Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 nanoboy Jun 19, 2015 17:39:43	I am about to start a Princes of the Apocalypse campaign, and I think it looks like a pretty neat campaign.  While I've been GM'ing for years, I've never run a pre-packaged scenario before.  Anyway, I think I can handle most of the things about the campaign as it's laid out, but one thing has me somewhat baffled.  How do you keep players from diving into each elemental cult and trying not to stop until they reach the bottom without either metagaming a lot or railroading them?   If the players decide to leave a dungeon area after defeating the level, then it should be pretty easy to just attack them with a reprisal from another elemental cult, but what if they decide not to turn around when they see the tunnel going deeper into the Sumber Hills?  In most situations, that could easily result in an undeserved TPK.
#2 Rhenny Jun 20, 2015 6:24:31	Here are some of the ways I've heard others dealing with this issue:   1) Be sure to telegraph the strength and danger of the deeper cult dungeons (especially the earth and fire cults since they are rated for higher levels).   2) Have contingincies for TPK.  Perhaps the cult wants to take live victims so that they can sacrifice them.  This will give the PCs a chance to escape and realize that the cult and the area they are in is really dangerous.   3) Make them find a secret that will unlock each door/entrance to the deeper levels.   (This can help you control when PCs get access to the deeper levels)   4) Introduce an NPC who will pay them for information about the cults, but he can also serve as an advisor so that you can directly tell the party that the deeper level of said dungeon may be too dangerous to assault at this point.  Instead of attacking, the party might need to scout/explore and try to avoid combat (create an espionage type campaign for a while), or they might decide to go to another area entirely.   I'm sure there are other ways, but these are some I've heard about.   Also, depending on the size of your party, with 5e, as long as there aren't too many foes, and the party takes it slow and has an escape plan, the party can often deal with encounters that are 2+ CR levels over their current level as long as they have their resources.  Once they run low, they should think about retreat or hiding out to regain resources.   I'm running it now, but we've been playing sporadically (only 4 sessions).  Since I started them at 1st level and created a prologue, my party is still inside the Tomb of Moving Stones and they will become 3rd level next session.  I don't envision them having any problems since they probably won't even find a deeper dungeon until they are 5th level or 6th level.   At that point, they should be able to handle even the most dangerous dungeons for limited amounts of time.   Enjoy!
#3 nanoboy Jun 20, 2015 7:48:21	Thanks for the advice.  Something else just occurred to me, and I don't know if it's a good idea.  Perhaps, I should require a night of sleep in friendly territory for characters to level up.
(Reply to #3) Rhenny	nanoboy wrote: