D&D 5E Running Tomb of Annihilation for a party of characters who have all been resurrected

[Charlaquin]

After my current campaign is over, I’m planning to run my group through Tomb of Annihilation. We’ll probably be making new characters for it, since the current ones will be over-leveled for Tomb by then. But, I like the idea of the PCs being affected by the Death Curse themselves. I will probably make “how did your character die?” and “how were they brought back?” part of character creation.

But the Death Curse is damn harsh, so I want to look for ways to make it more manageable, so the PCs aren’t trying to work their way through the Tomb of the Nine Gods with HP totals barely above the single digits. Obviously I’ll scrap the initial -20 max HP, but the -1 max HP per day is still pretty harsh. I guess I could slow it down a bit, maybe 1 every week or something, but that doesn’t seem like it would create the same sense of urgency. I really like the 80 day ticking clock that the initial hook represents, I just want that clock to be on the PCs themselves instead of an NPC Patron. Makes it more immediate and visceral because it’s their lives on the line be rather than the reward.

I’m thinking I should start the PCs off at maybe 3rd or 5th level, but still start them off in Port Nyanzaru for some easy XP early on, since leveling up will increase their max HP and help combat the drain from the Curse. I’m also thinking of not having the Curse actually start immediately. Having the game start out as a pure hex crawl, and introduce the Death Curse and the hook to stop the Soulmonfer only after the PCs have a good HP buffer built up. But I’m not sure at what point I should introduce that element. Maybe once they reach a certain level, or a certain point in the story, but I’m not sure where or when would leave them with enough of a buffer to stand a decent chance of surviving the rest of the adventure.One thing that Chris Perkins is doing in Dice, Camera, Action that I really like (mild spoilers for any who might want to watch that and aren’t caught up,) is that his party has two magic rings that hold off the effects of the Death Curse when worn. So each day, his PCs can decide which two won’t lose a point of max HP each day. I love that idea, although I’d probably want to give them just one such artifact.

Has anyone run or is anyone running ToA for groups with one or more raised characters? How did it go, or how is it going? Is there anything you wish you’d done differently or are thinking or changing? If you haven’t, what level do you think you’d want your PCs to be before throwing the Death Curse at them? Any suggestions for clever ways to combat the max HP tax,

 

[Iry]

-1 Max HP every long rest might be interesting. It could force them into situations where they push themselves for several days on threadbare resources trying to eek out every victory they can, slowly accumulating exhaustion levels until they finally decide to sleep. Done well, they could even stay even with the HP loss. Done poorly, and it might just be frustrating for the players. Only you know how well your players handle adversity.

 

[Grahmir]

Idea is very nice! Far more motivating than help to some archmage. From my experience the most time-consuming part is traveling to Omu from Port Nyanzaru. It took about 32 days IIRC. Investigation of direction and finding a guide took 2-3 days, encounters at Omu itself +2 days and at Fan of yuan-ti +2 days. And I believe the Tomb exploration will last no more then 3 days (we didn't finished it yet). So you just need to manage the travel part somehow by speeding it up. Maybe by adding airship or aarakocra ritual as available and more obvious options but maybe more expensive. You can use Teleport to Omu as well, but that will cut hex-crawl part completely.

 

[Quickleaf]

After my current campaign is over, I’m planning to run my group through Tomb of Annihilation. We’ll probably be making new characters for it, since the current ones will be over-leveled for Tomb by then. But, I like the idea of the PCs being affected by the Death Curse themselves. I will probably make “how did your character die?” and “how were they brought back?” part of character creation.

But the Death Curse is damn harsh, so I want to look for ways to make it more manageable, so the PCs aren’t trying to work their way through the Tomb of the Nine Gods with HP totals barely above the single digits. Obviously I’ll scrap the initial -20 max HP, but the -1 max HP per day is still pretty harsh. I guess I could slow it down a bit, maybe 1 every week or something, but that doesn’t seem like it would create the same sense of urgency. I really like the 80 day ticking clock that the initial hook represents, I just want that clock to be on the PCs themselves instead of an NPC Patron. Makes it more immediate and visceral because it’s their lives on the line be rather than the reward.

I’m thinking I should start the PCs off at maybe 3rd or 5th level, but still start them off in Port Nyanzaru for some easy XP early on, since leveling up will increase their max HP and help combat the drain from the Curse. I’m also thinking of not having the Curse actually start immediately. Having the game start out as a pure hex crawl, and introduce the Death Curse and the hook to stop the Soulmonfer only after the PCs have a good HP buffer built up. But I’m not sure at what point I should introduce that element. Maybe once they reach a certain level, or a certain point in the story, but I’m not sure where or when would leave them with enough of a buffer to stand a decent chance of surviving the rest of the adventure.One thing that Chris Perkins is doing in Dice, Camera, Action that I really like (mild spoilers for any who might want to watch that and aren’t caught up,) is that his party has two magic rings that hold off the effects of the Death Curse when worn. So each day, his PCs can decide which two won’t lose a point of max HP each day. I love that idea, although I’d probably want to give them just one such artifact.

Has anyone run or is anyone running ToA for groups with one or more raised characters? How did it go, or how is it going? Is there anything you wish you’d done differently or are thinking or changing? If you haven’t, what level do you think you’d want your PCs to be before throwing the Death Curse at them? Any suggestions for clever ways to combat the max HP tax,

Haven't run it, but have read it, chatted with friends about it, and figured out the overall flow of the adventure.

Levels 1-5 are focused on jungle wandering for the most part. It's very much a hex crawling logistics focused part of the game. Not every group's cup of tea. Especially with PCs suffering the Death Curse I'd say 3rd or 5th is a fine starting level.

If I run it myself, I'm inclined to tone down the Death Curse such that the "ticking clock" occurs weekly or monthly and reduces their Hit Dice, not hit points. So every week (or month, not sure yet, need to check travel times in Chult), a creature that's been resurrected loses 1 Hit Die permanently. Chances are the PCs will be able to level up fast enough to at least keep their total Hit Dice constant throughout much of the adventure (i.e. right around 3 or 5). This makes managing Hit Dice a bigger deal when exploring, and makes things like healing magic and potions more valuable. Instead of outright killing a PC who reaches 0 Hit Dice, I'd be inclined to have them count as "undead" for purposes of magic and make them start to act as a conduit for Acererak to scry/speak through and possibly even control that PC a little.

 

[Charlaquin]

-1 Max HP every long rest might be interesting. It could force them into situations where they push themselves for several days on threadbare resources trying to eek out every victory they can, slowly accumulating exhaustion levels until they finally decide to sleep. Done well, they could even stay even with the HP loss. Done poorly, and it might just be frustrating for the players. Only you know how well your players handle adversity.

It took me a little bit to figure out what you meant by this, at first glance I thought, “Isn’t that what the Death Curse already does?” But if I’m reading correctly, you’re saying only deduct the HP when the PCs actually take a Long Rest, regardless of how much time has passed since the last one, rather than a strict -1 max HP/24 hours? That’s actually a great idea. Then they can go multiple days without a Long Rest, effectively trading exhaustion levels for a few more max HP. If they’re really clever, they might even Long Rest in shifts so they don’t totally drain themselves of resources. Especially if I include the concept of an artifact that can hold off the Curse for one party member at a time. I like this a lot!

Idea is very nice! Far more motivating than help to some archmage. From my experience the most time-consuming part is traveling to Omu from Port Nyanzaru. It took about 32 days IIRC. Investigation of direction and finding a guide took 2-3 days, encounters at Omu itself +2 days and at Fan of yuan-ti +2 days. And I believe the Tomb exploration will last no more then 3 days (we didn't finished it yet). So you just need to manage the travel part somehow by speeding it up. Maybe by adding airship or aarakocra ritual as available and more obvious options but maybe more expensive. You can use Teleport to Omu as well, but that will cut hex-crawl part completely.

Excellent, thank you for the input on your group’s time. That’s actually a lot shorter than I would have expected outside of travel. That makes me feel much better about the idea, of I can shorten the travel time a bit, I should be able to insure HP feels like a really tight resource, without it actually being quite as limited as it seems.

Haven't run it, but have read it, chatted with friends about it, and figured out the overall flow of the adventure.

Levels 1-5 are focused on jungle wandering for the most part. It's very much a hex crawling logistics focused part of the game. Not every group's cup of tea. Especially with PCs suffering the Death Curse I'd say 3rd or 5th is a fine starting level.

If I run it myself, I'm inclined to tone down the Death Curse such that the "ticking clock" occurs weekly or monthly and reduces their Hit Dice, not hit points. So every week (or month, not sure yet, need to check travel times in Chult), a creature that's been resurrected loses 1 Hit Die permanently. Chances are the PCs will be able to level up fast enough to at least keep their total Hit Dice constant throughout much of the adventure (i.e. right around 3 or 5). This makes managing Hit Dice a bigger deal when exploring, and makes things like healing magic and potions more valuable. Instead of outright killing a PC who reaches 0 Hit Dice, I'd be inclined to have them count as "undead" for purposes of magic and make them start to act as a conduit for Acererak to scry/speak through and possibly even control that PC a little.

Oh, now that is a cool idea! I’m not totally sold on switching to HD drain instead of HP drain, but the idea of a character killed by it becoming a sort of vessel for Acererak is rad as hell.

 

[DRF]

If I run it myself, I'm inclined to tone down the Death Curse such that the "ticking clock" occurs weekly or monthly and reduces their Hit Dice, not hit points. So every week (or month, not sure yet, need to check travel times in Chult), a creature that's been resurrected loses 1 Hit Die permanently.

Sounds underwhelming to me. Permanently losing hit points really stresses the sense of urgency and danger both on a story and mechanics level. Hit dice are mechanically important and work well, but narratively really boring.

 

[jasper]

So Let me get this straight. Your players have bunch of 3 to 5 level pcs which have already died. You not going to start the clock until they arrive. Instead losing -1 hp a game day, they lose 1 hp per long rest which means they trade off exhaustion effects vs hp. It may work.
Evil suggestion. Do a surprise inventory on their dice bags. These are the only dice they can play with during the campaign. They can choose to lose a die instead a hit point. The die will be crushed in front of the group. If at any time the don't have at least 1 of each die type. Their soul is consumed.
Ps take pictures and collect the die dust. It suppose to make pixie dust look weak.

 

[Uller]

Sounds underwhelming to me. Permanently losing hit points really stresses the sense of urgency and danger both on a story and mechanics level. Hit dice are mechanically important and work well, but narratively really boring.

I'm running it for a high level party (13). They lose one HD per week. On a Long Rest they only get back half their HD and no hp. I started them down one HD. If they go straight to Omu via the shortest route that will put them down 4 more. So a long rest will net them 4 HD worth of healing while dealing with Red Wizards, Ras Nsi (and I replaced the hydra with a yuanti Anathema) and the tomb.

So they probably ought to get some flight capability or teleport sooner rather than later...

Seems dramatic enough to me. Once they are out of HD they will start losing hp.

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[Charlaquin]

So Let me get this straight. Your players have bunch of 3 to 5 level pcs which have already died. You not going to start the clock until they arrive. Instead losing -1 hp a game day, they lose 1 hp per long rest which means they trade off exhaustion effects vs hp. It may work.

At this point I am still just brainstorming. I know I want the PCs to all have died and been resurrected off camera before play starts. Part of character creation will be deciding how your character died, how they were resurrected, and how they feel about having been resurrected. I’m still trying to work out what will be the best way to run the Death Curse so that it puts pressure on the PCs without totally screwing them over. Ideas I’ve liked so far are starting the PCs above 1st level to give them a bigger buffer, not starting the HP drain immediately to give them time to build up an even bigger buffer, tying the HP drain to long rests instead of days passing to give them a measure of control over when they take the HP drain, and giving them some kind of artifact or boon that can prevent the HP drain and be passed from one character to another to give yet more control over the HP drain. Other ideas I’m considering is giving max HP on level up instead of rolling HD or taking the average result, allowing full HD recovery on Long Rests instead of half, or even tying the HP drain to sleep (or Trance for elves) instead of Long Rests and allowong Long Rests without sleep at a risk of exhaustion. This campaign is still a long ways off, as we’re currently in the midst of Out of the Abyss - This is just me planning ahead for after we finish.

Evil suggestion. Do a surprise inventory on their dice bags. These are the only dice they can play with during the campaign. They can choose to lose a die instead a hit point. The die will be crushed in front of the group. If at any time the don't have at least 1 of each die type. Their soul is consumed.
Ps take pictures and collect the die dust. It suppose to make pixie dust look weak.

Uhh... I don’t know if you meant it to come off this way, but reads like a passive-aggressive use of hyperbole to illustrate distaste for the idea of my campaign. I certainly hope that wasn’t your intent, and I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it wasn’t.

 

[jasper]

No passive agressive. Joke. That is why I said it was an EVILLLLLLLLLL Suggestion. Hey just two weeks ago I was told quit eating other players dice. I didn't; they put their dice next to my skittles.