This part of the Phandelver adventure allows for a ton of player agency and I love that. There were at least 6 different directions the characters could choose at this point:
- Go back and fully clear out the Redbrand Hideout
- Return to the Chapter 1 Goblin Hideout and retrieve the inventory of the Lionshield Coster
- Go to Thundertree and retrieve the Dendrar family heirloom
- Travel with Nalpina Goldstone to a deserted laboratory (B&G Legendary Edition Bonus Encounter)
- Go to the Old Owl Well at the behest of Edermath
- Take Harbin Wester up on his quest to clear the Wyvern Tor of brigands
All of these options were layered over the long-term goal of finding the Cragmaw Castle where they were told their friend Gundren was taken.
There were even more quest options in the module (Sister Garaele’s quest) but I didn’t want to throw everything at my players. Again, I love this about Phandelver and Below. I’ve found it’s pretty rare to find a written adventure that allows for this many different story path options.
Factions
Love them.
Things that make players feel like their characters are a part of a larger world, that they have a community they can help advance, clash with, or seek aid from - all good.
The tricky part: If members of a party join different factions, with different goals, can you keep the whole party on an agreed upon quest? If our rogue is looking out for the Zhentarim, can that character coexist with the paladin who has vowed to support the goals of the Lords’ Alliance? They can, but sometimes it takes a little work from the DM to explain how their goals intersect. Allowing each character to achieve individual goals within the larger group quest. When I ran Waterdeep: Dragonheist I had characters that aligned with 3 different factions. It took a bit of finagling to align their goals. For Phandelver it turned out that three of the characters joined one faction and the rest opted not to join any, so it made all of that a bit more straightforward.
In-person vs online
My game is a split of in-person and online. Most of the time, everyone is in the same room except for Rob C who joins via online from the opposite coast. Occasionally, when our hosts are out of town, we’ll do the whole session online.
Of course I’m ALWAYS going to push to play in person, if possible. If online is the only way you can get a game going, by all means - but if you can play in person I just find everyone is more focused and engaged. The in-room banter is cleaner and less choppy. I love seeing and hearing the physical dice skip across the table. Laying down a beautiful map on the table. Handing someone a textured in-world handout. In one of these sessions, Rob C was in town on business and got to finally be in the room for a game. He used the opportunity to dig into RP and share an important part of his tragic backstory. Fun night I won’t soon forget.
Min-maxing
One of the characters is a githyanki fighter with the Psi Warrior archetype. Pretty cool combo (particularly for this adventure). Githyanki have the ability to cast the jump spell at 3rd level and misty step at 5th as part of its psionics which is pretty useful. This fighter took the potent Interception style (which I discussed in an early blog) and later took the Shield Master feat. This feat allows you to ‘Shove’ as a bonus action and the Shove action allows you to knock someone Prone instead of pushing them back. The only restriction is only if the target is no more than one size larger than you. So this fighter can knock Prone ANY creature that is Large or smaller as a bonus action. Stone Golem, water weird, etc. Logically and visually I often struggle with this, but I don’t want to penalize the player too often so I keep my house rule exceptions to a minimum. What makes this feat so effective for this particular character is he often fights together with the paladin. So he’ll knock the opponent Prone and allow the paladin to make all of its attacks with Advantage, which is particularly effective when using Smite!
Next: Sessions 9-10
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