This is another entry in the ongoing Dungeons & Dragons campaign I am running at home with August and a few of his friends. It is important to remember that I have continued to make gameplay and dungeon adjustments for the age and experience of the group since this is the first time playing for most of them and they are (average age) 11.
Major spoilers for the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set adventure Lost Mine Of Phandelver. As in, I’m not even going to try mask much of anything here. Thankfully this is the last time for the Starter Set adventure.
Most of the party was still at level 3 as they approached the mine. I had Gundren Rockseeker, owner of the mine follow half a day behind the party as he gathered supplies. Turns out he caught up with the party on the way to the mine since they took the side trip to help the sheep from the Wild Sheep Chase adventure. Knowing what was in store I had Gundren come up with some specific supplies, particularly a couple of Alchemist’s Fire. Finding the body of one brother at the entrance Gundren takes the body back to town tasking the party to “find that bastard Black Spider and GET RID OF HIM!”
Two paths lead from the dwarven camp at the entrance to the mine. Taking the path toward the left the party came across a series of tunnels. I was even going to simply let them get around the monster in this section of the mine, but somebody decided to “take a quick look” down a side tunnel, effectively splitting the party. I allowed the Ochre Jelly to cut off the party members who decided to split off and look down the side tunnel, and it was a couple of rounds before the rest of the party could backtrack and come over to help.
Eliminating this threat was easy enough (thanks Gundren) and in the next room the party stumbles (literally) across a skeleton at the bottom of a pool of water. I don’t know how many hints I had to drop before people started searching. Look, if it is going to rise up and attack, it would do so pretty early on in the encounter, so if a skeleton just lays there as your foot is stuck in its rib cage, it should be (relatively) safe to assume it is not going to rise up and attack.
The noise the party made as they tried to sneak through tipped off the bugbears. I like my party to actually at least attempt to stage whisper, make some sort of role-playing attempt. If you say something stupid or outrageous during a conversation in character, even if it was meant as a joke outside of the game, I am going to act as if it was actually said in-game. In this case it meant the element of surprise was gone.
Fortunately the group made quick work of these foes, even preventing them from alerting their main quarry (ha – pun intended). They unfortunately made too much noise inspecting a locked door, so the Black Spider was not surprised. Two interesting things happened in this battle. The first was how the initiative rolls worked out – two of the party had the same turn as the Black Spider. When hit with a major spell that knocked him down to zero hit points he simultaneously cast an invisibility spell on himself. The result was a dead and invisible foe. The second thing was how the wizard of the group used the Wand Of True Polymorph he was able to acquire from The Wild Sheep Chase side story adventure. Without spending time to attune it and get familiar with the wand the results were rather unpredictable. One result was an attempt at turning a large spider into a rock but instead it was turned into a potato.
The party earned a rest, and needed one to recuperate from the battles so far. And then it happened. August’s dwarven cleric character, the one who should know better, messed with the altar of the dwarven deity and triggered a cave-in. This caused most of the party to wind up getting a lot more damage than a simple rest would take care of.
After numerous hints the wizard searched the body of the invisible (and yes, very dead, not rising up) foe that had been pulling the strings of everybody causing trouble in the region. This resulted in a key, invisible as it may be, that wound up unlocking the door that had perplexed the party just a short while ago. There not only was the party able to stabilize each other and recuperate long enough in safety to be battle ready, they found the third, and final, Rockseeker brother. Gundren’s youngest brother was held hostage to provide the Black Spider with information on the mine, but unfortunately he didn’t have any. This also meant he could not provide any information to the party.
What the party did not know was while they were recuperating behind the locked door, the Black Spider’s agents they did not come across wound up coming in to see the cave-in, and noticing the other dead bodies, decided working for the Black Spider was not advantageous any more, especially since he wasn’t around.
Fortunately the party was systematic in their approach to the rest of the mine, resulting in some pretty quick work. In one session sometimes we will get through only 3 or 4 battles. Over the last couple of sessions we managed several pitched battles. Part of this is due to the kids finally learning the flow of the game and also party due to myself getting a custom made encounter sheet for each room which details its inhabitants. The encounter sheet is still a work in progress, but preparing them in advance really helps keep things from stopping while a new sheet of paper is brought out and notes made on the enemy armor class, hit points, and what not. Having these made all ready to go prior to battle is one of the better decisions I have made as a dungeon master recently.
Due to some good role-playing on the part of the kids I allowed them to successfully talk the Spectator into believing they were new owners of the mine and therefore its employers. There was a bit of a hiccup as Auugust (again) went on a sort of explanation of who was and wasn’t an owner of the mine. I then reminded him, out of the game of course, of Ghostbusters, and the line “Ray, when someone asks you if you’re a god, you say yes!” He then placed his head down on the table in shame. Thankfully there was a successful charisma check and a fast talking wizard.
After this situation was resolved the party wound up coming across another undead creature that may or may not have successfully been talked around, but the party managed to be quick and coordinate their attack wisely. This would lead to another rest period for the group and a break between gaming sessions. On the next session one of the party would not make it, the half-elf ranger who caused problems earlier. We explained his absence as him waking up early and wandering off to explore, finding himself in a cavernous area with some spores that knocked him out. The party left him, figuring Gundren would know how to fish him out.
The party cleared the rest of the mine, including a battle with some bat-like creatures called Stirges, What was fun about this battle was how a couple of them rolled (well, I did as the DM) critical misses during their attack. This allowed me to describe how some of the stirges dove down missing party members in their near-starvation state and smacked into the cavern floor with such force they took themselves out.
Exiting the mine the party found Gundren and his younger brother camping out, waiting for the mine to be cleared. Gundren tasked the party with clearing Southcrypt Pass. The rationale was this was a route needed to shorten travel time between the mine and other areas of Fearun (the continent where this adventure is set). This is an adventure I picked up on the Dungeon Master’s Guild, the online marketplace for adventures (and more) both official and fan-created. I figured this would be a great way to tie the Starter Set adventure with where I would be taking the party next.
More on that next time.