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First time D&D game tomorrow
urahonky
Cynical Old ManRegistered User regular
Cynical Old ManRegistered User regular
Hey all. I have my first ever D&D game starting tomorrow and was wondering what to expect. What knowledge should I bring to the group, or anything like that. I was originally thinking of doing a Dwarf Paladin but I might go with Warrior instead just so it's easier for me. What do you guys think?
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I am not sure what the question is. What do you mean by bringing knowledge to the group?
Also, which version of D&D are you playing? There are a lot. Like, way too many.
You're a totally new player? For awhile I suggest being a jerk and stating your intention rather than the rules to do it. Let the DM go over how you swing on a rope across the chasm or stab the goblin or decipher the runes. I think the corollary to this is try and remember what he says so next time you can have a good idea of how to do it rules wise yourself and stop being the FNG.
Oh, one rule of D&D that has been almost always true: Kill the wounded dudes first. A bad guy who is unharmed and a bad guy with 1 HP do the same damage. Don't spread out your damage so everybody is a little bit wounded, it's a bad idea. Find the most wounded dude and hit him until he drops.
Do they go around the table and each person does something and then says what they're going to do and rolls a die and that determines what happens? I'm definitely the FNG but luckily there will be 2 other new people at this group so I won't be terribly noobish.
You'll be chilling and generally just talking about what you do. You'll start somewhere, maybe your characters will talk to each other (which means you do, funny accents depend on the group, if you're new don't expect much). Something is gonna happen, odds are the DM (the dude running it) will have a character who is not being played by one of the players come up and offer you a job or ask for help with a problem. Again, this is all just kinda informal talking, you may ask him questions about the job/problem which you just do, all the sort of thing.
The group will decide to do this thing or not. If you try and do something that has a chance of failure, like "I try and see if Bob is carrying a concealed armadillo" the DM will tell you to roll a check of some sort. In 3.5 this will always involve a single d20 with some numbers added to it. That's about as far as the rules stuff will go until....
You'll get into a fight. This will start by the DM asking for initiative. This is a roll that everybody makes one of and then they're placed in order from highest result to lowest result. Highest result takes his turn. Then next highest and so on in obvious fashion. When the last person has taken their turn, you just go back to the Highest and repeat until the conflict is over.
On your turn you get three actions, Standard, Move and sometimes Quick/Swift. If you are a sword swinger you can ignore that last bit. A standard is used to make a single attack, most often. A move is used to move up to your speed most often. You can trade a standard for a move but not the other way round. If you do not use your move action to change your position on the map you may take a single 5' step that turn. If somehow you have multiple attacks (fighting with two weapons, don't do this) you need to take a "Full Round Action" which means you can not move more that that 5' step. If you want to do something else ask your DM what it is, he'll help you get into specifics.
If you want simple Fighter is fine though do not expect a large amount of choices. You will stab a guy, then you will stab another guy. Barbarians are like angry fighters and pretty good at low levels while still being simple.
You will have to pick a "feat". Do not pick toughness. It is totally a trap and sucks. Don't underestimate weapon focus, +1 is tiny but when it's every attack it adds up. Power attack is better than you think it is but takes judgement to use well.
I think I'm done rambling, if you have a specific question feel free to @ me.
The very best thing you can do is play a character that is group-oriented and doesn't try to steal from/kill/harass the rest of the group. Since you were considering a Paladin, I don't think that'll be an issue.
Paladins are an interesting class. They have a little bit of healing, a little bit of spellcasting, and a little bit of melee combat in them. They need to follow a moral code, but if your DM isn't a shitheel then he'll allow a little flex in the interpretation of the Lawful Good alignment.
The problem with Paladins is that to really be effective, they need to have really good stats - Strength raises their ability to hit and damage enemies, Constitution gives them greater hit points, Wisdom gives them better spellcasting, and Charisma gives them benefits to their saving throws. Depending on how your character turns out, Paladin may not be the best option.
Fighters are very simple and straightforward, but as was mentioned above somewhat low on options. This can get boring. Also be aware that at higher levels, fighters are pretty outclassed by spellcasters and are SUPER reliant on getting magical gear.
Two classes I would recommend you consider are Rogue and Cleric. Rogues have a backstab ability, which lets them dole out some pretty great amounts of damage to unaware opponents, as well as some other nice utility features, and a ton of skill points. Clerics are great healers, but also pretty good all-around. Everyone loves a Cleric, and the 3.5 Cleric really shines. Of course, spellcasting can get a bit complicated so if you don't want to be a caster right out the gate I DO NOT blame you.
Ultimately, however, play the character that you want to play. Being optimized is secondary, and that sort of thing can come later as you learn the game more. The most important thing for your first game is to do something you'll have fun doing.
There are also threads (not really specific 3.5, I think) in CF on D&D (there's at least a 5th ed thread, which is the latest) and other tabletop RPGs.
They tend to get further into the nitty-gritty (theory, story ideas, etc), but it's always nice to read others' experiences/postmortems on sessions. I believe there is a similar thread in SE++ as well. I'm sure any questions you have about specifics would be welcome in those threads.
Bring drinks and/or snacks. Everyone will love you.
Have fun and follow all these lovely instructions above me!
Chicago Megagame group
Watch me struggle to learn streaming! Point and laugh!
Aside from that, you'll eventually pick up on the various table mannerisms that exist from group to group. One of the guys I play with doesn't really do different voices for his characters, but he really gets down on is roleplaying. So much so that at one point, I thought he was actually pissed off at me, but in fact his character was just a jerk.
3.5 has a pretty intuitive system for adding up numbers that coincide with whatever die you're rolling. You'll have a few play sessions of wildly looking at your sheet to figure it out, but that will settle itself out pretty quickly.
As far as what class you should play, I've always felt that player characters in D&D should be as close to superhuman as possible. If you want to play a Paladin, but your stat rolls will leave you with a terrible Paladin, maybe you don't play one. As far as fighters go, yes, they're there to basically stab a guy. But you get a wealth of options as to what you stab a guy with, and you level up, you'll get supremely good at stabbing a guy. Hell, you can stab several guys in one turn later on. Or one guy several times.
Also, in general try to be cooperative. You are all there to progress through a story arc, and although the great thing about D&D is that its not on rails, and a good DM can compensate for players going off plan. The goal is to progress through the story, so if that means you have to buy in a little to the premise that will be great.
For example, I have had a few situations where i was the DM in a pickup game and the party has wasted a ton of time arguing over whether or not the party wants to accept the quest that will send them on to the rest of the game.
Oh, lastly, try to stay focused. its easy to get chatting with someone when its not your turn in combat. So when it is your turn, you haven't thought at all about what your next move will be and you start frantically scanning your character sheet, breaking up the flow and making everyone wait on you. Lame.
No, always split the party.
I've learned this skill while playing board games. There's nothing worse in this world than having someone's turn come up and they spend 10 minutes trying to figure out what they are going to do because they weren't paying attention.
I had a GM once leave us paralyzed with indecision. He was notorious for dropping insane fights out of nowhere and merciless about ambushing loners or trapping stragglers, and suddenly left us facing a puzzle that required us to split the party, and we spent twenty minutes arguing about which side got the healer.
I really wish I still knew enough people to play sometimes. Have fun, urahonky!
I stand corrected, the best answer is:
Split the party before getting to the dungeon. Make the DM work his/her ass off.
I know you are joking
But don't be that guy
IE. the guy that tries to poke the edges of the 'simulation' and to test the limits of the DMs preparation. Its super annoying for everyone else at the table.
Playing a railroad story is boring. Its good if people are learning the system, but its hard to really have a character build any personality if everything is just prescripted crap from a book. It usually ends up with everyone just attacking everything that they encounter and just agreeing to help whoever wants us to do something.
My tip for a new player is to not just try and attack everything head on, and when you are talking to npcs ask questions, haggle over the reward, find alternatives. itll be much more interesting.
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One of my favorite characters was a neutral evil rogue. He would only work if people paid him. We were in a fight against an orc warlord and things were going bad for the party. My guy was just leaning against the wall cleaning his tools until one of the party promised him 10% of their share. A lucky roll and his crossbow took out the orc attacking the person who paid him. To me he was Rook. To the party he was asshole (Thats Sir Asshole to you!)
One guy at my 2e game is an actual good person in real life, not like the rest of us savages, and every character he plays tends to make choices like he's half a paladin. So we make him deal with honorable or noble NPCs.
Another guy has such a bizarre thought process that whenever we need an NPC to be taken completely off guard in a conversation, we send him in.
I tend to pick fights with anything that annoys me, and that's served a purpose too.
Also, I agree that you shouldn't constantly try and test the limits of your DM, but once in a while, it's really nice to just take his careful plans off the rails and make him react to us instead of the other way around. We try to do it about every other gaming session. Last time, we killed a dragon that we weren't supposed to have even met yet. It wasn't ready for a full on fight yet, and it was super satisfying watching our DM try to figure out what to do with the current session and worry about his plans for the next one.
As a side note, he's running a second game that takes place in the same universe (Spelljamming) but along a slightly different time frame. This other group was supposed to impact our adventure, but instead, they're showing up as we're leaving a place just gutted and destroyed by our giant fight that wasn't supposed to happen. So we made him redo plans for two different campaigns. It feels good, and some day, it'll feel good to you too.
My post doesn't disagree with you! I'm not saying you can't have creative solutions or have a character with goals distinct to the gms one true story. I'm talking about the players who don't play characters (or play 'iiiinnnsaaane' characters as to enable their behavior) and who's entire goal is to be contrary to the game. IE. not the guy that comes against the GMs limitations through normal play but the guy whose entire personal goal (not a character goal) is to find and test those limits. A troll.
Write down a few core tennets for your character. Part of the fun can be that your character does something that you'd see as dumb because it's part of it's character. The goal of D&D isn't winning, it's generating interesting stories. Doing extensive analysis of what is the best tactical decision in every encounter isn't really the fun part of D&D (at least for me).
That doesn't mean you should just do whatever.
But if you play a paladin, you should for instance try to help someone even if the monster next to it looks really strong. Or use your healing spells on someone else even if you're hurt. And disapprove of skulking around in the shadows even if it's tactically advantageous etcet.
A little trick is to pick at least 1 character that is counterintuitive. Be the dwarf that doesn't drink or hates being underground. The paladin who dislikes melee combat (It's so messy!), or is a small grumpy man or from a wonky god. Your character will immediately feel more special if it has something unique.
For your first few characters, don't play an evil aligned character. They often change the game from 'party vs the world' to 'party vs itself' and that can be fun at times, but it can also be really annoying if the rest of the party just wants to explore the world, instead of trying to not have their stuff stolen 'mysteriously.' I would extent that to 'don't play a rogue and try to break into houses when the rest of the party wants to rest to get rich quick' and similar solo adventures because you are hogging table time.
And table time is important. Try not to get stuck on solo events too long, try to not get stuck in discussion of rules etcet. One of the best rules I ever set as a DM is "this works this way this session, and we'll look it up in detail before next week." Spend the time together to advance story, to explore etcet.
So...
1. Don't argue with the DM. Let them make the call, and if it's wrong, point it out to them after/a few days later so the rule is interpreted right the next time.
2. Have fun but don't let your fun ruin other peoples' fun. Playing a wacky, zany character can enhance gameplay for everyone, but playing a character basically designed to ruin other peoples' experiences is a dick move.
3. How'd character creation go?
Does this also apply to your own party?
It applies to every entity in D&D. It is the logical implication of the fact that losing hit points, while bringing you closer to death, does not inflict any penalties anywhere else.
Keeping some enemies alive for questioning after battle is generally a good idea, actually. You can gain valuable intelligence about the obstacles ahead, and you can also give the DM an opportunity to give you a little exposition on the story. DMs love that.
I ended up making a Dwarf Barbarian. His stats are:
15 STR
13 DEX
13 INT
15 (+2) CON
13 (-2) CHA
13 WIS
His skills are:
Intimidate: 3
Climb: 3
Listen: 3
Survival: 4
Jump: 3
Handle Animal: 2
Swim: 2
I chose Weapon Focus as my feat and chose Greataxe.
Starting Equipment:
Weapon: Greataxe
Armor: Scale Mail
Clothes: Traveler
Random Items:
Bedroll,
Backpack,
Ram, Portable,
Torch (x5),
Sledge,
and 7 Rations
I learned Orc as my additional language and I'm going to remain neutral for the time being. I named him Sampson and decided his backstory will be about how his small mining village was wiped out by Orcs many years ago so now he goes around, city to city, looking to take on jobs that will take him in to battle with Orcs often.
I had a shit ton of fun with it and it took a bit longer than I thought (left at 10:45pm when it was supposed to end at 9:30). I'll be bringing another friend on Thursday so it'll be a good time!
The sessions will always go longer than you plan unless someone in the group is extremely disciplined.
This is the true first rule of D&D. It may even be a law. One Friday night me and some friends got together and it wasnt until Sunday morning that people were like, dang, i gotta get some sleep i gotta work tonight. That session had some moments, and the DM had to check so many things to make the continuity make sense.
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Greataxe is pretty dope, too.
I've only manage to play in one D&D game for a couple months of sessions, and I played a claustrophobic dwarf that hated to be underground. After creation the DM created a rule that every action I attempted when underground had a d20 roll (4e) to determine if I just cower in fear instead. First night we came to a cave where I failed the check 3 times in a row and we had to split the group because my dwarf just didn't want to go in, or find a way to force him in. Went as far as the group attempting to force me in by pushing, which somehow devolved into a fight where I criticaled the warrior and lopped his head off on my first ever attack roll. We could not stop laughing after that for so long and so hard that I'm pretty sure there were wet crotches all around the table.
I pity the fool!
Or super well, depending on how well you sell it.
A potentially debilitating fear can be immensely fun to play with,
In a Legend of the 5 Rings game, I once played a Water Shugenja - basically, I drew all my magic from the spirits of the water.
One problem - my character was TERRIFIED of water. Like, huge phobia. Eventually the party had to focus a couple of sessions on helping me overcome my fear because the water spirits were denying me my spells because I was dishonoring them. It was great roleplaying all round.
I remember once, one month, one of our party succumbed to a nasty natural 1, and fell to his death off the side of a cliff in something akin to the Plane of Air , just floating islands, no actual ground.
The next month, the guy who's character had originally died to the natural 1, rolled a 20 once we had reached the same plane while detecting.
And he was able to hear a noise, a slow screaming, getting steadily louder once noticed
It was his previous character, falling forever, we managed to figure out a way to save him, and we gained an NPC rofl
We had a character that was essentially an insurrectionist against the royalty the party was supporting constantly foiling the party's attempts to keep the nation from falling apart. When the player changed characters, that insurrectionist became a recurring rival and sub-villain. That stuff is fun.
If your GM is flexible, the more character and complications you give to your persona the better the game is in my opinion.
Oh man, we had the best one for this. Elevated Paths over lava. Wizard tries to make a short 3 foot hop (something like a 5 or better succeeds)
1
Wizard is now clinging to the side of the chasm - roll to pull yourself up - didn't have anything heavy on him, so basically 10 or better succeeds, everything else holds him there except-
1
Wizard plunges into lava
That must have really burned him up.
...
Sorry, I just couldn't resist.