D&D 5E DMing "Out of the Abyss"

I ran OOTA and can give you the following advice:

1) The adventure relies way too heavily on random encounters. The travelling time spent in the adventure is really beyond belief. Even if you've read the adventure, you probably still have no idea just how long the travel times are. My groups times were unbearable, and they had an elk barbarian from SCAG that doubles the party's travel speed!

And the wandering monster tables for all of this travel are completely inadequate. A d20 table for upwards of 100-200 wandering encounters?

So, my advice is to preroll wandering encounters and then gin some of them up into interesting episodes. I also recommend looking up some of the fine side treks published in the DMs Guild specifically for OOTA.

But, the fact is if you turn every wandering encounter into an interesting side adventure, you will derail your main plotline before too long. Furthermore, the wandering monster guidelines make it very easy for the PCs to come to realize how often you are checking for encounters and to nova and use long rest abilities freely, knowing they won't have another encounter that day....so mix it up and, I recommend, make the encounter chance much less frequent than shown on the charts.

It is too bad it took them until ToA to make proper wandering monster charts.

2) This is a big problem with the adventure. Not just in the second half with the walking horde of NPCs. In the first half, you have all of these NPCs with the party and it causes some issues:

a) Too many characters to be run. Makes it difficult to play and bogs down combat.

b) If you divide XP amongst all of the NPCs, the PCs advance too slowly. If you don't, the PCs get too much XP for encounters that are made too easy by all of the NPCs.

c) The wererat NPCs are ridiculous. Almost nothing in the adventure can harm them and, especially for the first 5 levels or so, they are pretty much invincible. Put them in front and everyone else can sit back and eat popcorn.

Yeah, the NPCs are fun to roleplay with, but they are not very suitable for combat.

The second half army just exacerbates this problem. Are you really going to run wandering encounters with a group of 20-30 characters? You might as well not even bother with the ones on the charts...they will all be killed pretty quickly. And do you divide XP by 20 or 30?

You really cannot ditch the NPCs in the first half. They are too important to the storylines. But you should work on getting rid of most of them after they serve their purposes. Not sure what to do about the wererats.

I would also just ditch the army in the second half. Why are they even there? The PCs don't need them if they are of the proper level. The shield guardian and maybe one group of NPCs should be enough. I'd have the shield guardian eat up a share of XP and the whole group of NPCs eat up one more share (since they will be underpowered compared to the PCs).

1) Don't play out month long travel. Like at all. Instead, prepare a few interesting pre-made encounters and then say "...and then, you've walked for three months and you have arrived."
2) Make sure you don't bring more NPCs than you're comfortable with. That goes for Chapter 1 and 8 both. No NPC is so important it justifies you drowning in them.
2c) The wererats can be role-played as airheads that are totally unreliable. Don't let the players control their actions, and the issue goes away

In short your issues boil down to the fact that OotA requires an experienced DM with enough time to prep. It really is not recommended otherwise. Yes, this is a problem and yes, it's far too easy to just see the good reviews and think I can run this on the fly.



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Prepping Blingdenstone for tonight and what on earth is the deal with the cool "Royal Sphere" (area 28) that is actually just an empty nothing? Their words: "There is nothing of interest or value within."! Why would WotC put something like that in there without using it?

Obviously I'm going to put the Pudding King's throne room in there. It'll be all blinged up with mother-of-pearl style irridescent in-lays. (In my remix the Pudding King is actually Juiblex in disguise. He'll appear once the Pudding King is destroyed.)

My memory of this encounter is hazy, but as I recall, it's meant to be a work-in-progress. It's going to be really grandiose and impressive when it's done, but they haven't got round to furnishing it yet.

MarkB said:

My memory of this encounter is hazy, but as I recall, it's meant to be a work-in-progress. It's going to be really grandiose and impressive when it's done, but they haven't got round to furnishing it yet.

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Is that WotC or the Pudding King?

I did the same thing for the big fight with the Pudding King.

The party I DM for are just about to exit the Underdark. Neverlight Grove was the final bit of the first half and only Jimjar, Ront, Stool, Rumpadump, Sarith and Fargas (who in this game is a Spelljammer from Krynn) left alive.

One thing I found really useful was to have a net work of teleport portals that can be bodged into a semi reliable transport network to cut down on travel time.

And for the companions there is a DM Guild “Companions” product that basically makes the NPCs into magic items that move around with the ‘owning player’. For example, having Ront attached to you may give the PC advantage on strength checks and once per encounter he will parry an attack that would have dropped you. That keeps them useful without adding book keeping.

They spent most of their time in Gracklstaugh. They mined most of the sub plots, even getting their hands on the dragon’s treasure after polymorphing him into a human so he could use a portal to get to the surface. Neverlight Grove was basically a show down with Zuggtmoi who was trying to meld with Auramycus(?) who had melded with the teleport portals and was trying to get to the surface.

They used the Sun sword on the portal Zuggtmoi was interfacing with Auramycos with and banished her (having to leave the sword in place like a plug). That was the grand finale as they had already finished off the drow.

We’re going to take a break from the Underdark for a bit because we’ve been in the Underdark since September (playing more or less once a week). It’s forests for the next few sessions I reckon.

I never bothered with the chase rules: I just had the drow show up every now and again in the distance where they could see each other but couldn’t really fight (a bit like Colonel Decker always turning up at the end of episodes of the A Team).

I agree with the pre roll the random encounters and just pick a few interesting ones. I gave up calculating xp after the first few levels and just levelled the group when they completed a chapter. If you try to calculate xp as you go you will need either more random encounters or to make up some of your own extra encounters and side quests or the players will fall below the level the adventure expects. Be aware how much Dawnbringer increases the power of the group. The material ranges from really good to bizarre. The start is good, Gracklstaugh is good. My group have now left the underdark and I am not sure what level to send them back there at as the adventure seems even more patchy with less xp available than the first half. I am not sure what level they actually need to be to accomplish the second half as a lot seems to involve avoiding actual head on fights some of which level doesn't really seem to matter in.

This current group I am running through OOtA is level 4 - 5 and currently in the middle of the Darklake several days out of escaping an encounter with Demogorgon who ravaged Sloobludop. All of the NPCs they started with at Velkynvelve are either confirmed dead or missing and presumed dead.

Two of the party are Menzoberranzan drow which don't quite adhere to Lolthite values but aren't exactly good in their intentions either. Another party member is a Warlock (Blade) who pledged his service to a blade touched by Eilistraee in return for aid in an arena battle that was certain death. Winning the battle was his only option not only for him to live but also for his freedom. The other two are both followers of Eilistraee attached to a hidden forest enclave of other followers of Eilistraee.

The PCs have gone back and forth on their destinations throughout and are split on whether to even leave the Underdark. They did all agree on Sloobludop but now are split on whether to go to Gracklestugh, Blingdenstone, Menzoberranzan, or the Eilistraeen forest enclave on the surface. They do have a Sloobludop refugee as their Darklake guide as the only NPC at this time.

The Warlock is also a Harper and a Harper mission is indirectly the cause of him being in the Underdark. He has a pendant on a chain given to him by a cloaked lady who appeared to be drow. The lady is an unknown follower of Eilistraee in Elventree (there is a shrine to Eilistraee near there). The Warlock has been tasked with delivering the chained pendant to someone in Silverymoon. What he doesn't know (and I hope he doesn't read ENworld) is that the pendant he is carrying is really Moon Maiden's Song, the magical harp crafted by The Dark Maiden herself and thought lost after the Spellplague. This character has been quiet lately on this but I am fairly certain he wants to complete this mission.

So there are a handful of options and potential storylines to follow in our campaign for OotA. Some are as written and a few are of my own design based on input I received from the PCs before and during the campaign. Where it will go or how it will end up, I honestly don't know yet.

Apropos of nothing I think it’s great the way we can play the same adventure with a completely different story to each other.

Good stuff.

Agreed. For all the communal aspects of the game, we all bring these modules to life in different ways. Heck, even if the same people ran through the same module again, those two playthroughs would still be different.

Larnievc said:

Apropos of nothing I think it’s great the way we can play the same adventure with a completely different story to each other.

Good stuff.

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