Help for a fledgling DM

[crmk00]

So, I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons for about a year now. I've been involved in 3 campaigns, the third of which I'm still playing in. However, I've started my own DnD group where I'm DMing to a (mostly) different group of players, and I need some help.

(This isn't to say I'm completely new to DMing by the by, I've listened to Noah Antwiler's Counter Monkey stories and read through several threads on this site before posting.)

First of all, in the very first campaign, my DM let us use his DDI account for the character builder because no one in the group could afford to buy a ****ton of books that we might not even use again. After he cancelled his service, a friend loaned us all his copy of the offline builder and it wasn't exactly the same. The problem is, with my group I want them to have access to EVERYTHING since it's their first campaign. So, one of the things I especially want to use is something I remember called Hengeyokai. Problem is, when I asked my game store clerk if he knew what book they were in he gave me the "deer in the headlights" look. Can someone tell me where they were included?

Secondly, I'm planning on having some large boss fights where it's just one creature. How do I balance this against a party of 10?

Thirdly, I'd like to implement a system to penalize players for relying too heavily on their skills. Like, if you rely on Diplomacy you'd be labelled a silver-tounged cheat, or religion users might be branded as zealots. Could someone help with this? I'm thinking penalties to checks, but I'm not sure how large to make them and how long they would last.

[thatSeniorGuy]

Well, I can "help" with the first part; the Hengeyokai were detailed in Dragon Magazine 404, which unfortunately means that the only way you can access them is with a DDI account (AFAIK). However, given that your party is quite large*, maybe everyone can put in some money for you to make an account the group can use?

*On that note, you have 10 players??? That might be a bit unmanageable.

[crmk00]

It's actually not been too bad. Things actually get done quicker in the ten man party I'm DMing than they do in the 6 man party I play in. Less getting off topic, less pointless ****, less idiocy. It's actually surprising, a lot of em' are new to this and they do much better than the people who I've been playing with that have played before.

[thatSeniorGuy]

Probably haven't had time to learn bad habits yet :smallbiggrin:

[Daveheart]

Secondly, I'm planning on having some large boss fights where it's just one creature. How do I balance this against a party of 10?
I'm leaning towards "You don't".
Solos are a pain in the ass for the DM even with 5 people, since the PCs mincemeat your monster while you mostly look.
Split the party: Skill challenge. Floor collpases. Minions arrive.
Failing that, homebrew a solo with multiple actions per initiative round, a ton of hit points and ways to move away from angles.
Edit: and resistance to conditions, such as daze, stun... Utmost importance.


Thirdly, I'd like to implement a system to penalize players for relying too heavily on their skills. Like, if you rely on Diplomacy you'd be labelled a silver-tounged cheat, or religion users might be branded as zealots. Could someone help with this? I'm thinking penalties to checks, but I'm not sure how large to make them and how long they would last.
Why do you need this houserule? Are they exploiting something? Using too much time?

[Biotroll]

1. Hengeyokai was also printed in Oriental Adventures book (3.0 ed) and updated in Dragon 318 (?).

2. Err, you won't be able to balance it really. Action economy will give you hard times. If you make the boss strong enough to stay more then two rounds in face of 10 PCs, you are probably looking at scenario where the boss will mop the floor with them. The boss will be either too strong and it will be very close to TPK or he will go down very fast. You could try to make it interesting by various obstacles, bad terrain and natural hazards, traps, but it usualy doesn't end good (and this comes from personal experience, where my players totaly wasted white dragon who was above the CR they should fight, but got kicked in the butt by unarmed swordsage.)

3. I don't think this is such a good idea. I would be glad if my players remembered they actualy have skills to use.:smallmad: Anyway, giving penalties for actualy using your character is not good imo, it's like giving fighters penalties for swinging sword and wizards for casting spells. It would also make rogues (and skillmonkeys in general) quite unattractive. Maybe look for some fixes for skills if you really must (like Giants diplomacy fix here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=172910)).

Edit: Eh, ignore some parts, wrong edition. :P Most of it still standd though.

[Daveheart]

Maybe look for some fixes for skills if you really must (like Giants diplomacy fix here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=172910)).

Edit: Eh, ignore some parts, wrong edition. :P Most of it still standd though.
Well, actually I find that the spirit of that rule may be applied to 4E.
Sure, you don't have a flat DC anymore, but a quick way to assess cirumstance bonuses helps a lot.

Sure, you have to tone numbers down. Thanks for posting it, if my players let me live through the rest of the week, I will consider it.

[Lord Haart]

I really wouldn't advice to penalise characters for relying on things they do best to solve their problems instead of things they're not sure they can pull off. That's what a sensible person does, right? Double so for not penalising the all-encompassing №1 solution — "I whack him into his face" — since usually preference for non-combat measures is desired by GMs, not abhorred.
On the other hand, relying only on any one thing without being ready for a possible failure — for example, being overconfident in their abuse of that Diplomacy they pimped up with every feat they have — is something that a) desires to be punished and b) tends to punish itself. I've heard that diplomancers have pretty hard time dealing with ooze; not sure how abusable Religion is, but gods don't have to have infinite patience and neither do people.

[Ashdate]

The problem is, with my group I want them to have access to EVERYTHING since it's their first campaign. So, one of the things I especially want to use is something I remember called Hengeyokai. Problem is, when I asked my game store clerk if he knew what book they were in he gave me the "deer in the headlights" look. Can someone tell me where they were included?

Someone else in the thread hit the exact source, but note that even without a DDI account, you can use the Compendium to find out where most material is from (paying just gets you the ability to see what it does). It should usually be your first stop for figuring out where something is.


Secondly, I'm planning on having some large boss fights where it's just one creature. How do I balance this against a party of 10?


You can't really. Solos were generally a good idea with a bad execution. You could double their hit points and damage and call it a day, but it's doubtful that they would still be meaningfully challenging. Your best bet is to have a "solo" with a bunch of minions (minions in this case likely being regular monsters). If you insist on having all ten players at the table, here's what I would suggest:

First, you really want to see how the Monster Vault designed solo monsters. The big key is that they can break the action economy; one action per turn was a big flaw of the original Solos. In the spirit, you might consider a monster that doesn't just get effectively "two" actions per turn, but three, or maybe even four. Say your solo was a giant four-headed Cyrohydra:


Trait: Multiple Heads. On an initiative of -10, +10, and +20 of its initiative check, the Cyrohydra can use a free action to shift one square and use bite or freezing breath. If the Cyrohydra cannot use a free action to make this attack due to a dominating of stunning effect, then that effect ends instead of the Cyrohydra making the attack.

The key is that they get multiple actions.


Thirdly, I'd like to implement a system to penalize players for relying too heavily on their skills. Like, if you rely on Diplomacy you'd be labelled a silver-tounged cheat, or religion users might be branded as zealots. Could someone help with this? I'm thinking penalties to checks, but I'm not sure how large to make them and how long they would last.

This is a great idea, but could use some expanding.

First, let's penalize people for using one weapon exclusively. Players who always swing a longsword around will find particular muscles strained, causing them to get "duelists elbow" until they can get a doctor (a hard heal check) to chech them out, and several days rest.

Secondly, wearing heavy armour is probably pretty taxing, so players who insist on wearing it must roll a hard Endurance check every hour, or get a cumulative -1 penalty to attack rolls and the "slowed" condition. An extended rest and a good massage (a moderate heal check) will allow them to adventure the next day fresh.

Let's not forget those magic uses either! Every time a player casts an arcane spell, roll a hard streetwise check at the end of the fight, with a cumulative +1 bonus for each time the check fails. On a success, the Ministry of Magic immediately teleports in an attempts to arrest the character.

With clerics, every divine spell or ability past the first fails until the character can make a hard religion check (a hard DC + 1 for each subsequent divine ability used) to appease their god.

Along with your change to how skills work, that should teach those uppity players for being good at things!

[Alejandro]

Between you and 10 players, you could have everyone throw $1 on the table once a month, and pay for your group's DDI access.

[Ashdate]

Between you and 10 players, you could have everyone throw $1 on the table once a month, and pay for your group's DDI access.

I forgot to mention this because I got caught up in being pretty sarcastic regarding the third question, but this. With ten players, paying for a year of Insider would be dirt-cheap collectively.

[Daveheart]

This is a great idea, but could use some expanding.

First, let's penalize people for using one weapon exclusively. Players who always swing a longsword around will find particular muscles strained, causing them to get "duelists elbow" until they can get a doctor (a hard heal check) to chech them out, and several days rest.

Secondly, wearing heavy armour is probably pretty taxing, so players who insist on wearing it must roll a hard Endurance check every hour, or get a cumulative -1 penalty to attack rolls and the "slowed" condition. An extended rest and a good massage (a moderate heal check) will allow them to adventure the next day fresh.

Let's not forget those magic uses either! Every time a player casts an arcane spell, roll a hard streetwise check at the end of the fight, with a cumulative +1 bonus for each time the check fails. On a success, the Ministry of Magic immediately teleports in an attempts to arrest the character.

With clerics, every divine spell or ability past the first fails until the character can make a hard religion check (a hard DC + 1 for each subsequent divine ability used) to appease their god.

Along with your change to how skills work, that should teach those uppity players for being good at things!
Oh, come on...

Everybody loves a joke and I admit I laughed at the Harry Potter reference :smallbiggrin: , but if he feels he needs such an houserule, he should have a reason. A 99% wrong reason, but still.

Taunting him isn't going to help him much, don't you think? :smallsmile:

[Ashdate]

Oh, come on...

Everybody loves a joke and I admit I laughed at the Harry Potter reference :smallbiggrin: , but if he feels he needs such an houserule, he should have a reason. A 99% wrong reason, but still.

Taunting him isn't going to help him much, don't you think? :smallsmile:

I just think it's important to recognize how arbitrary it is to penalize people for using a skill often. But you're right, I probably got a bit too snarky there.

I will say this tho, because I try not to come off as a complete jerk around here: if there's a particular skill that is causing crmk00 a lot of grief, then I'd be more than happy to try and help him troubleshoot his issues with it.

[GreenMidget]

Easiest way I have found to make solo monsters more interesting for large parties (x>6) is giving them more immediate interrupt and burst/blast abilities. For instance, a solo can have an attack that occurs anytime that a pc moves into a flanking position, or when an attack that targets only one creature (or any other number of conditions that could allow for the single monster to attack multiple times a turn.)

Adding regeneration is another simple way to spice up a single monster, as is resistances. Also having a monster target a PC's weakest defense can greatly add to it's overall effectiveness. Things like an aura (whether enhanced or added), and giving and/or increasing a monsters might also help.

[kieza]

I think a bit of clarification is in order. I can totally see wanting to penalize players for using skills if the issue is that they always go "I roll Diplomacy...23. Does he like me now?" instead of coming up with an argument, or even coming up with an argument then rolling.

However, even if that's the issue, penalizing players is going about it the wrong way. The next time a player rolls a Diplomacy check (continuing with the above example), insist that the give you a bare-bones argument such as "I offer the guard a small bribe and reassure him that we won't cause any more trouble." THEN assign a circumstance modifier and tell him what happens.

[hamiltond465]

A recent solo monster I 'created' for my group was a modified lake-sized Black pudding.

The neat tricks it had were 'Spawn a slime minion if hit by an AC-targeting attack' and 'Jump forward 15 feet. Make a grab attack on all creatures in the space you now occupy. Grabbed creatures take acid damage and lose healing surges until they fight their way out. Any creatures missed are pushed out of your space.'

My group caught on quickly, but if you have a high mundane-magic party then things could get interesting.

[Daveheart]

I think a bit of clarification is in order. I can totally see wanting to penalize players for using skills if the issue is that they always go "I roll Diplomacy...23. Does he like me now?" instead of coming up with an argument, or even coming up with an argument then rolling.

However, even if that's the issue, penalizing players is going about it the wrong way. The next time a player rolls a Diplomacy check (continuing with the above example), insist that the give you a bare-bones argument such as "I offer the guard a small bribe and reassure him that we won't cause any more trouble." THEN assign a circumstance modifier and tell him what happens.

I ABSOLUTELY agree with you. It's one of the things that happen most, at least to me, and that's what I try to do.
I think the Giant's houserule for Diplomacy is a really good idea in this cases, even if it was born for 3E.

[neonchameleon]

At a party of 10 you're going to have to shatter the action economy for solos. Some of the Monster Vault monsters do this, but you're going to have to go on the approach Tenra does and have the solo countermoving against every PC turn (see the Beholder for details).