My daughters (9-10) have shown interest in D&D so I picked up TLMoP. Last night we played session two and they decided to go to Wyvren Tor and slay the Orcs and Ogre for the Townmaster.
Since it’s a party of 2 and they are inexperienced I placed their first encounter inside the cave as the Orc Leader, they defeated him with only taking minor damage which made the other Orcs leave.
my issue with this dungeon at such an early level was the Orge’s 54? HP.
Here is where my question lies, in order to make the fight more their level for 2 party at level 2 I removed the Orges Ability Modifer on his attack rolls, does this seem to fit? If you have other suggestions I’m all ears.. I’m fairly new to DM’ing and will take all the advice I can get.
Even with removing the ability modifiers both PCs ended up dying (at separate times) but very surprisingly but hit d20s on their first death saving rolls and got back in the fight.
The fight ended up taking 30 min or real time to finish him off and I could tell they were feeling defeated..
what tips do you have that would of made that a more enjoyable experience?
Something that bears repeating in regards to *most* published adventures. Somewhere in the intro, the publisher will likely drop in something like this:
Running the Adventure- Lost Mine of Phandelver is an adventure for four to five characters of 1st level.
This gives the DM (you) the opportunity beforehand to set expectations for the party and an indication of what might be over/under power for your party. It might also be a good metric for you to suggest things to add to the party, like Sidekicks / (Official Rules from TCoE) and Animal Companions / (Ranger's Companion from Beastmaster Ranger), or (and I understand this is maybe a bridge too far for your group) adding a 2nd PC to each player to round out the PC requirements to match adventure difficulty.
There are some other tactics for altering encouner difficulty on the fly by SlyFlourish - Dials of Monster Difficulty, which you intuitively used without knowing them.
Someone will inevitably suggest that you add an NPC or two to the party to help them out. I do not advocate for the DM allowing themself to be that close to party decison making processes. However, in the case of your party demographic, this might be the exemption to the rule that I could see making some space for. I would advise using caution in this, so that the players be the sole advocate for their party decisions, and the DM only be allowed to give information or viewpoint guidance based on what a PC might know that the player does not.
“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
I've played TLMoP with my kids (youngest was 7). Just make two extra characters, and run them. I ran a tank and a cleric, they had the 'fun' characters (Druid and Rogue). If things are going well, offer to let them take over a second character.
Playing with young children is very different than playing with a normal group. By running a tank and a cleric you can reduce the risk of them dying or feeling defeated.
Trying to change the CR of all encounters to balance at two players is very hard, and very time consuming.
Simply, your NPC then becomes a Sidekick. DM's control NPCs.
The Dungeon Master <snip>... The DM also plays the part of all the other characters the players meet [aka. NPC] in the course of their adventures, like the prisoner in the goblin lair or the innkeeper in town. ...<snip> [emphasis mine]
Again, the DM still retains the ability to inject information that a PC would know that a Player does not. If the player does not understand a topic, or is missing/wasn't provided the information, the DM can remind a player that their PC (or in this case, Sidekick) might know this because of a background trait or experience that the player hasn't been exposed to first-hand in-game.
You know your party farbetter than anyone here will. If you think that adding a Sidekick to each player would distract from a fun experience, I absolutely deferr to your judgement. I might suggest that you talk this over with your party members and glean their opinion on what the preferred method would be.
“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
I've played TLMoP with 3 PCs before, but I find that at least my group loved to "adopt" NPCs they think are cute and keep them around as allies. I believe at one point there was a captured goblin that the bugbears were bullying and my players immediately wanted to save him and keep him as a pet. My advice would be to drop around friendly NPCs like a level 2 tabaxi or maybe a halfling, make them seem nonthreatening and try to establish an alliance between your party and the NPCs. Hope this helps!
What if I control the NPC outside of combat but have a PC use him in combat?
I think that's a great compromise to make sure the party is more balanced for the combat encounters in the adventure, while making the game more fun for your daughters than if you just took up two extra turns every round yourself.
LMoP was the first 5E adventure I DM'd also for 2 players we had a great time I found Slyflourish's articles super useful, here's a link to one on monster difficulty which you might find particularly relevant -> dials_of_monster_difficulty
When I ran it I had two NPC's join the players with hindsight I'd say just one NPC which the players can run in combat would have been ample... it also gave me a chance to prompt some in party role play with the players which I felt was kind of useful and definitely fun
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Have a caravan go through town that has animals for sale. let the girls buy a couple of "pets" like a mastiff, panther, etc. Let them control their pets. That way they won't get bored if you control a couple NPC's
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Howdy all,
My daughters (9-10) have shown interest in D&D so I picked up TLMoP. Last night we played session two and they decided to go to Wyvren Tor and slay the Orcs and Ogre for the Townmaster.
Since it’s a party of 2 and they are inexperienced I placed their first encounter inside the cave as the Orc Leader, they defeated him with only taking minor damage which made the other Orcs leave.
my issue with this dungeon at such an early level was the Orge’s 54? HP.
Here is where my question lies, in order to make the fight more their level for 2 party at level 2 I removed the Orges Ability Modifer on his attack rolls, does this seem to fit? If you have other suggestions I’m all ears.. I’m fairly new to DM’ing and will take all the advice I can get.
Even with removing the ability modifiers both PCs ended up dying (at separate times) but very surprisingly but hit d20s on their first death saving rolls and got back in the fight.
The fight ended up taking 30 min or real time to finish him off and I could tell they were feeling defeated..
what tips do you have that would of made that a more enjoyable experience?
Something that bears repeating in regards to *most* published adventures. Somewhere in the intro, the publisher will likely drop in something like this:
This gives the DM (you) the opportunity beforehand to set expectations for the party and an indication of what might be over/under power for your party. It might also be a good metric for you to suggest things to add to the party, like Sidekicks / (Official Rules from TCoE) and Animal Companions / (Ranger's Companion from Beastmaster Ranger), or (and I understand this is maybe a bridge too far for your group) adding a 2nd PC to each player to round out the PC requirements to match adventure difficulty.
There are some other tactics for altering encouner difficulty on the fly by SlyFlourish - Dials of Monster Difficulty, which you intuitively used without knowing them.
Someone will inevitably suggest that you add an NPC or two to the party to help them out. I do not advocate for the DM allowing themself to be that close to party decison making processes. However, in the case of your party demographic, this might be the exemption to the rule that I could see making some space for. I would advise using caution in this, so that the players be the sole advocate for their party decisions, and the DM only be allowed to give information or viewpoint guidance based on what a PC might know that the player does not.
“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
What if I control the NPC outside of combat but have a PC use him in combat?
I've played TLMoP with my kids (youngest was 7). Just make two extra characters, and run them. I ran a tank and a cleric, they had the 'fun' characters (Druid and Rogue). If things are going well, offer to let them take over a second character.
Playing with young children is very different than playing with a normal group. By running a tank and a cleric you can reduce the risk of them dying or feeling defeated.
Trying to change the CR of all encounters to balance at two players is very hard, and very time consuming.
Simply, your NPC then becomes a Sidekick. DM's control NPCs.
Again, the DM still retains the ability to inject information that a PC would know that a Player does not. If the player does not understand a topic, or is missing/wasn't provided the information, the DM can remind a player that their PC (or in this case, Sidekick) might know this because of a background trait or experience that the player hasn't been exposed to first-hand in-game.
You know your party far better than anyone here will. If you think that adding a Sidekick to each player would distract from a fun experience, I absolutely deferr to your judgement. I might suggest that you talk this over with your party members and glean their opinion on what the preferred method would be.
“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
I've played TLMoP with 3 PCs before, but I find that at least my group loved to "adopt" NPCs they think are cute and keep them around as allies. I believe at one point there was a captured goblin that the bugbears were bullying and my players immediately wanted to save him and keep him as a pet. My advice would be to drop around friendly NPCs like a level 2 tabaxi or maybe a halfling, make them seem nonthreatening and try to establish an alliance between your party and the NPCs. Hope this helps!
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I think that's a great compromise to make sure the party is more balanced for the combat encounters in the adventure, while making the game more fun for your daughters than if you just took up two extra turns every round yourself.
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LMoP was the first 5E adventure I DM'd also for 2 players we had a great time
I found Slyflourish's articles super useful, here's a link to one on monster difficulty which you might find particularly relevant -> dials_of_monster_difficulty
When I ran it I had two NPC's join the players with hindsight I'd say just one NPC which the players can run in combat would have been ample... it also gave me a chance to prompt some in party role play with the players which I felt was kind of useful and definitely fun
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Have a caravan go through town that has animals for sale. let the girls buy a couple of "pets" like a mastiff, panther, etc. Let them control their pets. That way they won't get bored if you control a couple NPC's