Soon I will be running White Plume Mountain as a one shot with my regular group. This will be a one shot and our usual DM will get to play this time!
Having read through the module it looks so exciting! Lots of puzzles and a few encounters to spice things up. My main question is the geyser room with the handing wooden disks. How did you have your party get to the other side (lol)? Did you have them roll a series of dex and occasional strength checks? The geysers are set to go off every 3 and 5 minutes. Did you keep that schedule in real time or combat time with each turn at 6 seconds? Obviously, I know this is 'my' choice at the end of the day but I would like to hear what other DM's did in their run and how things went.
I'm going to be running that module for my Adventure League group soon and my plan for that encounter is to just use the geysers when it is thematically appropriate to add a little more danger to the challenge.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
Hi! Good choice of an adventure! Let me tell you - it is NOT a one-shot. My group has spent 6 sessions and has now fully cleared two "legs" with the third one completely undiscovered just yet. They enjoy strategizing and planning and testing theories, so as I'm in no hurry, I will let them have their fun.
They will get to the geysers next Monday and I'll probably keep the time in real time. Which reminds me, I should get an hourglass or two, which would be nice to lift to their side of the DM screen after they figure out the intervals.
As for the rest of the adventure - the reward weapons are extremely powerful. I didn't read too much into them beforehand, but these are legendary weapons. The players who get these will probably never replace them, unless the sentient part gets in the way. So make sure you discuss with your DM how those will be handled after this.
Have a plan for the Aquarium room because very few of those monsters have a ranged attack and it's just a shooting range. That room + the prison under it is a total of over 14k XP. My players sent a flying wizard to the center who nuked all the manticores and then just picked everything else off one by one with cheap ranged effects. Just one room for one whole level.. while they appreciated it, it came as a surprise for me.
And as a total, the whole dungeon has a MASSIVE amount of XP in it, with the random encounters and everything together. So be prepared that if you do send your group into it, they will gain at least 2, possibly 3 or 4 levels from it. My group was level 6 going in, have cleared two legs of it and are almost level 10. I've run it exactly as written.
There is very few monsters in the dungeon, so make sure you familiarize yourself with them, otherwise it's too easy. Really understand how to use Mirror Image (Snarla), notice the grapple and reach effects of the crab, run the champion and veterans as the seasoned tactical minds that they are, etc. The last bunch are all proficient with Atheltics, so grappling, dragging people away, pushing people into stream to get rid of them, etc. My group actually spent last two sessions just on that fight - they got beaten the first time, but managed to survive a retreat, then managed to beat it the second time (with 5 Revivifies used).
Wow! Thank you so much for all this great input! I'm super grateful for it!
My players will be level 8 and I'm giving them their choice of a +1 magic item to use. My group usually explores pretty quickly but can get quite tactical in combat. I'm anticipating the battles taking the longest - but our sessions are typically doubled up to 8-hour blocks with an additional hour for breaks. But it's okay if we don't finish it in that time frame. This would be a good adventure to pull out just in case someone can't make it for the usual campaign and we don't want them to miss out.
Thanks again for all your great feedback!
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Hello, friends!
Soon I will be running White Plume Mountain as a one shot with my regular group. This will be a one shot and our usual DM will get to play this time!
Having read through the module it looks so exciting! Lots of puzzles and a few encounters to spice things up. My main question is the geyser room with the handing wooden disks. How did you have your party get to the other side (lol)? Did you have them roll a series of dex and occasional strength checks? The geysers are set to go off every 3 and 5 minutes. Did you keep that schedule in real time or combat time with each turn at 6 seconds? Obviously, I know this is 'my' choice at the end of the day but I would like to hear what other DM's did in their run and how things went.
Have any other tips? I would love to hear them!
many thanks!
Shh, it's a secret from everybody ~
You receive 50 rupees!
I'm going to be running that module for my Adventure League group soon and my plan for that encounter is to just use the geysers when it is thematically appropriate to add a little more danger to the challenge.
Hi! Good choice of an adventure! Let me tell you - it is NOT a one-shot. My group has spent 6 sessions and has now fully cleared two "legs" with the third one completely undiscovered just yet. They enjoy strategizing and planning and testing theories, so as I'm in no hurry, I will let them have their fun.
They will get to the geysers next Monday and I'll probably keep the time in real time. Which reminds me, I should get an hourglass or two, which would be nice to lift to their side of the DM screen after they figure out the intervals.
As for the rest of the adventure - the reward weapons are extremely powerful. I didn't read too much into them beforehand, but these are legendary weapons. The players who get these will probably never replace them, unless the sentient part gets in the way. So make sure you discuss with your DM how those will be handled after this.
Have a plan for the Aquarium room because very few of those monsters have a ranged attack and it's just a shooting range. That room + the prison under it is a total of over 14k XP. My players sent a flying wizard to the center who nuked all the manticores and then just picked everything else off one by one with cheap ranged effects. Just one room for one whole level.. while they appreciated it, it came as a surprise for me.
And as a total, the whole dungeon has a MASSIVE amount of XP in it, with the random encounters and everything together. So be prepared that if you do send your group into it, they will gain at least 2, possibly 3 or 4 levels from it. My group was level 6 going in, have cleared two legs of it and are almost level 10. I've run it exactly as written.
There is very few monsters in the dungeon, so make sure you familiarize yourself with them, otherwise it's too easy. Really understand how to use Mirror Image (Snarla), notice the grapple and reach effects of the crab, run the champion and veterans as the seasoned tactical minds that they are, etc. The last bunch are all proficient with Atheltics, so grappling, dragging people away, pushing people into stream to get rid of them, etc. My group actually spent last two sessions just on that fight - they got beaten the first time, but managed to survive a retreat, then managed to beat it the second time (with 5 Revivifies used).
Wow! Thank you so much for all this great input! I'm super grateful for it!
My players will be level 8 and I'm giving them their choice of a +1 magic item to use. My group usually explores pretty quickly but can get quite tactical in combat. I'm anticipating the battles taking the longest - but our sessions are typically doubled up to 8-hour blocks with an additional hour for breaks. But it's okay if we don't finish it in that time frame. This would be a good adventure to pull out just in case someone can't make it for the usual campaign and we don't want them to miss out.
Thanks again for all your great feedback!
Shh, it's a secret from everybody ~
You receive 50 rupees!