Help and Tips for a new DM

[Rivaler]

Good evening everyone!

I'll begin DMing with a group of people next week, and I'm both very excited and kind of anxious about it. Thing is, despite me being a new DM (this will be the first time DM in my life ), we agreed on trying a homebrew campaign made by me, and before you tell me, yes, I know this might not have been the greatest of choices! But it is what it is :P

Now, I have an overall idea of the campaign, and my setting is decently developed ( at least, what I consider to be enough for a start ), but now I need to prepare an actual adventure / first session, and I really feel like I need some tips on how to do some things, and so here I am!

I'll have the group start in a city under siege: the adventurers are tasked with sneaking in the encampment at night and destroy the supplies warehouse. After that, get back to the city and launch a sortie on the enemy ballistae to destroy them, allowing the fleet to get near and break the siege.

I'd like some help on the encounter side of things, more specifically some suggestion on stat blocks for enemies to be found. I know all too well that my first session will be far from perfect, but I'd really like to do my best and make everyone have a good time.

The group is pretty big: 6 or 7 people, all level 1s. What I had in mind was to maybe have them try to sneak as far as possible in the encampment, maybe taking down some guards somehow ( could use some tips on how you would handle this to make as many classes as possible relevant ). Then maybe find a decently sized group of guards guarding access to the supplies warehouse, to be taken out in combat with the help of a previously acquired silence scroll ( could REALLY use a bit of help with the enemy composition here: enemies are orcs and human barbarians, and I'd like to fit a huge sized orc beserker of sort for color ).

Once they gain access to warehouse, they have to face a boss encounter: 2 - 4 guards and a shaman. Once the shaman is damaged, it becomes a demon, which can create crystals that dominate players' will ( basically, a hard to resist but tethered version of crown of madness is what I was thinking ) and reanimate the orcs' corpses until destroyed ( I mostly have this stat block thought out, reshaping a CR 4 Dybbuk ).

For the sortie part, I think I'll improvise. I think that with the group size, introductions and such, this should be more than enough for a first session! Still, if you have any suggestion on this, that's very welcome as well!

So, all in all I'd really like some inputs from you experienced folks!


What's your overall idea about this? Is this way too much or not enough?
How would you make the stealth part be interesting for everyone and not only the rogues alone?
What CR do consider fair for the pre-warehouse fight? I think I could use orcs and berserkers from the MM, but I'm kinda uncertain on their numbers and what I could use for the giant sized orc ( it's supposed to be a hill-giant / orc breed brought as a living siege weapon ).
Do you think the boss fight, or the overall plan, is too difficult? I tend to see players overcome challenges I thought would be very hard, and I really can't tell if a CR 4 monster with 2 minions and domination capabilities is going to be devastating or a walk in a part for my group.


Also, ANY tip, thought, constructive criticism, addition you'd make, encouragement and so on is very appreciated!

Thank you very much for reading this, and even more for your replies!

[SpikeFightwicky]

I'm kind of a new 5E DM (though I've been DMing since... AD&D?), and this is some of the stuff I've learned running 2 games simultaneously:

1) Level 1 game, 3 players and an NPC that I control in combat
At first level, everyone's squishy. Be very careful! A fight against 4 goblins went south very fast... and that was the first encounter!
Lessons Learned
- Have a few small encounters before your main ones to determine what your PCs can handle. Just something simple like a few orcs on patrol. At low levels, it's easy to come close to a TPK on a genuinely easy encounter!

2) Level 8 game, 6 players
Know your players! I inherited this game when the DM wanted a break, and I learned quick that half of them are by no means strategic. The first encounter was with hobgoblins (a mix CR 1/2, 2 and 5, as calculated using the DMG for a "Hard encounter for a group of 6 adventurers) and it was brutal! The hobgoblins used formation tactics and made the most of the terrain, and a few Bugbears woke up half way through and joined the fray. However, the encounter turned deadly when the PC's lack of tactics started isolating some of the players and making them easy targets.
Lessons Learned
- Know your player's habits and tactical sense (or lack thereof). The sorcerer fireballed a group of 3 hobgobs and a hobgob captain, and I was laughing SO HARD inside because it was a small group of 3 CR 1/2s and a CR 3, and because of low damage rolls, only one of them was killed (this group was acting as bait to lure the party into a trap). The party walked right into their trap and got flanked. They ended up diplomacizing the encounter to end it before both sides suffered more losses (none of the PCs died, but they expended more resources than I wanted them to and was glad they decided to end it when they did instead of pressing on, even when they had the upper hand. Hobgoblins aren't dumb, so they accepted the party's terms of surrender).

All that said, here are some general tips that have worked for me in my years of DMing.

- Your players will surprise you. You may have the most epic story of all time, but in the end the players will be the ones tugging at the plot threads. It's very likely they will think of things you haven't, or will fall for things you figured they wouldn't. If WHEN that happens, the most important thing to do is roll with it. Try to get them back on track without letting them know they're off track. I've known DMs who just ended games early because their expected path wasn't followed and they didn't know how to proceed.
- Use what your players give you. Your players may think of solutions you didn't, or act on ideas you never thought of. If you can incorporate those into your story without skipping a beat, it makes everybody's life easier.
- It is NOT DM vs Players. You're all working together for the sake of the game. If the PCs easily defeat something difficult you had planned, DO NOT get upset! The PCs and NPCs are protagonists and antagonists, the players and DM are not (unless that's your table's politics? in which case disregard).
- Play your NPCs (monsters included) the way they should act. Orcs aren't overly smart, so they may fall for silly things that a typical human wouldn't, or they may be too obtuse for PCs using those "fancy words". If you have a leader, like your Shaman, play them smarter and make them stand out, and have them withdraw before they die. Orcs will likely fight to the death, but their spiritual leader may be evacuated by his bodyguard when his HP drop below 50%.
- Know when to hold back. For example, your PCs, due to nothing other than bad rolls, might have nothing left when going to fight the boss. Either the PCs will fail and withdraw, or fail and TPK. You don't want a TPK, so what do you do if they press on? A short rest is a full hour, which they might not have. You may have to fiddle with your encounters to challenge the PCs without making them feel they were set up for failure. On the other hand, sometimes the players just don't have good sense and press on regardless. Be ready to kill them, but also be willing to go easy on them if they realize their errors. Also some players love sacrificing themselves for the party :smalltongue:

I hope what I wrote so far isn't all kinds of gibberish!

[Rivaler]

Thanks A LOT mate! This was all very very helpful and I really appreciate the time you put in the explanation! All in all, I think I have things kinda ready. I think I'll test my players with some patrols, that can be taken advantage of with intelligent use of environment and stealth attacks ( a hound next to a sleeping guard, guards walking on dangerous cliffs... situations you might find in a Hitman game maybe :P ) so both rogues and other less stealthy classes might partecipate, and see how they fare on the tactics side of things. Based on that, I'll decide how to handle other combats and wheter to be more or less aggressive!

Thanks again! :smile:

[Sjappo]

For general GM advice you could roam around for a blog you like. There are a lot of GM's that spew forth lots of quality advice. I like the angry GM (https://theangrygm.com) but I know that's not for everybody. Find one that has a style that speaks to you and read up.

For specific advice ... stealth is very difficult in 5E. Your rogue, druid, ranger will be fine. Your paladin, GW fighter, dwarf cleric will be checking stealth at -1 with disadvantage. You can do sneak missions but can't rely on the PC's making their stealth checks reliably. Silence is an option but it will castrate your casters.

You could try for puzzles.
Like the sneaks sneaks in, and open the portcullis, allowing the tanks to rush in and kill the guards.
Sneaks take out / engage archers / magic users on hard to reach places before the melee guards can be rushed.

Your boss fight seems way to hard. CR4 is monstrous for lvl 1 PC's. Combined with undead orcs and guards and dominated PC's. This will be a massacre. The Demon alone might be doable since the PC's have the action economy on their side, especially with such a large group. But their resources will be depleted from earlier fights.
I would start with the shaman alone. As soon as he gets down to half HP transform with a push-back effect. At that point I would have a feel for the combat an could let reinforcement arrive if necessary.

Regarding starting a home brew campaign? Good on you! I started out in AD&D 2e and no budget. Home brew was all we had. Lots of work but lots of fun as well. And the advantage was that,as the DM, you knew so much about the world and the adventure that you would hardly ever be caught out by the players.

[SpikeFightwicky]

Happy to help :smallsmile:

Did you run your session yet? How did it go?

Also, everything Sjappo said is gold (though I've never checked a DM blog so I can't weigh in on that one)!

[Ninja_Prawn]

Angry DM is a wise man. It was reading his articles that actually prompted me to start DMing.

I'd also second Sjappo's statements about encounter challenge. The enemies you describe in the original post are significantly beyond what a level 1 party could hope to beat. You'll have to either tone them down, or start the PCs at a higher level.

In terms of other advice, avoid creating puzzles or encounters where there is only one right solution (e.g. "you were supposed to use the scroll of silence there"). Your players will fail to realise that they've got the key to the lock in their hands, and they will be disappointed if you don't let them use their own ideas instead.

Don't make story progress contingent on a PC succeeding on a skill check (especially stealth, perception or investigation). They will fail it, and then you'll be stuck.

If you want stats for an orc/giant hybrid, I'd suggest an ogre or half-ogre would be the closest to that. But again, anything above CR 1 is going to be very dangerous for level 1 PCs. Especially with such a large group, you want to lean towards larger groups of weaker monsters, to even out the action economy. That's why there are so many monsters in the book with CRs less than 1! They should be your staple mooks for the first few levels.