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Hi thread, i'm a new DM that's going to be starting with a group of mostly brand new players (5 total, 3 totally brand new, 2 that are already experienced) and i'm going to running them through The Sunless Citadel from the Tales of the Yawning Portal 5e books. Any tips that yall can give me on making this run smoothly? Will be running it over discord and using roll20 for maps and other visual stuff.
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Dec 9, 2017 10:08
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 12:37 |
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So i have a level 1 fighter that kinda took me by suprise by asking if he could make a spear out of some Twig Blights he killed, he assumed that since the trees were moving around because of some magic, he could get it made into a magic weapon of some kind. I don't particularly see a problem since most of the encounters i have planned for the moment are going to be easy for them anyway, but it would it be in bad taste to have the spear come to life and attempt to strangle him on a 1 
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Dec 26, 2017 18:09
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Oh man that's actually perfect considering we are running The Sunless Citadel with the whole tree zombie angle that's got going on!
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Dec 26, 2017 18:39
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As sombody that is running it right now, i'm not quite a fan of how little combat there is at first. Plus all you're fighting is rats and twig blights, assuming your players don't start poo poo with the kobolds and go the "intended" path it's going to be a bit before there is actually any interesting combat. Random encounters and adding some extra encounters in is a must. That said though, it is a very good starting point for both players and DM's so maybe try that out. The Shame Boy fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Jan 10, 2018 |
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Jan 10, 2018 00:44
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We're coming up on the end of Sunless Citadel this week and there are apparently rules for breaking weapons/objects? At least when it comes to Shatterspikes effect.
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Mar 7, 2018 10:25
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So we finished up Sunless Citadel today, it feels good to finish it up! Other than wanting to go to Waterdeep and finding a drunken master for the monk to train under, don't really have anything else to go on in terms of coming up with another adventure. Although they also have the favor of the Hurcrele family as well so perhaps i could combine those things? Also since we seem to heading towards Waterdeep, where's a good place to find info on this place? Just kind anywhere?
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Mar 9, 2018 10:10
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If i wanted to center an adventure around what essentially a roadtrip to Waterdeep, what are so good ways to make them take the longest route possible?
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Mar 12, 2018 23:28
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Possibly? They are only 3rd level and I'm still new at this DM thing so I'm still not entirely sure entirely sure which way to take this thing. We have a rather large 6 person party too so that kinda complicates things All i know for sure is that our monk wants to change over to Drunken Master after finding out such a thing exists. I want him to meet a Hercule/Mr.Satan type character disguised as the stereotypically zen quite type before i let him do so though. We also just finished off The Sunless Citadel and gave them vague instructions to find more work in Waterdeep, and i know i wanna do a long rear end sidetrip to get there. That's all i got though The Shame Boy fucked around with this message at 03:25 on Mar 16, 2018 |
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Mar 16, 2018 03:21
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So other than maybe a wand of Entangle, what's are good non magical ways to keep characters held in place? I've got a combat encounter planned out where there is a ogre and a bunch of orcs running at the players while Hill Giants are essentially shelling them with rocks from far away. I'm gonna treat it like a continuous trap so they will always be having to dodge something and i want to make it alot harder for them to just get out of the way? There really wasen't enough time between when the enemies showed up for them to have placed bear traps in advance for example and i don't know if i want to just go with "they are aiming at your feet with arrows to pin you in place"
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Apr 15, 2018 23:05
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So through the magic of not wanting to say "oh i was wrong, there were no voices in this room, i forgot to put an actual encounter here" i have created a magic cube that is constantly chanting something about death in a hushed voice, glows in the presence of magic users, acts as a universal translator AND belongs to somebody called Zarthimon. Since we have a predominately martial group they have dubbed this thing The Nerd Detector. I'm thinking at the moment that i want this thing to be something they come to fear the power of over time or perhaps have some kind of world ending threat in it down the line. Whatever the case i want it to kinda gently caress around with magic in general, maybe some kind of spell absorption effect? The kind that happens for good and for bad of course. I'm also thinking it essentially is just a little minature black hole or maybe some kind of pocket dimension like a bag of holding that they have no control over. thoughts?
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Apr 27, 2018 11:40
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My Lovely Horse posted:e: what system is this? This is dnd: the 5th one so none of that concordance stuff applies, although i like the rest of thesr ideas.
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Apr 28, 2018 22:19
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So a GM question about Torchbearer, basically as sombody that picked it up out curiosity hearing of it as a harder,more meticulous DnD like, it's very early in the morning and i'm very tired to be reading up on the rules right now, but skimming through the rules atm and i just think...where do i even start to even beginning to comprehend how this system works and how to apply it? Anybody know where i can find like a video of a session to help me visualize it better?
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Dec 23, 2018 11:30
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Any tips for running 5e Curse of Strahd? Gonna start it up here pretty soon.
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Dec 29, 2018 02:30
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All of that is true, but why would Stradh hang around for 10 turns in range of the thing and let it cook him? He'd be gone the second it was unsheathed and then he'd sent sombody to steal it from the party later that night or something. Still haven't gotten the game actually started yet but i like the section in the book that mentions if any kind of long range contacting type spell is used then Stradh can make himself be on the other end of the line instead. He is gonna prank the Paladin SO HARD.
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Dec 31, 2018 04:04
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What's a good way to express the Hag's Coven ability is active? A group of mine is gonna be doing Old Bonegrinder in Stradh next week and i kinda want it to be obvious that it's some kind of group effort between the monsters that's letting do it.
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Jan 29, 2019 03:38
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I haven't read the whole thing as of yet, but it seems like 5E Curse of Strahd is kinda light on the magic weapons/armor that isn't strictly "plot" related? They hit level 5 last night and a couple of the players mentioned that they want upgrades to their weapons and armor and i kinda agree. But unless all of the good poo poo is in Ravenloft it kinda seems like there isn't a whole lot of extra swag laying around unless i just put it out there for them? Please let me know if i've just missed something somewhere and need to just nudge them along to a location they haven't been to yet
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Mar 18, 2019 06:46
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Anybody who's bought modules on Roll20 can tell me if buying Curse of Stradh is worth it? It seems like it is just for the maps and tokens alone but haven't never bought anything on Roll20 i don't know if there's anything i should know about before i buy?
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Mar 21, 2019 07:42
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So my Curse of Stradh group pissed off the leader of the knights at Argenvostholdt and managed to kill him, what is the most dramatic way to make him come back for revenge?  Also a question about 4E, i was recently gifted the 1st and 2nd players handbook and i kinda thing i'd like to run it at some point, is there any sticking points i should know about going into it? Seems like combat is a bit more complex with all the different tiers of abilties but more interesting since you can actually control the battlefield a bit more with shoving people around or moving your friends around and what not.
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Apr 18, 2019 21:50
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So i have misread a bit of information in Curse of Strahd and now our level 7 Monk has the knowledge to become a Litch that, as written, only a 9th level spellcaster should have recieved. But he's totally on board with this idea down the line and all it gives is that he needs to make the phylactery and the potion as 2 separate projects. This isn't something that's going to happen for a while but how do you go about setting this kinda thing up? One would assume he would have to find rare/one of a kind materials for this kinda thing right?
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May 9, 2019 09:26
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So I'm combining a dead campaign with my current one when we finally wrap up Stradh. My original campaign had the characters at level 4-5 while these new ones will be 8-9. I'm having the fun idea to combine the the 2 parties (lowered level party being an NPC squad) and continuing the old campaign essentially where it left off. Where i had just bought the Tome of Foes and i wantes to get use out of the Star Spawns and Sword Wraiths. I guess this is also a 2 part question since after Stradh wraps up, this will be my first time DMing higher than level 4-5, so i don't know the types of challenges and gear i should he tossing their way. Anybody have tips?
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May 12, 2019 03:56
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So we are closing in on the final battle with Stradh and i have drawn that his in the study. I plan on having the Mage NPC be charmed and tricking one or more of the party members into checking out the "fake" fireplace for a secret passage or something and then having Stradh/maybe a minion hiding in the room push them into the fire to start combat. I could just handwave it and say it was just a general illusion spell cast by Stradh that made the fire seem not real until it was too late but is there an actual in game spell i could use that would let me do that? Would Minor Illusion be enough for something like that? Also would like some suggestions on how to change up Stradh's spell list because he's not got a very good loadout.
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Jun 25, 2019 08:37
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So my players are coming out of Curse of Stradh and while i had no plans to continue with these characters after the campaign was over we suddenly decided we wanted to so here i am . The bad thing about this is that i didn't really establish a world for them before they went to Barovia so they will be coming back to basically a blank slate. I kinda want them to come back to a world where they know something is off right from the start. How would yall handle this kind of situation? I wanted to do something slightly higher tech so they could use guns and poo poo. I was also thinking since they are all level 10 that it's about time they get their own little castle/keep/fiefdom and have a chance at being semi-important people. Only real problem i see is that they left for Barovia as level 1 nobodies and now come back into this new world as level 10 nobodies.
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Jul 7, 2019 06:51
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How good is Shadow of the Demon Lords difficultly system in balancing out monsters in terms of strength in comparison to something like CR in DnD? I'm planning on running my group through a premade level 0 adventure then probably going off from there off the cuff with the handbook
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Aug 3, 2019 22:20
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sebmojo posted:if your plot can be ruined, it's a bad plot. Speaking of which how do i unbad my plot? Taking the characters out of the one shot Curse of Stradh into this new world. My general outline is to have them be dropped into a big battle, they win, are hailed as heros and champions and given their own castle due to the people they saved thinking they are the chosen ones who work for the previous lord who went missing with his band of knights many years ago. In the long term i kinda want them to have to deal with 2 other nations trying to take over their castle because of some mystical mcguffin they have that they don't quite know what it is, but they know it's big, magical and they want it. The mcguffin being a vein of adamantium that they will have to go around gathering up the perfect crew to actually smelt and refine the stuff into weapons and armor. All while keep this a secret from the other 2 secretly dragon run nations and hopefully running rampant on the local politics. Anyway how do i salvage all of this if they decide to be honest about it and go "oh we aren't the chosen ones, we don't know any Sir So and So the Paladin we can't just take his castle!"
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Mar 26, 2020 17:48
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My Lovely Horse posted:Can you avoid revealing the thing about the chosen ones right away and let the players believe they're getting a castle just for their heroic performance in battle? Let them make the place a home for a while, then when the problems start reveal that the people's faith in them goes quite a bit deeper. Maybe even foreshadow it a bit with events like petitioners from far away who heard the chosen ones have returned. That shouldn't be much of a problem, now how to handle adventuring at 10th level i've never done this before oh god.
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Mar 26, 2020 18:17
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Anybody who has more experience with making castle environments wanna give me some tips on making a castle seige type encounter? The party will probably sneaking into it and bypass the huge bloody battle outside but will be skulking around inside of it trying to take it over. The layout doesn't need to particularly make sense since it's an "illusionary" castle that will dissipate into their home base after it's done anyway. I'm thinking there will be plenty of traps and enemies around. Fully prepared to fight since the surrounding area has been under a seige for a while now and of course the city has now finally fallen. I have a bit of experience with the trap based castle since i ran Stradh with these guys so i kinda have an idea of what it might look like but i am not trying to recreate Ravenloft here Also in the long term they will find some magical mcguffin in the basement, which for now will probably be like an adamantium vein or something to make their armor and weapons more badass. You would assumingly need like legendarily good/magical smiths and equipment to work with the stuff right? That would make a good campaign long sidequest to do yeah?
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Oct 8, 2020 21:13
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Adamantine armor is an "Uncommon"-tier magic item that just converts crits into regular damage. Of course in your campaign it can be different, plus I note the item description just says it's "reinforced with adamantine" instead of being made out of it entirely. Just something to be aware of. Ah i see, i will pick a different mcguffin then. I had always thought Adamantium stuff was kinda like super rare stuff.
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Oct 9, 2020 07:17
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What is the secret to running higher player count games? I have recently gone up for 4 to 6 it's a bit of a pain to run the game now. Anybody with more experience on the matter give any advice?
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Nov 27, 2020 09:49
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Just 5E. And yes, we’ve only had 2 sessions with 6 so far but I was immediately running into slow combat problems and can already see problems with trying to keep the focus evenly distributed with that many players for story reasons.
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Nov 27, 2020 10:42
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So one of my players recently had one of his characters retire from active adventuring so he could play something else in our campaign. I took this as an opportunity to try out a solo adventure for this character both to give a bit of extra spice to my campaign setting but also to try out a solo DnD session as a whole since i've not done it before and thought it would be an interesting experiment if nothing else really comes out of it. The main sticking point i'm thinking of right now is how exactly to go about making it interesting and playable. The PC in question is a 9th level Fighter (5th Edition) so i'm not necessarily worried about throwing to much of a challenge at him like i would with a low level character at the very least. I'm also hoping that the rules for Sidekicks that come in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything scale well enough for his NPC companion i'm sending with him to be helpful enough I'm thinking a traditional videogamey "climb this tower, defeat it's challenges and come back alive with the thing from the top to prove your worth" type of setup.Maybe a kind of Game of Death* set up with a more powerful foe every level they go up or something.Any tips on how to run something like this? E: Game of Death, oops
The Shame Boy fucked around with this message at 09:29 on Apr 10, 2021 |
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Apr 10, 2021 08:25
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Those are already great ideas! I was already thinking of basically gimmick fights since yeah, just a straight up dice off would get boring pretty fast. Also i didn't realize the sidekick system would be so restrictive since you're stuck with only 1/2 CR monsters! I don't know how well the scaling would go up to something like 9th level but maybe if all the fights are kind of none conventional maybe i wouldn't need to use one at all then.
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Apr 10, 2021 09:29
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 12:37 |
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So i'm running Curse of Stradh and something interesting happened last session! The players were at the Festival of the Blazing Sun having not really committed too hard to either side of the conflict so when the time came for the mob to break out they decided "the mayor has to know something lets grab him and get out of here, surely the angry mob will take care of the lady" so they grab the mayor and his wife and book it out of town the mage tower. So now i've decided that since they did nothing themselves to take out Lady Fiona she is now in charge of the town like she always wanted and the mayor and his wife are now begrudging allies being essentially held captive at the tower (with the help of Van Richten since i don't want too many NPC's following them around so he's happy to mostly be an advice and plot dispenser for the moment )They seem to want to go back Kresk at the moment but they are also close by Berez and the whole Baba Lasayga encounter which i'm a little afraid of running with only a 3 man party (4 with Ireena who's been with them essentially since the start) so perhaps next session they run into Ezmeralda and she either helps them with Baba or she gets introduced in Kresk where they will finally get the Sunsword. For any DM's that have run Stradh recently, where have yall been putting the artifacts? I tried to do the card reading thing blind before the campaign started and 3/4ths of them all landed inside Castle Ravenloft in one way or another so i ended up going with what i have now where the holy symbol was at the windmill, the book is with Baba (which in hindsight maybe i should have put in Vallaki somewhere since it's so central and the PC's will be there a while) and the sunsword in the Abbey so they will most assuredly run into Mr Abbot and his Frankensten bride thing.
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Mar 28, 2024 06:50
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