One of our hardest decision was improving our accuracy at lvl 8 by going 20 in main stat in our respective class or choosing feats because even at 16 or 18 we were missing waayy too much and our enemies dealt around 25%-50% of our HP in damage per attack. I don't know if these numbers are usual because like I said, is was our first campaign.
Were you focusing enemies down or each taking an enemy? Did everyone eschew shields? Did the spellcasters all just attack or were some buffs and debuffs also used? Did anyone take crowd control?
One of our hardest decision was improving our accuracy at lvl 8 by going 20 in main stat in our respective class or choosing feats because even at 16 or 18 we were missing waayy too much and our enemies dealt around 25%-50% of our HP in damage per attack. I don't know if these numbers are usual because like I said, is was our first campaign.
Were you focusing enemies down or each taking an enemy? Did everyone eschew shields? Did the spellcasters all just attack or were some buffs and debuffs also used? Did anyone take crowd control?
Most of the spellcaster just attack, sometimes the druid heals or casts spike growth. I as a paladin cast bless most of the time instead of smiting.
The players are not actually dying, they are just coming close. Check. Working as intended. A tough fight should leave the characters feeling like they could have died.
Missing most of your attacks. Well... The nature of melee combat is that you will miss pretty often. I think I read that your odds of hitting are expected to be around 60%. Some bad dice rolls can make you feel like you never hit, but if you keep a strict tally you will probably find out you hit more often than not. The monsters are only supposed to be hitting at around 60% too of course.
It sounds to me like your expectation for how often you are supposed to be hitting is out of whack with the way the game's combat rules are written. If you find that boring or frustrating D&D may not be the game for you in the first place.
You as a DM can cater more to the style your players seem to expect. Use monsters with low Armor Class and fewer Hit Points. It doesn't sound like your players are looking for challenging fights. They just want to kill stuff quickly and efficiently. So use lower Challenge Rating encounters more often. Don't use published campaigns. They make assumptions about the preferred style of play. I do believe that Curse of Stroud is a Horror themed campaign, for example. The players are supposed to be scared, not feel Heroic.
If you really need it, have a battle focused NPC travel with the party and don't be squeamish about using them as to provide a distraction to let the others escape when things look really bad.
One of our hardest decision was improving our accuracy at lvl 8 by going 20 in main stat in our respective class or choosing feats because even at 16 or 18 we were missing waayy too much and our enemies dealt around 25%-50% of our HP in damage per attack. I don't know if these numbers are usual because like I said, is was our first campaign.
Just to make sure, because it's easily confused by newbies, but when you attacked a target and rolled a result equal to it's AC, did it hit? Many new folks think you need to roll higher than the AC score of the target to hit, but actually the AC is the target number. You roll an 18 (roll+modifiers) against a creature with 18 AC and you will hit it.
You guys probably realized this, but in case you didn't, that could be a reason why you were missing so much. A simple AC score change can make hitting targets (especially at lower levels) much more difficult.
oUCH OUCH OUCH. I just pulled up the stats from Critical Role. An 18 at level 2 and 20 at level 5. That is a high powered game. It can work but I would have trouble adjusting a canned fight to make it a challenge.
In fact 4 ofthe characters had at least one 18 (or 19) at level 2 and Fjord had 2. Rolling 4d6 drop 1 does on average give higher stats than point buy, and on critical rule they house rule that if the total of tyour stats is 70 you can roll everything again (as this happens about 30% of the time it gives quite a boost).
Even then they rolled well by my reckoning 5 of the 7 playes rolled a 17 or better (before racial modifiers) but on average this would happen less than half the time.
Matt is an experianced DM and is able to set the difficulty of encounters at a suitable level.
Remind the party that they can buy Healer's Kits and Potion of Healing. Make sure that the party has someone with Healing Word. Paladins with Lay on Hands, Celestial Warlocks with Healing Light, Circle of Dreams Druids with Balm of the Summer Court, can also bring people back up. It's normal for people to get knocked down to 0 HP in combat, but your party needs to be able to get them back up.
A popular house rule that people make which severely weakens Variant Human is that everyone gets a free feat to start (and Variant Human gets two feats to start). This helps increase the power of lower level characters, which might be needed for your party.
Well, there's only our Eladrin Sorcerer that started with 11 CON (his decision). There's my devotion paladin that started with 14 CON (had to prioritize CHA and STR first), a Land of the Forest Druid with 15 CON, a Hexblade with 16 CON, and a Ranger with 17 CON. Our fighter that died had 18 CON and our wizard that was killed had 16 CON.
Remind the Land Druid that he may not be a Moon Druid, but he can still Wildshape into an Elk or Giant Wolf Spider.
I would advise throwing out the rule that level 2 and 3 Druids can't wildshape into an animal with a swim speed, and allow him to wildshape into a Giant Poisonous Snake or Constrictor Snake, as long as there isn't any water nearby where he could actually use his swim speed.
I think you are overrating variant humans. A vhuman is very flexible so is a reasonably powerful option for any class / type of build but for most builds there is anther race that is at least as good.
For example for anything that requires charisma a half elf is probably more powerful than a vhuman. The +2 to Cha along with 2 +1s of your choice is like getting an ASI instead of a feat (which is roughly equivalent), and then you get darkvision, an extra lamguagfe (Elvish). an extra skill proficiency and Fey ancestry
For anything that doesn't use medium or heavy aemor an arakokra is overpowered at low levels simply because it can fly, this gets around a huge amount of difficulties at low levels and even in tier two casting the fly spell for 10 minutes of flight is a considerable use of resources.
Yuan-ti are another exoctic race that are probably more powerful than vhumans for many builds, even if they are not charisma based. Immunity to poison and advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects is HUGE.
A big disadvantege of humans is they are one of the few races that do not have darkvision. Though this generally brings down the power of the whole party not just the human. If the need a light to see trying to be stealthy in the dark is useless.
Standard Array (15, 14, 13, 12,10, 8) is fine and is appropriate for monsters of a proper CR. Dungeon Dudes Standard Array is pretty nice too(15,17,13,12,10, 8). On critical role they do a 4d6 drop the lowest and they reroll if the stats add up less than 70.
The issue could be just a bunch of bad rolls (it happens), or maybe tactics and simple inexperience. Which is something we all have gone through at some point so don't worry, its normal. Positioning, control spells, efficient use of the action economy, using conditions, cover and stealth, etc. Give this a watch see if it helps.
Check out my Disabled & Dragons Youtube Channel for 5e Monster and Player Tactics. Helping the Disabled Community and Players and DM’s (both new and experienced) get into D&D. Plus there is a talking Dragon named Quill.
If the lure of Varian Human is too strong and you end up with mostly humans, I recommend using the houserule that gives starting feat to everyone and can the varian human.
As for the lack of variety in low levels levels 1-2 are basically tutorial where you learn the basics, If your gropup knows the basics you may as well start the game on lvl 3 when every class have enough variety to make every fight interesting.
Outdoor campaigns can also lure lots of aarokocra and I'm running one campaign which is (almost) entirely composed of half-elves. Variant humans are just that - a variant. If you feel you don't want them or that there are too many of them then you don't have to use them.
- magic items. Give the players a few low level magic items to improve them. And also give some that only certain players can use like if you where playing that campaign with the elderin, give them something that only an elderin could use like something that uses seasons.
- weaker monsters. There is nothing wrong with using weaker monsters for the characters to fight. Or you can have them retreat if combat gets messy.
- mile point level up. If the party is gaining levels to slowly just have them level up. Or give them xp at times other than combat
- more options. It’s not always best to give the characters monsters to fight. Give them a chance to get an advantage like cover or change at ranged attacks. This is harder for dungeon crawls but you can put those off until later levels.
- give them a chance to surrender or retreat. Let the characters know that they can retreat. But make sure it isn’t all is lost. Perhaps they killed a good portion of the monsters or found a secret.
- allies approach. Have an allied NPC enter the battlefield.
- gifts and inspiration. Give the players inspiration occasionally or some other gift like a charm or blessing.
point out that physically speaking in general, humans are squishy; dwarves have poison resistance, halfling resistance to fear, elves to charm, tieflings to fire, etc; plus many others have darkvision, a boon in dungeon crawling and brawling, oh and some have innate spells (drow, tiefling, genasi, etc). Sadly, humans have none of that. oh well
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Rogue Shadow, the DM (and occasional) PC with schemes of inventive thinking
If the lure of Varian Human is too strong and you end up with mostly humans, I recommend using the houserule that gives starting feat to everyone and can the varian human.
As for the lack of variety in low levels levels 1-2 are basically tutorial where you learn the basics, If your gropup knows the basics you may as well start the game on lvl 3 when every class have enough variety to make every fight interesting.
oh yeah, I agree with that
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Rogue Shadow, the DM (and occasional) PC with schemes of inventive thinking
Get your sorcerer to start casting "Hypnotic Pattern". In my campaign a bard would cast that on an encounter, and then stand back while the party picked off the monsters one-by-one.
For some reason my monster's saving throws against Hypnotic Pattern would always fail! (And we always have the DM roll openly)
Were you focusing enemies down or each taking an enemy? Did everyone eschew shields? Did the spellcasters all just attack or were some buffs and debuffs also used? Did anyone take crowd control?
Most of the spellcaster just attack, sometimes the druid heals or casts spike growth. I as a paladin cast bless most of the time instead of smiting.
The players are not actually dying, they are just coming close. Check. Working as intended. A tough fight should leave the characters feeling like they could have died.
Missing most of your attacks. Well... The nature of melee combat is that you will miss pretty often. I think I read that your odds of hitting are expected to be around 60%. Some bad dice rolls can make you feel like you never hit, but if you keep a strict tally you will probably find out you hit more often than not. The monsters are only supposed to be hitting at around 60% too of course.
It sounds to me like your expectation for how often you are supposed to be hitting is out of whack with the way the game's combat rules are written. If you find that boring or frustrating D&D may not be the game for you in the first place.
You as a DM can cater more to the style your players seem to expect. Use monsters with low Armor Class and fewer Hit Points. It doesn't sound like your players are looking for challenging fights. They just want to kill stuff quickly and efficiently. So use lower Challenge Rating encounters more often. Don't use published campaigns. They make assumptions about the preferred style of play. I do believe that Curse of Stroud is a Horror themed campaign, for example. The players are supposed to be scared, not feel Heroic.
<Insert clever signature here>
If you really need it, have a battle focused NPC travel with the party and don't be squeamish about using them as to provide a distraction to let the others escape when things look really bad.
Chilling kinda vibe.
Just to make sure, because it's easily confused by newbies, but when you attacked a target and rolled a result equal to it's AC, did it hit? Many new folks think you need to roll higher than the AC score of the target to hit, but actually the AC is the target number. You roll an 18 (roll+modifiers) against a creature with 18 AC and you will hit it.
You guys probably realized this, but in case you didn't, that could be a reason why you were missing so much. A simple AC score change can make hitting targets (especially at lower levels) much more difficult.
In fact 4 ofthe characters had at least one 18 (or 19) at level 2 and Fjord had 2.
Rolling 4d6 drop 1 does on average give higher stats than point buy, and on critical rule they house rule that if the total of tyour stats is 70 you can roll everything again (as this happens about 30% of the time it gives quite a boost).
Even then they rolled well by my reckoning 5 of the 7 playes rolled a 17 or better (before racial modifiers) but on average this would happen less than half the time.
Matt is an experianced DM and is able to set the difficulty of encounters at a suitable level.
Remind the party that they can buy Healer's Kits and Potion of Healing. Make sure that the party has someone with Healing Word. Paladins with Lay on Hands, Celestial Warlocks with Healing Light, Circle of Dreams Druids with Balm of the Summer Court, can also bring people back up. It's normal for people to get knocked down to 0 HP in combat, but your party needs to be able to get them back up.
A popular house rule that people make which severely weakens Variant Human is that everyone gets a free feat to start (and Variant Human gets two feats to start). This helps increase the power of lower level characters, which might be needed for your party.
Remind the Land Druid that he may not be a Moon Druid, but he can still Wildshape into an Elk or Giant Wolf Spider.
I would advise throwing out the rule that level 2 and 3 Druids can't wildshape into an animal with a swim speed, and allow him to wildshape into a Giant Poisonous Snake or Constrictor Snake, as long as there isn't any water nearby where he could actually use his swim speed.
I think you are overrating variant humans. A vhuman is very flexible so is a reasonably powerful option for any class / type of build but for most builds there is anther race that is at least as good.
For example for anything that requires charisma a half elf is probably more powerful than a vhuman. The +2 to Cha along with 2 +1s of your choice is like getting an ASI instead of a feat (which is roughly equivalent), and then you get darkvision, an extra lamguagfe (Elvish). an extra skill proficiency and Fey ancestry
For anything that doesn't use medium or heavy aemor an arakokra is overpowered at low levels simply because it can fly, this gets around a huge amount of difficulties at low levels and even in tier two casting the fly spell for 10 minutes of flight is a considerable use of resources.
Yuan-ti are another exoctic race that are probably more powerful than vhumans for many builds, even if they are not charisma based. Immunity to poison and advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects is HUGE.
A big disadvantege of humans is they are one of the few races that do not have darkvision. Though this generally brings down the power of the whole party not just the human. If the need a light to see trying to be stealthy in the dark is useless.
Standard Array (15, 14, 13, 12,10, 8) is fine and is appropriate for monsters of a proper CR. Dungeon Dudes Standard Array is pretty nice too(15,17,13,12,10, 8). On critical role they do a 4d6 drop the lowest and they reroll if the stats add up less than 70.
The issue could be just a bunch of bad rolls (it happens), or maybe tactics and simple inexperience. Which is something we all have gone through at some point so don't worry, its normal. Positioning, control spells, efficient use of the action economy, using conditions, cover and stealth, etc. Give this a watch see if it helps.
Check out my Disabled & Dragons Youtube Channel for 5e Monster and Player Tactics. Helping the Disabled Community and Players and DM’s (both new and experienced) get into D&D. Plus there is a talking Dragon named Quill.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPPmyTI0tZ6nM-bzY0IG3ww
If the lure of Varian Human is too strong and you end up with mostly humans, I recommend using the houserule that gives starting feat to everyone and can the varian human.
As for the lack of variety in low levels levels 1-2 are basically tutorial where you learn the basics, If your gropup knows the basics you may as well start the game on lvl 3 when every class have enough variety to make every fight interesting.
Outdoor campaigns can also lure lots of aarokocra and I'm running one campaign which is (almost) entirely composed of half-elves. Variant humans are just that - a variant. If you feel you don't want them or that there are too many of them then you don't have to use them.
Chilling kinda vibe.
Their are a couple options
- magic items. Give the players a few low level magic items to improve them. And also give some that only certain players can use like if you where playing that campaign with the elderin, give them something that only an elderin could use like something that uses seasons.
- weaker monsters. There is nothing wrong with using weaker monsters for the characters to fight. Or you can have them retreat if combat gets messy.
- mile point level up. If the party is gaining levels to slowly just have them level up. Or give them xp at times other than combat
- more options. It’s not always best to give the characters monsters to fight. Give them a chance to get an advantage like cover or change at ranged attacks. This is harder for dungeon crawls but you can put those off until later levels.
- give them a chance to surrender or retreat. Let the characters know that they can retreat. But make sure it isn’t all is lost. Perhaps they killed a good portion of the monsters or found a secret.
- allies approach. Have an allied NPC enter the battlefield.
- gifts and inspiration. Give the players inspiration occasionally or some other gift like a charm or blessing.
point out that physically speaking in general, humans are squishy; dwarves have poison resistance, halfling resistance to fear, elves to charm, tieflings to fire, etc; plus many others have darkvision, a boon in dungeon crawling and brawling, oh and some have innate spells (drow, tiefling, genasi, etc). Sadly, humans have none of that. oh well
Rogue Shadow, the DM (and occasional) PC with schemes of inventive thinking
oh yeah, I agree with that
Rogue Shadow, the DM (and occasional) PC with schemes of inventive thinking
Get your sorcerer to start casting "Hypnotic Pattern". In my campaign a bard would cast that on an encounter, and then stand back while the party picked off the monsters one-by-one.
For some reason my monster's saving throws against Hypnotic Pattern would always fail! (And we always have the DM roll openly)
P.S. Crowd control is key!