Hello, my friends and I are new to DND. We started Lost Mines of Phandelver about a month and a half ago and I’d say we are roughly halfway through it.
I have been looking to the future and we had agreed that we would buy the essentials kit next and play that campaign as we are still getting used to all of the rules. It seemed like the obvious next step.
We are a group of 4 and I’ve been the one DMing. One of the players would like to DM the next campaign and I would like to jump in and play. The two other players have already decided that they would like to keep their characters from this current campaign and play them in the next one.
At the end of Lost Mines, they will be at 5th level, so I was wondering if anyone has any tips on what to do about bringing their characters to the next game. I believe the Dragons campaign is supposed to be a level 1-5 game so I don’t want it to be incredibly simple, but I feel if they started at 5 and so did I, we would blow through it.
Is there a simple way to make it more difficult? Add more monsters? Increase the monsters stats?
The simplest way is adding some extra monsters but that doesn’t work when you have special singular enemies.
If your friend is up to it he can look in the Dungeon Masters Guide for rules how to create your own encounter and use those to bump it up.
Another way is also bumping HP and Damage Output of the monster.. That is more of a feeling adjustment then rules..
If the player can one shot the monster, double the HP, if the monster would need 10 hits at max damage to down a player double the damage and make it 5 hits…
One of the great things of being a DM is you can adjust those rules on the fly if you feel it is to easy (or to hard).
Not only are you going to have upgrade the monsters, but also the treasure. keep in mind that getting to L5 calls for 6500 EXP, going from 5 to 6 calls for an additional 7500 EXP. going thru even the upgraded L1-5 adventure probably shouldn’t do more than move them to L6 and maybe part way to 7. You might want to point that out to everyone before heading into it.
I'd recommend looking into the follow-up adventures to the essentials kit campaign. The essentials kit comes with Dragon of Icespire Peak, which is the 1-6 campaign you're talking about. It also comes with digital codes for 3 follow-up adventures, for levels 7-9 (Storm Lord's Wrath), 9-11 (Sleeping Dragon's Wake), and 11-13 (Divine Contention). DoIP isn't very story heavy, it's more sandboxy with disconnected quests, so you wouldn't be missing a ton of story stuff by skipping it. And since LMoP ends at 5, and DoIP ends at 6 or 7, your DM could pick a couple of the higher level DoIP quests and start with those those as a lead-in to the first follow-up adventure.
Also a note, all of these adventures take place in the same region, so they all connect pretty well. I just finished running my group through a combined LMoP and DoIP campaign, with LMoP being the more story-driven part and DoIP providing some sidequests. I'm planning to lead into Storm Lord's Wrath next.
Nope, I got the kit from Amazon. The codes to unlock the adventures here are on a separate sheet inside the box. So anywhere you can get it should work.
again DMing seems like a hard job, and people are turned away from it... but its really not that big of a job.
adjusting monsters on the fly is easy to do. want stronger monster, bump their HP by a few dozens. bump their AC by 2 or 3. give an extra attack to a monster. all of these bumps the CR by 1 all by themselves. its really not complicated.
adding monsters is harder but usually, adding 1 monster per players above 3 is the way to go for each level above the actual level is also a great way to go. players are much stronger at level 5 then they were at first level. you can easily expect them to go through even if you add 10 more creatures to the field.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games --> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
If you plan on DMing further in the future I would strongly recommend getting yourself a copy of the Dungeon Master's Guide (DMG). It has a couple simple tables to use for balancing encounters by difficulty according to your party's level and size according to the total XP value of the monsters/enemies located on page 82. Also a lot of other generally useful info, because that's what it's for.
If you plan on DMing further in the future I would strongly recommend getting yourself a copy of the Dungeon Master's Guide (DMG). It has a couple simple tables to use for balancing encounters by difficulty according to your party's level and size according to the total XP value of the monsters/enemies located on page 82. Also a lot of other generally useful info, because that's what it's for.
Thank you! I’ll get a copy
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Hello, my friends and I are new to DND. We started Lost Mines of Phandelver about a month and a half ago and I’d say we are roughly halfway through it.
I have been looking to the future and we had agreed that we would buy the essentials kit next and play that campaign as we are still getting used to all of the rules. It seemed like the obvious next step.
We are a group of 4 and I’ve been the one DMing. One of the players would like to DM the next campaign and I would like to jump in and play. The two other players have already decided that they would like to keep their characters from this current campaign and play them in the next one.
At the end of Lost Mines, they will be at 5th level, so I was wondering if anyone has any tips on what to do about bringing their characters to the next game. I believe the Dragons campaign is supposed to be a level 1-5 game so I don’t want it to be incredibly simple, but I feel if they started at 5 and so did I, we would blow through it.
Is there a simple way to make it more difficult? Add more monsters? Increase the monsters stats?
The simplest way is adding some extra monsters but that doesn’t work when you have special singular enemies.
If your friend is up to it he can look in the Dungeon Masters Guide for rules how to create your own encounter and use those to bump it up.
Another way is also bumping HP and Damage Output of the monster.. That is more of a feeling adjustment then rules..
If the player can one shot the monster, double the HP, if the monster would need 10 hits at max damage to down a player double the damage and make it 5 hits…
One of the great things of being a DM is you can adjust those rules on the fly if you feel it is to easy (or to hard).
Not only are you going to have upgrade the monsters, but also the treasure. keep in mind that getting to L5 calls for 6500 EXP, going from 5 to 6 calls for an additional 7500 EXP. going thru even the upgraded L1-5 adventure probably shouldn’t do more than move them to L6 and maybe part way to 7. You might want to point that out to everyone before heading into it.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I'd recommend looking into the follow-up adventures to the essentials kit campaign. The essentials kit comes with Dragon of Icespire Peak, which is the 1-6 campaign you're talking about. It also comes with digital codes for 3 follow-up adventures, for levels 7-9 (Storm Lord's Wrath), 9-11 (Sleeping Dragon's Wake), and 11-13 (Divine Contention). DoIP isn't very story heavy, it's more sandboxy with disconnected quests, so you wouldn't be missing a ton of story stuff by skipping it. And since LMoP ends at 5, and DoIP ends at 6 or 7, your DM could pick a couple of the higher level DoIP quests and start with those those as a lead-in to the first follow-up adventure.
Also a note, all of these adventures take place in the same region, so they all connect pretty well. I just finished running my group through a combined LMoP and DoIP campaign, with LMoP being the more story-driven part and DoIP providing some sidequests. I'm planning to lead into Storm Lord's Wrath next.
Are the digital codes for the other adventures free PDFs?
They're not PDF's, but they are free with the essentials kit. They get added to your Dndbeyond collection, so you can access them from here.
Do you need to buy the essentials kit from DND Beyond in order to get the codes?
Nope, I got the kit from Amazon. The codes to unlock the adventures here are on a separate sheet inside the box. So anywhere you can get it should work.
again DMing seems like a hard job, and people are turned away from it... but its really not that big of a job.
adjusting monsters on the fly is easy to do.
want stronger monster, bump their HP by a few dozens. bump their AC by 2 or 3.
give an extra attack to a monster. all of these bumps the CR by 1 all by themselves.
its really not complicated.
adding monsters is harder but usually, adding 1 monster per players above 3 is the way to go for each level above the actual level is also a great way to go.
players are much stronger at level 5 then they were at first level. you can easily expect them to go through even if you add 10 more creatures to the field.
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
If you plan on DMing further in the future I would strongly recommend getting yourself a copy of the Dungeon Master's Guide (DMG). It has a couple simple tables to use for balancing encounters by difficulty according to your party's level and size according to the total XP value of the monsters/enemies located on page 82. Also a lot of other generally useful info, because that's what it's for.
Thank you! I’ll get a copy