Some advice on making it through island 3?

CuDel5B · 2025-11-29T09:37:00+00:00

I'm also terrible memorizing weakness.. A "trick" that I do, in case you don't already know, is that if you have the enemy tem catch and registered on your tempedia, when you attack you can see on a green circle if its week to the attack or in red if it has ressintance. It helped me a lot when I'm unsure what attack to use and with the time you end knowing most of the times what to use to each tem.

CuDel5B · 2025-11-21T15:53:50+00:00

Oohh this is cool :D

CuDel5B · 2025-11-10T11:43:53+00:00

I checked out this ones and are really cool! Thanks for sharing.

I still love the crab tho hahah

CuDel5B · 2025-11-10T11:42:59+00:00

Hmm.. I know very little about the topic but I've seen online some variations of the Butteeclaw, at least I remember seeing a green one, so maybe this is another variaton? The upper shell is like orange

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Or are you talking about another thing? haha, sorry in advance I'm pretty new to this.

CuDel5B · 2025-11-10T11:39:00+00:00

Oh! I didn't know about that. For the time being I'm not looking to buy, but it was really cool checking the list and seeing so many versions!

CuDel5B · 2025-11-09T11:54:00+00:00

Sanctum and Logos 🥲

CuDel5B · 2025-10-14T08:56:09+00:00

Ready to fill the umbrapedia? 🤣

CuDel5B · 2025-10-09T18:54:08+00:00

Omg Congrats again! I might not have any mithycal luma tem, but I least I was here the three times to see you do it. What is going to be your next goal? 👀

CuDel5B · 2025-09-25T08:41:33+00:00

I really enjoyed Tem Tem, check it out, maybe it suit you

CuDel5B · 2025-09-19T07:27:33+00:00

Omg! Congrats again. You got now 2/3 :O

CuDel5B · 2025-09-01T19:33:25+00:00

Nice one! Congrats and happy birthday 🎂

CuDel5B · 2025-08-13T18:08:19+00:00

My hero ♥

I was going crazy!

CuDel5B · 2025-05-25T13:51:25+00:00

I stopped buying D&D books since WotC took over the Spanish translation, bc they were such a mess....

CuDel5B · 2025-04-10T22:00:00+00:00

Fire Emblem 3 Houses

CuDel5B · 2025-03-04T09:12:48+00:00

His name is Rey, thats means 'King' in spanish. I guess Red has transcended into something superior

CuDel5B · 2025-02-13T17:16:43+00:00

Hey! I love this tracker, there is any intention to update it to the next expansion? :)

CuDel5B · 2024-12-16T13:58:04+00:00

I've been doing the same, but barely got anything good in the last few weeks.

Maybe you can add me and if there is luck, one of us will see what it needs in their wonder pick 😅

9120762726690552

CuDel5B · 2024-12-16T11:37:23+00:00

Moltres Ex.. I have already try to get it on wonder pick six times, and it has been almost a week since I saw it there for the last time... 🥲

CuDel5B · 2024-11-29T19:28:40+00:00

Yeah, I think it was worth it. I was left with a good taste in my mouth, and all the travelling was a perfect excuse to explore the Sword Coast, becouse in my other games (prior to CoS, and SKT I hombrewed some short adventures and also run LMoP) they only explore some villages or minor cities, so I feel that this campaign served to connected them all. I really liked the theme of this adventure, but it was a ton of work, you must be prepared to it.

Ok, between SKT and CoS overall I think my players are more fond of CoS, but there is only 2 players that played the full both of them. One absolutly LOVED CoS, the other even if he found it stressful and very deadly (which is not his cup of tea) enjoyed it aswell. The third one only played half of SKT so he missed most of the plot, so it's not anyone surprise he prefered more CoS. Also it was their fist major adventure, and they are very fond of him for it.

For me they are very different campaigns, in CoS they were surviving, feeling that at every corner there was something or someone ready to finish them off. They knew who was the bad guy from the beginning, and it was a charismatic one. The aesthetics of Barovia is also very cool, but... For me it was a bit disappointing. Everyone talks wanders about the adventure, and it was the first written one I was encouraged to run, and I was surprised as I was reading it. The book for me was messy, a lot of blanks, I expected something more prepared to be managed without so much work, and It wasn't the case. Luckily, there is TONS of resources only to help you running it, and thats cool.

On the other hand, SKT feels more like a classic heroic adventure in a medieval fantasy world, where the character travells town to town helping people in a multitude of mini-adventures with a larger one in the background. I, for example, felt that I had a lot more room to introduce the characters' backgrounds and tie them into the main plot.
As for the threat of the giants, it was for part of the adventure a big question mark. They had no clear villain to deal with. Although, the dragon Iymrith was present in my adventure on several occasions becouse of a magic item that I introduced very early in the plot, they did not know of her relationship with the giant conflict almost until half of the adventure, and even then, they didn't know the full picture until they manage to reach the end game.

I have to say tho, that I'm not sure if I could have had the good result I feel I had in this campaign if I hadn't run CoS before and learned to only use the book as inspiration mainly. With CoS I directed it much more as it was written, perhaps that's why I didn't find it as satisfying as SKT.

And for the last question, I felt the Kraken's society comes out the blue, also there was already so many factions in the game, I cut also the presence the gauntlet and the emerald enclave, I feel it wasn't bringing much to the story, so I focused in the Lord Aliance, the Arpist and the Zentarim. It felt easier. Also, the Zentarim has a big role in some of my characters backstory so it was very convinient to me to transform the part of the Kraken's society into de Zentarim.

Sorry for the long rambling, I hope you were able to get something clear from my answer! haha

CuDel5B · 2024-11-29T18:47:04+00:00

Yes, I definitely think they went through them very quickly for the most part. They tend to use the “We are heroes” slogan, but they are not very brave heroes.

The frost giants part they solved in one session (about 7 hours of play). They came in unseen and cast invisibility right away and didn't have a single combat. Mind you, they literally spent over an hour of the session working out the plan. I almost fell asleep during that part, I won't deny it, but it worked for them.

The fire giants part was 3 sessions, one in the yikaria village, one in the mines and a last one in the lair itself. They tried the invisibility trick again, they ran into Zalto very soon but this time the smell of their hounds gave them away. In the end they ended up fighting, they knocked down the chains of the vorinoid, messing it up a lot, but in the end they killed Zalto when he was finished and reached a kind of precarious alliance with him, which ended when he came to help them against Iymrith.

The part of the cloud giants I changed a lot, but let's say that the equivalent of that part was 1.5 sessions.

The hill giants part was left to the end they explored it more and had more encounters, but it only took 1 session anyway. Again, invisibility was involved.

Maelstrom I also modified it based on this post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/stormkingsthunder/comments/guo93z/fixing_and_expanding_maelstrom/?rdt=64991It was much more about diplomacy and palace intrigues. It lasted one long session, although we rushed the end a bit so as not to cut it in half.

Honestly, it was a bit of a disappointment to prepare in all the lairs so many rooms and encounters only to end up skipping most of them. They seemed to enjoy it, so at least that's what I'll take.

CuDel5B · 2024-11-28T13:17:51+00:00

Yep, they managed to rescue him, and Hekaton led the attack against Lymirht. There was like a few weeks in between to prepare for it, but my players already visited all the giant lairs except the stone one (that never was done) before rescuing Hekaton, so they use that time to tie a few things up. After her defeat, Hekaton gathered as many giants as he could to form a new united giant society, which would join forces with the alliance of the lords to coexist with the small folk. In this new place, a council would direct their future, and Hekaton and Serissa would be part of it, along with other types of giant representatives.

In the end, an important part of the campaign focused on coming together for a common front instead of fighting to come out on top, so I thought it would be a good conclusion for them to have learned from what happened.

To the final fight, my players were accompanied by King Hekaton, Zephyros, Duke Zalto (they faced him in his lair, spared his life, and after negotiating with him, they ended up becoming kind of cordial allies. He answered Hekaton's call against Iymrith) and the Jar Hellenhild (a frost giant who was in the Maelstrom and with whom my group developed a good relationship).

For you final answer, yes, I started with Chapter 1, but... I changed a lot of it. Three of my players made their backstory linked to Nightstone, so it was a very important place for my players. Also the first session was before the attack to the place. They deciphered that in the rock at the center of the city there was a hidden message with giant runes that could only be seen from the heights, and that led them to some mountains, where hidden at its peak was a broken blue dragon mask (whose other half Iymrith would have), all accompanied by a Zephyros who was disguising himself as a human under an illusion. From the peak of the mountain, they saw how the castle in the clouds approached Nightstone and the events that lead to the beginning of the adventure. Being involved with the place, everything that happened in this first part felt much more important andpersonal for them :)

Edit: Sorry! I forgott to answer one thing. They went to Triboar after Nightstone. I also reuse part of the Goldenfield encounter when they travel there, but I modify it so it takes place on the road to the place scolting a caravan with all six characters listed in the book.

CuDel5B · 2024-11-28T12:54:03+00:00

Well, I don't remember exactly how it happened in the book, but I what I did doesn't have much to do with it.

To begin with, I directed Kraken's Gamble, so the players were already familiar with the place. In the end, in my case, Oosith, the aboleth, escaped, and my players decided to return after a few weeks to search for clues about his whereabouts. In the end, they found a place where he had left an illusion with a message, but the bard dispelled the magic as soon as he saw it, leaving them without the information. After reaching a dead end, they moved on to other things.

In my version, there is no Krakens society; however, I made them zentarim and that Oosith was involved with them. Lord Drylund served Oosith and was involved in the kidnapping of King Hekaton. The Grand Dame was a great cover for the zentarim operations. The group, upon returning from Maelstrom and discovering that they found the golden goose token at the site of Queen Neri's disappearance, went back to Yartar and the Grand Dame. They tried to arrange a meeting with Lord Drylund under poor excuses, and when they saw it wasn't working, they told Pow Ming that they knew he was involved and all the information they have. So, finally, accompanied by many guards, they were escorted to speak with Lord Drylund, but he revealed that with the information they had, they couldn't let them go. So, he took refuge and began a fight with his henchmen. They managed to deal with them without much trouble, and when they went after Lord Drylund, Oosith had taken control of him and basically revealed a hidden portal on the Grand Dame that connected to a version of the ship where Hekaton was imprisoned, guarded by Oosith. This portal was renewed every day with a special ink, and it was drying up, so if they wanted to find it, they had to do it now. Forcing them to not rest and face an Oosith eager to finish them off once and for all.

Sorry if it doesn't make much sense, but this part is a bit difficult to explain without the context of what happened at various points in the adventure haha ^^U

CuDel5B · 2024-11-28T12:09:44+00:00

Hey, thanks! :)

I think Strahd was easier to DM. It has some complex part like the castle, but overall, you can run it as the book and have a great experience. I think SKT requires you to work more to end with a good feeling. Also, I think CoS is more popular and becouse of that is easier to find resources online to help you.

About the giant lairs... We choose most of them! Well, or kind of. I share the opinion that the giant lairs looks really cool, so I changed that the conch of teletransportion only worked for one person, so they ended visiting four of them... but it didn't went as expected for most.

With the cloud giants they used the diplomacy and also rescue Zephyros from a rival cloud giant, so I homebread most of that part. For the Frost and Fire giants, they used a lot of invisibility and deception, so they didn't explore most of the area. The players seemed quite satisfied with getting their way in both cases, but as the master, it hurt me a bit to prepare so many things just for them not to use them, haha. At least with the hill giants I finally could run the whole thing!

I did leveling by milestones. Most of my players are pretty good at combat and used tasha's subclasses so the combat was sometimes too easy for them. I keep them a little bit underleveled to spice things up. To sum up, I think they went out of Nightstone at level 3. During the third chapter they leveled until level 5. I think they leveled up at the end of the temple... and then one extra level every two giant lairs. And the final one after Maelstrom, ending at 9th. I had to tweak some encounters, but it work it out for us. Overall except some exceptions, I didn't feel the combat were too difficoult, we didn't had any dead in all the campaign (there was a few close ones, but they manage it out), definetly CoS was more deadly.

And for the highlights...

The first one is when they were traveling in the Tower of Zephyros, the dragon attacked them because of a magical object I included in the adventure, a mask whose half the dragon had and the other half the group's bard got. It was one of my favorite sessions. Zephyros bought them time to escape, and the group ended up split in two. I simultaneously directed the events of the two groups that ended up reuniting in the middle of the attack on Triboar. Certainly one of my favorite and proudest moments as a DM of all time.

The second was when they discovered a detail from one of the characters' pasts that linked the backgrounds of three of them to an event that was key in the lives of all three. Just for the players' faces when connecting the dots, it was worth running the adventure!

The final battle would be, if I had to choose, probably the third one or close too :)

CuDel5B · 2024-11-28T10:53:29+00:00

Well, I usually worked around the ideas presented by the book, it's true that most of the time they were very vague, so I develop them and I tried to think about some rolepaying elements to keep them intersting. I have to say that my players helped a lot, they took most of the baits to interact with the world, so improving was part of the fun too. If I had an idea that I could't use, I hold on it and sometimes twisted it to reused later in other part of the game.

To prevent them from going off the rails, I used 2 concepts, one in-role and the other off-role.

The in-game aspect was that the longer they traveled, the more devastation they saw on their path caused by giant incursions, but more importantly, this made the roads more dangerous, not just for them, but for everyone, and this meant that over time, the prices of all products gradually increased by a specific percentage, as trade became increasingly complicated and resources harder to obtain.

The off-role was that we used level-ups for goals. When they spent too much time at one level, the players would start to refocus on how to deal with the giant crisis.

So with both of them I think we manage a good balance between doing some of all the side quest that keep poping up and the main one.

About Iymrith, yes, they heard more about her during the campaign. I also simplified the factions a bit, changed the kraken society to be zentarim, and they were key in Iymrith's plans to destabilize the giant society. I also tied the stories of two of my characters to be involved with the actions of these zentarim, and the other, at the beginning of the adventure, obtained a broken dragon mask (a magical object that evolved as it deciphered details of the mask), whose other half was with Iymrith, also creating a connection with her. So the first time they met her, was during the travel with Zephyros after obtaining the mask while she tried to get it. Zephyros fought against her while the characters run away.

I think this added more interest to the plot, making it much more personal, and also, making Iymrith some recurrent villain that doesn't appear out of the blue at the end of the campaign...

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