Critical Role Call of the Netherdeep playthrough commentary [spoilers]

[Paul Farquhar]

One of my realizations as a DM in my 30s was "Wait, players almost never search for secret doors unless they have a pretty strong reason to believe they're there, but I've been putting loads of secret doors in my adventures, so how about I don't do that anymore?".

Dropping secret doors generally unless they were a significant plot point made my life as a DM better, and because then I wasn't hiding loot or weird/cool encounters behind them, my adventure design improved too.

It's possible I'm missing some significance to the secret doors. One thing you tend not to see in the text of modern published adventures is the intent.

Edit: It seems to me that the intent is that the doors open automatically when the PCs "complete" the room, or they befriend the NPC Theo, and he show them where the doors are.

But in my own stuff I only include secret doors where there is good reason for them to be (and hence reason the PCs might look for them).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Session 19

Chapter 6

I'm warming to chapter 6 now I'm getting a sense of how it supposed to work (and have completed all the transport the players to a new location in the antagonist's memories rooms). I've come to the conclusion that the secret doors where added as an afterthought, to counter the scout the entire dungeon with Arcane Eye tactic, which could potentially break the narrative. A warning about the light devourer monster - I would change it's Light Absorption trait from "spends any part of its turn in an area of bright light" to "ends its turn in an area of bright light" otherwise it does ridiculous amounts of damage every turn if the PCs are unable to fight it in darkness.

Another monstrous anomaly: adult horizonback tortoises are monstrosities, buy young horizonback tortoises are beasts.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Session 20

Chapter 6

Nearing the end of this now. My players are finding it a bit of a slog. If your players are finding your adventures too easy, and you want something that rewards system mastery, this might be a good choice. What, you don't have access to damage type X?! You don't all have resistance to Y?! You don't have Tiny Hut or Rope Trick?! You are going to find this heavy going.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Session 21

Chapter 6

Continue to grind through this, as the players search for enough McGuffins to allow them all to face the end boss. A slow job, since the players have been traumatised by the sadistic traps, and are proceeding with extreme caution. This bit would have been faster with a smaller party. They are also inconsistently marked on the DM's map. I suspect the text was changed after the map was drawn. We WILL finish next week, the Rivals will assist.

 

[ECMO3]

Just a few comments, I played it in a party of 4 all the way through.

1. On the Shark - We did do this without killing the shark. My character was a Enchantment Wizard and I used hypnotic gaze on it and we took the things off of it. I did not realize the wall was supposed to be knocked open. Our DM presumably improvised, when it became clear we were going to strip the incapacitated shark and flee he had everyone roll a Save (wisdom or charisma can't remember). One of the characters got "possessed" and opened the secret passage to find the Mcguffin. I assume it was all ad lib. That character had a vision or something, the whole time I was keeping the Shark incapacitated. Eventually he came out of it and we fled.

2. The rivals were pretty good and they had different relationships with different characters in our group. Our Half Orc Barbarian was pretty close to Maggie in particular. My character (Dwarf Order Cleric/Enchantment Wizard) was a bit standoffish. That dark haired woman (Elf?) disliked our whole party. But overall I would say they were allies. We did come to a standoff at the very end of the campaign. They started to fight to prevent us from going into the last area. This was the toughest battle. I was held early and when I got out of it I was ready to go postal and just lay waste as kind of a "you dare attack me!!" response. I downed Maggie in one shot, then our half orc stabilzed her! Their Goblin also healed her to get her back up. Their Elf kept fighting, shooting me with her bow. Then our Bard called on everyone to stop fighting and talk it out, the DM kept us in initiative, a bunch of redied actions, "if anyone attacks I do this" and a standoff going around with calls for the other side to stand down mixed in. Eventually it got to their guy that looks like Matt Mercer and he called for us to surrender. At this point the Gob, Maggie and our half orc were not fighting any more, their Elf still was, our Bard and Rogue were waiting to see. I still wanted to kill everyone, but I responded to Mercer's call to surrender with my own demand, but I backed up my request with magic - I upcast Command - "Surrender" and hit everyone of their guys with it. Maggie and the Gob were willing anyway, the Elf who wanted to keep fighting failed her save broke her bow and stormed off. I don't remember if Matt Mercer failed his save or not but he did surrender. Then they left and we went in and fought the big bad (or was he a big good). In any case he was not very hard.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

1. On the Shark - We did do this without killing the shark.

My lot did too - Hypnotic Pattern and run away.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Session 22

Chapter 7

Narratively, the final chapter was fun, but in terms of combat, the big boss was a pushover who didn't get a look in. And that was with a party a level lower than written. There where 7 of them, including Maggie who they took with them, so they action economied him to death (salvation actually). They found one extra fragment with the help of the The Rivals, so I gave them a choice of who to take into the final conflict, and they voted for Maggie 4-2, with Dermot in second place.

Time for Chapter 6: 13 hours (could be faster with a smaller party).

Time for Chapter 7: 1 hour.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Conclusion

I cannot say this was a good adventure. I would give it about 3/10, with it's biggest problem an encounter difficulty "curve" that is all over the place. It's uneven pacing and levelling added to the sense that this was written by a committee, who where not quite on the same page. I think the players found the main story more engaging than I did, and where happy to follow the breadcrumb trail of the plot. I can't call it a railroad because there is nothing to keep the party on the rails, apart from a desire to find out what happens next.

Individually, it has some very good parts. Chapters 1-3 would be great for adding detail to any Xhorhas campaign. Chapter 4 details an interesting fantasy city which could serve as a hub for many adventures. And The Rivals provide a very detailed rival party who could be used in any adventure. And I really like the art (aside from the cover).

 

[ECMO3]

Conclusion

I cannot say this was a good adventure. I would give it about 3/10, with it's biggest problem an encounter difficulty "curve" that is all over the place. It's uneven pacing and levelling added to the sense that this was written by a committee, who where not quite on the same page. I think the players found the main story more engaging than I did, and where happy to follow the breadcrumb trail of the plot. I can't call it a railroad because there is nothing to keep the party on the rails, apart from a desire to find out what happens next.

Individually, it has some very good parts. Chapters 1-3 would be great for adding detail to any Xhorhas campaign. Chapter 4 details an interesting fantasy city which could serve as a hub for many adventures. And The Rivals provide a very detailed rival party who could be used in any adventure. And I really like the art (aside from the cover).

I enjoyed it, but I enjoy all of them. When it comes to WOTC campaigns I would put it near the bottom of the pack. As far as campaigns I have done as a player I would put it ahead of Witchlight, but behind POA, DIA, ROFM, TOA, ROT, OOTA and Ghosts of Saltmarsh.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

A good DM can make any adventure entertaining. To a degree, I would support the hypothesis "the adventure doesn't matter". But what the player doesn't see is how hard the DM has to work in order to make sure the adventure is fun. At times, that was pretty hard, and some bits, especially Chapter 6, where not at all fun to run.

I noticed a similar thing in Rime of the Frostmaidan (which I would give 6/10 on a similar scale), there was a big, slow dungeon immediately leading up to the climactic battle. This is just at the point, from a storytelling perspective, that the pace should be hotting up.