Designing an intro dungeon (PEACH)

[Blake Hannon]

Howdy, GitP. Long time lurker, first time poster.

I'm starting a DnD campaign soon with a group that includes some complete newbies. My goal for the intro dungeoncrawl is to give them a short, mostly self-contained adventure, beatable in a single play session (or two sessions at most), that teaches them all the important game mechanics and introduces them to the campaign's playstyle. I've been reading/watching a lot of game design material for the past year or two (The Angry DM, Extra Credits, etc), and I'm eager to try out what I've learned. I'm already a somewhat experienced DM, but I want this campaign to be the next level.

I'm going to run the intro adventure by you guys so you can point out anything important I might have omitted, or advise me on how I could do things better and more subtly. Ideally, this adventure will be a "tutorial level" that doesn't actually feel like one.

The system is a heavily houseruled 4e, but the system isn't the focus here.


The setting is a Mediterranean-like sea full of island chains. Over the past centuries the dominant civilizations of the region fell into decline, culminating in a total collapse about sixty years before the present. Cities and palaces lie in ruins, slowly being reclaimed by the wilderness, some of which still contain unplundered treasures and volumes of lost knowledge, and monsters have come out of their hidey holes to prowl openly. Think "Aegean dark age" meets "Wind Waker."

The PC's are a group of explorer-slash-plunderers for hire who recover things from the ruins at the behest of their patrons. The campaign revolves around finding the locations of important dungeons, diplomancing or defeating the people/creatures that control the area, dungeoncrawling, and getting the loot back (by land or by sea) to the people who will pay for it. In the process, they play a role in opening diplomatic and trade relations between isolated societies, and eventually get sucked into the politics of newborn polities. There's also going to be an evil sorcerer because of course there is.

The main theme of the campaign is Discovery, with dungeoncrawling, exploration, and seafaring being the major activities. The more of that I can touch on in the intro adventure without it being too much too fast, the better.



All human, and first level.

Fighter: greatsword, offensive build, tons of HP. From a formerly aristrocratic family, so she's trained in History as well as the usual fightery skills.
Player: "I want to be Brienne of Tarth."

Rogue: physical skill monkey, Acrobatic, Dungeoneering, and Thievery out the wazoo, but less social stuff than some rogues. Ranged combat crossbow-centric build.
Player: "Stealthy sniper guy, like what I play in Skyrim." "I guess he's a tomb robber, good at getting into places."

Warlord: short sword and longspear. Tactical build, lots of repositioning and combo attack moves, and some social skills. An ex-sergeant from the army of a failed upstart conqueror.
Player: "She's ex-military and looking for something to do with herself and she fights just like my character in Dark Souls and I'm super enthusiastic about absolutely everything squeeeeeee!!! :3"

Warlock: fey-pact, refluffed as more spooky. Lots of Knowledge skills, and some Dungeoneering. Well traveled, well educated, and hungry for knowledge and power.
Player: "A Lovecraft character, more or less. Wandering scholar with dangerous magic he plundered from ruined temples and libraries."

Ideally, I want the intro adventure to show everyone their strengths and their weaknesses, and encourage each player to think about how to use their characters' abilities.

So, here's a list of things I want to accomplish with the first adventure, in no particular order:


Teach the players how to use Knowledge skills, which will be very important in the campaign.
Establish the adventure vehicle of "PC's are hired to explore X or recover Y."
Give them a variety of terrain and combat challenges to show them that creativity and varied tactics are important, with a soft difficulty curve.
Highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each PC.
Give them a feel for the setting, with its overgrown ruins and lost wonders waiting to be rediscovered.
Either include a ship in the adventure, or at least hint at how important seafaring will be.


The trick is going to be fitting all these things into an adventure that can be completed in just a few hours of play.

If anyone's interested in helping, advising, critiquing, or just telling me what a ****ing horrible DM I am, I'll start posting what I have for the adventure so far.

[Blake Hannon]

Here's the current outline.


1. PC's start near the dungeon and must use skill checks to find there way to it across some rugged terrain. Failure potentially costs them healing surges. Paaying attention to and asking about their surroundings will allow them to make knowledge checks to warn them about future hazards.

2. An obstacle/enemy blocks entry to the dungeon. The PC's see it from afar, and can try out different ways of circumventing it; it can end up being a combat encounter, a physical skill challenge, a knowledge challenge, or something else depending on their approach.

3. Inside the dungeon, the PC's are ambushed by one or two monsters. Not much of a challenge, but it warns them about this type of monster. It also teaches them to be on the lookout for hidden dangers.

4. A trap or terrain hazard must be navigated. If the previous event has taught them their lesson, they will be paying attention to the environment and avoid just stumbling into the trap and taking damage.

5. A nest of the same kind of monster they fought in 3. The first real combat challenge, but its difficulty will depend on how observant they were two scenes ago.

6. A skill challenge to break into the treasure room without setting off a trap similar to the one in scene 4.

7. On the way out of the dungeon, an ambush by a tough, intelligent enemy to put all their new skills to the test.


I kind of want to put another combat encounter with a different type of enemy and battlefield in the treasure room, but that might make this too long to complete in a single session even with my combat-accelerating houserules.

Thoughts?

[Blake Hannon]

On another forum, someone advised me to include a social encounter at the beginning, with the PC's negotiating with the captain of a ship to bring them closer to the island in question. Shouldn't be very time consuming, and will introduce both the importance of seafaring in the campaign, and negotiation.

Here's what I got for it.


Scene One: The Ship (social challenge)

A convoy of three small tradeships are making the two day journey between the PC's patron's city and another one on a different island (ships tend to move in large, infrequent groups to better protect themselves from pirates and sea monsters in these troubled times). The PC's are able to travel aboard the largest of the three for a pittance, in return for aiding in the convoy's defense should anything bad happen. The captain grumbled a bit when they wanted to bring their own dinghy along and take up even more space and weight, but for a few extra coins he was willing to lug it along.

The scene opens with the captain approaching the PC's.


"Alright, you lot said you're disembarking at Pentacle Bay. Help unload these goods out of the dinghy, and we'll push you off. You'll want to land over there."

He gestures to a small, rocky beach surrounded by cliffs, with a visibly strong current moving in front of it. A Nature (moderate DC) or Seafaring (easy DC) tells the PC's that rowing a dinghy through that is going to take hours. If they ask the captain to bring them closer:


"We're not splitting up the convoy, and I can't exactly ask the other two to wait while we bring you in."

A burly, brutish-looking deckhand comes up and adds


"Y'all look strong enough. Afraid of a little rowing?"

The PC's will need to use social skills if they want to avoid an Endurance test and several lost hours.

Appealing to the captain's decency will require very high rolls to be successful. Appealing to his pragmatism with promises of more work for him in the future, or of their wealthy patron being pleased with him, is easier. Intimidation is unlikely to succeed, and will make the other checks harder. Bribing him with a few silver pieces will make the checks easier.

Once the PC's have scored two successes, the deckhand will speak up again and try to counter their arguments. The PC's can try to shut him down before attempting the third and final success against the captain; whether or not they do this will determine the difficulty of the following check.


Outcomes

If the PC's fail to achieve three successes in six attempts, the captain gets annoyed and ends the conversation. If the PC's are successful, they are awarded 100 XP and get to start their trek quickly and with all their healing surges.

If a PC decides to pay particular attention to the naysaying deckhand, he or she can make an Insight check (moderate to high difficulty) to pick up that he has ulterior motives. The deckhand is spying for a gang of pirates, and wants to give them more time to prepare an ambush. Consequently, if they fail to convince the captain, the final battle will be harder.

In either case, before leaving the PC's can ask the captain or other crew members for any information about the area they might have. They don't know much that the PC's don't already, but asking the right questions will reveal that this island has many steep cliffs and canyons, and that dire boars often inhabit this kind of terrain.



Up next: The Landing.

[legacy444]

Hey there! I'm completely new to these forums as of today. I really like the campaign setting and I think it's a great way to start off players new to D&D! Please keep posting your findings/adventures on this page, you'd be surprised how many of us lurkers read these good postings but rarely respond. Keep it up!