I've decided to prepare a short Underdark campaign in the world of Exandria. Seeing as Exandria's Underdark is almost completely undescribed as of now and the Exandrian pantheon and origin story are very similar to those of the 4E default setting I'm going to be drawing heavily on the 4E Underdark book for inspiration.
In 4E's Underdark, the god Torog is the ultimate being in charge and is physically present within it. The Underdark itself is a chaotic place, especially as you go deeper. There are portals to the Elemental Chaos and even the Far Realm. Torog, while an evil god of suffering, imprisonment, and slavery, also keeps the inhabitants of the Underdark in check and makes sure potential threats to his rule do not emerge from these portals.
In Exandrian lore Torog is stated to have once dwelled in the Underdark, as he was stated to have in 4E. However, at some point during the war between gods known as the Calamity the deities Moradin, Pelor, Raei, and Sehanine used a trap called the King's Cage to banish Torog to the Far Realm.
If previously Torog was barring extraplanar invaders (especially ones from the Far Realm) from establishing footholds in the Underdark and is now himself imprisoned in the Far Realm, what state does that leave the Exandrian Underdark in approximately 800 years later?
One section of the Tal'Dorei sourcebook states that Lolthite drow civilization is crumbling in the face of threats from aberrations, while the Wildemount sourcebook has the drow of the Kryn Dynasty relocated to the surface under the worship of the Luxon. Lolth clearly isn't fulfilling the role Torog once played.
So what's going on in the Exandrian Underdark? Is Torog capable of doing anything while in the Far Realm to keep his former domain from being invaded? Does he care, or is he actively encouraging an invasion as a form of revenge? Are the mindflayers rapidly constructing an empire in the depths in preparation of an invasion of the surface? Is any organization (religious or secular) doing anything to fill the void left by Torog's absence?
My initial idea is that the mindflayers themselves may be trying to keep Far Realm portals closed to prevent anything else from interfering with their plans. I may bring back the disruptive cult of Thoon (a mysterious Far Realm entity) from previous editions as a reason for the development of the mindflayer empire to be delayed. There might even be heretical mindflayer clerics of Torog.
Reprinted subclasses from books:
Order Domain (Cleric subclass from Guildmasters’ Guide to Ravnica)
Circle of Spores (Druid subclass from Guildmasters’ Guide to Ravnica)
College of Eloquence (Bard subclass from Mythic Odysseys of Theros)
Oath of Glory (Paladin subclass from Mythic Odysseys of Theros)
Bladesinging (Wizard subclass from Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide)
and the UA subclasses include the Psionic ones, plus Armourer for Artifier.
Circle of Stars Druid and Fey Wanderer Ranger might also be in.
There's also a DIY subclass option, where you add some extra traits and adjustments to the base class rather than taking a subclass.
Hmm, as someone who owns all the books already, I was kind of hoping for more of the UA stuff (like the new Ranger stuff) and some new stuff. But the other parts of the book are enticing enough.
Ironically it has more value for adventurers league than like... home play(adventurers league rules let you choose one book in addition to the PHB so putting more content into one book allows more play options). And adventurers league is currently on hiatus
I've decided to prepare a short Underdark campaign in the world of Exandria. Seeing as Exandria's Underdark is almost completely undescribed as of now and the Exandrian pantheon and origin story are very similar to those of the 4E default setting I'm going to be drawing heavily on the 4E Underdark book for inspiration.
In 4E's Underdark, the god Torog is the ultimate being in charge and is physically present within it. The Underdark itself is a chaotic place, especially as you go deeper. There are portals to the Elemental Chaos and even the Far Realm. Torog, while an evil god of suffering, imprisonment, and slavery, also keeps the inhabitants of the Underdark in check and makes sure potential threats to his rule do not emerge from these portals.
In Exandrian lore Torog is stated to have once dwelled in the Underdark, as he was stated to have in 4E. However, at some point during the war between gods known as the Calamity the deities Moradin, Pelor, Raei, and Sehanine used a trap called the King's Cage to banish Torog to the Far Realm.
If previously Torog was barring extraplanar invaders (especially ones from the Far Realm) from establishing footholds in the Underdark and is now himself imprisoned in the Far Realm, what state does that leave the Exandrian Underdark in approximately 800 years later?
One section of the Tal'Dorei sourcebook states that Lolthite drow civilization is crumbling in the face of threats from aberrations, while the Wildemount sourcebook has the drow of the Kryn Dynasty relocated to the surface under the worship of the Luxon. Lolth clearly isn't fulfilling the role Torog once played.
So what's going on in the Exandrian Underdark? Is Torog capable of doing anything while in the Far Realm to keep his former domain from being invaded? Does he care, or is he actively encouraging an invasion as a form of revenge? Are the mindflayers rapidly constructing an empire in the depths in preparation of an invasion of the surface? Is any organization (religious or secular) doing anything to fill the void left by Torog's absence?
My initial idea is that the mindflayers themselves may be trying to keep Far Realm portals closed to prevent anything else from interfering with their plans. I may bring back the disruptive cult of Thoon (a mysterious Far Realm entity) from previous editions as a reason for the development of the mindflayer empire to be delayed. There might even be heretical mindflayer clerics of Torog.
Since I am running Exandria Storm King's Thunder and there's a heavy dark elf presence out of Q'Xorlarrin (Gauntlgrym), I decided to just transpose the Drow house to the Core Anvil, having burrowed from beneath and set up shop there, the core anvil is the closest thing to Gauntlgrym in Exandria. Their house has been making in roads with the party (enemies sometimes, but house Xorlarrin are the most practical of all Drow houses), and mentioned vague horrors, aberrations, and calls from the far realm that make the Underdark a Scary Fucking Place that is on the verge of breaking the gosh danged Dark Elves as a people (maybe the Drow of Roshanna had the right idea)
I look forward to hearing what you end up doing in more detail since my party will likely go down there at some point
I've decided to prepare a short Underdark campaign in the world of Exandria. Seeing as Exandria's Underdark is almost completely undescribed as of now and the Exandrian pantheon and origin story are very similar to those of the 4E default setting I'm going to be drawing heavily on the 4E Underdark book for inspiration.
In 4E's Underdark, the god Torog is the ultimate being in charge and is physically present within it. The Underdark itself is a chaotic place, especially as you go deeper. There are portals to the Elemental Chaos and even the Far Realm. Torog, while an evil god of suffering, imprisonment, and slavery, also keeps the inhabitants of the Underdark in check and makes sure potential threats to his rule do not emerge from these portals.
In Exandrian lore Torog is stated to have once dwelled in the Underdark, as he was stated to have in 4E. However, at some point during the war between gods known as the Calamity the deities Moradin, Pelor, Raei, and Sehanine used a trap called the King's Cage to banish Torog to the Far Realm.
If previously Torog was barring extraplanar invaders (especially ones from the Far Realm) from establishing footholds in the Underdark and is now himself imprisoned in the Far Realm, what state does that leave the Exandrian Underdark in approximately 800 years later?
One section of the Tal'Dorei sourcebook states that Lolthite drow civilization is crumbling in the face of threats from aberrations, while the Wildemount sourcebook has the drow of the Kryn Dynasty relocated to the surface under the worship of the Luxon. Lolth clearly isn't fulfilling the role Torog once played.
So what's going on in the Exandrian Underdark? Is Torog capable of doing anything while in the Far Realm to keep his former domain from being invaded? Does he care, or is he actively encouraging an invasion as a form of revenge? Are the mindflayers rapidly constructing an empire in the depths in preparation of an invasion of the surface? Is any organization (religious or secular) doing anything to fill the void left by Torog's absence?
My initial idea is that the mindflayers themselves may be trying to keep Far Realm portals closed to prevent anything else from interfering with their plans. I may bring back the disruptive cult of Thoon (a mysterious Far Realm entity) from previous editions as a reason for the development of the mindflayer empire to be delayed. There might even be heretical mindflayer clerics of Torog.
Since I am running Exandria Storm King's Thunder and there's a heavy dark elf presence out of Q'Xorlarrin (Gauntlgrym), I decided to just transpose the Drow house to the Core Anvil, having burrowed from beneath and set up shop there, the core anvil is the closest thing to Gauntlgrym in Exandria. Their house has been making in roads with the party (enemies sometimes, but house Xorlarrin are the most practical of all Drow houses), and mentioned vague horrors, aberrations, and calls from the far realm that make the Underdark a Scary Fucking Place that is on the verge of breaking the gosh danged Dark Elves as a people (maybe the Drow of Roshanna had the right idea)
I look forward to hearing what you end up doing in more detail since my party will likely go down there at some point
Thinking about it a bit, I'd think duergar might attempt to summon nergaliids to help deal with mind flayers. Though they aren't very strong devils, their unique ability to transform humanoids into husk zombies (a variety of zombie that causes those victims slain by one to become one within seconds) would wreak havoc on a mind flayer colony's humanoid captives/food source.
The task for good PCs is finding a way to stop mind flayer colonies without harming their captives.
Considering the sheer number of brains a mind flayer society would need to consume just to survive, I'm also considering throwing these things into the mix:
Deepspawn haven't been seen since 3.5, but they could provide a means for a mind flayer colony to feed itself without constantly acquiring captives. A deepspawn is capable of producing clones of any natural creature they've consumed (at the age the creature was when it was consumed) provided they are kept fed. Though deepspawn themselves are highly intelligent, powerful entities who use these mind-controlled clones as their own personal armies, I could see particularly advanced mind flayer cities capturing and enslaving these things to produce large numbers of adult humanoid clones to feed the populace (although given that these clones are born without memories I'd assume their brains wouldn't be particularly enjoyable to consume). I don't know if the deepspawn have ever been officially tied to the Far Realm, but it seems like a safe assumption.
With Torog gone maybe the mind flayers have found ways to summon deepspawn from the Far Realm just for the sake of establishing particularly nightmarish factory farms. Conveniently for gaming purposes, they also represent a target to take out to cripple a mind flayer city.
Going back to 4E lore for inspiration, there's another candidate who could pose a major threat: Gargash, the primordial who bound Torog to the Underdark in the first place.
4E's Underdark sourcebook states that Gargash is still alive, his body thoroughly mangled into a quivering mass known as the Restless Heaps. Torog's devoted constantly strike at the primordial's unrecognizable form to stall its regeneration. Despite this, Gargash continues to try and restore himself.
It could be that Torog's faithful, even 800 years after the Crawling King's banishment, are still hard at work making sure the Restless Heaps remain a helpless mass of gore. It could also be that someone or something else recognized the threat and has worked to prevent Gargash's recovery. Otherwise there's been plenty of time for the primordial to regenerate and establish himself as the lord of Exandria's Underdark, one not bound to it like Torog was and free to emerge upon the surface of the world.
Oh gods.... my CoS DM is playing out every hex on the map at a random encounter. Sure, some of them are non-combat encounters, but they're still going to eat up a lot of time at the table. I forsee a heck of a slog coming up.
I suggested that instead of handling each hex as its own encounter proper, cherry pick or create some of the combat or RP encounters that you WANT to run for the session and relegate the others to narrative flair as you describe our journey from Barovia to Vallaki or wherever. I learned my lesson about that on day 1 of humping through the jungles in Chult, of which he was a player in. Because every time you stop to set up an encounter even if its just a broken lantern in the middle of the road, we all jump into "combat stance" eating up a half an hour of play time rolling to hide in the trees or to perceive baddies who aren't there. His response was, "But I want you guys to be paranoid! This is Ravenloft!" which I kinda get...but I also want to make some forward progress in the game too! Maybe I'll try again one on one to balance the pace out with him and in front of the whole group.
Other than that, I got to fight some Scarecrows on the road, flirt with some Vistani and get my fortune told by Madame Eva. So all in all, it was a winner of a session last night!
Oh gods.... my CoS DM is playing out every hex on the map at a random encounter. Sure, some of them are non-combat encounters, but they're still going to eat up a lot of time at the table. I forsee a heck of a slog coming up.
I suggested that instead of handling each hex as its own encounter proper, cherry pick or create some of the combat or RP encounters that you WANT to run for the session and relegate the others to narrative flair as you describe our journey from Barovia to Vallaki or wherever. I learned my lesson about that on day 1 of humping through the jungles in Chult, of which he was a player in. Because every time you stop to set up an encounter even if its just a broken lantern in the middle of the road, we all jump into "combat stance" eating up a half an hour of play time rolling to hide in the trees or to perceive baddies who aren't there. His response was, "But I want you guys to be paranoid! This is Ravenloft!" which I kinda get...but I also want to make some forward progress in the game too! Maybe I'll try again one on one to balance the pace out with him and in front of the whole group.
Other than that, I got to fight some Scarecrows on the road, flirt with some Vistani and get my fortune told by Madame Eva. So all in all, it was a winner of a session last night!
When i ran CoS, the players would tell me where they are going next, I'd count up hexes, and got each 6 roll a d20, and 18 or higher during day and 15 or higher at night I'd roll the encounter table. And set the encounter somewhere neat in the 6 hex area it popped up on.
Oh gods.... my CoS DM is playing out every hex on the map at a random encounter. Sure, some of them are non-combat encounters, but they're still going to eat up a lot of time at the table. I forsee a heck of a slog coming up.
I suggested that instead of handling each hex as its own encounter proper, cherry pick or create some of the combat or RP encounters that you WANT to run for the session and relegate the others to narrative flair as you describe our journey from Barovia to Vallaki or wherever. I learned my lesson about that on day 1 of humping through the jungles in Chult, of which he was a player in. Because every time you stop to set up an encounter even if its just a broken lantern in the middle of the road, we all jump into "combat stance" eating up a half an hour of play time rolling to hide in the trees or to perceive baddies who aren't there. His response was, "But I want you guys to be paranoid! This is Ravenloft!" which I kinda get...but I also want to make some forward progress in the game too! Maybe I'll try again one on one to balance the pace out with him and in front of the whole group.
Other than that, I got to fight some Scarecrows on the road, flirt with some Vistani and get my fortune told by Madame Eva. So all in all, it was a winner of a session last night!
When i ran CoS, the players would tell me where they are going next, I'd count up hexes, and got each 6 roll a d20, and 18 or higher during day and 15 or higher at night I'd roll the encounter table. And set the encounter somewhere neat in the 6 hex area it popped up on.
I'd prefer something else other than one hex = one encounter. Or rather, I'd prefer that flavour encounters that set the scene in Ravenloft were not presented to the party the same way as combat encounters are. I would much rather the flavour be kept within the narrative and that we move on with the adventure and actaully interact with more substantive encounters.
Oh gods.... my CoS DM is playing out every hex on the map at a random encounter. Sure, some of them are non-combat encounters, but they're still going to eat up a lot of time at the table. I forsee a heck of a slog coming up.
I suggested that instead of handling each hex as its own encounter proper, cherry pick or create some of the combat or RP encounters that you WANT to run for the session and relegate the others to narrative flair as you describe our journey from Barovia to Vallaki or wherever. I learned my lesson about that on day 1 of humping through the jungles in Chult, of which he was a player in. Because every time you stop to set up an encounter even if its just a broken lantern in the middle of the road, we all jump into "combat stance" eating up a half an hour of play time rolling to hide in the trees or to perceive baddies who aren't there. His response was, "But I want you guys to be paranoid! This is Ravenloft!" which I kinda get...but I also want to make some forward progress in the game too! Maybe I'll try again one on one to balance the pace out with him and in front of the whole group.
Other than that, I got to fight some Scarecrows on the road, flirt with some Vistani and get my fortune told by Madame Eva. So all in all, it was a winner of a session last night!
When i ran CoS, the players would tell me where they are going next, I'd count up hexes, and got each 6 roll a d20, and 18 or higher during day and 15 or higher at night I'd roll the encounter table. And set the encounter somewhere neat in the 6 hex area it popped up on.
I'd prefer something else other than one hex = one encounter. Or rather, I'd prefer that flavour encounters that set the scene in Ravenloft were not presented to the party the same way as combat encounters are. I would much rather the flavour be kept within the narrative and that we move on with the adventure and actaully interact with more substantive encounters.
Right, what I'm saying is i had 6 hexes equal 15-25% chance to have an encounter.
One per hex is ridiculously many.
Tasha's Essential Cauldron should have a section in the DM Tools chapter about fake rolls and meaningful looks. They're a powerful part of any good DM's toolkit.
I am 900% over actually random encounters, I just have the ones I want queued up and make them think its random
I’m doing a hex thing right now. It’s small (I think there is 15 hexes and they’ll cover 7-9) and rather than each hex being random I’ve given the party a ‘forecast’ whenever they complete a hex, which very roughly describes what they might find in their next choice.
They can fight if they want to fight, with combat hexes being quick but dangerous. Puzzle/traversal hexes take up time (they’re not in a huge rush, but time matters). Social encounters are mid-speed. And so on.
I think it’s a nice balance of preplanned encounters and the players going where they please.
I will be rolling for...
Reinforcements during combat in one encounter, if they go there, and what items they find in another, as having to plan around the random crap they pull is fun to me.
The revised ranger got scrapped a while ago. They released this class feature variants Unearthed Arcana back in November, though. It sounds like something along these lines is going in the book, along with the "divorce stats from race" rules they've talked about a little.
I still do random encounters but I have the players roll for them at the end of the current session so I can build them, and put them into a narrative for the next session. Sometimes there's just so many things I wanna do on a journey I can't decide what to do with it, so I put em in a randomizer and let the dice decide.
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
edited August 2020
"Random Encounters once per travel" meme is kind of a meme for a good reason: having multiple random encounters happen is exhausting, unless your campaign is specifically designed about this kind of thing.
I couldn't imagine doing random encounters every single hex as described earlier.
Oh yeah it's definitely a thing covered up front on an adventure of, "we're doing a ton of random encounters here cause this is all about a really long trek somewhere". Also the only time I've done it recently more than half the randomizer was, "you're in a desert there is no encounter". That or a darude reference.
I am 900% over actually random encounters, I just have the ones I want queued up and make them think its random
I’m doing a hex thing right now. It’s small (I think there is 15 hexes and they’ll cover 7-9) and rather than each hex being random I’ve given the party a ‘forecast’ whenever they complete a hex, which very roughly describes what they might find in their next choice.
They can fight if they want to fight, with combat hexes being quick but dangerous. Puzzle/traversal hexes take up time (they’re not in a huge rush, but time matters). Social encounters are mid-speed. And so on.
I think it’s a nice balance of preplanned encounters and the players going where they please.
I will be rolling for...
Reinforcements during combat in one encounter, if they go there, and what items they find in another, as having to plan around the random crap they pull is fun to me.
Here's one of our stunts, to get past some trolls running a toll bridge:
Gear stands like a little Mafioso, flanked either side by Hado and Baber.
Gear clucks her tounge. "Oh dear. That is not good, not good at all.”
Hado looks over to Baber, “At all.”
Baber nods their head grimly, arms folded.
Gear continues, “HOWEVER, since we're in a rush, if you'll just let us on our way we'll forget to mention this to the relevant authorties."
“Relevant authorities.”, Hado repeats, punching a fist into his other hand.
Baber nods again, not taking their eyes off the trolls.
Meanwhile Tizu casts prestidigitation to create an illusionary notepad, and writes very convincingly upon it.
(Gear has no charisma, thank fuck for help actions and guidance)
"Random Encounters once per travel" meme is kind of a meme for a good reason: having multiple random encounters happen is exhausting, unless your campaign is specifically designed about this kind of thing.
I couldn't imagine doing random encounters every single hex as described earlier.
An addendum to my previous statement: I do have "random" encounters, however, we just roll initiative so each person can tell me what they do, we don't actually do combat if they run into anything smaller than an adult dragon
Usually turning combats or explorations into little skill challenges or little optional lore dumps
We got a dungeon to get to! With a boss monster, that you CANT seduce I don't care if you roll a 30 after modifiers!
I talked to him a bit more.... so his thinking is that, here at the start, he's using the one encounter per Hex to: 1) Build paranoia/apprehension. We're new people in a strange land. Ravenloft is a creepy, awful place. 2) Not every one of these encounters is a combat encounter so they shouldn't take too long, and they are there build the world and set the table, so to speak. 3) We are counting XP as opposed to milestone leveling so the encounters are part of the grind we need to do to get to the levels we need to be at. Once we level up to a certain point he'll start hand waving away these "piddly little fights" that are not worth our time.
And I get it, I suppose. My concern is the SLOG is necessarily going to be. #2 is where 90% of my problems are. Again, I don't think we need to spend the IRL time to A-Team an encounter that ends up being finding a lantern in buried in the road. But DMs are gonna be cagey, and players are gonna be players.
We ended the session at the bridge over the river, having left the Vistani camp. I think there are 36 or 37 hexes left on the map before we get to Vallaki. And this is supposed to be an afternoon's trip. My hexblade is ok on short rests, but the others are already tapped and we're looking at 36 MORE potential resouce draining encounters before the in game day is done.
I'm hoping the realization dawns on my DM that his current approach is going to take forever and eases back on the one hex = one encounter methodology.
Yeah the Curse of Strahd hexes are very small, only 1/4 mile a hex. I'm running a hex crawl with 6-mile hexes and whilst I potentially check for an encounter every hex (So probably only four checks in a day), if the party has somewhere to be and aren't just exploring then I limit it to one encounter max per day. They've got dungeons to get to!
The actual guidance in Curse of Strahd is to check every 30 minutes the characters are outdoors - so at normal pace that's every 1.5 miles, which is once every 6 hexes in CoS. It also says that you shouldn't make a check if you've had two outdoor encounters in the last 12 hours. So yeah, he's really overdoing things.
And I hate second guessing/backseat driving my DM, because I am also a DM and this shit is sometimes hard work! But here I go. I learned my lessons on the random encounter tables in a 5e product on the first day of trying to use them in ToA. I inserted a lot of flavourful dinosaur sightings rather than dinosaur fights in the jungles of Chult, for example. In this case, if escorting Ireena from Barovia to Vallaki is supposed to take one day (because nobody travels at night in Ravenloft), with a nice lunch at the Vistani camp for a drink and some card readings, I'd have one combat encounter in the morning, and one in the afternoon. And many of the other fluff/world building type encounters would be dealt with in the narrative/travel montage rather than presenting them to the party every time as a potential combat encounter.
BUT! I am not the DM and this is his first time DMing 5e so I will not fight him too hard on the process. Instead I will bitch to my internet friends about it. :razz:
The group I play with still tell horror stories about their Hoard of the Dragon Queen game, from before I joined, where the DM strung out the section where you guard a caravan for five whole sessions. Just five straight sessions of random encounters. Nightmare fuel!
For my Underdark mini-campaign I'm preparing I'm planning to create the random encounters ahead of time and include a number whose goal is "escape from or negotiate with this thing you know could kill you pretty easily".
The party will also get a number of NPC hirelings at the start of the campaign who can be targeted by these powerful monsters instead of the PCs, although ideally the party would try to keep as many of their hirelings alive as possible while enroute to their destination, a deep gnome enclave just outside a ruined dwarven city that multiple factions (including the deep gnomes themselves) are trying to claim as their home.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
And I hate second guessing/backseat driving my DM, because I am also a DM and this shit is sometimes hard work! But here I go. I learned my lessons on the random encounter tables in a 5e product on the first day of trying to use them in ToA. I inserted a lot of flavourful dinosaur sightings rather than dinosaur fights in the jungles of Chult, for example. In this case, if escorting Ireena from Barovia to Vallaki is supposed to take one day (because nobody travels at night in Ravenloft), with a nice lunch at the Vistani camp for a drink and some card readings, I'd have one combat encounter in the morning, and one in the afternoon. And many of the other fluff/world building type encounters would be dealt with in the narrative/travel montage rather than presenting them to the party every time as a potential combat encounter.
BUT! I am not the DM and this is his first time DMing 5e so I will not fight him too hard on the process. Instead I will bitch to my internet friends about it. :razz:
Ooof. Strahd is not what I would want a first time to the system DM running. It needs some decent massaging to really shine.
Thinking about the hexes, my house to my mailbox is a half mile. It makes me laugh to think id have four encounters just to get my mail.
And I hate second guessing/backseat driving my DM, because I am also a DM and this shit is sometimes hard work! But here I go. I learned my lessons on the random encounter tables in a 5e product on the first day of trying to use them in ToA. I inserted a lot of flavourful dinosaur sightings rather than dinosaur fights in the jungles of Chult, for example. In this case, if escorting Ireena from Barovia to Vallaki is supposed to take one day (because nobody travels at night in Ravenloft), with a nice lunch at the Vistani camp for a drink and some card readings, I'd have one combat encounter in the morning, and one in the afternoon. And many of the other fluff/world building type encounters would be dealt with in the narrative/travel montage rather than presenting them to the party every time as a potential combat encounter.
BUT! I am not the DM and this is his first time DMing 5e so I will not fight him too hard on the process. Instead I will bitch to my internet friends about it. :razz:
Ooof. Strahd is not what I would want a first time to the system DM running. It needs some decent massaging to really shine.
Thinking about the hexes, my house to my mailbox is a half mile. It makes me laugh to think id have four encounters just to get my mail.
He's not a first time DM by any stretch. We're old AF. Just his first time in Fifth Edition.
And again, by "Encounter" I'm also including when a squirrel crosses your path on the sidewalk. Which is no big deal, but in D&D 5 players are gonna go into combat mode because you never know if its going to be a demon squirrel if we hear the rustling in the bushes.
whoa boy hearing a DM mention that he needs to introduce extra encounters just to level us up would make me walk out of a campaign
the DM can just arbitrarily award experience for combat encounters as they see fit, no extra encounters need to be added, and it encourages players to just go kill wolves. Players should be incentivized to *avoid* encounters in Barovia, there's a reason why so many of the potential fights in Curse of Strahd are nightmarish, and why if the DM is both a stickler for "letting the dice land where they may", and inexperienced, the campaign ends at old bonegrinder every time
edit: this came off as harsher than I intended, but it sounds like a poor choice on the DM's part
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
I divorced xp from individual monsters a loooooong time ago.
whoa boy hearing a DM mention that he needs to introduce extra encounters just to level us up would make me walk out of a campaign
the DM can just arbitrarily award experience for combat encounters as they see fit, no extra encounters need to be added, and it encourages players to just go kill wolves. Players should be incentivized to *avoid* encounters in Barovia, there's a reason why so many of the potential fights in Curse of Strahd are nightmarish, and why if the DM is both a stickler for "letting the dice land where they may", and inexperienced, the campaign ends at old bonegrinder every time
edit: this came off as harsher than I intended, but it sounds like a poor choice on the DM's part
I really do think the more he gets running 5e as opposed to playing 5e under his belt this attitude will change. I really hope it does, anyway. Its still early days but he may be stuck in 3e thinking? I dunno. I'll give my good friend and DM a chance to figure it out though before I complain any more about it.
I divorced xp from individual monsters a loooooong time ago.
Yes. I used to just throw levels at the party whenever I felt like it.... but I really do like the built in concept of milestone leveling in the more recent modules.
The group I play with still tell horror stories about their Hoard of the Dragon Queen game, from before I joined, where the DM strung out the section where you guard a caravan for five whole sessions. Just five straight sessions of random encounters. Nightmare fuel!
They were lucky. Our GM was determined to run the 2 month long trip in real time, with 8 weeks of plodding along.
And again, by "Encounter" I'm also including when a squirrel crosses your path on the sidewalk. Which is no big deal, but in D&D 5 players are gonna go into combat mode because you never know if its going to be a demon squirrel if we hear the rustling in the bushes.
Oh, you mean the skiurid?
Skiurids were natives of the Plane of Shadow who fed on stolen life force in the form of shadow nuggets. They lived in colonies of as many as thirty-four members.
Creatures such as dusk beasts and shadow mastiffs were frequent predators of skiurids, and spellcasters, especially necromancers, sought them out for the shadow nuggets they produced.
Man I come up with some bullshit but I don’t think I can even type shadow nuggets with a straight face.
Why would you want to, though? I mean, if I was typing "shadow nuggets" I'd be doing it gleefully! Even this post is more gleeful than it has any right to be!
We had out first Descent into Avernus session last night and I think it went really well! They definitely almost died in the first combat but pulled off some clever tricks to fix that.
My players, do not read this recap.
They were split in the Elfsong tavern, two downstairs and three upstairs. They tried to get Tarina to hide. They caught the bandits on the stairs but the captain does A LOT OF DAMAGE. The cleric tanked at the top to prevent them from coming up and the sorcerer used a firebolt on the stairs themselves, adding that nice 1d10 fire damage to each round. The barbarian crit twice in a row to take out two bandits, but they started taking hits and going down. I had Tarina come out and start crossbowing the captain and one of the acolyte NPCs up top used a cure wounds on one of the downed party members to get them back up.
They made it to the bathhouse and found the entrance, but they also found one of the imps on a 20 perception check. I played it as the ones with high passive perception heard a little fluttering of wings and they rolled to spot it. Then the cleric cast detect magic which revealed a bit of an illusion glow. They shot at it (with firebolt, which missed, but it's immune to fire so that would have been interesting) and it got away. Then the barbarian had Jabaz give him a massage and rolled over mid massage to demand information about the bathhouse. Discovered the secret door and that's where we stopped.
We're streaming it and overall I think it went super well. Lots of fun times, good RP. Getting our feet wet a little as some of the players haven't done much or any 5e before. Good production value with promo images for the characters, an intro video, etc. Gonna try to cut things together and make a nice "Last time on" thing for youtube and the beginning of each week and we had everyone try to record their own audio so we can cut it as a podcast as well. PRODUCTION VALUE!
In my perpetual quest to make DM'ing harder on myself I'm about to go through about a dozen sources from previous editions of D&D (primarily 4E) to select monsters to convert to 5E for my Underdark mini-campaign.
I'm already in the process of kitbashing minis for the rukarazyll from 3E's Monster Manual II and the Writhing Crag from 4E's The Plane Below: Secrets of the Elemental Chaos.
Posts
In 4E's Underdark, the god Torog is the ultimate being in charge and is physically present within it. The Underdark itself is a chaotic place, especially as you go deeper. There are portals to the Elemental Chaos and even the Far Realm. Torog, while an evil god of suffering, imprisonment, and slavery, also keeps the inhabitants of the Underdark in check and makes sure potential threats to his rule do not emerge from these portals.
In Exandrian lore Torog is stated to have once dwelled in the Underdark, as he was stated to have in 4E. However, at some point during the war between gods known as the Calamity the deities Moradin, Pelor, Raei, and Sehanine used a trap called the King's Cage to banish Torog to the Far Realm.
If previously Torog was barring extraplanar invaders (especially ones from the Far Realm) from establishing footholds in the Underdark and is now himself imprisoned in the Far Realm, what state does that leave the Exandrian Underdark in approximately 800 years later?
One section of the Tal'Dorei sourcebook states that Lolthite drow civilization is crumbling in the face of threats from aberrations, while the Wildemount sourcebook has the drow of the Kryn Dynasty relocated to the surface under the worship of the Luxon. Lolth clearly isn't fulfilling the role Torog once played.
So what's going on in the Exandrian Underdark? Is Torog capable of doing anything while in the Far Realm to keep his former domain from being invaded? Does he care, or is he actively encouraging an invasion as a form of revenge? Are the mindflayers rapidly constructing an empire in the depths in preparation of an invasion of the surface? Is any organization (religious or secular) doing anything to fill the void left by Torog's absence?
My initial idea is that the mindflayers themselves may be trying to keep Far Realm portals closed to prevent anything else from interfering with their plans. I may bring back the disruptive cult of Thoon (a mysterious Far Realm entity) from previous editions as a reason for the development of the mindflayer empire to be delayed. There might even be heretical mindflayer clerics of Torog.
This site has a bit of a rundown
Highlights being:
Reprinted subclasses from books:
Order Domain (Cleric subclass from Guildmasters’ Guide to Ravnica)
Circle of Spores (Druid subclass from Guildmasters’ Guide to Ravnica)
College of Eloquence (Bard subclass from Mythic Odysseys of Theros)
Oath of Glory (Paladin subclass from Mythic Odysseys of Theros)
Bladesinging (Wizard subclass from Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide)
and the UA subclasses include the Psionic ones, plus Armourer for Artifier.
Circle of Stars Druid and Fey Wanderer Ranger might also be in.
There's also a DIY subclass option, where you add some extra traits and adjustments to the base class rather than taking a subclass.
Since I am running Exandria Storm King's Thunder and there's a heavy dark elf presence out of Q'Xorlarrin (Gauntlgrym), I decided to just transpose the Drow house to the Core Anvil, having burrowed from beneath and set up shop there, the core anvil is the closest thing to Gauntlgrym in Exandria. Their house has been making in roads with the party (enemies sometimes, but house Xorlarrin are the most practical of all Drow houses), and mentioned vague horrors, aberrations, and calls from the far realm that make the Underdark a Scary Fucking Place that is on the verge of breaking the gosh danged Dark Elves as a people (maybe the Drow of Roshanna had the right idea)
I look forward to hearing what you end up doing in more detail since my party will likely go down there at some point
Thinking about it a bit, I'd think duergar might attempt to summon nergaliids to help deal with mind flayers. Though they aren't very strong devils, their unique ability to transform humanoids into husk zombies (a variety of zombie that causes those victims slain by one to become one within seconds) would wreak havoc on a mind flayer colony's humanoid captives/food source.
The task for good PCs is finding a way to stop mind flayer colonies without harming their captives.
Considering the sheer number of brains a mind flayer society would need to consume just to survive, I'm also considering throwing these things into the mix:
Deepspawn haven't been seen since 3.5, but they could provide a means for a mind flayer colony to feed itself without constantly acquiring captives. A deepspawn is capable of producing clones of any natural creature they've consumed (at the age the creature was when it was consumed) provided they are kept fed. Though deepspawn themselves are highly intelligent, powerful entities who use these mind-controlled clones as their own personal armies, I could see particularly advanced mind flayer cities capturing and enslaving these things to produce large numbers of adult humanoid clones to feed the populace (although given that these clones are born without memories I'd assume their brains wouldn't be particularly enjoyable to consume). I don't know if the deepspawn have ever been officially tied to the Far Realm, but it seems like a safe assumption.
With Torog gone maybe the mind flayers have found ways to summon deepspawn from the Far Realm just for the sake of establishing particularly nightmarish factory farms. Conveniently for gaming purposes, they also represent a target to take out to cripple a mind flayer city.
Going back to 4E lore for inspiration, there's another candidate who could pose a major threat: Gargash, the primordial who bound Torog to the Underdark in the first place.
4E's Underdark sourcebook states that Gargash is still alive, his body thoroughly mangled into a quivering mass known as the Restless Heaps. Torog's devoted constantly strike at the primordial's unrecognizable form to stall its regeneration. Despite this, Gargash continues to try and restore himself.
It could be that Torog's faithful, even 800 years after the Crawling King's banishment, are still hard at work making sure the Restless Heaps remain a helpless mass of gore. It could also be that someone or something else recognized the threat and has worked to prevent Gargash's recovery. Otherwise there's been plenty of time for the primordial to regenerate and establish himself as the lord of Exandria's Underdark, one not bound to it like Torog was and free to emerge upon the surface of the world.
I suggested that instead of handling each hex as its own encounter proper, cherry pick or create some of the combat or RP encounters that you WANT to run for the session and relegate the others to narrative flair as you describe our journey from Barovia to Vallaki or wherever. I learned my lesson about that on day 1 of humping through the jungles in Chult, of which he was a player in. Because every time you stop to set up an encounter even if its just a broken lantern in the middle of the road, we all jump into "combat stance" eating up a half an hour of play time rolling to hide in the trees or to perceive baddies who aren't there. His response was, "But I want you guys to be paranoid! This is Ravenloft!" which I kinda get...but I also want to make some forward progress in the game too! Maybe I'll try again one on one to balance the pace out with him and in front of the whole group.
Other than that, I got to fight some Scarecrows on the road, flirt with some Vistani and get my fortune told by Madame Eva. So all in all, it was a winner of a session last night!
When i ran CoS, the players would tell me where they are going next, I'd count up hexes, and got each 6 roll a d20, and 18 or higher during day and 15 or higher at night I'd roll the encounter table. And set the encounter somewhere neat in the 6 hex area it popped up on.
I'd prefer something else other than one hex = one encounter. Or rather, I'd prefer that flavour encounters that set the scene in Ravenloft were not presented to the party the same way as combat encounters are. I would much rather the flavour be kept within the narrative and that we move on with the adventure and actaully interact with more substantive encounters.
Right, what I'm saying is i had 6 hexes equal 15-25% chance to have an encounter.
One per hex is ridiculously many.
I’m doing a hex thing right now. It’s small (I think there is 15 hexes and they’ll cover 7-9) and rather than each hex being random I’ve given the party a ‘forecast’ whenever they complete a hex, which very roughly describes what they might find in their next choice.
They can fight if they want to fight, with combat hexes being quick but dangerous. Puzzle/traversal hexes take up time (they’re not in a huge rush, but time matters). Social encounters are mid-speed. And so on.
I think it’s a nice balance of preplanned encounters and the players going where they please.
I will be rolling for...
I couldn't imagine doing random encounters every single hex as described earlier.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Here's one of our stunts, to get past some trolls running a toll bridge:
Gear stands like a little Mafioso, flanked either side by Hado and Baber.
Gear clucks her tounge. "Oh dear. That is not good, not good at all.”
Hado looks over to Baber, “At all.”
Baber nods their head grimly, arms folded.
Gear continues, “HOWEVER, since we're in a rush, if you'll just let us on our way we'll forget to mention this to the relevant authorties."
“Relevant authorities.”, Hado repeats, punching a fist into his other hand.
Baber nods again, not taking their eyes off the trolls.
Meanwhile Tizu casts prestidigitation to create an illusionary notepad, and writes very convincingly upon it.
(Gear has no charisma, thank fuck for help actions and guidance)
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An addendum to my previous statement: I do have "random" encounters, however, we just roll initiative so each person can tell me what they do, we don't actually do combat if they run into anything smaller than an adult dragon
Usually turning combats or explorations into little skill challenges or little optional lore dumps
We got a dungeon to get to! With a boss monster, that you CANT seduce I don't care if you roll a 30 after modifiers!
And I get it, I suppose. My concern is the SLOG is necessarily going to be. #2 is where 90% of my problems are. Again, I don't think we need to spend the IRL time to A-Team an encounter that ends up being finding a lantern in buried in the road. But DMs are gonna be cagey, and players are gonna be players.
We ended the session at the bridge over the river, having left the Vistani camp. I think there are 36 or 37 hexes left on the map before we get to Vallaki. And this is supposed to be an afternoon's trip. My hexblade is ok on short rests, but the others are already tapped and we're looking at 36 MORE potential resouce draining encounters before the in game day is done.
I'm hoping the realization dawns on my DM that his current approach is going to take forever and eases back on the one hex = one encounter methodology.
That's like saying you're going to the grocery store, but you have to stop at every house on the way and talk to people or fight them.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
The actual guidance in Curse of Strahd is to check every 30 minutes the characters are outdoors - so at normal pace that's every 1.5 miles, which is once every 6 hexes in CoS. It also says that you shouldn't make a check if you've had two outdoor encounters in the last 12 hours. So yeah, he's really overdoing things.
And I hate second guessing/backseat driving my DM, because I am also a DM and this shit is sometimes hard work! But here I go. I learned my lessons on the random encounter tables in a 5e product on the first day of trying to use them in ToA. I inserted a lot of flavourful dinosaur sightings rather than dinosaur fights in the jungles of Chult, for example. In this case, if escorting Ireena from Barovia to Vallaki is supposed to take one day (because nobody travels at night in Ravenloft), with a nice lunch at the Vistani camp for a drink and some card readings, I'd have one combat encounter in the morning, and one in the afternoon. And many of the other fluff/world building type encounters would be dealt with in the narrative/travel montage rather than presenting them to the party every time as a potential combat encounter.
BUT! I am not the DM and this is his first time DMing 5e so I will not fight him too hard on the process. Instead I will bitch to my internet friends about it. :razz:
The party will also get a number of NPC hirelings at the start of the campaign who can be targeted by these powerful monsters instead of the PCs, although ideally the party would try to keep as many of their hirelings alive as possible while enroute to their destination, a deep gnome enclave just outside a ruined dwarven city that multiple factions (including the deep gnomes themselves) are trying to claim as their home.
Ooof. Strahd is not what I would want a first time to the system DM running. It needs some decent massaging to really shine.
Thinking about the hexes, my house to my mailbox is a half mile. It makes me laugh to think id have four encounters just to get my mail.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
He's not a first time DM by any stretch. We're old AF.
And again, by "Encounter" I'm also including when a squirrel crosses your path on the sidewalk. Which is no big deal, but in D&D 5 players are gonna go into combat mode because you never know if its going to be a demon squirrel if we hear the rustling in the bushes.
the DM can just arbitrarily award experience for combat encounters as they see fit, no extra encounters need to be added, and it encourages players to just go kill wolves. Players should be incentivized to *avoid* encounters in Barovia, there's a reason why so many of the potential fights in Curse of Strahd are nightmarish, and why if the DM is both a stickler for "letting the dice land where they may", and inexperienced, the campaign ends at old bonegrinder every time
edit: this came off as harsher than I intended, but it sounds like a poor choice on the DM's part
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
I stopped midway through my first campaign when I overheard them saying "but we're close to leveling we can't avoid the bandits"
I really do think the more he gets running 5e as opposed to playing 5e under his belt this attitude will change. I really hope it does, anyway. Its still early days but he may be stuck in 3e thinking? I dunno. I'll give my good friend and DM a chance to figure it out though before I complain any more about it.
Yes. I used to just throw levels at the party whenever I felt like it.... but I really do like the built in concept of milestone leveling in the more recent modules.
They were lucky. Our GM was determined to run the 2 month long trip in real time, with 8 weeks of plodding along.
Oh, you mean the skiurid?
Source
Why would you want to, though? I mean, if I was typing "shadow nuggets" I'd be doing it gleefully! Even this post is more gleeful than it has any right to be!
https://voca.ro/nmP0o6Boysb
My players, do not read this recap.
They made it to the bathhouse and found the entrance, but they also found one of the imps on a 20 perception check. I played it as the ones with high passive perception heard a little fluttering of wings and they rolled to spot it. Then the cleric cast detect magic which revealed a bit of an illusion glow. They shot at it (with firebolt, which missed, but it's immune to fire so that would have been interesting) and it got away. Then the barbarian had Jabaz give him a massage and rolled over mid massage to demand information about the bathhouse. Discovered the secret door and that's where we stopped.
We're streaming it and overall I think it went super well. Lots of fun times, good RP. Getting our feet wet a little as some of the players haven't done much or any 5e before. Good production value with promo images for the characters, an intro video, etc. Gonna try to cut things together and make a nice "Last time on" thing for youtube and the beginning of each week and we had everyone try to record their own audio so we can cut it as a podcast as well. PRODUCTION VALUE!
I'm already in the process of kitbashing minis for the rukarazyll from 3E's Monster Manual II and the Writhing Crag from 4E's The Plane Below: Secrets of the Elemental Chaos.