if you have a party of new players or not super experienced players who are trying out a new class, as it’s relatively simple and easier to pick up mechanics that way. Otherwise, id recommend starting at level three due to it allowing for subclass abilities and a decent amount of hp/spell slots/spells/etc to start off with. Also, if your party members have played before, ask them what’d they’d like to do if you are unsure. With how to start it, it could making the organization do something to harm them, whether directly or indirectly. It can be worked into backstories (killed/robbed/hurt something important to them) and they discover the group is in the area, maybe they have an important treasure they are delivering for an important noble and the organization takes it and now they need to retrieve it, and as they attempt to do so, realize that the must defeat the organization for the good of others. Generally to start: make them care. Make an interesting hook as to why their characters are trying to take them down. It doesn’t all have to be laid out at the start either. Instead, it could be the foundation for information or events that make them want to take them down early. Also, I’d agree with the milestone leveling. Leveling with xp can be hard to track and leveling by session can cause them to progress to quickly.
Don't rush to start the "main" plot or you might have players single-mindedly rushing to finish the campaign. Especially if you plan to have a campaign about recruiting factions, I'd start off with some chill intro sessions where the party get introduced to the existence and skills / abilities of the different factions.
This intro period allows the campaign to flow more naturally with the players choosing for themselves who to recruit rather than you as the DM having to have an NPC tell them who to recruit. It also allows them time to bond with one or more NPCs which gives you easy hooks to make them hate the badguys - by having the badguys do something to the NPCs the players like.
For a long-term campaign, you mostly want to plan out the escalation arc. For instance the party might start out finding out about petty thugs or pickpockets, then be targeted by assassins or "the muscle" as retaliation, maybe this escallates to a high-stakes illegal fighting ring or gambling den, or human / monster trafficking, or alchemical/ explosives laboratory, and only then do they find out about the BBEG headquarters.
Alternatively, you could have the criminal investigation more in the background and instead have different factions require the players to solve their problems before being convinced to join.
Thank you! That will be helpful because I was like “ugh I’m gonna hate doing doing xp”
Thank you for the plot stuff as well that’s gonna help. The factions I’ve thought of are the neverwinter city watch, goblins and if I go insane then xanathar
For XP, I came up with a system where I give approximate XP in chunks, although that system doesn't work unless the adventure is almost perfectly linear. It works great in the intro of a campaign, though.
So my main plan for the campaign right now is to start the actual bandit storyline adventures in triboar but my main issue is that I’m trying to make some sort of hierarchy and they face the basic thieves and criminals then move up to that groups leader then move up to their leader and so forth but I’m not sure how to scale it by level because by the time they end up in triboar they’re gonna be level 2
I have thought about it and the way I’m going to start introducing the bandits is a merchant or a noble will ask the party to deliver some goods from point A to point B and on the way they run into the bandits who are trafficking monsters and after they do some investigating then they will run into an illegal monster fighting ring which the organization is sending monsters to for funding and they have to destroy the fighting ring in some way. In terms of boss fights I was thinking of an elder grick as a monster boss and a half orc half ogre who runs the ring along with several other smaller fights. For the grick I want to add some personality and make it kind of like the Grom battering ram in LOTR so they are all chanting its name as it comes out of its cage.
I have never utilized XP because trying to keep track of it is an absolute joke. Just go by milestones instead. When I ran my first campaign, I literally had only the setting written and an idea of the final boss + the party the players were with. Everything else including battles I improvised on the run based on what the players did and wanted to do. They never realized I was doing that and I learned a ton about what to actually prepare for the future and what to just improvise.
I did something similar, I planned out general ideas for battles / encounters in different areas of the map or different stages of the plot but all the specifics I prepared the week before the session where they encountered it. This was so I could adapt to the style of play my group liked as well as adapt to whatever level they were when they decided to go somewhere. Some examples:
1) I planned a mine in the mountains where they had accidentally dug into a ancient temple where a vampire was imprisoned and thus allowed the vampire to escape. Depending on their level it might have been a generic vampire, or one with powerful magic items and a few class abilities, it might have been alone with some spiders or it might have turned some of the miners into thralls.
2) I planned a Fey nation undergoing a civil war between the Seelie and Unseelie courts, their introduction to the conflict would be an encounter with a scout / messenger / spy from one side being hunted by a small group from the other side, another encounter was for a larger group from one side to arrive and try to claim a location where the party was resting, another encounter was for one or other side to try to capture them and try to force them to either sign up with them or be taken as prisoners of war. Each side I made a list of 10 different creature types with CR from 3-12 that were members of their army that I could pull out for these encounters.
3) I planned a super-secure city they would have to break into to steal something, the best route was a secret sewer entrance but that had a huge monster in it they could either run past or kill - this could have been anything from a Hydra to a Guardian Naga to an Ancient Dragon depending on their level, alternatively they could climb across a sheer cliff to a hole in the wall to sneak in but there would be a colony of some type of flying creature nesting along the cliff - these could have been anything from Giant Vultures to Awks, or they could try to acquire disguises to deceive their way through the main entrance by visiting various bars / clubs and talking to a bunch of NPCs then mugging some other NPCs for their clothes / security passes - the NPCs they had to mug could have been anything from bandits to trained assassins and archmages.