Me and several of my friends (they are all new to D&D, and I'm new to DMing) have started a completely homebrewed campaign (I'm a storyteller and writer, so we wanted to do something original instead of following a script.). We've had two sessions so far, and I'm having some trouble gauging what the players can handle enemy wise.
The first night my poor players only survived because of a very lucky shot that spooked the enemy and the fact that I wasn't going to let them die in the first session. They were facing two goblins. Our player make up was a barbarian, ranger, cleric, and wizard.
The second night they completely obliterated my monster. After seeing them struggle to fight two targets I'd decided to throw a Sea Spawn at them (there is a strong ocean theme to the campaign, so they'll be encountering them often.). While the Sea Spawn was a stronger monster than the goblins, I figured they might pose better fighting just a single target instead of multiple. We did add an additional player (druid) this session as well because they weren't available the first night. But the majority of the damage was done by the barbarian just wreaking havoc.
So, as a new dm, I'm just trying to find the right balance here. All of them are very new to D&D so I don't want to throw too much at them, but they are learning very, very quickly so I don't want them to get bored. What are some tips or ideas on how to balance combat for a new DM?
If what looks like a balanced party of 4 had trouble with 2 goblins, I would chalk that up to them not knowing their character's abilities well. There wasn't anything weird going on like the barbarian just trying to grapple while the wizard hit it with a stick was there? An encounter with 2 CR 1/4 npcs who only have 7 HP shouldn't be an issue.
For the first few sessions you probably will be juggling things a bit.
One element that is really important in 5e combat is "action economy" -- how many different actions do your players have available as opposed to their enemies. In your first combat, you had 4 players and 2 goblins, so your players had a 2:1 advantage in actions per turn. While the sea spawn as written has multi-attack which can do decent damage, in your second case you had 5 players, so some may have time to cast "buff" spells on the others.
Also, particularly early on, good or bad die rolls can have a large impact.
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"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
So during the first session they were traveling through a mountain pass that's known for ambushes. They ended up using their cleric as bait (he got ambushed, and knocked out in a single round because of it.). Meanwhile our barbarian stayed back under cover with the ranger. They only survived the ambush because the wizard set the area on fire, and the goblins retreated. The second session the barbarian closed the distance fast, and wailed on the sea spawn while the others whittled away at him from a distance. You can definitely chalk up the first night's events from lack of experience (but I'm the sort to let you learn by doing, so I wasn't going to intervene when they decided to use their healer as bait.). But then they turned around and had a huge learning curve between the first and second session.
the DMG and XGE both have rules to help with scaling CR to players, so that can be a good reference as a starting point. If the goblins were just getting a bunch of nat 20s, you could have fudged some rolls, but for a first time DM, I think that you handled the situation well by letting the wizard’s player be creative.
https://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder Is a pretty good tool for quick referencing. The encounter+ app works off the same scale and is handy for tracking damage, conditions and player health as long as you don’t get too bogged down with pressing buttons.
It does sound like the players might need to regroup and think of tactics but as you’ve said, the more mistakes they make, the more they’ll learn.
Maybe https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQDKouT6G_6P1eBIfkTkC-w/videos will help. They have a few episodes going about this topic that could give some inspiration. Usually the first dozen sessions are used to get a feel how your players handle combat. Even if you throw a balanced group of enemies at them... If your players make great use, or not, of the environment...then the given encounter can be really easy or the opposite. You just need to wing it and get a feel for your players as they go.
Thanks for all the awesome suggestions! I'll check them all out! We're doing the third session tonight, so we'll see how it goes. (Could go quite poorly for them but that's mostly because they are very much attack first/think later. There is a hag npc they met in the last session that is going to play a reoccurring role through the campaign. They don't know it's a hag yet though and were talking about stealing her stuff.)
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Hey guys!
Me and several of my friends (they are all new to D&D, and I'm new to DMing) have started a completely homebrewed campaign (I'm a storyteller and writer, so we wanted to do something original instead of following a script.). We've had two sessions so far, and I'm having some trouble gauging what the players can handle enemy wise.
The first night my poor players only survived because of a very lucky shot that spooked the enemy and the fact that I wasn't going to let them die in the first session. They were facing two goblins. Our player make up was a barbarian, ranger, cleric, and wizard.
The second night they completely obliterated my monster. After seeing them struggle to fight two targets I'd decided to throw a Sea Spawn at them (there is a strong ocean theme to the campaign, so they'll be encountering them often.). While the Sea Spawn was a stronger monster than the goblins, I figured they might pose better fighting just a single target instead of multiple. We did add an additional player (druid) this session as well because they weren't available the first night. But the majority of the damage was done by the barbarian just wreaking havoc.
So, as a new dm, I'm just trying to find the right balance here. All of them are very new to D&D so I don't want to throw too much at them, but they are learning very, very quickly so I don't want them to get bored. What are some tips or ideas on how to balance combat for a new DM?
If what looks like a balanced party of 4 had trouble with 2 goblins, I would chalk that up to them not knowing their character's abilities well. There wasn't anything weird going on like the barbarian just trying to grapple while the wizard hit it with a stick was there? An encounter with 2 CR 1/4 npcs who only have 7 HP shouldn't be an issue.
For the first few sessions you probably will be juggling things a bit.
One element that is really important in 5e combat is "action economy" -- how many different actions do your players have available as opposed to their enemies. In your first combat, you had 4 players and 2 goblins, so your players had a 2:1 advantage in actions per turn. While the sea spawn as written has multi-attack which can do decent damage, in your second case you had 5 players, so some may have time to cast "buff" spells on the others.
Also, particularly early on, good or bad die rolls can have a large impact.
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
So during the first session they were traveling through a mountain pass that's known for ambushes. They ended up using their cleric as bait (he got ambushed, and knocked out in a single round because of it.). Meanwhile our barbarian stayed back under cover with the ranger. They only survived the ambush because the wizard set the area on fire, and the goblins retreated. The second session the barbarian closed the distance fast, and wailed on the sea spawn while the others whittled away at him from a distance. You can definitely chalk up the first night's events from lack of experience (but I'm the sort to let you learn by doing, so I wasn't going to intervene when they decided to use their healer as bait.). But then they turned around and had a huge learning curve between the first and second session.
the DMG and XGE both have rules to help with scaling CR to players, so that can be a good reference as a starting point. If the goblins were just getting a bunch of nat 20s, you could have fudged some rolls, but for a first time DM, I think that you handled the situation well by letting the wizard’s player be creative.
I stole my pfp from this person: https://mobile.twitter.com/xelart1/status/1177312449575432193
https://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder Is a pretty good tool for quick referencing. The encounter+ app works off the same scale and is handy for tracking damage, conditions and player health as long as you don’t get too bogged down with pressing buttons.
It does sound like the players might need to regroup and think of tactics but as you’ve said, the more mistakes they make, the more they’ll learn.
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Maybe https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQDKouT6G_6P1eBIfkTkC-w/videos will help. They have a few episodes going about this topic that could give some inspiration. Usually the first dozen sessions are used to get a feel how your players handle combat. Even if you throw a balanced group of enemies at them... If your players make great use, or not, of the environment...then the given encounter can be really easy or the opposite. You just need to wing it and get a feel for your players as they go.
Thanks for all the awesome suggestions! I'll check them all out! We're doing the third session tonight, so we'll see how it goes. (Could go quite poorly for them but that's mostly because they are very much attack first/think later. There is a hag npc they met in the last session that is going to play a reoccurring role through the campaign. They don't know it's a hag yet though and were talking about stealing her stuff.)