I'm starting up a campaign and the way I plan on starting it is the party meeting each other at a Fair located in a village ( The village is important to them all in some way ). During the initial meetings I'm looking to have a combat scene where IMPS and Crawling Claws attack as the underlying story for this campaign is demonic.
Going off the encounter builder two IMPS along are going to "Deadly" and adding Crawling Claws are only making it worse.
My Plan was 2 IMPS and 5 crawling claws to make it an interesting first fight ( Two party members are completely new ) , is this too much for a first encounter at lvl 1? I was thinking of maybe adding an NPC of a little higher level to assist in the fighting but I don't want the NPC to take much/any of the glory.
Also a pretty green DM so any tips would be welcome :)
A simpler option is to just have the villains be atttacked by normal townfolk. You do not need a specifically higher level NPC, just the concept of normal every day people not being total idiots. These are not high powered monsters.
Crawling Claws have no immunity to normal weapons. Have a cook try to stab one, a local thug bash one, a guard thrust one with a spear, etc. They should probably manage to kill a single claw and take one or two of the Claw's attacks. Most likely one townsfolk will end up injured, not even dead from a mere claw.
The imps are much more powerful, with a posion attack that will likely kill a townsfolk instantly. They also have resistance to non-Silver, non-magical. But that is only half damage. A couple of towns folk should be able to at least damage one of them, and again, take a few hits away from the party. But at least one or two should die. This should be OK for story purposes, it gives the party a motive to continue together and investigate.
Just to be on the safe side have some potential silver attacks hanging around just in case the party needs some help. Anyone with a sling should be able to use a silver coin as an attack. Maybe make it -1 to hit, normal damage for a coin. A fair could have a set of silver flatware - including some nice silver kitchen knives. Rule they do 1d4 silver damage on first blow, 1d3 after the first hit (dulled), then 1d2 after the 2nd hit.
If the party fails to realize the silver is helpful, (give them a knowledge religion or Arcana check), you can always have an old timer priest yell out "SILVER WEAPONS", or something. Perhaps while he is giving first aid to townsfolk. (No spells or he would be attacking).
I agree that one way to take the deadliness down is to have a ton of random townsfolk - you can have your imps/claws attack NPCs for some rounds, especially the early rounds, and also have NPCs deal some damage to the enemies (Describe this happening, so you can effectively have some be at lower HP when your PCs hit them).
Level 1 pcs are notoriously squishy, so be prepped to have an NPC run in at any moment to heroically take a blow or distract a creature if the PCS start to go down. If some NPCs die, or the party only survives because the village priest dragged the unconscious PC out of the way to cast stabilize, it still preserves the danger.
I would also for sure make sure you have at least a couple of NPCs that have names and a snippet of backstory (It doesn't have to be more than: This is Alvin, he's run the local tavern forever and he loves dogs, or Here's Lina, she's the village herbalist and she has a limp). It gives them something to latch onto in the chaos and destruction when Alvin's beloved dog gets hurt and he runs blindly into the frey, or poor Lina gets run down because she couldn't run fast. My mistake in all my early campaigns was to think really hard about the world and the enemies, but not at all about the bystanders, which made them feel pretty empty.
So a couple of things to help out with something like this:
1. Start on level 2... but instead of using this as the "training grounds" for new players, have your players run a session 0 mini-game so to speak. Depending on how many players you have, I would encourage you to have every player thematically tied to at least 1 other player, this way you can play a 2 player session 0 along with a 3 player session 0 for a different group of players, and then by time they reach session 1, they know the basics of rolling and combat. They also have a reason to play along with each other, creating a bond that sometimes a story can't create.
2. Use a predesigned campaign's first few fights as a guide to your own and reskin them as what you want them to look like. For example, go with a group of goblins and flavor them as Imps, maybe throw in the invisibility feat to start the battle, (or end it with a few getting away). The biggest issue with level 1 PCs is that they only have 1 attack, and if they miss (which is bound to happen) their turn really sucks for them. On the other hand, a crawling claw can potentially do up to 9 points of damage on a perfectly rolled crit. So if you have more enemies than PCs then you create an imbalance that could wipe the party (completely on accident).
3. Throw an impossibly difficult battle at them and when they wipe (force them to if you have to), they wake up to a village fair in ruins. Introduce a boss for them to pursue and a cause for justice (or revenge), and then give them direction to a boss that's hidden deep behind a bunch of XP forcing them to level up before they get to the "boss". Doesn't even have to be the big bad guy of the campaign, can be a small bad guy of the henchmen of the sub boss of the main boss, adding even more depth to the adventure by uncovering just how deep into the rabbit hole they really are.
4. As a new DM, maybe starting with a prewritten campaign is your better option. It's difficult to run a game, much less write the lore, regional information, and backstories for half of your PC's, design a believable villain, etc. If you want to rebrand it with a demonic backstory, do so... but The Lost Mines of Phandelver is a great starting point and can point to a village at level 5 with a demonic history where you can throw multiple bad guys at your now experienced PCs.
When writing a campaign, it's far too easy to think of it as lines in a script. As an example, "The players arrive in town, investigate the disappearances, then kill the werewolf." This may make a decent story for a book, but for a roleplaying game, this is a railroad. The players may not want to visit that town, they might try to cure the werewolf instead of killing them, or have some other idea of what is the "right choice." You can't rely on the players to follow the metaphorical trail, they'll try to cut across the forest. So, why have a path at all?
Instead of thinking of the campaign as a series of plot points, think of it as a collection of locations and events. You have your hooks to attract players to adventures, and you provide them with enough information for them to make informed decisions. You can even leave parts of the world vague, and then steal ideas from the players as they speculate about it. You may have a few goals in mind, a basic idea for the plot, and a number of scripted events, but the players would be the true authors of the story. They are the characters, so they make the decisions. Some things may be beyond their control, but they will always decide how to react to it. So long as everyone in the party understands the desired mood for the adventure, the players and the DM will work together to write an enjoyable story.
Make sure you have a session zero before the campaign. Make sure everyone in the group understands what type of adventure you want to run and the general atmosphere of the story. Then, with a few hooks laid, let the players loose to explore the world.
Having recently used them for a 4-player level 4 party with an illusionist they went down real quick. I'd be tempted to lose their poison aspect, and maybe even lose their resistance to non-silvered/non-magical damage. Maybe these imps are familiars, or conjured by someone who's a bit inept? Also, the minimum hp an imp could have is 6hp (3d4+3), maybe when you rolled up their HP they all rolled awfully. I'll often do this on the other end if I need a monster to be a bit more tanky, I'll play toward the higher end of the range.
Also, as damage is dealt, how is it dealt? Could 4hp represent a wing being lopped off the imp? How does that change their ability to move? I might for example have the imp fall to the ground as it's wing is sliced. Now it can't fly very well. It's movement is much more limited.
The monsters as written often as a great guideline, but you don't have to be religious to them if the story requires something more. Remember not every person in the real world is the same ability levels. Not every Rugby player has the same level of skill so why would we assume every monster is the same power or strength? The level one players maybe just ran across newly spawned imps, not yet in their power?
Seriously, stat blocks, IMO are there for tweaking and messing with.
Finally, your players don't know what you roll. If your mobs roll high, cheat it and the monster does less damage. Maybe, the player rolls low...adjust the armour class down. The great thing about TTRPGs is that the choices are literally unlimited. Maybe the imps are going to run away at the first hit because they are weak? Only you know their motivations and why they move as they do.
I would keep the imps’ health, but nerf their attacks a bit. If you're going for comedy, you could have a fancy guy with a silver cane whack them a bit if the party is struggling.
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“Magic is distilled laziness. Put that on my gravestone.”
Lots of great suggestions already, so I think you likely have a solid handle on this by now. Personally, I would have the attack start and the players would need to run up to engage and be part of i. Perhaps these things appear around an event or stall in the fair and guards/locals start fighting them. I'd say to offer the players that a "group of Imps and Claws" start the attack, NOT specifying how many. That keeps the entire dynamic of the fight in YOUR hands, so if the party is doing very well (great rolls on hit and damage) maybe they kill 4 Imps and 6 Claws or some such, while if they struggle (dice gods hate them and lots of misses or crap damage) they kill 2 Imps and 3 Claws, or whatever dies before the party takes a massive loss. Essentially by giving them a "group" of enemies, instead of 5 enemies, the DM is able to end the fight when they see fit, not worrying and tracking every monster.
I try to have any early encounters very flexible in so far as number of enemies go. In the wilds, I tend to have a couple enemies appear and engage and based on how the party fares, more in the wings, ready to emerge and join the fray. In towns and such, as you are, i will have "a group" of monsters come out and if the players want a number, I will advise it will be an Action to make a Perception check, sometimes at disadvantage, due to all the people (NPC's) and monsters all milling about, making it hard to GEAT an accurate count. I have found that up to level 5, when PC's get that big boost of a bunch of things happening to improve their characters, parties can be pretty fragile and go down super quick if things shift suddenly. Because of that, I design most encounters to be very flexible on the fly. Important ones, no, they are set and it's sink or swim, lol, but I also design bigger encounters ONLY after seeing how the party performs on the early fights.
Encounter Builder CR becomes less useful as the party levels. You will learn what they can and can't handle, with what amount of effort (resource spending) and them monster statblock/ability becomes much more important than the final rating (Deadly, Hard, etc) The party I am running in a campaign now can pretty easily handle 3 Hard to Deadly encounters per day and none have any helpful Short Rest recovery perks. This is at level 6 and also to note, I threw an encounter at them that was listed as Deadly, but I knew they could handle, due to being fresh. One player made an intentionally stupid decision (RP reasons, so it made sense for his character to do what he did) that I didn't expect and I had to "emergency adjust" what my monster did for his opening round, to avoid what would have ended up a TPK within 3 rounds. I overlooked the creature's main ability damage potential and that alone could have dropped one party member in the first round and left 2 others at low single digit HP. In a party of 4, that meant by the end of round 3, there would be an enemy and 4 bodies. Possibly sooner.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
I think that's a personal preference thing. I prefer overwhelming numbers of little enemies, or really smart enemies for my players.
I know players who want to be put up against heavy hitting enemies with one breath, but then hacking other enemies out of the sky with their next. It really does depend on group dynamic.
This kind of generalisation I worry is what leads way to the big cliches. It's the reason my players in one game didn't encounter a tavern until like session 12 or so. It was absolutely hilarious when they did, but made it really special and memorable for them. Of course another group I know decided to kill the tavern owners so they had their own base of operations and income...so different strokes I guess.
Hi ,
I'm starting up a campaign and the way I plan on starting it is the party meeting each other at a Fair located in a village ( The village is important to them all in some way ). During the initial meetings I'm looking to have a combat scene where IMPS and Crawling Claws attack as the underlying story for this campaign is demonic.
Going off the encounter builder two IMPS along are going to "Deadly" and adding Crawling Claws are only making it worse.
My Plan was 2 IMPS and 5 crawling claws to make it an interesting first fight ( Two party members are completely new ) , is this too much for a first encounter at lvl 1? I was thinking of maybe adding an NPC of a little higher level to assist in the fighting but I don't want the NPC to take much/any of the glory.
Also a pretty green DM so any tips would be welcome :)
Imps have ten hp, claws have 2.
A simpler option is to just have the villains be atttacked by normal townfolk. You do not need a specifically higher level NPC, just the concept of normal every day people not being total idiots. These are not high powered monsters.
Crawling Claws have no immunity to normal weapons. Have a cook try to stab one, a local thug bash one, a guard thrust one with a spear, etc. They should probably manage to kill a single claw and take one or two of the Claw's attacks. Most likely one townsfolk will end up injured, not even dead from a mere claw.
The imps are much more powerful, with a posion attack that will likely kill a townsfolk instantly. They also have resistance to non-Silver, non-magical. But that is only half damage. A couple of towns folk should be able to at least damage one of them, and again, take a few hits away from the party. But at least one or two should die. This should be OK for story purposes, it gives the party a motive to continue together and investigate.
Just to be on the safe side have some potential silver attacks hanging around just in case the party needs some help. Anyone with a sling should be able to use a silver coin as an attack. Maybe make it -1 to hit, normal damage for a coin. A fair could have a set of silver flatware - including some nice silver kitchen knives. Rule they do 1d4 silver damage on first blow, 1d3 after the first hit (dulled), then 1d2 after the 2nd hit.
If the party fails to realize the silver is helpful, (give them a knowledge religion or Arcana check), you can always have an old timer priest yell out "SILVER WEAPONS", or something. Perhaps while he is giving first aid to townsfolk. (No spells or he would be attacking).
I agree that one way to take the deadliness down is to have a ton of random townsfolk - you can have your imps/claws attack NPCs for some rounds, especially the early rounds, and also have NPCs deal some damage to the enemies (Describe this happening, so you can effectively have some be at lower HP when your PCs hit them).
Level 1 pcs are notoriously squishy, so be prepped to have an NPC run in at any moment to heroically take a blow or distract a creature if the PCS start to go down. If some NPCs die, or the party only survives because the village priest dragged the unconscious PC out of the way to cast stabilize, it still preserves the danger.
I would also for sure make sure you have at least a couple of NPCs that have names and a snippet of backstory (It doesn't have to be more than: This is Alvin, he's run the local tavern forever and he loves dogs, or Here's Lina, she's the village herbalist and she has a limp). It gives them something to latch onto in the chaos and destruction when Alvin's beloved dog gets hurt and he runs blindly into the frey, or poor Lina gets run down because she couldn't run fast. My mistake in all my early campaigns was to think really hard about the world and the enemies, but not at all about the bystanders, which made them feel pretty empty.
dabbler in diverse and detailed worlds
So a couple of things to help out with something like this:
1. Start on level 2... but instead of using this as the "training grounds" for new players, have your players run a session 0 mini-game so to speak. Depending on how many players you have, I would encourage you to have every player thematically tied to at least 1 other player, this way you can play a 2 player session 0 along with a 3 player session 0 for a different group of players, and then by time they reach session 1, they know the basics of rolling and combat. They also have a reason to play along with each other, creating a bond that sometimes a story can't create.
2. Use a predesigned campaign's first few fights as a guide to your own and reskin them as what you want them to look like. For example, go with a group of goblins and flavor them as Imps, maybe throw in the invisibility feat to start the battle, (or end it with a few getting away). The biggest issue with level 1 PCs is that they only have 1 attack, and if they miss (which is bound to happen) their turn really sucks for them. On the other hand, a crawling claw can potentially do up to 9 points of damage on a perfectly rolled crit. So if you have more enemies than PCs then you create an imbalance that could wipe the party (completely on accident).
3. Throw an impossibly difficult battle at them and when they wipe (force them to if you have to), they wake up to a village fair in ruins. Introduce a boss for them to pursue and a cause for justice (or revenge), and then give them direction to a boss that's hidden deep behind a bunch of XP forcing them to level up before they get to the "boss". Doesn't even have to be the big bad guy of the campaign, can be a small bad guy of the henchmen of the sub boss of the main boss, adding even more depth to the adventure by uncovering just how deep into the rabbit hole they really are.
4. As a new DM, maybe starting with a prewritten campaign is your better option. It's difficult to run a game, much less write the lore, regional information, and backstories for half of your PC's, design a believable villain, etc. If you want to rebrand it with a demonic backstory, do so... but The Lost Mines of Phandelver is a great starting point and can point to a village at level 5 with a demonic history where you can throw multiple bad guys at your now experienced PCs.
When writing a campaign, it's far too easy to think of it as lines in a script. As an example, "The players arrive in town, investigate the disappearances, then kill the werewolf." This may make a decent story for a book, but for a roleplaying game, this is a railroad. The players may not want to visit that town, they might try to cure the werewolf instead of killing them, or have some other idea of what is the "right choice." You can't rely on the players to follow the metaphorical trail, they'll try to cut across the forest. So, why have a path at all?
Instead of thinking of the campaign as a series of plot points, think of it as a collection of locations and events. You have your hooks to attract players to adventures, and you provide them with enough information for them to make informed decisions. You can even leave parts of the world vague, and then steal ideas from the players as they speculate about it. You may have a few goals in mind, a basic idea for the plot, and a number of scripted events, but the players would be the true authors of the story. They are the characters, so they make the decisions. Some things may be beyond their control, but they will always decide how to react to it. So long as everyone in the party understands the desired mood for the adventure, the players and the DM will work together to write an enjoyable story.
Make sure you have a session zero before the campaign. Make sure everyone in the group understands what type of adventure you want to run and the general atmosphere of the story. Then, with a few hooks laid, let the players loose to explore the world.
Play about with the Imp stat block.
Having recently used them for a 4-player level 4 party with an illusionist they went down real quick. I'd be tempted to lose their poison aspect, and maybe even lose their resistance to non-silvered/non-magical damage. Maybe these imps are familiars, or conjured by someone who's a bit inept? Also, the minimum hp an imp could have is 6hp (3d4+3), maybe when you rolled up their HP they all rolled awfully. I'll often do this on the other end if I need a monster to be a bit more tanky, I'll play toward the higher end of the range.
Also, as damage is dealt, how is it dealt? Could 4hp represent a wing being lopped off the imp? How does that change their ability to move? I might for example have the imp fall to the ground as it's wing is sliced. Now it can't fly very well. It's movement is much more limited.
The monsters as written often as a great guideline, but you don't have to be religious to them if the story requires something more. Remember not every person in the real world is the same ability levels. Not every Rugby player has the same level of skill so why would we assume every monster is the same power or strength? The level one players maybe just ran across newly spawned imps, not yet in their power?
Seriously, stat blocks, IMO are there for tweaking and messing with.
Finally, your players don't know what you roll. If your mobs roll high, cheat it and the monster does less damage. Maybe, the player rolls low...adjust the armour class down. The great thing about TTRPGs is that the choices are literally unlimited. Maybe the imps are going to run away at the first hit because they are weak? Only you know their motivations and why they move as they do.
DM session planning template - My version of maps for 'Lost Mine of Phandelver' - Send your party to The Circus - Other DM Resources - Maps, Tokens, Quests - 'Better' Player Character Injury Tables?
Actor, Writer, Director & Teacher by day - GM/DM in my off hours.
I would keep the imps’ health, but nerf their attacks a bit. If you're going for comedy, you could have a fancy guy with a silver cane whack them a bit if the party is struggling.
“Magic is distilled laziness. Put that on my gravestone.”
High health and low(ish) damage makes for a fun battle.
“Magic is distilled laziness. Put that on my gravestone.”
Lots of great suggestions already, so I think you likely have a solid handle on this by now. Personally, I would have the attack start and the players would need to run up to engage and be part of i. Perhaps these things appear around an event or stall in the fair and guards/locals start fighting them. I'd say to offer the players that a "group of Imps and Claws" start the attack, NOT specifying how many. That keeps the entire dynamic of the fight in YOUR hands, so if the party is doing very well (great rolls on hit and damage) maybe they kill 4 Imps and 6 Claws or some such, while if they struggle (dice gods hate them and lots of misses or crap damage) they kill 2 Imps and 3 Claws, or whatever dies before the party takes a massive loss. Essentially by giving them a "group" of enemies, instead of 5 enemies, the DM is able to end the fight when they see fit, not worrying and tracking every monster.
I try to have any early encounters very flexible in so far as number of enemies go. In the wilds, I tend to have a couple enemies appear and engage and based on how the party fares, more in the wings, ready to emerge and join the fray. In towns and such, as you are, i will have "a group" of monsters come out and if the players want a number, I will advise it will be an Action to make a Perception check, sometimes at disadvantage, due to all the people (NPC's) and monsters all milling about, making it hard to GEAT an accurate count. I have found that up to level 5, when PC's get that big boost of a bunch of things happening to improve their characters, parties can be pretty fragile and go down super quick if things shift suddenly. Because of that, I design most encounters to be very flexible on the fly. Important ones, no, they are set and it's sink or swim, lol, but I also design bigger encounters ONLY after seeing how the party performs on the early fights.
Encounter Builder CR becomes less useful as the party levels. You will learn what they can and can't handle, with what amount of effort (resource spending) and them monster statblock/ability becomes much more important than the final rating (Deadly, Hard, etc) The party I am running in a campaign now can pretty easily handle 3 Hard to Deadly encounters per day and none have any helpful Short Rest recovery perks. This is at level 6 and also to note, I threw an encounter at them that was listed as Deadly, but I knew they could handle, due to being fresh. One player made an intentionally stupid decision (RP reasons, so it made sense for his character to do what he did) that I didn't expect and I had to "emergency adjust" what my monster did for his opening round, to avoid what would have ended up a TPK within 3 rounds. I overlooked the creature's main ability damage potential and that alone could have dropped one party member in the first round and left 2 others at low single digit HP. In a party of 4, that meant by the end of round 3, there would be an enemy and 4 bodies. Possibly sooner.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
I think that's a personal preference thing. I prefer overwhelming numbers of little enemies, or really smart enemies for my players.
I know players who want to be put up against heavy hitting enemies with one breath, but then hacking other enemies out of the sky with their next. It really does depend on group dynamic.
This kind of generalisation I worry is what leads way to the big cliches. It's the reason my players in one game didn't encounter a tavern until like session 12 or so. It was absolutely hilarious when they did, but made it really special and memorable for them. Of course another group I know decided to kill the tavern owners so they had their own base of operations and income...so different strokes I guess.
DM session planning template - My version of maps for 'Lost Mine of Phandelver' - Send your party to The Circus - Other DM Resources - Maps, Tokens, Quests - 'Better' Player Character Injury Tables?
Actor, Writer, Director & Teacher by day - GM/DM in my off hours.