This adventure is just built different compared to all the official 5e content. You can tell it's a passion project rather than "just another book to sell"
Woo! Thank you for the shout-out, Taron! Great breakdown of the campaign, definitely a gem on the DMs Guild. I mean, I'm running it, which is the highest praise I can give. 😆
This is a great campaign idea, but execution is challenging for the DM. I used a lot of old WotC and 3rd party resources to flesh out the major cities of the Sword Coast in chapter 2. This chapter will feel repetitive if the DM does not give each city some unique elements and better developed subplots. Chapter 3, the most sandboxy chapter, provides lots of ideas but not much detail. DMs will feel like they are buidling sets and casting NPCs only to tear it all down next session. The idea to bring in other short nautical adventures is a good one. I took Jeff Stevens Blibdoolpoolp Rising, raised the challenge rating a bit and it into the CftD. The paladin in the story was the sister of Captain Greysail. The Kuo Toa struggle to raise a new god included a faction that was being influenced by the Kraken. Honestly, I think this was the most fun subplot of our campaign.
My friend and I both wanted to run this for our group. He won the DM role, but that means he lost the ability to play in it. Really a great time. So much swashbuckling fun and high adventure.
Would have liked to see more time spent on talking about the call of the deep adventure and less time trashing D&D stuff. I’m running a sand box nautical pirate themed campaign at the moment s this adventure seems perfect for me. Seems being the key word. I would have liked more spoilers to know for sure.
So what about third party 5e content like kobold press 2c gaming or Nord games? I respect you being fully done with official content by wizards of the coast and hasbro but have you also cut yourself out of all the amazing third party people? Who unlike hasbro and wizards did not try make a closed gaming license and basically destroy one a the best parts a the hobby. Run whenever you want at your table I just ask don’t let two greedy companies ruin amazing content from other companies.
@@Indestructoboy I understand that view and actually will be expanding my gaming past 5e very very soon just don’t let the very awful actions of two groups of bad people ruin your consumer relationship with good people who respect and value there customers. Don’t burn the bridges that are built on years or trust and fun just because a bridge you thought you could trust broke on you and tried to make all the other bridges pay that bridge. But regardless yeah thanks to dungeon coach I’m soon gonna try dc20 and some other rpgs I have my eyes on also Goodluck going forward with rpgs.
I can't even remember all the times where some GM has NPCs who could easily solve the issues at hand and made the PCs feel like idiot children. In Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd edition I blame the intro quest thing where it showed off the overpowered witch hunters to show players something powerful that their PCs could aspire toward. In 5E I just blame poor writing.
I’ve been wanting to run this campaign forever. I’m definitely gonna throw it in front of them and use mind flayers as a hook since they’ve all played at least some of BG3!
I ran this for my players and it was amazing. I changed a ton of stuff but I kept the skeleton of the plot because it was totally solid. The reason I mention that is I replaced Ramazith in Ramazith’s Tower with Loroakan who resides there in Baldur’s Gate 3. This was back when BG3 was still early access so I had only heard the name and that he lived there so I was like “wait I should put him in my adventure so when they meet him in BG3 it’ll be really cool” and now my party members post BG3 release are like “hahaha Loroakan is the worst I don’t even feel bad he got kidnapped by pirate cultists for the mind flayers. Also one of my players shunted one of the four mindflayers to the shadowfell and he’s still there for me to unleash in a plot later xDD
I bought it based on your recommendation. But we just finished Ghosts of Saltmarsh and I'm DMing 2nd part of Shattered Obelisk right now, where the baddies are also illithids. So might be a little while before I run this one.
TLDR if you are going to add old PCs, either your's or the players', make sure you have them give a meaningful effect on the story and/or have them positively affect the players abilities mechanically. Don't add it unless it adds to the fun!
Questions regarding spoilers and running this. I've been eyeballing this for a while but have been put off by the number of 3 star reviews on DMs Guild describing very logical problems in Chapter 1 (something to do with Sahuagin traveling by land rather than sea and trying to work around that and then maybe leading the party to a TPK via souped up mind flayor or a hag that tries to kill the PCs but then they're just supposed to come back and give her ingredients to make a potion). Has anyone who run this had problems with the plot relying on stuff that just doesn't make sense?
