My only home rule is that all characters start at level 1. I'm to harsh?

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Quote from Beginner_Bots >>

I don't know much about 1e, so I can't comment on that, especially since that was 50 something years ago, things change and adapt. I've read through numerous adventures, mostly the ones they have on here, where short rests and long rests can be used all the time. I don't expect the game to tell me when I can take a short rest, much as I don't expect the game to tell me I have to use the bathroom. Some things are implied. If you are hooked on 1e and expecting 5e to be the same, then I can't do anything for ya there, but besides that, we are saying the same thing, and therefore this adventure is going in circles.

Modules are there, INCLUDING the ones released now a days, to give you the backbone of the story, in which, it's up to the DM to stylize it for the players they have. You're coming from a place where you had a barebones thing (Stolen Statue and Olympics) then adapted as your players advanced through the story, but now that the story is finished, reading through it now, it sounds just like a story that WOTC might release. The only difference is, you didn't have all the middle parts right away. When WOTC releases an adventure, or a source book, or a module, or whatever, they have to try to come up with SOME sort of filler between the start and finish, otherwise you have a 3 page adventure with 1,000 random generators. Does this mean that the DM HAS to follow every single thing from start to finish, no, but that's up to the DM.

Much like the DMG is made to be interpreted and changed based on the DM, so is every adventure and module released by WOTC.

TL:DR, WOTC is a company that releases adventures that have to have a beginning, middle and end. Not just a Beginning and End.

 

You might be having issues with reading the paragraph or are a real strong WotC advocate and are threatened when WotC many faults are put on display.  You can accept the faults or reject.  But the faults remain.

You either have a healthy amount of stories that a DM can take, run and adapt, in addition to a healthy amount of source books like Wildemount, or you have one or the other, in which case people would ***** that there wasn't enough of the other.

 

You asked if I have a healthy amount of stories, I gave you an example of content I came up with to flesh out an existing module.  The said module comes with a mini-sandbox, a list of encounters that you can use and the main encounter area.  I created extra content because there is plenty of room to flesh out any area and I like to give the players choices.  Mind you the players could have allied with the Kobolds and wiped out the gnomes if they wanted, or just ignored them both to let them kill each other, but now they have no base and and are going to have a very difficult time hauling all the treasure out without help.

. You're coming from a place where you had a barebones thing (Stolen Statue and Olympics) then adapted as your players advanced through the story

 

The stolen statue and the Olympics are not part of the module I made it up.  A good DM creates content that the party can choose to interact or not.  Consequences for choosing to ignore content can include loss of access to resources or the BBEG becoming significantly stronger.

Look at Lost Mines of Phandelver, for the most part its an "ok" module, it has one dungeon that is of minor note.  The Red Brands Hideout and the Lost Mines you could conceivably take a short rest and not get caught.  If you go to Cragmaw Hideout or Castle, they are too small to logically do a short rest and Hideout has horrible balance issues for a level 1 party of 4 that the module is supposedly made to create, again bad module and game play mechanics coming from the company that made the rules.  Their own writers couldn't balance an encounter and all DM's know that Cragmaw Caves causes problems, hence all the "Road To Phandalin" type modules to bump the party to level 2 as an example.

 I understand your thoughts on, if you follow the module to a T, sure, the goblin hideout for example, could be short rested without incident. But a DM can easily work around that by having patrolling goblins.

In your example on a 1e module, you adapted it to have bonus encounters and story line to add to it. Otherwise, you would of had a bland story to follow (I assume, because as I said, I know shit about 1e. I'm on 5e). But the same can be done with a simple module like lost mines.

Add patrolling goblins to make short rests less successful. Maybe a griffin is making travel on the road to phandelver more difficult. Maybe the goblins are actually necromancers and have some undead helping them. Just like your 1e module was a sandbox that you worked in, Lost Mines can be as well.

You are trying to compare a module that you modified for your party, directly to a book that can also be modified but are looking at as is.

In reference to essentially being a WOTC Stan, that's not the case, I have a couple books not by WOTC that I like. I just understand where they are coming from and understand that, as a DM, any book you get whether it's a source or story, can be modified. Icewind Dale is a book where you could throw out the whole story and just use the setting.

You either compare adjusted books to adjusted books, or as is to as is. You can't compare one to the other as it isn't a fair comparison.

Quote from Pineirin >>

Well, I like random points and so do most of my player so I will discard that option.

I will also don't let any players to re-roll their random hit points, my players would have to force me at gun point to re-roll their character statistics.

Still, I heard your feedback, every new character will have the same level as the lowest level of the party (wich will be likely less xp than the party).

And BioWizard, most of my players love their characters, but there are some that don't, still, even between those who love them, many tend to think "my next character is going to be awesome", instead of focusing on the current.

 The issue with not allowing rerolls on HP is that you might end up with a so called tank who rolled too many 1s.  I've played Mr. Always Unconscious before, it isn't really any fun.  No one want's to play the teen sidekick when everyone else is a superhero - anyone who has been cursed by the dice and stuck in that role is likely to chafe under it.  The point of the game is to have fun, and if people aren't, you need to ask why.

Quote from scatterbraind >>

Having a long, drawn-out penalty for death means you are more likely to die again. It also means the party is weaker and your teammates are also more likely to die. This results in a death spiral where every failure increases the chance of the next failure.

I disagree. You tailor encounters to the player levels. If you have 4 level 8 characters and prepare a Hard encounter, you prepare for 5600-8400XP. If one of the characters is at a lower level, say level 4. You  adjust your encounter to 4575-6800XP. DnDBeyond's encounter builder already does the math for you.

Granted, level 1 characters are very squishy (even when fighting level 1 appropriate enemies), which is why my suggestion was to start at half the party's level. Also, you are the DM, you can make the lower level character draw less "aggro" to make sure they aren't wiped out by a single attack. Let's not pretend that the DM doesn't influence how monsters behave to make sure the party has fun.

Quote from DerManiac >>

Quote from scatterbraind >>

Having a long, drawn-out penalty for death means you are more likely to die again. It also means the party is weaker and your teammates are also more likely to die. This results in a death spiral where every failure increases the chance of the next failure.

 

I disagree. You tailor encounters to the player levels. If you have 4 level 8 characters and prepare a Hard encounter, you prepare for 5600-8400XP. If one of the characters is at a lower level, say level 4. You  adjust your encounter to 4575-6800XP. DnDBeyond's encounter builder already does the math for you.

Granted, level 1 characters are very squishy (even when fighting level 1 appropriate enemies), which is why my suggestion was to start at half the party's level. Also, you are the DM, you can make the lower level character draw less "aggro" to make sure they aren't wiped out by a single attack. Let's not pretend that the DM doesn't influence how monsters behave to make sure the party has fun.

 A couple issues with that. For one thing, CR and encounter math is so fuzzy and imprecise that it's nearly useless. And on top of that D&D scales in a way that a 3rd level character is far less than half as useful than a 6th level character. And if you're going to do all that and then have monsters ignore the character, what really was your goal here - to actually create consequences or just to straight up punish the player?

And yes, you can dial back the challenge. Cause who doesn't want to fight two more levels worth of the stuff they've been fighting, right? That's what I mean about the game slowing to a crawl. You're just spinning your wheels waiting for the weak guy to catch up.

The other thing is - just, why? Seriously. Why do extra work for this? If your players are just killing themselves for the lols and the loss of a player's character isn't in and of itself a massive consequence in your game, slapping on an extra penalty for death is not going to fix the underlying issue(s) at your table. The whole thing just feels like a futile attempt to force players to care. If they don't care then something else is wrong, and the solution is not to just punish them every time they don't care.

In my group, a PC death is devastating. The characters grieve, the players grieve, the NPCs with connections to the PC grieve. Because they lost a friend. They rethink their goals, or make rash decisions in the name of vengeance, sometimes things they regret later. There's just no need for some kind of mechanical penalty if your players care about the game. It's like beating someone at Monopoly and then punching them in the face so they learn not to lose on purpose next time.

Quote from DerManiac >>

I disagree. You tailor encounters to the player levels. If you have 4 level 8 characters and prepare a Hard encounter, you prepare for 5600-8400XP. If one of the characters is at a lower level, say level 4. You  adjust your encounter to 4575-6800XP. DnDBeyond's encounter builder already does the math for you.

 So, you have your level 4 character with, say, 27 hit points. A reasonable hard challenge is a Young Red Dragon at 5,900 xp. It breathes fire on the party, rolls average (56), character fails his save, instantly dead from full health. Fun adventure there...

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

Quote from DerManiac >>

I disagree. You tailor encounters to the player levels. If you have 4 level 8 characters and prepare a Hard encounter, you prepare for 5600-8400XP. If one of the characters is at a lower level, say level 4. You  adjust your encounter to 4575-6800XP. DnDBeyond's encounter builder already does the math for you.

 So, you have your level 4 character with, say, 27 hit points. A reasonable hard challenge is a Young Red Dragon at 5,900 xp. It breathes fire on the party, rolls average (56), character fails his save, instantly dead from full health. Fun adventure there...

 But that player gets the fun of spending the rest of the game session creating his NEXT character.

How is that not fun?  Turning up every week, dying in the first encounter, and spending an hour or two coming up with another character concept - and you can start to think of creative ways to make your next PC's death even more fun.

Level difference can ruin a player's experience. Being at the table and watching everyone else play while you have to hide in the back with 8 HP and a stick is not fun for most players.

I think it depends. I'm fine with players taking a penalty after a character death or retirement, but I usually wouldn't make the gap more than a level or maybe two at high enough levels. Because 5e is so compressed progression wise, there are very few ways (other than magic items, but I assume those also are reduced) to mitigate gaps- you can't make up a difference in spell levels, extra attacks, or proficiency bonus easily.

I think it's more reasonable to force players to use an array they rolled that's "bad" than to punish a new character. Retiring over and over to scum out good stat blocks is a frustrating experience for DMs, since it gives players an unfair advantage and it reflects an unwillingness of players to let their characters actually have weaknesses. Playing with the dice as they fall is a core tenet of D&D, and so trying to circumvent that via meta "I'm going to get my character killed" gameplay is not fun for anyone at the table- after all, if you're seriously role playing having a comrade die by running into a swarm of enemies and just standing there is going to be a huge "What happened there?" moment for the table.

If you want to go with a level penalty and not just forcing players to keep their arrays across characters I would allow a few "freebies" so that players don't metagame in the opposite direction (avoiding peril at all costs) but also make it clear that dying repeatedly will result in a level penalty until you "catch up". If a player has a problem with their array, and the DM doesn't allow them to re-roll, scumming out re-rolls by metagaming is not the solution. Characters don't need to be literally god tier rolls to be fun or enjoyable to play. Sometimes you just play an interesting character and let your array be what it is, highs and lows as they are.