D&D 5E Enhancing "Storm King's Thunder"
Yavathol
Explorer
Ok, I have now created a set of clue cards which you can hand out to your players! 
See the download page.
I had to convert the format to pdf for size reasons.. Hope people find these useful!
See the download page.
I had to convert the format to pdf for size reasons.. Hope people find these useful!
Motorskills
Explorer
So I used a couple of Abominables, and a handful of regular Yetis.
They had Harshnag with them (having convinced him to let them Polymorph him so they could Teleport to the "illegal" Harper Circle in Mirabar.)
Harshnag made short work of the Yetis, but I did scare the party briefly when the "snowpiles" stood up. The paralysis / autocrits were hella fun.
I used two Remorhazes curled up inside the gas cooker, instead of off to the side - great advice, thank you!
I could have used a third.
The remorhazes spooked them before the Big Lug chopped them into tiny gibbets.
****
The party did very well in the Shrine, and got to the Oracle without too much problem.
I used Ovinomancer's idea of having a friendly....er....grateful at least - Great Worm Shawoman in the web of ice spiders. The yetis had shredded the rest of her group. Her group was sent by the Clan chieftain who has started taking orders from the Clan White Dragon....which has suddenly started having plans and schemes of its own. She knows that the White is taking orders from something or someone else....and that is our good friend Imyrith.
So they know most of the plot, but haven't quite figured out that Imyrith is in Storm Giant form in Maelstrom.
They know they need to dedicate a relic in order to power the conch they liberated from Ironslag, and the Shawoman will trade them her Clan's giant relic in exchange for removing the evil from the heart of their tribe.
They also agreed to help the ghost of Eigeron by killing Blagothus(sp?)...is there any reason I can't simply replace Sansuri with Blaggy and use Lyn Armaal? (They don't know the name Sansuri yet).
***
They know that Felgolos is an ally, so they might go and raid Ascore as described above, in order to get him on board.
They know that Klauth is both an ally and a rival to Imyrith. (I laughed OOC when they asked this, I explained that I had been mulling for months which was the correct answer to that question...so I decided on the spot to give them both, and it's both true and fitting! ).
***
They will be leaving the Shrine at their next session, and I intend to have Imyrith jump them HARD at this point.
So my thinking is that they might meet Imyrith - in Storm Giant form - coming back out from the Oracle. She will will smile and wink or something, and Harshnag will go berzerk when he realises what is going on.
They maybe might notice that Stronmaus' Trident is stood up against the portal, or possibly they will see a second set of giant footprints (along with Harshnag's) walking along the entrance corridor (towards the Shrine).
I want there to be zero risk of the party thinking they can sensibly fight her without some prep on their side, and I'm quite prepared to have multiple PCs die (they can always get better later!) to get that message across.
I also want Harshnag to get buried under the mountain, so with any luck it will go the way the book suggests, with Harshnag buying the party time to get the hell out of Dodge, either by running out the front door or maybe getting into a side room and casting a Teleportation Circle.
The party will be 7 x 11th level with a decent amount of magic items, and fully rested, so they aren't slouches, even if a few of them are Frightened for a round or three.
Harshnag can use his legendary resistance, and the paladin (and anyone standing next to him) will be immune to the Dragonfear. I'm thinking of making Imyrith's Dragonfear DC 23 (from 20), same as her actual monster DC. Is there any reason it isn't already DC23?
I kinda like the idea of Imyrith's tail attack being able to attack anyone in a "cone", as she sweeps it across. (In fact I might use that for all dragons). How long is her tail, effective length? It's probably about half her body length. 80' body + 80' tail maybe? With a body that is probably at least 20' wide for the most part.
The statues of the Giant Gods will prevent that tail "cone" attack getting completely out of control.
I like the idea of her using her lightning bolt in the entrance corridor, since there is scattered snow (water) all over the floor, when she lightning bolts anyone / anywhere, everyone standing on the floor will get a nice little shock.
They had Harshnag with them (having convinced him to let them Polymorph him so they could Teleport to the "illegal" Harper Circle in Mirabar.
)Harshnag made short work of the Yetis, but I did scare the party briefly when the "snowpiles" stood up. The paralysis / autocrits were hella fun.
I used two Remorhazes curled up inside the gas cooker, instead of off to the side - great advice, thank you!
I could have used a third.
The remorhazes spooked them before the Big Lug chopped them into tiny gibbets.
****
The party did very well in the Shrine, and got to the Oracle without too much problem.
I used Ovinomancer's idea of having a friendly....er....grateful at least - Great Worm Shawoman in the web of ice spiders. The yetis had shredded the rest of her group. Her group was sent by the Clan chieftain who has started taking orders from the Clan White Dragon....which has suddenly started having plans and schemes of its own. She knows that the White is taking orders from something or someone else....and that is our good friend Imyrith.
So they know most of the plot, but haven't quite figured out that Imyrith is in Storm Giant form in Maelstrom.
They know they need to dedicate a relic in order to power the conch they liberated from Ironslag, and the Shawoman will trade them her Clan's giant relic in exchange for removing the evil from the heart of their tribe.
They also agreed to help the ghost of Eigeron by killing Blagothus(sp?)...is there any reason I can't simply replace Sansuri with Blaggy and use Lyn Armaal? (They don't know the name Sansuri yet).
***
They know that Felgolos is an ally, so they might go and raid Ascore as described above, in order to get him on board.
They know that Klauth is both an ally and a rival to Imyrith. (I laughed OOC when they asked this, I explained that I had been mulling for months which was the correct answer to that question...so I decided on the spot to give them both, and it's both true and fitting!
).***
They will be leaving the Shrine at their next session, and I intend to have Imyrith jump them HARD at this point.
So my thinking is that they might meet Imyrith - in Storm Giant form - coming back out from the Oracle. She will will smile and wink or something, and Harshnag will go berzerk when he realises what is going on.
They maybe might notice that Stronmaus' Trident is stood up against the portal, or possibly they will see a second set of giant footprints (along with Harshnag's) walking along the entrance corridor (towards the Shrine).
I want there to be zero risk of the party thinking they can sensibly fight her without some prep on their side, and I'm quite prepared to have multiple PCs die (they can always get better later!
) to get that message across. I also want Harshnag to get buried under the mountain, so with any luck it will go the way the book suggests, with Harshnag buying the party time to get the hell out of Dodge, either by running out the front door or maybe getting into a side room and casting a Teleportation Circle.
The party will be 7 x 11th level with a decent amount of magic items, and fully rested, so they aren't slouches, even if a few of them are Frightened for a round or three.
Harshnag can use his legendary resistance, and the paladin (and anyone standing next to him) will be immune to the Dragonfear. I'm thinking of making Imyrith's Dragonfear DC 23 (from 20), same as her actual monster DC. Is there any reason it isn't already DC23?
I kinda like the idea of Imyrith's tail attack being able to attack anyone in a "cone", as she sweeps it across. (In fact I might use that for all dragons). How long is her tail, effective length? It's probably about half her body length. 80' body + 80' tail maybe? With a body that is probably at least 20' wide for the most part.
The statues of the Giant Gods will prevent that tail "cone" attack getting completely out of control.
I like the idea of her using her lightning bolt in the entrance corridor, since there is scattered snow (water) all over the floor, when she lightning bolts anyone / anywhere, everyone standing on the floor will get a nice little shock.
So, I've reworked a lot of little things in SKT and some of those things will be coming to light next session.
I took over DM'ing for the group where we left off having finished Horde of the Dragon Queen with our characters at 8th-level. In order to transition to SKT, I hand-waived that Blagothkus took the PC's to the Well of Dragons and had other cloud giants and their sky castles join them. They obliterated the cultists and stopped the ritual before it could even happen. They then all celebrated and got taken back to Parnast before heading back to Waterdeep. I started the adventure with the PC's in Waterdeep, learning of something going on in Nightstone and being tasked to investigate.
The character I had played in the HotDQ game, an aarakocra monk, stayed behind with Blagothkus because he was utterly entranced by the sky castle and wanted his own for his people so that they would never again bow to the tyranny of dragons (my character's backstory and hook into HotDQ).
On the way to Waterdeep, however, one of the other members of the group disappeared in the middle of the night without explanation. This was my character's brother (another player played an aarakocra ranger and wanted to change characters for SKT). The ex-PC then became a means for me to develop the SKT plot by coming in and giving the group some clues/missions.
I made it that Blagothkus betrayed my character but my character had a Sending Stone on him that the ex-PC had the paired one to, and sent him an urgent message about the betrayal and his subsequent imprisonment. That's why the sudden departure before the rest of the group got to Waterdeep. The ex-PC chased after Blagothkus and saw the last bit of carnage over Nightstone before the sky castle left.
In my version of SKT, Blagothkus is the consort of Sansuri instead of Cressaro. They met back up (with the Nightstone now in their possession as one of the artefacts of Ostoria that Sansuri is looking for), and Sansuri was so enamoured of my character's plumage, that she made a bunch of simulacra of him, then killed him, and had him stuffed for display. This is a sort-of perversion of what's in the book since in it, she has aarakocra simulacra, so it was kinda perfect. The thing is, and this is where it gets awesome, I have to up the challenge of things because they started in Nightstone (I had it that Blagothkus was the one that raided the town and stole the rock, and that the rock itself had the power to disable the ability for dragons to fly within a certain radius, and that the entire campaign is based on the premise of a potential war between dragons and giants) at 8th-level and are now 11th-level and about to go take on Sansuri, and discover Felgolas (who I introduced in Nightstone) being tortured. So I'm increasing the challenge significantly by making Blagothkus into a standard cloud giant, but with his extra abilities from HotDQ, and Sansuri a Cloud Giant Smiling One with her extra spells, plus all the cloud giants having the extra bennies from SKT.
What I'm also doing, however, is that instead of the regular aarakocra simulacra as guards of Lyn Armaal, the PC's are going to face an army of my character's simulacra, as 8th-level monks (with half hit points due to being simulacrum). It's all so perfect I could cry
I took over DM'ing for the group where we left off having finished Horde of the Dragon Queen with our characters at 8th-level. In order to transition to SKT, I hand-waived that Blagothkus took the PC's to the Well of Dragons and had other cloud giants and their sky castles join them. They obliterated the cultists and stopped the ritual before it could even happen. They then all celebrated and got taken back to Parnast before heading back to Waterdeep. I started the adventure with the PC's in Waterdeep, learning of something going on in Nightstone and being tasked to investigate.
The character I had played in the HotDQ game, an aarakocra monk, stayed behind with Blagothkus because he was utterly entranced by the sky castle and wanted his own for his people so that they would never again bow to the tyranny of dragons (my character's backstory and hook into HotDQ).
On the way to Waterdeep, however, one of the other members of the group disappeared in the middle of the night without explanation. This was my character's brother (another player played an aarakocra ranger and wanted to change characters for SKT). The ex-PC then became a means for me to develop the SKT plot by coming in and giving the group some clues/missions.
I made it that Blagothkus betrayed my character but my character had a Sending Stone on him that the ex-PC had the paired one to, and sent him an urgent message about the betrayal and his subsequent imprisonment. That's why the sudden departure before the rest of the group got to Waterdeep. The ex-PC chased after Blagothkus and saw the last bit of carnage over Nightstone before the sky castle left.
In my version of SKT, Blagothkus is the consort of Sansuri instead of Cressaro. They met back up (with the Nightstone now in their possession as one of the artefacts of Ostoria that Sansuri is looking for), and Sansuri was so enamoured of my character's plumage, that she made a bunch of simulacra of him, then killed him, and had him stuffed for display. This is a sort-of perversion of what's in the book since in it, she has aarakocra simulacra, so it was kinda perfect. The thing is, and this is where it gets awesome, I have to up the challenge of things because they started in Nightstone (I had it that Blagothkus was the one that raided the town and stole the rock, and that the rock itself had the power to disable the ability for dragons to fly within a certain radius, and that the entire campaign is based on the premise of a potential war between dragons and giants) at 8th-level and are now 11th-level and about to go take on Sansuri, and discover Felgolas (who I introduced in Nightstone) being tortured. So I'm increasing the challenge significantly by making Blagothkus into a standard cloud giant, but with his extra abilities from HotDQ, and Sansuri a Cloud Giant Smiling One with her extra spells, plus all the cloud giants having the extra bennies from SKT.
What I'm also doing, however, is that instead of the regular aarakocra simulacra as guards of Lyn Armaal, the PC's are going to face an army of my character's simulacra, as 8th-level monks (with half hit points due to being simulacrum). It's all so perfect I could cry
Yes. Yes it was a pushover. Even when brought closer to the party initially.
Monk stun, Remorrhaz 0.
Yes. Yes it was a pushover. Even when brought closer to the party initially.
Monk stun, Remorrhaz 0.
I changed mine to a Behir (made more sense given my alterations to the story) and had it hiding on the roof (they have stealth and climbing) only to drop down on the PC's (it got much higher stealth roll against their PP).
They still made mince-meat of it in the first round (they were 10th-level at the time). Single enemies just aren't up to the challenge of meeting a group due to the action economy. Even Iymrith will be a pushover if you don't include all her gargoyles and various other tricks and traps.
My group of (6 or 7) 9th level PCs (plus Harshnag) sent Iymrith packing. In the scenario where she invades the temple, I even gave her a 9th level mage riding on her back to assist. I even had her summon in creatures. I even had her polymorph into a storm giant when she was lower on hit points to bump up her hit points and try to get into the Oracle room.
That whole "Flee fools" stuff from Harshnag was ignored.
Motorskills
Explorer
My group of (6 or 7) 9th level PCs (plus Harshnag) sent Iymrith packing. In the scenario where she invades the temple, I even gave her a 9th level mage riding on her back to assist. I even had her summon in creatures. I even had her polymorph into a storm giant when she was lower on hit points to bump up her hit points and try to get into the Oracle room.
That whole "Flee fools" stuff from Harshnag was ignored.
I will have seven L11 characters, so I know I am going to have to work hard if I am to make the party's meeting with Iymrith truly memorable. I will happily fuzz it if I have to, but I want the party to FEAR Iymrith, and thus really want to take her down later in the campaign.
I am considering having the party meet her (initially in Giant form) as she walks back out of the portal from the Oracle, rather than have a lumbering Blue crash through the front door.
The clue will be the sacred trident propped up next to the portal...just as they start figuring it out, a Storm Giant walks out. If (more likely when) things kick off, she will transform into full dragon form.
I'm considering have her DragonFear have a CR of 23, and if you fail you can't try again for at least two, maybe three rounds.
I'm considering giving her static electricity - a mini chain lightning if you are wearing metal near her (she can selectively turn it off).
I want her tail attack to be REALLY mean, as above, it will work like a modified cone attack, with a brutal shove component.
I will also allow her Teleport (to Maelstrom) simply work.
Really looking forward to this Sunday......
You might want to consider having her stay in Storm Giant form until she is almost down to zero hit points and THEN she changes back to Dragon form. That could be a real shocker.
If you run her Shape Change like the Shapechange spell, she will be throwing Lightning Bolts as a Storm Giant and she will have Ancient Dragon saving throw mods.
The players think they have her on the ropes and she suddenly morphs into an Ancient Dragon with full hit points, full spell progression (for those DMs who give her spells), an instant breath weapon, legendary actions, etc. And the PCs have already thrown some of their better spells and limited abilities her way as a Giant, so they are not at full capability when she suddenly shows up in her true glory.
Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot. If the Storm Giant weapon is leaning against the wall next to the Oracle entrance, when she comes out, she just grabs it and now has a powerful weapon to attack with. She probably doesn't have any rocks to throw, but she can make good use of that weapon.
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Motorskills
Explorer
You might want to consider having her stay in Storm Giant form until she is almost down to zero hit points and THEN she changes back to Dragon form. That could be a real shocker.
If you run her Shape Change like the Shapechange spell, she will be throwing Lightning Bolts as a Storm Giant and she will have Ancient Dragon saving throw mods.
The players think they have her on the ropes and she suddenly morphs into an Ancient Dragon with full hit points, full spell progression (for those DMs who give her spells), an instant breath weapon, legendary actions, etc. And the PCs have already thrown some of their better spells and limited abilities her way as a Giant, so they are not at full capability when she suddenly shows up in her true glory.
Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot. If the Storm Giant weapon is leaning against the wall next to the Oracle entrance, when she comes out, she just grabs it and now has a powerful weapon to attack with. She probably doesn't have any rocks to throw, but she can make good use of that weapon.
That's genius, thanks.
