second question: Can anyone recommend some good forest/fey themed adventures for high-heroic/low-paragon tier characters?
DALE, AGLA, LURU are usually good for wilderness modules, although that's not always the case.
By the rules, that's not allowed.
If you run LFR adventures, even for your home group, the expectation is that you'll run them following the rules for the LFR campaign. That means that your players would need to be playing the adventures using characters specifically created for the LFR campaign, and they'd need to start those characters at 1st level. (Your players would also have to become members of the RPGA, but that's likely not as big a deal.)
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
* -- with only a few exceptions, *all* of the D&D adventures currently available from the RPGA are part of the Living Forgotten Realms campaign.
By the rules, that's not allowed.
Huh? What rules? That would be new to me. As far as I know, the PCs cannot be used in the LFR campaign if you use LFR adventures this way (and you cannot call it a LFR campaign), but you can use the adventures in your home campaign.
The boilerplate for LFR has similar language, though I suppose if one looks at it liberally, perhaps it does not mean the same as what most "old timers" would assume.
Here is the relevant boilerplate text from LURU1-1:
RPGA® Sanctioned Play
Most likely you ordered this adventure as part of an RPGA event from the RPGA website, or you received it from your senior gamemaster. To play this adventure and receive rewards from the RPGA REWARDS program, you must sanction it as part of an RPGA event. This event could be as elaborate as a big convention, or as simple as a group of friends meeting at the DM’s house.
To sanction an RPGA event, you must be at least a HERALD-LEVEL™ gamemaster. The person who sanctions the event, called the senior gamemaster, is in charge of making sure the event is sanctioned before play, runs smoothly on the date sanctioned, and gets reported back to the RPGA in a timely manner. The person who runs the game is called the table Dungeon Master (or usually just DM). Sometimes (and almost all the time in the cases of home events) the senior gamemaster is also the table DM. You don’t have to be a HERALD-LEVEL GM to run this adventure if you are not the senior GM.
By sanctioning and reporting this adventure you accomplish a couple of things. First, it is an official game, tracked under your play history. Second, players and DMs gain rewards for sanctioned RPGA play if they are members of the RPGA REWARDS program. Playing this adventure is worth four (4) points.This adventure retires from RPGA-sanctioned play on December 31 2011.To learn more about RPGA event sanctioning and RPGA REWARDS, visit the RPGA website at www.rpga.com.
By sanctioning and reporting this adventure you accomplish a couple of things. First, it is an official game, tracked under your play history. Second, players and DMs gain rewards for sanctioned RPGA play if they are members of the RPGA REWARDS program. Playing this adventure is worth four (4) points.
This adventure retires from RPGA-sanctioned play on December 31 2011.To learn more about RPGA event sanctioning and RPGA REWARDS, visit the RPGA website at www.rpga.com.
I've bolded the part that I feel is relevant (and put a strikethrough on the portion that is no longer relevant - goodness me, I should order a more recent mod and see if that language still exists).
One way to read this (with the "old fashioned" mindset) is that to play this adventure at all, it must be sanctioned (and therefore fall under LFR rules).
However, if I read that with a "clean slate" mindset - I can see where that probably isn't true. All it really says is that if I want to sanction it and earn rewards, I need to run it accordingly. There's no strict language that says "This is for LFR and only for LFR".
Guess ya learn something new every day.
Huh? What rules? That would be new to me. As far as I know, the PCs cannot be used in the LFR campaign if you use LFR adventures this way (and you cannot call it a LFR campaign), but you can use the adventures in your home campaign.
Alright, well, that's news to me. As WolfStar notes, this had always been expressly forbidden in the past...I've been active in the RPGA for nearly a decade, so I suppose I have that "old-fashioned" mindset. Since I'd never seen an announcement of the change in policy, I had no reason to believe it had changed.
But, I agree, looking at the current module boilerplate, it does sound like it's allowed now.
Wolfstar is using an old boilerplate text as well. The new boiler plate just mentions that only if you want rewards for it, do you have to schedule it as an event. It also does not mention that it needs to be a LFR event at all.
Official D&D Play
Most likely you ordered this adventure as part of an event, or you received it from your organizer. To play this adventure and receive rewards for it, you must schedule it as an event. This event could be as elaborate as a big convention, or as simple as a group of friends meeting at the DM’s house.
To schedule a game for public play, you must be enrolled in the Wizards Play Network. Information on enrolling in the program can be found at www.wizards.com/wpn. If you are scheduling the game for private play, you do not need to be enrolled in the Wizards Play Network. The person who schedules the event, called the organizer, is in charge of making sure the event is scheduled before play, runs smoothly on the date scheduled, and gets reported back to Wizards in a timely manner. The person who runs the game is called the table Dungeon Master (or usually just DM). Sometimes (and almost all the time in the cases of home events) the organizer is also the table DM. You don’t have to be enrolled in the Wizards Play Network to DM this adventure if you are not the organizer.
By scheduling and reporting this adventure you accomplish a couple of things. First, it is an official game, tracked under your play history. Second, DMs gain rewards for scheduled play if they are members of the DM Rewards program. DMing this adventure is worth one (1) point.
To learn more about event scheduling and DM Rewards, visit the D&D Events website at www.wizards.com/dnd and click on “Events.”
Wolfstar is using an old boilerplate text as well. The new boiler plate just mentions that only if you want rewards for it, do you have to schedule it as an event. It also does not mention that it needs to be a LFR event at all.
Fair enough. I stand corrected.
I'm really just looking for some particular modules that would fit nicely in a forest setting for my player's 9th level backup characters.
And what if I don't care about getting rewards for a particular adventure and my players don't either? I already run a non-LFR campaign and I'm just looking to start a backup campaign to run when some of my players can't make it our regularly scheduled game.
I'm really just looking for some particular modules that would fit nicely in a forest setting for my player's 9th level backup characters.
Based on what MadFox is stating, it sounds like you could, indeed, use LFR modules for that purpose.
LURU1-5 and LURU1-7 are as well, but they might require a bit more work.
LURU1-4 is an adventure for level 7 to 10 set in the forests north of Silverymoon. Many people on these boards seem to like it.
LURU1-5 and LURU1-7 are as well, but they might require a bit more work.
Great! Thank you for the suggestions.