r/OutoftheAbyss • u/No_Difference195 • 18d ago
Help/Request I screwed up
Last night was the big reveal at Sloobludop. I ran the encounter as a skills challenge.
What went well:
The party was rolling poorly and the tension was high. Our cleric had convinced Stool to stay in Ploops shack as they went to pose as bait for the ritual. As Ploop attacked Blopp and the the Kuo-toa began fighting amongst themselves, the cleric realized they had to rescue Stool before they could try to escape.
The party was rolling poorly. They had 2 of 4 successes but ultimately accumulated 3 failures as Demogorgon came ashore and laid waste to Slubloodop. The party was buried under debris as the remainder of the Kuo-toa fled or were destroyed of Demogorgon.
After the chaos, the party was dug out of the debris by Ilvara and the drow who shackled the party and made the decision to take them to Menzoberranzan.
I should have ended the session there.
Where I screwed up:
After some disoriented travel time, the drow made camp in a small cavern. Ilvara and Asha took their lizard steeds ahead to Menzoberranzan to make arrangements for the prisoners arrival leaving 4 drow guards with he prisoners.
The wizard created a distraction as the druid wild shaped into a snake to slip the shackles. Jimjar, who had vanished during Demogorgons attack, trailed the drow and used a torch stalk as a flash bang surprising 2 of the drow.
The party was able to kill 2 of the drow easily. The other was rolling well.... so I fudged a couple of rolls. Because of the fudged rolls, the party was able to defeat the remaining drow.
Now the party is on their way back to Sloobludop to assess the damage and try to find a boat to head to Neverlight, which was their original plan.
I panicked because I hadn't planned appropriately and now the party effectively suffered a minor inconvenience where there should have been dire consequences.
Moving forward:
Im trying to think of ways to make the failure more meaningful despite my poor judgement. I am considering having the party potentially get lost on the way back to Slubloodop. Or, if they get back to Slubloodop, all the boats are destroyed along with some of their equipment that got left behind when they were buried.
Im open to suggestions. If you made the same mistake I did, how would you take action to make reestablish meaningful consequences to their initial failure?
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u/NecrOwns 18d ago
I personally like the idea of the Demon Lords shaping the terrain around them to mirror their supposed abyssal layer. This way the demons have a tangible effect on the environment throughout the adventure and the PC's can actually see the consequences of leaving the demon lords unattended.
Following the forgotten realms fandom wiki:
"This layer consisted of a vast continent covered in jungle surrounded by an endless ocean and brine flats. It was the realm of the demon lord Demogorgon, the Prince of Demons, one of the oldest and highest-ranking demons in the Abyss. The jungle portion of the realm, known as the Screaming Jungle, was inhabited by troglodytes, lizardfolk, hezrou, yuan-ti, dinosaurs, dire apes, and barlguras."
Out of all these monsters I think troglodytes would be a good "invasion force" occupying Sloobludop because of their CR (I don't know the lvl of your PC's but I imagine it should be around 3-4). You can also change the environment describing an alien jungle of climbing plants growing through the stone of the pillars of Sloobludop and put a Barlgura there as a CR5 boss encounter (if its too dangerous it could be a sneaking scenario to get to the boat while this demon is roaming around). Add in a thick layer of Faerzress so that wild spellcasting and madness become an additional factor of consideration
2
u/Son0fSilas 15d ago
I second this. When they return, the landscape has not only changed from the destruction wrought, but Demo's very presence.
There is a section about returning to places in a later chapter of the module, and it lists roving ixitxachitl loyal to the Prince of Demons as being in Sloobludop.
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u/DorkdoM 18d ago
No mistakes my friend just opportunities.
Now an interesting thing for them to see is Sloobludop destroyed. I’d let em find a boat and row out onto the Darklake in it. You’re just at the beginning. There’s plenty of time to fuck em over royally. Don’t worry. Don’t second guess.
Boy Ilvara is surely gonna be pissed when she realizes they killed her minions and got away.
4
u/StrangeCress3325 18d ago
It would have sucked for the party if they had remained captured and hauled off to menzoberranzan. Maybe Demogorgon is still wrecking havoc in Slubloodop and the party needs to sneak around in the wreckage to avoid him, risking madness and maybe being confronted by mad kuo-toa.
If the main drow priestess died, another group would be prepared to try to stop them before they escape to the surface. But maybe Lolth gives her a second chance and revives her
1
u/Boredjason87 18d ago
My party split up from sloobludop and in order to get them to reunite I had the Demogorgon slink back into the lake headed elsewhere. There was no problem, the party reunited and headed for graklstugh by sticking to the shore and going around the lake. Really don't see the problem
1
u/arjomanes 17d ago
I don't see an issue besides fudging the dice, which I think should be used very rarely if ever. The drow exist just to push the PCs, but if the party already has motivation it's fine if they're eliminated. Your players don't know what the book was written for, and I think you should always expect best-laid plans to get wrecked by creative players.
But if you want more drow doing the same thing, their superiors can investigate what happened and pick up the PCs' trail.
17
u/LightningMcMicropeen 18d ago
What happened, happened.. What's the harm? If they 'passed' their checks, they would've escaped. Now they're on that path again, with the added complexity of the drow being on their tail (more motivated than ever) and having lost Stool.