sunrisekid
Explorer
My two cents for the OP.
1) I borrowed quite a lot from the HackSlash blog for ideas on how to read the adventure, with very good feedback following from the players.
2) I spent time carefully going over the possible combat encounters and adjusted them according to the Encounter Building chart in the DMG, pegged to the levels of the characters. This resulted in encounter building with fewer enemies, on average. I found that the first couple chapters were “deadly” for every fight, that’s why I dialed it down a notch.
3) By chapter 3, I started adding more treasure and common magic items, per DMG guidelines. There are some enemies in later chapters that are resistant/immune to mundane weapons, which in a “deadly” fight might be overwhelming - though I have yet to play through the end chapters so YMMV.
4) Setting the expectations really helped. I basically told my players what sort of campaign this is, so that they knew this wasn’t a typical sandbox adventure - which is what we usually do. They are onboard, so despite some railroading for plot the players play along according to the overall scope of the story.
Factions are super cool but I’m at a loss as to how to introduce them effectively into my game. My players seemed uninterested in joining a faction and the two initial factions that want to hire them don’t seem to have much presence for most of HotDQ. I’m still looking into how to do this aspect better, especially given how important they are for the story in RoT.
For the record, I am a fan - this is one of the best adventures I’ve ever read.
1) I borrowed quite a lot from the HackSlash blog for ideas on how to read the adventure, with very good feedback following from the players.
2) I spent time carefully going over the possible combat encounters and adjusted them according to the Encounter Building chart in the DMG, pegged to the levels of the characters. This resulted in encounter building with fewer enemies, on average. I found that the first couple chapters were “deadly” for every fight, that’s why I dialed it down a notch.
3) By chapter 3, I started adding more treasure and common magic items, per DMG guidelines. There are some enemies in later chapters that are resistant/immune to mundane weapons, which in a “deadly” fight might be overwhelming - though I have yet to play through the end chapters so YMMV.
4) Setting the expectations really helped. I basically told my players what sort of campaign this is, so that they knew this wasn’t a typical sandbox adventure - which is what we usually do. They are onboard, so despite some railroading for plot the players play along according to the overall scope of the story.
Factions are super cool but I’m at a loss as to how to introduce them effectively into my game. My players seemed uninterested in joining a faction and the two initial factions that want to hire them don’t seem to have much presence for most of HotDQ. I’m still looking into how to do this aspect better, especially given how important they are for the story in RoT.
For the record, I am a fan - this is one of the best adventures I’ve ever read.
