My family has been playing Lost Mine of Phandalin with me as GM and it is coming to a close. They want to start a new game with the same characters which are at level 5.
1) Is there a good game for them to continue at that level?
2) How would I adjust a new game to compensate for their higher character level?
I think GMing is time consuming enough as it is, so simple is better.
rumor has it that a full fledged Phandalin campaign is in the works at WoTC...probably months away. but exciting news nonetheless.
as for the official modules, i know some have options for characters that start at higher levels than recommended. Like Storm King's Thunder and Tomb of Annihilation. One of the adventure compendiums, like Yawning Portal or Radiant Citadel would have adventures for varying levels.
The only one that actually starts at Level 5 i *think* is Dungeon of the Mad Mage...which is epic in scope going all the way to 20.
I'd say if you find an adventure that starts at 3, you modify it for their level 5 characters pretty easy and just slow progression down until things catch up.
It is also easy enough to just up level the monsters, either by substituting similar monsters (instead of low CR goblins, you might use a higher level humanoid and just describe them as goblins, for example), adding more monsters to the fight, or increasing their stats so they have an additional +2-ish damage, their saves increase by 2-ish, and they deal one die more in damage for every dice roll they make (some finagling to match your specific party might be necessary on these numbers).
It would take a little more work (though honestly less additional work than it seems), and would allow you to run whatever campaign you find most interesting.
There are many adventures for levels 5+, the main thing to check for is how far past 5 it goes. If the adventure starts at 3 or 4, there is nothing wrong with things being easy for a session or two until the adventure level catches up to the character's level. Or, encourage them to split the party & get things done more quickly, if you are up to that as a GM / group.
Princes of the Apocalypse goes thru the early teen levels, and is set just east of LMoP.
I read over Princes of the Apocalypse (well the intro and some of the synopsis) and it looks more challenging than Lost Mine. Well, it was for beginners.
I'm thinking I'm beginning to get a handle on things. But if you have more suggestions, I'll keep reading.
Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage (L5-20), although this is pretty much a straight.dungeonncrawl, not much in the way of plot or narrative, to my understanding.
Light of Xaryxis (however, that is Spelljammer, so while it works...it does change the genre, so it's up to you).
Adventures that can be started at L5 since before then, they're going through an introduction that isn't essential to the adventure:
Rime of the Frostmaiden (upto L13).
Storm King's Thunder (upto L11).
Rise of Tiamat has been mentioned, but it does start at L8, so that means creating a bridge adventure to get your party to L8, scaling down the adventure so it's appropriate to L5 characters, or just skipping those levels. None of those are ideal in my opinion, but it's up to you.
Another one worth looking at is Dragon of Icespire Peak and the Beyond Icespire Peak Trilogy. DoIP goes from L1-7, but there isn't really a narrative, so you could skip the early quests without major problems. Or you could just do them anyway, you could even add enemies to increase the difficulty. The Beyond Icespire Peak Trilogy follows on and takes your party to L13. It's not a particularly high quality adventure, but it works, and is a reasonable one. If you can get an old Essentials Kit that has the DDB codes, it works out really good value. It's set in Phandalin, so it's really not a problem to switch. People often combine the two adventures into one for a fuller experience.
Unfortunately, most adventures start at L1. You can modify them to work at L5...but it takes work and experience. I'd go with the ones suggested that work at L5.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
There are lots of official modules that can be used to continue an LMOP campaign. Candlekeep Mysteries has 17 adventures, (1 for each level of 1-16 except 4th which they have two for) and you can run them in a row, picking up from L5 if you want to take your campaign up all the way into some very high levels. Though CKM is great, Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel can be used to do a fairly similar thing. Dungeon of the Mad Mage starts at L5 and goes to L20, but its very combat heavy so I woudn't recommend it.
You could also combine multiple adventures, though that could be complicated. Or you could just a homebrew a campaign. No matter which way you go, you would need the three core rule books to DM if you don't have them already.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explainHERE.
There are lots of official modules that can be used to continue an LMOP campaign. Candlekeep Mysteries has 17 adventures, (1 for each level of 1-16 except 4th which they have two for) and you can run them in a row, picking up from L5 if you want to take your campaign up all the way into some very high levels. Though CKM is great, Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel can be used to do a fairly similar thing.
Ah yes, I meant to mention those, but forgot about them. There's also Ghosts of Saltmarsh and Tales from the Yawning Portal, although TftYP (and GoSM, to my understanding, although I haven't actually bought it and so can't be sure) doesn't do single level quests like CKM and JTtRC, but slightly longer quests that last a couple of levels.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I'm also running LMoP. I'll be using a mix of adventures from Tales From the Yawning Portal and Candlekeep Mysteries to fuel a campaign from 5th to 16th up to the Xanathar quest as I have a Fey Lock and a Druid in my group
Adventures that can be started at L5 since before then, they're going through an introduction that isn't essential to the adventure:
Rime of the Frostmaiden (upto L13).
It is worth noting that Rime of the Frostmaiden is poorly-written tripe straight out of the can—it has a plot that is exceptionally poorly paced and a BBEG so one-dimensional Wizards admits they failed to make her interesting or compelling in any way. Rime run as intended is unplayable and incredibly boring, and, even with a DM putting in a heck of a lot of work, they basically have to rewrite everything about Rime and use it as a setting book, not a campaign book. Given in your OP you note that you already have concerns with how time consuming DMing can be, you should avoid Rime with a ten-foot pole given the amount of time it would take to basically rewrite everything about it.
Nice opinion there. We're playing through and enjoying it quite nicely - more than LMoP, for instance.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Nice opinion there. We're playing through and enjoying it quite nicely - more than LMoP, for instance.
The significant pacing and acknowledgements by Wizards that their BBEG was, as written, one-dimensional to the point of being a mistake is not actually opinion—both are facts acknowledged by Wizards itself. Additionally, D&D Beyond did an entire article once on making Rime actually palatable to any but the most one-dimensional of players. I am glad you are enjoying it, but that likely comes either from a DM who is doing a lot of heavy lifting behind the scenes or from your own ability to ignore its well documented writing flaws.
For OP’s sake, I’ll provide further factual reasons why it is a bad module that, again, have been admitted by Wizards to being a mistake, I’ll use spoilers.
Rime suffers greatly from its lack of direction. It sets up Auril as the BBEG, before revealing the BBEG is a cult to another god in its second act, who created a big dragon monster which becomes the BBEG, which is killed, which makes Auril kind of default to being BBEG again without really making her do anything new to remind the players about her. Then she gets killed off with an entire act of the module left. The last a f is a glorified fetch quest with no BBEG, where the item is a scroll to summon a big monster - a scroll you’ll neither not use because the campaign is over, or you’ll use because you are so desperate to have a final boss the writers forgot to include.
All told, it bounces around without any great purpose, just having the players react to whatever seems like the biggest threat at any point. There is no true Big Bad Evil Guy, because you just bounce between different threats.
Additionally, Auril has no real personality other than being Evil. There are hints of something more—that before the campaign she left other evil gods to hide in a Icewind, but why she did that is never explored. There is room to make her compelling there if you put in the effort, but, as written, it is merely an unanswered question rendered moot by killing Auril before the campaign’s fourth act.
If you and your players are fine with a campaign that constantly feels like it’s changing direction because it cannot commit to a single overarching story, and if your players are fine with a bad guy who lacks any depth of character or morals (some players are into that kind of thing—there’s lots of folks on these forums who always play the same basic lawful-boring character in every game and that kind of person might find Rime palatable), then Rime would be fine.
If you like quality, you’re better off elsewhere (admitting that quality is rather nearly impossible to find in Wizards’ canned campaigns).
I'd also recommend Candlekeep. The levels 4-5 adventures are all interesting in different ways, so even if you don't want to run through every module in the book, those three can buy you some time while you do figure out what larger campaign you want to do next
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
This has been an education. Everyone in my group except one has decided they want to play new characters. The one that wants to keep their character willing to restart at level one.
There are actually a series of modules that more or less follow each other all more or less centered on Phandalin. These include: Lost mine of Phandelver Dragon of icespire Peak Stormlord’s Wrath Sleeping Dragons Wake and Divine Contention these modules should take you to level 13 and possibly close to level 14
I’m sorry your players have changed their minds I’ve had great fun taking characters from one campaign to the next until the become epic (and beyond in a number of cases). There is no reason to throw away characters after their initial campaign ends, I often bring characters from one campaign to others as I’ve played over the years. I hope your p layers enjoy their new characters and take them through many levels over the course of several campaigns.
I’m sorry your players have changed their minds I’ve had great fun taking characters from one campaign to the next until the become epic (and beyond in a number of cases). There is no reason to throw away characters after their initial campaign ends, I often bring characters from one campaign to others as I’ve played over the years. I hope your p layers enjoy their new characters and take them through many levels over the course of several campaigns.
They were first time players who found what they didn't like in their characters and wanted to build what they learned into their new characters. So far they are very enthusiastic.
Um, could I have advice on what to do as a DM if you start a one-shot at level 5. I want to know what to do for my two players. Is there anything they gain? (Other than the character bonuses.)
Muggle - that’s fair if they were just getting their feet wet and learned what they liked. As I said I hope they have fun with their new characters and play them for years to come. sylvarra - the DMG has a section on starting above L1 that includes wealth and magic for different levels of play and magic. Between the wealth for purchasing mundane equipment and the magic for their levels that should be enough. 1 caveat the magic listings don’t include common magic items- you are going to have to decide how many and which of those they can have but you might let them select what they want then trim down the lists they give you.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
My family has been playing Lost Mine of Phandalin with me as GM and it is coming to a close. They want to start a new game with the same characters which are at level 5.
1) Is there a good game for them to continue at that level?
2) How would I adjust a new game to compensate for their higher character level?
I think GMing is time consuming enough as it is, so simple is better.
Thanks,
Chip
Not all who wander are lost...
Muggle
rumor has it that a full fledged Phandalin campaign is in the works at WoTC...probably months away. but exciting news nonetheless.
as for the official modules, i know some have options for characters that start at higher levels than recommended. Like Storm King's Thunder and Tomb of Annihilation. One of the adventure compendiums, like Yawning Portal or Radiant Citadel would have adventures for varying levels.
The only one that actually starts at Level 5 i *think* is Dungeon of the Mad Mage...which is epic in scope going all the way to 20.
I'd say if you find an adventure that starts at 3, you modify it for their level 5 characters pretty easy and just slow progression down until things catch up.
Believe Rise of Tiamat also starts at higher level, since it assumes you've done Hoard of the Dragon Queen first.
Please do not contact or message me.
It is also easy enough to just up level the monsters, either by substituting similar monsters (instead of low CR goblins, you might use a higher level humanoid and just describe them as goblins, for example), adding more monsters to the fight, or increasing their stats so they have an additional +2-ish damage, their saves increase by 2-ish, and they deal one die more in damage for every dice roll they make (some finagling to match your specific party might be necessary on these numbers).
It would take a little more work (though honestly less additional work than it seems), and would allow you to run whatever campaign you find most interesting.
There are many adventures for levels 5+, the main thing to check for is how far past 5 it goes. If the adventure starts at 3 or 4, there is nothing wrong with things being easy for a session or two until the adventure level catches up to the character's level. Or, encourage them to split the party & get things done more quickly, if you are up to that as a GM / group.
Princes of the Apocalypse goes thru the early teen levels, and is set just east of LMoP.
Thanks Everyone!
I read over Princes of the Apocalypse (well the intro and some of the synopsis) and it looks more challenging than Lost Mine. Well, it was for beginners.
I'm thinking I'm beginning to get a handle on things. But if you have more suggestions, I'll keep reading.
Chip
Not all who wander are lost...
Muggle
Adventures that I remember start L5:
Adventures that can be started at L5 since before then, they're going through an introduction that isn't essential to the adventure:
Rise of Tiamat has been mentioned, but it does start at L8, so that means creating a bridge adventure to get your party to L8, scaling down the adventure so it's appropriate to L5 characters, or just skipping those levels. None of those are ideal in my opinion, but it's up to you.
Another one worth looking at is Dragon of Icespire Peak and the Beyond Icespire Peak Trilogy. DoIP goes from L1-7, but there isn't really a narrative, so you could skip the early quests without major problems. Or you could just do them anyway, you could even add enemies to increase the difficulty. The Beyond Icespire Peak Trilogy follows on and takes your party to L13. It's not a particularly high quality adventure, but it works, and is a reasonable one. If you can get an old Essentials Kit that has the DDB codes, it works out really good value. It's set in Phandalin, so it's really not a problem to switch. People often combine the two adventures into one for a fuller experience.
Unfortunately, most adventures start at L1. You can modify them to work at L5...but it takes work and experience. I'd go with the ones suggested that work at L5.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
There are lots of official modules that can be used to continue an LMOP campaign. Candlekeep Mysteries has 17 adventures, (1 for each level of 1-16 except 4th which they have two for) and you can run them in a row, picking up from L5 if you want to take your campaign up all the way into some very high levels. Though CKM is great, Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel can be used to do a fairly similar thing. Dungeon of the Mad Mage starts at L5 and goes to L20, but its very combat heavy so I woudn't recommend it.
You could also combine multiple adventures, though that could be complicated. Or you could just a homebrew a campaign. No matter which way you go, you would need the three core rule books to DM if you don't have them already.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.Ah yes, I meant to mention those, but forgot about them. There's also Ghosts of Saltmarsh and Tales from the Yawning Portal, although TftYP (and GoSM, to my understanding, although I haven't actually bought it and so can't be sure) doesn't do single level quests like CKM and JTtRC, but slightly longer quests that last a couple of levels.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I'm also running LMoP. I'll be using a mix of adventures from Tales From the Yawning Portal and Candlekeep Mysteries to fuel a campaign from 5th to 16th up to the Xanathar quest as I have a Fey Lock and a Druid in my group
It is worth noting that Rime of the Frostmaiden is poorly-written tripe straight out of the can—it has a plot that is exceptionally poorly paced and a BBEG so one-dimensional Wizards admits they failed to make her interesting or compelling in any way. Rime run as intended is unplayable and incredibly boring, and, even with a DM putting in a heck of a lot of work, they basically have to rewrite everything about Rime and use it as a setting book, not a campaign book. Given in your OP you note that you already have concerns with how time consuming DMing can be, you should avoid Rime with a ten-foot pole given the amount of time it would take to basically rewrite everything about it.
Nice opinion there. We're playing through and enjoying it quite nicely - more than LMoP, for instance.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
The significant pacing and acknowledgements by Wizards that their BBEG was, as written, one-dimensional to the point of being a mistake is not actually opinion—both are facts acknowledged by Wizards itself. Additionally, D&D Beyond did an entire article once on making Rime actually palatable to any but the most one-dimensional of players. I am glad you are enjoying it, but that likely comes either from a DM who is doing a lot of heavy lifting behind the scenes or from your own ability to ignore its well documented writing flaws.
For OP’s sake, I’ll provide further factual reasons why it is a bad module that, again, have been admitted by Wizards to being a mistake, I’ll use spoilers.
Rime suffers greatly from its lack of direction. It sets up Auril as the BBEG, before revealing the BBEG is a cult to another god in its second act, who created a big dragon monster which becomes the BBEG, which is killed, which makes Auril kind of default to being BBEG again without really making her do anything new to remind the players about her. Then she gets killed off with an entire act of the module left. The last a f is a glorified fetch quest with no BBEG, where the item is a scroll to summon a big monster - a scroll you’ll neither not use because the campaign is over, or you’ll use because you are so desperate to have a final boss the writers forgot to include.
All told, it bounces around without any great purpose, just having the players react to whatever seems like the biggest threat at any point. There is no true Big Bad Evil Guy, because you just bounce between different threats.
Additionally, Auril has no real personality other than being Evil. There are hints of something more—that before the campaign she left other evil gods to hide in a Icewind, but why she did that is never explored. There is room to make her compelling there if you put in the effort, but, as written, it is merely an unanswered question rendered moot by killing Auril before the campaign’s fourth act.
If you and your players are fine with a campaign that constantly feels like it’s changing direction because it cannot commit to a single overarching story, and if your players are fine with a bad guy who lacks any depth of character or morals (some players are into that kind of thing—there’s lots of folks on these forums who always play the same basic lawful-boring character in every game and that kind of person might find Rime palatable), then Rime would be fine.
If you like quality, you’re better off elsewhere (admitting that quality is rather nearly impossible to find in Wizards’ canned campaigns).
I'd also recommend Candlekeep. The levels 4-5 adventures are all interesting in different ways, so even if you don't want to run through every module in the book, those three can buy you some time while you do figure out what larger campaign you want to do next
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Thanks everyone.
This has been an education. Everyone in my group except one has decided they want to play new characters. The one that wants to keep their character willing to restart at level one.
Chip
Not all who wander are lost...
Muggle
There are actually a series of modules that more or less follow each other all more or less centered on Phandalin. These include:
Lost mine of Phandelver
Dragon of icespire Peak
Stormlord’s Wrath
Sleeping Dragons Wake
and Divine Contention
these modules should take you to level 13 and possibly close to level 14
I’m sorry your players have changed their minds I’ve had great fun taking characters from one campaign to the next until the become epic (and beyond in a number of cases). There is no reason to throw away characters after their initial campaign ends, I often bring characters from one campaign to others as I’ve played over the years. I hope your p layers enjoy their new characters and take them through many levels over the course of several campaigns.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
They were first time players who found what they didn't like in their characters and wanted to build what they learned into their new characters. So far they are very enthusiastic.
Chip
Not all who wander are lost...
Muggle
Um, could I have advice on what to do as a DM if you start a one-shot at level 5. I want to know what to do for my two players. Is there anything they gain? (Other than the character bonuses.)
Muggle - that’s fair if they were just getting their feet wet and learned what they liked. As I said I hope they have fun with their new characters and play them for years to come.
sylvarra - the DMG has a section on starting above L1 that includes wealth and magic for different levels of play and magic. Between the wealth for purchasing mundane equipment and the magic for their levels that should be enough. 1 caveat the magic listings don’t include common magic items- you are going to have to decide how many and which of those they can have but you might let them select what they want then trim down the lists they give you.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.