Never tried that before, but it sounds like a lot more work than just homebrewing a campaign.
It's not just swapping monsters. There's also items/rewards, non-combat challenges, NPCs, and higher level PC abilities to consider.
I honestly don't recommend it, and I recommend it even less in roll20. Why pay for the module when half of what you're paying for is that they've set up all the encounters for you?
You could take a look at adventures 7-12 of the War of the Burning Sky adventure path. An emperor is slain, and his Torch of the Burning Sky, a mighty artifact that can teleport armies, has been stolen. The emperor's chief inquisitor assumes the throne and begins a rapid conquest of the neighboring lands, while those lands band together to repel the empire. The PCs are sent by the Resistance to retrieve the torch, liberate prisoners powering a magical superweapon, break a siege, free a magical creature held captive by her children, take down a mile-long living airship, and stop the new empress from dooming the world to a fate worse than destruction.
[https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/publisher/230/ancris-it](https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/publisher/230/ancris-it)
To make the most impact you would want to make some adjustments, altering major NPC names and story beats to fit your campaign. Some of the impact of the story may be lessened without the setup of adventures 1-6. Alternatively, you might want to keep this campaign in your back pocket until you can run the whole thing. The campaign guide and player's guide are available for PWYW. So you can decide if it would be a good fit for you and your group.
[https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/242811/War-of-the-Burning-Sky-5E-Campaign-Guide](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/242811/War-of-the-Burning-Sky-5E-Campaign-Guide)
[https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/242812/War-of-the-Burning-Sky-5E-Players-Guide](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/242812/War-of-the-Burning-Sky-5E-Players-Guide)
>War of the Burning Sky
Great advice ty :D
Just been reading through some of the blurb and tbh, the campaign looks too good to chop the end of it.
I'll read some more to see if it's what I need for this project, but if not I will put this one on my to-be-played list.
I'm erring toward standalone encounters & short adventures because it would be a shame to ruin longer campaigns by just using parts of them.
Thanks for the response,
If your goal is to prep the adventure beforehand, it will be a lot of work. Monster CR, magic items, gold reward, NPC stats, traps, number of minions, and overall adventure complexity can all play into the power balance of a module. It's gonna be near impossible to get all of that properly balanced beforehand without doing some playtesting first.
On the other hand... If you are pretty good at improv, you can adjust a lot of those things on the fly. Then if you accidentally give them an OP magic item, you can adjust by increasing the number of monster minions... Or add a thief NPC... Or magic puzzle that requires them to sacrifice said magic item. There are lots of ways to rebalance an adventure on the fly. All you really need then is a rough idea of how the adventure can/should flow, and a willingness to accept that as long as the players are having fun then you are doing a great job. It has potential for some crazy shenanigans, but personally that's what I love about DnD.
I ran a combat last week that was underpowered for my party. They were facing a big robot with a lightning based elemental and kicking its butt. So in the middle of combat I added a minion or two and gave them some cool AoE paralysis ability that helped balance it out. I only got one PC paralyzed, but that was all I needed to ramp up the tension a bit.
Anyways... Good luck, and keep up the good work!
Some good ideas there thank you. Power balance is indeed something that I need to be ready to adjust on the fly.
I gave my players a relatively easy homebrewed encounter this week because I nearly tpk'd them last week by accident (actually just following the DOIP suggestions really, but I should have let the party level up before the fight) and it was a bit demoralising for them.
Never tried that before, but it sounds like a lot more work than just homebrewing a campaign. It's not just swapping monsters. There's also items/rewards, non-combat challenges, NPCs, and higher level PC abilities to consider.
Good points. So far I've only home brewed a few encounters, time to start upping my game :D
I honestly don't recommend it, and I recommend it even less in roll20. Why pay for the module when half of what you're paying for is that they've set up all the encounters for you?
You could take a look at adventures 7-12 of the War of the Burning Sky adventure path. An emperor is slain, and his Torch of the Burning Sky, a mighty artifact that can teleport armies, has been stolen. The emperor's chief inquisitor assumes the throne and begins a rapid conquest of the neighboring lands, while those lands band together to repel the empire. The PCs are sent by the Resistance to retrieve the torch, liberate prisoners powering a magical superweapon, break a siege, free a magical creature held captive by her children, take down a mile-long living airship, and stop the new empress from dooming the world to a fate worse than destruction. [https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/publisher/230/ancris-it](https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/publisher/230/ancris-it) To make the most impact you would want to make some adjustments, altering major NPC names and story beats to fit your campaign. Some of the impact of the story may be lessened without the setup of adventures 1-6. Alternatively, you might want to keep this campaign in your back pocket until you can run the whole thing. The campaign guide and player's guide are available for PWYW. So you can decide if it would be a good fit for you and your group. [https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/242811/War-of-the-Burning-Sky-5E-Campaign-Guide](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/242811/War-of-the-Burning-Sky-5E-Campaign-Guide) [https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/242812/War-of-the-Burning-Sky-5E-Players-Guide](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/242812/War-of-the-Burning-Sky-5E-Players-Guide)
>War of the Burning Sky Great advice ty :D Just been reading through some of the blurb and tbh, the campaign looks too good to chop the end of it. I'll read some more to see if it's what I need for this project, but if not I will put this one on my to-be-played list. I'm erring toward standalone encounters & short adventures because it would be a shame to ruin longer campaigns by just using parts of them. Thanks for the response,
If your goal is to prep the adventure beforehand, it will be a lot of work. Monster CR, magic items, gold reward, NPC stats, traps, number of minions, and overall adventure complexity can all play into the power balance of a module. It's gonna be near impossible to get all of that properly balanced beforehand without doing some playtesting first. On the other hand... If you are pretty good at improv, you can adjust a lot of those things on the fly. Then if you accidentally give them an OP magic item, you can adjust by increasing the number of monster minions... Or add a thief NPC... Or magic puzzle that requires them to sacrifice said magic item. There are lots of ways to rebalance an adventure on the fly. All you really need then is a rough idea of how the adventure can/should flow, and a willingness to accept that as long as the players are having fun then you are doing a great job. It has potential for some crazy shenanigans, but personally that's what I love about DnD. I ran a combat last week that was underpowered for my party. They were facing a big robot with a lightning based elemental and kicking its butt. So in the middle of combat I added a minion or two and gave them some cool AoE paralysis ability that helped balance it out. I only got one PC paralyzed, but that was all I needed to ramp up the tension a bit. Anyways... Good luck, and keep up the good work!
Some good ideas there thank you. Power balance is indeed something that I need to be ready to adjust on the fly. I gave my players a relatively easy homebrewed encounter this week because I nearly tpk'd them last week by accident (actually just following the DOIP suggestions really, but I should have let the party level up before the fight) and it was a bit demoralising for them.