D&D 5E Small tweaks to improve Out of the Abyss [DMs toolbox; SPOILERS]

[Ralif Redhammer]

I dig this idea quite a bit!

One tweak I’m going to do later on is that in the library, rather than a vision of Drizzt wandering around, it’s going to be some of the PCs from a long-ago campaign of ours.

I'm also not sure where, but I really want to do something with Orcus and the undead mind flayers.

The one change I made to the outpost was the cavern had enough Faezerness that the humans weren't in pitch blackness, and the drow might be going mad and single mindedly chase the prisoners across half the known world.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

So I started the game which went ok.

The absolutely essential things were understanding the NPC's in the cell and having stat sheets that the players could have to control them if they managed to escape with a lot.

How should the were rats be handled in combat if they escape with the players? For example if a drow fires a crossbow bolt and it hits one, certainly the creature take no damage from the bolt but what about the poison? Or a Giant Spider?
Currently I am allowing the poison effects to operate as though the attacks pierced the skin but failed to harm.

the characters are Human Bard Actor, Half Orc Barbarian, Half Elf Fighter ( intending eldritch).
The game so far: Bard talked to pretty much all the NPC's, she arrived days before anyone else. Fortunately I managed to run this before the game began as a one on one. If you are running this as a home game and you have some players that like to talk to NPCs and some who will be bored by it consider having the talkers round for a session zero to sort the NPC roleplaying out, they can paraphrase what they learnt when the combat players turn up in the next session.
players then embarked on a massive load of planning for escape having got most of the available info. They weren't happy with any plans they came up with until Jorlan said he would leave the gate unlocked and provide a distraction.
Characters recovered their gear and escaped with little difficulty thanks to a good plan and any time a roll mattered they rolled well. The remaining drow in the tower after the buzzing noise attack were grabbed and thrown over the side before the webs were burnt. The cave of Quaggoths and the drow guard post was neutralised by the actor mimicking the lead drows voice having already used disguise self to look like her and ordering them back inside. She was standing on the path waiting for the quaggoths to come out as the players had pretty much been everywhere in the compound on various duties. The rope bridges were cut in case reinforcements were coming in spite of the demons which were fighting up on the platform. It is not clear what the demons are supposed to do once the drow start defending their outpost. So you think the demons are only, or mainly interested in killing the other demons or will they all turn on the drow?. Anyway I just handwaved the fighting as keeping the drow busy for now. The players climbed down the rope and into the pool where the ooze was still eating the bodies it had been thrown. It tried to grab some players as they ran past but they all made it to the south passage and dispatched the Vrock before it got an action with more good rolling.
So the group plus all the NPC's minus Ront, the drow and shushar had escaped.

The wererats are not immune to poison damage. Added on they rejected their curse, so they don't get the benefits of it. They ether must accept the curse and turn into sociopaths with immunity to conventional weapons with the power to turn into rat monsters. Or they can reject it then they will keep their mind but get none of the benifits of and turn into a raging rat monster once a month. It's a curse you should not benefit from a curse.

 

[muppetmuppet]

My fighter PC who wants to learn spells at 3rd level is currently dreaming of the library but I suspect they will get spells long before they get that far, so not quite sure how that will fit in yet.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I dig this idea quite a bit!

One tweak I’m going to do later on is that in the library, rather than a vision of Drizzt wandering around, it’s going to be some of the PCs from a long-ago campaign of ours.

I'm also not sure where, but I really want to do something with Orcus and the undead mind flayers.

The library does not have a vision of Drizzt running around. The only thing with Drizzt in the adventure is a gas spore of a dead beholder that encountered him.

 

[muppetmuppet]

Continuing the story so far.
The group decide to go slow so they can stealth and forage.
the barbarian and the fighter are both outlanders which just happens to be amazing for this so after a couple of days I said if they are both foraging we can ignore recording food and water unless something dd happens.
The group has more trouble with carrying the food and water than finding it for now.
Anyway this meant the drow caught them up pretty much immediately, some of the group were covering tracks but rolled badly. The drow scouts fired a few bolts at the rear group of 3 and retreated to get the others when charged.
The rest of the group were alerted and basically ran as fast as they could for a bit. The drow returned to scout mode when they made no contact. The group now set up an ambush in a cavern. this worked perfectly the hidden NPC's that stopped and hid in the cavern weren't spotted and the drow passed them into the narrow passage where the rest of the group were waiting round a corner. The result was dead scouts, mostly unhurt group and they continued at a fast pace again for a bit either not realizing the rest of the drow were coming or not wishing to face them.
The drow chase group had now lost it scouts and the drow in general had suffered enough loses I decided they would retreat get some new scouts ( canon fodder) and try to ambush the group later.
The players found that their guide Buppido was basically useless, but fortunately ran into a member of the society of Brilliance, the orc, and managed to not just attack him on sight and found rough directions to sloobidoop.
Somewhere round here the mushroom decided they were friendly and used spores for the first time. He was being carried by Prince Derendil most of the time to not slow them further. So they now found a new way to navigate.
Mushroom man claimed he knew the direction Neverlight Grove was in but had no idea how to get there and they had discovered from the Orc roughly where Sloobidoop lay, they assumed the grove was a long way away and knew sloobidoop was fairly close, so they used mushroom man as a compass that pointed to one direction and sort of hoped they cld navigate from that. Eldeth said she was good at navigating and cld maybe work with all this and meanwhile the outlanders were remembering where they had been so if they ever needed to come back or went in circles they would know where they were.
And so they arrived at the Silken Paths and were travelling roughly the right way for Sloobidoop.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I stand corrected. It's Elminster that appears as a vision (arguably, six of one, half a dozen of the other).

The library does not have a vision of Drizzt running around. The only thing with Drizzt in the adventure is a gas spore of a dead beholder that encountered him.

 

[Motorskills]

I waited until the PCs were in a boat on the Darklake, and then "waited" until they hit a lengthy patch of rapids.

Only then did I have Topsy and Turvy wig out.

Nowhere to run, everyone's on Disadvantage because the boat is rocking all over the place, and everyone is receiving random (small) damage from getting thrown about (which also messes with Concentration). No-one in the party owns a silver or magic weapon either, so they were reduced to crappy spells, trying to light torches (Disadvantage to use a tinderbox), which really wasn't getting the job done.

Epic times, highly recommended.


My players eventually solved the "puzzle" by casting Spider Climb on someone (to provide stability on the boat) and grappling/throwing the twins overboard.




A couple of folks got bit, but I'm only going to make the infection rolls when

a) they are able to perform an adequate medical or magical investigation
b) another month spins around


N.B. my players and all the NPCs are 4th level, I started everyone at 3rd, including statting the NPCs fully.

 

[vandaexpress]

I dig this idea quite a bit!

One tweak I’m going to do later on is that in the library, rather than a vision of Drizzt wandering around, it’s going to be some of the PCs from a long-ago campaign of ours.

I'm also not sure where, but I really want to do something with Orcus and the undead mind flayers.

Dig the library idea. If you have high level PCs from a prior campaign, it might make sense to have them make an appearance for the final battle, or as members of a prior expedition that have since gone insane after trying to fight the demon lords on their own. Useful as a random encounter (combat, if they've gone insane) or to illustrate the power of the demon lords. Obviously you'll want to take care in how you handle this based on your players and their attachment to prior PCs.

 

[muppetmuppet]

Final installment for a while, The Sliken Paths were where we left the game, the group have killed some spiders and have spotted something in the webs (the hobbit).

So next time it should be off to the tomb if they rescue him and believe what he says.

My Topsy and Turvy are approaching full moon. I decided to use the variant magic items for drow though so the group has a few drow weapons which will be needed in the tomb and if the wererats are out of control enough to attack the party.

Oh and they will level up to 2nd when they have the next long rest.

 

[CapnZapp]

Hello again.

22(?): I've found that adding the four Set Encounters from chapter 2 needs a bit of thinking through, or they risk coming across as pointless. Specifically, I'm looking for some hook into the adventure as a whole. Something that provides even a small answer to the players for the question "why is this encounter included?"

Sure, not all encounters need to have a point. But OotA is already chock full of "merely random" encounters.

Silken Paths: Initially, this sounds like an interesting terrain. Alas, if you don't do anything with it, that's all it will be. The mechanics of "surfing the web" is not enought to create tension or interest, I'm afraid. Encountering the friendly pair of gobs is of course nice.

Hook Horror Hunt: Again, at first this sounds promising. But when you read it, it doesn't amount to much more than a random encounter in a fairly generic location. Sure, getting to nurse a baby horror is a novelty, but other than that?

The Oozing Temple: Here we at least have the thrill of a timed encounter. And stumbling into a sentient ooze is actually a nice nod to future events (the Blingdenstone chapter). But the "temple" itself is a bit of a letdown in my opinion - my players tried their hardest to add meaning to its form. Does the map suggest a shape? Are there any hidden secrets? But no...

Lost Tomb of Khaem: I would say this is the encounterlet with the most backstory, which isn't saying much. Of course, it's claim to fame (infamy?) is the seriously powerful magic loot/ally.

What can we add to these that makes them more integral to the adventure?

Silken Paths: since Lolth is specifically not in this adventure, I really don't have any good ideas. Perhaps there could be a hidden settlement and safe camp in the webs that would make the silken paths more interesting and less of an elaborate terrain feature? Perhaps a village of Ettercaps (that aren't immediately hostile)?

Hook Horror: As written, this set encounter is lame, if the whole point isn't to throw a baby horror in the laps of the characters. I'm toying with the following idea:

Imagine if Yeenoghu himself is enjoying a great hunt, and the characters encounter various Underdark denizens fleeing as from a forest fire? Any gnolls they encounter are so excited they can barely fight (since their god is among them).

Imagine if the hooked horrors are joined by others such as otherwise superior Drow (now bedraggled and exhausted), monsters like Gricks or Spectators, and others. Then you have disorganized bands of Gnolls that effectively are incapacitated half the time with barking and baying at "the moon"... Then, if the heroes doesn't retreat, they can glimpse Yeenoghu himself. One idea is that if the characters slay enough gnolls to gain the attention of their pack masters, they can challenge a champion to one-on-one combat. Of course, the gnolls can't contain their excitement when their chosen Champion is... Yeenoghu himself! (Time to flee!)

The Oozing Temple: Would be better if it were an actual temple. A bit of backstory, a few clues to its function and history. Nothing special; just a little more would go a long way.

Khaem: I could probably run this as is, though making sure all the details get across to the players (language barriers be damned!)