D&D 5E Tightening up/editing Princes of the Apocalypse

For those of you that have run PotA as a DM or player:

What parts of the adventure do you think you could have done without or would help make it a more focused adventure?
While it is often labeled a sand-box and most DMs (including me when I ran it) want to leave it as such, after playing Curse of Strahd, it isn't terribly different with the single conceit that you can't leave Barovia in CoS. In PotA you similarly don't have good reason to leave the area depicted in the base map for the adventure. To that end, what would you tune to change it into a more intense adventure?

Here are some of my thoughts:
- The Cult activity/presence is more detectable. It need not be in-your-face blatant, but the effects of the nodes which normally happen late in the game could happen much earlier to exemplify just how strong the forces affecting the valley are.
- The people are more aware that something is not just strange with the weather, but that strangers have been pouring into the valley and then just vanishing into the hills.
- Haayon the Punisher is already set up but is an unknown entity.
- The Nettlebee's Fire Witch story has already reached many corners of the valley.
- The Ice Shield orcs are already raiding in the east.
- Elemental magic is more powerful but also hard to control when close to any node's surface entrance (Fireball is more powerful and doesn't land where you intended it to, goes off earlier for example).
- The cults are resistant or immune to their element (which is already partially in the adventure) and vulnerable to the opposing element (double damage, disadvantage on saves, etc). It makes identifying those involved in cult activity and powered by one of the nodes much more obvious and makes for interesting RP opportunities.
- The Cult ambushers are already running operations.
- The PCs arrival in the valley is a big deal and they are considered a threat from the start. The harrasment, attempted kidnapping and murder of them begins immediately.
- Cult spies abound and they are not merely passive. Many seek to make a name for themselves and move up in their Demi-god's standing by hindering/killing the PCs. This leads to some solo "suicide" attacks and larger assaults by groups.
- The people are close to panic and each town they arrive in is on edge and suspicious of them. They have to earn the trust of each place they visit by removing cult influences and doing so gives them leads to each cult. Naturally they will likely visit the towns with the cult hooks in the order of their CR/power as well. 1 West Bridge = air cult activities, 2 Red Larch = earth cult activities, 3 Womford = water cult activities, 4 Beliard = fire cult activities
...

What do you think?

For those who ran LMoP, one good idea is to use Gundren (or other NPCs met during that adventure) to bring the PCs to Red Larch. One of the weakest elements of PotA is the very beginning: the missing delegation. None of my players cared, as they didn't know any of the delegates. Make Gundren one of the delegates, though, and you have a much better hook.

LapBandit said:

The people are more aware that something is not just strange with the weather, but that strangers have been pouring into the valley and then just vanishing into the hills.

Cult spies abound and they are not merely passive. Many seek to make a name for themselves and move up in their Demi-god's standing by hindering/killing the PCs. This leads to some solo "suicide" attacks and larger assaults by groups.

The people are close to panic and each town they arrive in is on edge and suspicious of them. They have to earn the trust of each place they visit by removing cult influences and doing so gives them leads to each cult. Naturally they will likely visit the towns with the cult hooks in the order of their CR/power as well. 1 West Bridge = air cult activities, 2 Red Larch = earth cult activities, 3 Womford = water cult activities, 4 Beliard = fire cult activities

Click to expand...

I belatedly used a number of these ideas. For example, in my campaign, the earth cult took control of Red Larch (the PCs really messed up and left the place without rooting out the cultists). The PCs kicked them out, but later one of the stonemelders fled the cult and established himself as Red Larch's protector. The PCs defeated the Princes, but he still runs Red Larch.

I like your idea of giving each cult a location they've successfully infiltrated, though the map scale may work against this. One possibility is to have the temples still be in the old dwarf city, but the above-ground locations are widely scattered, each one with a teleportation circle leading to one part of the city. Then simply place each above-ground location near the town that a cult has infiltrated.

I also had infighting within each cult, giving the PCs opportunities to gain info and possibly allies. (The stonemelder who ended up in Red Larch was one such individual.)

double post

We will soon be finished with Princes of the Apocalypse after 70+ sessions. It has been a GREAT campaign, but not particularly an easy one to run. i've had to modify little things along the way. I will just make a quick checklist here of things that come to mind:

1. From the outset, give the heroes some personal reasons to investigate the missing delegation. I had the heroes start from Phandelver with a mission from Gundren, but they did not have a lot of personal attachment to the delegation, aside from what their respective Factions, the Encalve and Gauntlet, had to tell them. So they were motivated by faction needs, not personal character needs.

This should be its own bullet point, but oh well, here another - the Red Larch section has TOO MANY NPCS. Pick some, flesh them out, change the names (their names suck) and focus on the backstories that interest the DM. I fleshed out the Delvers some, but after a while it all faded to the background of the main plot.

2. I introduced the necromancer cave and the Tomb of Moving Stones as the first dungeons. The necromancer was a follower of the One Eye, and throughout the whole adventure I clued in that the Elemental Eye had a 5th and secret cult above the four Elemental cults. The necromancer had actually kidnapped two girls from Red Larch and one of them is already zombified when the PCs find her.

3. Be sure to hammer the players at low level with RANDOM ENCOUNTERS in the Sumber Hills. This is and should be a dangerous place. When they get to higher level they can easily skip the hills in typical D&D teleport fashion, so utilize the environment while you can. In addition to combat encounters, you might want to add some weather encounters, WEIRD weather encounters.



4. Halfway in the campaign I had Haayon the Punisher take over all of Red Larch with his orc minions, hoping for the PCs to return so he could take their elemental weapons. He has two major NPCS and friends of the PCs held hostage. I made him into a Death Giant, and he probably should have had some Legendary powers, but I didn't want to make him overly baddass (which he still was, he was Huge size and dealt devastating damage with a man sized double axe)

5. I changed all of the encounters on the Stone Bridge to a red dragon cultist who is waiting to ambush anyone on the bridge, but specifically the PCs. Regardless, they nearly killed the dragon and forced it to flee. It reappeared two more times before it was finally slain in the Fane of the Eye.

6. The Helm of Belsimer and the Tomb of Torild. I changed this A LOT. A WHOLE lot. Per the book, there's only a single check to find a secret door that has been supposedly hidden for a thousand years. Hell, a child could walk in there, roll a 20 and find King Tut's Tomb. No. I made the Tomb into a three level, golem guarded trap, like something out of Indiana Jones, and they had riddles to solve too. In fact, I think I had to give some hints. I kept the whole dwarf and doppleganger subplot intact.

https://app.box.com/s/u9o7hcwphzh1c3yosusm5tkq1nzmfbw9

7. The Vale of Dancing Waters was filled with dwarves who were originally in the same Gauntlet faction as a paladin PC. After he died, the dwarves were still loyal to the PCs who had helped them fight off the Water Cult who had broken into their sacred Temple and slain ALL the innocent dwarf priests.

8. The 5th and final Cult of the Eye is The Triad, an undead trio of 15th level liches who cast simultaneously and have Lair attacks. Custom made sonsofbitches, they were the hardest thing the PCs fought in the whole campaign, although they managed to skip fighting ANY OF THE PRINCES! I have to admit I find that a little disappointing. But hey, they pulled it off.

9. The Mirabar Delegation - I made this way more important by adding 4 seers who were druidic delegates from the Good Elemental Princes, who were sending out feelers into the world, and who could possibly close a node together. They are found out and betrayed and quickly shut down by the elemental cults.

10. Closing a Node with a weapon requires the OPPOSITE element, not the weapon associated with that element. This creates some more backtracking for the PCs.

11. One of the biggest changes was mechanical - we don't use the default Initiative system of d20, we use a random card based initiative system that for me is actually FUN, unlike the static default system.

12. Devastation Orbs - I created a new orb, a Super Devastation Orb, a combination of all 4 elements, and it can only be done by the Triad in the Fane of the Eye. One of these nuclear bombs destroys Beliard completely, wipes it off the map in probably the most frightening part of the entire campaign for the party, they were running from an elemental god destroying the entire town behind with a flood, striking lightning, hail and fire and a tornado.



13. Another BIG side quest, the second Devastation Orb is auctioned off in Yartar to the Sons of the Kraken, only to be stolen back from the Zhentarim. Due to the nature of the orb, it cannot be moved magically to another location, it must be physically transported. In Yartar, the PCs get embroiled in a Faction War between the Kraken Society, the Zhents, the Hand of Yartar Thief Guild, The Red Wizards of Thay, and on the good guy side, The Harpers, the Enclave and the Gauntlet, although the good factions are sorely outnumbered.

14. I can't even tell you how many battles were tweaked from what the book describes. All of them maybe? It just depends. As the PCs gained levels I had to make the bad guys tougher too. This REALLY became evident in the Water Temple when they are fighting a coven of hags, leveled ogre bodyguards, a naga and a 3rd edition water demon and other assorted nastiness.

14. F--- the Water Node. Maybe I made it TOO hard, but it was a real slog. The enemy would hit and retreat, hit and retreat, and the the Druid turns into a water elemental and slips through the entire level, striking from puddles, it was a convoluted confusing and drawn out mess that we were all glad to see end.

There were more tweaks and changes, but those were some that came to mind. It was definitely "MY" version of Princes of the Apocalypse, and I love this adventure, I do love it, I love how the maps are connected, and the motivations of the cults and whatnot. Oh, that reminds me of something else...

15 - The Prophets and Their Backstories. The book goes into a lot of depth in different sections about the backstories of the prophets. YOU, as the DM, unless you come up with a way for the Players to know this stuff, it's a waste of space. They will never know and they will just hack the enemy to pieces like a mindless ochre jelly. So, try to find ways to hint at their backgrounds. In maybe the best part of the Water Node, the Aboleth gave a PC psychic flashes of Gar Shatterkeel's story, and it nearly drove the PC insane.

Anyway, I love this campaign, but it was WORK every step of the way, and it required lots of both small and large modifications.

I mashed this and SKT into a mega adventure to get the PC to level 20. Basically:1. Clear the above ground temples and end up in Triboar
2. Triboar giant attack to get SKT going.
3. PC find out through traveling to complete tasks given in Triboar that giant attacks are increasing all over, but not why
4. PC start to find out that Ordening was broken because Giants were under influence of Elemental Evils, something the Giant All Father found unacceptable.
5. PC meet Harshang
6. Temple of All Father, the relics are mentioned - also mentioned with right questions is that Giants are being influenced.
7. As the players go for relics, they are being stolen by the various cults
8. Temple of the All -Father gives them more advice, that the conch has been broken, a piece is with each cult, which is using the conch pieces to control the various giants. Iymrith attacks.
9. PC track down the underground bases and see what elemental cults are up to and get more clues.
10. Each cult leads to a giant base and a piece of the conch.
11. PC put conch back together and then use Conch and to get to Storm Giant base.
12. Storm giant base reveals - PC figure out that Elemental Evils nodes helped kidnap King.
13. PC go to nodes to cause trouble and figure out where King is.
14 Find King and then realize they are pawns for Iymrith to clear out Elemental Evil competition and weaken the Giants over all.
15. Find Iymrith and fight. Use Dust devils liberally for fun.

Scaling up is ok in this edition, the key is to wear PC down and don't let them rest if they are having it too easy. For well rested PC adding a giant or elemental creature always works and is appropriate. The idea that these $40 books only take you to 11-12 level doesn't sit well, I much preferred the AP model and consider Age of Worms and Savage Tide some of the best work done since the old Slavers/Against the Giant mega adventures.

I use XP to level up, its slower in some ways but faster in other but PC feel their direct actions are actually affecting their PCs. My PCs are my kids in general, but I also allow PCs to level up "mid-encounter" as it were if they have been talking about taking a feat or something when they get to the right level. For example, if a PC has said when I get to 8th level I am going to take the feat Shield master, if I know the PC are close xp wise and will get there with this encounter I will introduce the feat as an inspiration in mid combat.

The PC will become very wealthy when they top it, so watch out for that.

smbakeresq said:

I mashed this and SKT into a mega adventure to get the PC to level 20. Basically:1. Clear the above ground temples and end up in Triboar
2. Triboar giant attack to get SKT going.
3. PC find out through traveling to complete tasks given in Triboar that giant attacks are increasing all over, but not why
4. PC start to find out that Ordening was broken because Giants were under influence of Elemental Evils, something the Giant All Father found unacceptable.
5. PC meet Harshang
6. Temple of All Father, the relics are mentioned - also mentioned with right questions is that Giants are being influenced.
7. As the players go for relics, they are being stolen by the various cults
8. Temple of the All -Father gives them more advice, that the conch has been broken, a piece is with each cult, which is using the conch pieces to control the various giants. Iymrith attacks.
9. PC track down the underground bases and see what elemental cults are up to and get more clues.
10. Each cult leads to a giant base and a piece of the conch.
11. PC put conch back together and then use Conch and to get to Storm Giant base.
12. Storm giant base reveals - PC figure out that Elemental Evils nodes helped kidnap King.
13. PC go to nodes to cause trouble and figure out where King is.
14 Find King and then realize they are pawns for Iymrith to clear out Elemental Evil competition and weaken the Giants over all.
15. Find Iymrith and fight. Use Dust devils liberally for fun.

Click to expand...

This sounds like a great idea. My plan is similar in that I plan to run through PotA and then into SKT adjusting the giants to be a challenging encounter for the levels 15 - 20. However, I like how you mashed the two adventures together.

One thing that occurred to me was that the manuscripts being transported to Waterdeep could have some major significance. I dropped the hint to my players that the manuscript is a coded message written by the dwarf historian and that is would be bad for all of Faerun if that manuscript fell into evil hands. Unfortunately, I'm running the game in AL, but I could see using manuscript as foreshadowing or a lead to SKT or even Tomb of Annihilation.

I don't have any recommendations for tightening up the story. My players thus far tend to ally themselves with one cult for a temporary gain. It's typical of my players to pay off the mercenaries found in the hidden shrines to do some of the fighting for them.

The manuscripts are the key to finding out about Iymrith and the red dragon and the whole giant dragon arc. Its a 12 books of recorded history, historians always write about their great enemies. The books are tough, they are in a chamber only accessible by a water tunnel so they must be water proof. Seems to me dwarf books would have pages of thin metal and be heat resistance also. Dwarves have a lot of time to make great books.

Giants with levels are always a surprise. A fire giant with 4 levels of fighter would gain great weapon fighting (great with 6d6 rolls) and the great weapon mastery feat so all the multi-attacks could be -5/+10 to damage, plus action surge, improved criticals from Champion style, etc as a 4th level fighter. Or you can replace an attack with multi-attack with a shove at +11 to prone a PC and then attack him with advantage using GWM and rerolling all 1 and 2's i.e. +6 for 6d6+17. Such a creature would have a +1 sword also as an elite. A frost giant who uses a uses a battle axe with a shield and the shield master feat can just knock pcs around with +9 bonus action shield shove, I would probably give them a bonus just for size. Storm giants using bows and sharpshooter are 2 arrows at 3d8+19 out to 600.

PLayers hate when you use their feats against them.

I think your alterations make the adventure a heck of a lot more believable!

I kinda considered changing it to make it a lot higher level and moving each of the cult headquarters to different parts of the world, in a place that would be appropriate to that element (rather than the pretty random locations they chose for them). The fire temple was located in the Chain of Fire volcanos in Chult etc. The water temple was at the bottom of the ocean. The air temple was gonna be at the top of the highest mountain in Shou Lung. The earth temple was gonna be somewhere in the underdark.

I was also gonna make their plan a lot more clandestine and all encompassing - like they've been quietly and patiently working towards the destruction of abeir toril for millennia (which is why the other organisations have never heard of them).

smbakeresq said:

PLayers hate when you use their feats against them.

Click to expand...

I'm all for amping up monster damage but "two can play at that game" is a weirdly elaborate reason to do it. Especially considering you can just call the ranged creature a "Storm Sniper" to justify it and add +10/20/30 to its damage.