ccs
41st lv DM
So DMs guild fulfills your tentacle monster balloon sculpture needs?
D&D 5E Anyone else feeling "meh" about recent 5e releases?
- Thread starter Retreater
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So DMs guild fulfills your tentacle monster balloon sculpture needs?
Xenonnonex
Hero
Yes, I was pretty disappointed running Curse of the Crimson Throne - it seemed so cool and dramatic in concept, but in play those endless blocks of text don't translate well to the table.
So for my next attempt I deliberately set about mangling Shattered Star & Rise of the Runelords to make something much more dynamic. Has gone well; after years of play I've basically used SS 1-5 and on 6, Runelords 2-4 & first bit of 5, but the situation IMC is very different with Runelord Karzoug's sit-in-room champions ruling Urglin and preparing to lead an army against Magnimar's garrison at Storrval Stairs, while Runelord Krune rules Kaer Maga and in Belkzen Runelord Zutha's orc & undead legions march against Lastwall.
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From the sessions I played, that would be a vastly better beginning to the campaign. You can always introduce the Death Curse around level 4-5 and point PCs in the right direction. "You must save the world!" to level 1 PCs feels silly & is just begging for a TPK.
Paul Farquhar
Legend
Teleporting the party to the target location in ToA seems a bit pointless too. Sure, if they have already been adventuring in one part of the world, and the next adventure is in another then teleportation is an easy, if unsubtle way of getting the party to where they need to be.
But at level 1, with no pervious adventures? It make far more sense to start the party on a ship about to arrive in Chult.
But at level 1, with no pervious adventures? It make far more sense to start the party on a ship about to arrive in Chult.
Xenonnonex
Hero
Do you run these in 5e or Pathfinder? I am definitely a fan of some of Paizo's works but I am also sick of their naughty word mechanics.
5e D&D, much easier to use than Pathfinder. I ran Curse of the Crimson Throne in PF and swore NEVER AGAIN!! Fine up to level 5/6, then breaks down horribly as PCs levelled up every 1-2 sessions & double in power every 2 levels. The last book of CT was a total kerbstomp; the Summoner had long since stopped using his Eidolon. At the end he stopped bothering to level up!
dave2008
Legend
Yes, I do agree with that. I was being a bit snarky in that post and intentionally left that part out. I was trying to emphasis that I find it really frustrating to "run" published adventures. Now, taking ideas and putting them in my adventures - I do that all the time.
dave2008
Legend
That said, after about two hours of looking through the "Tomb of Annihilation"...well...it reads like a story. This is a bad sign.But, maybe it plays differently. I'm going to peruse the other dozen or so things that came in 'the bundle' to see which one I am going to offer to run on FGII.
I have it, but haven't run it (I don't run published adventures); however, from what I have heard there is a story, but there are lots of ways it can be run and some people don't follow the story at all. What I have heard is that the recent APs kinda do both: provide a bit of sand box, that has a main story, but you don't have to use it (though it may limit some options).
I do know there is at least some advice in ToA for running things different as I just happen to read parts of it this weekend.
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Ruin Explorer
Legend
Or you could look at it as a way to invite M:tG players to try their hand at D&D. Not designed for long time players such as yourself, but for new players who want to mix their peanut butter with some jelly.
Having said that, and while I'm a fan of the M:tG planes in general, this setting actually doesn't interest me either.
I have tried but it seems a bit silly to me! We're talking about a niche of a niche, that is people who play MTG enough that Ravnica is a vivid, cool, exciting place to them, and who like the idea of D&D, but had previously not felt like they could get into it because I guess they didn't like the settings?
I mean, that really sounds like a fraction of a percent of current MTG players, and few past ones.
I think that the reverse is more plausible - that it was to encourage current D&D players to try MTG.
In either case, I feel like it's something of a failure, and representative of some strange-seeming, almost TSR-like management decisions at Wotc. Its hard to believe that an update of almost any D&D setting (Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Planescape or even Dragonlance or Greyhawk) wouldn't have both sold vastly more copies but also got more people into 5E, albeit many would be lapsed D&D players. That however would not have had cross-sales, ie caused D&D players to try/buy MTG.
I would also note that if WotC genuinely wanted to bring MTG players to D&D, rather than primarily vice-versa, the right way to go would be an existing D&D-setting themed MTG block, ie a Forgotten Realms or Planescape block. I suspect that was considered and discarded as potentially annoying to MTG players (who may make WotC more profit than D&D, not sure) so we got the compromise of MTG doing a new Ravnica block and D&D a Ravnica setting.
Which I think most people didn't hate at all, I know I didn't, but I think was met with a resounding "Meh".
As an aside, I agree with people saying you can mine valuable stuff from pre-gen adventures. Trouble is, it's rarely so valuable as to justify the cost of the adventure. I used D&D Beyond and would pay a decent price to just get all the stat locks of monsters and traps and so on from pre-gen stuff, but full price? No thanks! Back in Dungeon days I did that all the time though.
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