Returning to D&D 3.5

[chasingblocks]

In brief: I used to "rollplay" D&D 3.5 in high school. Military, college, and graduate school happened and I stopped playing. Now, my neighbors play D&D, and lost their DM recently. They asked me to DM.

I don't have any D&D books. I'm borrowing my neighbors' and relying on d20srd.org and dndtools.eu. I'm reviewing D&D rules right now and am comfortable with them. I have several questions.

1. Do you recommend I "make things up as we go" or run a well-established module? My group wants me to "make things up" but I'm not sure how well that will go.

2. Back when I played, my friends and I were mostly concerned with building Turing-complete computers with D&D trap mechanics or optimizing power attack damage. I know there are some screwy things I should pay attention to, like (off the top of my head) leadership, magic traps, craft cost reductions, magic shurikens, polymorph, incantatrix, epic spellcasting, NPC prestige classes, and circle magic. I'm not banning anything, I don't think, merely staying aware of overpowered options. Anything else I should pay attention to?

3. I'm DMing 8 players. Tentatively, we might be playing with a sorcerer, swashbuckler, binder, cleric, monk, crusader, erudite, and paladin. We're starting at level 3 at the request of the players. My concerns are Complete Psionic, Tome of Magic, and Tome of Battle. I've never read them, even back when I played. Can I have a quick and dirty of how erudites, binders, and crusaders compare to core classes in actual play (besides their class descriptions, which I've read obviously).

4. I'm going to allow all published, official material, except the Dragon magazines, since I think it'd be a shame not to use a source book. Anything I should keep in mind?

5. I think I'm going to be making a boss out of a warblade/eternal blade chassis. Any thoughts on this?

[Regis_is_a_bro]

As a first time DM, or one who hasn't played in a long time, I suggest you plan well ahead. You're going to have to make things up as the players will deviate from the story-line. Making interesting shop-keepers and the such make the campaign more fun. Don't underestimate the little things. Also, make sure the encounters aren't all the same thing, as at low levels it's almost tough not to do that. It'll become very boring very quickly if you don't make them diverse, for both you and the players. Other than that, just go with the story, wherever the characters take you, even if that deviates with what you originally had planned. And of course, most important of all... HAVE FUN!:smallbiggrin:

[Alent]

2. Back when I played, my friends and I were mostly concerned with building Turing-complete computers with D&D trap mechanics

*brofist*


3. I'm DMing 8 players. Tentatively, we might be playing with a sorcerer, swashbuckler, binder, cleric, monk, crusader, erudite, and paladin. We're starting at level 3 at the request of the players. My concerns are Complete Psionic, Tome of Magic, and Tome of Battle. I've never read them, even back when I played. Can I have a quick and dirty of how erudites, binders, and crusaders compare to core classes in actual play (besides their class descriptions, which I've read obviously).

I haven't played one yet, so I may be a little mistaken on this, but: Binder is interesting because depending on who they bind determines what they are. For example, there's a vestige that makes you into a monk: You think everyone's better than you (Best flavor mechanic ever), you get featherfall at will, and you get monk unarmed damage progression with binder level as monk level. At the same time, there's a vestige that makes you into a ranger minus the animal companion, a vestige that gives you turn undead, etc., etc. Binder can be a little bit of everything, just not as good or at once. I would say it's roughly equivalent to a songless bard.

Crusaders are Paladins with better class features and no silly paladin code to betray them. Mechanically there's nothing wrong with them, (they are inferior to the sorcerer and cleric) but they may look a little OP to the monk and paladin. You might consider suggesting the Monk look at Unarmed Swordsage and the Paladin consider being a "Paladin (Crusader)".

I don't know the Erudite at all, so someone else will have to explain.

[Diarmuid]

I would say it's probably a better idea to start with a short module to get your feet back underneath you. Probably easier to ask them to start with Core stuff at first as well.

I would explain it that you want the game where you make things up and the players play the characters they really want, to go really well and you just want to get back into the swing of things a bit first.

This gives you time to see how the group plays, revitalize rule familiarity, and some time to read up on those things you know they want to use that you're not familiar with.

[Rhynn]

1. Do you recommend I "make things up as we go" or run a well-established module? My group wants me to "make things up" but I'm not sure how well that will go.

Make things up before you go, then make things up as you go.

Start by creating a little setting: a region large enough for your purposes, with one good settlement to use as a base, and some adventure locations, with at least one dungeon (preferrably one you can expand later by letting the PCs discover secret stairs or excavate passages). "You heard there's treasure there" is a perfectly good starting motivation.

Then develop things as you play, between sessions, always making sure to find out your players' intentions for the next session. Develop the things they take an interest in. Write down everything you come up with on the spot during play.

[ngilop]

I recommend starting with a publish advneture to get your feet wet. I am in a game wiht a few first time players and a first time DM, 1/3 of the time is spent looking up EVERYTHING and I do mean EVERYTHING becuase he has no idea what any of the rules do or say (he has only played D&D a couple of times) half the time i spent making things up completle off teh cusp and totally illogically this is as simple as " we go down the left hallway" POW now there is the uncomfortable silcen of him going ' uh oh i have no idea what to do' then making stuff up that make no sense liek sneindg 6 worgs and 1 winter wolf after us at lvl 3.

the last 6th is actual playing the game.

If you have e good grasp on the mechaincs rules, and classes and all that stuff then go right ahead of do your own stuff. if not.. try the made already made stuff and at least learn whats up befor ehand.

[Urpriest]

Depends. If you have a lot of prep time, go for the module. You'll need to read it cover to cover, give the statblocks at least a cursory check for issues, make sure you remember points that could influence things later on...but once you do, it will provide a more "complete" foundation than making your own campaign, and you can reasonably trust it to cover aspects like treasure progression and encounter design. If you don't have the time, though, you should just be able to make things up session to session as long as you keep things relatively straightforward.

I'm kind of surprised that they asked you to DM, rather than one of them stepping up and you joining as a player. I take it they were impressed by tales of past Turing-trap exploits? :smallwink:

[Grod_The_Giant]

[QUOTE=chasingblocks;16831897]My concerns are Complete Psionic, Tome of Magic, and Tome of Battle. I've never read them, even back when I played. Can I have a quick and dirty of how erudites, binders, and crusaders compare to core classes in actual play (besides their class descriptions, which I've read obviously).
Erudites are wizard-y. They use psionics, which is magic with a sight twist-- rather than spells automatically scale to their level, they have to "augment" them using power points, of which they have a limited daily supply. Psionic characters can go nova like no-one's business, since they can effectively blow all their spells/day on their highest level spells... but then they're done. And while they can deal huge damage or whatnot with low-level spells, by the time the augmentation is paid for, they're effectively casting their max level spell. Remember that you can't spend more power points on a power than your manifester level and you'll be fine.

Binders are cool. They get to bind a limited number of vestiges each day (one at a time at first, up to I think a max of 4). Each vestige grants a whole little set of class features on a theme. One will make you a socialite, one will make you a mounted warrior, one will give you fire powers, and so on. They're pretty flexible day-to-day, but none of their options are really that powerful, and on any given day they can only do a few things. Most of their abilities are either at-will or on a 5 round recharge, so they can go all day if they want.

Crusaders... if your group isn't used to optimizing, Tome of Battle classes will look silly. They've got a high power "floor," meaning that they'll be strong even in the hands of a total newbie. A "normal" melee character can match 'em in damage no problem-- power attack stacking and such-- so the big gain is versatility. Maneuvers are sort of like martial spells, mostly taking the form of fancy hits and parries. They're strong and fun. I'd worry about mixing Tome of Battle with normal melee characters, but luckily the three ToB classes can replace any normal melee role you can think of with only the lightest of tweaks.

[Gwendol]

At the level you start play the crusader has the potential of outshining the rest of the melee classes by a significant amount. This will likely even out somewhat as they gain levels, and full attacks start to mean something.

I recommend a published module such as the Forge of Fury for example, unless they've already played it?

[theIrkin]

As far as DM'ing off the cuff, that's my preferred method. As some earlier posters have said, have a general plan, a place to start, a quest line, and a place to go all drawn up, but don't worry about the little details if you're comfortable describing rooms and the look of monsters. You're low enough level that you don't have to throw crazy monsters at them to start, so don't worry about pulling out anything but some generic monsters at first. Then have fun with new ones as you peruse the monster manuals and see something that catches your eye.

8 players is a lot, but at such low levels upping the CR of individual baddies gets really lethal, really fast. Instead throw more equal or lower level monsters at them. Combat will bog the game down until your comfortable with how monsters fight, but that's better then ever monster one-shot-ing your players all the time. Any enemies with spells/special abilities, pick 1-3 and spam them, and ignore that they have a dozen or more spells to choose from. That will make life easier for you and if you can vary the types of spells from one encounter to another you'll be golden.

Last bit of advice: see if anyone is willing to be your co-DM. if they are mature/more interested in RP'ing, you can split up the job of monitoring what your players are doing, especially when you are in social encounters. If you run the inn-keeper and they run a waitress or one of the other patrons, you now have two groups of 4 instead of one group of 8 who get to talk and perform actions, which keeps players from being bored. Bored players who zone out kill a game faster than anything else!

Hope that helps some, and good luck!

[HammeredWharf]

3. I'm DMing 8 players. Tentatively, we might be playing with a sorcerer, swashbuckler, binder, cleric, monk, crusader, erudite, and paladin. We're starting at level 3 at the request of the players. My concerns are Complete Psionic, Tome of Magic, and Tome of Battle. I've never read them, even back when I played. Can I have a quick and dirty of how erudites, binders, and crusaders compare to core classes in actual play (besides their class descriptions, which I've read obviously).


This is your biggest problem IMO. Unless they optimize a lot more than the others, the monk, paladin and swashbuckler are going to be relatively weak. The Crusader vs. Paladin situation is especially bad, because they're pretty much the same archetype, but Crusader is much stronger.


5. I think I'm going to be making a boss out of a warblade/eternal blade chassis. Any thoughts on this?

Other than it not being available until level 11? No, go ahead. It's not a particularly strong combination, but I suppose it could provide a challenge. I'd give him lots of mooks, because otherwise a party of eight will overpower him easily.

[Gwendol]

This is your biggest problem IMO. Unless they optimize a lot more than the others, the monk, paladin and swashbuckler are going to be relatively weak. The Crusader vs. Paladin situation is especially bad, because they're pretty much the same archetype, but Crusader is much stronger.


Not necessarily true for the paladin as it has a higher optimization ceiling than does the crusader. The other two will be harder to keep relevant as the game progresses.

[Urpriest]

For the Erudite, it's important to point out that there is some ambiguity about how it actually works. Erudites manifest their powers spontaneously just like Psions do, but since they have unlimited powers known (learned like wizards, but with XP rather than money) they compensate by having limited "unique powers per day", where once they manifest a power it's "locked in" for the day. The problem is, the class description is inconsistent about what this means: it's either a total number of unique powers per day (in which case it's really low, one at lower levels and only seven at higher levels) or it's unique powers per power level per day (so one first level power at first level, and seven of each at 20th), which makes them more versatile than psions at the later levels, or it's unique powers per class level per day, which is even sillier. One of the better houserules I've heard is to treat it as unique powers per day total, but to increase the number to the Ardent's powers known.

[chasingblocks]

I would say it's probably a better idea to start with a short module to get your feet back underneath you. Probably easier to ask them to start with Core stuff at first as well.


I recommend starting with a publish advneture to get your feet wet.

Think I'm going to go ahead and do this. I don't think I'll have any trouble with the rules, so I won't be starting with only core stuff. Any suggested modules?


I'm kind of surprised that they asked you to DM, rather than one of them stepping up and you joining as a player. I take it they were impressed by tales of past Turing-trap exploits? :smallwink:

I asked to play rather than DM, but it was immediately apparent that most of them were "roleplayers" who never quite got how their prior DM ran the rules. They don't know grapple, flight; they don't know when you can take 10; and so on.

As for the Turing-trap thing, that was a bit of a random thing to bring up. I actually meant to expand that into a question but now I forget what I wanted to write. :smallredface:


Crusaders... if your group isn't used to optimizing, Tome of Battle classes will look silly.

So, these guys I don't think "optimize". The sorcerer, for instance, is going for power attack. I recommended Duskblade to the player but she wants to play sorcerer? :smallconfused: I mean, I don't know much of optimization, but I don't think playing a sorcerer and going for melee spear fighter counts.


At the level you start play the crusader has the potential of outshining the rest of the melee classes by a significant amount. This will likely even out somewhat as they gain levels, and full attacks start to mean something.

I recommend a published module such as the Forge of Fury for example, unless they've already played it?

Thanks for the module recommendation. As for the former concern, that was my impression of reading the crusader class. I couldn't pick out anything that made it overpowered, but it has much better melee presence than the monk does at the very least from a damage output and tanking perspective.


Last bit of advice: see if anyone is willing to be your co-DM. if they are mature/more interested in RP'ing, you can split up the job of monitoring what your players are doing, especially when you are in social encounters. If you run the inn-keeper and they run a waitress or one of the other patrons, you now have two groups of 4 instead of one group of 8 who get to talk and perform actions, which keeps players from being bored. Bored players who zone out kill a game faster than anything else!

Hope that helps some, and good luck!

Thanks for the advice. Group is mature, thankfully... I was worried about people zoning out, but judging by their games with the last DM they are pretty attentive people. For that I'm lucky. I don't know if I can run games that deserve that attention though, haha.


This is your biggest problem IMO. Unless they optimize a lot more than the others, the monk, paladin and swashbuckler are going to be relatively weak. The Crusader vs. Paladin situation is especially bad, because they're pretty much the same archetype, but Crusader is much stronger.

Other than it not being available until level 11? No, go ahead. It's not a particularly strong combination, but I suppose it could provide a challenge. I'd give him lots of mooks, because otherwise a party of eight will overpower him easily.

So, about the former concern--do you have any recommendations? And for the latter, I was thinking of making that eternal blade a boss when the party is all levels 5 or 6. Is that too lethal or OK? Looking at damage outputs, it looks pretty frightening and like it requires the player characters to carefully plan out the combat.


For the Erudite, it's important to point out that there is some ambiguity about how it actually works. Erudites manifest their powers spontaneously just like Psions do, but since they have unlimited powers known (learned like wizards, but with XP rather than money) they compensate by having limited "unique powers per day", where once they manifest a power it's "locked in" for the day. The problem is, the class description is inconsistent about what this means: it's either a total number of unique powers per day (in which case it's really low, one at lower levels and only seven at higher levels) or it's unique powers per power level per day (so one first level power at first level, and seven of each at 20th), which makes them more versatile than psions at the later levels, or it's unique powers per class level per day, which is even sillier. One of the better houserules I've heard is to treat it as unique powers per day total, but to increase the number to the Ardent's powers known.

That's a funny ambiguity I missed. Perhaps I should rule it to be per power level per day? That might be the intention.

[Urpriest]

So, about the former concern--do you have any recommendations? And for the latter, I was thinking of making that eternal blade a boss when the party is all levels 5 or 6. Is that too lethal or OK? Looking at damage outputs, it looks pretty frightening and like it requires the player characters to carefully plan out the combat.

Generally, level+4 is about as far as you can push a boss without making the numbers go too far beyond the party's capabilities.




That's a funny ambiguity I missed. Perhaps I should rule it to be per power level per day? That might be the intention.

Maybe. At the levels you're dealing with that probably won't be problematic.

[Grod_The_Giant]

So, these guys I don't think "optimize". The sorcerer, for instance, is going for power attack. I recommended Duskblade to the player but she wants to play sorcerer? :smallconfused: I mean, I don't know much of optimization, but I don't think playing a sorcerer and going for melee spear fighter counts.
Is she using the Battle Sorcerer from Unearthed Arcana? Planning on going into Abjurant Champion/Eldrich Knight later? But yeah, if people aren't optimizing, then either don't allow ToB classes or don't allow non-ToB melee types.