I like to make milestone sessions very unique and cool. I aim for character development and challenge, and in a way that fully immerses my players. I really like surprising my players with a (often home-brew) concept they haven't encountered before, or a new way of playing to keep them on their toes for milestone sessions. I'm trying to find an idea for my next milestone. My characters are in an alter dealing with deities currently, but if they decide to leave, I'm probably going to send them on a quest into the mountains. Any ideas for something cool I could throw at them in one or both of these scenes? Preferably something that can be home-brewed to a degree...
I don't try and make milestones cool; I have cool ( or major ) story points be milestones.
Your approach sounds like you're trying to alter the adventure to have the narrative peak to match when you think there should be a level-up for mechanical reasons. I'm altering the mechanics of when they level up based on them reaching a narrative peak. To be fair, I'm also trying to have a major narrative peak every N 3-4 hours sessions ( where N is their current level ) so I'm doing a little bit of story tweaking for mechanical reasons - but I'm willing to bend that 1-2 sessions in either direction to match the ways events are unfolding.
Where I try and work in "cool" to their milestones is with new abilities. With aspects like increased hit points, or increased stats, or even increased spell levels - well, they've just worked out enough to build those muscles. But - for net new abilities, they don't get to use them until something happens in world to explain their new abilities: at level three the Paladin had a complex mini-adventure religious vision where she had to make a conscious choice to commit to her religion ( in this case, her 3rd level Sacred Oath ability ) or do a conversion to a fighter class of comparable level; the Ranger didn't get to use Darkvision until he was been possessed by a shadowy spirit creature and defeated it in psychic combat ( replete with images and clues as to what really happened in the Ranger's tortured backstory ) and thus absorbed part of the creatures essence and some of it's abilities ( Darkvision ). Since then, the fact that part of the creature's soul is floating around in the Ranger has been an ongoing part of the adventure campaign arc.
In both cases, I had buy-in & collaboration by the Player, since they knew my rules about new abilities, and were motivated to help me find a reason to hand them their new abilities.
So - I'd recommend looking at what will change with your party as part of the leveling up, and see what you can mine there for cool milestone transition events, and even work with your players to find in-world rationale for their new ability.
That changes the scope from a global milestone event, to a collection of personalized ones - but it does make the milestone an event for the characters.
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I like to make milestone sessions very unique and cool. I aim for character development and challenge, and in a way that fully immerses my players. I really like surprising my players with a (often home-brew) concept they haven't encountered before, or a new way of playing to keep them on their toes for milestone sessions. I'm trying to find an idea for my next milestone. My characters are in an alter dealing with deities currently, but if they decide to leave, I'm probably going to send them on a quest into the mountains. Any ideas for something cool I could throw at them in one or both of these scenes? Preferably something that can be home-brewed to a degree...
I don't try and make milestones cool; I have cool ( or major ) story points be milestones.
Your approach sounds like you're trying to alter the adventure to have the narrative peak to match when you think there should be a level-up for mechanical reasons. I'm altering the mechanics of when they level up based on them reaching a narrative peak. To be fair, I'm also trying to have a major narrative peak every N 3-4 hours sessions ( where N is their current level ) so I'm doing a little bit of story tweaking for mechanical reasons - but I'm willing to bend that 1-2 sessions in either direction to match the ways events are unfolding.
Where I try and work in "cool" to their milestones is with new abilities. With aspects like increased hit points, or increased stats, or even increased spell levels - well, they've just worked out enough to build those muscles. But - for net new abilities, they don't get to use them until something happens in world to explain their new abilities: at level three the Paladin had a complex mini-adventure religious vision where she had to make a conscious choice to commit to her religion ( in this case, her 3rd level Sacred Oath ability ) or do a conversion to a fighter class of comparable level; the Ranger didn't get to use Darkvision until he was been possessed by a shadowy spirit creature and defeated it in psychic combat ( replete with images and clues as to what really happened in the Ranger's tortured backstory ) and thus absorbed part of the creatures essence and some of it's abilities ( Darkvision ). Since then, the fact that part of the creature's soul is floating around in the Ranger has been an ongoing part of the adventure campaign arc.
In both cases, I had buy-in & collaboration by the Player, since they knew my rules about new abilities, and were motivated to help me find a reason to hand them their new abilities.
So - I'd recommend looking at what will change with your party as part of the leveling up, and see what you can mine there for cool milestone transition events, and even work with your players to find in-world rationale for their new ability.
That changes the scope from a global milestone event, to a collection of personalized ones - but it does make the milestone an event for the characters.
Best of luck :)
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.