D&D 5E Running Vault of the Dracolich: Tips?

koga305 said:

As an aspiring game designer, it is super cool to hear from the person who actually designed the adventure I'm running. Interesting to hear that you designed without stats - the thing seems impressively balanced keeping that in mind. I suppose D&D, especially 5E, is a game pretty resistant to balance concerns (the DM can tick up or tick down as necessary), but even so based on play reports most of the fights and other challenges went very smoothly.

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Thanks, it is a dream come true to work on D&D! If you are interested in freelancing, keep an ear open for the new organized play program. It has mentioned there will be one (though no official word on when it will begin). When it starts up they will look for authors. Writing for organized play is an excellent way to learn the ropes. You get to work with experienced authors (the admins are almost always incredibly experienced), work with an editor and/or developer (great experience for working with the Wizards process), and then later you can attend a convention and see how what you wrote plays out across many tables. That experience is really invaluable in learning how to shape the player experience. Everything I've done began with my work on organized play and WotC designers liking what I was doing and offering me the opportunity to try writing directly for them.

Once Dragon/Dungeon re-open, that's also an excellent way to show WotC that you can work on a deadline and produce quality work.

It can be a bit tricky to write without stats, but a lot is made easier by the folks at WotC. We might recommend a monster type and WotC can either make a new monster or substitute something with a similar feel. The Wizards team is really fantastic and will usually understand the overall objective and how to ensure the stats they drop in contribute to the experience.

How did it go? I'm running this in our local con in August so I'd appriciate any pointers.

Warder

So... I ran this back when it came out and I am thinking of doing it again.

We won't have more than 2 tables, and we will be playing it in three or four two-hour sessions.

Any advice on how best to pull it off?

Last time I was the coordinator and it was awesome. This time I will both coordinate and DM one table.

Oh, and we will play it in 5e. Any changes need to be made?

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It should run pretty well as written, using the D&D Next monster stats (even with 5E PCs). If you use new MM stats, you will need to compare them to the adventure to ensure the monster did not change drastically (many monsters changed features and thus CR, so the new versions could be much stronger or weaker and would need adjustment/encounter balance). For that reason, I would just use the D&D Next stats. If you haven't downloaded the file in a while, check DriveThru for the latest version, where they added the playtest packet with the monster stats. Or, if you have the printed version, you may have to hunt online for those stats - or purchase any D&D Next adventure that includes the stats, such as some of the last Encounters seasons that supported 5E.

The adventure does have rules for two tables, so you should be covered there.

Alphastream said:

It should run pretty well as written, using the D&D Next monster stats (even with 5E PCs). If you use new MM stats, you will need to compare them to the adventure to ensure the monster did not change drastically (many monsters changed features and thus CR, so the new versions could be much stronger or weaker and would need adjustment/encounter balance). For that reason, I would just use the D&D Next stats. If you haven't downloaded the file in a while, check DriveThru for the latest version, where they added the playtest packet with the monster stats. Or, if you have the printed version, you may have to hunt online for those stats - or purchase any D&D Next adventure that includes the stats, such as some of the last Encounters seasons that supported 5E.

The adventure does have rules for two tables, so you should be covered there.

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Thanks! I looked up the Next stats I ran it with the first time and compared them to the MM version. You're right, it's probably best to just use the playtest Monsters. They are either close enough or better matched to level 4 PCs than the current ones.



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