D&D 5E Troubleshooting Princes of the Apocalypse

[MonsterEnvy]

You raise some good points MonsterEnvy.
I'll consider your points.
I may run into structural problems if I move things around.
The fact remains that if I have several back and forth trips to complete each 4th of the megagdungeon and then doing that again 4 times....my players will rebel. Even using side treks and such from chapter 6 to provide variety...they will grumble.
What I may do is introduce idea that other adventuring parties may be making raids on other 3 temples too...

They get to decide when they leave the megadungeon. Also The fane, the Cult temples and the Nodes are all connected to each other. So any party will be making more then one trip. It's unlikley that it would take more then a single trip to eliminate a 4th of the temples. Anyway their is a lot of exploration in the temples. The original temple of Elemental Evil was the same. Being a huge dungeon that will take more then one trip to get to the bottom of. Hell their are multiple entrances in the temple to get down to the fane of the eye and nodes.

It's a big place and I think some people will have fun with a megadungeon. I think making them all far apart would be more likely to rebel, as it just makes it harder to get to them and prevents truly exploring the temple, but I don't know your players.

 

[HobbitFan]

Another thing that doesn't quite make sense. Factions in Princes of the Apocalypse. The adventure seems to assume their presence, it even tells you who the organizations are in the beginning but then, aside from side treks..its really doesn't do anything with the factions.
They are important enough to define and to cover in the alternate campaign setting section at end but not important to detail or utilize?
This doesn't make sense to me.
And it doesn't go into faction leaders. It doesn't tell who who is in charge or what they are doing.
At various times the adventure mentions words to the effect of "now you might want to do some faction stuff."
The factions help point the party to the delegation disapperance but then disappear from the story. Why?
They do return in the final wrap up paragraphs but its for "you're a rising faction star with more power and responsibility." type mention.

Are the factions an artifact of organized play that the designers included but didn't use and that's why its like this?

Anyone else a little confused by the lack of detail and guidance on factions?

It seems strange, for example that with all the freaky weather abnormalities and then the cult impersonating a druid sect, that the Emerald Enclave would be very interested. And directly involved in figuring this out. But that's glossed over.

 

[Fildrigar]

Mostly the Factions are there because of integration with the Adventurer's League. They also make very useful hooks for getting character to Red Larch to investigate. ( Particularly if you're not starting at level one. ) DMing can take some work to integrate all you want into the adventure. DM work is part of the sandbox philosophy. The Ranger in my party received communication from his superiors in the Emerald Enclave requesting that he investigate the fire cult impersonators. The Cleric was sent there to investigate the books the Dwarven historian had by the Harpers. ( I'm going to add some of the backstory stuff about the history of the haunted keeps, and some stuff about Elemental Evil to the books the historian had with him. )

DMing well does take some creative work, if you want any campaign to be the best it can be. There is no module on the planet that can't be improved by working to integrate your character's back-stories, motivations, and the like into it.

 

[Fildrigar]

The one criticism that I have of this module ( and the one thing that I knocked a quarter point off of my 5 star review for ) is that it doesn't really spell out these kinds of things. You kind of have to know how to go about making small tweaks to make the adventure your own. I've been doing this for many years, so it's second nature to me. ( And, it's one of the things that gives me joy. ) If you look at the file I posted in the download area, you can get a small idea about the kinds of changes I've made.

I kinda think it was a missed opportunity not to add another signature, and include a section on making the adventure your own. They dance around the subject in a few places, but having it spelled out would be incredibly helpful to newer DMs. Especially this early in a new edition. Lost Mines was too short for this type of information, and this would have been the perfect venue for it.

 

[Greensnakedrex]

Fildrigar, I really appreciated the suggestions you compiled in the download- it answered a lot of questions I was kicking about. Also, compiling the the way the dungeons are connected and sussing out possible difficulty jumps was great. I do hope this remains a living document and you continue to post insights/suggestions. Thank you very much!

 

[Fildrigar]

Fildrigar, I really appreciated the suggestions you compiled in the download- it answered a lot of questions I was kicking about. Also, compiling the the way the dungeons are connected and sussing out possible difficulty jumps was great. I do hope this remains a living document and you continue to post insights/suggestions. Thank you very much!

Thanks. I'm just two sessions in, so I'm sure many more changes will come. Some of them will be changes that aren't needed necessarily, but changes that I just want to add. Changes that specifically fit my party.

 

[pukunui]

[MENTION=67925]Fildrigar[/MENTION]: One thing I don't get about your suggestions is you talk about how going from LMoP to PotA might mean the PCs are too high level, but then you talk at length about steering them away from areas where they will be too low level. Wouldn't they *not* be too low level for some of those areas if they started the adventure at a higher level than the default?

 

[Fildrigar]

[MENTION=67925]Fildrigar[/MENTION]: One thing I don't get about your suggestions is you talk about how going from LMoP to PotA might mean the PCs are too high level, but then you talk at length about steering them away from areas where they will be too low level. Wouldn't they *not* be too low level for some of those areas if they started the adventure at a higher level than the default?

It all depends on the level. I don't know what level your PCs will be, so I tried to call out potential trouble spots. Specifically spots with a three or more level jump. It's not impossible to fight a few encounters that high, but getting in too deep is potentially dangerous.

 

[pukunui]

Oh I see. The two things are unrelated.

 

[HobbitFan]

Another thing that doesn't quite track. Chapter 6 has a side trek with agents of the Yartar thief guild the Hand running afoul of the Kraken Society which is a secret network that somehow has a Sahuagin working for it.
Wouldn't some detail on who the Kraken Society is and what they are doing be pertinent?
We know they are interested in a destruction orb...

Some internet search pulls up that they are detailed some in the 2E Sourcebook Cloak and Dagger.
Who are they and what are they doing?