D&D 5E Lost Mines *Spoiler* Glasstaff

[Tobold]

I am planning to play the Lost Mines of Phandelver, but not using the pregenerated characters. Which means that none of my players will have a background already establishing an enmity with Glasstaff. If I play the adventure as written the sequence will most likely go something like this:

• The party rescues Sildar and learns that he is looking for a mage named Iarno Albrek
• The party comes to Phandalin and learns of the Redbrands and their leader Glasstaff. It is unlikely that they will make the connection to Iarno.
• The party attacks the Redbrand Hideout. They take one of the more likely ways instead of finding all the secret doors, so they get to room 11 before room 12. Glasstaff is warned and flees.
• The players only find the letter identifying Glasstaff as Iarno when he is gone.
• Played as written, the players never hear from Glasstaff again.

Is it just me or does this make Glasstaff a very uninteresting villain?

I was thinking about the following modifications:

• Have Sildar mention that Iarno is carrying a magical staff made out of crystal, so the players have a reasonable chance to make the connection and establish Glasstaff as a traitor.
• Add two Redbrand Ruffians to room 11, feeding the rat. The rat still alerts Glasstaff, but instead of running away, he will join the fight at the very end of the first round.

Alternatively I could add Glasstaff to the adventure somewhere later, e.g. somebody saw him flee in the direction of Thundertree. However I was thinking that the other adventure locations are already well stocked with villains, so I don't really need a recurring one.

What do you think? What is the best way to handle Glasstaff? As written, or as "end boss" of the hideout?

 

[Glomb175]

I'd say see how it pans out. You can plan and plan and plan but more often than not, it all goes out the window when your PCs decided to do something completely unexpected and often more interesting. Ultimately I don't think it'll really make a difference because Glasstaff isn't the end boss, it's the black spider.

 

[CapnZapp]

[*]The party attacks the Redbrand Hideout. They take one of the more likely ways instead of finding all the secret doors, so they get to room 11 before room 12. Glasstaff is warned and flees.

Your players must be very much unlike mine.

Glasstaff is unlikely to even last three combat rounds, and if he flees, the players will drop everything else, bend over backwards, put their characters' lives in great danger; all for the singular purpose of catching and killing him.



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[ArwensDaughter]

Glasstaff fled when I ran it. On advice from members of the now gone WOTC forums, I replaced the mage in one of the side quests with Glassstaff. So that's one option. There were some other interesting suggestions, but I'm afraid it didn't occur to me to move the thread to the lifeboat here when those forums shut down. You could search these forums for references to Glasstaff, though.

I think there's an adventure or two in the DMs Guild built around the return of Glasstaff.


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[Tobold]

If played as written, the players never even meet Glasstaff. It isn't even obvious when they find his empty room that he was warned by his familiar and just escaped.

However that might make for another good modification to the adventure: Make it more obvious that Glasstaff just escaped a minute ago and play a chase. However one would probably have to remove his potion of invisibility from the plot to do that.

 

[CydKnight]

I am planning to play the Lost Mines of Phandelver, but not using the pregenerated characters. Which means that none of my players will have a background already establishing an enmity with Glasstaff. If I play the adventure as written the sequence will most likely go something like this:

• The party rescues Sildar and learns that he is looking for a mage named Iarno Albrek
• The party comes to Phandalin and learns of the Redbrands and their leader Glasstaff. It is unlikely that they will make the connection to Iarno.
• The party attacks the Redbrand Hideout. They take one of the more likely ways instead of finding all the secret doors, so they get to room 11 before room 12. Glasstaff is warned and flees.
• The players only find the letter identifying Glasstaff as Iarno when he is gone.
• Played as written, the players never hear from Glasstaff again.

Is it just me or does this make Glasstaff a very uninteresting villain?

I was thinking about the following modifications:

• Have Sildar mention that Iarno is carrying a magical staff made out of crystal, so the players have a reasonable chance to make the connection and establish Glasstaff as a traitor.
• Add two Redbrand Ruffians to room 11, feeding the rat. The rat still alerts Glasstaff, but instead of running away, he will join the fight at the very end of the first round.

Alternatively I could add Glasstaff to the adventure somewhere later, e.g. somebody saw him flee in the direction of Thundertree. However I was thinking that the other adventure locations are already well stocked with villains, so I don't really need a recurring one.

What do you think? What is the best way to handle Glasstaff? As written, or as "end boss" of the hideout?

You may already be aware but for those who aren't, there is a side adventure if Glasstaff gets away called "Glasstaff's Revenge" on the DMs Guild. He got away in our Lost Mine of Phandelver campaign and when the party completed that adventure, this was the first thing I ran afterwards.

 

[akr71]

My players found his secret stash in the well/cistern and then found the secret door leading to his lab. They totally got the drop on Glasstaff and like others said, the combat did not last long. He surrendered, they arrested him and then made the Glasstaff is Iarno connection.

Out of game, while the party was clearing the Castle, Iarno escaped from his guards while being transported to Neverwinter for trial. His rat familiar (which nobody had seen) gnawed through his ropes.

The Black Spider also surrendered to the party and when he was to be transported to Neverwinter for trial, Glasstaff freed him. I have been using these two as re-occurring villains for the party. They get so excited when there is a hint that either one of these two is involved in whatever dastardly plot is afoot!

 

[Gilthanis]

So far in my campaign, Iarno did escape but a few sessions later, the party ambushed a small band of orcs transporting a hooded figure from Cragmaw. They don't know it yet but this is Iarno who has been beaten by the Black Spider for his failure in Phandalin. The party rescues him but through unfortunate rolls, knocked him off of a horse and he is now unconscious.....


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[tglassy]

My Glasstaff wound up totally owned by my party. The paladin, fearing someone was going to find them in the room, jumped in the cistern and found the bag with the invisibility potions. Then they found all the secret doors. Then one of our Fighters snuck up behind Glasstaff and managed to take the staff before the mage knew he was there. Then they tied him up after he surrendered, and continued exploring, and found the rat, to which the other fighter just killed outright for no reason, then jumped for joy when he found out it was the Mage's familiar.

And none of them used the pregen characters.

 

[GlassJaw]

My players found his secret stash in the well/cistern and then found the secret door leading to his lab. They totally got the drop on Glasstaff and like others said, the combat did not last long. He surrendered, they arrested him and then made the Glasstaff is Iarno connection.

My players also found the secret door to his lab and surprised him. They took the tunnel in the woods that led into the cavern and then went north into the room with the secret doors.

After reading through the module, my impression of "Glasstaff" was of a power-hungry fledgling wizard that got bored with politics of the big city and decided to strike out on his own. He's clearly not ready for a career in the underworld and really just wants to find a way to make invisibility potions (his get-rich quick scheme). Because of that, he'll do anything to save his own butt.

So yeah, definitely not a very interesting villain, but I like that. Overall, it's a nice lesson early on: either the players learn that sometimes things don't go their way and the bad guy escapes or that not all bad guys are really all that imposing.

We ended the last session with the fighter grappling him so he wouldn't escape and then the PC wizard getting a really good roll on Sleep. We'll pick up next session with Glasstaff asleep for 1 minute and then players deciding what to do. They want to interrogate him but they don't know he has Misty Step.