D&D 5E [Princes of the Apocalypse] Anybody running this?

[hawaiianbrian]

Anyone out there currently running/playing (or even ran/played) Princes of the Apocalypse? How far are you? How is it going? What changes have you (the DM) made?

My group just took out their second prophet. Let's compare notes!

 

[Ezequielramone]

My group wanted to start at lvl 3...
So we jumped to the mirabar expedition.
They learn a few things in there. They followed the old man to the place where earth and air cultists fought. From there they saw feathergale and since the old man told them a few things about the waterdavian nobles they travelled to there.
They meet the guys in a friendly way. So they were invited to dinner and the manticore hunt. They learned disturbing things from the aarakocra and before coming back they entered the air temple through the gap in valley.
They clean the entire temple and descended using the giant worm tunnel. The clean a few rooms. Even went upstair to the earth temple and killed the mezzoloth guardian.
After that they come back to the surface to see the tower was now abandoned. They reclaimed it.
And that is so far.

I'm making some changes in the map because of incoherence.

 

[SunGold]

You might find this thread handy.

 

[ChelseaNH]

I'm just starting this with my group. The characters are 3rd level, so we can concentrate on the main adventure thread instead of puttering around Red Larch. I'm trying to steer them to investigate Feathergale Spire first, while dropping hints about the other elements. My thought is that they find the remains of an earlier caravan with signs of large birds, so when they hear about the missing delegation, they are predisposed to suspect a similar cause.

I've reviewed the threads about the various technical issues and I'll be making some tweaks to the map. I also picked up the suggestion about customizing the cultists with feats designed to emphasize their particular philosophy/style, but I need to look at adjusting the CR or downgrading them in some other way as compensation.

One of my characters is an Uthgardt barbarian who is investigating the odd weather patterns (suspecting that magic users are Up To Something). The intro indicates that weather is a concern, but doesn't provide any specifics. In order to sort of balance the influence of the elements, I've decided that rain clouds are attracted to the Sumber Hills (which affects nearby regions). However, instead of having it rain all the time, some of the clouds get dried up and other just dump their rain in a destructive deluge.

 

[Rabbitbait]

This is my one, set in Eberron: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...the-Apocalypse-Recap-Eberron-styles-but-later

I started it at 3rd level as well. I eventually folded my recaps into the @Nebulous thread above as his is great. You should definitely update us on that thread about how it goes in your game. The ones of us who contribute find it very interesting and useful to see how others go about it.

Or you can look at the full campaign log here: https://deathgrind.obsidianportal.com

 

[leonardoraele]

I'm running it for a group of 4 players. The party started lv1 with adventures of chapter 6, and they are currently lv4, about to enter the first hounted keep: Rivergard Keep. I have also run Dellmon Ranch as an opportunity to introduce the 4th player, when the party was only 3.

I don't plan to stop de adventure soon because I already have prepared a bunch of things, but I'm not having a good feedback from my players. They all think this adventure is very random, and they are not engaged. They didn't get much involved to the NPCs from red larch, they felt they didn't had nothing to do with the problems of the town. In truth, they left the city as soon as they could. I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong.

The group found the remains of the attacked delegation and concluded that the same monks from the Tomb of Moving Stones attacked the delegation, since they found the monk in golden mask. They then tracked the attackers until they reach the Dessarin River, where they spotted Rivergard Keep. They suspect the monks are hiding in the keep, so they plan to infiltrate it to investigate. I think they will all become frustrated when they realise the keep have nothing to do with the sacred stone monks.

How things went in the early investgations to you?

 

[leonardoraele]

My group wanted to start at lvl 3...
So we jumped to the mirabar expedition.
They learn a few things in there. They followed the old man to the place where earth and air cultists fought. From there they saw feathergale and since the old man told them a few things about the waterdavian nobles they travelled to there.
They meet the guys in a friendly way. So they were invited to dinner and the manticore hunt. They learned disturbing things from the aarakocra and before coming back they entered the air temple through the gap in valley.
They clean the entire temple and descended using the giant worm tunnel. The clean a few rooms. Even went upstair to the earth temple and killed the mezzoloth guardian.
After that they come back to the surface to see the tower was now abandoned. They reclaimed it.
And that is so far.

I'm making some changes in the map because of incoherence.

The wind temple was supposed to be a lv7 dungeon, and the eath temple lv9, did you downgraded them or hyper-leveled the PCs, or something?

 

[Rabbitbait]

I'm running it for a group of 4 players. The party started lv1 with adventures of chapter 6, and they are currently lv4, about to enter the first hounted keep: Rivergard Keep. I have also run Dellmon Ranch as an opportunity to introduce the 4th player, when the party was only 3.

I don't plan to stop de adventure soon because I already have prepared a bunch of things, but I'm not having a good feedback from my players. They all think this adventure is very random, and they are not engaged. They didn't get much involved to the NPCs from red larch, they felt they didn't had nothing to do with the problems of the town. In truth, they left the city as soon as they could. I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong.

The group found the remains of the attacked delegation and concluded that the same monks from the Tomb of Moving Stones attacked the delegation, since they found the monk in golden mask. They then tracked the attackers until they reach the Dessarin River, where they spotted Rivergard Keep. They suspect the monks are hiding in the keep, so they plan to infiltrate it to investigate. I think they will all become frustrated when they realise the keep have nothing to do with the sacred stone monks.

How things went in the early investgations to you?

It will depend on how your players react. If they are kill first, ask questions later kind of players then you will find it harder to seed the hints that there is a deep conspiracy going on. If they are willing to roleplay and sneak etc then they will start to sense what is going on.

I had Rivergard Keep supplying the monks with food bought from the loot stolen by their piracy. The cults were competing and co-operating at the same time - so uncomfortable alliances.

With all of these places, things can turn bad very quickly and the heroes can be quickly overwhelmed. I hope they know how to run away.

As long as the players realise that the inhabitants of the keep are up to evil, it shouldn't matter too much if there is no immediate connection to the monks.

 

[Rhenny]

I'm on my 11th session. We've been moving slowly so the group has worked on quests around Red Larch (with a bunch of stuff I improvised or added), has explored and interacted with Feathergale Knights in the Spire (and after their feast, they got into a non-lethal fight with some of the Knights and cultists and had to flee into the night), have explored a bit of the Sighing Valley and are just now investigating the Howling Hatred Temple. Unfortunately, my group is only 4th level so right now they were let into the temple because they bluffed that they wanted to join up. I hope they don't get all combat crazy because they'll most likely die if they try to take out Aerisi. I'm planning on having Windharrow spot the bard in the group and try to recruit him to play for Aerisi. Then when they get to Aerisi, I'm going to have her turn on the charm and try to implicate the Water Cult and the Earth Cult trying to get the party to go out and wreck havoc on one of them. We'll see what happens.

I post a narrative of my game sessions in The Story Hour. http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?469708-Rhenny-s-Princes-of-the-Apocalypse-Campaign-Logs

 

[hawaiianbrian]

I'm running it now and had to do lots of prepwork and research to get to where I'm comfortable. Here are some great resources I used:

Reddit Discussion (https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/36vwdy/princes_of_the_apocalypse_resources/)- Lots of great links. The top comment has a link to a Google Drive folder with a Campaign Outline I found very helpful, PotA Suggestions document which I've followed closely, and another document distilling the cult information for easy reference. Solid gold

A Guide to Princes of the Apocalypse (http://thecampaign20xx.blogspot.com/2015/04/elemental-evil-guide-to-princes-of.html) - lots of great links and info

PotA Flowchart (https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/36unfa/5e_spoiler_princes_of_the_apocalypse_flowchart/) - Also good to visualize. Look down for the colorized one

I found the adventure as written to be a little bit... static. The outposts are just there, the cults hate each other for no good reason, and nobody's doing anything. It's a snapshot, not a plan in motion. So I made a few changes for my own campaign and I think they've been working well:

• I moved the four cult outposts into a nice diamond pattern, with Feathergale Spire on the south, Rivergard Keep on the east, Sacred Stone Monastery on the north, and Scarlet Moon Hall on the west.

• There are no longer direct links from the outposts into the dungeon. Instead, I positioned the ancient ruins of Tyar-Besil in the center of the diamond in a valley filled with natural geothermal features (mixing air, fire, water, and earth!). The above-ground ruins are lightly guarded. There's a main passageway that leads into the Temple of Black Earth, but in the same complex are entrances into other parts of the dungeon -- a river, a hollow lava tube, and a "back door" into the dwarven redoubt under the city (remember, the Besilmer dwarves experimented with above-ground living, so the underground complex was more of a backup).

• I have the cults working together instead of working against each other. This makes them feel like more of a threat. They're all one cult, the Cult of Elemental Evil, and each element has its own sect. There is some friction between the cults which clever players can use to drive a wedge into their social order.

• I have the mysterious drow figure who created the four weapons as the actual cult leader, with the prophets right under him. He's an ancient lich from the days when this complex was a drow city that worshipped Ghaunadar/Tharizdun/The Elder Elemental Eye and he's been working a long time to bring this to pass.

• Just as the characters get involved, the cult is completing its next step toward summoning Tharizdun. Each outpost (Feathergale Spire, etc.) sacrificed 12 commoners in a ritual to open an "Elemental Rift" at each location. The means of sacrifice was specific to each location (drowning, hanging, crushing, burning). Now that the rifts are open, the next step in the "Fourfold Rite" can commence, eventually leading to the arrival of the Princes, then Tharizdun himself. Too bad the heroes showed up at this moment...

• The last major change I made was tying the missing delegation in better. Using Grumink the Renegade, I had a dwarven sympathizer planted in Mirabar trying to access the old forgotten tomes containing the Fourfold Rite. He managed to convince the head librarian that the library at Waterdeep requested an exchange, so they brought the book, along with a bunch of related ones, on the journey to Waterdeep. Along the way he convinced them to detour, at which time the planned ambush happened. Grumink was handsomely rewarded, and the cult now had the full text of the ritual they need.

These things have added a sense of cohesion and urgency. The heroes can't just take their time, because is happening. There's not even any time to journey down to Waterdeep to let someone know what's going on. The heroes need to disrupt the Fourfold Rite and fast. If they don't act, the world will be plunged into hell in a couple of weeks as the Princes emerge from the Nodes and call forth their father, Tharizdun, to reshape Faerûn as a plane of elemental chaos!

In the last session my players defeated Aerisi then hustled to the Fire Temple and killed Vanifer before she could do much. All three prophets "felt" Aerisi's death and were making plans. At the moment, Vanifer was gathering her things to head down to the Fane. She never made it. Then the heroes hid so they could rest a while. I wasn't going to introduce inter-sect squabbles, but I spontaneously decided that some minor disagreements had begun to weaken the cohesion of the sects with each other, then Tharizdun declared that they had to determine which among them was the strongest. Killing Aerisi broke the balance of power. When the heroes emerged from their hiding place, they found they'd missed several hours of brutal sectarian warfare, and the hallways were littered with dead cultists from all sects. They're about to pursue Marlos into the Fane. Most likely they'll find him there, which means it's looking like Water will be their Node. Too bad; I really liked the Weeping Colossus. Ah, well. They still need to throw the four weapons into the Nodes to seal them.