ZSutherland
First Post
I’m gonna explain my situation briefly and then ask two questions about products (though general advice is welcome.)
I am currently running a 6 player FR campaign with PCs as follows:
Strongheart Halfling Cleric of Yondalla 9
Shield Dwarf Barbarian 9
Human Rogue 8
Sun Elf Abjurer 7 (nearly 8th)
Lightfoot Halfling 7 (just regained 7th level after ress)
Unknown 7 (Player just lost character at the end of Saturday’s session by becoming a chaos beast, will start at minimum for 7th)
My fiancee (the cleric’s player) and I alternate DM duties from campaign to campaign and it’s my turn at the moment. We’ve been playing 3E for 2 years now. The abjurer, barbarian, & human rogue have been playing D&D together off & on since we were 11. The others are varying shades of new, but all have about 2 years of experience under their belt.
However, up to this point, we’ve been playing fairly non-standard D&D, which is to say, we used the rules as written, but we just didn’t get into combat much or dungeon crawl regularly at all. We focused on mystery/role-play type campaigns, which is what the players always requested. In fact, that’s still what they request. However, I decided to run a more traditional game this time replete with dungeons, monsters, evil NPCs of all shapes and sizes, treasure & traps. I don’t think they’ve had this much fun in a long time. I don’t want to take too much credit for that, though. I feel that, in comparison to what I read of DMs here, my skills at this type of Dming are rather lacking, and they just don’t have enough experience to know it yet. I want those skills to come up to par before they realize they’ve been duped. I have bought City of the Spider Queen to run for them (I’ve never used a pre-written mod before) and have seen a good deal commentary about it here before, but have a question about it none-the-less. So, on to the questions:
1) Given that I have 6 players, all with good stats (we just use an 80 point spread as you like w/ DM approval system), and that CotSQ is for 10th level characters & up, how many of my characters need to be 10th level before we start? I ask because of the spread of levels between the PCs (the two highest being, of course, the people that never miss and therefore get more exp). I’m concerned that if I wait for most of them to be 10th then some will be 12th level or so. Will that overly limit the challenge and allure of the module?
2) My story telling abilities are good, imho, it’s my dungeoncraft that sucks. I managed to cobble together a dungeon for Saturday that they gave rave reviews, but it took every ounce of underdeveloped cunning and meanness I could muster. I’m just not sure how many times I could repeat such success. I saw Legends & Lairs: Dungeoncraft in my FLGS yesterday, but didn’t have much time to look at it. There are no reviews of it here. Has anyone used it? Is it worth it or not? How much practical advice is there? I also looked at the Book of Challenges, but it looked more like tips for pros instead of “The Noobs guide to Dungeon Building”
Help?
Z
I am currently running a 6 player FR campaign with PCs as follows:
Strongheart Halfling Cleric of Yondalla 9
Shield Dwarf Barbarian 9
Human Rogue 8
Sun Elf Abjurer 7 (nearly 8th)
Lightfoot Halfling 7 (just regained 7th level after ress)
Unknown 7 (Player just lost character at the end of Saturday’s session by becoming a chaos beast, will start at minimum for 7th)
My fiancee (the cleric’s player) and I alternate DM duties from campaign to campaign and it’s my turn at the moment. We’ve been playing 3E for 2 years now. The abjurer, barbarian, & human rogue have been playing D&D together off & on since we were 11. The others are varying shades of new, but all have about 2 years of experience under their belt.
However, up to this point, we’ve been playing fairly non-standard D&D, which is to say, we used the rules as written, but we just didn’t get into combat much or dungeon crawl regularly at all. We focused on mystery/role-play type campaigns, which is what the players always requested. In fact, that’s still what they request. However, I decided to run a more traditional game this time replete with dungeons, monsters, evil NPCs of all shapes and sizes, treasure & traps. I don’t think they’ve had this much fun in a long time. I don’t want to take too much credit for that, though. I feel that, in comparison to what I read of DMs here, my skills at this type of Dming are rather lacking, and they just don’t have enough experience to know it yet. I want those skills to come up to par before they realize they’ve been duped. I have bought City of the Spider Queen to run for them (I’ve never used a pre-written mod before) and have seen a good deal commentary about it here before, but have a question about it none-the-less. So, on to the questions:
1) Given that I have 6 players, all with good stats (we just use an 80 point spread as you like w/ DM approval system), and that CotSQ is for 10th level characters & up, how many of my characters need to be 10th level before we start? I ask because of the spread of levels between the PCs (the two highest being, of course, the people that never miss and therefore get more exp). I’m concerned that if I wait for most of them to be 10th then some will be 12th level or so. Will that overly limit the challenge and allure of the module?
2) My story telling abilities are good, imho, it’s my dungeoncraft that sucks. I managed to cobble together a dungeon for Saturday that they gave rave reviews, but it took every ounce of underdeveloped cunning and meanness I could muster. I’m just not sure how many times I could repeat such success. I saw Legends & Lairs: Dungeoncraft in my FLGS yesterday, but didn’t have much time to look at it. There are no reviews of it here. Has anyone used it? Is it worth it or not? How much practical advice is there? I also looked at the Book of Challenges, but it looked more like tips for pros instead of “The Noobs guide to Dungeon Building”
Help?
Z
