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[Gandariel]

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[AMFV]

Hello playground, i would like to ask you a few things:

I've learned how to play D&D in these forums after bumping into OOTS, then played a couple of short PbP games. i also went through a couple rulebooks. In short, i'm kind of a newbie, but i can definitely play and i have a good grasp of the rules.
Now, my friends and i wanted to start a game, and i was elected as DM because first, the idea intrigues me, then i'm a good storyteller, and.. well, no one else wanted to :P

We're starting in a week or two, so i'm not in a rush.
There are also new players in the game, so we will start from low level, probably 1.

So well, i'll have to DM and i would like some ideas and tips from you veterans ^^
tips? things to avoid? things i should do? etc.
THIS will be a VERY LOW OP GAME.
there are new people, and the people who are already good at it are not optimisers and prefer to play a good RP.

Watch the stormwind fallacy: optimization levels have roughly no bearing on ability to roleplay well.


Also i was thinking of an ambientation and a campaign.
My first idea was, continent made of several kingdoms, evil bad guy has taken one of them with army of undead and wants to conquer the others.
but that's, of course, a LONG-TERM goal (and i don't think they want to be very Good charachters)

Make sure you have a good idea about what kind of campaign they want to run. If they don't want to be saving the world forcing them to would likely end poorly. I would recommend not allowing overtly evil characters at least for your first session. This is not because evil characters are inherently bad (well they are...) But because it is much harder to DM for evil characters.


The other thing i was thinking, in their city there's this strange person (Artificer, mage, something, i don't think i'll ever need to stat him)

Stat him... If there is an NPC, you have not statted, chances are probably exceeding 100 percent that one or more of the players will attempt to kill him upon meeting him. It just works that way.


who makes magical objects.
He will ask the party to go on missions and gather stuff, and do stuff. Also, he will give them his creations asking them to test them (some will work, some.. won't :P )

In some of the missions, they'll meet some of the bad guy's lackeys (they're after the same object) which will, eventually, become recurrent villains and then slowly turning the story from "Going on random quests for a crazy mage" to becoming involved in the Bad guy stuff and actively go to fight him.


So what do you think?

This seems like a good premise, but there's not really much to this. Probably you want to focus most on the hook. If the first adventure is not good, then players will lose interest. That will kill your campaign. Why would they want to to work for said dude? Especially if they are self-serving (evil). Why would they want to oppose the BBEG, and why would they be willing to fight somebody over the object?

Insure that they have appropriate motivations, and insure that they are willing to take on overwhelming odds for them. Again be sure that your hook is solid, as without the hook, the overarching campaign is kinda irrelevant.

[Gandariel]

When i said "not good" i meant, "Not all charachter will be with no question good, and might as well not care about the BBEG in question"
not "They are going to be evil monster who spend their time desecrating altars"

They're gonna be good/neutral.
And that's the point. Of course, they are not obliged to go and start a crusade without purpose.
I'll just say that the BBEG exists.

They'll live in this city and notice this note outside of that man's house, with "advenurers required for mission, blah blahblah, cash reward"
That should be enough.
This guy will send them to gather rare ingredients, maybe take an object, or something like that, plus he'll give them things to test (i'll invent something funny, for example a sword with +x to atk and damage vs goblinoids...
The sword, though, will start screaming "GOBLINS! GOBLINS!!" everytime a goblinoid is in 50ft radius )
(another idea is the Shrodinger's bag of tricks: you open it, you have 50% chance of getting an animal, and 50% chance of getting it dead...)
(i don't know, these were the ones on top of my head, i'll figure something out)

Anyway, this artificer will send them on missions (with cash and item rewards, should be enough to keep them going...)

I figure one time, after a few missions, they're on a quest to gather an item, when suddenly the lackeys of the BBEG pops in; he wants the same item or something and they fight.

that happens a couple of times, the adventurers ask the Artificer about the items they're collecting and why the BBEG's minions want it too...

and discover that they're gathering the ingredients for some ubermagic the BBEG wants and they need to take it before the Bad guys or the world will end.

so they keep going for these items and fight more nad more often the bad guys.

One time the BBEG will show up and kill their Artificer friend, taking all of the stuff they've taken.

Now they've got to race to the last ingredient, take it and destroy it or soemthing, and in the end go and kill the bad guy

how do you feel about it?


ALSO: Sorry for the wall of text, i didn't think i'd wrtitten so much in these two posts

[elvengunner69]

I like the premise you are developing - sounds an awful lot like a comic book plot in some ways (ie Infinity Gems) which isn't a bad thing. I think if you time it well and make it so they only discover a bit of the BIG plot at a time it will help with interest. I think anytime you can throw in elements of mystery into your campaign it helps.

I know a lot of people on this forum are into these crazy uber character builds but in my experience with newbies keeping the rules basic is a big plus. I know others will disagree but keep it Core - it will help you as well as a DM.

[Gandariel]

Yeah, i was thinking Core too.
I have downloaded some books, and i might suggest things to add to weakest charachter, or if someone wants to do X and there's a feat/class/prc that exactly does that (and isn't too strong) i'll let him have it;
But the game will preferrably be Core only.

So you approve the campaign idea?

Also, i'll need some "weird" items to give'em.

some good, some bad, some... just weird...
AND OF COURSE, in one mission, i'll have the artificer give them an ordinary, normal rock and laugh when the PCs take hours figuring out what it does

[Thorin]

I´ll say:

Have your long-term goal (defeat the bad guy), but plan on advance only one session each time. This is because sometimes players will take a path, plan, choice, etc that is nowhere near YOUR plans, and even if probably you can improvise a little (or the rest of the session), their actions may put them in a new story arc (and thus you plan the next session based on the previous one).

Also, try to avoid rules discussions. If you know where to look it (fast) do it and solve the problem. If you have no idea, just homebrew a quick fix and then in the break or between session look for it.

The most important piece of advise: Have fun, it is just a game after all. You can ask for feedback to your players, and hear critiques, but don´t be hard with yourself, there is always room for improvement.

Enjoy! (and avoid TPK on the first sessions, use a deus ex-machina if needed, but don´t let your players get used to it).

[Big Fau]

And I'm going to disagree with the "Keep it Core" mentality. Core 3.5 is the second most unbalanced book in all of 3.5 (second only to the ELH, specifically due to Epic Spellcasting).

While keeping things restricted to one book helps the simplicity, Core has four specific classes capable of ruining your campaign (Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, and Wizard). And for one of those classes, this can be done completely by accident (Druid).

I'm not kidding about that "accidental" game-breaker line: Core Druid lives up to that claim.

[Tokuhara]

Yeah, i was thinking Core too.
I have downloaded some books, and i might suggest things to add to weakest charachter, or if someone wants to do X and there's a feat/class/prc that exactly does that (and isn't too strong) i'll let him have it;
But the game will preferrably be Core only.

So you approve the campaign idea?

Also, i'll need some "weird" items to give'em.

some good, some bad, some... just weird...
AND OF COURSE, in one mission, i'll have the artificer give them an ordinary, normal rock and laugh when the PCs take hours figuring out what it does

A helmet of Blindsight that is possessed by a poor-sighted wizard. The wizard's vision is your Blindsight. It has a secret -4 to all visual skill checks, so the poor-sighted wizard named Fred the Poor Sighted may walk them into walls, pits, etc.

a choker of fireball that centers the fireball on the weilder. The party could look for ways to give its weilder Fire Immunity? Carrots of secret power are always nice

Itchy Saint's Hair Shirt. It is a shirt that confers Saint's Template abilities, but it's weilder cannot use a two-handed weapon, since they need a free hand in order to scratch.

If you want more, feel free to ask

[Dulenheim]

Well, I'll bump here with some newbie advice myself. I haven't been DMing for long, but this advice comes from the heart:

Your premise sounds good. You seem to have the bones of a really good story in the long run. You'll need to work on other details, I would advice, such as things as the cities they'll be visiting.

Myself, I worked on several towns the PC's could go to, just in case they would actually end up there. You never know, the main quest could be to travel north, towards the ice mountains to find a majestic Blade, able to smite evil, and you players could end up traveling south towards a brothel.

Stat every, and i mean EVERY major NPC the party will be interacting with. This guy who makes magical items could might as well be a level 15 Expert. why such high level? what if a PC tries to kill the guy? making the NPC's powerful helps you avoid this scenarios.

Always apply RULE 0 if a player tries to fight you back about a rule, but do so gracefully. Rule 0 means that the DM is always right, but this is a tool used to avoid fighting with players and waste time, not to become a heartless dictator.

and most of all, have fun with you game. If you aren't having fun, nobody else will. Write plots that interest you as well, so you wont get bored of you job. :smallsmile:

as for silly effects for magical items: What about a ring of armaments, that summons an armor to cover the player's body. The armor is a chain mail Bikini.

Oh, what about a ring that is suppose to protect you against fire, but that sets YOU on fire when you activate it.

ah, of course, the belt of sex change. (classic).

[elvengunner69]

And I'm going to disagree with the "Keep it Core" mentality. Core 3.5 is the second most unbalanced book in all of 3.5 (second only to the ELH, specifically due to Epic Spellcasting).

While keeping things restricted to one book helps the simplicity, Core has four specific classes capable of ruining your campaign (Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, and Wizard). And for one of those classes, this can be done completely by accident (Druid).

I'm not kidding about that "accidental" game-breaker line: Core Druid lives up to that claim.

Potentially yes but a couple of things I think can solve this

1. no Druids allowed
2. In the two groups I play with never has anyone chosen a Druid (one group is newbies and I encouraged them to have a balanced party so they chose a Barbarian, Cleric, Rogue and Sorcerer) - in the other one they are the Kings of optimized builds but none chose Druids (it's a Cleric heavy group if anything).
3. He could make the encounters more difficult to compensate for the Druid's awesomeness.

Druids are awesome.

[Gandariel]

yes, i'll probably discourage people from playing Druid.

So yeah, thanks for the ideas.

if you have more tips on being a GM, please tell me;

I'd also appreciate ideas on other fun and odd magic items to give them


EDIT:
if someone wants to be a druid, i can try banning Natural Spell AND removing their animal companion...

[elvengunner69]

yes, i'll probably discourage people from playing Druid.

So yeah, thanks for the ideas.

if you have more tips on being a GM, please tell me;

I'd also appreciate ideas on other fun and odd magic items to give them


EDIT:
if someone wants to be a druid, i can try banning Natural Spell AND removing their animal companion...

Crit decks and Fumble decks are all kinds of awesome -- gives a little added flavor.

[hydroplatypus]

On Druids:

I am also a fairly new DM (2 sessions before schedule caused a stop to that campaign, starting a new one in a few weeks). In the (short) game that I played I didn't find driuds to be that much of a game breaker to be honest. It might have been because the PCs were level 2 at the time, and as such the druid wasn't to powerful, but I found that in a low OP group the druid isn't to destructive. In a group I was a PC for our party druid mainly ran around yelling "rawr I'm a bear" and only being moderately effective. Our fighter did more damage than him. So I would reccommend that for a group of new guys don't bother restricting classes beyond "Core only", as none of them will really know how to break the game anyways.

[marcielle]

Look to things like Fallout 3 for inspiration. Secrets that reward poking around. Sidequests that do not always end in a net profit/ proportional reward for the players. If you are confident enough, try to move away from the 'youtake this quest, finish it, get rewarded'. Give them gifts now that they'll have to earn later. Let them run off if something isn't terribly important. Or stipulate some sort of time limit and yet dangle something expensive a shot but significant detour away. A quest whose reward is not money or magic but access to things like guild services( like Thieve's Guild black market, Merchant guild discounts, and Mage guild library, etc)

Most of all, communicate with your players.

Oh, and really, sticking to core only ever simplifies things for you. Giving a player access to everything does not actually force complication on a new player cos he can always CHOOSE to stick to core.

[Calliope121]

I am currently DMing for a group composed of people who have had little to no gaming experience before this, and there are lots of problems that come up that completely surprise you. My group is very prone to Logicisms as I like to call them, where they think that everythin in the game should match what should happen in real life. It's really important to make sure that everyone understands how their class works. Also, try to have a pretty good plan or what you want them to do. If they reject helping the artifact maker, have them help someone different do the same adventure. Also, make sure you know all the rules for what the characters can do, so you don't have to look stuff up in the middle of the game. I have my players o ly in the core stuff, and that is working fine for them. One last thing, make sure you make them follow the rules, I have been known to let people do things, Which I regret later. Have fun!!

[elvengunner69]

On Druids:

I am also a fairly new DM (2 sessions before schedule caused a stop to that campaign, starting a new one in a few weeks). In the (short) game that I played I didn't find driuds to be that much of a game breaker to be honest. It might have been because the PCs were level 2 at the time, and as such the druid wasn't to powerful, but I found that in a low OP group the druid isn't to destructive. In a group I was a PC for our party druid mainly ran around yelling "rawr I'm a bear" and only being moderately effective. Our fighter did more damage than him. So I would reccommend that for a group of new guys don't bother restricting classes beyond "Core only", as none of them will really know how to break the game anyways.

They get pretty uber powerful the higher the level they get. If you eliminate Natural Spell like someone mentioned above they are still pretty high lvl casters and can dish out some good damage.

They are fun to play. In one of my groups were we just started a campaign (I was DMing both my groups and needed a break so we started a new one). I am a Druid and love it! I'm making him a former hunter who reformed after getting the **** kicked out of him by a Treant who commanded him to turn from his exploitation of the natural world and protect it instead.

I think I might self limit him by not taking Natural Spell. Btw how did he change into a Bear at lvl 2?

[kudosmog]

Disclaimer: I've never DM'd D&D campaigns.....however....
Some more tips that always helped me run games:

Don't let players go off on their own to do stuff. At the very least, don't reward them for going off on their own. During ANY campaign I've ever run, it seemed like the favorite thing for people to do and it takes a lot of time away from the group. Try to keep them in their group as often as possible.

If you're making stuff up as you go along (city names, Inn names, innkeep names etc) keep a list of the stuff in case the party goes back and wants to interact with those same things.

After every game session, write up a brief "recap". This helps you keep track of what happens and you can always look back on it later.

When I started out DMing, I wrote my campaigns like a seasonal TV show. Each night was an "episode" that was progressing towards the "season finale".
It worked out really well.
I've recently tried DMing(not D&D) with a persistent world where things happen regardless of the PC's having an effect on it or not. Nobody seemed to like that. They always want to do everything, and hate missing things. They also made terrible decisions constantly, ignored plot hooks and wasted time which just made the world seem to pass them by.

I like your plot ideas. Simple enough for new players, but the level of difficulty/involvement can be bumped up easily enough. You could always twist things later on if they're really getting into it, making the magic item seeker turn evil after getting his hands on one of the items and get them to start seeking out evil items. Or you can have him get kidnapped....the possibilities are endless with an idea like that.

[Big Fau]

Crit decks and Fumble decks are all kinds of awesome -- gives a little added flavor.

Crit effects, perhaps. Fumble effects in general should be avoided like the plague.

[elvengunner69]

Crit effects, perhaps. Fumble effects in general should be avoided like the plague.

I respectfully disagree...had a lvl 1 Barbarian break his own axe using the excellent fumble decks made by Paizo. To buy a pack $7.99 - to watch a Barbarian cry because he shattered his own axe...priceless. :belkar:

[Big Fau]

I respectfully disagree...had a lvl 1 Barbarian break his own axe using the excellent fumble decks made by Paizo. To buy a pack $7.99 - to watch a Barbarian cry because he shattered his own axe...priceless. :belkar:

And remember folks: you can't spell Fumble without "FU".

Seriously, it's sadistic, one-sided, and adds more complexity to an all ready complex system.

[Gandariel]

No, i won't allow critical fumbles. They're senseless and stupid.
I'd prefer to do that myself (e.g. one charachter tries attacking and gets three 1s in a row? i might say: "you lose the grip on your sword and it flies away")
or fun things may happen on particularly good or bad rolls (roll a 1 on a hide check? you hit the leg of a table with your toe and start screaming in the middle of the room!)
and even that sounds stupid.

BUT NO FUMBLES.

On druids, yeah, just removing Natural spell will be enough.
If someone becomes too powerful i'll just ask them to be more focused on buffing the party..

[marcielle]

Fumbles... I shall mention the experiment. 3 fighters were lined up against straw dummies. There was nothing special about the dummies. NOTHING. They were told to practice on the dummies. ALL WERE DEAD within 10 minutes. Straw dummies.
I am not saying there is no use for crit fumbles but it is really not something that should be used without REALLY thinking. You could apply it selectively. Or you could tone them down. You could use them out of the box. Just remember that with the number of dice rolled every game, each player has >5% chance of killing themselves. Except Dragonfire Adepts. I don't think they actually roll dice.
Same goes for the tripplecrit death rule. My level 3 group killed a kraken, effectively derailing our DM's story before it even got started simply because of how persistent our Rogue was.

[Big Fau]

ALL WERE DEAD within 10 minutes. Straw dummies.

That didn't happen in a video game, did it? Cause that sounds awfully familiar...

[elvengunner69]

And remember folks: you can't spell Fumble without "FU".

Seriously, it's sadistic, one-sided, and adds more complexity to an all ready complex system.

w/o the cards I would agree 100% - but lots of the outcomes are mere inconvenience versus outright wounding yourself. I think (my opinion only) it can add a little flavor to a game. It has in mine thanks to the above mentioned decks. Another example is a Ranger spilled his ammo (he had a longbow) and it took 1d6 rounds for him to pick it up. I've never had anyone say we shouldn't use them.

It is there to add flavor and spice. If you can be epically good with a Critical hit - why can't you be epically bad with a fumble? Balance in my thinking. I think part of the issue (maybe not with you specifically) but a lot of groups seem to want to be UBER strong and defeat all that passes in front of them! That's not really good (again in my opinion) I mean where is the challenge? The above mentioned Barbarian punched the Orc he was fighting and actually did enough damage to defeat him. Sure he was upset he toasted his axe but he was loving the fact he just beat the SNIKES out of an Orc with his fists! To me it was flavor.

As for fighting straw dummies - why even have them roll? seems odd to me. Unless they were animated dummies and technically someone could drop their sword, axe, flail, etc when fighting one..or trip...etc. It's not completely unrealistic. Frequent? No but then you only have a 5% chance to roll a fumble...

[marcielle]

As for fighting straw dummies - why even have them roll? seems odd to me. Unless they were animated dummies and technically someone could drop their sword, axe, flail, etc when fighting one..or trip...etc. It's not completely unrealistic. Frequent? No but then you only have a 5% chance to roll a fumble...

SRD quote:

Smashing an object is a lot like sundering a weapon or shield, except that your attack roll is opposed by the object’s AC
Unless you really hold back, trying not to damage the dummy, you are probably doing something along these lines. If you are holding back to the extent you don't want to hurt the dummy, you are not training properly. Also, I probably should have mentioned that the fighters were level 1.

I'm not saying fumbles are all bad, I just said a DM should take into account that a character now has an additional threat present at any time. Fumbles are actually quite reasonable when combined with the rule where you can make a DC15 Reflex to avoid it. After all, you need to confirm crits too. And a high level character should realistically drop stuff a lot less than a level 1.

And elven, I've never seen the deck but people are probably thinking of something like this whn they think fumbles: Critical spell fumbles (http://gamemasters.com/?p=12)
Personally, I like 9,10,49 and 91.:smallbiggrin:

[Gandariel]

No fumbles, i said.

And, that critical spell failure is even more ridiculous!
While you tried casting Prestidigitation, you could :
-kill yourself
-lose all party's items or gold
-gain d4 levels(?!?)
-have all party gain d4 to ALL STATS?!?

Nah, just too ridiculous.

Back on topic, does anyone have other tips for my campaign?
does it look good to you?

[Big Fau]

And elven, I've never seen the deck but people are probably thinking of something like this whn they think fumbles: Critical spell fumbles (http://gamemasters.com/?p=12)
Personally, I like 9,10,49 and 91.:smallbiggrin:


1. You sneeze at an inopportune time causing the spell to go awry. All items on all party members are destroyed. NO saves.

Any attempt that Fumble Chart is supposed to impose was lost from the very first line.

[elvengunner69]

No fumbles, i said.

And, that critical spell failure is even more ridiculous!
While you tried casting Prestidigitation, you could :
-kill yourself
-lose all party's items or gold
-gain d4 levels(?!?)
-have all party gain d4 to ALL STATS?!?

Nah, just too ridiculous.

Back on topic, does anyone have other tips for my campaign?
does it look good to you?

So it's okay to be epically good - just not epically bad? :smallwink: A lot of people play this way as I said I like the flavor Crit Fumbles give as much as Crit hits do...

To each his own though!

[elvengunner69]

Any attempt that Fumble Chart is supposed to impose was lost from the very first line.

Because our heroes have no flaws! They always do everything with skill and precision like high paid soccer players...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4qbskakU78&feature=related

:tongue:

Again - personal preference.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Because our heroes have no flaws! They always do everything with skill and precision like high paid soccer players...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4qbskakU78&feature=related

:tongue:

Again - personal preference.So, you would want to play in a game where the wizard could sneeze and destroy all of your items, no save? Might as well play Paranoia and go straight to the R&D department if you want that level of wonky.

As far as "it's only a 5% chance" goes, once again refer to the straw dummies. If all ones are fumbles, twenty level 1 warriors spending a minute whacking at straw dummies will suffer six fumbles on average. Even with Paizo's relatively tame fumble deck some of those warriors are going to sustain injuries that will take days to heal. Trained warriors. Attacking straw dummies. And here's the worst part: Take twenty level 11 warriors doing the exact same thing the level 1 warriors were doing. They will suffer eighteen fumbles on average. They will inflict more pain on themselves than the level 1 warriors because they make more attacks.

Heroes have flaws. They miss. They get hit. They even fail saves versus domination and become a temporary lackey of the BBEG! But what hero drops his weapon or stabs himself every other time he gets into a fight? That seems more like comic relief.

Edit: To be more clear on this, a 5% chance to do something stupid is huge if you keep having to take that chance over and over! It wouldn't be so bad if it was a system with multiple dice for resolution. Say you took that UA variant with 3d6 instead of 1d20 and fumbled on a 3. Then you have a mere 1 in 216 chance every time you hit. Or say you had to roll two ones in a row to fumble; again, not so bad. But with regular ol' fumble rules you're failing way too often. If soccer players rolled a d20 there wouldn't even be a Youtube video about hilarious misses, since they'd happen so often.

[Bloodgruve]

Couple quick suggestions.

Keep homebrew to a minimum or at least keep it well documented. If you have players that will learn the rules well they may get frustrated by homebrew vs RAW.

Watch character wealth, this can either get out of hand with too much or it can get very frustrating for your players with too little. You'll see this more in a melee vs caster as they level, casters will outshine poorly geared 'melee' and then you lose interest.

The DM's job is to help your players have fun. I recently quit a game because of too much character death, you can pull punches sometimes. That being said, there needs to be a sense of uncertainty and fear of death, don't let them walk all over everything. Poor decisions require consequences. This is more easily controlled by watching character wealth and homebrew rules.

It is easy to build too much behind the scenes. Try to formulate the next games content and have a couple random encounters planned just in case. You'll waste your own time if you plan more than the PC's explore. Keep it simple to start, your players will show you which way they want to go.

Temporary ability damage is a scary thing for players, use it ;)

GL
Blood~

[Gandariel]

THank you , and to conclude the Fumble argument:
YEs, sometimes you hit exceptionally well:
if you roll a 20 you autohit, and possibly crit.

YES, sometimes you hit exceptionally bad:
if you roll a 1 you automiss.

That's enough

i might invent something funny to do sometime, but that's not gonna be a rule.
It makes no sense that a party of 20th level in front of the BBEG charge, attack and.. impale themselves with their weapon.

That being said, thanks for the suggestions, i'll have a couple of encounters ready;
The first items i want to give them are:
-fake ring of Fireball:
3/day shoots a Fireball, that only chars nonmagical clothes or wood. PCs will need a Will save to disbelieve-

- the Goblin Sword
mwk sword usually, becomes Goblin Bane +1 sword when used against goblins.
(i will give it to them of course when they'll fight the classical goblin tribe)
the catch, the sword will start screaming "GOBLINS! GOBLINS!" whenever a goblin is around (of course, PCs don't know it, it will screw up sneaking missions :P )

- The Arrow/Bolt of Disintegration
The Arrow/bolt will... well, disintegrate upon being shot.

When should i give them these items? i guess i should divide them among several missions, maybe just give them 1 or 2 of them at once.
Also i figure they'll have to give back most of the items they get, though they can keep some

[elvengunner69]

So, you would want to play in a game where the wizard could sneeze and destroy all of your items, no save? Might as well play Paranoia and go straight to the R&D department if you want that level of wonky.

As far as "it's only a 5% chance" goes, once again refer to the straw dummies. If all ones are fumbles, twenty level 1 warriors spending a minute whacking at straw dummies will suffer six fumbles on average. Even with Paizo's relatively tame fumble deck some of those warriors are going to sustain injuries that will take days to heal. Trained warriors. Attacking straw dummies. And here's the worst part: Take twenty level 11 warriors doing the exact same thing the level 1 warriors were doing. They will suffer eighteen fumbles on average. They will inflict more pain on themselves than the level 1 warriors because they make more attacks.

Heroes have flaws. They miss. They get hit. They even fail saves versus domination and become a temporary lackey of the BBEG! But what hero drops his weapon or stabs himself every other time he gets into a fight? That seems more like comic relief.

Edit: To be more clear on this, a 5% chance to do something stupid is huge if you keep having to take that chance over and over! It wouldn't be so bad if it was a system with multiple dice for resolution. Say you took that UA variant with 3d6 instead of 1d20 and fumbled on a 3. Then you have a mere 1 in 216 chance every time you hit. Or say you had to roll two ones in a row to fumble; again, not so bad. But with regular ol' fumble rules you're failing way too often. If soccer players rolled a d20 there wouldn't even be a Youtube video about hilarious misses, since they'd happen so often.

Absolutely and technically I think it is actually less than 5% - you roll the 1 and then percentile dice so it's something that happens rarely but it adds flavor. It's fine if you don't want to use it - the decks add flavor to a game that sometimes can get a bit dull with roll after roll. It sometimes add humor (had a game today where a Druid with a Spear rolled a fumble and dropped his Spear). It happens. It happens in real life. Sometimes a person sneezes and it effects what they are doing. It's life. I'm not forcing you to do it - I merely said over and over that it is a fun part of the games I play and my players LOVE it because it is random and sometimes funny.

My personal opinion you should never have critical hits either than or you might as well just give all your players vorpal blades and unlimited hit points...I mean why make a game a challenge? Yes I'm being a little sarcastic but it isn't meant mean spirited. All the above is my opinion and what I've seen make game a little more fun.

EDIT: By the way I am not arguing -- I was merely (as stated over and over) just giving my opinion.

[Mnemnosyne]

On the rules issue, don't stick to 'core only' or something silly like that. But don't suggest going splatbook diving either. If a player reads one of the splatbooks and wants an option out of it, don't deny it due to its source. Go over the material (borrow the book from them if necessary) and bring up any potential concerns you have with it to the player that wants to use it. Yes, this takes time. Do it anyway. It's an important part of being a good DM, and choosing to restrict players because of unwillingness to do this is unfair to them. If you choose to be a DM, make sure you're willing to do the best you can, and that means ensuring your players have the options that they want and find fun, not arbitrarily restricting them because of being in a 'wrong book'.

As others have said, if a rule dispute comes up mid-game, make a ruling even if it is the wrong one. Discuss it later. If you did make a wrong ruling and unfairly disadvantaged the player, try to make it up to them in some way or another (bonus exp works, if nothing else).

One thing a lot of new DM's (including me back in the day) do that I feel is a mistake is treating their player characters with kid gloves. Don't do that. That is to say, design encounters and plan your world expecting the adventurers to have a reasonable level of competency in actually doing their jobs (killing things, etc). If the player characters are not sufficiently competent to handle this, do not lower the challenges to meet them. Make sure that you don't 'cheat' as it were, either in favor of your NPC's or in favor of your players. Establish the resources and abilities of your antagonists, then use them as established. Doing anything less reduces your players ability to determine the fates of their own characters, and while it may help them have some short term fun, I feel it's detrimental to long-term enjoyment.

Additionally, don't focus all your attention on 'missions' for them to do. Design those if you want, but make sure you have a solid grasp on what else is going on in the town, the country, and the continent. Because often players won't do what you want them to do, they don't follow the mission you lay out, or even if they are following it, they get sidetracked a lot and want to know a lot of things that, if you were too focused on the 'mission' you didn't plan or figure out in a way that makes sense. Essentially, ensure that the world is one that makes sense and in which things happen, whether the PC's are present or not.

If you notice one player is noticeably stronger than the others, don't try to nerf him. But make sure you supply magical items that are primarily useful to the others. Making sure your magic shops aren't all-encompassing is really good for this - for the love of the gods, don't set a campaign in a city like Sigil or Waterdeep or something as your first campaign, because you will have no reasonable explanation for why the PC's can't find Item X that they want - in cities like that there is absolutely no way the DM can get away with saying that and not have it be obvious he's fiating the players' inability to obtain what they want. Similarly, if one of your players is falling behind, give him some magical items that fit his character.

Cursed items are interesting and should exist. 3.5 is terrible for this kind of stuff (their cursed item lists are tiny and short). Find a copy of the old Encyclopedia Magica for 2nd Edition and adapt the concepts of some of the cursed items from it. But don't make them too common or the players will get tired of finding cursed stuff.

If you really, really want your players to do a specific adventure, design the adventure around an artifact and have it fall into their hands. Figuring out how to deal with its powers and its artifact curse and artifact transformation and eventually destroy it will be a major issue and one they won't be able to walk away from or avoid, simply due to the nature of it.

Well, that's just a collection of semi-random advice I came up with on the spot, hopefully it will help.

Edit: Oh yeah. Either get, or make for yourself, a Deck of Encounters. Non-specific encounters that can take place in various locations. Not all combat encounters mind you, just stuff the PC's can come across, which can create interesting hooks. These are useful so when the players wander into a completely unplanned area, you can just bust out your Deck of Encounters and they have something to do for the session. I have one of the 2nd Edition Decks of Encounters, and you would be amazed how often a single-paragraph description on a card can turn into an entire session's adventure with a little thought and creativity.

[Gandariel]

Thanks. Do you know where i can find some pre-made encounters for a quickstart / example to follow?

[JoeYounger]

tips? things to avoid? things i should do? etc.

I cannot believe no ones said this already. The most important thing is that you don't start your campaign in the tavern. Otherwise you'll never get to have that awesome sig about how 78% of people start their first party off in a tavern. :smallbiggrin:

[Arbane]

(Rant about fumbles deleted, it's already been covered.)

Weird experimental magic items:

A pack of Summon-Monster cards: They wok once each, and summon low-level monsters. The bad news is, it takes a full round to activate one, and for each past the first summoned at the same time, there's a 10% chance (cumulative) that they'll be hostile to the user, and a 20% chance that they'll attack EVERYONE around them.

Darkvision Visor: An eye-covering visor that grants Darkvision. In any light at all, you can't see through it.

Dagger of Mending: If you place it in any cut in a non-living material and pull it backwards through the cut, the cut will close up.

Crowbar of Opening: A steel crowbar. It gives a +10 bonus to prying open doors, chests, etc.

Kerapht's Magic Lantern: A lantern whose light renders all Illusion magic obvious. It also allows the users to see creatures in the Ethereal Plane. Unfortunately, it allows those creatures to see and attack THEM as well...


One other bit of advice: have each player come up with a way that their character knows AT LEAST one other PC. It helps avoid the ever-popular "we just met - let's go into certain death together!" cliche.

[Mnemnosyne]

Thanks. Do you know where i can find some pre-made encounters for a quickstart / example to follow?

I haven't really seen any place online that has examples or preset encounters you can use (although you may be able to find the original Decks of Encounters, which only require a little adaptation to shift them to 3.5). Here are four cards I scanned in out of my own Deck of Encounters, though, to serve as an example:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8145540/Misc.%20Images/Deck%20of%20Encounters%20Example.jpg
Obviously any you make will likely not be quite so fancy, but it gives you a decent idea there. You basically build encounters like these ones - some little thing that the players encounter, and when you have nothing planned and need to give them something to do, pull out one of these cards. Then adapt it a bit to fit the surrounding campaign setting.

A simple card like this can lead on to much bigger things, too. Once I pulled one out where something or another was kidnapping people at a distant, out of the way inn where few travelers went anyway. That eventually got adapted into a major plotline of my campaign - the encounter I pulled just happened to be one of many places for the procurement of slaves, whose final destination turned out to be an illithid city.