D&D 5E Help! Getting My Group to Thundertree (Lost Mine of Phandelver)

[jayoungr]

Thanks for your suggestions, everyone! They were really helpful in getting my mind going along the right path. I just thought I'd report on how I ended up handling it.

I went with Iarno Albrek as the hook to get the party to Thundertree. I decided Iarno had stolen Gundren Rockseeker's map and gone to Thundertree looking to enlist Venomfang's help in taking over the mine operation from the Black Spider. So when the party rescued Gundren from Cragmaw Castle, they couldn't find his map. Gundren remembered seeing a wizard around the castle, and they also found a slip of paper with the words "Thundertree" and "Venomfang" on it. That gave them some investigation to roleplay, since they had to figure out what those words meant.

I'm posting a fuller writeup of how the session went in the Thundertree thread.

As a side note, the party was 4th level, but the twig blights and zombies were laughably easy for them. They negotiated with the dragon instead of fighting. I hope the mine will be more challenging for them.

 

[The_Gneech]

If your players are anything like mine, they're not likely to have much trouble in the mines if they're 4th level. I've had to beef up everything to prevent a cakewalk. Fortunately, "add one or two more" to any given encounter usually does the trick.

-TG

 

[jayoungr]

If your players are anything like mine, they're not likely to have much trouble in the mines if they're 4th level. I've had to beef up everything to prevent a cakewalk. Fortunately, "add one or two more" to any given encounter usually does the trick.

Thanks for the tip. I think I'll go add a few monsters right away. I can always take them out again if it seems to be getting too tough. It would also help if I could roll decent initiative for a change; I don't think I rolled in the double digits for the entirety of Thundertree.

 

[Nebulous]

Sounds cool. We have our next Thundertree session tomorrow where I find out if they negotiate with Venomfang or not. I suspect they will, and set up a plan to betray the cultists. BUT...who knows! They might surprise me.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Well, my plan didn't work as well as expected. Despite the notes saying that Vyerith would fight to the death rather than being captured, the game allows the players to knock enemies unconscious with melee hits that knock them to 0 hp, so she got captured.

The party had turned into the night with the captives previously, so this session started with the interrogation in the morning. Vyerith had spend a lot of time reading the minds of the characters (while they were on watch and in the morning) so she knew their most recent experiences and goals. Since she didn't want to give away anything about the Black Spider, she had a plan.

She tried to get them to give her 100 gp and her freedom for information about the Black Spider. They were reluctant to pay that much, but the other captives (the king and the "priest) didn't know squat, so they kept up the interrogation, mixing and matching intimidation with some haggling. Vyerith's confidence is probably what helped her fool them, and she did a pretty good job. Since the party had just come from Thundertree, where all they did was talk to the druid a bit and then leave, she made up a convincing story (based on mind-read info) that the Black Spider was really the druid in Thundertree, and that there was actually no dragon--his real base was hidden under the tower and he sent people that direction to ambush them. She also made up some information that partly agreed with what the druid had told the party about the rest of the town and partly contradicted. There was more to her story, but it was all internally consistent and plausible. So far so good. They agreed to pay her 50 gp and release her, after they had verified her story. That would have given her time to plot her escape before she was caught in her lie.

Unfortunately, the agreement involved submitting to a zone of truth by the cleric the next day.

She didn't get a good opportunity to attempt to escape during their travel that day, nor overnight, and in the morning found herself in a zone of truth intentionally failing her saving throw (or the cleric would have known--I *love* the way the spell works this edition). She tried to avoid giving away her fabrication by speaking only the truth without correcting lies she had already made (a pretty good attempt too--they asked her if she had been completely truthful, she said no, they asked her what she had lied about, and she told them about various irrelevent details she had fabricated--that sort of thing), but they eventually got down to the bottom of everything.

They characters had a lot of debate over the ethical and pragmatic considerations of what to do with her. The LN cleric felt she had honored her actual agreement and should be released, while some of the others didn't want to let her go. Under the zone of truth they asked her what she would do if they released her, and she said she would probably go to Neverwinter and take a ship to somewhere else far away. That was the truth, since she couldn't return to the Black Spider.

Eventually she did get set free with her 50 gp and her life, but that took up most of the session. Armed with the knowledge that the Black Spider had Gundren's brothers, they had no believable reason not to head straight to Wave Echo Cave, so they did.

I figure after they take out Wave Echo Cave I may buff up the rest of the optional side-quests a bit and let them go take them out, since I think the players are interested in do so, and the rewards offered are pretty good motivation.