Help me design a mega campaign

[GarrettKP]

I'm going to be starting a new group through an adventure soon. I have all the hardcovers and want to weave them together into a mega campaign incorporating all the hardcovers so far.

I'm going to start with the Lost Mines of Phandelver and run that till Level 5.

I want to put them through the last half of Out of the Abyss somewhere around Level 10.

And I want to end it with Rise of Tiamat and have Tiamat be the big bad, and modify it so they are taking her on around level 20.

But I need your help incorporating Princes of the Apocalypse, Curse of Strahd and Storm Kings Thunder into this idea.

I plan on using some of Storm Kings Thunder to fill out the down time. Chapter 3 has a huge amount of content that can be used for filler but how should I incorporate the Giant story?

I wanna use the Elemental Cults as reoccurring bad guys throughout levels 5-10 but how can I balance this without forcing the group to run through all of the cults?

And I'm not sure what to do about Strahd since it's on a different plane.

All help and suggestions are appreciated.


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[Sacrosanct]

Honestly, if you plan on incorporating all of them, I think your biggest challenge and time sink isn't going to be finding a story that links them all together, but in changing the encounters to fit your PC's levels. Every campaign assumes the PCs will be a certain level for every chapter. If you slow down progression in one campaign (like PotA), then you will have to severely modify the encounters in PotA towards the end because they will be too tough for the lower level PCs. Likewise, if they are level 20 by the end of RoT, then you'll really need to change the encounters at the end of that because it's designed for level 15 PCs. I honestly don't see how it's possible to put them all together in one campaign unless you rewrite all of the encounters in each one. And that's a ton of work.

 

[GarrettKP]

Honestly, if you plan on incorporating all of them, I think your biggest challenge and time sink isn't going to be finding a story that links them all together, but in changing the encounters to fit your PC's levels. Every campaign assumes the PCs will be a certain level for every chapter. If you slow down progression in one campaign (like PotA), then you will have to severely modify the encounters in PotA towards the end because they will be too tough for the lower level PCs. Likewise, if they are level 20 by the end of RoT, then you'll really need to change the encounters at the end of that because it's designed for level 15 PCs. I honestly don't see how it's possible to put them all together in one campaign unless you rewrite all of the encounters in each one. And that's a ton of work.

That is a fair amount but I think it's doable. I've already got my idea for how I'm ending Tiamat (adding in her Consorts to put the group through the gauntlet before they face her).

And I don't expect to run all of each book. I'm not expecting them to face the Elemental Princes, instead having them only fight the prophets for example.

And I'm using the hardcovers for story. In some cases I'll build my own encounters.


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[robus]

Here's my proposal to make it an epic FR campaign:

LMoP->PotA->HotDQ->SKT->OotA->RoT

Rationales:

LMoP -> PotA has the smoothest transition.

PotA -> HotDQ some cultist connection could tie them in

HotDQ -> SKT Blagothkus and his flying castle are a perfect gateway to SKT

SKT -> OotA On their way back from the North they can be detoured into the Underdark for part 2 as you suggest

OotA -> RoT On their emergence from the Underdark they receive urgent correspondence that the cult is getting ready for the final push and their aid is needed in defeating Tiamat.

Leave CoS for another day. It really doesn't fit in the FR.

 

[GarrettKP]

Here's my proposal to make it an epic FR campaign:

LMoP->PotA->HotDQ->SKT->OotA->RoT

Rationales:

LMoP -> PotA has the smoothest transition.

PotA -> HotDQ some cultist connection could tie them in

HotDQ -> SKT Blagothkus and his flying castle are a perfect gateway to SKT

SKT -> OotA On their way back from the North they can be detoured into the Underdark for part 2 as you suggest

OotA -> RoT On their emergence from the Underdark they receive urgent correspondence that the cult is getting ready for the final push and their aid is needed in defeating Tiamat.

Leave CoS for another day. It really doesn't fit in the FR.

I really like this suggestion! Thank you. I'm gonna have to do a lot of work on Princes of the Apocalypse to bring its levels down but I think I can make it work. The only thing I am gonna change is the tie between PotA and HotDQ. Lost Mines uses the Dragon Cultist already so I don't think I'll have to throw them into Princes. Instead I'll just let them be a lingering threat that they meet in Lost Mines and hear more about when I get around to running a little Hoard.


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[robus]

I really like this suggestion! Thank you. I'm gonna have to do a lot of work on Princes of the Apocalypse to bring its levels down but I think I can make it work. The only thing I am gonna change is the tie between PotA and HotDQ. Lost Mines uses the Dragon Cultist already so I don't think I'll have to throw them into Princes. Instead I'll just let them be a lingering threat that they meet in Lost Mines and hear more about when I get around to running a little Hoard.

Sounds good

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm going to be starting a new group through an adventure soon. I have all the hardcovers and want to weave them together into a mega campaign incorporating all the hardcovers so far.

I'm going to start with the Lost Mines of Phandelver and run that till Level 5.

I want to put them through the last half of Out of the Abyss somewhere around Level 10.

And I want to end it with Rise of Tiamat and have Tiamat be the big bad, and modify it so they are taking her on around level 20.

But I need your help incorporating Princes of the Apocalypse, Curse of Strahd and Storm Kings Thunder into this idea.

I plan on using some of Storm Kings Thunder to fill out the down time. Chapter 3 has a huge amount of content that can be used for filler but how should I incorporate the Giant story?

I wanna use the Elemental Cults as reoccurring bad guys throughout levels 5-10 but how can I balance this without forcing the group to run through all of the cults?

And I'm not sure what to do about Strahd since it's on a different plane.

All help and suggestions are appreciated.

I'm not necessarily trying to talk you out of this, but here's what I see as the biggest obstacle you could be facing:

This campaign will take more than two years of real-world time.

Each of these adventures by themselves could take you more than 6 months (maybe a bit less for LMoP), playing weekly, for four hours a session.

If you've got a group that can accommodate this, that's awesome, but most groups I know wouldn't be able to last that long, and those that did last that long wouldn't be able to stand playing the same characters, week in, week out, for more than two years without becoming a little stale (especially as WotC releases sexy new adventures or character options in the coming years).

It's that's a buffet your group can stomach, though, here's a few suggestions:

Start with LMoP. There's drow in LMoP you can connect to Out of the Abyss and dragon cultists in LMoP you can connect to Hoard of the Dragon Queen / Rise of Tiamat. The area's also near the area for Princes.

I'd use Phandalin as the base of operations, and break up each bit into a mini-adventure you can do one of and return to Phandalin in the end. This might also make it easier to swap out characters if you'd like.

SKT connects pretty nicely to the Tyranny of Dragons story, so that should be fine. Let the party go through the dungeons from Princes when they feel ready - there's nothing in particular driving them there, at least until some other MacGuffins (possibly from Rise of Tiamat) are found there.

Out of the Abyss and Curse of Strahd are both "party is imprisoned and tries to get home" kind of adventures, so those might be useful to use as part of the enemy plot to get rid of the PC's. The mists take 'em or they fall suddenly into the Underdark - these are very much "side missions."

Good luck!

 

[cmad1977]

My advice is
Start with LMop, see where that goes. Something may come up during play that makes more sense, sounds more fun or you see as some way superior to your original idea.


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[DJCupboard]

You could always start RoT and then have Tiamat or one of her consorts shunt them to Ravenloft as they get close.


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[KahlessNestor]

I have heard it's the case that some of the adventures don't have enough XP to meet the milestone advancement. Is this right? Maybe use that and run XP instead of Milestone, pick one as your "core" and fill in with the others when XP is short.

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