Just started Dming (after a 25 yr hiatus from the game) for my wife (Bard) and daughter (Ranger), and just wanted peoples opinions/idea's on a couple of things.
At present the 2 of them are currently in the midst of the Dragons of Icespire Peaks, and I'm thinking with everything going on we're likely to finish it well before the world returns to normal for us all. Our original plan was to do Curse of Strahd, but with our current virus spreading throughout our world, playing an adventure based on misery/horror isn't really what I want to involve them in. (I want to have a bit of fun whilst couped up with them all). Are there any modules/books (inc DM's guild) which have good starting points for stories that aren't incredibly morbid? I'm wondering about Ghosts of Saltmarsh (especially grey hawk or maybe move to the Shining South area of FR with it) or maybe Tomb of annihilation (not the actual adventure but it's setting, considering Ind' Jones temple of Doom styled campaign there). Basically I've played through the Sword Coast many many years ago (1st or 2E), so I like the idea of a move away from there however if theirs a good story then I know the players will enjoy it.
What to get in DND beyond?
I have the essentials kit as well as the players handbook on DND beyond (plus hardbacks) basically for character creation as it's so useful for new players to keep them up to date, plus the very necessary MM in Hard back. However how useful is the DMG, or can i get away with just the Magical items on DND beyond at this stage. NB: Is the DMG even necessary outside of the magical items in either format? I'm liking a couple of the dungeons out of TotYP so seems sennsible to get it hedre instead of buying the full book
Lastly is it hard to convert 1E, 2E to 5th edition, some of the DM's guild ref mat/modules were a lot of fun to play.
PS: whats with reaction spells, do they just activate whenever a trigger occurs ie: shield for a magic missile attack.
I'm currently playing Storm King's thunder, it's really open and allows a lot of freedom for you to include personal background quests or discoveries throughout The North. It's also a bit lighter compared to the other stories you've mentioned. It's mostly Giants, some story-plots and some dragons and lesser evil being, orcs, bugbears, beasts etc. Mostly all above grounds and without any disease, death kind of theme.
If you’re looking to move out of the Forgotten Realms, You might look into Eberron. The new Rising From the Last War book is about a society trying to rebuild and recover from disaster, so there’s a lot of hope and magical technology to play with. But if you’re up for home brewing an Indiana Jones style adventure, Chult in the south of Forgotten Realms, would certainly give you the setting. Lots of dinosaurs and jungle monsters native to that area. Whether you buy any ToA to supplement planning such a run is your call. Maybe just buy the monsters on DnDB for their statblocks.
I’m pretty sure I just bought what I thought I needed from the DMG. I may have gone back and just got the whole thing when they had a good coupon for sourcebooks, but I don’t remember. I know I’ve had no qualms with buying sourcebooks in useful chunks. They deduct the amount you’ve already spent on stuff from the books from the price of just buying it outright, so at a point you may as well just buy the book, but there’s room to work before that.
I had no experience with any edition prior to 5e, so I don’t know about conversion. I do know Tales from the Yawning Portal is supposed to be a collection of 1 or 2e adventures reworked for 5e, and they’re putting out more and more of those. My LGS has some beautiful hardcover books that are just that.
Reaction spells: Yes, they trigger usually when you would take damage. Shield doesn’t just trigger by magic missile, though. It can trigger whenever you would be hit by an attack roll. In game it sounds like “Does 15 hit your AC?” “Yes, but I’m using my reaction to cast Shield, so with the +5, my AC is now 17, so that won’t hit anymore.” It’s a hard spell to justify from an in character perspective. How does that work? Does the spell rewind time the instant your nerves sense pain and throw up a shield of force so that the blow doesn’t land in this new timeline? But as a player, it’s a fun mechanic to be able to burn a spell slot to prevent taking damage. They don’t HAVE to go off because a trigger occurs, but that’s the only time they can go off.
Tales of the Yawning Portal have a good "mix" of adventures as does Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Both of which can be put into any world really. Storm King Giants is basically Against the Giants updated and reskinned. PoA is updated/reskinned ToEE.
DM Guild has quite a few good conversions, of course, you will be converting to 5e AND adjusting for party size, which is probably easier to do on your own. For self converting though, you will find the DMG helpful in encounter/monster adjustments. Or you can check out Angry's method of Monster/Encounter creation/reskinning/adjustment.
There is a 3rd party update/expansion called Into the Borderlands, which you may find "familiar" as well as update/expansion of Isle of Dread which would get you your Indy/Doom/Kong/Jurassic Park feel. Both are "set" in Greyhawk, but easily transferred anywhere (especially X1).
Reaction spells require a "trigger" for the user to activate. So Shield would have to be declared to be used as a Reaction to gain the benefit. And as DM, I generally let the player know if it would help or not, and I don't need them wasting spells in order to make something challenging.
Converting takes some work and knowledge/experience with 5e. The relative strength of monsters has changed between editions.
As an example, just for a test encounter to show my daughter how the game works shortly after I had picked up the 5e books, I had two first level characters encounter ONE orc. The single orc knocked one unconscious and almost TPKed the party of two. The orc has 15 hit points and a single attack that does d12+3 damage. However, most characters at first level will have 8 to 12 hit points meaning an orc can one shot them. For a party of two this was a deadly encounter at that level. In comparison, a goblin has 7 hit points and an attack doing d6+2 damage.
Anyway, you would probably be better off taking a look on DMs Guild to see if what you want converted is already available.
----
The other comment I would make would be to play 5e RAW for quite a while before deciding that changes are needed.
- Class balance varies a bit but is generally good (better than earlier editions) ... but some DMs who run into a moon druid at level 2-4 suddenly think they are OP and start nerfing. They can be a bit more powerful but it isn't huge and even's out by level 5+ typically.
- Other things like rogue sneak attack and paladin smiting can result in extreme spike damage on a critical but that is actually part of the fun.
- Try not to build encounters that rely on a single creature alone.
- Don't be afraid of leveling up. In previous editions, class balance and fun tended to degrade somewhat towards the higher levels just due to power creep. The game still has some of that towards level 17-20 but even then it is much more manageable than previous editions and the 5e concept of bounded accuracy means that a horde of level 1s can defeat a level 20. They aren't invincible or god-like (though they are more powerful). Players can get a lot of enjoyment from character advancement so having a plot that moves along and allows the characters to level up can be fun for both the player and the DM.
I barely open the DMG except for the magic items. There's a lot of good information if you are homebrewing a world or adventure, and need help with it, but if you're using published campaigns, or if you've homebrewed those things a few times, you won't really need them. There's some interesting alternate rules, which can help if you want to make the campaign gritter, or want more simulationist combat options. There's ideas for how to manage players, as opposed to characters, and mesh different playstyles, but it seems that won't be as much of an issue in your case. Probably you can get away with not having the whole DMG.
The DMG can be useful (especially for magic items) but honestly I have always (since 2e) found it to be the least useful of the 3 core books. I purchased it in full for the ability to look up those more obscure rules, but mostly I just use the magic items. There are a few “NPC ONLY” subclasses in there as well that you might want for villains. I would personally recommend getting Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, and Volo’s Guide to Monsters. They are all very useful over and over for both DM and players.
The only modules that I use are my old old ones from 2e. They do take a little work to convert, but not that much work. A White is a Wight, a 6th level Cleric is a 6th level Cleric, I mostly just use/make 5e versions of the baddies and leave most everything else the same. I have not had a problem to date.
Reaction Spells. No, they don’t automatically happen, the player still must choose to cast the spell, but they use their 1 reaction/turn to cast those spells instead of using an Action or a Bonus Action is all. (If you are familiar with old school M:tG they work like Interrupts.)
The latest session yesterday involved the players taking on the Manticore from Umbrage hill and owing to my daughters love of animals, her Ranger decided that she'd rather talk to him than fight him, as he appeared weakened and malnourished (IE: beaten up and all after being kicked out of home and all). She asked the right questions, and after a conversation with her other party member (her real mum) - the party bard gave her inspiration, so here they offered to get fresh meat for the Manticore to stop it bothering the Midwife. To do this I used the Rangers Animal Handling skills, plus the bardic inspiration, and of course had the party go back to Phandelan for meat.
Once returned they gave the Manticore the meat who in turn promised not to attack the midwife again, however my daughter had realised that the problem wouldn't go away from the earlier conversations she had had with it. As such she spoke again to it yet again, with the end result being that if it left the town folk along, they'd arrange the town to drop of meat every day at a specific spot. More importantly they came to an arrangement where if they take on the Dragon that the Manticore would be there to also assist. I thought this was an extremely smart play and was something the Manticore would seriously consider (even given it's predatory status). Again with the bard's help, animal handling and I added a bonus for creativity the Manticore did agree to this. It even offered to protect the midwife from other predatory creatures that might be in the area.
Midwifes happy here - Ironically they were going to knock her unconscious to bring her back to town, but at the last minute realised that a note might work just as well. (go figure, save the manticore, but knock out the midwife for 25 gold... )
Back to the town and the Bard nailed the Persuasion check with the Mayor, the town then was willing to do it's part. Back to Umbrage hill, Manticores happy, midwifes even happier so gives them a potion, and a place to stay for the night before they move to Gnomeingarde.
I figured that the Manticore would happily protect the midwife as if the party/town didn't follow through, then it was close by to a tasty dinner.
This all took about 1-2 hours (real life), saved 2 lives (midwife and Manticore), benefited the town, and greatly assists the players late game.
So could I have done anything different, does animal handling skills with the Ranger make sense or would another skill have made more sense.
Animal handling is a weird skill, really. I don’t think it was the best to use here, but maybe not too bad. Animal handling helps you work with a domesticated animal, or tell the mood of a wild animal, or maybe do something with your mount. There’s nothing in the skill description about using it to tame a wild animal, though I get the sense a lot of DMs use it that way. (I don’t know what else someone would use, honestly) That said, a manticore is not an animal (beast), it’s a monstrosity, and it speaks. So I would think a persuade check would maybe be more appropriate, since they are actually conversing, and not trying to intuit its mood. I can’t imagine why a manticore would want to help fight a dragon, but with a two person party, it’s a pretty cool way to insert what will basically be a (much needed) DMPC. Also, it’s lawful evil, so while you can expect it to keep its word, you can also expect it to look for an out of it gets a chance. For example, if someone shows up late with the meat delivery one day, the thing will now be pretty well fed and ready to rampage.
The latest session yesterday involved the players taking on the Manticore from Umbrage hill and owing to my daughters love of animals, her Ranger decided that she'd rather talk to him than fight him, as he appeared weakened and malnourished (IE: beaten up and all after being kicked out of home and all). She asked the right questions, and after a conversation with her other party member (her real mum) - the party bard gave her inspiration, so here they offered to get fresh meat for the Manticore to stop it bothering the Midwife. To do this I used the Rangers Animal Handling skills, plus the bardic inspiration, and of course had the party go back to Phandelan for meat.
Once returned they gave the Manticore the meat who in turn promised not to attack the midwife again, however my daughter had realised that the problem wouldn't go away from the earlier conversations she had had with it. As such she spoke again to it yet again, with the end result being that if it left the town folk along, they'd arrange the town to drop of meat every day at a specific spot. More importantly they came to an arrangement where if they take on the Dragon that the Manticore would be there to also assist. I thought this was an extremely smart play and was something the Manticore would seriously consider (even given it's predatory status). Again with the bard's help, animal handling and I added a bonus for creativity the Manticore did agree to this. It even offered to protect the midwife from other predatory creatures that might be in the area.
Midwifes happy here - Ironically they were going to knock her unconscious to bring her back to town, but at the last minute realised that a note might work just as well. (go figure, save the manticore, but knock out the midwife for 25 gold... )
Back to the town and the Bard nailed the Persuasion check with the Mayor, the town then was willing to do it's part. Back to Umbrage hill, Manticores happy, midwifes even happier so gives them a potion, and a place to stay for the night before they move to Gnomeingarde.
I figured that the Manticore would happily protect the midwife as if the party/town didn't follow through, then it was close by to a tasty dinner.
This all took about 1-2 hours (real life), saved 2 lives (midwife and Manticore), benefited the town, and greatly assists the players late game.
So could I have done anything different, does animal handling skills with the Ranger make sense or would another skill have made more sense.
Cheers
Now that’s how you mutha’ flippin’ D&mutha’flippin’D!!! Well done. I hope you awarded extra experience.
Animal handling is a weird skill, really. I don’t think it was the best to use here, but maybe not too bad. Animal handling helps you work with a domesticated animal, or tell the mood of a wild animal, or maybe do something with your mount. There’s nothing in the skill description about using it to tame a wild animal, though I get the sense a lot of DMs use it that way. (I don’t know what else someone would use, honestly) That said, a manticore is not an animal (beast), it’s a monstrosity, and it speaks. So I would think a persuade check would maybe be more appropriate, since they are actually conversing, and not trying to intuit its mood. I can’t imagine why a manticore would want to help fight a dragon, but with a two person party, it’s a pretty cool way to insert what will basically be a (much needed) DMPC. Also, it’s lawful evil, so while you can expect it to keep its word, you can also expect it to look for an out of it gets a chance. For example, if someone shows up late with the meat delivery one day, the thing will now be pretty well fed and ready to rampage.
Thanks for the feedback Xalthu
I'll def have to remember animal handling is meant to be more for domesticated than wild.
As an fyi, I had the Manticore fairly weak so if it had to decide between free food or having to fight, it was going to be smart enough to take the easy way out. Totally agree with the out for him. This was why even though it said it would protect the mid-wife, it's still more than capable of having a parting snack if the town stops feeding it.
In regards to the Dragon, the Manti briefly mentioned to the party what had occurred which was that the Dragon killed it's mate, when he was forced to flee. This was when they came up with the idea of helping him get his roost back, when they eventually drive the dragon away. Yep Manti's wouldn't normally take on a Dragon, and isn't likely to fight to the death but a few rounds of distraction could well be the difference for making the final encounter an epic fight for the team.
My biggest concern now is my daughter wants to keep it as a pet for her Ranger! lol
The latest session yesterday involved the players taking on the Manticore from Umbrage hill and owing to my daughters love of animals, her Ranger decided that she'd rather talk to him than fight him, as he appeared weakened and malnourished (IE: beaten up and all after being kicked out of home and all). She asked the right questions, and after a conversation with her other party member (her real mum) - the party bard gave her inspiration, so here they offered to get fresh meat for the Manticore to stop it bothering the Midwife. To do this I used the Rangers Animal Handling skills, plus the bardic inspiration, and of course had the party go back to Phandelan for meat.
Once returned they gave the Manticore the meat who in turn promised not to attack the midwife again, however my daughter had realised that the problem wouldn't go away from the earlier conversations she had had with it. As such she spoke again to it yet again, with the end result being that if it left the town folk along, they'd arrange the town to drop of meat every day at a specific spot. More importantly they came to an arrangement where if they take on the Dragon that the Manticore would be there to also assist. I thought this was an extremely smart play and was something the Manticore would seriously consider (even given it's predatory status). Again with the bard's help, animal handling and I added a bonus for creativity the Manticore did agree to this. It even offered to protect the midwife from other predatory creatures that might be in the area.
Midwifes happy here - Ironically they were going to knock her unconscious to bring her back to town, but at the last minute realised that a note might work just as well. (go figure, save the manticore, but knock out the midwife for 25 gold... )
Back to the town and the Bard nailed the Persuasion check with the Mayor, the town then was willing to do it's part. Back to Umbrage hill, Manticores happy, midwifes even happier so gives them a potion, and a place to stay for the night before they move to Gnomeingarde.
I figured that the Manticore would happily protect the midwife as if the party/town didn't follow through, then it was close by to a tasty dinner.
This all took about 1-2 hours (real life), saved 2 lives (midwife and Manticore), benefited the town, and greatly assists the players late game.
So could I have done anything different, does animal handling skills with the Ranger make sense or would another skill have made more sense.
Cheers
Now that’s how you mutha’ flippin’ D&mutha’flippin’D!!! Well done. I hope you awarded extra experience.
Thanks IamSposta,
Sure did, yeah i made sure they had more than enough to get to 3rd level as it was really cool how they came up with something so creative.
That’s a great run of that quest! I’ve run that quest a few times and always hope for the negotiation with the manticore to happen, but they never think to talk to the monster. The guide for this adventure even specifies that the manticore could be bough off the attack with an alternate source of food. And I love that they talked the town into “adopting” the manticore with food to protect their healing potion source. That the manticore has collateral in paw if the town ever quits holding up their end is right on brand, too!
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Hi guys
Just started Dming (after a 25 yr hiatus from the game) for my wife (Bard) and daughter (Ranger), and just wanted peoples opinions/idea's on a couple of things.
At present the 2 of them are currently in the midst of the Dragons of Icespire Peaks, and I'm thinking with everything going on we're likely to finish it well before the world returns to normal for us all. Our original plan was to do Curse of Strahd, but with our current virus spreading throughout our world, playing an adventure based on misery/horror isn't really what I want to involve them in. (I want to have a bit of fun whilst couped up with them all). Are there any modules/books (inc DM's guild) which have good starting points for stories that aren't incredibly morbid? I'm wondering about Ghosts of Saltmarsh (especially grey hawk or maybe move to the Shining South area of FR with it) or maybe Tomb of annihilation (not the actual adventure but it's setting, considering Ind' Jones temple of Doom styled campaign there). Basically I've played through the Sword Coast many many years ago (1st or 2E), so I like the idea of a move away from there however if theirs a good story then I know the players will enjoy it.
What to get in DND beyond?
I have the essentials kit as well as the players handbook on DND beyond (plus hardbacks) basically for character creation as it's so useful for new players to keep them up to date, plus the very necessary MM in Hard back. However how useful is the DMG, or can i get away with just the Magical items on DND beyond at this stage. NB: Is the DMG even necessary outside of the magical items in either format? I'm liking a couple of the dungeons out of TotYP so seems sennsible to get it hedre instead of buying the full book
Lastly is it hard to convert 1E, 2E to 5th edition, some of the DM's guild ref mat/modules were a lot of fun to play.
PS: whats with reaction spells, do they just activate whenever a trigger occurs ie: shield for a magic missile attack.
Any thoughts appreciated
Cheers
Hi,
I'm currently playing Storm King's thunder, it's really open and allows a lot of freedom for you to include personal background quests or discoveries throughout The North. It's also a bit lighter compared to the other stories you've mentioned. It's mostly Giants, some story-plots and some dragons and lesser evil being, orcs, bugbears, beasts etc. Mostly all above grounds and without any disease, death kind of theme.
Kr,
Rob.
If you’re looking to move out of the Forgotten Realms, You might look into Eberron. The new Rising From the Last War book is about a society trying to rebuild and recover from disaster, so there’s a lot of hope and magical technology to play with.
But if you’re up for home brewing an Indiana Jones style adventure, Chult in the south of Forgotten Realms, would certainly give you the setting. Lots of dinosaurs and jungle monsters native to that area. Whether you buy any ToA to supplement planning such a run is your call. Maybe just buy the monsters on DnDB for their statblocks.
I’m pretty sure I just bought what I thought I needed from the DMG. I may have gone back and just got the whole thing when they had a good coupon for sourcebooks, but I don’t remember. I know I’ve had no qualms with buying sourcebooks in useful chunks. They deduct the amount you’ve already spent on stuff from the books from the price of just buying it outright, so at a point you may as well just buy the book, but there’s room to work before that.
I had no experience with any edition prior to 5e, so I don’t know about conversion. I do know Tales from the Yawning Portal is supposed to be a collection of 1 or 2e adventures reworked for 5e, and they’re putting out more and more of those. My LGS has some beautiful hardcover books that are just that.
Reaction spells: Yes, they trigger usually when you would take damage. Shield doesn’t just trigger by magic missile, though. It can trigger whenever you would be hit by an attack roll. In game it sounds like “Does 15 hit your AC?” “Yes, but I’m using my reaction to cast Shield, so with the +5, my AC is now 17, so that won’t hit anymore.” It’s a hard spell to justify from an in character perspective. How does that work? Does the spell rewind time the instant your nerves sense pain and throw up a shield of force so that the blow doesn’t land in this new timeline? But as a player, it’s a fun mechanic to be able to burn a spell slot to prevent taking damage.
They don’t HAVE to go off because a trigger occurs, but that’s the only time they can go off.
Tales of the Yawning Portal have a good "mix" of adventures as does Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Both of which can be put into any world really. Storm King Giants is basically Against the Giants updated and reskinned. PoA is updated/reskinned ToEE.
DM Guild has quite a few good conversions, of course, you will be converting to 5e AND adjusting for party size, which is probably easier to do on your own. For self converting though, you will find the DMG helpful in encounter/monster adjustments. Or you can check out Angry's method of Monster/Encounter creation/reskinning/adjustment.
There is a 3rd party update/expansion called Into the Borderlands, which you may find "familiar" as well as update/expansion of Isle of Dread which would get you your Indy/Doom/Kong/Jurassic Park feel. Both are "set" in Greyhawk, but easily transferred anywhere (especially X1).
Reaction spells require a "trigger" for the user to activate. So Shield would have to be declared to be used as a Reaction to gain the benefit. And as DM, I generally let the player know if it would help or not, and I don't need them wasting spells in order to make something challenging.
Converting takes some work and knowledge/experience with 5e. The relative strength of monsters has changed between editions.
As an example, just for a test encounter to show my daughter how the game works shortly after I had picked up the 5e books, I had two first level characters encounter ONE orc. The single orc knocked one unconscious and almost TPKed the party of two. The orc has 15 hit points and a single attack that does d12+3 damage. However, most characters at first level will have 8 to 12 hit points meaning an orc can one shot them. For a party of two this was a deadly encounter at that level. In comparison, a goblin has 7 hit points and an attack doing d6+2 damage.
Anyway, you would probably be better off taking a look on DMs Guild to see if what you want converted is already available.
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The other comment I would make would be to play 5e RAW for quite a while before deciding that changes are needed.
- Class balance varies a bit but is generally good (better than earlier editions) ... but some DMs who run into a moon druid at level 2-4 suddenly think they are OP and start nerfing. They can be a bit more powerful but it isn't huge and even's out by level 5+ typically.
- Other things like rogue sneak attack and paladin smiting can result in extreme spike damage on a critical but that is actually part of the fun.
- Try not to build encounters that rely on a single creature alone.
- Don't be afraid of leveling up. In previous editions, class balance and fun tended to degrade somewhat towards the higher levels just due to power creep. The game still has some of that towards level 17-20 but even then it is much more manageable than previous editions and the 5e concept of bounded accuracy means that a horde of level 1s can defeat a level 20. They aren't invincible or god-like (though they are more powerful). Players can get a lot of enjoyment from character advancement so having a plot that moves along and allows the characters to level up can be fun for both the player and the DM.
I barely open the DMG except for the magic items. There's a lot of good information if you are homebrewing a world or adventure, and need help with it, but if you're using published campaigns, or if you've homebrewed those things a few times, you won't really need them. There's some interesting alternate rules, which can help if you want to make the campaign gritter, or want more simulationist combat options. There's ideas for how to manage players, as opposed to characters, and mesh different playstyles, but it seems that won't be as much of an issue in your case. Probably you can get away with not having the whole DMG.
First off, welcome back!!
The DMG can be useful (especially for magic items) but honestly I have always (since 2e) found it to be the least useful of the 3 core books. I purchased it in full for the ability to look up those more obscure rules, but mostly I just use the magic items. There are a few “NPC ONLY” subclasses in there as well that you might want for villains. I would personally recommend getting Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, and Volo’s Guide to Monsters. They are all very useful over and over for both DM and players.
The only modules that I use are my old old ones from 2e. They do take a little work to convert, but not that much work. A White is a Wight, a 6th level Cleric is a 6th level Cleric, I mostly just use/make 5e versions of the baddies and leave most everything else the same. I have not had a problem to date.
Reaction Spells. No, they don’t automatically happen, the player still must choose to cast the spell, but they use their 1 reaction/turn to cast those spells instead of using an Action or a Bonus Action is all. (If you are familiar with old school M:tG they work like Interrupts.)
Have fun and welcome to 5e!!
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Thanks Guys,
Really appreciate the help here.
The latest session yesterday involved the players taking on the Manticore from Umbrage hill and owing to my daughters love of animals, her Ranger decided that she'd rather talk to him than fight him, as he appeared weakened and malnourished (IE: beaten up and all after being kicked out of home and all). She asked the right questions, and after a conversation with her other party member (her real mum) - the party bard gave her inspiration, so here they offered to get fresh meat for the Manticore to stop it bothering the Midwife. To do this I used the Rangers Animal Handling skills, plus the bardic inspiration, and of course had the party go back to Phandelan for meat.
Once returned they gave the Manticore the meat who in turn promised not to attack the midwife again, however my daughter had realised that the problem wouldn't go away from the earlier conversations she had had with it. As such she spoke again to it yet again, with the end result being that if it left the town folk along, they'd arrange the town to drop of meat every day at a specific spot. More importantly they came to an arrangement where if they take on the Dragon that the Manticore would be there to also assist. I thought this was an extremely smart play and was something the Manticore would seriously consider (even given it's predatory status). Again with the bard's help, animal handling and I added a bonus for creativity the Manticore did agree to this. It even offered to protect the midwife from other predatory creatures that might be in the area.
Midwifes happy here - Ironically they were going to knock her unconscious to bring her back to town, but at the last minute realised that a note might work just as well. (go figure, save the manticore, but knock out the midwife for 25 gold... )
Back to the town and the Bard nailed the Persuasion check with the Mayor, the town then was willing to do it's part. Back to Umbrage hill, Manticores happy, midwifes even happier so gives them a potion, and a place to stay for the night before they move to Gnomeingarde.
I figured that the Manticore would happily protect the midwife as if the party/town didn't follow through, then it was close by to a tasty dinner.
This all took about 1-2 hours (real life), saved 2 lives (midwife and Manticore), benefited the town, and greatly assists the players late game.
So could I have done anything different, does animal handling skills with the Ranger make sense or would another skill have made more sense.
Cheers
Animal handling is a weird skill, really. I don’t think it was the best to use here, but maybe not too bad.
Animal handling helps you work with a domesticated animal, or tell the mood of a wild animal, or maybe do something with your mount. There’s nothing in the skill description about using it to tame a wild animal, though I get the sense a lot of DMs use it that way. (I don’t know what else someone would use, honestly)
That said, a manticore is not an animal (beast), it’s a monstrosity, and it speaks. So I would think a persuade check would maybe be more appropriate, since they are actually conversing, and not trying to intuit its mood.
I can’t imagine why a manticore would want to help fight a dragon, but with a two person party, it’s a pretty cool way to insert what will basically be a (much needed) DMPC.
Also, it’s lawful evil, so while you can expect it to keep its word, you can also expect it to look for an out of it gets a chance. For example, if someone shows up late with the meat delivery one day, the thing will now be pretty well fed and ready to rampage.
Now that’s how you mutha’ flippin’ D&mutha’flippin’D!!! Well done. I hope you awarded extra experience.
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Thanks for the feedback Xalthu
I'll def have to remember animal handling is meant to be more for domesticated than wild.
As an fyi, I had the Manticore fairly weak so if it had to decide between free food or having to fight, it was going to be smart enough to take the easy way out. Totally agree with the out for him. This was why even though it said it would protect the mid-wife, it's still more than capable of having a parting snack if the town stops feeding it.
In regards to the Dragon, the Manti briefly mentioned to the party what had occurred which was that the Dragon killed it's mate, when he was forced to flee. This was when they came up with the idea of helping him get his roost back, when they eventually drive the dragon away. Yep Manti's wouldn't normally take on a Dragon, and isn't likely to fight to the death but a few rounds of distraction could well be the difference for making the final encounter an epic fight for the team.
My biggest concern now is my daughter wants to keep it as a pet for her Ranger! lol
Thanks IamSposta,
Sure did, yeah i made sure they had more than enough to get to 3rd level as it was really cool how they came up with something so creative.
That’s a great run of that quest! I’ve run that quest a few times and always hope for the negotiation with the manticore to happen, but they never think to talk to the monster. The guide for this adventure even specifies that the manticore could be bough off the attack with an alternate source of food. And I love that they talked the town into “adopting” the manticore with food to protect their healing potion source. That the manticore has collateral in paw if the town ever quits holding up their end is right on brand, too!