What to do after Lost Mine of Phandelver?

[The Decepticon]

I am reaching out for a little bit of help here. My group is just finishing up with Lost Mines of Phandelver and want to continue on with their current characters on a new adventure. The problem is we can't commit for and adventure that lasts more than 3 months. The 4 characters (and an NPC) will be 5th level by then.

Is there any campaign out there on FG that keeps us somewhere along the Sword Coast that lasts for roughly 3 months?

[superteddy57]

Well the timeline in chronological order would be:

Out of the Abyss (1485 DR or later)
Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat (1489 DR)
Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden (Winter, 1489 DR)
Storm King’s Thunder (1490 or 1491 DR)
Lost Mine of Phandelver (Starter Set) (1491 DR)
Princes of the Apocalypse (1491 DR)
Curse of Strahd (1491 DR)
Tomb of Annihilation (1490 or 1491 DR)
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage (1492 DR)
Dragons of Icespire Peak (Essentials Kit) (1492 DR)
Candlekeep Mysteries (1492 DR)
Descent Into Avernus (1494 DR)
Acquisitions Incorporated (1496 DR)

But, if you are looking to stick around Phandelver then Dragon of Icespire Peak from the Essential Kit. Then you can move into Storm King's Thunder. That's just my opinion.

[Ecks]

Depending how much you play, I would expect many of the full book adventures to take longer than three months. A few of the official adventures are comprised of shorter adventures though, which may work well for your time restraint.

Tales from the Yawning Portal has 7 adventures, you could start with The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan which starts at level 5. Depending on how long it takes you could continue on with the next adventure, White Plume Mountain. It might take a little work from the DM to connect these adventures together.

Candlekeep Mysteries might also be a great option. Its based out of a location on the Sword Coast, and it contains a bunch of adventures for individual levels. So you could pick up at the level 5 adventure and play as many as you can.

Disclaimer: I haven't run or read any of these.

[damned]

STK can be started at 5th level
Or let your toons retire - they've earned it
Baptise some new ones!

[The Decepticon]

Will STK take more than 3 months? That is what I have been looking at, but we all can't commit to a 6 month campaign, because of stupid work (gotta work to play D&D) :).

Candlekeep Mysteries might be the way to go. Will need to look into that.

Thank you everyone for the suggestions! Keep em coming if you have more.

[Zacchaeus]

If you can't commit to any of the big adventures (which will take many months to play) then you would be looking at some of the modules that collected smaller adventures together. These are (in no particular order) Ghosts of Saltmarch, The Yawning Portal and Candlekeep Mysteries.

[esmdev]

You might check out Storm Lord's Wrath, Sleeping Dragon's Wake and Divine Contention. Those adventures take place near Phandalin and make a good sequel to Lost Mines or Icespire Peaks (both being starter adventures in Phandalin). They are also relatively inexpensive as well.

[Griogre]

STK? Assuming you mean, Storm King's Thunder - it's one of the most sandboxie of the D&D adventure paths being like 60% campaign guide and 40% adventure and it would be tough to run it in 3 months unless you put it on a very tight railroad.

[LordEntrails]

I agree with esmdev. Look at Storm Lord's Wrath, Sleeping Dragon's Wake and Divine Contention. You can buy them when you need them, and they are not big investments in time or money. https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store/product.php?id=WOTC5ESLW

I wrote up summaries and you can read them here;
https://www.reddit.com/r/DragonOfIcespirePeak/comments/i5012o/plot_summary_storm_lords_wrath/
https://www.reddit.com/r/DragonOfIcespirePeak/comments/i6anbx/plot_summary_sleeping_dragons_wake/
https://www.reddit.com/r/DragonOfIcespirePeak/comments/iil5jf/plot_summary_divine_contention/

[Valdemar]

My group is running through Dungeon of the Mad Mage - There were indications the "Black Spider" went to Water Deep into the underdark - they followed up on that and went to the Yawning Portal.

[TXCBoy36]

I am in the same situation, we are also finishing up LMoP. Been looking at Dragon of Icespire Peak. It keeps the party in Phandalin. You can beef up some of the starting quests to make more challenging and like was mentioned here, there are 3 supplements to this beginner module. If they are near 5th level, then a good dungeon crawl would be Dungeon of the Mad Mage is good one to make it more challenging but it is lengthy. Candlekeep mysteries would be good for short adventures. You can also grab some of the Adventure League adventures....those make good short adventures if you or the party can't commit to a long term adventure. Dung of the Mad Mage starts at 5th level and is designed to take the party to 20th level. Alot of choices....my party is leaning towards the mad mage adventure. they want the challenge of this huge dungeon crawl.

[The Decepticon]

I am in the same situation, we are also finishing up LMoP. Been looking at Dragon of Icespire Peak. It keeps the party in Phandalin. You can beef up some of the starting quests to make more challenging and like was mentioned here, there are 3 supplements to this beginner module. If they are near 5th level, then a good dungeon crawl would be Dungeon of the Mad Mage is good one to make it more challenging but it is lengthy. Candlekeep mysteries would be good for short adventures. You can also grab some of the Adventure League adventures....those make good short adventures if you or the party can't commit to a long term adventure. Dung of the Mad Mage starts at 5th level and is designed to take the party to 20th level. Alot of choices....my party is leaning towards the mad mage adventure. they want the challenge of this huge dungeon crawl.

We decided to go for Storm King's Thunder. Looked at Out of the Abyss and the campaigns after Dragon of Icespire Peak, but another one of my players is running that right now. No one has done SKT yet, so should be a bunch of fun....I hope.

[damned]

My group went to SKT but I didnt realise

a) there was an option to bring in L5 chars
b) how slow the opening 5 levels in SKT can be...

So we rebooted our toons and started again :pirate:

[The Decepticon]

Yeah, we are starting at level 5 and skipping the first chapter. Might bring in a few NPCs from the chapter but that is about it.

[ErevanSelevarun]

You might check out Storm Lord's Wrath, Sleeping Dragon's Wake and Divine Contention. Those adventures take place near Phandalin and make a good sequel to Lost Mines or Icespire Peaks (both being starter adventures in Phandalin). They are also relatively inexpensive as well.

These are pretty cool modules. After i finished Lost Mine of Phandelver, the party was level 5. I used Dragon Barrow, Falcon's Lodge, Woodland Manse and then Circle of Thunder from Icespire peak to introduce the party to Talos cultists, but also to level them up to level 7. I just changed a few things to make everything fit with the player stories. Once at level 7, i sent the party to Leilon to start the Storm Lord's Wrath module.

These modules are available for cheap on Fantasy Grounds, and they are free as source material on D&D Beyond if you get the Icespire Peak set and enter the code in the box. I'm almost done the first of the 3 modules (Storm Lord's Wrath - levels 7 to 9) and then will move on to Sleeping Dragon's Wake (levels 9 to 11) and then Divine Contention (levels 11 to 13).
BTW, for the people who are thinking of Storm King's Thunder, this is different.. not the same modules at all.

[BaneTBC]

I followed up Lost Mines of Phandelver with the Storm Lord's Wrath (and then next Sleeping Dragon's Wake and Divine Contention) for one party. Another group, I'm following up Dragon of Icespire Peak with Rise of Tiamat. I'm also about to start one with Dungeon of the Mad Mage. But all of these will require a healthy chunk of time for your players to get through all of the content. For a limited time frame group, you might want to look at a subsection of a module or just make up a set of dungeons with your own plot for them to run through, that way you can speed things up if you get into the time crunch or drag it out with new ideas from the players if they move along a little too quickly.

[TXCBoy36]

We are going towards Mad Mage, starting a new group with Dragon of Icespire and then possibly start the Tyranny of Dragon....also just got the revamped Curse of Strahd set for Fathers day.....can't wait to dig into that.

[similarly]

Sorry, late to the conversation. Didn't see it until now.

I actually planned a 3-Act campaign to go from LMoP to Waterdeep Dragon Heist to Dungeon of the Mad Mage.

LMoP was slightly modified, but WDH and DMM are so heavily modified that even if a player has run in them before, it would be almost completely unrecognizable.

STORY:
I'll have to leave out some really good bits in case my players happen upon this, lol. So basically, I'll only put here what I've already given my players. The real campaign is WAY more twisted, lol.

20 years ago, the elected Lord of Waterdeep, Dagult Neverember embezzled 500,000 gold dragons (the coins, not actual dragons) from the Waterdeep Treasury under Castle Waterdeep, something that was supposed to be impossible, as there are spells to prevent it. Nobody actually knows how he did it. In order to prevent him ever revealing the location of the gold, he had an unnamed wizard help him conceal all memory of the location of the gold inside a magic stone, which was then concealed in Waterdeep Castle. The theft was not discovered until he was away on vacation. He hired a group of spies to get into the castle and steal back the stone, but one of them got drunk in a bar in Waterdeep and revealed the mission within earshot of a gnome named Dalakhar.

Dalakhar quickly gathered 15 accomplices and ambushed Neverember's spies, murdering them and taking the stone. Rather than going after the gold immediately, they decided to play the long game and wait 20 years until the statute of limitations on the crime had run out and they could claim the gold freely. Inspired by Neverember, they hid the stone, then hired a wizard and a group of gnomes to wipe everyone's memories. The wizard and gnomes created a map and a key, and broken them into 16 parts, with each member of the conspiracy keeping a piece of the map and a piece of the key. Dalakhar then suddenly murdered the halfling wizard and the gnomes (dead men tell no tales), and used the halfling's skin to make covers for the magical amulets (that contained a piece of the key and a piece of the map, and which were all counting down to the date they'd regroup and go for the treasure).

The amulets were said to be cursed such that if any member of the conspiracy killed another "shareholder", or tried to take another shareholder's share by force, the offending party would lose their share.

Unfortunately for Dalakhar, the halfling wizard and the gnomes suspected something was up. The halfling, fearing his own safety, had sent his wife and children into the protection of Xanathar, and then never actually cursed the amulets, believing that if he were killed, the shareholders would eventually figure out there was no curse, and they'd all kill each other over the gold. The gnomes, meanwhile, had realized that Dalakhar and company had not made a backup plan in case one or more pieces of the puzzle didn't come back. They couldn't do anything about the key (which the halfling wizard made) but they did secretly hire a 7th gnome to keep a copy of the map, and to create a way to track the shareholder and the amulets.

After the death of the gnomes, the 7th gnome then, realizing the betrayal, built a giant fire-breathing iron boar to track down the shareholders and kill them, and bring back the amulets. Later, the twin daughters of the halfling wizard Harby Goldfeather grew up, and having been raised as assassins by Xanathar, decided to start tracking down Dalakhar and the shareholders and start killing them.

One of the shareholders was a dwarf named Gurnkar Blackanvil (who went by Gundren Rockseeker in Neverwinter, and Gunnar Stonehammer in Waterdeep) joined with his two brothers in Neverwinter. He had become suspicious when one of the shareholders almost immediately disappeared, and later started to learn over the years that other members of the conspiracy had been killed. He located 3 members of the conspiracy near the small town of Phandalin: a hobgoblin called Grol (who was using goblins to raid traffic, especially on The High Road between Neverwinter and Waterdeep, and had a thriving slaverunning business), an evil druid named Glasstaff (who had the entire town of Phandalin occupied in his business: growing and selling magically enhanced drugs), and a female drow named Nezznar who was dealing in cursed magic items).

At the start of the LMoP adventure, each of the players had inherited an amulet from a distant relative who had been killed, either by The 7th Gnome's giant fire-breathing monstrosity, or The Goldfeather Twins). Blackanvil, under the name Rockseeker, hired them to take supplies to Phandalin, but this was just a ruse. The wagon was full of junk, and they were just bait. Blackanvil suspected one of his three former comrades might be the one killing off the shareholders, and was using the clueless party-members as bait to see if Grol, Glasstaff of Nezznar would try to kill them.

By the end of Act 1, the party learned what their amulets were, and learned of the existence of the conspiracy. They took Nezznar prisoner and headed for Waterdeep.

Act 2 has been tracking down the rest of the amulets in Waterdeep, some of which have come into the hands of The 7 Lords of Waterdeep, the 7 lords of the criminal syndicates in Waterdeep. They've also run into a number of mysterious figures who've offered aid, several out of interest in the party's connection to the Waterdeep Dragon Heist, and some as former allies of Blackanvil. So in Act 2, they've discovered that their amulets actually don't connect into a single map but show 16 locations in the sewers where a secret lock has been hidden, and they now surmise that the finished key will unlock the locks and lead them to the treasure.

Act 2 is mostly about finding out where the treasure is.

Act 3, DMM, will be actually going to GET the treasure. But I can't say too much, because my players aren't there yet.

Needless to say, it's actually WAY more complicated. There are some really outrageous things going on in the background. But basically, I started LMoP knowing we would end in DMM, and I worked hard to put hooks between the three adventures to connect them together in a lot of unsual ways.

[The Decepticon]

Not that anyone cares but last night was our last session of Storm King's Thunder. I am happy to say that the players won in the end, took out 2 giant strongholds and the BBEG. I only killed one of the PCs, so everyone was happy! We are now moving on to a new adventure of Stormwreck Isle and Dungeon of the Mad Mage with new PCs.

[damned]

Well done. We are still going - and we started before you!

[The Decepticon]

Well done. We are still going - and we started before you!

Honestly, it could have gone longer and almost did with another trip to another giant stronghold. Good Luck on the rest of your campaign!