DMs: What are your Post-Adventure Path plans?

[Big Jake]

Okay, the last installments of the Shackled City Adventure Path are coming up over the next couple of months. Has anyone that is running the campaign made plans (solid or otherwise) on what to do after the last adventure is finished?

When I first started running the adventure path, my plan was to finish the campaign and then start a new one with the same core group that I have now. I enjoy new campaigns, and making and meeting new characters. I've been mulling over different ideas ranging from a city campaign using Thieves' Quarter, to Eberron, to Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil.

Each has its advantages for us: the group has enjoyed the Cauldron-based setting, and they are agreeable to a city-based campaign; we've also been discussing the magic-intensive campaign that Eberron provides, plus the end of a war campaign (like From the Ashes); and two of my players are in a second gaming group going through the original Temple of Elemental Evil, so going ahead to the next one would be a treat.

But lately I've been wondering if I should extend our campaign beyond the last adventure path installment, and how far to go with it if I do. As a player in my first 3.0 campaign, we ran our characters up to 24th level before starting fresh (although we did take a break or two before ultimately starting new), and it was rewarding to take a character to epic levels.

I have only just begun to consider epic-level adventuring for these characters, so I don't have anything concrete to add here... my first thought was to have some epic undead threat rise from the Haunted Village, stirred from the high-level magic used by the Cagewrights... or build on one of Alek Tercival's prophecies: "When thrice by thrice the ancient judgement falls, thunder stikes anew from Jarl Khurok's halls." But that's as far as I've got into it.

What plans does anyone else have?

 

[Rauol_Duke]

I will run my players on into Epic levels after the "Shackled City" adventure path is done. This will be my first real forray into Epic levels, so I'm not posistive what I'm gonna do. One thing for sure, though, is that I won't be having Epic PC's & NPC's running around Cauldron.

I plan on running another campaign, of my own devising, in the rebuilt Cauldron, say, three years after the conclusion of the adventure path. Organizations will rise to power due to the actions that the original PC's had taken. For instance, the Striders of Fharlanghn, who the characters were allied with, will benifit greatly from the PC's eventual victory, and become a great force of neutrality and balance throughout the region. Also, my PC's let one of the swarms of Demonic Fingerlings escape into the underdark in Zenith Trajectory , so the next set of characters will probably have to deal with some half dragon-kuo tao in the future. Things like that.

As for the original PC's, I will more than likely set them on an Epic quest either to the Astral or to some planar metropolis, Union or somewhere like that...maybe they can go kill the Lich Queen in Tu'narath.

 

[Longbow]

I´ll start anew, get back to the joys of low level adventures .

But I would like a "Return to Cauldron" high level one shot (or mini campaign), with many old NSCs, allies and enemies. That would rock. Or the children/grandchildren/etc. of the PCs are the new heroes and begin adventuring 20/30/60 years later and embark on other journeys. Sometimes they return to beloved Cauldron and then the trouble starts again.

 

[ltclnlbrain]

Once my group finishes up the Adventure Path, we've still got "Black Sails Over Freeport" to complete (I'd been running it during the sessions when we had to wait for the next installment of Shackled City to arrive). From there, we're probably going to start up an Eberron campaign.

I have been giving some thought to further adventures in Cauldron, though. The setting and the NPCs are just too good to pass up. Certainly, one of the biggest potentials for epic-level storylines comes from Occipitus and the Smoking Eye. You know, "How to Care for your Abyssal Plane" and "Meeting your Friendly Neighborhood Demon Lords."

Besides that, there are plenty of enemy groups in the area to contend with. The Ebon Triad could make a resurgence, or Nabthatoron and his legions at the Demonskar could stage another invasion. There is also Alek's aforementioned prophecies that could lead to quests of epic proportions.