I have decided to embark on a Strixhaven campaign...all new characters and level 1 etc....I am fleshing out the setting and even getting players to create backstories that explain why they are attending Strixhaven to begin with. The questions I have is that the campaign book seems to only detail 4 adventures that ultimately take the characters to level 10 with each adventure being a year in the game world.
I can help but think that the players would embark on many sub quests and adventures during their time at Strixhaven ( exploring the ruins and catacombs beneath Lorehold or exploring the wilds of Witherbloom for threats to the college. The book doesn't allude to any adventures other than the ones printed and of course being a milestone progression system the players, the players can only advance when completing one of the books encounters.
What are your thoughts on how to run a healthy campaign versus just a paint by numbers following the books path?
As with most adventure books, I recommend using it more like a setting book (such as the Theros book), rather than running it as a pure adventure. Take some of the events and story that work, and make something brand new that will work for your specific party. Campaigns right out of the book feel sterile and straightforward, which, based on your post, doesn’t seem like something your party would enjoy.
That said, I would make a special note of some of the easier to run encounters and story prompts. That way you can modify them quickly and shoehorn them into your campaign if you have a day you do not have enough time for prep work.
As for levelling, I am in the early stages of designing a Strixhaven campaign and plan on letting the party do whatever they want, but am going to level them up every semester. First year will be levels 4-5 (I think it is cruel to start players at level one—character design is boring at that point) second 6-7, 8-9, and 10-11. Then the real campaign will have the players return for their five year reunion at level 15, and the game will continue from there. While in school, they’ll inevitably do more than necessary to level up under an XP system, but I think they’ll accept this particular milestone proposal.
Yeah I was thinking of all the cool adventures in Lorehold area and Witherbloom etc....
What kind of ideas are you going with....on campus mysteries.....Middle of the night dungeon romps before class in the morning.....missing students that need rescuing etc?
Also have you thought about how and why conventional beasts ie. Goblins, orcs, trolls etc would be in the realm of Strixhaven ( my Strixhaven is being shoehorned into my existing campaign world somewhere)
I will likewise be transplanting the university to a homebrew world - Arcavios does not have as much to offer for the second half of the campaign.
As for events during the actual school year, I have not worked out the specifics yet. A lot of the events will probably be heavily pulled from Harry Potter adventures, such as exploring the forest on detention, looking for secret chambers, etc. l’m not a super big HP fan, but some of my party members are, and I’m using “This is a Harry Potter setting” to get them to try D&D for the first time.
The main goal is going to be getting the party to interact with as many students as possible. The BBEG for the second half of the campaign is going to be one of those students - I’ll decide which student based on the parties’ interactions throughout the campaign.
can you keep updating this post with ideas as I am ready to launch mine in a couple weeks. It is nice having someone to bounce ideas off. I cant sustain my players on bar brawls and frog racing indefinatley. Gonna need some good ol fashioned monster slaying and or dungeoneering at some point
Fortunately, you have Lorehold for that - just send the students off on a quest to explore some ancient archeological dig, and have them fall though they floor or otherwise find themselves trapped alone in a traditional zombie/ghost/construct/etc. dungeon crawler.
What are your thoughts on weapons? I assumed that all students will not have weapons as it is a learning institution not a adventurer guild. Are you planning on prohibiting them the entire campaign or giving a story reason for finding the odd weapon to use. Not all characters will be spell casters and will be more coforatable with a weapon at thier side if things go bad. I would assume they aren't walking around with a weapon but maybe they smuggle one in at some point?
As with most adventure books, I recommend using it more like a setting book (such as the Theros book), rather than running it as a pure adventure. Take some of the events and story that work, and make something brand new that will work for your specific party. Campaigns right out of the book feel sterile and straightforward, which, based on your post, doesn’t seem like something your party would enjoy.
That's the thing, it's not an adventure book. It's a setting book. The adventure in the back was included as a bonus. So you and OP are doing what Wizards intended.
What are your thoughts on weapons? I assumed that all students will not have weapons as it is a learning institution not a adventurer guild. Are you planning on prohibiting them the entire campaign or giving a story reason for finding the odd weapon to use. Not all characters will be spell casters and will be more coforatable with a weapon at thier side if things go bad. I would assume they aren't walking around with a weapon but maybe they smuggle one in at some point?
I don't have the book here, but isn't it a school specifically for casters? Why wouldn't they all be casters?
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What are your thoughts on weapons? I assumed that all students will not have weapons as it is a learning institution not a adventurer guild. Are you planning on prohibiting them the entire campaign or giving a story reason for finding the odd weapon to use. Not all characters will be spell casters and will be more coforatable with a weapon at thier side if things go bad. I would assume they aren't walking around with a weapon but maybe they smuggle one in at some point?
I don't have the book here, but isn't it a school specifically for casters? Why wouldn't they all be casters?
The book actually specifically notes that there are plenty of non-caster classes that work with Strixhaven - namely classes that fit with a college’s theme, such as Path of Ancestral Guardian Barbarian, which fits with Lorehold’s spirit magic.
Granted, if someone wanted to play a class with no magical connection, I would still be inclined to make that work. My suggestion to them would be something like “You received your sibling’s acceptance letter by accident” and have them either fake their way through school or openly make a mockery of the school. “Alright class, cast shocking grasp.” *non magical character reaches out and grabs other student’s throat* “You shocked?”
Or perhaps they are not a student, but a fledgling member of the faculty - an armed guard hired to watch over students on expositions. A member of the janitorial staff who dreams for more.
You would have to work with the character to make them fit, and it would be a little make difficult than with a magical or magical adjacent class, but there are still plenty of ways to ensure they can play the character they want to play.
My first step for my Strixhaven game was coming up with a lot of "b-plots", little side missions that make different areas of campus/npc's more interesting and give you a reason to engage with them that add more intrigue to the main plot-- like Fred and George's beef with Ludo Bauman in Goblet of Fire, or the Midnight Duel in Sorcerer's Stone.
For example, I included one b-plot where the printing press for the school newspaper is haunted by the ghost of a vindictive former editor who's using the paper to torment the children of the survivors of the accident that killed him. The players are investigating it currently, but so far they haven't discovered much more than that occasionally vicious attack pieces targeting seemingly random students appear periodically in the paper and they have no idea how or who's responsible.
I also included a B-plot where a cult of students is using a forbidden ritual to steal memories of students' study sessions so they can ace all they're classes without having to study, and the players might get hooked in when they notice a student who's usually the top of the class suddenly under-perdorming.
Other b-plots are less quest-y; one just has a student attending the university under a false identity to hide the fact that they're the descendent of a disgraced dark Mage who was kicked out once upon a time. The student isn't doing anything nefarious, but they might appear to be acting strangely if the characters are investigating other suspicious doings around campus. Kind of a nice red herring to complicate things.
Aside from adding fun b-plots and a few extra NPC's (the book has remarkably few potential antagonistic students, no Malfoys or anything), I also found that the university setting for Strixhaven lends itself fantastically to run Candlekeep adventures in it, if you have access to that book. So when I want to include something more of a fully fleshed out, non slow-burner side quest, you can pretty easily run an adventure from that. I even made it in my version of Strixhaven that the Biblioplex's "Active Archive", the area for research on ongoing active experiments and unknown magical phenomena, is referred to colloquially as "The Candlekeep."
One other thing I added in that I think helps the story in the book, is I made the main bad guy, [SPOILERS],
Murgaxor
a faculty member. In my game, he's the Lab's faculty supervisor since one of my players works at the lab, but you can put him anywhere that makes sense in your game. The reason I like adding him in is so when they get the reveal at the end of year 1 in the adventure, they shouldn't read the journal fragment and just say "huh? who?" This way, the bad guy is already a character, the players interact with him. I made him a paranoid, slightly inept guy with a crazy funny voice and right now my players LOVE him, despite the fact that he's secretly sabotaged their investigation in a major way last session (the players wanted to use the lab to analyze the black ooze the glowing frogs puked up, which would have skipped half the story if they had succeeded in identifying it at that stage, so I had Murgaxor unleash one of the random encounters in the room while their experiment was running, which got smashed in the ensuing combat-- the players are none the wiser as to Murgaxor's involvement). Once he's exposed, I'll have him disappear into the swamp and whatnot and assume his place as a full time villain, but right now he just seems to be a paranoid, put-upon bullywug in a dead-end job who harbors a not-so-secret resentment for the university leadership who shunted him into this job after the fiasco a few years ago regarding forbidden researches (that last part isn't super common knowledge).
I've heard Strixhaven criticized for being a pretty bare-bones adventure, which it is, but i had a lot of fun filling out the meat on those bones, even too the point of writing little mini lectures on magical subjects to start every session off with. If you're willing to add stuff, then it's a really fun setting with a lot of room for your own ideas.
What are your thoughts on weapons? I assumed that all students will not have weapons as it is a learning institution not a adventurer guild. Are you planning on prohibiting them the entire campaign or giving a story reason for finding the odd weapon to use. Not all characters will be spell casters and will be more coforatable with a weapon at thier side if things go bad. I would assume they aren't walking around with a weapon but maybe they smuggle one in at some point?
Weapons are fine. Some people (monks, fighters, some hexblades, etc) channel their magic through weapons, and while Strixhaven isn't an adventuring school per se, it's also not *not* an adventuring school. They could have a program for perspective adventurers, even if that's not the main draw of their curriculum. Also, it's a wild place, basilisks in top hats might pop out of the woodwork, experiments gone wrong left and right. I might forgive someone for keeping a sword in their backpack, just to be ready.
Maybe even work it into a lesson. Have a teacher tell them like lesson #1, magic can be dangerous when used incorrectly. As dangerous as any weapon. What we ask, much like a sword instructor, is that you exercise patience and learn to use your power correctly. And lesson #2-- be ready to deal with other people's magic used incorrectly!"
Im thinking that maybe they have stashed some weapons in their dorm room for a situation that arises. That way they aren't relying on them at the drop of a hat or tempted to cause mischief with them just cause they want to. They can " equip" themselves when they have to venture off campus to an area that may be dangerous ( Sedgemoor etc..)
Strix haven was a bit of a personal disappointment for me and I think it needs quite allot of padding.
My advice is
Come up with some stuff for the classes like projects and things they need to complete as side quests. The book gives you names of classes and a yearly exam question but that's about it
Re use some of the events like the sporting tournament but from different perspectives. Things like the ball would be annual events, maybe one year they are invited another they are not.
Look into the MTG lore for information on the plane strixhaven and the oriq. There's a much better story there than the dnd book campaign.
Consider condensing the give campaign down in levels and time to use the villain as a minor villain as part of a bigger plot. He uses allot of oriq monsters but has no real connection in the campaign he is also kind of a random figure no one has heard of. My advice is make him a dupe for the oriq being used as a distraction so they can steal something for the bigger MTG plot which is summoning the blood avatar.
oh my god, you’re a genius!! is it alright if i play off of some of these? i’m preparing a run through this setting myself
Go for it!
you’re a godsend 🙌
Another thing I did was actually write out entries (partially obscured) for the waterlogged journal they find in the swamp:
...................................................inds out that........................................................................................................lood! But Taer would never suspect that...........icks again! I spun a tale of deepest contrition,....misunderstanding.... and the greedy...................................................in this UNNACEPTABLY DIMINISHED capacity, but soon.........................................................................................................
Entry 32
The experiments commense slowly.....................................RIGHTFUL PLACE................................ to extract the life-force of one victim, let alone.........................................................................ssful transferrance!................................dents must remain ignorant-- yes, ignorant students-- even if it tak........................................... But my VENGEANCE will soon see................
Entry 126
...................................n't leave this journal about again! Nearly........................dlekeep-- and wretched student or dottering.....cher could have..........their slimy nose in it! Getting careless....................................................................
...............................upplies are dwindling.............again, I must contempla.................. It would only take....................residual life force...............orpses remains slow-going, diluting the efficacy. Oh, to have....iving subjects again! CURSE THIS scurrying and hiding. CURSE IT I SAAAY!
............................................the Eldritch Balm..........ing up nicely. I don't know why I didn't think of it before! These accidents-- so NECESSARY for my experiments...............so infrequently, no reason not to.............k the circumstances..................'s one more corpse, after all?...........................................in their right mind................uspect.................. anyways? Heeheehee!..................................fter tonight, must ramp up the corruption--..................am to build enough Residuum for my apotheosis............!!!
Entry 307
...are asking questions. QUESTIONS..........estion me?? THE AUDACITY! THE HUBRIS!...............rudent.........................................................................convinent little...................olt hole. Should the unthinkable....................................................................................................................................................................no. No. NO. I WILL prevail! I MUST!! THIS INJUSTICE MUST...........................................in case.......................****y wise..................annot lead this institution...................ULE IT AS A GOD!
I have decided to embark on a Strixhaven campaign...all new characters and level 1 etc....I am fleshing out the setting and even getting players to create backstories that explain why they are attending Strixhaven to begin with. The questions I have is that the campaign book seems to only detail 4 adventures that ultimately take the characters to level 10 with each adventure being a year in the game world.
I can help but think that the players would embark on many sub quests and adventures during their time at Strixhaven ( exploring the ruins and catacombs beneath Lorehold or exploring the wilds of Witherbloom for threats to the college. The book doesn't allude to any adventures other than the ones printed and of course being a milestone progression system the players, the players can only advance when completing one of the books encounters.
What are your thoughts on how to run a healthy campaign versus just a paint by numbers following the books path?
As with most adventure books, I recommend using it more like a setting book (such as the Theros book), rather than running it as a pure adventure. Take some of the events and story that work, and make something brand new that will work for your specific party. Campaigns right out of the book feel sterile and straightforward, which, based on your post, doesn’t seem like something your party would enjoy.
That said, I would make a special note of some of the easier to run encounters and story prompts. That way you can modify them quickly and shoehorn them into your campaign if you have a day you do not have enough time for prep work.
As for levelling, I am in the early stages of designing a Strixhaven campaign and plan on letting the party do whatever they want, but am going to level them up every semester. First year will be levels 4-5 (I think it is cruel to start players at level one—character design is boring at that point) second 6-7, 8-9, and 10-11. Then the real campaign will have the players return for their five year reunion at level 15, and the game will continue from there. While in school, they’ll inevitably do more than necessary to level up under an XP system, but I think they’ll accept this particular milestone proposal.
Yeah I was thinking of all the cool adventures in Lorehold area and Witherbloom etc....
What kind of ideas are you going with....on campus mysteries.....Middle of the night dungeon romps before class in the morning.....missing students that need rescuing etc?
Also have you thought about how and why conventional beasts ie. Goblins, orcs, trolls etc would be in the realm of Strixhaven ( my Strixhaven is being shoehorned into my existing campaign world somewhere)
I will likewise be transplanting the university to a homebrew world - Arcavios does not have as much to offer for the second half of the campaign.
As for events during the actual school year, I have not worked out the specifics yet. A lot of the events will probably be heavily pulled from Harry Potter adventures, such as exploring the forest on detention, looking for secret chambers, etc. l’m not a super big HP fan, but some of my party members are, and I’m using “This is a Harry Potter setting” to get them to try D&D for the first time.
The main goal is going to be getting the party to interact with as many students as possible. The BBEG for the second half of the campaign is going to be one of those students - I’ll decide which student based on the parties’ interactions throughout the campaign.
can you keep updating this post with ideas as I am ready to launch mine in a couple weeks. It is nice having someone to bounce ideas off. I cant sustain my players on bar brawls and frog racing indefinatley. Gonna need some good ol fashioned monster slaying and or dungeoneering at some point
Fortunately, you have Lorehold for that - just send the students off on a quest to explore some ancient archeological dig, and have them fall though they floor or otherwise find themselves trapped alone in a traditional zombie/ghost/construct/etc. dungeon crawler.
What are your thoughts on weapons? I assumed that all students will not have weapons as it is a learning institution not a adventurer guild. Are you planning on prohibiting them the entire campaign or giving a story reason for finding the odd weapon to use. Not all characters will be spell casters and will be more coforatable with a weapon at thier side if things go bad. I would assume they aren't walking around with a weapon but maybe they smuggle one in at some point?
That's the thing, it's not an adventure book. It's a setting book. The adventure in the back was included as a bonus. So you and OP are doing what Wizards intended.
I don't have the book here, but isn't it a school specifically for casters? Why wouldn't they all be casters?
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The book actually specifically notes that there are plenty of non-caster classes that work with Strixhaven - namely classes that fit with a college’s theme, such as Path of Ancestral Guardian Barbarian, which fits with Lorehold’s spirit magic.
Granted, if someone wanted to play a class with no magical connection, I would still be inclined to make that work. My suggestion to them would be something like “You received your sibling’s acceptance letter by accident” and have them either fake their way through school or openly make a mockery of the school. “Alright class, cast shocking grasp.” *non magical character reaches out and grabs other student’s throat* “You shocked?”
Or perhaps they are not a student, but a fledgling member of the faculty - an armed guard hired to watch over students on expositions. A member of the janitorial staff who dreams for more.
You would have to work with the character to make them fit, and it would be a little make difficult than with a magical or magical adjacent class, but there are still plenty of ways to ensure they can play the character they want to play.
My first step for my Strixhaven game was coming up with a lot of "b-plots", little side missions that make different areas of campus/npc's more interesting and give you a reason to engage with them that add more intrigue to the main plot-- like Fred and George's beef with Ludo Bauman in Goblet of Fire, or the Midnight Duel in Sorcerer's Stone.
For example, I included one b-plot where the printing press for the school newspaper is haunted by the ghost of a vindictive former editor who's using the paper to torment the children of the survivors of the accident that killed him. The players are investigating it currently, but so far they haven't discovered much more than that occasionally vicious attack pieces targeting seemingly random students appear periodically in the paper and they have no idea how or who's responsible.
I also included a B-plot where a cult of students is using a forbidden ritual to steal memories of students' study sessions so they can ace all they're classes without having to study, and the players might get hooked in when they notice a student who's usually the top of the class suddenly under-perdorming.
Other b-plots are less quest-y; one just has a student attending the university under a false identity to hide the fact that they're the descendent of a disgraced dark Mage who was kicked out once upon a time. The student isn't doing anything nefarious, but they might appear to be acting strangely if the characters are investigating other suspicious doings around campus. Kind of a nice red herring to complicate things.
Aside from adding fun b-plots and a few extra NPC's (the book has remarkably few potential antagonistic students, no Malfoys or anything), I also found that the university setting for Strixhaven lends itself fantastically to run Candlekeep adventures in it, if you have access to that book. So when I want to include something more of a fully fleshed out, non slow-burner side quest, you can pretty easily run an adventure from that. I even made it in my version of Strixhaven that the Biblioplex's "Active Archive", the area for research on ongoing active experiments and unknown magical phenomena, is referred to colloquially as "The Candlekeep."
One other thing I added in that I think helps the story in the book, is I made the main bad guy, [SPOILERS],
Murgaxor
a faculty member. In my game, he's the Lab's faculty supervisor since one of my players works at the lab, but you can put him anywhere that makes sense in your game. The reason I like adding him in is so when they get the reveal at the end of year 1 in the adventure, they shouldn't read the journal fragment and just say "huh? who?" This way, the bad guy is already a character, the players interact with him. I made him a paranoid, slightly inept guy with a crazy funny voice and right now my players LOVE him, despite the fact that he's secretly sabotaged their investigation in a major way last session (the players wanted to use the lab to analyze the black ooze the glowing frogs puked up, which would have skipped half the story if they had succeeded in identifying it at that stage, so I had Murgaxor unleash one of the random encounters in the room while their experiment was running, which got smashed in the ensuing combat-- the players are none the wiser as to Murgaxor's involvement). Once he's exposed, I'll have him disappear into the swamp and whatnot and assume his place as a full time villain, but right now he just seems to be a paranoid, put-upon bullywug in a dead-end job who harbors a not-so-secret resentment for the university leadership who shunted him into this job after the fiasco a few years ago regarding forbidden researches (that last part isn't super common knowledge).
I've heard Strixhaven criticized for being a pretty bare-bones adventure, which it is, but i had a lot of fun filling out the meat on those bones, even too the point of writing little mini lectures on magical subjects to start every session off with. If you're willing to add stuff, then it's a really fun setting with a lot of room for your own ideas.
Weapons are fine. Some people (monks, fighters, some hexblades, etc) channel their magic through weapons, and while Strixhaven isn't an adventuring school per se, it's also not *not* an adventuring school. They could have a program for perspective adventurers, even if that's not the main draw of their curriculum. Also, it's a wild place, basilisks in top hats might pop out of the woodwork, experiments gone wrong left and right. I might forgive someone for keeping a sword in their backpack, just to be ready.
Maybe even work it into a lesson. Have a teacher tell them like lesson #1, magic can be dangerous when used incorrectly. As dangerous as any weapon. What we ask, much like a sword instructor, is that you exercise patience and learn to use your power correctly. And lesson #2-- be ready to deal with other people's magic used incorrectly!"
Im thinking that maybe they have stashed some weapons in their dorm room for a situation that arises. That way they aren't relying on them at the drop of a hat or tempted to cause mischief with them just cause they want to. They can " equip" themselves when they have to venture off campus to an area that may be dangerous ( Sedgemoor etc..)
oh my god, you’re a genius!! is it alright if i play off of some of these? i’m preparing a run through this setting myself
Strix haven was a bit of a personal disappointment for me and I think it needs quite allot of padding.
My advice is
Go for it!
you’re a godsend 🙌
I agree about needing padding.....but thats what we do as DM's We should just work for Wizards lol
Another thing I did was actually write out entries (partially obscured) for the waterlogged journal they find in the swamp:
...................................................inds out that........................................................................................................lood! But Taer would never suspect that...........icks again! I spun a tale of deepest contrition,....misunderstanding.... and the greedy...................................................in this UNNACEPTABLY DIMINISHED capacity, but soon.........................................................................................................
Entry 32
The experiments commense slowly.....................................RIGHTFUL PLACE................................ to extract the life-force of one victim, let alone.........................................................................ssful transferrance!................................dents must remain ignorant-- yes, ignorant students-- even if it tak........................................... But my VENGEANCE will soon see................
Entry 126
...................................n't leave this journal about again! Nearly........................dlekeep-- and wretched student or dottering.....cher could have..........their slimy nose in it! Getting careless....................................................................
...............................upplies are dwindling.............again, I must contempla.................. It would only take....................residual life force...............orpses remains slow-going, diluting the efficacy. Oh, to have....iving subjects again! CURSE THIS scurrying and hiding. CURSE IT I SAAAY!
Entry 178
.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................MY ORB...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Entry 243
............................................the Eldritch Balm..........ing up nicely. I don't know why I didn't think of it before! These accidents-- so NECESSARY for my experiments...............so infrequently, no reason not to.............k the circumstances..................'s one more corpse, after all?...........................................in their right mind................uspect.................. anyways? Heeheehee!..................................fter tonight, must ramp up the corruption--..................am to build enough Residuum for my apotheosis............!!!
Entry 307
...are asking questions. QUESTIONS..........estion me?? THE AUDACITY! THE HUBRIS!...............rudent.........................................................................convinent little...................olt hole. Should the unthinkable....................................................................................................................................................................no. No. NO. I WILL prevail! I MUST!! THIS INJUSTICE MUST...........................................in case.......................****y wise..................annot lead this institution...................ULE IT AS A GOD!
They sell +1 weapons in the store in the big library at the beginning of the adventure, so I’d say they’re fine.