Relatively new DM here and have been running LMoP for my party of first timers as well and they are really enjoying it. Our journey is nearing the end and they have expressed really wanting to keep going, and use their same characters they’ve grown attached to. I grabbed a couple of Modules during the DDB sale, and I want to find an in-game, not breaking RP way to let the characters decide which module they want to transition their level 4 characters to, that way I can start prepping in advanced for that modules session zero and come up with some good story hooks to bridge the two.
How would you do it? NPCs off handled mention some strange on-goings around the Saltmarshes? Rumors of a Count in a far off land commuting atrocities? I would have my party head back to neverwinter and secure travel via sea or other means most likely.
Also, would you let your party keep their levels and magic items and just balanced the level one scenarios up?
Thanks in advanced and looking forward to hearing your inputs!!
I'm facing a similar choice point. There are clues for the party to go one of three ways. One goes to the Underdark, another to the Feywild, and the last back to the Big City they came from. I gave everyone a heads up that we're going to have a "mid-campaign session zero" soon, and we'll talk about what we want to do as a group. Which plot they would prefer to follow, as well as any individual character needs they may want to address. In the case of CoS or GoS, let them know that one direction leads to a tough gothic horror vibe and the other to some seaside action. I know that doesn't feel organic, but it lets you determine which way the fun lies for your players. Then you can tailor the transition to the PCs to make the story flow organic.
In terms of starting an adventure with higher level PCs, I let them keep going as-is, and beef up some of the lower CR encounters, if I have them at all. Sometimes, the encounters in the first or second chapter are about giving the PCs some experience before tackling the harder stuff. Keep the encounters (with some extra beef) that move the plot, and ditch the others.
Transitioning to either GoS or CoS from LMoP is fairly easy.
1) For CoS the characters could just be ensnared by the mists. Alternatively, they could run into some Vistani traders and be unwittingly transported to Barovia. The beginning of CoS has a number of suggestions that would mostly work for a party starting in the Phandalin area.
2) As for the Ghosts of Saltmarsh - the transition is even easier. The suggested location for Saltmarsh in the Forgotten Realms is "Midway between Waterdeep and Neverwinter" "with the Mere of Dead Men to the south".
On the LMoP map just draw a road from Leilon to the village of Saltmarsh on the coast and you are done other than finding a reason for the characters to go there. I would tend to make Saltmarsh more of a village than a town in this case. The GoS module has the descriptions vary a bit. At the beginning it is described as a "non-descript fishing village" and later it says "Saltmarsh's roughly five thousand residents" ... 5000 people is NOT a non-descript fishing village which I would expect to have at most a few hundred people. So you need to read through GoS and decide how big you want Saltmarsh to be. I turned it into a town and added buildings to the Saltmarsh town map since the map provided didn't look big enough for 5000 people.
3) Other follow on options that might fit with LMoP include the adventures from Tales of the Yawning Portal.
One campaign I am currently running uses the adventures from GoS and TftYP linked together in the same setting. The players all played older versions of the game so the meteoric rate of leveling in 5e would be a bit of a shock so I can run the content from both and just delay leveling the characters.
Another option that starts near Phandalin would be the extra adventures from Dragon of Ice Spire Peak. This is also set in Phandalin and the base adventure takes the characters to level 6/7 with 3 bonus adventures that go beyond that up to level 11 or so.
Good luck and have fun :) ... there are lots of options even without creating your own adventures.
I KNOW with GoS you meant "Ghost's of Saltmarsh" but monkey-brained me couldn't help but reading the title as "...Transition from Curse of Strahd to Gurse of Strahd" lol
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Hey all!
Relatively new DM here and have been running LMoP for my party of first timers as well and they are really enjoying it. Our journey is nearing the end and they have expressed really wanting to keep going, and use their same characters they’ve grown attached to. I grabbed a couple of Modules during the DDB sale, and I want to find an in-game, not breaking RP way to let the characters decide which module they want to transition their level 4 characters to, that way I can start prepping in advanced for that modules session zero and come up with some good story hooks to bridge the two.
How would you do it? NPCs off handled mention some strange on-goings around the Saltmarshes? Rumors of a Count in a far off land commuting atrocities? I would have my party head back to neverwinter and secure travel via sea or other means most likely.
Also, would you let your party keep their levels and magic items and just balanced the level one scenarios up?
Thanks in advanced and looking forward to hearing your inputs!!
I'm facing a similar choice point. There are clues for the party to go one of three ways. One goes to the Underdark, another to the Feywild, and the last back to the Big City they came from. I gave everyone a heads up that we're going to have a "mid-campaign session zero" soon, and we'll talk about what we want to do as a group. Which plot they would prefer to follow, as well as any individual character needs they may want to address. In the case of CoS or GoS, let them know that one direction leads to a tough gothic horror vibe and the other to some seaside action. I know that doesn't feel organic, but it lets you determine which way the fun lies for your players. Then you can tailor the transition to the PCs to make the story flow organic.
In terms of starting an adventure with higher level PCs, I let them keep going as-is, and beef up some of the lower CR encounters, if I have them at all. Sometimes, the encounters in the first or second chapter are about giving the PCs some experience before tackling the harder stuff. Keep the encounters (with some extra beef) that move the plot, and ditch the others.
Transitioning to either GoS or CoS from LMoP is fairly easy.
1) For CoS the characters could just be ensnared by the mists. Alternatively, they could run into some Vistani traders and be unwittingly transported to Barovia. The beginning of CoS has a number of suggestions that would mostly work for a party starting in the Phandalin area.
2) As for the Ghosts of Saltmarsh - the transition is even easier. The suggested location for Saltmarsh in the Forgotten Realms is "Midway between Waterdeep and Neverwinter" "with the Mere of Dead Men to the south".
On the LMoP map just draw a road from Leilon to the village of Saltmarsh on the coast and you are done other than finding a reason for the characters to go there. I would tend to make Saltmarsh more of a village than a town in this case. The GoS module has the descriptions vary a bit. At the beginning it is described as a "non-descript fishing village" and later it says "Saltmarsh's roughly five thousand residents" ... 5000 people is NOT a non-descript fishing village which I would expect to have at most a few hundred people. So you need to read through GoS and decide how big you want Saltmarsh to be. I turned it into a town and added buildings to the Saltmarsh town map since the map provided didn't look big enough for 5000 people.
3) Other follow on options that might fit with LMoP include the adventures from Tales of the Yawning Portal.
One campaign I am currently running uses the adventures from GoS and TftYP linked together in the same setting. The players all played older versions of the game so the meteoric rate of leveling in 5e would be a bit of a shock so I can run the content from both and just delay leveling the characters.
Another option that starts near Phandalin would be the extra adventures from Dragon of Ice Spire Peak. This is also set in Phandalin and the base adventure takes the characters to level 6/7 with 3 bonus adventures that go beyond that up to level 11 or so.
Good luck and have fun :) ... there are lots of options even without creating your own adventures.
I KNOW with GoS you meant "Ghost's of Saltmarsh" but monkey-brained me couldn't help but reading the title as "...Transition from Curse of Strahd to Gurse of Strahd" lol