Best 1st Level 4E Adventure

[Cryndo]

Thanks! You've given me a lot to chew on. I thought of going the RPGA route since there are a ton of free adventures, but they don't have a campaign feel and I'd love to springboard this first adventure into a campaign.

It sounds like there are a few good 1st level adventures, but perhaps nothing great yet. I'll give Sellswords a look and see if it fits my needs. Sounds intriguing. I do enjoy urban advantures.

 

[capn_frank]

I'm playing through Sellswords of Punjab and don't like it all that much.
The maps are way too small to take advantage of the 4e movements rules, after the 3rd session or so our DM started redrawing the maps on his tact-tiles.
Each room seems to be a huge grind which is sucking up our resources every battle. We've had to hide for extended rests twice and am not finished yet.
Two of the players on on their second characters due to deaths.
YMMV, it could just be that the group inexperience with 4e is the problem.

When I started DMing another group I used the D&D Roleplaying Game Starter Set as a "training session" for the PCs to get used to 4e and since then have just been stealing freely from Dungeon, H1, the DMG, FRCG, RPGA and Dungeon Delve to create my own storylines.

 

[TerraDave]

I played through the Kobold Hall miniadventure in the DMG in its earlier, DDXP version, and it was fun enough, if a a little straightforward.

Keep on the Shadowfell also has its strengths. The poster maps are nice, a lot happens outside the dungeon, it has a lot of classic monsters, and many of the encounter set-ups take advantage of 4Es more wide open approach to combat.

It is longish, combat oriented (but yes, there are some RP encounters, even in the keep itself) and not much on the skill challenge side, though that system was probably finished after KotS was (assuming it has been finished). But then again, its an official D&D adventure, so what do you expect?

 

[qstor]

*da da bump*

Are any of the adventures in the newer issues of Dungeon 1st level?

thanks

Mike

 

[Derulbaskul]

*da da bump*

Are any of the adventures in the newer issues of Dungeon 1st level?

thanks

Mike

The new Chaos Scar "sandbox" is made of up five or six 1st-level delves (not full adventures) and a 2nd-level delve. I like them and plan to use most of them.

There is a thread on the WotC boards that lists all of the Dungeon adventures by level with a short summary. I can't find the link right now but I will try and post it later today when I find it.

 

[Rabbitbait]

If you are looking for one that springboards into a campaign the adventure in the Eberron Campaign Guide is excellent. However it is very Eberron (one of the battles is set on an airborn ship flying between towers, it has dragonmarks and there is politics and betrayal) so it's probably best to use if you want to continue with an Eberron campaign. It also leaves lots of tasty loose ends that the adventurers will want to follow up.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I would run WotBS published by Enworld. It's not a dungeon crawl and there is plenty of background pulling the players in. If you like it it's the start of a campaign going up to level 30.

 

[level1gamer]

I've read and liked Rescue at Rivenroar the first adventure in the scales of war adventure path. The first two encounters are great and have interesting elements. The dungeon crawl that follows is pretty mundane except for the NPCs you pick up along the way that allow for good RP opportunities. Also, it's free!

 

[Thanlis]

Thanks! You've given me a lot to chew on. I thought of going the RPGA route since there are a ton of free adventures, but they don't have a campaign feel and I'd love to springboard this first adventure into a campaign.

It sounds like there are a few good 1st level adventures, but perhaps nothing great yet. I'll give Sellswords a look and see if it fits my needs. Sounds intriguing. I do enjoy urban advantures.

Hm. You know, you might want to take a look at the RPGA Embers of Dawn mini-campaign (MINI 1-1 through 1-6). I wouldn't recommend the majority of LFR stuff for your purposes, but Embers of Dawn is quite good and fits your criteria very well.

It's an urban setting (or rather, multiple urban settings). The cities aren't generic, which is cool -- Sambral and Tarmalune in particular are pretty distinctive. It's six adventures, each one of which runs nicely in no more than six hours of play. The setting is the Windrise Ports, which are not strongly connected to the rest of the Forgotten Realms; you could drop this into any world fairly seamlessly. And, of course, free.

Downsides: you'd need/want to fiddle with the treasure a bit, since LFR treasure parcels don't map precisely into the standard treasure system. The background does assume that the world has primordial elemental beings of god-like power in it. Only the first five are out (although the last should come later this month or early next). The final adventure could be a crashing disappointment.

Cheap to take a look at it, anyhow. I've run sessions 1 through 3 if you have any questions.

 

[samursus]

I'll second Blackbrrd for War of the Burning Sky from our very own ENWorld Publishing. For $3 you can get the first module and its the 1st of 12 in a very rich and epic Adventure Path.