So I’ve started running dungeon of the mad mage and it’s with two sorcerers, a bard and a rouge, they’re burning through healing potions. So how can I help them not die without a DM NPC cleric?
2 are newish players one this is their first character. Nearly killed with grells and intellect devours.
So I’ve started running dungeon of the mad mage and it’s with two sorcerers, a bard and a rouge, they’re burning through healing potions. So how can I help them not die without a DM NPC cleric?
Bards have access to healing spells. Scrolls, magic items, maybe even a bonus feat...all of those can help boost a party's healing abilities. However, I'd also suggest that player character death sometimes happens...let it. Odds are the first proper character death will shock them into realising that the party do have a weakness and it won't always go well. That said, see the thread on player mindset...this is good evidence that the player mindset is alive and well.
Yeah, if players are concerned about healing... the bard is just as good at healing as a Cleric or Druid. Cleric has a few more subclasses that give direct boosts to healing, but a Bard has just as many spell slots and has access to more than enough healing spells. Healing Word alone is basically all that's really needed in 5e, if only to pop allies up from zero to avoid full TPK.
It's the party's responsibility to avoid a TPK. Allow them to figure it out for themselves. There's plenty of ways to avoid losing hit points in the first place. But, for when they do...
Aside from the Bard picking up healing spells, I believe the DotMM has vendors they can encounter. The vendors can sell them as many healing potions as they can afford. Maybe give them bulk discounts? Or a rewards card membership type deal? If any of them have the herbalist kit proficiency (the bard will have half proficiency at least) then you can allow them to search/harvest and make their own healing potions as well. I think there's even a level one spell in one of the books that allows a caster to create a health potion that lasts 24 hours.
The players also have the option to take the Healer feat and then they can expend a healer's kit charge to heal any creature once per long rest. Or the Inspiring Leader feat which allows them to give a 10 minute speech and grant temporary hit points. With three charisma casters that would come in handy.
If one of the Sorcerers wants to you can allow them to "respec" to a Divine Soul and they'll then have access to cleric spells.
Have them find a staff of healing. The bard can use it.
No. Stuff like that trivializes player decisions that may cause death.
THe whole point of the thread is to find a way to not cause death.
Suggestions otherwise are not particularly good at answering the OP.
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Honestly, based on what very little I know, the best solution may be a magical escalator out. That isn't helpful, however
Provide time for them to take plenty of short and long rests.
Drop encounters down by 1 creature, or have the creature they are facing wounded.
Sprinkle healing potions throughout the rooms.
Not really familiar with it, so can't be more specific.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
It's usually fine and a part of the responsibility to be prepared is on the party. You just need to enable them when they try to do that reasonably. If they want to buy items let them find a place, it's a good way to introduce characters
Have them find a staff of healing. The bard can use it.
No. Stuff like that trivializes player decisions that may cause death.
THe whole point of the thread is to find a way to not cause death.
Suggestions otherwise are not particularly good at answering the OP.
That is because the suggestions given are not the best answers. If "not causing death" is the optimum condition, then the DM should simply not have the players track HP, or simply handwave every encounter. That is the same results as sprinkling healing potions, jury-rigging the encounters.
That you think those two things are equivalent speaks volumes about your style of playing pathfinder D&D 5e.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Let them play the characters they want to play - it's supposed to be fun! If it were my game, I'd introduce some sort of tank to draw fire and let the rogue and sorcerers do what they were supposed to do - heck, a DMPC (or other) cleric would really help.
So I’ve started running dungeon of the mad mage and it’s with two sorcerers, a bard and a rouge, they’re burning through healing potions. So how can I help them not die without a DM NPC cleric?
One potential idea is allowing Medicine checks to heal on a successful roll. They really should do something like this already, the skill is so unbelievably useless so it's not like you'd be making it OP. I like having a successful Medicine check enable the patient to spend Hit Dice without needing a short rest, but you also could just say it heals 10 hp for free or something
Probably the most important questions are: are your players having fun and what is their attitude to the potential for character death? (That is, are you worrying about a TPK more than they are?) They’ve probably already realised that they’re playing a rather skewed party that’s likely to struggle in many encounters (but could trivialise others). Are they wanting a bit of help or are they relishing the challenge?
As others have said, the Bard should have plenty of access to healing. Looking at the party composition, are they instead finding themselves on the frontline, by default (e.g. College of Swords or Valour)?
If the players do want some help, then sidekicks (see Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything) might be an answer. A Warrior to take some of the frontline burden off the Bard or a Spellcaster for healing would be the ones to look at.
If healing is a concern, you can always use healing magic such as Healing Potions and use Rest Variant Rules Epic Heroism or homebrew Long Rest to recover all Hit Dice instead of only half of it.
Have them find a staff of healing. The bard can use it.
No. Stuff like that trivializes player decisions that may cause death.
THe whole point of the thread is to find a way to not cause death.
Suggestions otherwise are not particularly good at answering the OP.
That is because the suggestions given are not the best answers. If "not causing death" is the optimum condition, then the DM should simply not have the players track HP, or simply handwave every encounter. That is the same results as sprinkling healing potions, jury-rigging the encounters.
That you think those two things are equivalent speaks volumes about your style of playing pathfinder D&D 5e.
If chars can' die, the methods to ensure that become irrelevant. The result is the same. The game has always been about the potential of char death. Always. It is not a game where the players can save and reset a video game.
That's neither accurate nor correct and is markedly deceptive and deceitful.
I have played with the creators and early developers of the game, and none of them ever said or thought the game was about the possibility of char death. Not only that, but I am quite certain the current designers would soundly disagree with you -- the game is about having fun and having adventures. For some people, the possibility of death makes the game more interesting, while for others (and that includes a significant majority of them) the possibility of death reduces the fun of the game (hence why the game is currently designed to minimize the possibility of death).
Death is not what the game is about, death is a potential circumstance -- and if a DM wants to treat their table as a video game, with instant rebirth or spawning, that is a perfectly acceptable way to play. Literally.
I would even go so far as to state that it is more likely to be played in much the same way as a video game, overall (were death is a possibility, but you get to start again right after you die) and that it is going to become even more that way as the popularity of video games continues increases over time.
Given that D&D inspired (and spawned) many of those video games, which acted to use the basics of D&D to create and model their systems, the argument that D&D isn't like a video game is, well, empty, vacuous, and ignorant -- although it does make me laugh at the absurdity inherent in someone thinking that such an argument has merit or weight.
Unless one has some weird desire to see people only play the way that they play and feels like crapping on everything that anyone else is doing, of course.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Have them find a staff of healing. The bard can use it.
No. Stuff like that trivializes player decisions that may cause death.
THe whole point of the thread is to find a way to not cause death.
Suggestions otherwise are not particularly good at answering the OP.
That is because the suggestions given are not the best answers. If "not causing death" is the optimum condition, then the DM should simply not have the players track HP, or simply handwave every encounter. That is the same results as sprinkling healing potions, jury-rigging the encounters.
That you think those two things are equivalent speaks volumes about your style of playing pathfinder D&D 5e.
If chars can' die, the methods to ensure that become irrelevant. The result is the same. The game has always been about the potential of char death. Always. It is not a game where the players can save and reset a video game.
That's neither accurate nor correct and is markedly deceptive and deceitful.
I have played with the creators and early developers of the game, and none of them ever said or thought the game was about the possibility of char death. Not only that, but I am quite certain the current designers would soundly disagree with you -- the game is about having fun and having adventures. For some people, the possibility of death makes the game more interesting, while for others (and that includes a significant majority of them) the possibility of death reduces the fun of the game (hence why the game is currently designed to minimize the possibility of death).
Death is not what the game is about, death is a potential circumstance -- and if a DM wants to treat their table as a video game, with instant rebirth or spawning, that is a perfectly acceptable way to play. Literally.
I would even go so far as to state that it is more likely to be played in much the same way as a video game, overall (were death is a possibility, but you get to start again right after you die) and that it is going to become even more that way as the popularity of video games continues increases over time.
Given that D&D inspired (and spawned) many of those video games, which acted to use the basics of D&D to create and model their systems, the argument that D&D isn't like a video game is, well, empty, vacuous, and ignorant -- although it does make me laugh at the absurdity inherent in someone thinking that such an argument has merit or weight.
Unless one has some weird desire to see people only play the way that they play and feels like crapping on everything that anyone else is doing, of course.
You are wrong on so many levels, I can't even begin to address them all.
I too, know and play with people that knew and played with Gygax. Have a look at Bill Silvey's YouTube channel, where he DM's a real AD&D 1e game, and a Gamma World game, and currently a Call of Cthulhu game. Death happens on an extremely regular basis in his games, and char death was expected in early D&D, and a zillion mechanics built around it. To say otherwise is simply revisionist history. And yeah, in the past 8 days I have played or DM'ed in a 1e game, two 5e games, and a Pathfinder game. I play in ALL forms of RPG games, so I know of what I speak.
Now, you may be right that the significant majority of current players think the possibility of character death makes the game less fun. With regard to you stating that "the game is about having fun and having adventures", your interpretation is wrong. For most people today, the game is about wish fulfillment, which is why they don't want their character to die. Having adventures and wish fulfillment are mutually exclusive, because adventures by definition include risks, challenges, and consequences. It's literally in the Merriam-Webster online definition, FIRST meaning, quote, " an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks"
If you can't die, there is no danger. After all, in an RPG, what other danger is there?
It doesn’t matter what you think the game is about or how you like to play. The OP has asked for ways to prevent TPK’ing his party. There is a swath of territory between not wanting a TPK and no character dying ever.
Level one is brutal in a dungeon crawl because the characters have so few onboard resources. A bard can be a fine healer but it’s tough to keep a whole party going on just a couple of spell slots. Characters are going to take damage, no matter how careful they are, no matter how brilliant their tactics, so there is nothing wrong with softballing encounters, seeding treasure with healing potions and being generous with opportunities to rest at low levels. As the levels progress, the DM can ramp up the opponents while throttling back the potions and rest opportunities. Risk still exists; individual still characters might die but, if everyone including the DM plays well, there is no TPK.
You are wrong on so many levels, I can't even begin to address them all.
I too, know and play with people that knew and played with Gygax. Have a look at Bill Silvey's YouTube channel, where he DM's a real AD&D 1e game, and a Gamma World game, and currently a Call of Cthulhu game. Death happens on an extremely regular basis in his games, and char death was expected in early D&D, and a zillion mechanics built around it. To say otherwise is simply revisionist history. And yeah, in the past 8 days I have played or DM'ed in a 1e game, two 5e games, and a Pathfinder game. I play in ALL forms of RPG games, so I know of what I speak.
Now, you may be right that the significant majority of current players think the possibility of character death makes the game less fun. With regard to you stating that "the game is about having fun and having adventures", your interpretation is wrong. For most people today, the game is about wish fulfillment, which is why they don't want their character to die. Having adventures and wish fulfillment are mutually exclusive, because adventures by definition include risks, challenges, and consequences. It's literally in the Merriam-Webster online definition, FIRST meaning, quote, " an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks"
If you can't die, there is no danger. After all, in an RPG, what other danger is there?
Let's try not to devolve this into an argument. AEDorsay is saying that it's okay for players to want to avoid death. You are saying that the way they want to play is wrong.
That's not cool. The game isn't yours to decide how other people play. We can all make suggestions together, but we can't say that one way to play is right and another is wrong, no matter how much playing experience you both may have. If we're not on topic let's please try to get back on topic.
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So I’ve started running dungeon of the mad mage and it’s with two sorcerers, a bard and a rouge, they’re burning through healing potions. So how can I help them not die without a DM NPC cleric?
2 are newish players one this is their first character. Nearly killed with grells and intellect devours.
PC death in 5e is extremely rare. Make sure there are potions of healing available and they should be fine.
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Bards have access to healing spells. Scrolls, magic items, maybe even a bonus feat...all of those can help boost a party's healing abilities. However, I'd also suggest that player character death sometimes happens...let it. Odds are the first proper character death will shock them into realising that the party do have a weakness and it won't always go well. That said, see the thread on player mindset...this is good evidence that the player mindset is alive and well.
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Offer them a few extra opportunities to have short rests if you are feeling worried. That rest and Hit Dice healing can help stretch things
After that, it's on them to take extra cautions.
Have them find a staff of healing. The bard can use it.
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Yeah, if players are concerned about healing... the bard is just as good at healing as a Cleric or Druid. Cleric has a few more subclasses that give direct boosts to healing, but a Bard has just as many spell slots and has access to more than enough healing spells. Healing Word alone is basically all that's really needed in 5e, if only to pop allies up from zero to avoid full TPK.
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It's the party's responsibility to avoid a TPK. Allow them to figure it out for themselves. There's plenty of ways to avoid losing hit points in the first place. But, for when they do...
Aside from the Bard picking up healing spells, I believe the DotMM has vendors they can encounter. The vendors can sell them as many healing potions as they can afford. Maybe give them bulk discounts? Or a rewards card membership type deal? If any of them have the herbalist kit proficiency (the bard will have half proficiency at least) then you can allow them to search/harvest and make their own healing potions as well. I think there's even a level one spell in one of the books that allows a caster to create a health potion that lasts 24 hours.
The players also have the option to take the Healer feat and then they can expend a healer's kit charge to heal any creature once per long rest. Or the Inspiring Leader feat which allows them to give a 10 minute speech and grant temporary hit points. With three charisma casters that would come in handy.
If one of the Sorcerers wants to you can allow them to "respec" to a Divine Soul and they'll then have access to cleric spells.
If the Rogue is a Thief subclass then (s)he can use it as well.
Right, at level 13.
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THe whole point of the thread is to find a way to not cause death.
Suggestions otherwise are not particularly good at answering the OP.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Honestly, based on what very little I know, the best solution may be a magical escalator out. That isn't helpful, however
Provide time for them to take plenty of short and long rests.
Drop encounters down by 1 creature, or have the creature they are facing wounded.
Sprinkle healing potions throughout the rooms.
Not really familiar with it, so can't be more specific.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
There are a few things.
It's usually fine and a part of the responsibility to be prepared is on the party. You just need to enable them when they try to do that reasonably. If they want to buy items let them find a place, it's a good way to introduce characters
That you think those two things are equivalent speaks volumes about your style of playing
pathfinderD&D 5e.Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Let them play the characters they want to play - it's supposed to be fun! If it were my game, I'd introduce some sort of tank to draw fire and let the rogue and sorcerers do what they were supposed to do - heck, a DMPC (or other) cleric would really help.
One potential idea is allowing Medicine checks to heal on a successful roll. They really should do something like this already, the skill is so unbelievably useless so it's not like you'd be making it OP. I like having a successful Medicine check enable the patient to spend Hit Dice without needing a short rest, but you also could just say it heals 10 hp for free or something
Probably the most important questions are: are your players having fun and what is their attitude to the potential for character death? (That is, are you worrying about a TPK more than they are?) They’ve probably already realised that they’re playing a rather skewed party that’s likely to struggle in many encounters (but could trivialise others). Are they wanting a bit of help or are they relishing the challenge?
As others have said, the Bard should have plenty of access to healing. Looking at the party composition, are they instead finding themselves on the frontline, by default (e.g. College of Swords or Valour)?
If the players do want some help, then sidekicks (see Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything) might be an answer. A Warrior to take some of the frontline burden off the Bard or a Spellcaster for healing would be the ones to look at.
If healing is a concern, you can always use healing magic such as Healing Potions and use Rest Variant Rules Epic Heroism or homebrew Long Rest to recover all Hit Dice instead of only half of it.
That's neither accurate nor correct and is markedly deceptive and deceitful.
I have played with the creators and early developers of the game, and none of them ever said or thought the game was about the possibility of char death. Not only that, but I am quite certain the current designers would soundly disagree with you -- the game is about having fun and having adventures. For some people, the possibility of death makes the game more interesting, while for others (and that includes a significant majority of them) the possibility of death reduces the fun of the game (hence why the game is currently designed to minimize the possibility of death).
Death is not what the game is about, death is a potential circumstance -- and if a DM wants to treat their table as a video game, with instant rebirth or spawning, that is a perfectly acceptable way to play. Literally.
I would even go so far as to state that it is more likely to be played in much the same way as a video game, overall (were death is a possibility, but you get to start again right after you die) and that it is going to become even more that way as the popularity of video games continues increases over time.
Given that D&D inspired (and spawned) many of those video games, which acted to use the basics of D&D to create and model their systems, the argument that D&D isn't like a video game is, well, empty, vacuous, and ignorant -- although it does make me laugh at the absurdity inherent in someone thinking that such an argument has merit or weight.
Unless one has some weird desire to see people only play the way that they play and feels like crapping on everything that anyone else is doing, of course.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
It doesn’t matter what you think the game is about or how you like to play. The OP has asked for ways to prevent TPK’ing his party. There is a swath of territory between not wanting a TPK and no character dying ever.
Level one is brutal in a dungeon crawl because the characters have so few onboard resources. A bard can be a fine healer but it’s tough to keep a whole party going on just a couple of spell slots. Characters are going to take damage, no matter how careful they are, no matter how brilliant their tactics, so there is nothing wrong with softballing encounters, seeding treasure with healing potions and being generous with opportunities to rest at low levels. As the levels progress, the DM can ramp up the opponents while throttling back the potions and rest opportunities. Risk still exists; individual still characters might die but, if everyone including the DM plays well, there is no TPK.
Let's try not to devolve this into an argument. AEDorsay is saying that it's okay for players to want to avoid death. You are saying that the way they want to play is wrong.
That's not cool. The game isn't yours to decide how other people play. We can all make suggestions together, but we can't say that one way to play is right and another is wrong, no matter how much playing experience you both may have. If we're not on topic let's please try to get back on topic.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?