Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk (Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Book)

Product Information

Its first four chapters are a remaster of Lost Mines of Phandelver, a beginner-friendly adventure that was part of the original 2014 D&D starter set. After a simple delivery gone wrong, players must explore the town of Phandalin – and the titular Mines of Phandelver – to thwart plots that threaten the idyllic and welcoming town.

While PaBTSO offers new monsters, I liked that it also took existing monsters and offered new variants. The original adventure has Cragmaw goblins as classic low-level opponents. The new content features psionic goblins of various ability and skill levels to both up the ante and demonstrate how the energies of the Far Realms are corrupting and changing Phandelin. But don't toss these spent gems in the trash when their power has been used up; they're worth 50 gp once they run out of magic! ( Spell scrolls could not be reached for comment at this time.)

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There’s no better place to get your party comfortable with the aspect of heroism than an isolated town facing strife. In Phandalin’s case, they have the Redbrands causing issues, marauders ambushing caravans, monsters threatening the townsfolk’s safety, and no city watch or militia strong enough to contest these problems. The PCs randomly decide to head to Phandalin because… uh… maybe they can do something there (what, exactly?) that will impress the Harpers so that they can join up. But the designers do none of these things. Instead, they “foreshadow” the mind flayer plot by randomly pasting psionic goblins into various encounters. These psionic goblins do things that are best described as LOL-so-random-LOL, and it’s difficult to really convey just how dumb this is. Here’s the first reference to them, which comes from questioning the Cragmaw goblins from the first encounter: Just as a yearning to help dear Gundren makes for powerful motivation at the adventure’s start, painting Phandalin as a town worth fighting for will cement your players’ desire to defend it—especially important in later chapters, when aberrant forces begin to warp the settlement. While the mining town and its inhabitants are greatly expounded on in the second chapter of the adventure, consider breathing life into the road to Phandalin, raising expectations for a vibrant, safe haven. The players must journey through a portal and into the Far Realm, where they’ll have to confront Ilvaash himself, while navigating an array of horrific creatures and an interdimensional labyrinth with the power to shatter players’ sanity. In the end, it will take everything the players have to stop Ilvaash and save the people of Phandalin from a fate worse than death.

This section does get a lot more art than the original had (and much of the art in the original LMoP was recycled from the Dungeon Masters Guild and Monster Manual), and it looks terrific. Lots of NPCs get art now, such Nezznar the Drow (by Axel Defois) and Linene Graywind (by Robson Michel). Good art really helps to bring an adventure to life, and if Kent Davis' art for the chapter 2 opener isn't a classic for adventurers in a tavern, I don't know what is. The post I originally commented on said "What's the point of ___ then?" implying that these items made it seem pointless to pursue thanks to these items. There's a sense of reverence for the changes that have been made to the Lost Mines of Phandelver. With more art, description, and development in the world it does feel like the Lost Mines of Phandelver is getting an update out of respect for how many 5e players got to experience it as their first adventure. Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk is a DnD campaign designed for four to six players. Players begin a familiar dungeon-crawling adventure at level one, and they’ll face a crisis of unexpected scale (and weirdness)by the time they reach level 12. Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obeliskexpands a fan favorite adventure into a full-fledged campaign thatsuitsnew and longtime players and Dungeon Masters. Where Lost Mine of Phandelver took characters from 1st to 5th level, this new adventure book progressesall the way through12th level.Except those are terrible examples, neither Spare The Dying nor Cure Wounds are singularly unique class features, they are spells, never mind that healing is a very general concept. How do you manage to make mind crystals available in your game? While it’s always “safer” to err on the side of too few, you can often be a bit more generous with single-use items like these. Your players still must use action economy and consume a spell slot when using a mind crystal. Plus, unlike some other single-use items such as potions of healing, a spell can outright fail, consuming the mind crystal’s magic all the same. You may approach these items differently if the party already has a sorcerer, as you don’t want to hand out so many that the sorcerer feels like their class features aren’t uniquely useful. The theme of this adventure is its greatest strength. It follows the quintessential adventure structure. Heroes just starting their adventuring career end up wrapped up in events that reach further than they could imagine. Offers new Dungeon Masters and players the opportunity to dive into their first full-fledged Dungeons & Dragons adventure.

We could actually just put an obelisk fragment in the Phandelver mine itself! Finding this fragment alerts the mind flayers to the presence of a shattered obelisk in the Phandalin region, triggering the next phase of the campaign!The players take on a series of explorations in the region while searching for clues about the location and identify of the Spider, as well as where Wave Echo Cave might be. In this chapter, the players have a few different options, including investing a strange wizard, taking on a dangerous banshee, battling a group of bandits or exploring a nearby set of ruins. Eventually, the players find the location of Cragmaw Castle, the home of the goblins terrorizing the region. They learn that the Spider is in fact a drow named Nezznar, while recovering a map to the location of Gundren’s lost mine. Chapter 4: Wave Echo Cave There are also plenty of rumors, townsfolk in need of assistance, and brigands that need dealing with around the town, making it an ideal location for heroes who are just starting out on their heroic careers. Helpful DM Resources for Running Phandalin There is always an option to just start with the new content halfway through the game, though there's a chance you won't have those same connections with the NPC of the world. Along the way, the players will have to venture beneath Talhundereth, into the Underdark, and to a dwarven temple desecrated by mindflayers to reclaim pieces of the obelisk before the fanatics do. Then they have to travel to Illithinoch, a former mind flayer nation stronghold that is now a shrine to Ilvaash. A gateway from there will take them to the Far Realm where they must stop the ritual to save Phandalin and probably all of Faerun. Even if they do, Ilvaash will want revenge so DMs can continue the story past the book with their own material.

This adventure also has some of my favorite dungeon designs I've seen in published 5e content including a dungeon with rotating passageways, and more naturally shaped dungeons including one shaped like a brain. The realization on players faces as they explore this maze and realize what shape it's in... Enemies Aplenty Again, this seems like a minor change, but it isn’t: Dead horses send a clear message of DANGER, which is important because there are four goblins waiting to ambush characters who approach the horses. Furthermore, the tactics section for these goblins have been changed, making it much more likely that this initial encounter will result in an immediate TPK. The removal of that beginner-oriented text however means that a new player wanting to get into Dungeons & Dragons without other experienced players they're likely going to want to continue using The Lost Mines of Phandelver, especially as it's free through D&DBeyond. Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk is an updated version of the Lost of Mine of Phandelver mini-campaign that came with the 2014 D&D Starter Set. But while that adventure took players from levels 1 to 5, this new 2023 version will take take characters from Level 1 to 12 when played in its entirety. It’s important to note, however, that Phandelver and Below is not a sequel, but rather an updated version of the original campaign, along with all new materials that have never been introduced before.

Is Phandelver and Below good or bad?

Shadows on the Dragon Queen promised full integration with Warriors of Krynn so that you could play your own PCs on the battlefields of the wargame… and then just forgot to do that. Spell suggestions: charm person, death ward, disguise self, enhance ability, invisibility, mage armor, pass without trace, polymorph, suggestion The events of the first chapter provide a taste of each of the pillars of adventure: exploration, social interaction, and combat. Not only does this provide a chance for any given player to shine early on, but it also establishes what both a player and DM might expect in a typical adventure, and how to navigate aspects of each pillar. Use these as learning opportunities! Another small gripe is the minis provided. I have plenty of generic mind flayers and these are just recoloured ones. I'd have rathered the 3 big bads or something else. A half-elf NPC in LMoP, Daran Edermath from the Edermath Orchard scenario, now becomes a retired Drow adventurer. Another NPC was switched from male to female. Two more adventure hooks are added—Friend of the Harpers and Gauntlet Trainee. A map is provided for the Goblin Ambush encounter.