I'm about to start an adventure for all new players. I ran CoS in the past (but never finished) and found the first few sessions to be either long or too hard. I know a lot of people say to skip Death House but I would love to have my players to play level 1 to take their time to learn to play for themselves and such.
I read somewhere that doing Dragon Heist before CoS is not too bad. I haven't played W:DH yet nor do I own it but I just wanted to see what you guys would say about that idea.
Also 2 of my player don't know if they can do a long campaign and I told myself that doing the Heist could be a nice transition if the 2 quit after it.
So thoughts? Tip? And no, I don't wanna do the mines! Please! No more mines! ;)
Dragon heist is WAY WAY longer than death house...imo it’s a very hard module to DM and shorting it makes it super crappy imo- if anything you need to add more to it to slow it down and make all the different characters / factions / groups more digestable
you could do the first couple AL modules as an alternative to death house
my party tpk’d in death house but I used that dark gifts table to curse them all and Rez them....it also let them know to be a little more cautious and that I was fine killing them all.
I would say our party which I DM have put in 60 hours into Waterdeep Dragon Heist, 2 hours most weeks on a Sunday from last June, give or take an odd, missed session. I have found it a challenging module to DM because of the nature of the open world city, players have so much choice that they can go off on tangents. We are playing it in Summer setting.
In our campaign, they ended up making an orphan refuge out of Trollskull manor, this irritated the poltergeist who kept them awake at night (exhaustion level 1 for any who failed saves). Eventually they had it exorcised. Main quest went ok, although they got distracted with the Nimblewright detector which picked the ones up on Captain Zords ships.. this caused a few issues but eventually Zord invited them to dinner to see how he could use the Pcs for his own uses in obtaining the gold. I did run Blue Alley in the middle of the adventure in between chapter 2 and 3, I did quite like the Blue Alley side quest and that brought them working with Mirt a bit closer. The factions they were mainly doing work for was the Grey hands and the Harpers, again I found I had to flesh out the mini side quests a little, I was not keen on how they wanted them to be run.
Eventually they tracked down the Nimblewright, Captain Zord (they don’t know this) tipped off the Temple of Gond who in turn contacted the Pc's to track down the automaton and destroy it. They went to the Gralhund Villa but alerted the guards, a couple went in and stopped the Zents killing off the Gralhunds etc. Now the classic situation has now occurred was where they delayed chasing up on the information found on the Nimblewright, they got distracted by the Days of Wonder Parade... so turning up late to the mausoleum and then the Windmill turned it into a mini-investigation as opposed to chase as the stone already had been moved... I did play out that the stone got stolen briefly by some street urchins (stree chase bit) in the parade, but they got tracked down and killed (bar one) by Utsol Floxin who then handed the stone to the Cassalanters. They have now all got most of the gold out of the vault and have arranged the feast for two days’ time, I’m saying founder’s day is a like a bank holiday after days of wonder parade... Renear is going to get the pcs and invite to the feast, half will be nobles and the other half will be common folk...
How will it go, will the common folk pcs end up eating the poisoned broth that the Cassalanter cook is serving up, will they stop the sacrifice going ahead and save the gold being through into the sacrificial burning pit but then find out they have just helped two children’s souls go off to the devil (oh the Paladin and Cleric will love that one)
On next week’s outing :)
Summary, good adventure but be prepared to add in some prep time, Waterdeep City encounters helped a bit for random stuff, Blue Alley is a nice side track and gets them some gold, items and a unicorn.. (although a mini one at the mo)
I am about to do this. I'll be using the Cassalanters to tie the campaigns together. They made a deal with Strahd instead of Asmodeus. They want the party to defeat Strahd to get them out of their deal.
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Good day!
I'm about to start an adventure for all new players. I ran CoS in the past (but never finished) and found the first few sessions to be either long or too hard. I know a lot of people say to skip Death House but I would love to have my players to play level 1 to take their time to learn to play for themselves and such.
I read somewhere that doing Dragon Heist before CoS is not too bad. I haven't played W:DH yet nor do I own it but I just wanted to see what you guys would say about that idea.
Also 2 of my player don't know if they can do a long campaign and I told myself that doing the Heist could be a nice transition if the 2 quit after it.
So thoughts? Tip? And no, I don't wanna do the mines! Please! No more mines! ;)
Dragon heist is WAY WAY longer than death house...imo it’s a very hard module to DM and shorting it makes it super crappy imo- if anything you need to add more to it to slow it down and make all the different characters / factions / groups more digestable
you could do the first couple AL modules as an alternative to death house
my party tpk’d in death house but I used that dark gifts table to curse them all and Rez them....it also let them know to be a little more cautious and that I was fine killing them all.
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
Deck of Decks
What I meant by long is that there were sessions that not much happened and I could see that the players were getting a little bored.
I know W:DH might be longer than Death House but I was just wondering if it was a proper alternative to a beginning.
I think it’s a great idea. Run Dragon Heist then at just the right moment have the Mists swallow the characters up and deposit them in Barovia.
Keep me posted. Sounds awesome.
whatch arcane arcade on youtube
I would say our party which I DM have put in 60 hours into Waterdeep Dragon Heist, 2 hours most weeks on a Sunday from last June, give or take an odd, missed session. I have found it a challenging module to DM because of the nature of the open world city, players have so much choice that they can go off on tangents. We are playing it in Summer setting.
In our campaign, they ended up making an orphan refuge out of Trollskull manor, this irritated the poltergeist who kept them awake at night (exhaustion level 1 for any who failed saves). Eventually they had it exorcised. Main quest went ok, although they got distracted with the Nimblewright detector which picked the ones up on Captain Zords ships.. this caused a few issues but eventually Zord invited them to dinner to see how he could use the Pcs for his own uses in obtaining the gold. I did run Blue Alley in the middle of the adventure in between chapter 2 and 3, I did quite like the Blue Alley side quest and that brought them working with Mirt a bit closer. The factions they were mainly doing work for was the Grey hands and the Harpers, again I found I had to flesh out the mini side quests a little, I was not keen on how they wanted them to be run.
Eventually they tracked down the Nimblewright, Captain Zord (they don’t know this) tipped off the Temple of Gond who in turn contacted the Pc's to track down the automaton and destroy it. They went to the Gralhund Villa but alerted the guards, a couple went in and stopped the Zents killing off the Gralhunds etc. Now the classic situation has now occurred was where they delayed chasing up on the information found on the Nimblewright, they got distracted by the Days of Wonder Parade... so turning up late to the mausoleum and then the Windmill turned it into a mini-investigation as opposed to chase as the stone already had been moved... I did play out that the stone got stolen briefly by some street urchins (stree chase bit) in the parade, but they got tracked down and killed (bar one) by Utsol Floxin who then handed the stone to the Cassalanters. They have now all got most of the gold out of the vault and have arranged the feast for two days’ time, I’m saying founder’s day is a like a bank holiday after days of wonder parade... Renear is going to get the pcs and invite to the feast, half will be nobles and the other half will be common folk...
How will it go, will the common folk pcs end up eating the poisoned broth that the Cassalanter cook is serving up, will they stop the sacrifice going ahead and save the gold being through into the sacrificial burning pit but then find out they have just helped two children’s souls go off to the devil (oh the Paladin and Cleric will love that one)
On next week’s outing :)
Summary, good adventure but be prepared to add in some prep time, Waterdeep City encounters helped a bit for random stuff, Blue Alley is a nice side track and gets them some gold, items and a unicorn.. (although a mini one at the mo)
I am about to do this. I'll be using the Cassalanters to tie the campaigns together. They made a deal with Strahd instead of Asmodeus. They want the party to defeat Strahd to get them out of their deal.