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So you've picked up your copy of Keys from the Gold Vault, excited to get your crew into some heist in Dungeons & Dragons. If you're interested in running the adventures for your players, you may be wondering where to start and what's next? Are you wondering who or what the Golden Vault is?
From how to prepare for the heist to how to keep class and character balance and everything in between, we go over everything you'll need to know to run adventures from the Golden Vault.
How To Create Your Own Golden Vault
The Golden Vault is not a physical vault but an organization. It's a secretive group with its roots in being morally good and located on the good-aligned Outer Planes. Their motto is "do good, no matter the cost."
The purpose of the Golden Vault is to provide players with the tasks and assignments to undertake in each adventure.
Depending on your group, this morally aligned secret organization might not fit their goals and objectives when creating a heist crew. If that's the case, it's time to look into creating your own Golden Vault tailored to your group.
If this does fit your group, your next step is to find the perfect NPC to become the liaison between the vault and your group, and you can move on to your next preparation steps.
As the Golden Vault monitors and tests worthy groups before employing them, you can use this to your advantage and create a quest giver or patron tied to the party's goals and backstory.
In your session zero, determine what kind of heist crew your group will be building. Then you can either have them roleplay a short adventure in which the Golden Vault will take notice or discuss whether one of them has a patron or quest giver that can be part of a bigger organization.
You're looking to create a charismatic handler with the knowledge and know-how to help the group should they get stuck and have enough connections to give them their next assignment.
This does not need to be a normal NPC either, as the Golden Vault handler can, for example, be a patron or deity of a Warlock, Paladin, or Cleric.
It's easy enough to make the followers of a patron or deity into a group made for good or ill, with a network of worshippers hiring your group to enact these adventures.
You can even have the adventures culminate into a scenario in which the patron or deity uses the stolen items from each heist to become more powerful, ending up as the evil boss.
This can leave your party in a position to have to infiltrate their own group to destroy their leader and go against everything this Golden vault believes in.
Conversely, the stolen items can corrupt the god or deity, and you and your group will need to work together to go on one last mission to save your patron and the Golden Vault.
This is a great tie-in to the end of the adventure Fire and Darkness and the Book of Vile Darkness the players may end up with. That adventure is open-ended for the perfect way to transition into saving the Golden Vault you've made.
Doing this with an original Golden Vault means even more connections and empathy from players who may be intricately involved with a personalized Golden Vault. Especially if magic, abilities, and resources are all connected to the Golden Vault and it's success.
The Golden Vault is intended to be an organization big enough to get your players out of trouble should they be caught breaking the law, being able to pull strings to ensure your players can get out of tough situations as best as possible.
Take any patron you want, create a group based on that patron, and tie in the background with your character's storyline to create a perfectly curated Golden Vault.
DM's Guide To Preparing For Heist Adventures
Heist adventures require a lot of pre-planning; here are the best and easiest ways to organize and plan them.
How To Prepare For Heists | |
|---|---|
Understand The Map | Each adventure provides two maps, one for players and one for the DM. It's imperative you understand both maps, as they're essential for each adventure run. Some maps are different parts of a whole, so ensure you plan out your player's routes and know what parts of the map you want to use. This includes noting the map features, whether it's weakened floor walls in a castle or secret doors, patrol routes, and more. That also means knowing the differences between the DMs map and the player's map. |
Find The Villain And Objective | A couple of the adventures have multiple endings, with character choice determining the end result. To truly prepare for these adventures, ensure you know who to roleplay as the villain. There are a few adventures where your players can be convinced to side with the typical villain, and the objective can be changed to your liking. Know where the objective lies and whether you want to run the adventure as written or whether you want to change the outcome. Make notes on the multiple endings if the adventure has them. |
Decide On Any Heist Complications | If you want to move the location of the objective, change a plot point, bring in a rival crew, or add any other complications to the adventure, make sure you plan this out before you start the adventure. You don't want to be changing the party's goals on the fly or making things seem unfair by impulsively changing outcomes. |
Everything else will have you follow the adventure as written. As long as you have those basic tenants and know the adventure's overarching story, you can improve your way through any of the adventures in the book.
Usually, understanding the map when planning a session isn't at the top of your priority list, but because the maps are distinctly different in Keys from the Golden Vault, you need to know the differences between them so you won't accidentally lead your players astray.
How To Keep Class And Character Balance In Keys From The Golden Vault
It's easy in this adventure module to just let the rogue of the party shine, and you're lucky if you have a party of rogues that can all benefit and participate in some way.
However, it's your job to cater to everyone at the table, despite the ease of setting up situations where only rogues can shine.
You never want to make the rest of your group feel powerless or like they have nothing to bring to the table because they aren't a quintessential stealth class.
Plan each adventure around your player's class choices. This means creating scenarios within the adventure that will allow each party member to do something only they can. For example:
- If there are encounters in the adventure and you have a barbarian or other melee class, ensure they have enemies to destroy.
- If you have a bard, let them showcase their showboating skills at the Afterlife Casino in the Stygian Gambit adventure.
- Make a machine vs magician encounter with the underground Underdark mechanical city in Tockworth's Clockwork, creating scenarios where your spellcasters can help unlock new areas instead of just lockpicking or brute force.
- Your ranger can track the animals in the museum while your warlock's patron can organize the heist as the Golden Vault intermediate.
This portion is all about inserting specific ways to allow your player characters to shine.
There won't be too many defining aspects to character classes as this adventure goes from level one to level eleven, so the most they will have, on average, is a level six and level ten defining feature for their class.
When planning each adventure, try to rotate which class will shine based on the adventure contents. Then, switch the adventure to accommodate their subclass specialties.
With 13 adventures, a party of four means each player gets three adventures centered around their class and subclass to help complete the heist, then use the final adventure to put in or edit puzzles specifically for all four players scattered throughout the adventure.
Don't forget to reward your players for working together and solving the problem by relying on each other's abilities.
You can also reward players with magic items at the end of adventures that can give them extra movement, subterfuge options, lockpicking, and other standard heist abilities they may be lacking.
A magic item like a portable hole would work wonders in a heist mission, given to a player who isn't stealthy, and they'll have a job to do and still feel involved in the adventure.
So many magic items can make up for a lack of ability in these adventures, so find magic items that complement the way you've planned the heist and give them to players to supplement any rogue-style abilities they lack.
How To Run Keys From The Golden Vault As One Shot Adventures
These adventures are perfect for dropping into your current game. If you're creating your own Golden Vault, have your Golden Vault patron dish out the adventures whenever you see fit throughout your adventure to tie everything together.
Feel free to replace the locations with areas in your own world and use the thread to continue the adventures in any campaign you're playing.
However, they also work perfectly as one-shot adventures.
Each adventure works independently; the Golden Vault is the only thing tying these adventures together. This means they all work well as stand-alone options.
You can choose to leave or weave in the Golden Vault later in case you want to connect the heists later on.
If you want to run these as one-shot adventures, here's how to choose which adventure to run.
Adventure | Level | Adventure Style |
|---|---|---|
The Murkmire Malevolence | 1 | Infiltrate a museum to steal an item. The outcome can have multiple endings, and this adventure can be revisited. As a one-shot, determine the ending while leaving it ambiguous for later adventures. |
The Stygian Gambit | 2 | Travel to a casino with lots of games and downtime activities. The goal is to steal the objective and escape. A huge map means this may be a longer one-shot than intended. Determine what you want to do and what to omit when planning as a one-shot. |
Reach For The Stars | 3 | The party is hired to retrieve an item. If your players don't want to consider stealing, this is a more good-aligned adventure with player options that benefit a morally good group. There are body horror elements here, so be sure to check with players whether that will be an issue. |
Prisoner 13 | 4 | If your players have seen Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and want to relive portions of the movie, this is a great adventure to use as a one-shot, as it's centered in the same location as the film. Adventure hooks here assume some form of connection, so you may need to work on that beforehand. They must infiltrate a prison and leave without getting caught. |
Tockworth's Clockworks | 5 | This adventure takes place in the Underdark. Be prepared to create a reason for a party to convene, as the adventure hooks here don't benefit from a group getting together for a one-shot, as prior knowledge is required before the adventure begins. Your players will be tasked with saving the town by stopping the automatons. Though there's only one outcome, it's a larger map with multiple sections that may take more than a single session with the puzzles and battles involved. |
Masterpiece Imbroglio | 5 | Easy adventure hooks and a manageable map with a fun objective and typical stealth gameplay make this adventure perfect for a one-shot. You're going to infiltrate an area to return an item and will have fun with the item in question. |
Axe From The Grave | 6 | Help a dead man rest in peace. This is another great adventure for a one-shot, easily run as written in the book. This adventure focuses on a bard and is a chance for a one-shot where the party hasn't all chosen to be rogues, allowing for moments for other classes to shine. It's a small map, a contained adventure that every class will enjoy. |
Vidorant's Vault | 7 | This adventure provides multiple options and outcomes and will most likely require more than a single session. You'll be breaking into a vault to steal an item, but circumstances can determine where the adventure goes. There's a lot to explore and interact with while in this adventure, so be prepared for it to last over a few sessions. |
Shard Of The Accursed | 8 | Your players need to put an item back instead of stealing it, but do it stealthily or risk discovery. This adventure requires a little extra preparation when running it as a one-shot, so ensure you read about the shard, its past, and the potential outcomes. This adventure is another that has a story thread that can continue outside of the one-shot that's worth considering. |
Heart Of Ashes | 8 | You must end the ritual plaguing the city. If you aren't using a Golden Vault, this is another adventure where you may need to plan how your players are connected if they're interested in the lore while playing a one-shot. It's another great one-shot for a party with a variety of classes. With a story that stands on its own and multiple endings, it's a great higher-level one-shot your players may want to replay for different outcomes. |
Affair On The Concordant Express | 9 | This fun and immersive adventure has the party become privy to a murder mystery. A highly suggested one-shot, as the map can be extended or shortened to accommodate your time constraints in running the adventure. The adventure hooks work well enough, and it's up to your group how they go about finding the true names of the demons involved in the adventure. The cars can change each time as well, making it a replayable one-shot. It's another adventure you can continue afterward with a little planning. It's also great for diverse parties. |
Party At Paliset Hall | 10 | Another stealthy adventure, this one has lots of moving parts and requires an understanding of the adventure before running. Make sure you read through the entire adventure and do some preplanning before running this one as a one-shot. You'll need to roleplay quite a few NPCs, and if you aren't using the Golden Vault, create a reason for the party being invited to the gala. With multiple parts, it's another adventure that may need more than a single session, with many possible outcomes depending on character choice. |
Fire And Darkness | 11 | The adventure hooks here are good enough for your one-shot, as your party will infiltrate a scary fortress to reveal the Book of Vile Darkness. Though it's a higher level, it's not too complicated and works well as a one-shot with a full read-through. Remember to plan for the volcanic terrain, and everything else falls into place as written. |
When you're planning the adventure as a one-shot, you can also loosely use the adventure hooks and ignore the Golden Vault portions altogether.
For the most part, run the adventures as written, and remember, you can change levels and circumstances as you see fit. Choose which adventure you want, and keep your options open to connect them if your players are having a good time.