D&D 5E Legacy of the Crystal Shard Mine of Phandelver

[vpuigdoller]

I been dying to run LotCS and the Baldurs gate one but havnt had the oportunity. Nice that someone converted it to final 5e stats.

 

[CapnZapp]

I am planning to start a 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign with players who haven't played 5E before. Due to an infrequent playing schedule we had some problems in the past with adventures that contained too many parallel stories and too many NPCs. So a relatively linear starting adventure like the Lost Mine of Phandelver looks like the right choice. However, I also have the Legacy of the Crystal Shard adventure. And while it looks a bit too complicated for my group with 3 parallel stories to keep track of, it has this great Icewind Dale setting. Which would be a perfect settings fit if I want to play Storm King's Thunder afterwards.

Having trouble deciding between the two choices, I came up with a crazy idea: What if I play the plot and encounters of the Lost Mine of Phandelver, but move the whole thing from Phandalin to Bryn Shander or one of the smaller of the Ten Towns? That way I could use the excellent campaign guide material from LotCS, but keep the story to the simpler Starter Set one. And the cast of the two adventures appears to be somewhat compatible, with dwarves and bandits and goblins.

Has anyone experience with the two adventures in question and an opinion whether that crazy plan of mine might work?

Two problems, one of which might actually be a solution given your plans:

Legacy of the Crystal Shard is a much more sprawling/ambitious/difficult adventure to run and to grasp. The roots of this is because of a secret:

It really isn't a low-level adventure. It is definitely a mid-level scenario.

The only reason I can think of why it's statted up as a low-level scenario is because it is a D&D Next playtest scenario; to be useful as a playtest, it must start at level 1. But nothing about the story makes sense as a low-level story.

I wholeheartedly recommend anyone thinking about running it to rejig it as a level 4-5 to 7-9 adventure instead. Trust me - that makes the nature of the threat much more natural, than if a bunch of low-level adventures are the only ones capable of reacting to the threat.

And since level 4 or 5 is where your heroes will be after Mines of Phandelver, this is perfect! This is what I meant by "a problem might be a solution" above.

If you're concerned that means a lot of conversion work, the sad reality is that the playtest stats are next to useless anyway. Besides, with heroes experienced from Mines... you can simply drop the "real" monsters from MM right into the story, since they can now survive encounters with full-strength Trolls and Yetis etc.

It also allows you to drop the odd hint of things to come, already at low levels, since the locale(s) remain the same.

Of course, this is much more ambitious than what I'd recommend to a new DM with inattentive players.

In part because of the second problem: Legacy features no less than three parallel story tracks, with an ambition to convey a sense of "you can't help everyone". This is decidedly not a newbie-friendly module, and it is wasted on players that can't keep track of different events and NPCs.

Z

PS. If this makes you think I dislike Legacy of the Crystal Shard, let me clarify that while the scenario is okayish (the stats are useless and the parallell story ideas are unevenly developed), the background material is really great. So overall: four stars out of five.

 

[CapnZapp]

I thought the "D&D Next" stats *were* 5e. Can you explain what the difference is?

In two words: monster strength.

Okay, so that was five words. Eighteen if you count my whole post.

 

[mbenson111]

Two problems, one of which might actually be a solution given your plans:

Legacy of the Crystal Shard is a much more sprawling/ambitious/difficult adventure to run and to grasp. The roots of this is because of a secret:

It really isn't a low-level adventure. It is definitely a mid-level scenario.

The only reason I can think of why it's statted up as a low-level scenario is because it is a D&D Next playtest scenario; to be useful as a playtest, it must start at level 1. But nothing about the story makes sense as a low-level story.

I wholeheartedly recommend anyone thinking about running it to rejig it as a level 4-5 to 7-9 adventure instead. Trust me - that makes the nature of the threat much more natural, than if a bunch of low-level adventures are the only ones capable of reacting to the threat.

And since level 4 or 5 is where your heroes will be after Mines of Phandelver, this is perfect! This is what I meant by "a problem might be a solution" above.

If you're concerned that means a lot of conversion work, the sad reality is that the playtest stats are next to useless anyway. Besides, with heroes experienced from Mines... you can simply drop the "real" monsters from MM right into the story, since they can now survive encounters with full-strength Trolls and Yetis etc.

It also allows you to drop the odd hint of things to come, already at low levels, since the locale(s) remain the same.

Of course, this is much more ambitious than what I'd recommend to a new DM with inattentive players.

In part because of the second problem: Legacy features no less than three parallel story tracks, with an ambition to convey a sense of "you can't help everyone". This is decidedly not a newbie-friendly module, and it is wasted on players that can't keep track of different events and NPCs.

Z

PS. If this makes you think I dislike Legacy of the Crystal Shard, let me clarify that while the scenario is okayish (the stats are useless and the parallell story ideas are unevenly developed), the background material is really great. So overall: four stars out of five.

Interesting that you talk about the level range for this. I started this little campaign during the playtest, and it ran into the official release of 5e. We updated the characters to 5e, of course, and let it go where it needed. I did some work and it turned into a level 1-10 adventure. We decided to take the characters elsewhere (Out of the Abyss - tieing in the Black Ice to the story), and we will return to Icewindale once completed, turning it into a high level adventure (to deal with Kessel, who is now much higher level.)

I think that the materials can provide whatever a DM needs, from low level intro all the way to mid-high level. It is an awesome amount of material and detail.

 

[CapnZapp]

I think that the materials can provide whatever a DM needs, from low level intro all the way to mid-high level.

There really is no reason why the inhabitants of the Dale shouldn't be able to handle the various threats all by themselves, if a random group of level 3 heroes can do it. It simply makes no sense.

There is a reason for the PHB discussion on adventure tiers (page 16). This is emphatically not a tier 1 story.

Other than that, I completely agree to everything you said

 

[Tormyr]

Two problems, one of which might actually be a solution given your plans:

Legacy of the Crystal Shard is a much more sprawling/ambitious/difficult adventure to run and to grasp. The roots of this is because of a secret:

It really isn't a low-level adventure. It is definitely a mid-level scenario.

The only reason I can think of why it's statted up as a low-level scenario is because it is a D&D Next playtest scenario; to be useful as a playtest, it must start at level 1. But nothing about the story makes sense as a low-level story.

I wholeheartedly recommend anyone thinking about running it to rejig it as a level 4-5 to 7-9 adventure instead. Trust me - that makes the nature of the threat much more natural, than if a bunch of low-level adventures are the only ones capable of reacting to the threat.

And since level 4 or 5 is where your heroes will be after Mines of Phandelver, this is perfect! This is what I meant by "a problem might be a solution" above.

If you're concerned that means a lot of conversion work, the sad reality is that the playtest stats are next to useless anyway. Besides, with heroes experienced from Mines... you can simply drop the "real" monsters from MM right into the story, since they can now survive encounters with full-strength Trolls and Yetis etc.

It also allows you to drop the odd hint of things to come, already at low levels, since the locale(s) remain the same.

Of course, this is much more ambitious than what I'd recommend to a new DM with inattentive players.

In part because of the second problem: Legacy features no less than three parallel story tracks, with an ambition to convey a sense of "you can't help everyone". This is decidedly not a newbie-friendly module, and it is wasted on players that can't keep track of different events and NPCs.

Z

PS. If this makes you think I dislike Legacy of the Crystal Shard, let me clarify that while the scenario is okayish (the stats are useless and the parallell story ideas are unevenly developed), the background material is really great. So overall: four stars out of five.

Thanks for pointing this out. I had mindlessly converted it for level 1 to 4 because the original adventure was level 1 to 4, but you are right; it would fit better as a mid level adventure. Now that we are almost done with Age of Worms, I am thinking about running my players through Murder in Baldur's Gate in preparation for Zeitgeist. A level 5-6 adventure would fit that much better and provide a stepping point for people who finish with Lost Mines of Phandelver. When parties finish LMoP, were they supposed to be level 4 or 5?

As a follow on to this, if I get time, I will try to go back and throw together a quick conversion for Legacy of the Crystal Shard to be levels 5-8 or so.

I will say, LotCS was my first adventure as DM, after only playing for a couple months. I didn't find the 3 story lines to be difficult. [sblock]The party stayed in Bryn Shander and sorted that, missed all of the dwarves and saw the consequence, and followed the east lake story through to the conclusion of the adventure. It actually went really well.[/sblock]

 

[Tamás Hoffmann]

Hey!

This module is very nice! I use it as the base of my adventure, I'm trying to run it in a few days. Do you have the random encounters table? I could really use it and I left the DM screen in a bar where we played the last time a few months ago. I was OK about it but I just realized that I really need it for the continuation! (they are just about to leave Byrn Shander and enter the Wiiiilds, so I could use the random tables). Could you help pls?

Thanks!

 

[Tormyr]

I thought the "D&D Next" stats *were* 5e. Can you explain what the difference is?

D&D Next was the public play test for 5e. The last couple revisions were still a bit different than 5e in several ways including:
* PC creation
* PC power vs monsters (PCs were updated, monsters not quite as much)
* Encounter building

I used the play test rules to calculate the D&D Next "Encounter Level" (to steal a 3.5 term) for each of LotCS's encounters and then made medium encounters for 4 PCs based on the Encounter Level. So an EL of 3 meant a medium encounter for 4 level 3 PCs, even if the party is level 2 at that point. That would make it a Hard encounter for the level 2 party.

It was a quick and dirty conversion. I think I powered through it in a couple evenings so someone here would be able to use the adventure for their group. So no guarantee it is very well balanced.

EDIT: Oops, I thought I had responded to a question like this before. I missed that it wasn't the last post in the thread.

 

[Tormyr]

Hey!

This module is very nice! I use it as the base of my adventure, I'm trying to run it in a few days. Do you have the random encounters table? I could really use it and I left the DM screen in a bar where we played the last time a few months ago. I was OK about it but I just realized that I really need it for the continuation! (they are just about to leave Byrn Shander and enter the Wiiiilds, so I could use the random tables). Could you help pls?

Thanks!

I don't think I have my copy any more. Do you have Volo's Guide? If so, use the Arctic Encouters for levels 1-4 on page 92.

 

[machineelf]

LotCS is a fantastic adventure. I DM'd a group using it when I was relatively new to DMing and they were new to playing, and it worked fantastic. What I highly recommend to make it work well is to make a calendar for yourself, and put down all the events that will happen over the course of the adventure on the calendar. Then track your characters' story day-by-day. The events on the calendar will unfold whether the characters do anything about it or not, but if they choose to get involved, they can change and alter those events. But because the events follow three main story plots, and they occur in different parts of Icewind Dale, your players will not be able to address everything, so they will have to choose. That's the fun of the adventure.

My group has been playing for three or four years since then regularly, and still today that is our favorite adventure we've ever played together.