3.5e 1st level adventure for a newbie DM?

Garthnak

First Post
Background:

I have not played table-top RPGs much since AD&D2. I've played a couple of (brief) 3rd edition campaigns, but that's about all. I've DMed before, but it has been probably ten years, and I've never DMed 3e.

In a couple of weeks, I'll be DMing a 3.5e campaign for some friends. We'll have a mix of experienced D&D players and complete newbies; after some discussion with the experienced players, we've decided that (for now) we'll stick with 3.5e rather than 4e.

Since I'm relatively fresh-faced, I've decided I should use a pre-made campaign, starting at 1st level, at least to start out.

Objective:

I'd like to find a 1st level 3.5e campaign. It doesn't have to be long, just enough to get us off the ground (say, 1-3 level). I am currently looking for a pre-made adventure to suit that goal; preferably one that requires minimal prep on my part, since I don't have the time between now and then to dedicate to more than a couple of read-throughs. I will have more time for future adventures, just not for this gathering.

Most of the players are more role-players than roll-players, and are going to lean away from pure dungeon crawl. That said, if the best pre-mades for my main objective are dungeon crawls, I won't reflexively reject them. In particular, I've been looking at the Dungeon Crawl Classics series since it gets such good reviews, and has a number of starter adventures.

I've heard good things about Wizard's "Sunless Citadel" for this very purpose, though it is 3.0 and not 3.5. How much conversion is necessary? Just updating monster stats? Are there 3.5e campaigns that are similar in design and goal?

I looked at Pathfinder's "Rise of the Runelords", and I love the design, but it seems to be laid out for a more experienced DM than me, with more prep time (the very first encounter, for example, leaves some things pretty vague - intentionally, I assume, since most DMs will want to add their own color, but it means a higher buy-in cost for me as a newbie).

Thanks!
 

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I've heard good things about Wizard's "Sunless Citadel" for this very purpose, though it is 3.0 and not 3.5. How much conversion is necessary? Just updating monster stats? Are there 3.5e campaigns that are similar in design and goal?

I think Sunless Citadel is a great module. It's been awhile since I've looked at/ran it, but I don't think you'd have trouble running most of it as written even if it is 3.0.

Of Sound Mind is a great adventure and it has conversion notes if you are not using psionics.

The Freeport Trilogy is also a great series of adventures. These were originally released under 3.0, but the collection updates everything to 3.5.
 

Of Sound Mind. (Fiery Dragon, written by EN World's very own Piratecat.)

If you hadn't specified "non-dungeon crawl" and "quick read through" I would recommend The Lost City of Barakus.

In fact I'd recommend Of Sound Mind to buy you the time you need to read through Barakus.
 


Dungeon Crawl Classics #28: Into the Wilds is perfect for you for many reasons.

Like the mention above, Goodman games PDFs are $2 and $5 now, it's a steal and would provide you and your group just what you need.

-DM Jeff
 

I'll second "Of Sound Mind" and "Sunless Citadel". I've also heard good things about "The Adventure Begins".

I'll also recommend "Mad God's Key" from Dungeon magazine (issue 118, I think). And "Death in Freeport" is an old but extremely good adventure.

Also from Dungeon, there's "The Whispering Cairn", the first part of Age of Worms, which could be repurposed to start some other campaign. It's a bit dungeon-crawly, and might be better suited to a more experienced DM though. And from Pathfinder I thoroughly enjoyed "Burnt Offerings" (the first part of Rise of the Runelords). Oh, and Paizo's "Crown of the Kobold King".

There are quite a few excellent 1st level adventures out there. But avoid "Scourge of the Howling Horde". That is not a good one.
 

This first module I DM'd here on ENWorld's Play-By-Post games was the Free WotC Adventure "Wreck Ashore". It's a first level adventure that starts in a small town (Seawell), and then travels to examine a lighthouse that isn't working, and then the party discovers the cause is a band of pirates that have run ships aground to steal and loot their stuff. There is also a lizardfolk tribe in the area to encounter and deal with.

It was a simple and fun adventure, and best of all it was a free PDF. I was also able to download several maps from the WotC Map-A-Day section of their archives to get some extra maps to use.

Here is the link to the adventure:

FREE Original Adventures: Wreck Ashore

It includes within the adventure the map of the lighthouse, but here's that map again:

http://wizards.com/dnd/images/mapofweek/Jan_9x4L3c.jpg

Here's a map of the coastline I downloaded to use:

http://wizards.com/dnd/images/mapofweek/1HiddenCoast.jpg

Here's the Village Poisson that I repurposed into the town of Seawell:

http://wizards.com/dnd/images/mapofweek/4VillagePoisson.jpg

And here is the map of a raider encampment that I got to use for the pirates:

http://wizards.com/dnd/images/mapofweek/July2006/01_MAWJuly2006_72_ppi.jpg

After this you could go in whatever direction you wanted, even using some other free WotC adventures and maps if you felt like it. I myself had there be a cavern system under the pirate camp that the pirates were trying to break into (with the help of mining supplies off of one of the ships they ran aground), which allowed for a dungeon crawl following the pirate encounter. But you could go whichever way you wanted.
 

I always recomend:

NeMoren's Vault from Fiery Dragon, which has been updated to 3.5. It has the dungeon part, but also great backstory (that is integrated into the adventure), and either through the web expansion or integrated into the revised 3.5 version, a nice out of the dungeon bit with strong role play potential.
 


Of Sound Mind. (Fiery Dragon, written by EN World's very own Piratecat.)

If you hadn't specified "non-dungeon crawl" and "quick read through" I would recommend The Lost City of Barakus.

In fact I'd recommend Of Sound Mind to buy you the time you need to read through Barakus.

I played through Lost City of Barakus and don't recall it being all that dungeon crawly... we spent more time in the city than anywhere else... but then the DM might have significantly changed it.

I was going to suggest a few dungeon magazine adventures, but not sure how accessible those are these days. If you can get them, I suggest "Dungeon 124: Whispering Cairn/Dungeon 125: Three Faces of Evil" (you can run these back to back), "Dungeon 137: Siege of the Spider Eaters" are all great adventures that have an outdoor/overland component as well as a dungeon part... and are all fairly fun adventures.
 

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