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.
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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.