D&D 5E Enhancing "Rise of Tiamat" (Practical stuff to try at your table!)

criticalfumble · Oct 25, 2016

My group is on the verge of the first "The Cult Strikes Back" episode. They've completed the first council meeting, the Sea of Moving Ice and Varram the White sections, and just reached tenth level. Given that they literally just leveled up, I'm having a hard time justifying another level after what is admittedly a hard encounter, but still just ONE encounter.

Am I missing something here? I was thinking of working in one of the additional encounters (maybe the Devilish Demands one, gone wrong) to weaken them up before the cult's assassination attempt, but it still feels like a super quick pit stop at tenth level.

Any suggestions as to how to slow things down a bit? Maybe a DM's Guild adventure that could drop in and make the party earn the level, while staying consistent with the story line? The devil angle seems interesting to me because it would give the party a break from battling dragon after dragon. Not a lot of prep time these days, hence the hope that something "off the shelf" might be out there.

Thanks for any suggestions!

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pukunui · Oct 25, 2016

[MENTION=6791920]grvgrv[/MENTION]: I agree. I don't think the PCs need to gain a level after each cult strikes back episode. Especially if you include the Frozen Castle episode (available on the DMs Guild) that was cut from the adventure.

criticalfumble · Oct 25, 2016

pukunui said:
[MENTION=6791920]grvgrv[/MENTION]: I agree. I don't think the PCs need to gain a level after each cult strikes back episode. Especially if you include the Frozen Castle episode (available on the DMs Guild) that was cut from the adventure.

I'd forgotten about that one. It's do-able for tenth level characters, so maybe I'll contrive a reason that they need to be dispatched up that way.

I don't want to put the party off the pace to have a chance at succeeding at the final encounter by simply skipping the level up associated with the cult's failed attempt, so this may be a good option to make it seem like more of an accomplishment.

Thanks.

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pukunui · Oct 25, 2016

grvgrv said:
I don't want to put the party off the pace to have a chance at succeeding at the final encounter by simply skipping the level up associated with the cult's failed attempt, so this may be a good option to make it seem like more of an accomplishment.

If you include the Frozen Castle, then you could also just give them a level after the third failed cult attack. That would still get them to 14th level. You can also give them a level for going to Thay (or say it's for both Thay and the meeting with the metallic dragons), which would get them to 15th.

robus · Oct 25, 2016

The leveling guide in the book is way too aggressive. I'm sticking with just the major episodes and I'm skeptical about whether the metallic dragons and the thay episodes count...

robus · Nov 27, 2016

Prepping for part 2 of the Tomb of Diderius (episode 3) and finding a few things to improve on...

1) There's no way the PCs have advantage on the lizard folk guards after the secret door is opened to area 14. I'll have the guards ready to fire a shot at anyone coming through that door way.

2) The bridge drops 40 ft over a 40 ft span - that's a 45˚ gradient! The bridge has to be at least 120 ft long (and perhaps longer to make that descent navigable without steps. I changed the DC to remain on the bridge 15 and a DC 20 to make a grab to stay on the bridge if a PC slips - heck it's slimy moss - very hard to get a good grip! Also no mention is made as to what the negative effect of failing a climbing check is. I'm going with a snake attack from one of the holes in the wall or take a level of exhaustion to keep climbing (for variety in case there's more than 1 fail).

3) Yuan-ti quarters the dart trap. There's no Passive Perception check for spotting the pressure plate. It's an investigate check which seems weird. I'm changing it to DC 18 passive perception to notice something strange about the stone. Adding the "click" warning if a PC actually steps on it of course.

4) upgrading the yuan-ti priestess to yuan-ti nightmare speaker (thanks VGtM) and the making the yuan-ti in the hatchery a pit master.

I think those are the major changes so far.

pukunui · Dec 15, 2016

I'm having trouble with the Cult Strikes Back setup.

I've got four 10th level PCs, with a 6th level NPC druid companion, and I'm looking at the Second Attack options. The text makes it sound like it should be a big force - it talks about multiple nycaloths and mezzoloths and/or multiple cultists dropping down from the black dragon ... but when I do the calculations, I'm getting a deadly encounter with just one dragonsoul, one mezzoloth, and one nycaloth. One dragonsoul and one adult black dragon gets me a deadly encounter as well. (Whereas the black dragon by itself is merely hard.)

Anyone got any advice? [MENTION=6702445]jayoungr[/MENTION]? [MENTION=6803337]Eltab[/MENTION]? [MENTION=6686829]Steven Winter[/MENTION]?

By the way: I've set this attack up by having the PCs in Everlund just as it comes under attack by the cult. I could potentially have waves of cultists hit them as they try to make it back to Moongleam Tower in order to teleport back to Waterdeep.

EDIT: In case it helps, the PCs are as follows:
*goliath moon druid 10
*dwarf evoker wizard 10
*human berserker barbarian 10
*halfling swashbuckler rogue 10
*halfling druid NPC (a 6th level caster)

MichaelArkAngel · Dec 15, 2016

grvgrv said:
My group is on the verge of the first "The Cult Strikes Back" episode. They've completed the first council meeting, the Sea of Moving Ice and Varram the White sections, and just reached tenth level. Given that they literally just leveled up, I'm having a hard time justifying another level after what is admittedly a hard encounter, but still just ONE encounter.

Am I missing something here? I was thinking of working in one of the additional encounters (maybe the Devilish Demands one, gone wrong) to weaken them up before the cult's assassination attempt, but it still feels like a super quick pit stop at tenth level.

Any suggestions as to how to slow things down a bit? Maybe a DM's Guild adventure that could drop in and make the party earn the level, while staying consistent with the story line? The devil angle seems interesting to me because it would give the party a break from battling dragon after dragon. Not a lot of prep time these days, hence the hope that something "off the shelf" might be out there.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

I think its the only way they could figure out a way to get the characters to a high enough level to battle Tiamat? Even so, getting to level 14, I believe, isn't high enough to fight Tiamat. I have gone beyond this in my campaign, taking the adventurers to level 20 to fight Tiamat the way I want to! mwahahaha!

criticalfumble · Dec 15, 2016

MichaelArkAngel said:
I think its the only way they could figure out a way to get the characters to a high enough level to battle Tiamat? Even so, getting to level 14, I believe, isn't high enough to fight Tiamat. I have gone beyond this in my campaign, taking the adventurers to level 20 to fight Tiamat the way I want to! mwahahaha!

I agree about these episodes being a means to an end, with that end being to get the characters to a reasonably high level in the allotted page count.

I replaced the first cult strikes back episode with the Frozen Castle adventure, which worked out great. The players really got a kick out of Allac and the yetis, and had to actually work for their level. As it stands, the castle is the party's new ride, and Allac and the yetis are crewing it, although this is not without its own problems. Basically, Allac has become distracted with piloting the castle, and without his guiding influence, the yetis have split into murderous factions. Only the most hardened and ruthless remain as crew members.

As a twist to the cult strikes back idea, the cult has joined forces with a revenant that the party inadvertently created when they went against alignment and murdered the crew of the Frostskimmer (don't ask). At their level, a revenant isn't a huge threat, but they're starting to realize that he's going to keep popping up. Also, I tweak the stats a bit depending on what body the revenant is in. Currently, he's occupying an abominable yeti corpse, so he's sort of tough.

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jayoungr · Dec 15, 2016

pukunui said:
I've got four 10th level PCs, with a 6th level NPC druid companion, and I'm looking at the Second Attack options. The text makes it sound like it should be a big force - it talks about multiple nycaloths and mezzoloths and/or multiple cultists dropping down from the black dragon ... but when I do the calculations, I'm getting a deadly encounter with just one dragonsoul, one mezzoloth, and one nycaloth. One dragonsoul and one adult black dragon gets me a deadly encounter as well. (Whereas the black dragon by itself is merely hard.)

I had the dragon do one breath attack and then fly away after dropping off the cultists.

I ran the full encounter, though, and couldn't even drop one PC in a group of four. As you know, my group's PCs don't die as much as yours do.

D&D 5E Enhancing "Rise of Tiamat" (Practical stuff to try at your table!)

criticalfumble

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pukunui

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criticalfumble

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pukunui

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robus

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robus

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pukunui

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MichaelArkAngel

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criticalfumble

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jayoungr

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