I like dungeon tiles myself. They come with pieces that inspire me to find unusual uses for them (such as a block of ice with a person inside being the prison of an undead warlock who communicates to the PCs with telepathy).
So we sat down and started the first adventure this evening. It went... Poorly. There is a distinct lack of examples to follow along with. Took a break and watched a couple newbie rules videos on YouTube and found out we were doing everything wrong. So we're going to regroup and try again tomorrow.
As another lowly noob, can you elaborate on what went wrong? I'm still at a pretty constant rate of finding out things I'm not doing, or doing wrong. So anything that hastens along that path will be useful!
We got as far as the first round of combat in the starter adventure. Everything was going fine up to that point. It started breaking down when it came to rolls and checks. We were adding the d20 + other things that weren't just the weapon modifier. Didn't understand (and still don't really) understand the check for seeing if the heroes saw the monsters that were hidden when the hero was looking into the trees to see if he saw anything. He rolls for perception... Then what? Is it against the monsters stealth? Or just a DC check at whatever difficulty the GM decides? At this point we put everything down because we didn't get surprise either and just kinda skipped that part. We also got initiative wrong. Rolled a d20 and added dexter for some reason. Figured that out finally.
That's my issue with the book really. I had to go to YouTube for step by step examples. The book has none. Nothing in the sidebar of a quick example scenario or nothing. It just tells you these are the rules, go! Kinda leaves you to the wolves.
Also we really needed a map and minis. It's too hard to visualize everything going on when you have no idea how everything works. So I made a quick small map and printed it out to use for the fist combat encounter. Going to have to figure out what to do when we get to the bigger maps in the scenario.
Do you have the Dungeon Master Guide?
I've been using http://infinitasdm.com/phone/index.html which has versions for Android, iOS, and PC to do maps, and it works great. The place we play has a tv embedded in the table though.
If you want to order minis there are lots of places online to do that. I just bought these myself:
Several Fourth Edition products came with sheets of cardboard monster tokens, which are definitely cheaper than minis (which I mostly reserve for player characters, their allies, and story significant enemies). If you get a copy of Monster Vault you'll have a large number of tokens for common monsters (the book included uses 4E rules, but also has a ton of flavor text that you could use for inspiration in addition to the 5E lore).
It worked! I had 6 players come over and we ran through the start of Lost Mines yesterday. By all accounts, we had a great time!
A few of the keeners made their own characters, a few others used the pre-gens. Those using the pre-gens leaned into the hooks as presented and it helped a lot in driving them towards side quests in the town and asking questions.
They took most of the game as a joke at first, and got a little roughed up by the opening Goblins (my dice were hot all night too, so I did fudge a bit for them). After the ambush they decided not to follow the trail and head straight to town. While there they made sure to get their 10gp from Barthen. While there I gave them a brief rundown of the town and tried to impress them on the importance of clearing the road of Goblin trouble. I also told them about the Redbrands and compared them a biker gang who won't leave town. Then, following hooks on the pregens they decided to split the party (I warned them, I really did) and the two elves went to hang out with Sister Garalele, while the other three went to the Sleeping Giant to get some seedy drinks. On route, one of them playing the pregen rogue looked down at saw that his hook was that he had been screwed over by the Redbrands and sneakily ditched the other two.
These two, a brash and overconfident bard and a dumb-dumb barbarian, decided not to back down from the standard Ruffians encounter in town outside of the Sleeping Giant and got spanked. Hard. The others had to rush back and save them, but not before the bard gave the group a hard lesson in how death saves work. Sister Garaele had a higher opinion of them after they killed those ruffians, and word spread to the other tavern where the remains of gang were met with approving stares, raised mugs, and all the rumors. They also made friends with a cleric who hates the redbrands (bard player picked up a pregren sheet). After getting some well deserved sleep, they browsed the town somemore, picked up a few more quests (I added the Cragmaw Hideout goblins to the town job board) and finally they decided to head back to the original ambush site and follow the trail and try to take out the goblins. This time they played it a bit smart and during the ambush they captured one of the two sentries and intimidated him into spilling all the beans. We broke there for the night, before taking the on the cave complex.
Everyone seemed to have a good time, and everyone seemed to want to try this again. I call that a success!
@HydroSqueegee - I'm sorry you're having a hard time, but the Starter Set is really all you need, at first, and everything is there to guide you through how to play. Especially in the first chapter as the encounters tell you exactly what to do, how things work, and what rewards to give. I would suggest reading ahead before you meet with your group and having an idea what you're getting into before being with your friends and all of your stumbling around. Don't give up though! This is a fun game and rewarding hobby.
So we sat down and started the first adventure this evening. It went... Poorly. There is a distinct lack of examples to follow along with. Took a break and watched a couple newbie rules videos on YouTube and found out we were doing everything wrong. So we're going to regroup and try again tomorrow.
As another lowly noob, can you elaborate on what went wrong? I'm still at a pretty constant rate of finding out things I'm not doing, or doing wrong. So anything that hastens along that path will be useful!
We got as far as the first round of combat in the starter adventure. Everything was going fine up to that point. It started breaking down when it came to rolls and checks. We were adding the d20 + other things that weren't just the weapon modifier. Didn't understand (and still don't really) understand the check for seeing if the heroes saw the monsters that were hidden when the hero was looking into the trees to see if he saw anything. He rolls for perception... Then what? Is it against the monsters stealth? Or just a DC check at whatever difficulty the GM decides? At this point we put everything down because we didn't get surprise either and just kinda skipped that part. We also got initiative wrong. Rolled a d20 and added dexter for some reason. Figured that out finally.
That's my issue with the book really. I had to go to YouTube for step by step examples. The book has none. Nothing in the sidebar of a quick example scenario or nothing. It just tells you these are the rules, go! Kinda leaves you to the wolves.
Also we really needed a map and minis. It's too hard to visualize everything going on when you have no idea how everything works. So I made a quick small map and printed it out to use for the fist combat encounter. Going to have to figure out what to do when we get to the bigger maps in the scenario.
Perception rolls: If the DM decides that there's something not in plain view (a body in the grass, a tripwire, six goblins in a bush), he can require the PCs to roll a Perception roll, or without consulting the players, he can look at their Passive Perception listed on their character sheet.
Let's say there's a dead body in the middle of the road, on a well-lit day. Can the PC's see it? Definitely; it's in plain view. What about the goblins in the bush on the side of the road, can the PC's see them? Well, the goblins are hiding, which is something you can do with Stealth. So the goblins would roll 1d20 and add their Stealth modifier, found in the creature's stat block (in this case it's +6), and add that to the 1d20. You can roll that when the players get near the goblins, or when the players roll for perception, or you could even just take the average (16) without rolling.
So, the players are walking up a road, and they see a body. If a player says "I go up to look at the body", then you would look at their Passive Perception* (likely 10-15) and compare it to the stealth roll of the goblins. I normally take the average, so the goblins have a Stealth of 16, versus the Passive Perception of the character, which is maybe 14. The player fails to see the goblins, walks up to the corpse, and then the goblins attack!
What happens when the goblins attack? The first thing is, everyone rolls initiative (which is 1d20+Dexterity modifier, abbreviated as 1d20+dex). Let's say you have three goblins and two players (we'll call them J'son the Fighter and Y'daughter the Cleric). J'son and J'daughter roll a 10 and a 21, respectively. The goblins roll 4, 11, and 15. You, the DM, decide which characters are Surprised. In this situation I'd say both J'son and Y'daughter are Surprised. Surprised characters do not get to act on their turn, but instead lose the Surprised condition; being Surprised means you: can't attack or move, and can't use Reactions like Opportunity Attacks.
So, turn order. We start at the highest initiative and go down the list.
21:Y'daughter is Surprised! and does nothing. She is no longer surprised, and can take reactions normally, and acts normally on her next round.
15: Goblin 1 shoots a bow at J'son, missing!
11: Goblin 2 shoots a bow at J'son, hitting and dealing 3 damage!
10: J'son is Surprised! and does nothing. He is no longer surprised, and can take reactions normally, and acts normally on her next round.
4: Goblin 3 shoots a bow at J'son, missing!
At the end of initiative, we start over from the top.
21: Y'daughter shoots her crossbow at Goblin 1, dealing 4 damage!
15: Goblin 1 shoots a bow at Y'daughter, dealing 4 damage!
11: Goblin 2 shoots a bow at J'son, dealing 4 damage!
10: J'son uses his Bonus Action to use Second Wind to regain 7hp. He moves up to Goblin 1, hitting it for 3 damage, killing it!
4: Goblin 3 uses his scimitar to attack J'son, missing!
You then repeat that until everyone is done fighting (normally because they're dead).
The other way to do perception is if, instead of J'son going to look at the body, he could say "I look around carefully, do I see anything out of the ordinary?". You would tell him to roll Perception, and if he rolled 16 or higher, he would see the goblin ambush. He could then try his own stealth check to ambush them, or just attack them normally. In either case, J'son and Y'daughter would not have the Surprised condition.
*Passive Perception is 10+The player's Wisdom modifier+The player's Proficiency modifier, but ONLY if the player is trained in Perception. So a level 1 character with a wisdom of 10, and does not have Perception trained, would have a Passive Perception of 10. If he had trained Perception, he would have a PP of 12.
So we sat down and started the first adventure this evening. It went... Poorly. There is a distinct lack of examples to follow along with. Took a break and watched a couple newbie rules videos on YouTube and found out we were doing everything wrong. So we're going to regroup and try again tomorrow.
As another lowly noob, can you elaborate on what went wrong? I'm still at a pretty constant rate of finding out things I'm not doing, or doing wrong. So anything that hastens along that path will be useful!
We got as far as the first round of combat in the starter adventure. Everything was going fine up to that point. It started breaking down when it came to rolls and checks. We were adding the d20 + other things that weren't just the weapon modifier. Didn't understand (and still don't really) understand the check for seeing if the heroes saw the monsters that were hidden when the hero was looking into the trees to see if he saw anything. He rolls for perception... Then what? Is it against the monsters stealth? Or just a DC check at whatever difficulty the GM decides? At this point we put everything down because we didn't get surprise either and just kinda skipped that part. We also got initiative wrong. Rolled a d20 and added dexter for some reason. Figured that out finally.
That's my issue with the book really. I had to go to YouTube for step by step examples. The book has none. Nothing in the sidebar of a quick example scenario or nothing. It just tells you these are the rules, go! Kinda leaves you to the wolves.
Also we really needed a map and minis. It's too hard to visualize everything going on when you have no idea how everything works. So I made a quick small map and printed it out to use for the fist combat encounter. Going to have to figure out what to do when we get to the bigger maps in the scenario.
Perception rolls: If the DM decides that there's something not in plain view (a body in the grass, a tripwire, six goblins in a bush), he can require the PCs to roll a Perception roll, or without consulting the players, he can look at their Passive Perception listed on their character sheet.
Let's say there's a dead body in the middle of the road, on a well-lit day. Can the PC's see it? Definitely; it's in plain view. What about the goblins in the bush on the side of the road, can the PC's see them? Well, the goblins are hiding, which is something you can do with Stealth. So the goblins would roll 1d20 and add their Stealth modifier, found in the creature's stat block (in this case it's +6), and add that to the 1d20. You can roll that when the players get near the goblins, or when the players roll for perception, or you could even just take the average (16) without rolling.
So, the players are walking up a road, and they see a body. If a player says "I go up to look at the body", then you would look at their Passive Perception* (likely 10-15) and compare it to the stealth roll of the goblins. I normally take the average, so the goblins have a Stealth of 16, versus the Passive Perception of the character, which is maybe 14. The player fails to see the goblins, walks up to the corpse, and then the goblins attack!
What happens when the goblins attack? The first thing is, everyone rolls initiative (which is 1d20+Dexterity modifier, abbreviated as 1d20+dex). Let's say you have three goblins and two players (we'll call them J'son the Fighter and Y'daughter the Cleric). J'son and J'daughter roll a 10 and a 21, respectively. The goblins roll 4, 11, and 15. You, the DM, decide which characters are Surprised. In this situation I'd say both J'son and Y'daughter are Surprised. Surprised characters do not get to act on their turn, but instead lose the Surprised condition; being Surprised means you: can't attack or move, and can't use Reactions like Opportunity Attacks.
So, turn order. We start at the highest initiative and go down the list.
21:Y'daughter is Surprised! and does nothing. She is no longer surprised, and can take reactions normally, and acts normally on her next round.
15: Goblin 1 shoots a bow at J'son, missing!
11: Goblin 2 shoots a bow at J'son, hitting and dealing 3 damage!
10: J'son is Surprised! and does nothing. He is no longer surprised, and can take reactions normally, and acts normally on her next round.
4: Goblin 3 shoots a bow at J'son, missing!
At the end of initiative, we start over from the top.
21: Y'daughter shoots her crossbow at Goblin 1, dealing 4 damage!
15: Goblin 1 shoots a bow at Y'daughter, dealing 4 damage!
11: Goblin 2 shoots a bow at J'son, dealing 4 damage!
10: J'son uses his Bonus Action to use Second Wind to regain 7hp. He moves up to Goblin 1, hitting it for 3 damage, killing it!
4: Goblin 3 uses his scimitar to attack J'son, missing!
You then repeat that until everyone is done fighting (normally because they're dead).
The other way to do perception is if, instead of J'son going to look at the body, he could say "I look around carefully, do I see anything out of the ordinary?". You would tell him to roll Perception, and if he rolled 16 or higher, he would see the goblin ambush. He could then try his own stealth check to ambush them, or just attack them normally. In either case, J'son and Y'daughter would not have the Surprised condition.
*Passive Perception is 10+The player's Wisdom modifier+The player's Proficiency modifier, but ONLY if the player is trained in Perception. So a level 1 character with a wisdom of 10, and does not have Perception trained, would have a Passive Perception of 10. If he had trained Perception, he would have a PP of 12.
See. This is the kind of stuff I wish was in the book. This is helpful. It gives context, scenario and multiple ways that the situation can be handled. I feel like the book assumes you KNOW how to role play and be a DM or have some kind of experience with it. I can be told; do this this then this. But without seeing it in action I'm not going to get it. I've been watching videos and reading the handbook most of the day today, and things are starting to click. Seeing things in action from the videos actually makes things I read in the book make sense. I refuse to give up. I love dungeon crawls and I'm finally in a spot where I can play the grand daddy of them all.
I found it hard to find pens that work on them, there used to be overhead projector pens in every office supply store, but now you need to really look for them online and hope that they send you ones that actually work and don't stain your mat forever.
So yeah, flip over sheets and sharpies are way easier and probably cheaper for the first few dozen sessions.
So we sat down and started the first adventure this evening. It went... Poorly. There is a distinct lack of examples to follow along with. Took a break and watched a couple newbie rules videos on YouTube and found out we were doing everything wrong. So we're going to regroup and try again tomorrow.
As another lowly noob, can you elaborate on what went wrong? I'm still at a pretty constant rate of finding out things I'm not doing, or doing wrong. So anything that hastens along that path will be useful!
We got as far as the first round of combat in the starter adventure. Everything was going fine up to that point. It started breaking down when it came to rolls and checks. We were adding the d20 + other things that weren't just the weapon modifier. Didn't understand (and still don't really) understand the check for seeing if the heroes saw the monsters that were hidden when the hero was looking into the trees to see if he saw anything. He rolls for perception... Then what? Is it against the monsters stealth? Or just a DC check at whatever difficulty the GM decides? At this point we put everything down because we didn't get surprise either and just kinda skipped that part. We also got initiative wrong. Rolled a d20 and added dexter for some reason. Figured that out finally.
That's my issue with the book really. I had to go to YouTube for step by step examples. The book has none. Nothing in the sidebar of a quick example scenario or nothing. It just tells you these are the rules, go! Kinda leaves you to the wolves.
Also we really needed a map and minis. It's too hard to visualize everything going on when you have no idea how everything works. So I made a quick small map and printed it out to use for the fist combat encounter. Going to have to figure out what to do when we get to the bigger maps in the scenario.
Perception rolls: If the DM decides that there's something not in plain view (a body in the grass, a tripwire, six goblins in a bush), he can require the PCs to roll a Perception roll, or without consulting the players, he can look at their Passive Perception listed on their character sheet.
Let's say there's a dead body in the middle of the road, on a well-lit day. Can the PC's see it? Definitely; it's in plain view. What about the goblins in the bush on the side of the road, can the PC's see them? Well, the goblins are hiding, which is something you can do with Stealth. So the goblins would roll 1d20 and add their Stealth modifier, found in the creature's stat block (in this case it's +6), and add that to the 1d20. You can roll that when the players get near the goblins, or when the players roll for perception, or you could even just take the average (16) without rolling.
So, the players are walking up a road, and they see a body. If a player says "I go up to look at the body", then you would look at their Passive Perception* (likely 10-15) and compare it to the stealth roll of the goblins. I normally take the average, so the goblins have a Stealth of 16, versus the Passive Perception of the character, which is maybe 14. The player fails to see the goblins, walks up to the corpse, and then the goblins attack!
What happens when the goblins attack? The first thing is, everyone rolls initiative (which is 1d20+Dexterity modifier, abbreviated as 1d20+dex). Let's say you have three goblins and two players (we'll call them J'son the Fighter and Y'daughter the Cleric). J'son and J'daughter roll a 10 and a 21, respectively. The goblins roll 4, 11, and 15. You, the DM, decide which characters are Surprised. In this situation I'd say both J'son and Y'daughter are Surprised. Surprised characters do not get to act on their turn, but instead lose the Surprised condition; being Surprised means you: can't attack or move, and can't use Reactions like Opportunity Attacks.
So, turn order. We start at the highest initiative and go down the list.
21:Y'daughter is Surprised! and does nothing. She is no longer surprised, and can take reactions normally, and acts normally on her next round.
15: Goblin 1 shoots a bow at J'son, missing!
11: Goblin 2 shoots a bow at J'son, hitting and dealing 3 damage!
10: J'son is Surprised! and does nothing. He is no longer surprised, and can take reactions normally, and acts normally on her next round.
4: Goblin 3 shoots a bow at J'son, missing!
At the end of initiative, we start over from the top.
21: Y'daughter shoots her crossbow at Goblin 1, dealing 4 damage!
15: Goblin 1 shoots a bow at Y'daughter, dealing 4 damage!
11: Goblin 2 shoots a bow at J'son, dealing 4 damage!
10: J'son uses his Bonus Action to use Second Wind to regain 7hp. He moves up to Goblin 1, hitting it for 3 damage, killing it!
4: Goblin 3 uses his scimitar to attack J'son, missing!
You then repeat that until everyone is done fighting (normally because they're dead).
The other way to do perception is if, instead of J'son going to look at the body, he could say "I look around carefully, do I see anything out of the ordinary?". You would tell him to roll Perception, and if he rolled 16 or higher, he would see the goblin ambush. He could then try his own stealth check to ambush them, or just attack them normally. In either case, J'son and Y'daughter would not have the Surprised condition.
*Passive Perception is 10+The player's Wisdom modifier+The player's Proficiency modifier, but ONLY if the player is trained in Perception. So a level 1 character with a wisdom of 10, and does not have Perception trained, would have a Passive Perception of 10. If he had trained Perception, he would have a PP of 12.
See. This is the kind of stuff I wish was in the book. This is helpful. It gives context, scenario and multiple ways that the situation can be handled. I feel like the book assumes you KNOW how to role play and be a DM or have some kind of experience with it. I can be told; do this this then this. But without seeing it in action I'm not going to get it. I've been watching videos and reading the handbook most of the day today, and things are starting to click. Seeing things in action from the videos actually makes things I read in the book make sense. I refuse to give up. I love dungeon crawls and I'm finally in a spot where I can play the grand daddy of them all.
Also.... What's wrong with vinyl mats?
Feel free to hit me up with any questions, I remember starting out with no idea how anything worked. The easiest way to learn is by playing with people who already know the game, and the books are typically written by people who have been playing for ages, for people who have been playing for ages. 5e is incredibly easier to learn than other editions, but it's still hard to wrap your head around it without being exposed to it first.
Try out Matthew Colville's youtube, he's excellent at explaining things at length and in detail.
So we sat down and started the first adventure this evening. It went... Poorly. There is a distinct lack of examples to follow along with. Took a break and watched a couple newbie rules videos on YouTube and found out we were doing everything wrong. So we're going to regroup and try again tomorrow.
As another lowly noob, can you elaborate on what went wrong? I'm still at a pretty constant rate of finding out things I'm not doing, or doing wrong. So anything that hastens along that path will be useful!
We got as far as the first round of combat in the starter adventure. Everything was going fine up to that point. It started breaking down when it came to rolls and checks. We were adding the d20 + other things that weren't just the weapon modifier. Didn't understand (and still don't really) understand the check for seeing if the heroes saw the monsters that were hidden when the hero was looking into the trees to see if he saw anything. He rolls for perception... Then what? Is it against the monsters stealth? Or just a DC check at whatever difficulty the GM decides? At this point we put everything down because we didn't get surprise either and just kinda skipped that part. We also got initiative wrong. Rolled a d20 and added dexter for some reason. Figured that out finally.
That's my issue with the book really. I had to go to YouTube for step by step examples. The book has none. Nothing in the sidebar of a quick example scenario or nothing. It just tells you these are the rules, go! Kinda leaves you to the wolves.
Also we really needed a map and minis. It's too hard to visualize everything going on when you have no idea how everything works. So I made a quick small map and printed it out to use for the fist combat encounter. Going to have to figure out what to do when we get to the bigger maps in the scenario.
Perception rolls: If the DM decides that there's something not in plain view (a body in the grass, a tripwire, six goblins in a bush), he can require the PCs to roll a Perception roll, or without consulting the players, he can look at their Passive Perception listed on their character sheet.
Let's say there's a dead body in the middle of the road, on a well-lit day. Can the PC's see it? Definitely; it's in plain view. What about the goblins in the bush on the side of the road, can the PC's see them? Well, the goblins are hiding, which is something you can do with Stealth. So the goblins would roll 1d20 and add their Stealth modifier, found in the creature's stat block (in this case it's +6), and add that to the 1d20. You can roll that when the players get near the goblins, or when the players roll for perception, or you could even just take the average (16) without rolling.
So, the players are walking up a road, and they see a body. If a player says "I go up to look at the body", then you would look at their Passive Perception* (likely 10-15) and compare it to the stealth roll of the goblins. I normally take the average, so the goblins have a Stealth of 16, versus the Passive Perception of the character, which is maybe 14. The player fails to see the goblins, walks up to the corpse, and then the goblins attack!
What happens when the goblins attack? The first thing is, everyone rolls initiative (which is 1d20+Dexterity modifier, abbreviated as 1d20+dex). Let's say you have three goblins and two players (we'll call them J'son the Fighter and Y'daughter the Cleric). J'son and J'daughter roll a 10 and a 21, respectively. The goblins roll 4, 11, and 15. You, the DM, decide which characters are Surprised. In this situation I'd say both J'son and Y'daughter are Surprised. Surprised characters do not get to act on their turn, but instead lose the Surprised condition; being Surprised means you: can't attack or move, and can't use Reactions like Opportunity Attacks.
So, turn order. We start at the highest initiative and go down the list.
21:Y'daughter is Surprised! and does nothing. She is no longer surprised, and can take reactions normally, and acts normally on her next round.
15: Goblin 1 shoots a bow at J'son, missing!
11: Goblin 2 shoots a bow at J'son, hitting and dealing 3 damage!
10: J'son is Surprised! and does nothing. He is no longer surprised, and can take reactions normally, and acts normally on her next round.
4: Goblin 3 shoots a bow at J'son, missing!
At the end of initiative, we start over from the top.
21: Y'daughter shoots her crossbow at Goblin 1, dealing 4 damage!
15: Goblin 1 shoots a bow at Y'daughter, dealing 4 damage!
11: Goblin 2 shoots a bow at J'son, dealing 4 damage!
10: J'son uses his Bonus Action to use Second Wind to regain 7hp. He moves up to Goblin 1, hitting it for 3 damage, killing it!
4: Goblin 3 uses his scimitar to attack J'son, missing!
You then repeat that until everyone is done fighting (normally because they're dead).
The other way to do perception is if, instead of J'son going to look at the body, he could say "I look around carefully, do I see anything out of the ordinary?". You would tell him to roll Perception, and if he rolled 16 or higher, he would see the goblin ambush. He could then try his own stealth check to ambush them, or just attack them normally. In either case, J'son and Y'daughter would not have the Surprised condition.
*Passive Perception is 10+The player's Wisdom modifier+The player's Proficiency modifier, but ONLY if the player is trained in Perception. So a level 1 character with a wisdom of 10, and does not have Perception trained, would have a Passive Perception of 10. If he had trained Perception, he would have a PP of 12.
See. This is the kind of stuff I wish was in the book. This is helpful. It gives context, scenario and multiple ways that the situation can be handled. I feel like the book assumes you KNOW how to role play and be a DM or have some kind of experience with it. I can be told; do this this then this. But without seeing it in action I'm not going to get it. I've been watching videos and reading the handbook most of the day today, and things are starting to click. Seeing things in action from the videos actually makes things I read in the book make sense. I refuse to give up. I love dungeon crawls and I'm finally in a spot where I can play the grand daddy of them all.
Also.... What's wrong with vinyl mats?
Feel free to hit me up with any questions, I remember starting out with no idea how anything worked. The easiest way to learn is by playing with people who already know the game, and the books are typically written by people who have been playing for ages, for people who have been playing for ages. 5e is incredibly easier to learn than other editions, but it's still hard to wrap your head around it without being exposed to it first.
Try out Matthew Colville's youtube, he's excellent at explaining things at length and in detail.
That's exactly it. The writers seem to assume a lot and don't explain things well when you have zero idea what's going on. And unfortunately, I don't have anyone to teach me in a 1 on 1 or group setting so I've been on my own this past week fumbling through. There are a few good videos that I've found, but there is really no substatution for just sitting down and playing with someone versed.
For the first time in my life I'm excited about a possible Forgotten Realms supplement. I'm seeing a rumor that one of the new releases this year is going to be a supplement based on the island of Lantan. I knew nothing about this place beforehand but after doing some research it sounds very interesting. Apparently it was one of the places that was hit hardest by the spellplague. Most of the islands were transported to the parallel world of Abeir, but they have since returned. Not much is known about the region since its return, but before the spellplague it was known for advanced technology.
Lantan in 3E
Lantan in 4E
I'm hoping that returned Lantan has been thoroughly changed by its time in a godless alternate world ruled by primordials and dragons.
I'm pretty sure being Surprised gives people attacking you Advantage in 5e.
I'm also pretty sure you should ignore that rule unless you like killing PCs.
I'm pretty sure being Surprised gives people attacking you Advantage in 5e.
I'm also pretty sure you should ignore that rule unless you like killing PCs.
Nah. Most combats don’t have surprise in them and knowing that it’s a possibility is going to be a CR modifier anyway you handle it.
Plus the ability to not actually be surprised in a surprise round is super nice. 5e probably has one of the less lethal surprise rounds in DnD
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StragintDo Not GiftAlways DeclinesRegistered Userregular
edited April 2018
So my obnoxiously lawful good Half Orc Paladin character sheet is done. Looking forward to playing this character.
I also made a Human Sorcerer who is incredibly old and powerful but also incredibly senile and has moments of clarity. His whole purpose for adventuring is the half remembered idea that he wants to find a spell he read about that will cause him to age backwards. Being senile is the excuse for him not using crazy powerful spells.
Edit: Sorcerer is a Tiefling. Has very large and long heavy horns which causes him to hunch over and make him seem way smaller
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PSN: Reaper_Stragint, Steam: DoublePitstoChesty
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
So my obnoxiously lawful good Half Orc Paladin character sheet is done. Looking forward to playing this character.
I also made a Human Sorcerer who is incredibly old and powerful but also incredibly senile and has moments of clarity. His whole purpose for adventuring is the half remembered idea that he wants to find a spell he read about that will cause him to age backwards. Being senile is the excuse for him not using crazy powerful spells.
Edit: Sorcerer is a Tiefling. Has very large and long heavy horns which causes him to hunch over and make him seem way smaller
I'm pretty sure being Surprised gives people attacking you Advantage in 5e.
I'm also pretty sure you should ignore that rule unless you like killing PCs.
Nope, but attacking while unseen does. So in the previous example Goblin 1, 2 & 3 would have advantage on their first attacks because they are using ranged weapons and the players didn't see them. Hit or miss they are now seen. If they had no ranged weapons they would need to close to melee range and since you can see them run up to you, you're still surprised but they don't get advantage.
This is why the first encounter in Lost Mines can turn into a tpk. You have 4 gobbos, 2 attacking at advantage and doing 1d6+2 damage each, then 2 more attacking from melee for another 1d6+2 each. Even average damage will kill any single pc at level 1 if they all hit, and then the 2 ranged gobbos can use their racial ability to bonus actions to try and hide again, so they become unseen and get advantage on their next attacks. Give the players an extra 10-15 hp like I recommended earlier (add Constitution score to hp at level 1) and the encounter is still tense but unlikely to chew through the party.
Or give them the opportunity to roll perception checks when they find the horses to spot the ambushers, negating that Advantage for some of them. And remembering that a horse drawn wagon would provide cover if PC's are in it or behind it. Four gobs are a threat, buts is not like that encounter is a guaranteed TPK in the slightest.
More than doubling a PC's starting HP seems.....severe. I'm sure over the long run, it won't change matters. But at low levels that's a huge power bump.
I didn't even think about the scenarios player count. It's for 4-5 players. I have 2. So having 4 gobbos jump them was a bad idea from the get go. At least halfing the amount of enemies should work? I would think the amount of gained XP should be the same since 50% split 2 ways is the same as 100% split 4 ways, so the leveling pacing should be ok I think?
Or give them the opportunity to roll perception checks when they find the horses to spot the ambushers, negating that Advantage for some of them. And remembering that a horse drawn wagon would provide cover if PC's are in it or behind it. Four gobs are a threat, buts is not like that encounter is a guaranteed TPK in the slightest.
More than doubling a PC's starting HP seems.....severe. I'm sure over the long run, it won't change matters. But at low levels that's a huge power bump.
I've acctually experimented with this a little
I made up a regularly occurring magic item the military in the main city for my setting use.
It's actually 3 items, and the items are partially cursed, they eat up an attunement slot permanently, and all three temporarily to start, but one of the major features it gives you at that point in time is an extra d10 hit die... it's pretty fuckin crazy how much extra health it adds to a first level character's longevity.
They can be a bugger to clean if you don’t use the right pens; I accidentally used whiteboard markers on mine, and it took a half hour of scrubbing with toothpaste to get it off. More abrasive cleaners would have taken the grid with it.
I still prefer them due to my situation of having to transport all my gaming gear to different venues; I can fold the map up and tuck it inside a roller suitcase. I just make sure to only use a marker meant for overhead projector slides, and clean it as soon as I can to avoid staining. Or I just create maps with physical objects like Lego bricks.
I concur.
It's a bit of Headology , but just having one or two hits can communicate to your players that an encounter is deadly. Calling out how much damage a single goblin just did with one roll of one die makes everyone do the math and come to the conclusion that "holy shit, one more round with some bad luck and we're done for." That should be sufficient*.
*we have one Barbarian/Sorc who does not do that, because they're a barbarian, but usually people don't stick to their RP so closely when they want to win an encounter.
They can be a bugger to clean if you don’t use the right pens; I accidentally used whiteboard markers on mine, and it took a half hour of scrubbing with toothpaste to get it off. More abrasive cleaners would have taken the grid with it.
I still prefer them due to my situation of having to transport all my gaming gear to different venues; I can fold the map up and tuck it inside a roller suitcase. I just make sure to only use a marker meant for overhead projector slides, and clean it as soon as I can to avoid staining. Or I just create maps with physical objects like Lego bricks.
The proper pens will also stain your hands pretty thoroughly for a couple days if you get the ink on your hands and they typically need to be transported rolled to avoid creasing them permanently. I'm shocked you don't use the flip mats as one of the big things they have is they are way more portable than vinyl maps of any size. They fold down to exactly the profile of a hardcover gaming book intentionally.
Vinyl's only real advantage is nostalgia at this point.
Honestly, I didn't know the flip mats existed in blank forms until today; I thought that they were all pre-printed with villages and terrain and stuff. My first gaming surface was a whiteboard I hand-gridded, and one Christmas I asked for a mat as it was what my GMs used at university. I also get paranoid about running out of space, so I liked the size.
Good to know, though, for when I finally decide to upgrade
I didn't even think about the scenarios player count. It's for 4-5 players. I have 2. So having 4 gobbos jump them was a bad idea from the get go. At least halfing the amount of enemies should work? I would think the amount of gained XP should be the same since 50% split 2 ways is the same as 100% split 4 ways, so the leveling pacing should be ok I think?
DM Guide and Xanathar Guide have specifics on encounter scaling, but in general:
- the prepublished books are all meant for 4-5 players
- you can add NPCs to the party (under your control) to adjust encounter difficulty on the fly without making it obvious. Feel free to fudge the NPC stats on the fly too in terms of whether they hit, how much dmg they do, and how much ho they have, to suit the story you are telling. If you use this, use it sparingly (maybe just at first lvl) and remember the players should be there heros. XP is split with the NPCs evenly, but they don't ever lvl up.
- speaking of XP, you can also choose to award lvl ups when particular pieces of the story are completed, rather than per encounter. DMs choice, but pick one and stick with it for the campaign.
- because of something called "the action economy" monsters scale non-linearly in terms of difficulty for each additional monster you add. So assuming it's all same monster type, if first one is difficulty 1, adding a second is more like 2.2, and a 3rd is 3.8, and a 4th is like 6 or so, and so on. It does depend on the monster too as some have abilities that make this worse (i.e. Wolves can buff other wolves attaching same Target just by being near it). When i took a group of 3 newbies through starter kit, i made it be an ambush by 2 goblins instead.
- speaking of fudging rolls, if you keep them hidden you can craft to whatever narrative you want, with the dice providing suggestions. This may be especially worth doing to newbies that are also actual children. Older and more experienced players may not appreciate this and should be avoided.
- for prepublished stuff you should read the whole place the party is going to (i.e. a cave that is at end of that goblin trail) at least once thoroughly before you meet the players and make all these adjustments ahead of time. One thing i like to do is for every place prep a Word file will statistics for each monster they can find in that place, one per page, and print it. That way you don't have to flip to different pages in the various books to look up each fight as you go.
Just had my first session with my new Hexblade/Battle Master today. At the end of the session we had about 14 orogs chasing us from their village, of which I managed to slay one with a combination of riposte, hexblade curse, and hex bonus damage. I need to get faster at adding up all the damage.
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
Also if you have allied NPCs then let your players control them. You want to keep them engaged, then let the flow of fights keep them in it. Even if the NPC is overpowered or underpowered, let them have that taste of power or let them do with a weaker NPC what they feel they need. Unless they straight up just do not want to.
I found a miniature today of a "werearmadillo". The clerk said when they were ordering minis she just so happened to see it listed, at which point she demanded they order some. I don't know when I'd ever use this, but I'm glad they had it!
EDIT: Come to think of it, Rand from Breath of Fire 2 was essentially a werearmadillo monk...
I didn't even think about the scenarios player count. It's for 4-5 players. I have 2. So having 4 gobbos jump them was a bad idea from the get go. At least halfing the amount of enemies should work? I would think the amount of gained XP should be the same since 50% split 2 ways is the same as 100% split 4 ways, so the leveling pacing should be ok I think?
Due to the way the math works, at any time the players are outnumbered, the difficulty of the fight goes up exponentially. Fighting 4 goblins with two players is a LOT harder than 6 goblins with four players, for example. Lost Mines is already a bit on the tougher side, especially for the incautious.
I would recommend, since you're playing with kids and you're all new, give them both another 10 health, limit the number of goblins to 3 at a time, and halve the damage they deal (so if they roll 8 damage, make it 4). You can keep the harder encounters, but have half the goblins rush in while the others cheer them, only entering in when they the first three fall. Goblins are also horrible little creatures that only have courage in numbers, so you can have them run at low HP.
The other thing you can do is just have them find healing potions everywhere, and/or have a mercenary follow them. Running another character might be difficult as a first timer, but you can just have him shoot a bow from the back and help the other players drink potions when they get knocked out. Another thing is, goblins love torturing people and being domineering; if your players get knocked out, have the goblins drag them to camp where they have a chance to escape.
So the 10 year old and I just ran a quick off the cuff one shot to try and get used to the game. Simple 1 man adventure. Scout the goblin encampment, observe enemy strength and report back to the town militia. It went well! He took out one goblin day dreaming inside an old crumbled tower. Then sniped a goblin sentry out of a tree with a fireball (which actually missed but hit the tree, bursting it into flames and sending the goblin falling 20 feet right onto his head, killing him). This drew the attention of 2 others who came to investigate. The renegade High Elf Sorcerer tried his best, but was only able to kill one before being peppered with arrows and "knocked out". We fudge it a bit because he wouldn't have been able to stabilize he was so dead. So we dropped him to 0. He luckily stabilized and 3 hours later woke up with 1 HP. The remaining goblin didn't think to make sure he was dead however and went about cleaning up his brethren and who knows what else. The Sorcerer was able to slink back to town and report his findings.
Now my head is spinning with all the opportunities to spin the adventure in different directions! Does that lone goblin survivor run off for reinforcements? Does a larger goblin patrol come back and see what was done so they attack the town? Do they go looking for the Sorcerer for revenge? This is addicting!
Also if you have allied NPCs then let your players control them. You want to keep them engaged, then let the flow of fights keep them in it. Even if the NPC is overpowered or underpowered, let them have that taste of power or let them do with a weaker NPC what they feel they need. Unless they straight up just do not want to.
Also makes less work for you.
I make allied NPC for purpose of bring able to fudge rolls of i need to without fudging anything the players themselves are doing, so i can't let them know how much hp or dmg they actually have. Most recent example being when i took them vs a powerful monster they had no business fighting and used an ally to "tank" the monster. They saw the monster whacking the ally with 2 attacks any of which could likely one shot any of them. I had the ally die when i knew they would kill the monster on the next round before the monster went. But they didn't know that so the players were sweating bullets knowing they were on the edge. And since i didn't want that NPC around after that fight, my plan was to kill it off "due to the monsters poisonous saliva" after the fight should it happen to have survived.
Maybe I'll get to that point, but for now keeping track of GM duties and all the knowledge that you have to keep in the front of your mind is enough for me.
Picked up the GM manual and was up late reading that. Lots of good info in there.
Don't be afraid to check the books! Half of any real D&D game consists of LOTS of page flipping to check on a rule, or the exact wording of a spell, or to find a picture for visual reference, etc.
Don't be afraid to check the books! Half of any real D&D game consists of LOTS of page flipping to check on a rule, or the exact wording of a spell, or to find a picture for visual reference, etc.
Ugh. I hate doing that. It bogs things down so badly. I printed out spell cards for the kid to use. It has the spell descriptions and all that fun stuff. It's great. He has one piece of paper with everything he can cast and can just read what each does without having to flip to a billion different pages whenever he wants to see what he can do. We also found a flow chart for combat which is amazing. Has everything you can do for an action, what modifiers and all that fun stuff.
The only thing I need to do better is have a quick reference for the different mobs that will be encountered. I'm sure I'll need to add more quick reference info as we get more complicated, but having everything at a quick glance is great. He stays focused and his mind isn't wandering or getting disengaged.
Spell cards and reference sheets are great, no doubt. I use them too. But, despite my many, many years of playing, I still can't remember the wording of each and every rule in the book. From the player side, you only need to have your own shit down. From the DM's side you're expected to know everything and that's just putting too much pressure on oneself.
DM screens/references will help tons, but don't be afraid to look something up if you have to.
Spell cards and reference sheets are great, no doubt. I use them too. But, despite my many, many years of playing, I still can't remember the wording of each and every rule in the book. From the player side, you only need to have your own shit down. From the DM's side you're expected to know everything and that's just putting too much pressure on oneself.
DM screens/references will help tons, but don't be afraid to look something up if you have to.
A DM screen helps, as well as written reminders on commonly needed rules, as well as removable tabs that you can use to mark pages you think you'll need often.
You could also just fudge a rule at the time and make a note to consult it later, justifying it as the influence of the forces of chaos subverting the orderly underpinnings of reality.
My plan to justify why we attacked orog guards unprovoked and killed one:
- Cast hex on the orog king and impose disadvantage on Wisdom checks
- Tell him we battled evil spirits in the mountain and that two possessed the guards to get revenge on us and to turn the town against us
- Nature itself opposed the evil spirits, which is why the spider attacked one of the guards
- I had to kill the one guard because the evil spirit was consuming his soul, and freeing his soul from his body was the only way to save him
- My violent exorcism was accompanied by a fog cloud and a fiery explosion (actually my allies' fog cloud and exploding bottle of oil)
- Cast friends on a child, convince the child that the evil spirit left the surviving guard and entered them, and when the spell ends and the child becomes hostile claim that it is the spirit taking control of them
- Proclaim that certain measures must be undertaken quickly to save the child's soul
So for those that use maps and tiles while playing; how do you handle huge ass maps like Wave Echo Cave from the starter box? Small dungeons and small sections of wilderness are no problem. Even sprawling random dungeons wouldn't be an issue of just removing sections they've been through. But how can you represent the source material faithfully (and without giving away unexplored sections) of big ass maps?
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Do you have the Dungeon Master Guide?
I've been using http://infinitasdm.com/phone/index.html which has versions for Android, iOS, and PC to do maps, and it works great. The place we play has a tv embedded in the table though.
Several Fourth Edition products came with sheets of cardboard monster tokens, which are definitely cheaper than minis (which I mostly reserve for player characters, their allies, and story significant enemies). If you get a copy of Monster Vault you'll have a large number of tokens for common monsters (the book included uses 4E rules, but also has a ton of flavor text that you could use for inspiration in addition to the 5E lore).
You could, alternatively, make your own tokens:
A few of the keeners made their own characters, a few others used the pre-gens. Those using the pre-gens leaned into the hooks as presented and it helped a lot in driving them towards side quests in the town and asking questions.
They took most of the game as a joke at first, and got a little roughed up by the opening Goblins (my dice were hot all night too, so I did fudge a bit for them). After the ambush they decided not to follow the trail and head straight to town. While there they made sure to get their 10gp from Barthen. While there I gave them a brief rundown of the town and tried to impress them on the importance of clearing the road of Goblin trouble. I also told them about the Redbrands and compared them a biker gang who won't leave town. Then, following hooks on the pregens they decided to split the party (I warned them, I really did) and the two elves went to hang out with Sister Garalele, while the other three went to the Sleeping Giant to get some seedy drinks. On route, one of them playing the pregen rogue looked down at saw that his hook was that he had been screwed over by the Redbrands and sneakily ditched the other two.
These two, a brash and overconfident bard and a dumb-dumb barbarian, decided not to back down from the standard Ruffians encounter in town outside of the Sleeping Giant and got spanked. Hard. The others had to rush back and save them, but not before the bard gave the group a hard lesson in how death saves work. Sister Garaele had a higher opinion of them after they killed those ruffians, and word spread to the other tavern where the remains of gang were met with approving stares, raised mugs, and all the rumors. They also made friends with a cleric who hates the redbrands (bard player picked up a pregren sheet). After getting some well deserved sleep, they browsed the town somemore, picked up a few more quests (I added the Cragmaw Hideout goblins to the town job board) and finally they decided to head back to the original ambush site and follow the trail and try to take out the goblins. This time they played it a bit smart and during the ambush they captured one of the two sentries and intimidated him into spilling all the beans. We broke there for the night, before taking the on the cave complex.
Everyone seemed to have a good time, and everyone seemed to want to try this again. I call that a success!
@HydroSqueegee - I'm sorry you're having a hard time, but the Starter Set is really all you need, at first, and everything is there to guide you through how to play. Especially in the first chapter as the encounters tell you exactly what to do, how things work, and what rewards to give. I would suggest reading ahead before you meet with your group and having an idea what you're getting into before being with your friends and all of your stumbling around. Don't give up though! This is a fun game and rewarding hobby.
Perception rolls: If the DM decides that there's something not in plain view (a body in the grass, a tripwire, six goblins in a bush), he can require the PCs to roll a Perception roll, or without consulting the players, he can look at their Passive Perception listed on their character sheet.
Let's say there's a dead body in the middle of the road, on a well-lit day. Can the PC's see it? Definitely; it's in plain view. What about the goblins in the bush on the side of the road, can the PC's see them? Well, the goblins are hiding, which is something you can do with Stealth. So the goblins would roll 1d20 and add their Stealth modifier, found in the creature's stat block (in this case it's +6), and add that to the 1d20. You can roll that when the players get near the goblins, or when the players roll for perception, or you could even just take the average (16) without rolling.
So, the players are walking up a road, and they see a body. If a player says "I go up to look at the body", then you would look at their Passive Perception* (likely 10-15) and compare it to the stealth roll of the goblins. I normally take the average, so the goblins have a Stealth of 16, versus the Passive Perception of the character, which is maybe 14. The player fails to see the goblins, walks up to the corpse, and then the goblins attack!
What happens when the goblins attack? The first thing is, everyone rolls initiative (which is 1d20+Dexterity modifier, abbreviated as 1d20+dex). Let's say you have three goblins and two players (we'll call them J'son the Fighter and Y'daughter the Cleric). J'son and J'daughter roll a 10 and a 21, respectively. The goblins roll 4, 11, and 15. You, the DM, decide which characters are Surprised. In this situation I'd say both J'son and Y'daughter are Surprised. Surprised characters do not get to act on their turn, but instead lose the Surprised condition; being Surprised means you: can't attack or move, and can't use Reactions like Opportunity Attacks.
So, turn order. We start at the highest initiative and go down the list.
21:Y'daughter is Surprised! and does nothing. She is no longer surprised, and can take reactions normally, and acts normally on her next round.
15: Goblin 1 shoots a bow at J'son, missing!
11: Goblin 2 shoots a bow at J'son, hitting and dealing 3 damage!
10: J'son is Surprised! and does nothing. He is no longer surprised, and can take reactions normally, and acts normally on her next round.
4: Goblin 3 shoots a bow at J'son, missing!
At the end of initiative, we start over from the top.
21: Y'daughter shoots her crossbow at Goblin 1, dealing 4 damage!
15: Goblin 1 shoots a bow at Y'daughter, dealing 4 damage!
11: Goblin 2 shoots a bow at J'son, dealing 4 damage!
10: J'son uses his Bonus Action to use Second Wind to regain 7hp. He moves up to Goblin 1, hitting it for 3 damage, killing it!
4: Goblin 3 uses his scimitar to attack J'son, missing!
You then repeat that until everyone is done fighting (normally because they're dead).
The other way to do perception is if, instead of J'son going to look at the body, he could say "I look around carefully, do I see anything out of the ordinary?". You would tell him to roll Perception, and if he rolled 16 or higher, he would see the goblin ambush. He could then try his own stealth check to ambush them, or just attack them normally. In either case, J'son and Y'daughter would not have the Surprised condition.
*Passive Perception is 10+The player's Wisdom modifier+The player's Proficiency modifier, but ONLY if the player is trained in Perception. So a level 1 character with a wisdom of 10, and does not have Perception trained, would have a Passive Perception of 10. If he had trained Perception, he would have a PP of 12.
See. This is the kind of stuff I wish was in the book. This is helpful. It gives context, scenario and multiple ways that the situation can be handled. I feel like the book assumes you KNOW how to role play and be a DM or have some kind of experience with it. I can be told; do this this then this. But without seeing it in action I'm not going to get it. I've been watching videos and reading the handbook most of the day today, and things are starting to click. Seeing things in action from the videos actually makes things I read in the book make sense. I refuse to give up. I love dungeon crawls and I'm finally in a spot where I can play the grand daddy of them all.
Also.... What's wrong with vinyl mats?
So yeah, flip over sheets and sharpies are way easier and probably cheaper for the first few dozen sessions.
Feel free to hit me up with any questions, I remember starting out with no idea how anything worked. The easiest way to learn is by playing with people who already know the game, and the books are typically written by people who have been playing for ages, for people who have been playing for ages. 5e is incredibly easier to learn than other editions, but it's still hard to wrap your head around it without being exposed to it first.
Try out Matthew Colville's youtube, he's excellent at explaining things at length and in detail.
That's exactly it. The writers seem to assume a lot and don't explain things well when you have zero idea what's going on. And unfortunately, I don't have anyone to teach me in a 1 on 1 or group setting so I've been on my own this past week fumbling through. There are a few good videos that I've found, but there is really no substatution for just sitting down and playing with someone versed.
Lantan in 3E
Lantan in 4E
I'm hoping that returned Lantan has been thoroughly changed by its time in a godless alternate world ruled by primordials and dragons.
I'm also pretty sure you should ignore that rule unless you like killing PCs.
Nah. Most combats don’t have surprise in them and knowing that it’s a possibility is going to be a CR modifier anyway you handle it.
Plus the ability to not actually be surprised in a surprise round is super nice. 5e probably has one of the less lethal surprise rounds in DnD
I also made a Human Sorcerer who is incredibly old and powerful but also incredibly senile and has moments of clarity. His whole purpose for adventuring is the half remembered idea that he wants to find a spell he read about that will cause him to age backwards. Being senile is the excuse for him not using crazy powerful spells.
Edit: Sorcerer is a Tiefling. Has very large and long heavy horns which causes him to hunch over and make him seem way smaller
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
Soooo Mordenkainen lite? ;p
Nope, but attacking while unseen does. So in the previous example Goblin 1, 2 & 3 would have advantage on their first attacks because they are using ranged weapons and the players didn't see them. Hit or miss they are now seen. If they had no ranged weapons they would need to close to melee range and since you can see them run up to you, you're still surprised but they don't get advantage.
This is why the first encounter in Lost Mines can turn into a tpk. You have 4 gobbos, 2 attacking at advantage and doing 1d6+2 damage each, then 2 more attacking from melee for another 1d6+2 each. Even average damage will kill any single pc at level 1 if they all hit, and then the 2 ranged gobbos can use their racial ability to bonus actions to try and hide again, so they become unseen and get advantage on their next attacks. Give the players an extra 10-15 hp like I recommended earlier (add Constitution score to hp at level 1) and the encounter is still tense but unlikely to chew through the party.
More than doubling a PC's starting HP seems.....severe. I'm sure over the long run, it won't change matters. But at low levels that's a huge power bump.
I've acctually experimented with this a little
I made up a regularly occurring magic item the military in the main city for my setting use.
It's actually 3 items, and the items are partially cursed, they eat up an attunement slot permanently, and all three temporarily to start, but one of the major features it gives you at that point in time is an extra d10 hit die... it's pretty fuckin crazy how much extra health it adds to a first level character's longevity.
They can be a bugger to clean if you don’t use the right pens; I accidentally used whiteboard markers on mine, and it took a half hour of scrubbing with toothpaste to get it off. More abrasive cleaners would have taken the grid with it.
I still prefer them due to my situation of having to transport all my gaming gear to different venues; I can fold the map up and tuck it inside a roller suitcase. I just make sure to only use a marker meant for overhead projector slides, and clean it as soon as I can to avoid staining. Or I just create maps with physical objects like Lego bricks.
It's a bit of Headology , but just having one or two hits can communicate to your players that an encounter is deadly. Calling out how much damage a single goblin just did with one roll of one die makes everyone do the math and come to the conclusion that "holy shit, one more round with some bad luck and we're done for." That should be sufficient*.
*we have one Barbarian/Sorc who does not do that, because they're a barbarian, but usually people don't stick to their RP so closely when they want to win an encounter.
The proper pens will also stain your hands pretty thoroughly for a couple days if you get the ink on your hands and they typically need to be transported rolled to avoid creasing them permanently. I'm shocked you don't use the flip mats as one of the big things they have is they are way more portable than vinyl maps of any size. They fold down to exactly the profile of a hardcover gaming book intentionally.
Vinyl's only real advantage is nostalgia at this point.
Good to know, though, for when I finally decide to upgrade
DM Guide and Xanathar Guide have specifics on encounter scaling, but in general:
- the prepublished books are all meant for 4-5 players
- you can add NPCs to the party (under your control) to adjust encounter difficulty on the fly without making it obvious. Feel free to fudge the NPC stats on the fly too in terms of whether they hit, how much dmg they do, and how much ho they have, to suit the story you are telling. If you use this, use it sparingly (maybe just at first lvl) and remember the players should be there heros. XP is split with the NPCs evenly, but they don't ever lvl up.
- speaking of XP, you can also choose to award lvl ups when particular pieces of the story are completed, rather than per encounter. DMs choice, but pick one and stick with it for the campaign.
- because of something called "the action economy" monsters scale non-linearly in terms of difficulty for each additional monster you add. So assuming it's all same monster type, if first one is difficulty 1, adding a second is more like 2.2, and a 3rd is 3.8, and a 4th is like 6 or so, and so on. It does depend on the monster too as some have abilities that make this worse (i.e. Wolves can buff other wolves attaching same Target just by being near it). When i took a group of 3 newbies through starter kit, i made it be an ambush by 2 goblins instead.
- speaking of fudging rolls, if you keep them hidden you can craft to whatever narrative you want, with the dice providing suggestions. This may be especially worth doing to newbies that are also actual children. Older and more experienced players may not appreciate this and should be avoided.
- for prepublished stuff you should read the whole place the party is going to (i.e. a cave that is at end of that goblin trail) at least once thoroughly before you meet the players and make all these adjustments ahead of time. One thing i like to do is for every place prep a Word file will statistics for each monster they can find in that place, one per page, and print it. That way you don't have to flip to different pages in the various books to look up each fight as you go.
Also makes less work for you.
I found a miniature today of a "werearmadillo". The clerk said when they were ordering minis she just so happened to see it listed, at which point she demanded they order some. I don't know when I'd ever use this, but I'm glad they had it!
EDIT: Come to think of it, Rand from Breath of Fire 2 was essentially a werearmadillo monk...
Due to the way the math works, at any time the players are outnumbered, the difficulty of the fight goes up exponentially. Fighting 4 goblins with two players is a LOT harder than 6 goblins with four players, for example. Lost Mines is already a bit on the tougher side, especially for the incautious.
I would recommend, since you're playing with kids and you're all new, give them both another 10 health, limit the number of goblins to 3 at a time, and halve the damage they deal (so if they roll 8 damage, make it 4). You can keep the harder encounters, but have half the goblins rush in while the others cheer them, only entering in when they the first three fall. Goblins are also horrible little creatures that only have courage in numbers, so you can have them run at low HP.
The other thing you can do is just have them find healing potions everywhere, and/or have a mercenary follow them. Running another character might be difficult as a first timer, but you can just have him shoot a bow from the back and help the other players drink potions when they get knocked out. Another thing is, goblins love torturing people and being domineering; if your players get knocked out, have the goblins drag them to camp where they have a chance to escape.
Now my head is spinning with all the opportunities to spin the adventure in different directions! Does that lone goblin survivor run off for reinforcements? Does a larger goblin patrol come back and see what was done so they attack the town? Do they go looking for the Sorcerer for revenge? This is addicting!
I make allied NPC for purpose of bring able to fudge rolls of i need to without fudging anything the players themselves are doing, so i can't let them know how much hp or dmg they actually have. Most recent example being when i took them vs a powerful monster they had no business fighting and used an ally to "tank" the monster. They saw the monster whacking the ally with 2 attacks any of which could likely one shot any of them. I had the ally die when i knew they would kill the monster on the next round before the monster went. But they didn't know that so the players were sweating bullets knowing they were on the edge. And since i didn't want that NPC around after that fight, my plan was to kill it off "due to the monsters poisonous saliva" after the fight should it happen to have survived.
Picked up the GM manual and was up late reading that. Lots of good info in there.
Ugh. I hate doing that. It bogs things down so badly. I printed out spell cards for the kid to use. It has the spell descriptions and all that fun stuff. It's great. He has one piece of paper with everything he can cast and can just read what each does without having to flip to a billion different pages whenever he wants to see what he can do. We also found a flow chart for combat which is amazing. Has everything you can do for an action, what modifiers and all that fun stuff.
The only thing I need to do better is have a quick reference for the different mobs that will be encountered. I'm sure I'll need to add more quick reference info as we get more complicated, but having everything at a quick glance is great. He stays focused and his mind isn't wandering or getting disengaged.
DM screens/references will help tons, but don't be afraid to look something up if you have to.
A DM screen helps, as well as written reminders on commonly needed rules, as well as removable tabs that you can use to mark pages you think you'll need often.
You could also just fudge a rule at the time and make a note to consult it later, justifying it as the influence of the forces of chaos subverting the orderly underpinnings of reality.
- Cast hex on the orog king and impose disadvantage on Wisdom checks
- Tell him we battled evil spirits in the mountain and that two possessed the guards to get revenge on us and to turn the town against us
- Nature itself opposed the evil spirits, which is why the spider attacked one of the guards
- I had to kill the one guard because the evil spirit was consuming his soul, and freeing his soul from his body was the only way to save him
- My violent exorcism was accompanied by a fog cloud and a fiery explosion (actually my allies' fog cloud and exploding bottle of oil)
- Cast friends on a child, convince the child that the evil spirit left the surviving guard and entered them, and when the spell ends and the child becomes hostile claim that it is the spirit taking control of them
- Proclaim that certain measures must be undertaken quickly to save the child's soul
I'm going to have 9 people at my table this Saturday.
Here's my dilemma...
Play music, then stop. The situation will sort itself out.
Sounds like you have to split the party.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar