Since our D&D campaign is so far based on published adventures, I won’t be posting about it as frequently or in as much detail as for the Mighty Protectors campaign. Instead, there will be periodic progress updates with notes and highlights.
Spoilers for the Starter Set adventure will likely abound below.
I was concerned that our relative inexperience with any modern version of D&D would make for a cumbersome start, but the game went rather smoothly after all. I don’t know whether to chalk it up to the relative ease of 5e or our MP experience, but in our first session we got through the departure from Neverwinter, the goblin ambush, and the investigation of the goblin cave – basically the first chapter of the adventure. The party was able to defeat the goblins it encountered, eventually intimidating three wounded survivors into surrendering rather than fighting to the death. They gathered what information they could from the captured goblins, then freed the chained wolves (who they’d fed before release). They didn’t want to be followed but they didn’t want to kill their prisoners in cold blood, so they rolled the stored supplies from elsewhere in the cave to the wolves’ area and restrained the goblins with the chains that had been on the wolves. Since the PCs had learned of the existence of Cragmaw, they assumed someone would eventually come from there to set them free before they starved.
In the second session, the players visited everyone they could find of interest in Phandalin, eventually making their way to the Redbrands’ hideout. The farmer’s child showed them the hidden entrance, so they met with the lurking nothic before they encountered any of the other denizens of the place. A successful insight check hinted that he was not the most dedicated of allies to the Redbrands, and they ended up striking a bargain whereby he would let them pass in exchange for well.. a chance to feed on anything the killed inside.
After a couple of difficult battles, thanks to a few very low rolls at the most inconvenient of times, two of the characters got to experience the joys of the 5e death save system. But everyone lived long enough to be stabilized and revived, and by the end of the night there was a wizard captured after an lost battle and an unsuccessful escape attempt.
The players have named the nothic “Jerry”, and Jerry’s appetite has been more than sated for now on bugbear meat.
Jerry hasn’t noticed yet that his treasure went missing after he gorged himself and fell asleep.
After rescuing the woodcarver’s family, they arranged for the Redbrands’ supplies to be carted to the family’s home so they’d have the means to get by for a while in the absence of the father’s income. On discovering that Mirna had been raised by an apothecary in Thundertree, they suggested she take up that trade in Phandalin. They even went back into the manor to retrieve the wizard’s alchemical equipment for her and gave her the valuable reagents they’d found there to help her get started. The next time the party returns to town, there might be a few healing potions offered from a grateful apothecary.
I’m enjoying that the players are effecting actual change in the world around them that might impact the campaign later.