Rabbitbait
Grog-nerd
Here's my campaign log: https://app.roll20.net/campaigns/forum/3041203
And @Nebulous has a great thread of his campaign: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?587369-Tomb-of-Annihilation-campaign-recaps
I've really enjoyed the old school feel of this adventure so far with the hex-crawling and random encounters.
I foreshadowed how dangerous and randomly fatal the jungle is and how easy to get lost and using the 'player actions' while exploring, rolling weather tables and keeping everything random has really made it feel hard and dangerous. The players know that I am rolling things randomly and that there is a less than zero change they will die. It adds a good tension to the game. At one point the group got totally lost and an entire session was two weeks of wandering around in the jungle while getting attacked by stuff. It was a fun session, even though one of the characters died.
Remember that not every encounter has to be a fight. Generally characters will get some level of warning (through their tracker or scout, through noise coming towards them or through other means) that danger is coming their way. They can often avoid fights. Also, encounters with intelligent creatures is likely to be a chance for roleplay and foreshadowing rather than combat.
In the last few sessions I have started handwaving some of the creature encounters as they are now high enough level that most of the random encounters are not much of a threat. I also changed the story a little so that locations are more likely to lead to other locations.
We've just started in Omu now, and that has a completely different feel to it. There isn't a chance of getting lost, but there is a lot more resource management needed. In Chult you might get one encounter a day (two if you are really unlucky), in Omu it could be a set-piece, a few random encounters and a temple filled with traps before lunchtime.
My only issue is with the death-curse. I feel that it is both too powerful (it kills it's victims too quickly) and not powerful enough (it only affects those that have been ressurected). In my game the players have been warned that as the soulmonger gains power it will start to pull the souls from all living things. They didn't find this out till well down the track though (In Orulunga I think).
I also have most of the intelligent creatures and humans only speaking Chultan - unless they are merchants or scholars. It feels a bit more real if one of the characters has to translate all the time.
Artus Cimber and Dragonbait are brilliant, but don't let them become part of the party - they are just too powerful.
And @Nebulous has a great thread of his campaign: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?587369-Tomb-of-Annihilation-campaign-recaps
I've really enjoyed the old school feel of this adventure so far with the hex-crawling and random encounters.
I foreshadowed how dangerous and randomly fatal the jungle is and how easy to get lost and using the 'player actions' while exploring, rolling weather tables and keeping everything random has really made it feel hard and dangerous. The players know that I am rolling things randomly and that there is a less than zero change they will die. It adds a good tension to the game. At one point the group got totally lost and an entire session was two weeks of wandering around in the jungle while getting attacked by stuff. It was a fun session, even though one of the characters died.
Remember that not every encounter has to be a fight. Generally characters will get some level of warning (through their tracker or scout, through noise coming towards them or through other means) that danger is coming their way. They can often avoid fights. Also, encounters with intelligent creatures is likely to be a chance for roleplay and foreshadowing rather than combat.
In the last few sessions I have started handwaving some of the creature encounters as they are now high enough level that most of the random encounters are not much of a threat. I also changed the story a little so that locations are more likely to lead to other locations.
We've just started in Omu now, and that has a completely different feel to it. There isn't a chance of getting lost, but there is a lot more resource management needed. In Chult you might get one encounter a day (two if you are really unlucky), in Omu it could be a set-piece, a few random encounters and a temple filled with traps before lunchtime.
My only issue is with the death-curse. I feel that it is both too powerful (it kills it's victims too quickly) and not powerful enough (it only affects those that have been ressurected). In my game the players have been warned that as the soulmonger gains power it will start to pull the souls from all living things. They didn't find this out till well down the track though (In Orulunga I think).
I also have most of the intelligent creatures and humans only speaking Chultan - unless they are merchants or scholars. It feels a bit more real if one of the characters has to translate all the time.
Artus Cimber and Dragonbait are brilliant, but don't let them become part of the party - they are just too powerful.