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

[AntiStateQuixote]

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

Thanks!

No, I did not draw by hand.

I heard about the Ripley Scrolls on Ken and Robin Talk about Stuff podcast. Did a GIS and found several photographs of Ripley Scrolls.

I saved this image, resized to print on multiple pages, cut them up, taped them together and then "abused" the scroll with mud, water and fire to make it look worn, ancient and fragile (it was, in fact, fragile).

I then taped pieces of index cards to the scroll for the "encounters" with the scroll: on one side describes a requirement (example: Must be able to speak Giant and make Intelligence (History) check DC 17). On success, flip the card, resolve it and continue unrolling the scroll.

Most of the encounters were information. Some gave benefits. Some had negative consequences.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

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?

Level 8 characters that cannot reliably bypass the vampire's damage resistance will have a very difficult time. I will be surprised if you don't have at least one PC death if the vampire is "smart" (using the darkness to retreat and regenerate, legendary actions to grapple, bite and move without opportunity attacks, etc.). Hopefully someone can do radiant damage or has holy water to stop regeneration for a round or three?

 

[Tintael]

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

So your party had an item that dealt 80 points of damage (out of 144 total for a vampire) and stopped regeneration for 2 rounds (40 points), but apart from that were able to wear her down without much in the way of magic items? That does sound a little bit like "apart from some Kryptonite, they were able to beat down Superman with just normal weapons".

But it is helpful information. It sounds like I might need to at least drop some holy water in some treasure for my party, depending on how ground down they are and what else they might be using.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

That does sound a little bit like "apart from some Kryptonite, they were able to beat down Superman with just normal weapons".

That is pretty much what I was trying to say, yep.

If they did not have the ability to automatically damage the foe, and shut down regeneration for two rounds, they would have been screwed, even with the friendly flesh golem following them around.

My plan B was to replace the vampire with some vampire spawn instead.

The party had no other source of radiant damage (no cleric, so no sacred flame). The wizard didn't have dispel magic, so they couldn't deal with the darkness. They did, at least, all have magic weapons (including the druid, who *is* a magic weapon).

 

[Schmoe]

Thanks!

No, I did not draw by hand.

I heard about the Ripley Scrolls on Ken and Robin Talk about Stuff podcast. Did a GIS and found several photographs of Ripley Scrolls.

I saved this image, resized to print on multiple pages, cut them up, taped them together and then "abused" the scroll with mud, water and fire to make it look worn, ancient and fragile (it was, in fact, fragile).

I then taped pieces of index cards to the scroll for the "encounters" with the scroll: on one side describes a requirement (example: Must be able to speak Giant and make Intelligence (History) check DC 17). On success, flip the card, resolve it and continue unrolling the scroll.

Most of the encounters were information. Some gave benefits. Some had negative consequences.

What a wonderful idea! I'll have to remember this.

 

[Motorskills]

Been thirty years since I played this, looking forward to running it for some friends. I have some questions, maybe you can weigh in based on how things went in your game.



1) Geysers and chains (room 7). The picture on page 100 makes it look like an awesome episode of American Ninja Warrior, but that doesn't seem to be reflected in the text. I have some ideas for (very limited) Dex Acrobatics rolls to get across, with bonuses and penalties for doing it slower or faster, penalties for jumping onto a disk that someone has recently been on (pendulum), etc.


Additionally it makes it look like the disks are each slightly higher than the next (which I love), but that doesn't seem to be reflected in the map or the text. Indeed the text in the book (ceiling height) suggests that the platforms are on the same level.



2) The Spinning Cylinder (room 11) - What is the penalty for failure (without the fire)? I can well imagine getting thrown around in the "washing machine" could be pretty damaging.

 

[Tintael]

1) Geysers and chains (room 7). The picture on page 100 makes it look like an awesome episode of American Ninja Warrior, but that doesn't seem to be reflected in the text. I have some ideas for (very limited) Dex Acrobatics rolls to get across, with bonuses and penalties for doing it slower or faster, penalties for jumping onto a disk that someone has recently been on (pendulum), etc.


Additionally it makes it look like the disks are each slightly higher than the next (which I love), but that doesn't seem to be reflected in the map or the text. Indeed the text in the book (ceiling height) suggests that the platforms are on the same level.

I agree that this room has some design issues. (Caveat: I'm not running it until September). The text gives a single DC for "climbing the walls and chains", which I take to be a single check to cross them all. That makes it feel a little like it's going to run like this:

Player: I jump across the platforms.
DM: Give me an athletics check
Player: 18
DM: You succeed. You are the next American Ninja Warrior.

Which isn't very fun. Rolling a check for each platform means that it becomes either easy or impossibly difficult and a +1 or +2 difference in ability can swing the DC from one to the other.

My thoughts are perhaps to make one check with a sliding difficulty scale. The lower the score, the more "incidents" on the journey and the greater the severity of the incidents. Incidents can include slipping off the disk (DC to prevent falling), or being delayed (perhaps causing problems with geysers).

The other thing is that it feels a little too easy to get across without being bothered by the geysers. (I'm thinking that it takes 15s to make a jump, and the geysers are offset by 30 seconds). I might fiddle around with those numbers a bit so that it's harder to make it across without being hit, and reducing the max damage of the geysers somewhat.

From what i hear, most parties just fly or levitate across anyway, which I'm fine with, but I might work out a way to bother them with the geysers too.

 

[Stormdale]

I' hadn't run WPM since the mid 80s but have been running it for the past few weeks/months (we had a break for a few weeks to try Adventures in Middle Earth. I had started by converting the original then swapped to the Yawning Portal version when it came out. I moved WPM further north into the Wolf Nomad lands in Greyhawk and made the mountain a sacred site to the Wolf Nomads which added another level of complication to getting there, and for one pc who is a wolf nomad.

I'm using my own weapons, not the originals, and party going there to loot WPM as they wanted/needed the weapons after learning of their existence. After an epic battle vs Sir B, who escaped, they headed out and off the cuff I decided to foreshadow Tomb of Horrors. I had a projected image of Keraptis himself appear and say his piece (I showed them the picture of Acerak in TotYP) & had a couple of Barlgura demons try to stop them from leaving (rather than the original encounter in question). After a tough battle the party slew the demons and escaped.

What I was not expecting was the reaction of our druid player who immediately wanted to go back and finish off Keraptis- he was really, really pissed at the lich. The rest of the party talked him out of it. In reality, the whole adventure was a sidetrek and after much discussion as to whether or not to continue on their main adventure or take on Keraptis in WPM they decided to continue with their main adventure and come back for Keraptis later on. So that little last minute change has changed the whole tone of the adventure and made Keraptis a real threat/ presence for them. I am seriously considering putting the Tomb of Horrors beneath the WPM dungeon when they decide to take down Keraptis and have him rather than Acerak as the presence in the tomb. The Big A has become a bit too popular of late so will leave him for the new adventure.

The party are now starting an adventure vs the Frost giants in SKT that will lead to the Glacial Rift which again I have only ever run once and that was in the late 1980s under 1E.

Stormdale

 

[Motorskills]

The three-man party I had yesterday nearly died in the "spin room" because they ran out of rope. (They had secured the Room 0 trapdoor open with one rope, and tied Snarla up with a second. )

It was looking really bad even before the bard got dragged into a pit and caught super-tetanus. He was healing himself like crazy, but gradually approaching zero HP.


But - and this is why I play this damned game - one of the players broke out his randomly-rolled gem of Earth Elemental summoning and used that to send it under the floor and smash the spin room up below (I allowed that, especially as EE specifically does extra siege damage). The floor was now passable and they rescued the Bard just in time.

 

[Charles Rampant]

It's always good when the players almost die, but not quite, so you get to maintain your DM reputation intact, but don't have to do a character creation session!