I have a HotDQ group who have made it to Skyreach castle. They've posed as cultists and gotten a long rest in order to reach lv 8. Rezmir and the two wizards are all there, and only two enemy Dragonwings have been neutralized. I was looking over Rezmir's stat block, and I think she's a fair challenge along with e.g. some ogres.
I know this one chapter is hard enough, but I was wondering if I could not maybe make it more terrifying, while not making it much deadlier. It doesn't make sense that Sandesyl Morgia would have her abode in Skyreach Castle. She's very strong, ideologically opposed to Rezmir and Severin's plan, and has no lair there or connections to Giants. So I thought "maybe she was Talis' ancestor and also a White Dragon fanatic?" That explains why she gets (and chooses) to hang out there. I want to recontextualize the less fleshed out parts of the adventure when I can, so I'd love for her to have more of a social aspect, as well, should the players go out at night. Vampires =/= beasts, after all.
But why fear her? All the players have magical weapons and many have good spells and items to deal with threats. Talis plus 2 veterans was done with in a round and a half of combat. Not scary. My idea is this: what if vampires were immune to ALL non-silvered physical damage? This would make living on the castle less risky for Morgia, and give her more agency. If she chose to, she could leave for a new resting place. Or she could be a real challenge for the 19 AC cloak of displacement Barbarian, forcing the players to try a non-confrontational approach.
I would avoid mechanics that amount to "player X, you can go sit in a corner because you're going to be useless in this encounter". If you want obnoxious vampires, I suggest making them harder to actually kill in general -- say, just replace the classic vampire vulnerabilities (running water, sunlight, radiant damage, etc) with some new and unique ones that the players won't know about.
By RAW, it costs 100g to silver plate 1 weapon or 10 pieces of ammunition. At a level where the players already have magic weapons, it's almost easier to simply assume that all magic weapons are silvered by default, because why not silver them? Having them go into battle and flounder just to learn that they need to run a trivial errand probably won't be a highlight of the session.
For individual NPCs and BBEGs, it is often easier to give them a custom magic item to justify some unique trait. For example,
*Warning: CoS spoiler*
In Curse of Strahd, the Heart of Sorrow can absorb up to 50 points of damage for Strahd every day.
You could give Morgia something similar, so that if the party attacks her, she seems to completely ignore their first volley of attacks. If you play it right, they might think she is immune to all damage and be forced to interact with the story to learn the truth.
Maybe as a once per day ability Morgia automatically becomes incorporeal for 1d4 rounds when struck by an attack. This would let her ignore ambushes and give her time to flee or maneuver as needed.
If your players are min-maxers, and/or have decent magic items at level 8, then you need to double the hit points of all 'boss' type monsters in the game. For my party of 5 x level 8 characters, 300 hit points is the minimum I'll give a boss monster, unless I'm backing them up with a lot (4+) of lower hit point creatures.
Monsters in D&D are typically balanced around those crummy resistances to magic weapons - the game design assumes that your characters simply don't have any. This effectively doubles the physical damage hit points of most potent monsters. If your party all have magical weapons, then this immunity is like 'wasted CR.' So a CR15 Vampire is really a CR9 creature if the party are packing magical or silvered weapons to begin with. Forget the resistances and just double the base hit points.
Monsters in D&D are typically balanced around those crummy resistances to magic weapons
Only at low level. It's counted as a max of around +30 hit points. The real problem with the Vampire is that they're counting it as having 20 hp/round regeneration, but the regeneration is super easy to stop (the same problem exists for a Troll).
I still have this ahead of me in my HotDQ campaign... And to be honest I find it totally confusing Giants, Cult of the Dragon cultists, a Vampire, White Dragon and a faction of the Red Wizards of thay... I think I'm going to rewrite it drop the giants drop the vampire... emphasize the white and black factions of the Cult of the Dragon and the power struggle between Talis the White and Rezmir...
I know this isn't particularly helpful or even OT sorry...
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“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Thanks @Eskil it's encouraging you feel the same... I just bought Fizban's Treasury of Dragons - ftod and it just reinforces so many of the reservations I'm having about Skyreach Castle... A adult White Dragons Lair and hord in a Cloud Giants flying castle which the cloud Giant controls... I mean i could just go on and on...
No I want to be constructive and not a moaner here...
I have the luxury of running HotDQ for peeps with very little time so I have loads of time to stew over things and then maybe actually change them for the better... I want my players first encounter with a Adult White dragon in its lair to be the epic climax to HotDQ Skyreach Castle is a "natural" Earth mote that the Netherese built a castle on and experimented ways of propulsion on later used in their mythallar powered floating cities... Such a strong magical anomaly as a earth mote alone made it a worthy lair for Glazhael the Cloudchaser The Red wizards of Thay have some interest in the Netherese methods of maneuvering Skyreach Castle that Glazhael Draconic magic is using to maneuver Skyreach Castle but are careful not to antagonis Glazhael as they have greater plans afoot... Rezmir is actively sidelining Talis the White and her connection to Glazhael slowly replacing Skyreach Castle garrison of White Cult of the Dragon cultists (claws, fangs, wings etc ) with Black Cult of the Dragon Cultists naturally more loyal to her Rezmir... Rezmir is accompanied by Black Abishai
hay sorry again for the ramble thought stream
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
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Howdy! Melee Maidens, do not interact
I have a HotDQ group who have made it to Skyreach castle. They've posed as cultists and gotten a long rest in order to reach lv 8. Rezmir and the two wizards are all there, and only two enemy Dragonwings have been neutralized. I was looking over Rezmir's stat block, and I think she's a fair challenge along with e.g. some ogres.
I know this one chapter is hard enough, but I was wondering if I could not maybe make it more terrifying, while not making it much deadlier. It doesn't make sense that Sandesyl Morgia would have her abode in Skyreach Castle. She's very strong, ideologically opposed to Rezmir and Severin's plan, and has no lair there or connections to Giants. So I thought "maybe she was Talis' ancestor and also a White Dragon fanatic?" That explains why she gets (and chooses) to hang out there. I want to recontextualize the less fleshed out parts of the adventure when I can, so I'd love for her to have more of a social aspect, as well, should the players go out at night. Vampires =/= beasts, after all.
But why fear her? All the players have magical weapons and many have good spells and items to deal with threats. Talis plus 2 veterans was done with in a round and a half of combat. Not scary. My idea is this: what if vampires were immune to ALL non-silvered physical damage? This would make living on the castle less risky for Morgia, and give her more agency. If she chose to, she could leave for a new resting place. Or she could be a real challenge for the 19 AC cloak of displacement Barbarian, forcing the players to try a non-confrontational approach.
I would avoid mechanics that amount to "player X, you can go sit in a corner because you're going to be useless in this encounter". If you want obnoxious vampires, I suggest making them harder to actually kill in general -- say, just replace the classic vampire vulnerabilities (running water, sunlight, radiant damage, etc) with some new and unique ones that the players won't know about.
By RAW, it costs 100g to silver plate 1 weapon or 10 pieces of ammunition. At a level where the players already have magic weapons, it's almost easier to simply assume that all magic weapons are silvered by default, because why not silver them? Having them go into battle and flounder just to learn that they need to run a trivial errand probably won't be a highlight of the session.
For individual NPCs and BBEGs, it is often easier to give them a custom magic item to justify some unique trait. For example,
*Warning: CoS spoiler*
In Curse of Strahd, the Heart of Sorrow can absorb up to 50 points of damage for Strahd every day.
You could give Morgia something similar, so that if the party attacks her, she seems to completely ignore their first volley of attacks. If you play it right, they might think she is immune to all damage and be forced to interact with the story to learn the truth.
Maybe as a once per day ability Morgia automatically becomes incorporeal for 1d4 rounds when struck by an attack. This would let her ignore ambushes and give her time to flee or maneuver as needed.
If your players are min-maxers, and/or have decent magic items at level 8, then you need to double the hit points of all 'boss' type monsters in the game. For my party of 5 x level 8 characters, 300 hit points is the minimum I'll give a boss monster, unless I'm backing them up with a lot (4+) of lower hit point creatures.
Monsters in D&D are typically balanced around those crummy resistances to magic weapons - the game design assumes that your characters simply don't have any. This effectively doubles the physical damage hit points of most potent monsters. If your party all have magical weapons, then this immunity is like 'wasted CR.' So a CR15 Vampire is really a CR9 creature if the party are packing magical or silvered weapons to begin with. Forget the resistances and just double the base hit points.
Only at low level. It's counted as a max of around +30 hit points. The real problem with the Vampire is that they're counting it as having 20 hp/round regeneration, but the regeneration is super easy to stop (the same problem exists for a Troll).
You guys are all very smart and insightful, thank you~
I still have this ahead of me in my HotDQ campaign... And to be honest I find it totally confusing Giants, Cult of the Dragon cultists, a Vampire, White Dragon and a faction of the Red Wizards of thay... I think I'm going to rewrite it drop the giants drop the vampire... emphasize the white and black factions of the Cult of the Dragon and the power struggle between Talis the White and Rezmir...
I know this isn't particularly helpful or even OT sorry...
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
No problem, babe! It IS confusing, and it does NOT make sense!
Thanks @Eskil it's encouraging you feel the same... I just bought Fizban's Treasury of Dragons - ftod and it just reinforces so many of the reservations I'm having about Skyreach Castle... A adult White Dragons Lair and hord in a Cloud Giants flying castle which the cloud Giant controls... I mean i could just go on and on...
No I want to be constructive and not a moaner here...
I have the luxury of running HotDQ for peeps with very little time so I have loads of time to stew over things and then maybe actually change them for the better...
I want my players first encounter with a Adult White dragon in its lair to be the epic climax to HotDQ
Skyreach Castle is a "natural" Earth mote that the Netherese built a castle on and experimented ways of propulsion on later used in their mythallar powered floating cities...
Such a strong magical anomaly as a earth mote alone made it a worthy lair for Glazhael the Cloudchaser
The Red wizards of Thay have some interest in the Netherese methods of maneuvering Skyreach Castle that Glazhael Draconic magic is using to maneuver Skyreach Castle but are careful not to antagonis Glazhael as they have greater plans afoot...
Rezmir is actively sidelining Talis the White and her connection to Glazhael slowly replacing Skyreach Castle garrison of White Cult of the Dragon cultists (claws, fangs, wings etc ) with Black Cult of the Dragon Cultists naturally more loyal to her Rezmir...
Rezmir is accompanied by Black Abishai
hay sorry again for the ramble thought stream
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again