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

[dropbear8mybaby]

What have you all done for the exceptionally long travel times? Do you just roll with it and do the random encounters and location stuff along the way or have you expedited things in some manner, aside from the teleportation network and air ship?

 

[Daern]

Both. Roll a few random encounters and talk up the locations. Make sure some of the encounters are optional, like, "you see in flying in the distance" or "you come upon strange flowers that you may mess with if you wish"...
Also, its a good idea to come up with extra ideas/encounters and also maybe pre-roll for the session if you are into that sort of thing.
Access to the teleport rings is nice. It gives the players more choices/agency but there will still be some travel times.

 

[Motorskills]

Same as Daern (for the legwork).

Once they get the airship, I will be "fast and furious".

 

[Motorskills]

I had Sildar Hallwinter (sp?), the Lords' Alliance fellow and Friend Of The Party (TM) from LMoP show up in Silverymoon and say how impressed the Alliance was with all the Giant heads that the party had been submitting for bounty value (200 a pop).

The party agreed a raise (to 300gp per Giant head), and accepted the offer of "TPK Insurance", 1000gp per head, doesn't include any costs of actual Raise Dead spells etc. The Lords' fronted the money, and the party are paying it down toot sweet.

I laid the groundwork for JValeur's The Flying Misfortune, I'm hoping the party takes Felgolos up on his offer while they are vaguely in the Ascore area, since I want to repeat the name Iymrith to the party again. ("Sadly", the party is already a little familiar with the name, since the Lair appears on the Region Map! (Is there a player version of that map, will have to use that in future if so!).

I tweaked the Zymorven mission a bit. The noble son and heir has run off from Everlund with his non-noble beloved. Lord Zymorven will indefinitely loan the party a Maul of Giant Slaying if he gets the son to come home from Zymorven Hall.

Lord Zymorven doesn't care much how this is done. Of course this leads to some fun strains within the party, as there are competing ideas (some more nefarious than others) as to how this should be accomplished!

While they are figuring this out, dwarves pursuing drow from Gauntlygrym pop up on the radar and the party learns about some kind of Flask, and that the dwarves are hiding the truth about something bad that happened / something powerful was stolen.

They eventually reconcile father and son (and keep Romeo and Juliet both alive! ).

They spend happy time at Hawk's Nest and Citadel Felbar, then sneak into Ironslag without disturbing the Yikari (thus far).


They have gotten inside the Duchy of Fire and now the fun begins.....


(I effed up the 'vertical' map a bit, which shows the mines but no real harm done.

I also didn't realise just how important the painting of the Yikari village was, right at the top of the first page of the Fire Giant chapter. The standard map of the village makes much more sense when the two are reviewed together).

 

[Prakriti]

Any ideas on how to handle Maelstrom?

I want to do it by the book, but it pretty much guarantees a TPK. The party arrives in Maelstrom, the sisters lead them to a private room, then ambush them with 5-7 giants. That's instant death. Even if the party survives, Serissa has now turned against them, and all of Maelstrom's forces are standing in their way.

In short, the party is screwed no matter what they do. Mirran and Nym will refuse to take them to Serissa, and the party then dies in an ambush.

So... any ideas?

 

[MiraMels]

Any ideas on how to handle Maelstrom?

I want to do it by the book, but it pretty much guarantees a TPK. The party arrives in Maelstrom, the sisters lead them to a private room, then ambush them with 5-7 giants. That's instant death. Even if the party survives, Serissa has now turned against them, and all of Maelstrom's forces are standing in their way.

In short, the party is screwed no matter what they do. Mirran and Nym will refuse to take them to Serissa, and the party then dies in an ambush.

So... any ideas?

You could have the youngest sister rush into the room after the fighting breaks out but before anyone dies and order the giants to stand down.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Any ideas on how to handle Maelstrom?

I want to do it by the book, but it pretty much guarantees a TPK. The party arrives in Maelstrom, the sisters lead them to a private room, then ambush them with 5-7 giants. That's instant death. Even if the party survives, Serissa has now turned against them, and all of Maelstrom's forces are standing in their way.

In short, the party is screwed no matter what they do. Mirran and Nym will refuse to take them to Serissa, and the party then dies in an ambush.

So... any ideas?

What I did was allow the characters in the campaign I was running to sneak behind the guards in the main audience room and get to the kitchen (which is just off to the side of the steps up from the entry area) - everyone in the audience room was paying attention to the sisters' performance. I then had the giant leaders come into the kitchen for refreshments during an intermission, which allowed the hidden party to overhear their conversations, dropping hints to each giant's "agenda". This gave them enough information so they were able to say the right things to each giant, allowing them to make persuasion rolls with advantage when the confrontation occurred. They were able to persuade all but one of them (the frost giant) to take them to Serissa.

Sent from my VS987 using EN World mobile app

 

[Prakriti]

What I did was allow the characters in the campaign I was running to sneak behind the guards in the main audience room and get to the kitchen (which is just off to the side of the steps up from the entry area) - everyone in the audience room was paying attention to the sisters' performance. I then had the giant leaders come into the kitchen for refreshments during an intermission, which allowed the hidden party to overhear their conversations, dropping hints to each giant's "agenda". This gave them enough information so they were able to say the right things to each giant, allowing them to make persuasion rolls with advantage when the confrontation occurred. They were able to persuade all but one of them (the frost giant) to take them to Serissa.

Interesting idea, but how does the confrontation play out then? The book says that the storm giant sisters and their guards are present during the ambush. It also says that the other giants won't defy them. So even if the other giants are persuaded to stop attacking, you still have four very angry storm giants in the room, which is a TPK.

In any case, I think I've come up with a solution of my own. It departs from the book, but it should work for this group.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Interesting idea, but how does the confrontation play out then? The book says that the storm giant sisters and their guards are present during the ambush. It also says that the other giants won't defy them. So even if the other giants are persuaded to stop attacking, you still have four very angry storm giants in the room, which is a TPK.

In any case, I think I've come up with a solution of my own. It departs from the book, but it should work for this group.

I don't have SKT with me, but if I remember right, after they have the characters escorted to the room, one sister goes to slander the party to Sarissa, while the other leads the giant nobles to ambush the party. I do distinctly remember that that sister immediately leaves as soon as the ambush is sprung, telling the nobles to finish the party off. Unfortunately, I don't remember what exactly happened in regards to the guards - I'm guessing the nobles persuaded or intimidated them to stand down.

Sent from my VS987 using EN World mobile app

 

[Prakriti]

How did the Iymrith fight go, for those who have reached it?

I'm thinking of just hand-waving the surface-level stuff and having the Storm Giants take care of the gargoyles while the party goes in search of Iymrith. But that just leaves Iymrith for the final fight, and we all know how single-opponent fights can be a cakewalk in 5th Edition.

Also, the party will most likely have the potions of giant size, which throws off the encounter balance. I'm pretty sure Iymrith would win without the potions, but I'm also pretty sure that the party will curb-stomp her with them. I don't want this to be Strahd redux where the big-bad dies in 1 round.

Luckily, there are some built-in methods for increasing the encounter difficulty. The book says that the yuan-ti flee at the start of the battle, but they can just as easily stand and fight. But does the encounter need it?

Any ideas on how to handle Maelstrom?

For those who wanted to know what I ended up doing... One of the characters had lost a family member at sea, so I had that NPC alive and well in the Maelstrom (I'd actually planned this from the beginning when I gave the players a list of optional backstory details). Luckily, the party searched the adjoining rooms before heading upstairs, so the NPC was able to warn them about the current situation in Maelstrom before they got in over their heads.