It actually went really well.The Crystal Shard was an event token awarded to players who completed the “Crystalline Cataclysm” PvE Queue during special promotional events, once every 20 hours. The party stayed in Bryn Shander and sorted that, missed all of the dwarves and saw the consequence, and followed the east lake story through to the conclusion of the adventure. I didn't find the 3 story lines to be difficult. I will say, LotCS was my first adventure as DM, after only playing for a couple months. When parties finish LMoP, were they supposed to be level 4 or 5?Īs a follow on to this, if I get time, I will try to go back and throw together a quick conversion for Legacy of the Crystal Shard to be levels 5-8 or so. A level 5-6 adventure would fit that much better and provide a stepping point for people who finish with Lost Mines of Phandelver. Now that we are almost done with Age of Worms, I am thinking about running my players through Murder in Baldur's Gate in preparation for Zeitgeist. I had mindlessly converted it for level 1 to 4 because the original adventure was level 1 to 4, but you are right it would fit better as a mid level adventure. If this makes you think I dislike Legacy of the Crystal Shard, let me clarify that while the scenario is okayish (the stats are useless and the parallell story ideas are unevenly developed), the background material is really great. This is decidedly not a newbie-friendly module, and it is wasted on players that can't keep track of different events and NPCs. In part because of the second problem: Legacy features no less than three parallel story tracks, with an ambition to convey a sense of "you can't help everyone". Of course, this is much more ambitious than what I'd recommend to a new DM with inattentive players. It also allows you to drop the odd hint of things to come, already at low levels, since the locale(s) remain the same. you can simply drop the "real" monsters from MM right into the story, since they can now survive encounters with full-strength Trolls and Yetis etc. Besides, with heroes experienced from Mines. If you're concerned that means a lot of conversion work, the sad reality is that the playtest stats are next to useless anyway. Trust me - that makes the nature of the threat much more natural, than if a bunch of low-level adventures are the only ones capable of reacting to the threat.Īnd since level 4 or 5 is where your heroes will be after Mines of Phandelver, this is perfect! This is what I meant by "a problem might be a solution" above. I wholeheartedly recommend anyone thinking about running it to rejig it as a level 4-5 to 7-9 adventure instead. But nothing about the story makes sense as a low-level story. The only reason I can think of why it's statted up as a low-level scenario is because it is a D&D Next playtest scenario to be useful as a playtest, it must start at level 1. The roots of this is because of a secret: Legacy of the Crystal Shard is a much more sprawling/ambitious/difficult adventure to run and to grasp. Two problems, one of which might actually be a solution given your plans: Has anyone experience with the two adventures in question and an opinion whether that crazy plan of mine might work? And the cast of the two adventures appears to be somewhat compatible, with dwarves and bandits and goblins. Having trouble deciding between the two choices, I came up with a crazy idea: What if I play the plot and encounters of the Lost Mine of Phandelver, but move the whole thing from Phandalin to Bryn Shander or one of the smaller of the Ten Towns? That way I could use the excellent campaign guide material from LotCS, but keep the story to the simpler Starter Set one. Which would be a perfect settings fit if I want to play Storm King's Thunder afterwards. And while it looks a bit too complicated for my group with 3 parallel stories to keep track of, it has this great Icewind Dale setting. However, I also have the Legacy of the Crystal Shard adventure. So a relatively linear starting adventure like the Lost Mine of Phandelver looks like the right choice. Due to an infrequent playing schedule we had some problems in the past with adventures that contained too many parallel stories and too many NPCs. I am planning to start a 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign with players who haven't played 5E before.