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Enhancing "Princes of the Apocalypse" (Practical stuff to try at your table!)
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<blockquote data-quote="Lancelot" data-source="post: 6674438" data-attributes="member: 30022"><p>Two things for me.</p><p></p><p>1) To assist the party, I removed the access points from the four above-ground strongholds to the below-ground four-part dungeon. I know the module allows for it but, knowing my party, they won't easily retreat from a fight. They would have pushed on from the Spire straight into the Air Temple, before progressing through the other above-ground fortresses. Instead, once they clear out the above-ground fortresses, they will receive a clue or guidance above how to access the old underground dwarven ruins, via a single access point to the least challenging section of the dungeon (Air Temple). Basically, I'm laying a few railroad tracks in this sandbox. They can still investigate all the above-ground fortresses in any order they want, and then the dungeon levels, but they can't skip directly from Level 3 areas to Level 9 areas.</p><p></p><p>2) I've spread the whole adventure out over a much longer period of time. The party started with low-level side-quests in the village. A month passes before the delegation fails to arrive. The PCs go hunting for trouble. Regardless of which above-ground fortress they find first (e.g. Spire, Riverside Keep, Monastery), that's the only one they <u>can</u> find at the time. The others simply don't exist, or can't be pinpointed. Once they clear it out, all goes quiet for a couple months. They enjoy village life, get some Downtime (start training new skills, which also helps spend some of their loot), maybe buy a small farm property. Then, the cultists attack! It's not a wandering encounter on the road, it's an assault on the party's home. In my case, I had water cultists drop a <em>sleet storm</em>, piling up snow on their home's roof and threatening to cave it in. When the party emerged to deal with the spellcaster, they ran into a prepared ambush of reavers and bandits. They track the attackers back to the next above-ground fortress and deal with it... and then another month or so passes before they complete research on the location of the third fortress. By spreading the whole campaign over a longer period of time, it gives it more of an epic feel, allows the party to build relationships in the villages, uses the Downtime rules, and provides a more naturalistic feeling for the cult's activities (rather than compressing this huge world-changing event into a small area and brief time).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lancelot, post: 6674438, member: 30022"] Two things for me. 1) To assist the party, I removed the access points from the four above-ground strongholds to the below-ground four-part dungeon. I know the module allows for it but, knowing my party, they won't easily retreat from a fight. They would have pushed on from the Spire straight into the Air Temple, before progressing through the other above-ground fortresses. Instead, once they clear out the above-ground fortresses, they will receive a clue or guidance above how to access the old underground dwarven ruins, via a single access point to the least challenging section of the dungeon (Air Temple). Basically, I'm laying a few railroad tracks in this sandbox. They can still investigate all the above-ground fortresses in any order they want, and then the dungeon levels, but they can't skip directly from Level 3 areas to Level 9 areas. 2) I've spread the whole adventure out over a much longer period of time. The party started with low-level side-quests in the village. A month passes before the delegation fails to arrive. The PCs go hunting for trouble. Regardless of which above-ground fortress they find first (e.g. Spire, Riverside Keep, Monastery), that's the only one they [U]can[/U] find at the time. The others simply don't exist, or can't be pinpointed. Once they clear it out, all goes quiet for a couple months. They enjoy village life, get some Downtime (start training new skills, which also helps spend some of their loot), maybe buy a small farm property. Then, the cultists attack! It's not a wandering encounter on the road, it's an assault on the party's home. In my case, I had water cultists drop a [I]sleet storm[/I], piling up snow on their home's roof and threatening to cave it in. When the party emerged to deal with the spellcaster, they ran into a prepared ambush of reavers and bandits. They track the attackers back to the next above-ground fortress and deal with it... and then another month or so passes before they complete research on the location of the third fortress. By spreading the whole campaign over a longer period of time, it gives it more of an epic feel, allows the party to build relationships in the villages, uses the Downtime rules, and provides a more naturalistic feeling for the cult's activities (rather than compressing this huge world-changing event into a small area and brief time). [/QUOTE]
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