Running Lost Mine of Phandelver and our latest session ended with the party coming face to face with Thundertree's favourite young green dragon (btw their absolute shock and terror when I finished describing what stood before them was just delightful). They were tricked into the lair by a group of cultists and things aren't looking to great for them. Next session will be the (hopefully epic) encounter with Venomfang which I plan to run like BrosEquis suggested in the famous reddit post; manipulate, lure, attack. The cultists will either join the fight or VF would kill/scare them away for being annoying (haven't quite figured out this interaction yet, only thing said so far was the cult leader saying "We bring gifts!").
I have two main questions here:
1. Venomfang survives this encounter no matter what; either defeating the party (Reidoth will jump in as a deus ex machina if this happens) or flying away to lick his wounds...and that's it?! I think it would be cooler if Venomfang had a bigger part to play in this campaign and have seen an idea about how Nezznar (Black Spider) could be a devout follower of VF trying to unlock the forge to add to his master's hoard. Has anyone tried this out and if so, how did it go? Just feel like Nezznar as written in the module is not really written at all (this bad guy wants the forge of spells...yes). Any ideas to further integrate VF into the story or as the BBEG would be much appreciated.
2. Planning on running DoIP straight after LMoP and wondering what VF would do if he's alive. This also links back to question 1 in a sense; what would VF do/where would VF go after this encounter? Ambush at Wave Echo Cave/Phandalin for one final big boss battle after party deals with Nezznar? Or maybe he makes Thundertree his permanent residence after killing Reidoth? Think it would be cool to have two dragons with different goals in the same campaign but curious if any of you have done this.
Thanks in advance! Sorry it's a lot of questions/ideas
I'm currently running a LMoP/DoIP mashup, actually with Forge of Fury in there too (thanks for the free adventures, Wizards!) as the endings of both LMoP and DoIP seemed rather underwhelming. So I'm scrapping Wave Echo Cave completely and using FoF, replacing the black dragon with Cryovain. It's a bit of a coincidence that the dwarven forge and Cryovain's lair happen to be the same place, but I'm hoping my players won't notice that. (Any suggestions?) There were so many nice overlaps (forge, dragon, orcs...) and I like the idea of a dungeon ramble prior to encountering Cryovain.
As to Venomfang, I'm riffing off the reddit post too; I see him (her?) as a young mafioso who's been sent to the Phandalin area to get a cut of the action. He's running the goblins and the Redbrands (under the alias Greensnot -- I play with my kids) and wants to get in on the dwarves too. The 'hoard' that he gets off on is a network of underlings running various rackets for him, and he's also still young enough to want to impress The Family. So the PCs aren't a threat (yet), they're another opportunity. His goal will be to send them against Cryovain for a win-win; either they deal with the annoying brute who's blundering her (his?) way into Venomfang's patch, or Cryovain deals with them. When they get to Thundertree he'll be looking to play mind games with the PCs, making them an offer they can't refuse, and only resort to combat if they attack first.
That sounds cool, I've seen many DMs combine LMoP and DoIP which sounds excellent. Unfortunately I only found out about DoIP midway through running LMoP as my first ever campaign. Planning to run that straight afterwards followed by Leilon trilogy (thanks to the lovely DMs in the forums for the suggestion!).
Yeah, one angle I considered was VF being an enemy of Cryovain and maybe some cool dynamics between this rivalry and the party. That being said I haven't yet bought DoIP so don't really know the details.
To anyone interested, I'm planning on the cultist leader trying to convince VF to join them but the green trickster refuses. After a couple of repeated requests, VF loses his patience and introduces the leader to his poison breath (remaining cultists run away in terror). Then the BrosEquis encounter pretty much to script. Still undecided on whether to make Nezznar a follower of VF though...
LMoP and DOIP are aimed at the same range of levels more or less. This makes it a bit more challenging to run them consecutively unless you really boost the difficulty of the encounters.
There is also a really good short re-write of the storyline of DoIP out there that I found made a lot more sense to me.
It tied together the Anchorites/storm themes with the dragon and really seemed to help make the plot line come together better. Of course, you can pick and choose the ideas presented.
For my party of 6 characters, the increase in CR for a young blue dragon taking Cryovain's place was essential to making the fight challenging. At level 6 my party would have defeated Cryovain from DoIP very quickly.
---
As for combining LMoP and DoIP - there are some good resources available with some good suggestions but since they are aimed at the same level range you will either need to slow down leveling or pick and choose what to play.
Wow that re-write of DoIP is excellent! Thank you, I will definitely be saving that for when I start to run it after LMoP. The progressive rise in tension and stakes sounds fun.
Hello all, Level 1 DM here,
Running Lost Mine of Phandelver and our latest session ended with the party coming face to face with Thundertree's favourite young green dragon (btw their absolute shock and terror when I finished describing what stood before them was just delightful). They were tricked into the lair by a group of cultists and things aren't looking to great for them. Next session will be the (hopefully epic) encounter with Venomfang which I plan to run like BrosEquis suggested in the famous reddit post; manipulate, lure, attack. The cultists will either join the fight or VF would kill/scare them away for being annoying (haven't quite figured out this interaction yet, only thing said so far was the cult leader saying "We bring gifts!").
I have two main questions here:
1. Venomfang survives this encounter no matter what; either defeating the party (Reidoth will jump in as a deus ex machina if this happens) or flying away to lick his wounds...and that's it?! I think it would be cooler if Venomfang had a bigger part to play in this campaign and have seen an idea about how Nezznar (Black Spider) could be a devout follower of VF trying to unlock the forge to add to his master's hoard. Has anyone tried this out and if so, how did it go? Just feel like Nezznar as written in the module is not really written at all (this bad guy wants the forge of spells...yes). Any ideas to further integrate VF into the story or as the BBEG would be much appreciated.
2. Planning on running DoIP straight after LMoP and wondering what VF would do if he's alive. This also links back to question 1 in a sense; what would VF do/where would VF go after this encounter? Ambush at Wave Echo Cave/Phandalin for one final big boss battle after party deals with Nezznar? Or maybe he makes Thundertree his permanent residence after killing Reidoth? Think it would be cool to have two dragons with different goals in the same campaign but curious if any of you have done this.
Thanks in advance! Sorry it's a lot of questions/ideas
I'm currently running a LMoP/DoIP mashup, actually with Forge of Fury in there too (thanks for the free adventures, Wizards!) as the endings of both LMoP and DoIP seemed rather underwhelming. So I'm scrapping Wave Echo Cave completely and using FoF, replacing the black dragon with Cryovain. It's a bit of a coincidence that the dwarven forge and Cryovain's lair happen to be the same place, but I'm hoping my players won't notice that. (Any suggestions?) There were so many nice overlaps (forge, dragon, orcs...) and I like the idea of a dungeon ramble prior to encountering Cryovain.
As to Venomfang, I'm riffing off the reddit post too; I see him (her?) as a young mafioso who's been sent to the Phandalin area to get a cut of the action. He's running the goblins and the Redbrands (under the alias Greensnot -- I play with my kids) and wants to get in on the dwarves too. The 'hoard' that he gets off on is a network of underlings running various rackets for him, and he's also still young enough to want to impress The Family. So the PCs aren't a threat (yet), they're another opportunity. His goal will be to send them against Cryovain for a win-win; either they deal with the annoying brute who's blundering her (his?) way into Venomfang's patch, or Cryovain deals with them. When they get to Thundertree he'll be looking to play mind games with the PCs, making them an offer they can't refuse, and only resort to combat if they attack first.
That sounds cool, I've seen many DMs combine LMoP and DoIP which sounds excellent. Unfortunately I only found out about DoIP midway through running LMoP as my first ever campaign. Planning to run that straight afterwards followed by Leilon trilogy (thanks to the lovely DMs in the forums for the suggestion!).
Yeah, one angle I considered was VF being an enemy of Cryovain and maybe some cool dynamics between this rivalry and the party. That being said I haven't yet bought DoIP so don't really know the details.
To anyone interested, I'm planning on the cultist leader trying to convince VF to join them but the green trickster refuses. After a couple of repeated requests, VF loses his patience and introduces the leader to his poison breath (remaining cultists run away in terror). Then the BrosEquis encounter pretty much to script. Still undecided on whether to make Nezznar a follower of VF though...
LMoP and DOIP are aimed at the same range of levels more or less. This makes it a bit more challenging to run them consecutively unless you really boost the difficulty of the encounters.
There is also a really good short re-write of the storyline of DoIP out there that I found made a lot more sense to me.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/e77dmi/dragon_of_icespire_peak_revised/
It tied together the Anchorites/storm themes with the dragon and really seemed to help make the plot line come together better. Of course, you can pick and choose the ideas presented.
For my party of 6 characters, the increase in CR for a young blue dragon taking Cryovain's place was essential to making the fight challenging. At level 6 my party would have defeated Cryovain from DoIP very quickly.
---
As for combining LMoP and DoIP - there are some good resources available with some good suggestions but since they are aimed at the same level range you will either need to slow down leveling or pick and choose what to play.
Wow that re-write of DoIP is excellent! Thank you, I will definitely be saving that for when I start to run it after LMoP. The progressive rise in tension and stakes sounds fun.
Just did a quick search and found this for running venomfang and cryovain: https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/cgrs4s/combining_lost_mine_with_dragon_of_icespire/
I think keeping venomfang around might be more interesting, guess i'll try and flesh out nezznar as the BBEG.