D&D 5E OoTA - starting a PCs at 6th Level in this adventure, any ideas?

[Aeternal]

So I am hoping to get some feedback from you all on starting OoTA at level 6th characters who have finished the Phandelver Adventure and they also fought some Uthugart werewolf tribe called the Grey Wolves.

How would you start 6th level PCs off after Phandelver? I want them to start the game near the same area as I left them in, around the town of Phandalin, maybe the Sword Mountains to the south or after being lured again to the Mines of Wave Echo Cave... assuming the mini-lake recedes and maybe drains away down into the depths or I present some way for them to trek farther down.

My Players don't mind being led by the nose... they had some sandboxing with the Werewolves and a Orc Hunting party of Elves but beyond that we don't play enough for them to become immersed too much so far in D&D beyond once or twice every two months... sucks, but that's reality for me.

Ok... so, the one thing to take into account, is, they never GOT the Blackspider, Nezzar. They encountered him in the Temple in the North Western Room with the Dwarven Idol... but, I improvised and they would have fought several drow warriors (not elites) and a female Acolyte who was going to be scaled down in power. She had a portal open and the PCs could see a settlement or city in the distance through the portal, and they instantly meta-gamed and thought "Menzo", well, they ran... and the drow didn't press the issue and ended up taking the core magical power from the Forge of Spells, and all the magical texts and historical documents (but the PCs did also to some extent... some of it) including magical item logbooks and such about the past with the mines and forge.

So... the PCs do have a history now with the Drow and I and anyone else can assume that Nezzar will want some revenge, just for fun and a little cruelty sprinkled in... and maybe try to take the PCs and capture them... ?

Any ideas to get them down into the underdark, all the way up north in Velk? Do they necessarily need to be captured? If so, they have considerable amount of offensive magical items and spells and such... but they are still far from invulnerable, so I guess it might be plausible that they could be captured... those handy Drow "Sleepy" hand-crossbows would do that trick...?

Oh, also... I almost forgot... they are Harpers now with very little influence and also one is a double agent for them, who is also a Zhent. Oh, also two are inflicted with becoming lycons and will eventually start to turn... at some point, most likely at some wonderfully inappropriate moment... but I don't want to take general control away from them, they can make decisions, but will need to do it from that 'werewolf' perspective when a change occurs.

So, any ideas from you guys/gals? I am welcome to any ideas, but the most useful are ones based on experience and also fleshed out a bit more then just as general comment.

Thanks in Advance for any help!

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Sorry but no this is not a good idea. They are already at the level were they should be escaping the Underdark in Out of the Abyss. I am of the opinion you should start them at level 1 or you should not start the adventure at all.

For somthing you can actully take advantage of I would go for Princes of the Apocalypse. Your characters are a little more overleveled because it seems you did more stuff at the end of Phandelver. But Princes of the Apocalypse takes place very close to were Phandelver does. So you can guide them over to Red Larch and start it's Adventure of taking down the cults of Elemental Evil. (Which should get your PC"s to level 15 or so.) It fits far better to Phandevlver then Out of the Abyss does.

If you are going to do Out of the Abyss start over with Level 1 characters. Or just do the second half of the adventure the party is closer leveled to.

 

[SunGold]

As someone who's playing OotA right now, I'm afraid I have to agree with MonsterEnvy. Starting this adventure at 6th level would take a lot of the fun out of it. A big part of what makes this adventure exciting and enjoyable is that it always feels like there's a lot on the line. You're locked in a cell with zero gear at the mercy of a merciless race; there are monsters around who outclass you; you're constantly fleeing through a dark, claustrophobic environment with little food or water, etc. Having very few abilities/spells/resources to cope with these challenges keeps us on our toes, and that's engaging.

For example: during our escape from Velkynvelve, one of the drow officers killed an NPC from our party in a single turn. That's scary--but also fun. We were just level 1 schmucks, after all! If we'd been level 6, we wouldn't have been scared at all.

So I guess if you're willing to put a lot of effort into beefing up the adventure enough to keep it scary, go for it...otherwise, your players are going to miss out on a lot.

 

[delericho]

Sorry but no this is not a good idea. They are already at the level were they should be escaping the Underdark in Out of the Abyss. I am of the opinion you should start them at level 1 or you should not start the adventure at all.

Yep, I agree with this.

The first half of OotA is the best adventure material WotC have put out for 5e (IMO, though note that I haven't encountered Strahd yet ). While there is an entry point built in at the halfway point, the second half of the adventure is, again IMO, considerably less well done than the first.

So, yeah, I'd agree that it's best to either start that adventure at 1st level, or not at all.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Hey. I atarted PotA with PCs of 6th level and changed nothing. Even the lvl 1 adventures were interesting. They can just go faster through them.
I don't really know too much from OotA, i have read it, but I am 70% sure you can use it well enough. Maybe you need to rewrite the start, because being captured by drow as a party seems unreasonable. Maybe start as a rescue team for a noble who was captured and you let them meet all those npcs after they were released.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Oh with the above posters' comments I would maybe have your players actually play the NPCs who are in the prison cell and let them escape. This way you can actually kill one or two of them and have them meet their regular characters later.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Hey. I atarted PotA with PCs of 6th level and changed nothing. Even the lvl 1 adventures were interesting. They can just go faster through them.
I don't really know too much from OotA, i have read it, but I am 70% sure you can use it well enough. Maybe you need to rewrite the start, because being captured by drow as a party seems unreasonable. Maybe start as a rescue team for a noble who was captured and you let them meet all those npcs after they were released.

As mentioned PoTA is easy to start were they are. OotA is not.

 

[zaratan]

You can rebuild all enemies and npc, adding some CR. Lot of work, but can be done.

 

[Tony Vargas]

One of the big selling points of Bounded Accuracy is that you can use lower level opponents to threaten higher level characters. Just consolidate some separate encounters into single ones so that being outnumbered can tell a little. The whole thing will probably go faster and with fewer rests than if you started with 1st level characters, and they won't get a lot of exp out of it, but the story can still unfold and set up for the second part.

 

[Daern]

If your players are ok with some cinematic handwaving, just tell them them they've been captured by those drow from before (maybe a dream sequence/teleport abduction). You can run the beginning straight (but they can fight demons right away). Add a couple extra monsters to and given encounter and don't give them alot of opportunities for rest.
I recommend speeding up the sequence of events (my players have gotten bored with being stuck underground.) I think Gracklestugh should be used more as a creepy resupply base and less as an adventure site. Personally, I would steer them toward the Kua Tua village, the Mushroom forest, then out through Blindenstone with only a handful of encounters or minidungeon detours.