So, the way my current campaign is evolving, it's looking like an appropriate cap will be a jaunt into the underdark. LMOP has taken them from levels 1 to 5, DOIP will take them 6 to 12 (thanks to A Tale of Two Dragons on DMG), and there's stuff brewing in the background during all of this that is looking more and more like it will lead them to the underdark.
I don't have time to homebrew something from scratch, and instead I enjoy using pre-written adventures as a framework and hanging my own ideas from it.
Does anyone know of a good higher level adventure set in the underdark? I looked at Out of the Abyss, but of course that's designed for levels 1 - 15. How difficult would it be to adjust that for higher level characters? I've read that once PCs get into the teens, it gets much harder to challenge them.
Out of the abyss would not be too hard but having run that a couple of times now part of the fun of that adventure is low level characters barreling through trying to just about survive as they come face to face with the demon lords with little more then a kitchen spoon and a sunny disposition to then getting to those higher levels and coming back to go toe to toe with the likes of demagorgon. The demagorgon first reveal can be truly terrifying for low level characters where as at the level they are at they might be confused to thinking it’s a battle you want them to actually fight so might end up with a tpk and will let you mis out on a great moment to n that campaign.
Out of the abyss would not be too hard but having run that a couple of times now part of the fun of that adventure is low level characters barreling through trying to just about survive as they come face to face with the demon lords with little more then a kitchen spoon and a sunny disposition to then getting to those higher levels and coming back to go toe to toe with the likes of demagorgon. The demagorgon first reveal can be truly terrifying for low level characters where as at the level they are at they might be confused to thinking it’s a battle you want them to actually fight so might end up with a tpk and will let you mis out on a great moment to n that campaign.
Good feedback, if OOTA is designed to start as more of a 'naked and afraid' type experience, I think it might not fit well as a cap to a three adventure campaign.
Before abandoning it altogether though, do you think it might work if I dropped them into it at the later stages of the adventure? Perhaps run them through from chapter 10, where it seems to transition happens from "on the run" to "bringing the fight to them"?
You can but like I say it would be much better to hold off and run in its entirety for your players when they roll new characters. Otherwise you lose a lot of the horror elements and those big surprise moments and also the players have no connection to the locations they may be traveling to, where as I found part of the fun of going back was discovering what the impact had been on Locations and NPCs they had already met and may have helped them out.
Hmmmm. Maybe I should abandon the ideas of the underdark in general, and use Dungeon of the Mad Mage instead, that way I also have an adventure that actually goes to level 20 without having to adapt the encounters too much. It's only my away from table planning that points to underdark so far. Everything could easily be transplanted to the dungeon.
The underdark was due to the Elf wizard PC that is ultimately turning to an evil NPC and turning drow in the process. Intended end-game being that she became a disciple of Lolth and ultimately a Matron Mother. But easy enough to just substitute her in in place of Halaster. Have you run DMM? DO you think that's workable?
Personally I can’t stand dungeon slogs so haven’t run that adventure, in fact out of the abyss is the only full published campaign I have run (except for lost mines and dragon of icespire as intro campaigns) I usually homebrew everything from scratch. Out of the abyss was good because even though it was in the under dark I could run it like a sandbox game with large caverns and chambers, cities and towns and a giant lake.
I would say homebrewing is not as hard as you maybe think, don’t go huge worrying too much about the overarching theme, run more session to session and just bullet point out ideas and plans. If you have a good npc the players care about then it’s worth having a go at following that up.
Can always do something based on the old 1e D1-3 then Q1. The things cry out for DM work but there is a ton of stuff there for a framework. Lots of potential and the possible story hooks are endless.
Personally I can’t stand dungeon slogs so haven’t run that adventure, in fact out of the abyss is the only full published campaign I have run (except for lost mines and dragon of icespire as intro campaigns) I usually homebrew everything from scratch. Out of the abyss was good because even though it was in the under dark I could run it like a sandbox game with large caverns and chambers, cities and towns and a giant lake.
I would say homebrewing is not as hard as you maybe think, don’t go huge worrying too much about the overarching theme, run more session to session and just bullet point out ideas and plans. If you have a good npc the players care about then it’s worth having a go at following that up.
Ah, I guess I hadn't looked closely enough at it. I saw the mad mage theme and was sold without realizing it was a just a dungeon crawling affair. Not sure my players would enjoy that - they like a good mix of combat and roleplay. I'll consider home brewing and maybe stitching together a few one-shots. We've not quite even started DOIP yet, so I guess I've time to think something up.
Can always do something based on the old 1e D1-3 then Q1. The things cry out for DM work but there is a ton of stuff there for a framework. Lots of potential and the possible story hooks are endless.
I appreciate the feedback, but I'll be honest "1e D1-3 then Q1" means absolutely nothing to me!
DOIP will open up other plot hooks for you as well, I would say don't stress about level 12 onwards as your party may well take the story somewhere really interesting, once they have dealt with 2 dragons there fame will have grown so might open up some good opportunities for you there.
Sorry. I was referring to the old 1st edition modules D1-3, which introduced the Drow. D1 is a series of areas in the Underdark, D2 is the Shrine of the Kuo-Toa (these fish guys) and the D3 is the Drow city. You can deal with the Drow houses and then even go to Lolth’s realm in the Q1 module. You can get all these and 5e conversions on DMsGuild. But these modules are really bare bones in some ways. Like the city really doesn’t detail much, which leaves a ton of freedom for the DM to come up with story hooks and adventures. But it also gives you a framework and reference for things so you aren’t totally homebrewing something. I’m not comfortable homebrewing my entire campaign and these older modules give some support to what you want to do.
Sorry. I was referring to the old 1st edition modules D1-3, which introduced the Drow. D1 is a series of areas in the Underdark, D2 is the Shrine of the Kuo-Toa (these fish guys) and the D3 is the Drow city. You can deal with the Drow houses and then even go to Lolth’s realm in the Q1 module. You can get all these and 5e conversions on DMsGuild. But these modules are really bare bones in some ways. Like the city really doesn’t detail much, which leaves a ton of freedom for the DM to come up with story hooks and adventures. But it also gives you a framework and reference for things so you aren’t totally homebrewing something. I’m not comfortable homebrewing my entire campaign and these older modules give some support to what you want to do.
Rise of the Drow: Collector's Edition is a good choice for an all around Underdark adventure and campaign setting. The adventure arc takes you from levels 1-15 with levels 16-20 handled via free exploration of the Underdark. The book is over 550 pages long and has enough content to keep any group busy for years. There are drow patrols to encounter, fungi forests to explore, and ancient dwarven cities sealed away from humans for centuries. Drow5e dot com. Enjoy... but make sure you tell the spider goddess that I sent you. ;)
Out of the abyss would not be too hard but having run that a couple of times now part of the fun of that adventure is low level characters barreling through trying to just about survive as they come face to face with the demon lords with little more then a kitchen spoon and a sunny disposition to then getting to those higher levels and coming back to go toe to toe with the likes of demagorgon. The demagorgon first reveal can be truly terrifying for low level characters where as at the level they are at they might be confused to thinking it’s a battle you want them to actually fight so might end up with a tpk and will let you mis out on a great moment to n that campaign.
Good feedback, if OOTA is designed to start as more of a 'naked and afraid' type experience, I think it might not fit well as a cap to a three adventure campaign.
Before abandoning it altogether though, do you think it might work if I dropped them into it at the later stages of the adventure? Perhaps run them through from chapter 10, where it seems to transition happens from "on the run" to "bringing the fight to them"?
No I really don’t, having run it twice part of the joy of the adventure for the players is running away from and barely surviving most of the demon princes, and then returning later and owning each one. You get to experience the true terror that the abyss has to offer. If you simply dropped them in halfway through and had them go in and clear it out they you would lose a lot, a lot of the locations they had visited they would have no connection to.
I should really read down before I answer lol, had already responded to you a while back :)
So, the way my current campaign is evolving, it's looking like an appropriate cap will be a jaunt into the underdark. LMOP has taken them from levels 1 to 5, DOIP will take them 6 to 12 (thanks to A Tale of Two Dragons on DMG), and there's stuff brewing in the background during all of this that is looking more and more like it will lead them to the underdark.
I don't have time to homebrew something from scratch, and instead I enjoy using pre-written adventures as a framework and hanging my own ideas from it.
Does anyone know of a good higher level adventure set in the underdark? I looked at Out of the Abyss, but of course that's designed for levels 1 - 15. How difficult would it be to adjust that for higher level characters? I've read that once PCs get into the teens, it gets much harder to challenge them.
Out of the abyss would not be too hard but having run that a couple of times now part of the fun of that adventure is low level characters barreling through trying to just about survive as they come face to face with the demon lords with little more then a kitchen spoon and a sunny disposition to then getting to those higher levels and coming back to go toe to toe with the likes of demagorgon. The demagorgon first reveal can be truly terrifying for low level characters where as at the level they are at they might be confused to thinking it’s a battle you want them to actually fight so might end up with a tpk and will let you mis out on a great moment to n that campaign.
Good feedback, if OOTA is designed to start as more of a 'naked and afraid' type experience, I think it might not fit well as a cap to a three adventure campaign.
Before abandoning it altogether though, do you think it might work if I dropped them into it at the later stages of the adventure? Perhaps run them through from chapter 10, where it seems to transition happens from "on the run" to "bringing the fight to them"?
You can but like I say it would be much better to hold off and run in its entirety for your players when they roll new characters. Otherwise you lose a lot of the horror elements and those big surprise moments and also the players have no connection to the locations they may be traveling to, where as I found part of the fun of going back was discovering what the impact had been on Locations and NPCs they had already met and may have helped them out.
Hmmmm. Maybe I should abandon the ideas of the underdark in general, and use Dungeon of the Mad Mage instead, that way I also have an adventure that actually goes to level 20 without having to adapt the encounters too much. It's only my away from table planning that points to underdark so far. Everything could easily be transplanted to the dungeon.
The underdark was due to the Elf wizard PC that is ultimately turning to an evil NPC and turning drow in the process. Intended end-game being that she became a disciple of Lolth and ultimately a Matron Mother. But easy enough to just substitute her in in place of Halaster. Have you run DMM? DO you think that's workable?
Personally I can’t stand dungeon slogs so haven’t run that adventure, in fact out of the abyss is the only full published campaign I have run (except for lost mines and dragon of icespire as intro campaigns) I usually homebrew everything from scratch. Out of the abyss was good because even though it was in the under dark I could run it like a sandbox game with large caverns and chambers, cities and towns and a giant lake.
I would say homebrewing is not as hard as you maybe think, don’t go huge worrying too much about the overarching theme, run more session to session and just bullet point out ideas and plans. If you have a good npc the players care about then it’s worth having a go at following that up.
Can always do something based on the old 1e D1-3 then Q1. The things cry out for DM work but there is a ton of stuff there for a framework. Lots of potential and the possible story hooks are endless.
Ah, I guess I hadn't looked closely enough at it. I saw the mad mage theme and was sold without realizing it was a just a dungeon crawling affair. Not sure my players would enjoy that - they like a good mix of combat and roleplay. I'll consider home brewing and maybe stitching together a few one-shots. We've not quite even started DOIP yet, so I guess I've time to think something up.
I appreciate the feedback, but I'll be honest "1e D1-3 then Q1" means absolutely nothing to me!
DOIP will open up other plot hooks for you as well, I would say don't stress about level 12 onwards as your party may well take the story somewhere really interesting, once they have dealt with 2 dragons there fame will have grown so might open up some good opportunities for you there.
Sorry. I was referring to the old 1st edition modules D1-3, which introduced the Drow. D1 is a series of areas in the Underdark, D2 is the Shrine of the Kuo-Toa (these fish guys) and the D3 is the Drow city. You can deal with the Drow houses and then even go to Lolth’s realm in the Q1 module. You can get all these and 5e conversions on DMsGuild. But these modules are really bare bones in some ways. Like the city really doesn’t detail much, which leaves a ton of freedom for the DM to come up with story hooks and adventures. But it also gives you a framework and reference for things so you aren’t totally homebrewing something. I’m not comfortable homebrewing my entire campaign and these older modules give some support to what you want to do.
Awesome, thanks. I will check it out!
Rise of the Drow: Collector's Edition is a good choice for an all around Underdark adventure and campaign setting. The adventure arc takes you from levels 1-15 with levels 16-20 handled via free exploration of the Underdark. The book is over 550 pages long and has enough content to keep any group busy for years. There are drow patrols to encounter, fungi forests to explore, and ancient dwarven cities sealed away from humans for centuries. Drow5e dot com. Enjoy... but make sure you tell the spider goddess that I sent you. ;)
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No I really don’t, having run it twice part of the joy of the adventure for the players is running away from and barely surviving most of the demon princes, and then returning later and owning each one. You get to experience the true terror that the abyss has to offer. If you simply dropped them in halfway through and had them go in and clear it out they you would lose a lot, a lot of the locations they had visited they would have no connection to.
I should really read down before I answer lol, had already responded to you a while back :)