Our usual DM is on holiday for two months (entire summer) and because it's the summer, our group desperately wants to play. On an impulse, I volunteered to host a few sessions in our DM's stead. I'm setting up a side story that won't interfere with our main campaign but will still be enough to keep the party entertained. I really want to be DM but I especially want to be a good DM.
I need some help with NPC creation and setting up combat encounters. Does anyone have any tips/basic encounter ideas/NPCs that they can bestow upon me? I'd appreciate any help with those. I've never set up an encounter before and the whole plot line is honestly a lot less stressful than this is.
I've personally found Encounter calculators help quite a bit trying to adjust for difficulty
and whilst I'm still new to DM'ing I've found one approach I've been using seems to work when determined my groups skill level when determining and that's wave encounters,
have rooms set up that if the fights seem to be going too easy can cascade into other rooms of monster's joining in, this gives me a sense of what my team is personally able to handle, and then build from there in the next sessions,
Example, Kobolds or Goblins, the first room is a simple encounter of camped goblins, the fight starts, as the fight continues a guard patrol comes along and spots the fight, this sets up the premise for the waves of incoming goblins, as you go through make notes of the rough difficulty the team has, how they are handling. this helps you decide how tough to be in future games.
since you're doing a few sessions it'll help give you a quick feel of what the team can handle and what level encounters to run,
of course this approach doesn't really work in a one shot, but then one shots are less worrying in my opinion as if they are stupid and rush in and get killed, that's the game.
For NPCs, don't be afraid to use tropes, put some twist on it, but the grumpy old mage, the smart aloof elf, the old drunk with a secret, they are all fine NPCs to run, you needn't worry too much about creating the absolutely best memorable NPCs, as I find those NPCs are the ones that happen by accident, a random person that you name at some point that for some reason the party takes a liking to
But here's a quick list of NPCs I've run in the past that might help Jordan - the drunk Dwarf adventurer and Jeramiah the Elf Accountant Jordan complains about Jeramiah babying him because his wife is "living impaired" and calls him Jerry to annoy him Jeramiah simply likes having muscle about to protect himself and doesn't want his muscle to get sloppy, often hiding his booze.
Naal Alooro, Darkness Warlock, half elf, using Devil's sight and a Glaive uses darkness to get into places and kill people easily, but loves to showboat, often dropping darkness by covering an amulet he casts it on with his free hand to show off
Dino rider Halfing - they are halfings that ride dinosaurs.
Draw from characters you like and are familiar with from TV shows, movies, or books. I have a recurring character Elwood Velveteen who is a slick lounge singer informant based on a character from Brooklyn 99. A city watch guy based on a mix of Cliff Claven and Norm from Cheers.
Aaaanyhow.... There are plenty of places that can help build npcs and encounters. DnDBeyond has the new Encounter Builder, which is really nice. Kobold Fight Club also has a really nice encounter builder. Just remember that an NPC is just somebody else's character, and your party's characters are somebody else's NPCs. You can even use the character builder here on DnDB to build a handful of characters about the same level as your party. Pit them head to head, party vs party.
If you want a face-paced wilderness session - maybe both parties are looking for some lost relic in a secret cave in a forboding forest.
If you want more of an intrigue/RP session - maybe both parties have been invited to a masquerade ball, and they need to find out who the real bad guy is. Like one of those damn "murder mystery dinner theater" shows.
If you want more of a stealth mission session - maybe some bad guy hired both parties to steal the same object from a fancy auction house, but neither party knows about the other until it's too late.
If you just want a simple gonzo battle royale session - maybe some extraplanar entity teleports both parties to its own personal demiplane, and the parties have to fight it out in a battle royale in some tricked-out arena filled with monsters, and secret traps, and secret power-ups, etc etc. If you die in the arena, you wake up in your bed back home with 1 HP and a level of exhaustion. If your team wins, you get a prize.
And remember, when you're creating NPCs and such, to play against type. Not every halforc has to be a barbarian. Not every halfling has to be a rogue. If the players are searching for a powerful wizard, he might be in his tower wearing fancy robes and doing research, or he might be sitting at the bar, covered in tattoos, chugging beer and betting on the cage match. You never know. Maybe the party is trying to solve the mystery of who keep breaking big holes in the walls of jewelry shops to rob them, so they're interrogating all the big muscly people, but the real culprit is actually a shy quiet halfling female who happens to be a brilliant artificer who has built an g.d. Ironman suit.
Keep them on their toes.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
A lot of the best NPC's are ones that you make up on the spot because you realize you need a shopkeeper and when improving you gave them an interesting quirk or personality on the fly. Come up with npc's if they're vital to the plot, but don't worry about filling up your world with randos. Your world is already full if you're ready to improvise.
Draw from characters you like and are familiar with from TV shows, movies, or books. I have a recurring character Elwood Velveteen who is a slick lounge singer informant based on a character from Brooklyn 99. A city watch guy based on a mix of Cliff Claven and Norm from Cheers.
Oh I am 100% using Doug Judy as a basis for an NPC tysm you just gave me an idea for a plot point!
Hello, I'm gonna die.
Our usual DM is on holiday for two months (entire summer) and because it's the summer, our group desperately wants to play. On an impulse, I volunteered to host a few sessions in our DM's stead. I'm setting up a side story that won't interfere with our main campaign but will still be enough to keep the party entertained. I really want to be DM but I especially want to be a good DM.
I need some help with NPC creation and setting up combat encounters. Does anyone have any tips/basic encounter ideas/NPCs that they can bestow upon me? I'd appreciate any help with those. I've never set up an encounter before and the whole plot line is honestly a lot less stressful than this is.
Thanks!
Sincerely,
ya boy.
I've personally found Encounter calculators help quite a bit trying to adjust for difficulty
and whilst I'm still new to DM'ing I've found one approach I've been using seems to work when determined my groups skill level when determining and that's wave encounters,
have rooms set up that if the fights seem to be going too easy can cascade into other rooms of monster's joining in, this gives me a sense of what my team is personally able to handle, and then build from there in the next sessions,
Example, Kobolds or Goblins, the first room is a simple encounter of camped goblins, the fight starts, as the fight continues a guard patrol comes along and spots the fight, this sets up the premise for the waves of incoming goblins, as you go through make notes of the rough difficulty the team has, how they are handling. this helps you decide how tough to be in future games.
since you're doing a few sessions it'll help give you a quick feel of what the team can handle and what level encounters to run,
of course this approach doesn't really work in a one shot, but then one shots are less worrying in my opinion as if they are stupid and rush in and get killed, that's the game.
For NPCs, don't be afraid to use tropes, put some twist on it, but the grumpy old mage, the smart aloof elf, the old drunk with a secret, they are all fine NPCs to run, you needn't worry too much about creating the absolutely best memorable NPCs, as I find those NPCs are the ones that happen by accident, a random person that you name at some point that for some reason the party takes a liking to
But here's a quick list of NPCs I've run in the past that might help
Jordan - the drunk Dwarf adventurer and Jeramiah the Elf Accountant
Jordan complains about Jeramiah babying him because his wife is "living impaired" and calls him Jerry to annoy him
Jeramiah simply likes having muscle about to protect himself and doesn't want his muscle to get sloppy, often hiding his booze.
Naal Alooro, Darkness Warlock, half elf, using Devil's sight and a Glaive uses darkness to get into places and kill people easily, but loves to showboat, often dropping darkness by covering an amulet he casts it on with his free hand to show off
Dino rider Halfing - they are halfings that ride dinosaurs.
Draw from characters you like and are familiar with from TV shows, movies, or books. I have a recurring character Elwood Velveteen who is a slick lounge singer informant based on a character from Brooklyn 99. A city watch guy based on a mix of Cliff Claven and Norm from Cheers.
Hi, 'Gonna Die'. I'm dad!
HA!
Aaaanyhow.... There are plenty of places that can help build npcs and encounters. DnDBeyond has the new Encounter Builder, which is really nice. Kobold Fight Club also has a really nice encounter builder. Just remember that an NPC is just somebody else's character, and your party's characters are somebody else's NPCs. You can even use the character builder here on DnDB to build a handful of characters about the same level as your party. Pit them head to head, party vs party.
If you want a face-paced wilderness session - maybe both parties are looking for some lost relic in a secret cave in a forboding forest.
If you want more of an intrigue/RP session - maybe both parties have been invited to a masquerade ball, and they need to find out who the real bad guy is. Like one of those damn "murder mystery dinner theater" shows.
If you want more of a stealth mission session - maybe some bad guy hired both parties to steal the same object from a fancy auction house, but neither party knows about the other until it's too late.
If you just want a simple gonzo battle royale session - maybe some extraplanar entity teleports both parties to its own personal demiplane, and the parties have to fight it out in a battle royale in some tricked-out arena filled with monsters, and secret traps, and secret power-ups, etc etc. If you die in the arena, you wake up in your bed back home with 1 HP and a level of exhaustion. If your team wins, you get a prize.
And remember, when you're creating NPCs and such, to play against type. Not every halforc has to be a barbarian. Not every halfling has to be a rogue. If the players are searching for a powerful wizard, he might be in his tower wearing fancy robes and doing research, or he might be sitting at the bar, covered in tattoos, chugging beer and betting on the cage match. You never know. Maybe the party is trying to solve the mystery of who keep breaking big holes in the walls of jewelry shops to rob them, so they're interrogating all the big muscly people, but the real culprit is actually a shy quiet halfling female who happens to be a brilliant artificer who has built an g.d. Ironman suit.
Keep them on their toes.
Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
Anzio Faro. Lvl 5 Prot. Aasimar Light Cleric.
A lot of the best NPC's are ones that you make up on the spot because you realize you need a shopkeeper and when improving you gave them an interesting quirk or personality on the fly. Come up with npc's if they're vital to the plot, but don't worry about filling up your world with randos. Your world is already full if you're ready to improvise.
dinosaur-riding halflings is the best thing i've heard all week tysm for your help!
Sincerely,
ya boy.
Oh I am 100% using Doug Judy as a basis for an NPC tysm you just gave me an idea for a plot point!
Sincerely,
ya boy.
The encounter builder in the kobold fight club is absolutely brilliant.