Tips for running "The Cold and Hungry Sea"

Hey friends! Last night I ran the adventure that Harlen and I put together for the "Songs to Drown Sailors To" zine and I had a few notes I wanted to pass along! Personally I still consider myself a "beginner" DM, and I know a lot of you are the same, so I hope these will help you run this adventure effectively.

This post (obviously) contains spoilers for the adventure!

Managing Timing

This adventure is frontloaded with information gathering/roleplay and backloaded with combat. If you find that your players are spending more time than you'd like during the first half, I'd suggest skipping or moving Kyppli.

This NPC can be placed into the Chipped Tooth tavern if you need to speed up player progression, where he can simply appear haunted and warn the players away from Manglebone Bay with the story of Tristlen, whom he was barely able to drag away from the sea the previous day after their run-in with a feral merfolk. Alternatively, his key info can be given to Meera and Kyppli can be eliminated entirely.

Similarly, if your players reach Manglebone Bay past what you would prefer to be the halfway point of your session, you can skip the Mud Mephits or the Giant Octopus, keeping that area of the ship but eliminating the combat. I'd suggest leaving at least one combat, otherwise the final encounter is the only combat in the adventure.

Handling Spell Scrolls

You may note that there are two pieces of this adventure in which non-casters have and attempt to use spell scrolls. The DMG's description of spell scrolls is the subject of much debate — it both says that "any creature that can understand language" can attempt to use a scroll, but also that if the spell is not on your character's spell list, it is "unintelligible." I would simply suggest that you decide ahead of time how you want to handle it at your table. I see three options:

• Allow Kyppli and Tristlen to attempt to use their scrolls with arcana checks.
• Kyppli and Tristlen cannot read the scrolls, making Meera kind of a scam artist (which is valid!)
• Give Kyppli and/or Tristlen at least one spell level in an associated class, so that mechanically they can attempt to use the scrolls.

Personally, I played it that they could not read the scrolls, and asked the players to help them. Honestly, I think the adventure can hold up to any of those options without much trouble!

Balancing the Final Encounter

The feral merfolk are squishy enough that each could feasibly be destroyed in a single round by 5 level 3 players who are on their game and rolling well. However, they are also capable of dealing quite a lot of damage when they hit, particularly if they can manage to land Siren's Song and then Draining Kiss in succession.

If your party is level 2 or has fewer than 5 members, or if they tend to deal low damage for any reason, here are some tips to keep them alive:

• Give them healing potions. Perhaps Evard provides them with a few, or Meera throws them in for free or cheap to aid the recovery of her amulet.
• Split the merfolk up. If players aren't stealthy enough on the gun deck, for example, one of the merfolk might split off from her school and meet the players on her own. This would both allow the players to focus on killing her, and potentially give them warning about the merfolk's specific skills so they could take precautions.
• Just use one mermaid. Simply eliminating two of the merfolk from the final encounter would significantly reduce the difficulty. And if they totally curb stomp her, you can always bring another one or two in after a round or so of combat, drawn by the noise.
• Provide opportunity attacks. If players are struggling to land attacks, have the mermaids move around a lot so they can take opportunity attacks. Since the merfolk have INT 8, it's not unrealistic that they might not be terribly tactical fighters.

On the other side of the spectrum, if your players land some particularly good attacks and wipe out most of the merfolk very quickly, you have plenty of options to keep the combat interesting.

• Bring in more merfolk. This fight is taking place in the merfolk's nest, so it would be completely rational for a few more to show up once combat gets going.
• Make the lead mermaid stronger. Make Tristlen's "bride" stronger than the other merfolk by giving her additional HP, or even a lair action (the aboleth might be a fun model for this.)
• Weaponize Tristlen. When charmed, Tristlen could absolutely be used to sabotage the players, or at least distract them. Even when the charm is broken, his fixation is on polymorphing the mermaid, so he can still create problems for the players, and might even try to harm them if they attempt to stop him.

Other Changes

Of course, I highly recommend reading through the adventure first and making any changes that you think will make it more fun or better suited for your players! For example, when running it, I found myself wishing we'd replaced the Giant Octopus encounter with a skill challenge of some kind.

If you have very loot-oriented players, I would also suggest coming up with some fun loot for the monster encounters and the merfolk nest. Some players may also be interested in shopping for more of Meera's items, so you might prep a list of her wares.

I hope this is helpful, and that you enjoy running The Cold and Hungry Sea! I'd love to hear how your game goes if you run it. Good luck!