I'm playing with a group of new players, new to roleplaying and new to D&D and as such, they don't know much about the monsters in the game world. What's the best way to reveal monster stats to them? Something their PCs would know even if the actual players themselves might not know?
Alternatively, how do I reveal monster stats to the players for monsters that neither they (players) nor their PCs have encountered before?
In my current game, my PCs are about to encounter wererats which my players have not encountered before and I don't think their backstory would warrant that the PCs would have encountered before, so there's no way for anyone to know that these monsters with a measly 33HP and AC12 would be immune to B/P/S, non-magical, non-silvered attacks. I'm afraid by the time they work this out, it'll be too late and it'll be a TPK. But it's not just for this, it's for all other encounters going forward.
Knowledge skills are for exactly this. Nature checks to see if they've heard anything about these creatures.
If you're feeling particularly kind you can have them roll an intelligence check after the first few attacks to see if they can extrapolate their immunities.
Have them make Knowledge checks. For magical creatures, I'll usually use Arcana (Nothics, Golems, maybe even were-creatures). Nature for normal critters (bears, wolves, that kinda stuff) and maybe even History or Religion if they are particularly famous or worshiped monsters (powerful Liches, demon princes).
An idea from Matt Colville I really like is to actually give the player the monsters entry in the manual for like half a minute if they roll well. Long enough for them to learn some important stuff, but not long enough to memorize everything.
First of all - don't send a new group of players into a situation you up front believe will be a TPK! But, I guess you already knew that, and that's why you're asking.
I don't know your "ratio" of roleplaying versus a more tactical game of fighting. I like the "roleplaying" part a lot, so I would have solved it there.
Just rolling to see if they know it is not a good idea. First, it's kind of boring, but more important - if no-one manage the roll - what do you do? I never rely on rolls for information I know my players should have (at least not without a back up plan). Here some things I would have considered:
If someone has a reason to know it - let her roll, but keep a back up plan if he fails.
Let them talk to a survivor of the last party of adventurers that tried to take them out. He is of course half crazy, but they should learn from him that NO weapons did any harm.
That should lead the players to investigate how/what might hurt whatever they're up against. What they learn is depending on wether or not you want it to be a secret that it's wererats.
If it is a secret: Make the mad survivor say that the reason he survived was because he stuck his old family heirloom - a SILVERspoon - into the eyes of one of the beasts. Or have a prophet or priest come up with a vision of silver... Well, just keep on hinting of silver until the players get it. And I mean, they should get it! That's when your players feel smart - that's when it's cool to play.
If it's not a secret that it's wererats - simply give them som means to get the information. A book, an old sage, jsomeone, something.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
Insight??? Do you mean the skill? I've never used that to allow PC's roll to see what they know about a creatures abilities and strengths/weaknesses. Am I overlooking something?
Creatures’ abilities and features are knowledge skill checks, not insight skill checks.
For natural creatures use nature check, for magical creatures use arcana check.
insight check is more like, the PC observes the creature for a few fights and try to figure out its strength and weakness and even patterns through analyzing what they see.
First of all - don't send a new group of players into a situation you up front believe will be a TPK! But, I guess you already knew that, and that's why you're asking.
I'm just following the adventure included in the D&D Essentials box which will have the PCs come up against some wererats in a session or two. I may well have to go off the rails here a bit to make sure they can manage this adventure as the adventure book seems to have missed this part.
So how exactly would a Knowledge/Arcana/Nature check work? Roll and pass and they "recall" some info from their past experience or some story they overheard before? What if they fail the roll? I can see this working for popular monsters like werewolves and ogres where people in every tavern would be talking about these or children will hear stories to get them to behave, but what about for other, more obscure monsters?
I can imagine fighting and working out the immunities or characteristics of the opponent as the fight goes on; my players already experienced this when my fighter sliced the ochre jelly in two, but what if they fight and fight and then realize that they have no hope of winning the fight? How do I *gently* encourage my PCs to flee?
First of all - don't send a new group of players into a situation you up front believe will be a TPK! But, I guess you already knew that, and that's why you're asking.
I'm just following the adventure included in the D&D Essentials box which will have the PCs come up against some wererats in a session or two. I may well have to go off the rails here a bit to make sure they can manage this adventure as the adventure book seems to have missed this part.
So how exactly would a Knowledge/Arcana/Nature check work? Roll and pass and they "recall" some info from their past experience or some story they overheard before? What if they fail the roll? I can see this working for popular monsters like werewolves and ogres where people in every tavern would be talking about these or children will hear stories to get them to behave, but what about for other, more obscure monsters?
I can imagine fighting and working out the immunities or characteristics of the opponent as the fight goes on; my players already experienced this when my fighter sliced the ochre jelly in two, but what if they fight and fight and then realize that they have no hope of winning the fight? How do I *gently* encourage my PCs to flee?
You are the DM - you chooses what info you give the players. I think you have found a "weak" spot in the module you're playing - most of them have that. Your "gut feeling" that this should be fixed seems very correct to me, so my advice is try to fix it rather than blindly "trust" the module. I think you are more right here than the adventure. After all, it is you who know your players etc.
I don't play a lot of modules, and if I do, I use them more like guidelines and inspiration, so how I would have solved it, is perhaps not the right thing for you.
I tried to come up with some ideas how you could try to give the players hints up front. Others might include have them fight a single wererat first. Even without silvered weapons, they should be able to handle ONE wererat with only spells etc. Also remember that things like grapple would work. If you take this approach, be quite clear that weapons do not hurt it. Don't let them hack on it for ages to "figure out for themselves", just tell them when they hit it that the wounds seems to close, and he wererat seems unhurt.
I would NEVER rely on a check for passing this information to them. As you ask: "What if they fail?" I would rather have them find a corpse outside the lair who has managed to scribble "SILVER" or something with his own blood on the wall.
But as I said in my first post. Try to give them information when they get the "assignment". Tell them in-game that ordinary weapons don't seem to hurt them.
And finally - you are allowed as a DM to say straight to your players: "You really should do some research here." Your players are quite new, so that's OK. If they until now, are "used" to just hitting things (more or less). You can give them an off-game warning that this time they should probably prepare a little more than usually.
Even with experienced players, unless you are going to allow the group to metagame, if the "silvered weapon" thing is something the characters would not know, the players should not be using that knowledge. I know, it's hard not to when something is that innate to your knowledge as the "silver" thing. But, I still don't want to see the other players in my group metagaming, and I wouldn't do it myself. If the DM doesn't tell my level 1 bard that she needs silvered weapons to kill something, I'm not going to have her "just know it" randomly.
Now if DM calls for a nature check or what have you, then fine. A bard knows some lore -- even at level 1 she might have heard a legend about this. But even though I am a very experienced old-school D&D player I wouldn't just have my character know stuff that you'd find in MM.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
You are the DM - you chooses what info you give the players.
Except that I'm a very new DM myself and very little experience with the whole tabletop scene and therefore was relying on the adventure to hold my hand as I guide my players through it. Kinda like three blind mice, but I'm the one with the stick! :D
Don't get me wrong, the adventure module is really easy to go through and I think I'm finding this easier than I did with the Lost Mine of Phandelver adventure, maybe because of the "quest giver" really limiting my player's options which in turn means I really only need to read up on a handful of quests instead of having the entire adventure and an "open world" system.
I tried to come up with some ideas how you could try to give the players hints up front. Others might include have them fight a single wererat first. Even without silvered weapons, they should be able to handle ONE wererat with only spells etc. Also remember that things like grapple would work. If you take this approach, be quite clear that weapons do not hurt it. Don't let them hack on it for ages to "figure out for themselves", just tell them when they hit it that the wounds seems to close, and he wererat seems unhurt.
I would NEVER rely on a check for passing this information to them. As you ask: "What if they fail?" I would rather have them find a corpse outside the lair who has managed to scribble "SILVER" or something with his own blood on the wall.
But as I said in my first post. Try to give them information when they get the "assignment". Tell them in-game that ordinary weapons don't seem to hurt them.
And finally - you are allowed as a DM to say straight to your players: "You really should do some research here." Your players are quite new, so that's OK. If they until now, are "used" to just hitting things (more or less). You can give them an off-game warning that this time they should probably prepare a little more than usually.
I think I have that skill covered as a DM (as we had the same issue with the ochre jellies where the fighter just swung at it with his sword at first and I just said the jelly gets cut in half but no visible damage otherwise) and plan to just have two or three rounds of attack before the PCs and the players fully realize that normal attacks won't work. The adventure makes no mention of wererats at the time the quest is given, just that there's a new overseer and needs to be escorted to the mine. No mention of it being overrun, if anything, it sounds more like the danger is on the way TO the mine and not in the mine itself. On the way to the mine, the party comes across six dead orcs.... and would've been a great chance to hint at the wererats but nope, this scene just reinforces the white dragon threat in the adventure. I may alter this to reflect the wererat threat instead or even borrow from a previous quest and have a dwarf from the mine escape to give the players a better heads up on the threat ahead.
I would really prefer for the information to come to the PCs in the game, rather that to come to the players from the DM. I think the term here is "meta-game"?
If the DM doesn't tell my level 1 bard that she needs silvered weapons to kill something, I'm not going to have her "just know it" randomly.
Now if DM calls for a nature check or what have you, then fine. A bard knows some lore -- even at level 1 she might have heard a legend about this. But even though I am a very experienced old-school D&D player I wouldn't just have my character know stuff that you'd find in MM.
LOL, speaking of meta-game ;)
Here, I think my issue is that none of us (DM, players, PCs) really know much of the game but yeah, I'd prefer to avoid meta-game if possible. My cleric player seems to be really into ROLEplay which is good and I've DM'ed a little info based on the PC's supposed history, but eventually, the players will come across something they (player and PC) have never encountered before so I'm trying to learn how to give them the needed info without meta-game and maybe even coax them to flee if possible rather than just surrender to the TPK.
So far, my fighter player loves swinging his pointy toys and I'm encouraging him to ROLEplay which I can see he enjoys but finds silly or embarrassing.
The thing is you are going to have to take the time to develop your style for D&D on how to convey info. to players.
For example, I'm not sure how we developed this but back when we started, we came up with the idea that all potions of a given type look the same, and are unique. For example, if one Potion of Healing was light pink, then they all were, and you could expect all light pink potions to be Potions of Healing. What we'd end up with is an inventory of " A gray potion, a green potion, a white potion, and 2 pink potions," not knowing any of them. After either quaffing them to just randomly try them (we lived dangerously back then!), or else getting them ID'ed somehow, we would keep a record that green = levitation, blue = poison, etc. After that, the DM, knowing we had IDed them, would just say "You find a potion of healing," since we already knew the color.
But again this is the kind of thing you have to develop as you go.
So with weapons that don't work, you might describe that the weapon doesn't cut the creature or leave any marks, it keeps sliding off their tough hide, etc. The players are going to have to figure out what this means. Make sure you give them some buffers (extra healing potions). And one really good way to deal with this is to have monsters that maybe have an OK set of HP and AC, but really low attacks... 1d4 or even 1d2 (1d4 halved or just flip a coin, heads = 1, tails = 2). This way, there is lots of room for mistakes, since one blow won't insta-cap them.
You are the DM - you chooses what info you give the players.
Except that I'm a very new DM myself and very little experience with the whole tabletop scene and therefore was relying on the adventure to hold my hand as I guide my players through it. Kinda like three blind mice, but I'm the one with the stick! :D
Don't get me wrong, the adventure module is really easy to go through and I think I'm finding this easier than I did with the Lost Mine of Phandelver adventure, maybe because of the "quest giver" really limiting my player's options which in turn means I really only need to read up on a handful of quests instead of having the entire adventure and an "open world" system.
Hi again! I am honestly only trying to boost your believe in your abilities as a DM. You have spotted what seems to be a problem with the module WELL ahead of playing it! That's GREAT! It also sounds that you really wants to try to solve this "in game". That's also (as I see it) completely right! So, trust yourself - find a way to give the players the information. Let that dwarf run away and give the players a heads up! That should work fine. Don't mind if it doesn't say so in the adventure. Trust that YOU know YOUR players better than the person who wrote that adventure.
And I really mean it probably would work completely fine to give away everything before they enter the mines. Have the escaped dwarf tell them it's some strange kind of werecreature, let him know that silver can hurt them. As long as you have the players WORK for that knowledge (like saving the dwarf for instance), they will feel SMART. Players love to feel smart. OK, from time to time it's OK to surprise them with a monster that have some weaknesses they don't know, but also vice versa. Sometimes it's completely fine to give the players the feeling they got the upper hand! If you're afraid it will be to easy - add another rat or two or make one of them to a kind of "boss".
As I haven't read any of the adventures you are talking about, my advice is kind of general, but trust your instincts here! And trust me - doing those choices, following those instincts is what makes roleplaying really funny both for DM's and players. That's what computer games has yet not managed to do.
Before combat: You can have them in town/at a tavern and hear stories of "Creatures that tore through an adventure party/ town guard... the only survivor kept talking about how their hits never seemed to damage it."
In combat: after the first few hits, the most perceptive (perception skill) notices the following; "Your last hit cut deep, but the wound immediately healed. They seem to be immune to your strikes with that weapon."
In either case, insert a wise sage/cleric/wizard that can help them figure out out via some role play in town.
we came up with the idea that all potions of a given type look the same, and are unique
So with weapons that don't work, you might describe that the weapon doesn't cut the creature or leave any marks, it keeps sliding off their tough hide, etc.
Potions are one thing because there really isn't any inherent danger with them, ie, just don't drink it until it's identified, you know it's magic (cleric has detect magic) but you don't know what it does, etc. Fighting an unknown creature is also workable if it's just one-at-a-time and I think I can describe ineffective attack properly so that my PCs will get the idea of their attacks being useless. It's getting them to realize they must flee as they risk TPK that I need to get them to learn. So far, they're playing it like a computer game where you can reset the fight, which I'm still allowing as we're new but I want them to start ROLEplaying their characters more, specifically, that I-don't-wanna-die part! :D
I also want to learn more about getting the PCs prepared for the fight in-game without spoonfeeding too much, which I think I got the answer to with having a dwarf escape to give them a heads up.
Hi again! I am honestly only trying to boost your believe in your abilities as a DM. You have spotted what seems to be a problem with the module WELL ahead of playing it! That's GREAT! It also sounds that you really wants to try to solve this "in game". That's also (as I see it) completely right! So, trust yourself - find a way to give the players the information. Let that dwarf run away and give the players a heads up! That should work fine. Don't mind if it doesn't say so in the adventure. Trust that YOU know YOUR players better than the person who wrote that adventure.
And I really mean it probably would work completely fine to give away everything before they enter the mines. Have the escaped dwarf tell them it's some strange kind of werecreature, let him know that silver can hurt them. As long as you have the players WORK for that knowledge (like saving the dwarf for instance), they will feel SMART. Players love to feel smart. OK, from time to time it's OK to surprise them with a monster that have some weaknesses they don't know, but also vice versa. Sometimes it's completely fine to give the players the feeling they got the upper hand! If you're afraid it will be to easy - add another rat or two or make one of them to a kind of "boss".
Thanks for the vote of confidence! I guess I just had much higher expectations for the module and really got thrown off when this issue wasn't covered by the adventure as written. While I'm fine with adjusting stuff to fit my players, I just didn't expect to be doing it at this point in time especially since the previous parts of the adventure were going well.
I think you also hit the nail on the head here -- I want my PCs to work for the knowledge they get with minimal spoon-feeding on my part. I love the EUREKA! moments they have like when they figured out what attacks worked for the ochre jellies and started to be jelly-paranoid for the rest of the game, and then spent the in-between-quests time to diversify their attack capabilities, ie the fighter getting a bludgeoning weapon to complement his slicing weapon (sword) and piercing weapon (bow).
Before combat: You can have them in town/at a tavern and hear stories of "Creatures that tore through an adventure party/ town guard... the only survivor kept talking about how their hits never seemed to damage it."
In either case, insert a wise sage/cleric/wizard that can help them figure out out via some role play in town.
Thanks for those suggestions! I think I'll have a dwarf come to town to give hints on the threat but then they'll have to figure out the silver weakness and then have to figure out how to get their stuff silvered. That'll be a ton of ROLEplay opportunities for the players!
You don’t necessarily have to play it out to give them something they should know. It doesn’t even require a role if you deem it so. I regularly throw in bits of knowledge or lore that players might know in the way of rumours. If it’s common enough knowledge, no role is necessary. In this case, if you feel they’ve actually faced them before, I’d just lay out a few rumours, legends, or some of their own observations from their “last encounter.”
“You recall your blades sliding through them as through water, leaving no discernible mark. Only by running as if Orcus himself was behind you did you survive.”
“Seeing them transform in front of you reminds you of the tales of these shapeshifters, able to take the grotesque form of animals that are immune to tools of men.” (Doesn’t have to be true).
However you give them info, don’t give them specific stats, though, describe the effect of the stats (fast and hard to hit, stealthy, durable, whatever)
Thanks for that. For info that the PCs would know, I could have them recall instances in their past experience or recall stories told or overheard, but I think my bigger issue now is for info that neither PCs nor players would know. While it would be easy enough to either let them have an easy initial encounter, ie just face one wererat and learn about the monster in a "safe" encounter or have an NPC kind of "fill them in" like my plan for the escaped dwarf, I'm wondering what other options there are.
For instance, the wererat quest has another monster in the mines, a carrion crawler. How would the PCs gain info on a new monster? Describe the effects of the PCs' attacks or learn the hard way as they experience the monster's attacks and capabilities for themselves. But how do I let on that a certain monster that they stumbled upon is best left alone and tackled another day? Or return when they're more prepared?
Basically, how do I let low-level PCs figure out that they've bitten off more than they can chew without saying so outright?
Basically, how do I let low-level PCs figure out that they've bitten off more than they can chew without saying so outright?
That's a tough one because of the many ways D&D can be run. Most modules are set up in such a way that what they encounter can be defeated. Maybe a little bit tougher, but not by a huge amount. There are some exceptions, but most players will assume that if you put an enemy in front of them, they should be able to defeat it.
There are other types of adventures (or I should say DMs) that have a world with a huge mix of monsters and enemies. A player can easily run into a CR14 monster at level 3. But hopefully those types of DMs covered this with their players in a session zero. But those types of adventures are the exception usually.
To specifically answer your question, it's difficult to do without meta-gaming. But it's really hard to kill players in 5e unless the enemies are WAY above the PCs. So even if they fight the were-creatures without setup, you can always have it run away once it drops half the party to zero hp. This gives the remaining players a chance to stabilize, for the party to heal, and then to talk and find out what happened. (In character)
Before combat: You can have them in town/at a tavern and hear stories of "Creatures that tore through an adventure party/ town guard... the only survivor kept talking about how their hits never seemed to damage it."
In combat: after the first few hits, the most perceptive (perception skill) notices the following; "Your last hit cut deep, but the wound immediately healed. They seem to be immune to your strikes with that weapon."
In either case, insert a wise sage/cleric/wizard that can help them figure out out via some role play in town.
I was about to suggest something similar to this. When I have information that I need my players to have I don’t trust chance, I give it to them in the game somehow. I was going to suggest that they hear a rumor of a horrible monster that can’t be killed in a tavern. Role play someone giving them more information about how it’s wounds closed every time they stabbed it and when they ran away they were lucky enough to escape from it with only a few bites because it stopped to eat his dog that it killed. Obviously that person is infected and will turn into a wererat, but that information will get them started down the “Our weapons won’t hurt it” path.
Another thing that you can do is arrange for the PCs to find one magical weapon before they encounter the wererats so that one of them will be able to hurt it with a weapon. You can have a ton of fun describing the monster laughing as it’s wound heals as the first sword is pulled back for a second strike only to recoil in shock when the wound from the magical weapon doesn’t heal instantly.
I'm playing with a group of new players, new to roleplaying and new to D&D and as such, they don't know much about the monsters in the game world. What's the best way to reveal monster stats to them? Something their PCs would know even if the actual players themselves might not know?
Alternatively, how do I reveal monster stats to the players for monsters that neither they (players) nor their PCs have encountered before?
In my current game, my PCs are about to encounter wererats which my players have not encountered before and I don't think their backstory would warrant that the PCs would have encountered before, so there's no way for anyone to know that these monsters with a measly 33HP and AC12 would be immune to B/P/S, non-magical, non-silvered attacks. I'm afraid by the time they work this out, it'll be too late and it'll be a TPK. But it's not just for this, it's for all other encounters going forward.
Knowledge skills are for exactly this. Nature checks to see if they've heard anything about these creatures.
If you're feeling particularly kind you can have them roll an intelligence check after the first few attacks to see if they can extrapolate their immunities.
My DM's Guild Content - Mostly quick rules and guides.
Have them make Knowledge checks. For magical creatures, I'll usually use Arcana (Nothics, Golems, maybe even were-creatures). Nature for normal critters (bears, wolves, that kinda stuff) and maybe even History or Religion if they are particularly famous or worshiped monsters (powerful Liches, demon princes).
An idea from Matt Colville I really like is to actually give the player the monsters entry in the manual for like half a minute if they roll well. Long enough for them to learn some important stuff, but not long enough to memorize everything.
First of all - don't send a new group of players into a situation you up front believe will be a TPK! But, I guess you already knew that, and that's why you're asking.
I don't know your "ratio" of roleplaying versus a more tactical game of fighting. I like the "roleplaying" part a lot, so I would have solved it there.
Just rolling to see if they know it is not a good idea. First, it's kind of boring, but more important - if no-one manage the roll - what do you do? I never rely on rolls for information I know my players should have (at least not without a back up plan). Here some things I would have considered:
Ludo ergo sum!
This is what Insight is made for...
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
Insight??? Do you mean the skill? I've never used that to allow PC's roll to see what they know about a creatures abilities and strengths/weaknesses. Am I overlooking something?
Ludo ergo sum!
Creatures’ abilities and features are knowledge skill checks, not insight skill checks.
For natural creatures use nature check, for magical creatures use arcana check.
insight check is more like, the PC observes the creature for a few fights and try to figure out its strength and weakness and even patterns through analyzing what they see.
I'm just following the adventure included in the D&D Essentials box which will have the PCs come up against some wererats in a session or two. I may well have to go off the rails here a bit to make sure they can manage this adventure as the adventure book seems to have missed this part.
So how exactly would a Knowledge/Arcana/Nature check work? Roll and pass and they "recall" some info from their past experience or some story they overheard before? What if they fail the roll? I can see this working for popular monsters like werewolves and ogres where people in every tavern would be talking about these or children will hear stories to get them to behave, but what about for other, more obscure monsters?
I can imagine fighting and working out the immunities or characteristics of the opponent as the fight goes on; my players already experienced this when my fighter sliced the ochre jelly in two, but what if they fight and fight and then realize that they have no hope of winning the fight? How do I *gently* encourage my PCs to flee?
You are the DM - you chooses what info you give the players. I think you have found a "weak" spot in the module you're playing - most of them have that. Your "gut feeling" that this should be fixed seems very correct to me, so my advice is try to fix it rather than blindly "trust" the module. I think you are more right here than the adventure. After all, it is you who know your players etc.
I don't play a lot of modules, and if I do, I use them more like guidelines and inspiration, so how I would have solved it, is perhaps not the right thing for you.
I tried to come up with some ideas how you could try to give the players hints up front. Others might include have them fight a single wererat first. Even without silvered weapons, they should be able to handle ONE wererat with only spells etc. Also remember that things like grapple would work. If you take this approach, be quite clear that weapons do not hurt it. Don't let them hack on it for ages to "figure out for themselves", just tell them when they hit it that the wounds seems to close, and he wererat seems unhurt.
I would NEVER rely on a check for passing this information to them. As you ask: "What if they fail?" I would rather have them find a corpse outside the lair who has managed to scribble "SILVER" or something with his own blood on the wall.
But as I said in my first post. Try to give them information when they get the "assignment". Tell them in-game that ordinary weapons don't seem to hurt them.
And finally - you are allowed as a DM to say straight to your players: "You really should do some research here." Your players are quite new, so that's OK. If they until now, are "used" to just hitting things (more or less). You can give them an off-game warning that this time they should probably prepare a little more than usually.
Ludo ergo sum!
I would definitely give the PCs a warning.
Even with experienced players, unless you are going to allow the group to metagame, if the "silvered weapon" thing is something the characters would not know, the players should not be using that knowledge. I know, it's hard not to when something is that innate to your knowledge as the "silver" thing. But, I still don't want to see the other players in my group metagaming, and I wouldn't do it myself. If the DM doesn't tell my level 1 bard that she needs silvered weapons to kill something, I'm not going to have her "just know it" randomly.
Now if DM calls for a nature check or what have you, then fine. A bard knows some lore -- even at level 1 she might have heard a legend about this. But even though I am a very experienced old-school D&D player I wouldn't just have my character know stuff that you'd find in MM.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Except that I'm a very new DM myself and very little experience with the whole tabletop scene and therefore was relying on the adventure to hold my hand as I guide my players through it. Kinda like three blind mice, but I'm the one with the stick! :D
Don't get me wrong, the adventure module is really easy to go through and I think I'm finding this easier than I did with the Lost Mine of Phandelver adventure, maybe because of the "quest giver" really limiting my player's options which in turn means I really only need to read up on a handful of quests instead of having the entire adventure and an "open world" system.
I think I have that skill covered as a DM (as we had the same issue with the ochre jellies where the fighter just swung at it with his sword at first and I just said the jelly gets cut in half but no visible damage otherwise) and plan to just have two or three rounds of attack before the PCs and the players fully realize that normal attacks won't work. The adventure makes no mention of wererats at the time the quest is given, just that there's a new overseer and needs to be escorted to the mine. No mention of it being overrun, if anything, it sounds more like the danger is on the way TO the mine and not in the mine itself. On the way to the mine, the party comes across six dead orcs.... and would've been a great chance to hint at the wererats but nope, this scene just reinforces the white dragon threat in the adventure. I may alter this to reflect the wererat threat instead or even borrow from a previous quest and have a dwarf from the mine escape to give the players a better heads up on the threat ahead.
I would really prefer for the information to come to the PCs in the game, rather that to come to the players from the DM. I think the term here is "meta-game"?
LOL, speaking of meta-game ;)
Here, I think my issue is that none of us (DM, players, PCs) really know much of the game but yeah, I'd prefer to avoid meta-game if possible. My cleric player seems to be really into ROLEplay which is good and I've DM'ed a little info based on the PC's supposed history, but eventually, the players will come across something they (player and PC) have never encountered before so I'm trying to learn how to give them the needed info without meta-game and maybe even coax them to flee if possible rather than just surrender to the TPK.
So far, my fighter player loves swinging his pointy toys and I'm encouraging him to ROLEplay which I can see he enjoys but finds silly or embarrassing.
The thing is you are going to have to take the time to develop your style for D&D on how to convey info. to players.
For example, I'm not sure how we developed this but back when we started, we came up with the idea that all potions of a given type look the same, and are unique. For example, if one Potion of Healing was light pink, then they all were, and you could expect all light pink potions to be Potions of Healing. What we'd end up with is an inventory of " A gray potion, a green potion, a white potion, and 2 pink potions," not knowing any of them. After either quaffing them to just randomly try them (we lived dangerously back then!), or else getting them ID'ed somehow, we would keep a record that green = levitation, blue = poison, etc. After that, the DM, knowing we had IDed them, would just say "You find a potion of healing," since we already knew the color.
But again this is the kind of thing you have to develop as you go.
So with weapons that don't work, you might describe that the weapon doesn't cut the creature or leave any marks, it keeps sliding off their tough hide, etc. The players are going to have to figure out what this means. Make sure you give them some buffers (extra healing potions). And one really good way to deal with this is to have monsters that maybe have an OK set of HP and AC, but really low attacks... 1d4 or even 1d2 (1d4 halved or just flip a coin, heads = 1, tails = 2). This way, there is lots of room for mistakes, since one blow won't insta-cap them.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Hi again! I am honestly only trying to boost your believe in your abilities as a DM. You have spotted what seems to be a problem with the module WELL ahead of playing it! That's GREAT! It also sounds that you really wants to try to solve this "in game". That's also (as I see it) completely right! So, trust yourself - find a way to give the players the information. Let that dwarf run away and give the players a heads up! That should work fine. Don't mind if it doesn't say so in the adventure. Trust that YOU know YOUR players better than the person who wrote that adventure.
And I really mean it probably would work completely fine to give away everything before they enter the mines. Have the escaped dwarf tell them it's some strange kind of werecreature, let him know that silver can hurt them. As long as you have the players WORK for that knowledge (like saving the dwarf for instance), they will feel SMART. Players love to feel smart. OK, from time to time it's OK to surprise them with a monster that have some weaknesses they don't know, but also vice versa. Sometimes it's completely fine to give the players the feeling they got the upper hand! If you're afraid it will be to easy - add another rat or two or make one of them to a kind of "boss".
As I haven't read any of the adventures you are talking about, my advice is kind of general, but trust your instincts here! And trust me - doing those choices, following those instincts is what makes roleplaying really funny both for DM's and players. That's what computer games has yet not managed to do.
Best of luck :-)
Ludo ergo sum!
Before combat: You can have them in town/at a tavern and hear stories of "Creatures that tore through an adventure party/ town guard... the only survivor kept talking about how their hits never seemed to damage it."
In combat: after the first few hits, the most perceptive (perception skill) notices the following; "Your last hit cut deep, but the wound immediately healed. They seem to be immune to your strikes with that weapon."
In either case, insert a wise sage/cleric/wizard that can help them figure out out via some role play in town.
Potions are one thing because there really isn't any inherent danger with them, ie, just don't drink it until it's identified, you know it's magic (cleric has detect magic) but you don't know what it does, etc. Fighting an unknown creature is also workable if it's just one-at-a-time and I think I can describe ineffective attack properly so that my PCs will get the idea of their attacks being useless. It's getting them to realize they must flee as they risk TPK that I need to get them to learn. So far, they're playing it like a computer game where you can reset the fight, which I'm still allowing as we're new but I want them to start ROLEplaying their characters more, specifically, that I-don't-wanna-die part! :D
I also want to learn more about getting the PCs prepared for the fight in-game without spoonfeeding too much, which I think I got the answer to with having a dwarf escape to give them a heads up.
Thanks for the vote of confidence! I guess I just had much higher expectations for the module and really got thrown off when this issue wasn't covered by the adventure as written. While I'm fine with adjusting stuff to fit my players, I just didn't expect to be doing it at this point in time especially since the previous parts of the adventure were going well.
I think you also hit the nail on the head here -- I want my PCs to work for the knowledge they get with minimal spoon-feeding on my part. I love the EUREKA! moments they have like when they figured out what attacks worked for the ochre jellies and started to be jelly-paranoid for the rest of the game, and then spent the in-between-quests time to diversify their attack capabilities, ie the fighter getting a bludgeoning weapon to complement his slicing weapon (sword) and piercing weapon (bow).
Thanks for those suggestions! I think I'll have a dwarf come to town to give hints on the threat but then they'll have to figure out the silver weakness and then have to figure out how to get their stuff silvered. That'll be a ton of ROLEplay opportunities for the players!
You don’t necessarily have to play it out to give them something they should know. It doesn’t even require a role if you deem it so. I regularly throw in bits of knowledge or lore that players might know in the way of rumours. If it’s common enough knowledge, no role is necessary. In this case, if you feel they’ve actually faced them before, I’d just lay out a few rumours, legends, or some of their own observations from their “last encounter.”
“You recall your blades sliding through them as through water, leaving no discernible mark. Only by running as if Orcus himself was behind you did you survive.”
“Seeing them transform in front of you reminds you of the tales of these shapeshifters, able to take the grotesque form of animals that are immune to tools of men.” (Doesn’t have to be true).
However you give them info, don’t give them specific stats, though, describe the effect of the stats (fast and hard to hit, stealthy, durable, whatever)
Thanks for that. For info that the PCs would know, I could have them recall instances in their past experience or recall stories told or overheard, but I think my bigger issue now is for info that neither PCs nor players would know. While it would be easy enough to either let them have an easy initial encounter, ie just face one wererat and learn about the monster in a "safe" encounter or have an NPC kind of "fill them in" like my plan for the escaped dwarf, I'm wondering what other options there are.
For instance, the wererat quest has another monster in the mines, a carrion crawler. How would the PCs gain info on a new monster? Describe the effects of the PCs' attacks or learn the hard way as they experience the monster's attacks and capabilities for themselves. But how do I let on that a certain monster that they stumbled upon is best left alone and tackled another day? Or return when they're more prepared?
Basically, how do I let low-level PCs figure out that they've bitten off more than they can chew without saying so outright?
That's a tough one because of the many ways D&D can be run. Most modules are set up in such a way that what they encounter can be defeated. Maybe a little bit tougher, but not by a huge amount. There are some exceptions, but most players will assume that if you put an enemy in front of them, they should be able to defeat it.
There are other types of adventures (or I should say DMs) that have a world with a huge mix of monsters and enemies. A player can easily run into a CR14 monster at level 3. But hopefully those types of DMs covered this with their players in a session zero. But those types of adventures are the exception usually.
To specifically answer your question, it's difficult to do without meta-gaming. But it's really hard to kill players in 5e unless the enemies are WAY above the PCs. So even if they fight the were-creatures without setup, you can always have it run away once it drops half the party to zero hp. This gives the remaining players a chance to stabilize, for the party to heal, and then to talk and find out what happened. (In character)
I was about to suggest something similar to this. When I have information that I need my players to have I don’t trust chance, I give it to them in the game somehow. I was going to suggest that they hear a rumor of a horrible monster that can’t be killed in a tavern. Role play someone giving them more information about how it’s wounds closed every time they stabbed it and when they ran away they were lucky enough to escape from it with only a few bites because it stopped to eat his dog that it killed. Obviously that person is infected and will turn into a wererat, but that information will get them started down the “Our weapons won’t hurt it” path.
Another thing that you can do is arrange for the PCs to find one magical weapon before they encounter the wererats so that one of them will be able to hurt it with a weapon. You can have a ton of fun describing the monster laughing as it’s wound heals as the first sword is pulled back for a second strike only to recoil in shock when the wound from the magical weapon doesn’t heal instantly.
Professional computer geek