Dragon Of Icespire Peak DM Guide | Dwarven Excavation Quest

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#dnd #dungeonsanddragons #icespirepeak

[BobWorldBuilder]

With many requests for "more of these" here is the second pair of Dragon Of Icespire Peak DM Guides & Gameplay videos! More to come!

[Dreigonix]

I tie this quest into a couple others. A major thing when I run this campaign is that major NPCs from each quest move into Phandalin and help support the town in the midst of the dragon and orc attacks. After Adabra Gwynn comes to town to sell potions, you can bring her extracts from the Gray Oozes and Ochre Jellies in the ruins (when you kill them, they collapse into silver and gold slime that can be collected and used as potion ingredients), and in exchange she’ll start selling better potions and also reveal some backstory on herself and Harbin Wester and their younger days. And after Facktoré comes to town to build magitech weapons, you can bring her the gem from the Hall of Greed and she’ll use it to build a laser cannon that can fire the equivalent of a Scorching Ray.

[lorcoops]

As a brand new DM, running this campaign with my husband (a veteran D&D player) and our two friends (brand new to the game), your guides have been SO helpful! We played this quest last night and your suggestions really made the experience more fun for both them and me! Thank you so much :)

[skroblas]

I was a DM at this scenario today.


My party of three (lvl1) cleared the ozes, didn't find any treasure and went to sleep.
The other day, i made one of the dwarf steal from one of the sleeping players, because he was possessed by the amulet of Abathur, that he found digging that night.
The players knocked the dwarf out and got there gold, and the amulet. One of my players destroyed the amulet, because he hated greedy people, so the mine collapsed because of wrath of the god abathur. the players just got out from the ruins in the nick of time. When we encountered orcs, the party member that destroyed the stone, was tied, along with other two dwarfs, because other players didn't trust them :)
It was my first time as a DM, and it was fun as heck, improvising, And in my opinion made the encounter much more interesting.

[glenkeedy]

Thanks for this excellent guide. My first time as DM and my son as player with 2 sidekicks. Used most of your suggestions and we had a great session. First time I've played since AD&D in the early 90s. I really appreciate your relaxed presentation style. "Chilled Bob" could be future NPC for us. My son rolled a natural 20 on searching the statue room so the sidekick Expert gave him a big hint on the way to retrieve the green gem. Looking forward to more guides as we move through the adventure. Cheers from England.

[ZorkFox]

I've just discovered your channel today and have been sifting through the content… then I came across this playlist. It's excellent!

And your expression when you mention, "nothing of value, " is the same one on my face when I read through "professional, " published, official D&D adventures. "Here's an entire town that once played host to vibrant life but now everyone is mysteriously gone. Oh, and even though there are 30 houses on the map we /generously/ gave you, your players can spend a week searching all of them but still come up empty-handed. Have fun with your adventurous adventure!"

[catdragon]

Saying the same thing as the rest of the commenters but I’m a first time DM and I’m finding your summaries SO helpful as I build out where to place plot hooks to help further flesh things out for the players themselves. Thank you Bob!

[maxm]

Thank you so much for this video series! It was incredibly helpful and I'm sure you've helped hundreds if not thousands of people getting into the game and having a great time as first timers.

[risbridger]

I am about to start running this game and as a first time DM your videos are a godsend and you've got yourself a new Sub

[tylonblaslol]

Thanks for this! As a brand new DM for brand new players, 9 and 10 years old playing a rogue and druid, that trap at the end is going to probably kill them. So I’m trying to think of ways that I can describe the room that would make them suspicious of the other pristine statue. Lol.

[anubisnine]

Yay! Been waiting for this. There's some great advice in here. Thanks!

[HurricaneLang]

Thank you for this series! The tips you offer for running these quests help flesh them out nicely!

[maximilianw]

Will definitely do as you advice, the hint at the final room is a great idea :)

[TheHiroBlade]

This was my first game with a new DM.

It was fun at first; we took out the Jellies without much trouble. But the exploration part just felt like pulling teeth. We spent almost two hours wandering around this tiny-ass dungeon. Every time we found a new, nondescript tiny room she would stop and draw it onto the map, and I was so confused when it turned out there were no new enemies or anything of note there.

I'm quite surprised to learn that, for the most part, she was playing this dungeon straight, at least with the single exception that she refused to give anyone a clue about the secret doors. I'm starting to suspect she just doesn't understand how passive perception works. We spent most of the time rolling perception checks repeatedly in each room until she decided we'd rolled enough times to notice the secret passages. I'm the one who first noticed that there was a symmetry to the dungeon, and it's how we found the loot.

The final room was more absolute bullshit. We tried digging our way through the rubble a couple times, with several high rolls, and each time she acted like we were making progress, but we weren't breaking through. We decided to put the two dwarves to work. (They wouldn't give us the reward until we left, so we took them with us) but she acted like they didn't want to do it (??).

We eventually left, got our reward from the dwarves, with included mining tools, and I said, "Hey, with these we can go back and maybe make better progress with that wall?" So we go back and literally just take turns rolling strength checks. Everyone at the table gets a turn with the mining tools, and each time she says, "You make a little progress." I got frustrated and basically said we should leave because she's either doing a poor job of indicating that there's nothing to find, or there's something there to find, but it's not worth our time. It wasn't until two turns latter that she decides, "You get through!" magically. I honestly felt like she was making up the fact that there was a room beyond just to make us happy.

The whole experience was weird and frustrating. Also, there was no mention of the orcs, only two jellies which died quickly to our 5-person party, and we gained a level for basically the privilege of killing two jellies and then pulling teeth for enough time that one player just got up and went to chat with someone else because nothing was happening.

[isaacsanborn]

Ran this as a one shot the other night. The players spent an hour preparing to fight "the white dragon" despite all of my in-game clarifications, hints, roadblocks, and protestations. I even had earth spirits flat out tell the druid that it would be foolish to try to fight a white dragon, and the townmaster explicitly clarify the mission (just warn the dwarves and leave).
When they got to the temple, they spent a half hour haggling with the dwarves about how much gold they should get as a reward for clearing the temple. Two of the players threw in some colorful insults, to which I had Drazlyn get very upset, and Norbus try to de-escalate the situation. The insults kept coming, so I had Drazlyn draw a small hammer to fight (roll initiative). Within a round, the dragonborn paladin used his breath weapon to totally incinerate one dwarf and critically wound the other (!!) At the top of the second round, I had the orcs invade.
That was how my first TPK as a DM began 😆

[DarthNilum]

digging your channel, Starting my Fiance on this mod in just a few hours, using your videos to help me out. Thanks!

[noric]

Thanks so much ❤️ im being a DM for the first time, and this makes it alot easier ❤️

[enzomatrixt]

Great tips! I was thinking how to encourage the players to get to that final room and the green light is a nice hook.

[johnny_mar]

For my campaign I changed some of the reasons and I switched the white dragon for a blue one, this small inconsistency became gold for my campaign.
The blue dragon is manipulating the Anchorites and Orc Tribes. He brings more machinations and manipulation and rise up the stakes by incinting ward and chaos.

[FatFredxX]

Since abbathor is the deity of greed you could hint at the hidden chamber at the end of the dungeon by suddenly making the gold in the PC's Pockets rattel and be magically drawn towards the rubble as they pass it.