Descent into Avernus | 5e Dungeons & Dragons | Web DM

Take a siege engine to HELL with us! We're talking about our first impressions of the newest D&D adventure module, Baldurs Gate: Descent into Avernus, and how we're using it.
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[@sebaseba6710]

You guys really need to do a Githyanki episode!

[@magicorubik]

Adventure books would benefit greatly, by having a "Session Zero" section, to help the DM (and the group) start the game more smoothly

[@kempyboi123]

That is... a good idea, damn that would be helpful yeah

[@CuriousKey]

As in, what pretty much every other publisher considers a basic feature? Yeah, it'd be good if Wizards did more of that.

[@SnarkyRogue]

Very much needed. I had a character I had in mind, was really excited to play, and meshed well with the party comp, then we hit the dark secret. And then the plot hook. And I suddenly realized that my character didn't fit in from an RP standpoint at all. Had to basically scrap the backstory to have better motivations/reasons to be there and take orders etc.

[@DrLipkin]

Agreed.

[@TonyRobetson]

yea, it feels like they rely on dm's guild and the early podcasts/streams for that

[@alexanderwheeler3943]

"The sandbox freedom can become a kind of paralysis." That's what happened to me in real life

[@Wimikk]

Well I wasn’t expecting to get called out this early in the morning.

[@MrIrrationalSmith]

Basically what happens after high school or college.

[@ChewieLuke]

It's like trying to pick a flavour of ice cream.

[@AndsenPhren]

The writers admitted that they had to squeeze in Bauldr's Gate last minute once the Bauldr's Gate video game was announced in an interview with DnD Beyond so it makes sense the beginning was a bit lacking.

[@AndsenPhren]

I hope this doesn't become a trend like how half the video games these days come out unfinished.

[@somerollerskater3656]

Merry good news is there is always way to fix it

[@toshomni9478]

That's disappointing since the Baldur's Gate part was what I was most excited about.

[@Nildread]

@@toshomni9478 the stuff in it about baldur's gate at the back of the book is good, it just has little to do with the adventure as a whole.

[@zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba0]

Yo Merry. Have you been looking at Magic and Comic books lately? D&D is just the next fandom after the previously mentioned two and video games to be tossed on the chopping block, drawn, quartered and squeezed for as much disposable income as possible.

[@infinitewanderer4187]

Didn't Jim have a desire to run a game where a Devotion Paladin, War Cleric, Fighter Acolyte, and Zealot Barbarian go to hell once? I think it was in one of the paladin videos. This seems like the time to do that.

[@benjaminstout941]

I immediately thought of that too. But then I listened to their issues with it in the first 20 minutes and I was like no, I will run my own hell campaign instead.

[@timetogeaux5149]

He did and its my favorite idea theyve ever talked about. Because its metal as hell

[@ChewieLuke]

@@DoctorDocMD A devotion paladin, war cleric, fighter acolyte, and a zealot barbarian walk into a lower plane. The barbarian failed his will save, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability.

[@Technotoadnotafrog]

Rip and tear!

[@TheHalcyonCalamity]

I still cannot BELIEVE the adventure has Elturel fall into hell off-screen. Potentially the coolest, most dramatic session 1s you could possibly have for a campaign-being in Elturel when the Companion goes dark and the city is pulled into Avernus...nah. NAH. Let's just go to Baldur's Gate and fuck around with the Flaming Fist for a while. It's not like we literally all showed up for a hell adventure and are excited for that part.

[@osmium6832]

That seems like a perfectly reasonable adjustment to the module. It would also prevent the necessity of the book saying "if the players don't go along with the story, kill them" if they are inside of a city that planeshifts into a hell dimension. DM's have full control over the story and don't have to tell it exactly as written. Some players may be bummed about not getting to hang out in Baldur's Gate, but you could reuse that section for a different campaign. Or start in Baldur's Gate, put a plot hook in Elturel, and once they get there, everything goes to hell... literally.

[@Recardoguy007]

Osmium is right, I’m running dragon heist and all my players started at 10th even though it’s made for 1-5. Use the setting, take characters that you like and then doctor it up how you see fit.

[@Nildread]

@@osmium6832 now that, sounds like a great idea. I still like most of the wotc official books, even though they are flawed most of the time. They usually have something cool and worth while in them, wether it's setting, NPC's, story ideas, mechanics, or maps/dungeons ect. They do usually require work, but I don't expect anyone to produce an adventure that's perfect for everyone. I've seen a 3rd party adventure that had a character that was charmed into a marriage, kinda messed up. Some people have issues with magical mind controled rape. But if you change a few things it can still be salvaged.

[@TheHalcyonCalamity]

@@osmium6832 Yeah! That's 1000% my intention for if/when I run this. I've always been happy to rip apart adventures and modules to suit my wants and needs, but I also have a lot more spare time than a lot of DMs I know. The criticism has more to do with folks in mind who specifically buy the modules so that they don't have to spend a lot of time prepping, and it just really surprises me that wotc passed up this really cool game experience. That said, I don't run in the Forgotten Realms and don't know anyone who does in my personal loop, so it is definitely possible that Baldur's Gate is really cool and special to a lot of people in a way that I don't fully understand/appreciate. It's obvious folks have a lot of affection for it, I might just be missing that key bit of perspective that makes starting in Baldur's Gate really genuinely awesome for folks! Though even in that case, your latter idea still beats the module as-written for me by a landslide.

[@osmium6832]

@@TheHalcyonCalamity I think the allure of the town has to do with the fact that alongside Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 are in the top 3 best selling and most critically acclaimed PC D&D games ever made. It was many video gamer's first experience with D&D and brought quite a few people to try TTRPG's for the first time, so I imagine there's a lot of nostalgia for the town. This may have not have any relevance to your particular group, which is fine, but it's kind of a big deal to the customer base as a whole.

[@EnderLord007]

A physics professor of mine actually said he was playing Mad Mage, top to bottom. So it got some mileage with some people, certainly.

[@NicholasPickleous]

LoopDeLoop it was made for a very certain player for sure.

[@EviIPaladin]

I'm actually playing through it as a player. It is an interesting beast but has been super fun thus far. I say this as someone who is relatively new to the hobby and am absolutely dreadful at puzzle solving and directions so probably not the intended audience for it.

[@NutronicAtomic]

Agreed, I started in during AL no less in tier 2 and we're almost to tier 4 now and getting pretty far down. Granted we skipped a bit of content and took a detour to Celestia but I feel the books are what the party and dm make of em.

[@duhg599]

I’ve been DMing DotMM for several months now, and I love just about everything about it. It has a lot of fun stuff jam-packed into it, and the indented & bolded format that Chris Perkins used makes running it at the table really easy compared to the dense paragraphs of hard-to-find information that Descent Into Avernus uses.

[@TheodoreMinick]

I'm DMing a group going through DOTMM. We're currently on the third level, and the players are about to topple the Xanathar guild.

[@grantstephens8754]

One reason it might not be super HELL is because there are 8 levels that are worse. If the top layer is for the least awful then it makes sense for it to not be super HELL

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

"I need the blizzard frost of Hell for only the Void has the power to claim my soul." - Aasimar/Paladin of the Void + all sub-classes in Paladin because the Void is everything and everything is the Void.

[@maphitha1]

This is my first campaign as a DM and I may be out of my depth, but I've found that this adventure needs a lot of work to get into an adventuring rhythm. What worked for my table was starting the characters in Elturel. It's the polar opposite of Baldur's Gate and allowing characters to experience the drama of Elturel vanishing and later the jarring contrast with Baldur's Gate motivated the characters more than sending a death squad after them. Side note, starting players at 5th level also empowered my table to exercise agency in the world that led to them adventuring more naturally towards a delve into Hell.

[@okra13]

Players: we refuse! *flaming fist kill the party* GM: okay everyone, chapter 2, your dead and in hell.

[@MrSilvUr]

Enjoy your afterlife as a Lemure.

[@danieldosso2455]

I'm actually really into this as an idea. I mean the adventure is already a railroad right? Why not just Jonah and the Whale the whole adventure?

[@okra13]

@@danieldosso2455 I've been thinking of doing it too

[@michaelbootes4822]

I have a level 2 party playing the Acquisitions inc module. I’ve already told them if they wipe on this I’m just dropping their screaming souls into Avernus and they smack face first into the plot city

[@Nildread]

@@danieldosso2455 well, the issue I have with that is, why not just start the adventure in hell and avoid the arbitrary flaming fist nonsense.

[@Hellbentdelirium]

I'm running Dungeon of The Mad Mage for my group of 4. So far we have had a Tortle Cleric kill themselves accidentally through magical heart transplant, our Aaracokra Druid being cursed with not being able to restore hit points, and the party almost getting eaten alive by a gigantic Gelatinous Cube. 10/10

[@punkpinata7062]

Dungeon of the Mad Mage is such a fun adventure. I am a pretty fresh DM and I never run a Mega-Dungeon but this is truly a great Adventure, In my very humble opinion.

[@TheodoreMinick]

Ah, that magical heart swap. Gotta love it.

[@TheBaconWizard]

I remember that cube! It had a dwarf's skull in it!

[@theophrastusbombastus1359]

And that's all just on the first level!

[@CrovanBlaze]

I had Session Zero of Descent Into Avernus last week, and I was very explicit about the fact that the party ends up going to Hell. I even cracked a joke about D&D sending them to Hell, since almost all of my players are old enough to remember the Satanic Panic. A big part of Session Zero was linking character backgrounds and giving me fodder to link them to Avernus. Fortunately, at least three of them have serious beef with the same chromatic dragon. Also, I've decided that Captain Zodge is the one who knows about their collective dark secret, which will make it pretty easy for him to compel them to do the first gopher task.

[@Frodon157]

Crovan I feel like the flaming fist angle only works if Zodge knows the dark secret. otherwise my party will just dip out

[@frenkuguz6072]

Same, Captain Zodge said them the Duke could give em an un-official way to pay for their crimes...

[@IvanPopovArt]

I honestly have no idea why they put the "kill the players if they don't go on the quest" thing in the adventure. I actually really like the Dark Secret party background feature of the adventure and I think it gives the DM a great tool to motivate the PCs.

[@Nildread]

It reminds me of tomb of annihilation, there's a few times the party can come into contact, early on, with NPC's that can destroy them. But that adventure makes it clear that, for most of them anyway, isn't their goal and they'd sooner leave. I think dragon heist has some too. I've seen people argue that the NPC's should just kill the party, regardless of it being written that the NPC's want to use the party and won't kill them, simply because they are -insert cr/power level/monster/undead/dragon/blah blah blah-. "That's not how such and such is! I don't care what the adventure says, it's a monster and acts like every other monster and kills them all" It makes me concerned that someone actually listened to that. Honestly, it's the same feeling I have with some people's interpretation of alignment. If character's alignment can change, then an NPC's can too. I take the DMG or really anything as an example of what is typical of said thing. If a world is full of only typical things it can get uninteresting. I also think of personal alignment as a guide, maybe it's the creature's ideals, some times things might act in away that seems contrary to those ideas to achieve a goal. Though I would personally use that sparingly. if you have every lawful evil thing saving the world it might get a bit confusing, unless thats part of your homebrew somehow. Maybe that's not how the forgotten realms is typically, or supposed to be run but I find it more fun. I should probably just homebrew a setting.

[@danieldosso2455]

If you kill the party, they're already in hell (assuming) when their souls awaken

[@Nildread]

@@danieldosso2455 unlikely if the party has good or neutral aligned members, especially clerics or paladins. Best case scenario, the party gets split up like crazy. Worst case scenario the game ends and you lose your players. Arguably you could send them to hell because plot reasons. But then that first bit of the adventure is useless. It might as well be "a racist comes out of nowhere and shanks you all. There's no time to react, every single one of you is dead. But wait! You wake up and realise you're in hell. Now you gotta save this town and get out, so you can get your revenge on that racist." It's lame, could be funny, but wouldn't really be enjoyable for most people. When DM's pull that kind of thing, people get annoyed because we are essentially playing make believe, but with rules and dice. And that kind of set up removes player agency and the ability to roll against it. It would be better if, like someone else said, he had leverage on the party, like the secret in the baldur's gate bit. Because if something leads to combat, but it's arbitrary that the PC's lose, why even play d&d. That interaction can't lead to combat because it ruins their reason for doing that bit of the story if they manage to survive and kill him.

[@danieldosso2455]

@@Nildread isn't the point of D&D to have fun? What if there's a beer&pretzels game that lives and breathes on dumb shit from both the GM and PCs?

[@Nildread]

@@danieldosso2455 that is why I said it could be funny. But I would change it up anyway, like if I was going for over the top cheese or humor I wouldn't use that guy killing them, it'd be better to just say "rocks fall everyone dies". It's just annoying as a product you buy, that the baldur's gate stuff has no narrative connection, it's just arbitrary. it could be pulled out and used better, or added to and made better but it has nothing to do with avernus as is, unless you make it. You can make it work, for sure. But as written, someone who is a newer DM might not easily pick up on that. My point isn't that starting the campaign in avernus is a bad idea, it's just a bad set up. If an NPC tells you to do something and if you don't you die, but both things lead you to the same destination anyway and have no effect on anything, that's called the illusion of choice.

[@tonyvoegtlesquirrelpunkmag9768]

I forsee this adventure being the center of multiple threads on r/rpghorrorstories.

[@michaelmarksman743]

Tony Voegtle I’ve read through the book, and it is not really good for Tier 1 or Tier 2 parties. 😅

[@Ruinred]

@@michaelmarksman743 I just bought the book. I have not read it yet. My party are currently level 12. Is the book and story easy enough to convert to this higher level play?

[@reubenfromow4854]

Kyle Kopac from having read it, it’s actually IDEAL for high-level play. I’d say get them into Avernus as soon as possible. Once they’re there, LV12 characters are going to have a blast tackling some of the higher-CR devils and demons as an equal 🙂

[@georgeryan8267]

why?

[@tonyvoegtlesquirrelpunkmag9768]

@@georgeryan8267 in the beginning where the book instructs the DM to basically kill the party if they don't immediately go on the given quest.

[@ethanbest9110]

So thinking about the Baldur's Gate part of this: I feel like you have the issue of existing in an Epic High Fantasy world with griffon knights and epic heroes and then there's this very clearly corrupt city and your Epic High Fantasy instincts tell you to save the city and then you go to Hell and have to deal with all the toxic intrigue there. The way you solve this, in my mind, is make this the Planescape adventure it should be, where everyone is already aware of how much wheeling and dealing goes into planar existence.

[@aliceofspades]

I love the thought of devils being a sort of evil HR employee. Very clever idea! :D

[@paulh3892]

Hope of Spades : haha that’s great! In our home brew setting they are all lawyers

[@MrIrrationalSmith]

I'm over half way thru DIA and currently binge-watching The Sopranos. I think the mafia are a great example of lawful evil, and I think I'll style future LE characters that way.

[@Gooberjoovies]

Wow I can't believe Pruitt said the N word N U M E N E R A

[@queenannsrevenge100]

Yes, totally uncalled for. 😀

[@ArawnNox]

17:30 I ripped in to an adventure writer for this, years ago. His adventure, in the character motivations section, had an entry that said "Who cares? They're adventurers, they get involved in this stuff all the time!" That's not good enough. It's why so many play reports I read had players apathetically hanging around with nothing to do at the starting point. Who tried to flee when the first encounter kicked off. There was nothing for the players to be invested in.

[@samholden5758]

There's a balance. The adventure/DM need to present reasonable motivations for the players to have their characters hook on. But the players also need to play their part after all I suspect "screw this I'm going back to farming" is a perfectly reasonable response to goblins attacking level 1 characters, but that doesn't make for a very good game. Feng Shui is great with the rule book itself in the character creation chapter has: "At the beginning of your first adventure, and perhaps at other intervals as the series progresses, the GM expects you to buy in - to find a reason why your character decides to engage with the dangerous situation at hand by going off to do action movie things."

[@misomiso8228]

Yeah really liked this one. It's essentially a 'portal' fantasy adventure set in DnD, and the portal happens to be Hell! It's also quite Edgy for current DnD, dealing with deep themes and sending the players into a warzone between Demons and Devils. I still feel they could maybe structure the 'Middle' bit of the adventure a bit better - in SKT they just gave a few different middle options, and in this they give two different paths, but it would be nice if they tried a more sandboxy mid section, maybe with a map to move around (although the map they gave was pretty fun).

[@badandymk3]

I got this module for Christmas. I've been reading through it and am planning on running it as my first ever campaign as a DM.

[@OracleLibby]

How’s that going?

[@joshuasibrava9241]

UA Onomancy Wizard would fit the bill so well for "the power in a name" type character in this setting

[@SALdosry]

Let me tell you how I fixed this, my players are at level 11 and they are in the middle of Rise of Tiamat and they are known in the land as the “Magnificent Six” who saved the land’s treasure, also they already have a good relationship with Ulder Ravengard. So when they arrived to Baldur’s Gate and the Flaming Fist asked for help, my players did it because of Ulder. The way I did it needs some work, because the adventure was created for 1st level characters but I like to run these adventures like skeletons in my world so I’m changing most encounters and beefing up everything to be challenging for an 11 level party, but it makes more sense for the heroes of the land to save Elturel than just an unnamed party

[@blackwolfe638]

"if they don't go along with it, just kill them" always felt like a writer joke to Me. Akin to, "well, if you're players don't want to play, get other players"

[@deathcleric6900]

YES IM BUILDING THIS CAMPAIGN IN WORLD ANVIL RIGHT NOW AND NEEDED THIS VIDEO

[@WebDM]

Hope you find it helpful!!

[@ChurchAtNight]

Just release a book of tons of art and all random tables. I’ll buy it. Don’t care about their story I got it.

[@misomiso8228]

EPISODE IDEA: Hearing you talking about session 0, how about an episode about making groups for specific adventures / campaigns? So usually now DMs allow quite a lot of free form in character creation, but adventures can be quite good if there is more guidance and purpose for a campaign. So maybe the DM asks all the players to be Dwarves as they've discovered the location of the Sacred Hammer of the Dwarven People. Or maybe all the players are good and deity aligned but have to deal with Demons (as you say). Really directing groups, and having themes for parties, can really help everyone involved. Best guys great vids.

[@Alynis_]

There is a section in the book where it says that the players should come together in a session zero and create their characters. Part of this process is choosing a scheme they were part of that brought them together as a group (A Failed Coup, a Heist etc.) Then there are some NPC's who are rolled to have knowledge of this event and its blackmail/leverage to get the players to help. So that whole concern should be taken care of as there are pages of information for making the group for this campaign.

[@GuardianTactician]

There are is one reason I can think of for why a devil would not want its True Name to be revealed: It allows a player character to write a contract and bind a devil into service though the terms and conditions stipulated by the player. Sure, the devil gets a contract, but they get the raw end of that deal when they are used to giving it.

[@heathenwizard]

I am playing Mad Mage and it’s really great. All the player buy in you need is to tell them what Undermountain is and ask them why they want to adventure there.

[@bockmaker]

So a group of lawful good paladins are going to have a grand old time.

[@eddygreen3631]

I am planning on using this adventure as a high level quest. I have ran both Tyranny of Dragons with one group and Storm King's Thunder with another. I am going to combine those parties to run through Descent into Avernus as a 12-14th level adventure. The first several encounters are by far the weakest part of this adventure. Overall, I agree with your review of this product. Although I do like the Baldur's Gate section for setting information. Keep up the great work fellows.

[@Logandroid]

I really like that you guys are doing reviews/discussions of the adventure modules. It's very interesting hearing what your opinions are on the official adventures.

[@zeedar412]

I'm actually running Mad Mage. It required lots if tinkering, but I think I have it running smooth now aligned with PC motivations and all. It has a bunch of interesting stuff in it. The biggest hurdle was constantly explaining the size and orientation of rooms and corridors as it really slowed the game down. So, even though we play offline, I dropped the map in roll20 (modified player version with no secret doors revealed) and I just reveal the room as the enter it, so I only have to worry about flavour text and not dimensions and directions.

[@Ghastly_Grinner]

I like how Dresden Files deals with True names You can deal in pieces of your name I think in the first book Harry bargains away his middle name to a demon

[@kyubii972]

Our one year long campaign that I recently got a break from thankfully. Was started with water deep dragon heist and I used all the factions, but the ones the players interacted with the most we're more prominent. The module pretty much was just the funding the party needed to throw their characters right into undermountain. I feel under mountain is a fantastic module especially if you just want a large varied amount of dungeons. There are some truly creative dungeons in that book. We never explored every level. But that's what the gateways are for anyway to skip around. I personally used one of the characters a certain mindflayer that they already had placed in undermountain and I used him to affect the story and waterdeep and eventually lured the party into undermountain. Really long story short undermountain was a good module and its a hefty tome.

[@andrewdavis8251]

I love Descent into Avernus and I love Web DM, so this should be good.

[@CthulhusDream]

2:50 Heeyy I'm playing Mad Mage =P Tbh I picked it for my group because it's my first time being a full time DM, after our last one got married and moved to NY. I thought that since it was straight up just a bunch of dungeons there was less room for me to screw up and all mechanical work had been done really, I just had to drop players in and run encounters/RP. DotMM seemed kinda like easy mode so I thought it'd be best.

[@LakeVermilionDreams]

How have you found it to stack up to your expectations?

[@CthulhusDream]

​@@LakeVermilionDreams Since its still my first foray into full time DMing I don't have a lot to compare it too, that being said my players and I are having lots of fun in a good ol' fashioned massive dungeon romp. Our last DM did a lot of open-ended sandbox stuff, and it was difficult for the group to find our footing sometimes. We ended up floundering a lot, or just TPKing on a random encounters. That sometimes lead to frustration and the flushing of lots of work on the DMs and PCs sides down the tubes. Surprisingly for a relatively straight up dungeon, not as much murderhoboism as I would've expected but I guess that's on me as well (not making every encounter a strictly kill or be killed affair), but I also got lucky and have a pretty good group of players. We're actually about to "clear" the first level and the players are all excited to level up. My players and I have also decided that since DotMM is sooooo large, with so many levels encompassing basically every tier of play (levels 5 to 20), we're going to do an on again off again kinda thing. Doing 3 or so levels of DotMM, then swapping seats to let one of the players get a chance to run a smaller adventure, then back to DotMM for another handful of levels. I really like the idea of letting everyone get their own chance behind the screen, and I love relaxing a bit and being able to play a character myself.

[@TheodoreMinick]

@@CthulhusDream My players cleared out the Grick nest for the Xanathar, earning themselves the password for the guild's outposts on level two. Now they're down on level three, and Skullport, and using that password to infiltrate Xanathar's HQ (which I borrowed from Dragon Heist.) One of my players keeps mentioning that the guild's under bad leadership. I think he wants to be the next Xanathar.

[@CthulhusDream]

@@TheodoreMinick My players have been pretty diplomatic with Xan's minions, doing their best to avoid fights. They haven't won their favor but have proven themselves worthy enough not to be directly messed with. However, they "accidentally" tricked the one outpost into getting themselves eaten by the grick alpha, haven't decided what consequences to make out of that yet though.

[@TheodoreMinick]

@@CthulhusDream I will say this: Be careful with Halleth. He can end up dragging the party very deep into level two, or make all the fights until he gets his revenge super easy. My players were halfway through level two in record time, and ended up skipping all the really cool encounters. If I had it to do again, I'd ignore his super tracking trait, and he wouldn't join in on fights unless paid. Or they just find his beaten and mangled corpse in the pit.

[@karljordan7114]

"The devil started at her side, Comely, and tall, and black as jet. 'I am Malespina's bride; Has he come hither yet?' ... 'You lie, he died with me to-night.' 'Not he! it was a plot' ... 'You lie.' 'My dear, I never lie outright.'" - from A Ballad of Hell by John Davidson

[@jinxtheunluckypony]

Any book that tells new DMs to kill PCs for trying to explore doesn’t deserve to be printed. The rest of the book could be pure gold and that’d still be a deal breaker.

[@krispalermo8133]

? publish games if ran the wrong way or the players make bad dice rolls will get the characters killed. Plenty old publish games stated if they try taking the boss down alone, will cause the death of a single player character.

[@Xaxares]

The war machines could mix well with Eberron. Driving through the magical wastes on a magitech contraption at break-neck speeds.

[@TonyRobetson]

that is cool that they true names is at least a thing. i remember there being a true name mage in 3.0 and now there's a wizard in the new unearthed arcana. itll be cool to see what they do with that

[@corranhorn85]

It seems like parts of the book allude to characters spending more time in Baldur's Gate, particularly the character background details. For instance, the soldier background has options to be a member of the Flaming Fist or Watch, which give benefits for as long as the characters maintain good standing. However, to maintain good standing, they have to complete certain tasks each week. This seems to imply that the party could spend a good deal of time in the city.

[@ettinakitten5047]

I guess my group is an example of the "just using part of Dungeon of the Mad Mage as filler" thing. I'm playing in a solo-sessions PVP campaign where three factions of monsters try to take over Waterdeep, and my illithid faction (led by my PC ulitharid) is starting out by conquering some of the upper layers of Undermountain. We've already captured and subjugated the doppelgangers. It's fun!

[@kyubii972]

Also about your points of giving devil's a really good deal in the contracts u make with them. My party traded 4 masked Lord identities to a devil for some info they needed. There were very few strings attached to either side of the bargaining table. Simply because what they were offering was so Grand. There was nothing in their deal that said that the party wasn't allowed to force a change in leadership in waterdeep or defend the city in other ways. And nothing that prevented the devil from corrupting the city with that new info.

[@Janitwo]

This kind of adventure is super easy to steal for homebrew world. Skipping the BG part. Everything is little disconnected and easy to modify. Running this by the book would drive me insane. Pretty sure that was not what wotc wanted, but it is there.

[@jack-o-diamonds]

I see Coriolis on the table. A review would be killer.

[@JimothyTheGreen]

Good to know. I struggle to do my work when I don't have passion for the subject. Good thing I've got lots and lots of passion for it.

[@DrLipkin]

One issue I had with the book is that it starts with the adventure chapters, and all the details about the setting and context are afterwards in the book. Nothing I saw told me I should read the details of Baldur's Gate first (or even that these would be there). I read the first three chapters before I got frustrated and flipped ahead. Then after reading all the stuff that gave me context, I had to go back and reread those chapters. So I wasted a ton of time.

[@maxwelldavidson4157]

One of the games I'm running went very fast from "heroes" to "morally ambiguous kleptomaniacs" really fast

[@krispalermo8133]

Most people I met just stick with playing as Murder Hobos.

[@kyubii972]

I believe both this module and tomb of annihilation would have benefited from taking more time to get to know the city that is a part of the adventure that way the players have more at stake and more bonds within the place they must defend.

[@geoffdewitt6845]

My new contracts devil is Beckisarius, Knight of the Iron Word, Head of Mortal Resources, "but you can call me Becky!" and just play up that cheerful HR angle to the max. Love that idea, Mr. Davis.

[@yanlong1]

I absolutely agree that the adventures should include ways of fitting characters in. Over time they seem to have abandoned campaign bonds like they had in tyranny of dragons and out of the abyss entirely or simplified them into generic background dressing. One of my players rolled the polymorphed gold dragon seeking redemption in the eyes of bahamut in HOTDQ and it was amazingly satisfying to explore that characters growth into a lawful good. Then she died in the final fight and I ruled that because she had grown to lawful good and united the dragons against Tiamat that she rose back up as an adult gold dragon to finish the fight.

[@TheCoulsonlax]

Love Jim’s take on “do Devils lie.” 100% agree. Lying isn’t necessarily unlawful and it’s “lawful” according to their laws. Not ours.

[@justinstyles]

My group has been doing DotMM for about 8 months now... its been pretty amazing.

[@shadows_assassin3131]

>"Go and do this!" >Party goes offtrack >Sends reminders >Party continues to go off track >Kill them >*Surprised Pikachu face*

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

A great day to resurrect upon the incarnate when thyn soul manifests upon death because who is to say that you have to be a "still living, still breathing, and still mortal" human/other within Avernus. "If one's soul is willing enough, then it shall manifest into power."

[@Newtons_Ghost]

Numenera xD I felt your soul say "oh sh*t, its not what it sounds like" when you first said that previous sentence lol

[@Parkesview]

A lot of the things you think are bad about the book are things I actually deeply enjoy. I prefer it when a book doesn’t give me too many options because it allows me to be creative. In reading all of adventures, some of them feel there is too much information, and you will never get it all done. I prefer an adventure that does have basic rails, but I can hide them beneath a bunch of player agency and desire.

[@BrunofanofK]

Honestly, this is why Malfeas is the most popular RPG Hell in fiction. Only a fool would get involved with any demon at all, those creatures objetive is always malicious, so you either betray then first, smite them as soon as you see them or scape. Serves of Malfeas are a concret and relatively save source of power that even mortal sorcerers can rely on, while Citizens are more worried with their personal goals and obsessions while the Unquestionables are simple things one must avoid at all cost. While getting involved with the Master of Games or the Living Tower are risky even for Exalted they are more personable, goal oriented and interesting due to their idiosyncraties then some randon Balor of Hell that is Evil just because.

[@samchafin4623]

Maybe the distance between any two places in Avernus is determined by the paperwork you are traveling under. If you can get a better contract, you can shorten your travel times.

[@LexFrank-Arcaneium]

im running descent on the 19th! yall really have the best timing. hell yeah!

[@sgtboots6847]

So how is working out?

[@magicaljellyfish]

This adventure pales in comparison to Out of the Abyss, which does 'Hellish' better than an adventure set in the actual Nine Hells

[@Bluecho4]

One way to get the players to Avernus is to have them be in a tight spot, and a devil comes in offering help, in exchange for having them fight a battle in the Blood War. Either this happens in the middle of an ongoing campaign, or as the backstory for the campaign that starts in hell. The latter having the advantage of potentially having the characters all having been recruited in this way separately, and are put together as part of unit when the time comes for them to honor their agreement. The game starts in media rez, with the party being thrown into a battle (start them at, like, sixth level or the like). Then, when the battle is over, the party informs the devil in charge that they've honored their agreement. The devil agrees, congratulating them on fulfilling their bargain, and then says, "okay, bye!". Because, as it turns out, their contracts didn't say anything about being owed a trip BACK to the Prime Material Plane. Stranding the party in Avernus, and forcing them to find their own way home.

[@krispalermo8133]

There was a joke back in AD&D " Planescape " days. the difference between a Living Mortal in Hell and a Planar," Living dead Soul." If the Mortal gets killed in Hell and that Soul was not Evil, then that Soul Raise to one of the higher Planes. Planar, you are already dead, good or evil, you are still stuck in Hell. On the other hand, when I am playing wizards, of a " Neutral " alignment. As soon as I can cast " Lesser Planar Binding," I start making " deals." all across the Lower Planes. Dealing with Lolth the Drow Queen Spider Goddess is the worst. Her followers are nearly every where.

[@ConnorSinclairCavin]

So going off your idea about the contracts and stuff i kind of want to run a game now where devils, dæmons, and the like have some actual businesses that are in town for their specialties of contracted jobs and stuff, with “your soul after death” being the collateral basically, or trades in “limited” or “restricted” goods and such, maybe making the person do a slightly dark task as payment to slowly corrupt them. Its like if the person pays they get money, enemies to legally kill, or other goods, if the person defaults they get that plus a bonus soul. And if nothing else they would slowly lead honest people toward dark choices due to the ease of doing so. Then have angels and modrons such maybe splitting between offering blessings, teaching classes, more lawful/good type contracts than the devils/dæmons, medic stations, houses for homeless groups, AA... Also love the deathrun race across planes idea you had haha, maybe you need to find a powersource for/from each plane to keep going adding in a scavenger part you need to do between each place, maybe having to decide between getting enough for multiple laps compared to just rushing each section.

[@krispalermo8133]

regard it as a " spelljamer " on wheels.

[@jastald8443]

I'm running Mad Mage ATM. My group wanted a campaign they could play till max level. I was going to run Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury to get them to level 5 and then start Made Mage from there. But in the end I opted just to have them start at level 5 with some juiced up characters. Which at first I thought I overpowered them with their gear, until I downed the druid a couple weeks back with a air elemental, and the following week I downed the oathbreaker paladin of the party with a couple of Ettins. My only beef with Mad Mage is the lack of Room Description box's and having to pick out the bits and pieces of information that I can give the players in regards to their environment and surroundings.

[@grayrook8637]

My pet favorite part of this book is the new demon crokek'toeck. I have been making a knoll centric home brew and this is a perfect monster for the climactic final fight against yeenoghu. Like half way through the final fight in his lair,escalation, he pulls a Demonic dog whistle that deal psychic damage and maybe stuns the party and call Fido to his side.

[@PalagiAlomagi]

We just started this last session, so I won’t watch in case of spoilers, but I’ll just say that we’re having a lot of fun with it so far!

[@DrukenReaps]

I love the idea of a deal with a devil being them explaining this evil thing that will happen and telling the players not to interfere. I absolutely have to use that at some point.

[@witchBoi_Connor]

Oh shit, that symbol on the cover! One of my character’s worships that god!! I am suddenly VERY interested!

[@zackstevens8271]

Shame it's only their to tie in baldurs gate. The dead three arent really a big part of the story. But they do have a small quest which is at the very beginning of the book. The statblocks and things that happen when you meet the cultists mean it wouldn't be too hard to tie them into the rest of the adventure with a little work.

[@lukecarroll4052]

Would love a video where you share some thoughts on heist of waterdeep!

[@osmium6832]

33:05 You just got done saying the main thing is that they don't say "please" or "thank you"!

[@chasebalcziunas4289]

“I’M GONNA SAY THE N-WORD!”

[@dudiguy3405]

"THATS RACIST YOU CAN'T SAY THE N-WORD!"

[@arcticcircle9815]

This is a really necessary video, because this is a particularly difficult to run campaign.

[@itzybitzyspyder]

This should have been a 5-15 module. I barely held the adventure together. There is a point where you absolutely have to start a bracket system to figure out who is gonna lead Avernus if there is a power vaccuum. It's integral to the entire end game dynamic. Mine was Mahadi. Deceit and illusion was the best path for the introductory level of hell.

[@MC-gj8fg]

You as the DM create freeform gaming by altering the adventure as written as necessary. You don't need the written adventure to be freeform. All that accomplishes is making the module brain damage for the DM to consume. The more thoroughly the DM understands the adventure as written the easier it is to make alterations or adapt to unexpected actions by the players.

[@YoungOneJim]

This comment is what i was thinking, it keeps things exceptionally simple in the book and if you run it point to point like a railroad youll get just that, I have a few new players in the game im running but I have some good character backstory that im going to run them around Baldur's gate for a while longer just to touch on their backstories, and then link something from their backstories to Avernus to really give them some things off of the beaten path to do

[@sebaseba6710]

You guys really need to do a Githyanki episode!

[@Conrad500]

Can't wait for yall to go over the Essential's Kit because it's amazing

[@guin100]

doesnt the character creation appendix say that the characters have lived in baldurs gate for a while and also made an enemy of a baldurs gate noble house?

[@andrewbeauman]

Love the episode as far as food for thought, but I hard disagree with a lot of the critiques. This book is beautiful and though every book has flaws I see it as one of WOTCs best.

[@BaranzarCobralVOD]

mad max in Hell sounds fun

[@saw31489]

The way I've always seen the true names, is when you have their name you can sign or alter agreements in their name. Those contracts are seen almost as a two way Geas. Both parties are bound to it. Who wouldn't want to renegotiate an infernal contract to remove the negative clause and make a devil do their bidding.

[@justinrosenthal4948]

"I don't wanna say the 'n' word" Good lord I laughed so hard

[@pooyaa.2617]

I'm sure you guys have figured this out since you posted this video but I thought I'd point out that summon demon and planar ally spells make use of True Names. I'm not sure those are the only spells that do.

[@winnerab]

To be fair, the book says they were drafted/recruited into the Flaming Fist. So not doing what the captain says is insubordination, punishable by death. So I communicated very clearly they were drafted into the order, albeit temporarily.

[@RambosesOS]

Maybe it got missed in your read through but they dedicated a section to player motivation and fleshing out of backstories in the first chapter. I am glad I watched your video because it gave me a few ideas about how to improvise on certain possible scenarios. I do feel like you missed a lot by not reading it all the way through before making a video critiquing it.

[@blahlbinoa]

I'm playing at Doom's Gate when my players first get into Avernus. And I'll mostly be playing Doom 2016/Eternal's OST while they are there

[@NicholasPickleous]

I have been waiting and hungering for this episode

[@baltsosser]

Devil: I can grant you immortality. PC: Great, I have a very difficult quest before I can rest, let's do it. Devil: Turns PC to stone: That is the finest marble I think I've ever made, it is in effect immortal. You'll have a long time to think about it now.

[@BobGrimminger]

It is funny that this video came out with its section on true names just after the Onomancy UA.

[@littletonb]

....I am about to run mad mage as a continuation adventure from Dragon Hiest. It reminds me of some of the older dungeon crawls.

[@HeathenHammer8]

Any chance that you guys are going to do a Pathfinder 2e review?

[@joshuaradick5679]

Regarding treating war machines like animals; my DM decided that because they weren’t truly alive, and weren’t armor they could be targeted by reduce without resistance.

[@domingosszabo]

I just bought this adventure, I think for different reasons than the ones discussed. My players went to hell, on their own, as part of our "normal" campaign story. All I did was have, earlier, a friendly NPC rush in through a portal that immediately closed, about 5 sessions ago. So I did no force them to go to hell, they choose to go their to help her out. So I intend to use this more as source book to populate "my Avernus" than strictly running this particular story. With that in mind, and since I am still in initial chapter, what is everyone's opinion on the book as a source material about this hellish place? Anyway thanks for video, insightful as always

[@mcgoo721]

Would kill for a random encounter table. Or a more succinct way to pick one of the paths. I really like what's in the book, and I can appreciate having some freedom to make it work. But I mean. It's really light on the tools to do it with. I can jump around the MM, DMG, and MToF and put it together but I bought a new book for a reason. It mentions how travel is difficult, and things move around, yet there's no exploration tools. Nothing between the very few real locations. So far I plan on using the traveling caravan in campaigns and maybe the vehicles. But I'm not running this or pulling anything else out of it.

[@RJeremyHoward]

"Descent into Mavis Beacon," Pruitt? That typing Hell? How dare you accidentally conjure that devil!

[@jgr7487]

if you have to fill in so many blanks, maybe you're better served by your own homebrew

[@JorgeGonzalez-vd7vz]

Wow! It really sounds like a colored sand box, when even the s*** that you may find on it seems to be priceless! Thank you again for the passion and dedication.

[@SamuelGoupy]

lmao love the comparison with middle management

[@wanderdragon1075]

Devils don’t give their True Name out because you have near total power over them if you have it.

[@Giganfan2k1]

This, they don't want their name out because you can summon *then* bind them. That is just numerology 101.

[@osmium6832]

26:50 He touches on that and ways to get around it in game. Use a True Name for contracts that is close, but not identical to their actual name. Or a provision that if you attempt to share the name or record it in any way, your soul is immediately forfeit. That could lead to some unintentional "suicide by devil" if someone casts detect thoughts on you when you're thinking about the name. Not sure which person would be killed, if not both, in that situation.

[@pheflin526]

Destroying the coin and/or using up the charges frees the soul to go to the plane it was meant for. It’s considered a good act

[@okredcoat5141]

Protip: In Dungeon of the Dead Three, As the DM during the Master of souls encounter, feel free to use FireBall on your level 2 party.