New DM, dragon campaign

[mercury19]

So my friends and I decided to run a dragon campaign. But our usual DM wanted to play, and not DM, so he asked me to do it. I've wanted to run a campaign for a while, but now I'm finding myself horribly unprepared.

The way it's working is that each player has two characters: a dragon based on the rules in Dragon Magazine, and a non-dragon "dragon rider". Fortunately for me, I think, they all stayed with ECL 1 characters. But there are four players, plus I wasn't willing to fully give up my rights as a player. So including my NPC, there will be ten characters.

I'm having trouble creating a first encounter. I kind of want to run kobolds, but I don't know how many to throw at them. I feel like it would be easier to split the the party, but I'm in the middle of heavy school and barley have the time to run one adventure, let alone two or 3.

So are kobolds a good idea? I was thinking a sewer dungeon, wandering around killing kobolds, and culminating in a huge-ish battle with a half dragon kobold sorcerer and a bunch of minions.

Opinions?

[Vaz]

Unlimited.

Tuckers kobolds is a thing.

However with 10 characters actions, you might find it hard to run a campaign if you're strapped for time. Each round is probably going to take about 2hrs to run.

[boxfox]

Unlimited.

Tuckers kobolds is a thing.

However with 10 characters actions, you might find it hard to run a campaign if you're strapped for time. Each round is probably going to take about 2hrs to run.

Sort of this.
More details about the everything would help. What level is the party, what age category are the dragons, what classes are they players playing, do the players have total control of the dragons or are they NPCs?????

This will probably be either an easyish fix or impossible based on your answers.

[mercury19]

Sort of this.
More details about the everything would help. What level is the party, what age category are the dragons, what classes are they players playing, do the players have total control of the dragons or are they NPCs?????

This will probably be either an easyish fix or impossible based on your answers.


Everyone is level one, not sure what this means for party level, dragons are hatchlings based on the dragon magazines 320 and 332, basically written out savage species monster classes for them. The players are a psion, a paladin, two fighters, and my NPC bard. The players have control over their dragons.

[boxfox]

I lied. It's neither fast or impossible. :)

First, make character and associated dragon act on the same initiative roll, just like a summoned pet. That'll cut your time a bit.

Area of Effect spells are now twice as effective against this party. That's a DM tool.

Expect just about anything to get flanked very easily, so thinks will probably get hit easily. Sending stuff with naturally higher AC could be helpful.

Don't hold anything back. These dragons are pretty weak this young. If they're all good dragons and they're basically only protected by these "weak humans", they're pretty easy pickings. I'd expect all manner of non-nice things would be trying to get them...mid-high level mages that want their blood and bones for crafting, black market folks, people who want to use their dragonhide...etc.
I'd expect kobolds, if evil, might go out of their way to swarm all over a little dragon with daggers and try to stab the crap out of it. The dragons don't HAVE to come with...they don't HAVE to fight...that's a choice...and maybe not the right one all of the time.

If a group of 4 level 1 character takes on CR1 encounters, 2 groups of level 1 characters would probably handle 2 CR1 encounters (but not a CR2 encounter, which is different). I'd start there, anyway. The first few battles don't need to be hard. Start really weak (the outlying kobolds or scouts) and once you get the general hang of their strength, start adding more or bigger bad guys.
You might even start with only 1.5 CR1 encounters. So, 4 kobolds = CR1. Try sending 6 and see what happens. Maybe 3 melee, 2 ranged, and 1 caster? If that's really easy (which seems likely) try 8 kobolds, which should be about standard.

These are pretty big battles...I wouldn't roll separately for all of them. All baddies use the same initiative roll, and if (for example) 3 are planning to attack the same player this round, roll 3 dice at once, figure hits, and roll damage all at once. Any time savers will be extremely useful.


And then there's the most important step:
Either let someone else DM or don't play. Games are great, and very much required to blow off steam after finals, etc...but DMing a game is more work than play. It's a bad idea if school is important to you...I'm thinking you've probably already reached that conclusion, even if you haven't thought about it. Plenty of time for DMing later. :)

[Red Fel]

I'll be blunt - this is a horrible idea for a new DM.

I'm not saying the idea is horrible in and of itself, or that it couldn't be executed, but this will be incredibly difficult to execute, and it boils down to having too many characters.

As others have mentioned, one of the big problems is that combats will take forever because of how many characters there are - each player will have one "rider" and one "dragon," ten players, each taking full advantage of their actions in combat. And while each player is waiting for eight other characters (plus any monsters) to take their actions, they will be bored silly.

But that's just one problem. Another is the action economy. The action economy states that each character, PC or NPC, only has a certain number of actions it may take during a given turn. This is the bane of the BBEG encounter, because for every swift/move/standard action combination the BBEG can take, the party can take multiple times. In this case, for every action an enemy can take, your party acts ten times. Your party is extremely likely to turn into a steamroller.

Another problem is logistics. As a DM, I expect my players to keep track of their characters, but I also try to keep track of characters. It helps me figure out exciting encounters, keeps me from accidentally placing the PCs in certain-death scenarios, and generally minimizes unnecessary back-and-forth and second guessing. An ordinary DM may have to track between four and six PCs, perhaps a cohort or two. You will be tracking ten. As a new DM.

Finally, and this one is a minor issue by comparison, your DMPCs. Let me be clear - I don't consider DMPCs to be bad on principle, but they're far too easy to lose control of in execution. And you get two of them. And your stated motivation for them was not to promote the plot, or to provide support or advice or clues, but because "I wasn't willing to fully give up my rights as a player." So I have to ask you, directly - if your DMPCs died in the first combat encounter, what would you do? Because by taking on the DM mantle, you are giving up your "rights as a player;" you're sacrificing your ability to steer the story and be a leading character in it, in exchange for the ability to shape the world in which the PCs act. And if you think that might be a challenge for you, you need to step back and do some self-evaluation.

I should apologize if this comes across as overly negative. But you've taken on a very ambitious project for a first-time DM, and while I strongly encourage people to try a hand at DMing, it's too easy to get in over your head and become turned off on the whole experience.

[Fouredged Sword]

No SRD dragon, no matter how young, is ECL one. That is a problem right there.

[mercury19]

I hate when I do this. I've left out some possibly important information. My group is loose to the point of lazy. We don't often use many of the action rules and such. I know more than anyone else about the actual rules I think, just be cause I took the time to read more then the basics. As an example, it was a significant event a couple months ago when one of us filled out the fort, will, and ref save boxes. We don't have a set schedule, we play when we can. We don't use a grid or figurines, which isn't that big a deal.

But anyway

Boxfox: Thanks for the advice. I think I will try the kobolds, as a testing device. I already have some more ideas for later in the game, or maybe a couple levels down. As for the hardest step, I'm putting the game off for at least a week, after which almost everything will be done.

Red Fel: I understand exactly where your coming from. As u said above, our group isn't to big on rules, so I'm not sure I'm worried about action economy. I will probably combine players turns for both characters and some baddies, which will reduce the waiting time to about normal for us.


As for the DMpc. If my PC(s) died in the first encounter, he might be the only one I would let die. I might fudge roles or rules to save the players and keep them interested, but my character can die because he is more a "part of the world".

Actually now that you point it out, I can't see a reason to have a character. As you said, I am giving up my place as a leading role in the adventure, which I sort of understood when creating the character. However, he can't function as a normal advice giver because I don't want the players going to him as of he were the DM's brain every time their stuck. So until further notice, I think I'll leave my DMpc out of it.

I may also have trouble tracking the dragons. I'm semi we'll acquainted with the non-dragons, but I'll do my best. I hang on to the character sheets anyway, so I'll have their stats when I need them.


Fouredged Sword: As I said, I got the dragon stats from Dragon Magazine, not from the SRD.