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Axeholm DM Guide | How to Run Dragon of Icespire Peak
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ส.ค. 2024
- Axeholm DM Guide | How to Run Dragon of Icespire Peak
Chapters
0:00 - Intro
1:03 - Quest Card & Location Overview
5:20 - Quest Goals & Travel to Axeholm
6:15 - Entering Axeholm
7:59 - Ghouls!
12:45 - Vyldara the Banshee
15:29 - Spiders!
17:54 - Loot & Treasure
19:50 - Evaluation of this Adventure
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Suggested Playlists
-Dungeon Master Tips: • Dungeon Master Tips
-Let's Learn D&D 5e: • Let's Learn D&D 5e
-Combat & Action Economy Strategy: • Combat and Action Econ...
-Intro to Dungeons and Dragons: • Intro to Dungeons & Dr...
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-Reviews & Unearthed Arcana: • Reviews & Unearthed Ar...
-Table Talk: • Table Talk
Gameplay
-Ancient Relics & Hokey Religions: • Ancient Relics & Hokey...
-Dragon of Icespire Peak: • Dragon of Icespire Peak
-One Shot Adventures: • One Shot Adventures
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Gameplay Attributions
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Music & Sounds
Our videos (mostly our gameplay) sometimes contain music or sounds from various sources and these are the most common places that we use.
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Art Used
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Oh yay! You’re still doing this! Great! Was hoping you still were going to finish this!
Life has definitely been nuts for both of us lately but we won’t give up 😉
@@JNJTabletop Glad to know you’re persevering! Just make sure you don’t forget to take time to relax during these hard times.
I wish there was a way for me to play dnd with you guys.
That’s really good advice. Thank you, Bentron!
Best way to spend time with us is to join our discord and/or connect with our individual socials. All that stuff is in our linktree!
The was probably the quest I homebrewed the most from the module. For starters, I had Cryovane destroy a Dwarven farming community and Phandalin fill up with refugees. The party took time helping feed, cloth and entertain the refugees and they were invited to a meeting with the town council (All the named NPCs except Harbin because he sucks). There they had a social encounter with the head of the refugees (Ruby Hammerwacker, the sidekick because her name and art were too good not to use) and the dwarves from the Dwarven excavation. That's where the quest came, to find a place to shelter all these refugees. It felt much more organic a way to set the quest, dwarf refugees, dwarf stronghold, plus it impressed upon the party just how actually dangerous Cryovane actually is.
As for the actual encounters, I had a friend come in and play a couple of sessions because he'd been wanting to give D&D a try, so I had a party of six that all pretty much knew what they were doing and since he was a guest star I gave him some awesome stuff to feel cool and powerful. Level 5 with a flaming longsword, he was trilled. I beefed up the HP of all the ghouls, but the party managed to do pretty well. I turned the Castillian into a minor boss fight by giving him a stat block I can't recall, but he had spells. I also added a minor encounter in the kitchen: a single tiny ghoul behind a barricaded door (barricaded from the inside). This small ghoul was a halfling adventurer, that died, turned, and the party found his journal. The journal basically said that the banshee wails at dawn and all the dead rise again. I didn't want the party just leaving and taking a little nap and trivialize all the encounters. The halfling also had a minor magical ring that buffed our ranger a little bit in areas where he was a little weak. This place has so many amazing rooms, it seems a shame to have some many empty. This is also set up for a return of the journal to the halfling's mother, who ended the journal, tell my mother I love her. The party will pass the halfling's hometown on their way to Neverwinter in a few sessions. Always interesting to see what they do.
Lastly, I buffed the banshee by using the homebrewed "Ancient Banshee" on D&D Beyond. This increased her HP as well as gave her a possession ability. I also had her summon a single ghoul on initiative 20. This was the hardest fight my party had up to this point. The banshee's wail knocked down three of the six and basically erased 150-200 of the party's HP. I also played her like you suggested, constantly strafing in and out of the walls, even the floor. Eventually the party wised up and began holding magic missles and using dissonant whispers to do damage to her. When the possession took their cleric, and she turned around, eyes white and opened her mouth and screamed, it was an amazing moment. The party had an absolutely amazing time and the challenge was something they told me they wanted. During session 0 I asked, do you want me to play the monsters and enemies how they SHOULD play, or do you want me to go easy on you? They said they wanted smart monsters, so here we are.
We ran out of time and just said that with a long rest, now that the banshee had been defeated, they could clear the spiders without us having to do it. At that point, it felt like a sort of pointless encounter with no treasure or relevance to the greater story, and we'd run out of time with our guest player.
Oh, and Cryovane did show up as they left the next morning. That was fun. I like the random rolls for Cryovane. He has tormented poor Adabra at her windmill 2 or 3 times and the most recent session, he attacked Neverwinter. That's got a lot of people in the City fully aware of the threat, and the party will likely get compensation and recognition after they defeat him. If they do. lol
Thank you for these videos. They are a continuing inspiration.
Holy Mole, Erik this is NUTS!! Sounds like an incredible journey you’ve helped put together for your group. Kudos to you, friend! 🍻
@@JNJTabletop I was terrified to start DMing, but it turns out it's something I really, really enjoy. It's been a great outlet for creativity that I supposed I'd been missing. My players think that they're off to kill Cryovane on Sunday, but in reality, they're about to meet a group of "gnomes" in a sleigh being pulled by some flying reindeer. That's right, CHRISTMAS SESSION! hahaha
Ho ho ho my goodness! The unexpected bait and switch Christmas session!
We've got many other DM Tips to help you get the most out of your games! Check them out on our channel and in this playlist... th-cam.com/play/PL6dmrZg4pm2qOzacuy1icbfxTvjj-PKf6.html
For more tips on running the Dragon of Icespire Peak adventure, check out our playlist here: th-cam.com/play/PL6dmrZg4pm2phOB99W_qDcTHfRO_ipO-i.html
I added the Flameskull Faceoff encounter from DnD Beyond to this dungeon. It made for a great little boss fight.
Ooooohhhh that sounds awesome! Did you substitute anything out for it or did you just pour on the pain for your players???
@@JNJTabletop I don't think I subbed anything out. The villain from Flameskull Faceoff is a necromancer named Blainn the Bloody. I put the Flameskull in the twisting tunnels on the first floor and Blainn in the room with the spiders. I also made the banshee unkillable, with the challenge to be to survive until they could figure out how to release or banish her.
Don't feel too bad for the heroes - they were higher level than the adventure demands and I'm very generous with magic equipment. The additions were just to make sure it was a challenge for their power level.
@@JNJTabletop I know from your Gold Toe video that you don't like unkillable challenges. I understand your point of view, but I have a lot of luck when I start designing a challenge with, "This monster cannot be killed by normal means," and go from there. Either the players solve my puzzle or they come up with something amazing I didn't think of.
For us the issue with the Mt Toe quest is more about how disjointed and poor the communication of that is in terms of DM to player… at least from how it’s presented in the module.
If you have battles that are above grade, we just advise making sure there are clues to that fact that are easily accessible. As long as you have them in place, CRUSH THEM!! 🤣🤣🤣
Those sound like very fun changes!!
For everyone who wants to pimp his game:
My Plan is changing axeholm in the same setting as dwarwen excavation. It may sound boring at first, but its the opposite. the dwarven excavation quest had very good lore and I used it to the fullest extend. My players had to decipher runes and solve riddles to open the secret gates. They found a priest journal which told them, that the writer was involved in sacrificing the other priests into the slimes and that they all had to oblige to the will of abbathor so a desaster could be prevented. Also one player got cursed by taking the dagger neclace and is now hearing voices and is so greedy, that he can feel, when thereis treasure nearby. But it also means that he sometimes is out of character and exhausted from bad sleep. i can easily force this with a dice in boring situations.
Now I plan to give them the chance to further decipher the leftovers of the priests journal, so that the story of the curse, the desaster that happened to the priests and the sacrificing of the priests itself comes together, maybe a useful artifact in the fortress that sucks a lot blood or something like that.
First of all this gets me rid of the quest board which gets boring in its repetition. They have clues from the book and have to ask people if they know something about the stuff they found in there and maybe some townspeople might have an interest in a fortress nearby beeing cleared when the white dragon comes attacking.
Since reading an unreadable book takes time, they have the chance to lvl up until I start the quest. One Ivestigation Check per day=equals 6 hours of decipher and on success a line is translated.
An Artifact can be a very good lure for players to search for a way to decipher and looking for an entrance instead of waiting for DM Hints to unfold the story. It makes traveling more interesting. because they learn new aspects of abbathor while travelling to other quests.
I also like the Idea of them fighting the slimes again instead of ghouls only. The slimes were an hard encounter but now the players know their weaknesses. However they now have a banshee which could suddenly drag someone through the wall or other staff to hinder the party while fighting.
Any more ideas are much appreciated. if someone is interested in the content, feel free to ask.
P.S you kinda inspired me with gnomengarde, to make out more of given stories and given monsters. not just a lame mimic fight, but a mimic that doesnt want to be catched and flees and transforms into walls to hide and the people just have a lot more fun this way
*Potato image*
Such fun takes on the changes you made! I really appreciate you linking the excavation with Axeholm. It brings it all together quite nicely!