How to run the Triboar Trail and ALL LMoP side quests - D&D 5th Edition Starter Set Guide 4
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ค. 2024
- The Lost Mines of Phandelver is the D&D 5th Edition Starter Set. Let's learn about D&D Side Quests 5E, focussing on how to run the Triboar Train, Agatha and Conyberry, Old Owl Well and Wyvern Tor in LMoP!
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📢📢 Links Mentioned 📢📢
▶ Black Spider statblock: www.patreon.com/posts/lost-mi...
▶ Banshee Skill Challenge and Zombie Gundam: www.patreon.com/posts/lost-mi...
▶ Nick "All Killer, No Filler" Pierson: / @nickpierson
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▼▼ Timestamps ▼▼
0:00 Introduction
0:33 Here's my cat
1:23 What are the LMoP side quests?
2:37 All killer, no filler
3:33 First DM tool - dead dwarf
5:21 Necromancer of Old Owl Well
7:07 Agatha the Banshee in Conyberry
10:19 Building this story together
10:46 Bandits of Wyvern Tor
12:43 Second DM tool - time
16:58 New quest! Trading with the Black Spider
22:20 Third DM tool - ??????
#dnd #5e #lmop - เกม
Thanks for watching! I want to make a kind of story-time video at the end of this series made up of your best Lost Mines stories. If you're running the adventure alongside these guides, please share your Triboar Trail stories in the comment section! If you like this kind of content, please let me know by liking and subscribing!
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I love how you think, and so does Google AI.
The player quotes are my favorite running gag!
Me too! I'm taking suggestions for player quotes if you have any :)
"Ugh, I'm a player--I immediately reach for my phone during everyone else's "Special Player Moments"... 😣
My players just met Agatha the Banshee. After some conversation and questions on Agatha's loss, the druid in the group rolled a nat 20 nature check after sharing a similar story from her backstory, and was able to use the "Ceremony" spell to let Agatha pass on. Best dnd I've been involved in.
Ceremony! What a great solution :)
Oh my god, introducing TBS early on was the best advice ever. My party's request in return for the puzzle box: that she travel alongside them and help them with the sidequests before they go together to Wave Echo Cave. I thought for sure they'd ask for money, I couldn't have asked for anything better if I'd tried. So she's been sharing tidbits of her I'm-making-this-up-on-the-fly tragic backstory as a drow outcast (all the while eyeing that puzzle-box and just.... patiently biding her time), the players are doing some fire RP with her and building up their own backstories, she's fighting alongside them, and the treachery when it happens is going to be amazing. They're going to HATE her. I am. So excited.
Holy shit! Victoria that's AMAZING! There are so many possibilities with that. I'm so excited for the moment one of the side-quest people recognises her, or has to interact with her somehow. PLEASE report back with how this turns out :)
@@heyitsMattyP HEARTILY seconded. Your group sounds like a lot of fun!
Any update on this? Would love to hear how it went!
Oh my gosh that’s absolutely amazing!
@Victoria B Pleease fill us in on the rest of the story!
Thanks so much for the great content! I wanted to share my parties experience with Agatha. *Long post ahead!!* When the players made their way to the Shrine of Luck, they met Sister Garaele and found her to be withering away due to the presence of a great evil. She could sense that a wraith (small change from banshee) had claimed the area of Phandelin and was seeping life energy from Sister Garaele. She explained that this wraith is a powerful spirit turned chaotic by a death filled with sorrow. She begs for the party to help her and bring peace to this spirit. They immediately accept and make their way to the scary cabin. After fighting some undead, they approach the cabin and peered in to find a darkness that was impenetrable, which my dark vision enabled characters were not happy about! Once they entered the darkness, a voice demanded that they explain why they were there. When they requested for the spirit to show itself, the living darkness around them rushed to middle of the room and took the form of a humanoid, made entirely of darkness. They were able to see their surroundings and found themselves in a living room with children toys scattered about. The party had been informed by Sister Garaele that battling the spirit was futile and they must bring peace to the spirit. A skill challenge ensued and they focused on finding out information regarding the spirit in hopes of making a connection. They found out that the wraith’s name was Agatha and her children and husband had been killed during the battle to defend the Forge of Spells. After succeeding in the skill challenge, our wizard, who has a major backstory regarding losing her family, attempted to make a heartfelt connection with the spirit, which was a great role playing moment. Our wizard embraced the dark figure and the darkness fell away to show a woman in tears. At this moment, our cleric casted illusion and created an illusion of Agatha’s family, which immediately embraced her. It was such a beautiful moment!!! Agatha thanked my party and before she faded away, she bent down and picked up a puzzle box among the toys on the floor and informed the party that they would need this during their journey (At this point, I had not had a chance to introduce the puzzle box in a neat way). Agatha then faded away smiling. This was a massive highlight of the LMoP for both me and my players!!!
Oh my gosh Ben!!! That was AWESOME!!!! Well done indeed! It actually made me tear up when I read about your PC wizard and the cleric casting illusion... geez, hope my buds do something great with this side quest. LOL... they will probably ignore the warnings and still try to fight her, which at that point I'm thinking I'll experience my first ever TPK.
@@coryschlichting3517 Our campaign is heading into session 68 this weekend after starting a year and a half ago!! This is still a highlight of our campaign and I'm glad it resonated with you like it did for me and my players. Best of luck to you and your adventurers!!
@@benmacdonald2849 Thanks Brosef!!! Back at you!
Campaign 1: Ran the campaign as written, but things blossomed hugely. Wyvern Tor was forgettable, Old Owl Well, we skipped, and I based Thundertree around the search for Reidoth. The dragon completely took them by surprise. (I actually glued a full-sized lead figure up inside the tower, and the reveal was legendary) . I dug deep on the Forgotten Realms wiki, and the banshee quest turned out to be not just a game-changer, but defined the course of the next few years of play! One of my crew joined the Harpers after a bone-chilling 1v1 encounter with her. (I made her pass directly through his body when the conversation ended.) Bowgentle was a super-powerful old school wizard, so I determined that his spellbook would be a unique relic which desires its own legendary quest. I built around a little bit of SKT content in Triboar and Yartar since there is a nice safe chain of Harper contacts. (Just remember to keep the main players safe so SKT can run well if they go back.) Knowing that the spellbook would be the ultimate prize, I determined that the heavy silk page marker of such a book would probably contain its own magic, and help lead the Harpers find the final item. So I set up a "black market" auction aboard the Grand Dame, and surrounded it with some other tempting magic items. They won it, and confirmed its authenticity with Esklindrar. This opened up the whole world to them, since Iriaebor is so far south! Such a great seed for adventure. DMs get to have all the fun, don't we? (And don't tell the silly players, or they might want to DM!). I'll post later about my second campaign, which is taking on the Redbrands in . . . 40 minutes. Yikes! Roll for initiative!
I had a moment with Agatha too! I think the final check in my skill challenge to calm her spirit was our wizard giving her a hug and suffering her attacks through it. It's by far the best quest in the module :)
How'd your Redbrands go?
@@heyitsMattyP 4 hours of tension building, with a stealthy cloaked spy on the roof of the Sleeping Giant (guess who!) and late-night meeting in town looking for work with Glasstaff. The interview didn't end well. When they returned to the Stonehill Inn to let Sildar know they probably found Iarno, the smith popped his head into the Stonehill Inn. He said that the ever-reliable Thel Dendrar had missed a meeting to pick up some decorative iron work, and something was afoot. They rolled well for CSI: Phandalin checks, and followed the evidence trail to the entrances under the hill. Still haven't decided which way they'll breach, but we're right on the doorstep!
My kids asked if we could learn to play D&D, so here we are. I e never played before, let-alone been the DM! I’m finding your videos entertaining and easy to follow. Pretty much following your script to the letter. Tomorrow, the party leaves cragmaw cave for Phandalin
Tim, love to hear it. Playing D&D with kids is always a blast - they're naturals. Hopefully the Black Spider doesn't break their hearts too hard :)
That use of dopplegangers IS genius!
The thumbnail for this video is excellent
Haha thanks! You're excellent!
I was NOT prepared for how majestic your cat is!
He's beautiful :) Though he did wake me up last night by proudly putting a dead cockroach in the bed
Matt buddy, you're the best. I've been running this campaign for my nieces and nephews and they are absolutely hooked. They keep bugging their parents asking when the next session is so I'm rewatching to prep for this weekend which you make so easy. A+ content, 10/10.
Great job! Very glad to help.
One of my favourite D&D memories is running a one-shot for my 8-10 y/o niblings on a holiday in Thailand while all my siblings were on bar crawl. I think we had more fun! Kids are the best party members :)
I haven't gotten to this session yet but I will say running the cragmore cave was probably the funniest experience I've ever had it's a dungeon master. There's a warforged cleric in my party who will not attack any creature unless if they attack another member of their party, and he was starting to be attacked by one of the cragma goblins but instead of fighting him he grabbed the knife out of his hand and sharpened it and then handed it back to the goblin revealing how to make it shiny even shinier XD!!! This led for that goblin to go run back inside to all of its other goblin friends and reveals that the big metal man would sharpen all of their shinies if they followed him. So this war forged LED an entire goblin revolution against Clarg the bugbear, and I took a screenshot of how much damage that nine goblins did to a bug bear and they dealt 67 piercing!!! Not a single one of the players in this party of seven took a single ounce of damage during the entire first two sessions. Also they loved the trade scene with the black spider, I did some tweaking on the character herself just because I really hated the name nezznar, but all in all this has helped create an extremely fun game, and now since Halloween is coming up everyone's thinking of playing curse of strahd together!!! These videos are super helpful thank you!!
Late to the party here. When I ran the Orcs of Wyvern Tor I had it set up that weeks before the players made it to Phandalin, the Black Spider (BS) had directed the orc bandits to attack the town. Then Glasstaff and the Redbrands repelled the Ors, thus ingratiating themselves with the town as a sort of militia. It was a part of BS's plan to insert the Redbrands into Phandalin.
Later, after beating the Redbrands, the town is concerned about the Orcs coming back and the players are tasked with finishing off the band.
The encounter was set up so that my one of the PCs could face Brughor Axe-Biter in single combat with the others stealthily supporting them. After winning the other orcs flee to parts unknown.
Oooh I love a duel! I've never had one in my games properly, but I've always wanted to try - good work!
Great video!
I like how you move around the dead dwarf depending on the players' choices
It's good exercise hauling this dead body from scene to scene
It's been fun revisiting the campaign with you through these videos. Big lol @ how you deceived us at times, but also I think we fared well with how we dealt with TBS's treachery. A great introduction to DnD, thank you!
Thanks Andrea! You were all great guinea pigs to test these story beats. It was an absolute pleasure to steal Gundren and poison George :)
The party walked into the sleeping giant tap house and tried to smash a mug to get the ruffians attention. Rolled a 3 and ended up smashing his hand on the table in pain. After being laughed out they turned dark and attempted to burn down the building. I had 3 ruffians on fire jump out windows and fight in the street. They were joined by 3 more the next round who busted down the barricades door. No reward and the towns people aren't very happy with them but created a hilarious fight.
Oh man, I would love to see the stats on how often the Sleeping Giant gets burned down. In fact, here's a poll: twitter.com/mperkinsDM/status/1326168568359051264
This series has been phenomenal.
You're phenomenal!
I love this series too. I also watch @GreenDM too for excellent tutorials and walkthroughs.
We calmed down Agatha... well, our bard did... a little too well? Needless to say, he now wears her wedding ring and she's a borderline succubus now. We just took a long rest while they had their fun. Our poor bard had disadvantage on all rolls from fatigue the rest of the day lmao
I still consider myself lucky upon finding this series even though I just had my players stop in front of the Cragmaw Hideout. Thanks for this!
Welcome aboard! There should be enough videos out now to carry you all the way through :)
These videos have been massively helpful as a first time DM! My players have decided to trust 'Nezza' at arm's reach so she's helping them fight off the redbrands and so she can work to earn their trust without being too pushy for the box. She's playing a very long game if you will. I have one player trying to romance her so I'm so excited to see where this goes! I want that ultimate betrayal and anger finish
Well done! I'd recommend ripping off the bandaid ASAP though. If you wait to the very end for her heel turn, you're robbing the players of some important relationship building and roleplay. The goals are 1) introduce the villain in a non-confrontational way to the players so they know her as a person; then 2) reveal her evil intentions in a way that builds animosity, so the the villain genuinely hates the players, and the players genuinely hate the villain.
Awesome video as always buddy!
For running zombies in combat, I like to go Evil Dead/comedy zombie style and have every attack take bits off them, have them grab at a player and leave a hand behind, etc. And then give each zombie a once per battle super bit that does max damage just to make the players stop a moment and question just how easy the combat might be.
Cheers Anto! How about their CON save vs dying mechanic? That's the main part I can't stand - just ends up being a slog unless you're fudging rolls.
@@heyitsMattyP I just straight up ignore it to be honest
This has been the most helpful video in the series thus far! My players went off to Wyvern Tor before I found these vids and this has been super helpful for ushering them back to the main storyline. Our rogue decided to eat some poison mushrooms on the way back from the banshee's so that was a fun hook to head over to the necromancer and get a first taste of 'speak with dead'. The necromancer has a letter for sister garaele, which is finally enticing them back to town. Thanks for this series Matt!!
I watched the rest of the videos after I discovered the last episode. Great series! But I really feel like the tips you're giving in these videos are really superb for running any adventure, really. Awesome stuff!
Keep it coming, looking forward for the rest of the series :)
Thanks mate! My plan after these videos is to hit a few of the core concepts with their own little videos, referring back to this guide for examples of how they're applied. That way in future campaign guides, I can shorthand Special Player Moments, Twisting the Knife etc etc etc and hopefully not have to make any more 23-minute videoa
These videos are worth their weight in platinum. I honestly don’t know how I’m ever going to run another campaign. The slight mods are so good and beyond what I’ve ever come up with despite running this campaign through twice with two different groups. Many thanks. ❤❤
Mate, high praise - thank you!
I’m a player trying my hand for the first time at DM’ing. I’ve been doing my prep and research, because I really want to do it right. Thank you for these videos! It makes it feel more manageable. I subscribed and I will on Patreon as well. Thank you so much for this!!!! :)
Glad it's been helpful! Thank you very much for the support :)
If the players engage in conversation with Hamun Kost, he treats them like old/new friends and uses a spell scroll (ideally without the player's notice) to create a magnificent mansion and invites them inside for a night of delights. Inside the mansion, there are hints to his real motives, for observant or nosy players, but besides that, he acts "nice" to get them to complete his goal of finding out who built old owl well.
A little bit late, but a first time DM here subscribed for the cat (...and the great content). I'm combining LMoP and DoIP so my campaign is going to look quite a bit different, but your ideas are super helpful thank you. I'll definitely be introducing the Black Spider (the Black Panther in my campaign owing to some arachnophobia in the party) sooner than the final battle thanks to your advice. Looking forward to catching up on the rest of the series!
This is such fantastic content, please keep it coming!
Cheers Andy! Will do :)
I'm currently running this adventure and I'm kind of freaking out because I won't have all the videos available on time. I love your videos and your ideas are great. I of course can fill in the blanks and continue without more videos, but I know later I'll watch the videos and be like "Oh, poop, that would have been super fun!"
Oh no! Julia, I'm happy to answer any questions you've got. If I had scripts for the later videos written already, I'd send them to you. But the Redbrand video comes out on Tuesday, the Cragmaw Castle two weeks after that, and then the final dungeon video in two weeks again. Any other LMoP stuff after that is more like *extra* optional fluff, so in six weeks total or so you'll have the whole roadmap for all the main bits.
Where are you up to?
@@heyitsMattyP This is very sweet of you. Thank you.
When I first read LMoP to prepare as DM I wondered why the PCs would do the sidequests other than to gain XP so get up to 4th level Wave Echo Cave. I think adventure should have connected sidequests to the main mission of rescuing Gundren. The sidequests take so long that by the time they get to Wave Echo Cave Gundren could be killed by Black Spider
"Look, I wasn't gonna kill this dwarf guy, but you took so long that I got bored and he eats too much."
I'm going to be running this soon for my group. This advice has been gold.
Excellent! You'll smash it :)
These ideas are so great ! I wish I had found your videos before starting the campaign . New subscriber 😀
Well it happened. My players killed the necromancer and decided to take the dead dwarf to Sister Garelle
Hi Matthew! These changes are FANTASTIC additions to an already amazing module. 10/10.
I've ran this adventure a few times and am currently running it with your additions to from friends that are new to D&D. If my resources (experiences, roll20 tokens/revisions; PDFs, etc) can help you or your viewers out, let me know and I'll send them your way. Thanks again!
Feel free to stop by Discord and share your resources there if you like. I think we're building the best group of Starter Set DMs around :) Should be a link in the video description
@@heyitsMattyP Done and done, mate!
Matthew, thank you for all these videos they are a ton of help as a new DM running LMOP for my first campaign. I have seeded several quests for my party in Phandalin according to your reccomendations including the Redbrand hideout, the Bnnshee, Necromancer, and the Orcs at Wyvern Tor. So far my party has spent a lot of time in town talking to everyone and learning all they can. They then went and cleared out the Redbrand hideout and befriended the Nothic there. They missed Glass Staff at the hideout because they decided to take a rest and he escaped. I was planning on having him show up at the midnight rendezvous with the Black Spider. After leaving the hideout the Black Spider approached the party and told them to meet her at the old abandoned tavern outside of town at midnight. My party went and sold some things and got distracted by everyone in town and just went to bed for the night, forgetting about the rendezvous. I am not sure what to do about it now. My party genuinly wants to save Gundrum and I don't want them to just find him dead with a note or something when they finally go to the location. What are some ways that I can resolve this and still make the Black Spider out to be a villian. I thought that maybe they would find "Gundrum" tied up alive but have it be the doppler instead but I haven't introduced him at all yet and I don't know how well it will play off. Thoughts?
If your players genuinely forgot about the trade, you're OK to double check with them, "You had an engagement with Nezzar. Is it your intention to skip that date?"
If they intentionally stand her up, go ahead and twist the knife, because that's the drama they've chosen. But if they want to wake up in time to make it to the trade site, let them, because that's the drama they've chosen.
years after you posted but this so i doubt youll see this but thank you man this was great for my campaign and im now subbed to the patreon. i had the redbrands on the hunt and raiding the town after the party after they killed some of them in the sleeping giant tavern. while they ttried to hide i had sildar help get the oxen and wagon they had to the outskirts of town for them to leave and had them spot a woman in dark clothing on a rooftop above. they could come back after things died down so they had time to do each side quest and when they returned found sildar captured by his old friend iarno after looking too deep into the redbrands. going to run the saloon thing soon hopefully and am using the doppleganger route to lead them to cragmaw to get the real gundren!
I still read and respond to every message! Thanks very much for sharing your story, and I'll send you a message on Patreon to say thanks for the support later this week :) I'm glad you're exploring the relationship between Iarno and Sildar - I see them as two sides of the same coin, both characters who value order, but have very different ideas on how to accomplish that goal.
thanks man! the patreon is really worth it. i loved the better drinking rules youve made and the Substances you created for a fantasy world it makes the whole "lets get drunk at a tavern" role play seem much easier for players to get into and im hoping to use that in my game soon. cant wait to go over the SKT stuff in the future
Twisting the knife is essential
I am a simple human,
I see the thumbnail...I laugh in pain...I click...I like the video xD
Thank you!
Today, my party just dealt with Sister Galanthe's (her name in my campaign) sidequest.
They ended up persuading her into coming along. The party was very suspicious of the Necromancer, but followed along and got the book for him. Except, in the end, they trusted him so little due to his foul magic, that they refused to give him the spellbook, ended up fighting him, set his tent on fire and threw Kost's spellbook into the flames. All in all a successful horror-session with tons of tension and a cool action scene by the end of it!
Oh golly! They did all the work and got none of the reward - classic player manoeuvre haha
I actually recently started DM’ing the book and I’m utilizing parts from this,especially with linking the Bandits of Wyvern Tor to the Black Spider,and introducing the Black Spider earlier and making them more interesting. And I was reading Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft and found a good sub for this 6:59 ,but you may have to scale it down depending on your party’s level. It’s called a Zombie Clot. Thanks Matt!
Oooh yeah! I saw that one too, looks very cool.
I put agatha's book in her coffin and said that the spell who was keeping her alive was linked to the coffin. So if the player wanted the book they would have to kill agatha who was nothing but nice.
Tragic!
I agree the side quests are not necessary to the main plot & take up time. Gundren may be dead by the time PCs find him. Maybe part of the Thayan necromancer’s zombie squad? I would save the side quests for after Wave Echo Cave as additional mini-adventure.
the thumbnail is so accurate xD
Mmm McMuffin! 😉 BTW I'm loving this series, and this is probably the best D&D channel I've encountered (no pun intended) so far. I'm a new TH-camr (newbtuber?) and so also getting something out of your videos on a meta level. Keep it up!
Thank you! I work super hard on this stuff :)
You're a legend and hilarious thankyou
Thank you!
Damn! Kitten! My only weakness for subscribing! How did you know!!!
My plan worked purrfectly -- thank you!
"Your job is to facilitate their awful ideas". If that doesnt sum up my time as a DM I dont know what else would.
i had to laugh when you said each of these should take like half a session. i have the most unproductive players but i love them for it. met the necromancer in our last session - kept him a red wizard like in the module. paladin immediately goes apeshit and tries to fight both wizard and zombies. had the wizard cast charm person on the paladin and the cleric in the hope of navigating things back to negotiating territory. half the party still wanted to kill him while the charmed half wanted to hear him out at least. leads to the best roleplaying they ever did as the party started arguing with each other which led to some major airing out of their grievances. by the time the spell ended, the paladin had just finished telling his barbarian sibling what a burden they were for always dragging them into dangerous situations and having to clean up after their violence. super intense but super fun session that somewhat surprisingly ended up just focusing on their characters relationships and issues with each other. picking up tonight as they continue for agatha's and i'm so excited for the drama. still holding that dead dwarf chess piece for the most opportune moment...
Oh golly, sounds like a PVP nightmare
I so love this and want to make it work. Unfortunately we've been playing "by the book" for a few weeks now and the party 1) does not have a puzzle box 2) Does not know exactly where Cragmaw castle is, and believes they will find the answers on one of these side quests and 3) just finished a pretty poo-poo Agatha encounter trading a comb for some knowledge about a spellbook that has no relevance to anyone but sister Graele. I tried to help things a little by making some of the random Phandalin residents contacts for some party member "personal growth" (the halfling thief can be a spy for the Harpers, the elvish wizard is invited to join the emerald enclave, and folk hero fighter can join the order of the gauntlet) and get fate points for achieving that, but it is a bit weak sauce. We've planted the seeds of a few doppelganger encounters in Phandalin, but nothing really confirmed. They are about to head to OOW and Wyvern Torn - thinking at OOW of planting that dwarven zombie in the mob, or maybe dwarven corpse in the tent (necromancer was interrupted mid-ritual) and playing the rest straight. If they fight, they'll find puzzle box and a note in the necromancer's things (not Gundren but another Rockseeker brother). If they parley, they'll find it with another dead dwarf in wheelbarrow outside Orc camp. I don't think I've specified how many brothers Gundren has, so I have no problem with the number of dwarf corpses they may find in other locations not being "correct". I'm sure they'll go back to Phandalin before Cragmaw to pick up Sildar (who we've been running as an hireling who didn't want to go after a banshee while Glassstaff is still at large) and can then run some of your black spider in Phandalin stuff at that point. Does it make sense to run the necromancer AS Iarno/Glasstaff? On one hand it ties better between the story so far and the story I want to transition to and the combat mechanics are basically the same. But on the other hand, I'm not sure my players will have any interest in negotiating with Glassstaff.
Hmmmm I'm not sure! It's difficult for me to untangle from a distance. It might be a bit contrived to try to introduce the puzzle box so late. But the ENTIRE purpose of the puzzle box is so we have an opportunity to introduce the Black Spider -- that's all. So if I were you, I would just make The Black Spider my priority. WHEREVER the party goes next quest-wise, they meet the The Black Spider and get clarity on what her evil plan is. You don't want the party to be left clueless about plot elements as you approach the end of the campaign.
My banshee modifications, inspired by your suggestions--
The necromancer dug up Agatha's corpse to cast Speak with Dead and ask her about her spellbook, not realizing that her spirit was already being a banshee. Since the spell doesn't work on the undead, but technically her body was just regular dead and that's what he cast it on, the spell only partially worked--all the stuff about her not being able to understand the passing of time since her death or predict the future applies, but she was already disconnected enough from her corpse that she couldn't pop back in to answer questions about her life. Instead, she's bansheeing as best she can with only the knowledge that all mortals will die, so she's scream-warning anyone and everyone who comes by her cottage that they'll die, and Sister Garaele, though outside of her physical range, keeps making mental contact when she does Speak with Dead. So she's been warned that she's about to die for several days straight, now, even though she knows banshees only warn about death right before it happens. As a bonus, it echoes the 'magic gone wrong' of the nothic and the spectator.
So the party can either try to re-tether Agatha's spirit to her body (making her a standard banshee again) by delivering her bones back to her cottage and doing the ritual/"remember who you were" conversation skill check OR they can convince her that bansheeing isn't working for her anymore, and she should go towards the light, also through a skill challenge. I'm also taking some inspiration from the Witcher, where to break a curse on a princeess-monster, he has to stay with her all night, even though she's trying to kill him. So the skill challenges will be both "offensive" (proactively trying to get her to do the thing) and "defensive" (avoiding/withstanding her nonlethal, mostly status-based attacks), which I'm hoping will make it easier to come up with reasonable ways to use the more niche skills.
Either way they do it, she'll be grateful and offer to answer one question for them before fading away with a smile on her face.
Sounds great! please let me know how it works out :)
Howdy Matt! I have to say again how much I have enjoyed this series. For my game with my buds, they've finally made their way to Phandalin. Now I've just got to run this and I'm very excited. However, I've goofed a little bit. In the previous adventure, after my PCs defeated Klarg, they found the note on him from the Black Spider. Well, the note kinda' mentioned the general whereabouts of Cragmaw Castle and my PCs wanted to go right away to rescue Gundren. Me playing as Sildar tried to convince them to go to Phandalin first and they questioned him as to why he wouldn't want to go right away after Gundren. I couldn't think of much on the spot (as I didn't think they would want to go after Gundren right away) and just replied that he needed to find his friend Iarno.
They then took a vote as some wanted to bring Sildar to Phandalin first and others wanted to go right to Cragmaw (which I haven't prepped for!). Phandalin vote won. So, the next adventure they will start in the town and I am excited to implement your suggested changes. However, I worry that the PCs won't take any of the sidequest hooks and want to gear up for Gundren's rescue. I may have put myself in a bind here. But we'll see where the PCs take the story I guess. Just lots of prep work... Phandalin and Cragmaw I suppose.
Hey Cory! There's no bind - it's OK if they go to the castle straight away :) It just means they might get a bit stomped!
@@heyitsMattyP Thank you again for your reply, Matt. Much appreciated... LOL.. Might be time to get out ma' stompin' boots!
Just had our third session yesterday evening. I'm mixing up Dragon of Icespire Peak into the mix and they first visited Adabra Gwynn at Old Owl Well where they negotiated a healing of Manfred the Manticore and then got a discount on 2 healing potions from Adabra. They then encountered Hamun Kost and suddenly turned into murder hobo's (?); up to now they've been very conscientious about trying to avoid killing, first talking, but the paladin sensed the undead, the druid scouted out the area as a dragonfly, and then they ambushed Hamun. He and the zombies rolled absolutely dreadful for initiative, he nearly got wiped out before it was his turn, so I had him misty step into his tent, down a potion of healing and then start misty step again and start running. In the meantime the two clerics turned Zombie Gundam to harmlessly amble away and Hamun was axed and frost-knifed in the back before he could get 50 feet away... Apparently my group is mainly kind to animals and monsters but has no love for evil necromancer wizards. They discovered zombified dead Tharden Rockseeker and rudimentarily buried him - and Hamun and the other zombies - thinking about digging him up on the way back to have Sister Garaele talk to him. Curious if they remember to do so during the next session.
They got the location for Cragmaw Castle from Agatha - whom the two elves in the party very respectfully parlayed with - and convinced her to leave Sister Garaele alone in exchange for ridding the "Caves" of the great evil that has laired there (in my game a red dragon took out Cryovain the white dragon from Icespire peak, was heavily wounded when it tried to take out Venomfang, and then holed up in the Wave Echo Cave just after the Rockseeker brothers discovered it; the puzzle box is some type of key to help them rid their find of this "varmint"). Next session they plan to take out the Orcs at Wyvern Tor before heading back to Phandalin to cash the reward and then rescue Gundar (they can never remember the name of their very good friend Gundren).
I was enjoying the great ideas on these videos ...then the cat pact happened and I was immediately compelled to subscribe.
It is an unfortunate subclause in cat law that every cat deserves a subscription
Been a while since you uploaded but I just finished a session with my players. I had finished the Agatha encounter before I saw your videos so I didn't get to go through with that.
They met with TBS in the sleeping giant. She presented the dwarf as the doppleganger in hopes of the box and once the players decided to betray the deal she casted command throw.
Except the players threw the box in a different direction, and she threw the goblin into the fireplace to distract and get the box, but ended up having to dimension door out. The players were so happy to save and heal Gundren until Sildar later met them and realized it wasn't Gundren.
I'm undecided on what is going to be inside the box they have.
- Should it be a key/ward necessary to enter the caves?
- A tool that is required to translate the map to the caves?
- An important magic trinket/spell?
I've probably left this too late and you've already made your decision, sorry! Good job on adjusting your campaign as you go, though. It can be difficult to change trajectory mid-campaign!
Thanks!
Thank YOU!
The characters in my game did not hit Wyvern Tor or Old Owl Well (Yet). I had HUGE fun with Agatha. Largely homebrewed, First I changed her to a ghost. She inhabited a magic mirror and was willing to assist the characters if they returned the matching comb, possessed by Halia Thornton. The group had to find out who had it, then had to retrieve it, then return it to Agathas lair.
Sick! Great idea with the mirror. Did the players discuss breaking the mirror?
@@heyitsMattyP only breifly... they needed her help badly . She presented little risk.
@@rbtalley3 Great idea. How did you set up the story of finding the comb?
@@sean210420 they happened on her hut just by happenstance and became curious. As they explored they found the mirror, which led to her ghostly appearance and a promise of assistance with the dragon of icespire peak IF they found her comb. They agreed and the possessed mirror became a divining rod to the comb. This led to Halia Thornton who was always dressed to the nines... very much like the lead witch in penny dreadful.
The mage went in to discuss trading for the comb. She took it out and laid it out for inspection. I was planning have her get her zhentarim hooks into him by having her offer profitable jobs and gifts. (She was performing a behind the scenes land grab sceme affecting all of Phandalin... no one knew at the time)
He slapped her with a sleep spell by surprise... stole the comb.. reunited the mirror with the comb, satisfied the deal and had one use of the banshee howl ability as long as he carried the two.
Ps.. he never used the ability against the dragon.
@@rbtalley3 ::chef's kiss:: Absolutely love it!
No question here… just sharing my story which was completely inspired by this video and the unpredictable actions of players.
It was after we stopped our session 1 in the wolf room of Cragmaw Hideout by the time I started watching this series. I loved the idea of these changes and wanted to adapt them. I wanted to add an additional undead encounter after Cragmaw and before Phandalin, so this fit well with Sildar saying that they need to retrieve an object from a dwarven graveyard not too far away. It was here where they found an object called the Forge Stone which is needed to get the forge of spells working again.
Fast-forward to entering Phandalin, after meeting Bart at the Inn, the party split up and explored the town. Our Drow Rogue made his way alone to the Redbrand's manor and after some consistently and quite surprisingly high stealth rolls, he managed to sneak past the posted Redbrands and find his way into the hideout. They were not told of this at all yet, he just saw this old, abandoned building and wanted to explore. He managed to get into the first room meanwhile 2 others from the group found the Sleeping Giant and after some chest beating, and the Redbrand leader sending one of his friends towards the manor to get some reinforcements, they left and met with the last 2 of the party.
The Drow in the hideout hid as that Redbrand friend entered and grabbed the others from the barracks (in room 2) and they all left. So the Drow kept exploring and found the trapped hall and tripped the trap. Under the pressure I was unsuccessfully trying to get the Drow to leave the hideout and well it did not look like that was happening. It was getting late anyway, so we called it a night so I can spend the next 2 weeks figuring out how to recover from this.
Before this mess happened, I wanted the Doppleganger to take Sildar and pose as him to try to get the Forge Stone from the party. While this will still be the case, after seeing this video of playing the “Trade” scene, I thought that the Drow should get captured inside the hideout by the Black Spider and she can offer to Trade “something they are missing and want back” for the stone.
I met with the player of the Drow earlier today and he agreed to get captured and he will play Sildar for a short time so he is not sitting around doing nothing. The thing is, that the Sildar he is playing is the Doppelganger.
Thank you so much for this series, very inspiring! At what times do you level up your characters here?
Cheers! I think the answers to that question are in the first part of the second Wave Echo Cave video
Matthew, you won't believe it. I'm now holding a company in Fandelvere. And my adventurers did take the body of the dwarf with them, in addition to taking the head of the orc leader, and now they are bringing it all to Sister Garel
Y E S
very stoked on this
when i ran this dungeon my players asked for a platinum coin and so i had the black spider cast prestidigitation and give them the coin and then they resorted to combat after the 12 seconds where up
that is a big ol' cat
Your cat is beautiful!
Thank you! I'll tell him.
Remember you can now use the official image of the Swarm of Zombie Limbs to illustrate the zombie gundam!
They never met the necromancer in my game. They went to old owl well at which point the warlocks familiar in the form of a raven made a sound like a owl bear. The wizard failed to catch the deception and came out of the tent to get his zombies to protect him. The familiar while invisible stung him. Gets a crit, the wizard fails his con save and so also takes full poison. Player with familiar rolls well on damage and the imp manages to kill the wizard in a single hit.
Oh wow! What a swat team :) If it helps you curb these situations down the line, Familiars can't attack - that can take the Help action, but they can't attack.Though no problem if you choose to houserule and allow it!
@@heyitsMattyP oh I though warlock familiars could attack, probably a bit late to change it now😅
So you combine Old Owl Well and Agatha as one side quest? I like that.
Yep! Makes it fill up a whole session quite nicely
When the Black Spider is the childhood sweetheart of one of the party members…😬
Hoh boy they’re gonna hate her so freaking much.
Oh nice one! But be careful you don't accidentally make that player the main character :)
@@heyitsMattyP oh for sure. I made sure to have each character have some kind of connection to the town that’ll pay off in some way.
The barbarian comes to terms with their tribal heritage, the ranger atones for abandoning their best friend, the fighter has his own gothic tragedy going on, there’s a lot happening lol
Saturday is going to be our third session and we’re already heading into wave echo cave😂 gonna try to nearly kill everybody at least once
Thanks for this series of videos, it's very inspiring as I'm preparing to run this campaign for the first time. When hearing you about the TIME constraint and the conflicting priorities, I thought it's indeed great for drama but I fear it will give them the bad idea of splitting the party... Do you have any advice if this happens?
Hey Nate! I'm late to respond, but: if the party splits up, modify the challenges to be appropriate and achieve some kind of drama the players would enjoy :) I've never had a BIG party split, where the players go to separate dungeons, but if I did, I'd run each as a separate session.
Becoming increasingly convinced if you're named Matthew, you're destined to be a great DM.
It's my burden to bear
I've been combing these videos with a fine tooth, um... comb. Your little quips about Sh*t players say is hilarious!
Alas, the gag has been retired! I might reserve it for one-shot guides in the future, but I figure if someone is binging the whole LMOP series or some other series of guides, they don't need a spoiler warning past the first video :)
Real nice video!
Question: Would you still use random combat encouters for traveling through on the paths and through the forest? Or do you essentially 'skip' all traveling time?
Cheers mate! I skip all wandering monsters. Instead, I only call for combat when I know it's going to advance the story.
@@heyitsMattyP oone u
did I miss how Agatha and Sister Garelle interact? How does the party complete this quest? I'm sure I can make something up but was just curious. I am a new DM running my first campaign and I really like all your videos. I've watched them all once and now watching them again but this time taking notes. Not sure how much I will use but I am really excited about how this will go. I should start in the next couple of weeks. Anyways thank you for the videos they have been great.
You had a mystery mousekatool! I can say it without a law suit
13:12 We need a magical McMuffin in our game.
im so glad somebody finally caught this joke
Your videos have been so helpful as I'm running LMoP for some new players as a first time DM! I had already put a lot of effort to modifying NPCs and grown really attached to them and will be keeping them in the story, but the way you've introduced Nezznar to the party early has been incredibly helpful! However, I'm a little unclear about the goal/expected result of the Trade encounter you present here: does the Black Spider definitely get the puzzle box by the end of this encounter? Or are you going to account for branching story lines depending on whether or not she is successful at obtaining the puzzle box?
Thanks Evan! Glad you're digging the series :)
I've definitely been a little unclear about some parts, sorry.
The ONLY goal of this little trade quest (and the main purpose of the puzzle box) is to have a scene between the party and the villain. Regardless of whether she achieves her goal of getting the box or not, we just want an opportunity for the Black Spider to speak directly to the party and establish SOME kind of relationship before they face off at the end.
As the DM, you don't need to care whether she succeeds in getting the box or not. The two questions you need to ask are:
-- after this scene, does The Black Spider openly hate the players?
-- after this scene, do the players openly hate The Black Spider?
If you can answer yes to either of those, well done!
But specifically, The Black Spider will try to enter the Wave Echo Cave regardless. If she has the box, she will be able to access the Forge of Spells inside. If she doesn't have the box, she might have to contend with the Forge's guardian or fund some other method of gaining access. Her mindset for the latter would be, "They've got the box and I can't get it from them, so I'll get access to the forge via trickery/strength/some other risky method."
Is that helpful at all or have I muddied the waters more?
@@heyitsMattyP Not muddied at all! This is all wonderful and very helpful. Thank you for all the detail in your response! The scene feels a lot more flexible with this in mind and I definitely have some ideas formulating now :)
OK cool! Thanks for the question :) I think I'll look at making a little module-style write-up about this original side-quest for posterity after the series wraps up.
Really want to find example videos of dialogue to use as inspiration for Agatha. Does anyone know what ghost Mat is referring to at 7:47 from Dark Souls 2?
The plan I have for the doppleganger is to use it on top of sildar, while the real sildar is still free and running around. Fake sildar is in phandalin and tries to push the players north, towards cragmaw castle or my heavily reworked wyvern tor(explained in a long tangent at the end) while the real sildar has already ventured off into the redbrand hideout to try to civilise this unruly town, depending on how the players approach the dungeon will change how sildar travels through it separately, they will always meet him in glasstaff's chamber, if they arrive where by the book he would have fled from his familiar warning him, sildar was there locked in combat until he fled and he says "stay here and ivestigate I will give chase to the fiend", if they get the jump on glasstaff sildar arrives once the fight is over. WYVERN TOR TANGENT(Because one of my players is a draconic origin sorcerer and he has an important npc in his backstory that lives in the phandalin area who hates his draconic cursed power, I'm going to have a young gold dragon have already killed all the orcs in wyvern tor, and when the party arrives there, the dragon flees and we have an encounter with this npc. The dragon is going to reappear potentially right at the end of wave echo cave as a final boss who has been after the black spider for its own reasons. There is still obviously the concern that the black spider will be overshadowed, but I have some ideas on how to tie her into the other player's backstories too. (Also since a young gold dragon would be super scary even for a level 5 party I might use young brass dragon stat blockbut flavoured as a gold dragon, it's still the power a dragon is meant to have so I don't feel like I'm doing them a disservice and making a dragon too weak, although this is something I can improvise in the moment if it turns out to be too easy.)
Sildar is good doppelganger bait, for sure. Especially since my players always naturally distrust him, so it's an opportunity to let the players be right.
Phenomenal content! Thank you for doing what you do. I hadn't finished your series until my party had already been given the Wyvern Tor side quest (as written VERY bland), so here's how I handled it:
I had my players discover that the Orcs were in a territorial dispute over the Tor with a hill giant who had taken up residence there (planning on transitioning to SKT later, and want to seed some elements early). The Orc horde captured the party and Brughor offered to spare their lives and lead them personally to Cragmaw Castle if the players would help them defeat the giant. After handily defeating the giant as a big party, the Orcs turned on the heroes ("We'll take you to Cragmaw. In body bags!").
My players won the encounter within an inch of their lives (that'll teach them to trust a bunch of orc raiders with no contingency plan), and began investigating Wyvern Tor. Beneath the giant's bed roll and some moldy hay, they found an iron hatch in the ground with a riddle inscribed on it. Solving the riddle led them down into a temple of Osiris. The temple was an illusion, secretly designed by Nezznar with a modified Temple of the Gods spell to lure our cleric, who has the puzzle box key (a jade amulet in our story). The Cleric heard Osiris's voice at the altar, and a spectral hand reached out asking for the amulet.
The Cleric nearly gave it over, but ultimately saw through the ruse and refused the hand. The temple then began to crumble (DEX checks), and spiders started pouring out of the stone walls as my players hurried their way back up their rope (ATH checks) and out of the temple, the hatch now inscription-less and containing nothing more than a small food cellar.
Our story will continue tomorrow, but I can't wait to put many of your ideas into play! Thanks again!
So my players decided to leave phandalin to fend for its self and went to do wyvern torr and old owl well before dealing with the redbrand. Seeing as wyvern tor was ment for level 3 players and they are still level 2 i had the black spider show up mid fight to help the party telling them. I couldnt let the puzzle box fall in to the wromg hands its important to my "order" she used charm person and demention door to take the puzzle box
Oh cool! Well done. That sounds very organic :)
*stuffs dead dwarf into pocket*
This is a secret mousekatool we'll need later
I love this video series, and it's really helped me run this adventure! Any advice on my situation?
The Black Spider and the party have agreed to meet the following night and exchange the puzzle box for Gundren. I don't want her to actually trade Gundren, nor do I want to use the doppelganger (doppelgangers can open a whole can of worms where the party mistrusts EVERYone going forward). Any other ideas for how she can "provide" Gundren?
Some ideas I'm floating around:
1. Provide one of Gundren's brothers, who the Black Spider murders when she realizes the party didn't give her the real puzzle box (their plan).
2. Provide some dwarf miner disguised as a badly beaten Gundren who's bound and gagged.
3. Provide a map to Cragmaw Castle, where Gundren is being held.
Thank you! Glad to help :)
I think option 1 is your best bet, but you'll have to be OK with having the brother tag along on the adventure until they rescue Gundren though.
How do you suggest bringing about the Trading with the black spider encounter?
Your fun❤
still watching, still commenting. Hello.
Matthew! I've been running the adventure using lots of your ideas, but I have now to desing the trade with the black spider and I noticed a problem here. If the purpose of Cragmaw Castle is to rescue Gundren and the players get Gundren in the trade (or he is killed in the middle of it) what do I do now with the castle?
Hey Antonio! Thanks for playing along.
If you want to speed up the campaign, then the Black Spider will be willing to trade the real Gundren and you can skip the Cragmaw Castle.
If you're happy to keep with the regular pace, the Black Spider *doesn't* trade the real Gundren, and instead it's her doppelganger ally, Monteith. This way, the party will still have to go contend with the Cragmaw Castle to rescue Gundren.
Either way, the point of this scene is that the Black Spider shows herself to be the villain and iit's meant to provide genuine motivation for the players to want to defeat her.
Does that help?
Pact accepted!
WELCOME to the PACT PACK
I paid the cat tax
Ranger accepts your offering and is pleased.
Not only did you use a pic of The Rotten in your Zombie Gundam thing, but you mentioned Dark Souls 2 outright. Very nice.
My players spent 2 hours grilling everyone in town for all the possible facts.. my Bart just couldn't turn them away :(
Oh no! Hopefully you managed to sneak a little Redbrand action in there too
@@heyitsMattyP Same here. Their quest map was lighting up like a Christmas tree!
Wait, if you give the banshee’s book to the necromancer you’ve still got the problem of the angry spirit, no? Only now it will torment the necromancer instead of the cleric?
The opening joke is simply due to mete awareness.
I wish i could poll the cat card.
My cat died last fall.
Sorry for your loss!
Great yet again. Consider your subscribe bell ring a ding dinged!
Dope video. Algorithms
tytyty
Replace the pre-gen party with an all Wild Elves party called WEB, for Wild Elf Bunch.
The Nothic works for us in return for Orc corpses.
Capture Iarno, who as a "model prisoner" makes common magic items for us or we just kill him.
Subdue some of the Redbrands and turn them over to Halia to earn her support.
Make a deal with Kost by giving him spells we know and defeating the threat from Wyvern Tor.
He sells us formulae for common magic items to cast Find Familiar and Disguise Self once per day.
Make one of the former and two dozen of the latter. Offer them to the Banshee and build her a cottage.
Now she can appear as her former self 24/7 and has a familiar for company.
She is described as a diviner, so she may answer questions we have, but is nonetheless, still very dangerous. We get an answer to Kost' question.
Battle Venomfang to zero hit points and subdue him. He signs an IOU to serve us once or we just kill him. Let Favric do his thing for a similar IOU.
Continue to craft Find Familiar MIs and gift them to Halia, Venomfang, Iarno, etc.
Capture Nezznar and turn the Drow over to Halia.
Get a stipend from the operation of Wave Echo Cave.
The Wild Elves have now replaced the Black Spider with a powerful, well organized WEB. ;)
In my campaign when I piled zombies into 1 massive undead create I called it a "Glom" like conglomerate of zombies. I like your gundam idea but the name Glom stuck in my players heads. Maybe give it a shot? ;) safe travels brave adventurer.
Glom is a beautiful name for an awful thing :) Love it!
What happens if the players choose to take care of any of the other pressing matters instead of meeting with Nezzar at night? Should there be consequences? And if so, what should happen? I don't think them not getting Gundrun is a big enough consequence here yet because they could just head to Cragmaw Castle during the next session and grab him then. Any ideas?
I'm a bit late, but it's OK if they decide to skip the meeting with Nezzar. It just means she will attack them in a moment of weakness at some point in their journey to take the puzzle box. Remember: the only goal is to make sure the players know she's the villain and make sure they hate each other.
@@heyitsMattyP thank you so much! I appreciate it!
You're either a halfling irl or your cat is a monster
A bit of both!
Any reason the Black Spider doesn't just kill them and take the box if it's so important?
That's pretty much her plan. But it's better to leave bodies outside town, so she lures them to a meeting.
are dollareedoos australian currency?
How do I make Nezzar someone they might do a deal with? I feel like it will be obvious to them that she is the main BBE even if I role play her very subtly. Only the BBE would want the puzzle box, no? If she is will to give something wonderful for the box it must must be really important. Or is there a way she is not seen as a bad guy just a third party interested in the box and not affiliated with the "spider" they have will have heard about at Cragmaw Hideout. Grateful for all this great thinking about LMOP.
Glad the videos are helping!
Doesn't matter whether the players agree to the trade or not, and it doesn't matter whether Nezzar gets the box or not. The only thing that matters is the players meet Nezzar. If the players work out she's the BBEG, they'll feel clever - it's OK for the players to succeed in unravelling your plans. If they decline the trade, she'll ambush them at some point later to establish some real animosity.
@@heyitsMattyP yes. perfect. thanks for the reply!