Hi all,
Nothing fancy or political, just a simple question. I have a group of 4th level players in a 5th edition campaign. I am looking for a few good modules to offer them as options. I have "The Forge of Fury" from the 5th addition module collection which looks OK, but I wanted a few other options as well. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Tobias
Forge of Fury is good yup.
I've had a lot of success with 12 Peculiar Towers from Kobold Press. For a big one, 5e Barrowmaze looks very good. I mostly convert OSR or 3e/PF stuff though; I kicked off the campaign for one group with converted free version of Shadowed Keep on the Borderland https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/100663/Shadowed-Keep-on-the-Borderlands which was good though over-detailed.
Thanks for the recs.
Barrowmaze is a bit dear - I guess it's probably an entire campaign in one dungeon kind of thing?
12 Towers is interesting but it says it needs two supplemental Monster Manuals. How bad do you think it will be if I don't have those?
I've been running Goodman Games's 5E conversion of Into the Borderlands (Caverns of Quasqueton + Keep on the Borderlands). Probably going to need to pick up the Isle of Dread soon as the party's 3rd level and oversized (7 PCs).
Yep, Barrowmaze is a whole entire campaign unto itself.
Really cool though.
Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 13, 2021, 07:58:57 PM
I've been running Goodman Games's 5E conversion of Into the Borderlands (Caverns of Quasqueton + Keep on the Borderlands). Probably going to need to pick up the Isle of Dread soon as the party's 3rd level and oversized (7 PCs).
How is running with 7 PCs?
Quote from: TobiasP on April 13, 2021, 06:27:52 PM
Thanks for the recs.
Barrowmaze is a bit dear - I guess it's probably an entire campaign in one dungeon kind of thing?
12 Towers is interesting but it says it needs two supplemental Monster Manuals. How bad do you think it will be if I don't have those?
You need the monster stats but they are all free online eg https://www.5esrd.com/database/creature/ravenfolk-warrior-3pp/
I'd recommend getting the Pocket Tome of Beasts and Pocket Creature Codex though, they're great and not expensive.
Quote from: TobiasP on April 14, 2021, 01:18:43 AM
Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 13, 2021, 07:58:57 PM
I've been running Goodman Games's 5E conversion of Into the Borderlands (Caverns of Quasqueton + Keep on the Borderlands). Probably going to need to pick up the Isle of Dread soon as the party's 3rd level and oversized (7 PCs).
How is running with 7 PCs?
Not as bad as you'd expect.
The game started out as a one shot to test drive 5E, with three players. We realized the party needed to be fleshed out a bit, so each player opted to run two PCs for a full party of six.
We added two other players a little later. One took up an existing character while another opted for his own, giving a total of five players and 7 characters.
Biggest issue for me is how seven PCs will absolutely maul some encounters. I'm going to dial up the heat a bit and see how they fare, give them a toughened encounter or two.
It helps that most of us are old friends and we all know each other's foibles :)
Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 14, 2021, 09:17:02 AM
Quote from: TobiasP on April 14, 2021, 01:18:43 AM
Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 13, 2021, 07:58:57 PM
I've been running Goodman Games's 5E conversion of Into the Borderlands (Caverns of Quasqueton + Keep on the Borderlands). Probably going to need to pick up the Isle of Dread soon as the party's 3rd level and oversized (7 PCs).
How is running with 7 PCs?
Not as bad as you'd expect.
The game started out as a one shot to test drive 5E, with three players. We realized the party needed to be fleshed out a bit, so each player opted to run two PCs for a full party of six.
We added two other players a little later. One took up an existing character while another opted for his own, giving a total of five players and 7 characters.
Biggest issue for me is how seven PCs will absolutely maul some encounters. I'm going to dial up the heat a bit and see how they fare, give them a toughened encounter or two.
It helps that most of us are old friends and we all know each other's foibles :)
Having run for groups that typically have 7-9 players, and at particular sessions, more than that, I'll suggest for 5E the easiest way to run for the 7-9 group is to make double-sized encounters and completely ignore the 5E advice on scaling. Assuming you are playing fair on the "focus fire" aspect. 16+ goblins shouldn't all be so disciplined as to peg a single character, for example. In fact, the way I think of it is of two smaller parties that happen to be adventuring together and
two groups of foes that happened to show up at the same time. The benefit that a party gets out of combined actions is greater than what even diverse but cohesive monsters get. In other words, 7 characters scales to more power compared to 4 characters than double monsters does.
This does all kinds of nice things for your ability to adjust on the fly based on the actions of the characters and a varying roster of players showing up. When the party size drops temporarily into the 4-6 range, they've always got the option to try to deal with the encounters piecemeal. And they've probably got a better chance at sneaking around to make that happen. It also gives you a lot more leeway at shaping encounters to the environment instead of doing that "balanced encounter" dance. There are, say, 8 groups of goblins sitting or moving around in the vicinity. Depending on what the players do, they could handle 1 or 2 of them isolated and then sneak around the rest. Or they could call all 8 groups down on their heads in waves and probably die. As it should be.
But mainly what it does is let you build things in monster groups that would be roughly appropriate for a typical size party and your overall goal (cakewalk, can handle it if not stupid, probably should run, etc.)--and then ignore that aspect of the game thereafter.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 14, 2021, 12:04:40 PM
Having run for groups that typically have 7-9 players, and at particular sessions, more than that, I'll suggest for 5E the easiest way to run for the 7-9 group is to make double-sized encounters and completely ignore the 5E advice on scaling. Assuming you are playing fair on the "focus fire" aspect. 16+ goblins shouldn't all be so disciplined as to peg a single character, for example. In fact, the way I think of it is of two smaller parties that happen to be adventuring together and two groups of foes that happened to show up at the same time. The benefit that a party gets out of combined actions is greater than what even diverse but cohesive monsters get. In other words, 7 characters scales to more power compared to 4 characters than double monsters does.
This does all kinds of nice things for your ability to adjust on the fly based on the actions of the characters and a varying roster of players showing up. When the party size drops temporarily into the 4-6 range, they've always got the option to try to deal with the encounters piecemeal. And they've probably got a better chance at sneaking around to make that happen. It also gives you a lot more leeway at shaping encounters to the environment instead of doing that "balanced encounter" dance. There are, say, 8 groups of goblins sitting or moving around in the vicinity. Depending on what the players do, they could handle 1 or 2 of them isolated and then sneak around the rest. Or they could call all 8 groups down on their heads in waves and probably die. As it should be.
But mainly what it does is let you build things in monster groups that would be roughly appropriate for a typical size party and your overall goal (cakewalk, can handle it if not stupid, probably should run, etc.)--and then ignore that aspect of the game thereafter.
Hmm. I'll play a bit with doubling up on encounters. Although not all of my planned encounters are strictly combat; the party will have a couple noncombat ones in the next session.
Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 13, 2021, 07:58:57 PM
I've been running Goodman Games's 5E conversion of Into the Borderlands (Caverns of Quasqueton + Keep on the Borderlands). Probably going to need to pick up the Isle of Dread soon as the party's 3rd level and oversized (7 PCs).
That's enough people to man a small ship.
Yeah, but the party spread is weird and the wild mage sorceress is insanely prone to surges.
In fact, that character is now fourteen years old thanks to being de-aged by one surge.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 14, 2021, 12:04:40 PM
Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 14, 2021, 09:17:02 AM
Quote from: TobiasP on April 14, 2021, 01:18:43 AM
Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 13, 2021, 07:58:57 PM
I've been running Goodman Games's 5E conversion of Into the Borderlands (Caverns of Quasqueton + Keep on the Borderlands). Probably going to need to pick up the Isle of Dread soon as the party's 3rd level and oversized (7 PCs).
How is running with 7 PCs?
Not as bad as you'd expect.
The game started out as a one shot to test drive 5E, with three players. We realized the party needed to be fleshed out a bit, so each player opted to run two PCs for a full party of six.
We added two other players a little later. One took up an existing character while another opted for his own, giving a total of five players and 7 characters.
Biggest issue for me is how seven PCs will absolutely maul some encounters. I'm going to dial up the heat a bit and see how they fare, give them a toughened encounter or two.
It helps that most of us are old friends and we all know each other's foibles :)
Having run for groups that typically have 7-9 players, and at particular sessions, more than that, I'll suggest for 5E the easiest way to run for the 7-9 group is to make double-sized encounters and completely ignore the 5E advice on scaling. Assuming you are playing fair on the "focus fire" aspect. 16+ goblins shouldn't all be so disciplined as to peg a single character, for example. In fact, the way I think of it is of two smaller parties that happen to be adventuring together and two groups of foes that happened to show up at the same time. The benefit that a party gets out of combined actions is greater than what even diverse but cohesive monsters get. In other words, 7 characters scales to more power compared to 4 characters than double monsters does.
This does all kinds of nice things for your ability to adjust on the fly based on the actions of the characters and a varying roster of players showing up. When the party size drops temporarily into the 4-6 range, they've always got the option to try to deal with the encounters piecemeal. And they've probably got a better chance at sneaking around to make that happen. It also gives you a lot more leeway at shaping encounters to the environment instead of doing that "balanced encounter" dance. There are, say, 8 groups of goblins sitting or moving around in the vicinity. Depending on what the players do, they could handle 1 or 2 of them isolated and then sneak around the rest. Or they could call all 8 groups down on their heads in waves and probably die. As it should be.
But mainly what it does is let you build things in monster groups that would be roughly appropriate for a typical size party and your overall goal (cakewalk, can handle it if not stupid, probably should run, etc.)--and then ignore that aspect of the game thereafter.
won't that make every combat take forever though
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on April 15, 2021, 04:56:53 AM
won't that make every combat take forever though
I generally GM 5e for 7-8 players online, with 1-3 accompanying NPCs.
It does take longer but I find banning multiclassing & feats keeps character complexity down and turns go swiftly. It would be a lot quicker still if the players hadn't objected to side-based initiative & insisted on each having their own discrete turn!
As said above, the main thing is to use groups of monsters. If you are 'building' encounters, do it 4e style, basing it off a standard of 1 monster per PC, not 3e style 1 monster per group.
The best fights IME are probably those with around 1.5 to 2 times as many monsters as PCs.
Back to good adventures, what about the classic BECMI "Night's Dark Terror"? Paired with the "Grand Duchy Of Karameikos" Gazetteer it was a wonderful experience back in the day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night%27s_Dark_Terror
Edit: this is a fan-made conversion for 5E:
http://www.pandius.com/B10_Nights_Dark_Terror_5E.pdf
Quote from: S'mon on April 15, 2021, 06:29:23 AM
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on April 15, 2021, 04:56:53 AM
won't that make every combat take forever though
I generally GM 5e for 7-8 players online, with 1-3 accompanying NPCs.
It does take longer but I find banning multiclassing & feats keeps character complexity down and turns go swiftly. It would be a lot quicker still if the players hadn't objected to side-based initiative & insisted on each having their own discrete turn!
As said above, the main thing is to use groups of monsters. If you are 'building' encounters, do it 4e style, basing it off a standard of 1 monster per PC, not 3e style 1 monster per group.
The best fights IME are probably those with around 1.5 to 2 times as many monsters as PCs.
Increasing the numbers of monsters causes combat time to scale linearly (up to a point, of course). There a lot of obvious GM corner-cutting tricks you can use to mitigate that. Increasing the numbers of players causes combat time to scale exponentially--unless you take steps to stop it.
In 3E, 4E, and 5E (after the first 3E campaign with 9+ players) I didn't give the players a choice. We used some variant of sides initiative or no campaign. This is the trade for running a large group that is going to get through a fight in a reasonable time. Around 6 to 7 players seems to be the cut-off for most experienced GMs. As in, if you were running fine at 4 or 5, you can probably add a couple more without the exponential scaling time getting out of control--if you sit on it, make sure the players are focused, etc. At some point shortly after that, it will spiral out of your control using the standard rules (for a variety of reasons). Since I'm comfortable running on the upper end of the scale and have been practicing tricks for a long time, I could push it to 8, 9, 10 at times, but it was exhausting. Running the way I do now, I can handle 10 players with no problem, up to 12-13 with minimal problems, and handle 15 in a pinch. But I'm pulling every trick imaginable to make that work, and like doing it.
The point being that for every GM, there's a threshold where if you want to exceed your normal comfort zone on party size, you'll need to adapt the rules, and another threshold where some of the options are taken away if you want to make it work. For a GM whose ideal party size is 3 players, those thresholds are going to come a lot sooner.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 15, 2021, 08:57:01 AM
The point being that for every GM, there's a threshold where if you want to exceed your normal comfort zone on party size, you'll need to adapt the rules, and another threshold where some of the options are taken away if you want to make it work. For a GM whose ideal party size is 3 players, those thresholds are going to come a lot sooner.
Yeah I agree. I'd say my comfort zone for 5e D&D is 5-6 players, but I can push it to 8 ok these days, by cutting out some of the optional rules modules and generally being a lean mean GMing machine. 8) While I've GM'd with 14 or so a couple times for convention games, it's not something I'm comfy with or that I think would give an optimal experience long term.
However there are several player/PC groups IMC and I have had queries about team ups, so I suspect I'll be GMing for 15 one of these days... but as a one or two shot, not long term.