D&D 5E Small tweaks to improve Out of the Abyss [DMs toolbox; SPOILERS]

The Society of Brilliance is mapping out a cavern complex that ALMOST links to a river on the surface. They have it in mind to create new "agricultural" terrain by bringing more water down. But they want to be sure first that they won't flood a major highway or anything. Maybe they have to talk to the myconids for technical advice on new plantings?

I am starting this tomorrow. How do you envisage the hollowed out stalactites? Do they have holes for windows, or arrow slits? Otherwise it seems the only way for the drow supposedly guarding the prisoners to see them is to leave the door open.
My current plan assuming they wait for Jorlan to help them is to have Jorlan and two drow on guard, with the gate left unlocked, and at this point to have the demon attack. So it should be possible for them to get out and get most of their stuff back without too much to overcome.
Let me know if you see any problems or if you have an idea how the stalactites are supposed to operate.

muppetmuppet said:

How do you envisage the hollowed out stalactites? Do they have holes for windows, or arrow slits?

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They could have webbing for doors (allowing them to look out and shoot crossbow bolts), complete with a medium-sized spider obediently spraying out a new door each time it's "used"

I am also starting this over the weekend. I was going to make the doors zurkhwood, and the outpost observation window just be a wide opening with a good view of the slave pen. Like the press box at a football field, but with no glass.

I came up with three brief "menial task" missions to introduce the PCs to the NPCs, the drow, and the environment.

"Sous Chef" - A work team must help a quaggoth chef who is drying fish and canning entrails. Slaves must remove live quippers from a barrel, then kill and clean them with their bare hands. Some hands will be bitten, probably a guard will beat someone for not sorting the guts carefully enough. Valuable recon about where to find food if they want to steal it during the escape.

"Stacking Rocks" - Ilvara and Shoor interrupt a work team (under Jorlan's watch) that is filling barrels at the waterfall. They are super-skeevy, pawing and petting each other, and predictably nasty toward Jorlan--a good setting to hint at that whole dynamic. Ilvara orders some quaggoths to bring rocks and boulders for the slaves to stack. Progressively increasing Str or Dex check. The quaggoths enjoy watching this and gamble on it. Ilvara brutalizes anyone who knocks over the rock pile. Shoor behaves as a me-too lickspittle. I may have someone fall off the waterfall to reveal that it's not as bad a fate as it might seem. Critical success, and Ilvara gets bored. And eventually she gets bored anyway.

"Coiling Rope" - A team is taken to the floor of the cavern in the lift (good recon), where they must untangle a lot of filthy, heavy, hemp rope. Str and Dex checks to accomplish the task. Failures result in minor slashing or bludgeoning damage. Maybe a beating. When they are finished neatly coiling, a quaggoth takes the rope up in the lift, then hurls it to the floor below, where it becomes tangled again for next time. Drow don't use hemp rope.

Each of these missions involves marching a group of slaves to various locations in Velkynvelve, so they will learn how tricky the rope bridges are to negotiate, may learn about the spiders below, and so on.

zombiecube said:

I am also starting this over the weekend. I was going to make the doors zurkhwood, and the outpost observation window just be a wide opening with a good view of the slave pen. Like the press box at a football field, but with no glass.

I came up with three brief "menial task" missions to introduce the PCs to the NPCs, the drow, and the environment.

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Good suggestions. I may well borrow them.

"Stacking Rocks" - Ilvara and Shoor interrupt a work team (under Jorlan's watch) that is filling barrels at the waterfall. They are super-skeevy, pawing and petting each other, and predictably nasty toward Jorlan--a good setting to hint at that whole dynamic. Ilvara orders some quaggoths to bring rocks and boulders for the slaves to stack. Progressively increasing Str or Dex check. The quaggoths enjoy watching this and gamble on it. Ilvara brutalizes anyone who knocks over the rock pile. Shoor behaves as a me-too lickspittle. I may have someone fall off the waterfall to reveal that it's not as bad a fate as it might seem. Critical success, and Ilvara gets bored. And eventually she gets bored anyway.

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For extra player participation, maybe have them simulate this task by stacking dice. Occasionally jog the table to represent the Drow messing with them. Place a miniature next to each dice stack, and when the stack falls, any dice that land adjacent to the figure are used to calculate the damage dealt by the falling rocks.

Here are some of my comments:

1) I like the lack of stat blocks (more actual content in the module) but it will make for more work for the GM (heavy reliance on MM).

2) Read the Salvatore Archmage novel before running the module -- lots of background info in that novel for this module. Note that there isn't a 1 to 1 relationship between the novel and the module, so you may have to interpret some things. Example would be how the Archmage Gromph cast the spell summoning Demogorgon in the novel vs. the description of that event in the module.

3) Various maps and encounter areas could be adjusted. Some comments just on the drow areas:

3a) Asha is a main NPC without a room on the map, the other major NPCs have their own room.

3b) the four major NPCs come from at least two different Drow Houses ... huh? Why are two drow houses cooperating on this? Ilvara's
drow house is described as being the major slave trading house, whereas Asha's drow house is a vicious up and coming drow house. The module never explains the house politics behind this, but some understanding of what is going on in Menzoberanzan can be leveraged for future encounters.

3c) Why are the drow capturing the PCs and the other NPCs? For slaves? Menzoberanzan is a month away from the outpost ... why only these PCs ... why not a dozen humans or gnomes or whatever... why 1 or 2 or 3 of several different races? Once the PCs and NPCs flee, why do the drow pursue them through the underdark instead of just capturing some other slaves? Come up with a reason for this ... maybe these PCs and other NPCs were just random individuals in the wrong place at the wrong time ... or maybe a drow Seer said that these individuals posed a possible future danger to Lolth's plans and demanded that they be captured and brought to Menzoberanzan. Maybe Asha's house had the seer that identified the danger, and Ilvara's house had the expertise in capturing surface worlders and bringing them to Menzoberanzan.

4) Remember that the Demon Lords are immensely powerful, not just in physical combat, but also highly intelligent (most have int 20+ and/or wisdom 20+) and deep strategic planners. While they may slap at a bug that stings them, they likely won't chase it all over the room unless the bug really annoyed them. Think about to what extent the demon lords can leverage their lair powers and when and where.

5) There is a lot of madness causing events and situations in this module. Get a good grasp on how those rules work and how madness can be controlled/alleviated/healed.

Endur said:

3b) the four major NPCs come from at least two different Drow Houses ... huh? Why are two drow houses cooperating on this? Ilvara's
drow house is described as being the major slave trading house, whereas Asha's drow house is a vicious up and coming drow house. The module never explains the house politics behind this, but some understanding of what is going on in Menzoberanzan can be leveraged for future encounters.

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Asha is a junior priestess still in training. Junior Priestess as part of their training are put under the command of an actual priestess for work experience for a few years. Which houses they are a part of tends not to matter. Though generally Priestess are not put under Priestess that have bad blood between the houses.

Endur said:

3c) Why are the drow capturing the PCs and the other NPCs? For slaves? Menzoberanzan is a month away from the outpost ... why only these PCs ... why not a dozen humans or gnomes or whatever... why 1 or 2 or 3 of several different races? Once the PCs and NPCs flee, why do the drow pursue them through the underdark instead of just capturing some other slaves? Come up with a reason for this ... maybe these PCs and other NPCs were just random individuals in the wrong place at the wrong time ... or maybe a drow Seer said that these individuals posed a possible future danger to Lolth's plans and demanded that they be captured and brought to Menzoberanzan. Maybe Asha's house had the seer that identified the danger, and Ilvara's house had the expertise in capturing surface worlders and bringing them to Menzoberanzan.

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It's for slaves. As for these NPC's they were the ones the Drow caught alive, most of them were solitary and the Drow found and caught them. As for the PC's It's up to the players to decide how they were captured. It could easily be they were ambushed and captured by a Drow raid. Or they were alone and captured, or the rest of their group was killed and they were taken alive.

Menzoberanazan is pretty far away from the Outpost. But the Outpost is just supposed to keep them until the caravan from Menzo comes to pick up the slaves and deliver them. (Which is noted as being overdue.) As to why the Drow pursue them. It's a matter of Pride. Drow are pretty and vengeful creatures and the fact that theses lesser races escaped from them would piss them off enough to want to get them back and break them. Plus it will make them look bad if Slaves escape under their watch.

PC's and NPC's are just people who were captured. The Drow don't think there is anything special about them.

So I started the game which went ok.

The absolutely essential things were understanding the NPC's in the cell and having stat sheets that the players could have to control them if they managed to escape with a lot.

How should the were rats be handled in combat if they escape with the players? For example if a drow fires a crossbow bolt and it hits one, certainly the creature take no damage from the bolt but what about the poison? Or a Giant Spider?
Currently I am allowing the poison effects to operate as though the attacks pierced the skin but failed to harm.

the characters are Human Bard Actor, Half Orc Barbarian, Half Elf Fighter ( intending eldritch).
The game so far: Bard talked to pretty much all the NPC's, she arrived days before anyone else. Fortunately I managed to run this before the game began as a one on one. If you are running this as a home game and you have some players that like to talk to NPCs and some who will be bored by it consider having the talkers round for a session zero to sort the NPC roleplaying out, they can paraphrase what they learnt when the combat players turn up in the next session.
players then embarked on a massive load of planning for escape having got most of the available info. They weren't happy with any plans they came up with until Jorlan said he would leave the gate unlocked and provide a distraction.
Characters recovered their gear and escaped with little difficulty thanks to a good plan and any time a roll mattered they rolled well. The remaining drow in the tower after the buzzing noise attack were grabbed and thrown over the side before the webs were burnt. The cave of Quaggoths and the drow guard post was neutralised by the actor mimicking the lead drows voice having already used disguise self to look like her and ordering them back inside. She was standing on the path waiting for the quaggoths to come out as the players had pretty much been everywhere in the compound on various duties. The rope bridges were cut in case reinforcements were coming in spite of the demons which were fighting up on the platform. It is not clear what the demons are supposed to do once the drow start defending their outpost. So you think the demons are only, or mainly interested in killing the other demons or will they all turn on the drow?. Anyway I just handwaved the fighting as keeping the drow busy for now. The players climbed down the rope and into the pool where the ooze was still eating the bodies it had been thrown. It tried to grab some players as they ran past but they all made it to the south passage and dispatched the Vrock before it got an action with more good rolling.
So the group plus all the NPC's minus Ront, the drow and shushar had escaped.

MonsterEnvy said:

Menzoberanazan is pretty far away from the Outpost. But the Outpost is just supposed to keep them until the caravan from Menzo comes to pick up the slaves and deliver them. (Which is noted as being overdue.) As to why the Drow pursue them. It's a matter of Pride. Drow are pretty and vengeful creatures and the fact that theses lesser races escaped from them would piss them off enough to want to get them back and break them. Plus it will make them look bad if Slaves escape under their watch.

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I'd tend to say it's probably more about position and reputation. Showing incompetence or weakness in drow society can get you killed or can get your career permanently sidetracked. Once the PCs have escaped, Ilvara needs to try to contain the damage.

The one change I made to the outpost was the cavern had enough Faezerness that the humans weren't in pitch blackness, and the drow might be going mad and single mindedly chase the prisoners across half the known world.