I have a group that's relatively new to the game, and I really love how they're interacting in character, but I feel like they're not using their classes to the best of their ability. I want to create specialised challenges for them, both solo and as a group / in pairs, to teach them about their character's strengths and weaknesses on paper, so they all have a better idea of the limitations they've got in the game.
The party is made up of;
Warlock (Hexblade) Air Genasi - 2+ year player
Rogue (Arcane Trickster) Human - 6 month player
Cleric (Life) Elf - 6 month player
Fighter (Champion) Goliath - complete newbie
So far, there's the obvious "You need to sneak to go get this thing" for the Rogue, "don't touch the floor"/"go diving for this thing" for the Genasi, "heal the stranger and get some goodies" for the Cleric, etc, etc, but I really want to get some new ideas on how to challenge them all with different tasks to really stretch them as a team.
I'm currently dm'ing for a group of people who never played tabletop rpg's (or pretty much any modern boardgame). I like to create tutorial like challanges to help them learn about their abilities and possible other ways to use them in a computergame like fashion. Start small with a very easy challenge and then create challenges where they have to use the same abilities in a more creative or difficult way. It seems to work fairly good, for most at least though. There's one player who's just a hopeless case :p.
Put them through a puzzle dungeon. Maybe give Acquisitions Inc.'s "Ark of the Mad Mage" series a listen for ideas. I particularly like the frog statue room.
Set up some tasks that only one of them can perform. It might get them to appreciate and learn their characters more. E.g. for the Goliath, the party encounters a family of giants who don't speak common. The giants also have their own culture which the Goliath understands, but others may blunder into a social faux pas.
How about skill challenges? Matt Colville has a video on them. They seem like a great way to get your players not just thinking about their skills, but also about the situations where they apply. You make up some random overarching peril, and tell the party to look at their skills and tell you how they are contributing. The party themselves provides the specific sub-problem they think might need to be solved, and how they are solving it. If it sounds reasonable you give them a DC and if they succeed you narrate what they achieved and the party is one step closer to overall success. To succeed overall, they need x successes before y failures.
Best of all, you just need to think up an over-arching random peril. You don't have to spend hours tailoring it to their skills. You just point them at their skills and say 'everything you need is right there, but you can't murder-hobo your way out of this one'.
Guarantee that once you hit them with one or two of those, they'll start coming up with more creative ways to use their skills even outside of skill challenges.
Something that can disable magic or take an arcane focus would be good to give them a harder time in battles. Arcane tricksters can't use focuses anyways, only component pouches. While it might seem tough on them, because theres a normal fighter in the party, the spell casters would have to think about their surroundings for material components without a focus, and instead of outright disabling magic, you could limit schools or something, but with good reason.
If you do that to the casters and throw a ranged enemy at them, it probably won't feel to aimed at the spell casters. If the fighter is a ranged player although, you could go about it in the other way, since ranged weapons are less useful is an enemy is up close.
Hey all,
I have a group that's relatively new to the game, and I really love how they're interacting in character, but I feel like they're not using their classes to the best of their ability. I want to create specialised challenges for them, both solo and as a group / in pairs, to teach them about their character's strengths and weaknesses on paper, so they all have a better idea of the limitations they've got in the game.
The party is made up of;
Warlock (Hexblade) Air Genasi - 2+ year player
Rogue (Arcane Trickster) Human - 6 month player
Cleric (Life) Elf - 6 month player
Fighter (Champion) Goliath - complete newbie
So far, there's the obvious "You need to sneak to go get this thing" for the Rogue, "don't touch the floor"/"go diving for this thing" for the Genasi, "heal the stranger and get some goodies" for the Cleric, etc, etc, but I really want to get some new ideas on how to challenge them all with different tasks to really stretch them as a team.
I'm currently dm'ing for a group of people who never played tabletop rpg's (or pretty much any modern boardgame). I like to create tutorial like challanges to help them learn about their abilities and possible other ways to use them in a computergame like fashion. Start small with a very easy challenge and then create challenges where they have to use the same abilities in a more creative or difficult way. It seems to work fairly good, for most at least though. There's one player who's just a hopeless case :p.
Put them through a puzzle dungeon. Maybe give Acquisitions Inc.'s "Ark of the Mad Mage" series a listen for ideas. I particularly like the frog statue room.
Set up some tasks that only one of them can perform. It might get them to appreciate and learn their characters more. E.g. for the Goliath, the party encounters a family of giants who don't speak common. The giants also have their own culture which the Goliath understands, but others may blunder into a social faux pas.
How about skill challenges? Matt Colville has a video on them. They seem like a great way to get your players not just thinking about their skills, but also about the situations where they apply. You make up some random overarching peril, and tell the party to look at their skills and tell you how they are contributing. The party themselves provides the specific sub-problem they think might need to be solved, and how they are solving it. If it sounds reasonable you give them a DC and if they succeed you narrate what they achieved and the party is one step closer to overall success. To succeed overall, they need x successes before y failures.
Best of all, you just need to think up an over-arching random peril. You don't have to spend hours tailoring it to their skills. You just point them at their skills and say 'everything you need is right there, but you can't murder-hobo your way out of this one'.
Guarantee that once you hit them with one or two of those, they'll start coming up with more creative ways to use their skills even outside of skill challenges.
Agreed... I would also recommend puzzles... Will have to check out the frog statue room on Ark of the Mad Mage... I haven't heard that one before!
I have a YouTube channel with 5th Edition D&D Puzzles, Character Creations, DM Tips and Quests ideas. Check it out!
Wally DM on YouTube
Something that can disable magic or take an arcane focus would be good to give them a harder time in battles. Arcane tricksters can't use focuses anyways, only component pouches. While it might seem tough on them, because theres a normal fighter in the party, the spell casters would have to think about their surroundings for material components without a focus, and instead of outright disabling magic, you could limit schools or something, but with good reason.
If you do that to the casters and throw a ranged enemy at them, it probably won't feel to aimed at the spell casters. If the fighter is a ranged player although, you could go about it in the other way, since ranged weapons are less useful is an enemy is up close.
Also known as CrafterB and DankMemer.
Here, have some homebrew classes! Subclasses to? Why not races. Feats, feats as well. I have a lot of magic items. Lastly I got monsters, fun, fun times.