D&D General About to run Storm King's Thunder; Any tips ?
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Reynard
aka Ian Eller
I mean, don't?
Joking aside, I feel like with SKT you need to really read it and ingest and decide what you want it to look like. TO me, the sandbox in the early levels does not really work, and the overall quest levels later are a bit of a mess. There is a lot you can use as tools, but you kind of need to decide whether what you really want is to run Against the Giants, which changes things up a bit. If not, you should focus on NPCs and factions and be ready to bounce when the PCs make decisions you did not expect.
Long story short: SKT makes a better collection of useful vignette's around which you can build a campaign, than a pre written campaign. As opposed to, say, Icewind Dale, which is a much better pre defined adventure that feels like a CRPG structurally, but is harder to make your own.
Joking aside, I feel like with SKT you need to really read it and ingest and decide what you want it to look like. TO me, the sandbox in the early levels does not really work, and the overall quest levels later are a bit of a mess. There is a lot you can use as tools, but you kind of need to decide whether what you really want is to run Against the Giants, which changes things up a bit. If not, you should focus on NPCs and factions and be ready to bounce when the PCs make decisions you did not expect.
Long story short: SKT makes a better collection of useful vignette's around which you can build a campaign, than a pre written campaign. As opposed to, say, Icewind Dale, which is a much better pre defined adventure that feels like a CRPG structurally, but is harder to make your own.
pukunui
Legend
I have played through SKT and run it once. I love it. One of my favorites.
For my run-through, I made the PCs all be Lords' Alliance agents based out of Waterdeep. I ran "Trouble in Red Larch" from Princes of the Apocalypse and then followed that with a slightly beefed up version of Scourge of the Sword Coast to set the scene and give me time to set up some foreshadowing. (For instance, during Scourge, the PCs found some magic beans. I arranged it so when one of the beans was planted, it did the giant bean stalk thing. That led to the cloud giant's Mickey Mouse tower from the opening SKT scenario. He was able to give them some foreshadowing about the SKT events as he flew them to the dwarf temple-fortress.)
Some of my players are big Skyrim fans, so they loved the open world "exploring the Savage Frontier" aspect of that part of the adventure. I ran the Goldenfields encounter, and they went and defeated the hill giants at Grudd Haug. They also passed through Triboar on their way elsewhere, so I ran the fire giant encounter there. One of the PCs was a ranger, and they knew about the Mielikki shrine in the nearby woods. She went and spent the night there, and I gave her a prophetic dream showing the storm giant queen dead on a beach and the other giant lords scheming.)
I'd be happy to share my notes.
Here are our session recaps: SWORD COAST ADVENTURES
For my run-through, I made the PCs all be Lords' Alliance agents based out of Waterdeep. I ran "Trouble in Red Larch" from Princes of the Apocalypse and then followed that with a slightly beefed up version of Scourge of the Sword Coast to set the scene and give me time to set up some foreshadowing. (For instance, during Scourge, the PCs found some magic beans. I arranged it so when one of the beans was planted, it did the giant bean stalk thing. That led to the cloud giant's Mickey Mouse tower from the opening SKT scenario. He was able to give them some foreshadowing about the SKT events as he flew them to the dwarf temple-fortress.)
Some of my players are big Skyrim fans, so they loved the open world "exploring the Savage Frontier" aspect of that part of the adventure. I ran the Goldenfields encounter, and they went and defeated the hill giants at Grudd Haug. They also passed through Triboar on their way elsewhere, so I ran the fire giant encounter there. One of the PCs was a ranger, and they knew about the Mielikki shrine in the nearby woods. She went and spent the night there, and I gave her a prophetic dream showing the storm giant queen dead on a beach and the other giant lords scheming.)
I'd be happy to share my notes.
Here are our session recaps: SWORD COAST ADVENTURES
mixmastashizz
Explorer
I found the weakest part to be the section between the inciting giant attack and finding the friendly frost giant NPC.
Its been years, but I remember running it and feeling like "Okay so they just wander around until they run into this guy who lore dumps what going on and points them in the right direction? Sure"
I found the premise and the main villain very interesting, I just wish the adventure flowed more organically from one set piece to the other. Its like they had the ideas for cool scenes (blue dragon in the giants tomb, the big sand ampitheater) but didnt have the time to flesh out the in between.
I ran it in parallel with aspects of Princes of the Apocalypse to flesh things out which helped.
What also hurt the adventure for me is that it tried to be a setting gazateer and an adventure path simultaneously and didnt quite hit the mark on either
Its been years, but I remember running it and feeling like "Okay so they just wander around until they run into this guy who lore dumps what going on and points them in the right direction? Sure"
I found the premise and the main villain very interesting, I just wish the adventure flowed more organically from one set piece to the other. Its like they had the ideas for cool scenes (blue dragon in the giants tomb, the big sand ampitheater) but didnt have the time to flesh out the in between.
I ran it in parallel with aspects of Princes of the Apocalypse to flesh things out which helped.
What also hurt the adventure for me is that it tried to be a setting gazateer and an adventure path simultaneously and didnt quite hit the mark on either
greymist
Lurker Extraordinaire
AnotherGuy
Hero
Like Tyranny of Dragons this AP can be a real gem with some work ofc.
I integrated the two (along with others) as it made sense to do so.
Tyranny of Dragons being the primary campaign storyline.
Yes.
Read through the Enhancing Storm Kings Thunder thread on Enworld.
The Alexandrian has some useful content if you do not want to use the entire Remix but it does establish some beautiful relationships between the various giant leaders.
Introduce Felgolos the adult bronze dragon in Lyn Armaal (Chapter 9) early on for the PCs to build a repoire.
Use the gargoyle thread to inject some life into the gargoyles in the last chapter.
Check out Slyfourish's articles on Storm Kings Thunder and Iymrith (use the Iymrith signature spells)
Check out Greenwood's article on Iymrith for some ideas
You may want to use the Mythic Iymrith in Wyrms of the Realms: Mythic Encounters
There is a Guide on DMsGuild but it is not necessary given all these other sources. There are plenty of interesting ideas and sources on the net.
I had the PCs encounter multiple giant dens/lairs in order to obtain a conch as I did not want to leave a large part of the book unplayed - Chief Guh cracked her conch when she fell through the floor after the PCs unleashed ridiculous amounts of damage on her, the mad-struck stone giant Thane smashed hers against the stalactite once she found out what the PCs were after (I tricked the PCs into revealing it), the cloud giant Countess Sansuri proved too strong and they managed to escape with Felgolos after they were imprisoned - they finally gained their conch from Duke Zalto.
I integrated the Adventure League storyline where Hartkiller is resurrected which made things rather messy as the giant kin were divided in loyalty between Anam's run son and the Storm King Hekaton - the two evil daughters fled Maelstrom, the elder Mirran, a Quintessant, sided with Iymrith against her father (along with her lover Orlekto) while Nym, made her way to the court of Hartkiller.
I brought in a lot of giant politics as Hekaton had lost a lot of support and he was torn between rescuing his youngest and doing what was right for giantkind. Did he really want a civil war between giants? Would he face Hartkiller on the battlefield knowing Hartkiller held the legendary soul-stealing weapon from Jarl Ryndölg? He already warned the PCs that this was a giant matter and not to get involved (i.e. attack Hartkiller) as that would likely bring about an all-out war between giants vs smallfolk
I also brought in the powerful Baron Rajiram as a third power-player complicating matters.
Do use the Seer from the Adventure League as an expert on Giants.
One last thing, I had the cloud giant Zephyros commune via multiple chessboards as he tried to decipher key players in the giant struggle and discover hidden meanings and solve riddles through the chessboard positionings, and the players go to assist him. He frequented them more than once on their travels.
There is a lot of amazing content/lore to draw from.
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