Hey! I am rather new to DnD and tried out the Dragon of Iceapire Peak adventure with some friends (me as the DM). I don't understand if I'm doing something wrong.
At the beginning they get 3 possible quests they can accept, in one they have to fight off a Manticore and in another two (and later more) "Ockergallerte". They start with level 1 and the "Ockergallerte" has challenger grade 2. They just died. At the next session they took the quest with the Manticore (challenger grade 3) which can kill each of them with basically two attacks and in each round he attacks 3 times. I mean wtf? I had to make him far weaker to make it somehow possible for them. They have each around 13 HP and the Manticore deals on average 6-7 damage per hit and has 68 HP and is super fast.
Am I doing something wrong? Is it wanted that the adventures just all die on the first quest? I can adjust it somehow but I don't understand why it is so unbalanced hard directly on the beginning.
“No encounter has a predetermined outcome. For example, characters who explore Umbrage Hill are likely to encounter a manticore. Although fighting the monster is always an option, characters might decide to negotiate with the manticore instead. Be flexible, particularly when dealing with intelligent monsters.”
Not every problem can be killed, some need diplomacy, others require bribery, some need downright sneakery ala Bilbo Bagins v Gollum. If your players only tactic is “Charge”, expect them to die. A lot.
As a new DM, be ready to adjust the encounters to the capabilities of the group. The hardest part of this adventure is the start. Level one characters die easily. One idea with the manticore is to have it start damaged like it's already been in a fight that day (wings damaged, tail spikes used, etc.). Also, find a way to let the players know it can talk. Have it conversing when they first arrive or address them when they get close enough. The manticore also doesn't need to fight to the death. You can have it flee after it takes a certain amount of damage (and maybe come back later). Remind the party that they can hire sidekicks if they need some extra help and that they can disengage and run if things get dire.
Conflict resolution has many different forms. Remind your party to look to their toolbox for a different tool from time to time. The outcome of all combat is death. If not for the opponent, then for the party. Diplomacy can allow the conflict to be resolved without someone making Death Saves.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
May i just piggyback on this thread and ask a somewhat relevant question?
You may have noticed my other thread asking about reviving PC whilst running this book as my players, at least in their first session, should have been dead quite a few times over. In regards to this, ive taken onboard the advice and just let them get on with being a lemming until they understand not to fight every living thing in existance the second they see it. However, i also don't want them to try things that they don't know are an immediate death sentence due to their lack of knowledge about the game itself (they are all new).
Would it be fitting to actually show the players before the start of combat, or at least after initiative, the stats of the beat they encounter? My idea is that they've never heard of a manticore before in the context of DnD, but after seeing its HP and capable damage rolls may think twice about taking it on. It seems very metagamey to me however, and id like to avoid metagmey as much as possible. Maybe theres another way to do a similar thing thats more inline with how the game would work?
Hey! I am rather new to DnD and tried out the Dragon of Iceapire Peak adventure with some friends (me as the DM). I don't understand if I'm doing something wrong.
At the beginning they get 3 possible quests they can accept, in one they have to fight off a Manticore and in another two (and later more) "Ockergallerte". They start with level 1 and the "Ockergallerte" has challenger grade 2. They just died. At the next session they took the quest with the Manticore (challenger grade 3) which can kill each of them with basically two attacks and in each round he attacks 3 times. I mean wtf? I had to make him far weaker to make it somehow possible for them. They have each around 13 HP and the Manticore deals on average 6-7 damage per hit and has 68 HP and is super fast.
Am I doing something wrong? Is it wanted that the adventures just all die on the first quest? I can adjust it somehow but I don't understand why it is so unbalanced hard directly on the beginning.
Thanks for any help!
Since time immemorial players were allowed to hire henchmen (cr 1/8 guards) and hirelings (npcs) to help them on their adventures for a share of the loot. It is how you handle fights like that. Next the manticore should only be used for a party of 6 level 2's or 4 level 3's, both of which should have henchmen or hirelings to take the hits and die at that level.
Showing them the stats breaks some of immersion and mystery. Instead of just showing them stats, descibe the monster in detail and say something like, this creature looks like it could kill one of you with a couple of strikes. You can also have them roll a nature check and give them more detailed "stats" if they roll high enough.
Would it be fitting to actually show the players before the start of combat, or at least after initiative, the stats of the beat they encounter? My idea is that they've never heard of a manticore before in the context of DnD, but after seeing its HP and capable damage rolls may think twice about taking it on. It seems very metagamey to me however, and id like to avoid metagmey as much as possible. Maybe theres another way to do a similar thing thats more inline with how the game would work?
No, definitely don't show them the stats.
You can have NPCs strongly warn them that they can't handle certain creatures. But level 1 PCs are pretty squishy, and level 1 is the highest casualty point in the game as the PCs don't have the many resources to counteract getting downed that higher level characters have, let alone Revivify and better.
You can have them make Nature or History checks and tell those that succeed something like "You've heard of manticores before. They're said to be very dangerous in combat, and you feel that it could be very dangerous to attack one. You also remember a story about a manticore playing a game of riddles with a halfling."
What about the prospect of getting them to roll their own damage rolls? The campaign will be fully digital on the next session and i had to do a lot of fudging to keep them alive last time. Im hoping to strike a bit of fear into them. Theyre all new players, and while i did try and warn them a lot in the first session, a couple of them are still in the "im going to pretend to listen to what you said, and then yolo anyway". Coincidentally these are my murder-hobo players so i think numbers would be a bigger message than dialogue (at least for now)
Thank you very much - all of you! I learned quite a lot by your answers :)
I think I didn't show clearly that they could talk and didn't know it makes sense to just let the monster fly away at some point or something like that!
I really have to use the freedom I got as a DM more. Again, thanks for the many helpful replies!
May i just piggyback on this thread and ask a somewhat relevant question?
You may have noticed my other thread asking about reviving PC whilst running this book as my players, at least in their first session, should have been dead quite a few times over. In regards to this, ive taken onboard the advice and just let them get on with being a lemming until they understand not to fight every living thing in existance the second they see it. However, i also don't want them to try things that they don't know are an immediate death sentence due to their lack of knowledge about the game itself (they are all new).
Would it be fitting to actually show the players before the start of combat, or at least after initiative, the stats of the beat they encounter? My idea is that they've never heard of a manticore before in the context of DnD, but after seeing its HP and capable damage rolls may think twice about taking it on. It seems very metagamey to me however, and id like to avoid metagmey as much as possible. Maybe theres another way to do a similar thing thats more inline with how the game would work?
You also need to distinguish player knowledge from character knowledge. Just because a player is unfamiliar with the game and doesn't know much about the game world - doesn't mean that their characters are also ignorant.
One or more of the characters may have heard of these scary half-lion flying creatures that can rip people apart with one or two swipes of their claws. This would be especially true in an area where Manticores have been taking the occasional sheep or other livestock for example. Or a character might have heard of these oozes that melt the flesh from your bones but are really quite slow.
As DM, you can either use NPCs, knowledge checks or just tell the players things that their characters would know that would be useful in the current situation. They would likely not know about everything they encounter but there are a lot of creatures where they would have some basic information just from folk tales if no where else.
eg
- Basilisks can turn you to stone! Never look one in the eye.
- Manticores are flying lion creatures that have raided nearby farms and easily killed some folks who went hunting it
- Vampires are evil creatures that suck your blood, hate light (don't have to know that it is sunlight), don't like running water, might be killed by a wooden stake through the heart.
Anyway, the DM is the gatekeeper of knowledge and the characters will know more than the players depending on the situation so it is important for the DM to offer up information that the characters would be aware of ... so that they can make reasoned decisions.
P.S. I would not show the players the stat blocks - that is more information that they need especially for beginning players.
"You come around the hill and see a large cat-like creature with wings pounding on the door. Even from this distance, you can see huge claws and sharp tail spikes. The thought of fighting this beast feels like a quick trip to the grave."
Sometimes you just gotta spell it out for your players.
Good luck!
Ps. My first time playing D&D was as a DM for this quest. We ended the night with a total party kill. We talked it over and decided that the PCs would wake up at the inn after an awful nightmare where they were all killed by a flying cat.
Rather than show the stats, tell them the damage. If my players are about to fight a strong creature that I suspect they might underestimate, I arrange for a NPC to be around beforehand to die to the monster. They tend to get serious rather quikly when they hear something like "the guard/dog/etc" is hit for 40 damage and explodes in a shower of gore". It could be a victim or fighting something else.
The manticore could be fighting a guard dog, the dragon could use its breath on some merchants in the road when they next encounter it, Gorthok could blow one of Falcon's servants in one hit... It can't be used in all scenarios though. The other option us to have NPC warn them beforehand. Like a retired mercenary telling them how a banshee killed their whole company or harpies made them fall off a cliff (you could even use the same, the guy whose group is always wiped out by monsters, played for laughs as bad luck. Then you include him as a sidekick hired for the same job as the pc on difficult missions). Then another npc, a hunter, mentions that they saw x monster kill y monster the the party fought before.
Thanks for the advice on this. I was going to do just this but two of my players bailed on the session so i just did a shorter homebrew session for the remaining 3. I gave them a few traps to hit, and made sure they took a beating from both enemy and accidental friendly-fire to whip them into shape. fingers crossed it worked!
I've run most of DoIP and the follow-on trilogy with just three players. It works find. With the quests being so self contained, just run the adventure with whoever shows up. If someone misses a session, then their PC was just on a bender at the inn. If someone shows up midway through a quest, just hand wave it. "Oh, hey Bob, I didn't see you there. Have you been with us the whole time?" No big deal.
Yeah it does seem doable, but i was a bit concerned that the newer players would be skipping content early on and become seperated from the narrative. It was only their second session so i didnt want them to miss out on the early character bulding stuff, especially seeing as you gain levels from completing them. It was this i was concerned for in particular, as i wasn't sure how to handle it if the group runs another quest, gets a level up and leaves the other two behind. How would you handle this? It seems a bit "unfair" to allow them to level up as well seeing as they didnt actually do anything, and leaving them a level behind means they're gonna have to catch up in a homebrew session of some kind as they can't exactly just go do the same quest again.
Yeah it does seem doable, but i was a bit concerned that the newer players would be skipping content early on and become seperated from the narrative. It was only their second session so i didnt want them to miss out on the early character bulding stuff, especially seeing as you gain levels from completing them. It was this i was concerned for in particular, as i wasn't sure how to handle it if the group runs another quest, gets a level up and leaves the other two behind. How would you handle this? It seems a bit "unfair" to allow them to level up as well seeing as they didnt actually do anything, and leaving them a level behind means they're gonna have to catch up in a homebrew session of some kind as they can't exactly just go do the same quest again.
If you are all playing together, you could just level up the party together. If folks want to play and real life intervenes then you could just say the character was off doing their own thing for the day and their experiences allow them to level and keep up with the party. It works fine for folks who miss an occasional session due to real life issues. As long as it isn't a regular occurrence it won't break anything.
However, if I recall, DoIP has 3 or so quests in each set and you only need to do two to level. If someone misses a session you could level them up by encouraging the party to do the remaining quest (from the notice board) of the current round before starting on the next round then the character who missed a session gets to level up when the extra quest is completed while the rest wait until the party completes quests in the next tier.
There are some encounters notorious for being quite deadly in Dragon of Icespire Peak and many DMs do end up doing TPK so you aren't doing anything wrong. You can always adjust any encounter which you feel is too difficult for your party or give cue to them that the opposition could be more than they can chew.
Personally its a design that i liked, having run it multiple times with different group, i like when adventures have encounters with varying difficulty, some easy, other medium to hard and few quite deadly. Not all encounters are a fight to the death, parlay or retreat may always be a possibility. Its something i tell all my players at session 0 ☺
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Hey! I am rather new to DnD and tried out the Dragon of Iceapire Peak adventure with some friends (me as the DM). I don't understand if I'm doing something wrong.
At the beginning they get 3 possible quests they can accept, in one they have to fight off a Manticore and in another two (and later more) "Ockergallerte". They start with level 1 and the "Ockergallerte" has challenger grade 2. They just died. At the next session they took the quest with the Manticore (challenger grade 3) which can kill each of them with basically two attacks and in each round he attacks 3 times. I mean wtf? I had to make him far weaker to make it somehow possible for them. They have each around 13 HP and the Manticore deals on average 6-7 damage per hit and has 68 HP and is super fast.
Am I doing something wrong? Is it wanted that the adventures just all die on the first quest? I can adjust it somehow but I don't understand why it is so unbalanced hard directly on the beginning.
Thanks for any help!
Direct quote from the adventure book;
“No encounter has a predetermined outcome. For example, characters who explore Umbrage Hill are likely to encounter a manticore. Although fighting the monster is always an option, characters might decide to negotiate with the manticore instead. Be flexible, particularly when dealing with intelligent monsters.”
Not every problem can be killed, some need diplomacy, others require bribery, some need downright sneakery ala Bilbo Bagins v Gollum. If your players only tactic is “Charge”, expect them to die. A lot.
As a new DM, be ready to adjust the encounters to the capabilities of the group. The hardest part of this adventure is the start. Level one characters die easily. One idea with the manticore is to have it start damaged like it's already been in a fight that day (wings damaged, tail spikes used, etc.). Also, find a way to let the players know it can talk. Have it conversing when they first arrive or address them when they get close enough. The manticore also doesn't need to fight to the death. You can have it flee after it takes a certain amount of damage (and maybe come back later). Remind the party that they can hire sidekicks if they need some extra help and that they can disengage and run if things get dire.
Beardsinger nailed it in one.
Conflict resolution has many different forms. Remind your party to look to their toolbox for a different tool from time to time. The outcome of all combat is death. If not for the opponent, then for the party. Diplomacy can allow the conflict to be resolved without someone making Death Saves.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
May i just piggyback on this thread and ask a somewhat relevant question?
You may have noticed my other thread asking about reviving PC whilst running this book as my players, at least in their first session, should have been dead quite a few times over. In regards to this, ive taken onboard the advice and just let them get on with being a lemming until they understand not to fight every living thing in existance the second they see it. However, i also don't want them to try things that they don't know are an immediate death sentence due to their lack of knowledge about the game itself (they are all new).
Would it be fitting to actually show the players before the start of combat, or at least after initiative, the stats of the beat they encounter? My idea is that they've never heard of a manticore before in the context of DnD, but after seeing its HP and capable damage rolls may think twice about taking it on. It seems very metagamey to me however, and id like to avoid metagmey as much as possible. Maybe theres another way to do a similar thing thats more inline with how the game would work?
Since time immemorial players were allowed to hire henchmen (cr 1/8 guards) and hirelings (npcs) to help them on their adventures for a share of the loot. It is how you handle fights like that. Next the manticore should only be used for a party of 6 level 2's or 4 level 3's, both of which should have henchmen or hirelings to take the hits and die at that level.
Showing them the stats breaks some of immersion and mystery. Instead of just showing them stats, descibe the monster in detail and say something like, this creature looks like it could kill one of you with a couple of strikes. You can also have them roll a nature check and give them more detailed "stats" if they roll high enough.
No, definitely don't show them the stats.
You can have NPCs strongly warn them that they can't handle certain creatures. But level 1 PCs are pretty squishy, and level 1 is the highest casualty point in the game as the PCs don't have the many resources to counteract getting downed that higher level characters have, let alone Revivify and better.
You can have them make Nature or History checks and tell those that succeed something like "You've heard of manticores before. They're said to be very dangerous in combat, and you feel that it could be very dangerous to attack one. You also remember a story about a manticore playing a game of riddles with a halfling."
This makes sense. Thank you.
What about the prospect of getting them to roll their own damage rolls? The campaign will be fully digital on the next session and i had to do a lot of fudging to keep them alive last time. Im hoping to strike a bit of fear into them. Theyre all new players, and while i did try and warn them a lot in the first session, a couple of them are still in the "im going to pretend to listen to what you said, and then yolo anyway". Coincidentally these are my murder-hobo players so i think numbers would be a bigger message than dialogue (at least for now)
Thank you very much - all of you! I learned quite a lot by your answers :)
I think I didn't show clearly that they could talk and didn't know it makes sense to just let the monster fly away at some point or something like that!
I really have to use the freedom I got as a DM more. Again, thanks for the many helpful replies!
You also need to distinguish player knowledge from character knowledge. Just because a player is unfamiliar with the game and doesn't know much about the game world - doesn't mean that their characters are also ignorant.
One or more of the characters may have heard of these scary half-lion flying creatures that can rip people apart with one or two swipes of their claws. This would be especially true in an area where Manticores have been taking the occasional sheep or other livestock for example. Or a character might have heard of these oozes that melt the flesh from your bones but are really quite slow.
As DM, you can either use NPCs, knowledge checks or just tell the players things that their characters would know that would be useful in the current situation. They would likely not know about everything they encounter but there are a lot of creatures where they would have some basic information just from folk tales if no where else.
eg
- Basilisks can turn you to stone! Never look one in the eye.
- Manticores are flying lion creatures that have raided nearby farms and easily killed some folks who went hunting it
- Vampires are evil creatures that suck your blood, hate light (don't have to know that it is sunlight), don't like running water, might be killed by a wooden stake through the heart.
Anyway, the DM is the gatekeeper of knowledge and the characters will know more than the players depending on the situation so it is important for the DM to offer up information that the characters would be aware of ... so that they can make reasoned decisions.
P.S. I would not show the players the stat blocks - that is more information that they need especially for beginning players.
"You come around the hill and see a large cat-like creature with wings pounding on the door. Even from this distance, you can see huge claws and sharp tail spikes. The thought of fighting this beast feels like a quick trip to the grave."
Sometimes you just gotta spell it out for your players.
Good luck!
Ps. My first time playing D&D was as a DM for this quest. We ended the night with a total party kill. We talked it over and decided that the PCs would wake up at the inn after an awful nightmare where they were all killed by a flying cat.
Rather than show the stats, tell them the damage. If my players are about to fight a strong creature that I suspect they might underestimate, I arrange for a NPC to be around beforehand to die to the monster. They tend to get serious rather quikly when they hear something like "the guard/dog/etc" is hit for 40 damage and explodes in a shower of gore". It could be a victim or fighting something else.
The manticore could be fighting a guard dog, the dragon could use its breath on some merchants in the road when they next encounter it, Gorthok could blow one of Falcon's servants in one hit... It can't be used in all scenarios though. The other option us to have NPC warn them beforehand. Like a retired mercenary telling them how a banshee killed their whole company or harpies made them fall off a cliff (you could even use the same, the guy whose group is always wiped out by monsters, played for laughs as bad luck. Then you include him as a sidekick hired for the same job as the pc on difficult missions). Then another npc, a hunter, mentions that they saw x monster kill y monster the the party fought before.
Thanks for the advice on this. I was going to do just this but two of my players bailed on the session so i just did a shorter homebrew session for the remaining 3. I gave them a few traps to hit, and made sure they took a beating from both enemy and accidental friendly-fire to whip them into shape. fingers crossed it worked!
I've run most of DoIP and the follow-on trilogy with just three players. It works find. With the quests being so self contained, just run the adventure with whoever shows up. If someone misses a session, then their PC was just on a bender at the inn. If someone shows up midway through a quest, just hand wave it. "Oh, hey Bob, I didn't see you there. Have you been with us the whole time?" No big deal.
Good luck!
Yeah it does seem doable, but i was a bit concerned that the newer players would be skipping content early on and become seperated from the narrative. It was only their second session so i didnt want them to miss out on the early character bulding stuff, especially seeing as you gain levels from completing them. It was this i was concerned for in particular, as i wasn't sure how to handle it if the group runs another quest, gets a level up and leaves the other two behind. How would you handle this? It seems a bit "unfair" to allow them to level up as well seeing as they didnt actually do anything, and leaving them a level behind means they're gonna have to catch up in a homebrew session of some kind as they can't exactly just go do the same quest again.
If you are all playing together, you could just level up the party together. If folks want to play and real life intervenes then you could just say the character was off doing their own thing for the day and their experiences allow them to level and keep up with the party. It works fine for folks who miss an occasional session due to real life issues. As long as it isn't a regular occurrence it won't break anything.
However, if I recall, DoIP has 3 or so quests in each set and you only need to do two to level. If someone misses a session you could level them up by encouraging the party to do the remaining quest (from the notice board) of the current round before starting on the next round then the character who missed a session gets to level up when the extra quest is completed while the rest wait until the party completes quests in the next tier.
There are some encounters notorious for being quite deadly in Dragon of Icespire Peak and many DMs do end up doing TPK so you aren't doing anything wrong. You can always adjust any encounter which you feel is too difficult for your party or give cue to them that the opposition could be more than they can chew.
Personally its a design that i liked, having run it multiple times with different group, i like when adventures have encounters with varying difficulty, some easy, other medium to hard and few quite deadly. Not all encounters are a fight to the death, parlay or retreat may always be a possibility. Its something i tell all my players at session 0 ☺