Running "Against the giants"

[jasper]

"You get a bad feeling that death is on the line as the portal opens and grabs the .x, you hear its death scream as it SOUL is ripped away!"

 

[Arial Black]

The characters have gone through the lairs and is now on the second level in Muspelheim (the fire giant's lair). I have an issue regarding the temple. In my game I'm using AtG to launch the players into our new campaign where they're going to fight/find Acererak (we're not doing ToA) and hopefully stop Vecna.

Now, the problem with the temple is the altar. The adventure says the following: "Then a tentacle comes out of the altar and grabs the nearest living creature. The tentacle has a reach of 20 feet and a +11 bonus to hit. A creature hit by the tentacle is drawn into the stone — totally gone, destroyed." My problem with this is how I warn the players without saying/revealing too much.

The tentacle will be substituted with a long, skeletal hand and arm which suits this place of worship of Vecna alot more than a tentacle btw...

Since the tentacle attacks the nearest living creature, have the party witness a foolish giant suffer that fate!

I feel that the 'insta-death' effect should be telegraphed. If it comes out of the blue it feels like a 'gotcha!', but if they witness it and stray too close anyway then it's their own fault.

 

[Raif]

So just as someone else whose running a module on DnDbeyond, are you able to see page numbers? Or is it split into chapters for you with clickable links to them, but no correlating book page numbers? The same way the PHB and other books are?

 

[azathosk]

Since the tentacle attacks the nearest living creature, have the party witness a foolish giant suffer that fate!

I feel that the 'insta-death' effect should be telegraphed. If it comes out of the blue it feels like a 'gotcha!', but if they witness it and stray too close anyway then it's their own fault.

Yes, I've thought about it and I'm going to give them pretty good indications that this could be a bad thing. To have it fit with previous progress one of the characters will have a vision when they enter. Either from a priest's point of view or a viewer.

In addition they'll be able to observe some of the action from the painting on the walls. Sacrifice of humanoids where the eye and the skeletal hand rises from the brazier. And if they capture Eclavdra they might get some info there as well (although she would probably try to fool them).

So just as someone else whose running a module on DnDbeyond, are you able to see page numbers? Or is it split into chapters for you with clickable links to them, but no correlating book page numbers? The same way the PHB and other books are?

I don't see any page numbers. It's just the same as the PHB and the other books. Now I don't mind this at all. I thought it would be a distraction running it from my laptop, but it works out fine. The players all have their handy little tablet, phone or small laptop with their character sheet and nobody use it to check other things than rules/spells/things that we use in-game.