Advice on DMing Problem

[Eugenides]

So I'm a fairly new DM, with a new party of players. When I say new, I mean only one player has played DnD before, and they played 2nd edition, so everyone is learning the ropes of 3.5.

As a DM, I'm pretty familiar with how 3.5 works. From the player's perspective. That's the problem. All things told, I can spin an epic storyline out forever, if need be. What I'm having difficulty doing is putting stat blocks on those stories.

Every time I sit down to start designing an adventure, I always realize that I have no idea how to do what I'm trying to do, and get worried that I'll end up either overkilling the party, or making it trivial and then not knowing enough to adjust it on the fly so that it's a challenge.

I've basically ended up running some pre-made one-shot adventures to get them to level 4, and they've enjoyed it, but I just can't seem to figure out how to stat up my adventures.

Any advice on how to approach this?

[Flickerdart]

1) A good fight lasts around 3 rounds. Look at your PCs' attack options, and tailor defenses with this in mind. They don't always have to kill the enemy dead - an intelligent foe that is badly wounded or debuffed may choose to flee, especially if it has the power to do so. Longer, and things drag on; shorter, and it's not fulfilling.

2) Players tend to build glass cannons. Monsters should be the opposite - an enemy that you want to appear credible should take a few solid hits to go down, but doesn't need to have terribly good offense. There will be other encounters and other monsters while the players have depleted resources, so the piddly little hits add up without turning the game into rocket tag.

3) Don't bother fleshing out an actual build for most things. Does the enemy need 50 hit points? That's how many it has. Seven feats? That little B solves all your problems. If your PCs can be expected to reasonably counter it at their level, then it's fair game. If your PCs have the counter, then it's fair game even if it's normally too strong.

4) Tactics are half of a monster. Bad tactics (especially from unintelligent or unskilled enemies like animals) can make big, scary stats have a lot less impact, and several weak monsters coordinating can take a player down very quickly. Build your encounters with this flexibility in mind, and you'll never need to fudge the numbers.

[Deophaun]

In addition to Flickerdart's good advice, if you're worried you're going to slaughter the party, then give the enemies a reason not to kill them. Those orcs sacking the temple are on a smash and grab operation. They want the artifact hidden in the base of the statue of Pelor. If they spend time fighting the party, that just leaves more time for the town to respond, which is the last thing they want. After X number of rounds, the orcs clear out, regardless of whether they got the artifact or not, as past that time it's certain death for them.

[Eugenides]

Hm. The advice is good. I might add, I think the biggest difficulty I'm having is that in the interest of keeping the interest of all the new players, I let them roll whatever they wanted. I ended up with a party based mostly on precision damage(scout and rogue) with a duskblade and a barbarian.

You'll note the fact that a couple undead will make half the party useless, and that very quickly the lack of spellcasters is gonna kill them.

[Bagger]

WotC made some pregenerated adv. they are always good to look though, I from time to time find the "plot line" from them and just make it bigger better and more awesome!

[Blue1005]

And dont use undead, not every world must be teeming with walking creatures of the death variety. If they are more like that do a few sneak quests to use the rogueish strengths and a few to use the brute force members. Not every person has to or should be a start in every quest.

[Killer Angel]

2) Players tend to build glass cannons.

Players still used to the 2nd edition's approach, may need some time to develope the concept of the glass cannon, as feasible with 3.5.


I ended up with a party based mostly on precision damage(scout and rogue) with a duskblade and a barbarian.

You'll note the fact that a couple undead will make half the party useless, and that very quickly the lack of spellcasters is gonna kill them.

Put them in an environment with few enemy casters and more melee monsters.

[Bagger]

just remembered something...

Eberron setting have a hole line of pregenerated adv. going from level 1 to... I think its 11 not sure, but anyways, the adventures are really good, and have 1 big plot line :) consider them.

the first one is named "the forgotten Forge"
2nd is: "Shadows of the last war"
think 3rd is "Whisper of a vampire blade"
4th is: "Eye of the Lich Queen"

cant remember the rest, but I am sure you will have a great time doing these

[nedz]

Hm. The advice is good. I might add, I think the biggest difficulty I'm having is that in the interest of keeping the interest of all the new players, I let them roll whatever they wanted. I ended up with a party based mostly on precision damage(scout and rogue) with a duskblade and a barbarian.

You'll note the fact that a couple undead will make half the party useless, and that very quickly the lack of spellcasters is gonna kill them.

You have two stealth based characters so you should remember to give them some terrain that they can hide in and ideally allow them to scout ahead — whether they do this is up to them, of course, but you should allow them the opportunity.

I have to disagree with the 3 round advice, many encounters will be short, but the occasional 'epic' long encounter will add variety.

[TheifofZ]

Going along with the general (as you've stated) party make up and previous pointers, be careful about how many fights you introduce to a party without a healer as well as how long fights might last, as the lack of dedicated healing can mean certain death to the party if things go on for too long.
I do suggest either including healing items with renewable charges (such as the Belt of Healing) as loot, or as a reward.

In general, monsters in the monster manual have decently appropriate stats, abilities, and attacks for a party of *roughly* that level, but pay attention to the monsters. Some have higher CRs because of special attacks, while others have improved CRs due to stat-specialization. (A basilisk is an example of the first category, a pixy with it's smaller size and dex bonus is an example of the second).
Pay attention to what the monsters you pick can do, and to what makes them a challenge, and be aware that depending on party make-up, the CR might be higher than it seems.
As an example: A ghoul's "ghoul fever" is normally not too threatening with a cleric on hand to Remove Disease, but without one even a slight nibble can end up killing the victim days or weeks after the encounter as their Con score steadily drops. As such, the CR of the ghoul should be counted as 1 higher than normal in regards to checking if it's appropriate or not for the party without a cleric. If the entire party has low fortitude saves as well, then the CR might be 2 higher than normal instead, due to the higher chance of infection, and continued affliction

[prufock]

Also, keep the 50% rule in mind. An average challenge for a character is something that succeeds approximately half the time. For example:
- if the PC's attack bonus is +10, the enemy's AC is 21, so the attack succeeds on a roll of 11 to 20.
- if the PC's stealth modifier is +5, the enemy's spot modifier is also +5.

Now obviously you have more than one PC in the party, so you can use the average party's scores to estimate your 50%. Easier challenges should have more than 50% chance of success and harder challenges should have less than 50% chance of success.

[Vorr]

Every time I sit down to start designing an adventure, I always realize that I have no idea how to do what I'm trying to do, and get worried that I'll end up either overkilling the party, or making it trivial and then not knowing enough to adjust it on the fly so that it's a challenge.

Any advice on how to approach this?

Use the challenge rating and encounter level as only a very, very vague guide. To put it as simple as possible: the system does not work. There are just way, way to many variables in D&D for such a simple system to ever take into account. And it only gets worse as the numbers go up.

It's a good idea to give very foe tons and tons of quick, easy, low power items. Potions, wands with less then ten charges, alchemical items, and such. You should give each foe around five of them. The foes can use them before a fight to power up. But also they can use them in the middle of a fight if it's going to easy for the players. And also it will give the characters plenty of power up loot if they need the boost in a fight.

Just make a nice list of useful power up items. You can even add them suddenly in a fight if you need too.

[dethkruzer]

Use the challenge rating and encounter level as only a very, very vague guide. To put it as simple as possible: the system does not work. There are just way, way to many variables in D&D for such a simple system to ever take into account. And it only gets worse as the numbers go up.

Emphasis by me. But yeah, one good piece of advice I can give is that if you want to make a feasible random encounter, take a moment to read through the monsters statblock, and how they usually act in combat, so you don't come up with any unfortunate surprises. I'd advice to keep a close eye on creatures that rely on grappling, and can deal damage while grappling, like say Otyughs, as those can trap, incapacitate, and even kill the party member with the highest grapple modifier, even if the challenge rating would otherwise be appropriate.

[nedz]

Oh yes — if you happen to be using MM2: be aware that it's CR ratings are notoriously unreliable. All CR ratings are approximate, MM2's CR ratings doubly so.

Also things that are easy to defeat with casters become almost impossible without. E.G. Swarms, Undead, ...