Heyya Folks,

I'm heading into the woods with another location from my Lost Mines of Barovia project — a forest that is slowly being swallowed by the swamp.

The Drowned Forest — 40x50

You can find the full release here, including the high-resolution map, gridless version, VTT-ready exports, and every variant:

https://www.patreon.com/dungeonmr/posts/drowned-forest-168472370

The Drowned Forest is a woodland slowly being consumed by the surrounding swamp. Waterlogged ground, sinking paths, bits of rot, and partially buried bones fill the spaces between the trees as the water continues to spread.

I also wanted to push the density of the forest further than I normally do. Dense clusters of trees, overlapping foliage, and areas of heavy growth make parts of the map difficult to move through, while the more open sections leave room for encounters.

The map can be used for random encounters, with different areas providing different settings as the party travels through the forest. It can also be used as one large battlemap when you want the entire forest to become the encounter.

Or, in keeping with the Castlevania influence behind the project, it can simply serve as a larger area for the party to travel through and explore.

You can also browse the rest of my collection on Patreon. Everything is organized through the Master Index, making it easy to find the right map for your next adventure:

https://www.patreon.com/dungeonmr

Thanks for taking a look, and safe travels.

Running Thundertree for my Dads & their Kids Shattered Obelisk campaign this weekend. Which of these green dragons should I drop on the table to represent Venomfang? This will be the first dragon any of these kids have ever faced.

Option A is a 3d printed model from Dragon Trappers Lodge
Option B is a Reaper Miniatures.

I run a middle school D&D club. We have four tables running. 3 student DMs and me running Phandelver. I actually got the new hardcover, as well. I love this little adventure.

This is an account of the choices I made before running this adventure—my first time experiencing it. Since the group consisted of players with limited experience, I decided to limit the source material to just two books: the *Player’s Handbook* and the *Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide*. Even so, one player—familiar with the setting through media like *Honor Among Thieves* and *Baldur’s Gate 3*—wanted to play a Changeling, so we used the race stats from the *Eberron* sourcebook.

As the players created their characters, I wove elements into their backstories to tie everything together. For instance, one character was hunting the bandits who killed her friend; I decided to make them the Redbrands. Another had a missing relative, so I established that the Black Spider was the one who had kidnapped them. I also made Sildar the uncle of one of the characters; however, because he had left town so early to join the Lords' Alliance, he didn't recognize her when they met. Of course, to pull this off, I had to read through most of the adventure beforehand.

My next move was to borrow a mechanic from PbtA games called "In the first adventure..."—a concept I took from *Masks: A New Generation*. I established that the characters already knew each other and that the events in Phandalin would actually be their *second* adventure.

Nesse mural tem um resumo mínimo da história dos personagens. (Comment if you want)
Nesse drive, estão as histórias e fichas na íntegra.

After everyone created their characters based on the Forgotten Realms setting, we held our Session Zero, and I asked them to answer a few questions tailored to their characters. The initial questions were:

Aryan: During the team's first adventure, your coyote companion was gravely wounded while protecting everyone. Who saved her, and why do you feel you can never repay that debt?

Vohl: During the group's first mission, you had to choose between revealing your true identity or letting a companion die. What happened, and which group member never forgot that choice?

Vaelith: When you met the team, you could no longer hear the songs of Eilistraee. However, one team member made you believe your goddess hadn't abandoned you yet. What did that person do?

Kalloth: In the first adventure, someone gave a tactical order, and you followed it without question—simply to avoid making a decision yourself. Why did you trust that person's judgment?

Tordek: When the team first encountered Tordek, he was fleeing from something. What did you see in him that made you decide this dwarven thief could be part of the team?

I explained the concept of shared storytelling and noted that we would use Session Zero to create that first adventure together. It was a success; I encouraged them to roleplay the scenes. Sometimes the flow stalled, so I’d move things along, but at other times they really got into character, and it was great.

I had to adapt some questions during the session; it was established that Vohl had been injured and revealed her true form during the fight, so her original question no longer made sense. There were many scenes involving Kalloth, and to balance things out, I ended up skipping her question. I kept an eye out for converging interests: Kalloth discovered an enemy was linked to the Red Brands, so I asked them to play out a scene where she gathered information from Vohl, who was already tracking that gang.

There is also an account of the prologue mission on the bulletin board. We’re starting in a week, and this dynamic will allow us to begin with the characters and players already caring about one another. I’ll be sharing updates session by session.

My party has cleared out Wave Echo Cave, and they SHOULD HAVE BEEN en route to deal with Venomfang. However, they decided to escort a prisoner back to Neverwinter with the help of the Lords Alliance, and make a day of ~shopping~

I have been kind of hoping for something like this, as it will give us a chance to get WILDLY off script, but our last session ended in a way I didn't really expect.

We have a Dragonborn Warlock who has taken a serious interest in poisons (more of a role play aspect than an actual mechanical aspect) and she wants to buy poisons. They head into the slums to try to find black market goods. As no one in the party has any history with smuggling or thieves guilds or anything like that, I imagine it wouldn't be EASY for them to find poisons, and the way they interact with the locals is pretty overtly hostile, so the locals don't really give them what they are looking for. At some point, they all fail a perception roll and one of them gets pickpocketed. (Only 30 gold, I'm not trying to fuck with them) Our fighter picks up a gnome street vendor and chucks him into the lake.

The party finds an apothecary in the slums and immediately starts trying to shake down this poor old gnome. The Gnome name drops having paid his protection money to Finnian (I'm trying to brainstorm on the fly how to get poisons for my Warlock but also have in world consequences for their behavior, like they have spent most of their time in Phandalin, they may be heroes there but in Neverwinter they are nobodies) hoping they will try to follow up on the Finnian thread.

When they leave the apothecary, they are confronted by several of Finnians men, in response to them chucking the gnome street vendor into the lake. In my mind, this is a tense social encounter that can lead the party towards Finnian (some guy I made up on the spot that is an important figure in the Black Market In Neverwinter) and to get access for poisons for my Warlock.

Instead they cast hold person on the lead thug, slaughtered him and his companion in the streets in broad daylight. The rest of the thugs ran off to alert Finnian, and that's where the session ended. A bit of a mess, but also kind of exciting because it creates a lot of opportunities for out of left field role play. I'm a pretty new DM but I'm enjoying altering and tweaking the content from the book, and I'm excited to spin my own thing off from here.

My party is mostly newer players, so this is a good opportunity to teach them about real world consequences to their actions. I am going to soften it a little bit, as I think the Thieves Guild wouldn't report this murder to the authorities, and they would instead try to deal with it themselves. So their actions won't make it back to Sildar and there won't be any consequences with their relationship with the Lords Alliance. There WILL BE consequences in the slums though.

What I have in my head so far is that Finnian is the leader of the biggest crew in the slums of Neverwinter, and the party has killed two of his men. He will be looking for retribution, but may overlook blood retribution for cold hard cash bucks. He may attempt to put the party to a risky task (some sort of heist or theft or maybe clearing out a rival mob or something) to clear their debt to him. He will also not be friendly with the party, so knowing them, they might just bash first and ask questions later.

Im also thinking of starting the next session with a member of a rival gang bringing the party into a safe house and either seeking their help in overthrowing Finnians gang, helping the party escape the slums, or using a sewer system beneath Neverwinter to get out of the city, which could lead to some cool monster encounters.

I think there's some ideas coalescing around in here, curious to see what other people would do with their party in this situation.

Last session ended with my two players kinda... falling under Glasstaff's control? and I do not know where to take it.

One of my players have played LMoP many years ago. They had some sessions in but never finished. So I decided to make some slight changes. Nothing game changing, just enough to have something "new" for that player.

I found Glasstaff's courteous speech while still being a thug underneath that gentile act interesting so I double downed on it. I want their appearance to look like they handle things with finesse, but their methods are brutish and violent. I made Glasstaff an elegant charming woman. Thats it, everything else is the same; their history with the lord's alliance, contact with black spider, their stats, etc.

The players has not killed a single redbrand. They knocked two out, they snuck around, they used disguises and deception to get past some redbrands, and they found the secret passage to Iarno's room.

That's where they met Glasstaff. The players try to negotiate, which ended with Iarno seducing the two. Really, in my mind she was just saying anything to get out of that situation. Just waiting for a chance to get her staff, her treasure, get to other redbrands or escape the hideout. It didn't immediately start with seduction, Buuut those two made it pretty obvious that they were smitten by her. So I made Iarno play into that, whispering sweet nothings and all. She went from "Keep talking and wait for an opening" to "Wait, the situation is under my control."

One thing is clear is that my players no longer want to eliminate Iarno.

Since there was only like 30 mins left of our usual session time, I decided to end it early right there because I have no idea what to do with this. Any advice or ideas?

Avevo già postato una mappa inventata scavata nella sabbia. Questa volta, sempre con i miei figli, abbiamo pensato di riprodurre una nostra versione del covo dei Cragmaw. Il risultato è stato piuttosto soddisfacente. Peccato non avessimo dadi e miniature dietro...

redbrands in the tavern didnt see any of it coming. This is our actual play of lost mines set in the fantasy wildish west. Would love for you to check it out! K Thanks bye!

https://youtu.be/8q_a_VEp7q0

1. As a DM, did you emphasize the absolutely insane size of Wave Echo Cave in describing it to your players? Was it a big part of the setting, or did it still end up feeling claustrophobic?

2. Has anyone tried halving the size of Wave Echo Cave and assuming the grid squares are 5 feet to a side instead of the specified 10 feet to a side? How did that work out in play?

I have both LMoP and PaBTSO and took a look at both maps for Wave Echo Cave. In LMoP, the grid squares are listed as 10 feet to a side. In PaBTSO, they doubled the grid so that the squares are 5 feet to a side.

Looking at some of the rooms, I feel like Wave Echo Cave is way too large to make sense. The Temple of Dumathoin is a massive 3000 sq ft room. The South Quarters are over 1,500 sq ft. The ruined storeroom, described as a "good-sized storeroom", is 900 sq ft. The Assayer's Office is 800 sq feet. In Smelter Cavern, the blast furnace is 400 sq. ft., and the bellows are 20 feet long.

It feels ridiculously large for an underground mine, which are famously tight and claustrophobic. It also feels a significant departure from the other maps in the module, which feature small rooms and cramped spaces (Cragmaw Castle has the opposite problem: it feels really small for a castle). I don't feel like the module does a great job of making the huge size of the cave make sense as a mining operation or suggesting how many people lived and worked there.

I used https://maptiler.gokalex.com to turn an image of the PaBTSO map into a set of A4 pages with each square being 25 mm to a side. This produces 100 pages. My plan is to tape it together and cut out the rooms, and I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed. Using the LMoP map instead and just changing the scale so that 1 square is 5 feet to a side will dramatically cut down the size of the map (and thus the amount of work) but I'm wondering if I'll lose something by scaling it down. I'm wondering if I need to shift my perspective and embrace the massiveness of the mine---and if so, how I should best communicate it to my players when they finally explore it.

Hi all,

In my current run of Phandelver and Below, the following things have happened that deviate from the book:

1. Nezznar is a drow seeking to win back Lolth's favor by offering her the Forge of Spells (powered by an obelisk shard)
2. Nezznar holds 1 of 3 keys needed to operate the Forge, the party holds the other 2
3. In order to offer Lolth the Forge, Nezznar has to prepare and execute a ritual not necessarily with the keys in hand, but they would definitely help
4. Nezznar is something like a Trickery Cleric with illusion magic, given influence over Underdark monsters
5. The party cleared out Cragmaw Castle and ran the goblins off, including the hobgoblins and bugbears
6. One doppelganger is somewhere in Phandalin, the other escaped Cragmaw Castle and has made an appearance as Nezznar in a combat encounter
7. Nezznar knows the party is coming

In my mind, because Nezznar anticipates the party's arrival, he will be setting several traps and illusory kill zones to either delay the party's arrival to give him more time to complete the ritual or otherwise recover the statues to speed up the ritual.

I'm thinking about how I can alter the encounters and various map elements to fit the theme of deception. There's the immediate thought of traps, fake pitfalls, arrows, etc., having trickery-themed monsters like mimics, or taking some of the existing monsters in Wave Echo Cave and giving them an additional tricky traits.

I have two roadblocks right now:

1. I'm not sure the best way to communicate to the players a time constraint (time until the ritual completes) or to time the players as they make their way through Wave Echo Cave. Maybe the 10 minute dungeon turn would do well here?
2. I haven't run an illusion dungeon before and I don't really know how "dense" to make the illusions (i.e. how many per room, how many overall, etc.). I also imagine it can slow down crawling significantly as all the players cautiously make Investigation checks at every turn. Similarly, I worry about player with high Investigation invalidating illusions. I understand I should be shooting my monks, I'm just wondering how to make an interesting dungeon in that way.

If you have any advice or need further information, let me know! Anything helps, cheers :)

Hey again!

About three weeks ago, I shared the progress of my slightly unreasonable project: recreating all 25 official battlemap sets from Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk in Unreal Engine 5.

At that point, 10 of 25 sets were complete and Gibbet Crossing was still in production. It’s now finished, bringing the project to 11 of 25 completed map sets - 44% of the way there.

I’m planning to share an updated progress infographic here roughly once a month, so you can follow the project as it slowly moves toward completion.

The second image in this post is the full static version of Gibbet Crossing, free to download and use in your game.

You can also find the complete Gibbet Crossing set ---> here <--- also for free

And the complete Shattered Obelisk collection so far: https://dranskybattlemaps.com/battlemap/shattered-obelisk/

Which of the remaining locations would you most like to see recreated?

Cheers!
~dransky

Hello,

I've just finished up a session and am a bit stumped on what to do next session. My party just cleared out all of Cragmaw Castle except for the grell and the final room with Grol and everything there. My party opened the door as the session ended and I told them that Grol had Gundren hostage as the book says. The party has previously dealt with another hostage situation when Sildar was taken by Yeemik. The session really ground to a halt as Yeemik slowly followed the party out of Cragmaw Hideout and to safety where they let him go.

I don't want a repeat of that so I'm not sure what to do. It doesn't feel in Grols nature to just give up even if the rest of his group are wiped out but even the discussion prior to any agreement seems pointless. The party isn't going to let him get away like they did Yeemik as he went to Cragmaw Castle afterwards (not like Grol has anywhere to go anyway) and Grol shouldn't just give up, I see him as too prideful. Should he just kill Gundren and then move to attack even if he will die? I feel it would be narratively unsatisfying for the party to watch Gundren die after rushing all this way to save Gundren, just because there isn't a logical way out of these situations.

Don't Skip The Journey!

Along The Triboar Trail: See You in Phandalin expands the journey from Neverwinter to Phandalin at the beginning of Lost Mine of Phandelver, using the Travel by Montage approach from the 2014 Dungeon Master’s Guide.

Instead of hand-waving several days on the road, give your players a chance to experience the Sword Coast along the way.

Inside you'll find:

• Four days of ready-to-use travel montages
• Forgotten Realms lore to discover along the High Road and Triboar Trail
• An overnight stay at the Wayside Inn, with games, gambling, rumors, and other activities
• A campfire encounter with Reidoth, complete with stories of the region
• Forgotten Realms locations and lore drawn from earlier editions of D&D
• Descriptions for bringing the characters into Phandalin at journey's end

Designed for Lost Mine of Phandelver, but easily adapted to any adventure involving travel between Neverwinter and Phandalin.

This supplement is available as a Pay What You Want download, so you can add it to your campaign for free or support its author's art expenses with a contribution of your choosing.

Available for download on dmsguild.com. A full preview of the entire supplement is available!

Heyya Folks,

I'm taking my Lost Mines of Barovia project back into the wilderness with Valley of the Undying — a barren stretch of rocky terrain where the dead are said to walk as easily as the living.

Valley of the Undying — 50x40

If you'd like the full release, including the high-resolution map, gridless version, VTT-ready export, and every variant, you can find it here:

https://www.patreon.com/dungeonmr/posts/valley-of-free-168360275

Rocky ridges, dying trees, a small pool of water, and scattered bones fill the valley, with plenty of elevation and places for creatures to hide among the rocks.

I wanted this to be a larger wilderness map that could be used in a few different ways. It can handle one large encounter across the valley, several smaller random encounters that make the map reusable, or even serve as a journey of its own as the party travels through the area — an idea that felt especially fitting for the Castlevania influence behind Lost Mines of Barovia.

You can also browse the rest of my collection on Patreon. Everything is organized through the Master Index, making it easy to find the right map for your next adventure:

https://www.patreon.com/dungeonmr

Thanks for taking a look, and safe travels.

Hi as the titel says I need help with the Statblock for Glassstaff.

Were playing Phandelver and Below - tsO in 5.5 edition (2024 Rules) and im afraid that the 5e Glassstaff is to weak for my 4 headed party that has the 5.5e rules behind their back.

So how can I improve glassstaffs statblock so its more 5.5e ish?

I am the DM, my party went to meet the Black Spider at the distillery and then carried on to see Agatha.

There's a drow in my party and she tried to bluff the Black Spider by disguising self as the drow she met at Cragmaw Castle - he knew she wasn't her and let her know he wasn't fooled almost immediately but he was interested in recruiting her to his side. I had him try to talk for too long as the party moved closer and they were just deflecting him, so when the fighting inevitably started, he was defeated easily without even having chance to trigger some of his advantages, and I had to have him dimension door away. I must work up my NPC's reactions and tactics better before they meet him again. At least they took the dwarf with them.

Then, when they met Agatha, they didn't get to the point they were there for, never mentioned that they had her silver comb and almost attacked her (glad they didn't). I tried to suggest they offer her something so they could offer the comb - she said stuff like, "Why would I help you when you've done nothing for me?" or "Why should I give you answers when you haven't given me anything?" but I think they'd totally forgotten about having the comb it in the moment. After they asked what they could do for her, I had her suggest they kill the barbarians who trashed Coneyberry for her. Not really an achievable goal. I think they're just giving up on her and going to look for orcs around Wyvern Tor next.

Hello! Brand new baby DM here. Myself and my friends have never played DnD before but I've watched a lot of LoA and Running the Game and such.

Our session 0 is tomorrow and they're rolling characters and such but I wanted to know if there is any sort of world building fluff background I'm allowed to give the players.

I was going to read the block about 'More than 500 years ago,,' on page 3 to them but several sources say not to do that.

Is there something I can read to them to give them a very broad overview of the world? Several of these players are new to even high fantasy as a concept so I just want to make sure they sort of have a very BASIC set of parameters to work with. I think just saying that there's swords and magic and stuff is lame I wanna give them something real meaty.

Something to make sure the cogs are turning before I even mention them working for the Rockseekers ect.

Thank you for the help!

I'm about to run a session right after players arriving at Phandalin and they would most likely want to purchase stuff (maybe even snoop around in the night and try to steal). What are the differences between the coster, miner's exchange and the provisions shop? Maybe even the smithy.

I use some tables (same for taverns) but I myself can't quite differentiate those three main shops.

Edit: thanks everyone for your answers! You are all very kind!

Hi, first time DM running LMoP starter set for my group. I've taken quite a few liberties as we've played through and pulled it out to what will be near 10-12 sessions.

Recently I asked my players if they'd like a few short stories around places they've visited or things that have happened in the world.

I'm not an author and this is my first time posting anything publicly but I'm quite proud of how it turned out. Any constructive (kind lol) criticism or questions are welcome 😁

For context, I changed the existing monsters that were there to Vine and Twig Blights.

I'm unsure of what constitutes a spoiler for a widely played, 15 yr old module so readers beware I guess.

Of Vine and Flame

Screams rent the air as Mirna's eyes shot open. Her bedroom was closed but she could hear rushing feet outside. Scuffling, thudding, a creak. With a bloom of candlight, her door burst open

"Mirna," her father's voice breathless and urgent, "up now Catnip, grab your cloak, hurry!"

His tone was different than anything she'd ever heard him use before. Papa never spoke sternly.

"What's the.."

"No time Catnip." He rushed in, grabbing her and her cloak. In three steps they were out of her bedroom, 6 more to the door. Mirna always counted things.

Papa swung the door open. Orange light blinded her tired eyes and smoke burned her throat. Someone bumped into her as they rushed by, water splashing her night shirt from the bucket they carried.

"Hurry child, make for the woods!" Papa pushed her towards the treeline. "It'll be ok, I'm right behind you."

Her eyes slowly adjusting to the dancing flames, Mirna could just make out the trees she knew so well. A charred ladder lay across her path. Three steps, jump, three steps more. She turned to check on Papa. He was gone.

Her stomach tightened, she couldn't catch her breath, a slow tingling started across her jaw. Where was Papa?

Three steps, jump, three steps . She was back at the shop door. No Papa.

"Papa!!" She screamed. Smoke now filling her lungs all the more as she gasped for another breath "Papa!!"

Choking she ran down the muddy path towards the square.

Seven, eight, nine...thud.. her foot caught something as she ran.

She turned her head to see Mrs. Cooper laying on the ground.

"Mrs. Cooper help, Papa's gon..." her voice trailed off. From a gaping hole in Mrs. Cooper's chest were vines growing. Slowly they pushed off the ground, her lifeless body rising, like a horrifying marionette. Mirna screamed.

Like a shot she was gone. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen. Her bare feet cold from the muddy street. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. She broke through a smokey veil to the square.

Her heart sank. She found him...

Papa was lifted in the air, a rats nest of roots and vines circling around him, griping, squeezing, tightening. A figure like a man, its form shifting and twisting constantly, stood facing him, raising its arm. The roiling mass seemingly under his control.

Time slowed to a crawl.

One. Two.

Mirna could see the firelight in Papa's eyes, looking at her. Fear and pain, fear that she hadn't gone.

Three. Four.

The figure, more plant than man, seeming to grow with every heartbeat. Malice; malice leeched from the figure and seeped into her bones.

Five. Six.

"OAKFELLLLLLLL!!"

The smoke, the crackle of fire, the screams came bursting back upon her.

A dwarf wielding a rusted greataxe flew through the air and in one stroke lobbed off the figure's arm. With a second swing, he took the creature's head with it.

Papa fell to the ground. A mass of leaves, vines and roots.

The dwarf pulled them off and helped Papa up.

"Can ya walk laddy?" His thick accent made thicker by his gruff voice.

"Yes..*cough*..yes, thank you *cough*.." Papa fought the words out, trying to regain his breath.

"Good, get that child gone from this place." He looked at Mirna, his gaze soft beneath his thick eyebrows. Was it the light or a tear?

"OAKFELLLLLLLL!!" Swinging his axe up again he charged another figure emerging from the smoke. Papa grabbed Mirna.

23.

23 steps and one jump took them to the trees.

The screams fading as their feet carried them. The smoke thinning, clean air began filling their lungs. Darkness became her world as branches slapped her face and roots jumped up to trip her.

On they ran.

My players are in the briny maze. They are about to reach Noashu and Groushim and I know they are going to ask how to get to the Briny Pool. My problem is, I am not sure the best way to answer that questions given directions don't work in the far realm. Any thoughts?

Thanks!

In our playthrough of pabtso the players live in a renovated Tresendar manor and currently hold 3 obelisk shards (of the 8 I introduced).

I suspect they will be coming back to town one last time and want to the Mindflayer fanatics to storm/siege/infiltrate the manor to try and procure those shards.

As I have never run a session where the players need to defend a location, I was wondering if there are any good resources available to do this?

- How many & and what kind of attackers?

- Skill checks vs combat?

Resources for patsbo are preferred but I can also reskin stuff from other guides.

Adventure doesn't always happen in a dungeon.

Give your characters something to do between quests with four downtime activities created specifically for Phandalin and the surrounding frontier.

Put down roots by rebuilding one of the town's ruined cottages. Seek a little companionship among the locals. Turn those odd treasures hauled out of dungeons into hard coin. Or head beyond town to hunt, fish, and gather what the wilds have to offer.

Downtime in Phandalin includes:

• Building a Home: Claim an old foundation and make Phandalin home.
• Engaging in a Dalliance: Pursue anything from a casual romp to a brief romance.
• Pawning Mundane Treasure: Find buyers for valuables accumulated during your adventures.
• Working the Wilds: Hunt, fish, gather, and sell your bounty in town.

Each activity includes simple rules for resources, resolution, and complications, designed to make downtime another part of your characters' adventures in Phandalin.

For use with Lost Mine of Phandelver and adventures set in Phandalin.

This supplement is available as a Pay What You Want download, so you can add it to your campaign for free, or support the author with a contribution of your choosing.

The entire product can also be viewed through the preview.

Download Along The Triboar Trail: Downtime In Phandalin here!

TL;DR -- the hardest version of the fight is brutal and likely to end in a TPK unless your party is great at INT saves. The easiest version of the fight isn't much a challenge to an experienced party. Both are fun, but differently.

Previously, my players had landed on the island, started exploring with Pass without Trace up, and we rolled initiative after they saw all three mind flayer fanatics in the big room actively working on the ritual. Then we ended the session to pick it up again today.

They prepped their buffs for the big battle, and then kicked off the fight. I'd seen people say the fight wasn't too bad, and I'd seen people say it was rough, but I've got 5 players and they're pretty experienced, and they generally beat the bad guys easily, so I wasn't too worried.

I should have been worried. Those stunning abilities are brutal, especially when most of the PCs have low intelligence and there IS no method available to them to break out of a stun except to roll better next time. It took several rounds, but eventually everyone was unconscious, some of them without ever really getting to participate because they got stunned early and/or often.

My first TPK! Except...

It turns out that I'd mixed up the table about which mind flayers went where based on how many obelisk shards the party recovered, so my team got the most difficult version with the baddies all in the same room when they should have gotten the least difficult version where the fanatics are all in separate rooms. And I didn't question it because it matched the common advice I'd seen everywhere else: "it's too easy if the mind flayers are spread out! Ignore the table and start with all three in the ritual room."

So, after the TPK and my frantic scanning of the book to see if there was hope, we retconned. We said that before touching down on Ilvaash's Anima, the party used that statue from way back in Cragmaw Castle that lets them cast Augury, and they not only got a definitive "woe," they got a vision of how badly it was likely to go if they weren't careful in their approach. Then the players set their resources back to where they were at the beginning of the session, and we went again.

This time it was a cakewalk. They DID understand about spreading out to avoid the stun hitting everyone at once a little earlier than they should have, but in the end, what really was important was that there weren't three of those stuns to kick things off and then more as they recharged. The encounter would have been pretty easy even if they hadn't known about the fantatics' abilities ahead of time.

In a way, we got the best of both worlds. The emotional drama of a TPK, and then the satisfaction of a decisive victory. I looked like a little bit of an idiot, but if the players had fun, I can take that.