Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 blaqueup Apr 21, 2011 0:39:44	So, right now I'm running an Exalted game which is about to go on downtime after some pretty big stuff, but between things there, I wanted to try my hand at running Dark Sun and D&D for a bit.  I have been wanting to try it for a bit for a while, and with Dark Sun, became very enamoured to trying it out. For now, I was just tossing things out for thoughts on how they look for my upcoming game and seeing what may be some suggestions, ideas and plots to work with: Questions I'll do these first, since I bet folks don't want to read trhough my lament on this: Right now I have most what I need inthe online Compendium,the Rules Compendium and my copies of the Dark Sun books, the DMG and DMG2, and the Essentials tiles, as well as one of the Dark Sun ones.  I'm thinking, looking through the Vault adventure, of getting another Dark Sun tiels sheet and Caverns of Carnage.  Is the latter one, though, doable with just one sheet?  Or should I just toss it and deal with a battlemat and dry-erase on that one like I'm planning the arenas and towns for Bloodsand? (I really wish they provided high-res PDFs of those of us who couldn't make it to the Free RPG Day this last year). Secondly, I was looking at Chaos Scar, and was wondering what of those would be worth adapting or useful in your minds there?  Any other Dragon adventures thatw ould work very well for 4e in your views? Next, is Revenge of the Marauders pretty runnable as a stand-alone adventure?  I hear a lot of bad about the initial adventrue, but I can't seem to find info on the latter very well, so curious about it. Finally, is using these many pregenned stories an issue?  Or is it a good way to get my feet wet?  I'm planning of trying to do my own things after the last one until about level 8 or 9, and then doing Beneath the Dust.  WHat's a good balance between pre-run and not?  Also, anything in these ones noted to keep in mind for a group that may only be 4 players?  Things to tone them down to be less overtly fatal long-term? Current Optional Rules in Effect: - Risky Breakage rules for weapons. - Metal armor overheating. - Inherent Bonuses - Foraging for food is a hard scaling DC before modifiers of environment come in.  I want to emphasize a bit that even the highest level folks have trouble getting food and water out there, and to also keep survival days a bit more enforced. - More or less lenient on most races save gnomes, deva, and warforged, even then willing for reskins or good fluff.  Same with classes, even divine ones to some extent, but now moot with the party make-up it slooking. - I don't care about alignment really, but am using the old-school 3x3 one if chracters care enougha bout it. Current Party I have four completed characters right now, but will see about recruiting a fifth (I had one, but she's moving back to Texas come this June).  Right now looks to be: - Human Ensaring Swordmage Templar of Nibeney (acting covertly as a spy about the Tyr Region for the state.) - Human Elemental Priest Druid (noble who has unlocked some primal magics and keeps his endevours secret to start with.) - Half-Elf Bard Athasian Minstrel (pretty much a trouble-shooter and mercenary sort.) - Githzerai Monk Veiled Alliance Member (mage-hunter sort more or less, potential conflict with the arcane casters depending, for good times.) Gameplan Right now I'm going to cut my teeth with modules at first, and then expand to my own stuff as I get more confortable with the setting, mechanics of DMing D&D over other systems, and all that.  Right now the plan is to start at level one and run them through the following: - Bloodsand Arena - Betray at Altaruk - Silt Raiders - Bloodsand Arena - Veiled Threat - The Vault of Darom Madar - Cistern of Aravek Between them I plan to incorperate plot hooks from one to the other.  For instance, one fo the people rescued in Silt Raiders will be the informant for Darm Madar.  I also am planning to have it so that while the characters are on their way to Altaruk is when Kalak gets offed.  I am thinking of changing the details fo this, as I have no real desire to read Prism Pentad and am thinking that I would rather have custom characters and setup for his death there.  They likely in their moving about will barely miss the news hitting Altaruk and find out the situation when they get to Tyr at the end of the Vault adventrue. Thanks for any hlep or advice. And stuff.
#2 windlane Apr 21, 2011 7:42:27	In response to the dungeon tiles - I love those things. They're absolutely great in creating a map with character for those of us lacking artistic talent. If cost isn't a big issue, a second copy of packs isn't a bad thing since it allows you a greater freedom with your maps and lets you pull off bigger creations. That said, one is enough for most maps, though you will likely need to fudge a little if you're working off of maps WotC designed for their adventures. They don't restrict themselves to one set when they create stuff, so that can be frustrating. They do seem to stick within two sets though. I only have one set of the Athas tiles and the Cavern tiles. They've done me well enough, though I wouldn't mind second sets for the reasons mentioned above. I can't really speak to how well things from Chaos Scar would work as I haven't read through them. As to how good Revenge is - that'd be largely up to you and your players. Marauders of the Dune Sea isn't a bad adventure. It's a dungeon crawl, and there's lots of people who automatically dislike adventures that go into that format. There's lots of nice plot hooks and story elements to draw from it though, and Revenge continues that story. So if you were to take it in as an independent adventure, you'd need to do some work to get it to be independent. As to the quality of the adventure itself, I'm not sure. I've mostly just looked through it for the story elements, which I liked. For scaling adventures designed for five players down to four - it's pretty dang simple. Just divide the total XP of an encounter by five. That's the XP budget per player. If you've got four players, you just remove elements (monsters, traps, or challenges) from the encounter worth that much XP. It's typically going to be one monster. One thing to bare in mind when running pre-made adventures is that the story elements are very easy to manipulate. Let your players' actions and ideas have real impact in the adventure and just alter the story elements of the adventure to reflect those changes. It's really easy to change where and when and why encounters happen (you go from meeting that group of goblins in the desert to a cave yet both have the same general concepts for the terrain features that were figured in when the encounter was made) and it's pretty dang easy to make the encounters themselves which you'll see after running a few. Feel free to change any of the history elements you want to for your game. Kalak can be killed by whomever or however you like - heck, he could live and is merely in hiding. It may be a world created by WotC, but you're running it, so shape it the way that works best for you. A final little note. The Penny Arcade/PvP D&D podcasts are awesome. I've listened and re-listened to them a bunch. The Dark Sun adventure they play seems like it is very loosely based off of the Fury of the Wastewalker - which was the adventure ran for Encounters one season. It's not available for purchase except on places like eBay, but it wasn't a great adventure anyway. It's fun, and the story elements are very cool, but it was largely a dungeon crawl that did a decent job of introducing players to a lot of elements that could be encountered on Athas. I've just ran a heavily modified version of the adventure (I DM'd that season of Encounters, so I own a copy) and my players had a lot of fun with it. The best thing you could do (unless you want to pay eBay prices) is to use the elements you liked from the PA/PvP stuff and just fold it into what you've got. Customizing the story and personalizing it to the players is a great way to make sure it's a fun time for all.