New DM in need of advice

[Iban]

See title :smalltongue:

I've recently started DMing a campaign with a reasonably large group (6 person party) and as this is my first time DMing (and very early in my D&D career anyway lol).

Mainly I would like to know how to make things run smootly, have the encounters balanced, loot costs reasonable etc...

Also; how to make monsters more powerful, because I really don't know :smallfrown:

And then, anything else you think may be useful.

Thanks, Iban :smallbiggrin:

[Kylarra]

This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76474) is a good place to start.

Making monsters easier is as simple as just picking better feats for them or giving them better base stats.

[Tyndmyr]

Get a bottle of tequila. Award shots for amazing acheivements in game.

Result: The most overpowered players get intoxicated first, and begin making hilariously bad decisions. Balance by alcohol.

[Iban]

Ah coolies, I'll spend a while reading through that and digesting :smallsmile:

Quick question though (and this probably sounds a bit silly), but what is a BBEG and a BBBEG?

[Critical]

Quick question though (and this probably sounds a bit silly), but what is a BBEG and a BBBEG?

Big Bad Evil Guy, don't know for the three B's, though.

[absolmorph]

Big Bad Evil Guy, don't know for the three B's, though.
Bigger Big Bad Evil Guy?

[Tyndmyr]

Are the other players newcomers as well, or have they been playing a while?

Also, is this 3.5?

[BRC]

First of all, Know your players. If your players are having fun, everybody is having fun.
Per RAW, DnD has ALOT of paperwork and minutia involved. Don't be afraid to ignore any that you don't feel like working with. Mundane ammunition for example can generally be ignored unless you want to create a feeling of scarcity.

When in doubt, Interesting> Challenging. Your players will probably forget that fight against those four 3rd level hobgoblin fighters unless something unique happened or they barely escaped with their lives. However, they will definitely remember that fight hobgoblin warlock who sniped at them from the top of a tower, forcing them to run between covers, quickly taking out the mooks until they could get close enough to storm his perch.

You are the DM, written fluff means absolutely nothing to you. If there is a monster that isn't what you're looking for, but does what you want done, refluff it. Unless the PC's have DR against certain weapon types, or resistance to certain elements, you can switch those around to fit the flavor you want without causing a problem.

[Iban]

Thanks so far :smallsmile:

Oh yer, forgot to mention: This is 3.5

All but one of us is 'new' as such.

Me + one other player have dabbled in the past and have a fair grasp of the rules (him slightly more than me)
3 players are basically brand new, although one of the learns ridiculously fast
The last player has been playing for ages, is DMing another group and playing about 3 campaigns at the same time as well as single dungeon adventures and the like.

[AslanCross]

Don't be afraid; I started playing D&D as a DM myself. It's not as hard as it looks.

Knowing your group and agreeing on how you want to play is most important. If you're all new, it's pretty easy to run the game without worrying about players who will say "oh this is boring, can I shoot my party members?" Remember, the game is based on consensus and collective fun.

Balancing encounters is a bit more difficult. Some terms to remember:
1. CR, Challenge Rating, signifies the level of a party that will be challenged by the monster. 'Challenge' here means that the party will consume about 25% of a party's resources trying to kill it. As such, creatures with the same CR by RAW can possibly have different strengths. A CR 10 10th level Gnome Monk, a CR 10 10th level human Crusader, and a CR 10 Red Dragon will have very different impacts on a party.

2. EL, Encounter Level, is a composite of all of the challenge ratings in the party. A lot of DMs don't know how to calculate this. I personally didn't bother trying to learn the formula. I just used this Encounter Calculator (http://legionofgeeks.com/encounter_calc.php) instead. If you only have one creature, EL=CR. They pretty much have the same bearing on the PCs; a Lv 10 party encountering an EL 10 encounter should consume 25% of their resources. Thus, a Lv 10 party should be able to deal with four EL 10 encounters every day without suffering a death or two.

3. ECL, Effective Class Level, is the sum of a creature's racial hit dice, class levels, and Level Adjustment. A bugbear, for example, has 3 racial hit dice, and a level adjustment of +1. Thus, the basic bugbear statted in the Monster Manual has an ECL of 4. If it has 4 Fighter levels, that increases its ECL to 8. ECL has very to do with challenge rating and encounter level. A lot of new DMs find this confusing. It basically has no bearing on encounter building.

What ECL has bearing on is player characters. In a Level 1 game, when everyone only has 1 class level, a player character bugbear (ECL 4) is not acceptable. It would, however, be technically admissible in a Lv 4 game. Racial hit dice are typically rather lousy, though, so some people prefer to houserule around this.

[Iban]

Wow you guys have been so much help :smallbiggrin:

So far I have:

Monster Advancer tool (gained from the linked thread in Kylarra's response)
Experience Calculator
Lottsa general tips

:biggrin:

Thanks again everyone :D