A number of commenters have pointed out that the Crown of Lies magic item "prevents" the big secret from being spoiled. I've got a video that addresses this issue here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/oceTjbVklcC7gY0.html

I'm laughing at the link to Vecna advice the book gives. Remember to remind your players Vecna exists, because we aren't giving you any other tools to demonstrate that.

I disagree on only 2 points: 1. Flat out saying one of the three wizards isn’t who they say they are is a terrible way to make it a mistery. If the players ask for insight checks, you can give out some hints or you can set out clues throughout the adventure to allow them to find out (like letters, witnesses and other odd behavior). 2. Kas having killed Vecna in the end before the party even gets any shot at it seems bad. Maybe they have to fight both while they fight each other or something like that. Imagine doing all that dream stuff, coming to hate vecna just for him to disappear in the end and you need to fight kas instead, I wouldn’t like that

You've inspired me to look at this adventure again to run for my players. I love the fixes and am genuinely excited to run it now!

I really want to run this as a sequel adventure to CoS, but the problem there is that they will have already done the death house and defeated Strahd, along with having already met Mord. I've been playing with the idea that they just start EoR with Strahd's piece, as "Mord" was in Barovia not to defeat Strahd but to steal his rod piece... but having him secretly as Kas is tricky. I assume he was already a vampire before meeting Strahd, and may have just lost to Strahd much in the same way that Mord was supposed to, in that he was overconfident in the face of Strahd's cunning and lair actions (also I've buffed Strahd a LOT - so need to see how he compares to Vecna to make sure the latter is more imposing). Gonna take some work to make work...

"How to Fix Vecna: Eve of Ruin" Put some GODDAMN colours on each map!

While it’s a railroady the crown of secrets basically just says “none of the magic that’s normally used to figure out illusions just don’t work.” I like your idea better.

4:30 Sounds like a Simpsons Halloween special version of Vecna 😄 "Oh no, Vecna hasn't listed the allergens in the evil sweets he handed out on Halloween."... and then the whole town dies from anaphylaxis, handing Vecna an army of undead he uses to raid Shelbyville.

Why do two self-inserts and a vampire have a monopoly on caring if all reality gets reconnected back to Braunstein? If that isn't a reason for every big good and big neutral to pull out all the stops, I didn't know what is!

Great video, and I loved your honest review - overall I couldn’t agree more with the sentiment that this needs to be fixed, heavily. Yet I have to disagree with you on the Betrayal subplot. A couple of things (SPOILERS AHEAD): - Yes, players are clever enough to see through ruses constantly, and have the mechanical abilities to do so. But the way the Crown of Lies is written, it’s supposed to be the all-around solution to the deception, thwarting any mundane or magical methods of revealing its wearer. Even if the stat block of it isn’t enough, I’d retcon or homebrew it to have any ability that prevents the players from guessing something’s up. Detect Thoughts reveals false information, Legend Lore doesn’t work, whatever you want. 2. Why? Because the amount of legwork needed to rewrite his involvement- ESPECIALLY from the start- isn’t worth it. It’s too much. Changing how the Rod works because K didn’t manage to steal all the pieces from the players? Oof. Also, having K try to steal from the players… have you ever tried TAKING anything important away from a player? They’re not wearing 7 powerful McGuffin pieces on their belt. You’ll be LUCKY if they even have that in a Bag of Holding, and not split across several bags, in different demiplanes, locked in Leomund’s Secret Chests. And worse, it runs the significant risk of your party hating K a lot more than they hate Vecna, the titular Big Bad. Who will they hate more- a guy they keep seeing do some bad stuff in their dreams, or a guy who’s LITERALLY been duping them, manipulating them directly, and ****ing with them from the start? My advice: run Mordenkainen as if YOU don’t know what his deal is. He’s just Mordenkainen. If you force yourself to forget the twist that comes later on in the story, then there’s significantly less of a chance of you acting suspiciously and prompting the players to start investigating.

To enchance the connection to vecna i will run a session almost everytime the larty takes a long rest. They will be send back or in the future and live/relive things Vecna has done. They will be part like commoners and can interact with all the surrounding, they cant really change the past, but they can die in their dreams. Example: they witness the killing of the village vecna has done. They could escape and if they don't they wake up wounded IRL or are in a dying state where they hve to be safed or pass death saves. I plan to start out with soft woke dreams, where they maybe get only hurt and end up with some terrible dreams where they can actually die. Ps.: i still have to figure out whats the session where they see the future of the multiverse after Vecnas ritual has successfully taken place. I think its a good way to tell lore and call out the urgency on stopping and "hate" Vecna.

I mean… reality being undone is motivation enough for me to do and stop whomever is attempting it! I don’t need anything else! My very existence is at risk! Also starting at level 10 the characters don’t need the call for adventure… they already are super famous adventures! This is similar to tomb of annihilation… is not like the characters ever meet Acererak before nor had a specifically urgency to stop him (aside of saving the world more or less).

My characters early dreams will have his earlier history with his mother etc to cause that possible emotional attachment to him that so often is done today.

I am actually combining two dnd modules in a level 1 to 20 for this. Oddly enough, Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden has some minor plot points that can connect with the Vecna campaign. So my plan is to mold the two together and alter what I want. I want the Vecna campaign to have a background plot with the Wizards three where there is suspicion among them about why the wish spell didn't work. This being how they potentially could unveil Kas. They both also deal with secrets as a plot point in both campaigns. Lastly, I am probably gonna add legendary actions to Vecna's stat block cause it's really odd that he doesn't have those while probably reducing reactions by 1. But that's under the assumption that Vecna stays the main baddy. Depends on how the adventure unfolds.

Fellowship directly addresses this, the players directly come up with reasons as to why their peoples were affected by The Overlord, who would be Vecna in this case. It's seriously intuitive, check it out!

I plan on running a fusion of Vecna:Eve of Ruin, and the 2E Dead Gods. I really like the sometimes lore links that Orcus gave Vecna the ability to become a Lich. The idea that one of the reasons Vecna is trying to remake the universe is to break the link between Orcus and Vecna.

Suggestion for increasing the presence of the bad guy is to steal a plot element from a previous module red arrow black shield. Similar concept you have to go a lot of different places to thwart the bad guys plans. He's not there but his minions are almost always going to be present where the characters get sent

They should have put tiamats stats in the book too because you know there will be at least one group of a holes that will attack her and start that fight

My long term campaigns have had Vecna threats for the last years and a half, so incorporating a few good aspects from this book will work well.

The only thing I was curious about this adventure going into this was the Dragonlance chapter, and from what I have heard about it, it seems like it very much does not sound very... Dragonlance-y. However, the adventure itself sounds like it could very much be converted from a multiverse hopping McGuffin hunt to defeat an evil lich, into a time-hopping McGuffin hunt to stop the evil Wizard Fistandantalus throughout Dragonlance's history. Hell, they already have you meeting with 3 wizards in their home base, so you can just replace the Wizards Three with the heads of the Orders of High Sorcery (the leaders of the Red, the White and the Black) at whatever time period you want to start the adventure in. There is the skeleton of a fun Dragonlance adventure here, and I am interested to see what I can do with the individual parts.

I do understand that any adventure will need to be modified to some degree to fit it within a greater campaign, but, if I, as the DM, have to do a BUNCH of work to make the adventure work, pass. So, what do I mean by too much work? Well, it COMPLETELY DEFIES logic and reason that these other two ARCHMAGI and CHOSEN of various magic gods, Tasha and Silverhand, can't simply look at MORDENKAINEN/KAS and say "I'm sorry, you know we can see right through your illusions, right? So, what's the game here?" Maybe Kas can convince them he hates Vecna and wants to stop him? Ok, in which case, why wouldn't the other two tell him to knock of the ruse and just present that as his case to the PC's? So, right there, I have to do all kinds of mental gymnastics to make the story make sense and then try to present my retooled story to the players? Nah...too much work.

I’m quite sure the PCs will know something’s up with Mord from the word “go”. They saved him in Curse of Strahd and if he doesn’t remember them, things are going to be set on end.

I love your music choice bruh excellent vibes

My solutions... Have Mordenkainen (The real one) appear in the adventure - as a prisoner somewhere and have the NPCs find him and that's how they realise their folly. Also, change the wizards three to the Wizards Lots - and have various other NPCs that the party already knows be part of this group. Then, later, have Vecna show up and murder most of them effortlessly as they are annoying him... Have him largely ignored the PCs but mince the NPCs. That way he shows his force, gives them a real visual evidence of his power and then they have added reason to go and get him .

Kas with the hand and eye of vecna, he cuts them of after killing Vecna, could make for a fun bbeg

You always have very insightful and useful info. Which makes me wish that your videos were longer.

I get it there's a Stranger Things tie here to pull some customers in but any time you put the party up against what should be more of a world building element than a BBEG you will have to rig some safety nets and spot lights. It's a circus. For my part: I'll run it as is and just have my players be prepared to Rogue it. Also: bacon

I’m going to make my Vecna more like strahd and in that sense, he will show up to the players and periodically just to mess with them since he knows he can obliterate them at any moment.

A couple of points I'm a bit critical about: I'd assume any wizard of the caliber of Tasha , Alustriel, or Mordenkainen (or Kas if he's impersonating one of those mages well enough to fool the other two) has nondetection or mind blank always active, these are powerful mages with many powerful enemies that do not want to be scryed, located or mindread at any time, so a simple detect thought or similar effect would not help, also if it was that easy the other two mages would have realized it immediately themselves. "one of the three wizards isn't who they say they are" does not make any sense if you do not point out to what makes the characters feel that way, and that would obviously point to one of the three. It also feels contrived and cheap from a narrative standpoint.

I have an idea for a complete overhaul to this badly made Adventure, One that can be explained in two words, in fact; because thats kinda how I do things as a GM...pretty sure we all do...because, we're all inspired by outside factors, stories of one kind or another, and the best stories are the ones where you can file off the "serial numbers", and reuse it in almost any other thing. As an example, there was a Shadow of the Bat batman comic I collected when I was young about Batman basically being in this loop with a ghost woman, and because back then, SofB comics were more noir-types, the story had all these elements to it that built the story up until the conclusion. But, here's the thing, you could file off the "Batman" from that, take notes of all the beats to the story, and run that as a Call of Cthulhu adventure...or a Fantasy-Noir adventure in D&D or Pathfinder or whatever... In the same train of thought, my fix for Vecna:EoR is just like that... This has the elements to be a good story...but, there aren't any good designers left at WotC who could have actually pulled this off (Well, Jim Ward is still there, but he's gotta try getting over the ego...err...heads, of Perkins and Crawford). And, well, if you're wondering what Im getting at, I will say now, but I wont go into detail about how to make those changes, because Im hoping to be part of a stream on the weekend that will be talking about "Fixing Vecna EoR"... But, yes... "Infinity Gauntlet".

one thing that I will do when running this campaign is have the actual Mordenkainen show up mid way throguh the campaign or have the players go and seek the real Mordenkainen if they learn the secret of Kas. my main issue is that the real Mordenkainen is absent in this whole thing and he is and SHOULD be essential since he comes from Oreth just like Kas and Vecna so he HAS a history with both Kas and Vecna! the real Mordenkainen should care more about this whole thing than Alustriel and Tasha. WOTC saying that Mordenkainen is just off doing some research just doesnt sit right in my opinion. I would also run real Mordenkainen wanting to take the ritual for himself to rewrite the universe in his own justice way cause i always believed that Mordenkainen has a twisted sense of justice but not twisted evil.

very interesting take on fixing it! I'm working on a fix as well that will be taking this in a wildly different direction

For me the most absurd part is that the maps are blank

Amazing video, you injected a lot of much needed life into this module!

Sound advice. As always, I say take from pre written adventures what you like and work them into your own campaigns. See, this way, when players have read it too and want to play through it, they will be surprised to find it different. Hopefully delightfully so.

I love these ideas. My players would guess the big reveal session one, lol. And use every single ability and spell to prove it, lol.

These are very solid recommendations. I think Eve of Ruin has a decent premise but it really needs some work, this is a great start. Thanks!

if Vecna allows plastic straws, sign me up as a cultist!

I just noticed a channel called Dad the Dungeon Master uploaded a remarkably similar video to this. According to the metadata revealed by the KZfaq Data Viewer site, that video was published about 14 hours after this one. Just for what it's worth.

6:45 I think this is most likely a non-problem. Scrying *explicitally* doesn't work to reveal K's ruse (by the crown of lies description) and while "detect thoughts" isn't explicitally mentioned I'd say the "Interactions with you while you are transformed by the crown reveal no illusory magic, nor do they reveal anything other than details about the creature you’re disguised as" and the "no matter what magical or mundane methods are used to try to detect your falsehoods." clauses should cover it: a "detetct toughts" spell would reveal some random Mordenkainen's superficial toughts and that's it.

How to fix Vecna: Eve of Ruins? Give more than six pages per chapter would be a start.

It bothers me so much that you spend 70-80% of the adventure dealing with Kas only for him to be the penultimate villain. Why focus so much on a villain only to left turn into a totally different boss at the end? It’s so clunky.

The magic item crown that Kas has prevents it from “being busted wide open” by some simple PC spells. Not to nitpick your entire video, but if review that section of the book again.

I sure do love buying an adventure so I don't have to write my own game and then find out I need to overhaul almost every aspect /: I used to be excited when every dnd book came out now I feel nothing

Brooo I just got the book today 😭😭 yall are fast

In my experiance, pcs never suspect a quest giver. It is odvious because you read the module, but there is no foreshadowing or clues for the pcs as written. I would assume they are metagaming if they started scrying on Mortenkanen instead of Tasha, THE MOTHER OF DEMONS, personally. Also, why would Kas break is disquise or do anything to arouse suspicon given his plan is to wait for the pcs to do their task? He is an ancient vampire waiting to make war against a lich god that has him under survalence. What are the pc's going to do at level 13 that an ageless lich who knows this foe intimately cannot?

So, does the adventure, and all of 5E just end as soon as the party joins Vecna?

Thanx 🎉

One of my fixes to the adventure would be to make Kas with the Crown replace a PC so there’s a more impactful betrayal in the adventure (just have to have a solid player that could pull it off, and after a few sessions so they don’t think that the swap occurred as the campaign begins). The characters should be the answer to the wish spell at the beginning, or have the fact that a less-powerful Tasha is the reason the spell fails. I would add in encounters with the Cult of Vecna as the adventure progressed to show Vecna’s growing control of the multiverse, rather than a dream sequence.

Me - Who is Kas?!?!? Never heard about him before. The guy from Critical Role? * My group are not die hard FR fans... The big reveal would fall somewhat flat for us. 'Sorry you are who?' * Me again - Oh.... that was supposed to be a big secret for the player?!? But now everyone knows about that Kas is *spoiler*

Heres how to fix Vecna: Eve of Ruin- run Zeitgeist: Gears of Revolution instead.

Can we say COPE.

I thought they said we could link it to our own homebrew worlds. Sure as A DM i could do that some way but thats nit the point. WOTC once again screw us I am officially done with buying any of their products. I gave them a second third and fourth chance.

For an epic tale, based on a cursory read it’s actually pretty boring

And for the love of god remove the chime of exile

Easy fix : Don't buy it. Go buy a 3'rd party book.

One shouldn't have to modify an adventure to this level just to enjoy it especially for the amount of money one paid for it.

Considering there are better adventures out there that require less work to motivate the PCs, I'll hard pass.

@Wizards and Word slingers. Give up. Love of the gods Surrender! Please reveiw Barbies or beenibabys thats all you have skills for!!😊.

Let's see, Let's redo the Ravenloft part with an adventure no one's played before without rehashing, add the Lord of Blades in the Eberron section and make it more morally grey in what you're doing there, make the Spelljammer one interesting as finding ships in Wildspace is a everyday thing we do already playing those campaigns and ohhhh maybe add Mystra in the book instead of Avernus or let us have some exploration regarding Sigil & the lady of pain.... I dunno just some parts felt as if they were done a dirty - Spelljamer, Eberron & Ravenloft specifically (though I am still reading through the Krynn bit and it's not looking hopeful either - it's disappointing as Eberron is my main setting, I grew up on Dragonlance and I can write more exciting Spelljammer encounters😅) my players might feel different but yeah so far I haven't liked what we got for my favourite settings.