Finally hosting “first” game

[FTG82]

Hey oh! So I’m a sorta lurker on this website with a few posts. And I’ve begun to DM. And I’ve got a group together for a game! Yay!!!! And I’ve got to come up with a way to make their individual likes/play styles pop. So I thought why not a custom suit of armor and matching weapons? I’m sorta new to 5E (3.5 is where I’ve spent most of my time) but the players are new to rp games in General and wanted to try 5E so I said I’ll learn it. We’ve got a long while until they even start to get their armor and stuff but I figured I’d start slowly designing it so I don’t gotta do 100% of the work the day before I give it to them lol. So far here’s the characters.

Druid (noob) - loves foxes will most likely be using the fox wild shape. I wanna make a set of equipment that not only buffs her fox wild shape to keep up with the CR, but also give her a small group of buffed foxes, and let her feel more fox like out of wild shape. She likes the idea of claws for weapons

Wizard (experiences player newish to 5E) - this player has played with me in a lot of 3.5 games and is helping me tackle my first big game of Dnd. And I wanted to say thank you a little bit. He choose wizard (I was hoping he’d choose artificer but it’s up to him) and irl he loves the idea of cyborgs and robots. So I wanted a way to kind of transform him into a cyborgish character that focuses on electricity and the like.

Monk/Barbarian(Newish player to dnd but has played 5E the most) - this one is a little bit more complicated as I’ve yet to know their direction fully. I’ll be updating this regularly

Unknown (noob) - has not answer beyond the given of schedule. Will update regularly.

The campaign setting is something I saw in a video and thought it’d be cool. Dnd has crept into the real world. Things are crazy and chaotic and not completely right. The players were going to start playing dnd with me when all of sudden I disappeared and they transformed into their classes. It’ll be a fairly easy going campaign that is expected to have mistakes. Their job is to find out how to stop dnd from coming into this world while fighting rogue characters, monsters spilling out of dnd books, and helping me control the world with my new found “dm” powers. They’ll go on the quest and I’ll give them rewards as I fix the fabric or reality. (Not looking for recommendations for the campaign just for help in their unique armor and weapons)

[JNAProductions]

No real advice on the gear, but just want to say good luck! Hope you and your players have a blast!

[Rhyltran]

Confused is this a 5e game or 3.5? Maybe it's early in the morning but the opening post confused me. This is the 3.5 section so if it's 5E you would get better advice there.

[JNAProductions]

Confused is this a 5e game or 3.5? Maybe it's early in the morning but the opening post confused me. This is the 3.5 section so if it's 5E you would get better advice there.

Oh wow, I didn't even notice that. Yeah-OP, if this is meant for the 5E section, I can both give better advice and you can report your own post and ask for it to be moved.

[FTG82]

Lol uhhhh yeah sorry so used to posting in 3.5 that I made a 5E post there lol how do I report this to be moved?

[JNAProductions]

Lol uhhhh yeah sorry so used to posting in 3.5 that I made a 5E post there lol how do I report this to be moved?

That little triangle in the bottom left is how you report. I just did it (saying "Wrong subforum-should be 5E") but you can do it yourself as well.

[Lupine]

Welcome, newcomer, to the 5e board. I’m away from book right now, so I can’t look for any DMG items, but I can advise on what would make a good item.

For the druid. Great idea with the foxes (assuming the character is a fox lover, and not the player). You may consider an item that casts the “flock of familiars” spell, summoning only fox familiars. You could also stat out claw gauntlets, like the ones in skyrim.

For the Wizard, anything that aids their constitution, AC, or spell slots will be appreciated.

For the monk/Barbarian, definitely the boots of striding and springing. The character will probably be running monk for stunning strikes, but that will help their speed. The boots of striding and springing triples jump, which is str based (meaning the barb will help the jump), and step of the wind gives the extra speed for those super long jumps. The monk at my table makes 30 foot jumps regularly. Super fun, as monk benefits from mobility greatly.

[Lupine]

Also, totally forgot this, but it’s long enough to be its own post.

Edge away from giving them a ton of magic items. 5e is designed around the idea that players get their first permanent magic items around 5th level (which is when monsters start having resistance to nonmagical damage.) The designers state that 5e can be played entirely without magic items, and to an extent, they are right, insomuch as the spellcasters are willing to use magic to enhance their friend’s weapons.

That’s a big difference of 5e. Magic items are rare.

Oh, and be careful before nerfing anything. Many classes are designed around high damage potential in their attacks. The rogue’s sneak attack, for instance, does a lot of damage, but only on one attack, meaning that the rogue is very likely to deal no damage. As a result, the sneak attack damage in crucial to balancing the rogue’s damage. In fact, without sneak attack, the rogue isn’t really worth playing.

[FTG82]

Not really going to nerf anything. And the magic items aren’t going to players who’ll min max them. Then Druids will be going towards their fox stuff and she won’t min max it to where I regret it because she’s more role playing like. I wanna reward the players for going non-optimized builds by making them survivable/fun/have the rule of cool.

[Zhorn]

A big suggestion I would go for is rather than just hand out the custom items, give then some personal quests and story threads to pursue, and reward the magic items at the completion of those quests a few sessions down the road. Give them a sense of what play is like WITHOUT the custom gear first. Two key reasons:
Sense of progress. Going from 'without' to 'with' will give a greater sense to the player on what those items actually do for their characters.
Developed play styles. You may have an idea of what those players will go for, but once play starts players will get a greater sense of what they actually enjoy and what prior ideas they abandon.

The first point is just as much for your own benefit as it is for your players. If you are new to DMing 5e you'll learn more about power scaling and the action economy without magic items warping your perception of who can handle what.

The second point I've had direct experience with in my first time DMing, the players gave me indications in their backstories and pre-game discussions on what they were imagining their characters as:
Rogue as an Arya Stark styled rapier user
Ranger as a TWF Drizzt clone
Monk as a staff-using acrobat
Druid as a back-line caster
Paladin as a sword'n'board protector

Fast forward 5 sessions...
Rogue is specialising in thrown daggers
Ranger is a longbow sniper
Monk is running about with an oversized redcap scythe
Druid is a front-line tank in crab form
Paladin has swapped to a 2h great axe

[FTG82]

Thanks for the idea! And of course I’m going to have them work to get their items. Well except the first one. That’s on going to be handed to them. Just degraded a whole lot. I wanna see if they’ll keep the item and grow with it or throw it out.