D&D 5E Running "The Lost Mines of Phandelver"

akr71 · Jul 17, 2017

Both times I ran it, the party dealt with the wolves and then climbed up the skree slope into Klarg's chamber, getting the drop on him, with the noise of the waterfall preventing the noise of battle from reaching the rest of the cave system. It was a tough battle, but winnable - I played the remaining goblins as cowardly, with the exception of the one holding Sildar captive, so once Klarg was gone, there was little danger. Both parties were very new to D&D, but also very suspicious of following the stream into the cave and avoided that trap.

As a bit of comic relief, I had a goblin in Klarg's chamber run out to sound the alarm. However, the goblins in the waterfall/pool area misunderstood and released the flood trap while the battle was taking place in Klarg's chamber.

CydKnight · Jul 17, 2017

When I ran it the players did not go directly to the Cragmaw Hideout after encountering the Goblin Ambush on the Triboar Trail. They thought it was more important to get the wagon of provisions to Phandalin first so they didn't risk something happening to it that would prevent them from getting paid. By the time they did they got to the Hideout they had a Long Rest and a random encounter. I think by the time they hit the Hideout they were Level 2. The party was 3 PCs and one NPC.

Xeviat · Jul 17, 2017

My players decided to rest after the ambush. Two of them dropped and they were out of spell slots, all slots used for healing (Bard and Druid). They avoided the traps along the hidden trail no problem. The ranger and rogue got the jump on the goblin lookouts, so they were no problem, but I had the wolves attack when they saw people sneaking in (passive Perception +5 from keen smell and hearing makes hard targets to sneak by). The fight was tough for them, so they pulled back for a short rest.

4 of the 5 players are new to D&D. I'm trying to go easy on tactics on them, while also trying to keep their minds open and not restricted to their character's abilities and proficiencies (my sister thought her Druid couldn't use stealth because she didn't have proficiency in it, for instance). I haven't had so many new players for a while.

Letting the Goblins let the players get away once would be good. They don't have any small characters so they're not going to be able to get up the slope to the barracks first so they might run into Klarg first.

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BookBarbarian · Jul 17, 2017

akr71 said:
Both times I ran it, the party dealt with the wolves and then climbed up the skree slope into Klarg's chamber, getting the drop on him, with the noise of the waterfall preventing the noise of battle from reaching the rest of the cave system. It was a tough battle, but winnable - I played the remaining goblins as cowardly, with the exception of the one holding Sildar captive, so once Klarg was gone, there was little danger. Both parties were very new to D&D, but also very suspicious of following the stream into the cave and avoided that trap.

As a bit of comic relief, I had a goblin in Klarg's chamber run out to sound the alarm. However, the goblins in the waterfall/pool area misunderstood and released the flood trap while the battle was taking place in Klarg's chamber.

i was in a party of 3 that did much the same. We handled the wolves with a successful animal handling check. I think we might have had advantage by offering them some meat. climbed up to Klarg and dealt with him, then took down the rest of the goblins. We were running the pre-made Rogue, and both fighters.

later we got to the town and had a fight with the Redbrands outside of an Inn. The rogue went down, but did not die. That fight taught us that multiattack was a powerful, and to not bite of mor than we could chew.

All in all for a brand new DM, and 3 brand new players it was amazingly fun.

akr71 · Jul 17, 2017

BookBarbarian said:
i was in a party of 3 that did much the same. We handled the wolves with a successful animal handling check. I think we might have had advantage by offering them some meat. climbed up to Klarg and dealt with him, then took down the rest of the goblins. We were running the pre-made Rogue, and both fighters.
...
All in all for a brand new DM, and 3 brand new players it was amazingly fun.

My first group (my wife, son & daughter) fed the wolves freshly butchered goblin chunks!

BookBarbarian · Jul 17, 2017

akr71 said:
My first group (my wife, son & daughter) fed the wolves freshly butchered goblin chunks!

I think ours was meat from the horses on the road that were killed by the goblins. I can't remember why we carved some off, but I'm glad we did.

Ath-kethin · Jul 18, 2017

The 2 person party I was in had a warlock (me) and a druid (my friend's wife), with my friend as the DM.

We hid and fled from the goblin ambush, then tracked the goblins back to their cave, ambushing them from behind as we went. The druid made an awesome roll to convince the wolves to help us, and it was pretty much a mopping-up job from there.

BookBarbarian · Jul 19, 2017

The fact that some found the opening encounters to be really difficult, and some really easy makes me think that this really was a good "starter" set. For players anyway*. From the get go it teaches that if your'e not careful you can die, but if go in with your wits about you you can succeed even easily..

*I can't really speak to the DM side.

D&D 5E Running "The Lost Mines of Phandelver"

akr71

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CydKnight

Explorer

Xeviat

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BookBarbarian

Expert Long Rester

akr71

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BookBarbarian

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Ath-kethin

Elder Thing

BookBarbarian

Expert Long Rester

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