I'm pretty sure I'm not the first one asking the question - but going through the search results I didn't find any specific answer to my question (also using google didn't find any search results ... at least not for my search). I Hope you can help ;)
I'm planing campaign for the first time and I decided to choose "Lost mine of Phandelver", since this seems to be quite noob friendly. This one SHOULD be the prolouge for another campain, which I plan to start afterwards, if I feel comfopratble DM-ing (I think I like it, but since I'm always quite cautious, I want to have this prologue).'ll
I'm not sure about the campaign I'll chooseafterwards - but despite the campaign itself, what will happen is that my PCs will be at lvl 5. So ALL the ecnoutners in the books might be too easy. Has anyone done this before? From his experience - just adding xyz HP ... is this enough? Or just spam 1 -2 additional enemies? I'm a bit unsure
I read all the beneral best practices (add HP, add more enemies, add heavier armour, ...), but I would like to know what acually worked in such a specific use case (I guess I'm not the only one, who'll send the party to another adventure, AFTER completing LMoP).
I also think that ther is a difference between trash-mobs (in which case you can just spam two more) and any stage boss / end boss (spaming two super villians might look weird ;) ).
thx in advance ;)
cheers
martin
p.s. a follow up question ...
... to allign with the difficulty of the following campaings, would you slow dowm lvl ups, to meet the suggested lvl in the current chpater, or just stick upscaling the enemies till the end?
I personally tend to go with option one. I personally thinks stats are just the mechanics to make encounter more interesting and give more options... and not something I need to archieve. And at lvl 5 you already have some versatility...
...but I'm a bit unsure how players might think when they don't get a lvl up for a certain amount of time.
You'll probably have a lot of time between the start and end of Lost Mine. Take that time to study what your players are interested in and where they might want to go. Cater to that and you should be fine. There are a TON of encounters you can craft with just the free content on this site.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Don't worry about the difficulty too much. People seem to get way to stressed over it. Focus on creating situations that make sense. What resources does the bad guy have at their disposal? What are its motivations/goals? Then drop stuff in the game. If its a lot, or not enough, that's ok. Should the encounter be really easy then you can always have reinforcements or such arrive. Let 1 or 2 guys run away or sound the alarm. 2 Rounds later more enemies arrive. If the encounter is too difficult, but your players seem to slaughter a few in short succession... then morale of the group could fall. Some could even flee reducing the difficulty of the encounter.
As suggested. Use the 5 levels with the Lost Mine to get a feel of how combat works. What can your players handle. Learn to get a feel of the narrative flow of a situation.
Also take your time to visit Youtube. There are channels of experienced people that could share their insights. For combat related stuff WebDM and Matt Colville have some interesting stuff to say I agree with. They often state there is no such thing as a balanced fight...so don't stress on getting the best design on paper.
====
Your bottom questions. I use Milestone leveling. At the moment a lot of traveling and side content is happening. This means it takes a lot of time before they level up again. Compared to the more focused time within an actual conflict/dungeon/module. How your players handle it really depends on your group. As well as the type of content you provide. If you give them cool stuff to do with interesting rewards then they might have fun and feel rewarded sufficiently. Also listen to your players. They might just be ok with having only 1 actual combat per 4-5 hour session. This means you can make that combat as difficult/meaningful as you want.
If your follow up adventure starts at a far lower or higher level then when you finish LMOP... that's ok. You can always adjust the opponents so that the next module will be lvl 6-9 instead of the intended 3-6. It's all good. You have that freedom Mr DM ;)
As others have said, don't worry too much know about that right now.
Use Lost Mines to get the feel for what your players like, as well as what you like as a DM. If you are planning on moving from Lost Mines to another book-module (ie Strahd, Tiamat, or Storm King's Thunder) there are some mechanisms in place in those books already if you are starting at level 5.
Once you get a feel for what you and your players like, you can start leaving breadcrumbs/plot hooks which then take your party away from the Lost Mine once that is complete.
As an example of something you may or may not like. Running a combat with 4 characters and 12 ruffians with a ruffian leader. That type of combat can take awhile and means a lot of initiative tracking, who damaged whom, positioning etc. You may like that or not but it can soak up a decent amount of your session time.
To answer other questions.
I used milestone advancement as it lets me control the feel of levelling and it's a fewer numbers for me to keep up with.
My group was level 5 at the end of Lost Mines.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
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Hi,
I'm pretty sure I'm not the first one asking the question - but going through the search results I didn't find any specific answer to my question (also using google didn't find any search results ... at least not for my search). I Hope you can help ;)
I'm planing campaign for the first time and I decided to choose "Lost mine of Phandelver", since this seems to be quite noob friendly. This one SHOULD be the prolouge for another campain, which I plan to start afterwards, if I feel comfopratble DM-ing (I think I like it, but since I'm always quite cautious, I want to have this prologue).'ll
I'm not sure about the campaign I'll chooseafterwards - but despite the campaign itself, what will happen is that my PCs will be at lvl 5. So ALL the ecnoutners in the books might be too easy. Has anyone done this before? From his experience - just adding xyz HP ... is this enough? Or just spam 1 -2 additional enemies? I'm a bit unsure
I read all the beneral best practices (add HP, add more enemies, add heavier armour, ...), but I would like to know what acually worked in such a specific use case (I guess I'm not the only one, who'll send the party to another adventure, AFTER completing LMoP).
I also think that ther is a difference between trash-mobs (in which case you can just spam two more) and any stage boss / end boss (spaming two super villians might look weird ;) ).
thx in advance ;)
cheers
martin
p.s. a follow up question ...
... to allign with the difficulty of the following campaings, would you slow dowm lvl ups, to meet the suggested lvl in the current chpater, or just stick upscaling the enemies till the end?
I personally tend to go with option one. I personally thinks stats are just the mechanics to make encounter more interesting and give more options... and not something I need to archieve. And at lvl 5 you already have some versatility...
...but I'm a bit unsure how players might think when they don't get a lvl up for a certain amount of time.
You'll probably have a lot of time between the start and end of Lost Mine. Take that time to study what your players are interested in and where they might want to go. Cater to that and you should be fine. There are a TON of encounters you can craft with just the free content on this site.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Don't worry about the difficulty too much. People seem to get way to stressed over it. Focus on creating situations that make sense. What resources does the bad guy have at their disposal? What are its motivations/goals? Then drop stuff in the game. If its a lot, or not enough, that's ok. Should the encounter be really easy then you can always have reinforcements or such arrive. Let 1 or 2 guys run away or sound the alarm. 2 Rounds later more enemies arrive. If the encounter is too difficult, but your players seem to slaughter a few in short succession... then morale of the group could fall. Some could even flee reducing the difficulty of the encounter.
As suggested. Use the 5 levels with the Lost Mine to get a feel of how combat works. What can your players handle. Learn to get a feel of the narrative flow of a situation.
Also take your time to visit Youtube. There are channels of experienced people that could share their insights. For combat related stuff WebDM and Matt Colville have some interesting stuff to say I agree with. They often state there is no such thing as a balanced fight...so don't stress on getting the best design on paper.
====
Your bottom questions. I use Milestone leveling. At the moment a lot of traveling and side content is happening. This means it takes a lot of time before they level up again. Compared to the more focused time within an actual conflict/dungeon/module. How your players handle it really depends on your group. As well as the type of content you provide. If you give them cool stuff to do with interesting rewards then they might have fun and feel rewarded sufficiently. Also listen to your players. They might just be ok with having only 1 actual combat per 4-5 hour session. This means you can make that combat as difficult/meaningful as you want.
If your follow up adventure starts at a far lower or higher level then when you finish LMOP... that's ok. You can always adjust the opponents so that the next module will be lvl 6-9 instead of the intended 3-6. It's all good. You have that freedom Mr DM ;)
As others have said, don't worry too much know about that right now.
Use Lost Mines to get the feel for what your players like, as well as what you like as a DM. If you are planning on moving from Lost Mines to another book-module (ie Strahd, Tiamat, or Storm King's Thunder) there are some mechanisms in place in those books already if you are starting at level 5.
Once you get a feel for what you and your players like, you can start leaving breadcrumbs/plot hooks which then take your party away from the Lost Mine once that is complete.
As an example of something you may or may not like. Running a combat with 4 characters and 12 ruffians with a ruffian leader. That type of combat can take awhile and means a lot of initiative tracking, who damaged whom, positioning etc. You may like that or not but it can soak up a decent amount of your session time.
To answer other questions.
I used milestone advancement as it lets me control the feel of levelling and it's a fewer numbers for me to keep up with.
My group was level 5 at the end of Lost Mines.
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"