Ep 46: Deep Deep Down

Wait, what!? ALL OF SEPTEMBER!?   

Well...no Godsfall...no DMs Block...guess its time to start catching up on all the other great podcasts people have steered me toward.

As a long-time Tome Show listener, it was pretty trippy to hear three of my fav dudes on one Cast. Well done!

I didn't know anything of the deep... Now i do.

The Smurf-devilins sound cool

Yet another episode I wish I'd heard much earlier.

My (quasi organized public play) group decided they'd had enough of the published module "Out of the Abyss" a few weeks ago (after something like 18 sessions trying to find their way back to the surface) and decided to start a newer campaign. Going into OotA I was very enthusiastic as I'd heard the environment was very alien and psychedelic and that it represented a pretty significant challenge (this was my first experience with the setting as a player or DM).

In practice... the first chapter was terrific. After that, long swaths of the book (if played as written) involved drawn out periods of travel (constant survival checks) and sporadic encounters that ignored the idea of what should happen in an adventuring day (mostly trivial/low challenge combat or repetitive RP encounters).

We have players who are looking for an Adventurers League style experience drift in and out, plus I didnt have a lot of outside knowledge to work with, so I tried not to veer from the book too much... this meant we dealt with a lot of Drow/Duergar/Derro and things like Gricks/Grells/Stirges etc. Interesting creatures yes, but once you've faced them they are no longer novel or 'alien' and the book didnt offer as many other options as you would hope.

Even when the players decided to take the path that would be faster but potentially more dangerous, the worst thing I could throw at them from the tables in the book was a pair of Aquatic Trolls (Which they made short work of, knowing they probably wouldnt need to hold much back because at most they had 2 episodes of combat in a travel day).

Eventually I started using the rules in the DMG to upgrade the monsters (if not replacing them entirely). In hindsight after hearing about some of the other things dwelling in the UD in earlier editions mentioned in this episode... I really wish I'd thought to throw something like an Aboleth, Beholder or Annihilator into their path.