Hello! This is my first time running a campaign, and I'm looking for a few tips.
I have a seasoned player in my group (usually our DM for our other campaigns) who wanted a new challenge for himself and made a pacifist character - which I 100% support! He's gone all in on this and taken no offensive spells, although he has said that he's not necessarily opposed to his character fighting in defense of innocents. I love his character and have some good ideas for putting him in moral quandaries later on in the game to challenge that pacifism for what I hope will be very fun character arc points for both of us!
However, at the moment, I need a little advice. In our first real combat encounter, the players were confronted with a charging triceratops. The other players are not pacifists and immediately began using offensive spells and weapons. When my pacifist player's turn was up, he decided to try and calm the beast. He rolled well, and as the DM I decided that the beast was only charging because it was startled and territorial, so it calmed down. The other players were game not to kill an animal, so they all switched to trying other things like distraction and misdirection. I (for some dumb reason) was not prepared for this! We made it through the combat encounter, as I had already planned for another couple of dinos to come in and attack the injured triceratops. The players happily attacked those dinos instead (except for my pacifist), and then I had the highly injured beast lumber off, and the players declined opportunity attacks on it.
What I'm looking for is this - combat in D&D is fairly straightforward. You say what you want to hit, what you're using to hit it, and then for the most part the predetermined numbers take over to decide if it succeeds or not. But what about when they want to try other things in combat? Moving forward, I know they're going to want to try similar tactics like negotiating, distracting, trapping, and misdirecting their opponents. To be clear, I do NOT want to stop them trying these things! (And I know I will have some enemies that just will NOT respond to those attempts, making any checks basically impossible.) But how do you determine what ability/skill checks they roll for different things, and how do you set the DC for success/failure? I don't want to be running it fully off the cuff because I want some consistency in their actions and the consequences that follow them because I know that can be helpful as a player trying to decide what to try.
Anyway, any tips for dealing with non-combat options during a combat encounter would be super appreciated! Thanks!
This is definitely going to be tricky if the player decides they're going to try to diffuse every fight. It kind of forces all the other PCs to be pacifists as well, because you can't really resolve a situation peacefully while your allies are still attacking. The two methods are incompatible.
I think this is worth a discussion with the whole group. If they want to avoid fighting whenever possible, they're all going to need to coordinate together to do that.
The more common/traditional route for a pacifist is just to buff and potentially debuff depending on the PC's definition of pacifism (not dealing damage vs not attacking at all). Bards are already built for this, having very few damaging spells, and clerics can pull it off pretty well too.
Either way, the party needs to get on the same page. It's just not realistic to try to tame a Triceratops after your allies have started beating on it, and it forces you as the DM will need to stretch the credibility of your characters in order to give the players what they want.
One other way you can approach this is to include alternate goals in encounters. Maybe the pacifist can free the captive townsfolk while the others fight the lizardmen. Maybe they can work to undo the ritual as the party fights the wizard. Item retrieval, skill checks, trap disarming, persuasion of neutral parties to align with your party, and other things like that can give the player meaningful things to do while the others fight.
That's a good point to make sure the players are all on the same page. We ended our session right after the fight (because it was getting late), but one of my players had their character say during the fight, "Ok, we're gonna have to talk about this approach later!" so I imagine there will be a roleplay discussion soon. The pacifist player is playing a Peace domain cleric, and none of the characters are really optimized for combat - this group prefers to make cool/fun characters, and our sessions are always rather chaotic, but it works for this group! So I think they can get on the same page with maybe trying to diffuse situations first, but the other players making it clear they will fight to defend themselves or others (which my pacifist player has already assured me he will get behind to not make it impossible for me!).
I'm more looking for suggestions on choosing ability rolls and setting DCs for when they attempt to diffuse situations, though. I also know my player has taken the Calm Emotions spell, so I expect that to come up in the future. :-)
The checks will depend a lot on what they are trying to do. Most of the ones you listed seem like persuasion and deception, maybe stealth sometimes. In the dinosaur example, maybe a handle animal check could have worked. I could also see calling for multiple checks across rounds. Maybe an insight in the first round to figure out the best way to proceed, followed by a persuasion, where the difficulty of the persuasion is impacted by how well they did on the insight. The DMG has rules for where to set DCs depending on how hard you want it to be in the Using Ability Scores section in chapter 8. It gives you some guidance, but in the end it will be a judgement call you make.
One big thing to note, if you determine it’s not going to work no matter what, as you say will sometimes happen, don’t call for a roll. Just say it doesn’t work. If you let them roll, they’ll inevitably get a 20, in some skill they’re really good at and with guidance tacked on and look at you confused when their 32 wasn’t high enough to work.
One big thing to note, if you determine it’s not going to work no matter what, as you say will sometimes happen, don’t call for a roll. Just say it doesn’t work. If you let them roll, they’ll inevitably get a 20, in some skill they’re really good at and with guidance tacked on and look at you confused when their 32 wasn’t high enough to work.
That is an excellent point, thank you! What would you do if for example, the cleric succeeds on the Animal Handling check and calms the animal down, but the next player tries something else to help and fails? Would it get more agitated? Undo what the cleric just did? Or just not get any calmer? Or would that be a judgement call in the moment? (New DM, sorry for all the questions!)
It’s going to depend a lot on what they’re trying to do. Context is king.
And I also want to second what scatterbrained said about the limits of a pacifist. If they calm the animal down, and the next person attacks it, it will no longer be calm or able to be calmed. You can end up with some really frustrated players, either the pacifist is upset because their thing never works because everyone else attacks, or other party members are upset because they get forced into a style of play they may not want. Combat is 1/3 of the pillars of the game, arguably it can count for more than 1/3 of time in the game. Forcing pacifism can make other characters all but worthless — what’s the fighter supposed to do if there’s no fighting?
There are some niche characters like this which really end up dominating the entire campaign, because they force everyone to respond to them. It’s a back door way to main character syndrome. I’m not saying don’t do it, just make sure you have an out of character talk with the whole table and get everyone on the same page.
This doesn’t apply specifically to any build or recommend spells, but it pertains to pacifist characters…
There’s a concept called the ladder of escalation which gives us ways to think about different stages of a crisis with different opportunities for nonviolent solutions.
The first rung on the ladder is to co-opt or persuade the other guy. Make friends with people. Start setting a positive vibe the moment you walk in a room. The non-violent character’s best defense is a high CHA. In addition to one of the social skills, you need Perception or Insight to figure out how big a threat you’re facing and what the other person wants (ie, how to negotiate with them).
Next comes deterrence - if we can’t be friends let’s not fight. Looking stronger than the other guy always helps here, even for the pacifist. How do we project strength even if we don’t have it?
The next rung is defeating an attack.. You parry an axe with your shield or throw your body in front of a triceratops or whatever. After that, your final option is to prevent or deter the attacker from attacking again.
Every class has its own tools to use at the different levels.
I've DMed for pacifist characters and I'm currently playing one. These definitely do keep a DM on his or her toes, and it also can lead to some really cool and strategic combat encounters. Some observations that might help you:
1. A respectful player of a pacifist character will know when it's time to fight. Your player has already said their character is willing to defend innocents and the rest of the table sounds open to this character, so I think the concerns on this thread are a bit overstated.
2. Not all fights can or should be subverted. When the pacifist's efforts fail, the trick is to help the party survive without resorting to violence. For a forever DM (like me and your player), that's a fun challenge. So lean into it from time to time. Push that character to the brink on occasion and see what happens.
3. Think 3-dimensionally about encounters. Maybe the environment is dangerous, so the pacifist has to focus on terrain control. Maybe there is a secondary goal of protection, so they're on buffing and healing duty. Maybe there's a horde and they're holding the line with illusions or brute strength while everyone else is doing focus fire. If you have multiple elements going on in a combat scenario, you'll challenge the entire party and make it more memorable than just whittling down the baddie's HP. Not every combat needs multiple threats, but incorporating those into more fights is a way to keep things interesting for everyone.
I would like to add to the advice already presented here that not every action in combat is an attacking or aggressive action. The disarm and help actions can be taken, and help your party without actively damaging your enemies. Especially the disarm move, as it not only benefits your allies, but also stops enemies from being aggressive. I don't know if you've ever performed martial arts (or even just had a stick fight as a kid) but getting your arm or leg grabbed and twisted is awful, losing your 'weapon' can be a big blow, to make you want to give up. Just my two cents.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
Social group checks setting the DC and averaging all the players rolls to determine success is one way and also you can make it so they can try a certain number of times and then make a chart determining results based on successes.
Example: they are trying talk a thief out of robbing the orphanage.
They get three rolls to try to talk him out of it.
They will rp the convo and you determine where in the dialog each roll occurs.
The results chart can be something like the following.
0/3 successful:
He robs the orphanage blind leaving not even a scrap of food or money or valuable behind.
1/3 successful:
He steals only the money. Leaving food and valuables behind.
2/3 successful:
He only steals part of the money. Making sure to leave enough so the orphans don't starve.
3/3 successful:
He sees the error of his ways and finds another way to get money. Even if it means just simply switching targets or ending his criminal career etc based on how the character would react.
As far as what skill to have them roll have it be based on the pc. A rogue could use deception to get his way and the barbarian can intimidate or even use athletics to show his brawn and what will happen if the orphanage is robbed by smashing something or lifting a heavy Boulder. The paladin can use persuasion or Mayne religion by citing some moral scriptures that would make the criminal stop stealing etc.
I think two important factors for keeping having a pacifist at the table interesting and fun.
1. balance for multiple targets not One target. That way if some players want to kill or do damage they can. You can also mix types that might have different moral implications. Constructs, spirits, beasts, one enemy that has wavering loyalty to the bossman etc.
2. Remember effort balance: One skill check should roughly equate to one attack Give or take . Not all enemies will be persuaded with just one attempt give it multiple stages. Every now and then a quick resolution can be fun but it gets boring really fast. Only spot on or truly smart tactics should do more "ego damage". Try and ensure clear signals as to player's approach or enemies mental barriers. Insight lets you know who is easily dissuaded by money. Investigation might let you notice this person has a family from the hand made bracelet and will back down if pressed.
3 bonus. remember there are non-lethal, tools spells, weapons and magic items. Your player seemed to be reasonable and accept the challenge. So you might not have to change much at all. Just do player check-ins and let players make the choices. if they get bored or want a change as a dm you can make that option available.
Hello! This is my first time running a campaign, and I'm looking for a few tips.
I have a seasoned player in my group (usually our DM for our other campaigns) who wanted a new challenge for himself and made a pacifist character - which I 100% support! He's gone all in on this and taken no offensive spells, although he has said that he's not necessarily opposed to his character fighting in defense of innocents. I love his character and have some good ideas for putting him in moral quandaries later on in the game to challenge that pacifism for what I hope will be very fun character arc points for both of us!
However, at the moment, I need a little advice. In our first real combat encounter, the players were confronted with a charging triceratops. The other players are not pacifists and immediately began using offensive spells and weapons. When my pacifist player's turn was up, he decided to try and calm the beast. He rolled well, and as the DM I decided that the beast was only charging because it was startled and territorial, so it calmed down. The other players were game not to kill an animal, so they all switched to trying other things like distraction and misdirection. I (for some dumb reason) was not prepared for this! We made it through the combat encounter, as I had already planned for another couple of dinos to come in and attack the injured triceratops. The players happily attacked those dinos instead (except for my pacifist), and then I had the highly injured beast lumber off, and the players declined opportunity attacks on it.
What I'm looking for is this - combat in D&D is fairly straightforward. You say what you want to hit, what you're using to hit it, and then for the most part the predetermined numbers take over to decide if it succeeds or not. But what about when they want to try other things in combat? Moving forward, I know they're going to want to try similar tactics like negotiating, distracting, trapping, and misdirecting their opponents. To be clear, I do NOT want to stop them trying these things! (And I know I will have some enemies that just will NOT respond to those attempts, making any checks basically impossible.) But how do you determine what ability/skill checks they roll for different things, and how do you set the DC for success/failure? I don't want to be running it fully off the cuff because I want some consistency in their actions and the consequences that follow them because I know that can be helpful as a player trying to decide what to try.
Anyway, any tips for dealing with non-combat options during a combat encounter would be super appreciated! Thanks!
This is definitely going to be tricky if the player decides they're going to try to diffuse every fight. It kind of forces all the other PCs to be pacifists as well, because you can't really resolve a situation peacefully while your allies are still attacking. The two methods are incompatible.
I think this is worth a discussion with the whole group. If they want to avoid fighting whenever possible, they're all going to need to coordinate together to do that.
The more common/traditional route for a pacifist is just to buff and potentially debuff depending on the PC's definition of pacifism (not dealing damage vs not attacking at all). Bards are already built for this, having very few damaging spells, and clerics can pull it off pretty well too.
Either way, the party needs to get on the same page. It's just not realistic to try to tame a Triceratops after your allies have started beating on it, and it forces you as the DM will need to stretch the credibility of your characters in order to give the players what they want.
One other way you can approach this is to include alternate goals in encounters. Maybe the pacifist can free the captive townsfolk while the others fight the lizardmen. Maybe they can work to undo the ritual as the party fights the wizard. Item retrieval, skill checks, trap disarming, persuasion of neutral parties to align with your party, and other things like that can give the player meaningful things to do while the others fight.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
That's a good point to make sure the players are all on the same page. We ended our session right after the fight (because it was getting late), but one of my players had their character say during the fight, "Ok, we're gonna have to talk about this approach later!" so I imagine there will be a roleplay discussion soon. The pacifist player is playing a Peace domain cleric, and none of the characters are really optimized for combat - this group prefers to make cool/fun characters, and our sessions are always rather chaotic, but it works for this group! So I think they can get on the same page with maybe trying to diffuse situations first, but the other players making it clear they will fight to defend themselves or others (which my pacifist player has already assured me he will get behind to not make it impossible for me!).
I'm more looking for suggestions on choosing ability rolls and setting DCs for when they attempt to diffuse situations, though. I also know my player has taken the Calm Emotions spell, so I expect that to come up in the future. :-)
The checks will depend a lot on what they are trying to do. Most of the ones you listed seem like persuasion and deception, maybe stealth sometimes. In the dinosaur example, maybe a handle animal check could have worked. I could also see calling for multiple checks across rounds. Maybe an insight in the first round to figure out the best way to proceed, followed by a persuasion, where the difficulty of the persuasion is impacted by how well they did on the insight.
The DMG has rules for where to set DCs depending on how hard you want it to be in the Using Ability Scores section in chapter 8. It gives you some guidance, but in the end it will be a judgement call you make.
One big thing to note, if you determine it’s not going to work no matter what, as you say will sometimes happen, don’t call for a roll. Just say it doesn’t work. If you let them roll, they’ll inevitably get a 20, in some skill they’re really good at and with guidance tacked on and look at you confused when their 32 wasn’t high enough to work.
That is an excellent point, thank you! What would you do if for example, the cleric succeeds on the Animal Handling check and calms the animal down, but the next player tries something else to help and fails? Would it get more agitated? Undo what the cleric just did? Or just not get any calmer? Or would that be a judgement call in the moment? (New DM, sorry for all the questions!)
It’s going to depend a lot on what they’re trying to do. Context is king.
And I also want to second what scatterbrained said about the limits of a pacifist. If they calm the animal down, and the next person attacks it, it will no longer be calm or able to be calmed. You can end up with some really frustrated players, either the pacifist is upset because their thing never works because everyone else attacks, or other party members are upset because they get forced into a style of play they may not want. Combat is 1/3 of the pillars of the game, arguably it can count for more than 1/3 of time in the game. Forcing pacifism can make other characters all but worthless — what’s the fighter supposed to do if there’s no fighting?
There are some niche characters like this which really end up dominating the entire campaign, because they force everyone to respond to them. It’s a back door way to main character syndrome. I’m not saying don’t do it, just make sure you have an out of character talk with the whole table and get everyone on the same page.
Secondary goals in combat are your friend.
You're not just trying to kill the dragon, you're also trying to protect the villagers in the village square that it's attacking.
You're not just trying to kill the lich, you're trying to kill the lich at the same time that the ritual is completed.
You're not just trying to X, you're trying to X and Y.
This doesn’t apply specifically to any build or recommend spells, but it pertains to pacifist characters…
There’s a concept called the ladder of escalation which gives us ways to think about different stages of a crisis with different opportunities for nonviolent solutions.
The first rung on the ladder is to co-opt or persuade the other guy. Make friends with people. Start setting a positive vibe the moment you walk in a room. The non-violent character’s best defense is a high CHA. In addition to one of the social skills, you need Perception or Insight to figure out how big a threat you’re facing and what the other person wants (ie, how to negotiate with them).
Next comes deterrence - if we can’t be friends let’s not fight. Looking stronger than the other guy always helps here, even for the pacifist. How do we project strength even if we don’t have it?
The next rung is defeating an attack.. You parry an axe with your shield or throw your body in front of a triceratops or whatever. After that, your final option is to prevent or deter the attacker from attacking again.
Every class has its own tools to use at the different levels.
I've DMed for pacifist characters and I'm currently playing one. These definitely do keep a DM on his or her toes, and it also can lead to some really cool and strategic combat encounters. Some observations that might help you:
1. A respectful player of a pacifist character will know when it's time to fight. Your player has already said their character is willing to defend innocents and the rest of the table sounds open to this character, so I think the concerns on this thread are a bit overstated.
2. Not all fights can or should be subverted. When the pacifist's efforts fail, the trick is to help the party survive without resorting to violence. For a forever DM (like me and your player), that's a fun challenge. So lean into it from time to time. Push that character to the brink on occasion and see what happens.
3. Think 3-dimensionally about encounters. Maybe the environment is dangerous, so the pacifist has to focus on terrain control. Maybe there is a secondary goal of protection, so they're on buffing and healing duty. Maybe there's a horde and they're holding the line with illusions or brute strength while everyone else is doing focus fire. If you have multiple elements going on in a combat scenario, you'll challenge the entire party and make it more memorable than just whittling down the baddie's HP. Not every combat needs multiple threats, but incorporating those into more fights is a way to keep things interesting for everyone.
I would like to add to the advice already presented here that not every action in combat is an attacking or aggressive action. The disarm and help actions can be taken, and help your party without actively damaging your enemies. Especially the disarm move, as it not only benefits your allies, but also stops enemies from being aggressive. I don't know if you've ever performed martial arts (or even just had a stick fight as a kid) but getting your arm or leg grabbed and twisted is awful, losing your 'weapon' can be a big blow, to make you want to give up. Just my two cents.
'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
I'll worldbuild for your DnD games!
Just a D&D enjoyer, check out my fiverr page if you need any worldbuilding done for ya!
Social group checks setting the DC and averaging all the players rolls to determine success is one way and also you can make it so they can try a certain number of times and then make a chart determining results based on successes.
Example: they are trying talk a thief out of robbing the orphanage.
They get three rolls to try to talk him out of it.
They will rp the convo and you determine where in the dialog each roll occurs.
The results chart can be something like the following.
0/3 successful:
He robs the orphanage blind leaving not even a scrap of food or money or valuable behind.
1/3 successful:
He steals only the money. Leaving food and valuables behind.
2/3 successful:
He only steals part of the money. Making sure to leave enough so the orphans don't starve.
3/3 successful:
He sees the error of his ways and finds another way to get money. Even if it means just simply switching targets or ending his criminal career etc based on how the character would react.
As far as what skill to have them roll have it be based on the pc. A rogue could use deception to get his way and the barbarian can intimidate or even use athletics to show his brawn and what will happen if the orphanage is robbed by smashing something or lifting a heavy Boulder. The paladin can use persuasion or Mayne religion by citing some moral scriptures that would make the criminal stop stealing etc.
I think two important factors for keeping having a pacifist at the table interesting and fun.
1. balance for multiple targets not One target. That way if some players want to kill or do damage they can. You can also mix types that might have different moral implications. Constructs, spirits, beasts, one enemy that has wavering loyalty to the bossman etc.
2. Remember effort balance: One skill check should roughly equate to one attack Give or take . Not all enemies will be persuaded with just one attempt give it multiple stages. Every now and then a quick resolution can be fun but it gets boring really fast. Only spot on or truly smart tactics should do more "ego damage". Try and ensure clear signals as to player's approach or enemies mental barriers. Insight lets you know who is easily dissuaded by money. Investigation might let you notice this person has a family from the hand made bracelet and will back down if pressed.
3 bonus. remember there are non-lethal, tools spells, weapons and magic items. Your player seemed to be reasonable and accept the challenge. So you might not have to change much at all. Just do player check-ins and let players make the choices. if they get bored or want a change as a dm you can make that option available.