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I've been running the Lost Mine of Phandelver starter adventure too. Not my first time as DM, but I can't say I've ever had a campaign go haywire in such a weird way before. Sometimes all the reading in the world just doesn't prepare you for what they do. In one part, where they go to a small ruined town they stumbled on a young green dragon earlier than expected. This is not a fight they are likely to win through strength of arms, and they are informed as such. A few good persuasion rolls and them roleplaying to convince the dragon they had heard tales of its might and had to come see, and they got away only having to leave their only magic weapon so far as 'tribute'. (I had the dragon continually refer to them as 'morsels' because I found it amusing and it highlighted the power differential.) That's all well and good until they go to deal with the nearby cultists, who are trying to strike an alliance with the dragon. The party figures they'll help the cultists meet the dragon and turn on them at the last second, feeding the cultists to the dragon as further 'tribute' instead of dealing with them the traditional way. This is ironically exactly what the cultists had planned, and goes horrifically awry when the cultists start speaking to the dragon in draconic with a bunch of gemstones as a gift, succeeding in their goals. Oops. The party runs and hides in the surrounding woods, but the sorcerer rolls poorly and gives away their location. Out of options, and with not enough treasure on them to give a better offer than the cultists they are forced into one last, desperate, gambit. The sorcerer runs out and actively flags down the dragon, shouting that they have an offer to make, and piquing the dragon's interest. In exchange for their lives, they tell the dragon about the cave of magical treasures they found (Wave echo cave, for those familiar with the module) and offer the dragon the treasures within. A good persuasion roll and the dragon takes them up on the deal; they are to each return with as much treasure as they can carry and they will be spared. Good rolling even lets them convince the dragon to eat the cultists instead as a show of good faith. There is one catch though; Green dragons are noted in their stat block/description to 'delight in subverting and corrupting the good-hearted', so the dragon enforces the deal with a geas (magical compulsion). They have to keep their end up, or face potentially unpleasant consequences. The problem is, they were bluffing. The party knows about the cave but hasn't actually found the person who knows the location or his map yet, which now adds a measure of desperation to their quest. They aren't even sure if there's any treasure there. I can see reasons why it can be interesting to include situations/creatures the party can't really fight their way out of, but you should plan hints towards a couple potential exit strategies if you do, I think. The module doesn't really characterize that encounter, so anyone running it should put some thought towards how they want it to go. TL;DR - Party tries to feed cultists to a dragon they find, but end up having to give the dragon a bunch of treasure to not be eaten instead.
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Jun 30, 2015 07:38
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 14:13 |
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Encouraging roleplay is tough, since people can be embarrassed or simply not all that into it. Try to make an obvious roleplay encounter once in a while, and reward anyone who participates a bit. Put extra effort into room descriptions if you can, since that's where players pull their ideas and inspirations from sometimes. Have bad guys and villains talk to them or to other monsters for a chance at interactions. Or better yet, fold some encounter design into it. Instead of saying "there are five goblins in the room", why not try something along the lines of " The room is covered in mouldy furs and splintered furniture. Four goblins sit clustered around a brazier using pieces of chairs for firewood while a fifth naps in a dark corner." Now, if they catch the goblins off guard, the goblins don't run for their weapons, they grab their pokers or sticks from the fire and use them as improvised weapons that deal additional 1d4 (or appropriate) fire dmamge, ongoing 2 with save ends if you feel particularly vicious. If a player grabs a stick? Same deal. Wizard wants to toss a surprise firebolt into the brazier causing it to flare and deal area-of-effect to all four? Sure. Goblin drops a weapon or the brazier spills? Room starts on fire. If they sneak in? Rogue gets an opportunity to sneak and coup de gras the sleeping goblin and knock one out early. Dont get hung up writing novels about details, but even one little detail tells the players something about the picture of the room in your head that they can work with. Let them use their character traits. One of my favorite things about this campaign so far is the fighter who took dice proficiency. In the Redbrand hideout in the module, there's a group of guys playing a dice game. When getting ready to burst in the room, they listen at the door and I give the fighter advantage since he's hearing the sounds of dice rattling and people cheering or groaning, etc. They end up having the rest of the party hide, while the fighter puts on a stolen red cloak and just walks in, poses as a new guy and asks to join the game. At this point I play an actual dice game with the player (a bluffing game adapted from a drinking game we have) and essentially roll to modulate how good the gang members are bluffing by making better or worse bluffs in this little minigame. He manages to win all the gold at the table and sees these guys are getting angry, so he offers them all their gold back if they go 'take his patrol shift in town' that starts in a few minutes. They guys all grumble, but grab their gold and file away out of the hideout, clearing the room without the sounds of combat alerting the next room. I also make use of the inspiration optional rule and its worked great. Basically, if someone does particularly good roleplay or has a good idea, I give them an 'inspiration point' which they can us at any time to get advantage on a roll. It helps them pull off clutch rolls or big attacks, which feels good to them as a player. I also try to actively discourage meta-gaming and number crunching beyond a reasonable level, and will give out disadvantage on rolls that are particularly disingenuous, such as trying to roll for the same thing multiple times without a good reason. Unless it's a skill check of some kind, you don't just get to hammer away at something until you roll a 20.
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Jul 20, 2015 19:13
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Phandelver is workable for smaller groups with a bit of effort from the DM. Your major issue is going to be the fact that 5e is extremely lethal towards lower level characters, even in a group of five. They simply don't have the HP to deal with the monsters at low level or the damage output to finish fights before they take damage. That realistically leaves you with three main options. First, you could play as is. It'll be a rough go that way until about level three at least. Second, you could remove monsters from each encounter. That first fight has four goblins if I recall, so make it two. It's a little less epic, but makes sense if you buy into the whole 'XP budget' concept. Third, you could fudge the HP/Damage the monsters are doing a bit. This is my preferred option, and works especially well if you are rolling from behind a screen. Savvy players who are metagaming heavy might eventually pick up on this, but that's just another reason to discourage metagaming. To put it in perspective, in our current campaign (I'll throw up another post eventually when I have more time) our level four wizard has a whole 15 HP, while those goblins in the first encounter do 1d6+2 damage, even at range. And there is four in an ambush situation. With 2-3 players and if you roll well, you could have a total party kill in the round after the surprise round easily. Also, unless one of your characters is a healer, I suggest that healing potions are now a more frequent drop, or have gone down in price in towns. There doesn't seem to be a huge abundance of published adventures for 5e yet. Princes of the Apocalypse and Hoard of the Dragon Queen seem to be the other common ones, but admittedly I'm not keeping track. If you're willing to do some conversions (not the most beginner friendly), I also liked the Keep on the Shadowfell adventure from 4e. You can also look up free ones online (both for 5e and other editions) and just put in the monster stat blocks from 5e, but you never know who designed them and some of those old DMs are hardcore. Seriously though, google search 'D&D critical miss table'. They'd have you roll a the percentile die on a fumble, and the 100 is literally 'you decapitate yourself' on some of them. TL;DR - Phandelver is fine, but fudge some rolls/ alter HP & damage for the first couple dungeons or you'll wipe the party.
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Aug 4, 2015 16:39
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I think it could be fun under the right circumstances too, notably if its a game where people aren't too attached to their characters. A friend of mine has a campaign where they used such a list. It was an evil campaign, and one of the characters was brand new. He was an orc character and as part of his introduction to the campaign was challenging a rival for leadership of the clan. So they set up the fighting ring, make their taunts and show off... ...and the character fumbles his first ever combat roll, severs his own leg, and has his skull crushed as he lies prone by his rival. Reroll a character. So yeah, I can see it going either way in terms of fun, but it'll never benefit the players at all mechanically.
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Aug 4, 2015 19:10
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EvanSchenck posted:I was hoping for some notes on a homebrew Barbarian archetype, a dex-based whirling dervish type. Right thread for that? I looked at a few versions of the idea on other forums but I didn't like the way they looked, so I just threw something together cribbing features from other parts of the PHB. Just wondering if anything was particularly overpowered or pointless. In particular I was thinking the character might work out as simply too hard to kill. I'm not sure which is the right thread either, but in my opinion you're right; you've made it too hard to kill. Resistance to all physical damage types? To make meaningful damage against any player using this you'll have to be doing the type of damage that'll be crippling to any other class, and would one-hit casters. You'll likely end up having to find ways around your own class build, which kind of ruins the point. The way I see it you've essentially got it figured that no armor means twice the hits for twice the damage, so you're hoping that resistances will put that back where to should be. And if you're careful and design encounters around it, it might. What I predict will actually happen here is that your player will find ways like feats or high dex to just grab a bunch of AC anyway, rendering him nigh-unkillable, or he'll have a low AC and take so many more hits that even half damage isn't going to ameliorate the extra incoming damage he's going to wind up taking. +1 AC while dual wielding isn't going to scale enough to save the player a world of hurt for long, and making it scale would just make him more unkillable. Then you later get evasion and uncanny dodge? And this whole thing looks set up to use dex as a primary stat? I would play this class multiclassed with bard so that my laughter as weapons bounced off me and the DM got increasingly frustrated managed to somehow damage enemies as well. Edit: Reading it back again, this sounds a little scathing when its not meant to be, sorry. There are some fun ideas here like the dancing bit and trancing and whatnot. Frush fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Aug 12, 2015 |
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Aug 12, 2015 23:04
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Generic Octopus posted:The regular Rage ability of the barb already does this. At level 3 a Bear barb has resistance to everything but psychic damage while raging. Oh, just looked it over and I guess it does! Shows you how often I've looked at the barbarian stuff. :P I still think it's not a good idea to encourage a high dex here as a tradeoff with strength. It's too survavable with the barbarian bonuses to unarmored AC. You'll end up with a CON/DEX tank who can also rage for resistances, gets advantage on reckless attacks, etc. Trying to have your cake and eat it too, I think.
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Aug 12, 2015 23:46
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NovaLion posted:I'm going to be starting up in a local group here in the next couple weeks, and I'm pretty torn about how to build my character. So far there is a Fighter and Ranger in the group, though we'll have 5 or 6 people playing including myself. I've been looking at a Sorcerer to start, maybe taking Storm origin. Either that or Favored Soul with the Life domain to get some clutch heals if necessary. With everyone being so new to the game, I'd like to optimize my character without going entirely too overboard into munchkin territory. I've read mixed about Favored Soul being overpowered, though. Would a Sorcerer/Warlock multiclass of some kind be better? Am I pigeonholing myself too much into damage-dealer territory? Do what you want to do, or better yet, do what makes sense for a cohesive character thematically. I don't know your DM, but in my opinion a decent DM should/will balance things so that non-optimized characters are usable. They make better stories afterwards anyway. More to your actual question, I agree with the previous post that healing is underpowered. You may actually be saving people more damage by putting enemies down faster than by actually healing them. Most likely you'll end up with a cleric or paladin in a group of 5+ anyway. If you end up with no healing (my group of 6 literally has nothing besides the ranger's cure light wounds), you're going to rely on potions. If this is the case, talk to your DM, since I found potions were super weak as well, and super expensive for what they were. 50gp for ten health or less, when enemies routinely roll 2d8+mod? What were they thinking? I ended up declaring them a flat % heal for my players and we're seeing how that goes. TL;DR - Do what you want. Your only job is to play the thing you'll have the most fun playing. Frush fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Nov 2, 2015 |
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Nov 2, 2015 20:46
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I've been looking at DPR calculations, and offhand does anyone know exactly how they're calculated? For example, I'm seeing people put in calculations for ~24 DPR for archery rangers at level 5. That seems absurd to me, since our ranger firing a longbow does ~1d8+5, a max of 13 assuming a perfect roll. Assume two hits, and an average roll (5 on a d8), and that's still only 20 damage total. What is making the difference here? 5e at low levels is really deadly for the players. They just got to level 5, and of them get an extra attack, so that's going to pretty much double the party DPS, which should effectively make them more survivable. Monsters really have way too much health at the lower levels compared to how much damage they do. I get the whole flat math thing, but I'd be hesitant to start a party from level one again because their low damage output makes combat slow and the party vulnerable. The prime example of this is the starting encounter in the Lost Mine or Phandelver starter. Also, does anyone have any decent ideas on how to get your wizards & sorcerers to actually cast spells? By this I mean 'How do I make them stop doing nothing but casting firebolt?' I've got one of each, and I'm pretty sure in the last two sessions the only non-firebolt spell they've casted between them was false life one time. It's driving me batty. Sorcerer took wild magic and has had bad luck with the rolls (has almost wiped the party twice by himself!), and might just be getting afraid.
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Nov 3, 2015 02:04
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A Darker Porpoise posted:An archer ranger also likely has the colossus slayer ability which deals an extra d8 in damage to a target that isn't at full health and their hunters mark which deals an extra d6 every time they hit the thing they have marked. Vanguard Warden posted:Actually, rangers can reach that amount of damage without bonus action attacks. It's all about the Sharpshooter feat when it comes to ranged damage. Ah, this explains so much. I've been so busy with life and prepping stuff as DM that I haven't taken a good look into how all (any, really) the character classes work, and I've told the players to know their own rules since I don't have the ability to babysit six of them. Neither of them (there are actually two rangers in the group, one hunter and one beastmaster. I know, right?) are doing any of these things. Both are literally just auto attacking. Heck, the beast master took the dual wielding stuff, but is so concerned about keeping her beast alive she just started using a bow and plinking away with no bonuses. No wonder the party is getting rolled by stuff. No healers, wizard and sorcerer only use firebolt ever (because the sorcerer's wild magic kills them more often than enemies, and the wizard is a necromancer who doesn't really have any necromancy spells yet, I'm probably going to reskin some old ones for him), rangers are doing literally a third of the damage they should be by not paying attention, the monk has been rolling so badly the party just forced him to go buy new dice, etc. The fighter is on his game, but there's only so much he can do with how nerfed they got since 4th edition, and with the slow killing rate from the others he spends a little more time at single digit health than he should be through no fault of his own. I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and go through every character class they're playing, and start giving advice on how to upgrade the damage. I guess 5e wouldn't be quite as lethal if they were tripling their damage output.
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Nov 3, 2015 08:28
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 14:13 |
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jng2058 posted:Alternatively, you as DM could scale back the encounters. Those two things are mostly what I've been doing. And fudging the damage rolls a bit. They aren't new, so I assumed they'd be on top of things. They take extra damage whenever I point it out (one of the ranger's wasn't adding proficiencies to her damage, even), they just seem like they don't want to use anything but basic attacks and firebolt. AlphaDog posted:It might still be a good idea to unpack what's going on and see if you can make things more fun for them. I haven't heard any complaints, but I know a lot of them were looking forward to getting their extra attacks and third level spells at level 5, so I doubt they'd have a problem with doing extra damage should the opportunity be available. The problem seems to be that they just don't like spending anything that's a potentially limited resource. Between the four casters (technically, including the ranger's), I think we've seen a grand total of one spell slot expended in the last two sessions. It's a good idea to talk to the beastmaster about that though, I'm sure that would improve her participation. I've made healing more effective from potions already, and I think we're going to have someone start taking some levels in a class that can heal, which should help. I think the other problem is attention. I've been letting them all use electronic character sheets on their laptops, which may have been a mistake. It's great for the one person taking campaign notes, but I think I need to consider enforcing paper sheets to get people's eyes on the board more.
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Nov 3, 2015 23:42
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