Playing the adventure with my kids, finishing up - can I get some recommendations on the next adventure? I plan to run the next one though D&D Beyond. Would love it to be fun for the kids, we laughed our faces off at the characters introduced in LMOP with a twist like the goblin NPC who joined us. And tons of adventure !
What we are looking for : not too scary like Curse of Stahd. But I think the Acquisitions stuff is a little too silly. So in between ? Also would be cool if it was close in proximity to where we have been adventuring.
1 - Storm King's Thunder - leaning toward this ; difficult to run maybe but gives me lots of options
2- Waterdeep Dragon Heist - looks most fun, but my level 5 characters at the end of LMOP may not work ? Would need to roll new chars or make modifications to the monsters
3- Out of the Abyss - I have read mixed reviews
First post here, love the discussions, thinking of a subsctiption -- just bought Players Handbook but now I wish I had waited for the 50% off coupon from Essentials !!!
I'm running Dragon Heist for a group of level 4 players now and they seem to be doing okay and I haven't had to modify too many things and have it still be challenging.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
I'm currently running Out of the Abyss. I find it a very DM intensive game. Meaning you need to have a good grasp on all the moving parts 90% of the time and there is a lot of open space (travel time) that you need to work with in order to keep the atmosphere consistent. However, with you not wanting a scary/strahd type of game, I would warn against this one. OotA is designed to have a Lovecraftian/horror theme. It is supposed to be a campaign of survival horror and madness, where the players come face to face with things beyond their comprehension. Not the best for the feel you seem to be working with.
Target currently has the Essentials Kit available. It is a secondary boxed set that just got released (out everywhere in September) with more quests in and around Phandalen. You'll probably have to scale up the quests a bit though, since the boxed set is designed for characters up to level 6. However, with scaling you could probably make it a pretty good campaign of it.
There is also Dungeon of the Mad Mage to look at. It is a campaign book for levels 5-20 that allows the players to look for adventure and profit in Undermountain. (below waterdeep)
I haven't played through Dragon Heist completely I am a player in it now, and wow is it fun. I watched a lot of the promo stuff on youtube. They brought up a number of things. Many of the villainous organizations are pretty powerful so dealing with higher leveled players might not be so bad. It does require lots of social interaction and not dealing with everything with violence.
But how often do you potentially have to face down a crazy beholder mob boss with a prized pet goldfish. I always imagine him speaking like Christopher Walken.
Storm King's Thunder is a good choice in my opinion, you can skip chapter 1 and go straight for Chapter 2 - have them start in Triboar which is not far away, and they will be an appropriate level for starting that. Although it is a lot of work as Chapter 3 is very much a sandbox and you have to basically write all the content yourself.
Honestly, thinking more on this, all the big adventures have a solid theme. If you want city adventure you do Dragon Heist. If you want old school mega dungeon Mad Mage. If you want jungle lost world adventures with lost cities and dinosaurs you go Tomb of Annialation. If you want to fight dragons Hoard of the Dragon Queen.
From the list you have there I would recommend Dragon Heist but if you aren't down for a city adventure. Storm's King Thunder might be a better fit.
Playing the adventure with my kids, finishing up - can I get some recommendations on the next adventure? I plan to run the next one though D&D Beyond. Would love it to be fun for the kids, we laughed our faces off at the characters introduced in LMOP with a twist like the goblin NPC who joined us. And tons of adventure !
What we are looking for : not too scary like Curse of Stahd. But I think the Acquisitions stuff is a little too silly. So in between ? Also would be cool if it was close in proximity to where we have been adventuring.
1 - Storm King's Thunder - leaning toward this ; difficult to run maybe but gives me lots of options
2- Waterdeep Dragon Heist - looks most fun, but my level 5 characters at the end of LMOP may not work ? Would need to roll new chars or make modifications to the monsters
3- Out of the Abyss - I have read mixed reviews
First post here, love the discussions, thinking of a subsctiption -- just bought Players Handbook but now I wish I had waited for the 50% off coupon from Essentials !!!
I'm running Dragon Heist for a group of level 4 players now and they seem to be doing okay and I haven't had to modify too many things and have it still be challenging.
I'm currently running Out of the Abyss. I find it a very DM intensive game. Meaning you need to have a good grasp on all the moving parts 90% of the time and there is a lot of open space (travel time) that you need to work with in order to keep the atmosphere consistent. However, with you not wanting a scary/strahd type of game, I would warn against this one. OotA is designed to have a Lovecraftian/horror theme. It is supposed to be a campaign of survival horror and madness, where the players come face to face with things beyond their comprehension. Not the best for the feel you seem to be working with.
Target currently has the Essentials Kit available. It is a secondary boxed set that just got released (out everywhere in September) with more quests in and around Phandalen. You'll probably have to scale up the quests a bit though, since the boxed set is designed for characters up to level 6. However, with scaling you could probably make it a pretty good campaign of it.
There is also Dungeon of the Mad Mage to look at. It is a campaign book for levels 5-20 that allows the players to look for adventure and profit in Undermountain. (below waterdeep)
I haven't played through Dragon Heist completely I am a player in it now, and wow is it fun. I watched a lot of the promo stuff on youtube. They brought up a number of things. Many of the villainous organizations are pretty powerful so dealing with higher leveled players might not be so bad. It does require lots of social interaction and not dealing with everything with violence.
But how often do you potentially have to face down a crazy beholder mob boss with a prized pet goldfish. I always imagine him speaking like Christopher Walken.
Princes of the Apocalypse is set just down the trail from LMoP. And as mentioned the Essentials Box has more adventures in the Phandalin area.
Perpetually annoyed that Eldritch Knights can't use Eldritch Blast, Eldritch Smite, and Eldritch Sight.
Storm King's Thunder is a good choice in my opinion, you can skip chapter 1 and go straight for Chapter 2 - have them start in Triboar which is not far away, and they will be an appropriate level for starting that. Although it is a lot of work as Chapter 3 is very much a sandbox and you have to basically write all the content yourself.
Honestly, thinking more on this, all the big adventures have a solid theme. If you want city adventure you do Dragon Heist. If you want old school mega dungeon Mad Mage. If you want jungle lost world adventures with lost cities and dinosaurs you go Tomb of Annialation. If you want to fight dragons Hoard of the Dragon Queen.
From the list you have there I would recommend Dragon Heist but if you aren't down for a city adventure. Storm's King Thunder might be a better fit.
Man, I go away to work --- come back and see all of this advice, I love being part of this community !! thank you so much