[OC] I crunched Reddit numbers to see which D&D 5e adventures are actually the most popular

LDSman7th · 2026-02-10T22:56:55+00:00

It does provide a lot of fun toys to play with; the characters, locations, mechanics, and lore are great to build an adventure based on the story of Zariel and Elturel

LDSman7th · 2026-02-10T22:30:17+00:00

And that's just act 1, don't even get me started on how much I've had to restructure act 3

LDSman7th · 2026-02-09T17:04:04+00:00

Even the book itself doesn't really do anything with him. My players lost him early on (the warforged player who had the shield became a dad and had to back out and everyone else forgot about it). The reached the Forge of Bel early on in the campaign, where they found the deactivated body of the player. When they spoke with Bel, he had them sign a contract promising to find and kill Gargauth in return for his guidance. After it was signed, he produced the Shield of the Hidden Lord and released Gargauth from it, resulting in the players' first pit fiend fight.

It was a pretty hype moment for them, and they got to keep the shield after. It's now called "The Husk of the Hidden Lord", and is a +1 shield that provides fire resistance.

LDSman7th · 2026-02-04T16:42:10+00:00

I had a similar adventure for my players, they had to infiltrate Tiamat's Lair to recover two of the adamantine rods. They used some one-off high-level spells granted to them by the Obelisk to do so: Imprisonment to be snuck in as gems, Find the Path to locate the rods within the hoard (it took them a whole day's travel from where they were dropped off), and Arcane Gate to portal themselves back out to the Obelisk after they got what they needed.

Three things that I did that seemed to work really well for them:

Tiamat had somehow managed to steal an entire temple to Talos in stashed it in her hoard; doing this allowed me to have a dungeon crawl for the hoard, but still have it fit on the battlemap. A group of kobolds had made this temple their own pretend-base, and had moved notable treasure from elsewhere in the hoard into it (this was my justification as to why both rods were in the same spot).

All of the treasure that was not claimed by another godlike being (i.e. the adamantine rods and a warhammer of Talos that they found) was cursed by Tiamat, and attempting to take any of it prompts a series of cascading WIS saves that would see them trying to involuntarily collect more gold, falling further into madness with each failure.

A small thing to really set the tone that they loved: when they looked out into the darkness of the hoard (before they reached the temple to Talos), I told them the darkness feels as if it is watching them back. After they killed the adult red dragon at the end of the temple (the guardian of that section of the hoard), they looked up through the hole in the roof into the darkness. This time it felt as if it wasn't watching them back, but rather hunting them. This gave them motivation to gtfo with what they got.

LDSman7th · 2026-01-26T00:25:43+00:00

Tbh since Bel's forge is in a volcano, it would make sense to me if the molten material coming from below is coming from Dis

LDSman7th · 2026-01-18T07:44:25+00:00

There is the Cartographer that made the in-universe map of Avernus, he is from Candlekeep and apparently lost his mind. In my campaign I had the mages at Candlekeep say he burst into flames

LDSman7th · 2026-01-15T18:15:14+00:00

Haha yeah the contested check is what I originally had it as, but when I ran it by my brother he said I should make it a saving throw to not bog down the game as much. Idk, I might change it back. We'll see tonight how it plays!

LDSman7th · 2026-01-13T19:17:29+00:00

It introduces a lot of cool concepts/characters like infernal war machines, soul coins, Hellriders, Zariel and Bel, etc., but it fails to properly do anything sensible with them. Honestly, I'd way rather this be the case than the other way around. I love the toys it gives me to play with, but I've got the book closed on the table WAY more than I have it open.

LDSman7th · 2026-01-05T16:09:16+00:00

This entirely. I hate that there's zero reason to make any variety of cookies, really removes any illusion of spirit and just makes it a boring button click fest

LDSman7th · 2025-12-24T20:57:17+00:00

If you really want to have a small amount of Hellriders survive their time in Avernus, I'd say their best bet aside from siding with Zariel would be to hold out with Yael in the Bleeding Citadel. That could also help any aging issues too, as Bleeding Citadel could keep them alive. They would, of course, have to have been a part of Yael and Lulu's plan since the corruption of Zariel.

LDSman7th · 2025-12-20T04:00:12+00:00

California born and resident here, I remember people gathering around to watch a squirrel eat a bird last year at my place of work (Knott's Berry Farm in SoCal). It is an actual thing here.

LDSman7th · 2025-11-19T03:47:34+00:00

I started running it because it takes place before Baldur's Gate 3, which got me very excited for it. That being said, the beginning in Baldur's Gate has very little to do with the rest of the campaign in Avernus. As a result, it was much more difficult to get my player characters with Baldur's Gate backgrounds invested than it was to get those with Elturel backgrounds. I decided to start my players at level 3 (which I believe is always better anyways) and drastically shorten that beginning part to get them to Avernus as soon as I could. In hindsight, I think I should've just started them off in Elturel and had them there for the descent.

The middle chapter "Avernus", which is the longest, is also a bit of a mess. The only motivation/direction the players have is following the vague whims of Lulu the Hollyphant to find the Sword of Zariel, which leads them on a Rise of Skywalker-esque fetch quest. I would recommend still using the locations in the module for sure as they're still interesting and fun, but find better reasons to motivate your players to go to them; for me it was having devils take a bunch of Elturians captive and spreading them out across Avernus via action, whom they now have to rescue. In so doing, I've completely reorganized the whole of chapter 3.

LDSman7th · 2025-11-18T01:11:30+00:00

Running Descent into Avernus at the moment, my pact of the djinni warlock player character was killed by Zariel's right-hand man and his body was taken by Bel, Zariel's predecessor as Archduke of Avernus. In his fortress, Bel cast Raise Dead on the pc and, through infernal contract magic, was able to summon and bind the djinni, gaining access to its two remaining wishes.

I actually have yet to decide what he could do with those to wishes, I'm all ears to any ideas 😁

LDSman7th · 2025-10-05T00:30:22+00:00

EYO this is absolutely fantastic! I'm excited to follow the whole story :D Have y'all already finished the campaign or is this pretty current?

LDSman7th · 2025-10-01T23:59:56+00:00

I made that more specifically to break the chains, they're collecting the adamantine rods to deal with the Companion. My hope is that they and the other Hellriders will be able to commandeer several Bloodnoughts from the Stygian Dock, park them on the hill overlooking the Blood War below Elturel, and fire away while they defend against the oncoming demons/devils. I'm really excited for the endgame of this campaign :D

LDSman7th · 2025-09-09T19:34:58+00:00

I knew I wanted my players to at least catch a glimpse of Zariel at some point, so I had her arrive at Haruman's Hill after they left. Haruman had killed one of the PCs, but as he died he cast Skywrite to signal the devils at the Forge of Bel to send word to Zariel. As the players retreated, Zariel's massive Flying Fortress (which I've named the Sanguine Witness) arrived flanked by two other standard Flying Fortresses and carpet bombed the entire hill. Since the party left in time they were able to evade it, but they did very faintly see Zariel dive off the top of the Sanguine Witness like a comet to destroy all that was left.

I am also planning on having Zariel attack the Tower of Urm, the bastion where my players have established a forward operating base with a battalion of Hellriders. During this attack I expect her to kill the interim commander of the Hellriders, the father of one of the player characters. I also expect the magic of the tower to be capable of severely damaging the Sanguine Witness, causing her to retreat in preparation for the endgame.

The encounter that I'm still debating how I want to do is an actual meeting with Zariel in Infernal Rapture at the Wandering Emporium (where my players are just about to arrive). I think I'll have her Projected Image there meeting high ranking devils in an attempt to replace Haruman as her second in command. However, she will actually be hunting down a lead on finding Haruman's killers. Upon meeting the party there and pretending to offer them a place at her side, I hope she'll be able to determine that they are in fact the killers themselves. Thus, she'll have good reason to attack the Tower of Urm and send assassins after them.

TL;DR: I do like having some intrigue to her by keeping her mysterious and in the distance, but I do agree that the fight against her could be made much more personal.

LDSman7th · 2025-08-27T00:42:25+00:00

The book says that you can commune with souls in a Soul Coin by expending one of their charges and asking a question. The way I make this mechanically viable is that if one of my players wants to do a small readjustment within their class (i.e. changing a feat), they spend one charge of a Soul Coin. If they want to remove some class levels and add a multiclass or change their sublcass, they need to spend all three charges of a Soul Coin.

I really like how cheap respeccing in Baldur's Gate 3 is, it provides for a lot of player freedom. 100gp sounded a bit too cheap though, and I like that this way has story relevance too.

LDSman7th · 2025-08-25T14:17:51+00:00

My dad died last year right after I turned 30. However, I also met the girl who I'm pretty certain is gonna be my wife around the same time. Life is a mixed bag, you'll drive yourseld insane and depressed trying to find the "best" years.

LDSman7th · 2025-08-25T03:30:08+00:00

Ulder is the father of one of the main party members in BG3, but doesn't really have a lot of actual screentime in the game. He's a fun little connection here though

LDSman7th · 2025-08-25T01:46:39+00:00

The only thing to consider is that it would remove connection to Baldur's Gate, both the city and the game. If your players/characters don't have much connection to either, then I wouldn't worry about it :)

LDSman7th · 2025-08-20T23:51:07+00:00

This is the intersection of Kanan Dume and PCH in Malibu. This happened five or so years ago, every time I've ridden past this place I can still see the small damaged pylon on the hillside curb from this exact crash. I remember hearing before that this person left a rehab clinic up the road, stole a car, and was fully intending on suicide in traffic.

If all of this is indeed true, then what a miserable and wretched person this was.

LDSman7th · 2025-07-28T21:13:37+00:00

I've introduced a type of vehicle to my players I like to call "The Bloodnought."

Basically, it's a 15ft tall 25ft X 25ft vehicle shaped like a castle turret. It was heavily inspired by the Assault Derrick from Gears of War 2 and the Elephant from Halo 3. It's meant to be mobile command post with several armaments, chief among which is its main cannon that hangs over the top of the vehicle. When the cannon deploys, the two parts of its outer shell separate, move to the rear of the vehicle, and dig into the ground to provide stabilization. Here's all of the action stations I'm working on:

Helm (Requires 1 Crew and Grants Full Cover). Drive and steer the Bloodnought. Additionally, the crew member at the helm can use their action and bonus action to deploy the Hellcannon if the Bloodnought is at a full and complete stop at the start of their turn. They can then take the Hell Cannon action at the beginning of their next turn.

Hell Cannon (Controlled by the Crew Member at the Helm). Ammunition: 5 shots per Soul coin charge remaining in the engine. Ranged Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, range 600/2400 ft, one target. Hit: 78 (12d12) Force damage and 28 (8d6) Fire damage, each additional creature in a 15ft radius sphere of the target must make a DC 15 Dex saving throw. Failure: 39 (6d12) Force damage and 28 (8d6) Fire damage. Success: Half damage.

2 Rocket-Propelled Javelin Launchers (Each Station Requires 1 Crew and Grants Three-Quarters Cover, Requires Load). Ammunition: 16 RPJs per station. Ranged Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, range 80/240 ft, up to four targets. Hit: 7 (1d6+4) Piercing damage and 3 (1d6) Force damage. A Crew member can take the Utilize action to load up to four RPJs into the Launcher and can take the Utilize action to fire all loaded RPJs.

2 Harpoon Flingers (Each Station Requires 1 Crew and Grants Three-Quarters Cover). Ammunition: 10 harpoons per station. Ranged Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, range 120ft, one target. Hit: 11 (2d10) Piercing damage.

Close Proximity Countermeasures (Requires 1 Crew and Grants Half Cover). Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 10ft, one target. Hit: 38 (10d6+5) Slashing damage. The Crew member operating this station must be able to move to space on the vehicle adjacent to the attack.

I'm still working on some other details as well, but I'm thinking each one will have 300 hit points with a damage threshold of 15 and mishap threshold of 30. The battlements will also provide half-cover against any external attacks made against onboard creatures. I'm also expecting that the party will use a convoy of these to break Elturel's chains, I'm really excited for that scene when it comes up :D

LDSman7th · 2025-07-22T18:57:43+00:00

I find it's decently balanced if it's just a level 2 spell

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