D&D General How would you feel if Official Adventures only covered 3 levels?

[Staffan]

Or: why does wotc make paths instead of sandboxes?

First, I really dislike calling the things Wizards puts out "adventure paths". A path is made up of many steps – Paizo now does them mostly in 3-volume installments either going from 1-10 or 11-20, and used to do them in 6-volume ones. I prefer "campaign-length adventures" or just "campaigns."

Second, because sandboxes are very poorly suited to publishing. A sandbox ought to have much more material in it than actually gets used (otherwise it's just a regular adventure where you can go to the nodes in different orders), which makes it pretty wasteful. It also puts a pretty big burden on the GM, because there are lots of different things to keep track of. In a linear campaign, it's enough to have a vague overview of the whole thing and focus on the next step, and that's a lot easier.

D&D is also fairly unsuited to sandboxes because of power escalation. IME, they work better in flatter systems.

I think 5 to 6 sessions per level is probably about the right rate of advancement.

So yes.

But I think I'm in the minority.

Thing is, 5-6 sessions per level means you need about 50 sessions to go from level 1 to 10. Even if you're playing weekly, that's a year of gaming. It is rare for a campaign to run that long.

Yeah Morrus, but, I have to buy the whole book just to find out there are only 2 or 3 adventures from the anthology l would actually run. I'm getting sick of that.

The realities of publishing is that if a 256-page book would cost $60, that doesn't mean that a 64-page book would cost $15. It'd be more like $40, when you consider the lower print run and other issues.

One of the problems with adventure paths is they would be 900 pages long and cost $200 (USD) of they actually had the experience in the needed for leveling as advertised. l am beginning to see this as a weakness of the adventure path format that we overcome with Milestone advancement. (Perhaps, I am just speculating)

Paizo's APs these days cover 10 levels over 3 volumes. Each of those volumes is 96 pages, with about 64 pages being the actual adventure and the rest being supporting material (e.g. if the adventure takes place in a city, part of those additional 32 pages would be a gazetteer of the city, and you'd also have some new creatures and magic items and such, some of which would show up in the actual adventure). And in my experience, that's squeezing it in tight – you'd probably need about 96 pages of actual adventure for each installment to give it time to breathe.

 

[jayoungr]

But since we’ve changed the subject—the answer to why they don’t make lots of little products instead of fewer bigger ones lies in basic economies of scale.

Well, they do make lots of little ones--see my previous comment about AL adventures. They just don't make them in hard copy.

 

[sevenbastard]

Thing is, 5-6 sessions per level means you need about 50 sessions to go from level 1 to 10. Even if you're playing weekly, that's a year of gaming. It is rare for a campaign to run that long.

They probably don't, but it should be the goal. Make compelling adventures and folks will care about things besides levels.

My last campaign was 130 some session and the highest PC was 13th by the end.

 

[Nebulous]

I've ran several 5th ed adventures and played in a couple. I am currently running the Dragonlance adventure.

The early bits had you level up every 1-5 fairly quickly. Saw some slowdown with 5 and 6 then ramped back up so the party does the last chapter at level 10.

Basically, the group either gained a level every session or every 2 sessions. Modern adventures, one and done. Start a new with fresh characters that take the rapid rollercoaster of 1-10 again. Rinse and Repeat. Why does WotC do it this way?

Would you prefer a whole adventure that just takes you from 3-6? Then another that does 6-8. Etc? There doesn't really seem to be a reason to make these adventures (like the DL one) to have you gain power so quickly aside from "Now you get cool powers bro and can fight the Mega Dragon at the end!"

Sure you dont get all the sweet later level powers but you still have a ton of fun in just those 3-6 levels.

It's made me realize why the keeping putting out stuff where "Everyone and everything is magical!" because you just need to go adventure for a week and you'll be level 10 with magic coming out of every orifice. Much like EverQuest, yes every banker and leathersmith etc are level 99 warriors or mages. They just took a 3 week vacation and hit the troll dens and came back with power.


Edit:
What Im saying is the WHOLE Dragonlance adventure could be like 3-6. Not shorter adventures.

Still full length adventures just that they cover less levels instead of trying to cram 1-10 into it. Walk down a road gain a level. Have 2 fights. Gain a level. Visit 3 areas in the town gain a level. Chapter ends gain a level.

I run slower levels generally than what WotC proposes. I like 1st-8th D&D, and will only push to 9th or 10th if the story demands it. It also takes a long time to get that high level.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

Second, because sandboxes are very poorly suited to publishing. A sandbox ought to have much more material in it than actually gets used (otherwise it's just a regular adventure where you can go to the nodes in different orders), which makes it pretty wasteful. It also puts a pretty big burden on the GM, because there are lots of different things to keep track of. In a linear campaign, it's enough to have a vague overview of the whole thing and focus on the next step, and that's a lot easier.

I agree that publishing a full book about a particular Sandbox campaign is difficult for the reasons you mention. Publishing anthology adventures that can be plopped into homebrew Sandbox campaigns is much easier and seems to be what WotC has been doing more regularly

 

[Yaarel]

What if there is a genre of adventure size at roughly 30 encounters?

This adventure would cover all of levels 1 thru 4.

Then it would cover about two levels during levels 5 thru 12.

And it would cover about three levels from about level 13 onward.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I would love much more adventures that are are just about .5 to 2 levels per adventure. Then I can assemble into something, or just be a classic “here are 4 jobs the village currently has” posted at the adventuring guild.

 

[jayoungr]

I have to confess that I'm a little perplexed by this thread. You can find quality adventures of literally any size, length, and level in superabundance online, including plenty that are 100% free. Why does it matter what size adventures are specifically published by WotC? No matter your taste or what you're looking for, it's out there. Yes, you'll have to wade through some crap to find the gems, but that's what recommendation threads are for.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

I have to confess that I'm a little perplexed by this thread. You can find quality adventures of literally any size, length, and level in superabundance online, including plenty that are 100% free.

Definitely true, I took it as a question about what people prefer most among all the options out there.

 

[Horwath]

For me it was the opposite, including enough painfully dull encounters to get the XP needed to advance the PCs. Milestone FTW!

or for experienced players when you need to throw everything and the kitchen sink at them to make the battle challenging and you end up with leveling after 2 fights when using XP.