Mines of Phandelver

Tonight, I ran the first sessions of the D&D 5e Starter Set adventure, Mines of Phandelver. It went really well. One of the players is in my C&C Stonehell group and runs 5e on a regular basis. The other two have only played a RPG once before during a Greyhawk Reborn event. They did very well and are a lot of fun to play with.

I made some changes to the adventure. Most obviously, I set it in Mystara instead of Forgotten Realms. The players started out in Threshold and headed out for Phandelver to look for their missing dwarf friend Gundark. They discovered the remains of his caravan and were ambushed by goblins. They tracked a fleeing goblin to a cave. As they made their way into the cave, they were hit by two floods from goblins breaking dams above them. They decided to try another route. Their initial push into the cave saw them rescuing Sildar, one of Gundark's bodyguards. Sildar told them that Gundark had discovered the long lost Wave Echo Cave, and that he believed the bugbear in this cave had captured him to find the cave.

After a short rest the party pushed on to take on the bugbear. The characters wound up fighting the entirety of the last two encounters at once on the bridge. They handled it well and overcame the odds with some help from goblins falling to their death while trying to sneak up behind them. I think the 5e system really shined during this encounter. The players were able to do interesting and clever things but the game kept moving quickly.

I have now been both a player and DM in 5e and I am looking forward to playing it some more. I think this is a really good introductory adventure. This may be the best introductory set they have had since the final Basic D&D box sets back in the '90s.

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