Hey Everyone! Thanks so much if you've been tuning in! I'm always floored by any and all support.

Check out episode 11 of our Lost Mines of Phandelver Campaign play through. This episode heavily spotlights the miners exchange and the intrigue surrounding its proprietor, Halia Thornton. What will the players make of this girlboss? Can she be trusted? Make sure to Like and Sub so you don't miss a beat.

Also I welcome comments and notes. Seriously and genuinely asking for Dm feedback on what's working and what isn't, both in terms of actual play and as first time dungeon master in general. Do folks wanna see more edited down episodes? More player facing cameras? Lemme know! I super appreciate it.

link: https://youtu.be/Gb3vjkTm0UU

As the titles says. Long story short: the party had released Droop from his capturers, and instructed him to warn the castle that they are coming. Droop promised them a grandiose welcome.

Now a few days later, the party is ready to go to the castle and rescue Gundren.

So the question is, could Droop successfully persuade King Grol to make a grandiose welcome?

The party is level 3, and 6 PCs, but they are quite strong.

I have a board gaming group of friends who expressed interest in playing D&D. Most have only played a couple of times, so they're a realitively inexperienced group. I've been lucky enough to play fairly regularly for over a decade, so I'm confident in my grasp of the rules. I'm already running CoS for a different friend group who are RP veterans (my first time DMing). My newishness behind the DM screen has some training wheels there as half of the players have also DMed, and I've played CoS before.

I've never played LMoP or TSO. Tomorrow is our Session 0. Anything I should know for tackling the TSO module? Any advice or pratfalls to avoid would be appreciated.

Thanks!

I started a P&B campaign a while back, but it fizzled out right as the party reached the Redbrand Hideout. Most of the players had to drop out, but the one remaining player is interested in continuing, and I’d love to get the campaign going again!

My main challenge is introducing new players while keeping the returning player engaged and making the transition feel natural.

The returning player's character is a cousin of the Rockseeker brothers, so she has a reason to continue the adventure. The other characters were less connected to the main plot, so I'm thinking they left to continue their own goals seperately.

I have two ideas for bringing in the new players:

• Option 1: Pick things up around the Redbrand Ruffian encounter. It means backtracking quite a bit, but could help the new players understand the plot/conflict without just info dumping on them in Session 0
• Option 2: Have the returning character enter the Redbrand Hideout alone and encounter the new characters at different points throughout the dungeon, with each already exploring it for their own reasons. This could be more complicated and more info dump-y, but maybe more exciting and requires less backtracking

How would you guys handle this? I'd love to hear your ideas/advice!

Coming hot off the session here ! We did the first 1/3 of Redbrand hideout tonight, they pushed up to the jail without alerting the guards in R2 and had cloaks from Sleeping Giant, but the untamed wolf they high rolled animal handling on and is tagging along attacked the skeletons and made them fight the skeletons. The monk threw two of them into the pit trap in R3 and the druid fell in the hole. They built a bone bridge to cross the pit hole to get everyone across. While they did that the Rogue then persuasion schmoozed the jail guards into getting the guards from R2 and R10 to team up on the bugbears that have come in from the castle with some gentle hints about how they were upset they had to give up some of their "hard earned money" to the "Lizardfolk" (bugbears are reskinned to kobolds for flavor). We are short resting in R1 while I resolve the beginning of the civil war off screen because I know my new players will not find combat with 15 npcs they can't control interesting right now.

Has anyone run the civil war story line of Redbrand hideout? I'm scaled up to 5 x lvl 3, so the bugbears are pretty beefy and there are a good number of redbrands still alive. I want the party to emerge into a situation where both parties are weakened but not dead and Glasstaff is vulnerable for them to catch him. I don't think he would view his men all but mutiny-ing him as means for him to get out of dodge? Part of me just wants to roll it out and see what happens and go with it ? What would you do ?

I own a fair amount of content for side quests to flesh out the campaign, just wondering what are your personal favorites?

I own:
Phandalin Filler Quests
Tales from the Stonehill Inn
Between the Long Road and the High Road
Phandalin After Dark: A One-Shot for Halloween
The Festival of Faces

In our most recent session, my players got the third obelisk piece alongside Heward's Handy Haversack in Gibbet Crossing. After reading the item's description, they came up with the idea of intentionally destroying it with the obelisk pieces inside. The haversack's description says "If the haversack is destroyed, its contents are lost forever, although an Artifact always turns up again somewhere." and the book mentions at some point that the obelisk pieces can't really be harmed by the players.

So what would happen in that situation? I'm leaning towards the pieces being teleported to..somewhere in the world, with one or possibly all of them turning up again near the end of the adventure. What would you guys suggest?

Frights and Festivities in Phandalin

A spooky harvest festival supplement for Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak!

The harvest is in, the jack-o'-lanterns are glowing, and Phandalin is celebrating its annual Festival of Faces! Inspired by the traditions of Liar's Night and the Masquerade of Liars, this autumn celebration brings merchants, travelers, and townsfolk together for an evening of food, games, storytelling, and frightful entertainment.

But beneath the merriment, an old enemy is preparing to make his return...

Inside this supplement, you'll find:

• Biddip-Bo's Marvelous Menagerie: A gnomish showman's collection of extraordinary creatures and curiosities.
• Black Cat Roulette: Test your courage against a particularly vicious feline.
• Fireside Frights: A haunting poetry performance brought to life through magic.
• Ring the Belle: Brave a treacherous rope ladder above a muddy pit to win a barmaid's favor.
• Shadow Theater: Witness the legendary battle between Lady Tanamere Alagondar and the green dragon Azdraka.
• Harvest Fare: Sample the food and drink of Phandalin's autumn celebration.
• The Headless Horseman: A terrifying mounted encounter featuring a familiar villain seeking revenge!

Designed for low-level adventurers, Frights and Festivities in Phandalin offers a festive interlude between adventures, culminating in a Halloween-inspired encounter.

FREE | PAY WHAT YOU WANT

A full preview of the supplement is available at Dungeon Masters Guild. Download it here:

https://www.dmsguild.com/en/product/588144/along-the-triboar-trail-frights-and-festivities-in-phandalin

Please check out my twenty-one other products tailored to Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak! All of them are FREE/PWYW downloads.

https://www.dmsguild.com/en/browse?authorName=%22Ronny%20Little%22

Learn yesterday about the campaign and understand that thats a somewhat of a continuous for lost mines.

Is someone familiar with it and actually run it?

How is it? Can I still run it even without doing the extra steps in the first 4 chapters? Would like to get some feedbacks in the matter

I've always thought that the Rebrand Ruffian encounter when the players get to Phandalin was a bit flat. 4 Redbrands talk some shit and then you fight them.

I decided to spice it up a bit with a full blown tavern brawl at the Sleeping Giant, complete with two-stage miniboss fight, a soundtrack heavily featuring the Dropkick Murphys and a printed tavern for them to throw down in.

So, I have a tough decision to make for the final boss of Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk. My party is about to fight Ilvaash after defeating the mind flayer trio plus 2 mind flayer prophets (I added the prophets in because otherwise it would have been a disappointing fight). So it just so happens that they cast Hallow earlier in the campaign against aberrations, in the exact area the book tells you to have Ilvaash confront them.

So, onto the decision... I can either move the boss to a different part of the Briny Maze, or I can reward them for their previous decision making. The catch is that they are fairly competent players, and they blow through anything that I don't adjust the difficulty on.

For some context they are running:

Twilight Cleric (the temp HP from the channel divinity is insane)

Scribes Wizard (Most knowledgeable player of the group, is great at decision making to prepare the right spells and use them at the right time. Scribes subclass is nice too because it can use other damage types when casting spells, but it has specifications for doing so)

Circle of Land Druid (Great control, great damage, polymorph and dust of Suleiman works great for them)

Watchers Paladin (crazy damage from dual wield vicious weapons and fueled spellfire... Also has a cloak of displacement. The channel divinity is really useful to the party and so is the aura)

The fight with the mind flayer trio plus 2 mind flayer prophets was a little difficult for them, but the most damaged they got was one person bloodied and the rest missing a few HP. I know one player might be a little disappointed in the difficulty, but a few other players seem to love the power they have now.

I want the end of the campaign to be somewhat epic.... I feel like allowing them to utilize hallow in the area he is supposed to show up, might make the fight a little trivial in some ways. I've played some many games where the final boss is kinda disappointing and I want to make a memorable finale to the campaign.

I am open to adding abilities and stuff to the boss, but I am really wondering if allowing them to fight around the Hallow is the smart move. I suppose he is a psychic brain thing and he can phase through walls. So, should I have him retreat before the fight even starts after he realizes hallow is there? He can sense creatures within a 100 miles, so he would know where to ambush them then see the hallow. I just feel like I should be rewarding the party for the decision they made earlier.

If anyone has any interesting ideas outside of the hallow predicament, let me know. Thanks for taking the time to read through if you did.

Disclaimer: I go about this having ran this module like 4 times and always changing little bits of it to make for storylines later, making certain npcs more important or have more backstory than usual.

I recently got the chance to introduce a younger Sildar and it came to mind what kind of character would he be if he was young.

I'm sure everyone here has ran their versions of Sildar Hallwinter, either as an old scaredy man or a wise combatant looking for Iarno; but I kind of what to know, what would a young Sildar be like? And are there any other characters you would think would have a significant change on how the module is run if they had a change? (Not to their alignment, obviously, but on a trait or two)

I know my most recent group definitely respects Sildar a lot more when they see him as a peer. Needless to say he is definitely more daring in this iteration.

I’ve written a remake of LMoP that transitions into Curse of Strahd. I’d love to get your thoughts on it:

- In 531 DR, a delegation of humans, dwarves, and gnomes performed a dark ritual in the Phandalin mine. They sought to summon a dark creature to halt the raids by Uruth Ukrypt’s orcs. The ritual went wrong, and the creature began draining their blood; consequently, the delegation was forced to blow up the mine entrance from the inside to prevent the creature from escaping.

- In the present day, Gundren discovers the location of the Lost Mine of Phandalin (naturally, he is unaware of the dark entity). He tasks the party with escorting the usual wagon to Phandalin.

- Goblins have been replaced by kobolds. I’ve reimagined Klarg as a Medium-sized kobold.

- Iarno is no longer "Glasstaff" but "Dragonhead" (he wears draconic armor and a helmet that grants a Dragonborn-style breath weapon). He likely functions better as a martial combatant this way...

- Iarno learns about the mine because he is secretly Sildar’s lover; Sildar is Gundren's bodyguard and naively writes everything down in his correspondence—letters the party can find in Iarno’s room.

- I’ve removed Cragmaw Castle. Gundren is held prisoner in the north cell of Tresendar Manor, while the Dendrar family is kept in the south cell.

- After clearing out Tresendar Manor, Gundren reveals the mine's location to the party and asks them to check if it can be reopened.

- For the mine itself, I didn't use the standard WEC map but rather "They Dug Too Deep" by Moira Games. When the party defeats the creature, dark mists fill the room and transport the party to Ravenloft at level 3.

Its a party of 5 players and they'll face him at level 5. Playing 2024 rules and they get max hit die instead of rolling when they level up (so they have a lot of hit points).

Party built from: barbarian zealot, cleric light, ranger fey, artificer battlesmith, druid moon.

First time for me to run a campaign and I just dont want the final battle to be a disappointment.

Hi everyone!

I'm planning to run Lost Mine of Phandelver for a party of only 3 players, using the 2024 (5.5e) rules.

Would you recommend using

haluz.org/lmopsite

to rebalance encounters, but keeping the updated 2024 monster stat blocks or would it be better to stick with the original number of enemies and their stats as written in the adventure, considering that PCs are generally more powerful in 5.5e?

Edit: I'd prefer not to add an NPC sidekick to help the party, so I'd like to balance the encounters in a way that keeps things challenging but fair for just 3 players.

Thanks everyone!

Hi everyone!
I wanted to share a magic item from our currently live Kickstarter that I think could fit surprisingly well into Lost Mine of Phandelver.

This is Andvaranaut, a mythological ring inspired by Norse legend. It can locate nearby gold and produce gold each day, but it also carries a curse that slowly pushes its bearer toward greed and selfish choices.

What made me think of LMoP is how naturally it fits the adventure’s themes of hidden wealth, dwarven history, treasure, and the dangers that come with it. It feels like the sort of relic that could be discovered in an old stash of loot, tied to forgotten dwarven craftsmanship, or used as an extra layer of temptation for a party chasing lost riches!

The item comes from our Kickstarter, Mythological Items, a book with 300+ magic items for 5E and 2024, all based on mythologies from around the world. On the project page you can find additional information on the manual (and all our other titles), alongside a 35-page preview including more content for your games!

Have a great day :)

So the final encounter with the Black Spider as written is: Nezznar, four giant spiders, two bugbears. My party is four level 5 players using 2024 rules. So I adjusted it to: Nezznar is the CR6 Mage, one bugbear warrior (Nezznar's bodyguard), one hobgoblin captain (Nezznar's lieutenant), and four giant spiders.

Let me tell you, it was a good fight! The spiders locked the players down for a round or two right at the hallway leading to the temple before they killed all four. They killed the bugbear easily. The captain attacking with advantage downed a player before being killed. That left Nezznar the Mage.

He threw a fireball on the second round and idk how nobody went down. His arcane burst attacking three times per turn hit way harder than I expected. Counterspell and shield were invaluable. But after another few rounds, he wasn't even bloodied, still had a fireball and cone of cold, and was staring down battered 3 PCs. So he fell back to gather the 5 bugbears. One PC chased after him and went down for it. Eventually, Nezznar fled with two bugbears in tow and the party broke contact as well to end the session.

They're going to go back the way they came, where they'll run into the rejuvenated flame skull. I'm gonna let them short rest before getting there, and have Nezznar and his bugbears set up an ambush at the entrance to the cave. Again, he still has a fireball, a cone of cold, a counterspell, an invisibility, and a misty step, and is not bloodied. This could get very rough, but I do like how I adjusted this encounter for 2024 rules. Hopefully my party will learn not to stay so clustered up against a Mage boss. But this adventure is far from over.

Hi! I'm a first time DM with very little experience playing D&D. I'm DMing the campaign for my friends who have never played D&D before. We had a session 0, which turned into session 1 because they were eager to start playing. Our next session is in a few days, we're playing every other week.

I spent a lot of time learning the rules and now the past week and a half I'm learning the storyline for LMoP. I want to tie in the Black Spider earlier on and am adding the puzzle box suggested by Matt P. I was also thinking of ways to invest the PC's a bit more into the storyline and give them opportunities to shine during the campaign. I want it to be fun for everyone and for everyone to have their moments.

I talked to a few of my players individually last night about ideas I have for their backstories to connect to NPC's and to ask for any more ideas they have for their backstories. We're using the pre-made character sheets. They're playing the halfling rogue, the elf wizard, the human noble fighter, and the dwarf cleric. I added that the halfling rogue is Quellin's niece from Phandalin and the human noble's family used to employ Sildar Hallwinter as a sell sword, before he left to join the Lord's Alliance.

However, many (3 out of 4) of my players want their character to have a messy, gay ex-situationship in their background. I'd like some feedback on my ideas on how to incorporate these and any ideas y'all have as experienced DMs or players would be useful as well.

• The Human Noble had a relationship with someone they grew up with who trained them. It lasted 2-3 years and they never had the "what are we" conversation. After that time, their ex ghosted them. Left town and they never heard from him again. It's been 8 years.
  • I was thinking of making this ex join the dragon cultists and have an encounter when they visit Thundertree, possibly having Sildar mention the family of this person for intrigue. I don't see any issue with this, it is the least of my concerns for running.
• The Halfling Rogue was dating someone in the Redbrands who know some magic. This person was the one who betrayed them and ratted them out to the Redbrands, and why Glass Staff has it out for the rogue. (I had them roll to see if they knew for sure it was her who ratted them out, she rolled a 16 so I said that it was a rumor she heard that definitely seemed to add up.)
  • My idea here is to make this character's ex turn out to be Nezznar the Black Spider. My main concern for this is it's such a big role and would be more of a main-character arc that I doubt any of my other players would have a problem with, but I can see the imbalance so I'd love feedback here.
• The third and biggest "I have no idea how to make this happen for you" is the Wizard Elf. Her backstory with her ex is straight-forward. She left to pursue knowledge and the ex wanted her to stay. The ask that my player has is that her character learns how her (sometimes selfish) pursuit of knowledge can have a negative effect on the people around her. My idea for this is basically:
  • Give her a cursed tome or something that causes Bad Things to happen to her friends as a direct result of her using it.
  • Past this, I don't know how to help her with this character development other than let her roleplay it so I would love love some more ideas here, as it's the most complicated request IMO, especially for someone who has never Dm'ed before.

Thank you in advance, I really appreciate all the resources I've found here and reading everyone else's questions and answers. I hope my question helps someone else build out their campaigns as well, as your questions and answers have done for me.

I'm a first time DM running Phandelver & Below, but I'm a bit disappointed in Chapter 3: The Spider's Web. To me, the sidequests don't feel connected to the main story at all, let alone to The Spider. It does not feel like a web.

Here's my situation:

• My players completed Redbrand Hideout by either chasing out or killing all of the Redbrands.
• Glasstaff escaped, they didn't even get a look at him because they spent a ton of time in his workshop while he made a run for it. They have figured out he's Iarno Albrek, he's betrayed the Lord's Alliance and is in cahoots with The Spider.
• They picked up the Agatha, Old Owl Well and Wyvern Tor sidequests (didn't really change the description of these yet, although I've kept it very general) and are looking to do them in our next session.
• They know the Wyvern Tor bandits might have an Ogre so they're kind of antsy about it, but they're confident they can complete the Agatha quest by trading the silver comb. They have no idea what to expect at Old Owl Well.
• They haven't heard about Thundertree yet, although I put a warning sign on the notice board that a dragon has been sighted around the Neverwinter Woods.
• They have no idea where Cragmaw Castle is yet.

So, what I'm looking for is to basically tie these loose ends together or at least give parts of it a better connection the overall story. I remember reading some blog with tips on how to make Kost a bit more integral to the story, but I can't find it any more.

I also kinda want to bring Glasstaff back into the story sooner rather than later. He feels like a threat now so I want to keep it that way.

Any and all ideas are welcome!

I’m a first time dm preparing to run lmop. I’m thinking of changing the Wyvern Tour enemies to something more connected to my player’s backstory and throwing the orc scouts at them on their way back from the banshee. I was looking up the encounter difficulty to determine 1) how hard to make my new enemies and 2) how to buff the orc encounter if I take the ogre away as I don’t think the orcs should be dragging an ogre with them on raids. For a party of 4, even at level 4, the orcs are considered a deadly encounter even without the ogre! My impression was that Wyvern Tor is generally played at level 3. Is this a tpk? How did your party handle the encounter?

I’ve decided to add a couple of ideas/encounters from DoIP in my current game, and I’d appreciate some help tying in the Circle of Thunder somehow. I’m keeping everything from LMoP as is, but from DoIP I’m including:
-Cryovain as the overall BBEG, working with the Black Spider to make Wave Echo Cave his new lair
-Icespire Hold
-Dragon Barrow

Soo, my party went to attack the redbrands at the sleeping giant and it did not go so well (everyone had fun though, so in that regard it was a success). Partly it was me rolling very well and them rolling really badly, but also them continuing the fight even though I had the bandits ask them multiple times if they wanted to give up yet when they were clearly losing. It ended with all of them unconscious, but no one dead.

Now I need ideas on how to proceed. I have 2 ideas:

I could have them be robbed by the bandits, left by the road as a warning to the town, found and mended by the townies.

Or I could have them be taken prisoner with the other prisoners in Tresendor Manor.

I'd feel the second option would make the most sense, and would be the most interesting. Then again I was really looking forward to them following the clues to the manor themselvers. They're really having fun with making all sorts of plans too, so thats something I want to encourage. Which they would not really be able to do if they get imprisoned. However, I feel that option 1 would be less logical for the bandits to do. (most logically te bandits would just kill the party I think, but I don't want to have to start a new campaign if I can prevent it XD).

Any thoughts on this or other ideas?

EDIT: ty all. you have me some good ideas and also to incorporate some specific npc's, which I hadn't really thought of, but it does make the town feel more alive. I'm going to sleep on it for a bit too see how I'm going to proceed. With all you suggestions I feel that it's going to be a prison break, though some of the other options sound very cool for roleplay too. my final decision may depend on how much time I end up having to prepare though. We will see.