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<blockquote data-quote="Burnside" data-source="post: 7270523" data-attributes="member: 6910340"><p>Addendum: Treasure of the Broken Hoard (DDAL5-01)</p><p></p><p>Ran this on Saturday afternoon as part of charity Extra Life event. This was my second session of the day, and I had all the newly-arriving players, so half the session was occupied with character creation. 8 players at my table, only three of whom had ever played before (and one of those had not since she was a kid).</p><p></p><p>Not sure if in retrospect I should have just given them all pre-gens. While most – especially new players - found character creation amusing and interesting, it left time to run only the first of the 5 1-hour mini adventures. I have noticed two things that most new players seem to love about 5E character creation: the personality notes (trait/ideal/bond/flaw) and the trinkets. </p><p></p><p>Saturday was my first experience DMing public games. I had large tables for both of my sessions (in my earlier session I ran King of the Cats by M.T. Black). I’m used to running for 4-5 players, although my second home group (not the one I’m running the Season 5 stuff for) has now grown to 6 players. Not news to anybody reading this, but this game is super popular right now, and there are not enough DMs to go around. I did my best to give every player at least one or two little “moments” outside combat, which can be a tricky feat in a one-hour story. </p><p></p><p>My takeaway was that the most problematic thing about an 8-player table is that the people who roll low on initiative can be waiting a while for their turn to come around. Fortunately, most of the players were good at acting decisively and quickly on their turns.</p><p></p><p>Players all level 1:</p><p>-Female mountain dwarf fighter (had played before in like middle school)</p><p>-Female lightfoot halfling rogue (first time player)</p><p>-Female wood elf rogue (first time)</p><p>-Male human monk (first time)</p><p>-Female high elf fighter (first time)</p><p>-Female forest gnome druid (regular player)</p><p>-Male human paladin (regular player)</p><p>-Male stout halfling wizard (first time)</p><p></p><p>So with this group I played Beneath the Hills, the first adventure in Treasure of the Broken Horde. Ran it pretty close to as written except de-emphasized Cult of the Dragon references, because they would mean nothing to these players. </p><p></p><p>A nice start to this one. Party has been hired by veteran dwarf explorer Veradda Store to help her recover cache of treasure hidden in Greypeak Mountains. They arrive at the designated rendezvous point only to find her battered corpse. Everybody finds something to do here: determining how she died, finding tracks, finding her expedition log and seeing that pages have been torn out, searching corpse and finding a backup copy of notes, giving her a proper dwarf burial. I had the backup notes in dwarven shorthand, so a couple of players who spoke dwarven could translate. </p><p></p><p>Party used notes and followed goblin, hill giant, and bear tracks to cavern. Sent the monk and the elf rogue inside to scout, but monk blew the stealth check and they got bushwhacked by a rear-guard of five goblins. Most of party charges in to help, with dwarf fighter hanging back to cover their rear and watch for more surprises. Some stabbing, shooting, dart-throwing, and one sleep spell later we had one unconscious monk, two dead goblins, and three goblins tied up. </p><p></p><p>I am always surprised at some players’ willingness to torture and murder prisoners, regardless of the players’ alignment. Somehow my inner policeman stops me from doing this, even in a game. I just don’t find it “fun”. But yeah, players revive the monk and then violently grill the goblins, learn that they are a rear-guard, more goblins and two hill giants are inside and haven’t been heard from since there was a cave-in. Players then murder their helpless prisoners. </p><p></p><p>Two hill giant feet protrude from a pile of rubble where a cave-in has occurred. Dwarf’s stonecunning reveals this is a natural cavern that has been modified, and the cave-in was triggered by a trap.</p><p></p><p>Halfling wizard picked the acolyte background and interprets nearly everything as a sign from god, including when a bird landed on Veradda Stor’s corpse and started to eat her. This cave-in is also an important omen.</p><p></p><p>Players proceed down only non-caved-in tunnel and are attacked by a swarm of tiny goblins cursed by a shrinking trap deeper in the caverns. The tiny goblins turn out the lamps but somebody gets off a light cantrip in short order. Female elf fighter loves this sequence and proceeds to skewer tiny goblins on her rapier and fling them into the wall. </p><p></p><p>Hammer-smashing from paladin and poison spray from druid finishes them off. Nat 20 Arcana check from wizard indicates the goblins almost certainly fell victim to a curse. When killed, corpses return to normal size.</p><p></p><p>Final encounter is with a hill giant who has been shrunk to goblin size trying to open a stone chest, and his pet bear, Blooddrinker, who is half the size of a housecat. On max difficulty this guy has 50+ hp so he gives them a bit of trouble as well as grandiose threats but outcome is never really in question. Druid quickly animal handles the tiny bear and dwarf eventually dispatches the hill giant with her greataxe. </p><p></p><p>I could see they were going to have a very easy time with this so I modified the encounter a little bit: shrinking curse was slowly wearing off, so the giant was doubling in size every two rounds (died at around 7 feet tall late in round 3) and I made the shrink trap still active on the area of floor around the chest, but the players figured this might be the case so avoided that area during the fight. </p><p></p><p>Wizard and rogues figured out and disrupted the trap, stone chest opened, cache of low-level treasure recovered. Tiny bear starts convulsing but with a 15 medicine check druid saves him and has a tiny bear for life. Hill giant had Veradda’s notes on him, indicating that there were more caches out there waiting to be found, but that would be another adventure for another day.</p><p></p><p>Playing time: One hour & 15 minutes.</p><p></p><p>Rating: B+, for this 20% of the adventure at least. Served its purpose perfectly and has some amusing features. A very solid starter mini-dungeon for new players.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Burnside, post: 7270523, member: 6910340"] Addendum: Treasure of the Broken Hoard (DDAL5-01) Ran this on Saturday afternoon as part of charity Extra Life event. This was my second session of the day, and I had all the newly-arriving players, so half the session was occupied with character creation. 8 players at my table, only three of whom had ever played before (and one of those had not since she was a kid). Not sure if in retrospect I should have just given them all pre-gens. While most – especially new players - found character creation amusing and interesting, it left time to run only the first of the 5 1-hour mini adventures. I have noticed two things that most new players seem to love about 5E character creation: the personality notes (trait/ideal/bond/flaw) and the trinkets. Saturday was my first experience DMing public games. I had large tables for both of my sessions (in my earlier session I ran King of the Cats by M.T. Black). I’m used to running for 4-5 players, although my second home group (not the one I’m running the Season 5 stuff for) has now grown to 6 players. Not news to anybody reading this, but this game is super popular right now, and there are not enough DMs to go around. I did my best to give every player at least one or two little “moments” outside combat, which can be a tricky feat in a one-hour story. My takeaway was that the most problematic thing about an 8-player table is that the people who roll low on initiative can be waiting a while for their turn to come around. Fortunately, most of the players were good at acting decisively and quickly on their turns. Players all level 1: -Female mountain dwarf fighter (had played before in like middle school) -Female lightfoot halfling rogue (first time player) -Female wood elf rogue (first time) -Male human monk (first time) -Female high elf fighter (first time) -Female forest gnome druid (regular player) -Male human paladin (regular player) -Male stout halfling wizard (first time) So with this group I played Beneath the Hills, the first adventure in Treasure of the Broken Horde. Ran it pretty close to as written except de-emphasized Cult of the Dragon references, because they would mean nothing to these players. A nice start to this one. Party has been hired by veteran dwarf explorer Veradda Store to help her recover cache of treasure hidden in Greypeak Mountains. They arrive at the designated rendezvous point only to find her battered corpse. Everybody finds something to do here: determining how she died, finding tracks, finding her expedition log and seeing that pages have been torn out, searching corpse and finding a backup copy of notes, giving her a proper dwarf burial. I had the backup notes in dwarven shorthand, so a couple of players who spoke dwarven could translate. Party used notes and followed goblin, hill giant, and bear tracks to cavern. Sent the monk and the elf rogue inside to scout, but monk blew the stealth check and they got bushwhacked by a rear-guard of five goblins. Most of party charges in to help, with dwarf fighter hanging back to cover their rear and watch for more surprises. Some stabbing, shooting, dart-throwing, and one sleep spell later we had one unconscious monk, two dead goblins, and three goblins tied up. I am always surprised at some players’ willingness to torture and murder prisoners, regardless of the players’ alignment. Somehow my inner policeman stops me from doing this, even in a game. I just don’t find it “fun”. But yeah, players revive the monk and then violently grill the goblins, learn that they are a rear-guard, more goblins and two hill giants are inside and haven’t been heard from since there was a cave-in. Players then murder their helpless prisoners. Two hill giant feet protrude from a pile of rubble where a cave-in has occurred. Dwarf’s stonecunning reveals this is a natural cavern that has been modified, and the cave-in was triggered by a trap. Halfling wizard picked the acolyte background and interprets nearly everything as a sign from god, including when a bird landed on Veradda Stor’s corpse and started to eat her. This cave-in is also an important omen. Players proceed down only non-caved-in tunnel and are attacked by a swarm of tiny goblins cursed by a shrinking trap deeper in the caverns. The tiny goblins turn out the lamps but somebody gets off a light cantrip in short order. Female elf fighter loves this sequence and proceeds to skewer tiny goblins on her rapier and fling them into the wall. Hammer-smashing from paladin and poison spray from druid finishes them off. Nat 20 Arcana check from wizard indicates the goblins almost certainly fell victim to a curse. When killed, corpses return to normal size. Final encounter is with a hill giant who has been shrunk to goblin size trying to open a stone chest, and his pet bear, Blooddrinker, who is half the size of a housecat. On max difficulty this guy has 50+ hp so he gives them a bit of trouble as well as grandiose threats but outcome is never really in question. Druid quickly animal handles the tiny bear and dwarf eventually dispatches the hill giant with her greataxe. I could see they were going to have a very easy time with this so I modified the encounter a little bit: shrinking curse was slowly wearing off, so the giant was doubling in size every two rounds (died at around 7 feet tall late in round 3) and I made the shrink trap still active on the area of floor around the chest, but the players figured this might be the case so avoided that area during the fight. Wizard and rogues figured out and disrupted the trap, stone chest opened, cache of low-level treasure recovered. Tiny bear starts convulsing but with a 15 medicine check druid saves him and has a tiny bear for life. Hill giant had Veradda’s notes on him, indicating that there were more caches out there waiting to be found, but that would be another adventure for another day. Playing time: One hour & 15 minutes. Rating: B+, for this 20% of the adventure at least. Served its purpose perfectly and has some amusing features. A very solid starter mini-dungeon for new players. [/QUOTE]
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