D&D 5E First experience with 5th edition and Lost Mines of Phandelver (no spoilers)

[Imaculata]

I normally play 3.5 with a group of seasoned role players. But last weekend I had the opportunity to join a 5th edition game with a first time DM, and some newb players. The module he ran for that evening, was Lost Mines of Phandelver.

I decided to play a human barbarian called Logue, a character that I had played before in 3.5 campaigns. We all started as level 1 characters, but I figured that a barbarian was a good class to help carry the less experienced players. Barbarians deal lots of damage, have lots of hitpoints, have decent armor, and excel at lost of physical tasks, such as climbing and heavy lifting.

The rest of our party consisted of a rogue, a bard and some spell casters. Unfortunately we didn't have a dedicated healer, which turned out to be a bit of an issue. We didn't start out with any healing potions, and our bard had only 2 healing spells per day. And since Lost Mines of Phandelver seems to be kind of combat heavy, we found ourselves having to rely a lot on short rests to recover hitpoints.

My thoughts on our first time DM

I think our DM did a pretty good job for a first time dungeon master. But he should have probably read the campaign more thoroughly before running it. He often had to reread a lot of stuff. But he did pretty well at giving us space to play our characters, and even encouraged us to do so.

Pros:

He did a good job with helping us make our characters.
He encouraged us to describe and introduce our characters.
He allowed plenty of room for role playing, and on rare occasion rewarded inspiration for it.
He was not too harsh in his adjudication, and allowed his players to change their minds on actions.
He helped some of the new players by explaining their options, such as explaining to our Rogue how his stealth could be used to take out two enemies.

Cons:

Should have read the campaign more before hand.
The descriptions of locations would have probably been more clear, if not literally read as written.
He had some difficulty with how spells work.
He was sometimes unsure what skills to use to resolve a certain situation.

My thoughts on 5th edition:

It plays very similarly like 3.5, but I won't be switching to 5th edition any time soon. I like how quick it was to create characters, but I dislike the simplicity of the system as a whole. Some of the saves make sense (such as a strength save to resist a gust of wind), while others are complete nonsense (such as any charisma save), a clear case of feeling the need to arbitrarily assign a type of save to each ability. I like what I've read about how armor class and hitpoints now no longer have the massive power creep associated with them like they did in third edition. And I like the idea of legendary actions on monsters. But we didn't get to experience any of that as a level 1 party, in a very short session.

My thoughts on the module itself:

I enjoyed it, although we only got to play a small part of it, and were unable to finish the whole campaign. The campaign did feel very combat heavy. Upon reading the module myself, it seems that it is indeed pretty much a combat encounter at every location, which I'm not all that fond of. With a party that was missing a dedicated healer, this made us entirely reliant on short rests after each encounter. Is this intended? Or should we simply have brought a healer?

Of the few opponents we got to fight, several could quickly reduce our weaker classes to 1 or 2 hitpoints. These were all level 1 characters after all. Now my barbarian could easily take quite a beating. But our wizard was instantly down to 1 hitpoint after 1 attack from a wolf. This seems a bit tough for beginners.

One of the first questions that puzzled our DM, was one that I asked at the start of the campaign: "What sort of climate are we in? And what do our surroundings look like?"

Upon reading the module myself, it seems they completely neglect to make any mention of that. It is as if the writers assume that everyone knows what the climate is around Neverwinter. Is this supposed to be common knowledge? And what does the Highroad south of Neverwinter look like? I would personally just make stuff up, but for a new DM these details are kind of important. Instead the module opens the story with names of characters and towns that are instantly forgotten by the players unless written down. I'm not very fond of writing campaign modules this way.

And whenever the module does provide detailed descriptions, they are often so detailed that they add confusion rather than information. I personally always prefer that a DM provides their own description of a location, rather than reading the pre-written text out loud. This is because the pre-written descriptions in adventure modules almost always fail to clearly describe the entrances and exits out of a room. And Lost Mines of Phandelver was no different. Yes, it has very flavorful descriptions of each location inside the cave, and all of them are immediately followed by questions by players: "So wait, is there one or are there two tunnels out of this room?"

However, it seemed our newb DM did have all the information he needed to run the combat encounters. So that's a plus.

I'm curious to hear what other people think. This is by no means a review of the entire module, because we only got to play a very small part of it.

 

[Oofta]

This was the very first module published, I suspect that it is a bit rough since they wrote it while parts of the design were still being finalized.

It also does assume that you know a fair amount about the setting and culture of the area, it would be easier to run if you have a background in Forgotten Realms.

It's been quite a while since I ran this (and I don't run published mods often) but it is just an intro mod, something simple to get people going. I think it works fairly well for what it is.

I don't want to get into edition wars here, I will say that I've played all versions of D&D (and yes, that includes way back when where a dwarf was a fighter and a halfling was a thief) and this is my favorite edition so far.

What you call over-simplified I call streamlined. A lot of it's going to be personal taste, just don't take LMOP as the standard bearer for 5E.

 

[iserith]

He was sometimes unsure what skills to use to resolve a certain situation.

More and more I favor the DM just calling for ability checks and letting the players decide to apply a skill when it makes sense.

I enjoyed it, although we only got to play a small part of it, and were unable to finish the whole campaign. The campaign did feel very combat heavy. Upon reading the module myself, it seems that it is indeed pretty much a combat encounter at every location, which I'm not all that fond of. With a party that was missing a dedicated healer, this made us entirely reliant on short rests after each encounter. Is this intended? Or should we simply have brought a healer?

While I didn't see the module as especially combat heavy, I think the best thing to do when you don't have a healer is to do you best to either avoid conflicts if you can or heavily stack the deck in your favor before putting your hit points on the line.

Of the few opponents we got to fight, several could quickly reduce our weaker classes to 1 or 2 hitpoints. These were all level 1 characters after all. Now my barbarian could easily take quite a beating. But our wizard was instantly down to 1 hitpoint after 1 attack from a wolf. This seems a bit tough for beginners.

While sometimes apprentice-tier characters' lives are short, so too is the apprentice tier. You're through it fast and many games just start at 3rd to 5th level in my experience.

One of the first questions that puzzled our DM, was one that I asked at the start of the campaign: "What sort of climate are we in? And what do our surroundings look like?"

Upon reading the module myself, it seems they completely neglect to make any mention of that. It is as if the writers assume that everyone knows what the climate is around Neverwinter. Is this supposed to be common knowledge? And what does the Highroad south of Neverwinter look like? I would personally just make stuff up, but for a new DM these details are kind of important. Instead the module opens the story with names of characters and towns that are instantly forgotten by the players unless written down. I'm not very fond of writing campaign modules this way.

And whenever the module does provide detailed descriptions, they are often so detailed that they add confusion rather than information. I personally always prefer that a DM provides their own description of a location, rather than reading the pre-written text out loud. This is because the pre-written descriptions in adventure modules almost always fail to clearly describe the entrances and exits out of a room. And Lost Mines of Phandelver was no different. Yes, it has very flavorful descriptions of each location inside the cave, and all of them are immediately followed by questions by players: "So wait, is there one or are there two tunnels out of this room?"

However, it seemed our newb DM did have all the information he needed to run the combat encounters. So that's a plus.

I'm curious to hear what other people think. This is by no means a review of the entire module, because we only got to play a very small part of it.

Google will sort out the answer to those questions about Forgotten Realms climate and geopgrahy. So too will just asking the players how they imagine it and just going with it. When I ran it, everything was desert and rocky badlands because I did it in a spaghetti Western theme.

The basic scope of options such as how many doors or tunnels there are is supposed to be part of describing the environment. If it's not in the boxed text, then it's on the DM to mention it. Personally, if there's a map and boxed text, I use both to build the scene.

Did you play in person or on a VTT?

 

[KahlessNestor]

There are encounters later in chapter 2 and 3 where you aren't expected to have combat. I drew maps, so didn't really have the description problem you mentioned. Lower level heroes are pretty frail though. But become much more robust around level 3 so heali g isn't as needed (but nice to have ).

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Like Mr. Furious, I'm in a super amount of pain today, so I'll make it quick...'ish...

I normally play 3.5 with a group of seasoned role players. But last weekend I had the opportunity to join a 5th edition game with a first time DM, and some newb players. The module he ran for that evening, was Lost Mines of Phandelver.

I decided to play a human barbarian called Logue, a character that I had played before in 3.5 campaigns.
***SNIP***
And since Lost Mines of Phandelver seems to be kind of combat heavy, we found ourselves having to rely a lot on short rests to recover hitpoints.

With 5th edition, yes, there is more combat...about 1/3 of any game session is going to be combat. One of the major design goals of 5th was the "Three Pillars of Play". The game design (pretty much everything, from class's, to spells, to skills and rules, etc) was designed with the idea that 1/3 of the game will be Combat, 1/3 of the game will be Roleplaying, and 1/3 of the game will be Puzzles/Problem-Solving. Also, this (and other) "balance" isn't on a MICRO scale, it's on a MACRO scale. You may have two or three sessions of non-stop combat action...followed by two or three sessions of heavy role-play action...followed by two or three sessions of heavy problem-solving...followed by three sessions of everything. A Druid's "power level" is measured against a Bards "power level" is measured against a Fighters "power level"...not on a one-to-one, ability to ability, level to level method. They are all measured looking at the entirety of a campaign as played over several years. "In the end, everything balances out"

PRO TIP: When you play 5e next, you should "reverse your thinking" on how tough a combat may be based on what you are encountering. If you are all 4th level and you see a big Ogre...you guys easily have the upper hand. If you all see 12 goblins...be very careful! The way the "math" works in the game has been smoothed out and is refered to as "Bounded Accuracy". Basically, you will not see your characters numbers increase significantly over the course of his/her career. Your Barbarian gets STR Adj +2 to hit now...when you are 20th level, he will have STR Adj +6. That's it. Magic items are not assumed to be part of the equation...nor are Feats (they are OPTIONAL in this edition...but many still think they add to their game...to each their own I guess...). Bottom line, more monsters = more danger...regardless of your level; and, a bunch of goblins, kobold or orcs can easily be a dangerous if not deadly threat to a party of 20th level characters.

My thoughts on our first time DM

I think our DM did a pretty good job for a first time dungeon master.

Sounds like he's making rookie mistakes, as expected. The real test is to see if he learns from them...

My thoughts on 5th edition:

It plays very similarly like 3.5, but I won't be switching to 5th edition any time soon. I like how quick it was to create characters, but I dislike the simplicity of the system as a whole. Some of the saves make sense (such as a strength save to resist a gust of wind), while others are complete nonsense (such as any charisma save), a clear case of feeling the need to arbitrarily assign a type of save to each ability. I like what I've read about how armor class and hitpoints now no longer have the massive power creep associated with them like they did in third edition. And I like the idea of legendary actions on monsters. But we didn't get to experience any of that as a level 1 party, in a very short session.

I touched on this a bit above. Yeah, 5e has "Bounded Accuracy". What this tends to do is make player imagination and creativity at least (more, imho) as important as what's on your character sheet. In stead of a player trying to pour through books and book trying to get a +1 here, or +1 there, the system as done away with MOST of all those little fidgety bits of 3.x/PF. Rules are more "verbally defined" than "modifier defined". You'll find stuff like "This gives the attacker a better chance at surviving such an attack"...you won't find "This gives the attacker a +1 Dodge Bonus to AC (+2 if size Small) to avoid this specific attack". This keeps the BA 'level' and it allows for the individual DM (and players) to decide on just exactly what that may entail. Some DM's may just say "You get Advantage", some may say "You get +1 to AC", and some may be even more detailed than what I wrote. The system is written to be as flexible as possible for the widest range of player and DM styles....with the exception of those who may be deemed "Munchkins/Min-Maxers/PowerGamers". Those types don't seem to like 5e much simply because all the "power to min-max" has, basically, been taken out of their hands and firmly placed in the DM's. Hard to argue "I should get +3 at least to my AC for this" when the DM can look at the rule and say "Uh, it doesn't say anything about AC. I always figured it referred to Dexterity Saves or Athletics or Acrobatics checks...".

Legendary Actions: I'm in the same boat! I think they sound wonderful, from a DM perspective, but none of my players have ever managed to get a character higher than level 6...and we've been playing mostly 5e for about a year and a half now.

My thoughts on the module itself:

I enjoyed it, although we only got to play a small part of it, and were unable to finish the whole campaign. The campaign did feel very combat heavy. Upon reading the module myself, it seems that it is indeed pretty much a combat encounter at every location, which I'm not all that fond of. With a party that was missing a dedicated healer, this made us entirely reliant on short rests after each encounter. Is this intended? Or should we simply have brought a healer?

Of the few opponents we got to fight, several could quickly reduce our weaker classes to 1 or 2 hitpoints. These were all level 1 characters after all. Now my barbarian could easily take quite a beating. But our wizard was instantly down to 1 hitpoint after 1 attack from a wolf. This seems a bit tough for beginners.

One of the first questions that puzzled our DM, was one that I asked at the start of the campaign: "What sort of climate are we in? And what do our surroundings look like?"

Upon reading the module myself, it seems they completely neglect to make any mention of that. It is as if the writers assume that everyone knows what the climate is around Neverwinter. Is this supposed to be common knowledge? And what does the Highroad south of Neverwinter look like? I would personally just make stuff up, but for a new DM these details are kind of important. Instead the module opens the story with names of characters and towns that are instantly forgotten by the players unless written down. I'm not very fond of writing campaign modules this way.

And whenever the module does provide detailed descriptions, they are often so detailed that they add confusion rather than information. I personally always prefer that a DM provides their own description of a location, rather than reading the pre-written text out loud. This is because the pre-written descriptions in adventure modules almost always fail to clearly describe the entrances and exits out of a room. And Lost Mines of Phandelver was no different. Yes, it has very flavorful descriptions of each location inside the cave, and all of them are immediately followed by questions by players: "So wait, is there one or are there two tunnels out of this room?"

However, it seemed our newb DM did have all the information he needed to run the combat encounters. So that's a plus.

I'm curious to hear what other people think. This is by no means a review of the entire module, because we only got to play a very small part of it.

Whole campaign?! Dude, you played one session. "One session does not a campaign make". We started with LMoP as well. When everyone died at...er..."a place later on in the adventure" (no spoilers for the green players reading... ), we had been playing for about 5 months. Once a week, 5 hour sessions. I think everyone was 4th level at that time...the bard in the group may have been 5th, I can't remember.

Overall...it's a great little "starter area" for those new to the game. Kinda has a bit of a Keep on the Borderlands type of vibe to it.

Healers are not nearly as "needed" for adventuring anymore...at least not 'dedicated' ones. Healing Potions can be bought straight from the PHB. Didn't sit well with us, so I slightly revised them; they are non-magical in my campaign. They are referred to as "Healing Salves/Tinctures/Ointments/Herbs/whatever". They do not detect as magical, and they do "go bad", just like fresh food. Using one will heal HP's, but not the actual 'wounds' (e.g., you will have scars, odd-set bones, etc). There are actual Magical Potions of Healing that, well, are magic and heal "everything" (no scars, perfect set bones, etc), but they are as rare as other magic is. With the way PC's can use HD's to heal after a short rest, and the healers kit and medicine stuff (implied at the very least), healing HP's doesn't take too long. Where it gets dicey is the "middle of combat" type of healing. There...yeah, having a Cure Wounds or Healing Word is a great thing.

For Climate and "adventure setting" stuff. Again, 5th edition isn't about the specifics. It's very much what most refer to as a "Rulings, not Rules" game system. If you don't find something in the book...make it up. If something is vague or not making sense...make it up. If something doesn't seem right for you...ignore it and make it up. DM'ing is very much in the same vein as this: if the module doesn't specifically say "This is this", then the DM's job is to...you guessed it...make it up.

Neverwinter: "Hmmm...uh, sounds warm I guess. The whole area is in a climate that's like Southern California".
Neverwinter: "Hmmm...uh, I think it's like 'Greenland'. The whole area is actually just slightly sub-arctic, like the Yukon".
Neverwinter: "Hmmm...uh, I'm going to say it's a temperate zone, like Oregon or Washington...but can get snow sometimes, but it's never referred to by the locals as 'winter', per se".

All perfectly viable and will not affect anything in the adventure in any major way. In fact, the DM making something up "on the fly" is a great way to really make the adventure his/her own. IMHO, of course. So, next time you see your DM struggling with being unable to "find something", tell him not to sweat it. Tell him he is the god of his own campaign, and he can make something up that he finds cool or exciting. (just be prepared for other newbie DM mistakes...like Orcus suddenly showing up in the Inn to yell at the players for killing his goblin followers and such...every DM has to go through this stage...usually it's the first one, and will only last a few months).

Key Points To Remember: The -two- three key things I can offer you are these:

(1) Stop thinking in 3e terms! (fighting one monster of your level isn't "tough"...fighting 5 monsters below your level is).

(2) 5e is not an "updated 3.x". It's a different version of D&D. Let go of your feelings, let the force of 5e flow through you!

(3) (related to 1) Just because you can't find 'something' in the rules doesn't mean you can't do it...just tell the DM what you want to do and let him figure out how to handle it. You, as a player, don't have to figure out what rules, actions, ability checks or skill rolls you need to make in order to swing on a chandelier, over top of a pissed-off dire-albino-frost-breathing-lizard, to land on the ledge at the far side to flip the lever, dropping the lizard into the pit it's standing on. You just tell you DM that's what you want to do...he figures out all the specifics. So...basically...everything you see in 3.x you can do in 5e...it's just not codified into numerical nomenclature.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Bawylie]

I've been waiting a long time to hear your thoughts on this edition.

Completely understand you miss the crunch of 3.5.

I wonder whether you'd grow more fond if you played regularly for 3 months or so.


-Brad

 

[ddaley]

I took a party through most of LMoP. I can see how it could be combat heavy if you charged from one area to the next. For our group, the combat seemed to be broken up by non-combat sections. After the initial encounter, for example, they continued on to their destination and returned later. This gave them a break from combat.

I think the party composition can make a big difference in the difficulty. The party that I took through this seemed to cruise through most of the combat. They had the party member go down occasionally, but, for the most part, they steam rolled through the encounters. Your party seems like it was a bit light on the melee combat skills. For spell casters, some of the cantrips that deal damage can be quite useful. Not sure if your spell casters took any of those. My party had a ranger, fighter, rogue, cleric, and warlock. Eldritch Blast saw a lot of use.

We had fun with the adventure. I didn't care for the last section, so I had our party get kidnapped by drow and whisked into Out of the Abyss when they were on their way back from the castle... They seem to want to finish that module, so, once they escape the under dark, I may let them finish LMoP during the gap. Being higher level should make that last section more bearable and allow them to go through it quickly.

 

[famousringo]

I haven't played the module, so I'll just comment on a couple of your 5th ed observations.

The rest of our party consisted of a rogue, a bard and some spell casters. Unfortunately we didn't have a dedicated healer, which turned out to be a bit of an issue. We didn't start out with any healing potions, and our bard had only 2 healing spells per day. And since Lost Mines of Phandelver seems to be kind of combat heavy, we found ourselves having to rely a lot on short rests to recover hit points.

This is normal, and fine. Heals are only really needed to keep people alive in an "oh, crap" situation, and Bard is perfectly up to that task. Hit dice are supposed to pull most of the healing weight. This is a design decision so that clerics, druids and bards don't end up using all their actions and spell slots on casting healing spells.

Of the few opponents we got to fight, several could quickly reduce our weaker classes to 1 or 2 hitpoints. These were all level 1 characters after all. Now my barbarian could easily take quite a beating. But our wizard was instantly down to 1 hitpoint after 1 attack from a wolf. This seems a bit tough for beginners.

This is pretty consistent with previous editions, though. I specifically recall playing 3rd ed and, hey, a few orcs are an appropriate challenge for these young adventurers. What do you mean greataxes do 1d12 x3 on a critical? Ouch. We are going to need a bigger barbarian.

The advancement is breakneck fast in 5th though (a little too fast for my taste, TBH), so while wolves will remain a considerable threat to your party for a while, you won't have to be so afraid of a single bite.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

It seems a little harsh to judge an entire edition based on one session with an inexperienced DM.

I take it the DM and the group were new or newish to you as well.

It feels like a perfect setting for confirmation bias to thrive: inexperienced role players around you, inexperienced DM behind the screen, is going to result in a less polished experience, which will colour your thoughts. Possibly (subconsciously) this scenario was sought on purpose in order to confirm your preference for the older version you are comfortable with and enjoy.

A fairer test would involve (a) more than one session, for starters; (b) more control of variables - an experienced DM with an inexperienced group, or a newby DM with an experienced group, would be better for comparison purposes than both at once.

It's like The Departed. My other half started to watch it 2 mins before DiCaprio gets his broken arm re broken. She hates scenes like that, of torture. Instantly decided on the basis of that 5 minutes worth that the film was horrible and not for her. Eventually when she watched it from the start she saw how good a film it is and enjoyed it very much. What I'm saying is, don't judge 5e and dismiss it based on one scene in one adventure which sounds unlike the kind of adventures you tend to enjoy anyway, played with new people, all of whom, DM included, lacked experience of RP and 5e itself.

You're kind of setting yourself up to fail to like it.

Give it a bit longer.

Of course, you might just not like it full stop. Which is fine, of course, but give it a fair shake first.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It plays very similarly like 3.5, but I won't be switching to 5th edition any time soon.

Sounds like every 3.5 fan's opinion of 5e that I've heard so far. Actually, that's higher praise than usual. 5e strives to accommodate a range of playstyles and fans of all prior editions. Perhaps more than any others (OSR is close), 3.5 fans have alternatives - particularly PF, obviously - to the current ed of D&D.

I like how quick it was to create characters, but I dislike the simplicity of the system as a whole.

Nod. From the player's perspective, I empathize. As a DM, though, it's a feature.

Some of the saves make sense (such as a strength save to resist a gust of wind), while others are complete nonsense (such as any charisma save), a clear case of feeling the need to arbitrarily assign a type of save to each ability.

CHA is supposed to represent force of personality, doesn't sound like nonsense that it'd help you resist being dominated, for instance. STR, CON, DEX, & INT saves mostly make perfect sense. Where they don't, it's usually because two stats could really be involved, and they had to pick one.

Trying to make each stat relevant for every character isn't a bad design goal, either - it somewhat mediates against the temptation to 'dump' less relevant stats (like, notoriously, CHA).

I like what I've read about how armor class and hitpoints now no longer have the massive power creep associated with them like they did in third edition. And I like the idea of legendary actions on monsters. But we didn't get to experience any of that as a level 1 party, in a very short session.

Legendary monsters are pretty cool, but you won't see one for a while (the Unicorn is the lowest-level example, and not a typical foe for PCs). AC barely creeps at all (if anything, it's a little too static), but hit points can still go very high, as in 3e, you do get a HD & CON bonus at every level. Monster hps go very high, indeed. Bounded accuracy reduces 'number porn' like 1/level BAB paced by 'Natural' Armor bonuses, but it also reduces the sense of advancement - 5e makes it up in hps & damage, which scale pretty dramatically.

The campaign did feel very combat heavy. Upon reading the module myself, it seems that it is indeed pretty much a combat encounter at every location, which I'm not all that fond of.

5e is explicitly 'balanced' around a 6-8 encounter/2-3 short rest 'day' so, yeah, a lot of combat. Less deadly combat, in general (it might not have seemed that way at 1st level), but more of it, with attrition over the day a bigger part of the focus.

With a party that was missing a dedicated healer, this made us entirely reliant on short rests after each encounter. Is this intended? Or should we simply have brought a healer?

A healer or three is a good particularly idea at 1st level. Life Clerics are better at it than Bards, too. 1st level has a very different feel, that way, from most of the rest of the game, and the exp charts are weighted to make your time spent at 1st & 2nd very brief. Exactly why - probably because it evokes the feel of the classic (pre-3.0) game, though I have a pet conspiracy theory that it's to create a first impression that the game is deadlier than it is, when it actually gets relatively 'easy' quite quickly.

This seems a bit tough for beginners.

Also a little odd - one of many ways, IMHO, that 5e looks to be aiming for long-time and returning fans more than new ones. (Though organized play /really/ seems to be trawling for new players, too, and starting at 1st may not be the best way, or at least has downsides - it's a balancing act, I guess.)

Anyway, we can cut Phandelver and HotDQ some slack because they were written even as encounter guidelines were being firmed up. HotDQ's early encounters can be quite deadly, for instance. Check out the DMBasic pdf for the encounter guidelines that should have been used, just for perspective, if you're interested.