Rich Baker says a little on paragon adventure(s)

Rich Baker talks about paragon adventuring, and a paragon adventure which will probably be P1.

Baker said:

This week I’m starting on the next 4th Edition adventure. This one is a paragon-level adventure featuring trolls and a whole assortment of allied monsters. When we say paragon-level, we’re referring to the paragon tier of character advancement—that is, 11th to 20th level. I’m on the first of those, so you’re right at 10th or 11th to start. We have an idea that each tier of the game should feel a little different. When you’re in the heroic tier you might have NPCs asking you to prove yourself, and you’re likely dealing with “small” stories—save a village, rescue someone, and so on. When you get to paragon level, you’re becoming important. You might even be a little famous; people have heard of you, and you’re dealing with bigger stories like saving big cities or small kingdoms, jaunting briefly into other planes, dealing with evil relics, and so on. What all this means is that I looked at the adventure start scenario for my new adventure, and realized that I wasn’t entirely happy with an adventure you just happened across. I wanted to make it something that felt just a little more like you’re the pros who have been called in to help, because you’ve got the reputation. We’ll see how it goes.

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I had heard that this aspect of D&D was going to be amplified but I was hoping it wouldn't be the case. Sorry, but putting "saving cities or small kingdoms" on par with "jaunting to other planes"? Adventurers go from saving villages to traveling to other planes?

Oh, well.

And yes, I realize that when PCs hit the Epic tier and they'rechallenging gods I'll like that even less.

Different strokes for different folks is fine but am I the only one to have read numerous Dragon articles and designer interviews over the years where it's pretty widely acknowledged that it's easier to scale up to High/Epic Fantasy than it is to scale it back down?

And yes, I know they never said 4e would be anything other than High Fantasy. It would've been nice to see them try and cover the sword-n-sorcery end of the scale as well, though.

Sword and Sorcery is covered by my reading. By the Heroic tier.

Like E6 was, so H10 will be. Just run Heroic tier adventures which involve you saving the world.

Azgulor said:

I had heard that this aspect of D&D was going to be amplified but I was hoping it wouldn't be the case. Sorry, but putting "saving cities or small kingdoms" on par with "jaunting to other planes"? Adventurers go from saving villages to traveling to other planes?

Oh, well.

And yes, I realize that when PCs hit the Epic tier and they'rechallenging gods I'll like that even less.

Different strokes for different folks is fine but am I the only one to have read numerous Dragon articles and designer interviews over the years where it's pretty widely acknowledged that it's easier to scale up to High/Epic Fantasy than it is to scale it back down?

And yes, I know they never said 4e would be anything other than High Fantasy. It would've been nice to see them try and cover the sword-n-sorcery end of the scale as well, though.

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When would you say it is appropiate for adventurers to visit other planes briefly for the first time? Remeber that some planes are now closer tied to the material, it's absolutley possible to walk through a thick and wild forrest and find yourself suddnely in the Feywild for example. Also, the paragon tier spans from level 11 to 20. I don't think it's especially crazy for a level 18 character to travel to strange and dangerous planes and i certainly wouldn't want to reserve plane traveling for epic play only.

What I really would like to know is if P1 will be tied to H1-H3?

Matrix Sorcica said:

What I really would like to know is if P1 will be tied to H1-H3?

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Yeah I wanna know this too. Of course I'm sure they'll say something like "You can make them linked if you want, however they're not designed this way".

Are H1-3 linked? I don't think I've read anything one way or another.

Guild Goodknife said:

When would you say it is appropiate for adventurers to visit other planes briefly for the first time? Remeber that some planes are now closer tied to the material, it's absolutley possible to walk through a thick and wild forrest and find yourself suddnely in the Feywild for example. Also, the paragon tier spans from level 11 to 20. I don't think it's especially crazy for a level 18 character to travel to strange and dangerous planes and i certainly wouldn't want to reserve plane traveling for epic play only.

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And note that there's a big difference between a "brief jaunt" to another plane and a "long sojourn" there.

The first involves, I would imagine, pursuing foes into the Feywild or Shadowfell and returning. It's like when characters in myth and legend journey to the land of the dead. I think it's more telling that this is mostly reserved for Paragon-level play rather than for heroic level play.

Visiting the underworld or the faerie realm is pretty common among great heroes. Just a few examples off the top of my head are Hercules, Odysseus, Jason, Orpheus, Pwyll and Gilgamesh.

I see no problem with a brief visit to the Fae realms as a mid level adventure, for example.

I don't think he meant diving into the nine planes of hell...

Azgulor said:

I had heard that this aspect of D&D was going to be amplified but I was hoping it wouldn't be the case. Sorry, but putting "saving cities or small kingdoms" on par with "jaunting to other planes"? Adventurers go from saving villages to traveling to other planes?

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Over the course of 15 levels, sure.

You're condensing things too much. When they say the heroic tier is for things like saving small villages and the paragon tier is for things like briefly going to other planes, it's not like at level 10 you're going to save a small village, and then at level 11 you're going to be camping out on the eighth layer of hell laughing at all the funny looking creatures walking by.

Instead, at 3rd level maybe you defeat some ghouls that have been harassing a local village. Then later at 8th level you discover those ghouls are starting to come back and you find out they're under the control of a warlock. At 12th level gnolls start attacking villages and cities throughout the kingdom. As you help fight them off, you find out the gnolls have ties to the earlier warlock and to another unknown villain. At 19th level, you make a quick, precise strike into the abyss to take down that unknown villain, who turned out to be a demon serving Yeenoghu. And to finish everything off, at 29th level you spend a solid amount of time in the abyss to track down and kill Yeenoghu himself.

You have to be careful about condensing what they say occurs over the course of 10 levels and using that to make comparisons between the tiers. There's a lot of time between levels 1-30 for an acceptable progression of scope.