This is a thread for DM's only. It is for discussing thoughts,issues and else that will arise about this scenario.
This Scenario becomes legal for Store play on the 1/12/2014
First thoughts:
Nice flow to the storyline and certainly a little more open than some of the previous scenarios.
I can see a lot of people reaching for the table to find out how much a Removal of petrification might cost
Great to see all these old npcs popping up. I always worry when someone gets a name.. that you might never hear from them again. This season has been very good to all its npcs.
Mulmaster is now a Town and not a city.
Im guessing we arnt going to have many more Scenarios set in Phlan 
If the party DOES come up tactically with a better plan that what Aleyd offers, would you park her outside with her Lord Regent if the party needs to go inside to kill Spernik?
More thoughts to come.
Tyranthraxus wrote:
Well, here is a question. I am starting with Expeditions in December and I am looking at the adventures. Is there any additional sources of info for what is going on in the region so the DMs has an understanding of the bigger picture such as a regional campaign guide? Last I heard, Cormyr, the Dalelands, Sembia, and Netheril were all at war. Given the location of Phlan to the Dalelands, it would make sense that there would be some spill over.
Thanson: Luckily none of my players are familiar with the REalms to that point. We actually dont know much of what is happening outside of Phlan at this point. Hell I only just found out that Mulmaster has lost it's city status and become a town. Its like the population of the realms took a major hit.
To answer directly, no. There is no campaign guide for the Forgotten Realms that has advanced to the current 5e year (1489 DR).
By the time one is published (IF one is published) the current AL season will likely be over. So about the best you're going to get is the AL article Phlan During the Tyranny of Dragons.
All adventures up to #9 are for levels 1-4 with suggested level mostly around 2.
Then suddenly for adventure #10 we get only levels 5-8 allowed, and suggested level 6.
What is the expected progression of players goint through the whole AL? Time their level-ups so that they switch from 4 to 5 exactly during the adventure #9, otherwise they will be forced to skip an adventure?
Did someone sum the minimum and maximum XP gains for all adventures 1-9? That would be interesting to see, which levels are reachable by a player playing in EVERY adventure.
I looked at all 10 published expeditions, and the maximum XP award for doing first nine is 5450 XP, which is still only level 4, and a character like that won't be eligible for playing the #10. You would need at least 1050 extra XP from somewhere else. And to reach the 'optimal' level 6 the needed XP is 8550 (!)
janosicek, we expect some players to play in D&D Expeditions, D&D Encounters and not only play, but also DM. As such characters can easily be in the level range. As far as the suggested level the adventures are created with a specific level in mind for the life of the adventure, not just when it premiers. A level of 6 allows us to put in more suggestions for the adventure to raise or lower the difficulty, depending on the group makeup.
Edited for clarity, we expect SOME players....
Raddu76 wrote:
While the planning of the adventures might not work for your specific group, consider this. Players that DO play all of the Expeditions and play in Encounters are ready for 5th level play. If we didn't put out an adventure for level 5-10 those players would be upset because there was no content for them. The campaign has to consider how people play acrosse all levels of the campaign, from very casual players to the hardcore.
janosicek wrote:
Raddu76 wrote:
Pauper wrote:
HeresyDM wrote:
Raddu76 wrote:
HeresyDM wrote:
But if the starter adventure (Phandelver) is allowed only for 1st level characters, won't it immediately disqualify several adventures from the Expeditions?
e.g. if you start with EX01, you cannot do Phandelver as you are L2
If you start with Phandelver you will reach L5 (as written), and that will close all first 9 Expeditions to you.
j.
Actually if you play through Phandelver and get xp (not the milestone option), I believe you end up at the middle of 4th-level and could play several Expedidtions adventures.
I think we should find as many ways as possible to allow the greatest number to play and have fun.
Raddu76 wrote:
We encourage people to play multiple characters. Different characters could play LMoP and get up to 4th level and play a few Expeditions to get to the 5+ levels, or they could play HotDQ then just move into RoT, there are so many options. The main D&D AL page on the wizards site mentions moving from one style of play to another.
Raddu76 wrote:
Yes, LMoP is legal for DnDAL play. Yes, it gets you to the middle of 4th-level so you can still play some of the Expeditions adventures after playing it. As for why not more xp, its because we give xp based on the challenges in the adventures. If we did as you requested and put more xp in them, we would have to add more fights, puzzles, or traps, and add and hour or two to the adventure. We want the adventures to finish in ~4 hours, so that also doesn't work well.
Yes, Lost Mine of Phandelver has always been part of the Adventurer's League, we talked about it before any of the other adventures were released.
Again, you're assuming that your style of play is in the majority and that's not the assumption we're working on. We assume people are playing home games or in store with the Hoard of the Dragon Queen. In addition, the events of 1-10 Tyranny in Phlan require higher level play.
Skerrit wrote:
Raddu76 wrote:
At our FLGS many people (including myself) play both Expeditions and Encounters with the same character. We handwave continuity or expect that, as all the adventures are in the same general region, that somehow it all works out. I think it would be much less fun if we had to segment characters between the two play styles, but we only have the longer sessions 1/month at our store.
IMO to me it appears at least that they wanted the far majority of Expeditions characters to spend downtime in the way to get from 4-5. It shows how the mechanics of downtime works. IVe no issue with that as not one player in my AL table has spent any downtime.
Actually the Continuity of story in Expeditions has been top rate so far. Scenarios interlay with other scenarios , npcs are reused, locations are reused.
Id even go as far as to say that perhaps there is too much inter connectivity. A New player getting on at say the Scroll THief and playing on will be missing the names of some of the npcs, whereas the other players will be pretty first name basis with some of the npcs.
I'm a little confused about the Lord's Alliance side quest. What is to prevent the characters, after they defeat Farvnik at the Inn, from taking the dock, loading up all the people from the Inn and getting the heck outa there? Why would they risk the sewers when they could take a boat, assuming they get that quest of course.
Spykes wrote:
I think the main reason is that they agreed to meet Aleyd at the inn and when she gets back, she tells what she knows (and thus why they my want to stay). It also depends on when you go to the docks. The adventure does account for the docks as a way to flee without using the sewers.
Spykes wrote:
The Basilisk:
Okay.. anyone who can see the Basilisk within X gets to make a save. I get this.
A character can look away from the Basilisk. Its this a standard action or not? Also if the character is looking away, does that mean he or she cannot attack the Basilisk whatsoever? Attacks made with disadvantage? Can a monster force a character to gaze upon a basilisk?
Tyranthraxus wrote:
I have a problem at my table. Several of the characters participated in Courting with Fire, during which they killed Spernik and returned his head to the Lord Sage at the end of the adventure. I do not want to undermine their achievement by having Spernik be resurrected, yet at the same time he seems to play an important part in the adventure.
I am considering having Spernik be replaced with another captured Cult leader, but was wondering if anyone had other suggestions as to how to resolve this. I am finding this quite annoying, as Courting with Fire gives the option of killing Spernik, yet later adventures give no advice as to how best to adjust the encounter if Spernik was killed previously.
The adventure takes into account the overall critical events of the campaign. At the majority of premier tables, Spernik was captured and turned over to the Black Fist. That is generally how Organized Play adventures work and how we track critical events. The reason Spernik is in this adventure (and his effects on it) are solely because this was the will of the majority of players. If you would like to change his pressence for your particular table, I would still continue telling the players what you are doing so they realize that the campaign does track critical events, their tables outcome was unusual, and Spernik being alive is the "official canon" of the campaign. This is particularly valuable if you are having any outside players join in who were not at your original table.
Battle at the Gate
While I know that most tables will have Knight Ayled and her fellow blackfist draw off 23 of the guards, my table and I concocted an elaborate trap and managed to have it succeed with 90% success. Given how different our results were compared to everyone else, I thought I would share our success with you guys.
The best laid plans.....
The plan was to barracade one end of a nearby alley several blocks away, with only a small gap in the barracade for a single person to go through. The alley itself was covered in several barrels of pitch which we stole from the warehouses near the docks (one of our players knowing that pitch was used as a sealant on ships, and that there should be sizable quantitied stored somewhere at the docks).
We then planned on luring the guards into our ambush, after which our party ranger would cast a 40ft long wall of thorns behind them trapping them in the pitch-covered alley, which we would then set on fire. Most of our party took up positions on the rooftops either side of the ambush. One person stood at the end of the barracade to close it, while our party ranger planned to act as the bait, riding his horse near the guards and lure them into the ambush, before his horse lept the barracade and we set it off.
Never survive contact with the enemy.
While setting up the ambush, we were discovered by a random encounter of enemy blackfist. I cast hypnotic pattern on them, hypnotizing all but one of them (which we killed). We then removed their armor, tied them up, dressed them in normal blackfist uniforms (over the top of their bindings) and stood them at one end of our ambush, with weapons tied to their hands to look like they were making a defensive stand.
I then cast minor illusion to make it sound like the blackfist were rallying themselves and preparing a defense, calling out claims of "there is too many of them", "men, lets make a stand", and the like. Combined with the actions of the party ranger, this drew the attention of 16 of the 26 guards who came to investigate. The ranger made it through the barracade and we closed the trap. Unfortunately, the guards stopped at the end of the alley, having spotted the pitch (the DM rolled 20 on their perception checks). Rather than let them get away, the ranger cast his wall of thorns (or whatever the spell is), while I cast another hypnotic pattern on the assembled guards (our initiative was higher).
I managed to hypnotize 11 of the 16 guards. The remaining guards bolted through the thorn wall, managing to survive the encounter with 3HP each (approx). Rather than let them escape, we ran them down and picked them off before they could warn the other guards.
Once completed, we returned to the hypnotized guards, lead them into the pitch, tied them up, covered them in pitch, and set fire to the alley - killing the 17 guards in the alley (the 11 newly hypnotized guards, and the 6 previous ones).
16 down, 10 to go
The following week, we were all extremely short on resources (I only had my firebolt cantrip left) but we faced the 10 remaining guards, plus the cambion head on. We sent Knight Ayled and her fellows back to guard the civilians at the ruined tavern.
It was a major grind but smart teamwork prevailed. At one point, I absolutely stunned the DM when I decided to use my minor conjuration ability to make a small balsawood box with an automatically locking latch. I summoned the box adjacent to my character with the lid open, stepped inside, and closed the lid making myself a gnome-in-a-box. My reasons for doing this was for the following reasons:
- I had an enemy adjacent to me, and did not wish to roll my attack with disadvantage, esp. in light of the fact I had been rolling poorly all night.
- Had I disengaged, he would have simply followed me and attacked me, further separating me from the party, and effectively wasting my turn.
- I toyed with the idea of using the Dodge action, which would increase my odds of not being hit, but I risked being hit twice regardless.
Instead, I relied on the gnome-in-a-box idea to guarantee that one attack would miss me and hoped that the DM would wiff on the guards 2nd attack. My plan succeeded. The first attack destroyed my conjured box, while the second missed me (despite having advantage for me being prone).
All in all, it was a very successful, yet atypical result for that encounter. We killed 26 guards, and 1 cambion without suffering any party or allied NPC deaths....
Time for a Long Rest - Gnome Style
The session wrapped up with us preparing a long rest on a nearby roof, all thanks to my character. I chose leomund's tiny hut as my other 3rd level spell. 10 minutes of chanting later, and we had a black opaque dome of force protecting us while we rested throughout the night. Next week, we will be taking on Spernik and getting out of dodge through the sewers (we didn't have a Lords Alliance member to trigger the dockside encounter).