I had the same reaction to the weak characterization of Iarno/Glasstaff, and modded the adventure quite a bit to compensate for that and some other changes. Here's how I handled Glasstaff. Once my group finishes up LMoP in the next few weeks, I'll share a more comprehensive write-up of all of the changes I made to the campaign as written.
In the Gobin hideout right after the ambush, I added a (loosely defined) puzzle. There was a path behind a waterfall at the end of the main hallway, and a small room behind the waterfall. The room had a small stonework pedestal in it, with an empty spherical space at the top, obviously meant to hold something. There was a small opening through the cave ceiling directly above the pedestal. When the party defeated Klarg, they looted two cloudy looking glass orbs (one red, one purple), that the party identified were roughly the same size as the pedestal. Both orbs glowed with a faint magical energy. When they placed either stone on the pedestal, it had a magic effect. as described below:
The other affect of these orbs was that, since the party chose to take them with them, I had Glasstaff do a sort of scrying on them at the start of the next session as the group approached Phandalin. I had the sorceress who was holding the orbs experience a dream/vision during their long rest after clearing the hideout where she was in a place vaguely reminiscent of the astral plane, and the red orb was emanating a light. She could tell something was using it to track them but couldn't disable it. As a hooded figure (that they recognized as glasstaff/the mage from the projection in the cave) floated towards her reaching out for the orb, I had her experience a wild magic roll and wake up
This all helped to build up Glasstaff up at least a little bit as a threat and get them familiar with his likeness before they ran into him.
I also made sure that when they rescued Sildar, he mentioned that his colleague Iarno Albrek had been stationed in Phandalin and may be able to help them. When iknvestigating Phandalin, NPCs would relay that they knew Iarno but he mostly kept to himself, and hadn't been seen for some time. His disappearance roughly coincided with the Redbrands increasing their presence in Phandalin, but I didn't make a big deal out of that. It was just mentioned in passing.
I don't know that I'd recommend this for everyone, but I ignored the guidance in the book and did not have Glasstaff escape when the party alerted his familiar in the Redbrand hideout. Instead, I had him prepare a spell and get the jump on the party. It was fairly deadly (3/6 PCs went down), but they subdued him after a few rounds of combat. In his quarters, they found several notes and a map to Cragmaw addressed from Nezznar to Iarno, making the Iarno/Glasstaff connection. I thought that it might make sense for him to use a cheesy name like "Glasstaff" to intimidate the Redbrands who followed him, but wouldn't make much sense with someone more powerful like the Black Spider.
Given that he was a pretty low level wizard, I also had Iarno be of interest to the black spider because he was providing alchemy support and potions to support his attack on wave echo cave. This seemed like a better motivation to make Iarno valuable to the spider, and allowed some minor hooks to a few other plots that emerged with my PCs.
The party intimidated Iarno enough to start spilling the beans on everything he knew, so before he had a chance to escape the Black Spider had him assassinated by one of the dopplegangers before he could give up more of his plan. Had it gone differently, there may have been opportunity for him to escape and become a recurring villain. In hindsight, that could have been especially cool with some of the Foil rules from the recent UA. I'll likely try that next time I run this, depending on how things play out with the PCs.
In the Gobin hideout right after the ambush, I added a (loosely defined) puzzle. There was a path behind a waterfall at the end of the main hallway, and a small room behind the waterfall. The room had a small stonework pedestal in it, with an empty spherical space at the top, obviously meant to hold something. There was a small opening through the cave ceiling directly above the pedestal. When the party defeated Klarg, they looted two cloudy looking glass orbs (one red, one purple), that the party identified were roughly the same size as the pedestal. Both orbs glowed with a faint magical energy. When they placed either stone on the pedestal, it had a magic effect. as described below:
- When the purple orb was placed, a beam of light from the ceiling opening came down through the stone, and lit up engravings that wound their way down the pedestal. The stone then projected an image onto the back of the waterfall (think the hologram at the beginning of A New Hope), and the party saw an image of what appeared to be a wizard with a covered face and a glass staff giving the goblin leader (Klarg) instructions on how/where to capture and transport Gundren and his entourage, and to stop anyone that may come looking for him.
- When the red orb was placed, it worked in reverse. The pedestal started glowing from the bottom up, and shot a red beam of light through the opening in the ceiling (essentially giving the goblins a way to trigger an alarm/alert Glasstaff in Phandalin). The party could get some insight into the purpose of this orb through a successful arcana check. My PCs chose to place it anyway, and it gave Glasstaff and his Redbrands in Phandalin a warning that something had gone wrong with the ambush. Several PCs, including one who had met the party shortly before the ambush, noted that they could visibly see the light in the scy from the direction that the party came from after tracking down the goblin cave.
The other affect of these orbs was that, since the party chose to take them with them, I had Glasstaff do a sort of scrying on them at the start of the next session as the group approached Phandalin. I had the sorceress who was holding the orbs experience a dream/vision during their long rest after clearing the hideout where she was in a place vaguely reminiscent of the astral plane, and the red orb was emanating a light. She could tell something was using it to track them but couldn't disable it. As a hooded figure (that they recognized as glasstaff/the mage from the projection in the cave) floated towards her reaching out for the orb, I had her experience a wild magic roll and wake up
This all helped to build up Glasstaff up at least a little bit as a threat and get them familiar with his likeness before they ran into him.
I also made sure that when they rescued Sildar, he mentioned that his colleague Iarno Albrek had been stationed in Phandalin and may be able to help them. When iknvestigating Phandalin, NPCs would relay that they knew Iarno but he mostly kept to himself, and hadn't been seen for some time. His disappearance roughly coincided with the Redbrands increasing their presence in Phandalin, but I didn't make a big deal out of that. It was just mentioned in passing.
I don't know that I'd recommend this for everyone, but I ignored the guidance in the book and did not have Glasstaff escape when the party alerted his familiar in the Redbrand hideout. Instead, I had him prepare a spell and get the jump on the party. It was fairly deadly (3/6 PCs went down), but they subdued him after a few rounds of combat. In his quarters, they found several notes and a map to Cragmaw addressed from Nezznar to Iarno, making the Iarno/Glasstaff connection. I thought that it might make sense for him to use a cheesy name like "Glasstaff" to intimidate the Redbrands who followed him, but wouldn't make much sense with someone more powerful like the Black Spider.
Given that he was a pretty low level wizard, I also had Iarno be of interest to the black spider because he was providing alchemy support and potions to support his attack on wave echo cave. This seemed like a better motivation to make Iarno valuable to the spider, and allowed some minor hooks to a few other plots that emerged with my PCs.
The party intimidated Iarno enough to start spilling the beans on everything he knew, so before he had a chance to escape the Black Spider had him assassinated by one of the dopplegangers before he could give up more of his plan. Had it gone differently, there may have been opportunity for him to escape and become a recurring villain. In hindsight, that could have been especially cool with some of the Foil rules from the recent UA. I'll likely try that next time I run this, depending on how things play out with the PCs.
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