My first campaign

[Pyramus]

At the moment I'm busy creating my first campaign to DM, but I realy have no idea how I should make it playable, because I'm afraid of overpowering the PC's all the time, especially when they are about level 4 to 8, because I can't put in the weak monsters there nor can I put in the big ones. And putting medium ones in won't fit the campaign theme most of the time and fighting the same monsters again and again is no fun either.

Maybe you have some useful tips on this problem, or on designing a campaign in general.

Ohw, and most of my campaign will take place in a theocracy ruled by worshippers of Tiamat.

 

[LostSoul]

What types of monsters don't you want to use? I'm guessing that you've grown past goblins but don't want to use dragons with less than CR 13 or so.

Why not use trolls, or a group of ogres, or other creatures with CRs appropriate to the PC's levels? Will it go against the theme of the world? (I can understand that - I was stuck having to use humans all the time in a low-magic campaign of mine. There were too many points where the PCs walked through ~30 men. Well, it only happened once, but that was enough. )

Don't forget that you can add class levels to low CR creatures to make them a challenge. A goblin Rogue 4 is a decent CR 3-4 challenge - and two of them are even more deadly. This is what I did in my game: I introduced more and more mid-level NPCs, and organizations of NPCs that defaulted to 3rd level (skilled veterans of wars).

Hope that helps somewhat.

 

[lior_shapira]

I like encounters vs. other humanoids, and my pc's seem to appreciate it. When you pit them against a party of adventurers, a group of bandits, the local militia... the options are endless and each group is totally different, in the composition of its members (races, classes,...), its goals, its combat strategy...

 

[Pyramus]

Thanks for the Hints. I already pitted them against a small group of Dracotaurs and I'm now thinking of creating some kind of kind of police force that is busy arresting heretics and rebels. That could get me a few good encounters. And Ogres I wanted to put in later, but then in Half-Dragon form.