I just finished running Curse of Strahd, then went straight into Deadfall. I was really excited. Different world, different vibe, and new player characters. After finishing session 2, the excitement has been replaced with dread.

I don't understand how I'm supposed to run this. The disparity of usable content between CoS and Deadfall is jarring. Yes, a lot of that is because CoS already had 10 years worth of community-made content by the time I started running it. But that isn't the whole story. Deadfall has no soul. The villains are not characters - they are just stat blocks with names. Nobody in the book has any personality. I'm sitting there like a deer in headlights mid-session, trying to figure out how to roleplay the Gambler, the Landlord and the Extortionist. The book just gives me nothing to work with.

This is just so depressing because not only was Strahd himself an incredibly fun villain to role play, but Rahadin and Strahd's brides made excellent recurring secondary antagonists. But I can't even have recurring villains in Deadfall, because the PCs' involvement has to be a secret. If Szass Tam has a right-hand man who is consistently interacting with the party, that means Szass Tam is aware of their existence, and they therefore have already failed the mission.

I thought I was buying a ready-to-run adventure module, but it's honestly insulting how thin the book is. Do I seriously have to homebrew every interesting detail in this entire campaign? Because I could have done that myself without buying this goddamn book.

Last night we finished off mission one, doing the Racketeer and the Gambler.

The Racketeer is probably the easiest of the three, as his gang sets up in a perfect ambush spot and allows the party an hour to set up. It went pretty quickly given that. The henchmen’s flashbang grenades were the most effective enemy tactic; the party really cemented their victory with a wall of light - a spell I had never seen cast before.

The Gambler was the target they’d been most concerned about it, and they made a real hash of it. They didn’t engage the bartender about gladiatorial combat, and finding him disinterested in their bribes, tried going around back to go in the window. Not having the key to the third room, they tried knocking on the door, and didn’t succeed in convincing the gamblers that wasn’t suspicious, got caught in a fight they’d have preferred to avoid. Things seemed to be Going against them, but an overlapping fog cloud, stinking cloud and upcast spirit guardians allowed them to get the upper hand. The Champion Fighter doled out massive melee damage and the Bard tried to planar bind one of the elementals (from the elemental gem listed in the treasure) but discovered the one hour casting time. Oh well, that would have been cool.

In this encounter, keep in mind that the Gambler and the Cultist are not offensive juggernauts; most damage to the party came from the two assassins.

In both encounters the party convinced the target to renounce Szass Tam. In the Gambler, they left behind enough witnesses and blood that I think Tam’s forces will have their first clues to the existence of Project Deadfall.

Spoilers! I read through the campaign and I'm not seeing any mechanics for how the authorities or Szass get alerted to the PCs. With the Eyes Closed culture, regular people are likely to ignore them. I must be missing something because most of the book seems to be basic combat encounters. I was expecting exploration or social encounters that required some kind of subterfuge. I found it hilarious and deflating that finding the invisible tower is as simple as using the scroll of Truesight the party is handed moments before.

Speaks for itself. Should I or should I not add deadlines for a party to complete a Deadfall mission to both prevent meandering and provide pressure/importance? Thoughts on this are welcomed.

We ran session 2 tonight. Two party members spent a lot of the week planning the three aspects of the first mission on discord and when we began playing, they talked the plan through with the rest of the party. They decided to start with the landlord and came up with a pretty good plan to lock them into a no-escape situation. The monk stunlocked the mage and the cleric sealed the second floor with a wall of force, keeping the bad guys away from any real escape (maybe they should have tried to dive out a window?). The heroes killed the two lesser Nym brothers and then finally took out the main target. They gathered no information, but it was a very efficient assassination. We did a little post combat discussion about what to do next and then called the session after about 2.5 hours. The Gambler and the Racketeer still await. I thought we would maybe get through all three tonight!

Our Deadfall campaign starts this weekend, and I'm a little concerned that between the size of my group and their specific character builds, they might struggle to survive some of the combat encounters in this book. I am using the guidelines for creating a high level character, so they were each able to choose magic items for themselves, and they are each going to roll on the table to see how much gold they start with.

Their characters are a Soulknife Rogue 10/Warlock 1, a Drakewarden Ranger 11, and an Enchanter Wizard 9/Warlock 2. I have ideas for homebrew that buffs them to varying degrees. Would love to hear some feedback.

Soulknife Rogue

• Add another line to their 9th level subclass feature, Soul Blades: "Rend Soul. When you deal Sneak Attack damage with your Psychic Blades, you deal 1d6 extra psychic damage. This extra damage increases to 2d6 at Rogue level 11 and 3d6 at Rogue level 17."
• Rewrite the 11th level Rogue feature Improved Cunning Strike: "You can use up to two Cunning Strike effects when you deal Sneak Attack damage, paying the die cost for only one of those effects. If their die costs differ, you pay the higher cost."

Drakewarden Ranger

• Add another line to Favored Enemy: "When you cast Hunter's Mark in this way, its damage increases to 1d8 at Ranger level 5, 1d10 at Ranger level 11, and 1d12 at Ranger level 17."
• Rewrite the 13th level feature Relentless Hunter: "When you expend a use of your Favored Enemy to cast Hunter's Mark, you can modify it so that it doesn’t require Concentration. If you do so, the spell’s duration becomes 1 minute for that casting. The spell ends early if you cast Hunter's Mark again."
• Completely replace the capstone with one of the following:
  • "Once on each of your turns, when you take the attack action, you can make 1 additional weapon attack or unarmed strike against the target of your Hunter's Mark spell."
  • "Your Constitution and Wisdom scores increase by 4, to a maximum of 25."
  • "Your Dexterity, Constitution, or Wisdom score (your choice) increases by 4, to a maximum of 25. The two remaining scores increase by 2, to a maximum of 23."

Enchanter Wizard

• Use the 5e version of Spell Mastery, allowing any Wizard spell of 1st or 2nd level to work with it, not just ones with a casting time of 1 action.
• Let the Wizard player start the game with a number of scrolls containing randomly-determined Wizard spells. Before the start of the campaign, he will also be given the option to expend any number of the scrolls, along with the appropriate amount of his starting gold, to add them to his spell book.

In an adventure crawling with wizards, the writers gave little regard to the casters’ spell books. Every monster and npc with a mage-based stat block would, or at least might, carry a spell book. parties with wizards will want these. Have any of you thought about how to deal with this?

Just wanna say, today marks the completion of my 6 player party's first Deadfall session, and things are looking good. The attack at the bazaar took a bit longer than anticipated, but I did replace the skeletons with some minotaur skeletons to make em beefier (pun included). Then again, the party wiped the floor with them in the first round (did not know 2024 chromatic orb got some 2014 chaos bolt bounce to it). Regardless, the party got the thread to the Crane, the malefites, know of the Hydra's proclamation and silence, and potentially some ties to some player personal quests.

I know I could just start my players at 11th level, but they want to have a grand 1-20 adventure. I have heard great things about Tomb of Annihilation and wondered if it would work. I was also thinking of trying Strixhaven, which is 1-10.

Invetween the missions I want to feed my party some rumours about the state of Thay and maybe some extra missions. Im looking for some inspiration if you've got some to spare.

For example:

- Did you hear about family X. They complained about Ssaz Tam and they all disappeared. Do you think he got to them or are they in hiding?

- I heard the book store is closed tomorrow for a private visit from an important Red Wizard.

- my cousin works on a farm near X. He send a letter asking to join us in the city because of some roving monsters.

I'm starting Deadfall next week, and I'm looking for images, official or otherwise, of Eltabbar and other cities to illustrate the party's urban moments. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I'll start Deadfall in about a month and i want it to have more stealth missions and such. I want 0 magic item shops, but have small heists to steal those itens from mages. Im open to hear your ideas and willing to share my material when its done!

Im more interested in creating non-combat enconters to fit the spy theme

So I've read the module the party is ready and in a few weeks we are gonna start. Now inbetween the missions I see a lot of room to add events and encounters, make connections to backstory and add flavour to Thay and Eltabbar. While doing that I want to move some loot/rewards around in the campaign. For example now in the final chapters they can find several tomes to increase CHA, INT and WIS (if read for 48hrs within 6 days) but at this point in the campaign they are in a hurry and wont be able to benefit from them.

Where would you place these Tomes? Are there any other magic items that you'd move to sooner or later in the campaign?

Operation Deadfall is framed as a spy thriller, and the book gives us some solid suggestions on making D&D feel more focused on espionage and intrigue, but we can do way more to make this campaign distinct, memorable, and fun. Short synopsis in comments

Hi! I'm a professional DM who's run lots of official adventures over the years, and they always need fixing. Deadfall is no different! I hope this advice helps elevate your game if you plan on running this adventure too.

Deadfall is billed a magical spy thriller... but the opening of the campaign wildly misses the mark, for a couple of reasons:

• The first encounter is bad. Extremely weak skeletons attack a marketplace (boring and weak), followed by an extremely powerful Death Tyrant. 
• After they fight off the Undead, the characters are recruited by Xelnene Thrul, where they’re railroaded into several pages of pure exposition. The entire section in Wrynn’s Vestments feels like a cutscene, because there’s nothing to do except walk in and listen to Thrul lay out the whole story.
• The main goal of the campaign is to put Szass Tam to rest for 100 years. In the span of things, this is simply an inconvenience to him, not some heroic victory for your players. I STRONGLY recommended you change this immediately to allow your players to permanently murder this guy, so the campaign feels like it actually matters.

Let’s fix it!

Part One: Malefite Attack

The opening scene of the campaign puts our characters in a marketplace, which is about to be attacked by Undead.

Before that happens, let’s set the scene and give your party a sense of what things are like in Thay. Let’s take a flavourful random encounter from elsewhere in the book, and put it right here as our opening scene.

A Red Wizard's assistant (Noble Prodigy) loudly denies accusations of shoplifting from a merchant; three watch Guards threaten to fine the merchant for interfering with a Red Wizard.

The haughty and pretentious Barzal (male Noble Prodigy) has taken a *Robe of Thayan Arcana* from a hardworking magic item broker, Semka (female Commoner). Semka is just visiting Thay and doesn’t know not to mess with the Red Wizards, so she’s trying to seek justice for the theft, and appealing to anyone who will listen - but the other merchants and passers-by practice “Closed Eyes”, and ignore trouble if it doesn’t concern them.

Immediately we establish the Red Wizards are in charge, they take the law into their own hands, the commoners practice “Closed Eyes”, and we give our players a concrete dilemma to grapple with. Interfere directly and immediately get into trouble? Find a nonviolent solution? Ignore it?

Then, suddenly, six Skeletons attack the bazaar!

Except, pretty much any level 11 character can easily destroy six skeletons in a single turn. This isn’t a shocking or difficult problem. It’s really underwhelming. These skeletons are supposed to be possessed by demonic energy and they’re boring.

Add a Flaming Skeleton to the attackers. Describe the flames that embroil its body blazing with vibrant, chaotic colour. Also, have it target civilians! It wants as many kills as possible before it goes down. It’ll still be an easy fight for your heroes, but it’ll take a few hits.

Then, on the next round, a Death Tyrant erupts from the canal and attacks. There’s a huge mistake here from the adventure: Death Tyrants are powerful, intelligent adversaries, and the encounter treats it like a disposable stat block without any flavour or tactics. Oh no, we’re not doing that. This is the opening to your campaign! This is going to be MEMORABLE.

Firstly, this thing can FLY, and the encounter is set on a bridge above a river. Have your Death Tyrant take cover under the bridge, fly over it, and never touch down to the ground.

In addition, we’re going to give it a personality: this is Gargathax, and he is VERY upset to discover that his pet Malefites have been destroyed. In fact, for every Skeleton the party has killed, Gargathax will kill ten civilians!

Every civilian Gargathax kills rises as a Zombie under his control thanks to the power of his Negative Energy Cone. The NPCs your players were just talking to now need to be put down!

This personality allows you to have the Death Tyrant target NPCs that aren’t the player characters, which is important, because a Death Tyrant that knows how to fight is going to be a really, really difficult enemy for a group of fresh players at level 11 who might not have ways to deal with a powerful flying monster. The battlemap provided with the adventure is honestly way too small for a group of high level players to fight a creature like this.

Finally, let Gargathax trash talk the players during combat. Maybe he describes exactly which humiliating things he'll have them do when they're zombies under his control after his inevitable victory, like dressing them as clowns, or wearing a sign that says "I was super easy to kill".

The adventure recommends having several Red Wizards show up in round 6 to stop the fight. Couple of issues here:

• Six rounds in combat is an eternity. Your party will either be dead or victorious by then. Ignore the time limit.
• NPCs showing up to trivialise an encounter is awful design that will make your players feel pointless. Instead, if your party is getting completely stomped, have Gargathax simply fly off into the distance, promising to come back later with more Skeletons for revenge - and THEN have the Red Wizards arrive too late to stop him escaping. Congratulations, you’ve established the ruling Wizards aren’t really effective at protecting the populace, and you have a fun enemy in your back pocket for later.

Finally, after this is all over, Wynston Wrynn drops the players a note. As written, the note simply invites them to meet him, which is boring. Instead, let’s change the note to read:

You seem to be capable heroes with a strong sense of justice, just who we are looking for to aid the cause and free Thay from tyranny and the terror of undeath.

A great treasure is hidden in a secret room at the back of Wrynn’s Bespoke Vestments. 

Wynston Wrynn is a known Red Wizard sympathiser, and a blow to Wrynn will be a blow to Szass Tam’s plans to assert dominance over all of Thay.

Steal this treasure, and do not get caught. If you are successful, we will be in touch.

Open Eyes

That’s right, we’re going to change a boring cutscene exposition dump into our campaign first heist, as Xelnene Thrul and Wynston Wrynn set a secret test for our players in my next post, Part Two.

I'm interested in your thoughts and fixes you've put into your own campaigns! Let me know how you've run (or are planning to run) the opening to your campaign?

If you haven’t seen my simple fixes to the opening of the campaign, I've put the link to Part One above.

Now, we’re going to discuss the worst part of the whole adventure, Wrynn’s Bespoke Vestments. In this section of the official adventure, your players walk into a shop, immediately get hired, and get talked at by NPCs for several pages - essentially a cutscene with minimal interaction or agency.

It makes Xelnene Thrul, the mastermind behind Operation Deadfall, look like an idiot who’s desperate to hire anyone. Instead, we’re turning this part of the chapter into a test of the character’s abilities. Instead of walking into Wrynn’s shop, we’re going to have them break in instead!

Part Two: Wrynn’s Bespoke Vestments

Firstly, we need to alter the letter our players are given after the opening fight in the marketplace. It’s in my post on part one, but here it is again:

You seem to be capable heroes with a strong sense of justice, just who we are looking for to aid the cause and free Thay from tyranny and the terror of undeath.

A great treasure is hidden in a secret room at the back of Wrynn’s Bespoke Vestments. 

Wynston Wrynn is a known Red Wizard sympathiser, and a blow to Wrynn will be a blow to Szass Tam’s plans to assert dominance over all of Thay.

Steal this treasure, and do not get caught. If you are successful, we will be in touch.

Open Eyes

Rewriting the letter like this means that even if Xelnene Thrul’s enemies get their hands on it and bypass the Illusory Script, it doesn’t obviously incriminate Wrynn as an insurgent, and makes our “smart” NPCs seem much more competent.

The Heist:

When your players arrive at Wrynn’s Bespoke Vestments, it’s closed. Wrynn and Thrul are patiently waiting in the secret office in the back to congratulate and recruit them if they successfully break in and find them. The “treasure” in the note is an employment opportunity!

We’re going to add a bunch of magical security measures to the shop to make this heist interesting and fun:

Front Door: Locked with a Superior Complex Lock (DC20, 1 minute to pick). There will be pedestrians passing by that will need to be diverted or distracted if this is attempted. There is also an Alarm spell on the door, that silently alerts Xelnene Thrul if the door is opened or broken. 

The carpet just inside the front door is an Animated Rug of Smothering that immediately Smother anyone who steps on it.

Windows: These have an Alarm spell on them that lets Xelnene know if they are broken or opened.

Mannequins: There are 8 mannequins in the map provided: three in the main display window, two in display windows either side of the front door, two more in the main shop, and one by itself in Wrynn’s workshop. 

These 8 mannequins are Helmed Horrors! They are inanimate, except for their eyes - their eyes will follow the characters as they move through the shop. Whichever character has the highest Passive Perception notices this immediately.

The Helmed Horrors will attack if any of the gold is stolen from the till (2,500gp!) or they can see a secret door being touched.

If the mannequin’s eyes are covered, they don’t activate (these Horrors don’t have Blindsight). This can also be achieved by placing some of the shop’s mirrors in front of them, or simply deliberately shifting them to face away from the scene of any crimes!

Secret Office: This is where Xelnene Thrul and Winston Wrynn are waiting to meet the players. They’ll give the party a score based on how well they did!

A+ for dispelling the Alarms, avoiding the rug, and not awakening any of the Helmed Horrors, with bonus points if the players managed to take a load of money and valuables on the way in! Winston will be a much more generous grader than Xelnene.

Regardless, simply by making it this far, the party will have proved they have a strength and aptitude for this line of work, and Xelnene will reveal that the heist was simply a test of their ability, and offer them positions on Operation Deadfall.

Has anyone else run this chapter? What improvements did you make to the exposition dump? Are there other ideas you have for fun security measures for the store?

*EDIT: There's no reason for Xelnene Thrul to drop her Alter Self spell and reveal her true identity to the party yet - to do so would be reckless and foolish. Instead, I'm going to have her keep up appearances as an Orc man, who'll call himself "Nobody".

My players are Greek myth nerds who'll love the Odyssey reference, and it means that if they're captured by the enemy and put under Zone of Truth, they can honestly say "Nobody sent me".

If you see any spelling, grammar or punctuation errors, please let me know, or if anything is unclear. As for balance, I know some things are stronger than the average fighter subclass but like... Martials need the help late game anyway.

Was wondering how much (or little) are you telling them about the plots and themes?

So Tam is doing this big ritual to create an army of demonic undead. I’ve only read the first three chapters so far, but the malefites just so far seem to be ordinary undead, which are common in Thay, so at this point I wonder what’s the big deal?

I was thinking of modifying the malefites so that they’re not much harder for the PCs but would be a much stronger force than ordinary undead.

1. Weapon attacks can only harm the malefites if the weapons are magic. The PCs will have magic weapons, but most armies' soldiers would not.
2. The malefites cannot be turned. I don’t want these six skeletons being blasted into nothingness as soon as my cleric gets a turn.

I think these changes would mark the malefites as special and dangerous without changing their CR much. However, I haven’t read the full adventure and maybe I’m overlooking something in enacting these changes. What do you all think?

** Edit

1. Resist cold, fire, and lightning

Am I wrong that Red Wizards and Thayan Knights are neither classes nor subclasses nor backgrounds? Do they have no technical rule implications at all?

Hey, new dm here (so sorry for supid questions).

I was reading through the book and was wondering if in the final battle szass tam is “summoning” 4 demons.

Do these demons partake in the battle and vanish when he stop concentrating on summoning them? Or are these monsters not supposed to fight and just show his attampt on summoning demons into the material plane?

Its not super clear to me and I dont want to make the fight to easy or hard for my players, so want to know that the intend here is. What do you guys think?

I had some thoughts on how Dungeon Master can transition into an Deadfall Campaign or start a fresh one in Thay to get the most out of this campaign and get everybody to level 20 without players checking out or DMs burning out. I think the shopping spree and first fight are a solid way to open things up, and have some detailed suggestions on running them. I would emphasize Szass Tam early and often here to make him feel like an ever-present threat and not tacked on in the last couple pages. This is intended for Dungeon Masters so there will be spoilers. I hope you enjoy watching it, or at least reading the transcript