D&D 5E DMing Princes of the apocalypse

[slanteds]

Hi,
I'm brand new to this forum but was hoping to get some help with my current campaign.

In the 2nd half of princes of the apocalypse the players are to venture into the various elemental temples, the entrances of which are near each of the elemental strongholds. However, maybe I'm missing something but there seems to be no in-book way to introduce these temples?

The book has enough story catches etc to get the adventurers to visit each of the strongholds, but there seems to be very few clues to lead them to the temples underground. There aren't even that many clues about the prophets and elemental gods around.

How have people introduced these temples to the players? Currently we've been through the air and water strongholds, I was thinking about dropping a lot more clues in the earth temple since the mines are shady (there's an entrance there) and there's a lich that can tell them things. Also, how have people motivated the players to investigate the temples/prophets? They found a letter from Aersi in the Spire but that seems very weak story wise so far. I'm leaning towards a bunch of elemental disasters happening throughout the valley destroying towns but not sure whether or not that would mess anything up storywise.


Thanks for any help in advance.

 

[aco175]

Welcome, have some likes.

You will see that book listed here as PotA and there are several threads about how to make it better. Or, a google search will do. I started running this over the summer and only got to level 5 so far, so I'm not sure how much help I will be.

 

[Staffan]

In three out of four cases, the entrance to the Temple is part of the surface Haunted Keep, and in the fourth there is a conveniently placed spyglass that points the entrance out. This, combined with the missing dignitaries still mostly being missing, should suffice to make the PCs investigate further. The main issue isn't how to get the PCs to explore below, it is that the adventure intends for the PCs to hit all four Keeps before hitting the Temple, and if they go straight from e.g. Rivergard Keep to Temple of the Crushing Wave, they'll be quite a bit underleveled.

As for disasters destroying towns, I'd save that for later as the cults get more desperate and/or closer to summoning their Princes. It's intended to be part of the last third. Hitting the PCs with some local troubles is totally fair though.

 

[jayoungr]

There's an "Enhancing" thread for this adventure, but it hasn't had much love, for whatever reason. It does have links to several other threads relevant to the adventure, however:

D&D 5E - Enhancing "Princes of the Apocalypse" (Practical stuff to try at your table!)

Since my group is really enjoying Tyranny of Dragons, it seems likely that I'll be running Princes of the Apocalypse in the not-too-distant future. I'd really love to hear how other people are handling the adventure--what you're adding, what you're changing, where the most challenging sections...

www.enworld.org

If you have any suggestions, I'd love it if you'd post there!

 

[snickersnax]

My solution: The purpose of the Mirabar delegation is to carefully tread the delicate political landscape to warn Goldenfields ( the largest producer of food in the region) of the impending Apocalypse. Bruldenthar the sage has accurately predicted the Apocalypse and is aware of the deeper levels of the dungeon and is responsible for creating the Delegation in an attempt gather the necessary political support to prevent it or defend against it.

Once members of the delegation begin to be rescued, they can fill the Player Characters in on Bruldenthar's knowledge of the lower levels of the dungeon (basically that they exist and that there is concern that the elemental nodes have been activated) and his theory that there is an impending doom. Once elemental catastrophes begin to occur, the steps to try to prevent it should be obvious.

 

[S'mon]

My 7 strong group took the Scarlet Moon Hall, then followed the tunnel down in the cellar, talked their way to the Fire Prophet, killed her, talked their way out again... Meanwhile the party Kensai is sleeping with the Master of Feathergale Spire and they are planning a joint PC/Feathergale attack on Sacred Stone Monastery to get the missing delegates taken there. Forgotten Realms: Loudwater, Princes of the Apocalypse
The only real problem I had was that the group initially went to Scarlet Moon Hall at 3rd level and nearly TPK'd. A smaller party would have.

 

[Nebulous]

I ran Princes to the end. It's a good adventure, but very tricky to run for new DMs.
The layout of the book isn't the best. I changed things here and there to make it more to my liking. As for the temples, my guys didn't have any problem accessing them. They understood the layout and how they were interconnected underground. Early on in Feathergale Spire I had the leader have a rough map of the region that dropped names of temples/prophets and general locations.

One of the bigger changes wasn't even the main quest, but the one about the tomb of the dwarven axe. Per the book it's far too simplistic, so I turned it into a 3 level maze with puzzles and golem guardians.

 

[sim-h]

If they rescue Bruldenthar in the Sacred Stone monastery mine/dungeon, he knows that delegates were taken 'below'. As a dwarf historian he would also know about Tyar Besil.

Also there is the Strange Map starting hook but I guess if you're already partway through it's too late for that.

 

[Rabbitbait]

I don't know if this will be useful, but here is the adventure log I wrote for my group as they went through the adventure: Return to Xandrar | Eberron Revisited - Heroes of Xandrar | Obsidian Portal

 

[slanteds]

Thanks for all the help guys. I'm trying to lead a somewhat linear campaign rather so I think I'm going to try and let Bruldenhar have as much info as possible without losing all the intrigue. From what I can tell most of you also just found ways to drop in extra info throughout the campaign. You'd think the book would just leave some more clues in the various letters/papers that can be found in the strongholds.