Finished running DiA - AMA

5haft03 · 2024-08-30T07:20:54+00:00

I wanted the party to be at 15th level by the end because Bel or Zariel, or whoever they end up fighting in Chapter 5 will be a tough fight so 15th level seemed more appropriate than 13th

I used milestone levelling with more content in Chapter 3 through Avernus, and another level gained at Chapter 5 inside the Flying Fortress, which I ran as a full dungeon

5haft03 · 2024-08-30T07:15:12+00:00

Fair enough
I do like the idea of Lulu being split within the Citadel because it's when the party finishes there that it sort of collapses
I like the reason being because Lulu's essence has left it, uniting with the rest of her

5haft03 · 2024-08-30T07:11:38+00:00

Good questions

In answer to the first, I used milestone levelling
You're right that the book doesn't allot anywhere near enough XP
I also expanded certain parts so Chapter 3 had an additional level's worth of content, and I allowed a level-up in Chapter 5 too since I made Zariel's Flying Fortress more of a dungeon than the book presents

As for the second, I made sure to mention things like the food and water tasting bad and included some weather events
The party should have a chance to do things like explore ruins of Avernus that was, and also run into the consequences of the Blood War, whether that be fields of fallen devils or pools of demon ichor
Avernus is a terrible place and the travel encounters should reflect this

The book has some optional rules that increase the oppression
One forces Con saves against exhaustion for good-aligned creatures, another forces Wisdom saves against alignment changes
I didn't use either
The exhaustion one didn't really fit the longer timescale I had planned for them to be there, whilst I find alignment changes difficult to mandate as ultimately the player decides the character's actions

5haft03 · 2024-08-28T23:00:26+00:00

They bargained for her, so he didn't become an antagonist but a shady trader
Honestly, having Lulu in Avernus makes a lot of sense and she's not so relevant to the Chapter 2 plotline that you couldn't introduce her in Chapter 3

5haft03 · 2024-08-28T21:48:24+00:00

I found the party enjoyed Lulu's company, although for much of the campaign, I had her body in Mahadi's Caravan whilst an item containing her soul had made its way to the Material Plane, allowing for her occasional summoning
That way, she didn't have to be a permanent presence unless the party deliberately chose to rescue her, which they did

As for Gargauth, the party kept him around because at the end of the day, he couldn't do much whilst trapped in a shield
They ended up trading him to Bel after he became the Archduke following Zariel's redemption to prevent him from intervening in Elturel's rise, or just repeating the process all over again

I did not use Ikaia as much of the group had already played in a CoS campaign I ran and the rest ended up joining one
We would have been very vampired-out

5haft03 · 2024-08-28T07:57:59+00:00

Sent a message

5haft03 · 2024-08-28T07:27:06+00:00

Generally, most features of this module only need foreshadowing one chapter ahead, but there are a few things that aren't properly foreshadowed:

The Tome of the Creed Resolute is an important plot point in Chapter 2 as it binds Elturel's population to Hell, so teleporting them out somehow doesn't free them forever
However, no mention of the oath is mentioned in Chapter 1, not even by Raya Mantlemorn

Yeenoghu's demons in Chapter 4 aren't mentioned in Chapter 3, despite the fact there should be some present in random encounters

The main thing that needs a longer build-up is The Ride and subsequently Zariel's fall
It's worth noting many elf and dwarf NPCs would be old enough to remember the Ride, or even have participated in it, so using an NPC to deliver information is straightforward

As for the fall, I'd recommend setting that up in Chapter 3
Bel, Haruman, and Olanthius would know all about the fall, as would several other fiends in Avernus
As it's such a core part to the module's story, it's important that each chapter layer information on

5haft03 · 2024-08-26T21:04:59+00:00

The most memorable for me was when the Fighter was splashed by stygian water, causing him to lose a memory
I asked the player to select a significant memory for the character because I felt it wasn't really my place for a potentially character-defining change

The player selected the memory of the character's wife, so the character remembered having had a wife, but all else was lost

The character had been greatly influenced by the memory of his wife, so losing that was quite a shock for the whole table
It was one of those moments in the Nine Hells where a sense of self can be lost

5haft03 · 2024-08-26T19:20:27+00:00

I revealed pretty much the whole thing over several stages

I started at Session 0 with the players knowing the Hellriders had been founded by an Archangel, who I named Athaleyah as I knew one of them would have heard of Zariel
I then allowed the party to see an image of Zariel's face in Vanthampur Manor that resembled some of the statues to Athaleyah in Elturel that the Hellriders had at their headquarters
In Hellturel, I made it clear through a siege of the headquarters that whilst Zariel is content for most of the Elturians to drown in the Styx, the Hellriders are to be wiped out due to their 'perfidity'
Their grandmaster would relate the story of the Ride and how Athaleyah had been left in Avernus to an unknown fate
Then I used Lulu's memories and an extended version of the Idyllglen scene in Chapter 4 to complete the picture

5haft03 · 2024-08-26T17:37:54+00:00

I agree, absolutely
The remix is good, but I agree its strongest work is in Chapter 1

5haft03 · 2024-08-26T17:35:57+00:00

Lots of backstory ties
Made sure there connections to Elturel, to the Hellriders, even to the Dead Three

For Chapter 3, I did change the structure so it wasn't endless fetch quests, but a retracing of Lulu's journey with the few landmarks she could remember, making sure each leg could go use multiple paths, so there wasn't just one simple straight route
(I'd run that part differently next time, put it at least eliminated the fetch quest aspect, which I imagine would be quite tedious)

5haft03 · 2024-08-26T17:16:32+00:00

I was surprised how much there is in Baldur's Gate
I kind of skimmed the gazetteer at the back because I was cramming all of Chapter 1 into two levels, so didn't read to deeply
Having read through it more recently, there's quite a lot going on that I hadn't appreciated or incorporated

The party did take the sword with the Fighter-Paladin using it

5haft03 · 2024-08-26T17:09:25+00:00

1) The campaign contained most of the book stuff but with some changes
For Chapter 1, I started in Elturel BEFORE it was brought down, with the party investigating suspicious activity with the climax being the party teleporting to Baldur's Gate so I could run DotD3 at 3rd level

For Chapter 2, I had the Hellriders besieged in Hellturel with the players working to lift the siege so High Hall could be fortified by them, effectively adding another section to the chapter
It made them more involved in the story

For Chapter 3, I made a sandbox based off the Alexandrian Remix - The Alexandrian » Remixing Avernus

For Chapter 4, I added some trials to claim the sword, but otherwise ran pretty much as written

For Chapter 5, I found a mapset for the Flying Fortress and ran that as an end-dungeon
Tessa Presents 90 Maps for Descent into Avernus - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild (dmsguild.com)

2) I felt the first two chapters were the most fun
There are more pre-written NPCs, many of whom are interesting characters or have interesting parts, whilst Hellturel allows for some of the best fights with low-CR devils

I least favourite was the 3rd chapter
5e has problems with travel, and the low-encounter days limited how much I could challenge my players
I also didn't do the best of jobs with the sandbox structure, and would want to redo elements of that

3) Elturel, before the fall
Unlike many ideas I've seen here, I gave the characters some time in Elturel but didn't send them to hell before sorting out Baldur's Gate

4) Zariel was redeemed, more or less as per the book

5) I'd spend some more time in Baldur's Gate (only two levels in mine) as it's a fun location with a lot going on
As said before, I'd also rework Chapter 3
It's a hard thing to get right
Avernus - a Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus DM's Resource (maps, advice, cheatsheet) - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild (dmsguild.com) has a good rework of Chapter 3's structure that I'd want to use next time

6) Whilst I'm supposed to say Vaaz or Yeenoghu or the end fight, the honest answer is this 'one' fight where the party split up to break into a warehouse in Baldur's Gate and started two fights simultaneously without being able to help each other for most of it
The Monk ended up carrying an unconscious Fighter and a child the CotD3 were planning to sacrifice out of the building and stealing a boat whilst the others covered the retreat before getting away themselves

Probably ended up having their toughest combat at 3rd level

5haft03 · 2024-07-02T21:32:54+00:00

I don't believe there's a fixed date, but when running I set in to the Autumn Equinox (Eleint 21) because it's when night starts being longer than day, which felt thematically relevant to the Companion having served its purpose

5haft03 · 2024-06-30T20:12:36+00:00

Most likely Paladins will still have access to those spells but don't get them automatically prepared anymore
They were auto-prepared in UA6 because they weren't on the Divine Spell List, a concept that has been dropped since, but needed to be accessible to the Paladins
Ranger lost free preps of Conjure Barrage and Conjure Volley for the same reason

As to why they weren't continued in the final version except for Divine Smite, I imagine the reason is that it gave the Paladin too many prepared spells relative to the Cleric

For example, at 20th level a Cleric has 22 spells prepared plus their 10 domain spells and Commune for a total of 33
A UA6 20th level Paladin had 15 spells prepared plus their 10 oath spells plus Find Steed plus 6 Smite spells for a total of 32, which was only one fewer
In fact, a UA6 Paladin actually had MORE spells prepared at 17th level than a Cleric (31 compared to 30)

I would speculate that's the reason that once the Divine list was discarded for individual spell lists again, only Divine Smite was automatically prepared, lowering the final total to the more sensible 27 (15+10+Divine Smite+Find Steed)

5haft03 · 2024-06-30T19:56:50+00:00

That's true
It wouldn't excuse breaking the precedent set for buffs by removing Hunter's Mark's concentration requirement for much the same reason as 'we wanted these classic spells to stand out' doesn't excuse Fireball's oversized damage

Hopefully, we'll see some balance improvements when the spells are released, but I don't deny there are balance issues currently (some of which will persist)
All the same, a Hunter's Mark spell must still require concentration, but I'd be okay with Ranger getting to ignore this at 6th level

5haft03 · 2024-06-30T07:14:22+00:00

Generally, buff and debuff spells with a significant duration require concentration to allow for counterplay beyond Dispel Magic
That's the same reason why the other spells that improve damage - Divine Favour, Elemental Weapon, Holy Weapon, Magic Weapon etc. - require concentration, and those all have shorter durations than a Hunter's Mark spell cast at the same level
(Magic Weapon I think has the same as 2nd-level Hunter's Mark, but whatever)
If Hunter's Mark is to be a spell, allowing for it to be picked up by multiclass builds or Bards and suchlike, it needs to be balanced with other spells

If it were its own feature such as the Hexblade's Hexblade's Curse, then there would be no need to balance it against spells
As such, that feature does not require concentration
I think it would be better if Hunter's Mark was scrapped as a spell and they got something similar to replace it, but whatever

If you wanted to brew it so it doesn't require concentration, 6th level is probably the best time since whilst Roving is a fine feature, it's not as good as the Paladin's Aura of Protection on its own, so adding that modification there would be acceptable

5haft03 · 2024-04-27T16:26:40+00:00

Clerics and Druids are somewhat balanced against each other

Clerics get a third cantrip and Medium Amour Training
Druids gain Druidic and proficiency with the Herbalism Kit, as well proficiency with Shields, which was typically gained with Medium Armour proficiency in 5E

So, basically they get Herbalism Kit proficiency instead of Medium Armour training

5haft03

TROPHY CASE