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

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where a malevolent cult threatens to overtake the region. Together with your party, solve mysteries and stamp out growing corruption as you uncover more about the peculiar happenings plaguing the town. Here's where it gets weird. The Lost Mines of Phandelver has been out for so long and is so widely available, being actively promoted for new players, it's going to be hard to find people who have been playing D&D who don't already know what half of this book is about.

Is the partyprepared for more combat at the goblins' hideout? Among the party may be a character preferring to be peaceable, or to exercise their gift of gab. The goblins here know quite a bit, if they can be persuaded to divulge. Consider letting certain words in Common slip into overheard conversations. Make a point to ask whether any characters understand Goblin; this is a great way to hint to the players that there may be important information to be gleaned! Notable Non-Player Characters The obelisk in 2016's Storm King's Thunder is only mentioned and not seen. Players visiting the village of Nightstone will learn that it got its name from a large obsidian megalith that stood in the center of the village square. This stone obelisk had been covered in strange magical glyphs, but by the time the players arrive during the DnD campaign, cloud giants have stolen it. Accompanying Gundren from Neverwinter is Sildar Hallwinter, a middle-aged human and member of both the Lords’ Alliance and Waterdeep’s griffon cavalry. Players will find Sildar captured and held prisoner in the goblin hideout. He knows quite a lot of information that will thoroughly set up the adventures to come (see more below), and readily provides it to the characters once safely rescued. (Is a person in need not enough to encourage your players?Perhaps his mild fame precedes him, and a reward is all but guaranteed.) Each story beat also leans heavily into what you might expect when you're a new player. You'll encounter bandits, and combat dragons, before delving deep into dungeons.This dual identity affects the adventure’s content too. Phandelver and Below is trying hard to be two different adventures at once, and the ties between them are pretty weak. A strange goblin is mentioned here and there in the remastered first half, but there’s no other lead-up to what’s coming next. The most important NPC your players will meet, however,may be the one they become inexplicably attached to. Whether a sudden fondness for a goblin they meet on the road, or an unexpected interaction with one of Phandalin’s residents on their early journey into town, consider being prepared to elevate any NPC’s role to compensate for player interest. Perhaps the once-nameless farmer they bumped into outside of the Stonehill Inn takes the place of another townie in events to unfold. When supernatural forces later begin to warp Phandalin and its inhabitants, your party's favorite friend will be first on their mind! Was It Fate? Planting Seeds for Future Leads Artist: Ned Rogers Based on how the book was marketed, this isn’t too much of a surprise. An early press event revealed the designers aged-up the campaign, taking away its family-friendly reputation and aiming it more towards experienced players. However, Phandelver doesn’t really commit to being entirely one thing – beginner-friendly or streamlined for long-time players.

Mutates are introduced, a class of enemies that are aberrations of previously known monsters that a player might have encountered in the past. Humanoid creatures mutated will obtain abilities to deal with psychic nightmare blasts and will have webbed wings sprouting from their bodies.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. This existing relationship may come in particularly handy at some tables. Whether by unfortunate dice rolls or a party that neglects to invest in Wisdom (who needs Perception?), the players have ample opportunity to miss a goblin trail leading to the first real quest that sets the story in motion. Or perhaps other character motives see the party hasten to Phandalin instead of chasing this lead immediately. In either case, the plot thread may be handed directly to them by Elmina Barthen, owner of the town’s biggest trading post: Gundren is missing! Gold is a great motivator, but isn’t the real treasure the friends we rescued along the way? PaintPhandalin As Idyllic From here (or if prodded by Elmina in Phandalin), exploration begins! Encourage your players to consider what abilities might be useful in finding and following the nearby goblin trail. Then comes another surprise: traps! With two separate goblin-built traps placed at various points along the trail, there is ample room for both success and failure. This is another moment that simply captures a significant danger in adventuring, prompting your players once more to always be prepared. No new races or subclasses to do with these threats is a strange omission, but it may also be as OneD&D is ramping up for 2024 there's less of a desire to add new options for character creation that are going to immediately be contradicted/invalidated. Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk Review | Final Thoughts NPCs with adorable, horrifying, or hor-dorable traits make a mundane place feel memorable. Story-driven mechanics give combat encounters a new spin. And the second half of the story is tied together neatly with mechanics that prove the severity of the situation to your players – and adjust the difficulty of the final fight depending on their actions earlier on.