Running Expedition to Castle Ravenloft

[Treebore]

I agree that this can be ran just as independently of the Ravenloft setting as I6 could. I only bring up the setting because many of the people who don't like this bring it up as well.

Your welcome.

 

[DrNilesCrane]

I would also like to hear more of your actual play experience (picked up Expedition and am considering running it at some point and would like to see what worked / didn't work for your campaign).

 

[Cor Azer]

Initial Thoughts

-Spoilers-

Tonight was the first session of my Ravenloft campaign. All-in-all it went very well. The Party ran through the fight at the town square and interacted with Ashlyn and the NPC’s in the inn. We ended the night with the party walking resolutely up the street toward the church.

Pros:
I like the encounter format. I know people have complained that it seems like page-count padding but it’s very convenient to have everything you need for an encounter on two pages, eliminating page-flipping during combat. I’m not sure I’ve ever had pre-written module combats run so smoothly from a DM’s POV.

The encounters themselves so far are nicely put together and give a good “overrun by zombies” feel without the party actually being, you know, overrun. Also, the encounters are fairly challenging. My party is cleric/divine heavy and it’s by no means a cakewalk for them.

I like the overall layout and plotline so far. It’s different enough from I6 that a player who has read/played the original recently will not be bored.


Cons:
I’m not sure the fake letter from the Burgomaster will always accomplish with it is intended to. The party quickly finds out it’s a fake upon reaching Barovia and is apt to disregard anything it says from that point on. Timing on this might need some tweaking so that the party doesn’t so quickly realize that it’s a forgery.

The book has three zombie encounters before the party reaches the village square, where they stumble into a 4th. It also suggests that for every 40 feet they travel in town there is a 45% chance they encounter more zombies. Add to that the substantial chance that any building the PC’s might enter might also have a zombie encounter. I like zombies, but this is way over the top. I utterly dropped the 40 feet/45% encounters and had only one building encounter, taken with the larger brawl at the village square that was enough.

Nearly every NPC the party talks to in town are supposed to tell them to go get their fortune read by Madam Eva. It’s as subtle as a battleaxe to the forehead. I had two NPC’s mention her off-hand and that was more than enough to get the point across.

-End Spoilers-

As I said, all-in-all my players seemed to enjoy themselves and I enjoyed myself; really the best yardstick of all.

How did you find/use the maps for the tactical encounters? Or did you use miniatures at all.

I really like the detail of the maps, but expect it to be difficult/time consuming to reproduce all them on the battlemap canvas I have.

 

[DrNilesCrane]

They've got them on WotC's website now.

 

[Cor Azer]

They've got them on WotC's website now.

Thanks for the link. I believe I had seen the EtCR artwork, but hadn't noticed the maps before.

Still, without having poked around on them, what scale do they print at? Can I, for example, print them onto some stff card stock to use straight as a battlemap, or would they be too distorted, I wonder?

 

[DrNilesCrane]

They look like standard 72 dpi web images (jpegs), so you'd have to scale them up to print them (not sure at what ratio or even if it would be consistent from one image to the next - I think you'd have to do a little trial and error). I just noticed that they look like DM maps as well with things labeled the players wouldn't / shouldn't see, so the maps might not really be that useful anyway, at least not without a lot of edits.

 

[WingOver]

After about a year hiatus, I picked this up and started the D&D group again. So far we're really enjoying it. The tactical format (on facing pages) is a great idea. Relevant combat info (everything from monster stats to environmental modifiers) are right there. I'm probably spoiled now.





Spoilers...

I solved the problem of PC motivation by having 2 of them meet Helene (the widow who lost her husband to werewolves in Barovia) and setting Strahd's goal to gain the werewolf allies. So the convergence of both tasks were enough motivation to go to Barovia.

I liked the zombie siege, but it seemed a little overboard (some of it my fault). The party reached the village square, saved the paladin and rested at the inn. That night I decided to have another group of zombies attack the barricades to maintain the sense that the town was swarmed with undead (player ranger kept watch atop the Inn). The next morning they encountered the ghasts and yet more zombies. At this point they were feeling restless and just wanted to get to the church. When they finally did they pretty much rushed in there unprepared and suffered 2 deaths.

I haven't read the entire adventure yet but so far I feel the tactical side is excellent while the plot side has some weaknesses. Some NPC motivations present plot problems. For example, the paladin. She's there to find the Sunsword. Well, one of my players is a paladin. An obvious conflict of interest. I'm solving the problem by having her delay her quest after experiencing the grief of discovering her companions succumbed to the zombie plague. She'll take their bodies back home and resume her quest later. Another problem I have is figuring out what to do with Ireena. She wants to help the PCs and will even secretly follow them if necessary. I don't know if I want to deal with that headache. Madam Eva is the fortune teller and not evil. Yet she has to be killed to sever Strahd's connection to the forest fane. I don't see the players doing that if the initial encounter with her goes well (and it needs to for the fortune telling).

The new classes, items, rules, etc are awesome. The party cleric picked up the Lightbringer's destroy undead ability and everyone loves it. I'm wondering if anyone will want to be a Knight of the Raven. I really like the lore section on magic items (with better skill checks revealing more information).

I'd like to see more adventures in this format.

 

[Cor Azer]

A small nitpick, spoilered out, just in case...

Spoiler

Madam Eva is the fortune teller and not evil. Yet she has to be killed to sever Strahd's connection to the forest fane. I don't see the players doing that if the initial encounter with her goes well (and it needs to for the fortune telling).

Spoiler

Well, maybe not. The Fortunes of Ravenloft (specifically, the Tome of Strahd one) will say what needs to be done to sever Strahd's link to the three Fanes. One of the possibilities is to kill the three hags, but that doesn't have to be the case.

 

[WingOver]

Thanks for the info! I also noticed more tidbits about Ireena while in the castle. Seems like i better go ahead and read the whole thing before next session.

 

[Nightfall]

Tree,

I liked Arthaus' Ravenloft, (at least the Gazs were very well done and some of the other releases like VR's Guides, along with the book on the Houses and Dark and Disturbing Tales too) but I just want to see what this one does for that too.

If nothing else I'll wait for Dragon 351.