First time DMing a larger group

[Lorddenorstrus]

Hi, Im a little new here. Been following reading for a few months now but haven't had a reason to post until now. I was introduced to this game about a year ago but the person who showed me D&D has sadly passed away now and he never finished with teaching me things for DMing campaigns (Mostly because he always did it in our area and wanted time to play instead of DMing)
I've had some practice with smaller groups but for the first time im with a 6 person group and I have 2 power gamers making things slightly more difficult than normal.. I'm trying to come up with a way to make the campaign I've devised still an interesting struggle for the group but certain combat situations I had planned I have completely tossed out the window due to the group. I have a Half Ogre / Gran Tauros (homebrew race, basically WoW Tauren he likes them and wanted to make a character like it) Barbarian. Who is setting himself up as a charger.
Another Ogre / Tauros (they're brothers..) who is also barbarian but plans to set up as a hulking hurler with more levels..
A standard wizard, standard rogue, standard Crusader (sword / board)
And a Warforged Artificer.

My general issue is at level one when they were all separate I had them go through "Origin" stories so to speak so they'd all be gathered in one place to meet. This was by being captured by slavers and then they have to escape.. well the 2 Tauros completely trashed the 140 Orc company and it's Elite commander with little to no challenge with guerilla tactics and harassing the Orcs and picking them off in smaller numbers as able. (they were in a line with several assigned to be around the chained slaves marching them. The carts where in the rear and with how much they were spread out + never actually staying to fight past one charge here when they didn't expect it etc so on) When the Charger one fought the commander he went into a Bull Rush onto the commander and due to being large to the medium sized orc + his ridiculous level one strength (22 not berserking..) the Orc wasn't able to beat a 29 total on the opposed strength check.. and the Maul he gets with horns on charging that his race comes with + the x2 from charging made it basically do 50% of the Commanders HP and he simply never fought the guy head on. While smart I give him that, I captured him later with something else.. but the encounter made me realize that future fights I had planned are going to be trivialized almost when they come to fighting any medium sized humanoids (which a good chunk of the campaign is to consist of as they spend a lot of time in a Coastal city) that they're going to **** on my planned enemies.

As a newer DM, I would like some advice if possible on ways to make upcoming fights not impossible but at least slightly more challenging.. Oh I should mention we're playing with 3.5

[Troacctid]

Sounds like your homebrew race is unbalanced. Large size is a big advantage in 3.5, and there's a reason there are no official races larger than medium without a level adjustment. Your Tauros sounds similar to the Half-Minotaur from Dragon Magazine, which is large-size with +4 Strength and a gore attack. Except Half-Minotaur has a +1 level adjustment, and it doesn't even have the powerful charge ability, and it's still considered to be one of the most powerful templates that a melee character can take. It's from Dragon Magazine, too, which has some notoriously poorly-balanced material--in actual splatbooks, the cheapest you can get to large size is with Half-Ogre, which has a level adjustment of +2, meaning a 1st level Half-Ogre character is equivalent to a 3rd level character of a typical race.

Another issue is that chargers in general are difficult to balance encounters for. Either the trick works and the encounter is trivial, or the trick doesn't work and their build is useless. Either way, it's not exactly the greatest gameplay.

[Crake]

Could you post the homebrew that they're using?

I would also not allow the half ogre template, +12 strength for a mere +1 LA is definitely not balanced. If you ignore the table for size changes, and use the ability adjustments as is, then maybe, but getting +8 strength for going from medium to large is just too much for too little. The fact that it is dragon magazine material doesn't help it's case in my eyes.

[Lorddenorstrus]

Could you post the homebrew that they're using?

I would also not allow the half ogre template, +12 strength for a mere +1 LA is definitely not balanced. If you ignore the table for size changes, and use the ability adjustments as is, then maybe, but getting +8 strength for going from medium to large is just too much for too little. The fact that it is dragon magazine material doesn't help it's case in my eyes.


The homebrew race is http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Beastfolk,_Grand_Turos_(3.5e_Race) stat wise it comes to +2 Strength, +2 Constitution, -2 Dexterity, -2 Wisdom. The bigger issue was this clause, Auroch Spirit: The Grand Turos can choose to be Large-size as a first level Feat; this can only be taken at first level. This functions as the Gigantism Feat found in the “Feats of the Beastfolk” document.

Then he slapped the half Ogre Template on it, which is +4 strength at -2 Int, -2 Cha, +2 Nat armor and it said only increase Level Adjustment by the 2 total if size increased to Large. But he was already large by his Races feat so technically the level adjustment became void. Possibly I should be more strict as a DM? But I generally try to let people go free with their imaginations so long as it doesn't ruin the world state they're going through. I've basically told people to police themselves but my 2 Tauros here aren't very good at that.

[Karl Aegis]

If 2 guys can trash a hundred or so orcs, what is stopping their race from taking over the entire world? Normally you should be able to take out big creatures with chip damage from several ranged attackers, but for some reason these guys survived a hundred or so attackers. How did they even get captured?

[Lorddenorstrus]

If 2 guys can trash a hundred or so orcs, what is stopping their race from taking over the entire world? Normally you should be able to take out big creatures with chip damage from several ranged attackers, but for some reason these guys survived a hundred or so attackers. How did they even get captured?

It wasn't 100. It was 60 by the time they fought, the orcs divided and thats when they chose to attack. And with it being hit and run tactics (50 landspeed, + it was charging attacks on the Carts with goods in them) they took some damage but caused the slavers to only ditch their carts. It was later when the Commander was only with his 2 guards talking to the Empire guy to buy the slaves that they watched and then before the Commander / 2 guards got back to the other 58 they attacked. It'd been like 3 days and they'd simply stuck to watching and the whole point was for them to fight so I divided the group thinking they'd finally attack, they did just didn't go the way I thought.

They eventually got captured by drinking alcohol spiked with sleeping potion. The bartender / Innkeeper isn't a nice person.

[Crake]

+6 str, +2 con for -2 dex/int/wis/cha, along with +3NA

How are they getting 50 ft movement? Half ogre only increases speed if their size increased, and their race only gives them +10 by way of the larger size.

Even at level 1, with 18 base con, their HP is at best 17, which sufficed to say, is a lot for level 1, but still not enough to have survived an onslaught of 60 orcs. Even if thei were only hitting on a natural, that's on average 3 hits per round. Out of interest, what is their AC? Because standard orcs have something like +5 to hit (if you replace the stupid alertness feat with something useful like weapon focus), so even with +3 NA, and, say, scale mail, that's 17 AC. I doubt they put much into dex, so max +1 from that, for a total of 18AC. An orc should be hitting about 35% of the time on that. It sounds to me like you let them off the hook easy, because that should have been a death sentance. Oh, also -2 AC if they were raging/charging

[Lorddenorstrus]

+6 str, +2 con for -2 dex/int/wis/cha, along with +3NA

How are they getting 50 ft movement? Half ogre only increases speed if their size increased, and their race only gives them +10 by way of the larger size.

Even at level 1, with 18 base con, their HP is at best 17, which sufficed to say, is a lot for level 1, but still not enough to have survived an onslaught of 60 orcs. Even if thei were only hitting on a natural, that's on average 3 hits per round. Out of interest, what is their AC? Because standard orcs have something like +5 to hit (if you replace the stupid alertness feat with something useful like weapon focus), so even with +3 NA, and, say, scale mail, that's 17 AC. I doubt they put much into dex, so max +1 from that, for a total of 18AC. An orc should be hitting about 35% of the time on that. It sounds to me like you let them off the hook easy, because that should have been a death sentance. Oh, also -2 AC if they were raging/charging

+10 from Barbarian to hit 50. And I was severely tempted to change what the NPCs rolled because they weren't being lucky that day. The archers missed mostly and they did the charges from cover so the orcs got caught unaware, it was well thought out. Anyway it was 1 combat round they smashed the wheel / axis and left. The orcs that saw what happened in those few short seconds fired some crossbow bolts.
They have 20 AC from their medium armor I don't recall which it was but their dex is like 14 or 16 I'd have to have their sheets in front of me. As I said they didn't escape unscathed the issue was aftering attacking and frying the carts they waited for the Orcs to decide and considering how they were being harassed + being on a time table to sell the slaves I had the Commander decide to abandon the carts it was minimal value compared to the slaves. (retrospec probably should have left 40 guarding it for when the commander finished selling the slaves it was a very poor decision)

They took some of the stuff from the carts and then at full land speed passed the Orcs, and reached the town before they did. Bought potions from an alchemist with their stolen cash. (which I probably shouldn't have given them any in the first place but when i wrote out what was in the Carts I didnt expect that to happen to them) Then they watched the Commander go sell the slaves, but he wasn't allowed to bring his entire cohort of Orcs with him due to the Empires rules and when he was leaving town to return to his fellows, got killed. Over all I am questioning if perhaps I'd changed the scenario a bit and they would've been captured like intended. (Also, as another note their will saves are abysmal they have lost out right to spellcasters in some fights that have happened later. Im just not sure tossing spellcasters into EVERY fight just to make sure that fights dont end insanely quickly from them is the right counter balance.) I haven't honestly DM'd that many games and the ones I did were with less powerful characters who from the players im guessing took it easy on me tactically for the first bit. My Half ogres here don't have such inhibitions so practice makes perfect I guess.

[Crake]

So from the sounds of it, in the surprise round, they attacked the cart with a charge, then they somehow won initiative against 60 orcs, took some stuff from the cart and started leaving? Unless they knew exactly what they were grabbing from the cart, I would have said rummaging through the cart would have been at least a full round action, or at best, a move action if they were just sticking their hands in and grabbing the first thing they could. Even then, if they immediately started leaving, the orcs would have all managed to get at least a single shot off on them. Assuming some of the orcs had horses to trail the carts, they could have easily pursued them, while shooting crossbows from horseback. It sounds like you just let them get off easy due to your inexperience. Just gotta try harder next time :smalltongue:

If they were in cover, then they would not have been able to charge for example, because to charge you need a straight line to your target with no obstructions or creatures in the way. As a rule of thumb, you can easily foil charges with simple things like caltrops or difficult terrain, or even just having enemies with tower shields in front of the ranged enemies. Giving sufficiently leveled enemies martial study for counter charge can also help to foil their tactics.

[Lerondiel]

What type of players do you have? Are the creators of the 'bash brothers' focused on a) winning or b) everyone enjoying themselves?

If they're b) you shouldnt have a difficult time discussing with them separately that despite their skill at working over the rules, theyre unbalanced to the point that other players just arent going to enjoy getting their time in the sun...and they need to agree to some level adjustment. Level up the rest of the party a couple of levels and continue on.


If they're a) all about individual winning, the challenge and the bragging rights and you feel the other players may lose interest and leave, then youre up for some work rejigging your campaign to offset their dominance.
It's not hard and we can offer a HEAP of ideas, but you also have to consider the outcome if those two players expect to dominate and constantly see you creating situations where they cant. If they're not onboard with the idea of balance there could be some friction as they can now see you playing against them.


- recommended tip: have a read through each players' character sheet and see what is unique & write not just an encounter but a mission/scenario dependent on each character. That goes a long way toward creating those gaming stories that we retell for years.

[atemu1234]

Well, your first mistake was allowing the template. Despite my personal distaste for danddwiki, at this point that's a secondary issue. At this point, either retroactively remove the template or face the issue again.

[Zirconia]

If you don't want to retroactively nerf the Large characters, which I can understand, another option is to give your NPCs the same options. If "Large" humanoids are common enough in this world that PCs can be that size with no LA, perhaps 20-30% of the slavers, bandits, etc. and other foes they fight will be too. The Large size ones, of course, are likely to work with tripping, bull rushing, grappling type tactics as well. So Ubercharger charges one guy, and obliterates him, but the two standing next to him initiate Grapples with the appropriate feats, for example.

The other thing is that slavers may well have a lot of annoying impeding weapons. Rather than all bows, maybe some have nets, some have bolas, there might even be a few Tanglefoot bags for emergencies. . . Read up on "Tucker's Kobolds" for examples of how "wimpy" foes can, in their own environment, give even a pretty well prepared group of PCs a hard time. Plus, guerrilla tactics are not restricted to PCs, wonder how high their Spots and Listens are. . .

If you have a charging focused PC, pay a lot of attention to obstacles; cooking fire, bushes, etc. Just be aware that it isn't fair to wait till AFTER someone starts a charge to say "oh, by the way, there is a dog sleeping there, sorry, breaks your charge line". You will need to be more detailed about terrain, have the BBEG up on a platform, or a wagon, or behind a few minions, etc. Not every time, but you don't have to make them all easy charge-bait.

The Hulking Hurler will be more of a problem, much harder to stop ranged attacks, but be sure to pay attention to cover/concealment rules and penalties for ranged attacks.

Also ask both players to provide a planned character build, there may be stuff in there you want to nerf or remove from your game if it is going to be way beyond the power level of the other players. Hopefully the two of them will be reasonable, and it is much better for everyone to work these things out BEFORE they have 5-10 levels into a build and find out something they planned for isn't acceptable. They can still have their concept, but maybe doing 300 points of damage/round doesn't work with the rest of the table so some tweaking is in order. There is no shame in saying "I can't handle characters with more than an order of magnitude difference in effectiveness in the same fights, I want to let everyone contribute."

[M Placeholder]

The main problem here is the two power gamers. I have nothing against people playing large characters well, but that homebrew race is just appaling. Personally, I would just either nerf the Cow Ogres or kill them off. Problem solved.

[thematgreen]

I run a 9 player game and have the following personal rules:

1 - Everyone goes in order when they want to take non combat actions (i.e; Interacting with NPC's, buying items, etc). Whenever there is downtime or someone wants to try something everyone has to stop chattering and turns are taken in order. It sounds a little controlling, but everything moves smoothly and rapidly because everyone is getting to do what they want to do and nobody is interrupting the other.

Example:

Players 1, 4, 7, 8 all want to do something to solve a riddle/trap. I specifically ensure that it is always in that order of players, but allow people to skip their turns.


2 - Combat - Players give me their initiative in order, always. I ignore people yelling out numbers until I get to them.


3 - I run a homebrew campaign and use "Swarm" tactics with many of my encounters. I have many small monsters and 1-2 large "boss" monsters for many encounters. I roll attacks/saves/etc for groups of monsters. So monsters 1-5 have the same roll, monsters 6-10 have the same roll, and so on. This simplifies and speeds up combat.

4 - I have a mental list of what I want my monsters to do, and sometimes use what "Makes sense" rather than a roll to determine outcomes. So for example, if I have a couple Kobolds derping around and the group gets the jump on them they get their rolls, but generally succeed automatically. If a monster is just going to overpower a character I'll roll the dice to avoid drama, but the monster is hitting no matter what, unless the player is clever and is under cover, gets a good reflex roll, etc.

5 - Rules lawyers are not welcome. I will not argue a rule during the game. If you present a rule that will enhance the gameplay during the game I'll use it, but if I say NO then it's NO, no arguments. I'll either tell you to stop and play or ask you to leave the game.


Overall, I seem to come across as a control freak who bends the rules or even makes them up as I go, but it has allowed for a dynamic and fast game where everyone gets a voice and decisions matter.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In regards to the issue of the two "OP" characters. Have your monsters/opponents of the group use smart tactics. Retreat into smaller areas, use traps, use a ton of stealth. Magic and ranged attacks can mess with them. Use many small opponents all at once and swarm tactics, IIRC Kobolds can share the same space and be considered flanking an enemy. Have strong commanders show up and target the stronger players. Make your on PC's as counters to the "OP" characters. There are many things you can do to even out the playing field, but you have to think outside the box. They may get mad, but oh well.

[Crake]

So for example, if I have a couple Kobolds derping around and the group gets the jump on them they get their rolls, but generally succeed automatically. If a monster is just going to overpower a character I'll roll the dice to avoid drama, but the monster is hitting no matter what, unless the player is clever and is under cover, gets a good reflex roll, etc.

So do you just flat out say to the players "Yeah it works" or "Nah, you get crushed" without even rolling dice? I'd imagine that takes away any suspense in the situation, if they don't even need to bother.