Ptolus Campaign [3.5]

[Deimess]

My next campaign is going to be Monte Cook's Ptolus (http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?ptolus) and I was wondering if there is anyone out there that has run this or had it run for them before, and if they have any advice/stories?

Anything would be appreciated, as I am as new to it as are my players. I've read a lot of it, but don't know how it will play out. We will be starting around levels 1-3.

[kaiserthe3rd]

I am currently running a Ptolus Campaign and I love the setting. That being said. Theres A LOT of different factions within the City all working against or with each other. That can be difficult to keep track of. Theres a chart in the Complete Ptolus Set somewhere that helps keeping tracking of it so I suggest you use that. Also keep a cheat sheet on hand with important NPCs since theres a lot of those too. You don't have to put every NPC on there just the ones the PCs are likely to run into such as guard captains of a certain district or a cleric of the Church of Lothian.

There are a few low level adventures that came with the Ptolus set that you could use. They are just your basic low level adventures like fighting ratmen in the sewer. After that you should look into the Banewarren Adventure, I believe it was published seprately. It also takes place in Ptolus or below it really. Also look at the various adventure hooks in each of the chapters especially in the chapters discussing different districts of the town. There is a lot of really good ideas in there that could help you plan some awesome adventures.

The best thing about Ptolus is you can really do any type of adventure there. Dont be afraid to make your own dungeon or adventure. You can change the affilation of different Noble Houses or orginizations. Make Ptolus the way you want it, dont be afraid to go off of the book. Let me know how it goes.

[Deimess]

I was planning on starting with the Murderer's Trail (I think that's what it's called) then going to the Night of Dissolution campaign, because they are epic and awesome :smallbiggrin:!!!

After those, I figured I would know enough to make some of my own content, which I love doing.

The fist session is soon (in a week or so) and I'll let you know the results :smallsmile:

[CigarPete]

I'm currently involved in a Ptolus campaign that has been running about 4 years. Started at lvl 1, now to 16 - I joined partway through, about 2 years ago, at lvl 5 in a lvl 9/10 party. There is a massive amount of material there, although I know my DM has also included other modules, etc. into our campaign - the group did a run through tomb of horrors just before I joined.

The main thing I like about it is likely common to any campaign based in a large city, the sandbox quality. We spend time wading through the banewarrens or the white house, but we also spend time talking to various different factions within the city and have organizations ourselves that we belong to or run. Mostly run at this level - the cleric started his own church, my gishy-type is running her order(Knights of the Golden Cross), the three arcanists in the party all belong to the inverted pyramid. Lots of opportunity for RP. It helps that the DM is awesome at bringing NPCs alive and making them distinct from each other, so it really feels like a fully populated world.

[kaiserthe3rd]

Having your players join an Orginization is a great idea. There is enough there that any player should be able to find one he or she would want to be a part of. And once they are a part of an orginization making adventures can become pretty easy.

[Deimess]

This is good to hear, but I have a concern after looking at many NPCs:

Although the PCs will not end up fighting many of them, a lot of them seem like they aren't a big enough challenge for the PCs at the level it says they should be presented. How have some of these NPCs played out in your campaigns? That said, most of them certainly won't be alone, so I could see that making a lot more sense.

[Deimess]

Oh yeah, and the first session is today, i'll post later

[Deimess]

First session was awesome!

The Murderer's Trail was great, the new player had a ton of fun and made a human fighter for simplicity sake (he actually ended up outshining most of the party). The rest of the party is pretty diverse, but it works well for such a diverse setting.

I took your advice about the factions, and kept side notes on how each one reacted. There wasn;t much since it was the first adventure but it was good practice for the sequel, which has many factions that I need to be aware of.

Thank you for the advice, it worked out bery nicely :smallbiggrin:!