Hey everyone. My friends and I have recently started to play D&D and we're all fresh to it. We've played co-op videogame RPGs for years (ESO, Divinity, Baldur's Gate, Diablo, etc) and finally dipped our toes in TTRPGs. I'm the DM and have been running the Lost Mine of Phandelver adventure and my party is about to finish in about two more sessions. They're using the pre-generated characters from the starter kit but for their next adventure, they're going to be making their own characters. Not patting myself on the back but being the DM has come natural to me so being prepared, roleplaying, and juggling everything has been a joy for me and my players are having a blast. I've also been a fan of the Forgotten Realms for years through books and videogames and have abosrbed all sorts of D&D content on YouTube to better prepare myself over the years. All that said, are there any recommendations as to a good adventure to start after they finish Lost Mine? I've read many people go with Storm King's Thunder, Water Deep: Dragon Heist, Curse of Strahd, and others, and at some point, I know they'd love to hit up all of those. They don't really care about what adventure should come next since they're making new characters and continuity right now is irrelevant. Any suggestion is much appreciated!
Also, the noob question. I see some adventures that run levels 1-5, or 5-10, or 1-15, etc. Does that mean that players need to make a new character if they finish one adventure and move on to another that starts at level 1? Or does it matter? For example, I had this thought of running WD: Dragon Heist to get their new characters to level 5 and maybe start Curse of Strahd at level 5 and skip the first dungeon (the murder house or death house, I hear it's unnecessary by many) but then after that, I don't know what to do if they want to carry their characters on to the next one. Sorry for being so wordy! I just can't seem to find the answers I need! Thanks everyone!
If you are a big fan of the Forgotten Realms, I would recommend Storm King's Thunder. The middle portion of the adventure is a bit of a gazetter for the Sword Coast. Be warned however, you're going to need to do a bit of work, but if you enjoy the preparation and juggling, there are a lot of good elements in there that can become fun stories and adventures. I suggest you take the concepts of SKT and then make them your own as many parts of the adventure as written don't connect well, or make sense. You'll need to really understand who your Big Bad is and their motivations and work backwards from there. There are a lot of open world/sandbox opportunities in the middle to late-end portion -- so that makes things fun.
As for the 1-5/5-/10/1-15, those are the beginning and ending level ranges for the adventure. You can skip intros for some of the adventures are start characters at higher level if you'd like. You can also do something like: run Lost mines till level 5, storm kings thunder to level 10 and something else higher. You can also take bits and pieces from adventures and cobble them together to help make your version of the Forgotten Realms.
One last word, the current "adventure books", like Storm King's Thunder or Curse of Strahd can easily take 40-60 sessions (or more) to play. That can be a lot of commitment and time, so you may look at trimming them down, or picking up smaller, bite-size modules from DMs Guild and connecting those together in 6-8 session arcs.
Hope this helps!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
Thank you for the info! I'm still a bit confused on the leveling. So, my players are going to start a new campaign soon with new level 1 characters. Once they finish that new campaign (let's say it's the full Curse of Strahd story and they end at level 10), if they want to carry those characters over to the new campaign (let's say Storm King's Thunder) starting at level 10, how does that work since SKT starts at level 1? Are the enemies scaled in the story based on the assumed character levels at various points in the story? I don't know if it'll be too easy for them because, theoretically in my brain, SKT would get them to level 20 by the end, but the campaign is designed to get characters from 1 to 10. I hope this makes sense! My brain is thinking like a videogame where if I get my character to a high level and go back to a low-level area, it'll be too easy. I just know they want to experience a lot of these published 5e modules but may not want to make new characters anytime there's a module that starts at 1 and they've possibly got a character they like that's above level 10.
'Curse of Strahd' is a solid one for DMs more than many others simply because there is SOOO much support for it online. Based on a preference for the Forgotten Realms and wilderness exploration, 'Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden' might be more the preference, especially since the region is SOOO much bigger (Barovia is shockingly small).
Thank you for the info! I'm still a bit confused on the leveling. So, my players are going to start a new campaign soon with new level 1 characters. Once they finish that new campaign (let's say it's the full Curse of Strahd story and they end at level 10), if they want to carry those characters over to the new campaign (let's say Storm King's Thunder) starting at level 10, how does that work since SKT starts at level 1? Are the enemies scaled in the story based on the assumed character levels at various points in the story? I don't know if it'll be too easy for them because, theoretically in my brain, SKT would get them to level 20 by the end, but the campaign is designed to get characters from 1 to 10. I hope this makes sense! My brain is thinking like a videogame where if I get my character to a high level and go back to a low-level area, it'll be too easy. I just know they want to experience a lot of these published 5e modules but may not want to make new characters anytime there's a module that starts at 1 and they've possibly got a character they like that's above level 10.
Everything is calibrated for the expected levels. A party starting at level 10 will go through a campaign aimed at levels 1-10 like a chainsaw.
Your options:
Re-scale the campaign by hand
Make new characters
Find one that's aimed at high-level characters
Start running your own materiel, building off what happened in the campaign they played through
The first and last one are the most work for you. The last one can be the most fun.
You can, and should, discuss the "what next?" question with your players, and what you're up for matters too.
At the conclusion of a campaign, you have a few choices.
1) The first one is to create your own adventure. As you get better and more experienced at DMing you will likely find it fun and interesting to create your own worlds, with their own adventures and plot lines. After a long campaign to level 10+, you could expand and continue the theme of the adventure or start a different high level adventure, using your own content.
2) Pick up a different adventure set for different levels and rescale it to the power of the characters. This can be challenging since it will require a bit of work to pick thematically appropriate monsters of the appropriate level but the advantage is that the overall plot is written for you - you just need to make it work for the higher level characters.
3) Pick up other published content designed for higher level characters. https://www.dmsguild.com has a huge number of both official and 3rd party content for D&D 5e. These tend to be shorter adventures but you will likely find some adventures for the level of your players.
There are also adventure anthologies from WotC - Tales from the Yawning Portal, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Candlekeep Mysteries, Journeys through the Radiant Citadel that provide shorter adventures that last a few sessions- they cover a range of levels with some of the content aimed at level 11+ (for example, Against the Giants from Tales of the Yawning Portal is a module that could likely be slipped in to SKT fairly seamlessly - it is aimed at characters level 11-13 if I recall). You'd have to see if any of them would appeal to you and your group.
There is also Dungeon of the Mad Mage which is published for levels 5-20 and intended to follow immediately after Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. However, it is an extensive dungeon beneath Waterdeep - so it focuses on dungeon adventure which may or may not be what you are looking for ..
4) Start new characters and pick up another module (or create your own) starting at level 1, 3, 5 or whatever works for you.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Hey everyone. My friends and I have recently started to play D&D and we're all fresh to it. We've played co-op videogame RPGs for years (ESO, Divinity, Baldur's Gate, Diablo, etc) and finally dipped our toes in TTRPGs. I'm the DM and have been running the Lost Mine of Phandelver adventure and my party is about to finish in about two more sessions. They're using the pre-generated characters from the starter kit but for their next adventure, they're going to be making their own characters. Not patting myself on the back but being the DM has come natural to me so being prepared, roleplaying, and juggling everything has been a joy for me and my players are having a blast. I've also been a fan of the Forgotten Realms for years through books and videogames and have abosrbed all sorts of D&D content on YouTube to better prepare myself over the years. All that said, are there any recommendations as to a good adventure to start after they finish Lost Mine? I've read many people go with Storm King's Thunder, Water Deep: Dragon Heist, Curse of Strahd, and others, and at some point, I know they'd love to hit up all of those. They don't really care about what adventure should come next since they're making new characters and continuity right now is irrelevant. Any suggestion is much appreciated!
Also, the noob question. I see some adventures that run levels 1-5, or 5-10, or 1-15, etc. Does that mean that players need to make a new character if they finish one adventure and move on to another that starts at level 1? Or does it matter? For example, I had this thought of running WD: Dragon Heist to get their new characters to level 5 and maybe start Curse of Strahd at level 5 and skip the first dungeon (the murder house or death house, I hear it's unnecessary by many) but then after that, I don't know what to do if they want to carry their characters on to the next one. Sorry for being so wordy! I just can't seem to find the answers I need! Thanks everyone!
If you are a big fan of the Forgotten Realms, I would recommend Storm King's Thunder. The middle portion of the adventure is a bit of a gazetter for the Sword Coast. Be warned however, you're going to need to do a bit of work, but if you enjoy the preparation and juggling, there are a lot of good elements in there that can become fun stories and adventures. I suggest you take the concepts of SKT and then make them your own as many parts of the adventure as written don't connect well, or make sense. You'll need to really understand who your Big Bad is and their motivations and work backwards from there. There are a lot of open world/sandbox opportunities in the middle to late-end portion -- so that makes things fun.
As for the 1-5/5-/10/1-15, those are the beginning and ending level ranges for the adventure. You can skip intros for some of the adventures are start characters at higher level if you'd like. You can also do something like: run Lost mines till level 5, storm kings thunder to level 10 and something else higher. You can also take bits and pieces from adventures and cobble them together to help make your version of the Forgotten Realms.
One last word, the current "adventure books", like Storm King's Thunder or Curse of Strahd can easily take 40-60 sessions (or more) to play. That can be a lot of commitment and time, so you may look at trimming them down, or picking up smaller, bite-size modules from DMs Guild and connecting those together in 6-8 session arcs.
Hope this helps!
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
Thank you for the info! I'm still a bit confused on the leveling. So, my players are going to start a new campaign soon with new level 1 characters. Once they finish that new campaign (let's say it's the full Curse of Strahd story and they end at level 10), if they want to carry those characters over to the new campaign (let's say Storm King's Thunder) starting at level 10, how does that work since SKT starts at level 1? Are the enemies scaled in the story based on the assumed character levels at various points in the story? I don't know if it'll be too easy for them because, theoretically in my brain, SKT would get them to level 20 by the end, but the campaign is designed to get characters from 1 to 10. I hope this makes sense! My brain is thinking like a videogame where if I get my character to a high level and go back to a low-level area, it'll be too easy. I just know they want to experience a lot of these published 5e modules but may not want to make new characters anytime there's a module that starts at 1 and they've possibly got a character they like that's above level 10.
'Curse of Strahd' is a solid one for DMs more than many others simply because there is SOOO much support for it online. Based on a preference for the Forgotten Realms and wilderness exploration, 'Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden' might be more the preference, especially since the region is SOOO much bigger (Barovia is shockingly small).
Everything is calibrated for the expected levels. A party starting at level 10 will go through a campaign aimed at levels 1-10 like a chainsaw.
Your options:
The first and last one are the most work for you. The last one can be the most fun.
You can, and should, discuss the "what next?" question with your players, and what you're up for matters too.
At the conclusion of a campaign, you have a few choices.
1) The first one is to create your own adventure. As you get better and more experienced at DMing you will likely find it fun and interesting to create your own worlds, with their own adventures and plot lines. After a long campaign to level 10+, you could expand and continue the theme of the adventure or start a different high level adventure, using your own content.
2) Pick up a different adventure set for different levels and rescale it to the power of the characters. This can be challenging since it will require a bit of work to pick thematically appropriate monsters of the appropriate level but the advantage is that the overall plot is written for you - you just need to make it work for the higher level characters.
3) Pick up other published content designed for higher level characters. https://www.dmsguild.com has a huge number of both official and 3rd party content for D&D 5e. These tend to be shorter adventures but you will likely find some adventures for the level of your players.
There are also adventure anthologies from WotC - Tales from the Yawning Portal, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Candlekeep Mysteries, Journeys through the Radiant Citadel that provide shorter adventures that last a few sessions- they cover a range of levels with some of the content aimed at level 11+ (for example, Against the Giants from Tales of the Yawning Portal is a module that could likely be slipped in to SKT fairly seamlessly - it is aimed at characters level 11-13 if I recall). You'd have to see if any of them would appeal to you and your group.
There is also Dungeon of the Mad Mage which is published for levels 5-20 and intended to follow immediately after Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. However, it is an extensive dungeon beneath Waterdeep - so it focuses on dungeon adventure which may or may not be what you are looking for ..
4) Start new characters and pick up another module (or create your own) starting at level 1, 3, 5 or whatever works for you.