The Darklake (OotA)

[Gaius Hermicus]

Does anybody feel like the Darklake (Out of the Abyss) is obscenely dangerous for a party of the suggested level?

I am planning to run the campaign in a few weeks, and I've been absently reading through it and rolling example random encounters, when I noticed how deadly the Darklake really is.

You roll a random encounter every 4 hours. That's 6 rolls a day!

To get from Gracklstugh to Sloopludop (or vice versa) takes 20 days. That's 120 rolls!

Adding into this that you'll still be contending with madness, foraging, pursuit, and the complexities of running such a massive party, it seems like an utter slog and an unnecessary meat grinder.

Does anybody else feel this way, and if so, what did you do to remedy the problem?

[Dungeon-noob]

First, for every random encounter, the party only has a 20% chance of running into creatures at all. Second, 1 out of 6 creature encounters are (likely) non-violent, or at least very dimplomancyable, and several other encounters are considerably below level. Overall, it's fine. They'll be level 3 or 4 by the time they get there, due to random encounters on the way, and potential mini-adventures you're throwing their way.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Ignore the random encounter rules and sketch out your own travel montage? That was how I handled it.