best tips i found were Really, fifteen day walk just to tell someone's ex that he died is too far fetched. My players straight up thought this giant was responsible for it. The puzzle to get into the Eye of Annam isn't the most obvious. The idea being that King Hekaton might have some kind of world weather controlling device that Iymrith uses in an act of desperation. Chapter 10 My players straight up did not want to go to the Maelstrom. He asked them to find the giant relics before he took them to the eye of the all father, as an act of good faith. I didn't get a chance to use him very much but he has a lot of potential. Storm King's Thunder PDF free download Documents [PDF] Microcontrollers and Microcomputers: Principles of Software and Hardware Engineering Ebooks. Basically the players will just shout persuasion checks for 10 rounds until they convince the dwarves to leave. ", [–]moveasidered 4 points5 points6 points 3 years ago (4 children), This guide 1000 times over. Also when your players get access to the airship, you've got to keep up the rate of random encounters or else it's going to feel like they've got a teleportation device, because that thing moves QUICK. Chapter 3 is ok; you'll have experience. It attacks you." [–]Wolfen_FenrisonWarlock[S] 1 point2 points3 points 3 years ago (0 children). Their choices made sense but derailed the action at times. They have extremely low action-economy, but they hit like a truck and can EASILY kill players below level 6. Give Iymrith some empowerment. There's no "reason" for the Ordning to break. If your players get access to Winged Boots, it will break a good number of the planned encounters. Creatures in the area must make a DC 17 Constitution saving throw. You can pick anywhere that seems interesting to you. And make sure you have the giants talking and threatening the players. It felt really presumptuous that the god of giants was asking for help and was still making the players prove their loyalty/power. My players stormed the royal throne room with all four giant lords right behind them ready to kick dragon ass. This strips all tension and leads to a lot of "15 minute adventuring days.". Do not suggest ways for such material to be obtained. I guess that information is accessible through the Forgotten Realms wiki or whatever, but that just means it's more stuff for the DM to have to prepare, which defeats the point of having a chapter like this. I recommend mapping the dungeon at a reduced scale (something like 1 square = 20 feet) using graph paper and then when combat breaks out, you can go full scale for the area the fight is happening in. I recommend having someone introduce Harshnag as a goal the players should be looking for. Since these side quests are supposed to be the "here's what you should do" leading into Chapter 3, you need to either flesh out the quests or be willing to replace them. The biggest piece of advice I have is join the Storm King's Thunder DM group on facebook, it's very active with lots of us sharing different ideas, asking questions, recapping sessions, etc. Storm King's Thunder -- Sprawling sword coast setting with giants -- You can move pretty easily from Phandelver to Triboar and start at level 5 or so, moving right into a giant attack. For all the DnDBeyond users, waiting for an integrated VTT... What cringey things did you do as a new DM? The 2nd time running SKT I knew this and did a ton of research and threw every dirty trick I could at the party with about the same result. Featured Release! The airship was a huge hit with my players and I couldn't bring myself to pop the balloon. They're more likely to investigate this way. My favorite, most significant moment being, "Yeah I'm not climbing into the cloud castle. Yeah fuck that we're level 4. I also gave my NPCs special bonuses to make them more interesting to control. If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads. -- this is a a really easy setup with Black Spider. SKT likely features more outdoorsy excursions than 'standard'. [–]Alpacacin0 15 points16 points17 points 3 years ago (8 children). Saarvin is awesome. Also, there are a lot of interesting, powerful things that should feel like that but that lack foreshadowing. You should have fun with the players talking to the All-Father. I ran Kraken's Gamble and it really helped foreshadow the rescue of Hekaton. Having run SKT twice for different groups, I can agree to most of this. It's very dramatic, and I think interesting. Make sure that when they stay at an inn or visit a tavern, or just passing travelers along the road, they overhear stories about frost giants attacking the coast, fire giants going around searching for something, hill giants raiding farms for food, stone giants tearing buildings down and wrecking towns to the south, and cloud giant castles floating across the sky and visiting cities and towns. Exploration Problems The SKT map is huge. The player would then be the one giving answers. The main benefit of running this module is that it shows that giant society is conflicted internally and that not all giants are evil. For all the goodness on it, storm king's sucks a giant dinosaur kick when it comes to story hooks. Just wanted to say I had the same experience a year ago with SKT as a first time DM with first time players. Yes, I have read that guide. Pathfinder APs at their best seem so much better than the 5e published campaigns but I don't want to play pathfinder. Storm King's Thunder Complete DM's Bundle includes these products (click each to read more or purchase individually): Total Price: 23.99$ 12.49$ (45% DISCOUNT!) Maybe the 3 giant chiefs are also trying to upturn the Ordening? However I loved every minute of it. And THEN beFORE milLEniA comPLETE. Yeah, I think each of the giant plans need to be tweaked so that they aren't so impossible, or at least show the giants destroying towns or something as the campaign progresses. The back of SKT has good ideas, like throwing players or body-slamming them or throwing nets. So the adventure, as written, ends anywhere between lv 11 (doing as little as possible), and lv ~15 (completing all 5 giant lord encounters, Bryn Shander, Triboar, and Goldenfields, and getting sidetracked a bit). [r/dungeonsanddragons] Seeding Storm King's Thunder into Lost Mine of Phandelver [r/mattcolville] Help me prep for my upcoming campaign? Story Problems The first ten pages or so of SKT discuss the drama occurring within the storm giant court. Edits, tons of edits. The story and villain motivation are pretty weak honestly, you need to exercise a free hand shaping the encounters your players will face to motivate them toward whichever goals you think are most fun. I love this goal, since it turns the whole "chaotic evils can't make plans and only brute force through everything"-cliche. to CLEAR a PATH to SIT on DRAGon SEAT. [–]Neradia 5 points6 points7 points 3 years ago (1 child). It was also released as a digital product through the following Wizards of the Coast licensees: D&D Beyond, Fantasy Grounds, and Roll20. So many things come out of left field. As such, I don't actually have any advice beyond this chapter! A few thoughts, in no particular order: Read ahead a bit and foreshadow the existence (but not involvement) of the Kraken Society, Make sure somebody in the party knows about Force Grey. He just showed up again out of the blue. Super fun place to explore. PDFs, rules, tools, and DIY projects to give your D&D game a buff. All this, in addition to me having to completely re-write Ilymrith’s motive, and home brewing the entire chapter 3. Overall we had fun with the adventure, but I had some serious problems with it that caused more headaches than I would have liked. If you're a player in Storm King's Thunder (or any pre-gen), it's generally considered bad form to read the adventure ahead of time. Also if they find an inn or a fortifiable position they can long rest for free. Creatures who fail take 22 (5d8) thunder damage and are pushed 10 feet away from you. You need more bodies in the fight because otherwise a single stun/Banish/whatever will completely ruin the fight. Any advice? It's one of the big complaints with the book. The KINGly CROWN didst PASS to ORPHaned SON. You want to really emphasize to the players that Serissa is someone on their side that they want to help. [–]Drunken_Economist 2 points3 points4 points 3 years ago* (2 children). I also did some foreshadowing of the Kraken Society in my game, but it ended up not resulting in a conclusion since my players ended the campaign at chapter 10. I don't know how you're supposed to manage the huge scale of the amphitheater. It definitely is left to the DM to try to introduce her motivations though, which I think is a huge weak point. You can also introduce AOE attacks like a sweeping attack that does less damage but hits all players within 10 feet of the giant. Press J to jump to the feed. Also, just be aware that the combat encounters in the book are NOT built for Winged Boots. It's a great campaign, but takes a lot of preparing due to the sandbox nature of it. I ran my group through Storm King's Thunder this past year. I focused a lot on the famine caused by Queen Guh. [–]TannerThanUsual 6 points7 points8 points 3 years ago (0 children). I'm kind of glad that I didn't run chapter 12. This angered him and caused him to want to shake up giant society a bit. Demolish buildings, pick up trees. What Don't You Like About Your Favourite Class(es)? As big as it is, Storm King's Thunder is also difficult to run. I'm currently reading STK and plan on running it next month for my first time DMing. It is not set in a particular year, but is assumed to be after the Year of the Iron Dwarf's Vengeance, 1485 DR, and the orc conflict known as the War of the Silver Marches. The trolls attacking out of the swamp. A couple of the storm giant NPC's can straight up demolish her in a couple of turns and if your players can restrict her movement somehow with sentinel or grapples, she's a cooked turkey. When they finally found Harshnag, he was old, bitter, and didn't trust them. Also infiltrating the Grand Dame is more interesting at lower levels. Feel free to add to the community resource folder and the resource list. Why have a ancient dragon owe you a favor when you can have her give you many favors. While both are great tools, the biggest feature that has been lacking has definitely been a World Map that I could give to the players. You can have the characters from that adventure show up as NPCs. We are giving it another go this year and I'm running Curse of the Crimson Throne (a Pathfinder AP converted to 5e by me) and it's so much easier to run. Chapter 4 The Eye of the All-Father is great. And the All-father's request for assistance in Chapter 4 sounds less appealing if your players assume the storm giants are all jerks just like the other giants have been. They rethink the story and lay the groundwork for later chapters, and also bring Felgolos in super early as a fun npc, [–]Alpacacin0 5 points6 points7 points 3 years ago* (3 children). I’m currently running it now. 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