D&D 4E Trying to Decide on Module Order for a 4e Campaign

[Will Doyle]

There are plenty of adventures available that allow you to stay in the Nentir Vale for the whole of the heroic tier. The Fallcrest section at the back of the DMG has all the world building you need.

I'd recommend:

Level 1: The Slaying Stone
Level 2-4: Reavers of Harkenwold (great adventure, plus you get a load of monster tokens and battlemaps)
Level 4-6: Thunderspire Labyrinth
Level 6-10: Madness at Gardmore Abbey

 

[Jessica]

I'm not feeling TMoP for my first adventure returning to actual DMing(compared to my mostly playtesting experience as a DM). It seems like there is more gap filling necessary. I'm leaning more towards doing Slaying Stone first(since if I do KotS then I want to do Thunderspire Labyrinth and Pyramid of Shadows afterwards*). Right now I'm leaning towards

Slaying Stone -> Seekers of the Ashen Crown -> (maybe Orcs of Stonefang Pass) -> Madness at Gardmore Abbey.

I don't know what level that will the PCs off at, but if it drops them off at 10 then I'm deciding between going straight to Tomb of Horrors(non-hardcore version) or finding a couple Dungeon magazine archive adventures to get them up to 12 and then running Revenge of the Giants.

*If KotS goes into Thunderspire which connects with Pyramid of Shadows then I feel like something is lost by not running them together for a lot of new players. If I do the story of one then I kinda want to run them all together.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm not feeling TMoP for my first adventure returning to actual DMing(compared to my mostly playtesting experience as a DM). It seems like there is more gap filling necessary. I'm leaning more towards doing Slaying Stone first(since if I do KotS then I want to do Thunderspire Labyrinth and Pyramid of Shadows afterwards*). Right now I'm leaning towards

Slaying Stone -> Seekers of the Ashen Crown -> (maybe Orcs of Stonefang Pass) -> Madness at Gardmore Abbey.

I don't know what level that will the PCs off at, but if it drops them off at 10 then I'm deciding between going straight to Tomb of Horrors(non-hardcore version) or finding a couple Dungeon magazine archive adventures to get them up to 12 and then running Revenge of the Giants.

*If KotS goes into Thunderspire which connects with Pyramid of Shadows then I feel like something is lost by not running them together for a lot of new players. If I do the story of one then I kinda want to run them all together.

I think the story arc there is pretty weak. There are some hooks that can lead you into Thunderspire from KotS, but its still a pretty much self-contained module. Decide what to run after that and simply rework the hooks a bit.

 

[Balesir]

*If KotS goes into Thunderspire which connects with Pyramid of Shadows then I feel like something is lost by not running them together for a lot of new players. If I do the story of one then I kinda want to run them all together.

Having run through all the H-P-E scenarios up to The King of the Ghouls I have to agree with Abdul, here. The strand linking the three H adventures together doesn't really become evident until late Paragon, and by then whether you ran through them in the same campaign or not is pretty moot. Thunderspire is not a bad adventure, but you will need to do some careful reading prep, because the relationship of one encounter to another is not always made too clear.

 

[darkbard]

Echoing the above, the "connections" between KotS, TL, and PoS are almost non-existent as written (though Myrdraak's rewrite that I linked to earlier rectifies that). If you *want* to run KotS, I wouldn't let your apprehension of having to follow it up with the latter two stand in your way, for it's a completely self-contained adventure.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Keep on the Shadowfell(1-3)

Pretty terrible. A deft hand can salvage it. Re-build Kalarel as a solo, and the other actual solos - and perhaps Iron Tooth - using the MM3 guidelines. It'll still be a fairly linear dungeon crawl and the waterfall encounter may still be a pain, but it won't be mechanically broken anymore.

Madness at Gardmore Abbey (6-8)

Played in part of this and it seemed good, heard good things about the rest.

Pyramid of Shadows (7-10)

Played this, goofy but not unbearable.

Scepter Tower of Spellgard (2-5)

Played through this, didn't much follow the story and the setting didn't make sense to me, but the challenges weren't effed up.

Thunderspire Labyrinth (4-6)

Best of the early adventures. Paldomar could do with a MM3 rebuild, a couple levels lower and/or as a solo.

Tomb of Horrors (10-22)

I know DMs who have mined this for useful material, but none that have actually run it.


Some of the Encounters adventures weren't so bad, either. Beyond the Crystal Cave was a stand-out. I'm still running a campaign that kicked off with it.

 

[Jhaelen]

I'd like to recommend something else if you're thinking about starting a 4e campaign:
Personally, I felt that Hammerfast was one of the best 4e products. It's not a 'ready-to-play' adventure module, but it's chock-full with intriguing npcs, adventure ideas, rumours, sites, and even a rough outline for a heroic tier campaign. It has everything that the HPE modules are lacking.

 

[skelekon]

Similar to some other suggestions here, for a Nentir Vale/Harkenwold campaign I would go:


[1-3] Some Assembly Required (Dungeon 208) (more traditional dungeon crawl)
or
[1] HS1 The Slaying Stone (sandboxy)


[2-5] Reavers of Harkenwold (DM's Kit)

(something to lead into MaGA - HS2 Stonefang Pass?)

[6-8] Madness at Gardmore Abbey

Could also start with Prey for Smiley Bob (Chris Perkins, Dungeon 205) as a mini adventure with 3 encounters. It's set in the Harkenwold, the same as Some Assembly Required & Reavers of Harkenwold.

 

[Jessica]

I'm too broke atm to get Reavers of Harkenwald. :/

 

[cimbrog]

This was a Game I Never Played so I don't know how much if it would actually work out, especially the exploration part, but I put together a pretty big writeup on the Chaos Scar on my blog. I takes up seven posts. It includes recommendations for adding other Dungeon adventures, glue to connect everything more thoroughly, a giant rumor table and lots of other stuff.