HotDQ notes?

[Jlooney]

I'm about to DM hotdq and I've given it two read throughs. Like other premade adventures not everything is covered. What are some of the things you've come across that you had to dig through the adventure or literally make up that should have been included or easier to find. We wo t get to play often so I'm trying to prep as much as possible to give my players as much play time as possible.

Things I've learned from adventures:

Where is this important npc located and where is their house.

Monsters that travel are here or here not both

What affect will killing this npc have on the game.

[Madfellow]

Here's my advice for running HotDQ:
1) Eliminate Cyanwrath. He's too strong, and will likely kill a PC.
2) I would leave Rezmir out as well, until the party gets to Skyreach; she really doesn't do anything important, and nobody likes a villain they aren't allowed to kill.
3) In place of those two, I'd build up Frulam as the game's "first boss."
4) At basically every point in the adventure, you need to review the CRs of every encounter you plan on throwing ay the party, to make sure they're not walking into a TPK. This adventure was designed to kill PCs, early and often.

[JFahy]

Here's my advice for running HotDQ:
1) Eliminate Cyanwrath. He's too strong, and will likely kill a PC.
2) I would leave Rezmir out as well, until the party gets to Skyreach; she really doesn't do anything important, and nobody likes a villain they aren't allowed to kill.
3) In place of those two, I'd build up Frulam as the game's "first boss."
4) At basically every point in the adventure, you need to review the CRs of every encounter you plan on throwing ay the party, to make sure they're not walking into a TPK. This adventure was designed to kill PCs, early and often.

1) He is, at this stage, not a fair fight. (Decide for yourself how much this bothers you, if at all,
and how much it might bother your players.) The module sets up a situation where the PC he defeats
is pretty unlikely to die, and they're intended to get another crack at him around level 3.
I made our paladin feel like a hero even though he lost, and the group is now eagerly pursuing
the rematch.

2) I agree; Rezmir is a fifth wheel at this stage.

3) No reason this wouldn't work. I've mostly ignored Rezmir in favor of Frulam as the ruthless,
scheming brains of the operation and Cyanwrath as her terrifying right hand.

4) Agreed, the party is going to get beat up. Casters are going to run out of spells. Short rests
are going to help only slightly.

Good news: the adventure starts with "have a small fight or two, then hole up in a more-or-less
safe place" - so you'll have a chance to see how they're dealing with the difficulty, and a lull in
the action where you can institute house rules, recruit a couple more players, or whatever you
decide to do.

[Jlooney]

I like the fralum sub. should the party even know about remir at all in the first book? If so how? Letters they find or something?

How did your pally feel like a hero even though he lost?

[Madfellow]

I like the fralum sub. should the party even know about remir at all in the first book? If so how? Letters they find or something?

How did your pally feel like a hero even though he lost?

The way I've set things up, the party is just about to meet Rezmir for the first time in Scyreach Castle. They haven't even heard her name yet (though Frulam would have mentioned her if they had asked the right questions). Talis will probably be the first character to mention her. In the book all she really does is run Scyreach and be menacing, and really that's all she needs to do.

I'm not saying this is the only way or even the best way, but it's how I'm doing it and it seems to be working out just fine.

According to the people I've talked to about Cyanwrath, whichever player ends up fighting him usually feels heroic just for being willing to fight him one-on-one. Winning doesn't really matter, since either way Cyanwrath will let his hostages go. The player is willing to "take one for the team."

[Envyus]

Nah I like Cyanwrath and he makes good rival.

I keep Rezmir around as well because I like the party actually being able to see their main villain. She can show up, Just keep her with enough tough bodyguards that they think attacking her at that moment would be bad.

The players should know about Rezmir around episode 2 and see her at least once. She is one of the 5 highest ranking members of the cult they should know beating her is big blow.

[Jlooney]

Ok guys I really am appreciating the info. Are there any things your pcs have asked about that should be in the book but wasn't. Any glaring errors or anything I need to figure out before hand?

[Madfellow]

Nah I like Cyanwrath and he makes good rival.

I keep Rezmir around as well because I like the party actually being able to see their main villain. She can show up, Just keep her with enough tough bodyguards that they think attacking her at that moment would be bad.

The big problem with Cyanwrath is the second fight. The book assumes that a lone PC can beat him by level 3 or, failing that, that a full party can beat him and his lackeys at the same level.

For most PCs and/or parties, that isn't true. When the adventure first came out, there were a few threads devoted specifically to finding builds that can beat/survive Cyanwrath. Short version: your party needs a barbarian or a moon druid or they're in trouble.

As for Rezmir, just the idea of constantly shadowing a villain that you know you can't kill just sounds infuriating to me. And I know at least one of my players would call out that kind of obvious railroading. I figured it better to stay on the safe side.

[Madfellow]

Ok guys I really am appreciating the info. Are there any things your pcs have asked about that should be in the book but wasn't. Any glaring errors or anything I need to figure out before hand?

Aside from the Challenge Rating errors, nothing of that sort has really come up. The adventure seems to have everything it needs to keep the game on track.

[Envyus]

The big problem with Cyanwrath is the second fight. The book assumes that a lone PC can beat him by level 3 or, failing that, that a full party can beat him and his lackeys at the same level.

For most PCs and/or parties, that isn't true. When the adventure first came out, there were a few threads devoted specifically to finding builds that can beat/survive Cyanwrath. Short version: your party needs a barbarian or a moon druid or they're in trouble.

As for Rezmir, just the idea of constantly shadowing a villain that you know you can't kill just sounds infuriating to me. And I know at least one of my players would call out that kind of obvious railroading. I figured it better to stay on the safe side.

My party that contained neither beat him so that is not an issue for me.

On Rezmir you are not constantly shadowing her. You are just supposed to see, meet or hear of here in episode 2 as she is there. After Episode 2 the party is supposed to learn in episode 4 she was in Baldur's Gate but left after setting up the caravan. She is in the castle at episode 6 but leaves once something comes up so it's unlikely for the party to meet her there anyway. She is then finally fought in episode 8.

My party was glad in episode 8 when they finally caught up to her and fought her. She had enough back up that she was challenging and actually managed to survive the encounter and escape the party. (Though they thought she died) When the fight turned south for her she retreated and put the Mask in the magic box and retreated to one of the rooms with the windows that vanish if you tap them with it. The party after forcing Rath to retreat and knocking out Jos, managed to see her standing by the edge waiting to see if her forces managed to win the battle she ran from. Seeing her forces lost she said she was leaving her fate in Tiamat's claws and jumped off the flying castle. (This would result in A her dying and the box teleporting the mask to the well, or B she would survive the falling damage and be forced to walk to the Well.) B happened.

[Envyus]

Ok guys I really am appreciating the info. Are there any things your pcs have asked about that should be in the book but wasn't. Any glaring errors or anything I need to figure out before hand?

Rath Modar is actually at least CR 7. As he is an entire step above the standard CR 6 mage.

[Jacob.Tyr]

To chime in on Cyanwrath's first appearance... I kept it in, but looking back I did it poorly. It makes for a decent way to teach the PC's about how PC death works if they haven't run into unconscious/0hp yet for one of them. My players hadn't, and I left it in. I didn't really use the fight well as a teaching tool, though, so that sucked... If they are experienced with PC's going uncon, take it out. If they're the types to read the rules heavily, and have figured out this bit, take it out. If you want to let someone play a hero, and teach them first-hand about these rules, leave it in. Make it exciting and let them feel like they might actually die when they hit 0.

For those whose players learned about Rezmir in chapter 2: You're lucky. Mine started some **** straight from the get go, though managed to rescue some NPC's in the process. A few minutes into their observations of the camp, and I had to heavily start improvising...

READ AHEAD. Seems like you have this down, but for some reason I ran episode 1 without having thoroughly read two, and ran into a bunch of confusion. Each episode works as an "adventure" by itself, but they don't make sense on their own, usually.

[Madfellow]

(This would result in A her dying and the box teleporting the mask to the well, or B she would survive the falling damage and be forced to walk to the Well.) B happened.

:smallsmile:

[JFahy]

[Beaucoup de spoilers.]



I like the fralum sub. should the party even know about remir at all in the first book? If so how? Letters they find or something?

Rezmir is pretty important because she has the black mask; I wanted the party to at least know of her existence early on so it wouldn't feel like she just parachuted in. I'm not sure I managed this - Frulam and Cyanwrath actually did stuff and had lines, whereas I never came up with a spotlight moment for Rezmir. At the cult's base I had people talking about how the black one is definitely in charge, but it feels like they missed that bit. :smallfrown:

In the camp, in Frulam's room, there's an info dump in the form of a regional map and a deskful of whatever notes and letters you want, referencing how they're going to haul the treasure north. Rezmir is in charge of that process so it'd be thorougly appropriate to have letters from her in there.



How did your pally feel like a hero even though he lost?

Mostly crowd reaction. The hostages were revealed, several people inside the keep cried out in dismay as they recognized a loved one, one of the town guard sergeants (resigned to dying) starts strapping up to take the challenge because his sister's out there - they had to talk him out of it.

Ivellios opens with a monster crit (cheering on the walls), my dice went to pieces and Cyanwrath couldn't buy a hit for a couple rounds ("He's doing it! He's winning!") but finally the inevitable happened. Crunch. Down.

Cyanwrath had a busted face, one eye swelling shut, when he stormed away.
The defenders wrenched the keep gates open (a tad heedlessly, but hey) to get to Ivellios, clustered around while the healer worked. Random people were reaching in to touch him, squeeze his hands, murmuring "Come on, breathe" until he got stabilized. I let him sit up weakly and get helped to his feet, had the guards crashing weapons on shields, had the sergeant come over and shake his hand.

Over the next couple days, in the middle of other stuff, a couple random citizens came up to him to say things like "You had it, you were beating him" and "They let my wife go because of you".

There isn't an ironclad causal relationship there, but what the hell - I wanted good vibes. Any coward can fight a battle he thinks he's going to win. :smallsmile: