General advice for a first time DM.

[Reprimand]

I really want to run a game for the first time and I've played as a player for quite a few years in dnd 3.5 edition and pathfinder but find the process of DMing and creating contant to still be a little daunting.
Things I want to enlist the playground for: Advice for creating multiple encounter that won't overpower the party collectively. how many weak encounters how many chllanging how many deadly? etc.
Ideas / resources for general plot or hooks.
How does one go about making a brand new dungeon?
A big one is how to go about mapping things or creating areas. At what point am i working myself too hard on things that don't really matter etc?
How should i handle town compositions etc. I'd be pretty comfortable with just mapping important areas and encounters and fluffing the coversation with a merchant or would mapping out such an area be important?
Do you map entire towns or just general these are all the key parts of town inn, mayor's house, temple etc?

Party is 3 PCs mostly new players with 1 or 2 campaigns under their belt.
I'm using Roll20 to map out stuff and I'm very inexperienced with the UI.

[False God]

I really want to run a game for the first time and I've played as a player for quite a few years in dnd 3.5 edition and pathfinder but find the process of DMing and creating contant to still be a little daunting.
Things I want to enlist the playground for: Advice for creating multiple encounter that won't overpower the party collectively. how many weak encounters how many chllanging how many deadly? etc.
The CR of most monsters is a good guideline for this. If your party is level 1, then four 1/4th CR monsters is supposed to be an "appropriate" challenge. I would always suggest aiming low and not playing your monsters too tactically for the first couple encounters, to get an idea of how good your players are. A coordinated party can punch up pretty well, as can a coordinated enemy force. Always keep in mind that number of turns is a huge factor in encounters. If they party is vastly outnumbered by their enemies, or vastly outnumbers them, things will swing in favor of whoever gets more turns.


Ideas / resources for general plot or hooks.
Nothing wrong with the good old starting in an inn and hearing some rumors/seeing some job postings about "trouble in the hills" and boom, dungeon.


How does one go about making a brand new dungeon?
A big one is how to go about mapping things or creating areas. At what point am i working myself too hard on things that don't really matter etc?
How should i handle town compositions etc. I'd be pretty comfortable with just mapping important areas and encounters and fluffing the coversation with a merchant or would mapping out such an area be important?

I LOVE this website: Random Dungeon Generator (https://donjon.bin.sh/d20/dungeon/), it will detail in all the stuff that your dungeon needs. You just need to look up the monster stat blocks (which are like, 99% from the d20 srd).


Do you map entire towns or just general these are all the key parts of town inn, mayor's house, temple etc?
The website even has other sections for random town generation (https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/town/)!



Party is 3 PCs mostly new players with 1 or 2 campaigns under their belt.
Given its 3.5, I might offer some NPC "hirelings" to fill out the party if the group doesn't cover party composition much. Or not.


I'm using Roll20 to map out stuff and I'm very inexperienced with the UI.
I have absolutely no experience with Roll20. Sorry.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Reprimand
I really want to run a game for the first time and I've played as a player for quite a few years in dnd 3.5 edition and pathfinder but find the process of DMing and creating contant to still be a little daunting.

If this will be your very first time as a DM, I would strongly recommend starting with a published module. That will give you the basic experience with running encounters, working through a storyline, etc. without having to create to the storyline from scratch and worrying about whether the encounters are balanced.

If your players are relatively new, all the better, since newer players usually go for basic builds and concepts (not always, but usually) which is what most published modules are designed for. I would recommend starting at very low levels, to give you experience working with the system without too much complexity complicating the learning process.

Do you want to run a basic dungeon crawl, something with a little plot, or something that leans more on intrigue and social interactions? Are you using 3.5, Pathfinder, or a blend of the two? And have your players given you any insight on what kind of game they’d be interested in?

[Reprimand]

I have run a module before though I was converting it from 1e on the fly but I had someone helping so it wasn't terrible though I did have to nerf down an encounter of like 16 shadows or somethign crazy and gave the touch attack a fort save to make it more fair that was crazy though.

A basic dungeon crawl would be great to look over though I was kind of basing my adventure off of the town fair that served as a tutorial in never winter nights 2
A coming of age festival for younger members of the village to prove their worth and show off they're talents. I recall there being a town mage and cleric. So I would start everyone off having been from the town and working together to overcome these trials like, Trial of Guile having to steal a handkerchief from a village elder for example. Trial of Strength would be like a brawl against other teams made up of npcs with padded clubs. and so on to serve as a way for players to RP and learn mechanics without the pressure of combat or life and death stuff for session 1-2

Winning the contest would give them some very minor magical trinkets like casting a cantrip once a day or something or like a trophy the can sell.

I was going to plan an attack on the village the following night to introduce players to real combat and both defending and later launching an attack on an enemy lair.

Edit: I suppose my biggest issue is I kind of want to learn a bunch of things to take down some of the burden of book-keeping. Such as like advice for NPC templates or like rules of thumb to not overwork myself as a DM.
Anything on resources for randomly generated treasure like in MIC. How can I build a random event table that won't be overly punishing? little things for being more efficient in dming so I don't slow down the pace of the game.

[Zarrgon]

Edit: I suppose my biggest issue is I kind of want to learn a bunch of things to take down some of the burden of book-keeping. Such as like advice for NPC templates or like rules of thumb to not overwork myself as a DM.
Anything on resources for randomly generated treasure like in MIC. How can I build a random event table that won't be overly punishing? little things for being more efficient in dming so I don't slow down the pace of the game.

There is not much you can do about burden of book-keeping, as a DM that is a big part of the job. You have to keep track of everything.

NPC stat blocks are easy to find. Just about any source book has at least a couple. A good place to look is Dungeon Magazine or any Adventure.

The Wizards of the Coast article archive: http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/features[/QUOTE] is full of things like adventures, NPC stats and tons of other things.

The best random event table is to just pick one and make it up out of the blue.

[Endarire]

Something you'll learn in time, but preferably good to do early, is to determine how charitable you want to be regarding mistakes and undos. For example, if a player is seriously considering doing something foolish (like jumping off a cliff or attacking something that's out of their league) or they say they're about to do something but realize midway through their intent that doing so would be impossible/illegal/unwise, how often will you allow them to pick different actions? This is most notable for new players who don't know the system so they get a feel for options without feeling overly punished. My style for years was to be charitable. I also rolled openly so everyone knew I wasn't changing die rolls to suit someone.

How rules-focused will you be? D&D 3.x is a rules-heavy system with probably a million pages of officially-printed rules counting magazines, books, and web articles. There's a lot to learn and you'll learn what's most pertinent to your game through use.

How open to new content do you want to be? Some GMs have a very small list of allowed material, while others like me have had a much more open approach. (If it's official, I'll likely allow it. I've already homebrewed certain changes for certain troublesome content.)

How strict will you be with the RAW (Rules As Written)? Some GMs prefer 'Rule of Cool,' meaning if it seems interesting enough, it's allowed - at least this time.

What do you do if players miss a session or more? Does the game still happen? What happens to the characters of the absent players: Who plays them? Do you cancel sessions?

What do you want from the game as GM? You're doing a significant amount of the work for world building, scenario creation, and managing the team.

Remember, you're new and you'll learn. Your group should understand this, and each of you should be patient with each other.

The Handbook of Heroes Comic (https://www.handbookofheroes.com/) focuses on D&D 3.x and Pathfinder 1e as well as various in-game and out-of-game matters related to tabletop gaming.

[RNightstalker]

If this will be your very first time as a DM, I would strongly recommend starting with a published module. That will give you the basic experience with running encounters, working through a storyline, etc. without having to create to the storyline from scratch and worrying about whether the encounters are balanced.

I second this motion. There are plenty of them out there with a fair amount of variety.
I'll also add:
1. Have fun. If you ain't having fun, you're wasting your time.
2. You're human. You'll make mistakes. I wish we could all be more accepting of that, regardless of the setting. Mistakes can be fun.
3. Be willing to house-rule. Not every group is going to want to track their weight and trivial expenditures or deal with a bad game mechanic like grappling. That can be turned into fun.
4. D&D is a game, and games are supposed to be fun, in case I haven't mentioned it before. So HAVE FUN!
5. Be yourself. Find out what your strengths are and play to those. Another DM may be great at something you're not, and that's ok. You don't have to do something as a DM just because another DM did it.
6. Last but not least, try to have a little fun.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Endarire
Remember, you're new and you'll learn. Your group should understand this, and each of you should be patient with each other.


Originally Posted by RNightstalker
You're human. You'll make mistakes.

To build on these comments, when you do make a mistake—and you will—own it up front, rather than trying to act as if you’re all-knowing. I’ve seen inexperienced DMs twist themselves into knots trying to justify a mistaken reading of the rules, and that only makes things worse.

It’s tempting to try to set yourself up as the ultimate voice of authority, and to a degree that’s your role, since you have the final call on rules and their effects in the game. But administering the game world doesn’t equate to absolute infalliability on a personal level. I’ve seen new DMs try to pull that off, and it only weakens the trust between players and DM. You need to build that trust, so be willing to admit when you’ve missed a key point in the rules.

If this feels like it needs to be a do-over, then by all means run the clock back a little bit. I’ve seen characters that were fried and torn apart suddenly spring back to life because the DM was willing to admit he’d overlooked something during a combat round. Just be sure that you’re consistently adhering to the rules, and not allowing pushy or argumentative players to badger you into giving their characters a lifetime pass on deadly consequences.


Originally Posted by Endarire
For example, if a player is seriously considering doing something foolish (like jumping off a cliff or attacking something that's out of their league)….

One special case of this situation is when the player is absent and other players are running the character as a group effort. Most people would advise against that, and I would strongly agree with that advice, because I’ve seen this go very, very wrong.

In my first 3.5 group, one of the players was absent one night and the rest of the group was collectively controlling his character. This quickly led to disastrous consequences, since several members of the group wanted his character to charge across a rope bridge that was being hacked apart by troglodytes on the other site. Although a couple of us voiced doubts, the noisy majority insisted the character would charge across, and the bridge gave way when he was almost to the other side. We later found his broken body two hundred feet further down.

That’s a case where the DM should have put a stop to the group control of someone else’s character. He was too inexperienced to get ahead of the situation that time (owing to some loud and pushy players) but after that he made sure that he ran a character if the relevant player couldn’t make it. This is the sort of thing that sometimes happens, and it can be really unfortunate when it does, but the DM learned from the mistake and never let it happen again.

[Bucky]

The CR of most monsters is a good guideline for this. If your party is level 1, then four 1/4th CR monsters is supposed to be an "appropriate" challenge.

CR = party level is for routine encounters, and aren't supposed to seriously challenge the party by themselves. Rather, the party faces several in a row, without a night's rest in the middle. If the party's in no shape to fight, you or the party can often decide to call it a night early.

If they're fully healed and freshly rested, they should be able to take on a CR one or two higher.

[Reprimand]

Hello again I don't always have as much time to reply to these threads as I used to so I remembered I bookmarked this thread and just got back to it.

@palanan "To build on these comments, when you do make a mistake—and you will—own it up front, rather than trying to act as if you’re all-knowing. I’ve seen inexperienced DMs twist themselves into knots trying to justify a mistaken reading of the rules, and that only makes things worse."
Generally the rule of thumb for our group is if I make an error we'll play it out that way whether or works to players benefit or monsters. The few exceptions I would make would be in scenarios were something happens at the start of combat and I misread a spell or ability in a way that would have resolved in a TPK or something crazy like that. So there's been situations in the group where the current DM encounters some simple math errors so the PC ended up living an attack that would have otherwise killed. Usually we make a joke out of it like calling a character Schrodinger's (character name) because they are both dead and alive at the same time or a timeline split where the character died horribly and they party got "lucky" they just ended up in the surviving timeline.

@Endarire all super solid things to keep in mind. I'm probably open to some homebrew if the player can kind of give me an idea of what they want to accomplish. such as: I want to be a sneaky divine caster but I don't like the options in the books I might make a different base class or a PRC suited toward that sort of thing.

Generally I don't want to learn a bunch of subsystems so even though i like psionics and all that it's often too many moving parts to keep track of at once so I might restrict them or make them rare in the setting.

@Zarrgon thanks for this resource

@False God Fair point I guess classics are popular for a reason I don't need to reinvent the wheel. WOW donjon is kind of nuts! that's a huge game changer and I might just switch up some encounters here and there. Traps were always a huge pain to place as well so I like this a lot. Town generator is perfect too. and ya I figured I might throw in an npc of the zipped lips and morally flexible variety to fill in the gaps.

Currently my goal is to run a 1-2 session homemade mini module of my own design and move the party into the prefab of the sunless citadel. followed by either a few more precons or homemade adventures until the party is level appropriate for Expedition to Castle Ravenloft.

Right now I'm really bearing down on the mini module. I have a good dungeon from donjon and I swapped a few things to make it more thematic for a low level underdark dungeon.

The mini adventure consists of 3 parts so far all the party is currently from the area of or passing through the town of south haven. A small but prosperous farming community created by retired adventurers consisting of An elven Ranger Woodcutter, Halfling Rogue Mayor, Dwarven Artificer Smithy, Human Cleric Acolyte that can teach the basics of attuning one's self to the powers of a deity and Half-elf Wizard Mage.
I would be starting the party off in some NPC classes and the goal of the first part is to compete as a team against other teams of would-be adventurers in various contests of skill.

No one has any idea these npcs are the actual adventurers that started the town who's legend far outstrips their actual abilities. In reality most of the adventurers are like 5th or 6th level in they're respective classes it's just the stories of them got so blown out of proportion everyone assumes these guys are crazy powerful and decked out in magical gear and doesn't recognize the npcs as who they really are.

The party has turned up right around the time of the High Harvest Festival which the town also holds trials for the selection of new trainees for this super cool group of adventurers. The rivals groups aren't exactly playing fair though. So the PCs will either needs to stick to their guns playing fair or cheat back. The reward for winning is some minor magical trinkets and "classing up" to actual PC classes. The NPCs pointing out that they already had significant talent they just need to push themselves to the limit because that's what it means to be an adventurer. Probably in game continuing to mentor them for a few weeks until a bunch of creatures try to raid the town one night. Leading to part 2 and 3 of the adventure.

Defending the town and taking the fight to the creatures after (which is what the dungeon I made is for)

Any help I can get coming up with some sample trials and ways players / npcs could subvert these would be awesome.
Sample Npc Teams ideas would also be appreciated.

Thanks again for all the help!

[Fizban]

I was searching up old threads for a different thread last night- here's my a "CR Handbook" thread link (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?495202-CR-Handbook) in which I made two large posts on the subject (old thread is old, don't necro it). Yes, it sounds like I'm telling you to do a ton of extra work, but it's really not (it just takes a lot of words to explain in detail). You have the character sheets, you have the enemy stats, if you can't figure out how well the party can fight them then how would you expect to run the fight?

My second piece of advice is that low level NPCs are not monsters. The CR system broadly works, once you're fighting monsters, but at low levels you've only got two things: pest control, and humanoids. But no one actually wants to spend 13 fights clearing out rats and spiders. And the problem is that humanoids such as kobolds, goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs (and zombies or skeletons based on them), do not have consistent CRs. How dangerous is a person with a knife? How dangerous is the same person with a sword, or greatsword for 2-3 times the damage, and +4 AC so they get hit half as often? The "formula" CR is the same, even though one is obviously more powerful. If you're running a pre-made adventure, pay close attention to what the humanoid foes are using, because while the number of foes will probably make for an appropriate EL, their actual abilities may make them far more dangerous.

Furthermore, Orcs are treated the same as humans or even halflings, despite having +2 attack and +2 or +3 damage: a single orc deals twice as much damage with half the health of a wolf, but supposedly is only half as dangerous.

What it all adds up to is that there really aren't any 1st level modules I can recommend, because they're all terrible. The Sunless Citadel has a gank squad (rats ambush the first party member down the rope), and arbitrary mechanics (this ledge is safe as long as you don't run, oh look you got attacked guess you fall off now, hey hope you didn't actually want to save any of the people you came to rescue, etc) and kobolds with full damage crossbows- if you update the monsters to 3.5 MM versions, it'll fix the kobolds, but break the skeletons: the thing just doesn't work without tinkering. The sample adventure in the Eberron Campaign Setting book is pretty cool, has humanoids with knives instead of full gear early on, but it still ends with far overleveled foes. A Dark and Stormy Knight, a 1st level (previously) free web adventure? A group of rats made far more dangerous by their number, plus hobs and spiders, and ends with a zombie I'd expect to be a single encounter day on its own. And on and on it goes.

The best idea I've been able to come up with is that the 1st level adventure needs to be caravan guard duty. This allows you to use an excitingly large number of humanoid enemies without actually murdering the party, because the PCs are only fighting part of the enemy. This can continue for a few fights so they can build up xp and learn how to keep watch. Then you can at some point have some goods or people stolen, and the PCs (who having PC stats and PC classes are still better than the guards on an individual level) are sent to the "mini dungeon" to rescue them, where they can fight some pests wandering through side tunnels, deal with a trap, find a secret door, and fight an actual CR 1 monster (possibly with one or two CR 1/3 or 1/4 flunkies) as the boss, without having become bored to tears with CR 1 monsters before then.

Which is basically the same thing as the "defending the town" plot, except when the action happens at the town, there's no reason for the town's higher level NPCs not to do the chase. They could be off following another trail, but if it's the wrong trail they look incompetent, and if they're on the main trail then the PCs are still playing second fiddle.

I don't really have any suggestions for the classic "town fair competition." Anything other than full party dungeon combat won't actually be a fair judge of the party's abilities, and having them compete as NPC classes before 1st level PC class doesn't really do anything*. This extends to basically any sort of festival activity- either they're throwing d20s vs other d20s, in which case their choices make almost zero difference and it takes dozens of rolls to show that one person is actually better, or the choices they make outside of the dice rolling have to completely overwhelm the rolls. It's a solid tutorial/showing off zone for a video game, but I don't think it works for tabletop.

*And there really isn't some zen difference between an NPC with talent and a PC. PC classes represent years of training and resources spent, from a point where the person was young enough they didn't even have stats. If the PCs are starting as PC classes, they'll have known their relative skill for quite some time. Even if they start as NPC classes, they have their elite ability scores and max hp at 1st level. PHB2's official retraining rules say that changing class levels is on par with changing ability scores, both requiring a blatantly supernatural quest. You can make it a coming of age thing where they start as late teens with the non-elite array and non-maxed hp and make up some sub-1st classes and then after coming of age next season they upgrade to their full stats, but that's a lot of effort and time spent on gameplay that isn't actually their characters yet.

Most people want to get *out* of 1st level as soon as possible, so unless they're really into roleplaying townies, I'd expect this to be more annoying than anything. I understand the intent to get people invested in the NPCs, but if their hometown is small enough that 1st level PCs are required to protect it, then they will quickly outgrow that town and have to move on anyway. At which point that community is pretty much just backstory.

[Reprimand]

The trials themselves are more so an opportunity for RP and the characters to get a feel for each other. The NPC teams aren't exactly the type of people the founder's are interested in teaching anyway because typical hotheaded traits or unwillingness to help others. Also these same teams are the type to blow off the founders as not possibly being the heroes they had heard about. The trials aren't pass or fail they're designed to see how the groups react and tackle situations which is useful for me the DM as a bonus. I suppose I shouldn't lock PCs into NPC classes (Though I'm a huge fan of grit as is the party we've played call of Cthulhu on occasion!) but rather make a small reward for being able to complete the trials themselves that wouldn't be greatly missed in the grand scheme of things as a bonus.

The goal of the town defense and dungeon crawl itself is more to retrieve an object left by a party member because they didn't want it near the town. The town was attacked seeking this item (A shard of a powerful magic item which I'd planned eventually use a plothook later.). Wanted by an antagonist. My reasoning for having the founders not attack was because their primary concern is protecting the town. And them leaving town may draw more attention to the actual location of item. The antagonist also doesn't know the actual location of the item and has no ability to magically locate it. And tracking the item down to the town has been a few months of research. The PCs would then be tasked with taking the item to a city in which the last member of the founder's party resides to take the shard for safe keeping.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Reprimand
The trials themselves are more so an opportunity for RP and the characters to get a feel for each other.

Well, you know your group better than we do, but as a player I would be a little disappointed in this. My preference would be to jump straight into the mission—or better yet, give the players a couple of starting encounters which are in deadly earnest, but scaled for first-level characters. This will give them a taste of real action right from the start, and will also serve to bring them to the attention of the slightly-higher-level former adventurers.


Originally Posted by Reprimand
Also these same teams are the type to blow off the founders as not possibly being the heroes they had heard about. The trials aren't pass or fail they're designed to see how the groups react and tackle situations which is useful for me the DM as a bonus.

It sounds like the founders already have a sense of who would and wouldn’t be the best for what they have in mind, so the trials aren’t really necessary, in-game or out-of-game.


Originally Posted by Reprimand
I suppose I shouldn't lock PCs into NPC classes….

I wouldn’t start them with NPC classes. If you want gritty, the relative fragility of first-level PCs will supply that element naturally. Converting from NPC to PC classes will just be more hassle and paperwork, so better to start them off as first-level PCs.


Originally Posted by Fizban
*Sunless Citadel issues*

I feel like the OP should hear a different perspective on Sunless Citadel.

This was the first module that my first 3.5 group played through, and we had a blast. Our DM was naive and inexperienced, but he still did a great job overall and we all learned the system together.

Countless groups have played Sunless Citadel as their first 3.0/3.5 module, and I’d say most of those groups had an experience similar to mine. It’s easy to criticize with twenty years’ hindsight on the system, but the fact is the module can and has been played successfully by novice groups

Is it perfect? Of course not, but that’s an impossible standard, and I haven’t seen anyone put forth a perfect alternative. Can the experience be skewed by designing characters above the module’s expectations? Of course it can, but again that holds true for just about anything out there.

So despite the criticism from some quarters, I would strongly recommend giving Sunless Citadel a look. If for whatever reason it just doesn’t appeal, then the first chapters of many Pathfinder APs might also be worth reading for ideas and encounter design.

[King of Nowhere]

I really want to run a game for the first time and I've played as a player for quite a few years in dnd 3.5 edition and pathfinder but find the process of DMing and creating contant to still be a little daunting.
Things I want to enlist the playground for: Advice for creating multiple encounter that won't overpower the party collectively. how many weak encounters how many chllanging how many deadly? etc.

go for trial and error. start low. if the party breezes through your encounters, increase difficulty. stop when difficulty is right.

CR and other factors are poor guidelines. too dependent on the party. a well optimized party, with high stats and high wealth, will easily face stuff that should be 4 levels above them.
an unoptimized party with low magic may have problems with a single level-appropriate challenge.




Ideas / resources for general plot or hooks.
How does one go about making a brand new dungeon?
A big one is how to go about mapping things or creating areas.

personally, i started the worldbuilding from high, from considering the world in general, and what dynamics i want to have in it. plot hooks spread from that. i decided there is a specific conflict, i thing of a plot hook related to it.
as for a dungeon, i think of what would be the purpose of the dungeon, and map accordingly.


At what point am i working myself too hard on things that don't really matter etc?

only you can tell. working on things that don't really matter will often help you understand your world better, and so it will help you find plot hooks (see point above). then again, if you never end up using some stuff you do or profiting from it, that's for you to determine.


How should i handle town compositions etc. I'd be pretty comfortable with just mapping important areas and encounters and fluffing the coversation with a merchant or would mapping out such an area be important?

town composition stems from worldbuilding. if you don't have any specific plan, there are random generators, but really, it's better if you can immerse the town into the world.
as for fluffing a conversation with a merchant, depends on the party. some players enjoy that, some players find it tiresome. find a balance for your table.

The most important general advice I can give you is this:

there is no right way to play with this game. there are some wrong ways, but less than most people think. Don't be afraid to explore. Don't be afraid to try things.
Find out what works for your table. Take all internet advice with a bit of salt, because your table is not the internet.
reach an equilibrium. find your own style.

for this very reason, i'd go against some people's advice here and tell you to not start with a module. or perhaps keep the backbone of it, but adapt it to your style. you have to discover your style, and setting a rails for yourself goes in the wrong direction.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by King of Nowhere
there is no right way to play with this game. there are some wrong ways, but less than most people think. Don't be afraid to explore. Don't be afraid to try things.
Find out what works for your table. Take all internet advice with a bit of salt, because your table is not the internet.

This is excellent advice.


Originally Posted by King of Nowhere
for this very reason, i'd go against some people's advice here and tell you to not start with a module. or perhaps keep the backbone of it, but adapt it to your style.

The OP does have some experience running sessions before, and my advice about starting with a module was intended for someone without prior DM experience.

That said, I agree about keeping the backbone but adapting it where the OP sees fit, which is what most of us do to one degree or another. I still believe the OP would do well to start with a few encounters from a module, on the low end, to get a feel for the party’s capabilities. Apart from modules already mentioned, there are some short free modules that should still be available on the Wizards archive page, and those should have some helpful low-level encounters.

If the OP would rather create something from scratch, I personally feel that a couple of encounters with forest fey in the woods near town would be great as starting encounters, since the fey don’t need to be trying to kill the party—although they might summon something which would. The fey could be tied into the shard that the OP has greater plans for, or they might be trying to steal it for some other purpose, or they might have another objective altogether. But either way, that could serve as an introductory mini-adventure to bring the party to the founders’ attention.

.

[King of Nowhere]

That said, I agree about keeping the backbone but adapting it where the OP sees fit, which is what most of us do to one degree or another. I still believe the OP would do well to start with a few encounters from a module, on the low end, to get a feel for the party’s capabilities.

But either way, that could serve as an introductory mini-adventure to bring the party to the founders’ attention.


yes, that would also be a possible approach: start from a small adventure and build up from it. they call it the bottom-up approach.
i prefer to go top-down because i always tend to think of the large scale, but again, that's part of one's personal style.

[Fizban]

The trials aren't pass or fail they're designed to see how the groups react and tackle situations which is useful for me the DM as a bonus.
They might react differently when things aren't a controlled and safe environment, but that contrast itself is also worth exploring.

I suppose I shouldn't lock PCs into NPC classes (Though I'm a huge fan of grit as is the party we've played call of Cthulhu on occasion!) but rather make a small reward for being able to complete the trials themselves that wouldn't be greatly missed in the grand scheme of things as a bonus.
Low-level grit is doable, I just don't presume it as the default. I agree that a small reward would work.

The goal of the town defense and dungeon crawl itself is more to retrieve an object left by a party member because they didn't want it near the town. The town was attacked seeking this item (A shard of a powerful magic item which I'd planned eventually use a plothook later.). Wanted by an antagonist. My reasoning for having the founders not attack was because their primary concern is protecting the town. And them leaving town may draw more attention to the actual location of item. The antagonist also doesn't know the actual location of the item and has no ability to magically locate it. And tracking the item down to the town has been a few months of research. The PCs would then be tasked with taking the item to a city in which the last member of the founder's party resides to take the shard for safe keeping.
If the town's small enough/wounded enough that there are few normal guards left, I could see the elites staying behind with almost literally no one else (an alert group of warriors should be able to hold against low-level threats just fine, but if you only had a few and they're all wounded. . . ). So yeah that all works.


I feel like the OP should hear a different perspective on Sunless Citadel.
That's fair. I never got around to reading it until after noticing that the first 5e module was ignoring their own (even more detailed) encounter building guidelines in 5e (which got me into the idea of auditing modules), and then there was a thread on killer modules, which even had people mentioning Sunless Citadel. In considering it for my own possible use, I've found that Sunless just has a fistful of annoying problems- playable, but rough around the edges. Not nearly as bad as say, The Sinister Spire- where every encounter is above the party's level, with terrain advantages, and some are just under CR'd because they botched the advancement rules. With some awareness the pitfalls should be avoidable, and I do agree that there's not much else and what there is is potentially worse.

[Reprimand]

Everyone has been a great help so far and I'm almost done with the dungeon crawl map + Writing NPCs (Though statting and skill checks challenges and such will be a different story LOL)

Right now I need plenty of suggestions for weird and freaky low level plants / aberrations / fey / vermin for and underdark themed dungeon. Trying to aim for CR 1/8 - 1/2 creatures a few CR1s or 2 won't hurts to have on the backburner though.


So far I've come up with Violet fungus, Shriekers, Dark Mantles, Boggles, Giant Frogs from cave pools, Topiary guardian roots, Ethereal Filchers, a monstrous spider or two, Yellow Musk Creeper for sure, Mephits aren't too bad at lower levels I think.

Plus the subterranean usual suspects of Kobolds, Gobs, Hobs, and Trogs and maybe a single duergar

[Endarire]

What about Drow with no 1 class level at most, like an escaped slave? Chokers?

[Reprimand]

What about Drow with no 1 class level at most, like an escaped slave? Chokers?
I only hadn't mentioned drow because they seemed like the obvious picks. And humanoid encounters are bland I need to really take advantage of just how alien the underdark can be.
I had considered chokers but they seemed a bit strong for a low level party.

[Bucky]

And humanoid encounters are bland I need to really take advantage of just how alien the underdark can be.

Have you considered a half-humanoid encounter, with one weak but intelligent threat trying to use the local vermin (etc.) to its advantage?

[King of Nowhere]

And humanoid encounters are bland

strange. in my experience it's the opposite. most monsters are just dumb brutes, a bunch of hit points with an attack per round. some have some useful skills, they use those skills and then they've got nothing else interesting.
humanoids with class levels can do all sort of things, though. a band of humanoid adventurer opponents can be the pc peers and make for great confrontations.

[vasilidor]

you do not have to play the monsters stupid. sometimes the smartest thing a CR 1 monster can do in the face of an adventuring group is run away. once i had a group of kobolds turn and run because, even though they out-numbered the party 4 to 1 and had difficult terrain to there advantage, the fighter had full plate and great cleave, making him a hard target, and then one character started casting spells. this was a mostly second level group.