Well Developed City?

[Wellby]

Looking for a well developed city to base a group of 10th level adventurers for a while. Large city on a major river, near mountains.

Freeport just not quite right. Using Cauldron in another adventure.

Can someone suggest something that won't require too much work for me? iow, a guide or major adventure that has a city and cool ideas for adventuring within the city, all ready for me to go?

thanks!

 

[Gilladian]

Ptolus is available in PDF.

I can't remember if Bard's Gate is on a river, or not.

 

[GodDelusion]

Ptolus has everything you are looking for. Huge city that has enough detail to drop into any existing campaign. Additionally, there are several adventures already established in Ptolus, including a mega-dungeon named Banewarrens.

 

[Wellby]

Wow, indeed Ptolus seems perfect and mindblowing. I love owning books though, and 300+ for this out of print beauty is unfortunate. If it is the best, I'll buy the pdf.

What about Waterdeep, the city of splendour book? On first glance, it seems WAY less detailed than Ptolus, and indeed, detail is what I want...

 

[Gilladian]

I've seen the old boxed set for Waterdeep, and it was less than half as detailed as ptolus.

I don't own the print book for Ptolus, just the pdfs. It is quite useable, very searchable, and wonderful to read. There's a forum, as well. Not incredibly active, but you can post and get nice responses.

What I love about the city is the entries for the "man on the street", the wandering encounters, the briefly described minor shops, and such. And the non-stop adventure hooks.

You can definitely use or ignore a LOT of the backstory. You could even omit the SPIRE, if it didn't suit your world...the city would still be worth it. Barabian Balloonits conquer all!

 

[Thanael]

There's also the City State of the Invincible Overlord by Necromancer Games.

For 2E check out the City of Greyhawk boxed set. Parts of it were converted to 3E in Living Greyhawk Journal and you can get the excellent new map from Maldin's site, but the 2E Boxed set has all the details.

 

[CarlZog]

Streets of Silver. This is a really good, very comprehensive city book done under 3e. The city, Parma, is modeled after Renaissance Venice, so it definitely has the river features you're looking for, but may require some cultural amending to fit into a more traditional campaign feel. It was part of a d20 campaign setting called Twin Crowns that was designed to have more of a 16th century "Age of Exploration" feel to it.

 

[Master01]

The Great City

Enjoy

 

[Rhun]

Waterdeep is good, and very detailed...but in order to have all the material, it would take a lot. I've got 3 boxed sets and at least two or three other supplements for Waterdeep, and that doesn't include the additional boxed sets for "Undermountain." I'd probably go a different route, as getting all the detail you need might prove difficult.

 

[Lilith]

The Great City

Enjoy

Dang, beat me to it.