Search results

The Whispering Cairn is a pretty good dungeon-crawl, tough and potential for killing PC's especially inexperienced ones, there are also some good pieces "in town" in fact the non-dungeon pieces are my favourites (including a potential run-in with a half-orc, an owlbear, and a cool necromancer...

Yeah, in my limited experience on this I'd tend to say forget CR, and have NPC's with around the same number of Hit Dice as the PC's. For example, if you have 5th level PC's, an NPC Thug might be an appropriate "companion", as they have 5d8+10 hit points i.e. 5 Hit Dice. That's a very rough...

I agree with those who disagree with OP... I have nothing to contribute to the debate of the mechanical aspects, as those are covered above and details will vary depending on the DM, campaign, the players, etc. But I can definitely say that in my experience of actually playing 5e with friends...

I've run both in 3.5, and I also ran Age of Worms a second time using 5e (mostly during the alpha and beta phases of rules testing). As noted, Age of Worms is *very* long, and covers pretty a lot of variety in what's essentially 12 linked adventures, most of which cover 2 levels of play. The...

My (four) players got through Death House surprisingly easily and quickly, because they focused on 'the plot' instead of just exploring everything in front of them, and the few combats they had, they played intelligently; they went straight to the upper level, found their way to the dungeons...

I've used some of Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, under 3.5 rules as the 'cap stone' for Shattered Gates of Slaughterguarde, so from memory it was more like 9th level PC's for me. I've also played the first half of Out of the Abyss, and skim-read the second half as we moved on to another...

I've run a few now, and I'd say while obviously they were more like D&D than a Call of Cthulhu game, they were all good, if not great, changes of pace. Adding some form of Madness (as per DMG) can easily be done, but isn't essential. And Madness Follows, Dungeon #134, was a great 3.5 urban...

Greyhawk Wars, From the Ashes, et. al. - I didn't really get much of interest out of those, to me they changed the tone of the setting (due to different authors etc), then what was done in 3.x was OK but again didn't really do much except give a context for the core books. Which is my point...

Smaller groups (3-4 players) run faster, and often have better group role-play as there's more available "screen time per person". The down-side is that smaller groups are more "fragile" in combat, as if even a single PC drops the combat can seriously swing towards TPK territory. Large groups...

Stormdale is correct - all the old modules had the barest bones of any "plot", in a very short intro, but also scattered through the module text. Rather than the more modern style which started in 2e, and presents you with a huge "book", that's interesting to read but hard to actually run at...

When I ran it, the sun sword was in the castle, and so the players just got all the other items sorted first, then early on in the castle they went for the sword. Most players assume that the castle is a one-way trip, although in my game one PC did run away for a session then come back. As...

Late in 3.5, the Marshal was released, and for the most part it was lame (except for a few dips in some CharOp builds). In 4e, the idea was updated and the "Warlord" was born. One of my players created one, and really enjoyed it as a very different type of character (work via others, as much...

I haven't got or read the book yet, but I do have to agree, as that was my initial thought when the book was first announced. Especially as one adventure was already published for 5e (just only available via in-store public beta IIRC), and then two of the others were actually already converted...

"sucker for a pretty face" is a great hook that could be used to good effect a number of times. Like straight away, with Lady Wachter - don't show the picture on page 112, describe her as mature but in good condition, alluring... give the new player the chance to help counter the murder-hobo...

Indeed, but that was mainly because all the other melee types had a magic weapon by then; that player did have good spells (bard), so wasn't exactly useless, it was all good fun. Eventually he got a magic weapon, which IMO shouldn't be expected. That's the way CoS works - you are in Barovia...

My recollection of Forge of Fury, is that you won't get it finished in two sessions. But I could be wrong, we played it a long time ago (I was one of many players). Sunless Citadel is for levels 1-3, so depends entirely on if your group wants to "start over" for a one-shot - normally, people...

I've always wanted to include Redcaps in my campaigns, have only used them once back in 3.5. I'm not sure Volo's Guide gives them a full enough treatment (there's only one type, fairly tough), but it's an idea... (e.g. minions of Baba Lasagna). Especially if your players mistake them for...

I don't remember any of my players ever genuinely complaining on a lack of magic, or a lack of cash and/or ability to buy anything. I think one of the Fighters had made himself a blacksmith so that helped him get decent armour mid-game, i.e. he'd already thought ahead when making his character...

I roll until it becomes a pain, then average. In particular, for high level play, I almost always take average. I started doing that back in the 3.5 days, as did my players, when we got near 20th level, as rolling handfuls of dice and trying to add them up, across multiple attacks, isn't...

What's done is done, best to move forward IMO. Who knows, maybe your ten year old didn't really understand Strahd's offer, maybe he thought he could rule as the 'good guy', whereas Strahd is looking (but only half-arsed) for someone to be the next BBEG. It's a complicated conversation, best...