So, basically, "I mined the campaign book for some fun settings and characters, and then homebrewed a campaign around them."

I am about to DM this campaign as a first time DM. This video has helped me understand what I'm getting into immensely, and I'm excited to homebrew my own parts of PotA. Thank you so much for this in depth video!

"So, funny note, my party actually killed the, uh, old man with his own silver weapons..." Sounds about right.

I honestly thought a book would be a step by step thing but boy oh boy was I wrong. This video helped a whole lot. Thank you

I think part of the point of the final boss battle is that the characters should be able to find a way to defeat their prince(ess) indirectly, instead of killing them outright, by destroying the elemental weapon/throwing it through the portal. Whichever one they do, both the weapon and portal are destroyed by it, and destroying the portal sucks the prince back in. I haven't started my PotA campaign yet, but I intend to start my players at Red Larch at lvl 1. The idea that I had is that the players rescue kayleesa (the owner of the "swinging sword" tavern) as a part of a slightly modified version of the "Bears and Bows" side trek. She then offers the characters free rooms in her inn. A few other ideas that I had: In the fane of the eye dungeon, it mentions screens of black fog that are difficult to pass through for non-cultists. I make it so that at first, these black clouds are impossible to get through. Trying to go through them briefly blinds the characters, and then they exit the fog turned around, going back the way they came. As the characters destroy outposts of Elemental Evil, the eye's power wanes, and to conserve power, it is forced to lower first the barriers stopping entry from the keeps to the temples, and then more barriers preventing the PCs from passing between the temples; for the latter part, the eye lowers barriers into any temple they've already defeated. This is a way to demonstrate how the eye is getting weaker and they are getting stronger, and by the time they get to the fane of the eye, the barriers are nothing more than a mild inconvenience. Sprinkle in magic items from the DMG when you can, and tailor them to your players' classes and backgrounds. If there's no dwarf in your party, for example, maybe replace the dwarven thrower in the Fane with a scimitar of speed or another rare weapon. Also, try using the hoard tables to create the dragon turtle's hoard in the crushing wave temple, since the one listed is kind of shitty If you're willing to do the extra work, try making some reduced-stat monsters. The earth and fire cultists in the book are generally 1 CR higher than their air and water counterparts, so try using the DMG's guidelines to make stronger air/water cultists and weaker earth/fire cultists, so that it doesn't become too hard/easy if your party does dungeons out of order. I'll try and link a google doc here with adjusted stats if/when I make it.

I'm about to run parts of this campaign for my group, thanks for the input! this video helps a lot with planning how I'm going to structure this.

This was super helpful! Def. Gonna implement some of it into my campaign :) also first time DM here haha

Love the way that you ran this! The book should always serve the DM and not the other way around! Great job 👏🏻

Really useful video. Going to print out maps right now!

Good on you for making this! Super confusing pre-made campaign, very helpful!

Thank you! This is super helpful.

Have just decided to run this module! Thank you for the vid I am saved!

Now that you're an experienced DM, I honestly recommend using the lvl 1-3 tutorial quest line for another campaign at some point. Running Trouble in Red Larch is honestly one of my favorite dm experiences ever and it doesn't get old for me

My first time DM using this book, look like im in for a long ride. Can't turn back now first session in 5 days! Wish me luck. This is a very helpful video, thank you so much!

Good advice, thanks

Oh boy :D I chose PotA as my first campaign as first time dm and boy am i overwhelmed with all the stuff in there xD

You won me over with Solaire 🙌🏼 🌞

I laughed out loud when you mentioned the Ugandan Knuckles gnomes. Nice!

Couldn't make it through and ended up skimming the Gdoc instead. I wasn't interested in homebrew details, just how to approach the adventure. "Let this sink in" about the monk kid got real tired real fast. I wasn't here for a blow by blow campaign recap, I was here for DM input.

This was interesting (but difficult at times because one of my cats wanted to repeatedly lie on the space button) to watch, and helpful. It's the first book I'm planning to run as well, and I already know I'll be needing to homebrew a bit around the hooks, as the party I am running this for (partially because the warlock's patron is Thzarizdun or how you spell it, though he doesn't know that yet) split up at the end of the last adventure, one player quit at the end because she don't have the time any more and another is joining. They'll be heading toward the valley at level 5 or 6, I don't entirely recall where they're at at this moment. There's a lot of things that I'll get a new way of thinking about when preparing this module for them. The fact that it needs so much tweaking can be useful for the various character goals, particularly the sort of looser ones (the paladin wants to make a name for themself, the fighter is looking for a spice to make his perfect beer brew). Lot's to do but a lot less pressure to stick to a single guideline, so to speak. I'm not super fond of running slogs, so I'll check in on if they'd like a mix of roleplay and battle, which is what I'd prefer.

I think the open world aspect is great. Even if they get tpk'ed. Makes them think if an encounter is worth it/are able to do. It forces them to think critically before engaging with something. It's a little more realistic too IMO. Not everything you encounter during an adventure SHOULD be killable, especially at the start. You have to work for that. After having DMed both 5e and 1e, this is something I heavily agree with the OSR community. Encounters shouldn't be balanced to your parties level. They should be able to determine if they're able to beat this encounter themselves. IE, you happen across 4 frost giants as a group of 4 lvl 2 players, are you going to attack or gtfo? Mark it on your notes for later if you want to get back to it. If they decide they're going to go for it, then they'll probably die, but they learned that maybe you shouldn't attack everything you see. It makes it a more perilous/realistic world. You don't just go out on a 50 mile backpacking trip with a school backpack, kirkland waterbottle, and 5 packets of oatmeal. You have to prepare for it. Know what you're getting into. It makes it a little more immersive imo. Just my 2 cents though.

I've played this campaign as player. It wa sa lot of fun but the DM gave up once we beat 3 of the 4 prophets way too early in the game as he didn't want to put in any work in order to fix our level gap (we unvolutarily cut a lot of the content). The way you are presenting the story seems much easier to follow through and much fun also. If I ever DM this I will take inspiration from your approach. Thanks for the guide!

Great insight, thanks! I am thinking about having each cult be in a separate part of a homebrew mainland (water cult in a bay, earth cult in the mountains, etc.). I am also going to have the temples accessed only after each of the haunted keeps are cleared or roleplayed. The temples require some kind of key to access. This would mitigate the problem of interconnected dungeons and accidentally walking in on a high leveled area. I think you have a good point about getting rid of the delegation main quest. The best way to engage the players -I hope- will be to tie their backstories to the prophets or cults somehow.

> lack of magic items Chapter 6 spoilers: Theres two super early, one in the Lord of Lance Rock's cave and one in the dungeon under the town

No puzzles is a chronic problem for dnd. I recommend the matthew Colville video on the subject

Thanx mister Sticks, this is very useful!

I am currently Dming the campaign (we stopped because I had to go to another country and time zones are very different). I wish I´d seen this video sooner, one of my players is a genasi monk of the four elements and I really want make her progression through the elements seem organic somehow. Now I have some inspirations watching this video. Because they did Phandelver first they are higher livel for the first chapter and ended in the Sacred Stone Monastery. One thing that I wanted to do is to slowly show how corruptive the Elder Elemental eye (Tharizdun) is, how he corrupts the elements into chaos (that I havent found exactly how to show that but the idea of corrupted elementals seems interesting void-like or elementals with a touch from the Far Realm). I really liked how you did the Air temple I´ll aim for something similar, as you said it, dungeon crawling can become monotonous I just trust my party not to be upper murder hobbos and try to kill everything That being said your video was really insightful and really helps me think how to continue the history. Just two quick questions: Do you think that throwing a little bit of Para-elemental stuff here and there serves as a sign of the twisting of the elements? I got really curious about the planes beyond the 4 main elements and already threw them a Steam Elemental in a random encounter to show these combinations of elemental powers. Second. I really like the philosophy of Avatar behind the nations and the elemenst but I am unsure in how to communicate this kind of message without some Iroh-like figure, I think that would be too obvious and I wanted for the characters to interact with each element on their own and somehow figure that out. Maybe with some ancient texts or 4 NPCs?

I've run a yearlong homebrew campaign before, and it was a lot of fun. But it was also easy because it was all homebrew so I had more or less full control. My party is starting PotA tomorrow and I still don't really know how to start 😅 so, I'm gonna steal some of your intro ideas lol

Am I currently running the Campaign as my first campaign as a DM. Personally, I am mostly using the maps/towns and I implemented the different factions (the Harpers, the Order of the Gauntlet, the Emerald Enclave, the Lords' Alliance and the Zhentarim) into the game. So what I did is basically make the cultist be way more aggressive. Every cult are now blocking the roads and kidnaping anyone that crosses them and I made sure every cult has a gimic so I homebrew a lot of different elemental creatures. That's how I fixed the campaign and so far, I have one of my players that told me that this was one of the best campaign they have played in a long time. (They have been playing the game since the second version of dnd came out.)

Me listening this 0:22 while it being my first campaign

The Queen who comes to feathergale spire - is that the Air Prophet?

Should have a time marker for when you're done with your homebrew stuff.

Hey, man I'm running that campaign right now.. I had a group of 3 first, then 4... 2 left... and I got like only 2 people now... do you think it's possible to run it for just 2 people ? Also, I really hate having just Human cultist as my villains... and the elemental creatures are limited... do you have any advice on how to make my enemies more interesting other then just a plan human cults ? I feel like i'm going to homebrew most of the encounters too... I feel like they are way too hard for just 2 people.

The villains backstories need a complete build up the cults need motivation and clearer personalities. the Fire cult outpost is missing a initiation level under the tower the Temple should better be split in 4 separate ones. Or a whole new chapter just explaining how the cults interact within in. And what exactly Kicks players out of it when it’s time to. the delegation investigation needs to be cleaned up. Adding a coherent story for what happened off screen

For first time players and DMs, you can never go wrong with The Lost Mine Of Phandelver, or The Sunless Citadel.

I had an Idea for the climax, after the players defeat the first profit, and are on there way to the second one, (after a long rest of course) the remaining profit succeeds in summoning there prince, as the players are heading to the last Node the prince erupts to the surface, in a spectacular elemental fashion and begins to attack whatever town the players are based in. Then the players need to fallow the prince out and fight it on the surface. What do you think

Did the book add any races sub races classes or subclasses

You should break this into chapters. it would be easier for people who need help with a particular part of the modual. very helpful still though.

I just finished a year and a half long campaign of Princes of the Apocalypse. We technically didn't finish it. But they were on the lower levels of the final dungeons. I have to say I have a love hate relationship with this campaign module. It sounds to me though like you really re-wrote the entire book and just it as a source book....which is totally cool. I applaud that actually. I added many adventures in myself and used the "story" of the Apocalypse as my back drop. I used a lot of the published material however including 60% of the side quests. If I were to run it again I'd do it completely different, especially the stuff in the beginning with the delegation. My players didn't give a FUQ about the delegation. They were murder hobos who wanted to kill shit, take loot and slaves....yes the female druid of the group was obsessed with making every NPC her slave....even children and halflings. She was a neutral character but boy did she choose the evil option 100% of the time. I digress....overall this is a good campaign, but warning to all DM's....CHANGE IT A LOT! Do what flows natural and do not let the wishy washy directives in the book dictate how it progresses.

The bastard at the gamestore lied to me

This isn't so much how you ran Princes of the Apocalypse and more sort of how you home-brewed a world over the top of a pre-written adventure. Your party didn't follow any of the prescribed route according to the book so no wonder it was confusing and hard work.