Unifying the Harbor Quests

[Quetzacoala]

The question though is - can it be made to work in areas with more than one storyline? (Think the Harbor, where it's not all that clear which of the content you'd want to direct level 2 'fresh out of Korthos' types to).

Do you send them to Waterworks straight away or would you send them to other content first? If so which other content (there's no real unifying storyline in the Harbor). Or do you add more of an overarching storyline, getting people to do all the Kobold quests (Dirk, Butcher's Path, Garrison's Missing Pack, etc, skipping the horrible Kobold Assault) and culminating in a mission to smash your way into the main Kobold 'stronghold' of the Waterworks?

This got me thinking about what I would do to unify the harbor quests; below is my take on it.

New players would be directed to Kobold Assault; however, its ending would be substantially different. A powerful kobold shaman instead of the usual troglodyte comes out at the end of the quest, and instead of the characters being able to defeat him the shaman casts a powerful spell that sends the characters back to Stormreach. Just as the characters are about to be teleported away, they hear the shaman say something along the lines of "Our new master will bring great power to the kobolds!" This sets the stage nicely for the overlying theme of Stormreach being overrun by kobolds.

Players would then do the quests in the harbor that are infested in kobolds, but for slightly different reasons. The Coin Lords would send the characters to take out two prominent kobold chieftains, in other words Durk's Got a Secret. After this, the Coin Lords would instruct the characters to assassinate a powerful kobold shaman and take over its stronghold, the stronghold being the Butcher's Path. However, the Coin Lords would then discover that the kobolds have enlisted the aid of a powerful troglodyte, and off the characters go into Garrison's Missing Pack.

After completing these four quests, the Coin Lords would piece together the cryptic comments that the various creatures in each of the dungeons made and realize that the mysterious "new master" was staying at the Bonebite Hideout. Convenient that the quest is already called The Kobold's New Ringleader, is it not?

Unfortunately, the characters are not strong enough to take on such an imposing creature and the forces of the Coin Lords are otherwise occupied, so they must enlist the help of Free Agents to aid them. The Free Agents naturally demand that the characters help them first, so they do Smuggler's Warehouse and the Baudry chain in return for their aid. Not comfortable with making Stealthy Repossession a requirement.

Finally the characters enter the lair of the New Ringleader and, with the aid of the Free Agents, kill the new ringleader... a beefy ogre.

Anyway, I think that this would do a good job of unifying the harbor quests, but some tweaks would have to be made to the quests.

[KillEveryone]

After you do the Baudry chain, he will tell you to go talk to Harbormaster for water works.

I think there was some kind of attempt to link them, it may have changed.

[DavionFuxa]

The Harbor Quests strike me as odd jobs, there is no real connection between any of them because there was no intention in doing so. Some NPCS like the quest giver from Haverdasher or Walk the Butcher's Path might direct you to other NPCs but it's just the NPCs giving you advice for work. Until you get to Waterworks part 4, no real story is in development here.

I actually sort of prefer it this way too because Dungeon and Dragons doesn't need a story early on. Your an adventure arriving in Stormreach, your looking to make a name for yourself when you don't have one; but you start small before you start doing bigger things or getting into a real adventure.

[AZgreentea]

Until you get to Waterworks part 4, no real story is in development here. .

Thats not completely true. The Cerulean Hills has lots of hints at the Sharn Syndicate series, even in the wilderness. Irestone leans towards 3BC. Baudry leans towards the Restless Isles. Recover the lost Tome leans towards one of the houses (I forget which) as does The Haverdasher. Of course the missing is new and leans towards the Twelve's Xoriat quests.

The Harbor is the starting point for a lot of quest series.

[Vengeance777]

Thats not completely true. The Cerulean Hills has lots of hints at the Sharn Syndicate series, even in the wilderness. Irestone leans towards 3BC. Baudry leans towards the Restless Isles. Recover the lost Tome leans towards one of the houses (I forget which) as does The Haverdasher. Of course the missing is new and leans towards the Twelve's Xoriat quests.

The Harbor is the starting point for a lot of quest series.

Irestone also appears to lead into the Assault on Stormreach storyline. YarYar has orders to blockade Stormreach's harbor. Maybe there would have been 4 ships in Blockade buster had we not taken YarYar out.

[herzkos]

Thats not completely true. The Cerulean Hills has lots of hints at the Sharn Syndicate series, even in the wilderness. Irestone leans towards 3BC. Baudry leans towards the Restless Isles. Recover the lost Tome leans towards one of the houses (I forget which) as does The Haverdasher. Of course the missing is new and leans towards the Twelve's Xoriat quests.

The Harbor is the starting point for a lot of quest series.

I'd say the missing tome is the Twelve. I remember complaining (whining) that you should get 12 favor
for it instead of coinlords (after the 12 came into the game) due to Dalsamira (sp) being a member
of the 12.

Then there is the unfinished story arc: INVADERS!. It's even listed as a story arc in the compendium.
A one quest arc . . . no wonder you need 25 tokens: it wasn't supposed to be the only quest.

OP, good idea. I'd make kobold assault the penultimate quest though due to it being level 3 and the
rest of the ones you mentioned level 2.
I'd also tie in the other kobold quests to the WW-STK-Threnal chain by making the other kobold quests
related. The other two (stealthy repo and the warehouse) could be where the remnants of kobolds from
Kobold Assault ended up. (could call it "mopping up" or something)

In the warehouse quest (the one where you gotta break all the boxes) you are retrieving the gems because the
property has been written off by the owner. In stealthy Repo, you are going after one that had been removed
before you got into the warehouse. At the end of stealthy you find out that it's a menace posed by two tribes
of kobolds who have recently taken 2 prisoners. (arlos and venn). What you thought was a simple mopping up
operation has morphed into another menace for the entire city.

Of course, Venn leads you directly to STK. STK could use a bit more of direct connection to threnal than
one line stated by the boss in part 2 where he mentions Bergthrym (the fire giant redname in Threnal south 3).

[InsanityIsYourFriend]

quests are connected all over the place! i belive that they should line them up a little more, BUT there is one HUGE problem


what if you are F2P, once you finish WW P4 your line is done? you cant go to STK, or in turn to threnal which is fairly sad so unless.... *GASP* make them F2P! ~wants more f2p quests, more f2p quests = more people getting hooked off of the "better" quests = more people wanting to play further = more money?~

[ArcaneMelee]

I'd rather they not modify the existing quests - I'm not a fan of the Korthos quests repackaging from the Goodblade quests. If they're going to modify existing quests, though, I'd rather that they restore the original DM voice overs in those quests where they just randomly stuck new DM voices at weird places.

However, I do really enjoy it when they add new quests that extend old ones, especially when they make use of pre-existing maps.

For example, Invader's plays with my mind every time I enter that quest, and I try to keep track of where I should be when I run Hiding in Plain Sight.

quests are connected all over the place! i belive that they should line them up a little more, BUT there is one HUGE problem


what if you are F2P, once you finish WW P4 your line is done? you cant go to STK, or in turn to threnal which is fairly sad so unless.... *GASP* make them F2P! ~wants more f2p quests, more f2p quests = more people getting hooked off of the "better" quests = more people wanting to play further = more money?~

It's better to dangle the first half of the quest chain as F2P, and make the rest of it P2P. As a Premium player, I love the chance to try out a quest chain first before buying it. The Lordsmarch chain is a great example of this - I bought it on several accounts.

[Robert4818]

This got me thinking about what I would do to unify the harbor quests; below is my take on it.

New players would be directed to Kobold Assault; however, its ending would be substantially different. A powerful kobold shaman instead of the usual troglodyte comes out at the end of the quest, and instead of the characters being able to defeat him the shaman casts a powerful spell that sends the characters back to Stormreach. Just as the characters are about to be teleported away, they hear the shaman say something along the lines of "Our new master will bring great power to the kobolds!" This sets the stage nicely for the overlying theme of Stormreach being overrun by kobolds.

Players would then do the quests in the harbor that are infested in kobolds, but for slightly different reasons. The Coin Lords would send the characters to take out two prominent kobold chieftains, in other words Durk's Got a Secret. After this, the Coin Lords would instruct the characters to assassinate a powerful kobold shaman and take over its stronghold, the stronghold being the Butcher's Path. However, the Coin Lords would then discover that the kobolds have enlisted the aid of a powerful troglodyte, and off the characters go into Garrison's Missing Pack.

After completing these four quests, the Coin Lords would piece together the cryptic comments that the various creatures in each of the dungeons made and realize that the mysterious "new master" was staying at the Bonebite Hideout. Convenient that the quest is already called The Kobold's New Ringleader, is it not?

Unfortunately, the characters are not strong enough to take on such an imposing creature and the forces of the Coin Lords are otherwise occupied, so they must enlist the help of Free Agents to aid them. The Free Agents naturally demand that the characters help them first, so they do Smuggler's Warehouse and the Baudry chain in return for their aid. Not comfortable with making Stealthy Repossession a requirement.

Finally the characters enter the lair of the New Ringleader and, with the aid of the Free Agents, kill the new ringleader... a beefy ogre.

Anyway, I think that this would do a good job of unifying the harbor quests, but some tweaks would have to be made to the quests.

TBH I don't want a grand story every time I turn around. So, I don't really want the harbor to get tied together that tightly.

What I wouldn't mind seeing though are hints in otherwise unconnected chains towards bigger storylines down the road.

Kobolds that spout things like "When drooam gets here you'll be sorry"

Perhaps hidden rooms that have hints towards things being prepared for later story lines, etc.

This doesn't unify the harbor, but it does integrate the harbor into the rest of whats going on.