Need help finding Templates/bonuses for players, also maybe some balancing advice?

[Zzachary37]

I'm about to start a game where I've given the players a +3 LA equivalent of free bonuses, and I'm trying to figure out what to help some of the players newer to the game with picking. One (who has played a bit of 5e, but is mostly inexperienced) wants to play a druid, but mostly wants to cast spells and shoot a bow (I've given her longbow proficiency at no cost and the +1 LA Catfolk race but it doesn't nearly equal the bonuses I've given so far).

The other wants to also be a focused bow user, but is going to go more along the lines of a ranger or scout (I believe she was leaning towards scout). I don't think I have for her yet, she's been pretty busy with work and such so she hasn't had much time to give to character creation

The last one wants to play a tough guy human barbarian, who wants to be useful by "tanking" so to speak (AKA he wants to be "catch swords with his pecs" tough, which he already kinda is in real life cause the dude's ripped). I told him about the Fist of the Forest class and he loves it, and is going to start taking it as soon as possible, so I'm gonna give him a few bonus feats to help qualify.

There are two other players, one with the Half Dragon template and the other with a homebrew wolf-person template and a template one of my other players found called "Quickened Creature" that increases his base speed, grants a +4 bonus to dex, and allows him to basically grant himself haste once per day but is fatigued afterwards.

Now one of the main reasons they've asked me to start a new campaign is that their current DM in their 5e game is allowing one of the players to powergame and rule-bend and they're all frustrated because their characters feel useless. This is something I want to avoid at all costs. Obviously if someone is more into the game than someone else their character might get a bit more spotlight, but nobody should feel absolutely useless. If anyone also has some advice as to how I could prevent this with this party (like balancing encounters and such) I would greatly appreciate it, as I'm still getting used to DMing and such.

Thanks in advance, you guys are the best :smallbiggrin:

[NevinPL]

Maybe you should start with not giving them stuff, that further unbalances things ?

If not, search the net for: "DnD3.5Index-Templates.pdf"

[John Longarrow]

As you are coming here for help I'm guessing you don't normally play in an optimized game. Since you are DMing, you should be able to research what you think would work for their play style / your tables game balance within your own resources.

If you come here you'll get answers from just about all gaming resources available, something that will be really hard for you to adjudicate if you don't yourself have those books. This becomes much more of a problem when you try to create encounters that challenge them without either being too easy or a death trap.

I'd suggest reviewing what sources you have or have access to first. Let us know what limits you will be using based off of your resources. That way we can direct you both to reasons you would want to recommend those as well as reasons you may not want them at your table.

Once you've become comfortable running your game for this group it becomes a lot easier to ask questions here.

For party composition, I'd personally recommend you sit down with your group and start asking them what kind of game they want to play / What kind of game you plan to run. Then ask them "Who will be covering what roles in the party?" You should get a blank stare until you explain "OK, if you run into tracks, who will be able to track for the party? Who gets to be stealthy? Who is a primary damage dealer in melee, who handles healing, who handles gathering information or interpersonal contact, who does recon in the wilderness, and any other functional areas you decide you want to have or will need"

This should get turned into an hour+ conversation on what they can do in game along with them asking what they should cover. You will then get to recommend multiple characters to cover each area (especially things like traps or certain game important knowledge checks) so that the party doesn't get stuck if one person blows a roll.

After they start working on building a functional party advise they stop by here and ask for build specific help. Advise them what source books they can use so they can let us know when asking. That should help us get the right advice to the right players for their builds.

[TheCorsairMalac]

Maybe you should start with not giving them stuff, that further unbalances things ?

Hopefully I'm not coming across as rude, but this NevinPL guy is on to something.

Warn your players that custom content, templates, and monster races have large and unpredictable effects on game balance. If they want a balanced game, they should avoid them.

[Zzachary37]

Thank you guys for the input, honestly I've been realizing lately I'm kinda a pushover, and one of the members of the group has been particularly vocal about wanting the group to be high OP but I kinda think its just cause he wants to be a half dragon, I think with you guy's input I'm gonna rethink the +3 LA for free thing, and try to reel things in a bit with the sources I've allowed. I think the table can still have fun without having to be overpowered. I guess its pretty obvious I'm a little new at this but I'm gonna try my best to make sure I dont let the players completely decide how to run the campaign (it doesn't help that I'm actually the youngest in the group with most of them being 5-10 years older than me lol)

Thanks again for the input guys, its really been helpful!

[John Longarrow]

I've been there.

Best advice I can give is talk to the players NOT pushing for OP and let them know you want to learn to do this right. Make sure before the first session you talk to them about what they are interested in from the game and ask for feed back after every session (at least for the first few) to get a sense of how its going for them.

As DM you need to make sure that each character gets time in the spot light. This isn't each session but over all. You also need to make sure that everyone at the table, your self included, is having fun.

For sources, I'd suggest sticking to the ones you are familiar with. If someone wants to bring in something that isn't from them, tell them you want some time to look at what they want to bring in. Do some online research to see if its something that won't work in your game. Look at min/max boards to see if people are trying to bring in something to break your game. You can always say "I don't have that in my campaign", even if its not something broken. For my game, you'd have to have a really good reason to bring in a halfling. They got into a nasty trade war in the area my game plays in and lost badly. Most of their population was exterminated about 600 years ago. A player has to have one hell of a good reason to have one wander in.

[Darrin]

Start everyone at level 4. Let the one "high op" guy play a half-dragon. Try *really hard* not to laugh when he gets killed in the first battle because he only has 1 HD worth of hit points. When he makes a new character without horrendously crippling level adjustment, try not to snigger.

(It sounds more to me like this player has no idea how to play high power characters. Experienced optimizers would stay away from any template with a level adjustment.)

[Virdish]

Start everyone at level 4. Let the one "high op" guy play a half-dragon. Try *really hard* not to laugh when he gets killed in the first battle because he only has 1 HD worth of hit points. When he makes a new character without horrendously crippling level adjustment, try not to snigger.

(It sounds more to me like this player has no idea how to play high power characters. Experienced optimizers would stay away from any template with a level adjustment.)

Unless they get it for free and then they will take ecery level of LA they can get their hands on for free and laugh their way to the bank.