So I have two "new" and by that I mean this is their first campaign. I also have 2 experienced players. I am switching from out of the abyss because many reasons. Them wanting more non combat oriented stuff. Me wanting less note taking. This being the only module one of the other player's has not played through. As well as me not being comfortable going full homebrew yet as a dm with this being my third campaign. I am reading through the module and just wondering what I should skip with their level. What I could do to really enforce their thinking this is urgent and they shouldn't just leave for the mainland? Like I said any help is appreciated.

My party got their first look at Omu last session, and their intention is to retreat to claim a +1 magic weapon and +1 magic armor. These items were offered to them as reward for clearing out Hrakhamar for Sithi Vinecutter (I placed Hrakhamar and Wyrmheart Mine about 3 days trek from Omu due to the path my party took through the jungle).

After they cleared out the mine, Sithi and the albino dwarves promised to forge a magic item for them and through a very high persuasion roll, the party convinced them to make 2 items instead.

Sithi told them it would take several days to craft these items and the party decided in the meantime they would go scout Omu since they already learned its location from Asharra in Kir Sabal.

I'm not completely against their plan, but I thought it would be more dramatic if some circumstances made it far less appealing to head back to the Peaks of Flame or if something (and I hesitate to use this word) forces them into Omu now, instead of spending 6 days trekking to Hrakhamar and back.

I considered having them spot Salida in the ruins below, she was their guide for about half the jungle trek before they sent her back to PN on her own mission, I could make it seem to them like she's a prisoner of the Yuan-Ti but I'm not sold on revealing that Salida did not return to PN just yet...

What are your thoughts? Any dramatic ideas or suggestions for my situation?

Thanks for reading!

I have 6 level 4 players that routinely kick the shit out of my monsters. I feel like the way I’ve tried balancing it is either multiply or beef up.

For weak monsters like zombies and pterafolk I have just multiplied the book number by 1.5, since it was written for 4. But then I’m managing like 20 zombies in Roll20, get mentally exhausted, and don't play optimally because I’m trying to keep combat exciting through 30 minute rounds.

Other times, I’ll try to beef up encounters to a higher CR. But that doesn’t quite work either, because even if as a group a Zombie TRex is killable, individually I can one shot PCs in a single round.

I feel like I’m really struggling to get that chefs kiss encounter where everyone is low hp and it was touch and go until the end.

Edit: this community is the best

Maybe they made sense to a 15 year old Ed Greenwood but with all the spell plagues, sundering and other retcons, all the developers, play testers and gamers who passed over the material nobody thought to fix it? I'm not a geologist or hydrologist or anything so I don't know how much detail I need to get into but now that I see it I can't unsee it. Rivers go from high ground to low ground, from the mountains to the sea. They feed from multiple tributaries to larger rivers. A comparison to say the Amazon River Basin should make it clear how the river system in Chult should look like. Instead we have rivers going from low to high ground, different drainage basins separated by low ground, only one tributary and large chunks of the map with no rivers or tributaries at all. Has anyone made an unofficial fix to the map or found a workaround? I don't think "A wizard did it" quite cuts it despite the nature of the Forgotten Realms. Hell even if WOTC said "a wizard did it" it would be acknowledgement of the problem whereas now it seems they are oblivious to how unrealistic the geography of Chult actually is. OK, that's enough of a rant, surely there's a better map of Chult out there somewhere right?

All but one of the groups made it to the last chapter. I've used so many resources over the years, I just want to give back and attempt to help/answer questions for anyone who may have them! :)

EDIT: I really appreciate the pinned post! I will do my best to answer any questions posted here when I find the time, regardless of how long its been since the date of the original post. I'm just happy to be able to help!

We're about to enter Omu and my party is sitting at level 9, which is like double what the book calls for. We did a bunch of hex crawling, I had them visit an original cloud kingdom after gaining flight in Kir Sabal, and then we had about 5 sessions on a boat traveling from Fort Belurian south to Hrakhammer.

I've really focused on the hags throughout my telling of this campaign and they've only actually killed one of them, Nani Pupu. I had planned for them to face off against all three individuallly and then have the hags souls picked out of the phalactory for the tomb fight.

I have 4 players and I'll be potentially adding a fifth.

What are some strategies that I can try to implement in order to keep combat difficult? Any other suggestions?

Thanks!

I want to introduce a mechanic for the hex crawl, where my party can fast travel along already established paths to return to major settlements. Namely port Nyanzaru, but for other major locations as well. The goal is to prevent taking 3 sessions to backtrack in order to do something in PZN or, restock supplies, etc.

Mechanically, I want to maintain the danger aspect and require some basic rolls to determine the general condition of the party for each leg of a fast travel. Has anyone done something like this before, and have recommendations on how to implement?

Beware of chat descriptions on abilities! My players accidentally discovered the secret identity of a certain NPC because the chat description of their attack actions explicitly calls it out (SPOILERS: Azaka's weapon attacks explicitly say "The weretiger attacks with its [weapon]"). You can only see the chat description by opening the item/ability manually - it's not "previewed" in the ability list or anywhere else where you might see it before you click it.

The inevitable has happened and my party has purchased some dino eggs. I set out to build some management mechanics for both (a) the egg phase and (b) the actual, hatched, "I'm a mother" phase.

Seeking feedback on the meat and potatoes, particularly surrounding the hatched dino portion. Is it too complex? Is it balanced? Is it an egregious slap in the face for any Beast Master Ranger characters, in terms of action economy?

All feedback welcome, thanks!

Just a fun question. The campaign recommends not having ties to Chult and making characters from other places to keep that foreign and unknown feel. But if you had to make one that was indigenous to chult, what would it be and what would their backstory be?

Hey all, looking for some DM advice on running the Tomb of Annihilation Chult hexcrawl.

I’m struggling a bit with the day-to-day structure. My sessions can start feeling robotic:

• players pick a hex
• we do travel checks
• maybe an encounter
• camp/rest
• repeat

Mechanically it works, but it sometimes feels like we’re just processing turns instead of living the journey.

I’m also finding that my players don’t naturally roleplay much during travel unless I directly prompt them. Otherwise it’s mostly “we go here next.”

For those of you who’ve run TOA successfully:

1. What structure/routine do you use for each in-game travel day?
2. Where do you intentionally pause for RP (morning, midday, camp, watches, etc.)?
3. How do you encourage RP without making it feel forced?
4. Any examples of prompts, scenes, or techniques that made Chult feel less mechanical?

If anyone has a checklist/template they use at the table, I’d really appreciate it.

My party is currently at Wongo’s shrine and likely to encounter the kobolds at the red bazaar in our next session this weekend. I’m particularly excited for this because one of my PCs is a kobold sorcerer from Wyrmheart Mine that still carries the statue of Kurtulmak with her. I think this will be an opportunity for some great roleplay.
I’m interested to hear how other DMs played Kakarol and the other kobolds in Omu and how they would have them react to another kobold sorcerer. My first thought is that Kakarol would try to fend off anyone that could threaten his position, but the other kobolds might be likely to follow a new sorcerer if Kakarol is defeated. Let me know your ideas, thoughts, or how the kobolds were played in your game!

Looking for a little bit of inspiration before my party's 2nd session in PN tomorrow. so I'm curious -

What's everyone's favorite PN encounter and why? Either as a player or as a DM, I'd love to hear.

The party just met Hew at the tavern and likely will want him as their guide, they haven't done lots of city exploring, but frankly I think they're eager to jump into the jungle.

Obviously there's dino races, and the few quests at the beginning of the module I could use, but I'm curious what has stuck to everyone in their years of playing.

Thanks in advance!

So I need some help. I haven’t had much time to prep my next session. We play in two days. I’m stressing about what sessions should look like once they enter the jungle.

The party has 4 PCs and they have Azaka as their guide and Salida as a hired hand. They also took the task of taking Undril Silvertusk to Camp Vengeance. They are traveling by canoe and plan to leave first thing in the morning for Camp Vengeance down river soshenstar. They have plenty of water catchers, insect repellant and rations.

What does a typical session once exploring the jungle tend to look like? I don’t want it to feel too tedious but still want the perils and dangers of the jungle known.

With there being no shortage of people looking to end the death curse, there’s the potential for many adventures to be in Chult, with different patrons. It’s already my plan if a PC dies to have their new character be a survivor from another doomed expedition.

Obviously PN makes a good spot for a first meeting. Maybe a few run-in’s during the hexcrawl. Any ideas?

I have the digital copy of ToA on D&D Beyond. My group recently went to Kir Sabal. For the role playing bits the map was fine but for the combat encounter, that map sucks hard. I ended up using an improvised combination of battlemap + theater-of-the-mind to get through it. I’m a little chapped that it didn’t occur to me ahead of time but honestly I didn’t really think it through until we were playing. Note to self, do more prep for these digital assets…How much do the digital assets from WotC reduce (or increase) your prep time?

Well i runned this module using 2024 content and at first i thought it would be a lot more easy than using 2014. But last session my players faced the atropal and now 2 of them have 3 exhaustion points, one have 2 and one have 1. They basically became incapable of resisting most of acererak's spells. They will die.

Thing is: i didnt made any modification to stat blocks during the game, i just made played the monsters tactically, atropal's wail fucked the entire party. This feature alone is way too powerfull now that exhaustion levels give a stacking penalty to all d20 tests and it seems a bit unfair tbh.

My players just found Orvex in my current (fourth overall, second to reach Omu!) ToA run and they found Orvex in the aftermath of the Yuan-Ti battle with the Red Mages.

I needed them to like Orvex, since they have Salida as their guide (Azaka got kicked out of the group after revealing her Weretiger curse) and Valindra as a companion in their quest to end the Death Curse, so they will be seriously lacking friends in the near future.

HOWEVER, I had a meeting that lasted the whole day, therefore I couldn't properly prepare the session, so I improved Orvex as... well, a very well-meaning but shady uncle who has multiple families and gambling problems. And that was the nexus point of the quote in the title.

He's a betting man who has had to pay a lot of child support during his days, but now wants to be the cool grandpa for his grandkids. And my players loved him.

It didn't help that Valindra decided to have the corpses of the Red Wizards' expedition as cannon fodder now that the group feels pressured to have her on their side (they are on a hostile place, without any ways to go back to Port Nyanzaru for the foreseeable future), so Orvex jumped ranks and is probably their favorite guy right now.

Today was session 0 for our Tomb of Annihilation campaign, in which the party just made it to Port Nyanzaru. I would like to hear everyone's tips about running Port Nyanzaru, side quests & the things to do before setting out to the jungle.
Other tips or thoughts about later parts of the campaign will also be appreaciated!
Cheers!

kinda like the title says. I'm contemplating R2 removing him completely to give the "spotlight" to the Sewn Sisters. Curious what other people think

Hello!

I am getting ready to run TOA for the first time we have our session zero tomorrow as well as finalizing characters. One of my players learned that pterafolk are a race in this campaign and immediately wants to play as one. I’m worried about how this might work in Port Nyanzaru as they are seen as terrors and how seeing Dino’s used for labor and entertainment might affect things. I also worry about it being too OP with flight ability to navigate above the jungle canopy or simply pick up enemies and drop them at will.

I thought about making them a weredino. So making them affected by Lycanthropy and they change into a Dino irregularly as they are not used to their powers then as they level up they can control it more. Really they want to play as a Dino and they are the least engaged in sessions but she’s very excited about the idea of playing as a Dino so I’m trying to make it work.

Any ideas or thoughts/tips would be appreciated!

Hey all! I've been working on this homebrew and I'd love to get some feedback. The vision here is that I want this to be a resource for my players so that they have _some_ insight (but not total) into things like navigation, exhaustion, etc. I intend to give this to them soon as they are about to leave the Port and enter the jungle.

I've definitely taken some homebrew liberties here, particularly surrounding navigation and the "awareness" skill check. But I did try to keep everything as true to the module as I could, when possible.

**[Homebrewery Link](https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/BgVFpS2WwuOj)\*\*

For context, I’m looking to run a one-shot before doing anything involved with the module. This one-shot is aimed to be a table chemistry test and sampling for all my players to see if they want to commit to the full campaign.

As I attempt to homebrew this, I am unsure what key details I should keep for my potential players. So to open the floor to discussion: if you took Tomb of Annihilation and juiced it, what would concentrate ToA be?

Do you go heavy on jungle and dinosaurs or undead and dungeons?

Is your test game an exploration game or a puzzle game?

Does it feel wacky and aim for the silly bits of Chult or does it feel deadly and aim for the seriousness of the Death Curse?

I don’t think there is a wrong answer, but I would like to add that I know about Cellar of Death and I am saving that for session 1 if my players are on board with playing the actual game.

I ran a level 1-7 campaign in icewind dale, my players really liked the Aussie (Steve Irwin inspired) dwarf NPC who said he was on walkabout from Nyanzaroo, so I'm thinking of sending them to Chult with him for ToA or a homebrew campaign.

Has anyone got any fun ideas of how to give chult/the creatures/factions/locations an Australian vibe?