D&D 5E Convince me to keep reading Princes of the Apocalypse (*significant* spoilers. Also my players keep out)

[Celtavian]

Necromancer Games has Quests of Doom 1 & 2 out in pdf - 12 + 6 short(ish) adventures; I think they're at the printers this month for the hardcopy versions. I'm pretty sure Bill and Matt have plans for more 5E stuff.

As for other 5E stuff, here's my list of every 5E-compatible adventure that has been released so far: http://merricb.com/2014/08/03/the-great-list-of-dungeons-dragons-5e-adventures/

Cheers!

Sweet. Thanks, Merric.

 

[DongMaster]

Amongst the craziness in Faerun: Khelben Blackstaff is now deceased. New mages have taken the title "Blackstaff", to somewhat lesser effectiveness.

I also suspect the good guys overall are less powerful hence less involving.

 

[Celtavian]

Yes. See below.

But, the fact remains, four adventures of the AP tie into bad things happening in the small town of 1000+ people in a sparsely populated region that is attacked by goblins [sblock]serial killers, mutant goblins, ghouls, giants, cultists, the sandpoint devil[/sblock], and many more events. A disproportionate amount of bad is happening to a tiny town. And when you start looking at the random encounter tables and other side events happening in and around the town, there is a LOT of dangerous stuff crammed that close to settlement.

Additionally, the adventure banks on the PCs being the heroes and not running to some of the higher level NPCs for help. Like the sheriff (level 4 fighter), Shaelelu (level 6 fighter/ranger), and Ameiko Kaijitsu (level 3 bard/rogue), and letting them handle the threat of the goblins at Thistletop. Or not having the players run off to Magnimar for help against the numerous gathering goblin tribes that can be perceived as outnumbering the PCs. Heck, when investigating the murders in Magnimar, the adventure pretty much assumes the PCs are going to just investigate the high profile murders on their own and not pass their evidence to the local constabulary, despite Sheriff Hemlock already going to them for assistance once.

None of this compromises the quality of the adventure. Because the PCs are heroes and unwilling to "turn their investigation over to the Feds". It's just a common element of adventure design that PCs could get help, but almost never do.

The disproportionate amount of bad was all tied to the same source. That is why it made sense. It wasn't a bunch of random encounters thrown into an area. It was a very focused cause and effect relationship that tied everything together in a manner I don't see in Princes of the Apocalypse.

 

[Celtavian]

Might I ask why it doesn't seem very interesting? It seems to have a bit of everything in it, and having run Rise of the Runelords, I'm much more impressed with how tightly written PotA is.

I'm far more impressed with the story that ran through all six modules of Rise of the Runelords. The two are not even comparable. Princes of the Apoclypse is a pale shadow compared to Runelords. It's the differences in inspiration that matter to me. I don't run modules as they are written. I like modules that give me lots of scenarios and bits of information for doing something I haven't seen done in adventures before. Princes of the Apocalypse doesn't do that for me. It feels like a rehash of old adventures that were much better. I ran Temple of Elemental Evil four or five times there was so much to do. I had a blast. That's why I loved Runelords.

Each module in Runelords just gave huge bits of fun for a DM to play.

The flying quasit battle at the end of the underground temple in the first module was highly memorable. It was one of the first times a quasit caused such pain to a party. The background with the female aasimar and the trapped barghest was very cool. Here was a low level demon being used as a hidden ancient evil in an ancient ruins in a very interesting fashion.

The second module with the mystery with the serial killer cult and the haunted house was huge fun. The descriptive text for the haunts got my imagination going strong. I made the haunted house memorable. The serial killer interactions I had a blast with. I was able to make the killer particularly vile.

Then you had Texas Chainsaw Massacre/Deliverance with Ogres. How can you not have fun with that? The banjo music was strong in the third module.

The third module was followed by a mini-Against the Giants scenario with a natural disaster movie and sunken riverboat mystery involving a beautiful woman as subplots.

To summarize, Princes of the Apocalypse doesn't offer me as much inspiration to make things interesting as Rise of the Runelords or even the original Temple of Elemental Evil. When I look at a module, I want the module to inspire me to run it and do creative things while doing so. It seems like a very basic module with encounters in a small area based on a rehashed idea WotC has trotted out in nearly every edition due to the popularity of the original Temple of Elemental Evil. It's not inspiring me to run it.

.

 

[transtemporal]

But in their individual books, they never call for help. They only really call for help when in a team book for cases that conveniently involve others. No matter how much trouble Batman is having with the Joker, he never puts in a quick call to Flash or Superman.
(But mostly this comes from reviews of Winter Soldier when people wondered why Cap didn't call Tony for tech help.

Ah that is a good point. I guess the hero convention doesn't allow them to consider that option.

Like if Frodo really listened to what Elrond was saying, he probably say "Whoa, on second thought that sounds SUPER dangerous. Here's your ring, good luck. I'm just gonna take off to the Shire. Peace."

 

[Celtavian]

The simple answer to "Why don't the PCs go for help?" is it's no damn fun. You're some youngling, wet behind the ears adventurer looking to test his mettle against whatever evil is out there so you can become the next Drizz't or Elminster. That's why you don't run for help. You're that dumb hero that decides he's going to handle things on his own regardless of the risk or consequences. It's like all the weak excuses Tolkien always came up with for why Frodo and the hobbits were expected to carry the most dangerous weapon in the known world to a mountain in the middle of the most evil realm in Middle Earth and destroy it: because you're the main character in the story and it's your job to do it.

The PCs are the main characters in an adventure. It's fallen on them to do the job. Whatever loose reasoning you come up with as to why they don't run for help from the powerful good people in the realm are incidental and unimportant.

 

[Jeff Albertson]

Yes, give the journey to Gwaihir, give the journey to Elminster…yeah, doesn't quite work out like that…

 

[Nebulous]

I don't DM in the FR, but yeah. I don't even see it as bending the rules. It's your game. If you want to say Khelben and Elminster have gone to Mars on a two-month bender, that's A-OK by me.

Right. The Month of "X" is vacation time for NPCs level 15+ Same time every year

 

[Cadriel]

The disproportionate amount of bad was all tied to the same source. That is why it made sense. It wasn't a bunch of random encounters thrown into an area. It was a very focused cause and effect relationship that tied everything together in a manner I don't see in Princes of the Apocalypse.

I really don't understand this criticism. Princes has, if anything, a very heavy amount of what's going on being "tied to the same source" (i.e., the machinations of the elemental cults tied in to the Elder Elemental Eye). Even the majority of the side treks are linked back to the central plot. If you get "random encounters thrown into an area" from any of its adventure sites, I really have to scratch my head at that, because I found it all to hang together logically. In the first section, I found the Rivergard Keep and the Sacred Stone Monastery to be good adventure design, where every encounter makes sense as part of a bigger whole.

 

[Nebulous]

Similarly, I think it's OK if PCs seek out NPCs to ask their advice, and possibly for stationary spellcasting or other problem solving ("Hey, could you cast Greater Restoration on our friend Grog here, he had an unfortunate encounter with an Intellect Devourer?"). But the NPCs have their own stuff to deal with, so if you come to Khelben Blackstaff talking about elemental cultists he'd be more likely to go "Oh, that sounds interesting. You should look into that. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a city to run, a couple of spy organizations to manage, a bunch of magical research to do, and some Zhentarim to kill. I'm swamped."

"Those guys again? Jebus. I thought I'd kicked their asses back to Netheril a long time ago. Look, I got to deal with the Tarrasque this afternoon about 2 o'clock, can you guys just handle the cultists? Thanks."