evilbob
Explorer
Definitely.
D&D breaks pretty hard when you get past 5 characters. Sounds like the DM ramped up the difficulty pretty well, though!
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D&D 5E Curse of Strahd: Death House
- Thread starter Grand DM
- Start date
D&D breaks pretty hard when you get past 5 characters. Sounds like the DM ramped up the difficulty pretty well, though!Definitely.
He did. It was difficult, but manageable.
It was the shadows that kicked our collective butts, though. I think we got lucky on that fight...
Grand DM
First Post
For those who enjoyed the Death House I created a follow-up adventure, Macabre Escape: http://www.ultanya.com/2016/05/curse-of-strahd-macabre-escape.html
My group finished Death House last week. They took a couple hits from the shadows and a few more from the ghasts, so stopped and took a long rest before going down the stairs to the bottom level. They never went near the mimic door, correctly fearing it was a trap as it was the only door in the basement.
With all of their resources recharged, the max hp gibbering mouther I used as a replacement for the shambling mound was no problem for them. It wasn't able to land a single bite in the 3 1/2 rounds it survived, and the few people that failed saves and swung at each other didn't connect either.
Overall, my players really liked the adventure. Recapping the changes I made:
Now that it's over, the party is looking around for any descendents of relatives of the kids. Ismark is promising to help by looking in village records stored in the Burgomaster's mansion in exchange for the party's help getting Ireena to someplace "safe". Madam Eva has hinted that the children have a role to play in Barovia's fate. And the Fortunes of Ravenloft determined Ismark will be the party's ally against Strahd, which was perfect since I planned on using the Ismark's marriage hook from The Beast of Graenseskov (DM's Guild adventure) to get them involved in that before they get embroiled in the many sub-plots around Vallaki, the Winery, and the Bone Grinder. Of course, that's all subject to change if they don't take the offered bait.
Both the Sunsword and the Holy Symbol are in the castle, 2 rooms apart(!), and they could have the Tome of Strahd as soon as tomorrow evening's session if they play their cards right (it's in Van Richten's wagon in Vallaki). I've used both Eva and Ismark to hint that a frontal assault on Strahd at this point would be suicide, but with those draws, there's not much incentive to traipse around the countryside.
Luckily, with Ismark as their ally, I can use his pending nuptials and need for an heir to delay his availability until the stars are aligned.
With all of their resources recharged, the max hp gibbering mouther I used as a replacement for the shambling mound was no problem for them. It wasn't able to land a single bite in the 3 1/2 rounds it survived, and the few people that failed saves and swung at each other didn't connect either.
Overall, my players really liked the adventure. Recapping the changes I made:
- Kids weren't starved to death, but alive in a stasis-like sleep, waking when two small dolls on the miniature beds in the dollhouse were touched.
- Replaced Thorn with a twin sister for Rose (also Thorn). This Thorn doesn't talk and is semi-catatonic, but I'm strongly hinting to the party that the two twins can communicate with each other telepathically. (and have been for the 200+ years of their slumber!)
- Replaced the Grick with skeletal rat swarms.
- Last minute change after several players kept asking "where's the baby" - the gibbering mouther had a baby-shaped mass in its center and the cultists called it "Retlaw the Eternal".
Now that it's over, the party is looking around for any descendents of relatives of the kids. Ismark is promising to help by looking in village records stored in the Burgomaster's mansion in exchange for the party's help getting Ireena to someplace "safe". Madam Eva has hinted that the children have a role to play in Barovia's fate. And the Fortunes of Ravenloft determined Ismark will be the party's ally against Strahd, which was perfect since I planned on using the Ismark's marriage hook from The Beast of Graenseskov (DM's Guild adventure) to get them involved in that before they get embroiled in the many sub-plots around Vallaki, the Winery, and the Bone Grinder. Of course, that's all subject to change if they don't take the offered bait.
Both the Sunsword and the Holy Symbol are in the castle, 2 rooms apart(!), and they could have the Tome of Strahd as soon as tomorrow evening's session if they play their cards right (it's in Van Richten's wagon in Vallaki). I've used both Eva and Ismark to hint that a frontal assault on Strahd at this point would be suicide, but with those draws, there's not much incentive to traipse around the countryside.
Luckily, with Ismark as their ally, I can use his pending nuptials and need for an heir to delay his availability until the stars are aligned.
Knight_Marshal
Explorer
Our group didn't have much of a problem except our first encounter with the shadows where we almost wiped, but the second encounter (I really wanted to find out what that orb was) was no problem. We did well for the rest of the entire house only for me to almost die three times trying to walk out the door of the house!
evilbob
Explorer
What is the gist of that adventure hook?
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
This drives home an interesting thing that's sometimes a little hard to absorb about 5e because it's different from what happened in 3e/4e: when you rest really matters.
The two shambling mounds, you guys were at full juice. It had some hard hits (ask your tanks!), but you had enough resources to take it out.
Two fights later, with the Shadows, you were down to making Medicine checks.
Since 2-3 fights is about how long a party's meant to go between rests, makes me feel like I'm calibrating difficulty for 8 pretty OK!
I recently completed this in AL. We did have a few party deaths, a monk who liked to do things his way. (he only died before I joined in in the second session). The bard also died but only because he likes to touch things (the orb). I was fun and we had a very solid party, I played a Protection Fighter with Shield Master, and it worked out very well for us.
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