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Add in interesting information about Abbathor, the dwarven god of greed to fill out the lore of the temple. Given the flavor of the dwarven ruin, the text is unfortunately light. The Dwarven Excavation quest is a fun exploration of a mysterious temple to the evil dwarven god Abbathor and is my favorite of the first set of adventures in Dragon of Icespire peak. I'll add more quest tips and summaries as I run through the adventure. The rest of this article contains advice for each of the quests in Dragon of Icespire Peak. Nothing beats seeing a dragon in Dungeons & Dragons. When you roll on the dragon's location and its close to a location the characters are traveling to, give them a chance to see the dragon from afar. When rolling on the 'dragon location' table in the 'Running the Adventure' section of the adventure book, it's unlikely the dragon will show up at the very location the characters visit. While our characters can hear about the dragon from their first visit to Phandalin, it's something else to see it. This relic can be a family heirloom of one of the characters or something given to them before they begin their adventures.ĭungeons and dragons that's what people want to see and Dragon of Icespire Peak has both. Aid increasese the hit points of characters by 5 for 8 hours a big boost for 1st level characters. This relic may only be usable once or you might give it three charges. One way to help the characters survive their initial quests at 1st level is to give the characters a relic that casts aid. Some groups can get lucky when facing these foes but many may not. Any of these monsters can easily kill a 1st level character.

In the first three adventures, intended for 1st level, the characters face a ochre jelly (CR 2 with immunity to slashing), a CR 2 grappling mimic, and a CR 3 manticore that can inflict up to 21 damage on a turn. Unfortunately, Dragon of Icespire Peak does not follow these guidelines. Given the low hit points of 1st level characters, the above guidelines ensure they won't get wiped out in their first combat.

Limit average monster damage to 5 (1d6+2) or lower.

Include fewer creatures than characters.

Keep monster challenge ratings to 1/4 or less.

In another article, Building 1st Level Combat Encounters, I recommend the following for 1st level adventures:

A 1st level D&D game is almost a different game. Reduce the number of orcs and ogres at the Shrine of Savras if you have fewer than four characters.ġst level characters in D&D are delicate.Add interesting flavor and treasure to Dwarven Excavation.Ensure the characters have access to the spell magic weapon before facing the wererats in the Mountain's Toe Gold Mine quest.Focus on roleplaying options and reduce the manticore's combat effectiveness when facing the manticore in Umbridge Hill and the mimic in Gnomengarde.Replace the ochre jellies in Dwarven Excavation with gray oozes.They're really squishy and you can kill them easily and accidentally.

Find a way to cast the aid spell on the party increasing their hit points by 5 for 8 hours.Here's a quick list of tips, further described in this article, for getting the most fun out of Dragon of Icespire Peak. Table of ContentsĬlick the links below to jump to a particular section in this article.

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Also check out Bob World Builder's Full DoIP Review. In addition to this article you can watch this Dragon of Icespire Peak video discussion including tips for the first quests in the adventure and thoughts about one-on-one play.

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In this article we'll talk about how to get the most fun out of this adventure. The D&D Essentials box includes everything a group needs to play D&D including the adventure Dragon of Icespire Peak. The D&D Essentials Kit is the first new entry point for Dungeons & Dragons since the original and excellent D&D Starter Set released by Wizards of the Coast in 2014. If you enjoy this article, check out Sly Flourish's bestselling books, weekly newsletter, YouTube videos, twice-weekly podcast, and fan-supported Patreon, all offering tips to help you run awesome D&D games. Please also note that this article includes spoilers for the adventure Dragon of Icespire Peak. I'll be updating this article as I run the adventures in the book and gain first-hand knowledge on how to run each of the quests within them. This is an evolving article offering tips for running the D&D Essentials Kit adventure Dragon of Icespire Peak. New to Sly Flourish? Start Here! Running Dragon of Icespire Peak from the D&D Essentials Kit

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