I wanted to start a general thread for this adventure module, since I plan on running it sometime soon. What have your experiences with it been? I'd love to read any insights from those who have run it.
I have read some criticism that it is a "railroad" adventure. I don't have a problem with this since I will be DMing for a novice crowd, and I want to encourage them to engage with the story. In fact, the module seems like a fairly open and challenging one to DM. It requires the DM to play a lot of NPCs, manage a lot of uncertain outcomes and still keep the players "on track." Chapter 4: On the Road seems like a good example of this.
Quick question: the module gives no stats for Leosin Erlanthar or Ontharr Frume' what level would you say they are?
Looking up Leosin Erlanthar got me the information that, when encountered as a Cult prisoner,
He can move without aid at a speed of 20 feet and fights as a commoner with disadvantage on attack rolls.
I'd say Leosin Erlanthar uses the martial arts adept stat block when he hasn't been beaten to within an inch of his life recently, and Ontharr Frume might be a knight, champion, or warlord.
Of those stat blocks, 3 are only available in yet another supplement - Volo's Guide. *sigh* Wouldn't it be easier to just say 5th level monk or 8th level paladin or whatever? Anyway, it's no big deal, I'll just make something up.
Curious to know how Chapter 6: Castle Naerytar played out for those who've run the module? Seems like the best bet for players is to get Snapjaw and the lizardfolk on their side. But this assumes PCs take prisoners on their first encounter with the Scaly Death lizardfolk, which strikes me as unlikely since the module states that "lizardfolk won't converse or negotiate" with PCs. I guess I'll need to have Snapjaw actively ignore this.
Chapter 4: On the Road is definitely a rough spot in the adventure. You have to cover a very long distance with nothing more than road encounters that can feel entirely pointless to the party of characters.
In my case I chose specific encounters and adjusted them to create a focus on continuing to follow the Cult and not to reveal what they know. Then, in each city stop I tried to give a little bit of roleplay and possible urban encounters with the cult and allies.
Naerytar - what you anticipated is what my players did. They worked with Snapjaw and caused a full castle rebellion. I let Snapjaw negotiate (whichever lizard is the last one standing is suddenly Snapjaw was my method). When the rebellion struck I focused on highlighting encounters with the named NPCs who have an agenda. The rest of the castle, all the nameless NPCs? They were ignored and detailed in the background "Lizardfolk and Bullywugs fighting over there." etc.
Going through the castle one room at a time was going to take forever and not be interesting, so I drew the entire thing down to a string of six encounters that felt more fun, and seeded all the needed story points to move forward. I think the story in the adventure is solid and interesting. The problem spots are mostly due to the game not being fully released so you have some DM work ahead, but your players should be able to engage with the story just fine.
I completely re-worked the first chapter, "Greenest", when I recently started this campaign. I didn't enjoy how the Governor Nighthill basically turns into a quest giver and the characters had a single night to survive. It also bothered me that at the end of the fighting there really wasn't any impetus to move forward in the campaign -- granted a monk comes forward and says "My master is gone!", but there isn't much that happens during the attack to pique the players' real interest.
The change I made was to have Skyreach Castle come down from the Clouds during the attack and abduct Nighthill. My players were totally blown away: "What?! A flying castle?!? This is insane!" "They took the governor? Why did they abduct the governor?"
When the dust settled, the city was asking all the same questions. Eventually, the leaders left in Greenest tasked the characters with investigating where the castle had come from and where it had gone. This lit a fire under my players and made them want to see the story through to completion.
The change I made was to have Skyreach Castle come down from the Clouds during the attack and abduct Nighthill. My players were totally blown away: "What?! A flying castle?!? This is insane!" "They took the governor? Why did they abduct the governor?"
That's an awesome hook. BTW, what was the rationale for abducting Nighthill? Also, if Skyreach is making forays like this, how do I justify the circuitous route taken by the cult to get the stolen treasure hoard on board?
Chapter 4: On the Road is definitely a rough spot in the adventure. You have to cover a very long distance with nothing more than road encounters that can feel entirely pointless to the party of characters.
In my case I chose specific encounters and adjusted them to create a focus on continuing to follow the Cult and not to reveal what they know. Then, in each city stop I tried to give a little bit of roleplay and possible urban encounters with the cult and allies.
Naerytar - what you anticipated is what my players did. They worked with Snapjaw and caused a full castle rebellion. I let Snapjaw negotiate (whichever lizard is the last one standing is suddenly Snapjaw was my method). When the rebellion struck I focused on highlighting encounters with the named NPCs who have an agenda. The rest of the castle, all the nameless NPCs? They were ignored and detailed in the background "Lizardfolk and Bullywugs fighting over there." etc.
Going through the castle one room at a time was going to take forever and not be interesting, so I drew the entire thing down to a string of six encounters that felt more fun, and seeded all the needed story points to move forward. I think the story in the adventure is solid and interesting. The problem spots are mostly due to the game not being fully released so you have some DM work ahead, but your players should be able to engage with the story just fine.
Sounds like it went well. Thanks for the advice. I'll definitely look to steer things that way. The only thing I would say is that Snapjaw is supposed to care about his people so I'd have him step in before he is the last one standing.
That's an awesome hook. BTW, what was the rationale for abducting Nighthill? Also, if Skyreach is making forays like this, how do I justify the circuitous route taken by the cult to get the stolen treasure hoard on board?
The answer to your question is a rather long one, but I'll do my best to explain. One thing you'll notice about the description of Greenest in HoTDQ is that there isn't much of one; there's no economy, no government, and no military breakout. It doesn't give you the names of any taverns or points of interest, there are no NPCs other than the ones you encounter during the fighting, and there's little sense of any culture or community. To add some life to the town I wrote some additional backstory. One of those backstories was that Tarbaw Nighthill was petitioning Baldur's Gate to be a city recognized by the Lord's Alliance.
When the Cult of the Dragon descended on Greenest, they were planning to abduct some of the townsfolk. Governor Nighthill, who was becoming more outspoken in the region ("Greenest demands a place in the Lord's Alliance!"), was grabbed and taken as part of the Cult's plan to destabilize the region and sow fear. What would be more intimidating than to come down in a flying castle and rip the town's Governor from the keep. This also gives the character's an even greater reason to see the adventure through: "We have to find and save Tarbaw."
Where did Skyreach go? That's a great question. My vision for Skyreach was that it was being used by the Cult to shuttle around the Wyrmspeakers, who were conducting raids not only on Greenest but on other small towns along the Sword Coast. Skyreach had to be doing something prior to our character's finding it outside Parnast -- why wouldn't it be cruising around providing an aerial view of the pillaging and looting taking place? The Cultist's were ordered to sack Greenest and take their loot to Baldur's Gate, where it would be divided and sorted and sent along its way to join with other operations. Skyreach would be waiting outside Parnast to take in the final totals.
In Chapter 4: On the Road I added a smaller sub-story due to the skip in milestone levels, I'll need to recheck but I think you go from 4 to 6 randomly. I wasnt a fan of the day by day encounters as experienced groups just tended to blow all their big spells/abilities right off the bat, since they were going to get a rest and for the novice group they got equal parts bored and horrifically paranoid. It basically gave them another dungeon with some faction choices and let the Cult get a bit of a head start on them.
As an AL group, we were surprised to get to the end of Chapter 5 (Construction Ahead), purportedly a mystery/RP episode and found no experience rewards for any of the discovery and negotiations performed in Carnath Roadhouse. I think everyone was expecting to hit level 5 by the end of this. This is doubly-painful as characters are all still level 4, and by the end of Episode 6 NON-AL characters 'milestone' to level 6 .... What have I missed?
As an AL group, we were surprised to get to the end of Chapter 5 (Construction Ahead), purportedly a mystery/RP episode and found no experience rewards for any of the discovery and negotiations performed in Carnath Roadhouse. I think everyone was expecting to hit level 5 by the end of this. This is doubly-painful as characters are all still level 4, and by the end of Episode 6 NON-AL characters 'milestone' to level 6 .... What have I missed?
The party is supposed to reach level 5 at the end of "On the Road".
I re-read "On the Road" and found that the adventurers are supposed to get 300xp each per encounter - that makes-up for some of our missed advancement.
Having said that, it would seem appropriate if (like other AL experience) the errata added non-combat exp for the Carnath Roadhouse bits.
As an AL group, we were surprised to get to the end of Chapter 5 (Construction Ahead), purportedly a mystery/RP episode and found no experience rewards for any of the discovery and negotiations performed in Carnath Roadhouse. I think everyone was expecting to hit level 5 by the end of this. This is doubly-painful as characters are all still level 4, and by the end of Episode 6 NON-AL characters 'milestone' to level 6 .... What have I missed?
The party is supposed to reach level 5 at the end of "On the Road".
Yep - definitely a little railroady (follow the gold). I am playing with my old AD&D group who notoriously goes off-road, so have to do work hard to present a good story of what lies ahead ...
The biggest 'meta' challenge has been encouraging the adventurers to follow the gold, rather than just loot-it. When they finally had un-observed access to the crates (daytime in the strong-room) I allowed them to open and 'loot' the remaining crates to the tune of 1,400gp of 'transportable treasure' - coincidently identical to the amount they would have found if they had looted the cultists' rooms :-)
Has anyone done anything special with how your players came across items? Since there aren't many options for them to find items throughout I was hoping someone might have suggestions.
Has anyone done anything special with how your players came across items? Since there aren't many options for them to find items throughout I was hoping someone might have suggestions.
when you mean items do you mean like magic stuff or regular (but better than starting) items? I threw in some like..mini-quests during my run through with a group;
Going to the camp to Leonis I had the Blacksmith of Greenest say "Hey look, these guys stole all my stock/supplies, I'm kinda ruined, could you get it back for me and I have different stuff stached?"
Made a mini-dungeon like...part way through the On the Road. Where a band of Goblins basically stole everyone's horses during the night. So they had to go get em back and there were some rewards handed out.
When they hit towns, especially Baldurs Gate I had people try to rob them cause they all looked very from the sticks, so thieves thought they were an easy mark. One guy had like a nice dagger in one game, in another I rolled on a table.
Yeah, magic items and improved gear and stuff. I think the dragon hatchery is a great place for a few nice items but the point of the story there is that they took everything to encourage the players to go after the loot. I'm trying to keep the integrity of the story while still allowing my players to play it how they want (proving difficult because they are the shoot first ask questions later type, lol)
Has anyone done anything special with how your players came across items? Since there aren't many options for them to find items throughout I was hoping someone might have suggestions.
When we ran this, our DM had a traveling merchant that we met in a couple of places. Cheesy-cheesy-cheesy merchant with a terrible name. But it was funny and we were able to get some odd and unusual items. We met him in Greenest, then again near Baldur's Gate. We had to choose from things he had and his stock changed from the first location to the second. But he remembered us and we were sad when he quit buying the cultist blades after he found out what it represented.
If you don't want to do the traveling magic shop... they are hitting nearly all the major cities in the mid areas of the adventure. Sure, Greenest is out of everything, but Elterel (sp?) should have a few things and by the time you get to Baldur's Gate or Waterdeep, you can find anything if you have a bit of time (which, you don't... but...) and coin. Later on, not quite so much, but... you could probably add something if you felt like you had to.
Langdedrosa Cyanwrath and Frulam Mondath could both plausibly have magical items that characters could loot.
On the Road is a good place to insert some finds during side quests. I plan to have a small episode where a cultist is trying to open a puzzle box that he secretly took from the stash they are transporting. It is trapped, kills him and then characters find him. The characters then have a chance to solve the puzzle and open the box and get some magic items - I was thinking four small stones or gems - Ioun stones, spell gems, luckstone etc. The death of the cultist also causes more tension. But you could also add some items to the existing side quests, like the Golden Stag.
I think Castle Naerytar would also be a good place to hide some magical items, like in the spectres' lair or the spiders' tower.
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I wanted to start a general thread for this adventure module, since I plan on running it sometime soon. What have your experiences with it been? I'd love to read any insights from those who have run it.
I have read some criticism that it is a "railroad" adventure. I don't have a problem with this since I will be DMing for a novice crowd, and I want to encourage them to engage with the story. In fact, the module seems like a fairly open and challenging one to DM. It requires the DM to play a lot of NPCs, manage a lot of uncertain outcomes and still keep the players "on track." Chapter 4: On the Road seems like a good example of this.
Quick question: the module gives no stats for Leosin Erlanthar or Ontharr Frume' what level would you say they are?
Looking up Leosin Erlanthar got me the information that, when encountered as a Cult prisoner,
I'd say Leosin Erlanthar uses the martial arts adept stat block when he hasn't been beaten to within an inch of his life recently, and Ontharr Frume might be a knight, champion, or warlord.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Tooltips (Help/aid)
Of those stat blocks, 3 are only available in yet another supplement - Volo's Guide. *sigh* Wouldn't it be easier to just say 5th level monk or 8th level paladin or whatever? Anyway, it's no big deal, I'll just make something up.
Just remember to calculate the CR according to the DMG formulae, please.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Tooltips (Help/aid)
Curious to know how Chapter 6: Castle Naerytar played out for those who've run the module? Seems like the best bet for players is to get Snapjaw and the lizardfolk on their side. But this assumes PCs take prisoners on their first encounter with the Scaly Death lizardfolk, which strikes me as unlikely since the module states that "lizardfolk won't converse or negotiate" with PCs. I guess I'll need to have Snapjaw actively ignore this.
Chapter 4: On the Road is definitely a rough spot in the adventure. You have to cover a very long distance with nothing more than road encounters that can feel entirely pointless to the party of characters.
In my case I chose specific encounters and adjusted them to create a focus on continuing to follow the Cult and not to reveal what they know. Then, in each city stop I tried to give a little bit of roleplay and possible urban encounters with the cult and allies.
Naerytar - what you anticipated is what my players did. They worked with Snapjaw and caused a full castle rebellion. I let Snapjaw negotiate (whichever lizard is the last one standing is suddenly Snapjaw was my method). When the rebellion struck I focused on highlighting encounters with the named NPCs who have an agenda. The rest of the castle, all the nameless NPCs? They were ignored and detailed in the background "Lizardfolk and Bullywugs fighting over there." etc.
Going through the castle one room at a time was going to take forever and not be interesting, so I drew the entire thing down to a string of six encounters that felt more fun, and seeded all the needed story points to move forward. I think the story in the adventure is solid and interesting. The problem spots are mostly due to the game not being fully released so you have some DM work ahead, but your players should be able to engage with the story just fine.
I completely re-worked the first chapter, "Greenest", when I recently started this campaign. I didn't enjoy how the Governor Nighthill basically turns into a quest giver and the characters had a single night to survive. It also bothered me that at the end of the fighting there really wasn't any impetus to move forward in the campaign -- granted a monk comes forward and says "My master is gone!", but there isn't much that happens during the attack to pique the players' real interest.
The change I made was to have Skyreach Castle come down from the Clouds during the attack and abduct Nighthill. My players were totally blown away:
"What?! A flying castle?!? This is insane!"
"They took the governor? Why did they abduct the governor?"
When the dust settled, the city was asking all the same questions. Eventually, the leaders left in Greenest tasked the characters with investigating where the castle had come from and where it had gone. This lit a fire under my players and made them want to see the story through to completion.
That's an awesome hook. BTW, what was the rationale for abducting Nighthill? Also, if Skyreach is making forays like this, how do I justify the circuitous route taken by the cult to get the stolen treasure hoard on board?
The answer to your question is a rather long one, but I'll do my best to explain. One thing you'll notice about the description of Greenest in HoTDQ is that there isn't much of one; there's no economy, no government, and no military breakout. It doesn't give you the names of any taverns or points of interest, there are no NPCs other than the ones you encounter during the fighting, and there's little sense of any culture or community. To add some life to the town I wrote some additional backstory. One of those backstories was that Tarbaw Nighthill was petitioning Baldur's Gate to be a city recognized by the Lord's Alliance.
When the Cult of the Dragon descended on Greenest, they were planning to abduct some of the townsfolk. Governor Nighthill, who was becoming more outspoken in the region ("Greenest demands a place in the Lord's Alliance!"), was grabbed and taken as part of the Cult's plan to destabilize the region and sow fear. What would be more intimidating than to come down in a flying castle and rip the town's Governor from the keep. This also gives the character's an even greater reason to see the adventure through: "We have to find and save Tarbaw."
Where did Skyreach go?
That's a great question. My vision for Skyreach was that it was being used by the Cult to shuttle around the Wyrmspeakers, who were conducting raids not only on Greenest but on other small towns along the Sword Coast. Skyreach had to be doing something prior to our character's finding it outside Parnast -- why wouldn't it be cruising around providing an aerial view of the pillaging and looting taking place? The Cultist's were ordered to sack Greenest and take their loot to Baldur's Gate, where it would be divided and sorted and sent along its way to join with other operations. Skyreach would be waiting outside Parnast to take in the final totals.
In Chapter 4: On the Road I added a smaller sub-story due to the skip in milestone levels, I'll need to recheck but I think you go from 4 to 6 randomly. I wasnt a fan of the day by day encounters as experienced groups just tended to blow all their big spells/abilities right off the bat, since they were going to get a rest and for the novice group they got equal parts bored and horrifically paranoid. It basically gave them another dungeon with some faction choices and let the Cult get a bit of a head start on them.
As an AL group, we were surprised to get to the end of Chapter 5 (Construction Ahead), purportedly a mystery/RP episode and found no experience rewards for any of the discovery and negotiations performed in Carnath Roadhouse. I think everyone was expecting to hit level 5 by the end of this. This is doubly-painful as characters are all still level 4, and by the end of Episode 6 NON-AL characters 'milestone' to level 6 .... What have I missed?
Thanks Filcat,
I re-read "On the Road" and found that the adventurers are supposed to get 300xp each per encounter - that makes-up for some of our missed advancement.
Having said that, it would seem appropriate if (like other AL experience) the errata added non-combat exp for the Carnath Roadhouse bits.
/d
xGuild,
Yep - definitely a little railroady (follow the gold). I am playing with my old AD&D group who notoriously goes off-road, so have to do work hard to present a good story of what lies ahead ...
The biggest 'meta' challenge has been encouraging the adventurers to follow the gold, rather than just loot-it. When they finally had un-observed access to the crates (daytime in the strong-room) I allowed them to open and 'loot' the remaining crates to the tune of 1,400gp of 'transportable treasure' - coincidently identical to the amount they would have found if they had looted the cultists' rooms :-)
Has anyone done anything special with how your players came across items? Since there aren't many options for them to find items throughout I was hoping someone might have suggestions.
when you mean items do you mean like magic stuff or regular (but better than starting) items?
I threw in some like..mini-quests during my run through with a group;
That sort of thing.
Yeah, magic items and improved gear and stuff. I think the dragon hatchery is a great place for a few nice items but the point of the story there is that they took everything to encourage the players to go after the loot. I'm trying to keep the integrity of the story while still allowing my players to play it how they want (proving difficult because they are the shoot first ask questions later type, lol)
When we ran this, our DM had a traveling merchant that we met in a couple of places. Cheesy-cheesy-cheesy merchant with a terrible name. But it was funny and we were able to get some odd and unusual items. We met him in Greenest, then again near Baldur's Gate. We had to choose from things he had and his stock changed from the first location to the second. But he remembered us and we were sad when he quit buying the cultist blades after he found out what it represented.
If you don't want to do the traveling magic shop... they are hitting nearly all the major cities in the mid areas of the adventure. Sure, Greenest is out of everything, but Elterel (sp?) should have a few things and by the time you get to Baldur's Gate or Waterdeep, you can find anything if you have a bit of time (which, you don't... but...) and coin. Later on, not quite so much, but... you could probably add something if you felt like you had to.
Langdedrosa Cyanwrath and Frulam Mondath could both plausibly have magical items that characters could loot.
On the Road is a good place to insert some finds during side quests. I plan to have a small episode where a cultist is trying to open a puzzle box that he secretly took from the stash they are transporting. It is trapped, kills him and then characters find him. The characters then have a chance to solve the puzzle and open the box and get some magic items - I was thinking four small stones or gems - Ioun stones, spell gems, luckstone etc. The death of the cultist also causes more tension. But you could also add some items to the existing side quests, like the Golden Stag.
I think Castle Naerytar would also be a good place to hide some magical items, like in the spectres' lair or the spiders' tower.