Lost Mine of Phandelver Dungeon Master Guide & Tutorial. The Lighthall Platform is now offering free online live classes for Dungeon Masters that I will be facilitating in one week. The student sign-up is free and the link is below, www.lighthall.co/class/d336b3e7-aac8-4070-b57f-a5f421cc793a
My parents whom I talked into playing D&D during the lock-down are playing their first ever Campaign. My Dad playing a wizard kicked in the door "Surprise Mudder Trucker!" casting Burning hands and torching all the papers on Glasstaffs Desk. Glasstaff wasn't even in the room having been warned by the rat. All the evidence is gone.
I decided that glassstaff was an actual threat. I rewrote his stat block giving him nastier spells and a few legendary actions. Bassicaly when combat ensues, after the first hit has been landed on him (which makes him activate a shield spell from the staff as a reaction) he cast a modified ray of sickness dealing only 1d8 damage, but against the entire party. Then having spells such as crown of madness and mirror image should make for an interesting combat. When he reaches half health he will then cast a third lvl false life as a legendary action. This should definitely make my players cower in fear. If they manage to bring him beneath 5 hp after his false life he will retreat with misty step, losing his wand in the progress, letting the players know that they beat him, but that he is not defeated. For me glassstaff is a villain to be respected, he is afterall not just a mere wizard. I will of course make sure to let the Ruffians throughout the dungeons make claims of how foolish it is to face down glassstaff. If they lose however they will be put in the cells. Though their act of facing down the ruffians has rallied the townspeople who under command of Sildar and Daran clears the rest of the hideout, rooting glassstaff out. In this way I have a villain for further down the line, a villain that my players know not to take lightly.
I lifted some stuff from the Alchemist’s Manor from the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh to make my Redbrand hideout more interesting (I’m actually borrowing a lot from Saltmarsh because my Phandelver is also a coastal fishing town since half the party just happened to end up with Sailor or Pirate backgrounds). If you don’t have the Saltmarsh book [SPOILER ALERT] the big thing I took is that the mansion isn’t just not known to be the base of the bandits but instead is believed by the public to be haunted. This is of course something spurred by the criminals in question as a Scooby Doo-esque cover up and makes for a fun and simple twist for the players to figure out (eg; when talking to townsfolk they can learn the rumors of haunting are much more recent than one would expect. Agatha could also be helpful here if asked). To help with it you can add encounters involving things like Animated Objects which *seem* like haunted objects but are actually created by Glastaff to ward away intruders
Could be that the online LMOP module I got is an updated version from what you were working off of; but, as written, the secret doors in area 12 are solidly shut *until* Glasstaff hightails it out of there. Only after he flees are the secret doors left slightly ajar.
I would like to do that, but not possible with OBS and a live stream. There are limits. My slides got messed up for this video. The vote was for me to cover in one video each of the potential combat areas. I will do that.
These videos are great to help me get familiar with the locations dungeons etc. Running this adventure now with some of my own tweaks but these have been very helpful thanks
You are welcome. There is a weekly live stream Lost Mine of Phandelver DM Tutorial that covers much more. You can also ask questions in the live chat. The next one is tomorrow, on Phandalin.
I gave Glasstaff 2 suits of Animated Armor (monster manual), with appropriately assigned hp, as lair muscle. They make sense and add a considerable level of threat to what should be the chapter finale. When alone, he's a too soft of a target even with surprise in his favor and I didn't want to up his wizard level and risk him throwing a fireball at level 2 players.
My players are currently in this dungeon, and I missed that the Rebrands all know each other, and the fact the skellitons in the crypt are undead. ... Also, my players bribed the nothic not to eat them, by providing him with lore from another campain, and rolling well on perswation. ... I honestly really want my players to rescue Droop, but they haven't happened to explore that room yet. ... They already found the rat, and figured out he's a familiar. When they did, one player wanted to keep him as a hostage, but the rest of the group talked him out of it. Another player tried to shoot him, but missed, and the Rebrands escorting her went off on her for it.
@@HowtoRPG thanks my party is so annoyed that the ruffians have been allowed to get away with so much that one of them wants to campaign as new Town master.
The first time I ran this, the party came into room 12 from the secret staircase, got the drop on Glassstaff and made it into a cakewalk (I was happy for them, because they got demolished in the goblin caves earlier; one death and the rest captured). The next time I ran it, I placed a magic mouth spell on the secret door leading west from area 7. It would shout an alarm if anyone other than Glassstaff opened it. I also placed a bar on the secret door into 12 to delay the party further, while Glassstaff shoved his papers into a satchel and ran to get the enemies in 10 to cover his escape with the bugbears from 9 in tow. It turns out that party didn’t go that way, instead aggravating the Nothic in 8, making enough noise to rouse the enemies in 9 and 10 and having to flee, leading to a town-square showdown against Glassstaff and the remaining Redbrands. They managed to survive, but Glassstaff got away and the town leader blamed the party for riling the gang up.
I was the DM for LMoP when I first started. My friend wanted to DM the essentials kit, so I Nilsa Dendrar as a rouge since one of my characters fave her a dagger to help defend herself.
Hi Fred. I enjoyed the video. My party just worked their way through the Redbrands hideout in our session last week. They came in through the secret entrance and actually ended up going straight to Glassstaff's quarters as you suggested. He escaped however, and they never encountered him. They decided to explore his quarters rather than to give chace. They also managed to work their way through the hideout without killing a lot of Redbrands (they successfully used deception using the cloaks). Do you think I should have the Redbrands resurface as a menace with Halia as their new head or is better to assume they've been dealt with and focus on the next sections?
running session 2 so watching your playlist on NPCs of Phandalin and this video here...I've read the whole adventure twice so I am prepared for wherever they want to go but odds are they'll end up here (hopefully)
So my players snuck in through the secret entrance, killed the Nothic, put on the red cloaks (except one player, a tortle) and then ended up fighting the redbrands and skeletons in the tomb room. During that battle, the tortle player, a druid, used Thunderclap. Which creates a loud roar of thunder audible up to 300 feet. So should I just have the remaining redbrands and bugbears try to capture the players? Sildars with them. It might be fun to have them torture him for info then kill him infront of the players. Any advice?
I really don't know what to do, please aid me. My party got seriously wounded at the end of Redbrand Hideout so they decided to take a short rest OUTSIDE of the Hideout. There is literally only Glasstaf and his rat remaining. What shall i do now? Logical way would be to make Glasstaf escape with all his stuff (including the letter from Black Spider), but then my party will lack so much information(which is multiplied by Glasstaf's connection to one of my player's backstory)
I think PC's can encounter Glasstaff so easily because it's an opportunity for Glasstaff to be murdered by the PC's like Halia wants or if Glasstaff is surprised you can play him in a way that he tries to deceive the PC's as if he is just Iarno Albrek and the redbrands captured him and pay/forced him to do some kind of work for them. He might even offer up some misinformation to try and derail the PC's, if he succeeds this ultimately allows you as the DM to move Iarno to a different location and set up a better opportunity to reveal him as Glasstaff.
Glass Staff isn't that much of a push over. With his Staff of Defense he gets Mage Armor (which he would've casted already), gets a +1 to AC, and gets 4 castings of Shield. That's a 21 AC for the first 4 rounds.
@@edfsddd6348 I would like to focus on "Dragon of Icespire Peak and the Curse of Strahd". I have nothing planned at the moment or the future, but I do have DM guides from other people in the community on Lost Mine of Phandelver coming...
You are welcome. It is up to a Dungeon Master to decide what to do if players take a long rest. I would suggest nothing good will happen if they Redbrands still have the forces left.
I told my players this after they had cleared most of the hideout but had yet to confront Glassstaff: ---- The Redbrands know who you are and, after the damage you've done to their hideout, they know you're a significant threat.You guys are smart enough to know that leaves your enemies some options (You still don't have the leader) 1) If their numbers are still strong, they'll come for you, probably soon and maybe even before you can finish your rest depending on how easy you are to find. If you're difficult to find, they might take it out on the town. 2) They fortify their position not willing to give up what they have but preferring to take you on on their home turf after preparing themselves properly. This is if they wanna be cautious and are unsure if their numbers will be enough 3) They cut their losses and flee Phandalin. This is if they think they are too few to keep on fighting you guys ----- I find it's good to be explicit about this with especially new players. It's stuff that at least one character in the party would be able to figure out but something that players used to video game logic push out of their heads because they believe they've found an easy solution. Of course, playing the module like a video game is a valid playstyle. For example, it's not like the module punishes players for taking their time with side quests instead of seaking out Gundren as quickly as possible.
I let the players get away with disguising themselves as Redbrands. I thought the adventure said their members were fluid and they don't all know each other. They played "get help" and pretended to turn in one of the players to Iarno. They fake locked him up in the cell and ambushed Iarno when he came to interrogate the new prisoner. We ended it there, no I have to think how everyone else in the dungeon will react to his capture.
Agreed. We can only pray that RUclips will get notifications to work in a way that is not stupid. I have a huge playlist on the Lost Mine of Phandelver.
Lost Mine of Phandelver Dungeon Master Guide & Tutorial. The Lighthall Platform is now offering free online live classes for Dungeon Masters that I will be facilitating in one week. The student sign-up is free and the link is below,
www.lighthall.co/class/d336b3e7-aac8-4070-b57f-a5f421cc793a
My parents whom I talked into playing D&D during the lock-down are playing their first ever Campaign. My Dad playing a wizard kicked in the door "Surprise Mudder Trucker!" casting Burning hands and torching all the papers on Glasstaffs Desk. Glasstaff wasn't even in the room having been warned by the rat. All the evidence is gone.
You're averaging 4 videos a day of late. Very impressive. I hope you can turn this into a career!
Me too. I can't keep it up. Thank you.
If I can upload one video a week I feel worn out. You've got skills!
@@DnDnBeer Thanks.
I decided that glassstaff was an actual threat. I rewrote his stat block giving him nastier spells and a few legendary actions. Bassicaly when combat ensues, after the first hit has been landed on him (which makes him activate a shield spell from the staff as a reaction) he cast a modified ray of sickness dealing only 1d8 damage, but against the entire party. Then having spells such as crown of madness and mirror image should make for an interesting combat. When he reaches half health he will then cast a third lvl false life as a legendary action. This should definitely make my players cower in fear. If they manage to bring him beneath 5 hp after his false life he will retreat with misty step, losing his wand in the progress, letting the players know that they beat him, but that he is not defeated. For me glassstaff is a villain to be respected, he is afterall not just a mere wizard. I will of course make sure to let the Ruffians throughout the dungeons make claims of how foolish it is to face down glassstaff. If they lose however they will be put in the cells. Though their act of facing down the ruffians has rallied the townspeople who under command of Sildar and Daran clears the rest of the hideout, rooting glassstaff out. In this way I have a villain for further down the line, a villain that my players know not to take lightly.
All the best with your plan.
Only just here with my party, SO glad you had another video pop up!
Keep at it Fred, you're awesome.
Thanks, I will.
I am new to DnD, and all of your videos have been amazing and helpful!
Thank you Tamsden. I am glad you found them useful :)
I lifted some stuff from the Alchemist’s Manor from the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh to make my Redbrand hideout more interesting (I’m actually borrowing a lot from Saltmarsh because my Phandelver is also a coastal fishing town since half the party just happened to end up with Sailor or Pirate backgrounds). If you don’t have the Saltmarsh book [SPOILER ALERT] the big thing I took is that the mansion isn’t just not known to be the base of the bandits but instead is believed by the public to be haunted. This is of course something spurred by the criminals in question as a Scooby Doo-esque cover up and makes for a fun and simple twist for the players to figure out (eg; when talking to townsfolk they can learn the rumors of haunting are much more recent than one would expect. Agatha could also be helpful here if asked). To help with it you can add encounters involving things like Animated Objects which *seem* like haunted objects but are actually created by Glastaff to ward away intruders
Nice link.
Could be that the online LMOP module I got is an updated version from what you were working off of; but, as written, the secret doors in area 12 are solidly shut *until* Glasstaff hightails it out of there. Only after he flees are the secret doors left slightly ajar.
Suggestion: Along side the slide show of art, scroll around a zoomed in version of the map so we can see the actual room you're talking about.
I would like to do that, but not possible with OBS and a live stream. There are limits. My slides got messed up for this video. The vote was for me to cover in one video each of the potential combat areas. I will do that.
These videos are great to help me get familiar with the locations dungeons etc. Running this adventure now with some of my own tweaks but these have been very helpful thanks
You are welcome. There is a weekly live stream Lost Mine of Phandelver DM Tutorial that covers much more. You can also ask questions in the live chat. The next one is tomorrow, on Phandalin.
@@HowtoRPG what time tomorrow?
@@Nexusofgeek Time Zones will be: Saturday 1st of October 2022, PDT 4 pm, MDT 5 pm, CDT 6 pm, EDT 7 pm. Depends where you are in the world.
@@HowtoRPG perfect
I gave Glasstaff 2 suits of Animated Armor (monster manual), with appropriately assigned hp, as lair muscle. They make sense and add a considerable level of threat to what should be the chapter finale. When alone, he's a too soft of a target even with surprise in his favor and I didn't want to up his wizard level and risk him throwing a fireball at level 2 players.
Fair enough, I understand what your saying and agree. The designers made Glasstaff, weak intentionally.
Your videos are helping me alot. Thanks and cheers from Brazil, my friend!
You are welcome, Carlos.
My players are currently in this dungeon, and I missed that the Rebrands all know each other, and the fact the skellitons in the crypt are undead.
...
Also, my players bribed the nothic not to eat them, by providing him with lore from another campain, and rolling well on perswation.
...
I honestly really want my players to rescue Droop, but they haven't happened to explore that room yet.
...
They already found the rat, and figured out he's a familiar. When they did, one player wanted to keep him as a hostage, but the rest of the group talked him out of it.
Another player tried to shoot him, but missed, and the Rebrands escorting her went off on her for it.
Thank you so much! Your videos are super useful and you have a fantastic way to make it entertaining as well. Thanks again.
Happy to hear that! All the best with your game.
@@HowtoRPG thanks my party is so annoyed that the ruffians have been allowed to get away with so much that one of them wants to campaign as new Town master.
The first time I ran this, the party came into room 12 from the secret staircase, got the drop on Glassstaff and made it into a cakewalk (I was happy for them, because they got demolished in the goblin caves earlier; one death and the rest captured). The next time I ran it, I placed a magic mouth spell on the secret door leading west from area 7. It would shout an alarm if anyone other than Glassstaff opened it. I also placed a bar on the secret door into 12 to delay the party further, while Glassstaff shoved his papers into a satchel and ran to get the enemies in 10 to cover his escape with the bugbears from 9 in tow. It turns out that party didn’t go that way, instead aggravating the Nothic in 8, making enough noise to rouse the enemies in 9 and 10 and having to flee, leading to a town-square showdown against Glassstaff and the remaining Redbrands. They managed to survive, but Glassstaff got away and the town leader blamed the party for riling the gang up.
Thanks for sharing your experience. The first situation, happens a lot.
I was the DM for LMoP when I first started. My friend wanted to DM the essentials kit, so I Nilsa Dendrar as a rouge since one of my characters fave her a dagger to help defend herself.
How timely! My group of players just got to the Redbrand hideout/act 3 quests!
Good news.
Hi Fred. I enjoyed the video. My party just worked their way through the Redbrands hideout in our session last week. They came in through the secret entrance and actually ended up going straight to Glassstaff's quarters as you suggested. He escaped however, and they never encountered him. They decided to explore his quarters rather than to give chace. They also managed to work their way through the hideout without killing a lot of Redbrands (they successfully used deception using the cloaks). Do you think I should have the Redbrands resurface as a menace with Halia as their new head or is better to assume they've been dealt with and focus on the next sections?
Good. It's up to you, not my game.
running session 2 so watching your playlist on NPCs of Phandalin and this video here...I've read the whole adventure twice so I am prepared for wherever they want to go but odds are they'll end up here (hopefully)
So my players snuck in through the secret entrance, killed the Nothic, put on the red cloaks (except one player, a tortle) and then ended up fighting the redbrands and skeletons in the tomb room. During that battle, the tortle player, a druid, used Thunderclap. Which creates a loud roar of thunder audible up to 300 feet. So should I just have the remaining redbrands and bugbears try to capture the players? Sildars with them. It might be fun to have them torture him for info then kill him infront of the players. Any advice?
This is my second time running LMOP
I think you have enough experience that you don't need my advice.
I really don't know what to do, please aid me. My party got seriously wounded at the end of Redbrand Hideout so they decided to take a short rest OUTSIDE of the Hideout. There is literally only Glasstaf and his rat remaining. What shall i do now?
Logical way would be to make Glasstaf escape with all his stuff (including the letter from Black Spider), but then my party will lack so much information(which is multiplied by Glasstaf's connection to one of my player's backstory)
Can the players really get suprised while exploring the hideout (after the first encounter)?
Yes. It's not about players but their characters getting surprised.
I think PC's can encounter Glasstaff so easily because it's an opportunity for Glasstaff to be murdered by the PC's like Halia wants or if Glasstaff is surprised you can play him in a way that he tries to deceive the PC's as if he is just Iarno Albrek and the redbrands captured him and pay/forced him to do some kind of work for them. He might even offer up some misinformation to try and derail the PC's, if he succeeds this ultimately allows you as the DM to move Iarno to a different location and set up a better opportunity to reveal him as Glasstaff.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Glass Staff isn't that much of a push over. With his Staff of Defense he gets Mage Armor (which he would've casted already), gets a +1 to AC, and gets 4 castings of Shield.
That's a 21 AC for the first 4 rounds.
Glass Staff being alone gives players a chance to kill JUST him, like that one NPC in Phandalin wants. I think it's pretty interesting. :)
WE can disagree, but it's what Chris wanted.
Idk what to comment, but this comment helps your hard work get recognized
Thank you Nathan.
Why isn't this vid in the playlist
Thank you so much for pointing that out. That was an error on my part. It's on the playlist now.
@@HowtoRPG thank you. Will you do more encounter videos for lmop like cragmaw hideout?
@@edfsddd6348 I would like to focus on "Dragon of Icespire Peak and the Curse of Strahd". I have nothing planned at the moment or the future, but I do have DM guides from other people in the community on Lost Mine of Phandelver coming...
@@HowtoRPG nice, more lmop guides from other perspective s? Sounds good
you didnt talk about how to handle if players decide to do a long rest. but ty for all the advice
You are welcome. It is up to a Dungeon Master to decide what to do if players take a long rest. I would suggest nothing good will happen if they Redbrands still have the forces left.
I told my players this after they had cleared most of the hideout but had yet to confront Glassstaff:
----
The Redbrands know who you are and, after the damage you've done to their hideout, they know you're a significant threat.You guys are smart enough to know that leaves your enemies some options (You still don't have the leader)
1) If their numbers are still strong, they'll come for you, probably soon and maybe even before you can finish your rest depending on how easy you are to find. If you're difficult to find, they might take it out on the town.
2) They fortify their position not willing to give up what they have but preferring to take you on on their home turf after preparing themselves properly. This is if they wanna be cautious and are unsure if their numbers will be enough
3) They cut their losses and flee Phandalin. This is if they think they are too few to keep on fighting you guys
-----
I find it's good to be explicit about this with especially new players. It's stuff that at least one character in the party would be able to figure out but something that players used to video game logic push out of their heads because they believe they've found an easy solution. Of course, playing the module like a video game is a valid playstyle. For example, it's not like the module punishes players for taking their time with side quests instead of seaking out Gundren as quickly as possible.
Thank you so much! This was helpful!
Glad it was helpful!
I let the players get away with disguising themselves as Redbrands. I thought the adventure said their members were fluid and they don't all know each other. They played "get help" and pretended to turn in one of the players to Iarno. They fake locked him up in the cell and ambushed Iarno when he came to interrogate the new prisoner. We ended it there, no I have to think how everyone else in the dungeon will react to his capture.
Thanks for sharing.
Love your content and accent :)
Thank you :)
Ohh damn, pitty I did not see it before the encounter.
Agreed. We can only pray that RUclips will get notifications to work in a way that is not stupid. I have a huge playlist on the Lost Mine of Phandelver.
Subscribed! 👍🏻👍🏻
Welcome aboard!
The DC's on those secret entrances are as low as they are to let new players know to look for that sort of thing going forward.
WotC sets low DC's for secret doors in all their premade adventures.