Good 4E intro-to-Eberron adventure? - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Good 4E intro-to-Eberron adventure?

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
domenic
Nov 01, 2008 13:43:23 I'm going to run my first 4E Eberron game today, and while I'm not planning on jumping into any Eberron mythology just yet, I thought it'd be worth it to come up with something with a unique "Eberron feel."

Has anyone done a conversion on The Forgotten Forge yet?

Failing that, of any of the published 1st-level 4E adventures (Dungeon, Scales of War, Keep on the Shadowfell [ + conversion ], etc.), do any of them really stand out as good "Eberron-feeling" adventures?

Failing that, any ideas on a good intro plot-hook thing?

If nobody answers within a few hours, I'll (a) make something up, probably drawing inspiration from The Forgotten Forge; (b) use your answers for the next adventure ^_^.
#2
domenic
Nov 02, 2008 1:28:48 (For the record: LG warforged paladin, G earthsoul genasi swordmage, U/leaning E halfling rogue, U eladrin wizard.)

Well, so I had the characters---none of which knew each other---in an upper-Sharn "urban lounge" (i.e. bar for people who want to feel rich), at closing time. Got some fun info out of them asking why they were there at 2 AM in somewhere normally above their price range as level 1s. Anyway, by closing time there were only them and five others left; things started off when one of the others scared the bartender out of the bar with a secret note, leaving him and his gang to face off against the players for mysterious, unknown reasons.

Of course, the magic keeping this particular establishment afloat began to fail! Thus ensued an intense barfight inside a falling, tumbling two-story building, with broken glass, flammable alcohol, and homicidal furniture running rampant, plus collisions with towers, bridges, etc. along the way. It ended with only one half of the first story of the building left, with the characters and their dead opponents clinging for dear life. But instead of crashing to the ground, they decelerated, finding themselves suspended two feet from the ground of the Sharn undercity. Outside the bar were a cloaked figure and a frazzled looking fire-genasi wizard, who was using a ritual to perform this deceleration; the latter collapsed exhausted after the cloaked figure gave him permission to do so.

The cloaked figure revealed herself to be Lady Elaydren (although she departs from the canonical version a decent bit). She created the whole setup---thugs starting a fight with them, causing the lounge to fight, etc.---as her latest trial for finding a suitable group of adventurers to undertake her cause. She was very callous about the lives destroyed by the falling building (via collisions, etc.), as well as the lives of the hired thugs, and gave the impression that she'd done this a few times before and found those being tested to be lacking. Now that she'd found a suitably resourceful and skilled group of adventurers, she was willing to give a job offer.

At this point there was some friction; Elaydren was apparently coming across as a bit too evil for the likes of our LG and G party members. And I haven't figured out whether that's really her personality in my campaign, or if she just thinks much bigger things are at stake (the latter being the impression she tried to give). So she had to kind of go with a "save the world," "many lives are at stake" speech to try to get the LG and G aboard. They however compelled her to pay the victims' families compensation for their losses.

Anyway, her mission for the PCs was to infiltrate Merrix's secret laboratory, where she told them---not sure if this is true yet or not---that he's working on new warforged, possibly undead warforged. She wants them to secure a sample of his technology, and bring it back to her. The part, once she left, debated a bit before deciding that they should at least check this out; what they do with the information/technology that they find, or who they trust in this Cannith house split, they will decide on later. The session ended here.

----

My current future plans involve adapting the Forgotten Forge somewhat. Using the marketplace -> sewers -> ancient underground laboratory arc pretty closely, but I might replace the underground laboratory with a larger one (i.e. some kind of dungeon---maybe use Whitehearth from that other Eberron adventure?). What's going on down there, I'm not entirely sure; my PCs don't seem too compelled by undead warforged as a threat, so maybe that should be changed up.

I do definitely want to have a Merrix/Elaydren Cannith House split, where the PCs are not sure which of these is a better option to trust. Elaydren is currently "in hiding" in the Sharn undercity, I think, marshaling supporters of various allegiances in preparation for... something. What Merrix is doing is unclear. He could be working on warforged resurrection technology; maybe it doesn't exist in my campaign yet. But he could easily have some more sinister on the side, or as part of this, or maybe it requires pacts with demons or quori (!) or something.

Basically I like the idea of them fighting through a bunch of scary-but-not-overtly-evil stuff (iron defenders, I think, are a decent example), to get to Merrix, who ends up being just this old man chugging away in his workshop on something amazing---even if this technology perhaps has world-threatening implications, especially in the wrong hands. So when they find this guy, who's not at all what they expected, his arguments might end up swaying them---or better, making them unsure and anxious.

I could also easily have the PCs now be on the wrong side of the gang whose members they killed in the falling-bar incident; I was thinking of attacking them in the sewers. This could be an interesting third party to introduce, but I'm not sure as to its long-term potential.

Another obvious third party is the Lord of Blades, but I'm not entirely sure how to make that interesting. I thought that his involvement was pretty lame in the Forgotten Forge + followups; something more interesting would be cool.

*Shrug*. I think I've got decent ideas for going forward, but I'd also love to get some brainstorming going here on the ever-helpful boards ^_^.
#3
Ogiwan
Nov 06, 2008 10:01:46 I also agree it sounds good. I'm going to steal the "fight inside a collapsing tower" bit, if you don't mind.

Are you just running the Forgotten Forge, or do you want to run that entire arc (Forgotten Forge, Shadows of the Last War, Whispers of the Vampire's Blade, Grasp of the Emerald Claw)? If so, what my friend did after we finished Grasp is, since the players returned the creation pattern to Merrix, he had Xulo manifest, flip out, and start a revolt of like all the constructs in the Cannith Tower, and the PCs had to fight their way in to stop Xulo.

I may take that tack, but I'm currently on a Lords of Dust kick, so it will be far bigger than that.
#4
Gilo
Nov 06, 2008 10:36:04
I also agree it sounds good. I'm going to steal the "fight inside a collapsing tower" bit, if you don't mind.

It was the winning encounter in the . UnCon 2006 - Eberron Pulp-Action Encounter Competition
#5
skrap-san
Nov 06, 2008 14:21:11
It was the winning encounter in the . UnCon 2006 - Eberron Pulp-Action Encounter Competition

I used that one in one of my encounters... it failed a bit on me since at that time almost the entire party had a way of just flying to safety (3.5th ed)...

But we used the mexican standoff one and it was one of the most memorable encounters I have ever played out. With three parties interested in getting hold of an itim, and an airship swooping in when the party survived the avalanche, good times!
#6
hobson1975
Dec 15, 2008 14:29:35 I up converted Forgotten Forge and the first two of the three modules (Shadow's of the Last War & Whisper's of the Vampire Blade) with really no issues whatsoever. It did take a bit more work, but overall worked pretty flawless and had the real Eberron flavor I've come to love.

If you want to pick my brain on anything I used feel free to send me a message.

Jason
#7
domenic
Dec 15, 2008 15:15:52
I up converted Forgotten Forge and the first two of the three modules (Shadow's of the Last War & Whisper's of the Vampire Blade) with really no issues whatsoever. It did take a bit more work, but overall worked pretty flawless and had the real Eberron flavor I've come to love.

If you want to pick my brain on anything I used feel free to send me a message.

Jason

Woah, very cool. Did you by any chance do writeups, or was it just on-the-fly?

Any major cool ideas you inserted/converted?

(BTW, would your last name by any chance be Smith?)
#8
Aaron_Highcolor
Jan 04, 2009 16:49:32
I up converted Forgotten Forge and the first two of the three modules (Shadow's of the Last War & Whisper's of the Vampire Blade) with really no issues whatsoever. It did take a bit more work, but overall worked pretty flawless and had the real Eberron flavor I've come to love.

If you want to pick my brain on anything I used feel free to send me a message.

Jason

Would you be willing to email your conversions to interested parties?
#9
hobson1975
Jan 27, 2009 10:25:46 Hey guys - Sorry for the massive delay in getting back to you. I've got my hand written notes if you'd like to see them. I can type them up either here or in email. Doesn't matter.

For my conversion to 4E I didn't do anything too drastically different than the encounters in the adventure. I just converted some areas to skill challenges and some of the baddies I twisted around slightly. For instance the warforged rogue, I took one of the halfings and applied the warforged racial stats, removing the halfing.

Send me a message on here if you want more details.

Jason
#10
Talae
Jan 30, 2009 7:28:07 I sent a PM, but the boards would be a great place for a post like that.
#11
w0nkothesane
Jun 10, 2009 13:39:46 I hate to bump an old thread, but I found this using google a few weeks ago. I used a lot of the suggestions here to put together a 4e conversion of the adventure, and decided it would be worth putting online in PDF format.

I should note that experience rewards were boosted for most of the encounters to ensure that the group I'm going to be running it with levels at the pace I want, if you want to add enemies to some of the encounters or increase the DCs of some skill challenges feel free to by all means.

In fact, anybody can change this in any way, and I will post the non-pdf version if requested. A lot of stuff might need changing and I'll almost definitely be doing some on-the-fly tweaks if I see something is too easy or difficult while running it. This is the first conversion I've posted on the interwebs, hope you guys like it and I get some feedback and suggestions.

So without further ramblings on my part:
The Forgotten Forge 4e Conversion
#12
hobson1975
Jun 10, 2009 13:46:36 wow that's pretty awesome! Totally tops what I'd written up!
#13
domenic
Jun 10, 2009 15:33:50
I hate to bump an old thread, but I found this using google a few weeks ago. I used a lot of the suggestions here to put together a 4e conversion of the adventure, and decided it would be worth putting online in PDF format.

I should note that experience rewards were boosted for most of the encounters to ensure that the group I'm going to be running it with levels at the pace I want, if you want to add enemies to some of the encounters or increase the DCs of some skill challenges feel free to by all means.

In fact, anybody can change this in any way, and I will post the non-pdf version if requested. A lot of stuff might need changing and I'll almost definitely be doing some on-the-fly tweaks if I see something is too easy or difficult while running it. This is the first conversion I've posted on the interwebs, hope you guys like it and I get some feedback and suggestions.

So without further ramblings on my part:
The Forgotten Forge 4e Conversion

That _is_ awesome. How about, when you're done running it and making your own on-the-fly tweaks, you post the non-PDF version and I'll convert it to HTML for internet distribution?
#14
w0nkothesane
Jun 10, 2009 16:22:01 Sounds good, Domenic. I'll keep an eye out for errors and suggestions between now and then, and you should hear back from me by the end of the month with a fully tweaked and more thoroughly proof-read version.

I'll probably focus my updates on the thread I made specifically for it, so keep your eyes peeled over there.
#15
Talae
Jun 10, 2009 17:57:47 I will post a link for this in my resource thread. Please let me know there if the link changes or you add more conversions.
#16
cervante
Jun 14, 2009 13:16:54 Does anyone actually have a full conversion of the whole set of adventures? Or even perhaps a brief overview of how one could run them in 4e?
#17
moodygnome
Jan 18, 2010 1:24:08 Hey guys
I would LOVE to get a copy of your conversions of the older Eberron modules. I'm playing Eberron for the first time (DMing), and am going to be through Ashen Crown in the next month or so. Looks like a conversion of the Vampire's Blade would be perfect. The link on this thread is dead; any way you all would share your conversions?
Thanks
#18
oldbenway
Feb 05, 2010 0:29:11 I would love any help in this area as well. I have been buying up the old eberron material like crazy, and besides the obvious 'drop in new mobs' move, I am sure some of you old salts can help a few of us 4E guys figure this out, thank you so much for any help.
#19
Ogiwan
Feb 05, 2010 21:48:27 Well, again, when I converted the older modules to 4e, I just kept the feel of the encounters, but changed the monsters and their numbers to provide the necessary challenge and variety. If you fight skeletons in 3e, you fight skeletons in 4e.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 domenic Nov 01, 2008 13:43:23	I'm going to run my first 4E Eberron game today, and while I'm not planning on jumping into any Eberron mythology just yet, I thought it'd be worth it to come up with something with a unique "Eberron feel." Has anyone done a conversion on The Forgotten Forge yet? Failing that, of any of the published 1st-level 4E adventures (Dungeon, Scales of War, Keep on the Shadowfell [ + conversion ], etc.), do any of them really stand out as good "Eberron-feeling" adventures? Failing that, any ideas on a good intro plot-hook thing? If nobody answers within a few hours, I'll (a) make something up, probably drawing inspiration from The Forgotten Forge; (b) use your answers for the next adventure ^_^.
#2 domenic Nov 02, 2008 1:28:48	(For the record: LG warforged paladin, G earthsoul genasi swordmage, U/leaning E halfling rogue, U eladrin wizard.) Well, so I had the characters---none of which knew each other---in an upper-Sharn "urban lounge" (i.e. bar for people who want to feel rich), at closing time. Got some fun info out of them asking why they were there at 2 AM in somewhere normally above their price range as level 1s. Anyway, by closing time there were only them and five others left; things started off when one of the others scared the bartender out of the bar with a secret note, leaving him and his gang to face off against the players for mysterious, unknown reasons. Of course, the magic keeping this particular establishment afloat began to fail! Thus ensued an intense barfight inside a falling, tumbling two-story building, with broken glass, flammable alcohol, and homicidal furniture running rampant, plus collisions with towers, bridges, etc. along the way. It ended with only one half of the first story of the building left, with the characters and their dead opponents clinging for dear life. But instead of crashing to the ground, they decelerated, finding themselves suspended two feet from the ground of the Sharn undercity. Outside the bar were a cloaked figure and a frazzled looking fire-genasi wizard, who was using a ritual to perform this deceleration; the latter collapsed exhausted after the cloaked figure gave him permission to do so. The cloaked figure revealed herself to be Lady Elaydren (although she departs from the canonical version a decent bit). She created the whole setup---thugs starting a fight with them, causing the lounge to fight, etc.---as her latest trial for finding a suitable group of adventurers to undertake her cause. She was very callous about the lives destroyed by the falling building (via collisions, etc.), as well as the lives of the hired thugs, and gave the impression that she'd done this a few times before and found those being tested to be lacking. Now that she'd found a suitably resourceful and skilled group of adventurers, she was willing to give a job offer. At this point there was some friction; Elaydren was apparently coming across as a bit too evil for the likes of our LG and G party members. And I haven't figured out whether that's really her personality in my campaign, or if she just thinks much bigger things are at stake (the latter being the impression she tried to give). So she had to kind of go with a "save the world," "many lives are at stake" speech to try to get the LG and G aboard. They however compelled her to pay the victims' families compensation for their losses. Anyway, her mission for the PCs was to infiltrate Merrix's secret laboratory, where she told them---not sure if this is true yet or not---that he's working on new warforged, possibly undead warforged. She wants them to secure a sample of his technology, and bring it back to her. The part, once she left, debated a bit before deciding that they should at least check this out; what they do with the information/technology that they find, or who they trust in this Cannith house split, they will decide on later. The session ended here. ---- My current future plans involve adapting the Forgotten Forge somewhat. Using the marketplace -> sewers -> ancient underground laboratory arc pretty closely, but I might replace the underground laboratory with a larger one (i.e. some kind of dungeon---maybe use Whitehearth from that other Eberron adventure?). What's going on down there, I'm not entirely sure; my PCs don't seem too compelled by undead warforged as a threat, so maybe that should be changed up. I do definitely want to have a Merrix/Elaydren Cannith House split, where the PCs are not sure which of these is a better option to trust. Elaydren is currently "in hiding" in the Sharn undercity, I think, marshaling supporters of various allegiances in preparation for... something. What Merrix is doing is unclear. He could be working on warforged resurrection technology; maybe it doesn't exist in my campaign yet. But he could easily have some more sinister on the side, or as part of this, or maybe it requires pacts with demons or quori (!) or something. Basically I like the idea of them fighting through a bunch of scary-but-not-overtly-evil stuff (iron defenders, I think, are a decent example), to get to Merrix, who ends up being just this old man chugging away in his workshop on something amazing---even if this technology perhaps has world-threatening implications, especially in the wrong hands. So when they find this guy, who's not at all what they expected, his arguments might end up swaying them---or better, making them unsure and anxious. I could also easily have the PCs now be on the wrong side of the gang whose members they killed in the falling-bar incident; I was thinking of attacking them in the sewers. This could be an interesting third party to introduce, but I'm not sure as to its long-term potential. Another obvious third party is the Lord of Blades, but I'm not entirely sure how to make that interesting. I thought that his involvement was pretty lame in the Forgotten Forge + followups; something more interesting would be cool. Shrug. I think I've got decent ideas for going forward, but I'd also love to get some brainstorming going here on the ever-helpful boards ^_^.
#3 Ogiwan Nov 06, 2008 10:01:46	I also agree it sounds good. I'm going to steal the "fight inside a collapsing tower" bit, if you don't mind. Are you just running the Forgotten Forge, or do you want to run that entire arc (Forgotten Forge, Shadows of the Last War, Whispers of the Vampire's Blade, Grasp of the Emerald Claw)? If so, what my friend did after we finished Grasp is, since the players returned the creation pattern to Merrix, he had Xulo manifest, flip out, and start a revolt of like all the constructs in the Cannith Tower, and the PCs had to fight their way in to stop Xulo. I may take that tack, but I'm currently on a Lords of Dust kick, so it will be far bigger than that.
#4 Gilo Nov 06, 2008 10:36:04	I also agree it sounds good. I'm going to steal the "fight inside a collapsing tower" bit, if you don't mind. It was the winning encounter in the . UnCon 2006 - Eberron Pulp-Action Encounter Competition
#5 skrap-san Nov 06, 2008 14:21:11	It was the winning encounter in the . UnCon 2006 - Eberron Pulp-Action Encounter Competition I used that one in one of my encounters... it failed a bit on me since at that time almost the entire party had a way of just flying to safety (3.5th ed)... But we used the mexican standoff one and it was one of the most memorable encounters I have ever played out. With three parties interested in getting hold of an itim, and an airship swooping in when the party survived the avalanche, good times!
#6 hobson1975 Dec 15, 2008 14:29:35	I up converted Forgotten Forge and the first two of the three modules (Shadow's of the Last War & Whisper's of the Vampire Blade) with really no issues whatsoever. It did take a bit more work, but overall worked pretty flawless and had the real Eberron flavor I've come to love. If you want to pick my brain on anything I used feel free to send me a message. Jason
#7 domenic Dec 15, 2008 15:15:52	I up converted Forgotten Forge and the first two of the three modules (Shadow's of the Last War & Whisper's of the Vampire Blade) with really no issues whatsoever. It did take a bit more work, but overall worked pretty flawless and had the real Eberron flavor I've come to love. If you want to pick my brain on anything I used feel free to send me a message. Jason Woah, very cool. Did you by any chance do writeups, or was it just on-the-fly? Any major cool ideas you inserted/converted? (BTW, would your last name by any chance be Smith?)
#8 Aaron_Highcolor Jan 04, 2009 16:49:32	I up converted Forgotten Forge and the first two of the three modules (Shadow's of the Last War & Whisper's of the Vampire Blade) with really no issues whatsoever. It did take a bit more work, but overall worked pretty flawless and had the real Eberron flavor I've come to love. If you want to pick my brain on anything I used feel free to send me a message. Jason Would you be willing to email your conversions to interested parties?
#9 hobson1975 Jan 27, 2009 10:25:46	Hey guys - Sorry for the massive delay in getting back to you. I've got my hand written notes if you'd like to see them. I can type them up either here or in email. Doesn't matter. For my conversion to 4E I didn't do anything too drastically different than the encounters in the adventure. I just converted some areas to skill challenges and some of the baddies I twisted around slightly. For instance the warforged rogue, I took one of the halfings and applied the warforged racial stats, removing the halfing. Send me a message on here if you want more details. Jason
#10 Talae Jan 30, 2009 7:28:07	I sent a PM, but the boards would be a great place for a post like that.
#11 w0nkothesane Jun 10, 2009 13:39:46	I hate to bump an old thread, but I found this using google a few weeks ago. I used a lot of the suggestions here to put together a 4e conversion of the adventure, and decided it would be worth putting online in PDF format. I should note that experience rewards were boosted for most of the encounters to ensure that the group I'm going to be running it with levels at the pace I want, if you want to add enemies to some of the encounters or increase the DCs of some skill challenges feel free to by all means. In fact, anybody can change this in any way, and I will post the non-pdf version if requested. A lot of stuff might need changing and I'll almost definitely be doing some on-the-fly tweaks if I see something is too easy or difficult while running it. This is the first conversion I've posted on the interwebs, hope you guys like it and I get some feedback and suggestions. So without further ramblings on my part: The Forgotten Forge 4e Conversion
#12 hobson1975 Jun 10, 2009 13:46:36	wow that's pretty awesome! Totally tops what I'd written up!
#13 domenic Jun 10, 2009 15:33:50	I hate to bump an old thread, but I found this using google a few weeks ago. I used a lot of the suggestions here to put together a 4e conversion of the adventure, and decided it would be worth putting online in PDF format. I should note that experience rewards were boosted for most of the encounters to ensure that the group I'm going to be running it with levels at the pace I want, if you want to add enemies to some of the encounters or increase the DCs of some skill challenges feel free to by all means. In fact, anybody can change this in any way, and I will post the non-pdf version if requested. A lot of stuff might need changing and I'll almost definitely be doing some on-the-fly tweaks if I see something is too easy or difficult while running it. This is the first conversion I've posted on the interwebs, hope you guys like it and I get some feedback and suggestions. So without further ramblings on my part: The Forgotten Forge 4e Conversion That _is_ awesome. How about, when you're done running it and making your own on-the-fly tweaks, you post the non-PDF version and I'll convert it to HTML for internet distribution?
#14 w0nkothesane Jun 10, 2009 16:22:01	Sounds good, Domenic. I'll keep an eye out for errors and suggestions between now and then, and you should hear back from me by the end of the month with a fully tweaked and more thoroughly proof-read version. I'll probably focus my updates on the thread I made specifically for it, so keep your eyes peeled over there.
#15 Talae Jun 10, 2009 17:57:47	I will post a link for this in my resource thread. Please let me know there if the link changes or you add more conversions.
#16 cervante Jun 14, 2009 13:16:54	Does anyone actually have a full conversion of the whole set of adventures? Or even perhaps a brief overview of how one could run them in 4e?
#17 moodygnome Jan 18, 2010 1:24:08	Hey guys I would LOVE to get a copy of your conversions of the older Eberron modules. I'm playing Eberron for the first time (DMing), and am going to be through Ashen Crown in the next month or so. Looks like a conversion of the Vampire's Blade would be perfect. The link on this thread is dead; any way you all would share your conversions? Thanks
#18 oldbenway Feb 05, 2010 0:29:11	I would love any help in this area as well. I have been buying up the old eberron material like crazy, and besides the obvious 'drop in new mobs' move, I am sure some of you old salts can help a few of us 4E guys figure this out, thank you so much for any help.
#19 Ogiwan Feb 05, 2010 21:48:27	Well, again, when I converted the older modules to 4e, I just kept the feel of the encounters, but changed the monsters and their numbers to provide the necessary challenge and variety. If you fight skeletons in 3e, you fight skeletons in 4e.