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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 6748395" data-attributes="member: 12731">You'll do fine. Having an Underdark ranger will make the initial scare of being lost in the Underdark with no food and no equipment less scary. But as long as you remind the group they survive because of the elf brother's mad skills a few times, they'll probably just grateful they don't have to track provisions... and to be honest, once you've made your point (that the Underdark is a barren place) three or four times, it's getting old fast, and you should probably rein it down to "background atmosphere".I mean, it's not as if you MUST have a ranger or you'll die. For instance, my players have a Cleric. Purify and Create food and drink = no real problems. It's just an inconvenience. But D&D isn't about dying of thirst anyway.Next, let's talk darkvision. Having a scout with Superior Darkvision (like your deep gnome(s)) is awesome. Prepare for it.Finally, you have many PCs in your party. You should probably plan for and be okay with them escaping Velkynvelve without many (or any) of the NPC slaves. That's okay. Their immediate purpose is to make the party survive until they reach at least level 3 (which is when a PC hero comes into his own). With many PCs you don't need the bags of hit points that is the NPCs. Sure, if the players WANT to have one or two along, that's great (they have minor roles to play in subsequent chapters after all).But you should feel very free to have your NPCs suggest they go another way. You have enough on your hands with so many players, your campaign don't need the NPCs.Okay, so about the motivations of the PCs.Really, the only good option is to ask your players to make up a motivation for reaching the surface. Talk to them out-of-game. Help them with this, but don't force ideas on them. The thing is, the adventure really doesn't do anything with "having escaped to the surface"! All it does is send them down below again!What you do need is motivations for remaining on the move in the Underdark, and remaining together. Rather than everyone splitting up and just going back to their respective Underdark homes, that is.But this isn't hard to accomplish - play up the secret police angle of the Drow. Make it clear Mistress Ilvara won't rest until they're caught. She will send assassins into whatever safe haven they think they have. She'll hunt them down one by one if they split up!The purpose of the first six or so chapters of the OotA is to have the party run from one settlement to the next in order to showcase all those random (and semirandom) encounters. All you need to do is have Ilvara keep them on the move. They don't particularly need to want to escape to the surface for this. In fact, not focussing solely on going up and away is a boon. Take for instance a group of surface dwellers - they'll probably gun straight for Blingdenstone, and then focus solely on reaching the surface. But your group, once they realize the Svirfs can't protect them, they'll be much more likely to travel to Neverlight Grove or Grackstughl (sp?), which is what you want them to do anyway!</blockquote>

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