Valiant Swords of Greyhawk - Session5: In the Dungeon of the Moathouse

 

We begin with a round of stew and stories back at camp as the ranger and the paladin and the fighter all utilize their backgrounds to buff the rest of the party - this is a Tales of the Valiant thing where some backgrounds get a nifty ability to add temp hit points by various means. Beyond the mechanics this has added some fun during exploration and combat as party members speculate on what's going in to the Paladin's chili pot next.

Note: This is the DM's take on the session. For an in-universe player's perspective on the thing click here.

As we sit in camp the party eventually realizes that there is an 8th figure seated at the fire - Inigo Vulnstack, a roguish elven associate of Braeden's (the ranger) - has appeared seemingly out of nowhere and offered to join the group's expedition. With the ranger vouching for him, the rest of the group accepts - another sword will no doubt prove useful.

This was the session where one of my regular  players who has thus far been absent was finally able to join us and so we worked him in as quickly and simply as possible, which turned out to be pretty damn appropriate for the character he created. The relationship with the ranger was invented on the spot to be fleshed out later. This was probably the least painful way to bring in someone new and a bit of a surprise to my players as I have dropped in new characters in far more complicated ways such as being carried off in a sack by beggars, as the only intact statue outside a basilisk's lair (where a convenient stone to flesh scroll was discovered), and via the traditional found chained-to-a-wall-upside-down-and-naked approach  - but I went easy this time.

As the day dawns Bubo the Owl familiar plays recon drone again and surveys the moathouse from the air. They poke around the upper level a bit more finding an empty tower and an abandoned hideout of some kind in the main hall but soon enough it's time to head down the staircase and into the dungeon.

The familiar thing may turn into a serious annoyance at some point as it feel more like a Shadowrun rigger thing than typical D&D fantasy as there's no limit on duration or distance like there would be with a spell. Basic 5E familiars were only good out to100' or so - this came up in a prior campaign - but ToV's ritual makes some significant improvements. In general I play with an attitude that the bad guys don't care about your pet rat or bird or whatever until it attacks them but I will probably be keeping an eye on this one for AoE spells and things to interrupt Bubo's ridiculous efficiency - he ain't flying 100' overhead in a dungeon. There is also a lot of humor tied to him now too as it was noted that if he just had a printer option he could spit out a map after doing recon of an area ... then the dot-matrix sounds start coming out and the whole group cracks up. 

My party managed to completely miss the giant spider hiding in the ruined tower because they were very careful about opening the door to it, looking in, but never stepping in, and then closing the door and walking away - even after noting that they saw shiny coins on the floor!

They also let the bandits get away as I had the main bandit lair close and lock the main doors as they saw the group approach. My guys did not try to force them, and then left overnight so I had the bandits sneak out using their escape route. I do have them lurking in the area for a hopefully fun ambush next session but right now as far as they know whoever was in the moathouse just ran off.

Heading on down into darkness various light spells are cast and stealth is employed here and there and a trash pile briefly investigated but as they begin exploring a set of dungeon doors and torture chamber they spot zombies - then more zombies, and more zombies! Reinforcements appear from behind each door until they have fought 12 zombies in all! Recovering from the fight and searching the area they are also apprehensive about what might come through the other door but they do find a secret door and ladder down hidden side one of the columns. 

I could have adjusted the zombie encounter to spring all of them at once but I stuck with the original script of two more zombies from each cell in succession each round because I just like it and it's a little more memorable. With a 8 PC's no, they were not likely to be in serious danger but i wanted to play it out as written. I did use the Monster Vault version where they have a chance to stay standing unless hit really hard and some of them did manage to last longer than they should have.

They do eventually press on though and find a small room with a very slippery floor and ... another door. After some moments of physical comedy here involving bad rolls and heavily-armored-low-dex fighter types they do eventually get themselves organized and open up the other door into the bedroom of a large, angry ogre. Battle commences!

But poor, poor Lubash only lasts two rounds as Xyzzifax the wizard pulls out the Lesser Wand of Petrification he looted in the dungeon outside Saltmarsh and zaps the ogre with it. Lubash promptly fails his save - a Con save no less - and is now Restrained. Undaunted he throws javelins at the party in the doorway as they take shots at him. Then at the end of his turn he fails his save again, and on round 2 he fails it yet again and turns to stone before their very eyes.

Now this was a bit disheartening for the DM as he is supposed to be a tougher encounter but this wand took him out fast. Even if he had made a save or two he was running out of hit points fast as that condition gives attackers Advantage on all attack rolls and gives him Disadvantage on all attack rolls. So it was turning into a very one-sided fight regardless of his actual petrification. Thankfully this item only has 1 charge so it's a 1/day item with a small chance to crumble after it is used but what can I say - they picked a dangerous target and with a little bit of luck they managed to neutralize an otherwise dangerous opponent. 

After this there was exploration and looting and more poor word choices as the heroes discovered another secret door with a staircase and landing ... and some prisoners! Information is gathered and thanks are offered, and they decide to escort the new acquaintances back to Hommlet and safety. 

So far it's so good though I will say there can be a lot of overhead running 8 PC's ranging from 1st to 3rd level. It's manageable for now it just means we run a little slower than we would with  4-5. Right now I am not dramatically changing up encounter numbers even with this many characters in play - I am just working in the Monster Vault versions of the creatures and I will probably work in some other monster book sources as well as the game goes on. I expected more variability in turnout but so far that has not happened. I may tweak some wilderness encounters - since they are mostly later additions anyway - but  once they get to the temple proper I probably won't need to as they don't do stealth well and will probably be pulling in chunks of each level as they start fighting through them. If it gets too stupid I will make some changes but I don't want to punish them for doing well - I just may need to do something to balance out the numbers a little more evenly. Back in the early days 8 PC's was not terribly unusual but 8 5E type PC's are quite a bit more capable then what we had back then. I'm not doing anything yet but I might as things develop.

There was a ton of laughing this session as it felt like we finally had the whole band back together and we were cracking up at inappropriate humor all through the run. It was a lot of fun and that helps to keep these things going.

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk - Session 4: The Moathouse

 

Back in the village the party hands their borrowed gear back and hands the prisoner over to Rufus for questioning and detainment. Then it's off to weapons trading and evaluation and some intra-party deals for components. The village leatherworker makes a deal to patch up some armor for some of our heroes and shares a little background information on the area as well. Then it's time to head for The Moathouse!

Here the party gets cautious: they set up a base camp some ways away from the ruined fort and then have the wizard spy out the place with his brand new familiar. After this they approach and manage to stumble into some giant frogs right outside the main gate. This is a fairly quick fight but it does put some fear into the halfling mechanist as he realizes he might be a swallow-able size for some of the frogs. My veteran players know what to watch for and so slice open the the frogs and find a nice gem for their troubles. 

The upper level of the place is cleared without too much injury ...

• The fighters do the traditional front line thing and hold off a giant lizard in one room. After it is defeated they slice it open and find a magical shield and so likely establish a precedent I will be dealing with for the entire campaign.
• The halfling once again finds trouble as he steps into a room alone and gets chomped by a giant tick. this combat marked the first use of the "I can cast a touch spell through my familiar" option as the wizard manages to shocking grasp the things while remaining at a very safe distance. 
  (and yes, they cut the tick open too but it was item-free)
• They killed a giant snake as well, continuing the tradition in this campaign of giant snakes dying in one round of combat. They are probably going to try and make something out of its hide as the ranger opted to skin the thing afterwards.
• The halfling's personal trilogy of terror wraps up when he steps into a room first (again) and is set upon by a room full of giant rats that put him down quickly, forcing the fighters to wade into the room while the cleric and bard and wizard take shots from the doorway. They do win fairly quickly though no animals are sliced open afterwards. 

A more detailed narrative account of the tale from the players' point of view can be found here.

DM Commentary

It was good to finally get to the moathouse and get some good old-fashioned violence in. Any of you who have played through this know that the dungeon level is where it actually gets nasty - the upper level is fairly easy in comparison and while it's a good warm-up it's almost misleading as to the level of difficulty you are going to see underground. That said maybe the halfling will learn not to go first.

There was also a fair amount of interaction in town, mainly at the inn and with Gipson the leatherworker so my team is not solely consumed with loot and bloodlust. There are still new people to meet and new contacts to make there so it should keep things interesting for a while longer. I have some ideas about adding a few more characters in to the mix as well.

The game continues to run pretty smoothly though it is still challenging to run with 7 when combat lasts a round or two. My position on 5th from  very early on has been that it's the simplest version of the game since 2nd and I still feel that way but it's not quite at the B/X level. I ran 8 in 3E for quite a while so it can be done and it will come easier with time. 

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk - Session 3: Hommlet Ho!

 

Originally I had planned to use one of several possible intro adventures covering the journey to Hommlet but as the session approached I decided to chuck that and just jump right into it - enough with the delays and prologues, we know how to play D&D here. So we did. I made the players talk about why their character would be coming to Hommlet and dropped some leads/rumors for them that they might have heard prior to their arrival. Most of these involved rumors of banditry and a possible stirring of the old cult and this would come back to bite me right in this first session.

Starting out they all met at the inn - Hommlet only has the one - then realized they shared some common goals and so decided to work together. Smartly they divided up to check out the village and talk to some of the more notable establishments and inhabitants. Our Heroes are:

• Malice (Bard 1)
• Braeden (Ranger 1)
• Sir Kentor (Paladin 2)
• Sir Lantor (Fighter 2)
• Xyzzifax (Wizard 2)
• Samson (Halfling Mechanist 1)
• Jaric (Cleric of Trithereon 1)

Jaric went to the local temple - Hommlet only has the one - to touch base with the local Priest of St. Cuthbert. He got some basic information out of the assistant priest and then came back the next day for an appointment with the main man. It turns out that the priests of orderly, obedient society for the common man aren;t super-thrilled to find a cleric of the rebel rabble-rouser Trithereon in town asking questions but Variable Dave rolled badly on his insight check and left the place thinking he might have a new best friend. 

Xyz went to talk to his fellow wizard - Hommlet only has the one - named Burne, a semi-retired adventurer and learned a few details among which that they are willing to pay a 5gp bounty on Bandits.

Braeden met Jaroo, the Druid of Hommlet - as Hommlet has only the one Druid - and learned that in addition to bandits gnolls have been seen in the local woods. Jaroo also offered his assistance with local nature and magical questions if needed, and that his apprentice, one Conn Shaunnery, is missing. 

Malice and Samson decided to talk to the village elder, the mayor, effectively, of Hommlet. In a bit of a rambling conversation they learned about the bandit troubles, temple troubles, the village of Nulb, a nice halfling family that used to live nearby, merchant traffic, and the local militia. 

Kentor and Lantor decided to spend their time getting to know the inn - the Inn of the Welcome Wench. Buying several rounds for the house they hear tales of bandit raids, lights at the Moathouse, and strange creatures seen in the countryside - including a griffon spotted flying over the Gnarley Forest.  

Gathering back at the inn a plan comes together to attack some bandits involving a wagon, some mules, and deception. Deals are made and the next day the party heads out disguised as merchants with several members using stealth to escort the bait while staying out of sight. 

After several hours this does pay off as a group of bandits emerges both in front of and behind the wagon and demands the "merchants" dismount. As they do this a fight breaks out, crossbows twang, and magic words are uttered as our team of seven heroes takes on twelve well-armed brigands. By the time it's over the heroes are all still standing (Malice was dropped once and Braeden was in rough shape for most of it) and all but one of the bandits are deceased. This leaves them a potential prisoner and after some debate - and some interrogation - they decide to take him back to town to face justice.

DM Commentary

Lordy lordy lordy this went in a different direction than I was expecting which is both entertaining and challenging. Lots of exploring Hommlet - sure, that's natural. Then they got stuck on the bandit thing despite my attempts to connect that to the Moathouse and the Temple and spent a bunch of time and energy on that. Don't we just go to the Moathouse? Doesn't everyone? If you play Village of Hommlet and know anything about it isn't the first stop the Moathouse? For about 45 years now? Also every time I myself have run or played in it over the years that's been the next thing after establishing yourself in the village. It's nice to know I can still be surprised after all this time but the creeping realization that they were not going to the Moathouse meant that I had to throw together a decent bandit encounter on the fly. This isn't hard in itself but there is some effort to balance "well these bandits are getting pretty brazen" versus "most of my party is still 1st level" means thinking up a band that could reasonably pull off a small caravan holdup while trying not to make a TPK a foregone conclusion. It worked out so the old instincts are still working but that time I spent re-reviewing the Moathouse and its dungeon beforehand was kind of wasted. 

It was fun watching them come up with their scheme though. 

Another disappointment was knowing that I have 3 different cart/wagon miniatures and could not find a single one of them as this plan was taking shape. So many miniatures but I didn't have these ready so we ended up improvising. This was a problem back in the Isle of Dread campaign a few years ag so I went out and picked up a few just to avoid this same situation. Ah well.

The prisoner thing is another unexpected development. The wizard and the bard both have Sleep spells and both fired them off, taking out part of the front group and the back group - preventing a lot of crossbow shots at the least. This lasted long enough to keep several of the bandits out for the whole thing and after a burst of executions they realized it might be smart to keep one alive. Now we aren't playing with alignment in this campaign so there aren't some of the traditional D&D arguments here but people who have settled on some morals for their character had some differences of opinion regardless.  No one was coming to blows over it but it was a discussion. With multiple casters in the group and one of them being a bard - even a more murderous bard than I typically see - and a lot of human & humanoid opposition, I suspect prisoners will be a recurring thing so I'm going to have to examine what kind of jail accommodations Hommlet has. My suspicion is "not enough" Down the road though this could lead to interesting developments as Verbobonc might send an representative to find out who is taking all of these poisoners and either admonish or reward them. It could also lead to a dedicated interrogator being sent down. We will have to see but that was one thought that I had on long term impacts if it continues. 

Finally it is challenging to manage a 7-player table at times, mainly in the sense of giving everyone some spotlight time. Sure, when it's your turn in combat you get a chance to shine but outside of that it's important to give everyone some time and I am very conscious of that. Combat also takes quite a bit longer than it did with 4 as in addition to more player actions there will usually be more enemy actions and it just eats up the available time. Not a problem yet but it's something I will have to watch. 

Rules-wise Tales of the Valiant continues to shine as far as character abilities and general running of the game. The index continues to fail us regularly (things not in the index from this session: cover, hiding, stealth, darkness) but that's really the worst I can say.

 As a final final note we have set up an Obsidian Portal site for this campaign so if you'd like to see more details and a session recap from my players' point of view here is a link to session 3.

Stay tuned for "Session 4 - Maybe Now They Will Go to the Damn Moathouse".

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk - Session 2: Beneath the Tower of Zenopus

 

We begin in Saltmarsh at the Wicker Goat inn as our party prepares to return to the ruined tower. Our heroes (all at level 2 now):

• Paladin Steve: Sir Kentor -  Human Paladin
• Boom-Gun Brandon: Lantor- Human Fighter
• Shootist Will: Mechanist Cedric Theodore -Human Cleric
• Blaster:  Xyzzifax - Human-ish Wizard

They were all present for the last expedition and the dwarf warlock again remains in town getting to know the dwarf-owned mining operation.

There was some rules discussion pregame, mainly about how magic works in 5E and has been tweaked for ToV. I also reminded them about some of the interesting items on the gear list like oil, alchemist's fire, caltrops, antivenin, holy water, and the good old 10'pole.

Then it was time to gather the party and venture forth! Veering off from their prior course the group found themselves kicking in a door to a very large room notable for a group of stone sarcophagi, a collapsed wall on the north side, and a number of giant rats peering back at them!

Taking the lead Sir Kentor takes a number of serious rat bites as does Lantor but they clear out the vermin in short order. This leads to the inevitable opening of the six closed sarcophagi which leads to a number of interesting things:

• The first one has a skeleton holding a fine jeweled dagger.
• The second contains a skeleton holding a very nicely crafted sword
• The third conceals a skeleton with a bejeweled necklace.

Now during these explorations the skeletons are left undisturbed - at first. A few minutes in the wizard decides to very quietly use his Mage Hand to retrieve the dagger which flies up out of his grasp and moves towards the party. This is also when a pair of hungry giant rats emerges from the ruined wall to the north and moves in to attack as well. Another short fight ensues with the wizard staying back and throwing Fire Bolts while Cedric, Lantor, and Sir Kentor charge in. The rats are slain and the dagger is smacked across the room - apparently beating the magic right out of it - and then things settle back down. 

• The fourth burial structure contains a skeleton and a cloud of gas which knocks out the Paladin for ten minutes. The rest of the part uses this time to detect and identify the items so far and determines that the sword is in fact "Verminax", a +1 vermin-slaying blade. The dagger also has not had all of the magic beaten out of it as it is actually a +1 dagger as well.
• Number 5 has another skeleton with more jewelry
• The final un-raided tomb gives them some trouble until something inside it helps to push it open and a skeleton jumps out and starts swinging! The paladin sees his moment and proceeds to land a critical hit with a smite detonating the undead thing in a blast of holy light - one shot, one kill. 

Gathering themselves up and performing some minor healing the party moves out of the opposite side of the room and heads down to kick open another door. This one is empty though there are faint tracks in the dust on the floor and the upper part of the room is shrouded in darkness. As they move in cautiously a giant spider drops on Xyz from above but he dodges the move only to suffer a bite from the vicious arachnid. The rest of the team attacks but the spider scuttles back and runs up a wall, shooting webs as it goes. Our heroes pursue and finally dispatch the beast with no serious damage other than to the wizard's morale. They discover a twin to their dagger embedded in the spider's hide and also identify the tracks in the dust as goblin marks. These seem to run between two of the four doors in the room so the standard protocol is enacted and ...

Kicking in our fourth door of the day we see an even bigger room than the first one containing some cots and clutter and ten very startled goblins - not surprised, as they heard the fight with the spider next door - but definitely startled, particularly the two that were clearly approaching the door quietly hoping the noises would stop before they got there.

The party moves in, the goblins move in, and the wizard unleashes the first Thunderwave of the campaign and blows away 3 of the goblins in one blast. Though they land a few solid blows most of the goblins are dead in seconds and the boss turns to flee but is also slain before he can get far. The last survivor drops his weapons and tries to surrender but is blasted by a firebolt as Xyz says "you are too weak". The room is looted with no particular items of note turning up.

Moving on the next door it turns out to be ... open! Within is a large statue of a wizard with a hand outstretched towards the door. The team quickly figure out that the statue can be rotated and that doing so unlocks the door it points at while locking the other three. Notes are taken and the group moves on having worked out via their ongoing mapping efforts that the corridor beyond may lead back to the "snake room" they discovered the day before. 

As it turns out they are right! They kick in what they now find to be the north door of the round room with the stairs and the big snake - as opposed to the south door they opened earlier. Sir Kentor drinks a potion of growth they found earlier and they charge in to confront the huge serpent. The snake rears up and ... takes a critical hit from the Large Kentor, a ridiculous critical from the fighter and then Lantor Action Surges for yet another mighty blow from his greatsword and slays the thing before it can land a single attack!

Taking a quick look around and upstairs and seeing nothing the adventurers push open the secret door they noticed previously and move down a long corridor that ends in what is likely another secret door. It too is kicked open revealing a wizard's workshop, some statues, a very surprised wizard, and his cutlass-wielding companion. As the violence begins the wizard recovers enough to make Lantor his new friend (a Charm spell) but is blasted by Xyz and slashed by the paladin before he can do anything else as Large Kentor steps around the table and bashes the bodyguard just as his eyes clear up and he says "wait, what"? The paladin is momentarily regretful but he was on the wrong side charmed or not.

After this the party does finish exploring the stair-connected rooms finding a few interesting items including a wand and some scrolls and potions. One of these is a scroll of stone to flesh and there is a fair amount of discussion on whether to use it on one of the statues in the workshop. In the end though they decide to hang onto it for possible future need and head back out of the dungeon to return to Saltmarsh. 

DM Thoughts on Session 2

This was a fun run and they were finally getting into some areas where there was a chance for some interaction beyond swordplay. That's one of the things I like about this dungeon in that even though it is relatively small there are several encounters where one can talk things over with the inhabitants or maybe learn something interesting about another area of the dungeon. Then in session1 they end up hitting a bunch of undead and vermin with zero chance to communicate barring the one cultist encounter

As it turns out they were not terribly interested in conversation. Here we had the goblins and the human wizard and guard as opponents and it was still a "nope" from the crew. Hey, they can tackle this thing however they want to but there were opportunities for more DM fun if they had left even on of those open. Ah well.

Rules-wise we used a lot of "helping another" type mechanics here. In the latest version (ToV PG Page 206 "Working Together")you don't even have to roll - you just give the acting character advantage on the roll. That's a little less dramatic but OK. Luck is working very well, being acquired and being used throughout the session. Combat flows very quickly at these levels and having my condition markers and area effect templates close at hand keeps that speed going. 

That said combat also flows faster when the second level paladin crits on a smite for 43 points of damage - 8d8! Honorable mention goes to the poor snake who got hit by a critical from the paladin, then another from the fighter, then a second attack from the fighter, all of which was enough to kill it before it could act once. Sometimes the dice gods just have it in for you.

As far as the dungeon we didn't make it to some of the other interesting parts but they hit most of it and had a good time. The original has the sword as just a generic +1 longsword so I jazzed that up with a name and a bit of a history and some extra utility in very specific situations. I'll probably add some wererats in at some point to give it a chance to shine. With it and a pair of +1 daggers the group has at least a few magic weapons available if needed. 

I have not been using much in the way of random encounters but that will change as we get more into the main adventure. The temple is an active organized base for an evil organization so it will be a little trickier than the tower. 

We should have a bigger group next time, likely the full 7 players I expect to be at this full-time, so there will likely be a bit more going on as the party makes it way to the Village of Hommlet.

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk - Session 1: The Terrible Tower of Saltmarsh

 

With characters made but a few weeks left before the full team could gather I talked to the available players and we decided to get together and play some prequel sessions. This came together fairly quickly so was searching a bit to find some decent and short intro adventures. I didn't have anything home-brewed for 5th so I went back to my Saltmarsh idea. Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, as presented in 5E's Ghosts of Saltmarsh, is nicely divided into two parts. This was a perfect fit since I had time for two sessions so I read through the thing, focusing on the Haunted House part  in particular. This was a good fit for an opening adventure of a new campaign and a new set of rules. It also pushed the nostalgia button pretty hard as Saltmarsh was the first published adventure I ever played in back when it was new - and all of us playing it were still fairly new too. 

So I started things off telling the players they needed to think of why their characters would have made the journey to Saltmarsh and what  they might be looking for as they poked around town for news & rumors. our cast of characters:

• Paladin Steve: Human Paladin
• Boom-Gun Brandon: Human Fighter
• Shootist Will: Mechanist Human Cleric
• Blaster:  Human-ish Wizard
• Official Spouse: Dwarf Warlock

So ... a couple of new bits of information there. Steve settled on trying out the new Paladin which most of us thought he would. Will is embracing the troupe-style play by making a cleric as his "backup" character while still intending to play a mechanist in the main campaign. Blaster went with wizard and not an elf which is uncommon for him but he has a concept he is pretty fired up about. Finally, the Official Spouse joined the game for her first RPG session ever! She figured she ought to play at least a few games so she would understand what we're all talking about and maybe get more of the jokes/references - even more nostalgia triggers are firing off here now.  

I want to mention that Brandon is Steve's son and Steve is a friend I have known since the 80's.  Blaster is my own son, and with the Official Spouse joining this run is a family-heavy affair and it is a blast. If you get a chance to play with your kids as they grow up it is incredibly rewarding. 

So with a 5-person party of first level characters roaming around the village of Saltmarsh, nostalgia feelings active, they head off to that same Haunted House I did with my friends back in 1981, right? 

No.

I made the mistake of mentioning that outside of town there were actually two main areas of interest. The haunted house is one but there is also ... the Tower of Zenopus! Yes, they put that reference in the 5E version! Did they put the dungeon in it? No! Of course not! Did the greedy wizard immediately focus on "definite wizard's tower" over "possibly haunted house" and push the party to go that way? Yes, yes he did.

Insert DM scramble here. The blog's namesake tower is the intro dungeon from the Holmes Basic Set circa 1977. It was the first dungeon I ever saw, ever read, and ever ran for some very uncertain friends around 1980. I pulled up a 5th edition version of it that I found a while back - because I couldn't find the one I did myself years ago - and started describing stone steps down into darkness ...

Side track - if you think it's tricky to tell people what D&D is about now you should envision what it was like then when there were no video or computer games to use as references, fantasy movies were mostly terrible, and the concept of an RPG was so unknown we hadn't even had the satanic panic yet. it was tricky to say the least.

So, drowning in more nostalgia feelings than I had expected I started describing the sights and sounds as our brave heroes formed up a marching order, cast some light spells, and descended into the dungeon. 

The short version is "they went right" and ended up in the ghoul room where "Two fanged and clawed humanoids are lurking...". This is where the group discovers that Sir Kentor (the paladin) has a -1 Dex modifier as he pulls off a mighty "zero" for his initiative. Despite this the group manages to take down the ghouls in just a couple of rounds with no one being paralyzed. The warlock is figuring out that a) eldritch blast is a pretty handy thing in a fight and b) a pseudodragon familiar (she's pact of the chain) with unlimited range for seeing and hearing through it is a damn handy thing everywhere else.

Ghouls are a tough first encounter for a new party but there were only two of them and the party is strong with ranged attacks. Paladin-Fighter-Fighty Cleric is a strong front line and a Wizard-Warlock backfield means they can do some damage at range. I was just glad we didn't immediately get into a multiple party member paralysis situation.

The party finds a long dirt tunnel leading out of the room and the familiar gets sent off down the thing first until it finds a group of people in a room chanting around an idol. That draws the rest of the PC's in and despite being offered a chance to join in the ritual our heroes choose violence when the Paladin throws a hammer at the lead cultist as he finishes his invitation. This goes poorly for the cultists and they are soon relieved of their lives and their nice shiny silver masks. The quick assessment is that this was a group of Orcus cultists (given the statue) trying to animate another ghoul (given the dead body laying at it's feet) and they probably did a good thing here. The cleric and paladin rebury the body and then we all move along.

This is a new section added as an optional piece by this version. It's a good addition as it adds a little more to the goings-on both in the dungeon and potentially to the town. Orcus cultists in the big graveyard outside of town? Sounds like trouble!

 

Heading south the group moves into a  smaller room and finds 3 skeletons leaning against the walls. apparently they are angry skeletons because they animate and attack! This is another short, though bloodier, fight as the party takes down the undead but the cleric takes a rusty sword to the gut (a critical) and goes down as well. Now the party gets a quick refresh on how death saves work and the cleric lives though it's a little tricky for him as he is the only one with healing magic - the paladin used his lay on hands earlier after taking some damage in the ghoul fight. 

This is normally an empty room but I wanted to keep things lively so I'm dropping wandering monster entries into these for now. The cleric only had 10 hit points so he couldn't do much about that hit. That's just how it goes at low levels sometimes - one hit can drop you.

This is an important lesson re-learned. Our heroes decide to pull back to the village to regroup and get the cleric back into shape. They end up with roughly 150 gold each after some wheeling and dealing with the local silversmith and retire to the inn to review the day's events. 

The next morning the party stops by the local temple to pick up some healing potions and the warlock decides to stay in town to do some "research". The rest gear back up and head back down, retracing their old steps. 

The next room they enter is full of piles of trash and they quickly spot multiple giant rats who look to charge as they enter the room but ranged attacks cut down many of them and Sir Kentor manages to kill one with an opportunity attack thanks to one of his talents when it tries to bite the fighter instead of him.

The party is getting more organized here as they wiped out most of the rats at range and then finished them off in melee on round 2. Strategies are starting to form.

Kicking down another door we find a seemingly empty room until someone looks up - and sees a couple of giant spiders hanging on the ceiling. The party does manage to get the drop on them and kill one quickly which is fortunate as the other starts shooing web across the room trying to entangle the fighters. It's not enough and soon the fight is over. 

This could have been a dangerous fight but the spiders did not have great luck and there were not enough of them to offset some bad rolls. 

Our heroes press on and find a long hallway with a couple of door options. Opening one reveals a round room with stairs going up... and the biggest snake they've ever seen lounging on those stairs. It notices them and raises its head but otherwise does not move. They decide it's time to head on back and recruit some help before they try to fight or sneak past this thing and so the second expedition ends with a rapid withdrawal to the surface and then to the village.

There was some dissension here between "oh we can take 'im" and "we're doing well so let's not screw it up at the end of the night." They chose caution and made it out OK. Once we worked through things these 4 had gained enough XP to make 2nd level.

Some initial thoughts on the game:

• I see people talking like ToV has power creep over 5E and it might but it's not because of stat inflation. Sure, you get more points but you lose the racial stat bonuses so you can end up slightly lower as the points do not make up for sticking another +1 or +2 on top of a 16. Having to buy those at full cost keeps the ability scores down more than you might think.
• The index for ToV is not great. Look under H for healing - nothing. Look under P for potions  - nothing. Look under C for cure - nothing. Look under S for skills - nothing. That's just a few seemingly obvious things from the first session. It's not crippling but it is inconvenient.
• My guys are a well-oiled machine when it comes to playing D&D. They know what they are doing at this point even with some new rules. It snaps back into place for me too hanging the initiative trackers on the new screen, knocking off hit points, watching for conditions ... it's a lot of fun and flows really easily. 
• Luck is looking like a pretty decent mechanic as it was earned and used for various things all during this session. My players love it.
• The updated version of the tower is good - you can find it here.

So there's our first run done - the next one is this weekend so more to come!

Temple of Elemental Evil - 5E Style - Experience Points & The Nodes

 

Ah, the Nodes  ... the most controversial part of the physical dungeon! If you've looked into online discussions of running the adventure - in any edition - you will find a lot of people either dislike the nodes or decide to drop them entirely. That's four separate dungeon levels in this place that many DM's decide to excise - but why?

The big complaint is that the nodes themselves are a slog. Some of them are much larger areas than the dungeon levels but only have 20-30-something encounter areas - and that's in this newest version where they took the extra effort to flesh out the nodes instead of making it a zone of purely random encounters. They can be tricky to get in and out of of as well depending on how your party is equipped and what they know. It's also entirely possible that your group may not have a great picture of what these things are for or why they should care about exploring them.

A secondary complaint is that these things are a serious hassle.  The whole area is slow to explore, some of them cause environmental damage just for being there, many of your spells are altered as far as how they work or even if they work in a given node. Also as mentioned it can be tricky to get in and out of them as the various gates between them are scattered around and must be located anew in each node. All of this ups the hassle factor a great deal and a party that's just spent months of real time clearing out temple bad guys may not think it's worth all of that. I get it.

For me personally I've run and played in several attempts on the Temple over the decades and none of them ever made it to the nodes. I don't think this is particularly unusual. They're mainly accessed from the 4th dungeon level and by that time a successful party will have basically wiped out (or be close to wiping out) the whole operation. If you destroy all of the factions and creatures in the place you've effectively ended the current threat. It's true that the seeds for a future revival of the cult will still exist but the heroes don't really have to venture into the elemental nodes to put this one in the win column. 

So why am I planning to keep them in my campaign right now? A few reasons:

• For one, Goodman Games put in the effort to make these a more traditional keyed map with specific fixed encounters in addition to a table for wandering monsters for each node. This is a big improvement in what we had before and makes it quite a bit more "runnable" from the DM side of the table.
• I think with the right setup these turn from a slog into a search for some items that are needed to accomplish the ultimate goal of the adventure - sure, you can wipe out the cult but if you go about things right you can destroy the whole temple and its source of power - ending this particular evil for good rather than just for now. 
• Most importantly these things put the "Elemental" in the Temple of Elemental Evil! A lot of the dungeon is not terribly heavy on the theme. There are main temples and shrines and things here and there but the environments and the opposition tend to be fairly "normal" humanoids and monster types. Players may be wondering "where is the fire"? - well, here you go - a chunk of the elemental plane of fire you need to investigate to implement a final solution - and it's full of fiery things and terrain and creatures and it's one piece of a 4-part finale to this big honkin' adventure! 
  
  It is interesting when you see people complain that the temple isn't "elemental" enough - and I agree with that to a point - as they also mention that the nodes are a boring slog that they are eliminating. I mean, how about we make those things less boring and use them to add a huge dose of "elemental" to the final section of our campaign?

I will grant that ideally the nodes would be more integrated into the main dungeon areas or at least there could be more elemental stuff in the main dungeons - this would be more on-theme - but it's important to remember that the elemental thing is kind of a scam too - the divine powers involved here are using it for their own ends and are not really elemental powers themselves. It's really more of a cover story and marketing for beings otherwise not all that appealing to the masses. 

I'll talk more about my thoughts on setting up the nodes for a better game in a future post - for now let's look at the numbers involved. I'll warn you now - it gets pretty silly.

• Air Node: There are 32 keyed areas here and it adds up to just over 85,000 experience points. If we take our theoretical 6-man party from the prior post that was at 23,000 XP and 7th level after clearing out the other dungeon levels (but has not defeated the Big Bad) we can add over 14,000 XP to that total - they will hit the next level at 34,000 so our new 37,000 puts them easily into 8th.
  
  Now that seems like a lot and it is but over half of it is wrapped up in 3 big encounters and two thirds of it comes with 6 total encounters so this area is going to be some big fights in some fairly open areas. 
  
  
• Earth Node: Here we have 24 keyed areas which add up to just over 68,000 XP. This means just over 11,000 per character putting us at 48,000 total XP which his just enough to hit 9th.
  
  Here too about half of the points come from about 4 encounters but this area is much more confined so this will be a more dungeon-like set of encounters in a set of natural caves. 
  
  
• Fire Node: This node has 36 keyed areas and yields just over 63,000 XP. Our 6-man party will add 10,500 to their total here and 58,500 is still well within 9th level. 
  
  This is another carved rooms & tunnels type dungeon area and looks a lot like the prior temple dungeon levels - just with more fire. Over half of the experience here comes from just two encounters so those should be exciting to say the least.  
  
  
• Water Node: In this node we have 24 keyed areas and an impressive XP yield of 96,000! That puts our party up to 74,500 which is over 10th (64,000) and halfway to 11th!
  
  This is a large open area and of course being able to breathe under water is significant here. Roughly two-thirds of this XP comes from just 3 encounters so there could be some big moments in this section. 

This is ignoring wandering monsters - many of which in the nodes are part of a lair anyway - but even with some additional XP from those I think 11th is still too far away to be achieved this way. 

However, this total does not account for defeating the big bad opponent in this adventure which is possible and awards a variable amount of XP based on the condition it is when the fight happens. There is also an additional XP award for destroying the temple itself and that can actually earn enough XP to make it to 11th for our party. That's not counting any side adventures or wilderness encounters or locations. 

One final XP note - a character could be as high as 4th level when they start this and while they might hit some levels earlier than starting at zero the numbers get so big that those initial few hundred or few thousand XP don't change the ending point of 10th or 11th level. 

Also a reminder  -this is pretty close to the maximum. Odds are an actual party playing through it will have somewhat lower XP numbers than this and of course the number of PCs will make a big difference here as well. My point in doing this exercise is to show that it's there if your party wants it.

There is also some variability here in how much XP one awards for not just beating down opponents. There are many opportunities to negotiate with opponents all through the temple dungeons and yes even in the nodes too. There are a lot of intelligent creatures in this one and they are not all fanatical cultists nor do many of them even like each other nor are all of them volunteers! This can be a delicate area as if your players find out they are getting less XP for talking through an encounter than they would for solving it with violence then the talking may go by the wayside outside of dire circumstances. I'm leaning towards keeping the full XP regardless as solving a problem is solving a problem but I need to think through it more.

The last thing I have to consider now is that having done the math is that my goal of moving on to "Against the Giants" after this is .. actually dead on. Tales from the Yawning Portal (which contains the 5E version) recommends starting it at 11th level so ... wow ... that works out very nicely.

Now of course I have to see how the chaos of a big group actually playing through this works out. It should be a lot of fun and I am looking forward to it even more now that I have run through this whole effort.

Temple of Elemental Evil 5E Style - Experience Points

 

I thought it would be a worthwhile exercise to check how much XP is actually available under 5E style rules (technically ToV but they are the same). Some of this is to help me figure out where the party should be as they make their way through the adventure in case I need to make adjustments. It's also to give me some idea of where they might be when they finish it up. 

This analysis will be from the Goodman Games two-book version of the adventure. 

A couple of other notes: 

• I am assuming the party will "defeat" all of the monsters in a given area or level. There are hidden areas in this adventure but I don't think there is a point to trying to calculate the chance they will or will not enter a given area. Let's assume they figure it out and go after everything and if they come up a bit short, well, that's on them. 
• I decided not to count wandering monsters in this exercise because you never know how much they are going to show up in play. I know some people use them and others don't. I do intend to use them but since both the frequency and composition of those encounters is tied to random chance I decided it was better left as potential bonus XP rather than counted as part of the fixed stuff. This applies to both the wilderness random encounters and the dungeon ones. 
• I am not including the fixed wilderness encounters either. The GG team added some interesting side treks in the area and I am sure a few of them will come up but I'm not sure how easily my players will be distracted from the Moathouse and the Temple so I don't want to assume which ones - or that all of them - will be investigated. My suspicion is that many of these will come into play when we are short most of the party. Again, I'll treat these as bonus XP.
• As a hopefully unnecessary note I am not tallying up Hommlet either. It's not that kind of campaign and I don't have that kind of player group.
• Finally I decided not to tally up money and magic items as part of this - yet. For one, Bullgrit did an excellent summary of this years ago and the treasure is not greatly changed in this version. Secondly I don't care that much how much treasure they pick up as it's not XP in this version and they aren't likely to be crafting magic items with it in this version either. I will look at magic items in a separate post as I may end up tweaking those too but for now I don't want to post up a "loot list" where my players might see it if they remember I have a blog where I talk about this stuff.

 So our first area is The Moathouse:

• The upper level of the Moathouse totals out to about 1,350 XP. If we figure a party of six  - I expect 5-6 to be my average - we can see that we're a few points short of the 300 needed to get to second level as we are coming in at 225.
  
  Now this is close enough that a random wilderness encounter might put them over the top. I also expect that some of them will not be at 0 XP as there are several ideas out there for "things that happen on the way to Hommet." I may also be running some prelude adventures with the part of the crew that is not tied up for the rest of the month. Outside of a raw new character coming in at 0XP and heading straight for the Moathouse I think it's safe to assume most of the party should hit 2nd level after this. Fifth edition and similar games are set up to make 1st and 2nd levels go by pretty quick.
• The Moathouse Dungeon totals out to 5,450 XP based on creatures and then there is some opportunity for a little more depending on rescuing prisoners etc. Assuming a party of six again that should be more than enough to get us to 3rd level (900 XP), even for a totally new character. 
  
  Prior XP, side encounters, wandering monsters ... all of that still nets out to a party at level 3 here. I do not see any real way anyone gets to 4th and that's fine. I think hitting 3rd as they finish up the Moathouse is perfectly fine. 5E/ToV doesn't really have an official "Quest XP" element like 4E did but I will likely award some kind of bonus here for clearing out the Moathouse which is the closest den of evil to the village. It's a big deal and hey - for years this was as much as you could do to fight the temple!

Technically the expected next area is the wretched hive of scum and villainy known as Nulb. There are things that can happen here but it's not really expected that the party is going to start clearing out the village - even this awful village. It's more about schemes and interaction and discovering clues. So I'm not going to assign a value here. There is likely XP to be earned but it could go in any number of directions or the whole place could be skipped entirely - who knows? We will just have to see.

Then we finally get to the temple proper!

The Upper Works:

Between the various spread-out encounter areas in this chapter there is 4,150 XP to be found here. All of this is concentrated into 3 main areas and bad tactics in any of those could turn into  a real challenge for the party. If we assume an average of six PC's at 3rd level by this point then they will still not make 4th at roughly 1600 total XP.

With a bunch of enemies in a small divided area - this area's theme for sure - the trick I think is to draw them out and not get pulled into a crushing melee where a small group could be overwhelmed. Smart use of barriers like pools of flaming oil could be important here too. That's my pregame assessment anyway - we will see how it goes. If my guys have eight 3rd-level characters when they hit one of these we may just see a brute-force collision as they try to simply plow through the opposition and it may work. This will be an interesting time. 

First Dungeon Level:

It is a big dungeon level, really big. There are 53 marked rooms and it adds up to just over 24,000 XP. Given a party of six that's going to put them at 5600 XP total which is 4th level (2700) headed for 5th (6500). There are two main areas on this level that look particularly dangerous - if you're familiar with the adventure then you probably know what I'm talking about:

• One involves an area with multiple groups of dangerous undead that could hit the group in waves and drain their ability to overcome the negative effects. I suspect we will see how tough ToV characters really can be here. I can see a range of results here from "that was a little sweaty" to "TPK". A cleric will definitely help here - maybe bring two! 
• The other is a group of fairly tough creatures in what amounts to their home environment that pretty much have to be dealt with to accomplish certain goals. This one has a lot of good treasure but it's not all obvious and getting it over their dead bodies will be something to brag about. Analyzing the opposition and playing smart will be important. 

Now that said one of the knocks on 5th edition is that characters are too powerful and the threat of death is rarely present. That may be true but it will be tested here and that is one of the beautiful things about running an old-style adventure with no apologies or concessions to balanced encounter design. They will be at least 3rd and possibly 4th by the time they hit these so they will have experience with what their characters can do.

Second Dungeon level:

This one has 46 marked areas and yields about 49,000 XP. For a party of 6 that's another 8000 XP each which puts our party at 10,700 or 5th level, halfway to 6th. I don't see as many potential problem areas on this level - it feels like things are a little more broken up. There are a lot of humanoids but there are also a lot of named NPC's running the show here and creating opportunities to get involved with some factional warfare. 

Third Dungeon Level:

This level is a little weird as it is setup differently than the others. There are 52 marked areas and if the party fights through all the critters on this level it adds up to about 48,000 XP. So, 8000 each for our hypothetical party which puts them at 14,700 or just over the line for 6th (14,000). 

Now what I left out of that total is that the major opponent of the adventure is on this level and if defeated awards from 33k-50k XP - there are things the PC's can do to affect the toughness of this fight and the easier the fight the less XP we get. Now this confrontation may not happen at the same time as much of the rest of the level so I've broken it out separately but that is a big chunk of XP hat could push the party to almost 7th. Let's track that separately for now. 

Fourth Dungeon Level:

There are only 35 marked areas on this level. Now on this one especially my numbers may be off a bit as there are a lot of notes on creature X is here unless an alert is sounded in which case they go to X and these other creatures move from Y to here. So I may have not counted enough of one thing and counted too many of another but I think it's pretty close. The number is right about 54,000 XP or 9000 each for our party. This would bump them to 23,000 XP or right at 7th (which is achieved at 23000). 

Now that's not accounting for the big bad thing which could add another 5500-10K which would put them at the halfway point or more but not all the way to 8th.

Conclusions:

We're going to pause here and tackle the nodes in tomorrow's post but this covers all of the set encounters from the Moathouse down through the 4 conventional dungeon levels and gets our hypothetical 6-man party to 7th level. 

This does not include wandering monsters (some of which are accounted for in fixed location numbers and some of which are not) or wilderness locations out in the countryside around Hommlet, Nulb, and the temple. It also does not encounter for any side treks the DM decides to drop in as I will likely do when attendance is low for a session. There is enough XP out there for the taking to potentially make a difference on when your PC's level but I think the total is still going to top out around 7th.

Tales of the Valiant - a Look at the Rules

 

I've talked about the setting for the new campaign but today let's talk about the rules. It's been a while since I've run a traditional fantasy RPG and with the 50th anniversary of D&D this year and a bunch of new D&D type games coming out I figured it was time to do that for our next campaign. The crew agreed. I pitched them a few ideas and we ended up with ToEE/Greyhawk/Tales of the Valiant. 

Why ToV? Well, my guys have played a lot of 5th edition over the years and some of them are burned out on standard 5E. There are several alternate 5E's out or coming out now - MCDM, DC20, ToV, and some others I am forgetting. ToV is still close to 5th but different enough it feels like a revised edition of the existing game in a lot of ways. I wasn't looking to break compatibility as I have a fair amount of material for 5th that I want to run and I don't really want to convert it all to a completely new system. So once the Kickstarter books arrived I had read through them and realized it was a great fit for a prospective 5E revival retaining that compatibility while still feeling like something new. 

How about some specifics on the changes:

• Race is split into "Lineage" and "Heritage". Basically one is nature and one is nurture. This lets players get creative with their backstory and lets them mix some mechanical options in new ways. Say you're putting together a half-elf character - now you could choose an elf lineage with a human heritage - or the reverse. I had someone play a half-orc once where the other half was supposed to be elf. With this approach he could have actually chosen the parts that might have fit that better than the traditional half-orc racial features. It's not a tremendous change once you are playing the game but it is one more way to customize a character.
• Additional note: race no longer gives an ability score modifier. Lineage covers some physical traits like darkvision and then heritage gives some things like a choice of skill proficiencies but no more +1 Dex or +2 Con etc.
• Backgrounds are similar to 5E and fill the same role  - Lineage, Heritage, and Background pretty much sketch out your backstory - but every background grants a Talent, the ToV version of a Feat. Most of a character's Talents will come with the "Improvement" granted every 4 levels where you can choose an ability score boost or a Talent but those are gated by your class choice - more on that below - so this is a rare chance to pick up a Talent outside the usual type for your class. It is a short list of specific Talents, not just choose one from a category, but it makes the background more important mechanically.
• Talents are divided into Martial, Magical, and Technical. Most classes can only pick from one of those categories as they level up - Rangers and Mechanists get to pick from Martial and Technical - so that background option, or the Human Lineage bonus of being able to pick any Talent, could be important. Say you're a more fighty type of cleric and you see a Martial Talent that you like - the only way to take it is by being human or by taking a background like Soldier if it's on that list. So while it's not wide open there is some flexibility there.
• The "Improvement" every 4 levels has some options: +2 to one ability, +1 to two abilities, or +1 to one ability and choose one Talent. I suspect that last one will be extremely popular. 
• The classes are generally similar to the 5th Edition classes but there are tweaks to the levelling progression - mainly no dead levels. The sub-class levels are unified across all classes at 3-7-11-15. This does break compatibility with prior 5E classes & subclass options but it does open up the interesting possibility of a subclass that's not tied to a particular class. There are none in the main book and I'm not sure what that would look like but it would be an option now that we did not have before. Classes and subclasses in particular are another obvious direction for future expansion - especially for Kobold Press.
• There is also a standard cross-class feature at 10th called the Heroic Boon and at 20th called the Epic Boon. Right now for 10th at least there are usually a couple of choices for each class that set the tone for how you want to play that class. For example the Ranger has an option to make their fighting via their Mystic Mark class feature better -or- to improve their spellcasting options with more cantrips and rituals. There is only one option for the Epic Boons per class right now but this is another obvious area for future expansion and since they are all at the same level, and presumably of comparable power levels, this is another area where you could have cross-class "boons" to cover some unusual  concepts. 

• One big question: Did they fix the Ranger? Declared the "worst" class in 5E from very early on this tends to be an area of focus whenever 5E's weaknesses are discussed or whenever someone starts talking about new classes. So did they? I don't know. It looks better to me on paper but we all know how that can go. I do have one in the party though so i will be watching.
• Spellcasting has a lot of holdovers from 5th but there are some tweaks. You have the usual cantrips for at-will stuff, regular spells as we all know and love, and then Rituals which are the extended casting time operations like Identify, Animate Dead, and Find Familiar but they are broken out into a separate category so they do not interfere with either your cantrips or your regular spells. This should help make Rituals a more useful and common thing in the game than I have seen previously.
• The other big spellcasting change is that there are no class-specific spell lists - there are 4 big lists (similar to Pathfinder): Arcane, Divine, Primordial, and Wyrd. This means Wizards and Bards, both Arcane, are casting from the same spell list so yes, Bards can cast Fireball.  Clerics and Paladins use Divine, Rangers and Druids use Primordial, and for now only Warlocks use Wyrd. 
• Class-wise one other item of interest is the new class - the Mechanist. I keep seeing this one mentioned as ToV's Artificer and while it may fulfill a similar role it works quite a bit differently as it is not a spellcaster. The class abilities are tied up in various devices it can build and enhance but it has specific features to do this - it's not coming from a spell list. So it is not exactly the same thing - it just looks like it on the surface. I will have one in the party for this campaign so we will see it in action right from the start.

One of the more notable game changes is Luck. This is a replacement for Inspiration which if your experience was similar to mine was easily and often overlooked or forgotten in the heat of play. Coming from a long Savage Worlds campaign I do like the idea of some player Fate point/Force point/Bennie mechanics in D&D and this looks a lot better than Inspiration.

• Everyone starts with 0 luck
• If you miss an attack roll you gain 1 luck
• If you fail a saving throw you gain 1 luck
• The DM can award a point of luck for all of the usual reasons
• You can never have more than 5 luck and if you end up going over you immediately roll a d4 and now have that much luck instead
• After you make a check you can spend 1 luck to add +1 to the roll - up to as much as you have
• After you make a check you can also spend 3 luck to re-roll the d20.
• You can't create a nat 20 or offset a nat 1with luck

This is a really smart mechanic. It's easily understood and easily flows in and out during actual play and puts a lot of the responsibility for keeping up with it on the players instead of being solely on the DM. I like everything about this one and I would bet that this is the single most "stolen" thing in this book for use in regular 5E games. 

There are also Downtime rules in the Player's Guide. This is another nice addition that gives a mechanical framework and some firm options for doing something active between adventures. I'm planning to use it as a filler for players who miss a session. Characters can make some money, do spell research, and make contacts, among other things, using this system. 

Overall I'm looking forward to trying this set of rules out. That should happen this coming weekend and I will definitely be discussing it afterwards.