Time Travel into 4E-FR - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Time Travel into 4E-FR

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
TallAssRob
Sep 22, 2008 9:53:52 OK, so I was DMing the Cormy/Shadowdale/Anauroch campaign trilogy for the past year or so, but we stopped playing 2 months ago when one of my players got shipped off to Iraq.

I now want to start playing again, but I want to switch my campaign over to 4E via Time Travel. I want to do this because 1) I really want to try out the 4E rules and 2) The trio of campaigns is getting on me and my party's sorceror's nerves (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1052065)

So my plan is to pick up were we left off midway through the Shadowdale campaign, but almost immediately have the spellplague create some sort of portal to suck my party up and drop them off 100 years into the future. Give them all spellscars from the portal and start them off at level 1 (they're level 9 in 3.5 rules, but I think deleveling them makes sense since they need to relearn how to do a lot of things, especially the Sorceror who no longer has the weave, and the Paladin who worships a now-dead god named Tyr)

I'm not really sure what to do once I get them all into 4E though, I was really really hoping to play the Scepter Tower of Spellgard, but it seems like it suffers as an intro campaign. What would lead my players to Spellgard? What questions would they need answered?

So I'm wondering if anyone can help me out with ideas on what to do with my players once they pop out of that portal. I do a lot better running from book campaigns and adding a bit of my own custom stuff then I do running a campaign completely from scratch. Does Keep on the Shadowfell convert well to 4E FR?
#2
lord_karsus
Sep 22, 2008 11:34:13 -To save yourself a bunch of confusion, you don't have to suck them into a portal into the future to run a 4e game. You can use the 4e rules, but have the game set where it is set currently.

What would lead my players to Spellgard?

What questions would they need answered?

-To have these questions answered, we need to know a bit more about your characters. Are there any mysteries in their histories? Things like that?
#3
TallAssRob
Sep 22, 2008 13:25:49 The main reason I want to time travel forward to the 4E setting is to get away from the current book campaigns I'm using. If I just converted my PCs to 4E and converted the Shadowdale book campaign to 4E they'd still have all their magic nerf'd which is getting really tiresome.

I found the Keep on the Shadowfell conversion from Dungeon #155, so I think I'm going to time travel the players into 4E and then make a decision on whether to use Shadowfell or Spellgard based on what they do.

If they have a lot of unanswered questions about what happened over the past 100 years or what they should do with their lives etc, then I will nudge them towards Spellgard. But if they seem to accept the time travel and want to jump right into some ass-kicking, I'll use the Shadowfell FR conversion.
#4
lord_karsus
Sep 22, 2008 14:13:31 -Alright. If you are planning to use the same characters, you can introduce, before you do the time-traveling, some Spellplague-related teasers, and then use the time-travel to introduce them into the future, where everything is messed up. They'll probably wonder what happened, and explaining the Spellplague via Lady Swhateverhernameis in Spellgard would probably make it more "fun", rather than a Gather Information check, and whatever else. To "bring" them to Spellgard, you can have the portal dump them nearby, so it becomes the first thing they see.
#5
conanb
Sep 22, 2008 15:54:22 I am a big fan of using ideas from books I read and what not. Why not have your players chase a bad guy through a time dimensional portal. Your BBEG is so close to getting caught he opens the rift and hops through. The players follow and viola they're in another time. This was done to great effect in Terry Pratchett's Night Watch. He went backward in time, but you can just as easily go forward. The players could even think this was a totally alien land, until they realize they're actually in their homeland 100 years in the future. This would be like Planet of the Apes, you know stumble upon a statue of some famed hero. Even maybe one of themselves who the locals thought gave their lives to stop the BBEG in the past.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 TallAssRob Sep 22, 2008 9:53:52	OK, so I was DMing the Cormy/Shadowdale/Anauroch campaign trilogy for the past year or so, but we stopped playing 2 months ago when one of my players got shipped off to Iraq. I now want to start playing again, but I want to switch my campaign over to 4E via Time Travel. I want to do this because 1) I really want to try out the 4E rules and 2) The trio of campaigns is getting on me and my party's sorceror's nerves (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1052065) So my plan is to pick up were we left off midway through the Shadowdale campaign, but almost immediately have the spellplague create some sort of portal to suck my party up and drop them off 100 years into the future. Give them all spellscars from the portal and start them off at level 1 (they're level 9 in 3.5 rules, but I think deleveling them makes sense since they need to relearn how to do a lot of things, especially the Sorceror who no longer has the weave, and the Paladin who worships a now-dead god named Tyr) I'm not really sure what to do once I get them all into 4E though, I was really really hoping to play the Scepter Tower of Spellgard, but it seems like it suffers as an intro campaign. What would lead my players to Spellgard? What questions would they need answered? So I'm wondering if anyone can help me out with ideas on what to do with my players once they pop out of that portal. I do a lot better running from book campaigns and adding a bit of my own custom stuff then I do running a campaign completely from scratch. Does Keep on the Shadowfell convert well to 4E FR?
#2 lord_karsus Sep 22, 2008 11:34:13	-To save yourself a bunch of confusion, you don't have to suck them into a portal into the future to run a 4e game. You can use the 4e rules, but have the game set where it is set currently. What would lead my players to Spellgard? What questions would they need answered? -To have these questions answered, we need to know a bit more about your characters. Are there any mysteries in their histories? Things like that?
#3 TallAssRob Sep 22, 2008 13:25:49	The main reason I want to time travel forward to the 4E setting is to get away from the current book campaigns I'm using. If I just converted my PCs to 4E and converted the Shadowdale book campaign to 4E they'd still have all their magic nerf'd which is getting really tiresome. I found the Keep on the Shadowfell conversion from Dungeon #155, so I think I'm going to time travel the players into 4E and then make a decision on whether to use Shadowfell or Spellgard based on what they do. If they have a lot of unanswered questions about what happened over the past 100 years or what they should do with their lives etc, then I will nudge them towards Spellgard. But if they seem to accept the time travel and want to jump right into some ass-kicking, I'll use the Shadowfell FR conversion.
#4 lord_karsus Sep 22, 2008 14:13:31	-Alright. If you are planning to use the same characters, you can introduce, before you do the time-traveling, some Spellplague-related teasers, and then use the time-travel to introduce them into the future, where everything is messed up. They'll probably wonder what happened, and explaining the Spellplague via Lady Swhateverhernameis in Spellgard would probably make it more "fun", rather than a Gather Information check, and whatever else. To "bring" them to Spellgard, you can have the portal dump them nearby, so it becomes the first thing they see.
#5 conanb Sep 22, 2008 15:54:22	I am a big fan of using ideas from books I read and what not. Why not have your players chase a bad guy through a time dimensional portal. Your BBEG is so close to getting caught he opens the rift and hops through. The players follow and viola they're in another time. This was done to great effect in Terry Pratchett's Night Watch. He went backward in time, but you can just as easily go forward. The players could even think this was a totally alien land, until they realize they're actually in their homeland 100 years in the future. This would be like Planet of the Apes, you know stumble upon a statue of some famed hero. Even maybe one of themselves who the locals thought gave their lives to stop the BBEG in the past.