Forgotten Realms epic campaign ideas

[montoya]

I am getting together an epic campaign but am unsure on what it should be? This would be our first epic game, our group has been playing for almost 10 years about 8 now I think. We've always talked about it so I decided I would DM it (to also give our DM a break and actually play). Since its a smaller group just the 4 of us (others have been purged due to constant cheating and blatant cheating). They have begun making characters I was pretty liberal with letting them roll stats (allowed rerolls for stats 8 and under). So we have a level 21 Hound Archon Paladin of Torm, a half-dragon (human) cleric of Lathander, and a Druid/nature's warrior deity TBD. Certainly this is the god squad and quite a powerful one at that.

I was thinking of starting the campaign in Neverwinter (I am a huge fan of the sword coast and yes I will be using the NWN2 campaign as fluff) the city will be recovering from the war with the King of Shadows with Luskan poised to invade in the wake of the war. I was thinking the PCs are there to investigate a cult that claims to worship Lord Ao and that Ao has granted them magic. Of course I was going to have them be manipulated by another deity likely Bane. This is the start I have come up with so far, also what would be a good IC reason for a hound archon who was likely a personal guard of Lord Torm to be on the material plane and in Neverwinter? Also what other epic campaign fluff could be added? I am aware epic can be quite broken so that is why for the time being until we get a grasp on it "epic spells" are not allowed again only for now.

Has anyone run an epic campaign if so how should it be handled? Any grand campaign ideas?

[montoya]

I was also thinking about using the Time of Troubles in the story even though the campaign will take place in 1374 DR.

[Sian]

A Shade Wizard and a rogue Thayan Wizard (or whatever you find interesting) working together to raze High Forest with the intention of finding ancient artifacts (primarily for the Shade) and corner the exotic spell ingredient market (Thayan interprising wizard trying to get a monopoly on certain spell ingredients which can be used to power his way to the top of the food chain in Thay) with all the magical beasts and animals that they can catch while razing it

[TSED]

I personally don't feel like that's epic level campaign material. Even assuming FR's standard NPC level +5, that could easily be a level 10-15 campaign.

Epic levels mean ground-shaking, planet-changing, etc.-wrecking stuff. Look at the Tarrasque; that is THE "eats entire worlds" monster and it's CR20. Your party of epics should be able to eat tarrasques for breakfast. No, seriously; 858 hp and +57 to hit for 4d8+17 damage is not a big deal to these adventurers.

You want to start it in Neverwinter? That's cool. You should be looking at threats not to the sanctity of the city but to the sanctity of the ENTIRE SWORD COAST. This is why epic campaigns on prime material worlds are hard. You cannot think low-magic. You need to take what you think is high magic and think of THAT as low magic, and start upping the ante.

Epic level wizards who want to animate entire continents to be their golemesque slaves? Or with oceans, perhaps. Epic level high priest of Talos wants to plunge the world into a literally eternal violent thunderstorm (complete with hurricanes and whatnot) that covers the entire planet? Maybe it covers MULTIPLE planets? Maybe one of the lesser evil Gods got cast down to the prime somehow and has decided to enact super-rampages to expand his portfolio on return, screwing up everything cosmologically?

You're the God Squad. These are Gods who live in the outer planes, where belief is funnelled to them from dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of worlds (depending on your view of the PMP and their influence). Sending servants who are PERSONALLY close to them to... what? Save, like, a couple thousand dudes? Why can't the heroes already there deal with that?

You're epic level. Up the ante. Millions of people. Entire REGIONS. I don't mean, like, a country. I don't mean a couple countries. Check out this map: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/wd_maps/FRposterLarge_72.jpg . Threats should deal with regions at least spanning from Neverwinter to CHONDATH. At least. And I don't mean stuff like "lots of people will die." I mean stuff like "everyone will be tortured for a thousand years, which will provide immense power to evil deities whose portfolios involve that, which they will then use in a cascade effect and create a noticeable effect on the quality of life of every single mortal across the worlds they have influence on. After that, the everyone in question turn into an army of deathknights and kill everybody on countless more worlds."

That's the type of plot you send the God Squad to stop before it happens. You MAY have better luck having a slightly toned down plot already in motion, that said God Squad needs to stop from gaining further momentum. Think about the King of Shadows (I assume you mean the good ending was canon, because... yeah). That wasn't an epic campaign and it involved the conversion of an entire ancient empire's landmass to twisted and incorporeal undead.

You get what I'm saying? This is epic. There are epic spells that let you run around in orbit. There are epic spells that deal 1000 damage (admittedly not instantaneously). There are epic spells that cause tons of damage dice in huge swaths of land (and then animate everything that perishes under the caster's control. There are epic spells that summon TEN adult red dragons which then act immediately. I know you said that you're not dealing with epic spells yet, but this is the beginner level epic stuff. Look at the Order Of The Stick - the epic level villain (SINGULAR) is on a quest to blackmail the Gods to get what it wants. And if the Gods don't play ball, the Gods die.

The Gods die.

Typical God vs God politicking (ie, a Banite cult) is just not that fit for an epic level campaign. You need to think bigger, and bigger, and bigger. Opponents you provide need to be epic in their capabilities and desires. You may be better off just having a campaign around level 17-20 if you're uncomfortable with the high-magic required to make epic genuinely epic.

[Bonzai]

Here are the epic campaign ideas I have had for the FR campaign setting. Keep in mind, the spell plague never happened in my games and 4th edition I avoided like the plague. Haven't bought a single WoTC product since, so I can't speak on current FR fluff.

1. An Epic Cult of the Dragon Necromancer has taken advantage of the year of Rogue Dragons and has stock piled dragon corpses. He has also taken advantage of the turmoil within his organization, and collected half a dozen Dracolitch phylacteries. Now with a Rage of Dracolitches, he will fulfill Maglas's prophecy. Undead Dragons will rule the shattered thrones of the world, and he will in turn rule them.

2. A young Narfellian boy stumbles across some ancient ruins, and learns the secrets of ancient Narfellian Demonology. He masters the art, and begins to conquer and unit the disparate tribes. Once he has done so, he will proclaim himself the Nentyarch, and reclaim Dun-Tharos. From there one thing remains to cement his claim. The Crown of Narfell. To re-forge it, he must take back the piece held by Impiltur. The united kindom of Narfell declares war, and invades Impiltur with a legion of barbarian tribes men aided by a demonic horde.

3. Hoar, also known as Assuran, is the last of the Untheric Pantheon. Unther it's self has suffered greatly since the time of troubles. Occupied by Mulhorondi, Banites, and followers of Tiamat, the region has known no peace, and the people cry out for salvation. Deciding not to turn his back on his people, he decides to assume the mantle of the God King and give the people vengeance upon all who oppressed them. To do this, he needs mortal agents (enter the party). First they must find Shuruppak, the former chosen of Gilgeam. The party must convince him to become Hoar's chosen, and an instrument of vengeance. His target? Tchazzar, the chosen of Tiamat. This should appeal to him, since it was Tiamat that slew his former master. From there the party must slay Tchazzar with Shuruppak's help, reclaim Chessenta for Unther, Drive off the powerful Banites, and route the Mulhorondi army and drive them from Unther's borders. Simple. :smallbiggrin:

[jedipotter]

I was thinking of starting the campaign in Neverwinter (I am a huge fan of the sword coast and yes I will be using the NWN2 campaign as fluff) the city will be recovering from the war with the King of Shadows with Luskan poised to invade in the wake of the war. I was thinking the PCs are there to investigate a cult that claims to worship Lord Ao and that Ao has granted them magic. Of course I was going to have them be manipulated by another deity likely Bane. This is the start I have come up with so far, also what would be a good IC reason for a hound archon who was likely a personal guard of Lord Torm to be on the material plane and in Neverwinter? Also what other epic campaign fluff could be added? I am aware epic can be quite broken so that is why for the time being until we get a grasp on it "epic spells" are not allowed again only for now.



The Cult of Ao is just too low set for an Epic Adventure. It would be fine for 1st to 10th or so, but an investigation does not take so long for Epic characters. Just try and picture: The characters follow some of the ''Ao people'' and get caught in an ambush. Well, unless the folks doing the ambush are at least near Epic, it will be pointless. The Epic Characters can take out the whole city, let alone a dozen ''cult guys''. You will need to add more to this to make it Epic, like having the Baneites mindrapeing good clerics to steal their souls to make a soul construct to absorb all good souls and create the city of Banewinter...

A hound archon would be in the Realms to do good. You can look at it like a ''working vacation'' from his normal duties or even part of his normal duty(''you must spread good to the Realms, for now''). Then too Torm might have just said ''go to Neverwinter and fight evil, return in a year'', with no explanations. Or...maybe the character discovered a bit of the evil plot, but good bureaucrat in charge of him won't listen. And with Torm talking his Torm Sleep, the character can't go over his head...so just heads to the Prime to do it himself.

[montoya]

All very good ideas, I did intend for the campaign to span most of the world. I was leaning towards necromancy and the demigod Velsharoon being a big part of the campaign. I did intend for the PCs to fight the god himself at some point. Also you think I should go ahead and allow epic spells from the start? I'm ok with that I just wanted to make sure the players were aware on how to create them and also were aware those very same spells could be used on them as well. However all of you are right, my initial idea is too small. There would be no easing into the campaign the PCs would immediately be faced with a life or death situation, I was thinking of having an epic level necromancer villain threaten not just Neverwinter but the entire sword coast as TSED suggested. Of course he would not stop there in his quest to elevate the god of the undead to ruler of the entire world or worlds. Of course there would be more powerful servants of Velsharoon to face the party. For instance the impending Luskan invasion of Neverwinter is only a ruse for this mysterious "cult" of necromancers (all are at least level 25 if not 30) and the PCs would find this out during the invasion, much like a prologue then the real campaign begins. Of course Bane has his own ambitions and perhaps gets involved personally? I have already made the necromancer, I can post his character sheet if you would like to see it?

Also how should starting equipment be handled? For now I went with the DMG default for 21st level. PCs start with 975,000 gold can spend up to 25% on one item and 10% on three other items. Or is that not epic enough? I expect the party to fight the Tarrasque, maybe 15 or so nightwalkers and of course most monsters from the epic campaign book. Speaking of books are there any other epic monsters in other books? The group is expecting a grandiose campaign where there are no limits and I agree nothing short of ascending to godhood themselves if they so choose to take that path.

Thank you for the input it has made me rethink what epic REALLY means.