Running it first time ever, am wondering if any of y'all got any advice for a newbie DM for this campaign. Any tweaks to it, any ideas at all I'd love to hear so I can prepare for it :) . Thanks for reading.

Hoping to get some help as what to do with the barbarians at the gate encounter when the party first arrives at he Eye of the All-Father.

As written, there are 6 barbarians, 1 shaman, one white dragon wyrmling and one leader (all CR2 more or less). They will fight to the death and won't negotiate or even talk to the party when they see they have magic users as I understand it.

The problem is that this is a cake-walk. They are cornered in a dead end, so no way to spread our which makes magic even more powerful than usual here, so two fireballs more or less and the fight is over. I could of course make them tougher, but the fight still feels unnecessary and a bit weird. Why would they even attack the four VERY capable looking characters accompanied by Harshnag (who probably looks very menacing) standing in front of them?

Any good ideas how to spice this up or change it into something more reasonable if you can call it that.

Our intrepid heroes are about to rescue Hekaton before working towards the climactic final battle, having killed Zalto and negotiated a transition of power at Lynn Armaal. But they didn't really engage with the Frost, Stone or Hill Giants. Does anyone have smart ideas about how to bring consequences to this choice?

Maybe Iymrith has pieces of Vonindod now the Fire Giants have been scattered? Maybe Hekaton can convene loyal Frost and Stone giants to Maelstrom and they can aid the party in some way? Did anyone else try to tie the story of the campaign into the ending and did it work?

My party is approaching the Eye of the All Father. I'll be skipping the artifacts, so on their way out this time, the encounter with Iymrith will occur.

My group uses a VTT (TabletopSimulator) and nearly always a square grid battlemap. 5e lists gargantuan as at least 20'x20'. I've seen some actual minis available on a 100mm base, which would generally match that size. I've also seen some made at the 150mm base scale, which would equate to a 30'x30' monster.

The Draconomicon has some measurements, but not sure how much those apply to battlemap miniature size. Red/Gold Dragons have a colossal size listed (no longer a 5e thing), so should it be assumed that they can get to the 30'x30' range (Klauth?) and that other ancient dragons should stay at 20'x20' on battlemap?

Should Iymrith be on the smaller end of ancient dragons because she is relatively young compared to others (google tells me her expected age is 900-1200 years, so barely ancient at all).

I plan on running Iymrith as a colossus fight (giving each part of the body an AC, HP, and Initiative). Wondering if anyone else has run her that way and any pointers for it. I understand it's ultimately my choice, just wondering what others have done or recommend.

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My players want to complete the Vonindod and take control of it themselves to attack Iymrith, which is too amazing of an idea for me to say no to.

Does anyone have tips or ideas for how PCs controlling the Vonindod might work? Has anyone done something like this? I want to make sure it can be an epic experience but fair to everyone.

Hey everyone!

I'm DMing Storm King's Thunder right now and my party has just reached the Goldenfields giant attack.

I'm having a bit of a hard time running this part because Goldenfields is huge and there are a bunch of different things happening all over the place at the same time. There are also a lot of NPCs spread around the area, and obviously my players can only be in one place at a time.

The biggest problem I'm having is keeping track of what is happening and when in the places the players aren't currently at.

Like, while they're fighting some giants in one area, what exactly is happening at the other locations? When does each NPC get involved? Who is still alive? What happens if the players arrive somewhere 15 minutes later? etc.

I really don't want to run the entire invasion as one giant combat because that sounds like an absolute nightmare, but at the same time I don't want everything outside the players' immediate area to basically freeze until they get there.

So how did you guys handle this?

Did you make some kind of timeline and just advance it as the players move around? Did you treat each location as a separate encounter? Did you actually keep track of what all the NPCs were doing? Or did you just kinda wing it?

If anyone has some kind of timeline, spreadsheet, flowchart, cheat sheet, or anything else they made for this section, I'd really appreciate it.

I'm mainly looking for a way to make the invasion feel like it's actually happening everywhere at once without having to keep 500 things in my head at the same time lol.

Thanks!

Been running SKT for about 2 years now. I think we have 3 sessions left in the campaign: attack the Morkoth, back to Maelstrom, final battle. In Maelstrom I’m imagining a few things might happen, but one thing I’ll make sure happens is Hekaton gets the fighter’s favourite greatsword back. This was a Cloud Giant letter opener in Lyn Armaal that does Lightning Damage, which the party traded with the cloud giant Lord in Maelstrom in exchange for a cease in hostilities and an introduction with Serissa. When Hekaton gets home and finds this out he will insist it is returned.

I thought Hekaton might upgrade the sword, but then I thought some sort of magical skill challenge might be more fun. Has anyone run anything like that before? Any ideas? Preferably something the whole party (Wiz, Sorc, Cleric, Fighter) can participate in, including the Fighter somehow is essential.

I originally created the Shrine of the Bear Spirit as a system agnostic druidic location, but while finishing it I realised it could fit rather naturally into Chapter 3 of Storm King’s Thunder.

I could see it being used as:

• an abandoned holy site once belonging to the Blue Bear tribe,
• a smaller shrine connected to one of the Uthgardt ancestral mounds,
• a place where a shaman sends the party to recover an offering or commune with a totem spirit,
• a sacred location that has recently been corrupted, occupied or disturbed.

It isn’t intended to replace Beorunna’s Well or any of the official spirit mounds. It's more as a small optional encounter the party discovers while travelling between the larger locations of the Savage Frontier.

I’ve attached usable static versions and animated previews. Where would you place something like this in your SKT campaign?

Cheers!
~dransky

Hi all, i have just started dming storm kings thunder and am womdering if anyone has access to the maps from the book at a 5ft square scale instead of the 10ft scale on the book. Google has given me no luck so please let me know if you can help :)

I'm going to start DM'ing this campaign, and I was wondering what I should tell my players for them to know some of the background. I've already seen a post here asking the same question, but I wanted a more specific answer, can I tell them all that is in the "Introduction" chapter of the campaign up until the end of "Faction of the north"?

For reference in the pic are the contents of the part I'm in doubt of sending them.

Hey Everyone!

I’m currently DMing Storm King’s Thunder for a party of 4, and I’ve been thinking about transitioning into Curse of Strahd later on with the same characters instead of starting a completely new campaign.

Our SKT campaign has become pretty heavily homebrewed over time, with a lot of character-specific storylines added to the main plot. Because of some recent developments, I now have a narrative connection to Barovia/Strahd that could potentially lead the party into Curse of Strahd after (or near the end of) SKT.

The main issue is obviously character level. If we go this route, the party would probably enter Barovia somewhere around level 10–11, with 4 players, which is much higher than the intended starting level for CoS.

So I’m curious if anyone here has actually done something similar:

• Have you transitioned directly from SKT into Curse of Strahd with the same characters?
• What level were they when they entered Barovia and how many players did you have?
• Did you run most of CoS, or cut/restructure the lower-level content?
• How much work was it to upscale the encounters for a level 10+ party?
• How did you handle Strahd himself? Did you significantly buff/redesign him?
• Did higher-level spells and abilities cause problems with the horror/survival aspects of the campaign?
• How did you actually get the party into Barovia narratively without it feeling like you suddenly abandoned the previous campaign?
• Most importantly, did it work? Did CoS still feel threatening and atmospheric with an already experienced, high-level party?

I’m not necessarily trying to preserve CoS exactly as written. I’d be completely fine with treating it as a higher-level Barovia arc, cutting some of the early content and rebalancing the important locations/bosses. I’d just like to keep as much of the actual story, exploration and atmosphere as possible.

I’d especially love to hear from people who have actually tried running CoS for characters around levels 10–12, even if you didn’t specifically come from SKT.

How did you approach it, and is there anything you wish you had done differently?

Thank you in advance!

Edit:

Thank you everyone for sharing your experiences and suggestions! I probably won’t fully jump into CoS after all (at least not with my current group), but I’ll definitely be taking some ideas from you guys. :D

After 5 and a half years, the Dinger Daggers, along with Harshnag and Hekaton, defeated Iymrith and restored the Ordning. We did damn near everything in the book, and tons of quests that weren’t in there. What a ride!

Here are my hand painted minis of Hekaton, Harshnag, and Iymrith that I used for our 2-part in-person finale. What should I run next??

This campaign book launched ten years ago, now. Wow. I haven't been running it that long, but I did keep running it past the end (given the lack of resolution, I felt I had to) and merged in Vecna: Eve of Ruin (a much worse campaign, IMHO). Next week, the level 19 party will meet in pitched battle with Duke Zalto's army of fire, stone and hill giants to rescue their comrade and the key to meeting with Annam to fix the Ordning.

It's wild how much material can be mined from a good D&D campaign, going beyond just what it outlines. SKT is a great book!

So, many session ago, my party obtained a Letter of Recommendation after completing the side quest in Calling Horns. They've already connected with the Harpers, met Dral Thelev at Danivarr's House, and are aware they need to hand the letter to him when they're ready to cash in their favour.

What favours did your parties use the letter to cash in on in your campaigns?

My party recently handed in the letter with the request for magic items that would help slay giants, or at least their locations. What would you rule is the limit of the High Captain's power/reach? Is a weapon of giant slaying too much? Maybe a few potions of giant strength?

He could give them the locations of such weapons but the answer would just lead them to various magic item stores in other cities that the PCs are already aware of. I don't want them to have wasted this letter to get a response they already knew about.

They're are about to head to Grudd Haug to retrieve a conch.

For reference, the body text in Everlund says the following:
"When the characters decide to call in the favor, Dral contacts his employers, and High Captain Horix Zoar does everything in his power to give the characters what they want, provided it’s within his power and isn’t likely to burden him or the Zoar family. Examples of what he might provide include a meeting with one or more members of the Council of Elders, an arranged meeting with a Lords’ Alliance representative from another city, and a spell scroll of raise dead."

I’m running LMOP and I was thinking about running SKT after, so is there a good place in SKT for the map in Wave Echo Cave to show the location of?

Due to circumstances beyond my control, my party rescued Harshnag from certain doom in chapter 4 and he has returned to Waterdeep, having become sort of an ambassador to the giants for the city. The party has now acquired a conch and are on the way to meet back up with Harshnag, who they plan to bring with them to Maelstrom.

How would this impact Maelstrom? I imagine he’s a known figure recognized by most giants in the storm giant court. How would you adjust things with him coming along and speaking to Serissa and the others?

Hey fellows,

My party is at chapter three now and they have to travel across the whole sword coast for side quests, they don't seem to be interested about visiting Everlund and Moongleam tower to find the teleportation circles, because they are far from this place now. The question I have is: How would you manage this? Would you let them travel with caravans, ships etc across the whole coast taking them more than one month in game and lot of sessions with traveling, or force them to go to Moongleam Tower, or finding another teleportation circle that can be activated through their journey?

As part of my DnD campaign, in my transition from Waterdeep Dragon Heist to Storm King's Thunder, I used Deborah Ann Woll's mini-adventure "Heroes' Feast: Saving the Children's Menu" as a way to introduce giants into my campaign! As part of those sessions, the players ended up discovering the Hill Giant Scion that was slumbering beneath the homestead.

Fast forward to 1 year later, the players have now defeated all of the Giant Lords (haven't blown the conch yet), and are now curious about the scions. I placed a Frost Giant Scion by one of the barbarian tribes, so they have 2 scions discovered in total. I'm planning for the campaign to end with them taking down Iymrith, inspired from Rise of Tiamat and this enhanced Iymrith. I'd like to incorporate the scions meaningfully somehow, but I'm struggling with connecting the dots.

Possible ideas:

- have the council of waterdeep (from RoT) discover all the locations of scions, and raising one will put them first in the new Ordning after it is restored

- scions are how giant lords are made, and they can use them to raise "new" giant lords to help in the final battle vs Iymrith

- Iymrith has been hunting down the scions, and they are the source of her power for turning into a Greatwyrm

- they are just there and have no impact on the story lol

Do you guys have any suggestions, or what do you think?

I goofed. My players met Harshnag last session and I got caught up in exposition and I had Harshnag tell the players everything the oracle would have. No they have no reason to visit the oracle. Any help would be appreciated

So I'm planning on replacing Nightstone with Dragon Heist as our level 1-5 intro into the world. I feel like the political machinations of Dragon Heist pair well with the later negotiations of Storm King's Thunder. I'd love some opinions though on which villain to start with. I'm debating towards pushing either the Manshoon and the Zhentarim, or Jarlaxle and the Sea Maidens as the initial villain. In favor of the Zhentarim, there are lots of mentions of them already in Storm Kings Thunder spreading there influence. But in Jarlaxle's favor it feels like he'd make the perfect recurring NPC to help shore up some of Storm King's weaknesses. I'll probably lay the groundwork for both, but I'd still love some feedback

https://www.reddit.com/r/stormkingsthunder/s/BlMfAcrOgv

Hey folks - quick question. I’ve decided to run the giant variants due to all giants being kind of similar RAW. My group of 4 lvl 7 players just fought 4 cloud giants. I had them dive out of their sky tower and feather fall towards the ground while one of them used the Harden Air ability. The warlock wanted to try counterspell on it. I ruled that since this is an innate ability and requires no components, it couldn’t be counterspelled. He then tried to dispel magic on the boulder that fell on him. I said it wasn’t really a magical boulder, it was just a regular boulder once the giant manifested it. He still made the save, so he didn’t take any damage. I could tell the player still felt that this was unfair.

So question is, did I play this right? And how should I rule something like this in the future especially since I’ll be using these alternate stat blocks moving forward?

My players are about to return to the Eye of the Allfather with giant relics in tow. Does anybody have any tips on how to run thebig fight with Iymrith?

I have a good group of max 8 players (usually 6 or 7 can make it) and they are at level 8 because they did Kraken's Gamble and Flying Misfortune. Most have been playing since the 80s. All that is to say I think they'll probably take the hint from Harshnag and run away from Iymrith, but I'm not 100% sure. They are a big party with action economy, one level higher than the adventure expects them to be, and the divination wizard is very clever and has portents so maybe they will try to fight her as the temple collapses.

I also want to see if anyone has tips to keep fleeing from the temple exciting. I don't want to turn it into turn after turn of move+dash action. Maybe incorporate some elements of a skill challenge into it?

They also collected all the giant relics from the barbarian spirit mounds, so I planned to expand the list of Giant Lords revealed by the Oracle to the Hill, Frost and Fire giants in Tales from the Yawning Portal, as well as Blagothkus from Hoard of the Dragon Queen. And I might have to homebrew something, but I could mash some statblocks from Glory of Giants to create the Dodkong for another evil Stone Giant Lord.

EDIT: I just ran the session last night, it went great! I only had 6 out of 8 players, so unfortunately some folks missed out, but it probably added to the sense of urgency.

I did foreshadow Iymrith arriving by sending some gargoyles while they were still on the airship. They were nervous about encountering her but I think they assumed it wouldn't be later this session. They turned in most of the artifacts and I used the Against the Giants as extra lords, and they asked very good questions.

During the encounter Iymrith,s initial lighting breath rocked one of the fighters from full to zero. Showcased Harshnag using his legendary resistance vs the fear, Iymrith used her stone shape on a statue to create a gargoyle, and she used an alternate breath attack for force burn. Harshnag struck the statue after 2 rounds when he was getting low hp, and I made the rocks mechanic ramp up each round 1d6 each successive round. The party escaped out to the dormitory hallway but before they closed the door they cast death ward and banish on Harshnag, so he'll definitely make a reappearance. I transferred to a skill challenge to navigate through the dormitory and spider tunnels and then leap to the airship rope ladder.

All in all great (but very long) session. Party is happy to level up and they have several clear goals for the last half of the campaign.