Death House Dungeon Encounter Disasters (Curse of Strahd DM Guide)
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- Опубликовано: 20 окт 2024
- This video discusses the death house dungeon encounter disasters that you want to avoid in the curse of strahd adventure for dungeons & dragons 5e. Dungeon master guide and advice with the level advancement for characters. Issues that players and dungeon masters will have with combat encounters and how to adjust them. These dungeon master tips are simple and easy to apply to your game. All the advice and suggestions offered are based on personal dungeon master experience, research and other dungeon master recommendations. Many aspects of the curse of strahd fall outside the boundary of the original ravenloft adventure, and the death house and it's dungeon is included. Please be aware this is just suggestions and recommendations that you can ignore or use at your discretion. This is the second video in a series of three videos that assess and adjust the death house combat encounters and encounters. Please consider check the first video Death House Encounter Advice.
Death House Website Link,
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Free D&D 5e Core Rules and Dungeon Master Guide Website Link,
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Sly Flourish Website Advice (Death House),
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Sly Flourish Website Advice (Running Curse of the Strahd),
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I'm sending in my regular party and doing COS with them ranging from fourth to the eighth level in a group of eight characters. They won't feel under-challenged and I'm less likely accidentally kill them. I can't imagine chucking ghosts and specters at a group of low-level players let alone low-level characters.
Yeah? Well I did it and regret it to this day.
@@HowtoRPG That's why it's a good thing you are doing these videos, I wish I had you as a resource when I started with 5e in the Mine of Pandelver. It was several years ago now and I trusted the module instead of my old DM's gut too much. I should have been tipped off by the spongy writing. I left in the stupid high crit monster encounters so that I had to slam on the breaks before I wiped out the party. One party member insisted on directly fighting the green dragon and literally forced me to kill him. He's no longer in the group but the rest have settled down happily and I only run the modules through the filter of my version of events and setting.
@@nokomarie1963 Thanks. I think many people assumed what you did. I know I did.
Thanks,Fred for doing this series on the Death House. I'm a new DM and I knew I needed to tweak it, but I was unsure how to proceed. Thanks to your video series, I feel better prepared. Thanks again.
You are welcome. All the best :)
Ran a party of five lvl 3 through death house. Turn all four armors animated. When the player confronted the children i had the children ask them to play a game with them and before they could respond they find themselves inside the doll house with the children hunting the down with the player goal to get to the front door each player caught by the children disappearing until their game was over. Once the game was over the children apologized and informed the players that they have been alone for so long before showing the party the entrance to the basement. Two player were possessed with the player unable to leave until the children's brother and parents are set to rest. The two ghasts were the parents and the mound was flesh with the baby at it core. After defeating the mound the families bone were put to rest and the spirits of the family inform the party of the location of the deed to the manor. As they left the manor that are confronted by strahd at which point he congratulated the party on the victory and welcomed them to barovia before leaving with a sinister laugh. (Players feind pact of the tomb warlock/ranger/circle of the moon druid/barbarian/ paladin.)
Thanks for helping fix these encounters Fred...dont know what the creators were thinking.
You are welcome Ray. I'm not finished yet. Still get to escape the house, right.
What the creators were thinking was creating a house that actually lived up to its name. The players need to feel like they're going to die. Feeling a legitimate threat sets the tone early for Curse of Strahd. It teaches the players that they can't kill everything they see and they shouldn't turn every encounter into a combat. Running away is always a viable option. Take the Shambling Mound, for example. Yes, it could TPK a level 2 team. But it's also rather slow. The creators never intended for you to beat the Mound - but to be in an intense chase scene out of the house.
@@dallinturner 👍👍👍
The thing about the shambling mound is that it is a big, dumb, slow, melee creature its very easy to cheese a win against it, by kiting( ray of frost, frighten condition), or by bottlenecking it at the 5ft wide corridor at the top of the room(its a large creature so if it squeezes through the corridor it has disadvantage on attack rolls and dex saves and attacks against it have advantage), we made short work of it and it did not even hit us once.
Yes, I think it is way less scary than the ghouls, ghasts or shadows but the DM has to make sure the players know how slow it is and exactly how fast it moves. And have it smash through rock easily to show how deadly it is.
I guess the problem is that people build around Melee and are convinced they should always use what their character is built around so some people are always going to charge in. I think the one thing I would do is have the mound drop unconscious players so they can make death saves rather than still being engulfed and dealt damage.
One of my players almost died from an animated broom in the closet on the 3rd floor. We all laughed our heads off and had a great time. But yes it is quite difficult for encounters with level one for those upper levels depending on how they roll!
Thanks for sharing your experience Bridget. That Broom seems to take no prisoners.
I always thought that the Shambling Mound was out of place. Here are all these undead, and then a plant. I used a modified Flesh Golem to be more in theme
Fair enough. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Im thinking about not only making all of your tweaks, but just as an extra level of insurance, since ill be running for all new players: a 'respawn' mechanic that plays out in the form of the house messing with them by showing them visions of their own deaths.
Sounds good. All the best with your game :)
I prepared deathhouse and ran it once as a player. Our DM doing a RAW run made it very hard, especially the ghoul, shadow, ghast encounters. Nearly TPKd at the shadows having 3 melee str based and 1 grave domain cleric having downgraded str 3 times each. Faced the shambling mound killed it (thanks to the allowed flanking) using grave domain channel divinity into smite from our paladin with very lucky rolls. Even after killing the shambling mound in the same room we has to escape the living mimic house coming to life apparently lol. To be fair he was new to DMing but I was sweating so hard since I’ll be DMing the group right after deathhouse for Curse of strahd and really wanted the party to not TPK in DH
I have a video series on Dungeon Mastering Curse of Strahd. Escaping the Death House is the next live stream video I will be making. All the best. Hope to catch you in the monthly live stream Curse of Strahd DM Q&A.
@@HowtoRPG Thank you so much :). Quite alot of info to take in for my module adventure
@@skinny0408 You are welcome. Yes there is.
Are your feelings toward these encounters negative because it's a low-level dungeon experience and can swing wildly in how it resolves? For the sake of argument, guides on running CoS (including yours, I believe) talk about how the adventure is not designed for new players due to its deadliness, so is it so bad to have tough encounters like these? I just ran Death House and didn't cut much out of it but the players did fine even with newer players. They were also a party of six, but I think they'd have been fine with even just four. I'm inclined to like how difficult the encounters of Death House are, though tweaking things is certainly good for each game group. It's probably also noteworthy that my version of the Shambling Mound at the end was clearly a fight to avoid due to the foreshadowing and the narration I gave. Their objective was to return baby Walter's remains to his crypt along with the rest of the family (including his mother), and the players received a boon for completing that optional objective. I was really happy with it.
There is nothing wrong with what you think. I like deadly encounters, and I do that for my home group alot. I don't usually spring deadly on new players to the end of an adventure around level 4. If you run the Dungeon as written no one is getting out alive.
What if we add a twist to the death house? Something like when ever players die they wake up back at the entrance to the dungeon as if from a long rest, and any progeess they made stayed unless they left the death house. Thus allowing players to chip their way through the dungeon. This might make it a bit of a crawl but it could really drive home the fact that character's souls are stuck in Barovia. Let me know what you think.
Smart solution. Check my video on dark gifts.
I’ve actually beefed my death house right up.
Your party must be very strong with experienced players?
My solution to the shambling mound was this: Replace it whith a flesh golem and remove its damage immunities. I thought this was a lot more balanced and fit the theme a lot better.
I like your stuff. Comment for the algorithm.
Thanks Dutch. Was the video helpful?
@@HowtoRPG Yes, as always
@@dutch6857 Great.
whens the final part out? Im gonna use all this
Glad to hear it. End of this month, October 2020.
@@HowtoRPG oh nooo 😂 my friends running death house next Saturday so I was going to give it to her to use. I think it's just the case everyone has to make a bunch of Dex checks to get out and then they have to do something else outside if people get stuck
I made my 6 players start at level 3 and they found the encounters of the house too easy. In my situation, I think that modifying the dungeon part might make it boring for them. But time will tell if I was right. The monsters may be too dangerous for 3-4 players at level 2 but is it ok for 6 players of level 3?
I think 6 player characters of level 3 will find the house easy. It still depends on the skill of players.
@@HowtoRPG Thank you
@@chiimotosuwa2148 You are welcome. All the best. Anything can happen in Dungeons and Dragons.
I dont agree with your conclusion. From my perspective your missing the purpose of this adventure and child proofing it too much. Ive ran this adventure many times and id like to have a discussion with you about it. The most important step I think your missing is you have to talk to your party first and let them know this is a difficult adventure by design and is purposefully and notoriusly deadly. This is a atmospheric horror setting with everything stacked against you. If this is too hard or not what you want to play then you can do something more generic. (I suggest a fun out of the box encounter)
Ive ran 3 versions of this story. The easy one where its more roleplay, I have almost every encounter start with a conversation and can be resolved through conversation. Another I run everything as is, but I tone down the Shadows and Ghouls/Ghasts combat tactics(No swarming casters). The third ive had the most success with. Hardcore mode, players start at lvl 5 and everything is upgraded in difficulty and played to full tactics. In all scenarios I give the party out of game knowledge. You have 3 days to complete this adventure, if you can find a safe place you can long rest twice and short rest 1 a day.
We can disagree. You just provide my point in your second comment.
@@HowtoRPG Im not trying to argue with you. I belive you and many other GMs are missing the point of the demiplane of dread and the mechanics of the ravenloft setting. The Death House is designed to kill unwise characters so you can roleplay the mists and their first encounter with the dark powers if/when someone dies. Death is not an escape in Ravenloft and leads players to the settings tag line. Die a Hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
@@merrickmiller1224 Exactly. The Death House is supposed to be deadly. It's not called the Warmup House.
Sounds like a pretty stiff opinion. As far as I’m concerned the DM should create a fun environment in which every player can participate. How fun looks like lies in the eyes of the party and the DM. Therefore readjusting difficulty for the table is sometimes mandatory and must be the concern of any good DM thinking abour the table. Atleast if your not only running the adventure for yourself.
never dm´d before but i know that sending a cr 5 monster on lvl 2 group is just insanely dumb
Yep.
Hello
Hi. How can I help?