D&D 5E Enhancing "Storm King's Thunder"

[Motorskills]

Ah, I understand the confusion.

The module describes the gargoyles being made out of black(?) stone, I decided to "upgrade" to blue stone, because Imryith.

I then used the magic of Google to find which type of blue stone.

 

[Motorskills]

I will have the party jumped by Sky Pony barbarians next session, I intend to have them ambushed from two directions...on the ground, and from the air.

So my thought is...what weapons should the air force have? I was thinking saddlebags full of fist/head-sized rocks to drop on the heads of the party while circling above, javelins for fly-bys, and spears for eventual melee (initiated by a 'charge').
Sound reasonable?

 

[Motorskills]

Oops, double post, basically.

 

[Koren n'Rhys]

Good session last time - as noted, we're just starting Nightstone. The party entered the town and went right up into the gatehouse towers to check things out, without alerting the worgs. Sniping from up there they killed them and the initial handful of goblins attracted by the sounds of combat without much trouble. Very smart play. Now they can start exploring and try to figure out what's happened. I haven't brought the giants into it yet, so they suspect catapults or something at this point. Once they find the remaining guards or go tot eh caves after the villagers (they found the tracks) they'll get the real story.
[MENTION=15921]Motorskills[/MENTION] - I like that idea - they should definitely be dropping rocks to start, then strafing with javelins or bows before getting into melee.

 

[wwanno]

I will have the party jumped by Sky Pony barbarians next session, I intend to have them ambushed from two directions...on the ground, and from the air.

So my thought is...what weapons should the air force have? I was thinking saddlebags full of fist/head-sized rocks to drop on the heads of the party while circling above, javelins for fly-bys, and spears for eventual melee (initiated by a 'charge').
Sound reasonable?

Bolas?

Inviato dal mio ASUS_Z00AD utilizzando Tapatalk

 

[hastur_nz]

Does anyone familiar with LMoP have any thoughts on how straightforward (or otherwise) it would be to stitch LMoP into SKT, in whole or in part, either before Nightstone or between Nightstone and Triboar? It sounds workable in principle and I liked the sound of the suggestion above about using the spellforge to foreshadow the Vodinod, but I don't have LMoP (yet), and I'd rather not buy it if there's something in that plan that really won't work.
I'm a little worried about goblin fatigue, though - they've already faced some and they've got more to come in Nightstone...

Volo's Guide has loads of cool Fey creatures - if you have it, you could use these, instead of the usual Humanoids as foes? e.g Boggle, Darkling, Meenlock, Quickling, Redcap, Yeth Hound. Because yes, I agree that there are way too many Goblins in almost every 'intro' adventure. Or at least use Orcs rather than Goblinoids? (Orcs have a history in the area, having trashed it a few hundred years prior).

Bear in mind, that if you want to switch from Chapter 1 of SKT, to LMoP, I'd say you are best to skip the whole intro-part of LMoP, and start with the PC's arriving in town. So they skip the goblin-heavy beginning, and you'll just need to tweak the lead-in plot-hooks etc. But it's definitely do-able, and would play out better than most of Chapter 1 (which is very much a 'quick and dirty', last-minute addition, to get PC's to 5th level). And to be honest, if you dive right into the PC's arriving in town, with no 'goblin ambush and rescue' prior, it's not so goblin-heavy, you might not end up changing too much at all.

Certainly Nightstone to Phandelver to Triboar can be made into a fairly natural kind of progression - something I'm kind of planning myself...

 

[hastur_nz]

Personally, in my campaign so far, I've run it as follows:

Started in Nightstone, up to the point where the PC's free it from goblin occupation. But the back-story is completely changed: the place was initially attacked by Hill Giants, then hobgoblins etc ambushed the place killing a few people and dragging the bulk of them off into the forest as prisoners.

The PC's then went to rescue the prisoners, for which I used a slightly cut-down conversion of B5 "The Horror on the Hill". This has nearly been completed (most prisoners rescued, unexpected dragon killed, alliance forged with hobgoblin king), and the PC's are 5th level. I've enjoyed that much better than Chapter 1, which read to me like a last-minute collection of random stuff designed to get the PC's to 5th level as quickly as possible. The story has flowed well, and although my players didn't always know what was really going on, it all made sense eventually and we've had lots of fun through the twists and turns and it's kept me on my toes too helping to create a 'living thing' out of pretty static adventures with a lack of coherent back-story.

From here, we re-join the 'plot' as written in Chapters 2+ - should be obvious to anyone who has read SKT.

Except I'll be running three different, parallel 'threads' - the two others will also start at or around 1st level, and get them to 5th level for Chapters 2+ - one will be 'Murder in Baldur's Gate' but set in Luskan, plus some custom-built stuff north of there; the other might well be Lost Mines of Phandelver. At some point, the three threads may overlap, then converge.

My thanks for the inspirations in this topic so far.

 

[John R Davis]

Party rescued Hekaton last session. Now at a well earned 10th level

 

[Motorskills]

Bolas?

Inviato dal mio ASUS_Z00AD utilizzando Tapatalk

No...but big weighted nets dropped by a couple of flyer-bys might work.

Thanks for the inspiration!

 

[Motorskills]

There are 8 PCs of 8th level. They have decent cash, but not overflowing. About 5,000gp ready cash, and maybe 20,000gp in sellable items (that they mostly would prefer to keep).


I like to give them loot...and then squeeze them dry.

They already have a deal with a noble family to provide them with cleric spells up to 6th level (they don't have one of their own! ). Costs for casting will be as per Adventurers' League, plus component costs.


Now I am thinking of having the party be able to buy "TPK insurance" from the Lords' Alliance. That will fund an NPC adventuring party to go in and get what's left of them.

I was thinking 1000gp each (I'll figure out a loan payment scheme)...what do you think?