How to Feel Like You're Contributing

[HMS Invincible]

How would I make my 2 newbie spell casters feel like they are contributing? Ok, I could go over the tier system with them, but that would just go in and out their ears. Sure I could tell them about how awesome it is to buff me and debuff the bad guys in combat, but that just sounds silly since they are getting beat down waiting for me to beat down the bad guys. Maybe I should talk with the DM and arrange for some side quests that engages them without the threat(he should give them a looooot of ways to avoid) of death. Is this a good concept, and does anyone have any minor side plots they wish to donate?

This is their first campaign, and d&D players are a scarce commodity where I'm at, so I want this one to last. *Fingers crossed for 6 months+

[Mastikator]

You could construct obstacles that only/primarily their magic could overcome. Doesn't have to be about bumping uglies...

[Raimun]

Suggest a few save-or-die-spells? I'm assuming they are blasting/healing.

What kind of spell casters they are?

[ArcturusV]

Spellcasters. Can you give me their class and an idea of how they are specced as that might determine just how to work it?

If they are "Buffers" (as it sounds), a good side adventure for them might involve a stint in the army for a battle/skirmish. Give them the ability to see how their spells work when they have an entire company standing between them and the enemy. Give them scrolls of Mass _____ so they can see the effects of higher level stuff. Give them opportunities to practice opposed effect spellcasting (Enemy caster just Baned some of your guys, go Bless them), etc. There should be enough meat shields in the battle that they don't have to worry about someone slicing their faces off. Allow how they use their spells to directly effect how the battle goes. If they flub it have the army unit beat a retreat and cover the "Valuable Assets" in the spellcasters that are not easily trained and replaced.

You could run this easily enough with a contingent of Guards wiping out a Goblin Warcamp or something. The plus side is if they Fail, they can always go back to town, get reinforcements, and try again. It'sa good sort of test bed for how their spells work. And working against the enemy Goblin Wizard/Cleric can show them a lot of spell tricks if they don't know it. Like how Grease works, or using things like Transmute Rock to Mud, and Transmute Mud to Stone to bury entire groups of enemies alive, etc.

Run this until they manage to wipe out the Goblin Warcamp (Or they are no longer interested). Since they got the Boys to cover them they shouldn't worry about losing their characters. It's all about just how they can learn and trying to come up with neat effects to alter the battlefield.

Might be fun for them.

[tzar1990]

Three simple steps:


Help them select a fw useful spells: sleep, color spray, entanglement, etc.
Design encounters to be vulnerable to that stuff relatively often (have the orcs ambush them from bushes on the edge of the road. Have a cluster of kobolds firing crossbows all close together. Etc.)
Complain a little when they use those abilities succesfully. Don't get mad at them, just seem a little frustrated at how easily they shut something that should have been a challenge down.


This results in the newbie players feeling that they not only contributed, but that they also got one over on you. Yeah, you might have specifically planned on that being possible, but they don't need to know that!

[The_Jackal]

Show them this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=104002). If they can't find a way to be an utterly crucial member of the party after absorbing the content of that post, then they AREN'T contributing, so why should they feel like it?

[Amaril]

First of all, as someone with a lot of experience playing low-level wizards, it seems like the best way to make them feel engaged is to make them put their nonmagical skills to more use. Often overlooked by DMs is the scholarly spellcaster's primary role in solving puzzles and riddles, and in providing the tidbit of knowledge or random fact that ends up saving the party's lives. This is the area in which spellcasters can really shine at low levels.

That said, don't dismiss the possibility of explaining the tier system so quickly. Except that you probably shouldn't bother trying to go into details about it--rather, just tell them that the reason their characters are so comparatively weak now is because they'll be incredibly powerful later in the game. That was how my dad explained the spellcasting classes to me when I was learning the rules, and I was perfectly okay with it. If the struggle of survival at lower levels, striving to attain the godlike power of high-level magic, isn't something these players enjoy, they might have more fun playing other classes.

Hope this helps :smallbiggrin:

[Komodo]

Ultimately, there's no faster way to be turned away from a game than feeling as though you are contributing nothing to the world/the adventure. I've been there, it really sucks. Take these tips with a grain of salt, I'm more of a fan of mechanics-lite, roleplay-heavy systems, but here's what I'd do:

-Present lite non-combat challenges that they are uniquely suited to overcome. Sorcerers have a limited, specific spell selection, right? A new player will probably select spells based on what he sees as most cool/fun to use, so really study their spell lists, and present them with challenges that could be solved most efficiently by their abilities (However, make sure that the problem is solvable most efficiently by use of their spells, not exclusively. If you give them a challenge that can clearly only be solved by that one otherwise-useless spell he picked up, he'll find out you're catering to him)
-Give them a moment to shine. If they have backstories, pull something out of there to use as a plot hook. If they don't, have a particular event hinge on them. You might need to get creative for this, but one example I could think of is them meeting a young maiden or something who is also a sorcerer who is just discovering her powers and is scared or being chased by a sorcerer-napper or something. Opportunity to combine world-building and character development!
-If all else fails, turn the spotlight on them. If the rest of the team has been carrying fights, split the party. I know that sounds dangerous, and it might be bad advice, I'm not sure. But if they manage to fireball down one goblin priestess while the meatshields beat off his cronies on the other side of a fallen tree/building/dragon corpse, I'm willing to bet that that'll be a fight they remember. Especially if the other goblins retreat when their leader goes down in flames.
-And finally, the classic power boost. Give them a magic weapon or something only they can use, or something that boosts their spells, or a few extra levels. I really don't recommend this, because giving someone power they didn't fight to earn is really underwhelming. However, if they have to pull through a hard spot to get it, or if they just barely discover it on their own using anti-illusion or treasure-finding magic (I don't know if such a thing exists), they'll appreciate it a bit more.

Hope this was helpful!

[HMS Invincible]

They're both tier 1-2 primary casters, the oracle and witch from pathfinder. Everyone has a goal, and a motivation. I can only find the witch's background post.
"I guess my motivation will be that I want to learn more magic.
And a goal would be to find an ancient book of spells."
Pretty basic and vague, reminds me of my first wizard back in my college days. So we have a divine sorcerer and a pathfinder's take on a prepared arcane caster. The witch has seen combat, he has cackle, fortune hex, and his spells are mage armor and cure light wounds. There's also some debuffers in there, but his 7 or so spells for being level 2 are already picked out. The witch isn't ready to be a "prepared" spell caster, so he's just picking random spells out of the book. Nor does he know that he gets bonus spells from his int mod, or domain. Or remembered to buy a crossbow.The only roleplaying of note is that the oracle took legalistic, so he can't break promises. It led to him refusing a get out of jail free card that I went out of my way to prepare. Christ, now I remember why I hate teaching. Anyway, I managed to get the party together with an old fashion dungeon crawl as our first quest. The spells per day and casting will eventually get fixed as they understand the game better.
My instincts tell me that I should let them use their magic, knowledge skills, class features, and natural roleplaying(read: the player, not the PC) as a guide to playing. I'm a druid, and I have contingency plans for a sandbox game, political intrigue, or hack-n-slash. In addition, I have an alchemist who has solid experience in D&D. So our 4 man party is a melee alchemist, a melee druid, and 2 primary casters.

[Slipperychicken]

Switch one of the Witch's Hexs to Slumber. Save/lose one enemy per round, and have the melee CDG those who fail (or just Cackle him into "sleep-lock" till the fight's over).

Oracle and Druid already have healing covered, so taking CLW as a spell known is completely redundant -switch that to something like Sleep or Command. Also see about getting him a crossbow.

[Arbane]

Switch one of the Witch's Hexs to Slumber. Save/lose one enemy per round, and have the melee CDG those who fail (or just Cackle him into "sleep-lock" till the fight's over).


Cackle doesn't work on Slumber, just so you know.

I'd suggest taking Misfortune first, instead of Fortune - at low levels where most enemies only get +1 - +4 on rolls, it's devastating, and you can use it on every enemy you run into. YMMV, though.

[Shalist]

Let them bring the pizza for the next game.