D&D 5E Help! Creating a D&D 5e one-shot adventure for Saturday!

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Some old friends are visiting and Saturday night we wanted to do some gaming. Since some of their family might join in (with a variety of experience with D&D across different editions), and since its a one-shot deal I decided using the 5e playtest would be best,

7th level allows for facing iconic D&D monsters (trolls, giants, liches, wyverns), and also 7th level PCs *feel* like complete archetypes with solid (but not overwhelming) ability suites.

I am also thinking of converting their old PCs from a 4e game I ran in 2008-2009, and since that campaign stopped at level 10 in 4e, picking up at 7th level in 5e makes sense.

The premise riffs off the recent retirement of the Pope, in my world called the Pontiff, and a Conclave is called on a holy island to elect a new Pontiff. Meanwhile there's acts of sabotage - - poisoning, theft attempts, insidious rumors - that suggest someone wants to influence the Conclave for nefarious reasons. The PCs are appointed to an inter-faith team to find and stop the saboteurs before something really bad happens.

I'd like to have combat, exploration, and roleplaying scenes which fit inside a 3-4 hour game session and can accommodate a potentially large group.

How does this setup sound for a one-shot? Any pitfalls to look out for with 5e? Encounter ideas?

 

[SirAntoine]

It's interesting that you picked a dialogue-rich adventure over a more typical, dungeon-crawl. Concentrate on two or three encounters that consist of dialogue and mystery-intervention, and let the players take as much time as they want to go through them. This sort of play should be mostly diceless. Then, to balance the game out, make 2-3 short but interesting combats, with 1 being very, very short (say against a single, surprised opponent the PC's catch up to). Concentrate on "keeping the action moving", and you'll have a memorable adventure.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=6731904]SirAntoine[/MENTION]
Yes, I chose a scenario heavy on mystery and interaction because there may be several players who haven't played D&D in a long time or are inexperienced so I felt concentrating less on combat and rules would be good.

For combats, what level range of monsters should I use for a 7th level party?

 

[SirAntoine]

Well, you need to be cautious dealing out foes because your players are rusty or inexperienced. Your original post mentions some powerful monsters. If you feel that combat in D&D should usually be very challenging, with a lot of deaths (as it was in the old days of 1st edition mostly), then it might not to hurt to set a tone like this. I would lean toward an easier challenge for the first adventure, so I'd say no single enemy should be higher than level 11 and then only if they are fought by themselves AND are not "solo" monsters who are designed to take on entire groups of PC's their level by themselves. "The boss" should be 9th level, and his closest lieutenants 6th or 7th level (fought together). Lesser monsters should be as low as 3rd level (other than giant rats that might be about).

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=6731904]SirAntoine[/MENTION] What are you talking about? All the monsters I listed are 7th level or below in 5e.

Troll, level 6 XP 610
Wyvern, level 6 XP 620
Hill Giant, level 6 XP 720
Stone Giant, level 7 XP 1,800
Lich, level 7 XP 1,830

Anyhow, it looks like you use a level range of monsters between L+4 and L-4 in your 5e playtest games, is that right?

 

[Kexizzoc]

I playtest 5e quite a few months ago, so they might have worked out a lot of the kinks with monster-strength, but I had some surprisingly tough combats relative to the levels/XP value of the monsters. Granted, my players were at tender 1st level, where a single dice roll can mean disaster. I think 7th level (like you said, complete but not overwhelming archetypes) was a great call.

You've already got a great mix of different gameplay elements, and I'll second SirAntoine; 2-3 combats, with 1 being EXTREMELY short. Especially for a one-shot, where it's kind of a let-down if you don't get to cover all of the material, you want to make sure you don't plan more than you can reasonably get away with.

My personal taste: I would start and end the game with a combat. That is, either open the game with combat breaking out, or even interrupt the "quest-giver" as he's regaling the party with their assignment-- suddenly, assassins burst out. Throw the players right into the action before any real roleplaying starts-- it's the best way for them to get to know their character and thereby enjoy the exploration and roleplaying scenes later. This combat should be fairly easy, so as to let the players enjoy getting some dice in their hands and walloping some baddies. I don't think you can go TOO easy here, unless you've got a group who's somehow remained jaded after not playing for this long. Conversely, you CAN go too hard. If a player has bad luck in this first combat, they'll be hilariously hanging on by a thread, but not dead and wondering when the next time they'll get to play D&D is.

If you throw a combat in the middle, it should be really short. As mentioned, a single, surprised opponent makes a good candidate. Even so, planning for 3-4 hours... I wouldn't expect to get through more than 2 combats, and that's if the game stays on-focus.

The final battle will be when you can pull out all the stops, because if anyone dies, it's the end of the game anyway. This is where the Lich and friends could come in. If players need to start leaving, you can NPC their characters and tell them how it all panned out. But if the timing works out, you'll run out of time just as the last baddie is slain.

One final note on timing: The playtest I'm basing this off of involved three 1st level players, shipwrecked on an island. First battle, they were attacked by 4 Carnivorous Monkeys. Second battle, 2 more Monkeys and a nest of 6 Stirges. Final battle, they were ambushed by a hunting party of 6 Rakastas, who took the party prisoner (unexpected cliffhanger ending). That game ran about 6-7 hours (omitting lunch-break). If you really want to get all this done in one session, plan small. Remember you can always have reinforcements arrive in the final battle if you have extra time.

Enjoy your game, and best of luck.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=6695116]Kexizzoc[/MENTION] Thanks for the heads up about only using 2-3 combats. Others have said I could fit many more into a 3-4 hour session but I was skeptical.

So the adventure setting is going to be an island that was once a mythal, which was magically shielded from would-be conquerors. The island is attractive because it has naturally occurring healing springs, and has religious significance as the site where the angels that brought divine magic to humanity departed the world.

What kind of main villain would work? Maybe a vampire or blackguard servant of one of the churches who is a true believer & is also trying to remove vampirism/a curse from themself?

 

[Kexizzoc]

I love the location, I would also throw in some specifics about what powers the mythal grants when you're describing it. That's the type of stuff I love to use to get a variety of characters invested-- tell them the island cures diseases or grants a specific supernatural power and suddenly you've got the ambitious ones interested too, not just the holy rollers. The fact that you have ZERO intention of letting them have control of the island shouldn't stop you from letting them dream about it

I like the main villain idea (or, going with the monsters you mentioned, a regretful lich looking to go back to having an in-body soul would work just as well as a complex villain). There's a lot of little things you can do in a limited time to make a villain interesting, and giving him a curious and surprising reason for wanting this Macguffin goes a long way (as opposed to "Is Good, Must Destroy"). It goes without saying, the final battle should be at the holiest part of the island: the place where the angels returned to heaven, or the temple that was built there, or the magic healing fountain that is the heart of the mythal. Great centerpiece opportunity. If this really is a one-shot, there's totally no reason not to go all-out.

 

[WampusCat43]

Demons are sissies. We discovered that last session

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=6695116]Kexizzoc[/MENTION] I like your idea for a Lich seeking a re-embodied soul!

Here's how I'm thinking of handling the one-shot 3-4 hour family friendly game...how does this sound?

0. Let players choose 7th level pregens (old players get their old PCs of course), briefly go over rules, introduce adventure premise, let the PCs meet and ask questions

1. Quick easy "kick things off" combat, maybe undead or gargoyles sent to retrieve something or kill someone

2. Mystery investigation - role-playing, skill checks, and deductive reasoning

3. Mass Combat - fighting breaks out between different religious factions, and PCs face monsters/bad guy team (moderate combat) responsible for provoking violence

4. Crystal Caverns - exploration with magical hazards, looking for the mythal

5. Heart of the Mythal - a set piece climactic battle (hard combat) against the villain, and a moral dilemma about whether to let the mythal die or to activate it