I've been looking to run my first DnD game with the family and they purchased the essentials kit for Fathers day for me :) I've been reading through the quests and getting used to the rules and last night we did the character creation so I thought we were getting close to starting. However I've just been looking through the monsters in the Level 1 quests and they seem really hard hitting for level 1! The first place they can go to has 2 Ochre Jellies which are 450xp EACH! This is for a party of 3 Level 1 characters, most of which have 8hp. The online battle calculators seem to say that a battle of 300XP is a deadly encounter for the group so 900 seems impossible. I did just play test it by myself and yeap pretty much every hit on the characters just killed them outright. Every encounter through to level 5 seems to be massively higher than the recommended XP.
Am I doing something wrong? I doubt they will enjoy it if they all just die 10 minutes into the game :D
I believe most official content is planned around 4-5 players. You can always scale things back a little for your smaller group. The encounter builder just went into beta so that might help, too.
I run for my two kids and have a pair of PC characters that I help run alongside their characters.
The book actually has a sliding scale for how many creatures for most quests based on the amount of players. The Ochre jelly example says there is an Ochre Jelly in the room, if there are 2 or more characters then there are 2 Ochre Jellies. Another level has "At Level 1 there are 2 orcs per character plus 1 ogre in the courtyard and 1 orc atop the northeast tower" So that makes 7 Orcs and an ogre for my little group of 3 Level 1 character, and an XP count of 1150 for the encounter :/
As this is meant to be a "get your feet wet" complete new player pack I would have though it would be a little more balanced and less guess work involved?
I've been looking to run my first DnD game with the family and they purchased the essentials kit for Fathers day for me :) I've been reading through the quests and getting used to the rules and last night we did the character creation so I thought we were getting close to starting. However I've just been looking through the monsters in the Level 1 quests and they seem really hard hitting for level 1! The first place they can go to has 2 Ochre Jellies which are 450xp EACH! This is for a party of 3 Level 1 characters, most of which have 8hp. The online battle calculators seem to say that a battle of 300XP is a deadly encounter for the group so 900 seems impossible. I did just play test it by myself and yeap pretty much every hit on the characters just killed them outright. Every encounter through to level 5 seems to be massively higher than the recommended XP.
Am I doing something wrong? I doubt they will enjoy it if they all just die 10 minutes into the game :D
Any help would be much appreciated Thanks
The kit also has pregenerated sidekicks that you can roll with the party to fill in some holes or add some extra oomph. I didn't look at it in detail, but that can help for balance.
The kit also has pregenerated sidekicks that you can roll with the party to fill in some holes or add some extra oomph. I didn't look at it in detail, but that can help for balance.
It recommends using sidekicks if you have a single player doing the game :/ I just increased the number of players in the battle calculator and to make the first battle (Ochre Jellies) fight a "Hard" XP level I'd need to add 9 sidekicks to the group lol
Looking through the level 5 and 6 encounters with 3 people of the appropriate level the encounters all turn out to be medium or hard which is what I assume it should be, if I add sidekicks early then those later encounters drop to Easy/Medium. It is just all of these early level encounters that seem massively out of whack.
At lvl 1 it is hardest to balance, because most monsters can knock a PC out with a single lucky blow. But mostly if they just think a little bit and not always run head first into every problem, the players can overcome a lot more than what CR recommendations seem to suggest.
For example Ochre jellies have a movement speed of 10, so the players can easily kill them with ranged attacks without taking damage.
Above lvl 1 for a fight to be hard without it being after a series of smaller fights where they have used resources you often need to go to deadly and then abit over.
Another level has "At Level 1 there are 2 orcs per character plus 1 ogre in the courtyard and 1 orc atop the northeast tower" So that makes 7 Orcs and an ogre for my little group of 3 Level 1 character, and an XP count of 1150 for the encounter :/
Here the players could try one of the following:
A) sneak in and fight them seperately, as in they engage one group and as the sound of battle ensues the other groups joins in slowly (at your discretion, you are the DM after all)
7 orcs and 1 ogre, that is 2 orcs in each quadrant except for the one with the ogre and one in the Tower.
That means the fight could start out against 2 orcs. 3 players and lets say one sidekick should be able to kill these in 1-2 rounds, if they get the drop on them. Then have 2 more orcs arrive and attack maybe joined part way through (or when one dies) by the last group. Then when all orcs are dead let them hear the ogre slowly approaching (ogres are dumb and have low passive perception so maybe they haven't figured what happened yet), telegraph it clearly so they have time to prepare or run away.
The Ogre is the main danger in this encounter and should only be fought when alone.
Let the last orc spend his time crawling out of the tower.
B) Run (this is always an option)
This encounter is not part of any quest either, so running away and not coming back isn't a problem.
I would allow them to find the info before they encounter the jellies: a journal, a npc or an arcana check. If this doesn't work i would either fudge the first damage roll (6+1 damage) or target a pc who can take one average hit (9+3 i think). If they don't understand the danger by then, knock one of them out.
This is for the ochre jelly, diverent monsters may need diverent solutions. But basicly give them ways to find a strategy before fighting the monsters and then increase the danger bit by bit.
I've also been reading through this adventure and been a bit confused as to how best to balance most of the locations for running the adventure for a lone player or even 3 or 4 players. Now I do understand how even a single player + sidekick can sort of cheese the Ochre Jellies, but generally speaking, I really expected there to be more guidance in the book itself for encounter balancing. The Shrine of Savras is the only location that has this kind of explicitly laid out balance with the Enemy Roster.
My thought was to run this adventure for my mum who has expressed a bit of interest in trying D&D and for the most part, the story still seems to be meant for a regular party.
Some of the other encounters have things specifying x amount of monsters per player plus 1, but yeah I thought there would be more guidance. It's mainly the amount of monster XP per encounter that threw me.
yeah I guess I mainly wasn't really thinking about tactics enough. The reminder of how slow the jellies move in particular, I can see that being a fairly simple fight, if the player(s) catch on. Heck, the dwarves could even mention to the party that the "jelly creatures" seemed slow and to lose sense of them when they fled
Just ran that last weekend. The grandkids figured out how to stay out of range of Ochre Jellies, but not before one of them went unconscious with one hit. The youngest started to realize just how good his Ray of Frost worked versus the slow jellies. They decided to dig to the
Hall of Greed, where the bard decided to grab the glowing gem. Which outright killed her for 22 out of her 11 hit points (no death saves). Sadness was had, but I think it was a great learning moment about the dangers. Luckily the dead player was their mother and not them....
Definitely agree that the difficulty level in a stand-up fight against most of the monsters in this adventure are extremely challenging. The first 3 quests when pitted against a level 1 party of 5 characters is:
[Spoiler removed]
Recommend you either dial it waaay back or just start your party at level 3 or 4. If you insist on starting them at level 1, maybe run all or part of LMoP first.
This has Chris Perkins written all over it...I think he likes for parties to have to creatively think their way through extremely tough encounters rather than just hack-n-slash it.
[Spoiler Removed]
Oddly enough, one of my Players wants to learn to DM, so I've been taking a Player role, while he takes a stint in the hot seat (he's doing pretty well) - so I've been playing this adventure.
We've succeeded in 2 of the initial 3 quests so far, with a Party of 4, and no fatalities.
However, we've been reasonably tactically astute: Archer, Ranger, and Sorcerer scattering and sharpshooting from a distance, and the Goliath Paladin ( that'sa me! ) being supported pretty closely by the Cleric as the point man in melee, and even so my Stone’s Endurance has been used in every combat at some point, and I've been knocked out more than once.
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I know this thread is a couple months old now, but I was about to play this with my partner and she is just about to head out on her first quest. The first quest she took is pitting her and her sidekick against a manticore. She is not going to have the gold or meat to convince this thing to go away and they aren't going to win in a fight... has anyone else ran into this problem? How did you handle it?
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Gash- Lvl14 Goblin Wizard - The High Court of the Aasimar Queen
My PCs (3 lvl 2 at the point of this quest choice Ranger - Wizard - Paladin) and I was very nervous about them taking the Manticore head on. They didnt have the meat nor gold for the suggested ways of getting a peaceful resolution. They surprised me particularly the Dragonborn who used his background which involved struggling for food, living in desperation and being pushed out of his home to make a connection with the Manticore. They were able to garner an agreement between the woman in the mill tower and the manticore that she would supply him with food which he was after periodically if the Manticore would provide protection from the dragon/orcs etc. Yes there are listed ways to deal with the manticore but remember you can always open yourself up to unlisted resolutions. Every D&D book are suggestions ultimately.
Good point and fun story. I’m a first time DM and she has never played before. I just don’t have those muscles as a DM yet and I’m curious to see how she will deal with it. Just wanted to get some insight. Thanks for the reply!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Gash- Lvl14 Goblin Wizard - The High Court of the Aasimar Queen
First time DM here too. In fact all of us are 100% new with me having very little exposure to tabletop rpgs via 40k. For our first go round which I am also helping to get them to RP in character more and get comfortable with the idea that they truly have the choice to try and do whatever they want so Ive been ok with dropping a little hint or two that not everything is solved via sword.
The big hint I gave them is that the Manticore could speak and I had him speak Common which is in the statblock. Lightbulb went on and they said oh damn we can talk with this dude and see whats up. From there it was the Dragonborn PC that gave me the hook that I leaned into and said ok I'll play along. Convince me. I slowed everything down and didn't rush them in any one direction.
A little late to the post, but my team of 5 lvl3s got wrecked at the Shrine, and would have been wrecked if not for Big Al at the ranch. The orc scaling for big parties is pretty bad, it gets deadly quick by all online calculators, I've played it as a player and was fine, but I was with super crunchy experienced players
My party of 3 got nearly TPK'd by a single Ochre Jelly at Level 1 (as many other sources, like Kobold Fight Club and this suggest) - I had to fudge some rolls to keep them alive. Thereafter, though, they've been blowing through everything with no worries:
* The Warlock killed nearly all of the orcs that attacked after the Dwarven Excavation with a single Burning Hands, and the rest of the party finished the rest off in a couple of rounds * They successfully persuaded the Manticore to leave with a healing potion for its mate (who I ruled had been injured by the dragon) * The Mimic dropped to half health after a round of attacks, and to 3 after it got Attack Of Opportunitied when I had it flee (I wanted to give them a "Hunting The Xenomorph" style experience, rather than "find monster, kill monster, acquire loot").
I'm retooling the order of the quests to match these suggestions - I'm hoping that the the "Tier 2" quests are a bit more challenging!
Hi all,
I've been looking to run my first DnD game with the family and they purchased the essentials kit for Fathers day for me :)
I've been reading through the quests and getting used to the rules and last night we did the character creation so I thought we were getting close to starting. However I've just been looking through the monsters in the Level 1 quests and they seem really hard hitting for level 1! The first place they can go to has 2 Ochre Jellies which are 450xp EACH! This is for a party of 3 Level 1 characters, most of which have 8hp. The online battle calculators seem to say that a battle of 300XP is a deadly encounter for the group so 900 seems impossible. I did just play test it by myself and yeap pretty much every hit on the characters just killed them outright. Every encounter through to level 5 seems to be massively higher than the recommended XP.
Am I doing something wrong? I doubt they will enjoy it if they all just die 10 minutes into the game :D
Any help would be much appreciated
Thanks
I believe most official content is planned around 4-5 players. You can always scale things back a little for your smaller group. The encounter builder just went into beta so that might help, too.
I run for my two kids and have a pair of PC characters that I help run alongside their characters.
My DM's Guild Content - Mostly quick rules and guides.
Thanks for the reply :)
The book actually has a sliding scale for how many creatures for most quests based on the amount of players. The Ochre jelly example says there is an Ochre Jelly in the room, if there are 2 or more characters then there are 2 Ochre Jellies.
Another level has "At Level 1 there are 2 orcs per character plus 1 ogre in the courtyard and 1 orc atop the northeast tower" So that makes 7 Orcs and an ogre for my little group of 3 Level 1 character, and an XP count of 1150 for the encounter :/
As this is meant to be a "get your feet wet" complete new player pack I would have though it would be a little more balanced and less guess work involved?
The kit also has pregenerated sidekicks that you can roll with the party to fill in some holes or add some extra oomph. I didn't look at it in detail, but that can help for balance.
It recommends using sidekicks if you have a single player doing the game :/ I just increased the number of players in the battle calculator and to make the first battle (Ochre Jellies) fight a "Hard" XP level I'd need to add 9 sidekicks to the group lol
Looking through the level 5 and 6 encounters with 3 people of the appropriate level the encounters all turn out to be medium or hard which is what I assume it should be, if I add sidekicks early then those later encounters drop to Easy/Medium. It is just all of these early level encounters that seem massively out of whack.
At lvl 1 it is hardest to balance, because most monsters can knock a PC out with a single lucky blow. But mostly if they just think a little bit and not always run head first into every problem, the players can overcome a lot more than what CR recommendations seem to suggest.
For example Ochre jellies have a movement speed of 10, so the players can easily kill them with ranged attacks without taking damage.
Above lvl 1 for a fight to be hard without it being after a series of smaller fights where they have used resources you often need to go to deadly and then abit over.
Here the players could try one of the following:
A) sneak in and fight them seperately, as in they engage one group and as the sound of battle ensues the other groups joins in slowly (at your discretion, you are the DM after all)
7 orcs and 1 ogre, that is 2 orcs in each quadrant except for the one with the ogre and one in the Tower.
That means the fight could start out against 2 orcs. 3 players and lets say one sidekick should be able to kill these in 1-2 rounds, if they get the drop on them. Then have 2 more orcs arrive and attack maybe joined part way through (or when one dies) by the last group. Then when all orcs are dead let them hear the ogre slowly approaching (ogres are dumb and have low passive perception so maybe they haven't figured what happened yet), telegraph it clearly so they have time to prepare or run away.
The Ogre is the main danger in this encounter and should only be fought when alone.
Let the last orc spend his time crawling out of the tower.
B) Run (this is always an option)
This encounter is not part of any quest either, so running away and not coming back isn't a problem.
I just looked up the jellies:
Armorclass 8
Speed 10
Blind after 60 feet distance.
I would allow them to find the info before they encounter the jellies: a journal, a npc or an arcana check. If this doesn't work i would either fudge the first damage roll (6+1 damage) or target a pc who can take one average hit (9+3 i think). If they don't understand the danger by then, knock one of them out.
This is for the ochre jelly, diverent monsters may need diverent solutions. But basicly give them ways to find a strategy before fighting the monsters and then increase the danger bit by bit.
Attack: [roll]3d20dl2+6[/roll] Damage: [roll](if([roll:-1:critical], =0, 1d8, 2{1d8}.expand()))+4[/roll] Sneakattack: [roll](if([roll:-2:critical], =0, 2d6, 2{2d6}.expand()))[/roll]Great suggestions thanks very much! :)
I've also been reading through this adventure and been a bit confused as to how best to balance most of the locations for running the adventure for a lone player or even 3 or 4 players. Now I do understand how even a single player + sidekick can sort of cheese the Ochre Jellies, but generally speaking, I really expected there to be more guidance in the book itself for encounter balancing. The Shrine of Savras is the only location that has this kind of explicitly laid out balance with the Enemy Roster.
My thought was to run this adventure for my mum who has expressed a bit of interest in trying D&D and for the most part, the story still seems to be meant for a regular party.
Some of the other encounters have things specifying x amount of monsters per player plus 1, but yeah I thought there would be more guidance. It's mainly the amount of monster XP per encounter that threw me.
yeah I guess I mainly wasn't really thinking about tactics enough. The reminder of how slow the jellies move in particular, I can see that being a fairly simple fight, if the player(s) catch on. Heck, the dwarves could even mention to the party that the "jelly creatures" seemed slow and to lose sense of them when they fled
Just ran that last weekend. The grandkids figured out how to stay out of range of Ochre Jellies, but not before one of them went unconscious with one hit. The youngest started to realize just how good his Ray of Frost worked versus the slow jellies. They decided to dig to the
Hall of Greed, where the bard decided to grab the glowing gem. Which outright killed her for 22 out of her 11 hit points (no death saves). Sadness was had, but I think it was a great learning moment about the dangers. Luckily the dead player was their mother and not them....
Oddly enough, one of my Players wants to learn to DM, so I've been taking a Player role, while he takes a stint in the hot seat (he's doing pretty well) - so I've been playing this adventure.
We've succeeded in 2 of the initial 3 quests so far, with a Party of 4, and no fatalities.
However, we've been reasonably tactically astute: Archer, Ranger, and Sorcerer scattering and sharpshooting from a distance, and the Goliath Paladin ( that'sa me! ) being supported pretty closely by the Cleric as the point man in melee, and even so my Stone’s Endurance has been used in every combat at some point, and I've been knocked out more than once.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I know this thread is a couple months old now, but I was about to play this with my partner and she is just about to head out on her first quest. The first quest she took is pitting her and her sidekick against a manticore. She is not going to have the gold or meat to convince this thing to go away and they aren't going to win in a fight... has anyone else ran into this problem? How did you handle it?
Gash - Lvl14 Goblin Wizard - The High Court of the Aasimar Queen
My PCs (3 lvl 2 at the point of this quest choice Ranger - Wizard - Paladin) and I was very nervous about them taking the Manticore head on. They didnt have the meat nor gold for the suggested ways of getting a peaceful resolution. They surprised me particularly the Dragonborn who used his background which involved struggling for food, living in desperation and being pushed out of his home to make a connection with the Manticore. They were able to garner an agreement between the woman in the mill tower and the manticore that she would supply him with food which he was after periodically if the Manticore would provide protection from the dragon/orcs etc. Yes there are listed ways to deal with the manticore but remember you can always open yourself up to unlisted resolutions. Every D&D book are suggestions ultimately.
Good point and fun story. I’m a first time DM and she has never played before. I just don’t have those muscles as a DM yet and I’m curious to see how she will deal with it. Just wanted to get some insight. Thanks for the reply!
Gash - Lvl14 Goblin Wizard - The High Court of the Aasimar Queen
First time DM here too. In fact all of us are 100% new with me having very little exposure to tabletop rpgs via 40k. For our first go round which I am also helping to get them to RP in character more and get comfortable with the idea that they truly have the choice to try and do whatever they want so Ive been ok with dropping a little hint or two that not everything is solved via sword.
The big hint I gave them is that the Manticore could speak and I had him speak Common which is in the statblock. Lightbulb went on and they said oh damn we can talk with this dude and see whats up. From there it was the Dragonborn PC that gave me the hook that I leaned into and said ok I'll play along. Convince me. I slowed everything down and didn't rush them in any one direction.
A little late to the post, but my team of 5 lvl3s got wrecked at the Shrine, and would have been wrecked if not for Big Al at the ranch. The orc scaling for big parties is pretty bad, it gets deadly quick by all online calculators, I've played it as a player and was fine, but I was with super crunchy experienced players
My party of 3 got nearly TPK'd by a single Ochre Jelly at Level 1 (as many other sources, like Kobold Fight Club and this suggest) - I had to fudge some rolls to keep them alive. Thereafter, though, they've been blowing through everything with no worries:
* The Warlock killed nearly all of the orcs that attacked after the Dwarven Excavation with a single Burning Hands, and the rest of the party finished the rest off in a couple of rounds
* They successfully persuaded the Manticore to leave with a healing potion for its mate (who I ruled had been injured by the dragon)
* The Mimic dropped to half health after a round of attacks, and to 3 after it got Attack Of Opportunitied when I had it flee (I wanted to give them a "Hunting The Xenomorph" style experience, rather than "find monster, kill monster, acquire loot").
I'm retooling the order of the quests to match these suggestions - I'm hoping that the the "Tier 2" quests are a bit more challenging!
Yep, I've been enjoying using Bob's suggestions - including the twist on the Mimic. Thanks for the suggestion!