Would there be any benefit with printing out stuff like the Redbrand Hideout big enough so that each square is 1" in size instead of just printing the whole map on one sheet of paper?
I have a bunch of cardboard standups from Pathfinder and I'm thinking the visuals will help. I know nothing beats the theatre of the mind but having aids definitely helps especially for new players, right? Plus it'll help justify the cost of buying the adventure on D&D Beyond.
Any suggestions regarding what the 3-player party would consist of?
Reading the Goblin Arrows section of the adventure and I'm confused with how the flow is supposed to work. My party will be in area 5, will get flooded twice, and then the adventure moves on to area 6? Maybe if they scale the climb in area 4, but I fully expect them to follow the map to area 7. Because of the goblin that will run to area 8, they'll most likely do that too before area 6. So why is area 6 injected between 5 and 7 when it could well be the last area to be explored?
At the end of area 8, it also says Klarg will run away if the wolf is killed. With a 30ft move speed and supposedly hiding behind the stalactites on the west side of the cavern, 30ft move can easily bring him to the middle of area 3. I'm guessing he's supposed to be taken out with ranged attacks?
When maps have numbered areas, that's really just a way of labeling the areas for reference, it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the order in which areas will be encountered. The order will often match up with the route players take, but there are also times where it's more or less arbitrary.
As for Klarg, players could take him out with ranged attacks yeah, but I think it's just as likely (and totally a valid option) that he escapes the caves and gets away from the players entirely.
EDIT: Keep in mind, the chimney between areas 3 and 8 is 30 feet high, and climbing costs an extra foot of movement for every foot moved, so it would take at least a turn just to get from the top of the shaft to the bottom.
I agree with that if the map was say a castle and you're in a corridor that branches out 4 ways but in this map, there's only really one way through with two possible side options depending on PC agility but even then, not without great risk and possible injury.
As for the chimney area, yes it's 30 feet high but Klarg will be going down, not up. I'd imagine him sliding/jumping/rolling down, so maybe reduce his move by 1/3rd to 20feet, plus maybe a roll to see whether he avoids damage or not?
Yeah I guess the thing with the map numbering is: I don't really know why the numbers are the way they are, but also it doesn't really matter. Theoretically your players will never see those numbers, just follow along with where they go on the map and use the numbers to reference descriptions of the areas they go to.
For climbing, the rules really make any allowances for climbing down being faster than climbing up, but idk that's really up to you for how you want to run that. Again, I think it would be totally fine, and seems to be the intent of the adventure, that Klarg could escape from the players.
Thanks for that, leogobsin! I just thought that because of the somewhat linear layout of the map, it was odd that the numbering wasn't.
I've read the first two parts of the adventure and I wonder what the party is supposed to do with the gems and items they find. The gold is easy, they add it to their stash, items they can use goes to the relevant PC, but what about gems or jewelry? If the book says one pearl (100 gp) and the party sells it at the trader in town, do they get the full 100 gp?
Yes, a typical shop will buy at the described price, but you can add some variance on that if you deem it appropriate. Mayne they got on a particular shopkeepers bad side, and head offer them less, or a shopkeeper they befriend may give them a deal if their patronage is loyal. Gems and jewelry can also be bartered among small communities without banks or that don't put importance in civilized currency (maybe offering those kobold or goblin ambushers a small bag of gems would be enough to avoid an encounter during a time where the party needs to recover).
Thanks for that Norman. I just seem to remember shops buying gear from PCs at something like 50%-80% of the price listed so I did not know if that remained the same for 5th edition.
As I'm playing with 3 players, would I need to adjust the enemy composition and XP rewards? I notice the adventure says it's written for 4-5 PCs but there's nothing in it to help me adjust for more players or less players. I don't want to rank up my players too quickly but I don't want to total party kill them either!
Exp is split evenly between the party members that fought (including npcs that helped), no matter the amount. If one person kills a goblins or a dragon single handedly, he gets all the XP. If it's three people, it's a three way split. If it's three PC's and a hired NPC, it's split four ways, even though the NPC isn't a main character.
I notice you're very concerned about the rules and mechanics of gameplay, and that probably comes from being a vet of editions past. However, the thing about 5e is the emphasis is more on the storytelling than the mechanics. The system is meant to be relatively rules light and absolutely adjustable to anyone's PC/DM style.
I know it's a lot of rules to take in and that you're obviously nervous about presenting a fun and believable world for your family to romp around in. However, don't forget that it's okay to start DMing without knowing every rule, especially with 5e. It seems you have a lot of pressure on yourself to keep things as rules-as-written as possible, but I think your kids will have fun so long as you keep things engaging for them. Relax, and take it from me; no DM can recall all the rules. We all keep the book for a reason. Look up rules as you go, or make calls on the spot that feel right/fun and make a note to look that one up later. Instead, focus on what your kids want to do, what little story they want to tell, the ideas for stuff they have. This is the perfect time for you and them to learn the game by butting against it rather than knowing where every line not to cross is from the start.
Not telling you to stop asking on this thread by any means. Just saying you should have fun with it, too, and that I hope you aren't too stressed. We're all here to help, so fire away.
Thanks for the reassurance, Norman! I'm no vet of previous editions; like I said, I've played a few but not really as a DM and not really dug into the rules/mechanics!
My main concern here is that I'm playing with 3 PCs or even 2 PCs with 1 NPC side-kick and I'm worried that throwing the stated number of foes at them would result in a very difficult combat and thus, less fun. The other concern is that if they still do manage to overcome the obstacles, the low party member count may mean they'll level up too quickly and thus the future combat encounters will be a walk in the park.
I realize I've not even rolled a single dice in 5e yet so I may be overthinking this, which isn't really a surprise considering what I'm like! First game tonight so wish me luck!!
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Wasn't able to game on that night as the wife had other plans but was able to play last night! Wall-of-text coming up so apologies for that but I would appreciate if you guys could read through and offer suggestions or if I did anything wrong, I would appreciate it if you could point it out! Thanks!
It was slow going at first as we were getting to grips with the character sheet, where to find info, how to do dice rolls, etc. which made me wonder how exactly my son was playing in his club. He wasn't quite sure how to do attack rolls and damage rolls and he mentioned they only had limited dice so I doubt if they played with any sort of character sheet or any structure at all.
Anyway, my eldest played the halfling rogue, my youngest (8yo) played the human fighter (greatsword/longbow), my wife played the dwarf cleric, and I had the elf wizard accompany them as a DM-controlled character. I had them go to bed in the real world and then wake up as their characters in fantasy land so they only had a vague inkling of their backstory. On their travel to Phandalin, they introduced themselves and fleshed out their backstory a little bit and on the first encounter with the goblins, the fight was fairly quick. The rogue acted first and damaged a goblin, the wizard killed one with one magic missile bolt and killed the other with the other two magic missile bolts, the goblins then came in and attacked the fighter leaving him with 4HP then the cleric bashed one goblin. I had the fighter lose his first turn because he fumbled his previous investigation roll so he was too busy with his searching to have noticed the initial attack. Next round, the rogue attacked the uninjured goblin but missed, and then the wizard finished off the injured one. The goblin attacked again and missed and this time, the fighter was aware of the attack and killed the last one.
After the fight, the cleric cast her first healing spells and returned the fighter to full health. I had one goblin be unconscious but breathing so the party decided to tie him up then heal him to wake him up.... and the cleric healed him to full health! Anyway, got info out of him, found the goblin trail, but I ruled that the they could not bring the ox-cart (supplies) up the trail with him so they decided to chuck the goblin in the cart, head to town and go from there. They got to the trading post where the clerks took the cart round back to unload it and soon discoverd the goblin. The PCs initially were cautious with Barthen, giving him little info but when the goblin was found, the party 'fessed up. I then had Barthen ask what they wanted to do with the goblin, offering to imprison the creature in the town's jail but the party decided to keep him along.
At this point, we were spending so much time in town deciding what to do that I whipped out the phone, put a 2 minute timer on, and told them they had that much time to decide what to do. That speeded things up a bit so I'm keeping that trick up my sleeve!
They did want to buy some stuff but I ruled that the Lionshield Coster was closed due to current stock issues. This is where I noticed the price of a single vial of potion of healing; 50gp for 4-10hp seems a tad expensive? Maybe the monetary progression will be better later in the game? In any case, this highlighted the importance of the cleric and her cure wounds spell!
The party returned to the trail and they decided the marching order would have the rogue up front sneaking, then the fighter, the goblin, the cleric, then the wizard. The trailed called for a passive Wisdom (Perception) of 12 and the rogue has 10 so I had him roll and he got lower than 10 so that meant he didn't notice the trap and was soon dangling in the air. The fighter was then too eager to cut the rope so the rogue suffered 6 points of damage from the fall, 2/3rds of his HP! That was a funny "oops!" moment. Continuing on, the rogue decided he won't be in front anymore and was just being sneaky but in line with the fighter. They interviewed the goblin again asking if there were any more traps but even with a high intimidate roll and a high perception roll, I decided the goblin would not know of traps on the trail as he was just there for the ambush job. So onward they go, after the cleric healing the rogue again. I ruled that their trip and interview with Barthen in Phandelin was a short rest period so everyone had their full HPs and spell slots at the start of the goblin trail. The fighter failed his Wisdom (Perception) check but succeeded in his Dexterity saving throw and managed to jump away before the floor fell under him.
At this point, they reached the hideout and again fell into a long discussion about what to do, quizzed the goblin again how many were in the cave, etc., had rolls to see if he was lying again, and had about 10 different plans so I had the goblin eventually shout a warning about intruders approaching and combat ensued with the guarding goblins. They had a surprise round with the goblins acting, one shot bounced off the cleric's armor and the other putting the fighter at half HP. The goblins also rolled high on initiative so they acted first, essentially acting twice in a row. The next round of arrows put the rogue at half HP but a critical hit put the wizard at 0HP and bleeding out. I then explained the rules on stabilizing a character or healing him so they opted to heal him to get him back in the fight. The rogue decided to move into the forest and hide, the cleric healed the wizard back to full HP, then it was the wizard's turn. Magic missile, one goblin dead. The fighter then shot an arrow through the bushes and despite the higher AC due to half cover, still managed to hit and one-shot the second goblin. As the fight ended, the party realized they totally forgot about their goblin captive and found him rounding the corner going deeper into the cave and he was laughing!
As the cleric was out of spell slots, the party decided to short rest again just outside the cave before going in. At the wolf encounter, they decided to stay at range to pick off the wolves so I had them notice that the nails holding down the wolves were pulled out halfway during the wolves' turn. The party injured two wolves and the wizard just obliterates the third one with magic missile. The party manages to kill the second wolf at the start of round 2 but then the first wolf breaks free and attacks the fighter, dealing 9HP damage. I stopped magic missile-ing everything and so the rogue sneak-attacks the wolf to death.
At this point, I decide to stop the session for now.
A few observations --- The wizard just obliterates everything with magic missile! 3 darts for a total of 3d4+3 is 6-15 damage, enough to one-shot a goblin even on a low roll and maybe two attacks on a wolf on a medium roll, but with hot dice, can still one-shot a wolf! The squishy-ness of the 1st-level character is nice enough that the cleric is valuable and the PCs don't go dashing into dangerous situations but I wonder how the party would've fared if the wizard was not there.
Speaking of HP, it feels like the PCs are a bit more fragile than I remember? Maybe I'm just remembering wrong or the Pathfinder/3.5 ruleset is just different? Or maybe I'm just noticing it as a DM but never appreciated it as a player? Taking out the wizard meant the fights would last another round or two and I can see a PC or two dropping to 0HP or below by the time a fight would end. I would have to make the enemy attack different characters each round as one or two rounds of concentrated fire would be enough to kill a PC and severely injure another, but on a 3-PC team, that's a big blow! It would also slow down the adventuring quite a bit as the party takes more short rests.
I would also like to copy-paste a few spells out of the PHB or DDB but keep the formatting and while redoing the formatting on Word is easy, doing it for a few dozen spells would be painful. Is there any tool or site out there that allows me to do this?
My group had to come up with names for the characters and I wasn't very impressed with the name generators I've found online. Is there a site you guys go to regularly?
Apologies again for the wall of text but thanks in advance for any help!
One more -- I don't exactly know how I feel or what to do about the incident with the wizard going from full HP to 0HP then back to full HP and one-shotting a goblin. Seems a bit too much of a disconnect to me. Feeling fine and dandy, then get knocked out by a ranged attack and for all intents and purposes, at death's door bleeding out on the floor, then back at full health as if nothing's happened and powerful enough to one-shot the bad guy right back? How would you deal with something like this story-wise? What would be a good description of events like this?
One more -- I don't exactly know how I feel or what to do about the incident with the wizard going from full HP to 0HP then back to full HP and one-shotting a goblin. Seems a bit too much of a disconnect to me. Feeling fine and dandy, then get knocked out by a ranged attack and for all intents and purposes, at death's door bleeding out on the floor, then back at full health as if nothing's happened and powerful enough to one-shot the bad guy right back? How would you deal with something like this story-wise? What would be a good description of events like this?
I mean short answer is "It's magic" For description something along the lines of: an arrow flies through the air and strikes the wizard in the chest, perhaps he can feel it slip between his ribs (not sure how graphic you want to get with descriptions of violence with an 8 yr old at the table), but it definitely hit something vital. The pain is too much and he falls to the ground. The Cleric casts magic to heal and the arrow draws itself out of the wizard's chest, the wound closing behind it as it does. He rises back to his feet, feeling invigorated by the healing magic.
Sure I'll take my time reading. Always enjoyed reading other peoples re-caps and still do.
"I had the fighter lose his first turn because he fumbled his previous investigation roll so he was too busy with his searching to have noticed the initial attack." What kind of investigation did he do that made him unaware, or slow to react, to the attack? As long as there is a plausible rational explanation you should be fine.
"I had one goblin be unconscious but breathing so the party decided to tie him up then heal him to wake him up" Did the players say they wanted to keep the goblin alive? Usually they can state that and the last hit will be one to knock the opponent out instead of a killing blow. Since it is your first session I can understand you are a bit more lenient to the players. After all... in this way you can show them there are more ways to deal with situations. After showing them the freedom and options in the future I'd leave it up to the players whether they decide to keep someone alive or not. Even story related characters should be killable if the players so desire. As a DM you then tie certain logical/plausible repercussions. Or have alternate ways players can still attain needed information for progress.
"At this point, we were spending so much time in town deciding what to do that I whipped out the phone, put a 2 minute timer on, and told them they had that much time to decide what to do. That speeded things up a bit so I'm keeping that trick up my sleeve!" The timer can be a nice tool to use and speed things up, preventing a slog of indecisiveness. However try looking into other tools as well to create the illusion of expediency. Npc's telling hinting there has to be acted fast before a possible raid occurs or what fits with the story.
50gp for a healing potion seems expensive. But after the first dungeon they should have a few 100 among them combined from quest rewards and loot that they can sell. If players are having trouble getting by with all the healing options available its ok to aid them a little. If you can justify a reason why an NPC might offer a potion for free or far cheaper then by all means do it. For now just see how your players handle the encounters and whether they struggle. They get healing from the cleric and Hit Die gained for a short rest as well. Might also be able to exchange some pre-written rewards and exchange it for a magical scroll of healing when they go around the dungeon. Once again. Its ok to be lenient with new players. I personally think its more important to have fun while also learning the basic mechanics. You can ramp up the challenges as everyone gets more experienced with the rules.
" The trailed called for a passive Wisdom (Perception) of 12 and the rogue has 10 so I had him roll" A passive perception doesn't require a roll. Your way is done well. Once again towards the leniency of new players. Also use that as an example, for you talk after the game or prior the next one, to explain players should learn to ask for specific things. And try to roleplay it instead of saying "insight check" try to get them to phrase it as "I get the idea they're not telling everything". Same for them checking an environment for specific things. Once again think of how you want your players to eventually interact with the world... and think of gradual steps of learning to get there.
The goblin encounter was nice. Especially with their captive using it to run away. When it comes to playing monsters and such try to look up what kind of motivation/habits they have. Goblins in general are fairly cowardly only attacking if they happen to outnumber the party or got some momentum going. Otherwise there is always 1 or 2 who attempt to run away warning the others or getting reinforcements. This will aid in speeding up the current encounter which the party is winning. It also shows some of the personality/level of intelligence the opponent has. The next encounter can then reflect possible changes due to the warning. And depending on how your party handles the fights you don't have to add 1 additional goblin to the next encounter. Players don't know how many they were supposed to encounter there. Meaning you can reduce the numbers if need be, but have the goblins in a defensive and alert position. Also makes everything feel a bit more organic and real showing all their actions have a certain effect. Goblins know to identify the basics such as heavy armor don't attack and go for the lighter armored targets. But other then that they don't have any more "advanced" tactics. Unlike their more militarily organized Hobgoblin cousins.
A good way to teach your players is to show. If opponents can flee then so can they. If smarter, better trained, opponents can disarm the party, then so can they. If opponents exibit tactics of using chokepoints and traps...then so can the party.
Spellcasters are indeed nice and powerful. With a rogue, fighter and cleric I think they would've still manage to get through. Although progression would've been much slower and you might've had to drop 1 or 2 enemies per encounter. Most goblins in my early adventures only have 7-9hp with an AC of 13-15 which means they die fast enough. Thing with balancing is mostly to make sure they don't fight more then 4-5 opponents as a group of 3. Otherwise there are too many sources of damage incoming at once with not enough ways to mitigate it yet. In my current campaign the cleric has 0 healing spells and yet they somehow managed to make it. However at lvl 2 he did decide to learn Cure Wounds due too some really close calls.
I was surprised as well with how squishy characters are...even with 16AC right from the start. Had opponents attack them in a way that made sense to me. Rats are feral and not all that smart. Would just gang up on the nearest target, or the one that last hit them. The dragon wyrmling wounded two targets, got hit by the barbarian for big damage. Didn't consider the two as a threat and went for the barbarian. Had no idea how often they got out of a fight with only 1 or 2 hp left until they told me, but the intensity and logic of their opponents was worth it. Its ok to down a player in a fight. They can heal him, battlefield triage him through a medicine check too stabilize if they ran out of potions...then take a long rest and recuperate fully. If you notice players going down frequently you might decide to reduce the enemies ToHit statistic from +3 down to +2 and also take 1 or 2 points of damage away per high roll.
Going down to death's door and back up to kill a goblin with a magic missile doesn't seem much of a disconnect. It is pretty much an auto-aim which doesn't require a lot of focus to pull of. Wouldn't worry too much about it. When using a spell that requires an attack roll you're more likely too miss early on and would get rid of the disconnect. Otherwise you can also homebrew a rule yourself. But that would feel like punishing your players twice which isn't cool.
In short try to aim for having fun and don't overthink things just yet. Gradually introduce new mechanics/rules and some out of the box thinking.
Thanks for that leogobsin! I think what I realized is that 0HP should not be "dead" but rather a state at which the player can no longer participate in the fight. He may just be unconscious or has broken his leg and in so much pain he's just writhing in pain on the ground or is bleeding from his gut and is focused on his wound. That way, healing at 0HP or even below isn't bringing anyone back from the dead, it's just restoring enough HP so as to make the character combat capable again.
Giblix, I think I made them roll for perception or he wanted to investigate the horses; either way, he rolled a 1 so I ruled that he was too engrossed at what he was doing that he was essentially caught surprised with the first round of combat.
The party did not state that they wanted to keep the goblin alive but they were asking what they could loot from the goblins and even my rogue asked if he could take the arrows from the range goblins and I said they looked in such a sad state that it looks like he might contract some sort of disease from them; at the very least, they did not look like something that would fly true. I then mentioned that they noticed one goblin was still breathing but knocked out so they jumped on that and so I thought that was cool. A slight nudge in that direction, if you will! With my realization from leogobsin, I think I'll only really "kill" enemies outright if they go to negative HP equal to their original HP so most "kills" will just be enemies out of the fight really, maybe bleeding out until any sort of rescue comes. Of course I may make exceptions for attacks that do really big damage or one-shot attacks. Thoughts?
Timer - yeah, there was nothing there to nudge them on and they were even talking about spending the night but keeping the goblin with them. We already spent so much time trying to keep Barthen in the dark, then 'fess up, then plan what next steps to take... I even had Barthen encourage them to save the dwarf by following up on the goblin trail, nothing. Over the course of the evening, I would just let them discuss possible options as I re-read the adventure then when I'm done, I look up and ask what they've decided on and move from there.
Potion - I'm just a bit surprised at how damage and healing works. It's been a while since I played the Pathfinder game so I'm not really sure if my memory is correct but I didn't feel this much tension during my games with regards to HP and healing, but again, maybe that might just be the difference between the DM role and the player role.
Perception - yes, I'm aware it didn't need a roll for passive, but he fails that and the book called for making them to active rolls. He was up front sneaking so I ruled that he's on hightened senses and looking out for traps or enemies anyway. If they were just walking casually, I would've just used the passive but as he was sneaking, then I gave him an active roll too.
Goblins - I just came up with that on the fly as I realized that they were too engrossed in the fight. I may add a goblin later on or just have him replace one of the goblins, but it should be a fun encounter later on. I'm not quite sure how to roleplay it yet. He (goblin) was healed to full health, after all! Suggestions? Maybe he'll convince Yeemik to release Sildar without a ransom? This goblin and Yeemik might even be a recurring enemy during the game (I've not read the whole adventure yet).
Wizard - my main motivation here was to have a 4-player party so that I don't have to adjust the encounters but part of me feels like the wizard is making it too easy plus being a DM-controlled character makes me feel a bit deus ex machina here. I probably would mind it less if it were a proper PC. As to his death/kill orc scenario, I just explained it too haphazardly and was fully expecting the party to tackle the encounter without the wizard so I was surprised at the healing and at the amount of HP healed. Combine that with good rolls from my fighter... I was expecting the fight to last another round or two due to the higher AC from cover but the dice had other ideas.
I think for our next game, I'm going to go over some rules and mechanics that way the playing is mixed in with learning the system, and I can introduce new things in a structured manner. I'll need to read more of the rules again to see what we need to cover more on. I don't want to talk too much about HP and AC and attack rolls as the only HP I want them to know is their own; I plan to just describe enemy states instead of saying "he has 1HP left"
I don't want to talk too much about HP and AC and attack rolls as the only HP I want them to know is their own; I plan to just describe enemy states instead of saying "he has 1HP left"
One of the best things I learned to do is describe what the creature looks like. Imagine you're watching mma on TV, there's no HP bar above the two guys in the octagon, but you can tell who's more damaged. Explain the slice in the goblins arm as the fighters sword just barely makes contact (rolled a 14 vs AC 13) and the blood starting to trickle out. Explain the ranger's arrow piercing the soft spot in the ribs, doubling the goblin over (crit). As the fight goes on explain, the bugbear is breathing heavy, it's arms seem to be heavy, with a blood rage in it's eyes it lumbers at you swinging with a feral ferocity of a creature resigned to death. That's a great way to make them know it's pretty darn close to dead.
For AC, you only really need to narrate near hit/miss, the rest of the time a simple line should suffice. On hit or miss: "Your swing heads toward the goblin, and you watch the beast sway away from your blow", "You let loose the magical energies and watch as the firebolt sprays across the creature's chest". Simple, effective, and descriptive.
For those near hit/miss moments, when you want to indicate it, be a tad more descriptive: "Your greatsword swings down, you watch in slow motion as the blade scrapes across the chest plate of the opponent, as his body twists just in time to avoid taking any damage from your attack." or "You crawl through the shadows, getting close to the beast and drive your rapier toward it, in that moment you watch the muscles flex as it begins to move...your attack just barely slips in piercing the creature." Have fun with your words, it'll make it all the more exciting for the table.
It sounds like you've had a good go of this, I'm glad it's turning out well for you!
Exactly! If you read above, one arrow bounced off of the cleric's armor. That was 1 point shy of the cleric's AC. However, I think that hit descriptions would depend on how much damage was done? An attack roll of 16 vs. AC of 15 but damage of 8 HP (total HP is 10) would be a solid hit, maybe after finding a chink in the armor; an attack roll of 19 vs. AC of 12 but damage of 2 HP (total HP is 10) would be a slight graze on the arm or a nick in the thigh. Am I wrong in thinking this way?
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Would there be any benefit with printing out stuff like the Redbrand Hideout big enough so that each square is 1" in size instead of just printing the whole map on one sheet of paper?
Only if you plan on using minis so your players can move around on the map. Otherwise, a smaller map that you can use to describe stuff from is fine.
I have a bunch of cardboard standups from Pathfinder and I'm thinking the visuals will help. I know nothing beats the theatre of the mind but having aids definitely helps especially for new players, right? Plus it'll help justify the cost of buying the adventure on D&D Beyond.
Any suggestions regarding what the 3-player party would consist of?
Reading the Goblin Arrows section of the adventure and I'm confused with how the flow is supposed to work. My party will be in area 5, will get flooded twice, and then the adventure moves on to area 6? Maybe if they scale the climb in area 4, but I fully expect them to follow the map to area 7. Because of the goblin that will run to area 8, they'll most likely do that too before area 6. So why is area 6 injected between 5 and 7 when it could well be the last area to be explored?
At the end of area 8, it also says Klarg will run away if the wolf is killed. With a 30ft move speed and supposedly hiding behind the stalactites on the west side of the cavern, 30ft move can easily bring him to the middle of area 3. I'm guessing he's supposed to be taken out with ranged attacks?
When maps have numbered areas, that's really just a way of labeling the areas for reference, it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the order in which areas will be encountered. The order will often match up with the route players take, but there are also times where it's more or less arbitrary.
As for Klarg, players could take him out with ranged attacks yeah, but I think it's just as likely (and totally a valid option) that he escapes the caves and gets away from the players entirely.
EDIT: Keep in mind, the chimney between areas 3 and 8 is 30 feet high, and climbing costs an extra foot of movement for every foot moved, so it would take at least a turn just to get from the top of the shaft to the bottom.
I agree with that if the map was say a castle and you're in a corridor that branches out 4 ways but in this map, there's only really one way through with two possible side options depending on PC agility but even then, not without great risk and possible injury.
As for the chimney area, yes it's 30 feet high but Klarg will be going down, not up. I'd imagine him sliding/jumping/rolling down, so maybe reduce his move by 1/3rd to 20feet, plus maybe a roll to see whether he avoids damage or not?
Yeah I guess the thing with the map numbering is: I don't really know why the numbers are the way they are, but also it doesn't really matter. Theoretically your players will never see those numbers, just follow along with where they go on the map and use the numbers to reference descriptions of the areas they go to.
For climbing, the rules really make any allowances for climbing down being faster than climbing up, but idk that's really up to you for how you want to run that. Again, I think it would be totally fine, and seems to be the intent of the adventure, that Klarg could escape from the players.
Thanks for that, leogobsin! I just thought that because of the somewhat linear layout of the map, it was odd that the numbering wasn't.
I've read the first two parts of the adventure and I wonder what the party is supposed to do with the gems and items they find. The gold is easy, they add it to their stash, items they can use goes to the relevant PC, but what about gems or jewelry? If the book says one pearl (100 gp) and the party sells it at the trader in town, do they get the full 100 gp?
Yes, a typical shop will buy at the described price, but you can add some variance on that if you deem it appropriate. Mayne they got on a particular shopkeepers bad side, and head offer them less, or a shopkeeper they befriend may give them a deal if their patronage is loyal. Gems and jewelry can also be bartered among small communities without banks or that don't put importance in civilized currency (maybe offering those kobold or goblin ambushers a small bag of gems would be enough to avoid an encounter during a time where the party needs to recover).
#OpenDnD. #DnDBegone
Thanks for that Norman. I just seem to remember shops buying gear from PCs at something like 50%-80% of the price listed so I did not know if that remained the same for 5th edition.
As I'm playing with 3 players, would I need to adjust the enemy composition and XP rewards? I notice the adventure says it's written for 4-5 PCs but there's nothing in it to help me adjust for more players or less players. I don't want to rank up my players too quickly but I don't want to total party kill them either!
Exp is split evenly between the party members that fought (including npcs that helped), no matter the amount. If one person kills a goblins or a dragon single handedly, he gets all the XP. If it's three people, it's a three way split. If it's three PC's and a hired NPC, it's split four ways, even though the NPC isn't a main character.
I notice you're very concerned about the rules and mechanics of gameplay, and that probably comes from being a vet of editions past. However, the thing about 5e is the emphasis is more on the storytelling than the mechanics. The system is meant to be relatively rules light and absolutely adjustable to anyone's PC/DM style.
I know it's a lot of rules to take in and that you're obviously nervous about presenting a fun and believable world for your family to romp around in. However, don't forget that it's okay to start DMing without knowing every rule, especially with 5e. It seems you have a lot of pressure on yourself to keep things as rules-as-written as possible, but I think your kids will have fun so long as you keep things engaging for them. Relax, and take it from me; no DM can recall all the rules. We all keep the book for a reason. Look up rules as you go, or make calls on the spot that feel right/fun and make a note to look that one up later. Instead, focus on what your kids want to do, what little story they want to tell, the ideas for stuff they have. This is the perfect time for you and them to learn the game by butting against it rather than knowing where every line not to cross is from the start.
Not telling you to stop asking on this thread by any means. Just saying you should have fun with it, too, and that I hope you aren't too stressed. We're all here to help, so fire away.
#OpenDnD. #DnDBegone
Thanks for the reassurance, Norman! I'm no vet of previous editions; like I said, I've played a few but not really as a DM and not really dug into the rules/mechanics!
My main concern here is that I'm playing with 3 PCs or even 2 PCs with 1 NPC side-kick and I'm worried that throwing the stated number of foes at them would result in a very difficult combat and thus, less fun. The other concern is that if they still do manage to overcome the obstacles, the low party member count may mean they'll level up too quickly and thus the future combat encounters will be a walk in the park.
I realize I've not even rolled a single dice in 5e yet so I may be overthinking this, which isn't really a surprise considering what I'm like! First game tonight so wish me luck!!
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Wasn't able to game on that night as the wife had other plans but was able to play last night! Wall-of-text coming up so apologies for that but I would appreciate if you guys could read through and offer suggestions or if I did anything wrong, I would appreciate it if you could point it out! Thanks!
It was slow going at first as we were getting to grips with the character sheet, where to find info, how to do dice rolls, etc. which made me wonder how exactly my son was playing in his club. He wasn't quite sure how to do attack rolls and damage rolls and he mentioned they only had limited dice so I doubt if they played with any sort of character sheet or any structure at all.
Anyway, my eldest played the halfling rogue, my youngest (8yo) played the human fighter (greatsword/longbow), my wife played the dwarf cleric, and I had the elf wizard accompany them as a DM-controlled character. I had them go to bed in the real world and then wake up as their characters in fantasy land so they only had a vague inkling of their backstory. On their travel to Phandalin, they introduced themselves and fleshed out their backstory a little bit and on the first encounter with the goblins, the fight was fairly quick. The rogue acted first and damaged a goblin, the wizard killed one with one magic missile bolt and killed the other with the other two magic missile bolts, the goblins then came in and attacked the fighter leaving him with 4HP then the cleric bashed one goblin. I had the fighter lose his first turn because he fumbled his previous investigation roll so he was too busy with his searching to have noticed the initial attack. Next round, the rogue attacked the uninjured goblin but missed, and then the wizard finished off the injured one. The goblin attacked again and missed and this time, the fighter was aware of the attack and killed the last one.
After the fight, the cleric cast her first healing spells and returned the fighter to full health. I had one goblin be unconscious but breathing so the party decided to tie him up then heal him to wake him up.... and the cleric healed him to full health! Anyway, got info out of him, found the goblin trail, but I ruled that the they could not bring the ox-cart (supplies) up the trail with him so they decided to chuck the goblin in the cart, head to town and go from there. They got to the trading post where the clerks took the cart round back to unload it and soon discoverd the goblin. The PCs initially were cautious with Barthen, giving him little info but when the goblin was found, the party 'fessed up. I then had Barthen ask what they wanted to do with the goblin, offering to imprison the creature in the town's jail but the party decided to keep him along.
At this point, we were spending so much time in town deciding what to do that I whipped out the phone, put a 2 minute timer on, and told them they had that much time to decide what to do. That speeded things up a bit so I'm keeping that trick up my sleeve!
They did want to buy some stuff but I ruled that the Lionshield Coster was closed due to current stock issues. This is where I noticed the price of a single vial of potion of healing; 50gp for 4-10hp seems a tad expensive? Maybe the monetary progression will be better later in the game? In any case, this highlighted the importance of the cleric and her cure wounds spell!
The party returned to the trail and they decided the marching order would have the rogue up front sneaking, then the fighter, the goblin, the cleric, then the wizard. The trailed called for a passive Wisdom (Perception) of 12 and the rogue has 10 so I had him roll and he got lower than 10 so that meant he didn't notice the trap and was soon dangling in the air. The fighter was then too eager to cut the rope so the rogue suffered 6 points of damage from the fall, 2/3rds of his HP! That was a funny "oops!" moment. Continuing on, the rogue decided he won't be in front anymore and was just being sneaky but in line with the fighter. They interviewed the goblin again asking if there were any more traps but even with a high intimidate roll and a high perception roll, I decided the goblin would not know of traps on the trail as he was just there for the ambush job. So onward they go, after the cleric healing the rogue again. I ruled that their trip and interview with Barthen in Phandelin was a short rest period so everyone had their full HPs and spell slots at the start of the goblin trail. The fighter failed his Wisdom (Perception) check but succeeded in his Dexterity saving throw and managed to jump away before the floor fell under him.
At this point, they reached the hideout and again fell into a long discussion about what to do, quizzed the goblin again how many were in the cave, etc., had rolls to see if he was lying again, and had about 10 different plans so I had the goblin eventually shout a warning about intruders approaching and combat ensued with the guarding goblins. They had a surprise round with the goblins acting, one shot bounced off the cleric's armor and the other putting the fighter at half HP. The goblins also rolled high on initiative so they acted first, essentially acting twice in a row. The next round of arrows put the rogue at half HP but a critical hit put the wizard at 0HP and bleeding out. I then explained the rules on stabilizing a character or healing him so they opted to heal him to get him back in the fight. The rogue decided to move into the forest and hide, the cleric healed the wizard back to full HP, then it was the wizard's turn. Magic missile, one goblin dead. The fighter then shot an arrow through the bushes and despite the higher AC due to half cover, still managed to hit and one-shot the second goblin. As the fight ended, the party realized they totally forgot about their goblin captive and found him rounding the corner going deeper into the cave and he was laughing!
As the cleric was out of spell slots, the party decided to short rest again just outside the cave before going in. At the wolf encounter, they decided to stay at range to pick off the wolves so I had them notice that the nails holding down the wolves were pulled out halfway during the wolves' turn. The party injured two wolves and the wizard just obliterates the third one with magic missile. The party manages to kill the second wolf at the start of round 2 but then the first wolf breaks free and attacks the fighter, dealing 9HP damage. I stopped magic missile-ing everything and so the rogue sneak-attacks the wolf to death.
At this point, I decide to stop the session for now.
A few observations --- The wizard just obliterates everything with magic missile! 3 darts for a total of 3d4+3 is 6-15 damage, enough to one-shot a goblin even on a low roll and maybe two attacks on a wolf on a medium roll, but with hot dice, can still one-shot a wolf! The squishy-ness of the 1st-level character is nice enough that the cleric is valuable and the PCs don't go dashing into dangerous situations but I wonder how the party would've fared if the wizard was not there.
Speaking of HP, it feels like the PCs are a bit more fragile than I remember? Maybe I'm just remembering wrong or the Pathfinder/3.5 ruleset is just different? Or maybe I'm just noticing it as a DM but never appreciated it as a player? Taking out the wizard meant the fights would last another round or two and I can see a PC or two dropping to 0HP or below by the time a fight would end. I would have to make the enemy attack different characters each round as one or two rounds of concentrated fire would be enough to kill a PC and severely injure another, but on a 3-PC team, that's a big blow! It would also slow down the adventuring quite a bit as the party takes more short rests.
I would also like to copy-paste a few spells out of the PHB or DDB but keep the formatting and while redoing the formatting on Word is easy, doing it for a few dozen spells would be painful. Is there any tool or site out there that allows me to do this?
My group had to come up with names for the characters and I wasn't very impressed with the name generators I've found online. Is there a site you guys go to regularly?
Apologies again for the wall of text but thanks in advance for any help!
One more -- I don't exactly know how I feel or what to do about the incident with the wizard going from full HP to 0HP then back to full HP and one-shotting a goblin. Seems a bit too much of a disconnect to me. Feeling fine and dandy, then get knocked out by a ranged attack and for all intents and purposes, at death's door bleeding out on the floor, then back at full health as if nothing's happened and powerful enough to one-shot the bad guy right back? How would you deal with something like this story-wise? What would be a good description of events like this?
Sure I'll take my time reading. Always enjoyed reading other peoples re-caps and still do.
"I had the fighter lose his first turn because he fumbled his previous investigation roll so he was too busy with his searching to have noticed the initial attack."
What kind of investigation did he do that made him unaware, or slow to react, to the attack? As long as there is a plausible rational explanation you should be fine.
"I had one goblin be unconscious but breathing so the party decided to tie him up then heal him to wake him up"
Did the players say they wanted to keep the goblin alive? Usually they can state that and the last hit will be one to knock the opponent out instead of a killing blow. Since it is your first session I can understand you are a bit more lenient to the players. After all... in this way you can show them there are more ways to deal with situations. After showing them the freedom and options in the future I'd leave it up to the players whether they decide to keep someone alive or not. Even story related characters should be killable if the players so desire. As a DM you then tie certain logical/plausible repercussions. Or have alternate ways players can still attain needed information for progress.
"At this point, we were spending so much time in town deciding what to do that I whipped out the phone, put a 2 minute timer on, and told them they had that much time to decide what to do. That speeded things up a bit so I'm keeping that trick up my sleeve!"
The timer can be a nice tool to use and speed things up, preventing a slog of indecisiveness. However try looking into other tools as well to create the illusion of expediency. Npc's telling hinting there has to be acted fast before a possible raid occurs or what fits with the story.
50gp for a healing potion seems expensive. But after the first dungeon they should have a few 100 among them combined from quest rewards and loot that they can sell. If players are having trouble getting by with all the healing options available its ok to aid them a little. If you can justify a reason why an NPC might offer a potion for free or far cheaper then by all means do it. For now just see how your players handle the encounters and whether they struggle. They get healing from the cleric and Hit Die gained for a short rest as well. Might also be able to exchange some pre-written rewards and exchange it for a magical scroll of healing when they go around the dungeon. Once again. Its ok to be lenient with new players. I personally think its more important to have fun while also learning the basic mechanics. You can ramp up the challenges as everyone gets more experienced with the rules.
" The trailed called for a passive Wisdom (Perception) of 12 and the rogue has 10 so I had him roll"
A passive perception doesn't require a roll. Your way is done well. Once again towards the leniency of new players. Also use that as an example, for you talk after the game or prior the next one, to explain players should learn to ask for specific things. And try to roleplay it instead of saying "insight check" try to get them to phrase it as "I get the idea they're not telling everything". Same for them checking an environment for specific things. Once again think of how you want your players to eventually interact with the world... and think of gradual steps of learning to get there.
The goblin encounter was nice. Especially with their captive using it to run away. When it comes to playing monsters and such try to look up what kind of motivation/habits they have. Goblins in general are fairly cowardly only attacking if they happen to outnumber the party or got some momentum going. Otherwise there is always 1 or 2 who attempt to run away warning the others or getting reinforcements. This will aid in speeding up the current encounter which the party is winning. It also shows some of the personality/level of intelligence the opponent has. The next encounter can then reflect possible changes due to the warning. And depending on how your party handles the fights you don't have to add 1 additional goblin to the next encounter. Players don't know how many they were supposed to encounter there. Meaning you can reduce the numbers if need be, but have the goblins in a defensive and alert position. Also makes everything feel a bit more organic and real showing all their actions have a certain effect. Goblins know to identify the basics such as heavy armor don't attack and go for the lighter armored targets. But other then that they don't have any more "advanced" tactics. Unlike their more militarily organized Hobgoblin cousins.
A good way to teach your players is to show. If opponents can flee then so can they. If smarter, better trained, opponents can disarm the party, then so can they. If opponents exibit tactics of using chokepoints and traps...then so can the party.
Spellcasters are indeed nice and powerful. With a rogue, fighter and cleric I think they would've still manage to get through. Although progression would've been much slower and you might've had to drop 1 or 2 enemies per encounter. Most goblins in my early adventures only have 7-9hp with an AC of 13-15 which means they die fast enough. Thing with balancing is mostly to make sure they don't fight more then 4-5 opponents as a group of 3. Otherwise there are too many sources of damage incoming at once with not enough ways to mitigate it yet. In my current campaign the cleric has 0 healing spells and yet they somehow managed to make it. However at lvl 2 he did decide to learn Cure Wounds due too some really close calls.
I was surprised as well with how squishy characters are...even with 16AC right from the start. Had opponents attack them in a way that made sense to me. Rats are feral and not all that smart. Would just gang up on the nearest target, or the one that last hit them. The dragon wyrmling wounded two targets, got hit by the barbarian for big damage. Didn't consider the two as a threat and went for the barbarian. Had no idea how often they got out of a fight with only 1 or 2 hp left until they told me, but the intensity and logic of their opponents was worth it. Its ok to down a player in a fight. They can heal him, battlefield triage him through a medicine check too stabilize if they ran out of potions...then take a long rest and recuperate fully. If you notice players going down frequently you might decide to reduce the enemies ToHit statistic from +3 down to +2 and also take 1 or 2 points of damage away per high roll.
Going down to death's door and back up to kill a goblin with a magic missile doesn't seem much of a disconnect. It is pretty much an auto-aim which doesn't require a lot of focus to pull of. Wouldn't worry too much about it. When using a spell that requires an attack roll you're more likely too miss early on and would get rid of the disconnect. Otherwise you can also homebrew a rule yourself. But that would feel like punishing your players twice which isn't cool.
In short try to aim for having fun and don't overthink things just yet. Gradually introduce new mechanics/rules and some out of the box thinking.
Thanks for that leogobsin! I think what I realized is that 0HP should not be "dead" but rather a state at which the player can no longer participate in the fight. He may just be unconscious or has broken his leg and in so much pain he's just writhing in pain on the ground or is bleeding from his gut and is focused on his wound. That way, healing at 0HP or even below isn't bringing anyone back from the dead, it's just restoring enough HP so as to make the character combat capable again.
Giblix, I think I made them roll for perception or he wanted to investigate the horses; either way, he rolled a 1 so I ruled that he was too engrossed at what he was doing that he was essentially caught surprised with the first round of combat.
The party did not state that they wanted to keep the goblin alive but they were asking what they could loot from the goblins and even my rogue asked if he could take the arrows from the range goblins and I said they looked in such a sad state that it looks like he might contract some sort of disease from them; at the very least, they did not look like something that would fly true. I then mentioned that they noticed one goblin was still breathing but knocked out so they jumped on that and so I thought that was cool. A slight nudge in that direction, if you will! With my realization from leogobsin, I think I'll only really "kill" enemies outright if they go to negative HP equal to their original HP so most "kills" will just be enemies out of the fight really, maybe bleeding out until any sort of rescue comes. Of course I may make exceptions for attacks that do really big damage or one-shot attacks. Thoughts?
Timer - yeah, there was nothing there to nudge them on and they were even talking about spending the night but keeping the goblin with them. We already spent so much time trying to keep Barthen in the dark, then 'fess up, then plan what next steps to take... I even had Barthen encourage them to save the dwarf by following up on the goblin trail, nothing. Over the course of the evening, I would just let them discuss possible options as I re-read the adventure then when I'm done, I look up and ask what they've decided on and move from there.
Potion - I'm just a bit surprised at how damage and healing works. It's been a while since I played the Pathfinder game so I'm not really sure if my memory is correct but I didn't feel this much tension during my games with regards to HP and healing, but again, maybe that might just be the difference between the DM role and the player role.
Perception - yes, I'm aware it didn't need a roll for passive, but he fails that and the book called for making them to active rolls. He was up front sneaking so I ruled that he's on hightened senses and looking out for traps or enemies anyway. If they were just walking casually, I would've just used the passive but as he was sneaking, then I gave him an active roll too.
Goblins - I just came up with that on the fly as I realized that they were too engrossed in the fight. I may add a goblin later on or just have him replace one of the goblins, but it should be a fun encounter later on. I'm not quite sure how to roleplay it yet. He (goblin) was healed to full health, after all! Suggestions? Maybe he'll convince Yeemik to release Sildar without a ransom? This goblin and Yeemik might even be a recurring enemy during the game (I've not read the whole adventure yet).
Wizard - my main motivation here was to have a 4-player party so that I don't have to adjust the encounters but part of me feels like the wizard is making it too easy plus being a DM-controlled character makes me feel a bit deus ex machina here. I probably would mind it less if it were a proper PC. As to his death/kill orc scenario, I just explained it too haphazardly and was fully expecting the party to tackle the encounter without the wizard so I was surprised at the healing and at the amount of HP healed. Combine that with good rolls from my fighter... I was expecting the fight to last another round or two due to the higher AC from cover but the dice had other ideas.
I think for our next game, I'm going to go over some rules and mechanics that way the playing is mixed in with learning the system, and I can introduce new things in a structured manner. I'll need to read more of the rules again to see what we need to cover more on. I don't want to talk too much about HP and AC and attack rolls as the only HP I want them to know is their own; I plan to just describe enemy states instead of saying "he has 1HP left"
Exactly! If you read above, one arrow bounced off of the cleric's armor. That was 1 point shy of the cleric's AC. However, I think that hit descriptions would depend on how much damage was done? An attack roll of 16 vs. AC of 15 but damage of 8 HP (total HP is 10) would be a solid hit, maybe after finding a chink in the armor; an attack roll of 19 vs. AC of 12 but damage of 2 HP (total HP is 10) would be a slight graze on the arm or a nick in the thigh. Am I wrong in thinking this way?