Hey JesterPoet,
I am currently running my group of players through the Crown of Shadow module. First off, I don't need to tell you that Midnight is amazing, so i'll skip that part
We're just about to enter Chapter 5 (plains) and let me tell you, this is a pretty tough module and my players have felt like they have struggled to make it this far - although they like that.
*******SPOILERS********
Advice...hmmm...these are just general thoughts.
- First, try and limit the racial options that the players can choose from at the start of the adventure. Or maybe dont limit anything, but try and coax one player into being a Dwarf. Alot of the module depends on this (especially the first 4 chapters) and it generally lets the party have a de facto leader for that portion.
- If you have a channeller, which I also recommend you try and bring into the party, go over spell choice before hand. Try and make it clear to the player that healing spells are absolutely mandatory for this party to make it through alive. Due to the fact that potions / items of the healing variety are NOWHERE to be found, a chaneller with some healing spells will be indispensible.
- I personally ditched the covenant items and the cloaks of elven kind from the pool of available treasure at the Durgis Rock incident. I wanted to re-enforce the lack of magic and I felt that the module largely ignored that portion of the section. Being roughly level 2 and getting ahold of magic weapons and other items didnt really do it for me...but to each one's own.
- I limited what was available for my players to start the game with in terms of equipment and limited the number of rations / food and ammunition available to them. This was done to reflect the resource scarcity on Aryth.
- Try and express to your players that ranks in craft, knowledge and especially survival, will have much more utility in your midnight game than usual settings. Specifically, hunting has been the only way that my party is able to feed themselves and its not uncommon for them to have to spend days skulking around trying to find berries and tubers to fend off hunger. Further, if you put into place the weapon and armor degradation rules in the free midnight supplement available at
www.againsttheshadow.org, then repairing items and weapons becomes much easier with plenty of craft ranks.
- Try and limit what the players know about the different geographical regions and races. This helps to bring more roleplaying out of the players as they move into new racial areas that they truly have no understanding of - both ingame and meta knowledge.
- Express to your players that Midnight is going to be really hard, they are going to have to struggle, they will be happy when they find good leather or tools as treasure and that even though the DM looks like an ass for what he is doing, it is part and parcel of the setting. The world HATES the adventurers and friends are hard to find. Orcs are tough S.O.Bs and they mean business when they swing around 1d12 one-handed weapons.
- Read through the module and try to think up alternate routes to certain objectives. You may find that Crown of Shadow has a tendency to force or railroad the PCs into certain situations - most of which can be approached from different angles (specifically the entrance into the Dwarven holdfast - I had a problem with this).
Hmmmm if I think of more....and I will as I'm planning some stuff tonight, I'll add on to this.
Dont forget to visit
www.againsttheshadow.org and check out the crown of shadow forum. Inside they have a number of threads entitled "building a better chapter x" which include different takes on the adventure, additions, substractions etc. Also download the free supplement for extra diseases (which have wreaked havoc on my party), hunting charts, etc. Also, there are a few errata / additions to the crown of shadow module, such as detailed descriptions of some of the items such as the elven tea which do not have stats in the printed module.
As for a story hour, I am actually in the process of writing one but with University exams still waging a war of attrition against my sanity, it will be some time before I post anything.
Hope this helped,
cheers
