Arkhios
2020-06-09, 02:20 AM
HI!
It's been a while since my own Campaign went on hiatus (my god, is it already two-and-a-half years?!) and since it's pretty quiet at work ("I wonder why"), I've begun to make some groundwork for starting it up again.
The group was a part of a "no questions asked" type of an adventurer's guild (kinda like Adventurer's League or Pathfinder Society), taking up just about any missions their guild-master gave them acting as a intermediary between the group(s) and their client(s). The mission they started with spun them inadvertently into a thick web of conspiracy and got them involved with a madman planning to release a goddess that had been assumed dead for thousands of years, but was in fact only imprisoned deep below an ancient city called the Labyrinth.
The group managed to get themselves into the Tomb of the Goddess, but failed to prevent the ritual from being finished. They defeated the Madman (Fallen Aasimar Warlock called The Reverend), but the former goddess of Death was freed from her prison nonetheless. Luckily for them, the Goddess ignored the group, and immediately went to take care of her businesses with the current goddess of Death, The Raven Queen. However, unknown to the people who imprisoned the goddess thousands of years ago, they'd inadvertently also imprisoned a greater "aboleth" as well, and upon the goddess' release, the aberrant entity was released as well. Weakened, the group managed to defeat the abomination, though not without casualties, and drove it away to wherever it dwelt before. Shortly after this, in the aftermath of two deities quarreling over the domain of Death, the long dormant gateway to Shadowfell opened once more in the Labyrinth and the two planes merged inside the city. A wave of undeath quickly overwhelmed the city and its inhabitants, annihilating most of the population or sent them fleeing for their lives.
The group, stuck in the eye of this storm of undeath, faced the growing darkness and passed out simultaneously, right after the encounter with the aberration had ended.
I will be giving strong hints, although not explicitly telling them, that The Raven Queen, after surrendering her rule over domain of Death to her former predecessor (and old god known as Uria), decided to rescue the heroes from certain death, and take them with her to her own domain of the Shadowfell, giving them a well earned rest and some time of respite, while at the same time giving them a mission to thwart a rising threat to a pocket realm inside Shadowfell.
The group will come to their senses scattered on the floor inside a cave greeted by a peculiar looking Raven, sitting on a sealed chest.
The cave, a temporary sanctuary maintained by the Avatar of Raven Queen, is near the Village of Barovia.
This is also be the prologue into Curse of Strahd. But since the group is at a higher level than they should be to start the Module (at 5th level), I'll be skipping the introductory part of the module.
Now with that out of the way, I've been thinking about slightly adjusting the experience for the group.
Being at 5th level, while starting a module intended to be started with lower level characters, I came up with two potential adjustments, and personally I would prefer the second one, for story telling reasons, but I'm willing to hear the general opinion about it first.
First solution: More fuel to the fire.
Increase the amount or the CR of predetermined creatures to meet the group's level, up to until the group is at the point of adventure where they should be at 5th level, when I'll continue running the module as written.
Second solution: Weakened Soul
Due to the events that took place before the group was shunted into this realm, their life force has been temporarily weakened, resulting in lesser maximum hit points, lesser available spell slots, lesser amount of attacks (if anyone had Extra Attack, for example), and lesser proficiency bonus, matching the required level they should be at the start of the module, and gradually lessening the Weakness, when they get further into the story and become accustomed to the prevalent environment in Shadowfell.
However, the characters will be able to use all the other class features they have at 5th level.
What do you think, and which solutions would you prefer as a player?
It's been a while since my own Campaign went on hiatus (my god, is it already two-and-a-half years?!) and since it's pretty quiet at work ("I wonder why"), I've begun to make some groundwork for starting it up again.
The group was a part of a "no questions asked" type of an adventurer's guild (kinda like Adventurer's League or Pathfinder Society), taking up just about any missions their guild-master gave them acting as a intermediary between the group(s) and their client(s). The mission they started with spun them inadvertently into a thick web of conspiracy and got them involved with a madman planning to release a goddess that had been assumed dead for thousands of years, but was in fact only imprisoned deep below an ancient city called the Labyrinth.
The group managed to get themselves into the Tomb of the Goddess, but failed to prevent the ritual from being finished. They defeated the Madman (Fallen Aasimar Warlock called The Reverend), but the former goddess of Death was freed from her prison nonetheless. Luckily for them, the Goddess ignored the group, and immediately went to take care of her businesses with the current goddess of Death, The Raven Queen. However, unknown to the people who imprisoned the goddess thousands of years ago, they'd inadvertently also imprisoned a greater "aboleth" as well, and upon the goddess' release, the aberrant entity was released as well. Weakened, the group managed to defeat the abomination, though not without casualties, and drove it away to wherever it dwelt before. Shortly after this, in the aftermath of two deities quarreling over the domain of Death, the long dormant gateway to Shadowfell opened once more in the Labyrinth and the two planes merged inside the city. A wave of undeath quickly overwhelmed the city and its inhabitants, annihilating most of the population or sent them fleeing for their lives.
The group, stuck in the eye of this storm of undeath, faced the growing darkness and passed out simultaneously, right after the encounter with the aberration had ended.
I will be giving strong hints, although not explicitly telling them, that The Raven Queen, after surrendering her rule over domain of Death to her former predecessor (and old god known as Uria), decided to rescue the heroes from certain death, and take them with her to her own domain of the Shadowfell, giving them a well earned rest and some time of respite, while at the same time giving them a mission to thwart a rising threat to a pocket realm inside Shadowfell.
The group will come to their senses scattered on the floor inside a cave greeted by a peculiar looking Raven, sitting on a sealed chest.
The cave, a temporary sanctuary maintained by the Avatar of Raven Queen, is near the Village of Barovia.
This is also be the prologue into Curse of Strahd. But since the group is at a higher level than they should be to start the Module (at 5th level), I'll be skipping the introductory part of the module.
Now with that out of the way, I've been thinking about slightly adjusting the experience for the group.
Being at 5th level, while starting a module intended to be started with lower level characters, I came up with two potential adjustments, and personally I would prefer the second one, for story telling reasons, but I'm willing to hear the general opinion about it first.
First solution: More fuel to the fire.
Increase the amount or the CR of predetermined creatures to meet the group's level, up to until the group is at the point of adventure where they should be at 5th level, when I'll continue running the module as written.
Second solution: Weakened Soul
Due to the events that took place before the group was shunted into this realm, their life force has been temporarily weakened, resulting in lesser maximum hit points, lesser available spell slots, lesser amount of attacks (if anyone had Extra Attack, for example), and lesser proficiency bonus, matching the required level they should be at the start of the module, and gradually lessening the Weakness, when they get further into the story and become accustomed to the prevalent environment in Shadowfell.
However, the characters will be able to use all the other class features they have at 5th level.
What do you think, and which solutions would you prefer as a player?