D&D 5E TftYP - Running Sunless Citadel

[Kalshane]

Nope. Slow Natural Recovery just removes the total-health-refill after a long rest. So players can spend hit dice after either a short or long rest.


This is what I call the OD&D method. It's good if you have a knack for mechanical description. You also need to come up with unique telegraphs for each trap or secret door, otherwise you're announcing their presence to the world.

For example, there are two identical traps in the Sunless Citadel. As soon as I used similar language to telegraph the second one, the players said, "Ah-hah," and knew exactly what was up. So relying on description requires extra work and a lot of creativity.

I personally wouldn't call this a problem. If a room has a very similar setup with an identical trap, I don't have a problem with the players thinking "This room is just like the last one." It means they're paying attention. Plus, if you just encountered a nasty trap and then came across a nearly identical situation a short while later, you're going to make doubly sure there's not another one.

 

[jasper]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?538072-Jasper-runs-Portal-and-Season-6
has my write up. Some changes I would make I dm again. No lair actions. Change downwards some perception checks. Then it depend on your game group.

 

[Flamestrike]

I'm currently running Sunless Citadel for two groups. They are two and three sessions in, respectively. We've had a number of near-death experiences, and three character deaths so far.

In my opinion, you absolutely MUST use variant rules to bring this dungeon to life. This adventure was written for 3rd Edition, and the default 5th Edition rules are way too forgiving.

No offence but I'm having trouble reconciling those two statements.

I mean youve run 5 sessions (total) and killed 3 characters and from the sounds of it nearly killed several more. That sounds very Fantasy underground Vietnam!

 

[Flamestrike]

This is certainly a possibility, but one of the things I missed about AD&D was the long stretches of recovery time. This gives the dungeon denizens time to prepare new traps and ambushes. Is the party tearing through encounters with tactic A? Well, the goblins have had 10 days to come up with counter-tactic B.

Arent the PCs in the dungeon to rescue someone? There was some 'magic fruit appears on day X' thing as well from memory. Im sure you could easily insert one of many time pressures to keep the PCs from resorting to the 5 minute adventuring day.

From memory the NPCS the PCs are sent in to rescue are already dead (and tree zombies) but that alone should be enough to keep them pushing in as long as they can, and not relying on the 5 minute adventuring day.

Slow Natural Recovery didn't have as big of an impact as I was expecting. It's definitely a lot funner than the default rules, but you can still expect the party to be at full or nearly-full health after a long rest. Yes, the party will be resting a little more frequently, but it's not like AD&D where they had to hole up for several days at a time.

I use:

Short rest (5 minutes): Allows expenditure of (1/2 level, round up) Hit dice to heal. Roll one at a time, adding Con to each die till you're happy. Restores all short rest abilities. Generally limited to a maximum of 2/ long rest (in special or unusual circumstances the DM might allow more).

Long rest (8 hours): Restores no HP. First you recover 1/2 your level in Hit Dice (round up). Then you can spend 1 or more Hit dice immediately if desired. It also restores all long rest resources to full, with the exception of spell slots and Warlock arcanum. Spell slots recharge at the rate of 1 each of levels 1-5 for each level you have slots available, plus one of levels 6+ (or one arcanum) if you have spell slots of that level. You can choose to restore a lower level slot in the place of a higher level one as long as you have access to slots of that level. Limited to 1/ every 24 hours. If interrupted it only counts as a short rest as as long as you havent had more than two short rests in the past 24 hours, forcing you to start again.

Example:

Harry the 9th level Wizard can short rest twice, for 5 minutes each time, expending a maximum of 5 Hit dice on each rest (to a total of 9 HD during the day). When he long rests for 8 hours, he first recovers 5 Hit dice, and can spend up to 9 Hit dice (if available) if he is still injured to heal.

He also recovers 5 spell slots; 1 x 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 1 x 5th level slot.

I find this keeps day time pacing where I want it (no immersion breaking 1 hour stops in the dungeon), is punitive enough with slot recovery to keep casters from nova striking encounters or constantly seeking to drop high level slots into every problem, and keeps healing fast enough to keep the adventure going without week long breaks in the action, but slow enough to make hit point attrition a thing, and a two or three day adventure requiring 3-4 days for everyone to get back to (full HP, HD and spell slots).

I also use negative HP, and death at (-10 or 1/4 max HP, whichever is better for the character). Its a DC 15 Con check to stabilize (Champion remarkable athlete helps for this yay!).

Each check you fail you lose 1 HP. Each check you pass you remain on the same (negative) HP total. If you fail 3 you gain a level of exhaustion. If you pass three you're stable. Once stable, you come to in 1d4 hours with 1 hit point.

That said, there's no perfect way to remove Hit Dice from the game without introducing new problems. For example, the fighter (with Second Wind) will laugh at your attempts to reduce his healing capabilities. Sure, you can make Second Wind a once-a-day ability, but I have a strong aversion to house-rules. Slow Natural Recovery has the benefit of being an official variant, and it doesn't introduce new problems, so I like it.

Limit short rests. The game isnt intended for the players to take multiple short rests in a row, doing nothing else. Literally; just say 'you sit around for an hour but you're already as rested as you could possibly be from the short rest you had immediately prior. Your abilities remain expended till you take a long rest'

The party has a Ranger with 14 passive Perception. They are walking toward a pit trap. The adventure text says: "It takes a successful DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check to detect the trapdoor's presence."
You, the DM, roll a 1d20. Take the original DC, subtract 9 from it (15 - 9 = 6), and add the result to the d20 roll (1d20 + 6). This is the trapdoor's new DC.

I like this. A lot. Consider it stolen.

 

[Onslaught]

I'm running two Sunless Citadel groups concurrently; sessions are 4 hours long. One group is 3 sessions in, and they JUST reached the entrance to the Grove Level at the end of the third session. I'm sure they can finish up in 4 sessions, but more likely it will be 5. That's 16-20 hours altogether.

The second group is on a similar pace.

So one question remain: how long was your "intro"? Or... did the group went straight to the Sidadel, or they interacted with NPCs, went on exploring Oakhurst, etc...

I like this. A lot. Consider it stolen.

That makes two of us

 

[Prakriti]

So one question remain: how long was your "intro"? Or... did the group went straight to the Sidadel, or they interacted with NPCs, went on exploring Oakhurst, etc...

It was about 2 hours of game-time before the first group reached the courtyard of the Citadel and the first door (I always call for a break at the 2-hour mark, and the group had just reached the entrance to the Citadel at that time). There was no Session 0, so some of that time was spent discussing expectations, introducing characters, and getting acquainted. About 40 minutes was spent exploring Oakhurst, shopping, and gathering information on the Citadel and its goblins.

That's the first group. The second group spent very little time in Oakhurst and asked almost no questions before leaving for the Citadel. When I called the first break (2 hours in), they had already met Yusdrayl and were on their way to rescue Calcryx.

 

[iserith]

So one question remain: how long was your "intro"? Or... did the group went straight to the Sidadel, or they interacted with NPCs, went on exploring Oakhurst, etc..

For me, I spent zero time in Oakhurst. I generally disdain town stuff, so I just gave the rumors to each of the PCs, did the character intros and started them off at the entrance to the dungeon.

 

[OB1]

For me, I spent zero time in Oakhurst. I generally disdain town stuff, so I just gave the rumors to each of the PCs, did the character intros and started them off at the entrance to the dungeon.

I decided to start my group at the entrance as well. We did a quick session 0 and determined that they are all from Waterdeep, here to acquire the apple (by any means possible) due to a connection with the Zhentarim, who want it.

I'll start it off by letting them know that when they got to Oakhurst, they discovered that the apple didn't arrive as it was supposed to, nor did the 4 adventurers who went to make the trade ever come back, so the group went to investigate as it was made clear that if they did not return with the apple in a week, very bad things would happen to them. This also gives a time pressure as they have to be back on the road to Waterdeep by the day after the start of the adventure. I do plan to allow them to level up during a short rest should they have the xp for it.

 

[JeffB]

Share, if possible

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

It was a long long time ago, details are fuzzy. But essentially the kobolds doublecrossed the PCs and converged on them along with the Goblins. I "misspoke" when I mentioned G vs. K. I meant humanoids vs. PCs.

 

[Prakriti]

For me, I spent zero time in Oakhurst. I generally disdain town stuff, so I just gave the rumors to each of the PCs, did the character intros and started them off at the entrance to the dungeon.

I tried to go this route in Sunless Citadel, but it was a little rocky. One group went right for the usual tavern-room shenanigans, so I tried to humor them a little, where-as I flat-out told my veteran group that we weren't going to do any active roleplay in Oakhurst, so they could just say what they were trying to accomplish there and how they were going about it. For example, "I want to find out more about the Sunless Citadel, so I visit the tavern and speak to as many locals as I can, asking them about the Citadel's history and the goblins that dwell there."

For whatever reason, though, a lot of players expect the whole game to be conducted in active roleplay (Critical Role and other streaming shows have probably encouraged this idea). If they want information about the Sunless Citadel, then they think they need to locate specific townspeople and create a scene with each one. First there's the innkeeper, then there's the hooded traveler in the corner, then the farmers at a nearby table, and on and on.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with this, of course, but damn is it boring when there's no dramatic conflict (i.e. in a dungeon-crawl). It also eats up a ton of time, if not whole sessions.

I'm not sure what to do about this, but in the future, I'll probably frame town visits in the past tense. "The party spent a few days recuperating in town. What did you do during that time?"