I bought myself the D&D Essentials Kit for Christmas (I have a lot of other sourcebooks, but they're in storage while I'm relocating), with the idea of using it to introduce my bubble to D&D. (Only one of the five other people in my bubble has played, and two are kids.) Character creation was straightforward; the subset of races, classes, backgrounds, etc. really helps for new players. The tight rulebook also makes for simple summaries of basic actions, spells, etc. But the actual adventure? It's bafflingly badly designed for its purpose (of introducing new players to D&D). I like the general structure of a series of quests, but none of the quests I've looked at so far are reasonable as introductory encounters.
Anyway, I've read some online reviews and critiques, but I wanted to put my own thoughts down, and this seems like the place to do it? I'll start with general thoughts, and then move on to the one quest I've run, and the next on the menu, adding others as we get to them. I hope that my notes will be useful to other DMs, and/or to the designers.
The first thing I note is that there's no real rationale for the party coming together. I suppose you could just have everyone meet up at the job board and decide to work together, which is fine, but not having even a suggestion of how to start things off seems to me to get things off to a bad start. I decided to introduce my characters to each other and the combat rules with an ambush on the road (The notes make it clear that the roads are dangerous, but then most travel involves no tables for encounters?), which I badly botched by choosing one orc per player. This constitutes a double deadly encounter for a five-player party of first level characters, and it nearly resulted in a TPK, but with only a bit of fudging it was instead a reasonable motivation to enter Phandalin together.
Umbrage Hill
Having come close to death, the players decided to do the closest and seemingly easiest quest first, and set off to the healing potions of Umbrage Hill. Here they are meant to encounter a manticore, which, on its surface, is also a deadly encounter for five first level characters! It's one thing for me to mess up, but another entirely for professional designers to do it. The characters are encouraged to negotiate with the beast; I expect that it doesn't occur to many players that such a thing is even possible. I encouraged negotiation by having the manticore growl at the players that they should 'go away and find their own meat', which did at least present communication as a possibility, but they still ended up fighting it, which again nearly resulted in a TPK, despite creative accounting. (The manticore has three attacks per round! It can fly! Well played, it should tear the players apart, so I played it as aggressively stupid.)
On a more nitpicky level, the encounter calls for the manticore to be trying to 'break down the front door'. This doesn't really make sense; the manticore can fly, and there are three large windows on the second level, one of which the witch is supposed to be leaning out of. Also, unless I read the maps wrongly, the 'front' door is on the back of the windmill (i.e. up the hill from where the players are likely to enter). The vanes are on the front. This means that the manticore is out of sight of the party until they are very close to the windmill, which can start the encounter at practically point-blank range. I guess this is better than the manticore raining down spikes from the skies, but it can put things on a combat footing all too easily. I had the manticore noisily break into the first level, and then figure out that he couldn't get through the trap door to the second level, forcing him to waste a bunch of time (and potentially trap himself) while the party figured out the situation with prompting from Adabra.
Others have gone into the problems with Adabra refusing to come back while the reward specifically requires her to. I happily finessed that with the signed note suggested by another reviewer; I'm not sure why this level of conundrum was considered a good idea, though? The last thing you need is a party deciding to fight Adabra so they can subdue her and bring her in for a bounty.
What seems like a nice mystery/puzzle encounter with potential for a suspense/horror or comedy atmosphere is sabotaged by nonsensical design choices. The gnomes are in a state of crisis, but discovering anything about why, or even that they are, is thwarted by the fact that the quest givers are hidden behind layers of obfuscation. There are five entrances to the cave complex, and, despite the state of crisis, NONE OF THEM is guarded:
G12 - Gnome Domiciles: Filled with sleeping gnomes who will defend themselves if attacked (What would a paranoid, sleeping gnome consider an attack?), and who will 'avoid talking about the recent troubles'. They will send the party to the workshop, so this is one of least bad first choices for the party. Of course, this is the hardest climb, so it's not likely to be picked.
G2/G10 - Spinning Blades: A unattended deathtrap.
G2/G9 - Gnome Guard Post: Okay, I lied. This is a guard post. In my defense, this is the least likely entrance from the outside (though there are two ways to get here directly from the outside), and the guards are presumably focused on travel from _inside_ the caves, not outside - the guards can't even see the outside. It is possible for the party to enter at the middle ledge on the eastern side of the stream and choose this as their first room, but there are two other, equally likely choices (G7, G8).
G7 - Autoloading Crossbow Platform: A semi-unattended deathtrap. Note that there are two ways to get here directly from the outside. This encounter SHOULD NOT EXIST! The party should not be able to walk into this as their first room in the complex and be immediately fired upon by an insane gnome. The most likely possible outcomes of this potential first contact are: TPK or several severely wounded or killed PCs, who then conclude that the gnomes are ALL evil/insane, and proceed to kill every gnome they see, turning this into a nightmare. WHY ON EARTH DID THE DESIGNERS THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?!? I plan on having Facktore be paranoid, but communicative, along the lines of the guards in G9. And/or to have other gnomes placed where they can warn about this room.
G8 - Mimic and Mushroom Wine: An unattended potential deathtrap, as this is where the mimic is hiding.
G3 - Dining Room: Apparently empty? This is off of the easiest route to enter, with no climbing required. There are apparently no guards between the outside world and the dining room (or bedroom, see above)?
G4 - Kitchen: This is the optimal first room for the party to enter, and also one of the least likely, as it requires bypassing or traveling through others (though one of those is G4). The gnomes here will still avoid talking about the crisis, but will at least give directions to those who will.
G6 - Barrel Crabs: Unattended machines of war? Why not?
None of this makes sense. Why would there not be any sort of guard post at the top of the eastern ramp (the obvious entry choice)? Do hungry predators never come calling? Why is the bridge crossing - a presumably heavily traveled, relatively secure path - so heavily guarded? Why are the guards primed to keep shapechangers out of the western complex? The only observed attack by a shapechanger was IN the throne room on the western side! How did the mimic make it through G10 and G9 to the eastern side? And most of all, why make it so easy for the characters to get off on the wrong foot with the gnomes and never even figure out what's going on?
I think the obvious solution to all of these problems is to move at least one of the guards from G9 to the top of the ramp, where he can see anyone approaching the cave complex, so that's what I'm going to do.
That is a great resource for DOISP But I will talk you through the things I have tweaked having run this twice now.
As you state there isn't much of a reason given for bringing the party together. In fact the whole adventure is very open world and leaves alot of stuff for the DM to fill in, as an experienced DM I really like this but I realise a new DM who is running for the first time might be a little taken aback, this is why I always suggest Lost Mines for a first time DM, and then DOIP then to move anyway I digress.
I always start my party in Phandelver, they have just arrived/are already here (depending on backstory). Of the 2 parties I have run in ie. everyone already knew each other, the other party was split into 3 (8 players) groups who knew each other. The quest just starts with them entering or in the Inn, about 10-11 am seeking breakfast
Session 1, I never start with any of the quests, session 1 is about forming the party and, as I have always played LOIP for brand new players, getting them some hands on experience of the main key mechanics in the game. Forgive me I don't have my copy to hand and NPC name escape me, partly because I renamed most of them and changed there race.
The way I do this is to have the players start off in, or entering the Inn. There are a number of NPC's present they can interact with (I fully fleshed out my Phandelver with about 50 NPC's) including a small gang who have recently come into town, they are running a card scam between them trying to fleece locals of there coin.
The players either get involved or spot what's happening, first dice rolls, perception, insight, maybe some deception in there and if they want to cheat themselves slight of hand. Some roleplaying off of a potential antagonist. Whatever happens I do not have the fight happen in the Inn, either the Barman (who I make a bit more handy in my version, an ex adventurer who can hold his own in a fight), spots the ruse and the players hopefully back him up in throwing out the con men, or the players themselves directly interact with and see off the conmen with the barmen backing them up. Either way they are stripped of all their coin and the players are thanked and hurrahed.
I don't use an adventuring board, I really personally hate it as a mechanic, so instead the first 3 quests are retrieved by talking to the mayor directly. Any number of NPC's suggest the party head to see him for work. When my first party went the dragon born was the one that talked to him, which led to a great moment of the Mayor convinced the Dragon itself was coming to eat him. This helped reinforce the threat of the dragon. At some point, either before or after the mayor, the con men the players thwarted in the inn will ambush them in the town to get revenge and some coin back. This means the players get to have a bit of simple combat. If it seems that they are being hit hard then the Inn keeper will come along with a group of locals who are looking for the gang to run them out of town. Of the 2 times I have done this on one occasion the leader escaped giving a minor longer term enemy, this gave an idea of a living breathing world where actions have consequences.
Session 1 always ends with the party heading out to the first job, this means I can prep session 2 knowing where they are going, but it also means I can give them a sight of the dragon usually using dialogue such as this.
As you leave Phandelver heading for your first taste of true adventure, you sense a crispness in the air, although it is late spring the air has a chill to it that you didn't notice in town. The sun getting lower in the sky you look up and see what at first looks like some sort of bird in the sky above you, as you track it it seems to get bigger, and bigger, as it grows in size you see the sun reflecting from it, a pair of contrails leave its wings much like an airplane flying through a clear blue sky. It heads towards you and, within a few minutes you can now see above you the white dragon. Shards of ice form and then break off of its body, moisture in the air freezing to it it utters a roar that even from this distance goes through you, At this point I push the players for an action, what do they do, hide, prepare arms, run? I use it to impact that I won't always give them endless time out of game to react to events in it. Then as they are steeled for a fight with a dragon.
The Dragon dips, roars and swoops away from you, disappearing out of sight for a second you see it lifting off, carrying some large beast in its claws (perception to see its a deer). It circles twice more proclaiming it's dominance and existence to the surrounding area and then swoops off out of sight.
And with that you have given your players a glimpse of a dragon, the namesake of the game :).
I pretty much followed Sly's advice with the following tweaks
Dwarven Excavation seems to be the first the party try for me.
I changed a few things here, as these are new players I use this to get them nicely paranoid about searching for traps, so I litter the place with harmless/very weak traps, in 2 of the rooms I put a chest one has a few silver in it, the other a healing potion, both are locked and trapped. The aim of this is looking ahead to the Dragon Barrow quest far in the future where there is a potential TPK trap.
I also added 4 skeletons in the 2 rooms just ahead of the cave in area that blocks the green gem room, one of which had a necklace. Removing the necklace triggers the magic that animates the skeletons.
The green Gem I made worth 200 gold, the gem doesn't explode, the statue does, an indiana jones style switch will let the players take the gem without setting it off. (investigation to find a stone, sleight of hand to switch). One of my groups had a great set of failures meaning they had a stone they where convinced was the right shape size and weith, then rolled a nat 20 on the switch meanig the stone exploded but only did half damage on the rogue making the swap.
Hi! I read the following post when I was running DOIP and found it very useful in terms of adjusting the plot to fit together in a much more cohesive and logical way.
In terms of starting, I had the town place an ad in Neverwinter looking for a few brave adventurers (or something similar - have the party meet in Neverwinter, form a company and travel to Phandalin seeking work).
As for the encounters ... some may need a little tweaking :) and as a DM you should feel free to do so.
For example, if Umbrage Hill comes down to combat I had the Manticore already somewhat injured with fewer spikes due to an encounter with the dragon when it drove the Manticore and its mate out of the mountains. Although the Manticore only has 7 int (there are PCs with 8 :) ), it might be smart enough to know that the human in the windmill is a healer and perhaps the Manticore needs something for its mate. This gives a bit more justification as to why the Manticore would try to bash in the door to the windmill.
As for Gnomengarde, only one entrance has a path leading to it. All the rest require climbing cliffs to get in. However, the autoloading crossbow with the crazy gnome is in the way. As long as the party knows better than to stage a frontal assault they should be fine. They can pop out and shoot from cover and duck back until the gnome decides to flee or the device is disabled. Alternatively, the DM could decide to have the gnome talk even though the text says they won't or one of the other gnomes lead the characters and talk down the crazy one. I think one idea here is that the characters could use the barrel crabs to disable the crossbow turret.
When I ran it the characters climbed into an entrance on the other side of the river and avoided most of the problems.
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I bought myself the D&D Essentials Kit for Christmas (I have a lot of other sourcebooks, but they're in storage while I'm relocating), with the idea of using it to introduce my bubble to D&D. (Only one of the five other people in my bubble has played, and two are kids.) Character creation was straightforward; the subset of races, classes, backgrounds, etc. really helps for new players. The tight rulebook also makes for simple summaries of basic actions, spells, etc. But the actual adventure? It's bafflingly badly designed for its purpose (of introducing new players to D&D). I like the general structure of a series of quests, but none of the quests I've looked at so far are reasonable as introductory encounters.
Anyway, I've read some online reviews and critiques, but I wanted to put my own thoughts down, and this seems like the place to do it? I'll start with general thoughts, and then move on to the one quest I've run, and the next on the menu, adding others as we get to them. I hope that my notes will be useful to other DMs, and/or to the designers.
The first thing I note is that there's no real rationale for the party coming together. I suppose you could just have everyone meet up at the job board and decide to work together, which is fine, but not having even a suggestion of how to start things off seems to me to get things off to a bad start. I decided to introduce my characters to each other and the combat rules with an ambush on the road (The notes make it clear that the roads are dangerous, but then most travel involves no tables for encounters?), which I badly botched by choosing one orc per player. This constitutes a double deadly encounter for a five-player party of first level characters, and it nearly resulted in a TPK, but with only a bit of fudging it was instead a reasonable motivation to enter Phandalin together.
Umbrage Hill
Having come close to death, the players decided to do the closest and seemingly easiest quest first, and set off to the healing potions of Umbrage Hill. Here they are meant to encounter a manticore, which, on its surface, is also a deadly encounter for five first level characters! It's one thing for me to mess up, but another entirely for professional designers to do it. The characters are encouraged to negotiate with the beast; I expect that it doesn't occur to many players that such a thing is even possible. I encouraged negotiation by having the manticore growl at the players that they should 'go away and find their own meat', which did at least present communication as a possibility, but they still ended up fighting it, which again nearly resulted in a TPK, despite creative accounting. (The manticore has three attacks per round! It can fly! Well played, it should tear the players apart, so I played it as aggressively stupid.)
On a more nitpicky level, the encounter calls for the manticore to be trying to 'break down the front door'. This doesn't really make sense; the manticore can fly, and there are three large windows on the second level, one of which the witch is supposed to be leaning out of. Also, unless I read the maps wrongly, the 'front' door is on the back of the windmill (i.e. up the hill from where the players are likely to enter). The vanes are on the front. This means that the manticore is out of sight of the party until they are very close to the windmill, which can start the encounter at practically point-blank range. I guess this is better than the manticore raining down spikes from the skies, but it can put things on a combat footing all too easily. I had the manticore noisily break into the first level, and then figure out that he couldn't get through the trap door to the second level, forcing him to waste a bunch of time (and potentially trap himself) while the party figured out the situation with prompting from Adabra.
Others have gone into the problems with Adabra refusing to come back while the reward specifically requires her to. I happily finessed that with the signed note suggested by another reviewer; I'm not sure why this level of conundrum was considered a good idea, though? The last thing you need is a party deciding to fight Adabra so they can subdue her and bring her in for a bounty.
Next time, Gnomengarde.
Gnomengarde
What seems like a nice mystery/puzzle encounter with potential for a suspense/horror or comedy atmosphere is sabotaged by nonsensical design choices. The gnomes are in a state of crisis, but discovering anything about why, or even that they are, is thwarted by the fact that the quest givers are hidden behind layers of obfuscation. There are five entrances to the cave complex, and, despite the state of crisis, NONE OF THEM is guarded:
G12 - Gnome Domiciles: Filled with sleeping gnomes who will defend themselves if attacked (What would a paranoid, sleeping gnome consider an attack?), and who will 'avoid talking about the recent troubles'. They will send the party to the workshop, so this is one of least bad first choices for the party. Of course, this is the hardest climb, so it's not likely to be picked.
G2/G10 - Spinning Blades: A unattended deathtrap.
G2/G9 - Gnome Guard Post: Okay, I lied. This is a guard post. In my defense, this is the least likely entrance from the outside (though there are two ways to get here directly from the outside), and the guards are presumably focused on travel from _inside_ the caves, not outside - the guards can't even see the outside. It is possible for the party to enter at the middle ledge on the eastern side of the stream and choose this as their first room, but there are two other, equally likely choices (G7, G8).
G7 - Autoloading Crossbow Platform: A semi-unattended deathtrap. Note that there are two ways to get here directly from the outside. This encounter SHOULD NOT EXIST! The party should not be able to walk into this as their first room in the complex and be immediately fired upon by an insane gnome. The most likely possible outcomes of this potential first contact are: TPK or several severely wounded or killed PCs, who then conclude that the gnomes are ALL evil/insane, and proceed to kill every gnome they see, turning this into a nightmare. WHY ON EARTH DID THE DESIGNERS THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?!? I plan on having Facktore be paranoid, but communicative, along the lines of the guards in G9. And/or to have other gnomes placed where they can warn about this room.
G8 - Mimic and Mushroom Wine: An unattended potential deathtrap, as this is where the mimic is hiding.
G3 - Dining Room: Apparently empty? This is off of the easiest route to enter, with no climbing required. There are apparently no guards between the outside world and the dining room (or bedroom, see above)?
G4 - Kitchen: This is the optimal first room for the party to enter, and also one of the least likely, as it requires bypassing or traveling through others (though one of those is G4). The gnomes here will still avoid talking about the crisis, but will at least give directions to those who will.
G6 - Barrel Crabs: Unattended machines of war? Why not?
None of this makes sense. Why would there not be any sort of guard post at the top of the eastern ramp (the obvious entry choice)? Do hungry predators never come calling? Why is the bridge crossing - a presumably heavily traveled, relatively secure path - so heavily guarded? Why are the guards primed to keep shapechangers out of the western complex? The only observed attack by a shapechanger was IN the throne room on the western side! How did the mimic make it through G10 and G9 to the eastern side? And most of all, why make it so easy for the characters to get off on the wrong foot with the gnomes and never even figure out what's going on?
I think the obvious solution to all of these problems is to move at least one of the guards from G9 to the top of the ramp, where he can see anyone approaching the cave complex, so that's what I'm going to do.
https://slyflourish.com/running_icespire_peak.html
That is a great resource for DOISP But I will talk you through the things I have tweaked having run this twice now.
As you state there isn't much of a reason given for bringing the party together. In fact the whole adventure is very open world and leaves alot of stuff for the DM to fill in, as an experienced DM I really like this but I realise a new DM who is running for the first time might be a little taken aback, this is why I always suggest Lost Mines for a first time DM, and then DOIP then to move anyway I digress.
I always start my party in Phandelver, they have just arrived/are already here (depending on backstory). Of the 2 parties I have run in ie. everyone already knew each other, the other party was split into 3 (8 players) groups who knew each other. The quest just starts with them entering or in the Inn, about 10-11 am seeking breakfast
Session 1, I never start with any of the quests, session 1 is about forming the party and, as I have always played LOIP for brand new players, getting them some hands on experience of the main key mechanics in the game. Forgive me I don't have my copy to hand and NPC name escape me, partly because I renamed most of them and changed there race.
The way I do this is to have the players start off in, or entering the Inn. There are a number of NPC's present they can interact with (I fully fleshed out my Phandelver with about 50 NPC's) including a small gang who have recently come into town, they are running a card scam between them trying to fleece locals of there coin.
The players either get involved or spot what's happening, first dice rolls, perception, insight, maybe some deception in there and if they want to cheat themselves slight of hand. Some roleplaying off of a potential antagonist. Whatever happens I do not have the fight happen in the Inn, either the Barman (who I make a bit more handy in my version, an ex adventurer who can hold his own in a fight), spots the ruse and the players hopefully back him up in throwing out the con men, or the players themselves directly interact with and see off the conmen with the barmen backing them up. Either way they are stripped of all their coin and the players are thanked and hurrahed.
I don't use an adventuring board, I really personally hate it as a mechanic, so instead the first 3 quests are retrieved by talking to the mayor directly. Any number of NPC's suggest the party head to see him for work. When my first party went the dragon born was the one that talked to him, which led to a great moment of the Mayor convinced the Dragon itself was coming to eat him. This helped reinforce the threat of the dragon. At some point, either before or after the mayor, the con men the players thwarted in the inn will ambush them in the town to get revenge and some coin back. This means the players get to have a bit of simple combat. If it seems that they are being hit hard then the Inn keeper will come along with a group of locals who are looking for the gang to run them out of town. Of the 2 times I have done this on one occasion the leader escaped giving a minor longer term enemy, this gave an idea of a living breathing world where actions have consequences.
Session 1 always ends with the party heading out to the first job, this means I can prep session 2 knowing where they are going, but it also means I can give them a sight of the dragon usually using dialogue such as this.
As you leave Phandelver heading for your first taste of true adventure, you sense a crispness in the air, although it is late spring the air has a chill to it that you didn't notice in town. The sun getting lower in the sky you look up and see what at first looks like some sort of bird in the sky above you, as you track it it seems to get bigger, and bigger, as it grows in size you see the sun reflecting from it, a pair of contrails leave its wings much like an airplane flying through a clear blue sky. It heads towards you and, within a few minutes you can now see above you the white dragon. Shards of ice form and then break off of its body, moisture in the air freezing to it it utters a roar that even from this distance goes through you, At this point I push the players for an action, what do they do, hide, prepare arms, run? I use it to impact that I won't always give them endless time out of game to react to events in it. Then as they are steeled for a fight with a dragon.
The Dragon dips, roars and swoops away from you, disappearing out of sight for a second you see it lifting off, carrying some large beast in its claws (perception to see its a deer). It circles twice more proclaiming it's dominance and existence to the surrounding area and then swoops off out of sight.
And with that you have given your players a glimpse of a dragon, the namesake of the game :).
I pretty much followed Sly's advice with the following tweaks
Dwarven Excavation seems to be the first the party try for me.
I changed a few things here, as these are new players I use this to get them nicely paranoid about searching for traps, so I litter the place with harmless/very weak traps, in 2 of the rooms I put a chest one has a few silver in it, the other a healing potion, both are locked and trapped. The aim of this is looking ahead to the Dragon Barrow quest far in the future where there is a potential TPK trap.
I also added 4 skeletons in the 2 rooms just ahead of the cave in area that blocks the green gem room, one of which had a necklace. Removing the necklace triggers the magic that animates the skeletons.
The green Gem I made worth 200 gold, the gem doesn't explode, the statue does, an indiana jones style switch will let the players take the gem without setting it off. (investigation to find a stone, sleight of hand to switch). One of my groups had a great set of failures meaning they had a stone they where convinced was the right shape size and weith, then rolled a nat 20 on the switch meanig the stone exploded but only did half damage on the rogue making the swap.
Will add more as I have time :)
Hi! I read the following post when I was running DOIP and found it very useful in terms of adjusting the plot to fit together in a much more cohesive and logical way.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/e77dmi/dragon_of_icespire_peak_revised/
In terms of starting, I had the town place an ad in Neverwinter looking for a few brave adventurers (or something similar - have the party meet in Neverwinter, form a company and travel to Phandalin seeking work).
As for the encounters ... some may need a little tweaking :) and as a DM you should feel free to do so.
For example, if Umbrage Hill comes down to combat I had the Manticore already somewhat injured with fewer spikes due to an encounter with the dragon when it drove the Manticore and its mate out of the mountains. Although the Manticore only has 7 int (there are PCs with 8 :) ), it might be smart enough to know that the human in the windmill is a healer and perhaps the Manticore needs something for its mate. This gives a bit more justification as to why the Manticore would try to bash in the door to the windmill.
As for Gnomengarde, only one entrance has a path leading to it. All the rest require climbing cliffs to get in. However, the autoloading crossbow with the crazy gnome is in the way. As long as the party knows better than to stage a frontal assault they should be fine. They can pop out and shoot from cover and duck back until the gnome decides to flee or the device is disabled. Alternatively, the DM could decide to have the gnome talk even though the text says they won't or one of the other gnomes lead the characters and talk down the crazy one. I think one idea here is that the characters could use the barrel crabs to disable the crossbow turret.
When I ran it the characters climbed into an entrance on the other side of the river and avoided most of the problems.