Sunless Citadel 5e: What to keep and what to sweep?

[Whiskeyjack8044]

I want to run Sunless Citadel for some new players. I wanna run it because it looks like a good way to teach new players, and it seems shorter than MoP.

Any tips? It's a little old school, I'd like to shave it down to its most interesting rooms and encounters. What would you do to make it more interesting, and are there any good supplemental resources out there?

Thanks.

Ps. I want to tie this adventure to Red Hand of Doom. I'm changing the White Dragon baby to a Blue Dragon baby, I'm adding the option to talk to the Hobgoblin leader diplomatically and if he survives he will pop back up in RHoD, I'm making the Evil druid an apprentice to the Lich Druid in RHoD.

Are there any other ways you can think of to tie these together or foreshadow for RHoD? What would be a good adventure to get players from level 3 to 5?

[BurgerBeast]

Sunless Citadel is already converted. You can find it in Tales from the Yawning Portal, I think.

[Galithar]

There are some 'pointless' rooms. For expedience remove the Mephit room, immediately announce that all empty rooms are empty, and as much as possible let encounters chain. They shouldn't have too much issues unless they are a small under-optimized party. Sunless Citadel combat is pretty easy. I just ran it recently and had to massively jack up the encounters (had a party of 7)

[Great Dragon]

Galithar has nice advice.
Choose which encounters you think are needed, change or add encounters as needed.

My suggestion is to make sure that the Players know that they should only pick one Side: Kobolds or Goblins.
(Note that the Druid doesn't care, so long as there is someone to spread the seeds of the Tree.)

But, if they want to try to be 'double agents', go ahead and let that happen. If they do this, just keep track of which members of both sides knows what. If the PCs are discovered, one or both sides become Hostile.

I gave not read/run RHoD and I'm not good at Clues, sorry

[DrKerosene]

For what it is worth, I’ve enjoyed the work by Draz in this thread http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?577848-Red-Hand-of-Doom-Conversion-Journal-in-one!

I’ve run The Sunless Citadel a couple times, and it usually takes about 16 hours for me. Also, I prepped most of The RHoD campaign setting as my general campaign setting for my PCs to sandbox in pre-war.

I put Oakhurst just off the right edge of the map, and I put The Standing Stone adventure inside the middle of the Marthton Forest.

In my experience, Players usually try to ignore the top right corridor of the first dungeon floor with (Guthas, mother of) rats. I normally like to make Karakas have a hidden deed to property elsewhere (next adventure seed, so somewhere near Drellin’s Ferry for you, or Vraath Keep).

Unless you want to reward an energy resistance one of you players has, I would keep Calcryx as a white dragon, as that is the only color missing from The RHoD campaign. I had decided that “Balsag The Hunter” had captured the white dragon wrymling in time for the war and was entitled to a fat reward after some Hobgoblins arrive (one of the random encounters that you can roll for in Sunless Citadel) for getting the fifth and final missing evil dragon color. Just had to wait for them to pick up Calcryx and transport her back to the Wyrmsmoke mountains (which is when/after the Party arrives in town).

Ever single time I’ve run the Mephit encounter, in 3.5e and 5e, the Party wins initiative and rolls high enough to put the top back on without letting the Mephit(s) out. Either make it so the Party has to break the container open, or skip the encounter.

Upon getting the drop on the first Goblin, the Party immediately demanded to speak with the tribe leader, which was Durnn and Grenl, (I said Balsag was out hunting for the weekend).
-The goblin guards knew this was like leading fish into a garbage-disposal/barrel. So they obliged.
-The adventure mentions that Durnn is basically an entitled and arrogant prick, so negotiation with him was only really about the PC’s surrendering. They found that unacceptable.
-I said the one goblin guard was an idiot and closed the door to the NW room with Durnn, Grenl, and the Party “out of habit”. Locking out a majority of the Goblins for the three rounds of combat.
-I mentioned that Grenl and Durnn were clearly having an argument right up until the point the Party arrives and becomes a distraction.
-I changed Grenl’s spell list to include Sleep, which took out Durnn early on.
-Grenl was happy to evacuate all Goblins on the top layer over the next 48 hours, assuming the Party got the Kobolds to agree to not attack them. Which was fine.
-I found Grenl being a magic user allows her narrative excuse to be with later encounters in Maruaders Attack or other scenarios, while being a small (non-threatening) character who is willing to advocate for not fighting with the Party. But you can try using Durnn or Balsag and their wounded pride/career.

-The Sunless Citadel has like 3k gold in coinage, IIRC, and about 4k in treasure. For 5e. I removed a lot of coin for more items.
-I like to put most of my handpicked custom masterwork (or minor magic) items in the Dragon Priest chamber and on the statues in there.
-I like to say the key to the Dragon Priest chamber is made of enough mithral that the Party can have one piece of armor made with the key and only a few hundred gold (maybe make the only skilled enough local smith be in Brindol or Drellin’s Ferry).

Really try to get that ambush damage for one of the Bugbears. I’ve had every critical hit from Balsag negated in some way, and I would have killed at least on PC with him if I was not a nice DM.

I found having the Shadow encounter with the dragon statue trigger on the way back, after the fight with Belak, was both much scarier for the Party and also less crippling than in the other order.

I like to have Kerowyn Hucrele provide a follow-up job of escorting Sharwyn’s body, and about 500gp, to Brindol to have Tredora Goldensomething cast Raise Dead on Sharwyn. I ruled the “you die” effect of the Gulthias Tree only happens the one time, and that they keep the perma-barkskin effect. This allows you a reason for them to be in Brindol and harassed for the normal RHoD quests.

[Unoriginal]

As said above, Sunless Citadell is in 5e form in Tales of the Yawning Portal.

I guess read it and removes the rooms you personally don't enjoy, if it's still too big. Go with your guts, since it's you who'll digest it.

[djreynolds]

But keep in the rooms with unstable floors and walls and such.

It's not just monsters that are dangerous, the whole environment is.

Throw is food supplies.

Give them a taste of everything so it's not just talking and killing.

[Unoriginal]

But keep in the rooms with unstable floors and walls and such.

It's not just monsters that are dangerous, the whole environment is.

Throw is food supplies.

Give them a taste of everything so it's not just talking and killing.

Roleplaying the various monsters would be fun, too, IIRC there's a good variety of personalities.

[Great Dragon]

@DrKerosene: Thanks for the RHoD summery post.

Now I can add RHoD to the beginning of my Dragons of Tyranny campaign.

[Whiskeyjack8044]

For what it is worth, I’ve enjoyed the work by Draz in this thread http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?577848-Red-Hand-of-Doom-Conversion-Journal-in-one!

I’ve run The Sunless Citadel a couple times, and it usually takes about 16 hours for me. Also, I prepped most of The RHoD campaign setting as my general campaign setting for my PCs to sandbox in pre-war.

Thank you! Lots of good advice there! I'm probably going to be doing mile stone leveling, what do you think would make good mile markers in Sunless Citadel? I probably won't let them reach level 3 until the grove. Once we get into RHOD I'll just level them up at the end of each chapter.

[DrKerosene]

I'm probably going to be doing mile stone leveling, what do you think would make good mile markers in Sunless Citadel? I probably won't let them reach level 3 until the grove.

I’ve done XP levelling almost every time, and usually the PCs go up to level 2 before they get down to the lower floor, or after killing the first five goblins.

If you want a Milestone, returning Calcryx alive, finding the body of Karakas, or unlocking the magic door to the dragon priest room, all seem like a good point to do so. Possibly after negotiations end with Durnn and Grenl, or after killing the Dragon Priest/capturing Jot.

I’ve had the Party end up about 15XP short of hitting level 3 after the Grove finale, which I handwaived with roleplaying XP.

I’ve also had the Party hit level three as they kill the last few goblins guarding the doors to the Grove/Belaks Study.

As far as Milestones go, I think dealing with the Shadow behind the Ashardalon statue might be a good point (before descending down the long dark stairway). Alternatively, after killing all the Bugbears and survivng an ambush by Balsag, or killing both of the Thoqqua (Fire Snake), may work too, depending on the order of things your Party does.

Depending on random encounters, you could have the Party get ambushed by a few Hobgoblins during one of the above scenarios, and say that’s the level 3 Milestone.