D&D 5E DMing "Out of the Abyss"

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Where we are at. The party just finished up the Mantol-Derith part of the campaign. So far not too but but there are elements I hate, such as the army of NPC they keep trying to saddle the party with. I have a party of 6 and adding more NPC to run just made things slower and the initial group didn't last long outside the interesting ones, Stool and Shuushar But poor little Stool bought it on the Darklake and nutty Shuushar stayed behind in Neverlight Grove. They may run into them again though, they "replanted " part of Stool. Anyway the horde coming with them after the mid campaign interlude in Gauntlegrym was ditched for a single Zhent to get them into Mantol, but she is staying behind to rebuilt the Zhent outpost after the PC largely destroyed it battling the insane gem holding Beholder. Now I have the 60 day slog to Gravenhallow to run. They can't teleport yet so a lot of walking and random encounters. I'd rather just hand wave it and say they get there after 60 days of travel, but this is the demon infested underdark and I hate to make it like "oh you get there without much trouble, and they could use the XP provided by the encounters. So I'll just put together some encounters and spring them every few days I guess. Maybe put a small side dungeon in there. Two of the PC have 3 levels of madness, infinite madness, and a couple other have 1-2 levels. They will stop at Blingdenstone most likely to try and find a cleric who can cast Greater Restoration to help that.

 

[CydKnight]

Where we are at. The party just finished up the Mantol-Derith part of the campaign. So far not too but but there are elements I hate, such as the army of NPC they keep trying to saddle the party with. I have a party of 6 and adding more NPC to run just made things slower and the initial group didn't last long outside the interesting ones, Stool and Shuushar But poor little Stool bought it on the Darklake and nutty Shuushar stayed behind in Neverlight Grove. They may run into them again though, they "replanted " part of Stool. Anyway the horde coming with them after the mid campaign interlude in Gauntlegrym was ditched for a single Zhent to get them into Mantol, but she is staying behind to rebuilt the Zhent outpost after the PC largely destroyed it battling the insane gem holding Beholder. Now I have the 60 day slog to Gravenhallow to run. They can't teleport yet so a lot of walking and random encounters. I'd rather just hand wave it and say they get there after 60 days of travel, but this is the demon infested underdark and I hate to make it like "oh you get there without much trouble, and they could use the XP provided by the encounters. So I'll just put together some encounters and spring them every few days I guess. Maybe put a small side dungeon in there. Two of the PC have 3 levels of madness, infinite madness, and a couple other have 1-2 levels. They will stop at Blingdenstone most likely to try and find a cleric who can cast Greater Restoration to help that.

You can also build an outpost in the Underdark and make however many NPCs you want stay at the Outpost to "guard" it. There's also a part that comes soon from where you are now that may leave you with a decision to send at least some of your NPCs back to the surface with a largish party of surviving refugees who have little chance of reaching the surface on their own.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

You can also build an outpost in the Underdark and make however many NPCs you want stay at the Outpost to "guard" it. There's also a part that comes soon from where you are now that may leave you with a decision to send at least some of your NPCs back to the surface with a largish party of surviving refugees who have little chance of reaching the surface on their own.

True. But I didn't want any of the NPC jazz so I cut it out all together.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Thanks for linking that.

In case this was sarcastic, the link is here and here.

 

[Motorskills]

In case this was sarcastic, the link is here and here.

LOl I wasn't being sarcastic, no idea what was happening there. Anyways, thanks for (re)linking the wonderful walkthrough.

 

[Superking]

I dealt with post-Mantol travel so far by having the party find a Helm of Teleportation in Ghazrim's treasure list. Mantol was also in a state of unrest that one of the NPC's strongly recommended establishing an Outpost there. That will thin some of the NPC army with them. Otherwise, I have used the NPC's in the expeditionary group mainly as flavor. They deal with most of the riff-raff and only when something is serious do the party have to get involved.

 

[robus]

[MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] - we had a discussion on the maze engine (and some missing info) a while back that seems to have been lost in the great data loss.

If you have some of your notes still accessible would you mind sharing them again. I foolishly didn't make a copy of them from the thread at the time.

Thanks!

 

[CapnZapp]

[MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] - we had a discussion on the maze engine (and some missing info) a while back that seems to have been lost in the great data loss.

If you have some of your notes still accessible would you mind sharing them again. I foolishly didn't make a copy of them from the thread at the time.

Thanks!

Sure... But what were we discussing?

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[robus]

Sure... But what were we discussing?

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

Ha - I was hoping you would remember! I think the big one was: "What magical effect is activated on round 12?!".

Then there was some suggestions for improving the random effect table. I was not impressed with the calliope music option for example.

 

[CapnZapp]

Ha - I was hoping you would remember! I think the big one was: "What magical effect is activated on round 12?!".

Then there was some suggestions for improving the random effect table. I was not impressed with the calliope music option for example.

Ah.

Well, I know I liked the time teleport so much I took it out of the random list, and made it happen 100%. About at half time, IIRC: first you fight the initial guardians, then you have your revenge fantasy on the Drow prison camp (which was much appreciated BTW), then you return to the machine to fight the Goristro sent to shut down the machine.

I believe I have my alternative random list, though I can't promise it will be calliope-free...

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app