Having your players all as underdark races completely changes this campaign in a really neat way. Highly recommended if you get to run it.

Ive been DMing this campaign for over a year now. Ive been brutal to them, tracking food and water, having random encounters and leaning heavily into madness. My group just got to the surface at the halfway point, after 7 levels of XP, player death, and paranoia galore! It’s been fantastic thus far and everyone has a respect for the danger of the Underdark. We start the 2nd half in a few weeks after taking a break so I can play LMoP with the fellas.

@ExoSquadOffical

2 жыл бұрын

If you ever run it again let me know!

The drow pursuit is an important part of the adventure. You feel terrified rushed and it does feel unfair but in a realy fun way. This adventure is Great for players that are used to relying on equipment because it changes their point of view and playstyle a lot.

I don't know if you ever ended up running this adventure. I did a few years back and it was a great time. I did mention the premise of the underdark but don't remember if I did or didn't tell them they would lose their equipment. One of my sillier players was rolling a nature paladin and asked if he could start with a talking horse. I was about to refuse that request when the spirit of "yes and" took over, so I let him have his talking horse, only to have it killed off in his character's introductory scene when he's kidnapped by the drow. There was no way I was going to allow a talking horse to actually play in this spooky underdark adventure, it would kill the mood, but a dead talking horse was a relevant plot point that even came up again later. The same player befriended and freed one of the cave bears in the dungeon under Gracklstugh, which he made into his paladin mount and named after his dead horse. My group lucked out with their early rolls and also played their escape sequence pretty compassionately, and managed to get the entire roster of prisoners out with then alive. Having such a huge entourage presented a problem even if I did want to assign each player an NPC to control, so I gave them the choice of either the NPCs participate in combat and get an equal share of the exp each, or they fade into the background for (most) combat encounters (In some had them on the board as they represented objectives to be defended). They of course chose to keep their exp. Buppido made for a nice recurring minor villian, after betraying the party and dying in gracklstugh he made a brief reappearance during the maze engine encounter. Stool made for a nice mascot / emotional center for the party for a while. Topsy and Turvy's tragedy landed just as expected. Jimjar was probably the party's best friend, and I took the optional advice on page 217 and made him show up right before the final encounter as an avatar of a diety. The book has some suggestions but I went with the 2e goddess Tyche, who having lost most of her power after being split into Tymora and Beshabba, is finally ready to rebuild. She revealed her true form after the PCs triumphed, and they become her first new worshippers. The first time I managed to convince any of my players to give even half a shit about their character's religions. I do think the adventure (as written) is much better in the first half than in the second half. The motivation of trying to escape in a hostile environment like the underdark at low levels, having to depend on the motley and unreliable locals that escaped with them, that's all really strong stuff. The motivations for wanting to go back in? Brennor Battlehammer from the books none of my party has read promised them lands? The objective to find the info-dump library? Not nearly as good, and I felt like I had to make sweeping changes to those parts. The best part in the second half (in my opinion) came from an small section in chapter 10 allowing the players to contstruct an outpost. I took that and ran with it and put them in charge of a proper fortress settlement, complete with visiting NPCs and merchants of all sorts for them to spend coin on. A few of my players got really into it, and I had a lot of fun presenting them all sorts of options for their new base. I found the random encounters pretty tideous and switched to just picking the ones I wanted out of the table, or inventing a few new ones. The best of them are the small minidungeons featured in chapter 2. The random encounters in the second half are especially uninspiring, and I mostly stopped running them entirely toward the end. The book seems to expect the party to have quite a few of them, however. It apperantly expects the party to be level 15 for the final encounter, while my group were level 12. They still prevailed with no problem, though. If you're running for an experienced or savvy group, I would definitely consider turning up the encounter difficulty for the last fight if not across the board throughout the adventure. I often had to do things like give Jubalix a hundred extra hitpoints mid-fight so the party didn't destroy him completely in 3 turns, that kind of a thing. For a while I planned to run a sequel, adapting the 3e Neverwinter Nights module "Hordes of the Underdark" for the job and connecting Menzoberranzan's troubles in Out of the Abyss directly with the drow political situation at the start of HotU. I still might do that one of these days. Sorry for rambling. Once I started writing this comment I was just flooded with all the positive memories of this campaign. If you haven't run it yet I really suggest you do. it's really very very good, especially if you're willing to put in the elbow grease to polish the parts that need polish.

Currently running this campaign for my players. Thanks for the video!

@MorrisJoshua26

5 жыл бұрын

Same!

@ExoSquadOffical

2 жыл бұрын

Can I join

I took my party through Curse of Strahd to level 10 then started out of the Abyss in the second act so I have not gotten to run the jailbreak/survival aspect of the module. It sounds like so much fun to me!

There are a 3 book series by R.A. Salvatore called Homecoming that give a lot of details about the background of this campaign.

@Jorphdan

5 жыл бұрын

Yes if you're into the novels these are a lot of fun and shed some extra light on the adventure :D

@boaboy8052

5 жыл бұрын

@@Jorphdan Long live Drizzt

Elven Tower has a great guide for this campaign that can help DM's navigate and alleviate some of the sandbox and everything going. I'm using it in mine and find it a very helpful.

Me and my group have 2 other campaigns that we are running and the group wanted me to try dming so this my first campaign in the making and I wanted it more hard and dark themed thank for the tips!!!

Out of the Abyss is one of my favorite HC other than Tomb of annihilation and Dragon Heist and Dungeon of the Mage. These are my favorite hard cover adventures🕷🕸🐍🐉🧙🏽‍♂️🧙🏽‍♀️💯

These videos are great. It's awesome to get a concise overview of a module and find out what it has to offer. When my Homebrew game wraps up these will definitely come in handy.

Great video! I've run pieces of OotA, but not the adventure as written. I placed my (much smaller) version of the Underdark in Barovia with one entrance in Berez guarded by Baba Lysaga, and another entrance under Lake Zarovich, which led to The Darklake near Gracklstugh. I placed the Sunsword in the Lost Tomb of Khaem so they would have to go to the Underdark to retrieve it, and ran the Silken Path encounter, followed by Escaped Slaves (starving villagers from Vallaki who had escaped from Gracklstugh... the characters paid the two Silken Path goblins to escort the villagers back across the webs) and then The Lost Tomb of Khaem. They were then accosted by the Drow of Velkynvelve upon exiting the tomb and two of the PCs were captured, so the other two PCs rescued them and were chased towards Darklake and Gracklstugh. We spent a couple sessions there and they ended up escaping the Underdark by helping Themberchaud (which I changed to an enslaved female Ancient Brass Dragon who was once the mate of the Silver Dragon Argynvost) break her magical bonds. So LOTS of mixing of the two campaigns, but the Drow, Duergar, and Derro were a nice change of pace in Barovia.

Jorphdan, thank you so much for your videos. I have really enjoyed them. I know you are holding back on the lore for Waterdeep DH /Mad Mage, but as I'm really enjoying these series I would love to see at least some background on these, as well as Saltmarsh or some of the other adventures. There are some conversions that are really popular with 5e, such as Barrier Peaks, or Cult of the Reptile God, etc... lore is lore, even if it's in Greyhawk! thanks so much!

So I have run out of the abyss, and the villain that was chosen was Grazzt. Who honestly lasted through this campaign and into another home brew campaign which was honestly challenging for the party but they succeeded in defeating him by sealing this demon “king “into shadow. It was quite a long campaign but loads of fun for both me and my party!

Checking this out because I am running some friends thru the Doomed Sword Coast (WHAT AN INCREDIBLE MESS!) and I had not read this adventure. Thanks for your information!

These videos are far and away the best. condensed. concise. cliff's notes--Jorphdan's notes. So easy to watch too!

@Jorphdan

5 жыл бұрын

Woo hoo! Glad you like them :D

I'm running this campaign now and I love it so far. Love the video.

I really wish i saw this 2 years ago...My first DM game I bought the book and we started playing and honestly I had the hardest time with that book. I kept playing because i loved everything but it was really hard as a noob DM. Great video !

Thanks for your overview. Very helpful. I'm planning on running this module in the fall with some optional gritty rules as well.

Thanks for the video! This is perfect timing as my boyfriend just bought me the campaign guide yesterday.

@Jorphdan

5 жыл бұрын

What a great boyfriend :)

this is awesome! iv been needing something like this to help with my campaign

What I wanna know is how the fact that all the demon lords and tons of other demons were in one place squares with the planar incursion lore introduced in Mordenkainen's.

I loved the second camera

@Jorphdan

5 жыл бұрын

Thanks :D

0:08 "what are you doing stepbro?"

I just finished up my game recently! So the advice I would give, is relying on the npcs to also help draw up interest in exploring the other territories of the underdark, because you need to be as strong as possible for the end game. Honestly I would even recomend coming up with some adventures for the party to do on the surface, because when you return to the under dark after escaping, it throws you right back in! The book recommends you should be level 8 by the time you escape, and if you went straight back in, there is two potential beholders you can run into as soon as you return to the underdark. So yeah, make sure to grind for that EXP lol

This sounds like a very interesting adventure!

We ran this in our overarching Faerun campaign alongside curse of Strahd and an unfinished Elemental Evil. Don't worry, a resurrected Fire Genasi that ate Immex's soul and turned evil did our work for us ;) Our first encounter was during a winter festival (defeating the fire cult brought snow back to Waterdeep) and we went underground to investigate why drown were breaking the surface in large numbers. Cue Demogorgon! And my character's younger brother revealing himself to be Vecna's thrall! (there was a time skip from after Curse of Strahd and he was already an evil lawyer, long story) So we, at around level 12, venture down into the underdark to discover what's going on underneath Faerun... We turned the entire campaign arc into DOOM. Like, we curbstomped the Demogorgon. Hard. Ol' Hyena-face was blown up by a portal (they all guarded one that was projected by crystals that exploded with the force of a broken staff of power EACH when shattered) along with his minions turning into a giant ball of flesh our Death Cleric animated into two zombie, golems? Constructs? Homonculi? Something. The big Ooze boy was the hardest fight purely due to our DM porting Arcane slimes into 5e for Jubilex to spit out at us (had to use the flesh... monsters to kill them since we were decked out). Getting to Orcus we ran into a magical maze we had very little chance of getting through. Then our death cleric raised a Minotaur skeleton from a living one we fought and it took us the way out lol. Orcus had an entire army of undead in front of us. A venerable sea of rotting flesh. Then our cleric cast Forbiddence from a mile away and wiped half of it out in a round before Orcus' liches could dispel it. Then we had two characters launch Dawn on the battlefield and turned the place into a HOLY blender! Then because he thought he was moving away for a year we ended it with each player taking control of a Demon lord in a death match at Menzoberanza! Which had a portal. After a number of rounds and the night drawing to a close, one of the players said "fuckit" and had their demon blow up the portal, along with the city. The Half-Drow Death cleric was oh so very happy. After our DM got burned by his potential gig and stayed, that death cleric built the first cathedral of Myrkul out of half the under dark. Complete with a reanimated kraken in the underground sea moat. Then there's the hoopla with the elemental evil turning an old character into his avatar and things go off the rails. That accidental trip to the plane of fire was something. Our invention wizard (homebrew before artificer) was the only one left on the material plane and struck a deal with Silverhand to bring us back in exchange for our loyalty to Waterdeep. Along with a weapons deal with the same wizard who had just invented guns. Made a plane-hopping airship too! It was cool using it when revisiting Barovia that was actually an illusion by Vecna. That campaign was basically just a secret Planescape campaign to be perfectly honest. Ended with us going to the 666th layer of the abyss to fight our former party member-turned-Avatar. That was wild.

*out of the abyss spoilers* I’ve run this campaign and it has been so much fun, my players are nearing the end of it and are at level 13. As Lolth is behind the demon incursion, they are going to be playing through a level 15-20 home brew where they travel though the abyss which the majority of it has become Lolths domain. Very excited!

@gregoryefs9898

4 жыл бұрын

Why not go full Baldur?

The best intro ever

Great video! Please do storm kings thunder next

Great intro! Great video! :)

Jorphdan, for your Drow problem how about replacing them with Ghouls or Dark Folk. Dark Folk would probably be the easiest to insert but it's interesting to think of a Ghoul civ in the underdark.

@FabienMariauxdeSerres

5 жыл бұрын

Or Duergars

@CatholicDragoon

5 жыл бұрын

Fabien de Serres they are fitting but I thought of avoiding them because there'll already present in the existing campaign. it's just a little more work to use them. p.s. Mindflayers also be a fun option.

@FabienMariauxdeSerres

5 жыл бұрын

@@CatholicDragoon I'm planning to run OotA in a few months, and I'm already stocking up on Dark Elves and Duergar minis... and I already painted some Mindflayers just in case ;) As much as I like the Drow, I've always had a weakness for the cursed nature of the Duergar. I like the idea of greedy dwarves who dug too deep and basically doomed themselves.

I think it would be cool if you also tried to go over older adventure module after covering all of the e5 campaigns

Thanks for the video! Nice summary. I am playing Ad&d 2nd Ed. and my players are 2 Drows and 1 Kuo-Toa. I am running OOTA a bit differently, cause I have underdark players. They started in surviving the tunnels and are now in Sloopbludop, which I enhanced. So I drew a map of the kuo-toa community, including shops, slaves, fighting-pits. It‘s really interesting, cause the kuo-toa sleep while moving and there‘s always tension and madness among them. Anyhow, I will not destroy Sloopbludop but thanks for portraiting the demons - helps a lot!

@Jorphdan

5 жыл бұрын

Woohoo!

To this date, I've been running "Out of the Abyss" for two years and half .... It is hands down the best published adventure of 5e (for my taste), and one of the best adventures ever published for D&D due to the grayness ofthe morality of many npc, the survival theme, the madness mechanics, and some very tough encounters (next week my players will face Karazikar and it can be easily a TPK). I also added some homebrew rules to make madness not so easily removed (any healing spell that does not cure HP needs an ability contest against a DC to have effect because the presence of the Demon Lords warps chaotically the fabric of the Weave too, and makes some spells, "the good ones", more difficult to work). The big problem I found with the adventure is the sheer quantity of random encounters you have to use to make players level up and keep pace with the adventure. I had to buff up some encounters to run less encounters per day, but even so it was not enough to level up the characters, and thus I started to use the milestone method. I really prefer the roleplaying part, and since I started to use it, I found that my players where roleplaying much more. This is the only issue that I found in the adventure (and that they did not put a map of Karazikar's lair!!!! :( ). Thanks for your channel and the amazing work you do: it is invaluable to me!!!!!

Thank you Jorphdan! I'm actually running a out of the abyss game currently.

@Jorphdan

5 жыл бұрын

That's awesome :D

6:43 OVER 9000?!?

@Largo01

5 жыл бұрын

There's no way that could right! ... Could it?

Id be all for a video by video guide for running these adventures!

I've been running this module since it came out and something important to know as a DM is that the adventure is broken into two halves. Jorphdan does a great job describing the first half of the adventure here. The second half (minor spoilers ahead) of the adventure has the survivors, who are now respected level 8+ adventurers, asked by the powerful organizations and leaders of the surface world to head an expedition back into the Underdark to stop the Demon Lords. As a DM keep track and be thinking about what your players are doing in the first half and what consequences of those decisions would be. The players will get to see how the lives they've touched have gotten on since meeting the characters. Who the players helped and those they hindered are going to drastically change what the players find once they return several months later.

@ipotatoe_28

4 жыл бұрын

My players stopped in Gracklestugh to buy weapons and slew the two headed giant in the marketplace, but got out of town fairly quickly. They were trying to save Blingdenstone, and just didn't want to deal with the duergar and their problems. So I'm keeping that in mind as we start the second half.

Tried to run this a while back, didn't get very far because of lack of interest on the players part and lack of DM experience on my part, but I just might attempt it again thanks to this video.

@Jorphdan

2 жыл бұрын

Good luck! Latch onto what the players might find interesting you'll be surprised where the game can go.

I ran this campaign two years ago but with the lack of demons given at the time I home brewed a whole slew of my favorite demons and Demon Lord's for the party to face. At one point when they were in gracklstugh they got into a heavy fight with some of the duergar and had to steal a ship and escape where upon they were attacked by a myrmyxicus (my absolute favorite demon and one I home brewed) needless to say I over estimated the intelligence of my party ( they had a clear exit I had all but told them about, a grey gnome they had met and asked to join them had a particular item of power in their possession that the demon was seeking) and nearly tpkd them into Oblivion but luckily they were able to escape with only one character death. Sadly one of my players committed suicide and the rest of the players didn't have the heart to continue the game in his memory. I have now made it head cannon for my world that he went on to personally slay one of the Demon Lords in an epic battle in which he valiantly lost his life. When I get my current party finished with Lost Mines I plan on having them run OOTA with this cannon.

"We're all out of the Abyss today. Check back next Tuesday."

@Jorphdan

5 жыл бұрын

Ha 😂

Love your videos . Can you do a video on decent into avernus? I would love to run this adventure.m because I can’t find a group playing it. Any recommendations for campaign for a new DM?

I start running this campaign tomorrow! It's going to be my first time dming so it's a bit daunting but should be fun

@Jorphdan

3 жыл бұрын

Best of luck!

@kianisaac215

3 жыл бұрын

@@Jorphdan haha thanks! Had a blast playing yesterday, it was a bit of a mess but we had fun and played for 6 hours😂

Hi, currently I'm DMing Out of the Abyss. It is a little... Strange due to my group playing in a setting which is not the Forgotten Realms so we have a couple of adaptation issues. Well, into my opinions about the adventure: It is great. I am also DMing Tomb of Annihilation so I can't resist myself to compare both of them. OotA has enough Sandbox and Railroading to feel alive. When ToA has a "C'mon, explore the whole jungle. You will reach the plot... Eventually... I guess?", OotA has "Well, after running from the prison we can go this way and then there". You can play it as written and, except Gracklstugh, it feels great due to its story. My players did this (Spoilers): After leaving Velkynvelve, they went to Sloopblupdopp. After the events there (appearance of Demogorgon), they debated and decided to head for Gracklstugh. The City of Blades feels like a filler chapter. I mean, it doesn't aport much lore-wise and the only motive the players have to do things is that the Duergar (aka you, DM) won't let them leave because of some reason. We improved the Whorlstone Tunnels due to a coupoe interactions with the NPCs: The half-elf Bard fell in love with Sarith. When he left dhe realized the love she was feeling. I played Buppido as a silent one so when they discovered he was a maniac who kidnapped a NPC (a crazy drow they encountered before) and sacrified him to himself, they were trully surprised. I upgraded Buppido into being a Derro Savant (at least for that battle). After that, there was a nice RP session with the Bard and the crazy drow's corpse (Speak with Dead). Moving onto Neverlight Gorve they found Glabbagool. My players loved the non-standard races, so they loved both the Myconids and the Ooze. They loved the Grove: the music, the myconids and reencountering Sarith. As written, Sarith doesn't appear again after disappearing in the Tunnels, but because of the Bard loving him and he having a role in the Boss Battle... Welp, I decided for him to appear once again. Onto the boss, they felt a little overwhelmed by Yestabrod. Do not fear into launching 1 or both Chuul Spore Servants into it. After that, there was another RP session with Sarith's corpse. They left the Grove after seeing the fake wedding, didn't bother into going onto Yggmorgus. Blingdenstone. It is a bit... strange for a city being like this, but the theme for this chapter is to feel like everything you have done until now has consequences. You have to keep track of the bonus you will be handing them in the Battle for Blingdenstone. Cleaning Rockblight gift them with a nice way onto the Pudding Court. Everything else was just as written. I didn't want them to go back, so I said that Sovereing Basidia's colony followed them into Blingdenstone (their idea) for the Grove bonus and Hemeth (Kuo-Toa Chapter) reached the city with the weapons they needed. Right now they are going to leave for the surface. They are level 6 and I want to do a couple adventures to fuse their backgrounds to the main story (and leave them in level 8 for the second part of OotA) I recommend reading a guide that Elven Tower has in their site.

I had a TPK for the group I DMd. They got spored by bad Myconids (trying to avoid specific spoilers) and got infected. I rolled their con saves in secret as to not tip them off, though I did ask what their bonuses were. At one point the thief asks "you think maybe we got infected back there? Naw we're probably fine" and they all failed their saves and became zombies. I really did try to help them without straight up telling them they were gonna "die". I had them meet a lost paladin, they did a favor for a Hag, they ran into spore zombies who ignored them ect ect. And nope, we're fine. Then blip.

I know this came out a year ago but you’re a handsome lad JORPHDAN

@Jorphdan

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks!

I like this I'm buying it, the best games start slow and end up fast like a rollercoaster

May I ask what's with the "Woooooo" on the snadbox adventure thing?

After reading the War of the Spider Queen I really got inspired to dm this. I love adventures in Athas / Dark Sun World, so Underdark have that feelling of a harsh and cruel place. My next campaign will be this. I would be nice if you'd had spoken if how many sessions take to finish? the encounters are to hard or to easy? any class will work? can be finished in fewer sessions? you think treasure of magic itens are ok? you think new magic itens in the loot will ruin the balance? and there is something in the campaign that need to change/fix? like a useless encounter or npcs or the need of a plot twist or even a place that is only a filler in the story? sorry for that wall of text, thx! love you reviews!

@Jorphdan

5 жыл бұрын

I don't have a ton of that information because well I haven't run it! But here's a link with more information that might give you the answers you're looking for. Happy Gaming! thecampaign20xx.blogspot.com/2015/12/rage-of-demons-guide-to-out-of-abyss.html

If you have read the novels, or even have access to Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, I would suggest using Jarlaxle earlier as an NPC. I used him by communicating with the party's drow character while they were in Waterdeep, and ran a couple of information gathering/sleuth missions where they eventually had dinner on his boat. The party then learned that Jarlaxle has heard about terrible things happening in the Underdark through Bregan D'earthe agents, and that HE knew the party knew about this as well. So they traveled north to Gauntylgrym, where Jarlaxle had a friend who perhaps could help them start the second half of OotA (the friend being Bruenor Battlehammer). It was better than leaving Jarlaxle until the end, and it gave the party a reason to leave the sun behind once more and do their duty. This campaign, being a sandbox as it is, invites a lot of creativity from players as well as DMs. Use the module as a guide, but add/tweak the stuff that matters to your party. There isn't a wrong way to play it. Unless it's above ground with zero demons... then you've lost track of the adventure. Haha

Also we are mid campaign with this and it's pretty great, only eldeth has survived in our party so far, topsy and turvy ran away almost immediately and we are the resident hero's of Blingdenstone. We might be taking a break from the underdark and going to the surface for some R&R soon because a lot of heavy stuff happened. Our jailer from the beginning of the campaign kidnapped to former players that were off doing other things in the underdark and held the for random. We show up and put bard dimension doors directly next to her, we get into a large fight, one of the former party members sacrifices herself to take out Elvara and we find out that she had killed the other party member long before we had showed up. It was a heavy session.

@Jorphdan

5 жыл бұрын

Epic! :D

@Laihoistheman

5 жыл бұрын

@@Jorphdan the one fun thing about our campaign is when the two players left, we replaced them with one new player (6 was a bit too many) and she made a sverfneblin forge cleric, so we started this campaign off as complete fish out of water, and have integrated ourselves into the politics of the underdark. And when we leave our cleric is going to have the same experience on the surface, she had never left lol

Good vid, im actually using a slightly altered version of OOTA as my “act 2” of my campaign, theyll never see it coming

@Jorphdan

5 жыл бұрын

Nice!

9:07 I feel like Jordan is going to do the lost mines of phandelvar next

@Jorphdan

5 жыл бұрын

Boom! kzread.info/dash/bejne/f4BpxMmPpLq6dso.html

Leaving Velkynvelve with so many NPCs was kind of a drag. If I were to run this module again, I'd run the NPCs like the jungle guides in Tomb of Annihilation - each NPC wants to go to a different region or has a different goal they want to pursue. This allows DMs to plan out and place their random encounters/mini-dungeons in the Underdark.

I want to play this campaign adventure so badly as a half orc cleric.

I'm so torn about this adventure on the one hand, it's cool, scaveging-like, fight for survival, reward of clever stuff etc on the other hand I wanna play it first before I run it, but I can't find people for it

This module sounds like my cup of tea for a grim, harsh style game.

I wanna play this with you man.

We are running this now. You forgot to talk about pursuit level ;)

@Jorphdan

5 жыл бұрын

doh!

If you already used drow, maybe connect the campaigns. The party was captured and enslaved as revenge. If they ended the prior campaign too overlevelled, you could adjust the monsters or say their lomg captivity has weakened them and level them down by 2. Then milestone level them as they succeed at getting food and rest and fight off the madness. They regain their strength and recall their skills. Then carry on as normal.

Nice intro!

I've had this book since it first came out and I'm finally running it tomorrow. Have you gotten to run it yet now that it's been over two years since this video?

@Jorphdan

2 жыл бұрын

Nope, I never did get to run it. Still on my wish list.

Finally some commentary heard from Jorphdan's house mates.

do stormkings thundet next!

@Jorphdan

5 жыл бұрын

Curse of Strahd is next! Then Storm Kings :D

@Sonim470

5 жыл бұрын

Jorphdan can’t wait :)

SPOILERS AHEAD! Apologies for the length of these suggestions but I do think that I have a few good ideas adjacent to the tangents found further in. I'm about to start OotA and as someone who has had a few wacks at it with other parties but pittered out, here are my thoughts for those who'd like to have them: -Optional rules are your friend! Giving your players the action options in the DMG will extremely help how they approach their encounters and with the number of random encounters they may run in to it will really help alleviate the monotony of possible fight after fight after fight. -Sanity is an optional ability score and I think that would be helpful to have. You no longer need guess what kind of save to ask for when a madness arises and my players seemed to appreciate having another score that they can assign. -On the Survival aspect of this game, carry weight and encumbrance can help this feel more present, your players having to cut their losses where they have to and really decide what will be the tools of their success. I personally made a table so that I know what encumbrance level comes with each str score and have provided my players with these so that they can help keep on top of this. This also means being cognitive of the weight of the items you give the party so that they can easily write those down or a party who are readily on board to look up the weights of the items they receive/craft. On that note, backpacks and pouches are another thing, just because a character CAN lift a certain amount doesn't mean they have the means to transport them. I wouldn't keep track of volume of an item but just making sure they have the prerequisite of a backpack to carry large amounts of miscellaneous items or gold (btw, 50gp is 1 lb) lb) -the optional rules of injuries and massive damage/system shock will heighten the horror aspects of this adventure, making the choice of running or not more important. Most monsters and demons will be satisfied by going so far as killing a single PC or NPC so you often shouldn't worry about a tpk from a random encounter but then again, beings like yeenoghu and juiblix might not be content with single kill or snack. Until you are comfortable with your party's capabilities, do not box them in, attempt to hit them from attacks from the front and behind from massively strong enemies without providing a means to flee which segways me into my next point -roll random encounters before the session! Putting thought into the encounters (random or otherwise) will greatly help the flow of the game so that you needn't stop to build and encounter in front of the players. This also includes maps, have a number of cave maps prepped so that not every fight takes place in a hall of varying width. Looking at the terrain encounters and dungeon hazards lists will help you do this along with some creative thinking. Don't be afraid to put in creatures higher than the party's level, the monsters needn't be hunting to tpk the party and very well might be entirely unaware or uninterested in the party (maybe feasting on a different kill). For most encounters, have a built in idea of how the party might flee, scare off, or otherwise circumvent a fight. To assist with the range of encounters that is suppose to cover between 60 and 100+ days for the first half of the adventure, I personally am going to eventually attempt to create what I will turn in to a d100 (or bigger) table of random encounters but for me will be a list of inspiration to use in crafting encounters. Reminder that not every encounter needs to be a hostile creature encounter. The inspiration the writers took for this adventure was Alice in Wonderland meaning that they intend for plenty of quirky characters and situations to be present throughout the game. Also look at Volo and Monenkainen demons to spice things up. -Really encourage your players to rp. Grant rewards for them bringing up the parts they might not enjoy about how this adventure changed their characters and sticking truthful to it! -starting in either sloobludop or blingdenstone I plan to implement Matthew Colville's warfare rules to assist with the possible big fights that can be had at various stages of the adventure and for the factions in Gauntlgrym to provide units in this form rather than what can be found on printouts from that chapter (or rather units that can be broken down into what's there). -on Orcus and Graz'zt (and this is now just an adventure suggestion, not so much as aid on how to run the game anymore): orcus is unfortunately not written in with a specific task on him and neither is Graz'zt. For Vizeran's ritual I am going to include "cerebral tissue from an ilithid's elder mind" and have a number of alhoons, devourers, and maybe a nightwalker hanging out in Cyrog's area. For Graz'zt, if the players let it slip that they are from the surface while in gravenhallow then Graz'zt will leave the underdark and thus also be outside of the range of Vizeran's spell. I picture him becoming the most organized of the demon lords (why else did he seek out gravenhallow?). This could force surface settlements to call upon devils who would be seeking any reason to "aid" the mortals in their fight against the demons and make for a little slip of the blood war onto the material plane that the party needs to patch up before the game ends. I'm pretty sure that this is close to what the intended true ending to OotA was before they decided to cap it at level 15

If one wanted to skip the escaped prisoner part and pick up at the return section as a team of adventurers sent to deal with the demon situation, how hard is it to run the adventure that way?

@Jorphdan

5 жыл бұрын

I don't think very hard. Instead of the PCs seeing first hand the issues with the Demons they can get a summary in Gauntlgrym. You'll make them a higher level according to what the Adventure suggests and just run that. I recently read how to turn Curse of Strahd into a one-shot (like 5 hours long). With some effort you could do something similar with Out of the Abyss.

I am running the campaign right now. They are almost to the end. However this is my first time DMing ever. I would not recommend using this module as your first experience for DMing. There is a lot of filling in the travel time and unpredictable paths the characters can take and might be a little overwhelming as a first time DM. The multitude of NPCs to start was definitely a bit overwhelming, especially when my players were not going to be running any of them. I had a small group and the players were already running two characters each.

Cool :)

Does this or similar campaign module exist for Neverwinter nights?

@Jorphdan

5 жыл бұрын

I'm not sure, I know Sword Coast Legends briefly dealt with this adventure scenario.

Cool

0:13 Hear the cat scream!

@Jorphdan

5 жыл бұрын

Felix my cat! He's got great timing :D

Which one should I chose after lost mine of Phandelver?

@Jorphdan

3 жыл бұрын

out of the abyss is great, Storm King's Thunder is also a good one

@compan313

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks:)

I was hoping this was set in the actual Abyss.

I guarantee that some one when playing this adventure said “ if it’s the demogorgan where so skewed”

The best kind of madness....is Macho madness yiieaaa...slim jim !!! ;)

@ronniejdio9411

4 жыл бұрын

OH YEAAAA

All the NPC's from the prison died in like a day for me, a PC died going mad and trying to fight the demogorgan, and I'm about to hit them with a Shark attack on the Dark Lake. It's a great adventure for the dm ;)

Seems curious to me that The Abyss and Drow are involved as the former is associated with Chaos and the latter with Law. Thoughts?

@utopia2112

3 жыл бұрын

@@skankhunt4588 you are right, I was confused. I envisioned Drow as more neutral-to-lawful because I have a hard time conceiving of chaos-based societies.

If anyone needs some help in prepping or looking for ideas about running this module, I'm currently doing a video series about running Out of the Abyss. You can find the playlist here: kzread.info/head/PL2sTxoNRj-LX5qHBvZNJmmOgV939huagN

Is it just me or does the intro kind of sound like Rick Sanchez? "I'm Pickle Riiiiiick!"

Have you created more lore campaigns with explanations?

@Jorphdan

7 ай бұрын

Yep here's a playlist! Not all the adventures but a few more! kzread.info/head/PLJqE7QBvDyc_-QN1l6hH6mRk8jdbkh6dG

I'm surprised you talked about Graz'zt so much, since he's barely involved at all in the adventure's plot. He only gets two mentions aside from his stat block - one of his minions can appear in the Gracklstugh chapter, and he can show up as a random cameo in the Gravenhollow chapter.

@Darth_Insidious

3 жыл бұрын

Well its a similar deal with Orcus but you could build a cool side plot out of that one.

@JanusHoW

3 жыл бұрын

@@Darth_Insidious Actually, Orcus has a slightly more prominent role - if you decide to go with a (weakened) Demogorgon as the final boss as the campaign sort of intends, players can have the opportunity to wield the Wand of Orcus after its owner gets "killed" by Demogorgon. Since the various demon lords absolutely hate each other, the Wand would much rather be wielded by mortals than sit and gather dust as a trophy for Demogorgon...so much that it instantly attunes to the person who picks it up, and might even forego its usual "try to survive this influx of negative energy" BS it does whenever someone other than Orcus tries to attune to it. In fact, dealing with the Wand would make a great continuation of the campaign.

If you're playing this for your characters, what do you think about letting players choose their madness rather than having it be determined randomly?

I'm a nut for oota theories, the module is kind of a hot mess. Thank you candlekeep forums..

revealing so much of boi grazz and glossing over what it is he actually does in his layer of the abyss to keep it pg lol.

I love the idea of the adventure, just not the books lack of a index and structure.

can we get a lore video on artificers?

@Jorphdan

5 жыл бұрын

hmm Maybe, we'll see if they announce any publication date for Artificers and then maybe I'll time a video with it's release.

@Scortch-lo3xy

5 жыл бұрын

@@Jorphdan k

Upfront ahead

So...I'm a bit of a poser since I haven't ever actually PLAYED any D&D later than 3rd edition, but I just finished reading this book (and am reading the adventures in the order they were published). It seems that the hardcover adventures (with the exception of the first printings of the Tyranny of Dragons/Rise of Tiamat) are more like campaigns, taking characters from beginners to badass heroes between 2 covers; the chapters of this one are more like the modules of my (relative) youth.

I ran this campaign twice i love it but its very very heavy prep. Tips: 1. Use milestones. It avoids deaths, hack and slash. Will keep players engage to the story and leveling up. 2. Read the book TWICE, you will jump around chapters and it wont make sense if you didnt understand the whole book. 3. Do not play room by room you will never finish, sumarize and play key points and take out many irrelevant story scenarios. 4. Since the book jumps around EXPLAIN questions quickly to your players. Do not hold back on info otherwise makes it more confusing for them. For example, after some sessions some players thought they were in the abyss... No - you are underneath the earth and portals opened from the abyss, your job is to send them back. I say this because as an example because its easy to get lost and confused 5. When you explain MAKE IT BRIEF, DO NOT OVER EXPLAIN simple is better. For example is Vizeran Devir good or evil? Answer you dont know hes an ally for now. Notice is clear but leaves doubt to continue that pressure of what might happen and its ok as DM to be this blunt in this story. 6. Understand factions, give them meaning and the why, LINK IT TO YOUR PLAYERS PCS to make it more personal. I can keep going lololol

I read through this once, and apparently Graz'zt, if you run the campaign as is, is only used tangentially. (SPOILERS) One of his minions shows up in the Gracklstugh arc, and then he shows up as a quasi-real image in the Gravenhollow arc. If you actually want to fight him, you have to do the Adventurer's League stuff. According to that, he actually KNEW this was going to happen centuries in advance and prepared so that when the ritual would send all the demons back, he'd stick around so he could take over Toril.

My dice were very partial to my players :(

I really don't care for random encounters, is it fine to run this without them?

this sounds like a fun game to run/play but saddly my group would not want to play this at all they would just quit after id say you have no items are prisoners and are level 1.

“Snerfneeblin” is gunna be my new permanent pronunciation for the Deep Gnomes.

@Jorphdan

5 жыл бұрын

oh no! XD

“I can’t hear you, it’s too dark in here!” Smh

It has never made any sense t me why the drow houses would all train their clergy, fighters and spellcasters together given how treacherous they all are.

What camera do you use?

@Jorphdan

5 жыл бұрын

I use a Canon Rebel t6i for the main view with a 10-18mm lens: amzn.to/2Yyx1Gh And I used a Google Pixel for the second camera :)

Did you add the second camera just to prove you wear pants

@Jorphdan

5 жыл бұрын

The public must know!!