Shorter adventure paths

[Trellian]

Even though I'm only five sessions into Red Hand of Doom, I need to start planning my next campaign. I have basically narrowed it down to three concepts.

1 - An adventure path (most likely Curse of the Crimson throne).

2 - A campaign consisting of standalone modules, mostly published but some of my own making.

3 - A shorter and more intense series of adventures / mega-adventure, in the vein of Red Hand of Doom, the Coin of Evil-trilogy set in Kalamar, the Freeport series etc. I have run all of these three, and they are by far the most successful ones I've ever run in 12+ years of DMing. My question is, are there anything like RHOD out there? Publisher doesn't matter. I'll stay clear of dungeon crawls, so all the Expedition to "X" is not an option.

 

[Morrus]

Without wanting to plug War of the Burning Sky in two separate threds, but I think it does fit your requiremens.

a) It's not dungeon-crawly at all. There are a couple of dungeons, but they're few and far between.

b) It has starting and ending points at various places for abridged campaigns. I can't remember offhand which modules those are, though, so I hope rangerwickett pops in to explain. Basically, you can do all 12 modules (levels 1-20); but it's written so that you can jump in at, say 4 until 8, or 7 until 12, or 1 until 4. Don't take those specific numbers as gospel though - I'm typing this out while dinner's ready, so haven't time to check.

 

[joela]

Gg

I'll stay clear of dungeon crawls

I was going to recommend Saga of the Dragon Cult by Goodman Games http://www.goodman-games.com/5200preview.php but you'd probably find them way too "dungeony" for you. I know I did but still plan to kill...er...run my PCs through it.

 

[Quartz]

The Istivin arc from Dungeon seems pretty good. Three adventures. Obviously you an elaborate as needed. Starts at a pretty high level, though.

 

[takasi]

I also recommend War of the Burning Sky. My players love it, and it's not a crawl at all.

I'm also running Saga of the Dragon Cult online. If you don't like dungeon crawls, don't run this one. If you like dungoen crawls, you'll love it!

I'm also currently finishing up the Mere of Dead Men series from back issues of Dungeon. It's pretty fun. You have to do some conversions, but at this stage of 3.5 it's not hard to find the monsters you need to convert pretty much any old adventure series.

I'm also running Mysteries of the Moonsea. It's a great book that has a ton of mini-adventures you can string together. There's plenty to do, there's no metaplot driving the story and you can integrate Sons of Gruumsh in there too.

 

[kensanata]

Mini Campaigns

Well, there are also mini-campaigns like Vault of Larin Karr or Doom of Listonshire. They are basically larger adventures starting with a party at level 4 or 5, usually ending around level 9.

 

[freyar]

Has anyone tried the Seeds of Sehan Campaign Arc from the last year's Dungeon? It looks interesting, but it was a little too episodic to grab my interest.

 

[RangerWickett]

Without wanting to plug War of the Burning Sky in two separate threds, but I think it does fit your requiremens.

a) It's not dungeon-crawly at all. There are a couple of dungeons, but they're few and far between.

b) It has starting and ending points at various places for abridged campaigns. I can't remember offhand which modules those are, though, so I hope rangerwickett pops in to explain. Basically, you can do all 12 modules (levels 1-20); but it's written so that you can jump in at, say 4 until 8, or 7 until 12, or 1 until 4. Don't take those specific numbers as gospel though - I'm typing this out while dinner's ready, so haven't time to check.

We provide suggestions on how you can run WotBS in five different ways. Each variant requires a little juggling of geography or narrative focus, but all provide a nice quest story arc.

Epic Saga - Adventures 1 to 12. You fight a war and become great heroes.

Shorter Epic Saga - Adventures 1 to 8. As above, except that the end is abbreviated. There are plot elements that don't a chance to fully bloom, and the conflict is a bit more one-dimensional: bad guys vs. good guys, instead of bad guys vs. three groups of competing good guys/neutral guys who may end up sabotaging each other.

Freeing Gate Pass - Adventures 1 to 4. The heroes flee an oncoming invasion, go and get allies, and then fight off an invading army.

Restoring the Rightful Ruler - Adventures 4 to 8. The heroes start by holding off an invasion, then go and rescue the recently assassinated ruler, restore him to life, and fight at his side against the usurper before she activates a superweapon.

The Nightmare War - Adventures 8 to 12 (actually 8, 9, 11, 12, then 10). The heroes start by attacking an enemy's base, only to discover that she is being manipulated by an outside force, dreamborn entities set on conquering the material world.

Of the adventures, only 6 really has a dungeon crawl, but it's more like 'assault a castle,' and it's dynamic because you're actively competing with another group in the same 'dungeon' (a castle caught in a necromantic firestorm, whose former defenders now stand between you and your goal).

 

[joela]

Synopsis

We provide suggestions on how you can run WotBS in five different ways. Each variant requires a little juggling of geography or narrative focus, but all provide a nice quest story arc.

snip

THAT'S the AP?!? OMG. Get the compendium out. NOW.

WOW.

 

[Trellian]

Thanks for the answers guys. I'm running a poll among my players now for what kind of campaign we want to play next. One of the question is basically a) adventure path b) short adventure path c) series of unrelated adventures. I felt that I have plenty of options for a), and c) is easy enough.. b) on the other hand.