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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5636804" data-attributes="member: 4937">My most recent campaign began, at 1st level, with the PC's trying to survive a tsunami and dealing with its aftermath.Over the years I've learned that its very important for pacing to begin with a really big bang.  You need to establish the interest of the campaign early, and often this means establishing your epic scale early.At 1st level, the important thing to remember is that the party doesn't have the resources to endure an extended series of combats unless those combats are against trivial foes.  Likewise stock D&D makes combat at 1st level fraught with sudden danger (which has its advantages in casual realism).  So avoid the problem by making most of the early challenges be non-combat in nature - fighting fires, healing wounded, fleeing some unstoppable danger, chase scenes, man vs. nature, inclimate weather, fairly weak traps, mundane diseases, etc.   Plan on having more skill checks than to hit rolls. Try inflicting non-hit point harm on the characters.  Minor ability damage (1-2 pts.) is fairly untroubling at this level.  Likewise, characters can encounter effects that inflict statuses like shaken, nauseated, stunned, dazed, dazzled, etc.   Haunts like Pathfinder uses can be useful here.  Make use of non-lethal damage when it makes sense too - fist fights, minor irritants, falls less than 10' or toppled loads.  First level adventure hooks I'd like to do: Your town is attacked by a CR 24 dragon.  Run!!  Deal with the aftermath as the refugees try to survive the winter weather, the loss of most of their possessions, bandits and their own flaring tempers and sense of despair while journeying to a neighboring town to beg for aid.A fledgling wizard hires you to help him investigate a strange vault he's found.  While down their, unexplainable wierdness happens.  When you go back to the surface, you find that the ancient sleeping war machines (collosal iron golems, clockwork monsters, scorching ray firing levitating tanks, etc.) that litered the countryside have lumbered back to life and are wrecking total devestation.  Try to figure out if you are responcible and what to do about it.You are attending court when suddenly goblin assassins appear out of nowhere.  Help the royal gaurd and the other courtiers defend the royal family, and then work with your friend the young prince to find out who sent them. You are on a river boat when its attacked by a fearsome monster or monsters.  Help the other passengers drive it off.   Your boat is now disabled.  Take launches down river to get help.You are escorting a caravan when you are attacked by an overwhelming force of goblin raiders, who are seeking slaves.   You are caught in nets, lassoed, and taken away to goblin town where you must plot escape while doing your best to help protect the dignity of yourself and your fellow captives.  Along the way you may find yourself caught up in goblin politics, as huge events are astir which threaten the whole region.   Either throw in behind the lesser of two evils, or try to escape and prepare for a coming storm.'Dude, where is my cow?' (vs 2): Shortly after the death of a beloved elderly town leader (the game begins with his funeral), you are hired by a rancher to help find out what is stealing his cattle.  You discover that a nearby tribe of kobolds, which had formerly been little trouble, has begun thieving from the outlying farms.  The new town leader demands action be taken to destroy these vermin.  Investigation eventually uncovers that the elderly figure had secretly made a pact with the kobolds.  In exchange for a yearly tribute of grain and beer (for which the town is famous for), the kobolds would leave the town alone.   However, the leader's replacement has instead sold the beer and pocketed the money himself, enraging the kobolds who are now on the warpath.   Either make peace with the kobolds or wipe them out (possibly while blackmailing the new leader).</blockquote>

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