I'm currently running lost mines of Phandelver. It's my first time running a dnd game but I have GM'd other systems before. My game started out with 3 players but now we seem to have 6. Originally I was going to run it out of the starter box set but as must players are experienced and I had rule books I allowed them to make own characters and one player has xanthars guide so I let him play a hex blade. I know the campaign is meant for 4 to 5 but six shouldn't be to much of a problem. Any tips would be appreciated
I also had 6 by the time I reach the end of the lost mines. For the wave echo cavern, I pretty much flipped board and wiped it clean of the monsters that were already there and added all my own that were of higher cr. As a new dm I’m still learning on balancing the party I have and their level to make things challenging without a tpk but also not allowing them to just mow through combats. I also decided to extend the campaign from this module and had the party meet a group of acolytes of the black spider after he had already drained the spell forge of its energy and used it to create a set of elemental guardians to protect him. With the side quests and everything that happen between the time gundren is kidnapped and the time they made it to the cavern, I figured there was no way he hasn’t already gone in and done what he needed to do.
Unless you want to spend a lot of time adding to the material, I'd recommend simply increasing the numbers of the monsters/NPC foes in the encounters and/or increasing their hit points. This will help with the large PC party. You can pretty much do that on the fly without a lot of trouble. It won't really take much additional tweaking for one or two additional PCs at low level. If you want to do it a little more meticulously, there are a couple of handy charts in the DM tools section of XGtE that can help you balance solo monsters and groups of monsters to your party based on its average level. Either way, it should be relatively simple to make LMoP stand up to a larger group.
A great inspirational page is http://haluz.org/lmop/ It is definately not perfect, but it autobuilds the encounter for you.
I've added some Lair Actions and Legendary Actions for the "bosses" of the campagne. Klarg in the Goblin Cave summoned the wolves. Glasstaff had magical aperatuses/ traps in his room, the Nothic sucked the life out of everybody each turn AND could turn invisible.
It all depends on your players though. Mine are strong enough that they get through everything but almost everyday one of them falls unconscious. IF they rush through everything you can always add another goblin or two to the encounter if you want. More enemies ramp up encounters quite rapidly. Fighting against 4 goblins or 6 is a BIG difference at level 1
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I'm currently running lost mines of Phandelver. It's my first time running a dnd game but I have GM'd other systems before. My game started out with 3 players but now we seem to have 6. Originally I was going to run it out of the starter box set but as must players are experienced and I had rule books I allowed them to make own characters and one player has xanthars guide so I let him play a hex blade. I know the campaign is meant for 4 to 5 but six shouldn't be to much of a problem. Any tips would be appreciated
I also had 6 by the time I reach the end of the lost mines. For the wave echo cavern, I pretty much flipped board and wiped it clean of the monsters that were already there and added all my own that were of higher cr. As a new dm I’m still learning on balancing the party I have and their level to make things challenging without a tpk but also not allowing them to just mow through combats. I also decided to extend the campaign from this module and had the party meet a group of acolytes of the black spider after he had already drained the spell forge of its energy and used it to create a set of elemental guardians to protect him. With the side quests and everything that happen between the time gundren is kidnapped and the time they made it to the cavern, I figured there was no way he hasn’t already gone in and done what he needed to do.
Unless you want to spend a lot of time adding to the material, I'd recommend simply increasing the numbers of the monsters/NPC foes in the encounters and/or increasing their hit points. This will help with the large PC party. You can pretty much do that on the fly without a lot of trouble. It won't really take much additional tweaking for one or two additional PCs at low level. If you want to do it a little more meticulously, there are a couple of handy charts in the DM tools section of XGtE that can help you balance solo monsters and groups of monsters to your party based on its average level. Either way, it should be relatively simple to make LMoP stand up to a larger group.
Good luck.
Recently returned to D&D after 20+ years.
Unapologetic.
I am doing LmoP with 6 players at the moment.
A great inspirational page is http://haluz.org/lmop/ It is definately not perfect, but it autobuilds the encounter for you.
I've added some Lair Actions and Legendary Actions for the "bosses" of the campagne. Klarg in the Goblin Cave summoned the wolves. Glasstaff had magical aperatuses/ traps in his room, the Nothic sucked the life out of everybody each turn AND could turn invisible.
It all depends on your players though. Mine are strong enough that they get through everything but almost everyday one of them falls unconscious. IF they rush through everything you can always add another goblin or two to the encounter if you want. More enemies ramp up encounters quite rapidly. Fighting against 4 goblins or 6 is a BIG difference at level 1