You are killed by... A Gerbil!

[Xarlen]

Start him off at higher levels. Honestly, if he's going to be a bit sniffy about being killed by a dog, tell him to go walk in the street and take a look at some dogs. They are not to be messed with. 300lbs of dog with big jaws, trained to hurt you. Hm.

Yes, and a PC who is trained to wield a greatsword in full plate armor is not a wandering padestrian.

These are Heros. I want to give them something to be Heroic about.

 

[coyote6]

How about goblins? They're intelligent, so they can have an Evil Plan. Yet being size Small, their weapon selections are limited. Arm most of them with throwing axes or even clubs (1d6-1/20/x2); the leader can have a halfspear or a shortsword.

Just don't send 'em up against a whole bunch of worg riders.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Yes, and a PC who is trained to wield a greatsword in full plate armor is not a wandering padestrian.

These are Heros. I want to give them something to be Heroic about.

Sorry, I'm not getting at you. I just think it's a little early to be worrying about them being Heroic People of Legend. At this stage, they have to earn their heroic status by battling Dire Rats, Goblins, Wolves etc etc. When they hit higher levels, that's when things get truly heroic.

but on the other hand, saving a whole village by fighting off a clan of goblins mounted on riding dogs...that's heroic too. Make it tough. Give the Bad Guys good tactics.

 

[Zappo]

Nothing templated, a Half-Dragon flying creature (bat?) is a deadly encounter, despite what the CR might seem to imply.

Besides, I can't think of any serious reason for which a dragon would mess with a bat.

 

[Xarlen]

Sorry, I'm not getting at you. I just think it's a little early to be worrying about them being Heroic People of Legend. At this stage, they have to earn their heroic status by battling Dire Rats, Goblins, Wolves etc etc. When they hit higher levels, that's when things get truly heroic.

but on the other hand, saving a whole village by fighting off a clan of goblins mounted on riding dogs...that's heroic too. Make it tough. Give the Bad Guys good tactics.

I don't PLAN on playing it in high levels. I've never played a low level campaign. I want to. My high level campaign is about to go on Hiatus because I've ran out of stuff for it, for the moment. I want to flex my muscles.

I've allready got stuff mapped out for later. For instance, the Paladin will be getting a mystical sword (Who's powers he will have to unlock as he goes), but part of its' history is that it is the sword belonging to a warrior who is magically asleep. He will be awoken when some horrible fate comes to the world, that he and his fellow knights (who are also asleep) must stop. This will not happen in the campaign's time, mind you. However, something has found the place where they sleep; an evil aura of magic or something, that is causing the dreams of the knights to come alive. And they aren't peasant dreams.

 

[Kyramus]

They get hired by the local wiz who is trying to do something.
The list of things include denizens in the sewers that need to be collected fresh.

Shrieker mushroom
Giant rat tail
at least 3 other sewer creature parts.
dust from a grave
etc etc

make it a scavenger hunt with a few killing things.

 

[Xarlen]

For the moment, I plan on keeping the first adventure or two away from monsters and humanish. Maybe something to do with the Church and the monk's order... or something. I don't know. I'm bad at First adventures.

I'm trying to AVOID the common venues of campaigns. I've seen LotR too much; I want quests and journies and recurring villains and things that are Mythical and Mystical and Mysterious. Not 'There's monsters everywhere, magic is a tool, and here you are'.

 

[maddman75]

But you have to realize something. Your first level characters are not Aragorn and Gimli defendin Helm's Deep outnumbered 100 to one. They are Sam and Frodo running from Farmer Maggot.

A good way to go would be for the 'characters stumble onto ancient legend mysteriously' They are doing something mundane. Perhaps the local church is having reports of undead rising in the cemetary. The PCs go there, discover that many of the dead have risen of skeletons. Low level skeleton bashing goodness. Deep in the crypt they find one of these ancient knights. It is so long ago he's all but forgotten about. He appears preserved but restless. The decorations around him show him wading through an army of skeletal undead.

The cleric can fill them in a bit, and want to know what is causing him to dream. Or maybe they have to journey to a larger church to find out anything about this dreaming knight.

Right there you have a pretty good start. Don't overlook rats and skeletons. If there's a reason for them to be there, they won't look like 'random XP generator.'

PS - good plot - I might have to steal it someday!

 

[Psychotic Jim]

Hmm. How about discovering a small, hidden cult in the player's home town or something. They plan to summon some sort of evil demon. Most of the evil cultists would be simple rebellious peasants (Com1) alienated by a local corrupt lord or oppressive regime deceived into seeing this as a great alternative to a live in shackles, maybe led by a few low-level (2-3) adepts. If they are successful in summoning the demon, he summons some minor devils or demons (like lemures or maybe a dretch) to distract the party while he escapes. The BBEG is weak from being ripped into a new world, and flees to gather magical/soul energy. Or the ritual could go wrong and set up some sort of strange mutiple-reality linking portal mess that all sorts of strange and vile things and energies come flying into.

After all this, the heroes have to deal with the oppressive noble(s) who rule with an iron fist, with a small militia of low-level warriors.

Perhaps this cult has some dirt on the hidden misdeeds of some of the head honchoes of the church or monk order. The PCs could be ordered by those of pure faith in the church or monk order to investigate the cult to discover the information on who within the church is corrupt, or they may unwittingly be ordered by the fiends themselves to destroy such information. Should the characters fail to achieve their goal or if they betray their employers and organizations, they PCs can look forward to seek-and-recovery squads (maybe of low-level clerics, monks, and paladins) out to hunt the party down and make them pay.

Edit: Maddman75's suggestion to start with a comparitively "small" adventure that leads the heroes into disrupting (or maybe to help put in action) a hidden evil's agenda in which they will confront later.

 

[Xarlen]

Some ideas about my campaign.

I'm approaching it like Middle Earth meets the Scarred Lands. The world was tainted, a long time ago. Areas still have lingering aspects of Evil, but they're not huge. But things may be getting a bring-back.

I'm taking an ideal from Terry Pratchett's Small Gods. Gods start out very small, and grow with the number of believers. But the god in the book's religion screwed him because people worshipped the structure and ceremony, and not the God. They didn't Believe. So the PCs' church may be doing some bad things due to some rather nasty priests high up, and then the PCs may run across a small god (Not THIER God, mind you). Or the ideal of Spirits, like in Princess Mononoke.

Also. Magical items in my world Don't work when you first get 'em, unless they are minor magics. I follow the (Insert Xp to make it grow with you), Create it yourself, or Lore.

Basicly Lore means that you must learn about the item, or do deeds to unlock its' magic. Some things like simply learning the name of a suit of armor's creator. Where as to make a sword holy, the recepient must lead an honorable life, and do righteous things against evil. Or the weapon takes on a Merciful property if the PC stops a large conflict non-violently. Or it could just Happen in a moment of need; PC falls off a cliff, that Ring suddenly becomes a Ring of Featherfall (This is AFTER he's set up with it).

Magical items may offer different things, because there's not a LOT of them; ergo a sword may offer a +1 to Nat Armor to its' weilder.

EVIL magical items are a lot simpler, but cause a price.

And then there are magical items that are created Spontaniously; they become magical due to emotions or actions done with it. A dagger used to sacrifice thousands will likely be a Dagger of Wounding, even if it's not enchanted; a weapon picked up and used by criminal after murderer after executioner will grow in malevolence (Think 'The Gun' from Showtime, about the evil gun that gets passed around).

I plan on getting the sword into the Paladin's hands, Somehow.

Also, a villain I plan on implimenting: A fighter (or fighter/rogue), who in some climactic fight with the PCs, something Magical and Bad goes wrong (He gets shoved over something with a Bad Mojo magical item rammed in his ribs), or something that the PCs do to him, that make him an Intelligent Skeleton (Bone Creature from BoVD).

The BBEG will gain an ability to let him basicly, after killing someone, crawl into their skin and 'wear' the body, while looking like an emaciated human. He'll become a recurring villain.

Now, how to set all this UP... That's the hard part.