D&D 5E White Plume Mountain: Tales of the Yawning Portal play report (Spoilerific!)

[Greenstone.Walker]

I am curently GMing this module, in a Primeval Thule campaign. I'm really enjoying this thread.

Anyhow, from out of the darkness the vampire uses charm on Ald.

As an aside, this shouldn't have worked. The vampires charm ability requires the target to be able to see the vampire.

 

[Eltab]

<Drowning rules> work fine in non-combat dungeon-crawl mode where each round is 1 minute. But it is way too long in combat rounds where each round is 6 seconds.

It took me and my Paladin 45 minutes of IRL time, and enough in-game time that he almost ran out of Lay on Hands HP, to save our party Rogue from drowning underneath the HotDQ "Swamp Castle". I had a positive CONmod and she had a +0 CONmod, so I was not (yet) in danger.

But everybody looked at me like I was crazy when I jumped into the lake wearing Plate Armor and a 50-foot rope tied around my chestplate.
(Good thing we had two STR 16 allies holding the other end of the rope!)

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

As an aside, this shouldn't have worked. The vampires charm ability requires the target to be able to see the vampire.

Oops. Well, not RetConning that. Good catch. Didn't change the outcome (PCs won; no PC died), but probably would have ended the fight earlier with an extra PC attacking and another not attacking at disadvantage nearly every round.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

Oops. Well, not RetConning that. Good catch. Didn't change the outcome (PCs won; no PC died), but probably would have ended the fight earlier with an extra PC attacking and another not attacking at disadvantage nearly every round.

The party I DMed pretty much stayed out of the nasty darkness, forcing the vampire to come out and get them.

Except for the wizard with true seeing…
With the powerful anti-undead weapon…
Who the vampire did charm…
And grapple…
Several times…


In the end, overpowering firepower won the day, even for a party of five 8th level characters, despite my clever use of movement in the darkness and 5ft wide passage, neatly avoiding every control effect the party used (which they said was annoying but well done).

 

[Motorskills]

I DM'd a group through about half of White Plume Mountain last night. I had hoped to complete the full dungeon in one session. I'm a reasonably good DM with 35+ years of playing/DMing D&D. I should have known better. Played for five hours of which about an hour was spent "researching" and traveling to the adventure site before entering.

So how long do you think the whole thing will take [you] to run, your tweaks notwithstanding?

 

[Nutation]

Attached is a photo of the Word of Making scroll.

I must interrupt to say, this is a thing of beauty.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

So how long do you think the whole thing will take [you] to run, your tweaks notwithstanding?

9 or 10 hours.

 

[Tintael]

Great thread, thanks.

I've recently returned to DnD after a 30 year break and am going to run White Plume Mountain for a group later this year.

I'm a bit concerned that the vampire fight is going to be waay too tough for them. They are a group of five freshly created 8th level characters, possibly without a cleric, with a single uncommon magic item each (I prefer to run a low magic campaign).

When I look at the encounter guide in the DMG, it matches pretty well with "deadly" difficulty, but when I look at the encounter - darkness, 20hp/round regeneration, damage resistance to non-magic weapons, 3 legendary actions per turn etc. I just can't see how the party can come through this.

What have others found?

I'm interested in how to DM it as well. I'm inclined to just let it stand and see how it plays out. If it is heading towards a TPK I will either not use the legendary actions, or perhaps get the vampire to "scare off" the party, rather than kill them all outright. What other options might be good?

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

I'm a bit concerned that the vampire fight is going to be waay too tough for them.

The characters in my group had the Harness of Seker, from I4. It does 40 points of radiant damage to an undead, no attack roll, no save. It had two charges. Apart from that, they were 8th level, low on magic items (Thule is a low magic world).

They did OK. No-one went down and they used a lot of resources.

I played the vampire as smart as I could, using grapples and charms often. She controlled the 5ft wide corridor to her lair, neatly sidestepping a couple of crowd-control things the players used (like mordenkainen's faithful hound).

Even with legendary actions every round, the party just wore her down (the usual issue with solo monsters in 5E).

 

[Schmoe]

That scroll is awesome! Did you draw it by hand?