Thoughts?

I'm warning you right now that I am verbose and that this is an absolute wall of text. :D

TL:DR Use movement aggressively. Don't get touched. Fireball everything. Even the guy that's down, fireball him too.

Edit - Realizing I left out her strongest tool. She can grapple you and take you up into the red sky. Athletics contest, and dragging a Medium creature halves her fly speed, so 75 a round, 150 if she dashes. Two rounds to get you to 200 feet.

Then she lets go. Falling caps at 20d6 at 200 feet, so going higher is just a waste. 20d6 is the cap. Around 70 damage before you've had a turn. This is why old players love Featherfall. - End Edit

I've run Descent into Avernus four times now, all the way through. Every one of those campaigns ends standing in front of Zariel one way or another, and nobody has ever "beaten" her. All four of my Zariels were nasty Zariels. I play her for keeps. The problem is that two of them never got to execute in combat, because those parties just straight up simped for her. I'll get to that, because honestly the simps got the better endings. The two groups that did fight her, she bested both of them. The closest anyone ever came, she flew away from that one with 22 hit points left. Brutal.

First: this was not some homebrew souped-up Zariel. Straight off the page. The party, on the other hand, was a big table, six to eight players depending on the week, all around level 14. They were loaded. They had gear, they'd been pretty much everywhere in the campaign already, and they even arrived fresh.

And here's where they found her, straight out of chapter 5: she wasn't waiting in a throne room. She was in the middle of the Blood War whooping a ton of asses at once when they showed up. The book has her locked up with one of Yeenoghu's balors when the party arrives, a hundred foot ring cleared around them because nothing else wants to be near it, and if you don't want to roll it out it tells you she wins in four rounds and stands there on 450 of her 580, collecting herself. Badass. Hot take: if you actually play her against the balor stat block and have a friend play the balor, you'll understand how to play her kit a little bit more before the players get here. It's a fun exercise. Promise.

That's her entrance. She's already freaking busy. More on that later.

It was five+ hours of combat and it was close the whole way. This was not rocks fall. They blasted her with a ton of stuff. She still ended the fight on 22 hp.

Go look up what the book says about that, because I didn't until recently. Chapter 5 says that if Zariel drops to 100 hit points or fewer she withdraws to the edge of the battle and holes up in her flying fortress. The module gives her an exit at 100. Mine stayed in it down to 22. I'm not saying that to brag, I'm saying it because if you're prepping this fight and you had her fighting to the death, the book disagrees with me. She's a general. Generals leave. I choose to make her stay. That's a narrative decision of mine.

Early on the party had real staying power. There were a lot of heals flying around. But resources get thinned out and Zariel's didn't. Two of the players were tieflings with fire resistance and it did not save them, because it was never about any one fireball. It was the volume, plus wall of fire cutting up the battlefield so they couldn't keep up with her. Every time there is a player grouping? Fireball.

Then the first player dropped and everything fell apart. Going to get your friend now means standing in fireball potential, and they all knew it. :D The squishy's down first. The fighter and the hexblade were the last two standing.

Go look at the stat block again if it's been a while. Fireball at will. Wall of fire, also at will. Invisibility at will, self only. A 150 foot fly speed. Teleport as a legendary action. Regeneration 20. Magic resistance and legendary resistance, with DC 26 on everything. Finger of death three times a day. And a 26 Intelligence. You read that last line and you start to understand that you're supposed to be playing for keeps here. 26 intelligence when this book came out was one of the smartest monsters there were on paper. That means we are calculating our decisions at a rate that mortals couldn't even understand. Well unfortunately IRL I do not have a 26 intelligence so I need to finesse the crap out of this.

The fireball math, and why there is no formation that solves her on her terms. Fireball is a 20 foot radius. That is a 40 foot wide hole in your map, and she puts one wherever she wants, every round, for free. Now do the party math with me. If you want to guarantee she never catches two of you in one blast, every player needs to stand 40+ feet from every other player. Eight players spaced like that is a battle line longer than a football field, and now nobody can heal anybody and whoever she lands on is fighting her alone. That's the trap. Spread out and she duels you one at a time. Bunch up and every fireball does two jobs. There is no right answer. There's only which wrong answer you're giving her this round. Yes you can shoot stuff at her but if you play her smart she can keep her spacing. She can reposition herself. You could focus the casters and you could take brief pauses to regenerate and let harmful effects die off. :D

Altitude is the whole game. She moves 50 on the ground and 150 in the air, 300 with a dash. Your careful 40 foot spacing is one move to her. My rule for running her is simple: if her feet are on the ground, I screwed up big time. You're basically able to reposition yourself anywhere you want. Almost at will between your massive speed and teleporting. And if it ever starts leaning the wrong way she goes 300 feet straight up and just exists for a couple rounds while the regeneration ticks. What's the party doing about that? Spending resources on nothing, mostly. Haste, spirit guardians, holy weapon, all of it runs on a clock measured in minutes. Hers doesn't. It's up to the players to figure out how to deal with her full kit.

Wall of fire isn't damage, it's annoying. Up to 60 feet of wall, 20 feet tall, and she picks which side is burning. Drop it between the front group and the back group and the fight is now happening in the room she chose, with the people she chose. Changing rooms costs 5d8 at the door, and 20 feet tall means most grounded martials are not hopping it. And none of it costs her anything, so you don't need the perfect fireball, you need the next one. Then the next one and so on.

A downed player is a weapon. My players know I will fireball a downed player to also down the one coming to rescue him, and everybody at the table knows I'll take that economy trade. So from the first drop onward every rescue is a bet, and the party starts hesitating. That hesitation is worth more than the damage. Super bonus points if you're able to isolate the downed player with wall of fire. Let's not forget that we have the finger of death and that removes that party member effectively from coming back to bother you. You just need to make sure that they are at a threshold that it will take. Otherwise you're wasting action economy and a potentially devastating use of this spell. Then you got a little puppet.

And before somebody says just banish her, just hold her: DC 26, magic resistance, +16 or better on the mental saves, three legendary resistances for whatever sticks, and she's immune to charmed, frightened, poisoned and exhaustion on top of it, so about half the soft control at your table does not exist.

My Zariel is not my Strahd. Strahd is obsessed with the party. He watches them, he collects them, he shows up. Zariel could not care less what they've been doing all campaign. And that isn't my take alone, it's the book's: chapter 5 says outright that it's hard for insignificant mortals to get the archduke's attention, and then lists the only three things that make her look up. You anger her. You help her in the fight. Or you show her Lulu or the sword. That's the list. Everything else your players accomplished this campaign is somebody else's problem. She's got freaking demons to push back in their filthy hole. She could not care. You're insignificant. If you're in her way she'll just move through you.

So when my players came out of nowhere onto her battlefield, she wasn't insulted. She expected loyal soldiers. She was genuinely heartened that they'd traveled all the way to her side of Avernus. Then they drew on her. Bet.

She took the blindfold off. As an angel she was a solar and she wore a blindfold, the blind justice thing. Look at the art of her now. No blindfold, eyes lit up white hot. That's the whole character in one image if you need a fast one. She did something about them.

Her whole kit is the angel's kit run backwards, which is honestly my favorite part about the whole kit. A solar casts resurrection three times a day. She casts finger of death three times a day. A solar's touch cures blindness, deafness and poison. Her Horrid Touch inflicts all three. A solar has truesight and can tell when you're lying to it. She has neither, and that isn't an oversight on her stat block, it's what she traded. Once I noticed that, I kind of fell in love with her stat block.

Use the telepathy, nobody uses the telepathy. She has 120 feet of it and speaks every language there is. She can drop one private sentence into one player's head, in their language, mid fireball, and nobody else at the table hears it. Charisma 30 and a +18 to intimidate. Not that I make active intimidate rolls on players but she should be powerful and weighty. She judges people by whether they can fight and whether they're willing to, AND WHY, so a party fighting her well is a party she'd rather hire, and she'll say so, mid combat, while she's killing them. Don't pull any punches. Show them what the winning side is supposed to look like. According to her.

Her contempt is pointed at Elturel, not at your players. This one does the most story driving at my table. There's a moment in the book where a character offers up their own soul to save the city, and she stops and asks whether they'd really lay their soul down for these people, people whose cowardice and weakness have caused them nothing but grief. She's not sneering at the party. She's sneering at the city they came to save, and she has a point, because that city's own High Overseer sold it to her. Give her that instead of generic devil gloating and watch your players. Spell that out.

So where is she actually weak? She's not unkillable. She's just never in a fair fight, and every plan I've ever seen against her quietly assumes she'll stand still for it. If she does stand still for it, you are in for a rough time. Just like Strahd, just like Acererak, you will get absolutely shellacked. Don't do this. One thing that I think is important as a DM that's DM'd this long is when you're running an adventure like Vecna: Eye of Ruin and you drop in. You've been wanting to play Vecna as the DM for so long and your players just absolutely walk through you. That's not a great feeling for you as the DM either. I'm not advocating for killing all of your players all the time but play like you mean it. Your players deserve a good fight and so do you and they should have to earn it.

Her eyes are just eyes. No blindsight, no truesight, and that's a real problem: the gaze needs to see the target and the teleport needs to see the destination. The fireballs need targets too. But she does have Devil's Sight, so magical darkness does absolutely nothing to her. What works is plain obscurement. Fog cloud is a first level spell with no save attached to it at all, and 120 feet of darkvision does not see through fog. Invisibility on the party, same, because she never got the truesight back. Those can be tricky to manage if your players have them.

Radiant, but only if it's automatic. Okay so she has regeneration but it could get knocked off by like a thousand different things. How do we deal with that? Radiant that asks for a save mostly just doesn't happen to her. Part of that is luck, and part of that is her stats. Radiant that simply happens, riders on weapon hits, shuts the regeneration off without ever touching a save. Yes, she resists radiant. Doesn't matter. It's not really the damage that sucks here. It's stopping the regeneration that is annoying. Whoever is doing that needs to eat fireballs and quick.

Which means your party is likely carrying the counter. The Sword of Zariel, the thing they spent a whole campaign getting. Its Searing Radiance adds 2d8 radiant on every hit, no save on the damage. And an evil creature taking it makes a DC 17 Con save or goes blind until the end of its next turn, and since that's an item property and not a spell her magic resistance doesn't apply, so blinding her kills the gaze and the teleport at once. The wielder also has truesight out to 60 feet, so her invisibility is dead in melee range. AND FIREBALL. Houston, we have a problem if fireball goes down.

She only gets one concentration. Wall of fire. Blade barrier. Invisibility. Every wall she builds and every vanish she pulls rides the same slot. She cannot be controlling space AND be gone at the same time, and if your party cracks her concentration, the random BS she built around them disappears.

Her physical saves are the softest thing on the sheet and they're still not "soft". All the save proficiency went into Int, Wis and Cha, so Dex sits at a bare +7 and Strength at +8. The catch is magic resistance, so the player will try to burn the three legendary resistances on cheap stuff nobody's sad to lose and then they try to merc you. Earthbind is the one that scares me, because everything above stops working the round her feet hit the ground and stay there. If your feet are touching ground, you're about to have a bad time, friend.

The fight is the failure state. By the book the Sword of Zariel carries a spark of her own soul, and she's the one who hid it there, back when she could still feel what she was turning into. Present it at the right moment and the win condition isn't damage at all. Look at how the book prices it, because the mechanics are telling you the characterization: DC 25 to talk her back, minus 5 if Lulu is standing there, minus 5 if Olanthius is. Twenty five down to fifteen, and all you did was bring the two people she left behind. Lulu cries and she remembers having a friend. Olanthius kneels and she has to look at what she did to the one who stayed with her. She can't take the people she abandoned looking at her. Personally I like redemption arcs but it just didn't fit the kit. It just doesn't fit the whole campaign that we've been running to have her just put down her hammer because someone nailed the charisma check before the fight starts.

Which brings me back to the top. They drew on her, so she wiped them and kept them. Same arrangement as Olanthius. They rose as her death knights, and I read each character's epilogue out at the table. They're fighting the Blood War now, of course. Knocking off demons. The reason I love this ending is because the story isn't over from a TPK here. It gives you an extraordinary amount of latitude to do callbacks. These callbacks are one-shots. Special night events. Take a break from your old campaign or if you only have a few players this session instead of a whole table, Callback Night.

That's not a punishment ending. That's Hellrider theology imho. And it's fun.

It's also the good version of what the book does to people who serve her. Read that branch's fine print some time: die in her service and you come back out of the Styx as a lemure with no memories. Death knight with your name still on it is the promotion lol. Very Warhammer 40k, dreadnought. Or you could be a little pus ball.

And the parties that never fought her? Both fell in love with her and rode into the Abyss killing demons forever, bringing the fight into the Abyss so that the devils have the respawn advantage. Which honestly is a much better "good" guy ending. This is just my taste. You may not prefer this style. I find it lands very well at the table. Your mileage may vary.

If you've run her, did your party swing and get froggy? And if they didn't, I want to hear it, because apparently mine is not the only table that falls for her. After running this campaign almost a handful of times now, I agree, I love my Dommie Mommie.

Slay,

~ LIDM ~

Question for people who’ve already run DiA! (Or are planning to run it)

I’m prepping our campaign and wanted to figure out some of the broad strokes of the various factions present in this campaign module and what I noticed is there’s just a lot of dead-ends where groups entirely lose relevance after a certain point. The whole Baldur’s Gate Gazetteer gives this brilliant rundown of the districts and the locations in the city and the state of events, yet we see it for such a short portion of the campaign before the players are thrust into Avernus. Like the Dead-Three-Cult is just…not mentioned after they enter Avernus - same with Gargauth.

How did things turn out at your own tables?

1. Did you start your players in Baldur’s Gate or Elturel? How did that end up going?
2. Were the players plane-hopping between Baldur’s Gate and Avernus across the course of the campaign? Or did they stay in one place? Keeping the campaign Avernus-bound seems like a waste of early-established Baldur’s Gate lore and political intrigue.
3. Were there any ways early-on you seeded factions into the narrative? Did groups like the Flaming Fist & Dead Three become more relevant as the story went on or were they just background players with little relevance?
4. How did you prevent the players’ backstories from becoming obsolete once the players entered Avernus? It seems weird to have to effectively stretch someone’s backstory to explain how people from their background showed up on Avernus or something.

I am planning to use the Alexandrian Remix** **and doctor it a little bit to my own tastes, but I wanted to see how things shook out in terms of continuity for your own games, since jumping into Avernus is a huge narrative shift.

Question for the Group:

After my current campaign wraps up, I was planning on running Descent into Avernus. However, one thing I've come across online (which has now consumed my thoughts regarding this campaign) is that the module's version of Avernus is waaaay more chaotic than it probably should be. I mean, Mad Max is cool, but wouldn't that type of stuff make more sense in somewhere more chaotic? And if I move it to another plane, that would then beg the question of How could Zariel do what she's doing in another plane?

So, basically my question is How would you reconcile these glaring alignment issues?

Hey y’all I’ll be running a Descent into Avernus campaign soon and I wanted to ask if anyone had any musical themes for Asmodeus, Lord of the Nine Hells.

I’m not necessarily looking for a combat theme, just dark and foreboding choral music, like Hail the Nightmare from Bloodborne or Helheim from God of War.
Something that evokes the sinister & awful presence of the Lord of Lies.

(Doesn’t need to be exactly this though!)

Who on God's Green Earth did the encounter design for the Dungeon of the Dead Three?

The players are supposed to be level 2. The "necromancer" in D13 has fireball prepared. If she wins initiative, you TPK the party.

I instead had her cast Wither and Bloom at Level 3, just to not obliterate them.

I am trying to run this as relatively low prep, but is this a continual problem later on too?

Should I just be prepared to always modify stuff on the fly?

Sure I get it only being a cover, but... Where do people get unrobed and redressed? People just walk in and use the baths, and walk out? Where are the towels and cleaning equipment stored? There's no offices, no bathrooms, I don't think the book even suggests paying a fee to use them. What if my players want to do some spicy half-naked snoopin' around during business hours instead of sneaking in at night? The business feels real strange, but not in the way that someone is hiding something, but in the way that the author didn't think it through entirely lol

Hello everyone!

I’ll preface this by saying that I am a fairly new DM, having only ran about half a campaign before it fizzled out prior to this one (so if my idea here isn’t great, I can blame it on lack of experience lol).

I had the idea of allowing my players to spend some of the stolen Tiamat treasure that they found in the Dungeon of the Dead Three. They barely escaped with their lives, so I wanted to give them a reward.

I was thinking about adding in a side plot where the dragon cultists could eventually hunt them down and demand that they give the treasure back. If they spend too much, then I’ll likely have them be indebted to the cultists, and have to earn some money to pay them back for it.

My main idea was having the party join some kind of fighting tournament in Baldur’s Gate and earn some prize money from that, but I’m open to suggestions!

I’m mostly concerned about it derailing the overall story, as I would rather this be a fun, reoccurring side quest that came as a result of them stealing the treasure. Let me know what you guys think, or if you have any suggestions!

I would like to introduce my players to Zariel at some point soon during the campaign rather than waiting until the very end. I am curious what ideas or ways others may have used.

Currently I am thinking they see her fighting below as they descend from Elturel, but that would be from a distance. Looking for some way to establish her as a powerful force they are working up to.

Currently my players just crossed the bridge on thier way to the High Hall in Elturel.

I am certainly not new to DMing sandboxes and hexcrawls, but even so, reading through his quest for the dream machine makes me kind of anxious. He starts with pointing to three locations, two of which have replicas of the same item we need, and one to a place that isnt on the map. Once they get the piston, are the players supposed to just wander around ? Am I missing something ?

I have been DMing this adventure over a year now and finally died as a DMPC (dungeon master player character) I was playing as Reya Mantlemorn. She had a good run. Ultimately what did her in was a nasty Finger of Death from Gideon Lightward (Yes I changed his statblock, and he had 2 boss phases, it's a whole thing.)

Was a pretty emotional moment. Everyone was with this character from the very beginning all the way back from when Elturel was taken. She came back a zombie and was put down immediately. First time in awhile I actually shed a tear. I really enjoyed her growth and am sad to lose her, but when the dice start talking, I listen.

Rest in peace, Reya. Go with helm.

So, my players are in Elturel for about 2 days (like 10 sessions irl) and the paladin has had the Shield of the Hidden lord (from now on just Shield) for all this time.

The paladin is an incorruptible type character, i've tried many times to get him to use the power of the shield and talk to Gargauth, but alas no luck in there.

I'm roleplaying Gargauth as having it full of this paladin bullshit, not wanting his power for anything, not even saving his friends.
One time the paladin got disarmed from the Shield and Gargauth used this opportunity to sever it's attunement, and after that it refused completely to let him attune or even use the shield.
I wanted to let the others try the shield and so Gargauth started speaking to them and planting ideas that the paladin is not enough and they should be using the shield.

Now the Paladin's player stated in private that he doesn't like this because it's not in the rules that an item (that he says should be a prison for Gargauth) should be able to completely bar him from using it.
He said he thought about it and he doesn't see any way to use the shield that doesn't end badly (whatever that means) and he feels that he's just carrying around an useless clump of metal.

More than anything he wants answer about what to do with the shield (at the start he even rolled a nat 20 on what the shield is, i've told what he could've got from it but obviously not everything) but I don't want to spoil anything i've prepared, i've just told him there are ways to get a "good ending" with the Shield.

Just so you know this player already played DiA with another master, it was not with the Alexandrian Remix tho.

Feel free to ask questions as i've probably explained it poorly.

Hey all! A little while ago I did some prep work and was sufficiently disappointed with the module’s Haruman Hill encounter. I think that Haruman is an interesting character but since the module gives him so little backstory and purpose that the encounter threatens to play out like an empty combat scene where the players likely have their asses handed to them. So, I sidetracked and brainstormed some lore and wanted to share it with people. Here is what I got:

In my version, Olanthius, Jander and Haruman were friends before the Ride. Haruman was born a slave and met Jander after escaping and becoming paladin of Helm. The two bonded over loss of agency in their lives. Haruman in the form of slavery and Jander being turned into a vampire. The two met Olanthius after arriving in Elturel to aid the city’s forces to defend the city against demon attacks. Rather than having Haruman be just ”a heartless man bereft of compassion” I re-imagined him being reserved and pragmatic before the Ride. Olanthius notes in his journals from that time that Haruman was rigid but polite and never intentionally unkind.

When Zariel arrived at Elturel, Haruman saw a chance to gain power through military glory. For a person that had grown up without freedom, that power appeared not only as means to ensure his freedom but also as means to gain agency. So, he pledged himself to Zariel and stayed loyal to her throughout her campaign in Avernus.

When Jander deserted and closed the gate, not only did Haruman view it as a treason but as a personal offence. Jander knew that loyalty was everything to Haruman, and Haruman couldn’t fathom why Jander would abandon them knowing that closing the gate would ultimately kill them. As the time went on the anger began to corrupt Haruman and he began to enjoy violence more and more. When Zariel swore herself to Asmodeus, Haruman was the first to pledge loyalty to her whereas Olanthius, having seen the corruption of Zariel and Haruman, decided to end his life. This is something Haruman loaths Olanthius doing to the day of the present adventure. In his mind, Olanthius was a coward who abandoned their cause just like Jander had.

As a reward of service Zariel made him into an immortal narzugon.

And when Jander got sent back to Avernus Haruman caught him and has been keeping him a prisoner ever since. As a punishment for desertion, Haruman crucified Jander on one of the largest iron trees where he could hear and see his fellow prisoners suffer. Haruman keeps torturing him and uses his healing ability frequently on Jander. Jander is immortal but he can pass out from the pain which Haruman views as an escape attempt. By healing Jander Haruman keeps him awake and alert. Every time Haruman heals Jander, Jander begs for Haruman to stop and tells he is sorry though that won’t change a thing. So the cycle continues to the present day.

My goal was to add three-dimensionality to Haruman. Our DiA campaign focuses on corruption and redemption so I think this goes well thematically. Additionally, I’m planning on making Haruman reoccuring villain. Let me know what you think of this interpretation!

We ran on the 2024 ruleset, and I used the Alexandrian Remix pretty much to the letter. Our party makeup was a Berserker Barbarian, a Spell fire Sorcerer, an Open Hands Monk, and a Gloomstalker ranger. We also had a druid/cleric multiclass, but the player moved away so we wrote an ending for that character. The finale was at level 13.

In the end, my party redeemed Zariel. They teleported into Elturel after retrieving the sword of Zariel, and sent one player with the rods to unlock the companion. They decided that sundering the chains would be too challenging a task as they had a target on their back from Zariel (thanks to some history between the Barbarian and Zariel herself, some past life shenanigans where she was one of the OG hellriders that died in the battle of Avernus) so they opted to try to fight Zariel directly. I had it so they had to deal substantial damage with the sword itself before they could get pulled into the last "memory dive" to redeem her - as they've been itching to fight Zariel the whole campaign. That, and a vow of enmity from Zariel towards the Barbarian would've made negotiation hard.

Picking the fight with Zariel immediately meant she called in her pit fiend, as well as the horned devil and Erinyes she had guarding the companion, in to assist her. They opened the companion with some smart moves. Especially once they summoned Gargauth to their aid (they rolled two nat 20s when persuading Bel their plans were solid, so he freed Gargauth and made him their body guard for this battle), they were holding their own. Zariel made a point to separate the Barbarian with the sword from the party, but the sorcerer managed to catch up. The Barbarian discovered quickly Zariel has pretty weak con saves, and used that to keep her blinded so she couldn't teleport to keep distance. Because of that, the sorcerer managed to catch up and keep the Barbarian healed while Zariel focused all of her attacks on her. Thanks to rage and fire resistance, she tanked her attacks pretty well.

Meanwhile, the monk, the ranger, and Gargauth, focused on the pit fiend, erinyes, and horned devil. In hindsight, I wish I had thrown another pit fiend in there to even the playing field a bit, but I was worried if they failed redeeming Zariel things would have gotten dicy.

They killed the pit fiend, horned devil, and Erinyes, with the monk and ranger dangerously low on health. Zariel downed the sorcerer in one turn, and the Barbarian caught him before he hit the lava. They retreated, and healed the sorcerer before Zariel had another turn. He used all 8 charges to destroy his healing staff, upcasting mass cure wounds to give the whole party a second wind. Zariel still had about 180hp left, and was going to call the remaining devils on the battlefield to her aid - and finally, she downed the Barbarian. She took the sword, which pulled them into the memory dive. I allowed the Barbarian to speak to try to persuade Zariel to choose a different path, but every time she offered up something, she had to make a death save. With one failure, and then three successes, she was stabilized. I wanted to raise the stakes at this moment, especially as the party has been a thorn in Zariel's side throughout the campaign, on top of the personal history. I made the default wisdom save DC for Zariel's choice 25, and if enough of the party passed persuasion checks, that was lowered to 22. Three of them surpassed 20 on their checks, so I also granted Zariel advantage. She rolled a 7 and an 18, meaning she accepted her angelic spark once more, and sundered the chains, helping the god who was imprisoned in the companion (more homebrew stuff tying in a PC backstory) lift the city from the Styx, and shifting it back to the surface.

Asmodeus shows up, to arrest Zariel, and to promote the Bhaalspawn who has fulfilled their fathers contract. They said their goodbyes before accepting a plane shift back to the material realm, and the Bhaalspawn had their body taken over by Bhaal, who will be the new archdevil of Avernus.

All in all, it was a solid campaign and my players loved it from the start. We ran 45 sessions, most of them 4-5 hours, but a few climactic sessions ran 6-8 hours. I'm running an epilogue/interlude session next which will carry us into Vecna: Eve of Ruin - as I've been building towards that in the background of the entire campaign.

Was this a mistake? For context, we are well away from the shield at this point. My party just climbed down the chains of Elturel and on their way to Fort Knucklebone. The shield and Gargauth is barely an afterthought at this point, but I find myself wondering if there was any lost potential there. I still ran the interaction with Satiir Thione-Hhune under a villa many sessions ago mostly as written, but ultimately the players found the Hhune manor and presented the shield and was rewarded handsomely for it. Many magical weapons were secured that day. I did not play anything toward the Hhune family or Gargauth at that point nor did I even hint or acknowledge the Knights of the Shield AT ALL.

I guess I'm wondering if not having the shield around is super detrimental to the narrative here or if I should just let the players go about the adventure without the inclusion of the shield/Gargauth? I am playing towards elements of both the Alexandrian and Eventyr's Sandbox. If he was that important however, is there any feasible way that shield can show up again?

So I was trying to find one song to send my players to get them hyped for DiA and I got more inspired than I expected. Ended up with a 14 song concept album that follows Zariel from angel to archduke to redemption/death/victory over the players. The last three tracks are alternate endings. First Light is redemption, Hurt is death, Engel is victory.

Some of my favorite bits:

- Red Right Hand is her meeting Asmodeus. She falls down from Avernus all the way through each layer of hell and into Asmodeus's hands.

- The Becoming is her literal transformation from Angel to Devil. Her wings melt and transform, her golden hair withers, and her halo becomes a ring of hellfire.

- Unchained Predator from DOOM The Dark Ages is her reign. It's literally music for killing demons, which is her whole job for like a century.

- The Fall by Netherwilds ended up being Elturel dropping into hell.

Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5ChC3txy3qE5QWEO6KJjiK?si=4cd5ec93115c4712

Notes on why each song is where it is: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1idaltDcRzVhZRRhIS8GwtEqAb3Ro0dpSf5085rEZOp8/edit

Big spoilers for the whole book obviously. Would love to hear what you'd swap.

Descent into Avernus.
I’m playing a fallen noble human of baldur’s gate that found a contract made with devils by their family, discovering that’s because of it that everyone is gone and he’s broke.
He’s a barbarian that rages composed, and tends to say some noble Karen catchphrases when he does so.
We are actually level 4 (chose pact of zealot, radiant damage)and heading to Candlekeep: he has now the sole objective to find that devil who’s made the contract and avenge his family.
Here comes the idea to multiclass into vengeance paladin at about level 6-7.
According with the master my barbarian is going to die in combat with said devil (something like the death of the Lich King in world of Warcraft, speaking with his father etc) and be resurrected multiclassing in paladin.
What should I pay attention to the most about feats and stats?
All help is welcome!

EDIT: have got some great advice from you all. I’ll mix and match things to make my encounter better.

A legion/horde of demons attack could be overwhelming the party at/ just outside the Emporium- will let the dice decide.

PC’s will get overwhelmed by the sheer no. of demons and in 3-4 turns (if/once PC’s seem in dire straits + depending on the dice) Zariel and her forces could deal with all the demons as they saw this attack from their Flying Fortress (or got a direct order from one of Asmodeus’ emissaries to protect the Emporium). She can then spot Lulu and PC’s and have a quick word with them before leaving, thus showing (not just telling) PC’s how strong she actually is.

**END OF EDIT**

I want my players to have a run in with the arch devil herself at least once before their final showdown to instil some fear and show the authority and power Zariel carries around here.

This (ideally) role play only encounter should show how ruthless and strong Zariel is.

In my iteration, I’m thinking of having her desend from her Flying Fortress outside the Wandering Emporoum and Banish Lulu from the get go because she doesn’t wanna see her sorry face right now. She will basically tell PC’s no matter what they try- they cannot stop the city from being dragged down.

A legion of demons will come charging and Zariel will deal with the biggest one with absolute ease (no combat or initiative, purely narrative) while the others either run away or are taken care of in the background by Zariel’s legion of devils while she continues to talk to PC’s without even breaking a sweat.

She will then tell PC’s she has more pressing matters so she can’t be bothered dealing with them right now and suggest they go back and not interrupt her war lest they face her wrath.

She will also suggest not to free the creature in The Shield of the Hidden Lord and suggest the attuned PC to bring it to her later on (end game time) so she may free the creature. I have a different idea for the Hidden Lord other than Gargauth that might not be very relevant to this post so will leave those details out unless someone specifically asks for it.

What do you think she could say/do to show PC’s her ruthlessness?

After playing BG3, the game reveals the "canon ending", which is returning Elturel to the material pane and not reedeming Zariel. Do you agree with this take? While i know every campaign is it's own, knowing there's the canon finale out there makes me see the campaign under a new light, like i know what it's supposed to happen

Given the sword changes PC's permanently, did you warn/ask your players out of game or just let it be a surprise?

So, I’m DMing my first D&D campaign, and my players have accidentally created one of the funniest cursed items I’ve ever seen.

We’re playing Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus. Early in the campaign, the party managed to kill Thavius Kreeg while still in Baldur’s Gate. Just to make absolutely sure he was dead, they burned his remains.

Then, instead of leaving it there like normal people, they collected his ashes.

They have been carrying Thavius Kreeg’s ashes around with them ever since.

Fast forward to the point where they saved Ulder Ravengard from possession. Afterward, they became very focused on getting holy water. They argued for a long time about why they needed it, made some very convincing points, and eventually, after some high persuasion rolls, a priest at the cathedral agreed to help them create a small amount of holy water.

So now the party had holy water.

Naturally, they needed somewhere safe to store it.

Their chosen container?

The same container holding the ashes of Thavius Kreeg.

So now my party is walking around Avernus with a jar full of holy water and the ashes of Thavius Kreeg.

I have no idea what this should become, but it feels like it should become something.

Would love some feedback/brainstorming on my rewrite of chapter 1 for a group I'm running.

One of my biggest problems with how this book sets things up is, by time our characters get into the meat of things (i.e. going to Avernus with the goal of saving Elturel), the poor city has been in the hells for weeks! Even assuming the events in Baldur's Gate are optimized to all pass over a day or two, it's been long enough that Elturian refugees are flooding the gates, which means they've come by road, which means they've been travelling at least a tenday; and enough of them have arrived that the city is shutting its gates, so that's probably longer still. Then there's the travel time to Candlekeep -- again, by road we're talking days at the least. I get that travel is a feature of the game, but the status quo of Elturel when they finally arrive doesn't read like it's been there for a month, and given the glut of established heroes in the Realms, it strains my credulity that no one else has done anything about it that it would have to be up to our heroes; it just feels like it would be "too little, too late" by time they get involved, and I know I could just hand-wave that concern away, but I don't like sloppy storytelling. (And yes, I know about the Alexandrian Remix, but it doesn't address the "wasted time" factor.)

So! I'm changing it so my players start in Elturel, working for a patron who's actively developing them as a group of heroes of the city. They'll be sent on a mission to Baldur's Gate to retrieve the Shield of the Hidden Lord, which unknown to them or their patron is currently at the heart of an inter-cult battle between the Cult of the Dead Three and the Cult of Zariel (both groups believing that holding it will ensure they can rise to dominate Baldur's Gate...and then, the world!). It will only be when they are arriving back at the outer limits of Elturel that the city will be taken.

This allows them to be quickly pro-active in response to the loss of the city, gives them personal stakes in that it's their home base and their patron is among the taken, etc. I have plans for different ways to seed the clues that it was Zariel who took the city: when they deal with the Vanthampur side of the power struggle, they will discover that Thalmara views a powerful Zarielite in Elturel as her main competition, and they've stolen his puzzle box to try to learn what his pact is so she can undermine it; and they will still meet Reya, who is also seeking the Shield because her branch of the Hellriders believe the angel who formed them has been trapped in it.

My question/discussion point, then, is... What consequences do I need to consider for the rest of the campaign based on these changes? Does this break anything later on that I'm not seeing?

One of my players wants to make Slobberchops their familiar, and regardless of whether this is typically something that the rules allow, I'd like for this to narratively happen somehow.

They took the dark magic spellbook that the Myrkul follower had in the dungeon of the dead 3 and have started using it. I was thinking maybe I would at some point kill Slobberchops and have a spell appear in that spellbook that could be used to bring back Slobberchops' soul and bind it as a familiar, or something like that.

I guess I'm just wondering what other people think of this. I'm definitely open to suggestions