Lost Mine - DM Rewards & XP/Milestones Question

[Koren n'Rhys]

Hi All,
I want to be sure I'm handling DM rewards and player XP correctly here. Running Lost Mine for D&D Encounters at my FLGS. Full table, about 2/3 new to 5E, a couple with some experience.

We just had our 4th session tonight and the party has finished Part 1, clearing out the goblin caves and moving on to Phandalin next session.

If I understand correctly, I as DM can finally log a reward of 300 XP & 150 GP. Even though it's 4 sessions, it's still just one "episode" of the adventure, correct?

How about my poor players? With a table of 7 every session, they aren't getting a very large piece of the XP pie, going by monsters defeated alone. It hasn't even been the same players each week - I have a little drop in/drop out, so the players who were there tonight are sitting at ~150XP after a full four sessions. Not enough to level up yet. I'm NOT supposed to be using the milestone XP, right? By that, they should be leveling up...

I should note that I did not adjust the encounters at all so far, and I'm thinking now that I should have done that. I expect I need to review the rules for adjusting encounters to better fit APL, etc. Is that my only avenue to bump things up as we move forward?

Thanks!

 

[Tyranthraxus]

Koren:

There are 4 sections to Lost mine (reflecting the 4 chapters). Which means as a DM you will received 300exp and 150 gold 4 times over the whol adventure.

There is apparently enough exp in each part of the Adventure to get level 1 characters to 2, then to 3, then to 4 then most of the way if not all the way to 5.

I ran Lost Mine however with 7 players meaning there never was going to be enough exp to do this (and I also had people drop in and out. I got around this by adding the numbers of monsters ( ie the kennel wolves guarding the front? I added 3 more. I also added more Goblins and Bugbears. It was enough to get nearly everyone to level 2. Keep in mind that Lost Mine also has a non combat exp awards sprinkled throughout. In fact clearing the cave AND resolving this party of the storyline awards each player 275 exp. This should be more than enough with the monsters to level the characters up. (page 12)

Essentially you cannot add any monsters that arnt already there, but you can increase the number of said monsters.

There is also the random encounter table, with a bit of work you can make it not so random

 

[Koren n'Rhys]

Thanks for the reply Tyranthraxus, I appreciate it. So I definitely should be bumping up number of monsters to both challenge and reward the players more. Now that they have a few sessions under their belts I pen on doing that.

The non-combat experience is my big question here. In a home game they would each be getting the 75 for getting to the cave, after the ambush, plus the 275 for clearing the cave. I thought for AL they don't get that though. Isn't that what's considered the milestone XP that isn't used?

 

[Tyranthraxus]

Milestone leveling really isnt award any exp at all.

Its saying 'At this point where they have cleaned out the graveyard, level all the characters up one level'

AL dosnt use this method, our logsheets must always been updated session after session as exp increases.

 

[Koren n'Rhys]

Oh, okay, I guess I completely misinterpreted what that term meant then. Well that's certainly good news - my players will be psyched! Now I have to make some notes and have them all revise their logsheets to correct them.

The wording in Lost Mine (pg 7 for example) is what threw me off, as it says:
AWARDING EXPERIENCE POINTS
Defeating the goblin ambushers and finding the Crgamaw hideout completes a story milestone. When the party arrives at the hideout, award each character 75 XP. Make sure the players record this gain on their character sheets.

Thanks for the clarification!

 

[Tyranthraxus]

If you want I can scratch up my notes to show you what my lost mine looked like. It was a lot deadlier than the standard but it was for 7 players (and included a level 2 character)

 

[Koren n'Rhys]

If it's easy to find them, then I'd be interested, sure. But don't go through any trouble on my account.

 

[Tyranthraxus]

If you want to do it yourself the best way to do it is to add up all the exp from a Chapter. (I generally just work out the Combat exp).

In the case of Chapter 1 of Lost Mine there are
21 Goblins,
3 Wolves
1 Bugbear

That gives you a combined exp on offer of 1450 (remember defeating your enemy isnt always killing them)

If you divide that by 5 you are looking at 290 exp each.. add in another wolf Which is worth 50 exp and you have 300 each.. so enough for level 2.

Now if you are aiming for 7 players, thats 2 more people. 1450 divided by 7 is 207.. so nowhere near enough to get to the next level. I added another 700 exp worth of stuff to get me to 2150 . Its not an exact science by any stretch and sometimes it does seem quite nasty but going from 5-7 players causes the exp division to get ugly.

I ncreased the number of Wolves in the Kennel to 6. (so thats 150 right there). I then added a second Bugbear replacing one of the goblins (Yeemik). This Bugbear while a smaller version of Klarg still wants to replace Klarg. (so there is +200 -50).

I then had 4 Goblins on the bridge all trying to hide (mostly unsuccessfully). (+150)

Finally in the room with Klarg I had 3 more goblins (+150) and 2 more Wolves (+100)

That puts me at 2150 exp and divide that by 7 and you get 307 exp and level 2.

The last Bugbear fight was brutal I might add!

 

[Koren n'Rhys]

Thanks for this, it helps a lot actually. I'm still learning 5E and it has a lot more crunch than I'm used to. I love the new edition, but I'm an old school guy at heart. Like I've often heard said of 5E, it's easily my second favorite edition!

I see what you're working to accomplish here and this gives me a much better idea of how you go about doing that. I think I just need to sit down with the adventure and a pad of paper, and spend some time bumping up the encounters to better balance with my larger table. Not difficult, just need to take the time. A good weekend project!

Again, I appreciate the help & guidance!

 

[Tyranthraxus]

THere is actually a decent part in the DMG which talks about exp increases for more players/threat. I dont have the page number on me and the section is a lttle hard to read (I actually find the DMG the least useful of the 3 core books) but there ya go. Keep in mind its only really useful for Lost Mine and Encounters/Modules. Expeditions dosnt need any sort of influence there.