D&D 5E Starter Set: Lost Mines Resources

[Hutchimus Prime]

I'm looking to finally run the Lost Mines of Phandelver from the Start Set. I was wondering if there were any good resources out there to help me run it or enhance it? Something along the lines of the old Star Wars Saga Edition"Dawn of Defiance" threads from the WOTC boards. I've done my own Google searching but haven't found much. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[iserith]

When I ran it, I modified it a bit to make it into a Spaghetti Western. You can see some of the notes and conversions for the early chapters here.

 

[Warren LaFrance]

My setup is as follows for the game I run at my house...
1. I use roll20 to replace my traditional map and such on the table.
2. I use 1 monitor to run the game via the roll20 application and another LCD TV so the player can see the digital map

Before the digital tools, I found maps online for sale @ http://prints.mikeschley.com/p856083253 which you can order printed or get in a digital format.

Cartographers guild is a great resource for maps too.

Plus, for some of the theater of the mind maps I recommend drawing them out for larger combats.

If you are running a large group 4+ players you may need to tweak the difficulty of the monsters.. (up the hit points not the number of monsters)

 

[thanson02]

I would look and see what's going on in the city of Neverwinter from The Sword Coast Adventures Guide. Also if you don't mind looking at some of the 4E material, the Neverwinter campaign guide will give you a little more background information on what has gone on in the region recently to so you can get a better understanding of the environments that your players might be going through with the side quests in the adventure.

Sent from my XT1096 using Tapatalk

 

[aco175]

I know there is several DMsGuild modules for after you finish and it looked like you could plan it to tie into Storm King's Thunder fairly well. Maybe throw some giant references in as you play if you go that route.

 

[guachi]

Go here: http://dnd-edit.tumblr.com/

Grab the totally awesome maps this guy has made (free!)

Print them out at about 40% size. I redid my margins to 1/4 inch on the left and right and 1/2 inch on the top and bottom. This left my page 8x10 and at 40% it fit perfectly for a scale of 1"=5 ft.

I printed them out using an inkjet set at "fast" quality and the result was more than good enough to wow my players with the rooms.

There is one map, the first one, that he doesn't have available. For that you can go to the aforementioned site of Mike Schley and get the original map. I believe I printed the Schley maps at 200% size with the same margins.

 

[koga305]

Not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but I wrote a series of blog posts talking through the process of running the starter set for a new Dungeon Master. Here's a link to the first one.

 

[guachi]

I've read the blog posts koga305 mentions and they are good for a first time DM.

There's a lot going on in Lost Mines and it's easy for thing to go awry.

Just tonight I was running LMOP for Adventurers League and they were finishing up the Red Brand Hideout after clearing half last week.

Unfortunately only one of the three players was back from last week and there were two new first level characters along with the second level paladin in a dungeon designed for four second level characters.

There a room with three bugbears which I reduced to one. Even knowing the bugbear was there they lost and all three PCs dropped to zero HP. Luckily the dungeon has a jail so I put them there with one hp each and one guard. Nothing like no equipment and one hp to get the players thinking.

By good fortune, they made their way immediately to the armory, though they didn't know it was there. They thought going past the crypts was a bad idea (correct). They found all their stuff and rested.

In any event, be prepared for stuff like this to happen.

 

[Hutchimus Prime]

[MENTION=6785802]guachi[/MENTION] those maps are awesome thanks!
[MENTION=6747640]koga305[/MENTION] your blog is along the lines of what I'm looking for.

Thank to everyone else who posted as well.

 

[robus]

You've seen this thread I imagine? http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...t-Mine-of-Phandelver-(Errata-amp-Suggestions)