D&D 5E After Action Report - OotA: Experimenting with 5e and certain death

[Joseph Lieberman]

Thanks [MENTION=18333]Rhenny[/MENTION]!
[MENTION=98008]Unwise[/MENTION] - Yeah maybe I should have been more creative than just making it "Fueled by evil!" (though that sounds way cooler than "Amorphous pain in the ass") - Either way the result likely would have been the same... first thing to hit the water is taking ~11 dmg per round and at level 1 not much is going to survive for long.

As for PotA vs. OotA I think [MENTION=94389]jrowland[/MENTION] pretty much nailed it. I skimmed through both and let my players pick which one they wanted. If I were new to D&D or P&P RPGs I would NOT pick OotA. It's WAY open. Even at my ~20 years of D&D playing I find it daunting at times to try to get all the plot threads to fit into the narrative and actions of the players. Add in balancing and making some kind of logical chain of events and I am basically giving up an entire day of my life PLANNING a canned adventure. I thought these things were supposed to save me time

I think if we had run one of the other two I could have spent a day or two reading the thing and then an hour or two before each session to set it up and print things and that would be that. So... if you have lots of time and experience OotA is proving to be very fun. If not... Avoid it.

 

[mgshamster]

Awesome write-up! OotA has to be one of my favorite adventures to run, and I've been playing for over 25 years.

What backgrounds did your players take? Did anyone choose the optional backgrounds in Appendix A?

My players have just made it to Gracklustugh a grueling 15 days (lots of fast pace plus they found a short-cut) after their escape from Velkynvelve. They have kept all the NPCs alive and have even added 12 more! It's been an interesting group of NPCs to GM! Since then, two of the added NPCs have died (they were escaped slaves from a random encounter), and once they found out what what really going on, they executed the culprit. This leading to our first named NPC death.

I've been posting my own campaign log over on the Paizo forums, if you want to check it out. Reading other's campaign logs have really helped me with running my own game. Maybe mine will help you and yours will help me (if my players ever go to Blingdingstone).

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2t6iu?Out-of-the-Abyss-Campaign

Anyways, keep up with the awesomeness! I look forward to your next campaign update.

 

[Joseph Lieberman]

Thanks @mgshamster - Nobody took the Appendix A backgrounds - in part because I didnt even notice them until after everyone rolled a character (Woops!)

The Silver Draconian Fighter is an Outlander
The Dwarf Barbarian is a Noble (lets not overthink that one!)
The Half-Elf Fighter is an Entertainer (Hence his move into Bard)
The Dwarf Cleric and the Human Monk are both Acolytes

I've certainly enjoyed ensuring their written flaws are being adhered to, though the brand new player (Draconian) keeps mixing up the idea of "Survival of the Fittest" with "Kill things weaker than me" - We were all there once I was very proud of her (my daughter) when she nailed the RP and was arguing to murder the traders they encountered and take their stuff. She convinced the Barbarian but apparently our table runs a democracy

EDIT: WTH - you've got like 20 NPCs? Our table ends up in all kinds of trouble when I allow such things Last time I let them use Pathfinder's Leadership ability they were trying to convince me to allow them all to hire a squad of halfling sorcerers with nothing but magic missile and stick them all into some giant Dungeons and Dragons Katyusha rocket launcher. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyusha_rocket_launcher) I give them points for creativity when it comes to powergaming - It lead to a very long and somewhat ongoing debate of what a war would actually look like in a d20 setting (and yes I know, such a tactic would mean everyone would have the shield spell up at all times... trust me we've gone down this rabbit hole and it isn't pretty.)

 

[mgshamster]

Yeah. We have lots of NPCs.

Part of it is because I decided to use a homebrewed system called the Companion System. It sets up key NPCs as cards the players can acquire; each one gives them special abilities. My players are reluctant to sacrifice an NPC, because they don't want to lose that NPCs special abilities. I have a link to it in my campaign log.

Beyond the normal NPCs from the beginning of the book, they also saved some myconid sprouts from being eaten and they came across a group of escaped slaves and took them in. One of our PCs is on a mission to rescue slaves from the underdark, so he brings as many as he can with him. In fact, reaching slaves has become their primary mission in Gracklstugh, which means I have to homebrew a new adventure for the city. One thing I'm doing is converting the Grey Ghosts (a Thieves Guild) into a slave rescuing organization a la the Underground Railroad (more specifically, I'm having a PC take over and converting them; but I'm also allowing them to be more susceptible to his leadership).

One thing of note is that with all these NPCs traveling with them, they have to figure out how to keep everyone fed, they have to solve conflicts between people, and they're responsible for the lives of everyone they have. As one NPC just ritualistically murders one of the escaped slaves, that can cause some trust issues between the surviving humans and the other underdark denizens. Especially some of the Derro and especially now that they're in Gracklstugh.

If you're worried about too many NPCs, I strongly recommend reading chapters 7-8. It is very possible the PCs can head back into the Underdark with a small army. If my players go with the small army options, then setting up supply lines and an outpost is going to be an important part of the game.

 

[Nemio]

Thanks [MENTION=18333]Rhenny[/MENTION]!
So... if you have lots of time and experience OotA is proving to be very fun. If not... Avoid it.

First of all I loved your session description.
Secondly you did scare me a bit with what I quoted.
I've read it before though.

I'm a new DM (session 9 coming up) and my group is nearing the end of the Starter Set.
I wanted to continue with another Wotc adventure and OotA seemed the most fun of them all.
The setting, the NPC's, the demon lords, etc.

Now I'm not sure if I'll do well.

Any pointers?
We'll also be starting the adventure at about lvl 5 so I might need to spice things up a bit.
Whether they'll start captured depends on how they handle the LMoP BBEG fight.
They might need to go to the prison for another reason though.

 

[Joseph Lieberman]

Well, starting at level 5 isn't exactly an issue, but it will require even more work than this campaign already takes. IE: You're going to have to restructure a lot of the combat enemies. If you don't start in prison you'll need another way to introduce the NPCs. You'll lose out possibly on some of the "Survival" aspects as well. You didn't say how much player experience you had, but this is the first campaign in I don't know how long I had the PCs worry about food, water, and MONEY for basic gear. Certainly never have the PCs gotten "200 gold" and spent HALF OF IT on food.

Basically once your party has create food (create water comes early) this sorta goes away - similarly if you decide to do some random encounters you'll really have to power up the enemies.

Outside that, however, I think its pretty easy to move the "set" locations up in difficulty a little to match the PC levels. Possibly delay their level up a little so they end up at 8 or 9 by the end of the first half and you'll be right on track.

So, TL;DR - You'll have a little extra homework to go in off book. You'll need to think of a clever way to introduce (and potentially kill) your NPCs. The "regular wandering in the Underdark" to establish that ITS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO LIVE will have to be done in another fashion. Otherwise if you feel bold, go for it. Worst case scenario is you never finish and you can start fresh with one of the other groups (or just recycle back to your level 5 selves).

 

[Unwise]

[MENTION=6806321]mgshamster[/MENTION] have you found that turning NPCs into companion cards makes the fights significantly harder than intended? There is a pretty big difference in combat ability between a 'real' NPC and a companion card. I would imagine that you would have to re-balance many fights to take that into account?

 

[mgshamster]

[MENTION=6806321]mgshamster[/MENTION] have you found that turning NPCs into companion cards makes the fights significantly harder than intended? There is a pretty big difference in combat ability between a 'real' NPC and a companion card. I would imagine that you would have to re-balance many fights to take that into account?

Not in particular.

On one hand, they do grant bonuses which are useful in combat, and I allow for them to assist in combat upon a players request. For example, in one scene, they wanted the twins to cut a rope bridge in order to drop a foe; but after Eldeth used her NPC card ability to push the opponent on to the bridge.

On the other hand, my players have yet to fight hand-to-hand with an opponent more powerful than them. When they escaped the drow prison, they used stealth along with taking advantage of a distraction (the flying demons). They did have to fight a quaggoth and a giant spider, but most of the drow they avoided.

Since the escape, they've fought goblins, giant fire beetles (in that battle, we actually used the NPCs as combatants rather than cards; fire beetles are so easy that it was more of a "we need food" than a "fight the bad guys" type of encounter. Going in to Gracklstugh, they're opting for subterfuge and stealth, rather than any sort of combat.

My players aren't the "go in head first and fight through every obstacle" type of players. Granted, we have played those kinds of campaigns, and they can be a lot of fun, but they're taking OoTA very seriously and trying to do it with minimal combat. Especially since 14 of their NPCs are effectively non-combatants who need protection (8 humans who they rescued from slavery, 4 myconid sprouts they rescued from goblins, Stool, and Shuushar).

The most challenging was the Oozing Temple, where I actually had to change the Black Puddings to Grey Oozes, lest the PCs die (one of them fell into the trap and had no way to survive; I didn't want to kill off the PCs yet).

Beyond that, I'm doing very little to tailor the encounters to the PCs. If they come up against something more powerful than them, I give them a chance to recognize that power and go the other way (very important when meeting demon lords).

 

[Joseph Lieberman]

As far as I can tell the encounters are balanced so you aren't playing with NPCs on the board by several sessions in anyway. In my session there were NPCs only in the very first battle on board. After that I simply explained "they'd be doing things to help as needed or fighting enemies on their own" and left it at that. Saved a lot of time that way.

 

[Eltab]

Have you folks played or looked at PotA? How does it stack up to OotA? I'm not sure which one to run. Not meaning to derail, but it seemed like the place to ask.

I'm playing in PotA now, have looked through OotA but no more. If you like to "put down roots" and try to build up some Place (as in, future new kingdom), PotA easily accommodates that.

I already told the group that I will want to move in and renovate the first dungeon / cave we cleared out. When we get famous and powerful enough that anybody who comes looking for us can incidentally smash the town to splinters.
My character has CHR 8 but I've already talked down 2 fights by saying we act under the authority of the Sheriff of Red Larch. (Because we did him a favor early on and he let us help him out, not because we really are.)