So I'm currently in 2 active campaigns. On my second one, someone came up with the idea for each of us to DM one-shots. We rolled for it and I got first:'D. I'm super pumped though because I'm using a homebrew that I adapt from a world in a personal writing project of like 5+ years. The one-shot is basically like a "prequel" to that writing project. I'm using irl medieval earth setting but we'll be playing in a hidden magical island. The PCs will be starting in Level 3. We'll mostly play exploration but I still wanna have combat. The quest would be that the PCs (5 players) are prophesied to "unlock" this heavily veiled important part of the island (not too big) and they'll be rewarded handsomely.
I think world building and narrative wise I'm confident, but everything else I'm not T.T Any tips for exciting but balanced encounters? Or general tips for newbie DM? Oh and map maker or sites recs for maps? Any help would be wonderful T.T thanks!
If you're good at world building and the narrative side of the game then you sound well set up for your game. In terms of exciting and balanced encounters there are a few things I have found whilst DMing that help me.
First, make the environment or terrain interesting and unique. Even if you have cool monsters or villains for the PCs to go up against, if they're just in a blank room then it makes it feel more like a slog and can ruin players immersion. Maybe if you are fighting on the coast you could have waves that occasionally wash in and force creatures in an area to make a dexterity saving throw or be knocked prone. It doesn't necessarily have to be active effects either. You could have thick vines and plant growth that counts as difficult terrain and maybe causes piercing damage to a creature who enters its space for a first time on its turn there (it doesn't need to be much just something to think about). What if this part of the island is secretly home to a volcano and at the crux of the PCs battle they are forced to flee the area before the volcano erupts having to avoid lava flows and ash clouds etc. It's entirely up to you of course but adding in something like this tends to (from my experience) make fights much more interesting.
Balancing encounters is slightly more difficult. The CR system in DnD is completely broken and I would avoid it at all costs. That's not to say that you shouldn't use creatures from the MM just to be careful in which ones you select. The difficulty obviously also can vary based on the experience of your group. I realize that these vague statements aren't very helpful so I'll try to give some more concrete tips but unfortunately (at least for me) balancing encounters is something that takes practice. For a party of level 3 characters, you can probably throw some reasonably tough monsters at them (again depending on how many encounters you are planning to run in the one shot and how easily they will be able to rest). For a one shot I would start with a monster or NPC you think would be a cool villain and then buff or nerf their stats as appropriate. You could have a Kraken Herald who wants to devote the whole island to the mysterious being he's been receiving dreams from, a ghost of a pirate captain who's ship was wrecked on the coast centuries ago and who still longs to wander the seas. When it comes to their stats, generally looking at damage output per round is a useful way of measuring how balanced an encounter is. For example if your party can put out 30 damage on average per round and your main villain only has 45 health then you need to either: find a way of avoiding damage - maybe he can fly or walk on water or give him some minions to spread the damage around (maybe even both). Similarly you can look at the enemies damage output and compare it to the players health pool. If a solo villain attacks once and only does 10 damage on a hit then you are going to have a long boring encounter where he slogs away barely dealing any damage whilst the players surround him.
Sorry I can't be more help. If you have any more specific questions about balancing encounters or anything else I'm happy to try and help but if not my advice would be to just roll with it. At the end of the day it is a one shot and if you have a great story then I'm sure your players will enjoy it as well. Good Luck!
Re:Encounters Try to vary up the encounters, walking up to a big brute-y monster and just bashing against it until it's dead gets boring after a while. It's also very fun to have "alternative" ways to fight the monsters unique to the terrain - e.g. throwing a monster off a cliff, or knocking over a barrel of acid on them, or dropping a chandelier on them, or using a holy sacrement to put undead to rest rather than fighting them is much more fun than just going up and hitting them with a stick until they are dead. Alternatively having a combat involving creatures already fighting each other and the PCs have a limited amount of time to pick a side can be interesting as well - e.g. a scout being chased by a group of soldiers.
If you are going realistic medieval world, you might want to go classic mythology monsters - e.g. a group of ~3 centaurs hunting a unicorn, or a group of 4-5 Harpies luring creatures into quicksand, or a pair of manticores guarding their nest, or a troll guarding a bridge. For more variety, maybe pick out some monsters with unique abilities like Ankegs and their acid breath (~4 should be a challenging fight for a level 3 party) or 2 Hell Hounds for their Fire Breath, or 1 Basilisk with it's petrifying gaze, or 1-2 black puddings with their corrosion. For spellcasters, maybe a couple of Cult Fanatics (careful their Hold Person can be very dangerous) or ~3 Priests of the old religion. Phase Spiders are a good challenge for more advanced players for a 3rd level party you'd want 2-3 of them. Will o' Wisps are also thematic and are an different kind of challenge for low level parties you'd want 2 (maybe 3) for a 3rd level party.
Basically, for interesting encounters you generally want 2 maybe 3 different types of enemies, or some sort of terrain to vary it up. For instance from the above you might have 2 Harpies and 1 Will o' Wisp that is the soul of one of their previous victims around a pool of quicksand, the harpies try to lure the party into the quick sand, while the Will o' Wisp attacks people who approach the quicksand to try to ward them off, if the party retrieves the bones of the victim that are floating in the quicksand and promise to bury them the Will o' Wisp backs off or if the party manage to get the harpies on the ground near the Will o' Wisp it will attack the harpy rather than the party.
Alternatively, maybe we have a cave with a narrow bridge across a chasm and black puddings start crawling down the walls toward the party so they have to run across the bridge while fending off the puddings and can destroy the bridge to stop the puddings from following them.
Or have 1 Priest at a shrine protected by their 2 pet Phase Spiders.
Or have 2 Cult Fanatics with their HellHound trying to track down someone who is trying to escape the cult.
Or have a Troll that guards a bridge with a pet manticore. Where the party can simply throw the Troll off the bridge to defeat him but still has to fight off the manticore.
Or maybe there's a ruin with lots of low stone walls that party members can hide / take cover behind, that has a nest of Ankeg in the basement so as the party start exploring a bunch of Ankegs burrow up around them and attack.
Re:Maps Inkarnate is pretty good for making your own maps (if you spend $$ on it) or Pintrest has tons of maps on it from all kinds of people.
As a long time DM - I am going to slightly disagree with some of this advice - your not having a session zero to test your maps - initiative trackers or see the dynamics of the group so basically this is like a one shot with random people for a first time DM. ( I recommend owl bear rodeo for maps and excel for initiative and mobs and write up a generic mob on D&D beyond so you roll everything with one click)
Keep the story linear - explore this get to here . have a very short fight here - win the fight - that gives you a clue to go here - have the 2nd fight (ie the mini boss), win that fight - that wraps the module, go back to town rp out as time allows.
Have 3 maps ready to go base camp - 1st encounter - 2nd encounter - back to base camp. If you feel ambitious have a 4th map ready that is some generic path through fields or forest or whatever for use in between the main maps.
Simplicity in story and combat is a new DM's best friend -
Just my $.02
Edit - any of the AI image gens are great for simple maps - Google Gemini - Microsoft Copilot - etc
As a long time DM - I am going to slightly disagree with some of this advice - your not having a session zero to test your maps - initiative trackers or see the dynamics of the group so basically this is like a one shot with random people for a first time DM. ( I recommend owl bear rodeo for maps and excel for initiative and mobs and write up a generic mob on D&D beyond so you roll everything with one click).
Granted I hadn't considered this when I was giving some of my advice. I've heard good things about owl bear rodeo although have never used it myself admittedly.
Keep the story linear - explore this get to here . have a very short fight here - win the fight - that gives you a clue to go here - have the 2nd fight (ie the mini boss), win that fight - that wraps the module, go back to town rp out as time allows.
Yes. Especially for one shots having a linear story is a great help especially for a newer dm/players and it should hopefully help you get used to how the intricacies of dming work.
Have 3 maps ready to go base camp - 1st encounter - 2nd encounter - back to base camp. If you feel ambitious have a 4th map ready that is some generic path through fields or forest or whatever for use in between the main maps.
Yeah if you're using maps for combat (I know some people do and some don't) definitely have some ready. I think the point about a generic map is specifically useful because it allows you to add in random encounters if you feel the story needs their introduction e.g. if the players are having an altogether too comfortable time or if they are resting constantly (admittedly unlikely in a one shot but you never know)
Simplicity in story and combat is a new DM's best friend -
Yeah for sure. I'd say its really up to you how much detail you want to go into with combat scenarios but if you keep it fairly simple with maybe one or two interesting mechanics you'll have a great time.
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So I'm currently in 2 active campaigns. On my second one, someone came up with the idea for each of us to DM one-shots. We rolled for it and I got first:'D. I'm super pumped though because I'm using a homebrew that I adapt from a world in a personal writing project of like 5+ years. The one-shot is basically like a "prequel" to that writing project. I'm using irl medieval earth setting but we'll be playing in a hidden magical island. The PCs will be starting in Level 3. We'll mostly play exploration but I still wanna have combat. The quest would be that the PCs (5 players) are prophesied to "unlock" this heavily veiled important part of the island (not too big) and they'll be rewarded handsomely.
I think world building and narrative wise I'm confident, but everything else I'm not T.T Any tips for exciting but balanced encounters? Or general tips for newbie DM? Oh and map maker or sites recs for maps? Any help would be wonderful T.T thanks!
If you're good at world building and the narrative side of the game then you sound well set up for your game. In terms of exciting and balanced encounters there are a few things I have found whilst DMing that help me.
First, make the environment or terrain interesting and unique. Even if you have cool monsters or villains for the PCs to go up against, if they're just in a blank room then it makes it feel more like a slog and can ruin players immersion. Maybe if you are fighting on the coast you could have waves that occasionally wash in and force creatures in an area to make a dexterity saving throw or be knocked prone. It doesn't necessarily have to be active effects either. You could have thick vines and plant growth that counts as difficult terrain and maybe causes piercing damage to a creature who enters its space for a first time on its turn there (it doesn't need to be much just something to think about). What if this part of the island is secretly home to a volcano and at the crux of the PCs battle they are forced to flee the area before the volcano erupts having to avoid lava flows and ash clouds etc. It's entirely up to you of course but adding in something like this tends to (from my experience) make fights much more interesting.
Balancing encounters is slightly more difficult. The CR system in DnD is completely broken and I would avoid it at all costs. That's not to say that you shouldn't use creatures from the MM just to be careful in which ones you select. The difficulty obviously also can vary based on the experience of your group. I realize that these vague statements aren't very helpful so I'll try to give some more concrete tips but unfortunately (at least for me) balancing encounters is something that takes practice. For a party of level 3 characters, you can probably throw some reasonably tough monsters at them (again depending on how many encounters you are planning to run in the one shot and how easily they will be able to rest). For a one shot I would start with a monster or NPC you think would be a cool villain and then buff or nerf their stats as appropriate. You could have a Kraken Herald who wants to devote the whole island to the mysterious being he's been receiving dreams from, a ghost of a pirate captain who's ship was wrecked on the coast centuries ago and who still longs to wander the seas. When it comes to their stats, generally looking at damage output per round is a useful way of measuring how balanced an encounter is. For example if your party can put out 30 damage on average per round and your main villain only has 45 health then you need to either: find a way of avoiding damage - maybe he can fly or walk on water or give him some minions to spread the damage around (maybe even both). Similarly you can look at the enemies damage output and compare it to the players health pool. If a solo villain attacks once and only does 10 damage on a hit then you are going to have a long boring encounter where he slogs away barely dealing any damage whilst the players surround him.
Sorry I can't be more help. If you have any more specific questions about balancing encounters or anything else I'm happy to try and help but if not my advice would be to just roll with it. At the end of the day it is a one shot and if you have a great story then I'm sure your players will enjoy it as well. Good Luck!
Re:Encounters Try to vary up the encounters, walking up to a big brute-y monster and just bashing against it until it's dead gets boring after a while. It's also very fun to have "alternative" ways to fight the monsters unique to the terrain - e.g. throwing a monster off a cliff, or knocking over a barrel of acid on them, or dropping a chandelier on them, or using a holy sacrement to put undead to rest rather than fighting them is much more fun than just going up and hitting them with a stick until they are dead. Alternatively having a combat involving creatures already fighting each other and the PCs have a limited amount of time to pick a side can be interesting as well - e.g. a scout being chased by a group of soldiers.
If you are going realistic medieval world, you might want to go classic mythology monsters - e.g. a group of ~3 centaurs hunting a unicorn, or a group of 4-5 Harpies luring creatures into quicksand, or a pair of manticores guarding their nest, or a troll guarding a bridge. For more variety, maybe pick out some monsters with unique abilities like Ankegs and their acid breath (~4 should be a challenging fight for a level 3 party) or 2 Hell Hounds for their Fire Breath, or 1 Basilisk with it's petrifying gaze, or 1-2 black puddings with their corrosion. For spellcasters, maybe a couple of Cult Fanatics (careful their Hold Person can be very dangerous) or ~3 Priests of the old religion. Phase Spiders are a good challenge for more advanced players for a 3rd level party you'd want 2-3 of them. Will o' Wisps are also thematic and are an different kind of challenge for low level parties you'd want 2 (maybe 3) for a 3rd level party.
Basically, for interesting encounters you generally want 2 maybe 3 different types of enemies, or some sort of terrain to vary it up. For instance from the above you might have 2 Harpies and 1 Will o' Wisp that is the soul of one of their previous victims around a pool of quicksand, the harpies try to lure the party into the quick sand, while the Will o' Wisp attacks people who approach the quicksand to try to ward them off, if the party retrieves the bones of the victim that are floating in the quicksand and promise to bury them the Will o' Wisp backs off or if the party manage to get the harpies on the ground near the Will o' Wisp it will attack the harpy rather than the party.
Alternatively, maybe we have a cave with a narrow bridge across a chasm and black puddings start crawling down the walls toward the party so they have to run across the bridge while fending off the puddings and can destroy the bridge to stop the puddings from following them.
Or have 1 Priest at a shrine protected by their 2 pet Phase Spiders.
Or have 2 Cult Fanatics with their HellHound trying to track down someone who is trying to escape the cult.
Or have a Troll that guards a bridge with a pet manticore. Where the party can simply throw the Troll off the bridge to defeat him but still has to fight off the manticore.
Or maybe there's a ruin with lots of low stone walls that party members can hide / take cover behind, that has a nest of Ankeg in the basement so as the party start exploring a bunch of Ankegs burrow up around them and attack.
Re:Maps Inkarnate is pretty good for making your own maps (if you spend $$ on it) or Pintrest has tons of maps on it from all kinds of people.
As a long time DM - I am going to slightly disagree with some of this advice - your not having a session zero to test your maps - initiative trackers or see the dynamics of the group so basically this is like a one shot with random people for a first time DM. ( I recommend owl bear rodeo for maps and excel for initiative and mobs and write up a generic mob on D&D beyond so you roll everything with one click)
Keep the story linear - explore this get to here . have a very short fight here - win the fight - that gives you a clue to go here - have the 2nd fight (ie the mini boss), win that fight - that wraps the module, go back to town rp out as time allows.
Have 3 maps ready to go base camp - 1st encounter - 2nd encounter - back to base camp. If you feel ambitious have a 4th map ready that is some generic path through fields or forest or whatever for use in between the main maps.
Simplicity in story and combat is a new DM's best friend -
Just my $.02
Edit - any of the AI image gens are great for simple maps - Google Gemini - Microsoft Copilot - etc
Granted I hadn't considered this when I was giving some of my advice. I've heard good things about owl bear rodeo although have never used it myself admittedly.
Yes. Especially for one shots having a linear story is a great help especially for a newer dm/players and it should hopefully help you get used to how the intricacies of dming work.
Yeah if you're using maps for combat (I know some people do and some don't) definitely have some ready. I think the point about a generic map is specifically useful because it allows you to add in random encounters if you feel the story needs their introduction e.g. if the players are having an altogether too comfortable time or if they are resting constantly (admittedly unlikely in a one shot but you never know)
Yeah for sure. I'd say its really up to you how much detail you want to go into with combat scenarios but if you keep it fairly simple with maybe one or two interesting mechanics you'll have a great time.