So my group has reached Cragmaw Castle in the Lost Mine of Phandelver campaign, and cleared most of it out leaving just the final room with the bugbear, Doppelganger and Gundren. They have barricaded themselves into a room to take a short rest after fighting the owlbear and that was where we left the session.
The book says that the Doppelganger should be a female drow but I'm thinking of putting a twist on this based on previous event from our campaign. The group forced Sildar Hallwinter to go along with them to the redbrand hideout, which reveals that Glasstaff is Iarno, who Sildar went to Phandalin to find. Once there, they fought and knocked him out, Sildar said he would get the Lords Alliance to take him back to Neverwinter for questioning, but the group did their own questioning then killed Iarno. Sildar warned them that the Lords Alliance won't like those actions and he ran out of the hideout to travel to Neverwinter.
The bugbear room will be alerted of the presence of intruders as a result of the players taking a rest, a goblin noticed the dead bodies and barricades and warns King Grol. I'm now thinking of having the Doppelganger look like Iarno as a prisoner on the floor next to Gundren, leading the players to believe that the one they killed wasn't the real Iarno hence him being evil at the redbrand hideout, only for the Doppelganger to jump up and attack creating a surprise and hopefully more interesting conclusion to the third session of the castle.
Cheesy? I know I'll need to tweak the heated discussion part a bit
I am currently runnining LMOP for the first time but we are not quite yet at the castle. From what I remember of that section, isn't the doppelganger's goal to kill Gundren and destroy the map? Since the spider captured one of Gundren brothers when they went for provisions and got the cave location from them so they want to ensure nobody else finds it and that is why they are negotiating with Grol.
I mean, if that didn't happen in your campaign and it still wants Gundren that is fine too.
As I see it, it depends on whether you want Grol to know that they are a Doppelganger or not. If they do know then it might be best if they take Gundren's shape and fake a prisoner exchange or negotiate for his freedom. If negotiations go well, then he pretends to be Gundren all the way to phandalin and can later either disappear or lead them to an ambush depending on how much of a nuinsance the pc were to the plans. If the pc betray Grull then it helps in the fight..
If Grull thinks he is Iarno... I guess what you say could work as long as you set it up so that they HAVE to free them before beating Grull. I doubt the Bugbear would be willing to die to sell the ruse.
I suppose they could also find both Gundren and Grull dead and the map missing but that seems like an anticlimatic start for the session.
hmm, you raise some really good points. I think the negotiation has broken down by the point that the party reach the room, the roaming goblins supplying the news of the whole castle being taken out has seen to that, Grol is now in a last stand position. and the doppelganger needs to ensure that no one makes it out of the castle alive.
Considering the Black Spider has already colluded with Iarno so is aware of his appearance, I just need to think of a reason for him to relate the party to iarno, otherwise it makes no sense for him to be in that form. I could just have him say during one of his turns "Since I saw you attack those redbrands, i knew you would be trouble" hinting that he saw them back at Phandalin or the redbrand hideout. It's a bit loose but my party will kill him before they get any real answers!
I really like the idea of him jumping them as Iarno, as it will give them a fake sensation that they killed an imposter Iarno, and with a "shoot first, ask questions later" group, this would give a great opportunity for roleplay. With him turning into his real form when he dies that actually they did kill Iarno earlier.
I think this is a solid story beat. I know it doesn't align perfectly with all of the plot in the module, but I think it's clever and interesting enough to justify it. I think it would be pretty interesting if the doppelganger can successfully convince them that they really are Iarno just to see how long you can keep up the ruse.
The thing is, the players don't really tend to find out a lot of the detail in the plot as they have killed the NPC before they get chance to talk! I've had to be a bit creative to drop in story points and further info. At first they really didn't trust Sildar, so this would also back up their thoughts on that too, at least for a while maybe.
I've got the session starting in 20minutes, and I'm looking forward to this one. I'll keep the ruse going as I think it would be fun, but if they find the map he will need to attack straight away
Just curious... where are they trying to take this rest? After the Owlbear fight, I doubt the top level mini-bosses of this area are just content to let them rest and will likely burst in on them trying to finish them off, with whatever reinforcements are at hand. No matter how you play the doppleganger, just make sure you get any points across that are needed in stitching things together.
They are taking the rest in the room where the owlbear was, they have barricaded the door shut. The guys are pretty attached to their characters at the moment and all new to the game, so I'm reluctant to kill them off too easy just yet, although we have had some very close calls that required some clever thinking to get out of. None of the characters are min-maxed in the slightest, so I have to adjust the difficulty of some of the encounters sometimes, but the main point is they all feel that achievement at the end of the session of pulling through, and they are enjoying it.
They also attempted a short rest earlier in the castle, but I interrupted that one, so the guys are in a pretty bad shape right now. So for this session, I'm starting with some goblins having walked through and seen the total carnage of everything dead to warn Krol, and they are holed up in his room as a last stand.
I’m not sure if anyone is interested in an update here, but here’s one anyway. We played the session yesterday, and the players questioned me for a fair few minutes when they saw Iarno was sitting there “tied up” next to Gundren saying “you do realise we killed him right? Like, we stepped on his neck”. And at first they suspected him of being immortal or revived, rather than there being a fake, altho they had big suspicions back at the hideout that Iarno was actually a vampire!
They rolled fairly high to see if he was lying when they questioned him, but they didn’t roll quite high enough so they couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth or not, but the suspicions took over from the surprise. Still, they seemed to enjoy the fight when he found they made a copy of the map and he got a surprise attack and fought well
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So my group has reached Cragmaw Castle in the Lost Mine of Phandelver campaign, and cleared most of it out leaving just the final room with the bugbear, Doppelganger and Gundren. They have barricaded themselves into a room to take a short rest after fighting the owlbear and that was where we left the session.
The book says that the Doppelganger should be a female drow but I'm thinking of putting a twist on this based on previous event from our campaign. The group forced Sildar Hallwinter to go along with them to the redbrand hideout, which reveals that Glasstaff is Iarno, who Sildar went to Phandalin to find. Once there, they fought and knocked him out, Sildar said he would get the Lords Alliance to take him back to Neverwinter for questioning, but the group did their own questioning then killed Iarno. Sildar warned them that the Lords Alliance won't like those actions and he ran out of the hideout to travel to Neverwinter.
The bugbear room will be alerted of the presence of intruders as a result of the players taking a rest, a goblin noticed the dead bodies and barricades and warns King Grol. I'm now thinking of having the Doppelganger look like Iarno as a prisoner on the floor next to Gundren, leading the players to believe that the one they killed wasn't the real Iarno hence him being evil at the redbrand hideout, only for the Doppelganger to jump up and attack creating a surprise and hopefully more interesting conclusion to the third session of the castle.
Cheesy? I know I'll need to tweak the heated discussion part a bit
I am currently runnining LMOP for the first time but we are not quite yet at the castle. From what I remember of that section, isn't the doppelganger's goal to kill Gundren and destroy the map? Since the spider captured one of Gundren brothers when they went for provisions and got the cave location from them so they want to ensure nobody else finds it and that is why they are negotiating with Grol.
I mean, if that didn't happen in your campaign and it still wants Gundren that is fine too.
As I see it, it depends on whether you want Grol to know that they are a Doppelganger or not. If they do know then it might be best if they take Gundren's shape and fake a prisoner exchange or negotiate for his freedom. If negotiations go well, then he pretends to be Gundren all the way to phandalin and can later either disappear or lead them to an ambush depending on how much of a nuinsance the pc were to the plans. If the pc betray Grull then it helps in the fight..
If Grull thinks he is Iarno... I guess what you say could work as long as you set it up so that they HAVE to free them before beating Grull. I doubt the Bugbear would be willing to die to sell the ruse.
I suppose they could also find both Gundren and Grull dead and the map missing but that seems like an anticlimatic start for the session.
hmm, you raise some really good points. I think the negotiation has broken down by the point that the party reach the room, the roaming goblins supplying the news of the whole castle being taken out has seen to that, Grol is now in a last stand position. and the doppelganger needs to ensure that no one makes it out of the castle alive.
Considering the Black Spider has already colluded with Iarno so is aware of his appearance, I just need to think of a reason for him to relate the party to iarno, otherwise it makes no sense for him to be in that form. I could just have him say during one of his turns "Since I saw you attack those redbrands, i knew you would be trouble" hinting that he saw them back at Phandalin or the redbrand hideout. It's a bit loose but my party will kill him before they get any real answers!
I really like the idea of him jumping them as Iarno, as it will give them a fake sensation that they killed an imposter Iarno, and with a "shoot first, ask questions later" group, this would give a great opportunity for roleplay. With him turning into his real form when he dies that actually they did kill Iarno earlier.
I think this is a solid story beat. I know it doesn't align perfectly with all of the plot in the module, but I think it's clever and interesting enough to justify it. I think it would be pretty interesting if the doppelganger can successfully convince them that they really are Iarno just to see how long you can keep up the ruse.
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The thing is, the players don't really tend to find out a lot of the detail in the plot as they have killed the NPC before they get chance to talk! I've had to be a bit creative to drop in story points and further info. At first they really didn't trust Sildar, so this would also back up their thoughts on that too, at least for a while maybe.
I've got the session starting in 20minutes, and I'm looking forward to this one. I'll keep the ruse going as I think it would be fun, but if they find the map he will need to attack straight away
Just curious... where are they trying to take this rest? After the Owlbear fight, I doubt the top level mini-bosses of this area are just content to let them rest and will likely burst in on them trying to finish them off, with whatever reinforcements are at hand. No matter how you play the doppleganger, just make sure you get any points across that are needed in stitching things together.
They are taking the rest in the room where the owlbear was, they have barricaded the door shut. The guys are pretty attached to their characters at the moment and all new to the game, so I'm reluctant to kill them off too easy just yet, although we have had some very close calls that required some clever thinking to get out of. None of the characters are min-maxed in the slightest, so I have to adjust the difficulty of some of the encounters sometimes, but the main point is they all feel that achievement at the end of the session of pulling through, and they are enjoying it.
They also attempted a short rest earlier in the castle, but I interrupted that one, so the guys are in a pretty bad shape right now. So for this session, I'm starting with some goblins having walked through and seen the total carnage of everything dead to warn Krol, and they are holed up in his room as a last stand.
I’m not sure if anyone is interested in an update here, but here’s one anyway. We played the session yesterday, and the players questioned me for a fair few minutes when they saw Iarno was sitting there “tied up” next to Gundren saying “you do realise we killed him right? Like, we stepped on his neck”. And at first they suspected him of being immortal or revived, rather than there being a fake, altho they had big suspicions back at the hideout that Iarno was actually a vampire!
They rolled fairly high to see if he was lying when they questioned him, but they didn’t roll quite high enough so they couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth or not, but the suspicions took over from the surprise. Still, they seemed to enjoy the fight when he found they made a copy of the map and he got a surprise attack and fought well