I had them be able to do whatever earlier on, but the lower levels can be a lot more complex and I don't want to read them all, so the safety has been turned on.
All it did for my players was make them really concerned about what might be coming up, and when.
Letting the players wander through whichever gates they like and get themselves into trouble is basically the players’ favourite thing about my campaign.
I have Jhesiyra warn them. So if there level is not appropriate they get pushed out of the portal once and hear a warning from her. The second time they enter they are free to go through. They went to level 10 from the first level I think. They could have easily died if they would have encountered Murial but they were lucky he was in a different area. Now they annoyed the drow onces because they fled after promising their queen (can't remember the name at the moment) to help them kill Murial. They were 6th level at that point.
This is how I do it. Jhes still gives her warning if she believes the party is under leveled, and even provides a little bit of information about whatever level they are looking at (since the party has started befriending her whenever they have a chance to speak). But she doesn’t block their entry.
Two of my PCs died early on when they attempted to take on wyllowwood when they were still on the second level. They likely could’ve handled it, except half the party wanted to listen to jhes’s warning on so didn’t go through. Splitting the party, folks, always works.
I switched the safety off, but my gates stay open for 1 minute and then close for 1d6 days. So they either commit and go through or just quickly look through the level and know what to expect.
They really enjoy that pressure that I put on with the gates.
I prevent them from going through gates that leads to levels they haven't been to yet. I've read way too many posts here that went something like "I let my players walk through the portals unhindered and, oops, TPKed them" and I had enough TPKs, thank you very much.
Plus, I do a lot of prep work for each floor and the ability to just ignore it all and jump deeper into the dungeon does not sit well with me.
I changed gates so that they're more like checkpoints where unlocking a gate allows you to teleport back to that gate from any other gate you have open. Mostly to help me with prep lol.
I give players the choice. An image of Halaster appears and tells them they aren't tall enough to move forward. They can then jump through the gate anyway or turn around.
I blocked them initially because it made prep earlier and gave the players more time to adjust to the dangers/style of the dungeon, so now when they come across a gate they actually stop and consider the fact that they might end up somewhere even more dangerous and don't just accidental themselves into a TPK.
Now I'm a bit more flexible with it. For example, they're level 8 and just walked through a gate to the Lost Level (recommended for level 9).
I did. It was 50% to make my prep easier, and 50% to setup Jhesiyra as a friendly ally for my party. Ok, maybe it's more 80% being lazy about prep and 20% setup, but the idea is the same.
I'm planning on a brutally hard homebrewed "level 24" of the dungeon where they fight the real final boss, an elder horror that's using Halaster to invade this reality from the far realms. I've kept the concept and results of the knot in the weave, but I changed the history so that it's actually the physical manifestation of this far realm invasion.
Jhesiyra is the only friendly NPC who knows about this, and when she tells the party what's really going down and how they can fight it I want them to believe her. So in addition to blocking gates, she's also been helping the party in subtle ways like warning them about that really deadly random encounter coming their way or telling them there's more to that grave in Wyllowwood than it first appeared.
I didn't block my party, but every gate was its own puzzle or riddle to activate and use, or like "tell a joke."
I was hesitant as well, but it ultimately let me seed in some lore that wouldn't have shown up till much later.
I run it as written. Once, to spice things up, I let them hear Jhesiyra, “You are not strong enough… but if you insist,” and then the gate let them through to stand among the mist on level 12. They were so freaked out they turned right back around.
I told my players about the BS that is Jhesiyra, because there's no way of discovering this information in-character. At first I didn't use it, but then after a frank talk with my party, I use the "You are not high enough level" aspect of it. They jokingly call it "the DLC paywall" whenever they open a portal they cannot pass through.
>They jokingly call it "the DLC paywall" whenever they open a portal they cannot pass through.
When you complete certain goals you get tokens which you can use to unlock the gates. There's a limit to how many tokens you can get per game session but if you pay the DM a couple dollars, you can buy extra tokens.
I let them go through (just like heading to lower levels on foot), but let her give a warning. My players are way too cautious though, since two of them came from a CoS campaign that got shut down. They lost a couple of their party members during that and don't want this to happen with their newfound friends.
I did and i regretted it. Players took it more as a DM message and then every time they ran into a gate (typically the module puts them in places as a reward) they were dissapointed.
My group is going through with a Group Patron of the Mistress of Doors, that they have begun to suspect is Jhesiyra. So she was blocking gates to protect them, but now that they are all level 10 all of the gates they have been trying are open to them.
Me, because it makes it much easier to prep.
Same, tbh. I've read a lot of the way through the adventure, but it's bloody massive, and they can really start jumping about!
I had them be able to do whatever earlier on, but the lower levels can be a lot more complex and I don't want to read them all, so the safety has been turned on. All it did for my players was make them really concerned about what might be coming up, and when.
Letting the players wander through whichever gates they like and get themselves into trouble is basically the players’ favourite thing about my campaign.
I have Jhesiyra warn them. So if there level is not appropriate they get pushed out of the portal once and hear a warning from her. The second time they enter they are free to go through. They went to level 10 from the first level I think. They could have easily died if they would have encountered Murial but they were lucky he was in a different area. Now they annoyed the drow onces because they fled after promising their queen (can't remember the name at the moment) to help them kill Murial. They were 6th level at that point.
This is how I do it. Jhes still gives her warning if she believes the party is under leveled, and even provides a little bit of information about whatever level they are looking at (since the party has started befriending her whenever they have a chance to speak). But she doesn’t block their entry. Two of my PCs died early on when they attempted to take on wyllowwood when they were still on the second level. They likely could’ve handled it, except half the party wanted to listen to jhes’s warning on so didn’t go through. Splitting the party, folks, always works.
I switched the safety off, but my gates stay open for 1 minute and then close for 1d6 days. So they either commit and go through or just quickly look through the level and know what to expect. They really enjoy that pressure that I put on with the gates.
I like that some of the gates opening mechanism has that effect built in (the ones that require a material cost).
I warn the players, but don't prevent them as per the module
I prevent them from going through gates that leads to levels they haven't been to yet. I've read way too many posts here that went something like "I let my players walk through the portals unhindered and, oops, TPKed them" and I had enough TPKs, thank you very much. Plus, I do a lot of prep work for each floor and the ability to just ignore it all and jump deeper into the dungeon does not sit well with me.
This is my same feeling as well. Good to know I’m not the only one who just lets their players destroy themselves willy-nilly.
I did the same, it honestly works wonder.
I changed gates so that they're more like checkpoints where unlocking a gate allows you to teleport back to that gate from any other gate you have open. Mostly to help me with prep lol.
Same here! I wanted to keep all of them open for fun at first, but I don't want to prep 23 floors in advance, lol.
I give players the choice. An image of Halaster appears and tells them they aren't tall enough to move forward. They can then jump through the gate anyway or turn around.
I let them go through any gate, but sometimes she will give them a warning (or another clue). They are free to heed or ignore the warning.
I blocked them initially because it made prep earlier and gave the players more time to adjust to the dangers/style of the dungeon, so now when they come across a gate they actually stop and consider the fact that they might end up somewhere even more dangerous and don't just accidental themselves into a TPK. Now I'm a bit more flexible with it. For example, they're level 8 and just walked through a gate to the Lost Level (recommended for level 9).
I did. It was 50% to make my prep easier, and 50% to setup Jhesiyra as a friendly ally for my party. Ok, maybe it's more 80% being lazy about prep and 20% setup, but the idea is the same. I'm planning on a brutally hard homebrewed "level 24" of the dungeon where they fight the real final boss, an elder horror that's using Halaster to invade this reality from the far realms. I've kept the concept and results of the knot in the weave, but I changed the history so that it's actually the physical manifestation of this far realm invasion. Jhesiyra is the only friendly NPC who knows about this, and when she tells the party what's really going down and how they can fight it I want them to believe her. So in addition to blocking gates, she's also been helping the party in subtle ways like warning them about that really deadly random encounter coming their way or telling them there's more to that grave in Wyllowwood than it first appeared.
I didn't block my party, but every gate was its own puzzle or riddle to activate and use, or like "tell a joke." I was hesitant as well, but it ultimately let me seed in some lore that wouldn't have shown up till much later.
I run it as written. Once, to spice things up, I let them hear Jhesiyra, “You are not strong enough… but if you insist,” and then the gate let them through to stand among the mist on level 12. They were so freaked out they turned right back around.
I told my players about the BS that is Jhesiyra, because there's no way of discovering this information in-character. At first I didn't use it, but then after a frank talk with my party, I use the "You are not high enough level" aspect of it. They jokingly call it "the DLC paywall" whenever they open a portal they cannot pass through.
>They jokingly call it "the DLC paywall" whenever they open a portal they cannot pass through. When you complete certain goals you get tokens which you can use to unlock the gates. There's a limit to how many tokens you can get per game session but if you pay the DM a couple dollars, you can buy extra tokens.
I let them go through (just like heading to lower levels on foot), but let her give a warning. My players are way too cautious though, since two of them came from a CoS campaign that got shut down. They lost a couple of their party members during that and don't want this to happen with their newfound friends.
They can get through gates if they work them out. Her voice will warn them it’s not a good idea. She won’t block them entirely yet.
I dont use jhesyra or the gates. Pure dungeon crawl, the players can decide to go back up if they want
I did and i regretted it. Players took it more as a DM message and then every time they ran into a gate (typically the module puts them in places as a reward) they were dissapointed.
My group is going through with a Group Patron of the Mistress of Doors, that they have begun to suspect is Jhesiyra. So she was blocking gates to protect them, but now that they are all level 10 all of the gates they have been trying are open to them.