Ideas and Challenges for Lvl 6+ Eberron Campaign

[barakaka]

I'm beginning my first campaign today, and would like to have a pool of ideas for challenging level 6+ characters.

The PCs

The party consists of a new player and 3 seasoned vets. The newby is a Petal (MMII) Dragonfire Adept, and the others are a custom monster class Blue Dragon with the Wyrm of War archtype, a Elan Psion focused on the Astral Construct power, and a Gish riding a lion. Two of the veterans have a heavier hand as far as optimization goes.

I've got ideas as far as 3 campaign arcs go: I'd like them to play around with the dragonmarked guilds first, head to Xendrik and uncover giant magic, and head to the Mournland to fight the Lord of Blades. Much later on, I intend for them to get tangled up in a fight between the dragons of Argonessen and the Quori.


Short-term Plan

They start in Sharn today, and I'm set to run them through a modified Forgotten Forge module found in the ECS. Once that module finishes, I've got another 1-off planned where they fight K'shegla, a Sahuagin prince/cultist, and after that, I'll run them through the rest of the Eberron modules.


Counters for Specific PC Abilities

Flight
I wanted familiars and homonculi to be used for spying purposes against the PCs, but the petal can easily catch a flying Expeditious Messenger or Final Messenger (both in ECS).


Tanglefoot Bag (d20srd)

-2attk, -4dex, dc15 reflex ->unable to fly, dissolves in 2d4 rounds
dc15 concentration to cast
you can attack it off with slashing 15hp, or strength check dc17
universal solvent burns it off immediately
move half speed otherwise, and even after breaking it off


Web spell (d20srd)

dc25 escape artist or immobile
if success, make another check per 5ft movement
burning the web does 2d4 to each creature in it


Wind wall spell (d20srd)

small creatures can't fly through
breath weapons don't pass through




Breath Weapons
Eberron is known for masses of low level, NPC classed enemies. Breath weapons put a huge damper on the length of an encounter now, and don't deplete PC resources.


Wind wall spell (d20srd)

small creatures can't fly through
breath weapons don't pass through

Grappling

when you pin a creature, you can shut its mouth (just like alligator wrestling!)
medium and larger creatures auto-succeed on grapples against tiny creatures





I intend for this to be a play area and brainstorm session for you guys to develop some cool mini-arcs or 1-off sessions that can challenge all 4 people, while not wiping the noob off the face of the plane. I'm open for anything, a trip to Darguun, a run-in with the Blood of Vol and the Emerald Claw, a fight with age-old Karrnathi Skeletons. I just want to stay as close to the Eberron flavour and style as possible. I'm cool with jamming content from other settings into NPCs with PC class levels, they're special after all. A lot of the content provided in the books is great for any level, but some of it falls short for high level, focused players.

Edit - If this picks up steam, I may start a new thread chronicling the adventure and weird and wacky events you guys and I come up with.

Edit - I have a spreadsheet with all NPC characters alluded to in the Eberron books, but I need a post count of 10 to provide the link...

[Gildedragon]

So ideas:

Sharn Based (using this one in my own campaign):
You know that tower that fell
You know how radiant idols can't fly
what if they managed to find a way to fly, what if they're trying to pierce into Syrania...
one, a crafter, tried to anchor themselves to a tower, and that was a disaster
but they might be looking into other ways, ways to hurl themselves into the sky while Syrania is coterminous.
What would happen if the fallen broke into the Azure Sky; last time one attempted to, it was the crystalfall in sharn... and that was a failed attempt.
The sky might literally fall down.

[barakaka]

That's pretty slick, I've been really meaning to have something going on with the Skyway because it just feels so easy to tamper with magical clouds and Sharn's manifest zone.

I was just thinking that maybe I should have them travel to the Talenta Plains to deal with or Thrane to deal with some sort of small issue at the border to the Mournland, and then at the tail end of the arc, they encounter something they definitely can't handle coming out.

Come to think of it, does anybody have an example flow of how a large Eberron campaign should probably play out as far as ECL is concerned? As in, it seems that Sharn is a good place to start because of the weakness of the average enemy, even if they're dragonmarked. After that, it seems the Mournland is fit for around level 6-12, and then you have the Quori and Sarlona which I'd put at 12-16, and then finally the Daelkyr and dragons of Argonnessen at 16+. How do the other countries fit in ECL wise?

I could also do some work in the cogs and eventually the Lava Pools under Sharn. That might be fun to hop back to.