D&D 5E New DM Starting 5e. . . go with adapted RotRL or HotDQ?

[jayoungr]

I ran Lost Mine of Phandelver for my group last fall, and we had a great time. I'll put in another vote to make that your group's first 5E experience.

For after that ... don't let the negative opinions of some on this board scare you away from Tyranny of Dragons. I'm going on to run it next, and I'm excited about it; it will need a little tweaking, but there is a lot of cool stuff in there. There are some great blogs with tips on how to handle the trickier bits.

That said, though, Rise of the Runelords has a longer history, a bigger reputation (name recognition), and lots of support. Those things might give your campaign more momentum.

Maybe float both ideas to your group and see what they like? I don't think you can really go wrong either way.

(P.S. Any hints on where one could find this 5E conversion of RotRL? You can PM me if it's the sort of thing that shouldn't go into a board post.) --EDIT: Never mind, think I found it by Googling.

 

[Gecko85]

Not familiar with RotRL, so can't comment. But, I don't think HotDQ is the best place to start if you're just jumping back in after 30 years. We're going through it right now, and I know our DM has had to do a lot of work to fill in gaps and other tweaks. It's been fun, and I recommend the module, but I don't think it's a good place to start.

I'll throw another vote in for Lost Mines of Phandelver (which I ran as a DM - my first tome DM-ing in about 25 years). It was fantastic for both DM and players. I truly think it's an instant classic. Easily the best Starter/Basic set module yet produced, and makes a pretty strong case for top 10 (easily top 30) of any published adventures. Great mix of sandbox-ish play (lots and lots of side quests that can be explored or ignored, no true "correct" order of doing things, etc.) with just enough railroad-ish play to keep things moving, without being truly railroad-y.

 

[Jester David]

Thanks for the tips. Can I ask how you adapted it, Inchoroi, and most specifically how you changed loot tables and treasure? Pathfinder relies on the pc's having access to so much more gold and magic items than in 5e, my concern is maintaining balance.

I'd ignore the treasure in the book and use the DMG to add hordes where appropriate.

And where encounters are concerned, did you simply substitute monsters from the 5e MM for those in RotRL or did you create entirely new stat blocks for them? I'm way too new and don't yet have a grasp of either system to be able to adapt in that way.

Sometimes you should be able to use monsters as is, other times you'll need to find a replacement. Other times you'll be best served making a new monster.

I'd put some effort making sure the encounters are balanced. It's not that tricky and it's a good way to learn that part of the system while not having to concern yourself with creating a story or town or NPCs

 

[Tormyr]

Thanks for the tips. Can I ask how you adapted it, Inchoroi, and most specifically how you changed loot tables and treasure? Pathfinder relies on the pc's having access to so much more gold and magic items than in 5e, my concern is maintaining balance.

And where encounters are concerned, did you simply substitute monsters from the 5e MM for those in RotRL or did you create entirely new stat blocks for them? I'm way too new and don't yet have a grasp of either system to be able to adapt in that way.

Thanks!

I am running Age of Worms, a 3.5 AP, and have run it with almost no changes to treasure. The adventure still works well, but the PCs are more decked out than they normally would be in 5e. You can go in a couple of directions:
-Ignore all the treasure and roll for everything. This will be closest to a standard 5e adventure. There is also very little in the way of magic items that need converting this way.
-Keep all the treasure as is. An additional monster may be required in some encounters to balance the party punching above their weight.
-Only keep significant pieces of treasure and roll the rest.
-Divide value of all treasure by 10. Easy number that seems to get the balance close to 5e.

Honestly, any direction will work. You just need to decide which way you want to go.

 

[Nebulous]

Might I suggest going for the D&D Starter Set? The adventure there is great; it will allow your players to get a handle on 5E, and then you can choose to continue on to Hoard afterwards (starting in Chapter 4), or do something else.

Cheers!

I second Merric, I would highly, highly suggest the Starter Set. It's not dumbed down, simplistic or sub-par by any means.

 

[neobolts]

Might I suggest going for the D&D Starter Set? The adventure there is great; it will allow your players to get a handle on 5E, and then you can choose to continue on to Hoard afterwards (starting in Chapter 4), or do something else.

Agreed. Lost Mine of Phandelver in the starter set is a great way to go. I would however roll characters rather than use the pre-gens.

 

[Nebulous]

I'll through another vote in for Lost Mines of Phandelver (which I ran as a DM - my first tome DM-ing in about 25 years). It was fantastic for both DM and players. I truly think it's an instant classic. Easily the best Starter/Basic set module yet produced, and makes a pretty strong case for top 10 (easily top 30) of any published adventures. Great mix of sandbox-ish play (lots and lots of side quests that can be explored or ignored, no true "correct" order of doing things, etc.) with just enough railroad-ish play to keep things moving, without being truly railroad-y.

And to agree with Gecko, i also think Lost Mine is an instant classic, and perhaps underrated because people might assume because it's a "starter set" it's not up to snuff, but that's simply not true. It's a genuinely awesome adventure module and filled with oodles of ways a DM can branch out and make it unique.

 

[Nebulous]

Agreed. Lost Mine of Phandelver in the starter set is a great way to go. I would however roll characters rather than use the pre-gens.

I would suggest roll your own characters but use some of the background themes from the pre-gens, they're filled with interesting nuances to get characters involved with the story and setting.

 

[pontinyc]

This is all fantastically helpful info, thanks very much! I admittedly did assume that Phandelver wouldn't be as rich in detail as other modules simply because it's a starter but will certainly pick it up to check it out.

One question regarding that choice would be where to go from after that module? The players love the idea of working all the way to high level play and I only have time to run a pregen. Should I jump over to HotDQ after Phandelver?

There are tons of great, though differing, opinions here. I think I was pretty enamored with RotTL because I'm very familiar with it and still haven't dismissed it as an option. But I certainly need to see what else is out there for 5e, it seems.

 

[Tommy Brownell]

I will offer the dissenting opinion: I'm the DM for my group, and they are level 8 now, having finished Hoard of the Dragon Queen. We are having an absolute blast right now, maybe the most fun I have ever had with D&D. Yeah, I've had some blanks to fill in, but that's part of the fun for me as the DM.

We have not had a bad session yet in this campaign, and we have had multiple memorable encounters.