D&D 5E Anything extra recommended to run Tomb of Annihilation?

[The Green Hermit]

Read everthing in advance twice - as you never know where the players will go.

I have mocked up a spreadsheet marking days showing weather/rainfall with each day split into three sections, and also randomly generating the encounters. I've included how many gallons a raincatcher can harvest in each day section, too. Cutting down on the exploration admin like that I see a good idea.

I started with the standard death curse hook and the teleport at level one and the players are loving it. I see no reason to change it. They haven't asked about the specific time limit yet, so are not aware of the deadline although I will start to push this after a few days. I intend to say the curse has been ongoing for 20 days and Syndra feels "maybe 75-80% of her old self". That should allow them to work out how long they've got without saying "she's got 79HPs and is losing 1 HP per day".

From the book, levelling the players will be hard without extra encounters, so you need to check all the Port Nyanzaru side quests and random encounters and introduce the ones you want. I'm going to use the drunken sailor, his reprisal, the executioners run innocent and probably the undead attack on Malar's Throat. Possibly the rogue Ankylosaurus but that might need Zindar to make an appearance to help. Whatever happens they need to be L2 before leaving town, I would say!

Can you share your spreadsheet?

And yes, I know this is a necro, but we are about to run this and there isn't a true "enhancing" thread that I have been able to find.

 

[darjr]

I started my players shipwrecked on the island in the Tortle Package. Then later the pirates showed up.

 

[darjr]

Note if you do that Tortle package your players start much closer to the lot city. Much of the other content can be run sort of after.

 

[pukunui]

And yes, I know this is a necro, but we are about to run this and there isn't a true "enhancing" thread that I have been able to find.

Try this one: D&D 5E - [SPOILERS] Enhancing Tomb of Annihilation

 

[ECMO3]

If you've run (or read thoroughly) Tomb of Annihilation, are there any extra bits you would recommend preparing?

So any changes you would make, thing you felt were missing or extra content you added to enhance the adventure?

I played it, I did not DM it. I would make sure the party has a Ranger with Natural Explorer. If they don't they are going to be lost a lot. The guides that are available for hire can't navigate worth a crap.

Our party didn't and I actually multiclassed my character into a 1-level Ranger dip because of this. The character luckily had a 13 Wisdom so I could do it.

 

[Rhenny]

I let them explore the Port area first and have some fun with dino races. Then I had them go get a charter from the Faction at Fort Belarian. They decided to explore from there so I modified the adventure so that they had to go to the other forts to find word about the commander (I forgot his name). I fashioned a lot of that part of the adventure on Apocalypse Now/Heart of Darkness. They found out about the undead hordes and eventually found the commander with his insane side kick (Dennis Hopper in Appocalypse Now). The commander was Kurtz, but he was cursed by an item the undead dropped. It slowly turned him into a more powerful, rotting man that the adventurers ended up fighting, but then saving from the curse.

The rest of the adventure, I ran as written, but I cut out Artus. He seemed irrelevant.

I am still running the adventure (It’s been over 2 years now-playing online 2-3 times a month). The PCs are deep into the final tomb now - 10th level and they have really enjoyed the ride.

 

[Fizban Kainenminster]

One of my top three 5e module choices.
While I'm prepping PoA, I started preliminary outlines for this and CoS.
ToA feels pretty sandboxy as it is, so to give my group some more focused activities I will likely add something like White Plume Mountain or Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan from Tales of the Yawning Portal. Bits of Goodman games OAR The Lost City, is possible instead, I need to skim through that one again.
I don't want either choice to be just a hexcrawl dungeon drop. I'll be merging the storylines together as much as possible and maybe a direct PC tie in depending on concepts from my players when the time comes.
By the time I get to run it, maybe there will be a 5E version of Dwellers of the Forbidden City available too.