I'm currently planing the first encounter for my players in the new campaing that they are joining. The party is composed by 5 characters of 5th level which two of those already know each other from the last campaing we played and the other three are just newbies to the group (not to the game).
So, planing the homebrewed cenario and the theme that we choose to this campaing, I decided that they will met each other kidnapped by a band of savage creatures that plan to take them to a tlincalli nest where those can hunt them dawn and feed from them so the tlincalli don't need to hunt outside that region and become a threat to that savage kidnappers territory.
In that way I can forgo the old-classic tavern meeting and make them joying each others company by solving that common chalange: freed from captivity (also old and classic, but functional as well). They're all chained and without any of its equipment, that where taken from the band and keeped as spoils. They've travelled a lot through the desert and now rest in a camp inside a natural cave, where the players may be able to freed from the chains and search for its equipments before leaving. Of course they probably won't be able to do it as stealth as they might think and will find them selves naked fighting some of those creatures fully armed, but I don't wish to it become a major threat to their lives as long its just theire meeting and genesis of a long (maybe not for all of them) journey as a party.
So, here is my problem setting this situation and where I need for tips from you fellow DMs:
How can I calculate the proper CR for that first encounter, turning it into a medium difficulty or so, provided that the party has no access to theire gear?
I'm not quite sure but I'm planning to those creatures to be a medium band of gnolls (CR 1/2), and some gnolls flash gnawer (CR 1). Any nasty creature not much sozializable that would be just a boring foe if they wheren't taken surprised and captured in chains out of gear.
Using the Encounter Builder here in D&D Beyond a encounter with 3xCR1/2 + 2xCR1 creatures would be easy to the group, but considering that they have just some spells to use (those that require just S and V components), theire fists and maybe some improvised weapon (and there is no monk in the party) and maybe I'll say that the circunstancies gave them 1 level of exaustion or more (travalling through desert, chained and mistreated), how much it would influence that difficulty? It would become a medium, hard or a deadly encounter?
I have googled it but have no lucky on that. So, if anyone have tryied it before or know some table or guide for that situation, it would be very helpfull for me to not accidentally make an unfair TPK in the first session lol.
Rather than attempt to calculate the appropriate encounter CR, you can save yourself some trouble by making the encounter dynamically scalable.
Start with something you know they can handle, and give yourself opportunities to bump up the difficulty proportionately. For example, there might be a "medium band of Gnolls" in the area, but they might not all travel joined at the hip. If 2 or 3 of them wander into your party, then they can call out for help, if they get dispatched too easily, or more may simply wander in at their own pace. If the party starts to struggle, then those "extra" Gnolls are out doing patrols and aren't aware of the party until it's convenient.
Once a couple of humanoid monsters are defeated, that will free up some weapons and resources for the party.
What I thinking is to gave them the opportunity to freed from chains when no one is around, than search from the spoils amount to recover its equip, where they first might to fight or outwit a small group patrolling around. Than once again equiped, they must try to scape, facing bigger groups.
So I think maybe it's scaling well as you suggest, but to be fair I'm not quite sure if I know what they can handle without theire gear to that first pack of gnolls. Maybe its just insecurity in make it too boring or too agressive, but what I was wondering is if there is a way that I could evaluate how mush the absense of gear would affect the party.
Well, I think the better way may be simulate manually the damage from each side per round in case that they struggle and skills checks in case they play more creatively.
Unless you've given the party a lot of magic items, the impact of gear on combat is going to depend heavily on the party composition:
Casters are still going to have their magic. At 5th level, their cantrips are going to do ~2d8 every round.
Non-casters are going to struggle more, especially those that rely on armor for their AC. However, since they get to add Dex/Str to their attacks, they will be retaining the bulk of their damage. [Unarmed: 1+4 (5) versus Improvised 1d4+4 (6.5) versus Standard 1d6+4 (7.5)]
Rogues will struggle due to lack of Sneak Attack. Druids simply won't care, due to Wildshape. etc...
The party will be taking a lot more hits, but should be able to deal a similar amount of damage with sticks, stones, etc. (Characters generally aren't proficient with improvise weapons, so their Unarmed versus Improvised damage may end up being comparable.)
1 point of exhaustion only grants disadvantage on ability checks, so as long as the party isn't also struggling with extreme terrain, it shouldn't have any impact on difficulty.
You can give the party some help by ensuring that they have plenty of cover (+2 AC for half cover, +4 for 3/4 cover). Gnolls only have an INT 6, so they won't be as clever with their environment as the players can be.
It’s going to depend a bit on party composition. Monks will absolutely shine. Casters will have their spells, but not their components. Maybe you let the cleric fashion a holy symbol focus out of some scrap. Rogues will be sneaky, and have all their skills, but won’t get sneak attack damage, and won’t have their thief’s tools. Paladins will still have their auras, but will need a weapon to be able to smite. Losing equipment will effect different classes differently, so that’s a big factor.
If you have it out of the abyss starts off with the players in a prison cell with none of their equipment.
Having run it make sure your players know that is how the adventure is starting, your magic users in particular will start out pretty much powerless with no focus or spell components. I told my players for out of the abyss, you will be starting with none of your equipment and in a prison cell.
The way I handle situations like this for my group is to give them one easy creature as their first encounter and make changes based on how they deal with that one creature. If they fight, see how they are taking hits, dealing damage, etc. If they try to sneak, see how well that goes. And future encounters based off the data you collected. If one encounter doesn't give you a good idea of what they'll do and how well, throw another at them until you're able to feel it out.
I personally love scenes like this, as do my players. We always have a lot of fun figuring out how our characters can survive without their purchased power.
They started inside a prison cell all together in manacles tied one with another in a long chain. The wizard freed her self with mist step than managed to find some metal scrap to pick the other manacles. She blow up the improvised door (a pile of wood scrap stucked together) with burning hands and they start the first encounter against 2 gnolls. They killed it easelly, take the 2 spears and follow the track to the spoils room, were cought by 3 more gnolls and 2 gremishkas and thats when the fun starts. After they killed all of them, they just take the stuff and run out of the cave without bothering with the rest of the gnolls.
The session give me a lot of tips about their playing style. I've planned a lot of alternatives considering skills and possible smart ideas but they just rush it as barbaric as they can. They try to go steathly but they didn't pay much attention to clues and descriptions about the surroundings. Also, they didn't care much to use improvised weapons, to disarm their foes, neither to search from cover and just spend a lot of spells slots desperate to reach they're equipement.
Although, they did great. The cleric almost goes unconscious in the front line taking 3 or 4 attacks per round, and the magic allergy from gremishkas terrified them, but with all the magical damage they caused (a cleric, a warlock, a wizard and a ranger with cantrips and the lot of spells that don't need materials) it was a pretty easy task and the major threat was the low AC (just a few hits more than the usually taken).
Such encounter will definitly not be easy but rather medium or hard even, considering that they have poor armor class, attack and damage capacity. i'd evaluate the spells they can cast carefully and if they cannot perform well, then if i were you, i would remove 1 gnoll flesh gnawer, the goal here to let them have a tough encounter but not too deadly, and be able to also acquire some armors and weapons (3 studded leather armor, 1 hide armor, 1 shield, 3 spears, 1 short sword and 1 longbow) so they can be a little better equipped in the next encounter....
They started inside a prison cell all together in manacles tied one with another in a long chain. The wizard freed her self with mist step than managed to find some metal scrap to pick the other manacles. She blow up the improvised door (a pile of wood scrap stucked together) with burning hands and they start the first encounter against 2 gnolls. They killed it easelly, take the 2 spears and follow the track to the spoils room, were cought by 3 more gnolls and 2 gremishkas and thats when the fun starts. After they killed all of them, they just take the stuff and run out of the cave without bothering with the rest of the gnolls.
The session give me a lot of tips about their playing style. I've planned a lot of alternatives considering skills and possible smart ideas but they just rush it as barbaric as they can. They try to go steathly but they didn't pay much attention to clues and descriptions about the surroundings. Also, they didn't care much to use improvised weapons, to disarm their foes, neither to search from cover and just spend a lot of spells slots desperate to reach they're equipement.
Although, they did great. The cleric almost goes unconscious in the front line taking 3 or 4 attacks per round, and the magic allergy from gremishkas terrified them, but with all the magical damage they caused (a cleric, a warlock, a wizard and a ranger with cantrips and the lot of spells that don't need materials) it was a pretty easy task and the major threat was the low AC (just a few hits more than the usually taken).
Which spells did the casters have they could cast without a focus or components?
Well, a lot to be fair lol. I'm not gonna check all of them and list here, but those I remember between the party is guiding bolt, eldritch blast, primal savagery, chill touch, misty step, vampiric touch, burning hands, ray of enfeeblement, ray of sickeness, fog cloud, cure wounds, healing word and so on. All those that require just V/S components.
The caster was the less affected by the situation. The major problem for the casters was that the wizard didn't have mage armor prepered, but the cleric manage to rush and agro evrething to him (and almost fell from it). The one that have the hardest time was the ranger, which deny to take a spear from a gnoll because he is a pain in the ass of the party that can't do nothing without his longbow lol.
Hi everyone.
I'm currently planing the first encounter for my players in the new campaing that they are joining. The party is composed by 5 characters of 5th level which two of those already know each other from the last campaing we played and the other three are just newbies to the group (not to the game).
So, planing the homebrewed cenario and the theme that we choose to this campaing, I decided that they will met each other kidnapped by a band of savage creatures that plan to take them to a tlincalli nest where those can hunt them dawn and feed from them so the tlincalli don't need to hunt outside that region and become a threat to that savage kidnappers territory.
In that way I can forgo the old-classic tavern meeting and make them joying each others company by solving that common chalange: freed from captivity (also old and classic, but functional as well). They're all chained and without any of its equipment, that where taken from the band and keeped as spoils. They've travelled a lot through the desert and now rest in a camp inside a natural cave, where the players may be able to freed from the chains and search for its equipments before leaving. Of course they probably won't be able to do it as stealth as they might think and will find them selves naked fighting some of those creatures fully armed, but I don't wish to it become a major threat to their lives as long its just theire meeting and genesis of a long (maybe not for all of them) journey as a party.
So, here is my problem setting this situation and where I need for tips from you fellow DMs:
How can I calculate the proper CR for that first encounter, turning it into a medium difficulty or so, provided that the party has no access to theire gear?
I'm not quite sure but I'm planning to those creatures to be a medium band of gnolls (CR 1/2), and some gnolls flash gnawer (CR 1). Any nasty creature not much sozializable that would be just a boring foe if they wheren't taken surprised and captured in chains out of gear.
Using the Encounter Builder here in D&D Beyond a encounter with 3xCR1/2 + 2xCR1 creatures would be easy to the group, but considering that they have just some spells to use (those that require just S and V components), theire fists and maybe some improvised weapon (and there is no monk in the party) and maybe I'll say that the circunstancies gave them 1 level of exaustion or more (travalling through desert, chained and mistreated), how much it would influence that difficulty? It would become a medium, hard or a deadly encounter?
I have googled it but have no lucky on that. So, if anyone have tryied it before or know some table or guide for that situation, it would be very helpfull for me to not accidentally make an unfair TPK in the first session lol.
Rather than attempt to calculate the appropriate encounter CR, you can save yourself some trouble by making the encounter dynamically scalable.
Start with something you know they can handle, and give yourself opportunities to bump up the difficulty proportionately. For example, there might be a "medium band of Gnolls" in the area, but they might not all travel joined at the hip. If 2 or 3 of them wander into your party, then they can call out for help, if they get dispatched too easily, or more may simply wander in at their own pace. If the party starts to struggle, then those "extra" Gnolls are out doing patrols and aren't aware of the party until it's convenient.
Once a couple of humanoid monsters are defeated, that will free up some weapons and resources for the party.
Thanks mate!
What I thinking is to gave them the opportunity to freed from chains when no one is around, than search from the spoils amount to recover its equip, where they first might to fight or outwit a small group patrolling around. Than once again equiped, they must try to scape, facing bigger groups.
So I think maybe it's scaling well as you suggest, but to be fair I'm not quite sure if I know what they can handle without theire gear to that first pack of gnolls. Maybe its just insecurity in make it too boring or too agressive, but what I was wondering is if there is a way that I could evaluate how mush the absense of gear would affect the party.
Well, I think the better way may be simulate manually the damage from each side per round in case that they struggle and skills checks in case they play more creatively.
Thank you again, really appreciate!
Unless you've given the party a lot of magic items, the impact of gear on combat is going to depend heavily on the party composition:
Casters are still going to have their magic. At 5th level, their cantrips are going to do ~2d8 every round.
Non-casters are going to struggle more, especially those that rely on armor for their AC. However, since they get to add Dex/Str to their attacks, they will be retaining the bulk of their damage. [Unarmed: 1+4 (5) versus Improvised 1d4+4 (6.5) versus Standard 1d6+4 (7.5)]
Rogues will struggle due to lack of Sneak Attack. Druids simply won't care, due to Wildshape. etc...
The party will be taking a lot more hits, but should be able to deal a similar amount of damage with sticks, stones, etc. (Characters generally aren't proficient with improvise weapons, so their Unarmed versus Improvised damage may end up being comparable.)
1 point of exhaustion only grants disadvantage on ability checks, so as long as the party isn't also struggling with extreme terrain, it shouldn't have any impact on difficulty.
You can give the party some help by ensuring that they have plenty of cover (+2 AC for half cover, +4 for 3/4 cover). Gnolls only have an INT 6, so they won't be as clever with their environment as the players can be.
It’s going to depend a bit on party composition. Monks will absolutely shine. Casters will have their spells, but not their components. Maybe you let the cleric fashion a holy symbol focus out of some scrap. Rogues will be sneaky, and have all their skills, but won’t get sneak attack damage, and won’t have their thief’s tools. Paladins will still have their auras, but will need a weapon to be able to smite.
Losing equipment will effect different classes differently, so that’s a big factor.
If you have it out of the abyss starts off with the players in a prison cell with none of their equipment.
Having run it make sure your players know that is how the adventure is starting, your magic users in particular will start out pretty much powerless with no focus or spell components. I told my players for out of the abyss, you will be starting with none of your equipment and in a prison cell.
The way I handle situations like this for my group is to give them one easy creature as their first encounter and make changes based on how they deal with that one creature. If they fight, see how they are taking hits, dealing damage, etc. If they try to sneak, see how well that goes. And future encounters based off the data you collected. If one encounter doesn't give you a good idea of what they'll do and how well, throw another at them until you're able to feel it out.
I personally love scenes like this, as do my players. We always have a lot of fun figuring out how our characters can survive without their purchased power.
Good Luck!
Well, I did it and it works pretty well.
They started inside a prison cell all together in manacles tied one with another in a long chain. The wizard freed her self with mist step than managed to find some metal scrap to pick the other manacles. She blow up the improvised door (a pile of wood scrap stucked together) with burning hands and they start the first encounter against 2 gnolls. They killed it easelly, take the 2 spears and follow the track to the spoils room, were cought by 3 more gnolls and 2 gremishkas and thats when the fun starts. After they killed all of them, they just take the stuff and run out of the cave without bothering with the rest of the gnolls.
The session give me a lot of tips about their playing style. I've planned a lot of alternatives considering skills and possible smart ideas but they just rush it as barbaric as they can. They try to go steathly but they didn't pay much attention to clues and descriptions about the surroundings. Also, they didn't care much to use improvised weapons, to disarm their foes, neither to search from cover and just spend a lot of spells slots desperate to reach they're equipement.
Although, they did great. The cleric almost goes unconscious in the front line taking 3 or 4 attacks per round, and the magic allergy from gremishkas terrified them, but with all the magical damage they caused (a cleric, a warlock, a wizard and a ranger with cantrips and the lot of spells that don't need materials) it was a pretty easy task and the major threat was the low AC (just a few hits more than the usually taken).
Casters won't be able to do anything that requires material components, unless the component is on the floor.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Such encounter will definitly not be easy but rather medium or hard even, considering that they have poor armor class, attack and damage capacity. i'd evaluate the spells they can cast carefully and if they cannot perform well, then if i were you, i would remove 1 gnoll flesh gnawer, the goal here to let them have a tough encounter but not too deadly, and be able to also acquire some armors and weapons (3 studded leather armor, 1 hide armor, 1 shield, 3 spears, 1 short sword and 1 longbow) so they can be a little better equipped in the next encounter....
Which spells did the casters have they could cast without a focus or components?
Well, a lot to be fair lol. I'm not gonna check all of them and list here, but those I remember between the party is guiding bolt, eldritch blast, primal savagery, chill touch, misty step, vampiric touch, burning hands, ray of enfeeblement, ray of sickeness, fog cloud, cure wounds, healing word and so on. All those that require just V/S components.
The caster was the less affected by the situation. The major problem for the casters was that the wizard didn't have mage armor prepered, but the cleric manage to rush and agro evrething to him (and almost fell from it). The one that have the hardest time was the ranger, which deny to take a spear from a gnoll because he is a pain in the ass of the party that can't do nothing without his longbow lol.