I'm new to D&D, and posting to this forum, and was hoping someone could provide some insight on a few questions I have. Our gaming group is looking to start our first campaign, and will be using the published campaign books for 5e. My questions are as follows:
Are all of the currently released published adventures, from Tyranny of Dragons to Descent Into Avernus, an overall story arch/continuation? Or are they to be treated as standalone campaigns without any connection, and just take place in the Forgotten Realms.
If the published books are independent, which would you recommend to play through first, in terms of overall content/story/combat encounters.
My players are the type who will want to keep their same character once an adventure book is complete, and bring them to the next adventure book. However, I've been looking at the adventures and see that almost all start at lvl 1. For example if we start with Tyranny of Dragons, then proceed to Elemental Evil, is there a way (tool, guide etc) bring their now lvl 15 character to Elemental Evil, which is listed as 1-15? (and so forth with the other adventure books). Or is it standard to create a new character with each adventure book?
I appreciate any information you might have to help a new DM out.
Typically you make a new character when starting a new adventure. Though they could just play through with the same character again, maybe go with a different subclass or something might be refreshing.
I don’t really play the published books but the one people really seem to love is Curse of Strahd
The published books are more like campaigns than individual adventures. The expectation of most of them appears to be that you will play each with a new set of characters. So you do Strahd with one set of characters, Avernus with another set of characters, and so forth.
I don't think you can bring level 15s into a book labeled "for 1-15" without major modification, because the assumption is that if it says "1-15", you will start at 1 and go to 15. It's not like the old days when a module said "for levels 4-7" and it meant "a group of characters who, at the start of the module, are between 4 and 7." Nowadays what it means is "start with level 4s and at the end of the adventure they'll be 7."
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I hear Lost Mines of Phandelver is good for new players and new DMs. And I also hear you can slide those characters into Decent into Avernus pretty easily by skipping the first bit of Avernus. Also, they may not end up as attached to their characters as they think they’ll be. Usually after playing through a campaign to end, I’m ready to make a new character.
LMOP -> Avernus is still going to stop them around level 13, though. It's not going to get them to 20, and as far as I know, there are no level 14-20 adventures to continue with, if that's what this new DM wants.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
The Essentials Kit is made for new DMs and players. The adventure in it is called Dragon of Icespire Peak. And it’s generally viewed as high quality by new players and experienced alike. I’m running it for a group now that has a mix of new and experienced players. But it’s perfect for new groups, and takes characters through 6th level. Moreover, if you buy the physical kit and use the special key code to also buy it on DnDB (or if you just buy it on DnDB from the start), you also get 3 bonus adventures (Storm Lord’s Wrath, Sleeping Dragon’s Wake, Divine Contention) that are written to allow easy continuation from Icespire peak, or as independent adventures. I’m transitioning my group into those now that they’ve beat the dragon. Those begin at level 7 and if you run all three you’ll be at I think level 12 or 13. By the time you finish that, you could run them through Against the Giants or Tomb of Horrors from Tales from the Yawning Portal, or buy other published stuff off DMs guild written for high level characters, or just as likely to be confident enough to improvise your own quests and monster battles to keep the characters busy until their story concludes at level 20, or whenever they’re all ready to retire that storyline.
Then you can do it all over again in Dungeon of the Mad Mage, or Waterdeep Dragon Heist, or Curse of Strahd, or Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Just whatever type of story your group is ready for.
I'm a little unsure if you are new to pen and paper RPG, or just D&D. My answer suppose you are new to both.
2. I would at least recommend not to play BG-DiA. I haven't read the others, but that campaign has quite a few flaws that I think would really confuse a new DM. It requires quite a lot of rework of essential things (like the plot, hooks etc) to run smoothly. It is quite far away from being something you can play "out of the box". Frankly parts of it almost feel that it hasn't been play tested at all. As I said I haven't read or run the other campaigns, but LMoP seems to be a favorite by many. Also, quite a few new DM's here seems to have a lot of fun with it.
3. I would rather have "focused" on now we're going to play this campaign, let's see what we do when we are finished than "plan" a progress to level 20 ahead. It might be that after reaching the end of a campaign at level 15, they will be OK with retiring those characters and create new ones for a new campaign. If not, I would have considered to "create" the new campaign myself. If you reach that point, your characters is so powerful, and you know them well enough, that you should be able to build a last, final, epic story for them.
The two Waterdeep books are meant to lead from one into the other.
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist is for levels 1-5, and Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage is recommended for continuing with the same player characters because it's intended to range from levels 5-20.
That said, I think the assumption with any of the other adventures is that once your party finishes the story in the book and is at level 10, 13, 17, whatever, you as the DM will start putting together some higher-level homebrew adventures or getting some higher-level adventures off dmsguild.com to get them the rest of the way to level 20.
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Hello,
I'm new to D&D, and posting to this forum, and was hoping someone could provide some insight on a few questions I have. Our gaming group is looking to start our first campaign, and will be using the published campaign books for 5e. My questions are as follows:
I appreciate any information you might have to help a new DM out.
Thank you
Typically you make a new character when starting a new adventure. Though they could just play through with the same character again, maybe go with a different subclass or something might be refreshing.
I don’t really play the published books but the one people really seem to love is Curse of Strahd
The published books are more like campaigns than individual adventures. The expectation of most of them appears to be that you will play each with a new set of characters. So you do Strahd with one set of characters, Avernus with another set of characters, and so forth.
I don't think you can bring level 15s into a book labeled "for 1-15" without major modification, because the assumption is that if it says "1-15", you will start at 1 and go to 15. It's not like the old days when a module said "for levels 4-7" and it meant "a group of characters who, at the start of the module, are between 4 and 7." Nowadays what it means is "start with level 4s and at the end of the adventure they'll be 7."
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I hear Lost Mines of Phandelver is good for new players and new DMs. And I also hear you can slide those characters into Decent into Avernus pretty easily by skipping the first bit of Avernus.
Also, they may not end up as attached to their characters as they think they’ll be. Usually after playing through a campaign to end, I’m ready to make a new character.
LMOP -> Avernus is still going to stop them around level 13, though. It's not going to get them to 20, and as far as I know, there are no level 14-20 adventures to continue with, if that's what this new DM wants.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
The Essentials Kit is made for new DMs and players. The adventure in it is called Dragon of Icespire Peak. And it’s generally viewed as high quality by new players and experienced alike. I’m running it for a group now that has a mix of new and experienced players. But it’s perfect for new groups, and takes characters through 6th level. Moreover, if you buy the physical kit and use the special key code to also buy it on DnDB (or if you just buy it on DnDB from the start), you also get 3 bonus adventures (Storm Lord’s Wrath, Sleeping Dragon’s Wake, Divine Contention) that are written to allow easy continuation from Icespire peak, or as independent adventures. I’m transitioning my group into those now that they’ve beat the dragon. Those begin at level 7 and if you run all three you’ll be at I think level 12 or 13. By the time you finish that, you could run them through Against the Giants or Tomb of Horrors from Tales from the Yawning Portal, or buy other published stuff off DMs guild written for high level characters, or just as likely to be confident enough to improvise your own quests and monster battles to keep the characters busy until their story concludes at level 20, or whenever they’re all ready to retire that storyline.
Then you can do it all over again in Dungeon of the Mad Mage, or Waterdeep Dragon Heist, or Curse of Strahd, or Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Just whatever type of story your group is ready for.
Hello,
I'm a little unsure if you are new to pen and paper RPG, or just D&D. My answer suppose you are new to both.
2. I would at least recommend not to play BG-DiA. I haven't read the others, but that campaign has quite a few flaws that I think would really confuse a new DM. It requires quite a lot of rework of essential things (like the plot, hooks etc) to run smoothly. It is quite far away from being something you can play "out of the box". Frankly parts of it almost feel that it hasn't been play tested at all. As I said I haven't read or run the other campaigns, but LMoP seems to be a favorite by many. Also, quite a few new DM's here seems to have a lot of fun with it.
3. I would rather have "focused" on now we're going to play this campaign, let's see what we do when we are finished than "plan" a progress to level 20 ahead. It might be that after reaching the end of a campaign at level 15, they will be OK with retiring those characters and create new ones for a new campaign. If not, I would have considered to "create" the new campaign myself. If you reach that point, your characters is so powerful, and you know them well enough, that you should be able to build a last, final, epic story for them.
Ludo ergo sum!
Thanks for all of the responses everyone. A lot of great information, I really appreciate it!
The two Waterdeep books are meant to lead from one into the other.
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist is for levels 1-5, and Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage is recommended for continuing with the same player characters because it's intended to range from levels 5-20.
That said, I think the assumption with any of the other adventures is that once your party finishes the story in the book and is at level 10, 13, 17, whatever, you as the DM will start putting together some higher-level homebrew adventures or getting some higher-level adventures off dmsguild.com to get them the rest of the way to level 20.