I will be GMing this adventure path starting this weekend and I was curious to hear about other people's experience running or even playing in the sewer encounter in The Bastards of Erebus . I was going to pre-roll encounters and sewer features but I think I will go with rolling on the spot.
So tell me please were there any snags running it as the author proposed? How did the players respond to the GM not drawing a map out of the whole sewer system? And most importantly, was it a good time for all?
Thanks much
I used Dungeon Tiles Master Set: The City from WotC which has half a dozen sewer tiles, to great effect, using random placement (assigning a die number to each tile). It saved me having to plan something out but allowed a quick and easy representation.
If the PCs wanted to double back, they had to rely on their memory of the tile, otherwise I randomized again.
-AM
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I have been a GM for this twice, and I found that the best way to do it is just to add enough encounters that they get a feel for the dangers of Westcrown sewers. I got Janiven away from them as fast as possible because this is about the players, not the NPCs.
Honestly I did not find it that well written, and I think rolling randomly, while a fun gimmick, is to random for my taste. I used all the encounter sites and added an “optional” encounter where they saw a Otyugh guarding some sewer treasure. As the players, as written at least, have not done anything yet I find that too many encounters in the sewer just sucks out the fun. This is why I removed the random element.
If I were to run this again I would make sure that the goblins encountered had some form of visual relation to whitechin just to foreshadow him a bit.
Ahh this takes me back, tomorrow we will play the last part of the 6th book, so it has been more than a year since I GMed that part. Get ready for a fun ride because that is what CoT will give you.
By the way I did not draw a map and no one mind, because i explain that they travel quite a while between each "encounter". It's not a dungeon where each room has its own guardian, think of it more as traveling in the city with loads of random encounters because you are in a dangerous part of the city. You would never draw a tile map for the entire journey.
Thanks crispus....Benji, I usually pre-roll random encounters, that is why I thought I would change it up and roll randomly. What you speak of does make sense though. I was a little concerned with how long the party should be in the sewers. I guess the answer to that is as long as the party is having fun and they earn enough xp.
I am really looking forward to this AP. These will be my first time running a city campaign and after gming my group through Second Darkness and Legacy of Fire they are ready for a scenario that keeps them in one spot. Thanks again.
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Don't know about other GMs but I learned right around What Lies in Dust that handing out exp was annoying and tedious. There are set points where the players should be level X, and now I just say "You gain a level" instead of worrying about exp. Just a suggestion...but make sure you make that clear to the group.
Don't know about other GMs but I learned right around What Lies in Dust that handing out exp was annoying and tedious. There are set points where the players should be level X, and now I just say "You gain a level" instead of worrying about exp. Just a suggestion...but make sure you make that clear to the group.
I'm old school. Even though it probably makes more sense to handle exp. the way that you do I still hand it out. My players seem to really like it when I hand it out at the ending of a session. I have been thinking about doing it your way for sometime but can't seem to pull the trigger.