DM Yourself Phandelver

I received my hardcopy of DM Yourself (author Tom Scutt) in the mail a month ago. I was not in on the Kickstarter but I saw a review on Youtube and emailed the author to buy a copy. Delve is a handbook for Solo Adventuring using D&D 5th edition. While the principals could be of use in any system it is designed for D&D 5th edition. While I am not really interested in being a DM in a 5th Edition game (too many rules) I am fine with DMing myself. I can take my time checking to see which rules apply.

DM Yourself is a very different method of solo adventuring from what I am used to. This is not a random oracle. The booklet (running 60 pages) gives you rules, suggestions, and guidance to running a solo character (with Sidekicks) through published D&D adventures. It even gives specific guidance on many of the already published adventures. It is a chance for me to run some of the official D&D 5th edition adventures I purchased and read but never ran.

DM Yourself does this but adding in a few rules to make the published adventure survivable. This starts with the suggestion to start your PC at Level 2 for that 1st level adventure. From there the PC should get maximum hit points at every level. There are suggested additional rules like Hero’s Luck, Plot Armor, using average monster damage. Nothing is game-breaking. But if anyone has tried playing D&D 5th edition solo before they know that character death at first level is very likely. The published adventures are designed for 4-8 players.

The meat of the DM Yourself book is suggestions on how to play through a published adventure without spoiling it for yourself. How to attempt to immerse yourself in the play to provide an enjoyable experience, and how to roleplay encounters. Many of the suggestions are things that you could probably come up with yourself but it is a handy journal.

I decided to run a 2nd level cleric with two sidekicks (one expert, one warrior) through Lost Mine of Phandelver. I have read this adventure before but it was years ago so I remember nothing. I had planned to run it on a tabletop with stand-up minis, paper character sheets, and dice to go full old school. But I immediately found that less than ideal. So I decided to run it using the Phandelver module in Roll20. This gave me a partial method of using fog of war on the maps but more importantly it made tracking the character and the NPCs much easier. The first two sessions are complete and went reasonably well. I think I enjoy it more than the times I have tried solo play with a random oracle generating the plot and it is definitely better than any pick-a-path solo playbook.

Lost Mine of Phandelver

Session 1

Day one

Nate Fallcreek a cleric of Torm is in the City of Neverwinter. Nate recently left the militia after hearing the call of Torm. He is in need of work and an old friend named Gundren Rockseeker (a dwarf) has hired him and two others to escort a wagon to the village of Phandalin. Gundren has gone on ahead accompanied by his bodyguard Sildar Hallwinter to attend to urgent business in the town. Nate and the two others are each expecting to be paid 10 gold coins by the owner of Barthen’s Provisions in Phandalin once they deliver the goods. This is the first time Nate has met the female, human warrior Marit and the male human expert Arjen.

The route they are to travel with the cart is south on the High Road until they meet the Triboar Trail. Then it is east to the road to Phandalin.

Day Three

The three heroes head east along the Triboar trail moving at a slow pace. Up ahead they see something in the middle of the trail. Nate is currently driving while Marit and Arjen are dozing in the back of the wagon. Nate whistles to get the attention of his companions. Arjen jumps down from the wagon and moves ahead to investigate. He finds the horses belonged to their patron Gundren. The saddlebags have been looted. Just then arrows fly out of the forest striking Nate twice. Two goblins run onto the trail to attack Arjen hitting him. Marit runs over to help. Nate casts Cure Wounds on himself then runs over to help Marit. Arjen kills one goblin and Marit kills another then they both crash into the woods to attack the goblin archers. Arjen badly injures one goblin who turns and runs away. Marit kills the remaining goblin. They try to hit the running goblin with arrows but miss it. After the battle, Nate prays to Torm to heal Marit and Arjen.

Arjen spots a trail headed north and the three set out in pursuit. Arjen spots a snare on the trail and the trio avoids it. But Arjen doesn’t spot a pit trap that opens beneath his feet. However, he is quick enough to leap over it. Following the goblin trail north, they come to a stream exiting a cave in the hillside.

Session 2

They approach the cave. As they prepare to splash across the stream they spot 2 goblins hiding in a thicket just as the goblins spot them. Nate reacts first by rushing across the stream and storming the goblins. He kills one on the spot with a blow to the head. The other goblins darts away to the cave entrance shouting in goblin. Nate signals to Arjen who stabs the goblin in the back killing it.

Nate lights a torch and the three adventurers head into the cave splashing across the stream Arjen in the lead. Arjen spots a cave with wolves tied up in it. They quietly walk past. Up ahead Arjen just barely makes out the sight of a bridge over the stream and a tunnel off to the left. They decide to go left and run right into a cave full of goblins. Marit and Nate rush in to attack while Arjen readies his bow at the entrance. Marit and Nate are immediately surrounded by goblins. Nate calls down Sacred Flame as he advances. The Goblin immediately in front of him is engulfed in flames and staggers to the back of the cave, but another goblin steps up to take its place. Marit is attacked by 2 goblins but quickly kills them. As he fights Nate spots a goblin boss atop a ledge holding Sildar. He shouts at Arjen to get the boss pointing up at the goblin. Arjen brings down the boss goblin with an arrow. Eventually, all but one of the goblins are killed. Marit doing almost all of the killing.

Nate goes up on the ledge and frees Sildar. He also searches the goblin boss and finds some gold teeth. They tie up the remaining goblin in the ropes that were holding Sildar. Marit questions the goblin as he speaks their language. Nate questions Marit on where she learned goblin but she does not answer the question.

They learn that there are fewer than 20 goblins in the lair and they count the dead and see they have dispatched eight of them. The goblin says their leader is a bugbear named Klarg. The goblins here are part of the Cragmaw tribe. They ask about Gundren and learn that the dwarf has been sent to Cragmaw Castle. Marit threatens the goblin and gets rough directions to the castle which is in Neverwinter wood.

Nate can see that Sildar is badly injured. Sildar tells him that the goblins took turns working him over and kept promising to eat him. Nate uses Channel Divinity/Preserve Life to give some healing to Sildar. Sildar says he is ready to fight and grabs one of the goblin scimitars. Marit uses Second Wind to recover some hit points. Finally, Nate casts Cure wounds on himself. Now that they know Gundren is not in the caves they discuss whether to leave immediately and continue the journey to Phandelvin, detour to Cragmaw Castle or continue on to confront Klarg. The group vote with Marit voting to continue fighting goblins but Nate and Arjen voting to continue to Phandelvin. Sildar does not vote and tells them he will abide by their decision.

Sildar also tells them that the goblins did not waylay Gundren by chance. They were instructed by someone called the Black Spider. Whether that is a name for a goblin or someone else he does not know. He mentions his contact in Phandelvin is Iarno Albrek who has gone missing. When asked to speculate why the goblins were after Gundren, Sildar suggests it was because the Rockseeker brothers found the long-lost Wave Echo cave a famous mine.

The group sneak out of the caves and head back to the road. Their wagon is still there waiting. They set out for Phandelvin.