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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 6791005" data-attributes="member: 12731">It's great you and your group are open to the idea to "narrative capture", that is not playing out the combat where drow tries to enslave the characters. (Either the drow are completely superior, as at level 1, which isn't fun; or the drow will probably lose, as for level 5 genuine heroes)Because then you can play the adventure as written - just have more Drow guards be elite warriors, and reserve the standard Drow statblock for "grunts" (second tier auxilaries). The only real differences will be: the heroes have to lead, with the NPCs playing "helpless villagers". The mission will probably more be "raze the Drow outpost to the ground" and less "flee the evil Drow out into the endless Underdark with no food or gear". But dropping or downplaying the Drow pursuit part of the adventure isn't such a big deal.Going the other route, where the heroes arent enslaved but find their way down into the Underdark by themselves is also possible. The biggest hurdle is definitely not the geography: I would argue it isn't unreasonable to find a passage from the Phandelver area to south of Darklake (the Velkynvelve area). And who says they need to start there? If they aren't enslaved, they could go directly to any of the chapters on Gracklestugh, Neverlight Grove or Blingdenstone. Gracklestugh is probably the nearest: FR lore describes Gracklestugh to have passages to the surface from several locations that aren't that far from Phandelver. "Caves in Sword Mountains" and "through Beldabar's Rest in Yartar" are two possibilities.The real issue is something else: the slavery plot provides the heroes with a simple reason for pressing on: "escape the Underdark". Unless you have your level 5 heroes fall down a deep chasm or stumble upon a random teleport portal, you need to answer the question why are they in the Underdark? I mean, if they went down voluntarily, the motivation to get back up is kind of weakened...Of course, there is an obvious solution: have King Bruenor approach the heroes at level 5 instead of level 8. That's not too big a difference. Perhaps it should be a sage "sensing a disturbance in the force" rather than the king himself, though, since the scenario where they meet Demogorgon in person hasn't happened yet...Other than that, you could have them follow a drow slaver gang, who took their loved ones while they were away. Just have Eldeth Feldrun be someone they care about, or add similar surface-dwellers to the slave gang.As for why they can't simply go back the same way they arrived once they have freed the slaves and burned Velkynvelve to the ground, I would probably use the Sloobludplop encounter as inspiration, and have Yeenhogu or somebody cave in their exit for them...</blockquote>

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