D&D 4E Running player commentary on PCat's 4E Campaign - Heroic tier (finished)

[Plane Sailing]

as long as he doesn't get called 'dog 1' he should be OK.

(/old joke)

 

[Piratecat]

Will the advancement rate be slowed somewhat?

You know, I'm honestly not sure I'll need to. I want to shoot for a level every 5-6 games, which is twice as fast as my last campaign. We game from 7pm to 10pm, minus some time for food, so that's about two encounters per game when you include roleplaying. I suspect that even if I didn't change advancement, we'd still level at the speed recommended in the DMG.

I probably won't track xp, though. I'm more likely to just level people after an adventure every 5-6 games.

The wiki can be found here, and is in the process of being updated: piratecat wiki

 

[Zog]

Interesting - sounds like you went with a 'Points of Dark' campaign, instead of a 'points of light'. I'll be reading with interest!

Oh, and if you should happen to need a replacement player, because you know, somone won the lottery and moved to Maui, think kindly of me.

Have fun!

 

[Piratecat]

Since part of my brain is wrestling with a work problem, I'll talk a little about the campaign design. The Sons of Kryos guys posted an amazing campaign blurb a few months back, one that was truly inspirational: a world where everything was going to hell all at once and the PCs were caught in the middle. I loved it, but it was too unremittingly dark for me to be able to pull off successfully. I wanted to take a world where things have been going pretty well, make the players love it, and then have something happen that shakes up the status quo.

For me that means setting up an empire that seems to be in a decadent decline. The far provinces are talking about rebellion, no one knows what the emperor (a God clothed in flesh, according to tradition) has been up to, and there are many forces at work - some mortal and political, some far from what people might expect. For hundreds of years the power of the Emperor's Peace has kept most monsters at bay, and the Grey Guard has easily dealt with what few monsters have been willing to rear their heads. Even so, it's a terribly dangerous line of work. It's about to get more dangerous.

With the empire weakening or crumbling, the emperor's peace is disintegrating along with it. The massive Pledgestones that symbolize this protection are cracking in the countries that rebel. And that's going to bode poorly for the nearby realms. As a result, large sections of the map may shift from civilized to uncivilized. Things start getting ugly, and this coincides roughly with the growth in power of the heroes. I love the points of light concept, but I also take deep joy in city and political games. This should give me both, depending on where in the empire the PCs happen to be at any given time.

And of course, the problems of the Empire are only one part of the long-term story arc. I have some other cool things in mind, but this isn't the place to discuss them.

I've deliberately set the PCs in a country that's halfway between the civilized lands and the more wild provinces. It takes me a while to world-build, and unlike you crazy-impressive top-down guys, I can't create everything ahead of time and present it to my players. My worlds tend to accrete around the heroes as they explore. I can't really do that here since there's more backstory, but I'm keeping geography a bit vague until it forms properly. It helps that the only PC who has "history" as a skill is a warforged who has been stuck in the mud for hundreds of years, and who doesn't remember much.

 

[Sagiro]

For hundreds of years the power of the Emperor's Peace has kept most monsters at bay, and the Grey Guard has easily dealt with what few monsters have been willing to rear their heads. Even so, it's a terribly dangerous line of work. It's about to get more dangerous.

[player]
What are you talking about? The Caprian Empire is doing just fine! Just because a few uppity border countries are twittering about rebellion doesn't mean Capria isn't still a strong and enduring entity. Heck, I've never even seen a monster, unless you count that crocodile, which was really more of a big animal than something strange and scary. Real monsters would be crazy to come near our civilized lands.

I don't know why anyone would worry!
[/player]

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

Well, this is just going to be an excellent read. Looking forward to it!

 

[Simplicity]

It's going to be hard for the players without a leader (though maybe that's the NPC's class). I have two strikers in my campaign, and while they certainly can dish out the damage, eventually they will eventually lose the initiative badly enough to get somone knocked unconscious. At that point... They're in trouble. In a party with a cleric, an unconscious character is back in play pretty quickly.

 

[Piratecat]

I'm certainly curious whether a paladin and a ranger with the heal skill can compensate.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

[player]
What are you talking about? The Caprian Empire is doing just fine! Just because a few uppity border countries are twittering about rebellion doesn't mean Capria isn't still a strong and enduring entity. Heck, I've never even seen a monster, unless you count that crocodile, which was really more of a big animal than something strange and scary. Real monsters would be crazy to come near our civilized lands.

I don't know why anyone would worry!
[/player]

I trust this guy - he sounds like he knows what he's talking about.

 

[jensun]

Thats an intriguing setting you have there PCat.

Is there any chance of a Story Hour?