Hi gang,
So my group is nearly finished with Haunting of Harrowstone and I want to insert these two aforementioned modules into the campaign. I'm hoping you folks might have some ideas on how to do that.
I have my own ideas based on party composition: the majority of my players are associated with the University of Lepidstadt as graduate students and young assistant professors.
For the Feast of Ravenmoor I was planning on delaying the Trial of the Beast and having one of their Lepidstadt contacts ask them to search for a missing anthropologist who was researching the strange customs of a nearby village (Ravenmoor). Then I would run it as written (with the exception of the taxes).
However I am having trouble deciding how I can hook them into Carrion Hill. Its on the other side of Ustalav and I'd like to keep it there. Any ideas how I can insert this module in before Trial of the Beast? Let me know!
Appreciate it.
Edit: I'm especially interested in running Carrion Hill because it introduces aberrations earlier - making Wake of the Watcher less of an outlier (and it also seems absolutely awesome).
I don't have the familiarity with those modules to help, but I'm curious how you're going to handle leveling. How are you going to add so much material without either making them wait a very long time to gain levels or having them start Trial of the Beast at too high a level? What's your thinking on that?
I don't have the familiarity with those modules to help, but I'm curious how you're going to handle leveling. How are you going to add so much material without either making them wait a very long time to gain levels or having them start Trial of the Beast at too high a level? What's your thinking on that?
They level up as necessary for the challenges they're going to face. We don't worry about tracking XP because we have a large group that is usually missing one or two people each week.
I'd likely allow them to start Trial of the Beast at level 6 and make the encounters of the first half more difficult, levelling them up as appropriate where the AP recommends them being a certain level.
The break before the Trial of the Beast is the one chance for some "time" to pass before time pressures to "stop the Whispering Way" start to become a problem for my group.
Regarding level concerns:
Trial of the Beast is very difficult as-is. It also assumes that you level up mid-trial, which (since I like spending some time to train) is a little weird.
Starting the mod at level 5 (or even 6) would be fine, and in my opinion, you wouldn't even have to buff the encounters. Those things are hard. Not only are the CRs high, but the CRs are deceptive. Take a look at the CR6 monster on page 29 and compare to the guidelines for what a CR6 should have for attack bonus, damage, or special defenses.
This doesn't hold true for the other gap: Wake of the Watcher is pretty even-keeled when it comes to difficulty. If you are higher than normal, you'll want to buff the encounters, lest the Lovecraftian horrors go squish.
hmmmm.....I know there was quite some good POSTs about that a few months ago...using the search function I get them....BUT for some reason they DONT display.....
These where the Headings:
- Sneaking in Carrion Hill into Carrion Crown
- Substituting Carrion Hill for Broken Moon
- Leveling Carrion Hill
The only idea that comes to mind is to set Ravenmoor near Carrion Hill. After the party finishes HoH and returns to Lepidstadt, they accept a mission to go to Ravenmoor and find out about the fate of a missing tax collector, right? Make the tax collector a personal interest of someone important to the party (a mentor at the Lepidstadt university perhaps or some wealthy merchant sponsor, maybe a relative / spouse or in general someone for whom the party would be willing to travel a long way in order to please). Then the party must travel to Ravenmoor but as we both know Ravenmoor is *not* located in Ustalav, hence you have to put it somewhere and this somewhere is whereever you want.
However I am having trouble deciding how I can hook them into Carrion Hill. Its on the other side of Ustalav and I'd like to keep it there. Any ideas how I can insert this module in before Trial of the Beast? Let me know!Appreciate it.
Edit: I'm especially interested in running Carrion Hill because it introduces aberrations earlier - making Wake of the Watcher less of an outlier (and it also seems absolutely awesome).
I'm going to be doing something pretty darn close to this. I'm running Harrowstone right now, and my concern is that this group of players won't really be interested in the trial off the bat (perhaps ever).
So I'm going to have them return the tomes, and through the professor they'll be asked to look into the tax collector. Once they return from Ravenmoor, Leiptstadt will be in an uproar about the Beast, and the professor will ask them to intervene.
I just can't see this bunch of players looking to take part in CSI:Leiptstadt.
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So I actually just finished the Ravenmoor portion and it went over pretty well. I think I may have to let the Carrion Hill go for now though, it's too far away and I do want to keep the main story line rolling.
How it went:
I introduced the plot through Judge Daramid because it felt a bit weak for a woman of her obvious intelligence to rely on untested individuals for something "important" like defending the beast. After all, killing ghosts doesn't mean you are investigators.
The group arrived into a unworked up Lepidstadt and got to explore the city some (which is so flavorful that I wanted to showcase it some more) before they finally turned in their books. They met the Judge and a new PC who was the Judge's assistant and she asked them if they were interested in more work.
She explained the tax collector situation and while the party was confused as to why she was paying them so much gold (per the module) to track him down they basically chalked it down to "She's wealthy, respected, and focused on trying to keep the county together given the disfunction of the local council.
Edit: She explained the situation as: "I recently found out about a missing tax collector, the guards and the Council don't seem interested in finding him, I've done my own research (give details on his past, etc.) and I want you to determine if he ran off with the money so I can alert the other authorities of our neighboring counties to be on the look out.
It worked really well. I situated Ravenmoor on the edge of the Dipplemere and ran the module as is.
Now the group has a history with the Judge and it felt natural that when the Beast was captured a week later she would trust them to investigate for her.
Note:
One thing that one of my players mentioned was that there wasn't the same "gothic feel" to the adventure, that it felt different than Harrowstone. But IMO that was A) me not gothicizing it and B) the party knowing it was a module I was inserting (though nothing else).
It was a really good scenario though. Unfortunately the blightspawn survived and flew into the swamp. Maybe instead of a Manticore I'll have the blightspawn hiding on the graveyard island near Morast.
Hey Darkstrom,
That was pretty neat, and I'm glad it worked out for you so well.
I do plan to insert "Carrion Hill" into the Carrion Crown AP (and more or less using their suggestions from Wake of the Watcher for doing so).
I'd be interested in hearing how subbing the Blightspawn from FoR for the Manticore in TotB (at the Morast Boneyard) goes.
Cheers!
~Dean
I have a large group (max 6 people) and I gave them level 4 so they were effectively about 2 levels ahead in group power. My group is also very experienced and effective.
Unfortunately for me two things happened to make the blightspawn a huge threat (and as written its nasty). 1) They used ALL of their spells and other per day abilities on all the encounters ahead of time AND decided to investigate the "River Wolf" and got into a fight with that AND instead of resting a full 8 hours they spent the time until the early morning investigating the town. 2) We ended the game the first session with them nearing the final fight with the Mayor and when we started the second session we only had 4 characters.
4 characters with no spells or bombs left. Frankly I was just glad not to kill any of them but they actually did really well fending it off and the battle ended up in a stalemate with the blightspawn seeking easier prey after it reached 1/4 HP after a 6 hour battle lasting 22 or so rounds (including the fight with the Mayor).
Seriously if Mr. Hodge sees this: That battle got stretched forever (in a good way I thought!) as the mayor took shelter in the corn to heal, shouted at his followers to help him and did everything in his power to hurt them before finally succumbing. It was a battle that requires a lot of tactics if they don't blitz the Mayor in a few rounds :) Good job! The fight melted into the corn fields where a game of cat and mouse took place.
The group hated the corn so much that when the blightspawn was born I described how as it wrenched itself from the gore that was once the Mayor's body the cornfields began wilting around it so they could move around a little more easily.
All that corn did make our Inquisitor with the Travel domain feel really useful though.
But I digress, I think the Blightspawn's appearance will allow them a feeling of triumph as they tackle it again (though maybe it will get away, who knows). I'm looking forward to it >=)
Psst!
Might wanna "spoiler" some posts Darkstrom. (I don't have Feast of Ravenmoor... yet... and I can tell you've mentioned a fairly important plot point). :)
Just sayin' ;)
~Dean
Huh. I slipped The Feast of Ravenmoor in between the first two chapters, too. Great minds think alike!
Thanks, I wasn't even considering it. Unfortunately I can't edit it now :(
Or the forums thought I wasn't logged in even though it showed me logged in. Fixed.
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If it's any help in your own game, I'm planning to run Carrion Hill as an "interlude" between Broken Moon and Wake of the Watcher.
Rather than take the advice of WotW and level up Carrion Hill (because of time issues), we're running the module with new 5th level characters who are part of Lorrimor's "black book" squad. Once the module is complete, players may swap out their characters with leveled-versions of their Carrion Hill characters (in case of death).
I figure that this will give any replacement PCs a bit of backstory and rational for being there, instead of "hey, a guy you've never met joins you on your quest!"
As for Ravenmoor, I can't speak for placing it in Carrion Crown, but it fits like a gem between volumes 1 and 2 of Jade Regent.
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I added Carrion Hill right after Harrowstone. As it turned out, they burned down Kendra's home on accident during a big fight at the closing of the book. She asked to be taken to Carrion Hill to take her mother's old home. All she had to do is pay the back taxes. They felt guilty for burning down her home and escorted her to Carrion Hill. There they found out that because the taxes were not paid, it was turned over to the government. The Mayor says he will gladly deed the property back to Kendra, for a small favor...
They just finished Carrion Hill and are now moving on to the second book of the AP. It fit well and was fun.