I am a first time DM and am running Dragon of Icespire Peak. After getting through most of the game, some of my players decided Harbin Wester was just too annoying because he was always hiding so they broke into his house, threatened his life, and attacked him with a Fear spell (seemingly a particularly mean thing to do to someone who is already so afraid). They let him escape and I decided he ran to Halia for protection. Harbin then started talking about how Halia's "friends" would protect him so they shouldn't mess with him. This was what I could think of in the moment. Since I'm now improvising and have never done that, I wanted to get some advise on how to create a realistic and satisfying conclusion.
My current plan: I think I'm going to make this the reason Halia gains power over Phandalin with the help of the Zhentarim. I think Halia sent for the Zhentarim because she saw an opportunity to get Harbin under her thumb. And the Zhentarim could see an opportunity to gain a presence in Phandalin, which has the potential to be a place with a lot of money flowing through it if miners can get back to mining. I don't see why either would see a benefit in letting the Townmaster be murdered by random adventurers. So I think that the Zhentarim are going to show up, essentially "claim" the town, and demand that the adventurers kill the dragon so that mining can begin again. If you hate this plan (for example, if in your expert D&D opinion it doesn't sound like something the Zhentarim would do) let me know. The only player who rolled to try to tell if Harbin was lying rolled horribly and nobody rolled for Halia so they could be lying.
My current biggest struggle is deciding the difficulty of different aspects of this...
The players still hadn't done Logger's Camp (where Tibor Wester is in trouble) because they just kept skipping it. A few of the less murder-loving players got the group to go there (that's where they are now) and argued to their fellow players that maybe this could get them back in the good graces of Harbin. I don't think this should work. Harbin thinks they're going to kill him, he can''t just keep paying them and let them remain in the town, right? Am i being too harsh? Would you give them a chance to get back on track?
Halia sent for the Zhentarim. My current plan for who shows up (based on Googling things): 20 "Zhentarim thugs" and Davil Starsong from Waterdeep. Or maybe Davra Jassur? Does a certain character make more sense to be the Zhentarim rep? I don't think this should be a force that the players can realistically defeat in battle because why would the Zhentarim leave it up to chance? The consequences of their actions are now that they will be strong-armed into helping the Zhentarim get rid of the dragon and then be told to leave and never come back. Too harsh? Should I make this a battle they could maybe win and give them a chance to have a more complete, all-out success? One thought I had was maybe try to make it just a bit too hard for them...so they could maybe win if they rolled really well or met the Stone-Cold Reavers and convinced them to help?
The Zhentarim will take a bit to get to Phandalin. While a player was questioning Halia about who these "friends" Harbin thought she had were, I had the miners in the Phandalin Miner's Exchange demonstrate that they would be willing to help her (I think they would have loyalty to her). If my players decide to fight them before the Zhentarim come, how strong should I make everyone? I said there were about 50 of them in Phandalin Miner's Exchange (I improvised a number, but I had said people came to the town but now couldn't mine so I thought there would be a lot of miners just hanging around). I thought about basing their stats on the miners in Dwarven Excavation (who are "Commoners") but that would mean they have 4 HP. Would it be weird to put my players (six Level 5 characters) in a situation where they could just mow down pretty much the entire town? And how do I fairly decide how strong Halia and Harbin are? I've never decided an NPC's HP, AC, etc. out of nowhere.
Let me know if you have any advice and, if I already made a mistake, let me know. I want to learn and I may not be great at improvising in the moment. Thanks!
Oh boy. Ok, so let's try to sort this up in order to make things easier to you.
First of all, the Zhentarim taking over the town plot, this sounds a bit like the second part of the Lost Mines of Phandelver adventure, where the players have to kick a gang called the Redbrands out of Phandalin, so you might be able to take a bit of inspiration for the take over from that. The issue is that that s¿is balanced for level 2-3, but there are ways to solve that. haluz.org is a tool that let's you adjust the number of monsters from LMoP to the number of players and their levels. The problem with that though is that it tends to scale badly so at the levels you are speaking of, a fight against two-four monsters might end becoming a fight against like, 11-19 depending on the monsters chosen so it might be best if you select what to replace them yourself according to challange rating. Still, as inspiration regarding how to advance the plot it is a good starting point and LMoP has good dungeons for first timers.
Regarding them getting on the good graces of Harbin... that seems like it would take extreme measures. The way I would handle it would be either one of two. Either they have to do something exceptional to make up or the relationship keeps deteriorating. Logger Camp might be agood place to start if Harbin likes his brother and you save his life, but I am not sure if that would be enough to forgive him. There is also the fact that it is a level 3 mission and your players are level 5, so it might be boring and as you say, it would be weird if Harbin hired them after that. You also have to consider that Logger Camp is tied to the Talos Cult plotline, so if that one is mostly resolved, there is not much point.
If the Talos cult plotline is still running, I would play it like this: Make up some rumors about how the caravan sent to the logger camp has not returned nor the people sent to investigate if it has been a while since the quest was posted. Either the players decide to investigate on their own or Harbin, very reluctantly, hires them because he is worried about their brother. When they reach the camp, you will have to increase the difficulty. One way would be to increase the number of Ankhegs but you could also add an Action Oriented Ankheg from Mattew Colville's Action Oriented Monsters video on youtube. Then make it so that when they find Tibor Wester, he is half starved because he has been several days trapped in his office. That way, saving him might be a start to salvaging their relationship with Harbin.
That said, do not get married to the idea of them patching things up. Harbin has an unfortunate trend of being replaced as mayor of Phandalin by players, so it is possible (likely) that yours will begin conspiring to do just that, Since he invited the Zhentarim to town and they basically take over, there are a few ways that could be played. Either he is blamed for inviting them and loses his position as mayor/dies or he lives to regret ever doing so from the harm they do to the town and he is grateful because the players helped solve his mistake. He might even be taken hostage at some point by the Zhentarim. Who knows.
Regarding on them mowing down the town, what would the consecuences of that be? It would probably terrify everyone else. If they do that, have a lot of people be terrified of them or hateful and make them work for their redemption by saving the town of either Zhentarim/Cryovain/Gorthok/the orc horde. Some people would treat them like overlords/the mob, others would refuse to interact with them, others might make a plan to hire someone to kill them. Have that going for a few sessions until a bigger threat makes them rely on the players.
That said, if they do go that route, I strongly suggest that you look for alternate rules to deal with lots of enemies before next session. If you have a lot of monsters in a single battle, it takes forever for each to have their turn and for the players to, well, play, so it turns combat into a slog. You either find a way to make the lot of them attack at the same time and reduce the number of rolls (The Lazy's DM's Workbook by Sly Flourish has a simplification for that that has been working for me so far, but I am sure there are others) or you combine them into a single monster/swarm (I am using the Book of Hordes for that, though whatever the method used make sure to check the expected CR with the guidelines of the DM Guide) or you find situations in which they fight less but stronger people (or the same number but stronger and make some rolls to check the morale; it wouldn't make sense that what amounts to a group of unemployed people would fight to the death for their wannabe boss so they will probably run away as soon as some of them die). Truth be told, you players would not really mow down the town, because the miners would surrender before that happens. 1/3 of them, maybe?
For the stats of the monsters. First, commoners are CR which is pretty pathetic and won't be much of a challenge. Siince they are miners and thus a bit beefy, you could increase their strength by two to four points (thus increasing their damage and chance to hit by +2) and up their life up to 10-15 and they would still be CR 1/8 if their AC remains at 10. Or you could reskin a monster depending on how hard do you want the fight to be (it probably won't be a fight either way, miners are too weak and your players are level 5). Do make sure to give them a way to attack at range though... it occurs to me that if you want to make it a real challenge you could give them explosives? They are miners after all.
Harbin... doesn't make sense to give them big stats. Buff his life a bit so that he doesn't die by accident, bu ideally he wouldn't fight. You could probably have him hire a bodyguard via the zhentarim and have that fight in his place. Said bodyguard might be whoever the Zhentarim send to take over, though if you want a boss fight... well, a strong enemy might take the place of Glasstaff on the LMoP adaptation though it might be best if you send several strong enemies instead to act as the boss. Veterans, Knights, Zhent Martial art adepts, gladiator, mage... choose based on your party composition and the guidelines of DM's guide or Xanathar's Guide to Everything. Halia has a bit more freedom since she is part of the organization and might tide you over if your players choose to act before the Zhentarim arrive, but I would hurry that along. It might be best for Halia if you choose what you want her to do or how she will control the miners and choose a monster that is adapted to that. Maybe she is a mage and mind controls the miners into fighting to the death, maybe she is a rogue and fights like that, maybe she specializes in running away. Given that the players have presumably been fightin a lot of things though, Halia would probably either try to avoid a confrontation before her reinforcements arrive or use it to discredit the players. She knows the miners probably won't win, so what does she get from this show of force? Is she using the miners as hostage? Does she want to save face in front of Harbin? Show the players that she is well connected? Maybe she threatens them with having no shop accept their coin if something happens to her. Maybe it is a show to the townsfolk, with her shouting what the players did and telling them how "Phandalin's people won't be cowed by thugs like you, so get in line or be run out of town".
Finally, as for the plan to have them kill the dragon... it does feel a bit weird. If the Zhentarin have the strength to seriously threaten the players and the players can kill a dragon, why don't the Zhentarim kill the dragon? The players will ask that and the answers is that the Zhentarim have strength in numbers os if they fight the dragon, they are weakened enough that they fear the players can kick them out and take over. The players have quality so they might beat the dragon without a significant loss of powers. So the Zhentarim present themselves as pretty much equals, act reasonably by saying that if they fight each others then they become easy pickings for the dragon and the orcs and that they are willing to make amends and let bygones be gone if they kiil the dragon. The players will likely refuse, kill the Zhentarima and then the dragon anyways but this way it makes a bit more sense than just threatening them and expect compliance.
So the party has pretty much soured the relationship with Harbin beyond repair by the sounds of it. I don't know if your group is mostly new players, but perhaps the threats in the area have caused other adventuring parties to pick up an interest? They have no particular interest in fighting the characters, but they are there as competition now. If the party does not use their knowledge to their advantage, they might see themselves beaten to helping the city against the dragon (if that is indeed what motivates them - alternatively, the stand to lose out on rewards in the form of loot and rewards).
I would be a bit carful with pitching the whole town against the characters - it becomes very difficult to recover from that. My impression was that the rest of town didn't have a great deal of respect of Harbin anyway, so through RP it could be made evident that the rest of the townsfolk perhaps don't mind so much "teaching him a lesson" but that any further escalation is not ok.
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I am a first time DM and am running Dragon of Icespire Peak. After getting through most of the game, some of my players decided Harbin Wester was just too annoying because he was always hiding so they broke into his house, threatened his life, and attacked him with a Fear spell (seemingly a particularly mean thing to do to someone who is already so afraid). They let him escape and I decided he ran to Halia for protection. Harbin then started talking about how Halia's "friends" would protect him so they shouldn't mess with him. This was what I could think of in the moment. Since I'm now improvising and have never done that, I wanted to get some advise on how to create a realistic and satisfying conclusion.
My current plan: I think I'm going to make this the reason Halia gains power over Phandalin with the help of the Zhentarim. I think Halia sent for the Zhentarim because she saw an opportunity to get Harbin under her thumb. And the Zhentarim could see an opportunity to gain a presence in Phandalin, which has the potential to be a place with a lot of money flowing through it if miners can get back to mining. I don't see why either would see a benefit in letting the Townmaster be murdered by random adventurers. So I think that the Zhentarim are going to show up, essentially "claim" the town, and demand that the adventurers kill the dragon so that mining can begin again. If you hate this plan (for example, if in your expert D&D opinion it doesn't sound like something the Zhentarim would do) let me know. The only player who rolled to try to tell if Harbin was lying rolled horribly and nobody rolled for Halia so they could be lying.
My current biggest struggle is deciding the difficulty of different aspects of this...
The players still hadn't done Logger's Camp (where Tibor Wester is in trouble) because they just kept skipping it. A few of the less murder-loving players got the group to go there (that's where they are now) and argued to their fellow players that maybe this could get them back in the good graces of Harbin. I don't think this should work. Harbin thinks they're going to kill him, he can''t just keep paying them and let them remain in the town, right? Am i being too harsh? Would you give them a chance to get back on track?
Halia sent for the Zhentarim. My current plan for who shows up (based on Googling things): 20 "Zhentarim thugs" and Davil Starsong from Waterdeep. Or maybe Davra Jassur? Does a certain character make more sense to be the Zhentarim rep? I don't think this should be a force that the players can realistically defeat in battle because why would the Zhentarim leave it up to chance? The consequences of their actions are now that they will be strong-armed into helping the Zhentarim get rid of the dragon and then be told to leave and never come back. Too harsh? Should I make this a battle they could maybe win and give them a chance to have a more complete, all-out success? One thought I had was maybe try to make it just a bit too hard for them...so they could maybe win if they rolled really well or met the Stone-Cold Reavers and convinced them to help?
The Zhentarim will take a bit to get to Phandalin. While a player was questioning Halia about who these "friends" Harbin thought she had were, I had the miners in the Phandalin Miner's Exchange demonstrate that they would be willing to help her (I think they would have loyalty to her). If my players decide to fight them before the Zhentarim come, how strong should I make everyone? I said there were about 50 of them in Phandalin Miner's Exchange (I improvised a number, but I had said people came to the town but now couldn't mine so I thought there would be a lot of miners just hanging around). I thought about basing their stats on the miners in Dwarven Excavation (who are "Commoners") but that would mean they have 4 HP. Would it be weird to put my players (six Level 5 characters) in a situation where they could just mow down pretty much the entire town? And how do I fairly decide how strong Halia and Harbin are? I've never decided an NPC's HP, AC, etc. out of nowhere.
Let me know if you have any advice and, if I already made a mistake, let me know. I want to learn and I may not be great at improvising in the moment. Thanks!
Oh boy. Ok, so let's try to sort this up in order to make things easier to you.
First of all, the Zhentarim taking over the town plot, this sounds a bit like the second part of the Lost Mines of Phandelver adventure, where the players have to kick a gang called the Redbrands out of Phandalin, so you might be able to take a bit of inspiration for the take over from that. The issue is that that s¿is balanced for level 2-3, but there are ways to solve that. haluz.org is a tool that let's you adjust the number of monsters from LMoP to the number of players and their levels. The problem with that though is that it tends to scale badly so at the levels you are speaking of, a fight against two-four monsters might end becoming a fight against like, 11-19 depending on the monsters chosen so it might be best if you select what to replace them yourself according to challange rating. Still, as inspiration regarding how to advance the plot it is a good starting point and LMoP has good dungeons for first timers.
Regarding them getting on the good graces of Harbin... that seems like it would take extreme measures. The way I would handle it would be either one of two. Either they have to do something exceptional to make up or the relationship keeps deteriorating. Logger Camp might be agood place to start if Harbin likes his brother and you save his life, but I am not sure if that would be enough to forgive him. There is also the fact that it is a level 3 mission and your players are level 5, so it might be boring and as you say, it would be weird if Harbin hired them after that. You also have to consider that Logger Camp is tied to the Talos Cult plotline, so if that one is mostly resolved, there is not much point.
If the Talos cult plotline is still running, I would play it like this: Make up some rumors about how the caravan sent to the logger camp has not returned nor the people sent to investigate if it has been a while since the quest was posted. Either the players decide to investigate on their own or Harbin, very reluctantly, hires them because he is worried about their brother. When they reach the camp, you will have to increase the difficulty. One way would be to increase the number of Ankhegs but you could also add an Action Oriented Ankheg from Mattew Colville's Action Oriented Monsters video on youtube. Then make it so that when they find Tibor Wester, he is half starved because he has been several days trapped in his office. That way, saving him might be a start to salvaging their relationship with Harbin.
That said, do not get married to the idea of them patching things up. Harbin has an unfortunate trend of being replaced as mayor of Phandalin by players, so it is possible (likely) that yours will begin conspiring to do just that, Since he invited the Zhentarim to town and they basically take over, there are a few ways that could be played. Either he is blamed for inviting them and loses his position as mayor/dies or he lives to regret ever doing so from the harm they do to the town and he is grateful because the players helped solve his mistake. He might even be taken hostage at some point by the Zhentarim. Who knows.
Regarding on them mowing down the town, what would the consecuences of that be? It would probably terrify everyone else. If they do that, have a lot of people be terrified of them or hateful and make them work for their redemption by saving the town of either Zhentarim/Cryovain/Gorthok/the orc horde. Some people would treat them like overlords/the mob, others would refuse to interact with them, others might make a plan to hire someone to kill them. Have that going for a few sessions until a bigger threat makes them rely on the players.
That said, if they do go that route, I strongly suggest that you look for alternate rules to deal with lots of enemies before next session. If you have a lot of monsters in a single battle, it takes forever for each to have their turn and for the players to, well, play, so it turns combat into a slog. You either find a way to make the lot of them attack at the same time and reduce the number of rolls (The Lazy's DM's Workbook by Sly Flourish has a simplification for that that has been working for me so far, but I am sure there are others) or you combine them into a single monster/swarm (I am using the Book of Hordes for that, though whatever the method used make sure to check the expected CR with the guidelines of the DM Guide) or you find situations in which they fight less but stronger people (or the same number but stronger and make some rolls to check the morale; it wouldn't make sense that what amounts to a group of unemployed people would fight to the death for their wannabe boss so they will probably run away as soon as some of them die). Truth be told, you players would not really mow down the town, because the miners would surrender before that happens. 1/3 of them, maybe?
For the stats of the monsters. First, commoners are CR which is pretty pathetic and won't be much of a challenge. Siince they are miners and thus a bit beefy, you could increase their strength by two to four points (thus increasing their damage and chance to hit by +2) and up their life up to 10-15 and they would still be CR 1/8 if their AC remains at 10. Or you could reskin a monster depending on how hard do you want the fight to be (it probably won't be a fight either way, miners are too weak and your players are level 5). Do make sure to give them a way to attack at range though... it occurs to me that if you want to make it a real challenge you could give them explosives? They are miners after all.
Harbin... doesn't make sense to give them big stats. Buff his life a bit so that he doesn't die by accident, bu ideally he wouldn't fight. You could probably have him hire a bodyguard via the zhentarim and have that fight in his place. Said bodyguard might be whoever the Zhentarim send to take over, though if you want a boss fight... well, a strong enemy might take the place of Glasstaff on the LMoP adaptation though it might be best if you send several strong enemies instead to act as the boss. Veterans, Knights, Zhent Martial art adepts, gladiator, mage... choose based on your party composition and the guidelines of DM's guide or Xanathar's Guide to Everything. Halia has a bit more freedom since she is part of the organization and might tide you over if your players choose to act before the Zhentarim arrive, but I would hurry that along. It might be best for Halia if you choose what you want her to do or how she will control the miners and choose a monster that is adapted to that. Maybe she is a mage and mind controls the miners into fighting to the death, maybe she is a rogue and fights like that, maybe she specializes in running away. Given that the players have presumably been fightin a lot of things though, Halia would probably either try to avoid a confrontation before her reinforcements arrive or use it to discredit the players. She knows the miners probably won't win, so what does she get from this show of force? Is she using the miners as hostage? Does she want to save face in front of Harbin? Show the players that she is well connected? Maybe she threatens them with having no shop accept their coin if something happens to her. Maybe it is a show to the townsfolk, with her shouting what the players did and telling them how "Phandalin's people won't be cowed by thugs like you, so get in line or be run out of town".
Finally, as for the plan to have them kill the dragon... it does feel a bit weird. If the Zhentarin have the strength to seriously threaten the players and the players can kill a dragon, why don't the Zhentarim kill the dragon? The players will ask that and the answers is that the Zhentarim have strength in numbers os if they fight the dragon, they are weakened enough that they fear the players can kick them out and take over. The players have quality so they might beat the dragon without a significant loss of powers. So the Zhentarim present themselves as pretty much equals, act reasonably by saying that if they fight each others then they become easy pickings for the dragon and the orcs and that they are willing to make amends and let bygones be gone if they kiil the dragon. The players will likely refuse, kill the Zhentarima and then the dragon anyways but this way it makes a bit more sense than just threatening them and expect compliance.
So the party has pretty much soured the relationship with Harbin beyond repair by the sounds of it. I don't know if your group is mostly new players, but perhaps the threats in the area have caused other adventuring parties to pick up an interest? They have no particular interest in fighting the characters, but they are there as competition now. If the party does not use their knowledge to their advantage, they might see themselves beaten to helping the city against the dragon (if that is indeed what motivates them - alternatively, the stand to lose out on rewards in the form of loot and rewards).
I would be a bit carful with pitching the whole town against the characters - it becomes very difficult to recover from that. My impression was that the rest of town didn't have a great deal of respect of Harbin anyway, so through RP it could be made evident that the rest of the townsfolk perhaps don't mind so much "teaching him a lesson" but that any further escalation is not ok.