Sunday, November 20, 2016

Lost Mines of Phandelver - Session 6

The session started off with the party bidding farewell to Gundren at the base camp. Gundren gave each party member a roll of 50 gp as a start of the mine payments. The party travelled back to Phandalin, and discussed the future with their fighting companions. Anlow said he would got back to his home in Phandalin, and continue to keep the woods outside of the city safe. Feck and Daylen said they would also stay in town, though they had no definitive plans. Nefresil and Gareth offered each of Daylen and Feck 1 pp a day to help them travel to Neverwinter, a 3 day trip. The pair eagerly agreed, as this was more money than they could reasonably earn in 3 months, let alone 3 days. Nefresil and Gareth bedded down for the night, and met the pair in the morning. The group travelled to Neverwinter over the course of 3 days. About an hour outside of the city they ran into a company of mercenaries leaving town. They hailed the leaders and learned that the Lord Protector of Neverwinter was in the process of moving mercenaries out of town after there had been several run ins with the town militia that was starting to form. This was confirmed in the inn at night in a conversation with some of the local militiamen.

Nefresil and Gareth paid for Feck and Daylen’s room and dinner for the night before bidding them farewell in the morning. The pair went to a money changer, and changed their coinage into a more manageable number of coins, opting to carry a handful of platinum. They then went around town looking for some work, but not finding anything that interested them. They went to look for any caravans that needed guards.

They came across a Dwarf named Baelnar that was looking to travel up to Kelvin’s Cairn near Ten Towns in Icewind Dale. After some negotiations they agreed to a price of 150 gp each, along with a 2 week stay in Iceland Dale so the adventurers could investigate anything interesting they found. They would then guard the Dwarf back to Luskan. Baelnar gave each 50 gp up front, and told them to meet him near the North Gate in a week’s time.

With some daylight left they decided to purchase some supplies for the upcoming trip. Then they went to find a Wizard to identify the Spider Staff and pipe that they possessed. They found one in a library who told them that the staff indeed was magical, but the pipe was not. He said he could identify it for 50 gp. The party agreed and the wizard told them that the staff, when wielded as a melee weapon did an extra 1d6 poison damage. In addition, it could be used to cast spells. If 1 charge was expended the caster could cast spider climb, and for 2 charges the spell web could be cast. He said the magic in the staff felt full, but he was unable to tell how many charges the staff contained.

DM Recap
This was an interesting session for me. This marked the first session I ran that was not out of a module. I tried to give the players the freedom to do what they wanted. However, I think I went too far in that direction. I did not give them plot hooks in Neverwinter that they could follow. I realized this the next day, and it is something I will try to fix going forward. There were no fights during the session, but the plot still moved forward.

Loot and XP
The party rested in both Phandalin and Neverwinter so the remaining XP from Wave Echo Cave can be awarded. There is 1300 XP to be split 3 ways (Nefresil, Gareth, and a third share to the hirelings), which is 433 each. There is an additional, 1950 XP to be divided 4 ways (Nefresil, Gareth, Gundren, and the hirelings), which is 487 each. Each player is awarded 920 XP, bringing their total to 2195. Here is the breakdown.

Zombies - 150 XP (50 x3)
Flameskull - 1100 XP
Ghouls - 600 XP (200 x3)
Mormesk the Wraith - 700 XP
Spectator - 700 XP