Campaign Building 3 â Letâs Get Dangerous!
Welcome, Gentle Readers, to our 3rd article about building our Angel of Chaos campaign, set in our Beyond the Borderlands campaign world. Now that we know where our adventurers are going to be setting out on adventure from, itâs time to start looking at building adventures for them to set out on!
Depending on how you want your campaign to work, you have a few choices on how to give out experience points, and the choice of how to do so can inform how you build your adventures. If you want to, you can award experience points per encounter, figuring out exactly how many points the players are earning and letting them level when they hit their appropriate goals. The advantage of this method is that wandering monsters and other such encounters have a real effect on the overall progress of the group.
Other methods include awarding experience points when the hit major milestones in the adventure, letting them level based on a certain number of sessions played, or when they hit various beats in the story. I personally use the last method the vast majority of the time in my games. This means that individual events in the story matter less than actually getting to certain major events, so you have to decide if you prefer this.
Now, even though I use the beats of the story to help me decide when the PCs level, it doesnât mean that I donât look at how many experience points a monster or trap is worth when building up encounters. On the contrary, before each level, with an idea of what the players are planning on doing, I sit down with the Dungeon Masterâs Guideâs advice on building encounters, work out how many XPs the group needs to go from the current level to the next, and then build combat encounters that will get them to that next level. If they miss some of those encounters, thatâs okay. I assume all the roleplay and fun makes up the difference.
With that in mind, Iâm going to look at putting together an idea for an encounter to take the characters from level 1 to 2. Itâs 300 XP per person to make this jump; if I assume I have 5 players, that means I need to put together some encounters that total around 1,500 XPs. Armed with this knowledge, I decide to come up with a âboss monsterâ for this adventure. I want the monster to be Challenge Rating 1âŚtough, but not overwhelmingâŚand Iâd like it to be something a bit unusualâŚnot just a goblin chief, or the like. Using D&D Beyond, I play around with some filters and come up with a Harpy. Interesting choice! I also like the idea of the fire snake, but I decide to make that a separate encounter.
With this end goal in mind, I start putting together a story. The harpy, Jetharia, is a servant of the power of Chaos. She is using a goblin tribe to spread her influence, even as she befouls a nest, ready to lay her eggs and bring forth a new generation of progeny to spread the influence of Chaos to the nearby town of Oathford. If Iâm feeling feisty, I might link these goblins to the bandits operating out of Jarelwynn Hall. Maybe those bandits sell information to the goblins in order to sell protection to the town? Just a thought for now.
A few encounters are already jumping to mind. We can have groups of goblins. We could have a few goblins with wolves. We could have goblins backing up a bugbear or half-ogre mercenary. We could even give a goblin a bit of magic, boosting them to Challenge Rating ½, and make them a shaman of some kind, then pair them with the fire snake. And, of course, we can have the harpy backed up by 2 goblins. I might put together something like this:
Harpy & 2 Goblins â 300 XP
Fire Snake & Goblin âShamanâ â 300 XP
2 Goblins & Worg â 200 XP
2 Goblins & Half-Ogre â 300 XP
2 Goblins & 2 Wolves â 200 XP
This makes a total of 1,500 XPs, or enough XPs to bring a group of 5 PCs from level 1 to level 2. Now, they might not encounter every combat, or they might negotiate with the half-ogre to get him to switch sides. They might encounter some traps, and theyâll definitely be doing some exploration. I feel like these elements make a good âskeletonâ for the adventure, though I need some elements to flesh it out, still.
Maybe the shaman used to lead the tribe, but now everyone is under Jethariaâs sway, and he wants to overthrow her. Maybe thatâs why he did the dangerous ritual that summoned the fire snake, and now heâs trapped in a closet in his own lab. If the PCs can help him by defeating the snake, he might negotiate to help them get rid of Jetharia. He may promise to lead his people away rather than continue to raid Oathford.
On the other hand, maybe the half-ogre mercenary is under Jethariaâs power, and he would rather not fight on her side. If the PCs can hear stories about how this powerful enemy is constantly trying to escape and keeps being charmed by Ketharia, maybe they can help him escape and get him on their side!
Maybe both of these things are true, but, once the goblin shaman gets Jetharia removed, he promises the mercenary a rich reward for killing the PCs in their weakened state. Goblins can be pretty treacherous after all. All in all, I feel like this gives us a start to our adventures. If Jethariaâs final words tell the party that, âThe Angel of Chaos will avenge me,â then weâve tied it in to our overall storyline!
Come back next month, and weâll start to figure out a big questionâŚwhat *is* the Angel of Chaos? And can we start the campaign without knowing?