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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dave Turner" data-source="post: 6706216" data-attributes="member: 12329">Abyss doesn't do a good job explaining to the DM how much additional prep will be required for play. I think you're right that a substantial amount of XP needed to level up isn't presented in the published set pieces found in Chapters 2 through 6. Chapter 7 states that the characters should be 7th level before they're attacked by their drow pursuers. It's a free-form way of telling DMs where the midpoint of the campaign is. It could be rewritten as, "Keep throwing monsters and challenges at your PCs until they're 7th level. Once they reach that point, you can start to figure out when to spring this drow encounter on them." Also note that the end of Chapter 7 states that the PCs should be 8th level before they start Chapter 8. So, they've got to be higher than 7th before they start Chapter 7, but "Chapter 7" is really just one single encounter described over several pages. So the PCs must level up on this single encounter so that they can start Chapter 8? Unless you've got pinpoint control over how the PCs receive XP, it's probably easier to spring the Chapter 7 fight on them when they're 8th level. I have no idea why this is presented so confusingly in the text.As far as getting to 8th level, though, you're right. You're probably going to need to prepare a fair amount of your own adventures or side treks. I'd think of it as WotC having provided you with half of the material you need for a satisfying game from week to week. Maybe someone has done the math, added up the XP of the encounters presented in the book, and found that there's enough to get everyone to 8th level. I've eyeballed it, though, and I don't think it's likely. If you are going to roll on the random encounter tables from Chapters 2 and 3, always combine a terrain and monster encounter. The separate results for each are bland on their own.As for the NPCs the party will gather in its wake, it does seem tricky. The idea of the PCs picking up a cohort of "hirelings" to crawl the dungeon with them feels very OSR to me. Modern D&D players won't likely be familiar with that style of play and its expectations. Scaling the NPCs as the heroes level will make it harder to shake them if the players don't like the extra bookkeeping, but easier to have them survive. The survival of these NPCs is important at first because they're the only source of reliable Underdark navigation the PCs have. If you don't establish early on that these NPCs are valuable, the players could leave them behind to their detriment.I would copy the entire list of modifiers to the "chase level" and give it to the players. They need this information to make informed decisions about how to proceed through the Underdark.</blockquote>

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