Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Drew" data-source="post: 3080107" data-attributes="member: 1314">Well, with the exception of the original module, which was something of a dungeon crawl through Strahd's castle, the Ravenloft setting never existed the way you describe it. Even the boxed set advised the DM to avoid random encounters and other trappings of a typical fantasy setting. When was the dungeon archetype ever a key component of the Ravenloft setting in any D&D edition?Abandoning the weekend-in-hell approach was not, in my opinion, to change the focus of Ravenloft as a setting. It was done to make Ravenloft a more viable setting for long term campaigns.That's a nice way of adding a certain amount of creepiness, sure. In my high-level D&D game, before the 3.5 revision, at least half of my party was wearing boots of striding and springing. It just struck me as somewhat difficult to keep the horror alive as I imagine the heroes bounding around Barovia like moonwalking astronauts.My problem doesn't lie with magic items per se. It just felt to me after running a party from 1st to roughly 19th level that, as wealth increased, the characters came to feel more and more like medieval superheroes. By decreasing the wealth a bit, the DM can delay this phenomenon until the truly high levels. There is also the side effect of making certain kinds of monsters a bit more of a threat for their CR, which is a good thing in this setting.</blockquote>