D&D 5E Enhancing "Storm King's Thunder"

For discussing aspects of Storm King's Thunder and how to run it.

This thread WILL HAVE SPOILERS IN IT. Do not read if you're not going to run it.

This post contains shortcuts to particular posts* that offer suggestions and answer questions raised by the adventure. It is broken down by chapter:

General

• Art/Maps:#14, #23, #33
• Minis: #58, #80
• Backstory/Motivation/Foreshadowing: #12, #21, #41
• Backgrounds/Hooks: #53
• Further Reading: #19, #39
• Streamlining: #34
• Tying in with Tyranny of Dragons: #43, #72
• Tying in with Lost Mine of Phandelver: #54

Chapter 1: A Great Upheaval

• Leveling Speed: #3, #24, #35, #40
• Resources: #38, #46

Chapter 2: Rumblings

• Resources: #47, #59
• Missions: #69

Chapter 3: The Savage Frontier

• Additional adventure: #32

Chapter 4: The Chosen Path

• Harshnag: #25

Chapter 5: Den of the Hill Giants
Chapter 6: Canyon of the Stone Giants
Chapter 7: Berg of the Frost Giants
Chapter 8: Forge of the Fire Giants

• Fire giant stats: #83

Chapter 9: Castle of the Cloud Giants
Chapter 10: Hold of the Storm Giants

• Risk level: #25
• Sneaking: #77

Chapter 11: Caught in the Tentacles
Chapter 12: Doom of the Desert

• Extending the adventure: #24

Indexed up to: #83

I think this thread was a victim of the purge.
In any case I still want to talk about the module and improve it as I'm going to run it after Curse of Strahd I think. I really dig it, but you gotta make it your own. Let's do it!
SKT hasn't been getting much love so far. I think people must be pretty full up with adventures at the moment.
Anyways, the first place to go for a guide to improving the module is of course http://thecampaign20xx.blogspot.com/2016/09/dungeons-dragons-how-to-run-storm-kings.html
That blog is amazing.
I am also blogging about by sessions here: http://neradia.blogspot.com/
I agree that putting some thought into a lot of foreshadowing is key to really making the module pop.
Have giants say "The King is Dead!" a lot. Bring in Felgolos early, so players care about him later. Make less different dragons in general (maybe make the silver one in chapter one the same as the captured one later on). Bring in Old Snarl and the Dragon Cult's ship early on, have a seeming innocuous encounter with a fishy viking from the "Purple Rocks" etc.
I'm going to supply my players with a poster map. The 3rd edition one I think. So they can add to it.
You will want to get clear on your travel times. I did some internet research.
To Waterdeep: (time at 20/day by foot or 48/day sailing)
Anauroch (via the Black Road) 660 miles, 33 days
Athkatla 950 miles, 47 days
Baldur's Gate 550 miles, 27 days
Caer Calidyrr, Moonshae Isles 750 miles (travel by water only), 15 days
Candlekeep 720 miles, 36 days
Daggerford 120 miles, 6 days
Evereska 750 miles (via the path past Llorkh, between the Greycloak Hills and Forgotten Forest), 33 days
Everlund 450 miles, 22 days
Iriaebor 870 miles, 43 days
Longsaddle 300 miles, 15 days
Loudwater 390 miles, 18 days
Luskan 440 miles, 22 days
Mirabar 650 miles, 32 days
Neverwinter 300 miles, 15 days
Red Larch 100 miles, 5 days
Scornubel 550 miles, 27 days
Secomber 260 miles, 23 days
Silverymoon 500 miles, 25 days
Westgate 1,370 miles, 69 days
Yartar 210 miles, 11 days

I hope this thread can be rebuilt. It contained some excellent ideas I wanted to use.

I, like many others, didn't particularly like the rapid advance from level 1 to level 5. My solution was to replace the dripping caves with a much longer and robust adventure that would give the PCs a much meatier experience that feels like a more traditional pace of level advancement. Originally I was going to replace them with Caves of Chaos, but instead I'm going with Horror on the Hill. Both are easily drag and dropped into SKT, and all I really have to do is place the SKT NPCs into the modules. Easy peasy.

I agree about the super fast leveling. It was weird when I played it at a con. I'm going the opposite direction and starting characters at a much higher level, continuing my campaign.
Horror on the Hill? I think I had that as part of the "In Search of Adventure" compilation. If I remember the Halls of the Hobgoblin King lie beneath?

Daern said:

To Waterdeep: (time at 20/day by foot or 48/day sailing)
Anauroch (via the Black Road) 660 miles, 33 days
Athkatla 950 miles, 47 days
Baldur's Gate 550 miles, 27 days
Caer Calidyrr, Moonshae Isles 750 miles (travel by water only), 15 days
Candlekeep 720 miles, 36 days
Daggerford 120 miles, 6 days
Evereska 750 miles (via the path past Llorkh, between the Greycloak Hills and Forgotten Forest), 33 days
Everlund 450 miles, 22 days
Iriaebor 870 miles, 43 days
Longsaddle 300 miles, 15 days
Loudwater 390 miles, 18 days
Luskan 440 miles, 22 days
Mirabar 650 miles, 32 days
Neverwinter 300 miles, 15 days
Red Larch 100 miles, 5 days
Scornubel 550 miles, 27 days
Secomber 260 miles, 23 days
Silverymoon 500 miles, 25 days
Westgate 1,370 miles, 69 days
Yartar 210 miles, 11 days

Click to expand...

What is your deal with the white text? Are you trying to deliberately obfuscate things? This was an issue in the last version of this thread as well...

Daern said:

I agree about the super fast leveling. It was weird when I played it at a con. I'm going the opposite direction and starting characters at a much higher level, continuing my campaign.
Horror on the Hill? I think I had that as part of the "In Search of Adventure" compilation. If I remember the Halls of the Hobgoblin King lie beneath?

Click to expand...

Yep. Part of the B series. Really, most of those adventures would be easy to use. In this case, with B5 HotH, all I have to do is say the Nightstone villagers fled to an old monastery a few miles away in the hills to avoid the giant attack. And all the NPC prisoners in the original adventure are replaced with the SKT NPCs. It pretty much writes itself In fact, I think I'm gonna skip the orc attack on Nightstone altogether. That never felt right to me either, especially if the elves come to the rescue and just leave. I've never been a fan of "no matter what the protagonists do, they will be rescued!" trope, even if it's highly used (Gandalf, etc).

Sorry dude. It's pasted from a google doc. It comes in black, then I recolored it. Does it not show up on the white background version? This forum is weird.

Yeah, I would change the orcs part of Nightstone as well. I like the idea of the elves showing up to help against the orcs, then reluctantly asking for help against orcs in the forest. You could make those orcs hobgoblins, or make the HotH hobs into orcs.
The worry for me with old dungeons is that they are so big and take so long. By the time you get out, the players forgot what was going on in the campaign.

Daern said:

Sorry dude. It's pasted from a google doc. It comes in black, then I recolored it. Does it not show up on the white background version? This forum is weird.

Click to expand...

What it looks like to most of us:

Daern said:

Yeah, I would change the orcs part of Nightstone as well. I like the idea of the elves showing up to help against the orcs, then reluctantly asking for help against orcs in the forest. You could make those orcs hobgoblins, or make the HotH hobs into orcs.
The worry for me with old dungeons is that they are so big and take so long. By the time you get out, the players forgot what was going on in the campaign.

Click to expand...

At this point, they players still don't know the main plot hook because they haven't gotten the next plot quest until they free Morak. So they wouldn't get the next plot hook until the finished HotH anyway. And even if that weren't the case, that's why you modify the old dungeons to tie in elements of the current campaign, making it a seamless transitions. We're DM's, it's our job