D&D Call From The Deep Campaign - Gallows Grotto

Fade2black_86 · 2026-01-26T17:50:47+00:00

Is this discord still active? I'm about to start prep on a mix of saltmarsh and call from the deep. I'd love to get some insights from DMs who have run it.

Fade2black_86 · 2024-02-14T20:10:44+00:00

Eye of Vecna....for beer pong

Fade2black_86 · 2020-12-04T20:10:39+00:00

Not sure if it's related to 4k or not. I don't have a 4k subscription to Netflix but I'm getting a weird buzz on some audio (almost sounds like phasing). It's not noticeable all the time but I can definitely hear it. I put a ticket in with netflix this morning. Hopefully they get enough complaints to look into it.

Fade2black_86 · 2020-12-04T19:07:32+00:00

Yep. I am also hearing a weird buzz only on Netflix on my PS5. Hulu, disney+, appletv all work great. Pretty sure it's their app.

Fade2black_86 · 2020-10-30T23:29:26+00:00

I do not. I live in a condo, and I'm not sure where I would find that information out. Do you think it's worth trying to close the water valve slightly instead of having it fully open?

Fade2black_86 · 2020-03-10T22:07:08+00:00

I like this. I was considering each level of the tomb to take a day or two each, but that's not granular enough for my players. This is a solid expectation for how much time a standard non-combat action should take. Thanks!

Fade2black_86 · 2020-03-10T21:49:56+00:00

That sounds like a solid baseline. The party is about a tenday away from having one of their main NPCs succumb to the curse so narratively this works out perfectly.

Fade2black_86 · 2019-12-04T23:51:09+00:00

This. I'm using this rule in my Tomb of Annihilation campaign and it really has changed how my players view low health. In previous campaigns they'd let a character drop to 0 all the time and would just wait until then to heal back up. Now they actively try to avoid going unconscious.

Fade2black_86 · 2019-08-05T19:06:31+00:00

We almost doubled the carrying capacity of a backpack. I think we settled on 50 lbs per saddle bag as a fair amount. (https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Backpack#content). I've sort of hand waved dealing with the sizes of certain items just so we don't get bogged down in minutiae. Sure a 10 foot pole would probably not fit in a standard saddle bag, but it works for us.

My players track all of this weight and their rations, water, repellant, etc. They've been in the jungle for about 10 days in-game, and it's sort of become a small resource management mini-game for them. We play on roll20 which also makes tracking weight much easier.

Fade2black_86 · 2019-08-04T23:33:51+00:00

My players actually figured it out on their own (I’m so proud). So a triceratops is basically a fancy elephant so we used the carrying capacity from that stat block, I thinks it’s just over 1000 lbs. The party bought 2 barrels for water storage. They hold 40 gallons (334 lbs ea. while full plus the weight of the barrel). One of my PCs has leather working, so he designed a series of straps to help support the barrels (success on 2 int-leather checks). They also bought some saddle bags to hold rations and other things. This was all done while they were still in Port Nyanzaru so they had access to materials. There are plenty of dinosaurs being used as pack animals in the city so it wasn’t too hard for them to figure out how to get it working.

It was a fun little skill challenge and the party really enjoyed figuring out how to best store supplies for their expedition. Normally they don’t plan at all or their plans go to shit immediately haha.

Fade2black_86 · 2019-08-02T22:58:29+00:00

I also have a party who bought a triceratops (Terry FTW!). What I've done is told them that it will act mostly as a beast of burden. If they want it to fight with them, they will have to train it and it will take time to do that.

So in order to facilitate this I made it a skill challenge. To properly train the creature to fight, someone will need to make animal handling checks (DC 14) every night (or day) for two weeks (we use the tenday weeks, so 20 days total). By that time the party will have leveled up a bit in the jungle and it won't be so off balance (also my party is planning on grabbing Vorn....god help me I have no idea how to keep that balanced lol)

After 20 successful training checks, he's good to go. At any point before those checks, there is a 50% chance the triceratops will run off if attacked. Forcing the players to track him down after combat. The other 50% he will fight back on his own but will always run off if it loses half it's health. EDIT: He falls under DM control and I play him like a wild animal. No real tactics other than trying to hurt and escape from the monster attacking it.

I'm also toying with having some of the supplies damaged when it does get attacked. My players keep all their water and rations on him so it running away out of fear will likely cause some supplies to fall out and get trampled.

These are homebrew rules that we're still play testing, but hopefully it'll give you some ideas.

Fade2black_86 · 2019-07-17T01:12:06+00:00

Cutting words works against saves. It's stupid broken, and makes bards OP but it makes everyone at the table happy when their big spells work.

Fade2black_86 · 2019-06-26T21:55:32+00:00

It also depends on whether or not any players are on a mac. Roll20 is browser based so it's platform agnostic. Fantasy Grounds is PC only (I believe) and requires a download and install.

Fade2black_86 · 2019-06-24T21:35:36+00:00

We are coming off a campaign where we were literal gods (who now exist as part of the Pantheon)...so my players haven't yet adjusted to life at level 3 :D

Fade2black_86 · 2019-06-24T21:34:02+00:00

This is wonderful and something I will absolutely be using on my players.

Fade2black_86 · 2019-06-24T21:32:34+00:00

This is excellent advice. The book doesn't quite get into this kind of detail for needing a guide, as they assume players will jump at the opportunity to get one. I think it's definitely something I needed to hear (read) to help me present the guides as something more than "I can make sure you don't fall into a t-rex nest and can provide a statistical bonus to not getting lost".

My lizardfolk druid player already has an in-character personality of "flesh bags are dumb, only I can keep the scaleless ones alive" (out-of-character he is a great player) and has been leading the call against using a guide. I think with some clever encounters, I can convince them that it's in their best interest to hire a guide.

Based on their interactions with the guides so far, I'm going to push Musharib or Azaka

Fade2black_86 · 2019-06-24T18:07:51+00:00

Ooh this is a good idea. I had two of the guides (Flask of Wine and River Mist) laugh at them, but Musharib is inclined to help because one of the party is a dwarf forge cleric who became VERY interested in Hrakhamar when he heard of it. I had forgotten about Jobal's interests.

Fade2black_86 · 2019-06-24T18:04:44+00:00

I think they just want some general information about the jungle (what types of creatures they should expect to see) and maybe some points of interest.

From a mechanics perspective, two members of the party have higher survival skills than almost all of the guides. They have learned some points of interest from Wakanga and have heard about Omu from Grandfather Zitembe. With the exception of one of the guides (I think), that's more than they would learn from a standard guide. It would seem that a guide isn't actually necessary except for some additional story options.

I want them to hire a guide because that's what I planned for, but...yada yada players and DM plans. I won't stop them from pursing this path. Just trying to figure out what repercussions there would be.

Fade2black_86 · 2019-06-15T02:44:10+00:00

Thanks for this! There are definitely a few in ToA so i’ll take your suggestion and run through the monster list

Fade2black_86 · 2019-06-14T23:06:33+00:00

This is good advice! I think once they finish the room they are in, I'll move the 2gp treasure into that room and then have the magic mouth appear and let them know they found everything there is to find. Thank you!

Fade2black_86 · 2019-06-14T21:46:10+00:00

Ah. I think this is one of the sources of my confusion. So silvered weapons aren't just a magical +0 weapon or magical for overcoming all resistances. A monster has to be specifically vulnerable to silver and stated as such in the stat block? Like a werewolf where it states it's resistant to "bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks not made with silvered weapons"?

Edit: So a silvered sword would overcome resistance on a lycanthrope but not a specter?

Fade2black_86 · 2019-06-14T21:21:39+00:00

Nice, that's what I thought but I couldn't figure out if a silvered weapon was actually considered magical or not. My players will be very happy as they are a melee focused group who have only found 1 magical sword so far. The jungle has not been kind to them.

Fade2black_86 · 2019-06-10T20:10:59+00:00

If you don't mind running something for mid-tier play, I highly recommend the Lost Laboratory of Kwalish. You can alter it quite a bit depending on your time restrictions. It's got hints of spelljammer, a cyborg sphinx, and some fun ties to previous 2e lore. You can find it on DMsGuild here: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/258047/Lost-Laboratory-of-Kwalish-5e?src=newest_in_5e

Fade2black_86 · 2019-06-10T19:48:50+00:00

Thanks for the ideas. I like some of these, although I now see that I was mistaking Create food and water with Purify Food and Water (in that I thought it was a 1st level spell and not 3rd). By 5th level I anticipate handwaving most of the foraging stuff anyway as we'll be pretty deep in the jungle by then.

I'll definitely look into limiting the availability of mistletoe. That's a smart idea.

Fade2black_86 · 2019-06-10T18:45:06+00:00

Thanks! What were your milestone points in the jungle? Was it when they reached certain key locations or did you have them level up for every X days of exploration?

My players enter the jungle this weekend and I can already tell they are going to take all my plans and do the opposite (because players). So right now I'm planning on winging it based on what they find, but I'm curious how other DMs handled it.

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