D&D 4E D&D 4e level 2/3 Adventures for Kids (dungeon-crawl style)

[petrburkholder]

Hi all,

I hope folks here can help me run D&D 4e with some 11&12yo kids.

TL;DR:
-> What adventures would you recommend for level 2/3 4thE D&D that's more 'dungeon crawl' than naunced role-playing
-> What resources would you recommend for keeping play moving along for shorter attention spans?


I've been DMing Pathfinder for my 11-year-old son and some of his school buddies as an afterschool activity for the last year. We played Pathfinder "Crypt of the Everflame" in the Spring as a level 1 adventure, which was great (good puzzles, straightforward story), and I started in on "Rise of the Runelords" this fall, which was a mess (too much nuanced role-playing and moral quandaries).

Also this fall I tried playing with six players, instead of five, which pretty much brought play to a standstill.

Now that there are so many other 5th and 6th grade kids who want to play, I'm going to try having two "Apprentice DMs" run two games of four players each starting in February. The two boys who want to DM both have a studied up on all the D&D 4e rules (and have a ton of the books), so it only makes sense to use 4e rules, but they like the idea of having me as backup to keep things moving along (and now I have a whole other ruleset to learn, boo....)


So, do you have any 4e level 2/level 3 adventures to recommend? Or resources for finding good adventures?


Also, what tips/tools/tricks have you found that help keep a novice DM organized and keep play moving along?


Thanks,


Peter

 

[Warunsun]

Recommended is:
D&D RPG Starter Set "Quickstart"

H1 Keep on the Shadowfell

These are free PDFs and the Keep was designed as an introduction to 4E.

 

[cavalier973]

Borrowing from 13th age, I would use escalation dice (after the first round of battle, add +1 to the player's die rolls for each new round. +1 for the second round, +2 for the third round. Cap it at +6, though).

Also, consider introducing icons. These are movers and shakers in the world with whom the players may have relationships. At the start of each session, the DM can figure out which of the icons will be driving the adventure (for example, the king's bodyguard requests that the players investigate a rumored assassination attempt. The next session, a group of rebels fighting against the evil duke request that the players escort a wagon carrying supplies/weapons to them).

As for adventures, I think that the "Chaos Scar" is based on the "Keep on the Borderlands" style of adventure.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

You could try to give Dungeon Delve a shot. It sports 30 small adventures - one for each level - which consist of three encounters in a dungeon each.

Another good source is the Living Forgotten Realms site with lots and lots of adventures from organized play. They tend to be short, too, but have much more sparse production values.

 

[Lindeloef]

If you use Keep on the Shadowfell, look for [MENTION=6694190]Myrhdraak[/MENTION] s thread. He updated it to make it better. The adventure out of the book is kinda crappy. Especially the Keep part. That doesn't really play well with the 4e ruleset. All those encounters....

Else I would vote for the Reavers of Harkenwold Adventure, though thats not a dungeoncrawl. (but it has really good fights except one with a spider thats more than annoying)

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

(snip) TL;DR:
-> What adventures would you recommend for level 2/3 4thE D&D that's more 'dungeon crawl' than naunced role-playing
-> What resources would you recommend for keeping play moving along for shorter attention spans? (snip)

I would run your own conversion of Keep on the Borderlands reducing the monster levels to a more appropriate level for your group.

But make sure you give it a plot which I would suggest revolves around the evil temple and have whatever evil you decide to place there uniting the humanoid tribes. Yes, it's simple and it's unoriginal but it works... and the temple can make a nice change of pace after the PCs finish fighting with humanoids.

It can also segue nicely into Reavers of Harkenwold even if it means making some changes to the monster levels in that adventure.

(snip) Also, what tips/tools/tricks have you found that help keep a novice DM organized and keep play moving along? (snip)

- Get them to use lots of minions to minimise book-keeping for the monsters. I rather like the combination of an elite leader with a small horde of minions even if it means custom building the stat blocks.

- Grab small whiteboards for keeping track of initiative and conditions.

- I like having stat blocks printed out, one to an A4 page (or for you medieval people, whatever the non-metric equivalent is). That means there is lots of white space on the sheet where I can also write down individual monster hit points and conditions. (This is a lifesaver, IMO.)

- Don't hand out +1 items - weapons, implements, armour etc... - but go straight to +2. Let the PCs hit - a dead monster is less book-keeping - and also let the new DMs not have to worry about whether or not the PCs have the right bonuses for the first 7-10 levels.

- Frankly, the hardest thing is making sure the players actually know how to play their characters. I review my players' character sheets before each session - thanks DDi! - and make a note of some of the things they can do so that, in the event of analysis paralysis, I can make a small suggestion that might get them back in action.

That's all for now.

 

[jodyjohnson]

The Encounters adventures available on DnDClassics.com are built for short discrete sessions.

Although you might want to tone down the damage from the 8+1/level baseline to something more like the original 4e math (I'd do 5+1/level).

The Encounters adventures can be very brutal to less tactical players (my 9yo enjoys them).

 

[jamesmanhattan]

The "Dungeon Delve" book would work perfectly. Plus it's great.


There are excellent delves in "Open Grave"(the lvl 1 is one of my favs), "Demonomicon", "Draconomicon", and Dungeon Mag: "Crown of the Troll King lvl 11", "Coppernights Salvation lvl 1", "Battle of the Witchlight Hermitage lvl 4", "A Knight in Shadowghast Manor lvl 6", "Going Ape! lvl 6", "Dead by Dawn lvl 2", "Down the Goblin Hole lvl 2", "Sunken Tower of the Marsh Mystic lvl 3", "The Wayward Wyrmling lvl 2", "The Runecutter's Rune lvl 9", "Rumble in the Valley lvl 6", "Fjorin's Foothold lvl 4", and 9 Delves from the Delve Nights program that are as good or better than ones in the Delve book.

Any of the "D&D Encounters" seasons, as they were made to be easy to run. They each last about 3-4 weeks.

RPGA are a bit longer to read then Delves, and take somewhat more preparation.
If they want a bit more story: These are my favorite beginner RPGA mods
CORM1-1 "The Black Knight of Arabel"
CORE1-13 "The Fate of Camp 15"
TYMA1-5 "From One Dwarf to Another"
AGLA1-1 "Lost Temple of the Fey Gods" pixie role-play
AKAN1-1 "The Rotting Ruins of Galain" straightforward goblin killing

"Into the Shadowhaunt" - a 4E Gameday adventure. and the other GameDay adventures.

possibly:
"The Dungeon of the Ghost Tower" 4E - Dungeon Magazine#182 - straightforward dungeon with tricks
"The Red Box" I loved the short, simple to run adventure that was in the 4E Red Box, DM guide I think it was named "Twisting Halls"

 

[sabrinathecat]

Have you tried Halls of Undermountain? It does a reasonable job of providing both RP and Crawl.

 

[jamesmanhattan]

For resources to keep play moving fast. Stick to Essentials only characters. Only the books with "Heroes" in their titles. Like "Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms"

Make name-tag tents to track initiative. Take a 4X5 index card, fold it in half to create a "tent", write "Fighter" on it, repeat for all the players and make a couple that say "DM1" "DM2" etc.
Put them in front of the DM and rearrange them in initiative order, for every combat. Everyone can see whose turn it is and who's next.

Track conditions by putting colored soda-rings (the plastic ring left on a plastic soda bottle after you remove the cap) on minis. Red=Bloodied, etc. Or make your own colored rings by bending colored pipe-cleaners into circles.

Lastly, tell the novice DM to track all damage as a positive number. Don't subtract damage from the monster's total. Keep adding until you reach the threshholds. If an Orc takes 6 damage, write down the 6, and add any future damage to that. Don't try to subtract 6 from the Orc's total of 50HP.