The Spider’s Web - Lost Mine Of Phandelver DM Guide
Welcome back to the Verdigris Table, in this one we're helping Dungeon Masters dive into the Spider's Web, part 3 of the Lost Mines Of Phandelver. The game shifts a bit here and becomes more of what we call a sandbox. So far the next thing the players were supposed to do was pretty obvious. They always could have done something different, and maybe yours did, but the goblins and then the Redbrands came at the party to declare themselves the enemies and gave the players an invitation to come clear out their lair. But there is nothing actively trying to kill them at the moment, but they do have a few leads. And now they can explore the sandbox.
Don't be surprised if at least some of your players are a little uncertain how to proceed with their newfound freedom. I would tell them the world is theirs to explore and help them review their options. I'd go so far as to label their map with the quest locations they've obtained if they aren't on there already. One of the benefits of running official modules is the huge amount of resources available online from the community. Some of them are free, like this tutorial series, and there are many beautiful maps to discover online with a short search.
Now this is the start of a new chapter in the book so it feels like it should be the beginning of a session, but it would be great for you if this conversation about where we are going next happens at the end of a session. For real world reasons and in game reasons you don't always get to decide where your sessions start and stop, so don't stress about it. But it's great if we can wind down the end of the Redbrand arc with the players collecting their reward from Halia and/or Sildar, (or whoever replaced him as the quest giver, the Townmaster , Daran Edermath...) and in that debrief have the NPC ask what the party is going to do next. Ideally this will let you know the first place the party is heading for, and you can open the next session there. Alternatively you can let the party talk about it outside of the game in a group text, on Discord, however you guys communicate, and see what they decide.
We might not get that luxury though, or the players might change their minds just before they sit down at the table, so we do want to be ready to run all of these. The good news is three of these locations are simple, Agatha's Lair, Old Owl Well, and Wyvern Tor are essentially one room dungeons, so they won't be hard to wrap your head around. See how these three are grouped together on the map? That is not a mistake, and there is a decent chance the party will chain these three together. There is more to Thundertree, but we've had some practice, we're getting good as the DM now, we've got this. Plus it is in the opposite direction and far away, so we won't have to focus as much on the other parts.
Quick fun fact if you want extra credit, all of these locations are pulled from D&D history and have their own backstories that are almost thirty years old in some cases. Don't feel like you have to read up on them but if that's the sort of thing you like the Forgotten Realms wiki is a great place to start and it sites its sources. You might have a player who read the Drizzt novels or played older editions and may recognize something. Nothing major though so don't stress it if you feel like it would be too much.
Triboar Trail
We'll break down each location, but first: your party has to get there. Overland travel, wilderness exploration, random encounter tables, these are polarizing things in Fifth Edition. Matt Colville made a video about how to make this part of the game interesting, revealing that he and a lot of people think it isn't, and his advice boils down to “skip it.” And that's definitely an option, you can just narrate the days of travel and the nights of camping, drop a few descriptive details, and set your party down in front to the location. I love this side of things though, and I've spent a lot of time thinking about how to make it more fun and engaging. I've got a few things in the works but for today we're going to keep it simple. I'm going to give you one tip to make your players care way more about these encounters on page 27: Have them roll the check.
Roll behind the screen occasionally to preserve your ability to force an outcome if you want to later, but most of the time have a player roll the d20 to see if an encounter takes place. If the hit 17 or above have them roll the d12 to see what happens. Again, smart to do it yourself occasionally so you can force a call.
Let's dive into that deeper actually. There might come a time when you want to fudge these rolls, decide they do or don't pull an encounter or that they get a specific one. Maybe everyone is bored or distracted and the table could use some action. Maybe you rolled wolves but they already fought wolves and these Hobgoblins are way more interesting because they have a wanted poster with the parties faces crudely drawn on it. Maybe an encounter here is the perfect way to finish the session and tee up the next one, or it would really drag out the session if they do pull one so we skip it to keep the pacing right. Maybe the PCs are limping away from some fight they barely survived and a bad roll could wipe them out. There are reasons to put your thumb on the scales and it is OK to do so; a good DM knows when to influence things and knows to never let the players see them doing it. But letting the players make the rolls some of the time makes it way more of a game and puts their fate in their own hands, so they will be more invested in it. Plus these encounters makes the world feel more alive, more dangerous, and makes arriving at these locations an accomplishment, not a forgone conclusion.
So yes, I believe in making travel interesting with random encounters, but eventually we'll arrive at our destination.
Locations East
Agatha's Lair is designed to be entirely a social encounter. She is a banshee, but there is no banshee stat block in the back of the book. That's because she would wreck your party in combat. Most of them can barely touch her, she can fly and go through walls, plus one wail can wipe the party in a single action. Here's a lesson for new DMs: CR is an imperfect system. The book says she answers a single question, so the party has to choose if they want to complete the quest goal and ask Sister G's question, or do they want to pursue their own goals. Do they get a bonus question if they are super nice or roll a nat 20? That is up to you Dungeon Master. If they are really jerks to her or roll a Nat 1 does she her face transform from a beautiful if angry elf to something out of a horror movie as she pops a Horrifying Visage before she disappears? Again, it's your game, your call.
Old Owl Well is potentially a social encounter as well. I would let the party get one round of combat with the zombies in before Hamun Kost comes out to see what's going on. Now I love theater of the mind as a change of pace and to get everyone using their imaginations a little harder, but there is going to be a lot of moving pieces in this fight and the PCs best move is to kite the zombies so I would use a map and tokens or minis for this one. This can be a tough fight if the party decides to keep fighting Hamun Kost and his zombies, so if things are going south for the party I'd have Kost stop again and offer a truce. In a fight he is using the same state block as Glasstaff but he doesn't have the staff of defense. Great DM lesson here: those things that you prepared that maybe didn't get used can come back later. Yes, Glasstaff is coming back later if he got away but he's also here at this tower, reskinned. This is important to keep in mind because there is a good chance you will prepare to run all of these places for part 3 and then your party won't go to all of them. It is easy to feel like you wasted effort but, well 1) that prep helped you build you DM muscles anyway, and 2) you can always use that stuff elsewhere. Move things around, change their descriptions, and put them in front of the party. If they don't go to Wyvern Tor to clear the Orcs at the behest of Hamun Kost and the Town Master, maybe that encounter comes to them later as they travel the wilderness.
What we can learn from Wyvern Tor is how to make a cut and dry, clear out the baddies mission a little more interesting. We have a single sentry to start, so the players can go tactical infiltration mode or be reminded that D&D monsters are smart enough to alert their allies if there's trouble. Then we get a mixed group of monsters, not just orcs but a clear boss orc and his ogre enforcer. Kill the boss and the other orcs flee. I have a short piece on orcs in the five minute monster series that spices them up. Keep in mind my advice in that one on relentless endurance makes Orcs way tougher, so if you go that way maybe have fewer orcs here. This is one place I'd have a map ready in case they do go the infiltration route. It doesn't have to be fancy, just a couple rooms, and again a quick google image search will provide you with plenty of options as well.
If you find you and your players are enjoying the open world sandbox feel of this section, you're going to love what I have in store when this walk through is complete, so make sure you subscribe and check back for that content, I'm really excited about it.
Thundertree
Thundertree is the biggest toy in this sandbox; there is more going on here and the adventure places more signs pointing this way. It may just be the design set out to balance the pulls to the east with the pulls to the west, but I think there's more than that. There's a dragon here and that's awesome and also terrifying, as dragons should be. It's the cover of the box, it's the cover of the book, it's freaking iconic. It's also likely to kill all of the characters and overshadow the rest of the story. Even at level five, the young green dragon Venomfang alone would be a hard encounter. They only have to get him to half health for him to run, but still, at level three or even four, a single breath weapon attack can end the campaign in this tower. Even if they win the other problem with Venomfang is that he's way cooler and way more powerful than the Black Spider, the big bad evil guy we've trying to make interesting. Now, in part that's because the Black Spider is a little weak sauce, and don't worry, I'll help you when we get there, but this dragon is always going to be cooler.
There is also a lot going on in Thundertree, it has it's own ecosystem with blights and ash zombies from the aftermath of a magical volcano eruption. Plus the giant spiders and Venomfang, and then the Cultist trying to talk to him, which is a tie in to another official campaign Rise of Tiamat. We're halfway through this book now so it is a good time to start thinking about what comes after we finish this campaign, and that is an option so OK, one point in the include Thundertree column, but let's save that conversation for later. Thundertree contains a lot of stuff to put in your brain and your players brains that has nothing to do with our central story.
Also, counting hexes on the map, they'll spend around a week of in-game time coming and going from here, on top of how ever long it has been since Gundren got captured. If we cut this location we can take Reidoth, Mirna's necklace, and the other loot here and sprinkle them around our other locations.
If you do want to run Thundertree because you want a dragon in your campaign, alright, good for you. Definitely have Reidoth stress that Venomfang is bad news and can TPK the party, then set them lose. As written Redioth is one of the keys that fits the lock of finding Cragmaw Castle. But he's also willing to take the party straight to Wave Echo Cave if they chase off Venomfang. Even if you do want the party facing off against the dragon, skipping over Cragmaw Castle is a big choice to make. I don't know that I'd put that on the table. But maybe you don't want to run more goblins, this is your game, this is your world, do your thing. If you do go that way, consider moving Gundren to Wave Echo Cave.
I'm not going to go over each location here, have the stat block for ash zombie and twig blights handy and you can rely on the descriptions given for a lot of these ruined buildings. Reidoth is at 4 in the most obviously maintained building. Spiders are in 6 for a little variety, but feel free to plug them into a different location if the players are about to get their third helping of ash zombies. 9 is the herbalist shop where we find Mirna's necklace. 13 in the corner is where the Dragon Cultists are. These guys honestly don't have much to offer beyond betrayal, they don't have much useful info and they don't offer up a challenging fight. They do have 300g in diamonds that they plan to give to the dragon, which could be useful to the party in some ways. There is a lot of opportunity here to make these cultists more interesting for a creative DM, but the way things are laid out we might end up encountering the dragon before them anyway.
Then star of the show here is our boy Venomfang at location 7. I've said you can take it easy and pull punches sometimes as a DM a few times in this series. I hereby revoke permission to do so when running a dragon. This thing is evil, cunning, and powerful. The only reason it isn't eating the PCs right away is because they can be more useful alive adding to his hoard, plus it will be fun to mess with them. This tower is 40 feet tall with half the roof gone. The dragon can fly 60 feet per round. We're talking 3D combat here. If a fight happens and it takes any damage, it is probably going to take to the wing, catch as many PCs as it can in it's 30' cone breath weapon, which covers must of the tower if done from the sky, then he'll sit on the roof with full cover and taunt the PCs while waiting for his breath weapon to recharge. Maybe he'll let them live if they leave all their treasure. To make this remotely fair have Reidoth stress they shouldn't go in there, and leave it to them to initiate combat and throw the first punch. After that, it's on. You can be kind and remind the players that they can ready an action as they wait for the dragon to show itself, and I might have his first round be a claw, claw, bite on the PC that started the fight then lift off the floor but staying inside the tower. But please keep dragons mythical and scary in your world by playing Venomfang well.
The players may win this fight, in which case good for them. They get a lot of XP and a lot of treasure. Again, I'm not sure I'd give them the fast pass around Cragmaw as well, but you do you. Unless the party got pretty lucky Venomfang has flown off, which means he could show up again later, maybe even stronger, so keep that dragon in your folder for a rainy day. Recurring villains are not easy to come by. I'd even put him on the random encounter table.
If it is a TPK you have some tough decisions to make. A TPK can happen whenever, but this one will feel extra bad because it's basically a little side shoot that had nothing to do with anything and a big spike in difficulty. Here are a few options, feel free to even open it up to the table after the players have had a chance to mourn. We can roll up new characters at level 3, point them at Cragmaw Castle and the rest of the adventure. We can even make them the important NPCs that we took the time to emphasize so it feels like the story has more continuity. Sildar, Sister G, Reidoth, Edermath, Halia, that's a solid party. Or hey, all of your PCs had siblings, here they come. You can combine all of these and handwave any inconsistencies, you'll be rocking and rolling in no time. Or you can follow these characters into the afterlife and have them fight their way through the nine hells or the abyss. It would be a lot of work but it could be super cool. Alternatively the easiest and my least favorite option here, you can have the PCs wake up in Reidoth's care, having been nursed back to health by the druid. That feels bad to me because it removes the consequences of your players choices and actions. If they are kids or something, OK, I can see it, but even so, I'd rather let them make new characters. Death is a part of D&D, at low levels it's usually permanent and that makes this special and different than a game with save points and extra lives. If you hit undo here you'll never get the tension and immersion factor back.
Cragmaw Castle
Alright, enough heavy stuff, let's have some fun at Cragmaw Castle. This place is about the size of the Rebrands Hideout, so it should take roughly the same amount of time to play trough. The players are going to get a chance to show the goblins how much they've learned in the last couple levels, but there are still some challenges here. This is the first time they're meeting Hobgoblins, so stress how different they are and maybe check out the 5 minute monster piece on them for some tips on running them. You are a pro on prepping dungeons now, so you are going to read up on who and what are in each room, make note of the important names and features, and get your stat blocks handy. You'll have the book with you when you run this so you don't need to memorize every little detail, but the more command you have of what's going on in here the better.
Observe the increasing complexity as we now have three ways into this place. One is locked and one is hidden, so doing recon here can be rewarded. The most likely outcome is the players are going to try the front door, and if they aren't careful they might have a big battle on their hands. This is a lesson in itself, intelligent creatures are going to respond if you launch on frontal assault on their home. Getting spotted by the archers in the guard rooms labeled 3 not only gets 4 arrows a round coming at anyone outside with little ability to fight back until they get inside and around to the door, it also gets the goblins in 4 and the militant hobgoblins in 6 running to join the fight. Just inside the door a big battle or the trap going off in room 2 gets everyone in the front, western half of this place on high alert. Things can escalate quickly here, so to keep things flowing and fun I would recommend using waves of enemies if things reach that point. Each round add in another rooms denizens, I'd suggest 4, then 6, then 3, then 7 if you think the party can handle it. The acolytes in 9 hide and wait, as does the grick in 8.
I love a good grick. Stone camoflage plus a dark space, so even PCs with dark vision are looking at disadvantage for a think that gets advantage. This monstrosity is very likely to literally get the drop on the party. Give them the art, get descriptive with it. A singular, weird monster is a great change of pace to plop in the middle of the dungeon. Humanoids have pets, weird evil humanoids have weird evil pets. We get a two for one lesson in 8 actually, a powerful, single use magic item. This is one of my favorite kinds of loot to hand out, especially at lower levels. You can hand out scrolls of course, but they have limitations. I like something like this better, where anyone can use it and it still has value once the magic is gone.
Room 11 and the halls south of it seem boring but they are actually doing a lot of work for us. They are insulating the back half of this place so the creatures in 12, 13, and 14, don't come running to join the battle of Cragmaw Castle. 11 is also giving us access to a secret way in and out, and subtly inviting the party to go take a rest before the final push here. A lot has been written about the value of empty rooms in dungeon design, when you make your own consider the value of creating buffers and giving the party places to make camp.
If the party walks into 12 first one of the hobgoblins is going to try to get to King Grol in 14, but they'll have to get through the PCs in the antechamber first so it feels a little unlikely. If he succeeds though we might have a real fight on our hands, as the bugbear king and his doppelganger friend will likely get surprise and use their special moves on the first party members coming through the door.
The barred door into 13 is a test of course. I'd give a good perception check with an ear pressed to it big beastly snores. Again, if this owlbear is going to flee it needs room to run and it is tight quarters here. This thing is tougher than the “boss” here but it also has better treasure hidden above it. I love a good high risk, high reward, optional room in my dungeons. Especially when they announce themselves clearly like this does.
If the players go into 14 first, the Hobgoblins in 12 will come in behind them in a round or two. That will help this battle a bit, because as a miniboss King Grol is not going to feel much different than the other bugbears did. Like Klarg he's got a pet wolf, though Grol has a doppelganger too. But the doppelganger's strengths are really outside of combat. If they know trouble is coming the first round might be a big one, and even so PCs who are recently rested should be fine. You know your players by now, are they going to engage with Grol if he takes Gundren hostage? Or is it more interesting to get a surprise attack? Either way, the real drama in this room happens after the fight. This doppelganger shapeshifts from a drow, already interesting, into this alien looking thing as it lays dying. Hey players, these things exist, never trust anyone again. Also, we find Gundred knocked out in the bathtub and he's going to dump some info and get us rolling full speed ahead to Wave Echo Cave, the Lost Mine of Phandelver, and the conclusion of this adventure.
One thing before we go there though. As written the doppelganger, on behalf of the Black Spider is here to take the map and kill Gundren to stop anyone else from learning the location of Wave Echo Cave. But it is unlikely that they players learn that, and when they find the map on him they are going to think they stopped the Black Spider from finding the Lost Mine. Yeah, it makes sense that the Black Spider followed the brothers there, but again, the players don't know that, plus it stretches out the timeline and reduces a lot of dramatic tension. I'd change it a bit. The Black Spider took the map a couple days ago. Gundren is freaking out because that means he'll find the mine and his brothers. The doppelganger was here to kill Gundren because they confirmed the location of the mine and the PCs arrived just in time to save his life. The Black Spider only has a small head start this way, a couple of days instead of a whole month. And the players don't falsely believe they've foiled his plans.
Do you think your players will have fun dealing with more goblinoids? Or do they need more XP to hit level 4? Cool, throw this returning war band encounter at them. Otherwise we are bringing Gundren back to Phandalin, gearing up, and heading to Wave Echo Cave.
Some of these articles become scripts for YouTube videos, others start life as transcriptions. You can view this one here
