D&D General How would you feel if Official Adventures only covered 3 levels?

[DarkCrisis]

I've ran several 5th ed adventures and played in a couple. I am currently running the Dragonlance adventure.

The early bits had you level up every 1-5 fairly quickly. Saw some slowdown with 5 and 6 then ramped back up so the party does the last chapter at level 10.

Basically, the group either gained a level every session or every 2 sessions. Modern adventures, one and done. Start a new with fresh characters that take the rapid rollercoaster of 1-10 again. Rinse and Repeat. Why does WotC do it this way?

Would you prefer a whole adventure that just takes you from 3-6? Then another that does 6-8. Etc? There doesn't really seem to be a reason to make these adventures (like the DL one) to have you gain power so quickly aside from "Now you get cool powers bro and can fight the Mega Dragon at the end!"

Sure you dont get all the sweet later level powers but you still have a ton of fun in just those 3-6 levels.

It's made me realize why the keeping putting out stuff where "Everyone and everything is magical!" because you just need to go adventure for a week and you'll be level 10 with magic coming out of every orifice. Much like EverQuest, yes every banker and leathersmith etc are level 99 warriors or mages. They just took a 3 week vacation and hit the troll dens and came back with power.


Edit:
What Im saying is the WHOLE Dragonlance adventure could be like 3-6. Not shorter adventures.

Still full length adventures just that they cover less levels instead of trying to cram 1-10 into it. Walk down a road gain a level. Have 2 fights. Gain a level. Visit 3 areas in the town gain a level. Chapter ends gain a level.

 

[mamba]

Would you prefer a whole adventure that just takes you from 3-6? Then another that does 6-8. Etc?

generally speaking, yes, maybe 1-4, 5-7, 8-10, 11-12 no point going beyond that

 

[Yaarel]

Adventures for four levels.

1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16, 17-20

Also adventures for "background" level zero, and epic 21+

 

[Yaarel]

generally speaking, yes, maybe 1-4, 5-7, 8-10, 11-12 no point going beyond that

Heh, almost ninjaed.

 

[aco175]

The box sets work for going a few levels or levels 1-5. These levels are fast(er) so I feel that can be one module. The other modules would likely be only 1-3 levels and likely less as you get higher.

I know that is not the template for making coin with Wizards in today's game, but it would be cool.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

In my opinion Wizards of the Coast does this because it's what we want. It's not what I want anymore. I want 2 or 3 level adventure--I want modules. But, 15 years ago I was very excited by Adventure Paths that take you from 1st to 20th level. So, the industry gave me what I wanted. However, I got bored of playing the same character for years over 10 or 12 levels. Indeed, I got bored of playing the same adventure for years, knowing from session #1 that we are eventually going to fight and defeat that vampire. I want more variety in my characters careers.

 

[Piperken]

Would you prefer a whole adventure that just takes you from 3-6? Then another that does 6-8. Etc? There doesn't really seem to be a reason to make these adventures (like the DL one) to have you gain power so quickly aside from "Now you get cool powers bro and can fight the Mega Dragon at the end!"

I'd like to see a version of this; 5e standard XP that takes you from Level 1-3 (vs. 1-4 or 1-5) that's adventure length, but doles XP & GP at a trickle.

I'd imagine there wouldn't be a lot of combat; you'd have to reach for things like diegetic rewards in it.

 

[MerricB]

In my opinion Wizards of the Coast does this because it's what we want. It's not what I want anymore. I want 2 or 3 level adventure--I want modules. But, 15 years ago I was very excited by Adventure Paths that take you from 1st to 20th level. So, the industry gave me what I wanted. However, I got bored of playing the same character for years over 10 or 12 levels. Indeed, I got bored of playing the same adventure for years, knowing from session #1 that we are eventually going to fight and defeat that vampire. I want more variety in my characters careers.

The economic reality is that publishing short adventures on their own in hardcopy isn't viable. A 32-page softcover adventure is really not viable.

Thus, we currently have the state of play that Wizards publishes:

• Long-form "adventure path" adventures covering many levels
• Short-form adventures in hardcover adventure anthologies.

My personal feeling is that the short-form adventures are too short; many are one or two session affairs. It would be nice to have more of a middle ground.

But given the economic conditions we're working from, you should end up with books like Tales from the Yawning Portal that instead have original mid-length adventures. Just fewer of them per product than with products like Candlekeep Mysteries.

The underlying creative problem with short-form adventures in collections is that of the setting. I can write a short adventure set in a desert. Now, is it useful for your campaign? Often, not at all. And it's that way for all short adventures.

I am unsure how many people play only one-shots and create new characters for each one.
Compare to the form of "dropping adventures into an existing campaign and weaving them together".
Or playing one long campaign hardcover.
(Ignoring those who entirely homebrew).

The way I came up was in the "weave unconnected adventures together into a campaign". It's a form that wants short adventures, but then the setting of those adventures comes into play. Assuming you want a campaign with the adventures all fitting into a particular setting, that limits the short adventures you can use. And, while you can have each adventure in a completely different setting, I'm not sure how desirable that is to people. (I want more continuity than that, personally).

Cheers!

 

[Yaarel]

For an adventure, it might be worthwhile to count "encounters", rather than count pages.

It takes about 5½ standard encounters to go from level 1 to level 2, then an other 5½ standard encounters to go from level 2 to level 3. The number of required encounters to level, increases from there. To go from level 3 to level 4 needs about 11 encounters. Finally to exit the lowest tier and enter the next tier starting at level 5 takes about 15 encounters.

So an adventure for levels 1 thru 4, to end up a level 5, needs to have about 27 encounters ( = 5½ + 5½ + 11 + 15) at the appropriate Challenge Rating.

From then on, the necessary number plateaus at about about 15 standard encounters to reach the next level. To get from level 5 to level 7 takes about 30 encounters. Instead, to get from level 5 to level 9 takes about 60 encounters. To get from level 5 to level 11 takes about 90 encounters.

One can estimate how big an adventure is, by counting the number of encounters the player characters are likely to face.

However once exiting level 11, the number of standard challenges to advance to the next level drops down to only about 9 encounters per level. So advancing thru the highest tiers happens at a brisk clip.


Here are two charts making slightly different calculations. One can clearly see about how many encounters − namely how big an adventure needs to be − in order to reach the next.

 

[greymist]

<snip>Would you prefer a whole adventure that just takes you from 3-6? Then another that does 6-8. Etc?

I miss the old days, when a module would give you an appropriate starting level and it was mostly irrelevant what level you were when it ended. Generally, that would depend on the size of the party ( and the number of survivors).

The economic reality is that publishing short adventures on their own in hardcopy isn't viable. A 32-page softcover adventure is really not viable.
<snip>
My personal feeling is that the short-form adventures are too short; many are one or two session affairs. It would be nice to have more of a middle ground.
<snip>
The underlying creative problem with short-form adventures in collections is that of the setting. I can write a short adventure set in a desert. Now, is it useful for your campaign? Often, not at all. And it's that way for all short adventures.
<snip>
The way I came up was in the "weave unconnected adventures together into a campaign". It's a form that wants short adventures, but then the setting of those adventures comes into play. Assuming you want a campaign with the adventures all fitting into a particular setting, that limits the short adventures you can use. And, while you can have each adventure in a completely different setting, I'm not sure how desirable that is to people. (I want more continuity than that, personally).

It’s likely true that printing 32 page modules might not meet WOTC’s financial requirements, but I would imagine that smaller companies could make a reasonable profit. And, PDFs would suffice for many people and the margins on an electronic product would be far greater than paper.

What Merric describes, weaving together unrelated adventures is how it worked back in the day, and it’s how I run my games today in 5E. I find a good Level 1 adventure, run it, figure out the level the group will be when it’s over, find another adventure that fits the level and to a lesser extent, the environment, and then use it.

I never mind the lack of continuity because that just provides for some travel/exploration to get to the next adventure. Again, this is an old-school approach that might not be as acceptable for the modern gamer.