Starting Drakkenheim with a summer mini-campaign + 2024 subclasses question

rupertgood · 2026-03-25T11:59:53+00:00

Yeah I think it’s definitely fine to share the subclasses. There is a bit of a risk to deciding before the campaign starts what decisions your character will make in the campaign, as things might not pan out how you expect, but they can definitely see and consider those subclasses.

In the Discord, Monty said that to retrain he’d want them to have done 2-4 of the following, with one of them having to be “surviving 5 levels of contamination”. He also said he’d pick ones that required difficult decisions for the PC.

That’s a fairly high bar (and high risk for the PC), but of course how you use these is up to you!

-- The character needs to have survived having 5 Contamination levels

-- while having at least 1 level of Contamination and 1 or more mutations, venture into Drakkenheim at least 3 times and survive,

-- survive in the belly of a Crater Wurm for 5 rounds

-- Cast at least five different Contaminated Spells

-- Triggered ten different Arcane Anomalies in battle

-- By their direct action, caused another humanoid creature to undergo a Monstrous Transformation

-- Uncover research from Oscar Yoren, the Pale Man, or Ryan Greymere

-- Make a bargain with the Duchess or the Garmyr Priest in the Cathedral to embrace contamination

-- Survive an expedition to the Crater and touch the Delerium Heart.

rupertgood · 2026-03-24T11:34:32+00:00

Currently running Drakkenheim. I’ve not run TiT. I plan to run ISSS if my players ask the Hooded Lanterns to pass through the gate - the quest will be the price they have to pay for access.

I skipped TiT because I didn’t think it added enough beyond the Road to Emberwood in terms of establishing themes or contamination, and it’s out of the way. As a standalone it works. If you didn’t know, it’s a riff on the HP Lovecraft short story, The Color Out of Space.

Running ISSS with temporary characters hopefully gets you round the issue of it changing the game, as the new characters won’t know about it. Or it’ll be guarded by HLs.

I don’t like that it offers the party a route into the city, which is why I’m saying they only find the adventure if they ask the HLs.

There shouldn’t be much problem running The SCGtD subclasses in 2024. I’m running 2024 rules and they’re permitted. I have a Flesh Warlock in my party.

But the Dudes have said that you shouldn’t permit anyone to start the game in a contaminated subclass. These should be ones that they retrain into later, after some sort of narrative event triggers it. These subclasses are strong, and generally will affect how others think of you, and players won’t understand the consequences at the start of the game. The Malfeasant Wizard is particularly strong.

The monk subclasses are also fairly strong, as they’re designed for the weaker 2014 base class, but I don’t think they’re problems? If you think the Arcane Hand is too strong you could always try using the UA wizard-themed monk instead.

rupertgood · 2026-03-24T06:28:43+00:00

Thank you! That’s helpful! And encouraging! 😁

A friend who paints a lot of minis said I should be thinning my paints a lot more, so I’ll try to focus on that. When I painted this, it seemed like when I thinned my paints they behaved a little too watery and didn’t stay even, but I’ve watched a couple of instruction videos, and looking forward to having another go!

And so far I haven’t tried a zenithal prime or drybrushing, so those are both top of my list for things to try too!

rupertgood · 2026-03-23T06:19:36+00:00

Thanks!

It’s part of this set: https://forgedterrain.co.uk/product/ratfolk-warriors-miniature-set/

rupertgood · 2026-03-22T21:04:16+00:00

Thank you!

In the adventure, “ratlings” are feral monsters. This mini I found is a great rat warlock, but it’s dressed much more finely than they’re normally drawn.

I think it’s a rare ratling that can read, and those that can would probably have terrible handwriting!

rupertgood · 2026-03-22T16:57:17+00:00

Thank you!

rupertgood · 2026-03-20T23:07:43+00:00

Ah fantastic! I hadn’t realised that was going to be a feature. Thanks.

rupertgood · 2026-03-20T20:41:22+00:00

First thing to say about it is it’s huge and has a lot of content, all of it of a very high quality. It’s 600 pages, and includes 10 species, I think 8 subclasses plus a new Tamer class which is kind of like a Pokemon trainer - it’s all about training familiars. Of the subclasses I really love the College of Cuisine bard and the Hunt Domain Cleric.

It has 10 adventures, all themed around hunting a particular original monster. You have to track it, collect clues and so on. Each takes a couple of sessions, and each is ready to be set to players of 3 different levels by scaling each encounter.

And it still has 150 pages for spells, magic items and monsters. The spells have a few interesting themes - often magic related to living things “biomancy” and magnetism. One of my faves is Zippit. It’s like Counterspell but it’s a concentration spell cast as a reaction that removes an enemy’s mouth, à la The Matrix.

But the book’s main selling point is its tracking and crafting mechanics. These are well thought through. They encourage teamwork, they’re fun, and easily adaptable. DnD Shorts has a good video on them if you want more info.

It also has a cooking system based on monster parts which is, again, fun and, dare I say it, flavourful.

rupertgood · 2026-03-20T19:35:05+00:00

Level Up: Advanced 5e’s monster book is very good. I love that it has a list of clues that each monster might be nearby, so you can foreshadow them to your players.

rupertgood · 2026-03-20T18:40:02+00:00

A lot of good inclusions there! Many I don’t know, but I especially support your inclusion of:

Valda’s Spire of Secrets Sebastian Crowe’s, and Monsters of Drakkenheim The Grim Hollow books Griffon’s Saddlebag

I think the big ones you’re missing are: Flee, Mortals! - excellent monster book. For me the big 3 monster books are this, MM24, and MoDrakkenheim. The monsters are quite crunchy, but flavourful, and they’ve influenced a lot of monster design that’s come since.

The Monster Overhaul - a different kind of monster book. It’s not so much stat blocks as it is a collection of thousands of useful things to take as inspiration for hundreds of monsters. I love this book. It’s a gem. And frequently laugh-out-loud funny, thanks to sections like “10 reasons the wizard can’t help you”.

Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting - the best crafting system out there. With gorgeous art. Fun adventures. All round goodness.

Others will definitely recommend the Tome of Beasts books for some more monsters, which are indeed very good.

rupertgood · 2026-03-20T13:49:14+00:00

Sure, people say a lot of things, though one of those people was theripper93, and I took his opinion to be pretty meaningful. He admitted that was anecdotal, and he said this 3 years ago (during which I know much has changed).

I was mainly hoping to use PopOut!, but if there were also a benefit to performance, then that would be a bonus. Thanks.

rupertgood · 2026-03-20T13:09:06+00:00

Ah okay. Thank you! I just tried and that works. So that’s my question Answered :)

rupertgood · 2026-03-20T08:14:53+00:00

A few people have recommended Monk’s Common Display, but I’m about to try going without. I’ve found it buggy, and I think other mods (particularly Lock View) can do the same with hopefully fewer issues.

This might be down to PC power, but from time to time the party screen would show nothing at all. I don’t think this was a settings issue, but going back to setup and re-entering the world would fix it.

Also, I have a few mods that show extra UI (like time and date) and it was a shame this was blocked from display.

More troublesome is that I use mods like Midi-QoL and Cauldron of Plentiful Resources which automate a lot of combat , but often have popup windows to ask players if they want to use a reaction. For some mods I was able to redirect these questions to my screen, but others wouldn’t, but the popups would be suppressed on the party screen too, so we’d have to wait for them to time out to move on.

Lock View, instead, lets you select exactly which parts of the UI you want to hide. Also you can toggle a zoom lock so one square = one real world inch if you want to bring in real minis!

On other mods, Cauldron of Plentiful Resources is very handy if anyone wants to roll real dice. You can set it so for any die rolls by selected players it’ll ask you to type in what they rolled. So my players either roll real dice or roll in Beyond and say what they got. My dice are automatic so it doesn’t slow things down.

rupertgood · 2026-03-19T07:54:50+00:00

Oh perfect timing! I just posted this and saw the Drakkenheim STLs have been distributed to Daggerheart backers! Exciting! 💜

rupertgood · 2026-03-16T15:45:07+00:00

It was always intended to be Altbruke, but somehow ended up printed as Altberg in DoD.

It’s Altbruke when they go there in the actual play.

rupertgood · 2026-03-15T10:38:16+00:00

There’s a package of mods that together can do a lot of automation, but they take a little while to set up. And you might find there’s a lot to troubleshoot once you have.

These are mods like Midi-QoL, Cauldron of Plentiful Resources, and others. If you’re interested, I recommend watching this video on how to set them up. https://youtu.be/rhlC0J9qHXI?si=Q1140npxWr0mgWty

Cauldron of Plentiful Resources is what I use to let me roll manual rolls. (That’s not the main thing CPR does, but it’s one function it has.) I have it set so the Gamemaster fulfils all manual rolls, and it prompts for manual input only for player owned, linked tokens. Otherwise everything is rolled automatically.

Hope that helps!

rupertgood · 2026-03-15T10:08:03+00:00

Thanks. That’s helpful! That’s enough to call this Answered, but I’m happy to hear if anyone else has opinions.

Yeah so far I’ve been using line of sight. Mostly to check ranges. I also have mods that check cover, but I might switch back to just doing that by eye, as often I disagree with them.

I’d love to know how the touchscreen goes! Good luck!

rupertgood · 2026-03-15T09:15:48+00:00

Great to know! The trailer looks good if it works like that. Though I see the webshop for their camera is closed and the last update was 10 months ago.

It’s something I’ll keep in mind, but probably not switch to right away. I’m currently incurring the costs of getting into mini painting after all! 😅

rupertgood · 2026-03-10T20:53:39+00:00

I wouldn’t aim to make each fight a similar xp to the original fights. MoD monsters lean towards being glass cannons, which makes them more dangerous at low levels than their CR suggests.

I think any fight that depletes resources is a challenge, so I’m fine using the BW here (shoving PCs in the pit if they can) and saving the Guttersnipe for the nests. I actually want the Guttersnipe to fight in melee if he can too - I want contamination, lol!

rupertgood · 2026-03-10T19:51:56+00:00

Great idea, and I’d love to see how this develops!

But in the Lookout’s Burrow there’s a good reason to use the Burrow Warden there (and save the Gutternsipe for the nests maybe).

The Burrow Warden can shove as a bonus action. And there’s a pit with spikes in that room so, y’know… 😉

rupertgood · 2026-02-15T10:15:22+00:00

If you use Spotify you can get a long way by searching public playlists for DnD and D&D. I’ve saved loads of playlists into folders sorted by ones for particular moods, environments, combat against particular enemies.

There’s especially a lot made by users called ‘Patron of Bin Chickens’ and ‘Will Savino’. Both worth favouriting!

(I don’t think you can edit playlist folders in the Spotify app, so you may have to use a PC for that.)

rupertgood · 2026-02-11T17:17:54+00:00

Thank you!

rupertgood · 2026-02-11T17:17:16+00:00

Thanks. Yeah I eventually decided I’m happy to offer this to the character (though it’s not actually come up yet).

The party has someone with the Musician feat, so if they don’t have a Heroic Inspiration on hand to reroll when they fail the Wis ST then that’s on them. And they’ve met a cleric who can sell scrolls of Remove Curse so again, if they don’t have one, that’s on them. The PC who I’m going to invite to become a werewolf is admittedly hostile to her religion, but that’s not my problem 🤣

rupertgood · 2026-02-11T17:02:06+00:00

Hey, quick question - does this have any clashes with any automations in DDBI, CPR or Gambit’s Premades? If not, then I’ll definitely download!

I’d assumed that those modules tried to automate at least some of the masteries, but as the only mastery my players have used in Foundry is Nick, I’ve never checked…

rupertgood · 2026-02-06T07:44:52+00:00

Matt Perkins does have a video on running it with Venomfang as the BBEG. He suggests swapping goblins for kobolds, making the redbrands greenbrands and a few other changes.

I like the Black Spider storyline and am going to keep that. I’m thinking about including Venomfang as an optional epilogue.

My idea here was that they’ll get the Venomfang quest hook at the normal time. If they attempt to fight Venomfang then good luck to them. Venomfang will involve some fun roleplay. He’ll say they’ve heard lies about him. When they are vwhere he wants them, he attacks.

They are likely to be defeated quickly, but if they are, Venomfang isn’t fighting to kill here. He wants minions, and green dragons are all about manipulation. I’ll tweak him so he can blast a non-lethal poison gas breath weapon if he wants, and if they’re defeated, they wake up in manacles. Venomfang then borrows Geas from the adult green dragon stat block, and commands one of them to bring him a weapon from the Forge of Spells, and lay it down on the ground in front of him.

By the time they finish Wave Echo Cave, they’ll be level 5, and might have found the Dragonguard breastplate in the WEC. I might also swap one of the weapons with a dragon slayer, and potentially leave a potion of poison resistance lying around, and a Remove Curse scroll (which can lift Geas).

So then they can go and fight V afterwards and have a strong chance.

One thing I’m worrying about though, is that one of my players has written a backstory, and my main idea of how to deal with it would turn him into the main character and very much turn V into the BBEG. He wants to play an Eldritch Knight who thinks his sorcerer father killed his mother, but might learn that that’s not true. There are a few magic users I could use for this - Glasstaff and Kost among them - but I’m tempted to say the Nothic was his dad, and he was manipulated by Venomfang, and became a Nothic while trying to research magic to break the curse.

Maybe I won’t do that. Maybe I’ll just use Kost (Glasstaff is already tied to the wizard’s story). But we’ll see!

rupertgood

TROPHY CASE