Adventure path planning questions

[RangerWickett]

E.N. Publishing is releasing the ZEITGEIST campaign saga in a few months, and I'm trying to settle a few issues before we finalize the first adventure. We did War of the Burning Sky for 3e, then adapted it for 4e, but ZEITGEIST is designed originally for 4e, and I want to make sure we provide adventures that fit people's play style.

Treasure Parcels
My first question concerns magic items and treasure in published adventures. Our campaign saga runs from 1st to 30th level (but we've built in start/stop points at the cusp of each tier, in case you just want to play Heroic, or if your party's already 9th level and you only need Paragon through Epic).

Now, the easiest thing for our writers would be to say, "We'll include specific treasure when it would be an interesting part of the plot. Otherwise, we'll note places in the adventure that would be a good place to provide the party with treasure parcels. Use your discretion to reach the suggested guidelines in the DMG. Alternately, you could use the inherent bonuses system" -- WotC will hopefully have that implemented in the Character Builder by the time we go live -- "and ignore our treasure parcel suggestions."

Would gamers go for that? I mean, our intention is to let the players and DM decide what sorts of gear they want, if any. But I could see it interpreted as us being lazy and just not doing the work to put in actual treasure. What do you think?


New Character Options
I figure most 4e groups use the Character Builder, and unless WotC changes it, groups won't be able to use any feats, magic items, or powers we add for the campaign saga, at least not without just hand-writing them or printing them and filling in their own stats.

There are a few things I definitely want to include -- we have 9 character themes, and I want to provide at least new 1st level powers for those, if not the whole "heroic tier powers + paragon path" Dark Sun had. But how willing are groups to use material that isn't in the CB?


Thanks. I'll probably have more questions as we work out more of the details, but your help on this would be greatly appreciated. And if you want to suggest things we include, angrily demand them, or just kvetch about WotBS, I suppose that's kosher too.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

1. What I would like to see is inclusion of default treasures, with ones that aren't plot relevant marked as removable. So you could have a convention that treasures with an asterisk after them aren't plot relevant and can be replaced at the GM's discretion with another equivalent level item. You might then have one encounter that gives out a Paired long sword +1*, which could be replaced with any other level 3 item, and another that gives the Bob's Amulet +2, which has plot significance and should not be lightly swapped out. That way, GMs who don't care about narrowly tailoring treasure can run the game out of the box without needing to fill in the treasure, but you make life easy for GMs who do want to tailor the adventure.

2. I don't use the CB, so I'd be fine with new character options. Our Burning Sky campaign uses the new feats from the AP, and I don't think that's created any problems. <shrug> YMMV, of course.

 

[Morrus]

1. What I would like to see is inclusion of default treasures, with ones that aren't plot relevant marked as removable. So you could have a convention that treasures with an asterisk after them aren't plot relevant and can be replaced at the GM's discretion with another equivalent level item. You might then have one encounter that gives out a Paired long sword +1*, which could be replaced with any other level 3 item, and another that gives the Bob's Amulet +2, which has plot significance and should not be lightly swapped out. That way, GMs who don't care about narrowly tailoring treasure can run the game out of the box without needing to fill in the treasure, but you make life easy for GMs who do want to tailor the adventure.

That's a good idea!

 

[TheFindus]

Ad 1.
I like Cerebral Paladin's idea. Mark the magic item that is not relevant for the story with a "*" and write the level of the item in parantheses. Then I can choose if I use the item as printed or replace it with an item from the wish list.
Concerning monetary-only treasure and potions, I would probably take what is on your treasure parcel list. What I would like to see, though,is not only a certain gp value, but written out pieces of jewellery, carpets, art objects, etc, so I do not need to do that.

Ad 2.
All of my players use the CB and will do so because it is ultra convinient. I imagine it will be very tough to sell new feats or powers to them if these cannot be included in the CB. Will these feats or powers be relevant to the AP or can we go without?

 

[SoulsFury]

1. What I would like to see is inclusion of default treasures, with ones that aren't plot relevant marked as removable. So you could have a convention that treasures with an asterisk after them aren't plot relevant and can be replaced at the GM's discretion with another equivalent level item. You might then have one encounter that gives out a Paired long sword +1*, which could be replaced with any other level 3 item, and another that gives the Bob's Amulet +2, which has plot significance and should not be lightly swapped out. That way, GMs who don't care about narrowly tailoring treasure can run the game out of the box without needing to fill in the treasure, but you make life easy for GMs who do want to tailor the adventure.

This for #1

New character options are always good.

 

[the Jester]

1. I'm with CP- I hate treasure that says, "and include a 9th level magic item here." Blech. But "a +2 tome of really big explosions, or a 9th level magic item of your choice" sounds great to me.

2. I'm big on homebrewed options; I hate how much the CB has crippled a lot of peoples' willingness to use them. IMC two of the players are taking homebrewed paragon paths next level (governator and gnomish illuminatus) and I use a fair amount of homebrewed magic items. That said, I have seen the resistance to this sort of thing that the CB has brought and it is formidable, so I am probably atypical. However, if an option is there, the group doesn't have to use it, while if the option isn't there, the group cannot use it. I'd include them.

 

[SoulsFury]

2. I'm big on homebrewed options; I hate how much the CB has crippled a lot of peoples' willingness to use them. IMC two of the players are taking homebrewed paragon paths next level (governator and gnomish illuminatus) and I use a fair amount of homebrewed magic items. That said, I have seen the resistance to this sort of thing that the CB has brought and it is formidable, so I am probably atypical. However, if an option is there, the group doesn't have to use it, while if the option isn't there, the group cannot use it. I'd include them.

I believe you are not atypical. The more we play, the less we want to use the CB because of the restrictions. We are switching back to hand written character sheets. Most of our magic items are homebrew.

 

[RangerWickett]

That Cerebral Paladin sure is smart. Great idea!

As for new character options, I'm designing most of the 1st level theme powers so they don't change by level -- they use basic attacks, or key off other powers you already have. Only two of them are really 'attacks' anyway.

But yeah, all the new character options will be, well, optional.

 

[FireLance]

With respect to new character options, one thing that I have tried to do for my stuff is to inculde pre-formatted power cards with blanks for the player to fill in attack and damage bonuses and other variables. I don't know whether it actually is a major selling point, though.

 

[karlindel]

I also would prefer default treasure that can be changed to either set treasure or open slots to be filled. Cerebral Paladin's idea of marking the ones that are plot important is excellent, although I generally prefer not to have plot important treasure that replaces regular treasure (because it sucks if the +3 sword needed for the plot is a sub-par weapon for the PCs).

Also, please make sure that the default treasure will be useful. For example, don't put in an Amulet of Health unless there are some fights with enemies that deal poison damage.

My group uses the CB, but there's nothing wrong with new options as long as they are tied into the campaign world. That said, I am not particularly interested in a lot of new options, as there are many already out there.