D&D 5E Companion Thread to 5E Survivor - Adventures

[RealAlHazred]

Yeah, I'll admit you're pointing out the ones that I changed the most -- my version of "Danger at Dunwater" incorporated the lizardfolk games from the back of the book, a brief fight against the giant crocodile, and more developed factions, which meant the players had to do some actual diplomacy. Two real-life years later, they still like to refer to themselves as Saltmarsh's premier diplomats (Saltmarsh's only diplomats, more like).

My players loved, loved, loved the lizardfolk encounters at Dunwater. I gave the various lizardfolk vibrant personalities that I telegraphed with their body decorations. I also really polished the encounter with Thousand-Teeth.

When they scouts escorted them to Thousand-Teeth's favored pond, the PCs rapidly located an oversized crocodile in there. Using good tactics, they spread out, spellcasting PCs remaining near the shore by a lone willow tree, while the front-line guys climbed up an island in the pond to get at the croc. They managed to kill it without real issue.

Then the island heaved up, and Thousand-Teeth shook the intruders off of its back, scattering them around the pond.

The most memorable part for the PCs was when Thousand-Teeth had cornered the spellcasters who had climbed up the willow tree, heaving itself up the bottom of the trunk, bending the whole tree down in an effort to get them. I severely jazzed up Thousand-Teeth -- it was Huge (maybe Gargantuan, I don't recall), and I gave it Magic Resistance, an Int of 8, and some good ambush-predator tactics I picked up watching a few crocodile nature videos. When the whole tree shook, and spellcasters were desperately abandoning their spellcasting to hold on with both hands, there was genuine panic in a few players' faces, and I knew they'd remember the fight.

In the end, a couple of the lizardfolk who they had first met on the smugglers' ship came up and provided much-needed fire support (one of the two was killed, IIRC), and that cemented the PCs' efforts to try to find a diplomatic solution for the Port Royal/Dunwater situation, since they now cared about NPCs from both sides...

 

[Scribe]

 

[CleverNickName]

Welp, Strahd is out. And of the 24 downvotes that chipped away at it, nearly half of them were coupled with upvotes for Tiamat.
Tsk tsk, you naughty dragon.

 

[Scribe]

I have nothing against Strahd, for the record.

 

[CleverNickName]

I have nothing against Strahd, for the record.

I did. Folks who were downvoting my favorite (Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep) were also upvoting Strahd. I really can't win in this contest. ~sigh If Dragonlance falls, I'll be out of luck because those are the only adventures on the list that I've read.

 

[JoeyD473]

Netherdeepwas OK, Strahd was better. Dragonlance is ok, but it probably won't win

 

[Scribe]

Netherdeepwas OK, Strahd was better. Dragonlance is ok, but it probably won't win

Cant imagine DL lasts through the weekend...

 

[Retreater]

I don't understand. I suppose our preferences of adventures are highly subjective.
I'd describe Curse of Strahd as ...

• Highly thematic
• Great villain
• Focused in scope
• Great, large dungeon

I'm shocked that the best reviewed and one of the best selling adventures fell before ones that traditionally are poorly rated (Dragon Heist?)
It just goes to show how diverse groups of gamers can be.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I am really surprised at the demise of Strahd

And at the apparent huge love for Saltmarsh - that's a group of mediocre adventures at best... OR - maybe I need to run them to see why people love them... I did use Salvage Operation as a slip-in adventure in a former ongoing homebrew campaign when I needed a bit of a break - and it was ok but not amazing

 

[RealAlHazred]

I don't understand. I suppose our preferences of adventures are highly subjective.
I'd describe Curse of Strahd as ...

• Highly thematic
• Great villain
• Focused in scope
• Great, large dungeon

I'm shocked that the best reviewed and one of the best selling adventures fell before ones that traditionally are poorly rated (Dragon Heist?)
It just goes to show how diverse groups of gamers can be.

It's not in the bottom half of the published modules, that's for sure. It's loads better than Hoard of the Dragon Queen, for example, which is somehow still on there. But it's a little bit of a railroad. My preference is modules where the PCs have more say in how the module goes. Tomb of Annihilation, for instance, there's a huge variance in how to get to the end. Curse of Stahd involves a lot of direct manipulation of the PCs by the villain, funneling the PCs. I've seen it done very well, but I understand people preferring a different style of adventure. Hoard, for instance, is absolutely terrible in this facet of adventure design. That's why I really, really like Murder in Baldur's Gate, which similarly involves villains manipulating the heroes, but in a less-overpowered way.