My 4-5 level party has been pretty much breezing through the encounters in the wilderness, so I've had to start thinking about how to make them more challenging. I asked for help with adapting Mabala (and got good advice) in k
this thread
I'm working now on Hrakhamar. Depending on how many players are present (our crew ranges from 2-7 players per session), I'm planning on adding a Fire Elemental Myrmidon and/or a Fire Elemental to the shrine. I've also given some thought to adding a Salamander somewhere, and magma mephits, fire snakes, and or magmin in some places. In the case of the Elementals and Salamander, my idea is that they are also devotees of Imix and "in charge" of the fire newts in this location. (Maybe there is some wider plot that will become evident later) The remainder are for variety (and some of them have experience with Magmin)
During my prep for our upcoming ToA game, this occurred to me while reading through the adventure. Lots of random encounters, half of which aren't challenging and don't really connect to any meaningful story. So what I've done is roll them in advance – assuming jungle (that's most common terrain type, but may want to hold off until knowing your group's travel strategy) – then massage the results with these points in mind:
(1) Consolidate/creatively interpret results to make encounters more multi-layered & allow for days of "travel montage" and days that get more played out.
(2) Establish linkages between various encounters, referring to one another & to other parts of the adventure.
(3) Put an emphasis on story first, building on the Chult mythos.
(4) Treat a '20' on encounter check as TWO encounters mingled together; treat a '1' as sanctuary of some kind.
Here's an example: I pre-roll 60 days; my results for the first 3 are...
Day 1: - / 25 (stegosaurus) / - ; rain is light/light
Day 2: - / - / - ; rain is light/light
Day 3: -/ 12 (cannibals/ankylosaurus) + 96 (winterscape/yellow musk creeper) / - ; rain is light/light
To get a mix of "travel montage" days of no encounters & more interesting encounter days, I move the stegosaurus to the morning of Day 3. And since this starting point is definitely not going to be in Greater Undead Jungle, I focus on blending aspects of No Undead Jungle & Lesser Undead Jungle. So, my Day 3 looks like this...
Day 3.
Morning. Pass a grazing stegosaurus which has humanoid claw marks on its hide.
Noon. Have the "Cannibal Village" encounter below.
Night. No encounter; instead establish camping standard procedures.
Cannibal Village. Decaying elven tree houses with grisly cannibalistic fetishes amid yellow flower garlands. 14
yellow musk zombies wander below. Up in treehouses are 12
tribal warriors quietly feasting on zombie corpses – the yellow musk serves to intoxicate them – and they are careful not to disturb a
yellow musk creeper overgrowing wooden stairs at central tree of the village. The cannibals are indifferent, not hostile, however they will try to protect the yellow musk creeper, which they treat as vintner would an orchard. If befriended, they enjoy making macabre jokes about certain PCs being “good eating”; they can warn PCs speaking Chultan about Batiri goblin traps, grungs using dinosaurs as weapons, and murderous cannibals with the sign of the blue triangle on their foreheads.
This encounter does a couple things:
- Establishes that cannibals aren't always bad guys, relevant for showing the jungle is not only full of monsters. This is especially important to me when it comes to depicting Chult's culture; yeah, things are bad, but that's true even for the cannibals...who originally practiced a non-evil more-true-to-real-world form of cannibalism wherein they ate specific parts of honored dead for spiritual reasons.
- Foreshadows other encounter rolls.
- Foreshadows yellow musk creeper zombies early on, establishing that not all zombies are "zombies" (something I plan to play on later), and avoids the "gotcha" of plant zombies too late in the game.
- Establishes that language is important in Chult (e.g. Old Omuan & communicating with grungs of Dungrunglung). I told my players this ahead of time, but it's good to reinforce it early on.
- Shows that clever play & paying attention will pay off. Fighting isn't necessary at all in this case, and PCs could even get aid of cannibals in taking down the zombies. While a bad decision to engage the yellow musk creeper could lead to an unexpectedly deadly encounter.
- Hints at remnants of wild elves, which are conspicuously absent from Chult; also something I intend to answer "where did the wild elves go?"
