Fantasy Grounds - D&D Lost Mine of Phandelver DLC

Loved this campaign, me and my whole family.

Paid 265 USD for this product including the needed software and guides, and it worked for 18 months. Now to use the product I need to either install programs to slow down my Mac or buy a s****y PC. I can also be "allowed to upgrade" for another 90 USD in 4 months. Have directly given feedback to the company that they are running a mafia-like scheme. STAY AWAY FROM FANTASY GROUNDS - USE Roll20 instead

This DLC is for an "adventure module". This is not a review for this module specifically, but a review for how these adventure modules work in general. As of writing this review, there is no way to redeem a physical copy of the book that the DLC will be based on. You're basically looking at purchasing the same book, but in a format that exclusively works with fantasy grounds - so if you're choosing between buying a physical book and buying this module because of economical reasons, I'd say go for the book and save up for the fantasy grounds modules later in life. Adventure Modules for the 5E ruleset with Fantasy Grounds are used in the same way they are in regular D&D - as a pre-made ready-to-play module that can function as a self-contained campaign or as part of a longer campaign. When you load the Adventure Module and click the library button in the lower right corner, you will see the adventure module listed as "Adventure", and you can click the title of the module there and it will bring up a content list that you can use to access the important content from the module, but in a format that has been processed to be fully integrated into Fantasy Grounds - for instance, you can open up the Pre-Generated Characters option (if the module in question has these), and just hit the "plus" symbol to add the characters to the roster or the "magical items" and just drag individual items into inventories or loot-piles you're creating. You can also click on "Reference Manual" (as seems to be the case with all of the Fantasy Grounds 5E book conversion DLCs) and it basically lets you read the book page for page, though in a slightly cumbersome and inconvenient manner, but it works well enough that you can prepare for a module etc. The module will most likely contain battle-maps of dungeons etc. that you can simply add character's to (NPC's come preplaced on the map, except for special encounters which you have to activate), and then the players can essentially move their "tokens" (fantasy ground equivalent of miniatures) around on the map and explore it. With the new dynamic lighting features etc., it is almost going to feel like a a video game, as tokens, treasures and points of interest are pre-added, and most of the time, you get a "DM version" of each map, allowing you to see room reference numbers and trap locations so that you know exactly where the players are and what should be happening in the game. Adventure Modules for Fantasy Grounds 5E appear to be worth the money due to the sheer amount of hassle they save the DM, but I can understand why someone would feel bitter about re-purchasing adventure books if they already owned them, but I personally find that the modules are no substitute for the real book - the ability to flip to a specific page and not have to open a bunch of windows in Fantasy Grounds to look something up is fine a must to me personally, but if I had to run a pre-made module on Fantasy Grounds, I would definitely buy it instead of attempting to recreate the module myself, but if I had to choose between buying the physical book and recreating the module step-for-step or buying the fantasy grounds module only, I'd choose the physical book any day of the week, because ultimately, this is a poor substitute, but it is an amazing supplement. My main gripe is that that these supplements are the same price as the physical book, with no option for a discount or anything.

A wonderfully written starter adventure. You can either use this to get an overview of 5th edition, or as a stepping-off point for full 5th edition adventures.

This is a review of the Lost Mines of Phandelvar DLC for the Fantasy Grounds main software. This review will, as much as possible, only deal with the DLC. As my setup does not use any network connections, they won't be mentioned in this review. I will be talking about both the story content of the adventure as made by WOTC and the conversion from book to software by Smiteworks. For the review, only the main program, the 5E SRD, and this DLC are active. My setup: I host a face-to-face D&D game using FG. We have a PC running the software with the monitor as my DM screen, and we have a TV laying horizontal for players to use their miniatures on battle maps. Everything they players have access to is display only- they are using pencils & paper, real dice, miniatures, real rulebooks, etc. Lost Mine of Phandelvar (LMoP) is a good adventure that will take characters from level 1 to level 4-5. If you plan to play this as a PLAYER, please - don't read this review. **THERE ARE SPOILERS BELOW** This DLC is the "introduction" to D&D 5E adventuring. It is simple to both run and play, even for inexperienced DMs and players. It contains a little taste of most of the types of experiences that will make up larger campaigns. There are dungeon crawls, diplomacy/role-playing encounters, a bit of sandbox "what do you want to check out next" play, chances of recurring villains, memorable NPCs... even a dragon. Secret doors, traps, hidden treasures, and lurking monsters will teach players to make sure they don't tunnel vision the obvious goals. If played to their potential by the DM, there are several encounters that will act as a wake up call for players, as they come to realize that level 1 characters are just starting their journey (and are fragile!). By the end of the adventure, the characters and players will have saved a small town from numerous threats, becoming local heroes in the process. The Good Things (adventure): - Simple to run. I spend a couple of hours preparing for what's likely to happen during that session. Mostly reading through the chapter a few times or tweaking individual encounters, I've changed almost nothing in the adventure as far as the story goes. - Simple to play. The adventure starts off with a dungeon crawl, which is a great way to let my players get comfortable with the game. Teaching them combat in 5E is incredibly easy, and learning it made my players visibly more comfortable and involved. As they got more encounters under their belts, I've been able to introduce more rules gradually. - Short. As an introductory adventure, being able to take bite sized pieces each session and still feel like they have been accomplishing something in the big picture is extremely important. There is time enough for the large campaigns later, this is the perfect scale for beginners. - Well written. For the most part, the settings are described well, the NPC roster has several that are quite memorable, the story flows well, and the adventure makes sense. The town feels like the movie Tombstone, and it's easy and natural to flavour the Redbrands after the movie's Cowboy's. - IT HAS A F@#$ING DRAGON!! This game isn't called Dungeons and Kobolds for a reason. Dragons are such an iconic feature of this game, and to see one in an "introductory adventure" gave me goosebumps as I planned out how I would play him. These are more than just stat blocks, after all. Having the dragon talk instead of immediately attack, luring them into the tower, letting them become more relaxed as they dropped their guard... the look of dawning horror on their faces as the dragon grinned and inhaled was priceless. >:) - Contains 5 premade characters- 2 fighters, a rogue, a cleric, and a wizard so that the players can immediately begin their adventure. Some of these characters have direct ties to the adventure in their backgrounds. The Bad Things (adventure): - Easy to TPK. The very first encounter, if played by a DM not pulling punches, can make the party nothing more than a stain on the ground. Bugbears can 1-shot many level one characters. The Dragon's breath weapon deals 12d6 damage, which can 1-shot some level 3 characters even if they made their save. - Scattered information. I'm assuming this fault lies with the original adventure, not the conversion. Needed information can require more searching than it should. - Players maps divulge secrets... sort of. Looking at the key of the player maps, they will include icons for a "trap" or "secret door." Even though they don't tell the players WHERE those are located, the fact that they are in the key tells the players that they exist somewhere in that map. The Good Things (software) - It includes the entire adventure. Text, maps, artwork, everything. This is not a stand-alone software, the base FG program is required, but it is pretty plug and play other than that. - Each encounter has it's own page. This generally includes relevant background info, a text box for the brief DM description of what's going on, an NPC roster, NPC tactics and personalities, and a parcel link for any treasure to be found from that encounter. - Battle maps have pins, clicking them opens the relevant encounter which makes navigating the adventure a breeze. The maps are also high enough resolution that even spread out over a 40" TV they still look very sharp. - Tweaking Encounters is easy. Adding/removing NPCs, adjusting stats, changing map starting positions, etc are all easy to do. I've had to adjust difficulty both up and down to suit my group. - Changing Tokens. This gets its own point. Sometimes it is a basic picture, such as the dragon, and other times it is just a big circled letter, such as "S" for Sildar. You can find a huge collection of tokens, both for sale and for free, to replace these with. Going from an "S" to a top-down view of a battered prisoner adds a lot more immersion than I would have thought. The Bad Things (Software) - Typos. Holy smokes, the typos. Problems such as formatting adding line breaks in the middle of a sentence, missing punctuation, or just simple mistakes in spelling take up a fair amount of my prep time to fix. Spending a couple hours proofreading the adventure text should not have been a step that got skipped. - Dead Links. There are some dead links in the various pages. A thorough proofreading / bug testing would have easily caught these. Example: NPC sheet for Hamun Kost, "Other" tab has a spell list. All of these links lead to blank pages. - Links to other Modules. Some links point to other modules, without specifying what modules it is trying to get to. Example: Under "Items" -> "Magic Items" -> "Scroll of Augury" is the link "Image:Spell Scrolls." Clicking that link brings up an error message: "Could not open sheet with data from unloaded module. (*)" - NPC sheet errors. Some obvious errors in some of the NPC sheets. Example: Daran Edermath, under his "Traits" it lists: "Rock, null Commoner" All of these are quality control issues that should have been fixed before releasing this product. (I'd be happy to do this for any 5E module in exchange for a fixed copy of that module!) Conclusion: This is money well spent. For $20, you can allow a group of players to get the perfect sized adventure to get a real taste of what D&D 5E is (only the DM needs this DLC). They'll encounter dungeons, town gossip, large areas of wilderness to explore, monsters ranging from trivial to deadly, creating and advancing a character, and how brains can develop a rich and exciting world, with each person adding their own touches to the evolving story. The bad things about this module, although annoying, are really not a big deal over all. Remember, this REQUIRES the full version of Fantasy Grounds to play. As well, I highly recommend buying The Players Handbook (either physical book or the FG version) to really build your character. The included options are quite limited.