I'm sure a lot of cheeky DMs will drop Tomb of Horror at the end for an end game challenge. Personally I've found that a lot of the 'game' aspect of DnD falls apart around level 15. It's all about one turn kills and incapacitating targets that makes engaging encounters hard to create.
Tomb Of Annihilation Pdf Free
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- The latest adventure for Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition, Tomb of Annihilation, offers a change of pace for previous offerings. It's a sandbox-style crawl through a jungle of dangerous creatures in search of a lost city full of treasure and traps.
WotCSo, two Sundays ago, I sat down and DMed the first session of our Tomb of Annihilation campaign. Succinctly, it went very well. Less succinctly, there were some relatively minor audio-visual quirks we need to work out, but the game itself went very smoothly and everyone seemed to have a good time.As a heads up, there will be spoilers in this post for the early parts of the campaign. If you’re planning on playing it and want it to be a total surprise of exploration, then you should probably not read this. If, however, you’re going to DM the campaign, you may find some of these insights helpful.When the campaign kicks off, the party is in the town of Baldur’s Gate (sound familiar?) and must meet with Syndra, and elf who tasks them with going to Chult.
Really, this encounter is pretty cut-and-dry as she tells them, “Yeah, go here, figure out this mystery, and I’ll give you some cool shit from my stash.” Of course, the first question out of two of my players’ mouths was, “why don’t you just give us the cool shit now to help us in our quest?” Oddly enough, WotC did not anticipate this question, even though it is super obvious. This kind of weird oversight seems to plague the ToA hardback, and takes some clever (and fun) DMing to overcome.Now, before anyone thinks that I’m being overly critical, keep in mind that I think this is a really solid campaign, and we had a lot of fun with it.Overall, the first session started a bit slow.
Indeed, it was about three hours before they even left Nyanzaru and managed to go adventuring. Until then, there was some mingling in town with various NPCs, an extensive and elaborate shopping trip, and a bit of sightseeing. Though we had heard rumors that dinosaurs would be a key aspect of the campaign, we did not realize that they were going to quite literally meet you off the teleport. I had to spend a good fifteen or twenty minutes explaining that there were dinosaurs everywhere doing various jobs as beasts of burden. Most of my players found this awesome, though one couldn’t stop his eye rolling. It is a neat bit of flavor for the region, but I would encourage DMs to make it absolutely clear that these are not a cherished animal protected from danger or kept as special pets. They are bred to work, they are skinned for leather, and they are butchered for meat.
These dinosaurs are a pivotal resource for the local populace, and it’s important to emphasize that. Don’t let your players get all Dr. Grant in Chult.Another thing the book tells you to emphasize is the rain. WotCThe book doesn’t give any guidance (hehe, get it?) on how to introduce these guides to the party, but just says to give them the associated handouts. Well, that’s no fun. So, what I did, and I think this may be the best way to do it, was to say that Jobal’s assistant arranged a little “dinner” wherein the party could meet all six of them in the same place.
Then, I handed one of the handouts to each of my players, and we went around the table reading them aloud in fun voices/accents appropriate to the pictures on the cards. It was a lot of fun, and when it was time to pick a guide, each of the players felt an attachment to the one they read, which provided some nice discussion fodder. Of course, my group chose the down-and-out same-sex interracial couple with the pet triceratops.
Yay, Millenial gaming!As a tip when exploring the jungle with your party: prepare ahead of time! If you do it at the table, each day of travel requires these rolls:. 2x d20 for rain. 1x d100 if heavy rain.
3x d20 for random encounters. 1x d100 per random encounter. 1x ability check for navigation. 1x d6 if lostAssuming the weather is beautiful, no random encounters, and true trailblazing, that’s a whopping six rolls per day.
After effects show waveform shortcut. Alt for Windows, Option for Mac, and click on the stopwatch for the property you are after.Nice and simple of course, extremely useful and a timesaver for those complicated animations. To use them, simply select the layer and press the appropriate button, that property will appear.A opens Anchor Point.P opens Position.S opens Scale.T opens Opacity.R opens Rotation.U reveals all properties with a keyframe.UU (double tap U) reveals all changed properties2.Add ExpressionThis one is another that gets a lot of use and so appears here, it is also true that it does save a lot of time in the menu system as well.
And the closest landmark to Nyanzaru is a seven day hike. That’s 42 rolls assuming nothing happens to the party. James peachHow do my players know that the Soulmonger isn’t in Port Nyanzaru?
They believe they ought to speak to every Merchant Prince, go to every temple, find any libraries, contact every faction agent, contact the local thieves’ guild and so on to find clues before just wandering randomly into the jungle to be eaten by flail snails and river dragons. But there’s only three mentions of the Soulmonger in the first chapter and no clues at all to its whereabouts. So, despite that my players each have a personal reason to research and stop the death curse, they’re just sitting there asking me for info I don’t have. The rumors don’t seem to have anything to do with it.
We had to end early on the first game after about two hours, with one random encounter that leads nowhere, because there’s just nothing to do.