I started playing D&D for the first time this christmas 2008. I found it out to be quite fun, although there was a lot to read before you got the hang of it and learned the basic rules (says a player who is accustomed to max 15 page long rules for boardgames
). My friend played the DM since he had been playing earlier editions of D&D. He had bought the core books for the 4th edition and we started playing the Scales of War adventure path.Now that we've been playing a while, I'm getting more and more interested in the game and it would be fun to play as DM. I would like to start my own adventure path but I haven't found any new ones. So my questions are:
- Does anyone know when or if a new adventure path will be published?
- Are the adventure paths always published in the Dungeon magazine?
Then a question that's not releated to this topic:
- Do you think/know if there will ever be update releases of the core books with the corrections made in the Erratas? It wouldn't be fun if I bought the books now and a bit later find out that an update has been released.
Posted by: Delerion, lvl 3 elf ranger beastmaster
As for adventure paths, there are currently 2 being published that are going to run from level 1-30.
The first has generally been called the 4E adventure path. When finished, it will consist of 9 adventures, 3 per tier. So far, the first 5 have been published. My group has played through the first 2 and a half and they have been a lot of fun. The first adventure in this path is Keep on the Shadowfell.
The second currently running adventure path is Scales of War. This one has adventures released monthly in Dungeon Magazine. It is planned to have 18 adventures total. I think they have 5 published so far. My group has played through most of the first adventure in this path and there have been a couple of really fun encounters.
As for core books published with updates...
I believe there was something about the deluxe core set having the updates printed in them but you should get confirmation on that before shelling out for the more expensive books.
Good Luck and have fun.
H1: Keep on the Shadowfell
H2: Thunderspire Labyrinth
H3: Pyramid of Shadows
P1: King of the Trollhaunt Warrens
P2: Demon Queen's Enclave
(coming this year)
P3: Assault on Nightwyrm Fortress
E1: Death's Reach
E2: Kingdom of the Ghouls
E3: Prince of Undeath
It looks like Dungeon will run 1 adventure path at a time, so expect a new path to be started as soon as they finish Scales of War. Likewise, the individually published modules, assuming they constitute an adventure path, may start a new path after the current path finishes with Prince of Undeath; they may also just do stand-alone modules, though.
As for reprints with errata, I wouldn't hold your breath. I doubt they'll ever reprint the PH1 with up-to-date errata, but I wouldn't be surprised if PH2 has all the errata up to within a month or so before its release.
Can anyone compare and contrast the two adventure paths?
I've prefered the H-P-E adventures over the Dungeon adventure path. The adventures after Keep on the Shadowfell have had interesting villains and neat ideas, such as the fight against Karavakos in H3 or the cauldron in P1, that have really made them stand out. The adventures in this path are more isolated from one another with only a limited amount of links between one adventure and the next. Each adventure has included a battle grid. I've written a more in-depth review of H3 if you want more specific details (link in sig).
The Dungeon adventure path will be a more integrated series of adventures with a stronger central story arc. This can be nice, but it also makes it harder to mix-n-match the adventures with other published adventures or homebrew ideas.
Can anyone compare and contrast the two adventure paths? I'm a fan of battlemaps, so that inclines me towards the physical product. However Keep on the Shadowfell didn't exactly blow me away, and it seems like the following modules don't have as many maps included.
Keep on the Shadowfell is more of a dungeon crawl than the following adventures in the series. It's not a bad adventure at all, but you do spend an awful lot of time underneath that damned ruined castle.
FWIW, the HPE series, even though more "loose" than the Scales of War adventure path, definitely has recurring themes which run all the way from H1 to E3. Your players will definitely feel like they have been a part of a consistent story while they play it.
Alternatively you can go for a smaller level range, e.g. using the adventure in the Forgotten Realms Campaing Setting plus the FR Spellguard adventure.
Or you can use different adventures, e.g. from Dungeon and connect them on your own.
A third alternative would be looking at other publishers' offers. Goodman Games offers a lot of adventures, which are all situated in their own game world. Not that the first module for 4e rules is #53: Sellswords of Punjar. GG's adventures are generally not connected to each other, the 4e exception being the Punjar series.
Hope this helps!
Huldvoll
Baron von Bomberg
The coolest idea I can think of would revolve around a potentially cosmology-shaking event (such as Acererak making a play for godhood or something similar) that would start the characters out in a familiar core setting (such as the Nentir Vale or the Elsir Vale) and would involve the characters traveling between The World (the core setting), Toril, Eberron, Sigil, etc. on a worlds-traveling epic adventure.