A questions about Lost Mine of Phandelver and DMing 5th edition in general.

[Darksidebro]

Hello everyone, there will be spoilers about the "Lost Mine of Phandelver" adventure here, so if you don't want to know then there's the warning.


Anyway, down to the meat of the Issue. I'm currently DMing LmoP for 5th edition (it's the first 5th edition I've DMed this far) and there's a point in the adventure where you attempt to rescue a dwarf friend of your's who owns the said Lost Mine. One of the rewards (if you rescue him alive) is that he "Will gladly reward the party with 10% of the profit from the lost mine". I'm not sure how to handle this, as this Mine has a "Spellforge" inside (used in ancient times to make magic items). I'm also unsure what sort of Ore is pulled from the mine and refined there, I'm assuming Iron or so.
My question is this: What amount of money is correct to reward the players? Will the payments arrive monthly by messenger? Or maybe they have to repeatedly return to the mine to pick up their share? I feel like that would be more balanced and perhaps the dwarf could inform them of things they could help him with when they pick up their shares.


The second question is regarding 5th edition in general. I understand that Monsters are now made differently than players, with different abilities and increased HP (a system I really enjoy, as do my players). But my question is this: Can a player race with class levels still challenge (or overchallenge) the Party? Like, for say, if I wanted to fill a dungeon with Dragonborn with class levels like Fighter and Sorcerer, what level should they be to fairly challenge the players? (Let's say the group is level 7-8). How would an encounter of Player Race w/Class levels compare to creatures from the Monster Manual with the appropriate CR?

[Envyus]

The second question is regarding 5th edition in general. I understand that Monsters are now made differently than players, with different abilities and increased HP (a system I really enjoy, as do my players). But my question is this: Can a player race with class levels still challenge (or overchallenge) the Party? Like, for say, if I wanted to fill a dungeon with Dragonborn with class levels like Fighter and Sorcerer, what level should they be to fairly challenge the players? (Let's say the group is level 7-8). How would an encounter of Player Race w/Class levels compare to creatures from the Monster Manual with the appropriate CR?

On this the DMG tells you how.

[Darksidebro]

On this the DMG tells you how.


Ah.. Well unfortunately I don't have my Copy of the DMG yet. Can anyone summarize what the DMG says about this topic? Or any personal advice you might have Envyus?

[Shining Wrath]

As to the first question, the DMG will help there as well, as it gives prices to create magic items and from there you can extrapolate the income of the Lost Mine.

I'm going to guess that 20 GP a day is not out of bounds, so the characters should get 2 GP a day for the rest of their lives - every month a guy shows up and hands them 60 GP.

[Jamesps]

I'm going to guess that 20 GP a day is not out of bounds, so the characters should get 2 GP a day for the rest of their lives - every month a guy shows up and hands them 60 GP.

That seems a bit low to me. I think it's 10% total split amongst the party, so that'd be 4 silver a day for each player. That's less than their upkeep costs.

There's rules in the DMG for businesses though. You can probably just use a modified version of those (modified because the players don't run the business themselves, which is what the rules cover).

[S_Dalsgaard]

Someone over at the WotC forums did a calculation and came up with a number around 3,000 gp per month for the PCs. In my opinion that's a bit too high, I would probably go with around 1,000 gp per month (250 gp / player in my campaign).

I imagine that it will be at least a year before the mine is running at full capacity, so for the first couple of months they might not get anything at all (while new miners are recruited and new veins of ore are discovered), and then slowly begin getting more and more money per month. That way the first year might only grant 1,000 gp total, instead of per month.

Here's a link to the thread with the calculation I mentioned (about 5 posts down) - http://community.wizards.com/forum/dungeon-master-help/threads/4110156

[Gwendol]

Hello everyone, there will be spoilers about the "Lost Mine of Phandelver" adventure here, so if you don't want to know then there's the warning.

The second question is regarding 5th edition in general. I understand that Monsters are now made differently than players, with different abilities and increased HP (a system I really enjoy, as do my players). But my question is this: Can a player race with class levels still challenge (or overchallenge) the Party? Like, for say, if I wanted to fill a dungeon with Dragonborn with class levels like Fighter and Sorcerer, what level should they be to fairly challenge the players? (Let's say the group is level 7-8). How would an encounter of Player Race w/Class levels compare to creatures from the Monster Manual with the appropriate CR?

If you use class levels and a player race then they should be fairly evenly matched. CR ´= Class level more or less. An encounter with evenly numbered opponents at equal class should be a hard fight.

[Shadow]

If you use class levels and a player race then they should be fairly evenly matched. CR ´= Class level more or less. An encounter with evenly numbered opponents at equal class should be a hard fight.

This is incorrect.
If it were true, then the 9d8+con HP 9th level caster mage NPC would be CR9, but he's CR6.
The 5 HD level 5 caster priest NPC is CR 2 or 3.
There are tons of examples where level =/= CR.
There really isn't a metric that works. CR is always significantly lower than HD, but the more special abilities it has (and spells count) the higher the CR gets relative to its HD.
An encounter with evenly numbered opponents at equal class levels as a whole would be equal to the party's CR +1-or-2

[Gwendol]

Hm, I'm looking at the NPC's in the MM and their numbers don't add up. Take the assassin for example, which is clearly not quite the same as a 12th level rogue. He only does 4d6 SA damage (should be 6d6). Likewise, the Berserker is a far cry from a 9HD Barbarian. But sure, the CR should be adjusted for mediocre ability scores, not taking advantage of all class features, and so on.

I can make a 5th level cleric who can wipe out the MM priest in a heartbeat, and so can you. The priest is an NPC and not a player race with class levels.

[Shadow]

I can make a 5th level cleric who can wipe out the MM priest in a heartbeat, and so can you. The priest is an NPC and not a player race with class levels.

Explain the Mage. It's a 9th level wizard that has d8 HD instead of a school. That's the single difference if I remember correctly.
CR 6.
Because CR =/= level.
CR = a challenge for an entire party. Claiming CR = level is like claiming a level 12 fighter is a challenge for an entire party of 12th level characters.
It's not, because CR does not equate to class level.

[Gwendol]

CR of a party level is barely a challenge, unless I'm mistaken. That said, you are mostly right in that depending on the class the level of challenge will vary wildly.

The NPC Mage is again, a push-over against an even-leveled PC Wizard. Obtaining the benefit of an arcane tradition for the most part outweighs the d8 vs d6 HD. Also, his ability scores are wonky. If you would make a 9th level wizard you would likely have more HP anyway on account of a better CON score. An NPC human Wizard of the enchantment arcane tradition would have an INT of 20 at level 9 using the standard array, and a CON of 14 (+2). With average HP he ends up with 48 HP compared with the 40 of the NPC mage. That, and arcane tradition, and gear should easily push the CR up. Or at least provide the players with an actual challenge.

EDIT: Yeah, so for level 6 characters a medium encounter should give 600 XP (x4 equals 2400 XP, which is slightly above the NPC Mage). A medium difficulty encounter is defined as one where:

A medium encounter usually has one or
two scary moments for the players, but the characters
should emerge victorious with no casualties. One or
more of them might need to use healing resources. in other words, barely a challenge.

According to the Basic DMG v 0.3 certain variations will lead to an adjustment of the challenge rating such as those changing the damage or AC of the NPC (so, ability stat array changes are included, but not simply racial bonuses and traits), and the addition of magic items. I imagine adding feats might change the CR as well.

[Shining Wrath]

That seems a bit low to me. I think it's 10% total split amongst the party, so that'd be 4 silver a day for each player. That's less than their upkeep costs.

There's rules in the DMG for businesses though. You can probably just use a modified version of those (modified because the players don't run the business themselves, which is what the rules cover).

A mine like that is going to require significant operating costs. Some of the current inhabitants will be difficult to evict, history shows rather clearly that the mine is worth raiding and so you must have substantial security to defend it, and the profit from the magic items may be lower than you anticipate once you factor in having to pay a mid-to-high level wizard more than he or she can make adventuring - or at least enough that having a desk job with little risk of having their wizardly face eaten at lower pay seems worth it.

[GWJ_DanyBoy]

I imagine that it will be at least a year before the mine is running at full capacity, so for the first couple of months they might not get anything at all (while new miners are recruited and new veins of ore are discovered), and then slowly begin getting more and more money per month. That way the first year might only grant 1,000 gp total, instead of per month.

This is important, the mine won't be making a profit for a good while, and even when it does, profit will fluctuate. You also need to define what the players are getting a claim on, the Wave echo cave mine only, or is it a share of the Rockseeker Mining company itself.
Do you treat it as a mine, or a magic item factory, or both?

You can tweak it as desired. If you want rich PCs, the mine has a boom, finding a great vein of precious materials, or re-discovers lost magical secrets. Conversely, if the PC's resources are getting out of hand, the mine could get raided again, which a good plot hook, or are unable to get the magical forge working, or the mine becomes tapped out.

[S_Dalsgaard]

Actually the spell forge isn't really worth much. It has lost most of its mojo and can only enchant armor and weapons with a +1 for a duration of 12 hours.

[Atmosk]

Surf archer has a great series of posts that go over how to build monsters by CR, Here (http://surfarcher.blogspot.com/). It goes over all the mathematical underpinnings of CR and how to adjust these for what ever purpose you may need.

[MaxWilson]

Surf archer has a great series of posts that go over how to build monsters by CR, Here (http://surfarcher.blogspot.com/). It goes over all the mathematical underpinnings of CR and how to adjust these for what ever purpose you may need.

It would be interesting to compare Surf's reverse-engineering to the DMG guidelines and see how much he got right. I've only skimmed Surf's stuff but it looks generally correct.