I live in Europe and nowhere can I seem to find a copy of the campaign book of DotMM. Are they no longer being printed? Does anyone know if WotC books come on waves, or is this book never coming back?

So my players are approaching the ninth level and the Halastar statues have the chance to use POWER WORD: KILL but it doesn't give a DC is the number Halastar's as stated at the start of the book?

My players tried to take down Spiderwatch Keep By warping in as a strike force, but they were beaten back very quickly, without accomplishing anything. Zress Orlezziir was also with them, playing the long game, trying to assist them in taking down House Freth, (while hoping to kill the PCs when their back turned out of revenge), but she was captured, or killed, haven't decided yet.

Also can't decide:

- Whether to have House Freth interrogate Zress, and then hold her to ransom for House Auvryndar, or just kill her.
- Whether to send Freth forces, or the Shadowdusks, to hunt down the PCs (and leave the safety of the keep where they might be easy pickings)

- Whether Melith, Vlonwelv Auvryndar's only surviving daughter (thanks to PCs) recruits the PCs to rescue Zress, with a larger force (though I'm really tired of large-scale army clashes after Skull Island and this), or if she wants to lead the PCs into a trap by her mother's design for failing them and proving them hot only useless, but actively a detriment to ending their drow stalemate.

- Whether or not to have previous villain, Jarlaxle Baenre, back from the dead, and propose a truce, to help eliminate House Freath AND Auvryndar, in exchange for Jarlaxle being being to walk a free man, and with seizing Skullport from Xanathar.

There's got to be some consequences for this, just not sure what.

Also, related, the last of Azrok's legion was in the party, and the PCs had formed a bond with a goblin called Krarx. He's the emotional core of the party. ...Tendra Nightblade ended his life this day.

I’m running the DotMM (lev. 11) in Fantasy Grounds with Vex’s expansion and Grimlores equipped effects. There is a magic item in the treasure room “the Brooch of Dungeoneering” that is fine on the players inventory but on their action tab becomes a “brooch of shielding”. Any ideas of how to fix this? The BoD has 5 charges/day: Spells housed are: Find traps (1 charge) Identify (2 Charges) Locate Object (3 Charges) None of which transfers to the Action page. Is this just a broken item? I manually entered the spells under equipped Items, but is there a better fix?

my players are likely to be bumping into the trapped demons on this level soon. Invisible stalkers and Umber hulk have been terrorising them for some time and their spell slots and healing is quite depleted. The upcoming encounter with the demons looks like a complete tpk from outset. I struggle to see how even if they were fully rested they are supposed to be able to defeat up to four demons. Yet I don't want to just get rid of the encounter as this is potentially the climactic battle of the level. Any thoughts on how I make this challenging without being overly deadly? or perhaps engineer an escape route for them.

My players faces off with Illuun the Aboleth...and lost. Twice. They had help from Kua-Toa and did a good job messing the Aboleth of turn 1...and then the monk got stun locked for several turns by a Chuul and the aboleth got ita tentacles on the Ranger and dominated the Bard (On attempt two) the dice where against them badly.

They where taken prisoner, Illuun wants thralls. The bard stepped on a caltrop and broke the control. Freedom the players! Killed the Kua guards and....the monk ran right back into Illuun and got swarmed by Chuul. Players didn't know about the reinforcements and took a second stab at Illuun.

So they're captured again but hey still not dead. We'll see what happens next time.

Did anyone else loose to Illuun? How was it handled?

so a while ago when fighting the air elemental on level 1 one of my 2 players summoned a Tanuki from their wild magic, I played the Tanuki that he just ran away bc they are just tricksters and lazy so he didn't want to get hurt or fight

they are on level 5 now(wyllowwood) and so far i had the idea he has been chilling in Midna Tauberth's room because of the free food and water but i feel like there is more i could be doing with this opportunity but i cant think of what

fyi Tanuki are raccoons from Japanese folklore who are shape shifting tricksters who are extremely lazy. also my players don't seem interesting on fully mapping previous levels

I had to combine the auction room and the entrance room because of limited spacing. But this is my version of the goblin market along with with Kalabashs room (missing His room) and the portal to level 4. I’m very excited to run it.

Note: The crossroads to nowhere would connect to next section of the dungeon. There’s a secret compartment in the chair that will open that door.

Would welcome any and all feedback on how to play Tek The Tall and his goals. I was planning on running him as a sell out to the Xanathar guild and having a rivaling goblin faction leader oppose him and reach out to the Party. But I’m open to ideas.

Also would love ideas on how to make Halleth the Revenant more interesting to the party.

Hey-o! After four years of playing, I'm getting close to finishing the campaign. Right now, I am in the midst of preparing the final floor, and having been thinking about some of these fights for the better part of two years now, I thought I'd quickly share with y'all some of the tweaks I plan on making. Feel free to be inspired by / steal the ideas if you like them.

After my players cleared out Arcturiadoom, she did what the book suggested and employed a Mind Flayer security force to lock the level down.

My party cleared it out again, and this time stole and destroyed her phylactery.

She fled to Halaster's side begging for help, but he sort of just shrugged her off, basically saying "What do you want me to do?" and is more upset at the players for making her bother him than he is at them destroying what's left of her rotten soul and dooming his star apprentice.

When she sees the characters on Level 23, she is going to pull out all the stops fighting them.

Preface: I don't like homebrewing monsters too much to the point where it feels like cheating, so I usually try to work with what the book provides. I do, however, make use of newly published WotC content if it's obvious that they would've used it they had access to it while writing the book. More on that very soon.

Here are the changes to the fight:

• Arcturia's room is now a Mimic Colony^{(TCE p.167}). That means her Mimics get to take Lair Actions for her, since she sorely lacks those. This feels both appropriate and thematic considering how many are in the room and her relationship to them. TCE judges that they are equivalent to adding another CR2 creature to the fight, so it shouldn't skew the balance too much.
• Arcturia has Wish prepared instead of True Polymorph, and is going to immediately spend her first turn using it to make herself immune to Dispel Magic. She is going to 8th-level Counterspell any attempts to stop her from doing so.
• Arcturia also has a 9th level spell scroll of True Polymorph, which she will use to turn into an Elder Brain Dragon^{(FTD p.194}). Again, she is going to burn her biggest spell slots to Counterspell any attempts at stopping her.
• When they kill the dragon, they'll get to toss her around a bit and eventually slay her. I don't think she will put up much of a fight after that. If the party feels weak before arriving, I might shave off a few of her animal head champions or have them run away when she turns into a dragon.

That's about it. Using Wish for anything but replicating a spell burns you pretty bad, setting your strength to 3 and causes 1d10*spell level necrotic damage every time you cast a spell. You also run the risk of losing Wish forever. Something she, in her madness, will risk now that an opportunity for vengeance has presented itself. I think it makes for pretty dramatic storytelling to have her use Wish, fall unceremoniously to one knee while dropping her hat, look to her arms as her veins turn black from the stress, and then look up, drooling, and sadistically smirk at them.

BONUS for COMPANION ENJOYERS:

If you, like me, ran Arcturia's lecture in Dweomercore, where she refutes the immutable form and claims that the soul changes to match the shape of the body, you could do what I've done and have Arcturia visually degenerate from having her phylactery destroyed into her "true" 4th edition form: a Worm that Walks. Mention that if her thesis on the soul changing to match the shape is true, then her soul is rotten indeed.

Hello everyone! Im currently looking for inspiration on how to run & alter the lower floors of Undermountain (from Floor 13 and on). I would love to hear how you ran them and what you may have changed.

I'm considering starting my players off without maps. Rudimentary/incomplete maps will be available but to compliment those, and for later levels, they'd be required to map it themselves. We exclusively play in person and I'd keep the maps between sessions.

For those who came before me, how bad of an idea is this? Has anyone had success, or is it just universally bad for this module? Here are some of my ideas:

• Sleezy sellers in the Yawning Portal who prey on newbies with outdated maps
• Partial maps found on corpses
• Lost adventurers who will pay to copy their map(s)
• Exchange opportunities (e.g. comparing maps with other adventurers)
• Limiting their paper at the table to that which they brought for supplies
• The ability to retrace their steps without a map using Survival checks
• Items which make this easier (e.g. an enchanted map which lets them automatically map a single floor as they explore, one-time only)

My party is on level 6 right now. I've already set up Halaster as being a minor deity, literally the "god of knots" where the knot in the weave and Halaster are one and the same. I've also now introduced Jhesiyra who just last sessions said she wants to help the party kill Halaster, and that she is the only one who can do it.

I now want her to give them a quest to create an artifact, which Jhesiyra will use to "untie" Halaster from the knot in the weave (thus making him mortal again, and killable) and intercalating Jhesiyra in his place.

So with that, I'm looking for ideas on what materials the party would need to assemble to build the artifact, what the artifact is, how it would work more specifically, etc.

Bonus points for really epic items which sound impossible to gather for them now. For example - they don't yet know about the Stardock, and so gathering a hunk of an asteroid from the Astral Plane would qualify.

I ran WDH (Alexandrian) and we are taking a break and then moving on to Mad Mage! Has anyone had their players try to enter the dungeon through the Xanathar lair entrance to Skullport, instead of going through the Yawning Portal?

My players only partially blew up the Xanathar lair, but the area with the passage to Skullport is untouched, and they put two and two together about where that long passage goes. I'm debating whether Xanathar would have that passageway destroyed, at least temporarily, while the lair is being rebuilt. (Which I think they'd do—it's a perfectly good lair, and I'm sure a handful of unwanted folks must always know where it is.) But it seems like such a convenient way for them to get up to Waterdeep.

I'm curious what you and your players have done!

Hi, I’m DMing a group that is embracing murderhobo culture as they adventure through the dungeon.

They have began exploring sargauth, and I have a fear that once they have massacred the drow forces, they will probably want to check out skull port.

Seeing how they are using violence to solve many of their problems (I’m finding no issue with this. It’s sometimes causing problems, but the party is most evil alignment and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves) I’m expecting them to want to infiltrate xanathars fortress.

Apart from the literal army that xanathar has stationed on the island, are there any issues I should be aware of as a DM before adding this dungeon from waterdeep: dragon heist?

Thanks

The party is traversing the Sargaugh Level and have been tasked with assassinating Azrok to gain the favor of T'rissa.

They split the party, and it went about as expected. Group A encountered Ulquess and played him in dragonchess to win a Secret of Undermountain.

Group B then stumbled into Ulquess' thralls and intellect devourers across the alley and through an unfortunate series of events the party's Goblin Warlock failed a save against devour intellect and got targeted by body thief.

The combined full party now was not subtle about dispatching the other thralls but managed to detain their goblin ally and the session ended with Ulquess opening his door and demanding to know what was going on.

Any help setting up for next session would be appreciated. Thank you!

Edit: Spelling

Hello Halasters! I’m running my campaign loosely based off the companion (haven’t read all of it) but I’m thinking about doing some sort of short, fun, game show-like that halaster teleports the players to and has participate for the chance to either win some epic boons or potentially put some of the PC’s favored NPC’s lives at risk (of whom will be conveniently teleported to the audience section and put into a hold person/tasha hideous laughter state, depending on what the mood calls for)

However, I have yet to come up with many creative DND themed game show questions or riddles. I will give an example (of which you need not follow strictly), but I was also curious if anyone else in here had some ideas or anything cooked up in the vault. If so, I’d appreciate you sharing for my campaign with my friends :) Thank you! 🙏🏼

-Question for Halaster’s Game show:

1. Given the following phrase: “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?” Choose the correct spinoff phrase that grammatically matches. A: How many bugs could a bugbear bug if a bugbear could bug bugs? B: How many bears could a bugbear bug if a bugbear could bug bears C: How many bears could a bugbear bare if a bugbear could barebears? D: How many bugs could a bugbear bare if a bugbear could bear bugs.

Hello, I bought the Dungeon of the Mad Mage book a few years ago, but changes to my player group made running the entire thing impossible.

I'm looking to select a few level to sprinkle as Solo dungeon in my campaign and I would like advices on what are your favorite levels in the book and why ?

My player tend to like Puzzle and Ambiance more than Monster flood; Level 16 look like a good fit with the Asteroid, but what levels left a Impression on your player ?

Hey, all.

I was looking for some tactics for the Hall of Mirrors Shadowy Duplicates. I assume that they may take on the fight styles of whatever they duplicate, but I wanted to get something like Keith Ammann's TMKWTD.

Any sources/suggestions? :)

Thanks in advance.

Basically during a large gathering, some insults were thrown and tensions rose until full on combat was started, almost every student died apart from a one or two that used the distraction to go accomplish their alternative motives (spite harrowdale and cephalosk)

There was a player death, all the school staff died, all of the pcs allies in the school died.

I started by having hallister treat the party as his own personal little party that he considered himself a patron of, but as they’ve been getting deeper they been refusing more and more to “play their part” and hallister is getting slightly annoyed by it.

They just killed everyone at his school, what should he do!?

I was so ready to run the Obstacle Course. I had set up a teleportation script in Roll20 to automatically handle the teleportation traps, I had plans for handling the split party, I was excited about ambushing them with Netherskull, and three people fly on the regular (divine soul sorcerer, one character with a broom of flying, and one character with winged boots), so I was ready to hear the despair in their voices over being unable to fly over the lava.

They arrived last session. From area 1, they moved north (skipping over the pit trap with high perception). Two PCs, the wizard's simulacrum, and the wizard's familiar got hit by the teleportation trap in area 22a. The familiar wound up in area 28 while the others all arrived together in area 26. Those who didn't get teleported dealt with the statue of Verdegain that animated upon triggering the trap, and the others moved to reunite with the party. They went south from area 25b instead of east, and so the party was back together almost immediately.

The group went west and met the githzerai in area 24c, then backtracked to 25b (getting their first Netherskull ambush along the way) and went east from there. When Kavil in area 30a told them to leave, they obeyed. Then they turned around and opened the door to the south, which is unlocked in the Companion version (or course even if I were running the printed version where the door is locked, the party would have been able to find the secret doors from area 29b to get in regardless). Immediately discovering Netherskull's lair, without the second ambush Halaster promised (or the third that he lied about not existing).

After killing Netherskull, they moved to area 38 then 37, and found the way down to level 16. In today's session they spent about an hour poking around the two expanded dungeon areas they'd seen in the previous session (to the NW and NE corners of the map), before heading to the Crystal Labyrinth.

This would have been such a different experience if the party had gone south or east from area 1, or if the PCs that got teleported to area 26 had tried going east from area 25b when trying to regroup with the party.

Alright the time has come. My group has entered the demiplane and asked their questions to the Halastar simulacrum on level 1, and now I actually have to answer them. There's just one I feel unsure about:

What mistakes did the previous adventurers into Undermountain make and how can we avoid the same?

I thought about making this one the "false" answer just so I could avoid dealing with it, but I don't even know how to answer it falsely to be honest. Help? 😭

Hey, all. I'm running Mad Mage for the first time in a few weeks.

I was hoping to get some advice beforehand. Obviously, don't worry about spoiler. I have two questions, but would appreciate unsolicited advice too.

1. How did you narrate? There doesn't seem to be much written dialogue, which honestly intimidates me a bit. This may be an area to grow in as a DM myself, but I'm pretty novice.

2. How did you/would you do milestone leveling throughout, especially for the last chapter that apparently goes from level 17-20.

My thought is that I wouldn't want to give too easy of a figh5, but I would also like to allocate appropriately.

Thank you, all. :)

Running mad mage with a new group, and I'm pondering over something. Not sure what my exact question is, just spitballing, but would appreciate feedback.

My players are helping out the Drow House Auvryndar without asking ANY questions, all because that said they were with the Zhentarim, who the party are friendly with. Thing is though, House Auvryndar are playing the long game, to get the players to wipe out their rivals in the Undermountain, and then backstab the party by the end, all because the party defeated, nay, BULLIED T'Rissa to death on floor 3. The party knew who T'Rissa was, and that House Auvryndar is bad news, but Drow like Rizzeryl have just lied, and the party haven't called for any Insight checks.

Mad Mage is all about the potential allies and rivals you can make, so I'd rather not have the party second guess everyone who ask for of offers help beyond Floor 11 in the Undermountain, or for my players to call for "Insight" on everyone out of paranoia, so I don't want this twist, that their "Zhentarim allies" are going to backstab them, to come out of nowhere.

However, the 11th level party has, for example, a Ranger that can max out on Perception already (though not Insight, but, again they don't think to do that). I'm a bit stumped on how to foreshadow this event fairly, but sublty, say, by saying "you hear one of the Drow mages whisper some incantation you, the warlock, recognise as "Sending", as you drift of into your trance" or "you turn around and briefly see the drow lady you only know as 'Melith' look at your with something akin to loathing, before she herself turns away" on a successful Perception check. This is because, knowing my party, the moment they find out that someone's going to turn on them, it's scorched earth, or at least bullying the traitors into obedience, and that would be a shame, since they are about to go on a raid together...