A DM's Guide to Descent Into Avernus | Dungeon of the Dead Three
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- Опубліковано 22 лис 2024
- This is a video guide series for Dungeon Masters running the 5th edition module, Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus. In this episode we take a look at the infamous Dungeon of the Dead Three and how to approach this location in the book.
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CANDLEKEEP MYSTERIES PLAYLIST 📜
• Candlekeep Mysteries
DESCENT INTO AVERNUS (LIVE PLAY) 📽
• Descent into Avernus |...
MUSIC 🎶
UA-cam Audio Library - / @tabletopbob
"Buckeye Bonzai"
![Dungeon of the Dead Three [DiA] | ASMR Ambience | Descent Into Avernus | 1 Hour](/img/n.gif)
How did your group do in the dungeon? Is this location too OP? Let me know your thoughts!
I know it's Dec 2023, but I just wanted to say that you're a godsend for making these videos! Thank you!
I came here to say the same
I ran my group through the first third of this dungeon last night and this video was super helpful to my understanding of both the dungeon and its pitfalls and dangers to my players. Thank you!
I really appreciate this series, thank you! I'm a longtime player and newbie DM and this module was a monstrous undertaking considering I've only run a few one shots.
@sinny721 I just finished the next video after long hiatus and will wrap up the whole campaign within the next few weeks!
@@TabletopBobas another new watcher Im so glad to hear this!!! This is my first real campaign and these are incredibly helpful!
Only been a DM for a year and this is the 2nd campaign I’ve run. Your videos are incredible and so hopeful even 2 years after making them! I’ve taken what you’ve said and slightly changed it to fight my group a bit better but everyone is having a blast so far! Only 2 sessions in. Thank you🙌
I appreciate the kind words. Stick with it, DMing can be very rewarding. Good luck!
So both the encounter in Elfsong Tavern and this dungeon are ridiculous for the levels they expect you to do them. Seven bandits and a bandit captain for a party of lvl1 adventurers is ridiculous and this dungeon is ridiculous for level 2. My solution for this was to start my party at level 2 and give them level 3 by the time they get to the dungeon. It makes the dungeon doable, still challenging, and you don't have to really nerf any of the enemies in the dungeon. For the Morgue specifically, I only used the fireball if the party killed the swarm of rats first since they are allies to her in the fight.
My fix for the Morgue encounter is this:
- She's in the middle of casting animate dead, and is determined to finish the spell. She has 2 turns left. That way she only has one 3rd level slot and can get beaten before finishing. If the party surrounds her, she wouldnt necessarily cast it if it would hurt her.
- If she summons the zombie, she wants to inflict the disadvantage of the flail before casting fireball. Having her target the highest con character as to not insta kill would be take a round or 2 with the miniscule +2 to hit and wont outright kill a d10 character with some Con.
- if you get to this place, just RP it! She threatens to cast fireball on them or is so insane she says she'll take everyone with her unless they let her leave. She flees and joins Vanthampur. Now you have a recurring antagonist and an alive party. I see that as an absolute win
Love it! Adds a lot of detail to the combat. Layers in social skills and a bit more of the plot. Great work
@@TabletopBob thanks! My last idea for the encounter is that casting fireball blows the supports and would kill her, so she wouldn’t want to cast it.
Love your series dude! Can’t wait for your Avernus guides since I loved your idea of remixing the flowcharts for the best fitting one. That and having a super high CR final battle with multiple teams with changing interests. Team Bel with their Max the Chain Devil type NPC (mine is an Erinyes demoted by Zariel to a bearded Devil as an insult for her failure. She tries a hellfire engine around killing demons and takes interest in the party. Every time she revisits them, she has ranked up and has new deals for the,)
It’s inspired me to take my group in a tailored adventure using the book for the NPCs, locations, and story overview while mixing in Sidequests and supporting cast NPCs based on the PCs. We’ve got a Paladin who unknowingly works for the cult of the dragon and Tiamat, a loxodon zealot barb that want revenge against gnolls, a wizard in love with a incubus, a fallen aasimar trying to reclaim divinity and some more fun guys that fit in to the themes perfectly!
@@joshmargolis1424 wow that's an incredible party for this adventure. The story lines write themselves! Glad you are enjoying the videos. I appreciate all the kind words.
I am about to run the rest of the dungeon tomorrow, and after reading through the Morgue encounter few times, I have decided to do a similar thing:
- Flennis will be casting the animate dead throughout the combat, she's almost at the end, so she really wants to finish casting the spell, so will be under concentration checks the whole combat, therefore she will try to cast the necrotic fireball asap, but every dmg done to her will trigger a concentration check.
The Mortlog infodump is really weird, because after he said all of that, I convinced him with a 19 to follow us to the Flaming Fist.
Which screws up the whole plot, but seems 100% appropriate as a player reaction after hearing about this governmant plot.
Well done. This helped me prepare for my game tonight. I was running a little behind and didn’t have the time to research it all myself. Thanks
I totally get that. It can be tough to find the time. I'm glad this is helping!
For my group I had them do a stealth roll right before they got to the morge and allowed them a surprise round for our ranged fighter. Which really helped.
My character, a Lawful Good paladin of Selûne found a Reaper of Bhaal disguised as an elderly woman who was held in a coffin filled with blood. The Reaper of Bhaal convinced my character that there were more prisoners in a room with a sarcophagus. The room was filled with zombies, the Reaper revealed itself while my character was alone in the room at 10 hp, the rest of the party was blocked by the zombies from entering and after having cleared the rest of the dungeon they were all low and out of resources. I went down, they tried to fight their way in, they couldnt.
In the end i got teleported out by a religion check powered by roleplay. However i failed my last death save while i just got out. The rest of the party was able to bring her corpse out in the end and escaped leaving the reaper to live for another day.
Helped a ton thank you
I'm pretty sure the cultists wouldn't know much about Thalamra Vanthampur's plan to drag Baldur's Gate into Hell. They know the Vanthampur family is aiding them, and I'd imagine the Bane worshippers for sure are suspicious of what it is Amrik is REALLY up to, but I doubt Thalamra would want any of her lackeys, save her own personal cult, knowing what is really going on until it is too late.
Great points!
Nice review, we faced Flennis and the rest of the group in our previous session. It was quite chalenging as a player, I felt a bit overwelmed with the fireball. Very unfair to my taste, our party was managing the dungeon quite well. She blew up the whole party, except our warlock, who managed to heal the paly with a healing potion we bought . After that our DM realized it was nearly a TPk, and smoothed the situation by taking Flennis back to her room in order to keep on the zombie rising. Not without sending the swarm and 2 other cultist to finish the work.
Finally the Paladin managed to " lay on hands" everybody up, and together deal with the rest of our foes.
All in all : one permakill(our rogue) almost a TPK, and the delay of the exploration.
That was the best we could do as players...
I'm running this dungeon tonight for my 3 friends, I've heard this place is brutal so I gave them an early level up to 3 and a bonus of 5 extra hp. I'm hoping that's enough for me to throw this place at them without pulling punches lol. Thank you for the video, it's really helping me brush up on the dungeon as I prepare!
Happy to help! It can be a brutal place!
@@TabletopBob I'm happy to report that Flennis eviscerated them, she heard them coming and the second our Hexblade Warlock took a step forward we rolled initiative. She went first and immediately blasto'd them with a fireball taking the Bard down instantly and wounding the other 2, they got some good hits in but started to back up out of the room because of the damage she was doing, causing the Warlock to eat a Scorching Ray that KO'd him and our Rogue finally ate a spicy flail crit after they got her to 5 hp, taking each of them out of the fight. I let them get captured but that place is straight up unfair lol, I'm surprised they thought 4 2nd level characters could handle this.
@@Phantasmus i love that you were ruthless though and didn't pull punches! Now the fun begins with them being captured haha
The stat block for Flennis seems to indicate that she has all of those spells prepared but only will cast the ones under the Actions section, which does not include Fireball
Good video and party of 4-6 need to be second level for sure when entering this. I think after leaving the tavern a street encounter with a group of dead 3 cultist on the way to help them get there level is fun, you can also introduce Reya earlier on the way to the dead three dungeon by having her accosted by a group of cultist or flaming fist guards. The characters can intervene and if your group is 3 or smaller it would be very helpful to have her start helping here instead of the villa and as they adventure and talk it will quickly become obvious they have similar goals.
Love your vids man!!! They have been super helpful to me, thank you!
I just don't understand how they expected level 2 characters to do this.
Ran this as written for my first group and they literally got incinerated by a bad stealth check and a fireball. It was rough
Great content! It's nice to have as a sort of quck readup again. I have studied and feel ready - so this is nice to have running in the background when I work. So to keep everything fresh :D looking forward for more content from you.
Thank ou for the kind words. I am glad this was helpful!
I wish I had seen this before I started running it. When my players left the dungeon, I had the cultists put all the weaker enemies in the area where you encounter the first iron consul and some where the bloated body was, they did not explore that room, as a way to soften up the players for the stronger enemies.
Yeah I definitely started this late in the game. But it is my first attempt at stuff like this on the channel. Looking forward to finishing this one and then on to newer D&D content!
I'm bringing my characters into this campaign from LMoP at level 5. At first I felt iffy about them starting at such a high level. I feel better now 😁
Great video! Loving this kind of content!
Yeah, my Fall of Elturel pre-adventure ended up going for a while, so now my group is level 4 and just started the dungeon. Was worried about it being too easy, but I think I can leave most things intact
In D13 my PC’s got the surprise on the necromancer, she tried to flee got grabbed so threw a fireball at her feet laughing and saying she is ready to meet her god and where they. Player had to make a devil deal to survive.
Well presented. Maybe that multi-million dollar corporation Wizards ought to ask you to write or edit their modules, to at least catch those simple design mistakes like putting a bunch of useless zombies in a room.
Flennis killed my buddy in adventurers league. Actually she downed most of our party but I was hanging back in the hallway. Got her with my halberd.
Some real gems of information on display here. This will be invaluable whenever I get a chance to run this adventure. Any chance of a similar examination of Storm King's Thunder in the future?
Thanks! I wish I had the time to do all of the books. SKT is not something I will do right away but I will keep it in the back of my mind for the future.
Have a group of 5 level 2s, hope this doesnt scar them with some minor tweaks 💀💀💀
D10 with the 3 fake dead enemies were tipped off by the Imp!
or thats how I'm gonna run it, at least.
Good vid!
Also, there would be no way to arrest the Grand Duke because she's the only remaining leader left in BG and with her immense power and hold over the city, the Flaming Fists would not be able to stop her.
@@ai.yeehaw Thanks for the kind words. And Good idea about tipping off the cultists! Agree, Thalamara may not go out easy, but it do like keeping the intrigue intact!
Maybe this is just on the D&D Beyond version of the module, but it is clarified that the necromites are watching D9 and will see the party entering.
"The creatures here watch area D9 through a crack in the door, and any sign of the characters approaching lets them set up an ambush of sorts. Read the following boxed text to describe the room to the players:"
After TPKing this dungeon twice once they get to the spellcaster with fireball I decided to stop using that spell 😂
it feels to me like the players are supposed to die here and just wind up in avernus.
Dungeon of the Dead Three vs Amber Temple - which do you think is a bigger TPK machine? 🤔
I'd say the Dungeon of the Dead 3. Only because of the level the party should be at. In d&d 5e TPKs can happen at the early levels, but the party should be much higher for the Amber Temple. Clearly the temple is more challenging and definitely iconic.
@@TabletopBob I guess I’ll find out in two weeks, when the party goes to the bathhouse!
That reaper of bhaal is a bit insane , killed one of my players . They had enough braincells to not trust random elderly woman but my god that reaper at lvl 2 is a bit whack
Good luck with your channel man. You don’t look like a Bob. lol
Thanks for the encouragement! I promise I am a Bob!
I don’t think the writers of the module read the dmg