D&D Essentials Kit

wicked cool · Jan 17, 2020

if you combined them what order would you play them. I think im having the board replaced with the dwarf from the starter and hes involved in the mini quests

Burnside · Jan 19, 2020

wicked cool said:
if you combined them what order would you play them. I think im having the board replaced with the dwarf from the starter and hes involved in the mini quests

I would run LMOP as written through the end of chapter two. skipping DoIP's 3 starter quests (of the 3, only Gnomengard is particularly good). Then I'd replace most of LMoP's Chapter 3 sidequests with better ones from DoIP, and run the two adventures more or less simulatneously from that point, letting the players decide where to go & what to do.

Nebulous · Jan 19, 2020

Burnside said:
I would run LMOP as written through the end of chapter two. skipping DoIP's 3 starter quests (of the 3, only Gnomengard is particularly good). Then I'd replace most of LMoP's Chapter 3 sidequests with better ones from DoIP, and run the two adventures more or less simulatneously from that point, letting the players decide where to go & what to do.

Thundertree and Cragmaw Castle are excellent in Chapter 3, and have great maps, I would definitely recommend running those.

Burnside · Jan 19, 2020

Nebulous said:
Thundertree and Cragmaw Castle are excellent in Chapter 3, and have great maps, I would definitely recommend running those.

Cragmaw I would not consider a side-quest; it's part of the main plotline of LMoP and shouldn't be cut.

Thundertree has a nice map but storywise it's under-drawn. It feels like somebody said "put a dragon, some cultists, some zombies, and a druid here" and somebody else made a desultory effort to tie them together. Or else stuff got left on the cutting room floor for page count reasons.

Nebulous · Jan 19, 2020

Burnside said:
Cragmaw I would not consider a side-quest; it's part of the main plotline of LMoP and shouldn't be cut.

Thundertree has a nice map but storywise it's under-drawn. It feels like somebody said "put a dragon, some cultists, some zombies, and a druid here" and somebody else made a desultory effort to tie them together. Or else stuff got left on the cutting room floor for page count reasons.

The Thundertree plot could be better, yes. I think it's a good start for a story if the DM fleshes it out some. Both times I've run it I've added a dragon egg clutch the cultists are most interested in. It changes the dynamic considerably.

aco175 · Jan 19, 2020

I'm looking forward to running this, but see where some will need to be modified. I have run a few campaigns in Phandalin so far and already modified the town and several NPCs with one being Harbin the quest giver.

I do like the dragon as the overall threat and looming problem that weaves all the quests together. The orcs coming out of the mountains is fine except there is only one type of orc and I tend to make orc archers and thugs along with a orc caster or chief. There is quest based leveling which I'm coming around to with my last campaign.

Nebulous · Jan 19, 2020

I am considering overlapping the territory of Venomfang and the white dragon, and that will leave Phandalin roughly in the middle of a draconic no-man's land. Which for dramatic purposes would be pretty cool.