What do you want to see in the fourth Adventure Path?

[Arnwyn]

Would the idea of having the BB"E"G as a good organization or good being, even be considered? I think that would be cool if in the end you had to fight a group of Solars or Planetars or something like that. Plus it wouldn't be as predictable.

Heh... that would certainly be a deal-breaker for my group.

My players would refuse to fight them. Fight pure good? Okay... whatever.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Heh... that would certainly be a deal-breaker for my group.

My players would refuse to fight them. Fight pure good? Okay... whatever.

What if they are fighting you? There was a Dragon issue a few years ago that was going into the motivations of Solars and the other good celestials and how they can stll be at odds with good PC's. It was quite interesting. Good gods can have conflicts so why not thier followers?

Anyway since your group wouldn't like it I will throw it on the pile of bad ideas.

 

[crazy_cat]

Pirates done
Ninjas
Dinosaurs done
Setting Neutral
Volcanoes done
Robots
Laser beams for eyes
Demons done
Beholders done
Should use "return of" or "Expedition to" in the title.

There we go - AP4 : Return of / or Expedition to the setting neutral Ninja Robots with Laser beam eyes*

* With optional FR, Greyhawk and Eberron conversion notes.

 

[delericho]

Heh... that would certainly be a deal-breaker for my group.

My players would refuse to fight them. Fight pure good? Okay... whatever.

Yeah, I don't like the idea of an actual Good faction being the ultimate BBEG. It would be different if the BBEG was a misguided group who thought they were the good guys, or perhaps a corrupted ex-Solar (although, wait, Adimarchus...)

What would work well would be having an actually Good organisation acting as foils for the PCs, sp that the PCs have to oppose then (not necessarily violently). Such an organisation could, in fact, be an ongoing problem for the PCs, perhaps even featuring in almost the entire campaign (you get added points if you avoid the cliched ending of "let's team up and take out the greater threat").

 

[James Jacobs]

Using solars and other good outsiders as villians is problematic in the same way that incorperating firearms and psionics and steampunk elements in adventures is problematic—it just narrows the scope of who can use the adventure to such a significant degree that most DMs simply won't be able to use the adventure. We do include adventures like this now and then, but making it the focus of an Adventure Path, which is bad (since it takes up a third of the magazine for a year) since the Adventure Path needs to appeal to as wide an audience as possible.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Adventure paths and megamodules aren't my bag anyway but I just thought it was a cool concepet and wondered if you have ever considered it.

 

[GwydapLlew]

It's a shame that there aren't as many solid, core Fey creatures. I'd love to see an AP centered around them.

 

[Wraith Form]

Personally, I think it's dang cool that the editors and craetors of the AP are reading, listening to, and considering, our ideas. Huzzah to Erik and James! (This is part of the reason why I've re-subscribed to Dungeon.)

 

[Simplicity]

Eric Boyd's comments elsewhere explain why dragons and evil outsiders feature so prominently, but in a nutshell, it's about space. We don't have to reprint full stat blocks from creatures taken directly out of the Monster Manual, and after you hit about 14th level, about half of the available monsters are dragons or evil outsiders. When you subtract the good outsiders (which generally don't make good bad guys), the pool grows even smaller. If we were to, say, go with aberrations or fey or high-level humanoids, we'd have to print a LOT more stat blocks in the last 4–5 adventures, which when you account for the fact that these stat blocks take up SO much room, means that in order for those last adventures to provide enough encounters to take a party up a level, you'd have an adventure that gets into being 30,000 words or more. And since we only have 45,000 or so words to work with for adventures in an issue of Dungeon... well... the problem becomes pretty significant.

And that pretty much sums up the problem of high-level adventures and why they are so unpopular. Stat blocks for high level creatures are so huge, that the DM can't digest them without a Tactics guide. Half the stuff there is a waste that will never see play in your encounter.

In 4th edition, it is my sincere hope that the ability to cast 4th level spells means you can cast any 1st level spells you want. Poof. No need for listing all those stupid things you're never going to use anyways.

 

[Arnwyn]

What if they are fighting you? There was a Dragon issue a few years ago that was going into the motivations of Solars and the other good celestials and how they can stll be at odds with good PC's. It was quite interesting. Good gods can have conflicts so why not thier followers?

My players simply just wouldn't come to blows over whatever conflict could possibly involve solars/planetars, and would consider such a thing to be very unsatisfying (especially at the end of a 20 level adventure path).

Anyway since your group wouldn't like it I will throw it on the pile of bad ideas.

And that pretty much sums up the problem of high-level adventures and why they are so unpopular. Stat blocks for high level creatures are so huge, that the DM can't digest them without a Tactics guide. Half the stuff there is a waste that will never see play in your encounter.

High-level adventures are fine. Space constraints suck.