Welcome back to Advent's Amazing Advice! The series where I take popular One-Shots, Adventures, Campaigns, etc. and fully prep them for both New and Busy DMs. This prep includes fully fleshed-out notes, music, ambiance, encounter sheets, handouts, battle maps, tweaks, and more so you can run the best sessions possible with the least stress possible!
Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk stems from The Lost Mine of Phandelver a classic and beloved starter set that many new DMs run. Even with this being the most recent release it still has an issue, the same as with many others...it doesn't describe the best way to transform the book's contents into an actual session. The Book-to-session conversion can be difficult between figuring out when things should happen, understanding motivations, and even organizing encounters.
Well, fortunately for you, 99% of that work is done! Only a few things are really left:
- Read the book, I know surprising, but it can be extremely confusing when you don't know where everything leads to.
- Consider the needs of your group. As you've heard or are about to hear a million times, every table is different. If you plan on combining this with a campaign, you'll have to make tweaks here and there.
- These notes aren't meant to be the end-all-be-all. Tweak to your heart's content, and don't consider any of what's written to be set in stone. For me having notes like this helps give me the confidence to go off the rails and follow along with what my players want. It helps me understand where things were meant to go and why. Having that understanding allows me to guide the players and create other new and interesting stories. These are all things that will come with experience, though, so don't freak out and enjoy the journey!
Without further ado:
Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk Act 1
- Part 1 - Intro and Cragmaw Hideout
- Part 2a - Phandalin
- Part 2b - Redbrand Hideout
- Part 3a - Reign of Iron
- Part 3b - Thundertree
- Part 3c - Cragmaw Castle
- Part 4 - Wave Echo Cave
- Part 5 - Side Quests
Included in my posts are:
- A Word document for each part of Act 1 for Phandelver and Below with detailed notes for running a perfect session including links to music tracks for ambiance and fights
- Special PDFs for every encounter. This includes all the enemies' stat blocks organized neatly along with an initiative tracker and a spot to mark HP.
- Additional PDFs for allies and commoners
- A variety of maps for each part of the campaign
- Spell lists for all relevant fights
- Handouts for various spell scrolls throughout the campaign
- A playlist for each section!
Over 5 dozen other Fully Prepped One-Shots, Adventures, and Campaigns: Click Here
Campaign Info: As of today, I've officially completed Act One of Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk! I've also compiled all of my prep for it in a single easy-to-access post which is available to all my Heroes and Legends. You can find it HERE!
I've discussed this on Discord as well as answered a few questions and thought I would clarify some information here; campaigns are super time intensive, so I have to choose wisely which ones I prep. The first half PaB:TSO is an updated version of The Lost Mine of Phandelver which I had already fully prepped; so, I thought I would go through all my prep and update it to match and help all those who are starting to run the campaign! I may one day prep the second half; however, I'm trying to focus on the more popular Campaigns such as Curse of Strahd, before I work on others.
With what I've released, you'll have a great kickstart through most of the campaign and there are plenty of helpful members both on Reddit and on my Discord that can guide you along the rest of the way! I hope that with what I've prepped so far you can have a truly Amazing campaign!!!
As always, if you see something you think I can improve, add, change, etc. please let me know. I want this to be an amazing resource for all DMs and plan to keep it constantly updated! If you'd like to support me, shape future releases, and get content early feel free to check out my Patreon!
Cheers,
Advent
