D&D 5E Lost wagon of Phandelver

[Zoltar the Sage]

I'm reading Lost mine of Phandelver but the first thing that I thought was: "Well, will party leave their precious wagon to follow goblins?"
Ok they can hide it, but there are 2 ox! Probably someone will protect it meanwhile other will go to investigate Cragmaw Hideout but none wants split the party.
Did your party split?
How you have resolved this situation?

Thanks for your suggestions!


zoltar
http://thesageadvice.wordpress.com/

 

[JWO]

I'm DMing the starter set and my party just tied the oxen up. They weren't in the goblin hideout for that long so the oxen were fine out there.

They're all newbie RPers so I didn't want to get too bogged down in how the oxen were going to get dealt with!

 

[Morrus]

We had the same conversation. The party decided to hide the wagon off-road and take the two oxen with them.

 

[Nilbog]

I was worried about this, but luckily when they got to the caves one of our players was missing for a couple of sessions so we conveniently had his character guard the wagon.

As I remember tho, outside the caves there is a little hidey area where the sentries keep watch, surely it would be easy enough to hide the oxen and cart here, without having to suspend disbelief too much that they are still there upon return?

 

[Bumamgar]

Given that it is extremely rare for a battle in 5e to last beyond 10 rounds (ie: 1 minute), it really only takes the party about 15 - 20 minutes of in-game time to clear out the Cragmaw Hideout. If the roads are so highly trafficked and full of bandits that a wagon isn't safe for that period, the goblins wouldn't be the biggest threat to the area and the adventure would be 'Highway robbers on the Triboar Trail' instead

Sure, if the party has some bad luck and finds themselves needing to take a short rest, it might take a little longer, but they shouldn't be taking the short rest in the hideout anyway, and would likely return to the relative 'safety' of the trail and the wagon before resting.

 

[Plaguescarred]

Each time i ran Lost Mine the party hid the wagon and ox

 

[Boarstorm]

My players split up, leaving one with the Wagon while the others followed the trail. Upon discovering the hideout, they went back and regrouped, hid the Wagon, and assaulted the hideout together.

 

[GameDoc]

Our party never had to leave the wagon. We got ambushed when we stopped to investigate the dead horses. The cleric expended all his spells to avert a TPK and we went into town to regroup. There we wound up contending with Redbrands the rest of the session.

 

[Gilladian]

I was lucky - they hid the wagon at the end of our first session, and then the second session, two players didn't come and I had a new player join - so the absent PCs guarded the wagon. Now, on the way to Phandalin proper, the new player can't make it, and at least one of the original missing players will be back, so it should work out perfectly.

But if that hadn't happened, even if they were gone for several hours, I'd be unlikely to do anything cruel to the wagon/oxen. It just doesn't seem VERY likely, and would make new players, of whom I have several, frustrated and wary of any decision they made in the future. I'd rather have bad stuff happen later, when they're more used to the game and it seems less arbitrary.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I also had absent player characters guard the wagon.

The wagon that's actually causing a little trouble is the one that originally held the supplies that are stored away in Cragmaw Hideout. My players currently believe that the goblins took it to Cragmaw Castle, and that following the wagon there will be easy. I have a suprise for them, but in the meantime, it makes me wonder what was supposedly done with that wagon.