D&D (2024) Princes of the Apocalypse Rework for 2024?

[Zardnaar]

So I quite like the start of princess of the Apocalypse. The first 5 levels or so_first few dungeons. The second part seems weak to me but I've only done the first half.

So thinking of rewriting that. Basically moving/removing the second set of dungeons. Fir example kind of thinking of adding more plot, NPCs and perhaps making the dungeons pockets on the elemental planes. Failing that just mining it for maps/encounters.

Another idea would be adding elements
of it to LMoP or DoIP and doing the first half but at higher levels.

Thoughts that would you recommend?

 

[Retreater]

It's been years since I ran it, but IIRC, the adventure hook to track down the missing dwarf traders was completely dropped. I'd make it pay off or create a new hook - it's the weakest part of the adventure.
The first adventure I think is a tower devoted to the air cult. It never made sense to me and was a very weak introduction to the elemental cults. I'd make them more wicked instead of a "wishy washy bad maybe".

 

[pukunui]

It's been years since I ran it, but IIRC, the adventure hook to track down the missing dwarf traders was completely dropped. I'd make it pay off or create a new hook - it's the weakest part of the adventure.

Some of it got added back in via errata but it's still pretty weak.

The first adventure I think is a tower devoted to the air cult. It never made sense to me and was a very weak introduction to the elemental cults. I'd make them more wicked instead of a "wishy washy bad maybe".

I like the guys in the tower. I used that as a standalone adventure in an episodic campaign I ran a few years ago. Great fun!

So I quite like the start of princess of the Apocalypse.

Yeah. I reckon "Trouble in Red Larch" rivals the old Village of Hommlet as a fantastic campaign opener. I've used it twice now, and it was a hit both times.

The first 5 levels or so_first few dungeons. The second part seems weak to me but I've only done the first half.

I haven't used any of the content from the second half of the book, but my concern isn't that it's weak but rather that it could be tiresomely repetitive by that point.

I'm also not a fan of the idea that each cult occupies a conveniently square quadrant of a larger ruined dwarf city. I'd prefer to make Tyar-Besil be more like Moria and spread things out a bit more on different levels and in different locations. 5e includes rules for minute-by-minute and hour-by-hour exploration of large locations but none of the official adventures ever incorporate anything like that. They're all so painfully small and boring - probably to make everything easy to use on a VTT.

I want more locations like Thunderspire Labyrinth from 4e, where you've got a big zoomed-out map of the whole dungeon with zoomed-in encounter maps for specific locations, and you can go more abstract dungeon crawling in between those places.

 

[kigmatzomat]

As someone who has spent like 2 dozen sessions in a row, slogging through four elemental temples, the under level and is now taking out the elemental gates, I have some opinions.

First off, the self-segregating "frenemy" members of each cult who are not really allies combined with waterfalls/lava falls/forges, all combine to mean players can take short rests in the temples rather than be hit by waves of enemies.

For the love of fun, revamp it so instead of a slow march through the temples it gets more frantic with wave after wave of enemies. It would need to be rebalanced but that would speed up things.

I joined the campaign late (and the GM combined PoA with "Ghosts of Saltmarsh" and "Court of the Shadowfey") so I can't talk about the earlier cultist encounters, but the one with the monks in the tower is brought up repeatedly as a high point in the game. (Pun unintended but not going to remove it)

 

[Staffan]

The problem with the later part is that it's One Big Dungeon. I mean, it's no Undermountain, but it's still a single dungeon meant to take you from something like level 7 to 14, and with the first "levels" only vaguely separated (from the DM's perspective the Temple of Howling Hatred is highly distinct from the Temple of Eternal Flame, but for the PCs they're just at opposite ends of a short corridor). If I was redoing it, I'd probably start this part from scratch, drop the Tyar-Besil stuff (notably, the extent of Tyar-Besil is smaller than Red Larch itself...) and make the temples truly separate dungeons. I'd also make them smaller, but add challenges you need to deal with on the way to them – so instead of the Temple of Howling Hatred being a 20-location dungeon level, it might be more like 7 to 10 locations, but before you can get there you need to help the aarakocra with something so they can give you a lift there or something like that.

Maybe add Tyar-Besil back in as a larger location that needs to be explored more like a wilderness area, replacing the Fane as the place that connects the various Nodes. This could also have some encounter spaces that aren't linked to the elemental stuff, at least not directly.

Oh, and another thing: the adventure is not very good at telling the PCs what's going on. When I ran it, I used the Rundreth Manor side trek as a way to give the PCs info about how the elemental cultists were being a threat and such. But it seems like that should be part of the core experience, beyond "Look, evil elemental cultists, we'd better go murder them."

 

[thullgrim]

Last time I looked at it I was going to use as a follow on from LMoP. I had plans to seed some of the areas around Phandelver and along the roads the signs of elemental cult activities.

@Staffan suggestion of breaking the dungeon into smaller, more discrete chunks is a great idea.

 

[Zardnaar]

The problem with the later part is that it's One Big Dungeon. I mean, it's no Undermountain, but it's still a single dungeon meant to take you from something like level 7 to 14, and with the first "levels" only vaguely separated (from the DM's perspective the Temple of Howling Hatred is highly distinct from the Temple of Eternal Flame, but for the PCs they're just at opposite ends of a short corridor). If I was redoing it, I'd probably start this part from scratch, drop the Tyar-Besil stuff (notably, the extent of Tyar-Besil is smaller than Red Larch itself...) and make the temples truly separate dungeons. I'd also make them smaller, but add challenges you need to deal with on the way to them – so instead of the Temple of Howling Hatred being a 20-location dungeon level, it might be more like 7 to 10 locations, but before you can get there you need to help the aarakocra with something so they can give you a lift there or something like that.

Maybe add Tyar-Besil back in as a larger location that needs to be explored more like a wilderness area, replacing the Fane as the place that connects the various Nodes. This could also have some encounter spaces that aren't linked to the elemental stuff, at least not directly.

Oh, and another thing: the adventure is not very good at telling the PCs what's going on. When I ran it, I used the Rundreth Manor side trek as a way to give the PCs info about how the elemental cultists were being a threat and such. But it seems like that should be part of the core experience, beyond "Look, evil elemental cultists, we'd better go murder them."

Cheers just recently did a 60 room dungeon. Shorter ones nice or a way to interact peacefully would be nice.

 

[Zardnaar]

Some of it got added back in via errata but it's still pretty weak.


I like the guys in the tower. I used that as a standalone adventure in an episodic campaign I ran a few years ago. Great fun!


Yeah. I reckon "Trouble in Red Larch" rivals the old Village of Hommlet as a fantastic campaign opener. I've used it twice now, and it was a hit both times.


I haven't used any of the content from the second half of the book, but my concern isn't that it's weak but rather that it could be tiresomely repetitive by that point.

I'm also not a fan of the idea that each cult occupies a conveniently square quadrant of a larger ruined dwarf city. I'd prefer to make Tyar-Besil be more like Moria and spread things out a bit more on different levels and in different locations. 5e includes rules for minute-by-minute and hour-by-hour exploration of large locations but none of the official adventures ever incorporate anything like that. They're all so painfully small and boring - probably to make everything easy to use on a VTT.

I want more locations like Thunderspire Labyrinth from 4e, where you've got a big zoomed-out map of the whole dungeon with zoomed-in encounter maps for specific locations, and you can go more abstract dungeon crawling in between those places.

Preaching to the converted methinks.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I agree with @Staffan that the same encounters over a wider area would change the pacing and make it feel less of house-to-house combat. To use the Water temple as an example, have it be a series of outposts along a river. You have a couple of elites supported by a squad or two of mooks. The different creatures can live in different parts of the river (marsh vs deep pools vs rapids, etc) which goes along with the "not full fledged allies" aspect.

You could make Tyar-Besil like a whole mountain complex that mostly collapsed and these four widely disparate temples were some of the old entrances that can get down to the old Underdark levels. It's still anchored to one place but it can put miles between cults except at the heart of the mountain. Also means each cult would be targeting a completely different region.

If Tyr is in a 10,000ft tall mountain, it could readily be 5-10 miles across at the base with an "as the crow flies" circumference of 15-30 miles in the foot hills but a road circumference of 100+ miles . Given that scale, it would be plausible for PCs not to realize the cults were connected at first. Their areas of interest could be a hundred miles apart, in different terrains and political zones. Put the mountain near the coast and the Water cult could be focused on seafaring mayhem, Earth could focus on dwarven cities & the underdark, Fire for the farmlands and crops, while Air has a thing for generating storms that hit down-wind.

The geography of the mountain side allows different cultists to possibly have allies not only uphill/downhill but also east-west, and the frenemies would get close the higher you get. Maybe an air outposts can see a water or fire camp down-mountain, and the monks could kite themselves in as paratroopers if they felt like it. Water could possibly divert the river uphill and cause a mud slide. Earth can cause avalanches and fire might have a lava trebuchet, who knows. These are probably intended as ways to harass their frenemies with the thinnest veneer of "in case you need help."

In this layout players could slog up one path, maybe two, but then when they realize the other temples are likely at a similar elevation they could skip past whole swaths of the lower defenders to go for the elites. It creates a plausible reason how the PCs could bypass tedious mook fights and get to the important stuff.

 

[pukunui]

If you really want to put the effort into reworking it, I highly recommend replacing the cult lairs included in the adventure with the elemental beacons shown in the concept art in the back of the book (along with some of the cool other ideas). For those who don't have the book, that's this stuff:

Spoiler: elemental beacons concept art

Spoiler: other cool ideas

water cult giant walrus rider:

"Fermented Sea Creature + Spell Makes Deadly Water Grenade"

Fire elemental-infused robot:

"Parasite from below soil used to gain clairvoyant abilities"