Thinking about running storm kings thunder here soon. Anyone have any advice? Im an experienced DM, just not with modules, but I know how to run them. Is this module worth it?
It's a good module. Very sprawling in terms of covering a large geographical area of the Sword Coast from Ice Wind Dale to Waterdeep and quite a ways inland. Lots of content with a fairly interesting plot line. You can also expand it with your own content or other published content that could be fitted in for a change of pace/side quest.
How long it will take depends to some extent on how "completionist" your players might be. A certain stage of the adventure requires dealing with one giant leader but there is the potential to go and deal with more than one or even all of them if the party is interested. The early chapters are also a bit of a sandbox since there are things to do all over the sword coast that might be useful in the main quest or as parts of side quests. One of the bigger issues is likely keeping the party on track with the different quests they can pick up and which they want to work on. Depending on the amount of role play and how focused the players are on completing specific tasks, it can take quite a while to run SKT.
One thing to be aware of is that one of the encounters/tasks that can be found in SKT is actually in the Rise of Tiamat Hoard of the Dragon Queen (edit: thanks Rathkryn for the correction) book since the plot lines cross or are at least occurring within a comparable time frame so if the players want to follow up that one particular thread/quest you might need the other source or just make it up.
Overall, for what it is worth, I found it worth playing. :)
P.S.
I would probably rate Tomb of Annihilation a bit higher than SKT as long as you pick up some additional content to fill out the jungle travel sections. The jungle random encounters get stale pretty quickly and there are some good supplements on DMsGuild and elsewhere that fit well into a Chult adventure (Rise of the Lizard King from DMsGuild, the hidden temple of Tamaochan from Tales from the Yawning Portal).
Curse of Strahd also provides a tighter storyline than SKT. However, not everyone likes the themes as well as some of the "horror" elements of CoS.
Storm King's Thunder needs some work for your players to finish it. For example, when they get to the Giant's Temple there's something that looks like a puzzle but is not a puzzle. My advice is to have them all roll an intelligence check and depending on how well they roll let them know they took XX:XX amount of time to determine that this is not a puzzle and interacting with it is potentially fatal.
When they get past that they can encounter a corpse that links to the last chapter of Horde of the Dragon Queen.
Chose this campaign for two reasons. 1. None of the players have been to Faerun. After seeing the D&D movie they all wanted to experience it. 2. I just ended a massive homebrew with the BBEG being an ancient dragon who had consumed two Echos. So, trying to sway away from dragons as the focus.
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Thinking about running storm kings thunder here soon. Anyone have any advice? Im an experienced DM, just not with modules, but I know how to run them. Is this module worth it?
It's a good module. Very sprawling in terms of covering a large geographical area of the Sword Coast from Ice Wind Dale to Waterdeep and quite a ways inland. Lots of content with a fairly interesting plot line. You can also expand it with your own content or other published content that could be fitted in for a change of pace/side quest.
How long it will take depends to some extent on how "completionist" your players might be. A certain stage of the adventure requires dealing with one giant leader but there is the potential to go and deal with more than one or even all of them if the party is interested. The early chapters are also a bit of a sandbox since there are things to do all over the sword coast that might be useful in the main quest or as parts of side quests. One of the bigger issues is likely keeping the party on track with the different quests they can pick up and which they want to work on. Depending on the amount of role play and how focused the players are on completing specific tasks, it can take quite a while to run SKT.
One thing to be aware of is that one of the encounters/tasks that can be found in SKT is actually in the
Rise of TiamatHoard of the Dragon Queen (edit: thanks Rathkryn for the correction) book since the plot lines cross or are at least occurring within a comparable time frame so if the players want to follow up that one particular thread/quest you might need the other source or just make it up.Overall, for what it is worth, I found it worth playing. :)
P.S.
I would probably rate Tomb of Annihilation a bit higher than SKT as long as you pick up some additional content to fill out the jungle travel sections. The jungle random encounters get stale pretty quickly and there are some good supplements on DMsGuild and elsewhere that fit well into a Chult adventure (Rise of the Lizard King from DMsGuild, the hidden temple of Tamaochan from Tales from the Yawning Portal).
Curse of Strahd also provides a tighter storyline than SKT. However, not everyone likes the themes as well as some of the "horror" elements of CoS.
Storm King's Thunder needs some work for your players to finish it. For example, when they get to the Giant's Temple there's something that looks like a puzzle but is not a puzzle. My advice is to have them all roll an intelligence check and depending on how well they roll let them know they took XX:XX amount of time to determine that this is not a puzzle and interacting with it is potentially fatal.
When they get past that they can encounter a corpse that links to the last chapter of Horde of the Dragon Queen.
But overall it is an enjoyable adventure.
Chose this campaign for two reasons. 1. None of the players have been to Faerun. After seeing the D&D movie they all wanted to experience it. 2. I just ended a massive homebrew with the BBEG being an ancient dragon who had consumed two Echos. So, trying to sway away from dragons as the focus.