Tips For Running The New Giants Adventures

[Syntallah]

I ran the originals many many years ago, but will be running my Party through Chris Perkins' 4E conversion of the classic G1-G3 adventures soon, and have a few questions:

- Does anyone have any tips or suggestions for running these?
- Are the monsters good to go with the "new" math?
- I will be running them in the Eberron setting on the mysterious continent of Xen'drik. Since the drow of Eberron are quite a bit different, does anyone have any suggestions for a good replacement for them? (I was thinking possibly the Yuan-ti).

For informational purposes, the Party composition is:

- Genasi Swordmage
- Human Hybrid Shaman/Wizard
- Revenant Blackguard
- Minotaur Barbarian
- Shifter Rogue
- Halfelf Bard

Thanks in advance!

 

[Saber6]

They are Themeatically the same, but "slightly" different. I've run the Steading and tried to mix in Old School with the new. Next time I'll stick to the new (though having LOTS of Hill Giant minions was fun)

 

[Ferghis]

The MM3 was published in June 2010, way before Chris Perkins finished working on G1-3, so the math SHOULD be updated. I would check the individual encounters. I've never played or read it myself, but I've heard that they can be a bit unbalanced (both too easy and too hard). So I can't tell you much at all about the adventures, which is probably what you're more interested in. But I can tell you something about the characters.

The party is light on control, but that's fine in my book, especially if most of the party is melee capable, which it appears to be. Also, there's six of them, so that should make it easier to deal with "too many enemies." Maybe go light on the minions, if you feel like it.

Make sure the player with the hybrid knows what they are doing: hybrids are easy to mess up, if you haven't planned out a good deal of the character's development to make sure it's up to par. For starters, Hybrid Talent is essentially another feat tax for hybrids: I've never seen a good hybrid build that didn't take that feat. Int/Wis synergize work well for stalker shaman and control wizard, but that's where I see the synergy ending: the character may do two jobs poorly (but I've often been wrong about hybrids). Plus, with (I imagine) poor AC and Fort, that spirit companion is going to die regularly (not that anyone will miss it, since it grants no real benefits). Spirit Companions were also built to work with the old math, so, if you're inclined, give it a few more HP. Shamans are also something of a skillmonkey, a job the Bard should be doing much better. So, my concern is, the player might be frustrated by an underperforming character. If you think the player is fine with that, then don't worry about it.

EDIT: would the player consider rebuilding the hybrid as a straight shaman with the Bardic Ritualist or the Divine Secretkeeper feats for access to rituals? The latter also opens up a fantastic invoker paragon path for leaders: Flame of Hope.

If the players have never played their characters before, put them through a couple of straightforward fights before launching into the adventure, just to give them an idea of how their characters can work together.

The shifter rogue should consider going ranger and refluffing it as a rogue, but that's probably just me overoptimizing.

Remind the players that dragonmark feats are available (unless they aren't), and they'd be idiots not to take them.

 

[Viking Bastard]

I want to run these, but am worried that it'll take FOREVER. How long would ya'll think it would take to go through them?

 

[Saber6]

How long? 3-5 sessions per module.

 

[Kelvor Ravenstar]

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