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Biotroll
2008-04-13, 02:08 PM
Well, the last group I was member of has fallen apart so I was forced to find a new one. I found few players but the bad thing is, that they have no experience with D&D. They played similar games before but they don't know any rules. I agree to make DM so I can teach them but I don't have too much of experience with DMing. Can you help me a bit?

The party is:
- gnome/bard
- gnome/druid
- dwarf/sorceror
- dwarf/monk
- human/fighter
- half-orc/barbarian
They all start at first level. Only the bard know a bit about rules because he was with me in the group that fell apart, but he was playing with us only for few sesions.

We are playing with 3.0 Core books only. (For now, until they get some rules in head.) I have plan of campaign but I want to know what should I be aware of and so on. I play D&D for three years now (not much I know) so I have some experience but I was player for most time. I read all gaming texts here at giant but still I'm feeling bit unsure. Rather take me as total noob for now ok?

Thanks for your help. :smallwink:

PS: Sorry for any misspells. I'm not so good at english as I would like to be.

Nohwl
2008-04-13, 02:15 PM
the party is full of short people. you might want to add in an npc cleric to heal them, or make them get healing items. i dont think the druid would want to do all of the healing.

Swordguy
2008-04-13, 02:21 PM
See if you can convince the 1/2-orc to take Master of Throwing (or whateer that prestige class is) and specialize in thrown body. He's got, like 4 perfectly good missiles in that party.

I can completely see him grabbing the gnome, winging him towards the foe and having the gnome wildshape into a bear in the middle of flight.

Miles Invictus
2008-04-13, 02:57 PM
See if you can convince the 1/2-orc to take Master of Throwing (or whateer that prestige class is) and specialize in thrown body. He's got, like 4 perfectly good missiles in that party.

I can completely see him grabbing the gnome, winging him towards the foe and having the gnome wildshape into a bear in the middle of flight.

...And then you convince the Sorcerer to pick up Fire Shield, so you're tossing around angry bears on fire.

@Biotroll: Your party has a huge spread in terms of ability. Your druid will walk over everything easily, and your sorcerer can be incredibly powerful if the player learns to optimize. The barbarian and fighter are considered sub-par classes, while the monk is the weakest class in the PHB. You won't notice a huge disparity until you reach mid-levels, but you should be aware of it and plan accordingly.

I suggest including loot that'll specifically help them out -- weapons made of adamantium, silver, cold iron, etc -- and making sensible house rules/rules clarifications. For example, allowing the monk to enhance his or her unarmed strikes with gauntlets.

Squash Monster
2008-04-13, 02:59 PM
At some point somebody's going to try to make the Druid play healer. Playing healer is not fun for most players. Make one of the first treasures they get a wand of lesser vigor, which the Druid can use freely to heal people between fights. Once it runs out of charges, they'll probably think to buy a new one.

Otherwise, it sounds like a fun set of people. The only thing I would watch out for is power balance. Your party in order of power, assuming no intentional optimization:
- gnome/druid
- dwarf/sorceror
- gnome/bard
- half-orc/barbarian
- human/fighter
- dwarf/monk
If everybody optimizes, the bard and fighter both move up a slot.

I would recommend you try to balance them by giving the party different levels of optimization advice. The lower they are on that list, the more help you should give them with building their character. Especially the non-casters.

My recommendations:
monk - switch to unarmed swordsage variant or work towards a lockdown monk (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=953434)
fighter - specialize in either bull rushing (Dungeon Crasher / Shock Trooper) or archery (Rapid Shot, pretty much)
barbarian - I have no idea, sorry

kamikasei
2008-04-13, 03:02 PM
At some point somebody's going to try to make the Druid play healer. Playing healer is not fun for most players. Make one of the first treasures they get a wand of lesser vigor, which the Druid can use freely to heal people between fights. Once it runs out of charges, they'll probably think to buy a new one.

My recommendation here: have the party's treasure split up n+1 ways, where n is the number of people in the party. The +1 is for party loot. Healing items come out of this. Point being, have the party as a whole pay for their healing, don't make the druid burn his WBL on it. There are probably a few other things it'd be good to put under this category, but healing items (aside from potions, perhaps) are the big one.

Wreckingrocc
2008-04-13, 03:08 PM
The party is:
- gnome/bard
- gnome/druid
- dwarf/sorceror
- dwarf/monk
- human/fighter
- half-orc/barbarian

Might wanna tall them: Monks should be fast, so dwarf may not work well. Dwarves should be in heavy armor, and monks don't wear armor.

Dwarven sorcerers take a penalty to Cha, which is the Sorceror casting stat. Might wanna tell him/her to change race.

Gnome druid may be cool. I don't know about 3.0, but in 3.5's Races of the Wild, Halfling druids get some cool variants.

For DMing, overall my suggestion is: Don't railroad, but be prepared. Set up maps for what the enemy is planning overall, but let it be influenced by the party. For example, say they're infiltrating a castle. Set up the original setup of it. If the players are discovered, have the NPCs react normally (I.e. kill the intruders)

xPANCAKEx
2008-04-13, 03:44 PM
just throw some interesting challenges (both combat, puzzle and social) at them, and give them chances for RP and then all the differences in power level will be less significant

after all - DnD is about having fun, not an excercise in stat building and trying to make the most overpowered tooled up character you can

oh dear lord, what have i said? the angry munchkin hoarde are probably already on there way... maybe if i start running now i'll find some decent to hide

Tsotha-lanti
2008-04-13, 03:55 PM
It may sound bizarre if you think the rules- and optimization-oriented posts actually describe how everyone plays all the time, but you can have a perfectly enjoyable game with any class-race combinations from the PHB in the party, especially at lower levels, so long as the party works together as a team.

Squash Monster
2008-04-13, 08:30 PM
It may sound bizarre if you think the rules- and optimization-oriented posts actually describe how everyone plays all the time, but you can have a perfectly enjoyable game with any class-race combinations from the PHB in the party, especially at lower levels, so long as the party works together as a team.It's been my experience that people have more fun if they all feel needed on the team. The reason for optimization, really, is to buff up the characters with weaker classes so all the players have the same amount to work with to solve problems.

FlyMolo
2008-04-13, 08:34 PM
/\ I totally agree.

Monks=optimized, while the casters can just mess about.

Seriously, I've always wanted to play a kender-like wizard. Just blowing stuff up because he can, or whatever. Pyrokineticist?

Miles Invictus
2008-04-13, 08:52 PM
after all - DnD is about having fun, not an excercise in stat building and trying to make the most overpowered tooled up character you can

oh dear lord, what have i said? the angry munchkin hoarde are probably already on there way... maybe if i start running now i'll find some decent to hide


It may sound bizarre if you think the rules- and optimization-oriented posts actually describe how everyone plays all the time, but you can have a perfectly enjoyable game with any class-race combinations from the PHB in the party, especially at lower levels, so long as the party works together as a team.

This thread is for helping a new DM out, not trying to score points in some imaginary "roleplaying vs. powergaming" conflict. Take it elsewhere.

@Biotroll: The more we know about your campaign and your players, the more we'll be able to help. What're you doing? Are you planning on running a premade adventure, or coming up with something of your own?

Raum
2008-04-13, 08:52 PM
We are playing with 3.0 Core books only. (For now, until they get some rules in head.) I have plan of campaign but I want to know what should I be aware of and so on. I play D&D for three years now (not much I know) so I have some experience but I was player for most time. I read all gaming texts here at giant but still I'm feeling bit unsure. Rather take me as total noob for now ok?One thing to be aware of is the number of player characters you'll have in combat. Single opponents won't last long with six characters attacking. Unless the opponent is significantly more powerful than the PCs, in which case the opponent will easily kill one or more PCs in a round or two before dying. A solution is to use more opponents of relatively low power. In other words, use several kobolds or goblins instead of one dire badger.

Beyond that, keep the game moving, involve all the players, and most of all, have fun!

FlyMolo
2008-04-13, 09:32 PM
One thing to be aware of is the number of player characters you'll have in combat. Single opponents won't last long with six characters attacking. Unless the opponent is significantly more powerful than the PCs, in which case the opponent will easily kill one or more PCs in a round or two before dying. A solution is to use more opponents of relatively low power. In other words, use several kobolds or goblins instead of one dire badger.

Beyond that, keep the game moving, involve all the players, and most of all, have fun!
Haha, dire badger. Sorry, they just aren't threatening.

But yeah, with a large group, say 6+ people, just give them "CR appropriate" encounters for a party half their size (4 peeps. The standard) and two monsters of each type. That's how I deal with my 9-player monster party.

Squash Monster
2008-04-13, 10:15 PM
When it comes to handling CR-appropriateness, nothing can beat this thingy:
http://www.penpaperpixel.org/tools/d20encountercalculator.htm

However, realize that the CR system is kinda broken, and almost any monster that's more than 2 above or less than 3 below appropriate for the the party's level is usually a bad idea.

Also take into account the party's abilities. My party, for example, had three swordsages for a while, so they could output gobs of damage and destroy any given monster near their challenge rating quite handily: to challenge them, pairs of monsters were usually the better choice. If your party gets a good tank, add a handful of glass cannon style monsters to fights to challenge him. Don't focus single encounters on single party members, make sure they have to work together. Punctuating dungeons with traps so the rogue can do something is silly, but punctuating fights with them gets exciting.

Remember not to make every encounter be around the party's CR. You should create a rise and fall of intensity to keep the game interesting.


Using random treasure generation usually doesn't work too well: you probably should try to customize their loot somewhat and use wealth by level rules out of the DMG. Personally, what I like to do is give the party enough treasure to bring them to the next level's suggested wealth by level all at once. That way, a good portion of what they find can be specifically useful for specific characters, but they'll still have to sort it all out and won't notice as much. Dragon hoards and enemy parties are great ways to give them this.


A big problem that many DMs face is the problem of whether to force the players along a specific path or to prepare the tons of material needed to allow the players choice. You can get most of the benefits of both with a dirty hybrid method: for one of your first adventures, prepare for every option possible, and make sure to have lots of branches in the dungeons. When the session is over, gather up all the material for paths and options they never used.

Next adventure, just plot out an intended path and map all their other options to old content. The players won't ever know that you're using the same content over and over again, since you only use the content they never ended up seeing. You will, however, have to do little modifications to the old content to keep them up to date: especially updating the CRs of encounters in unused dungeon forks.

Bob the Urgh
2008-04-13, 11:34 PM
I remember that one of the first campaigns i ever did was Castle Greyhawk, and it was with a new dm, lots of fun, kobold nazis

Wooter
2008-04-13, 11:46 PM
I can't think of much, other than healing needs. Drop a couple of wands of Cure Light Wounds so the Druid won't have to use all his/her spell slots keeping the party patched up.

Most importantly, keep it fun for everyone, yourself included. That's the point of the game, right|?

Danzaver
2008-04-14, 10:47 AM
Ok, everyone seems to have given you lots of advice as to how to optimise your party to work well within the numbers. Personally, I think that all that is rubbish, and isn't important to a good game. But, each to their own.

Advice for a new DM, let me think.

Ok, A couple of important things to remember.

Think on your feet. This is the most important skill, and don't worry, it gets easier with time. Practice practice practice. Planning only gets you so far.

You are not bound by the text of the adventure, the rules, or the way anyone else is used to playing. Use this power responsibly. You will find yourself abusing it to get your way quite a few times before you learn how to wield supreme power effectively. But seriously, the rules can slow play down when you want it to go fast, or some things won't seem right to you. In that case, ditch the rules. Change the adventure. Fun first, storytelling second, rules third.

Go for a theme. Your holy grail is an expansive world where everything speaks of local culture.
- I know people who have written more than Tolkien about their fantasy worlds, and are still going. In my opinion, if you write it all down, you will never get to actually play the game. You will be too busy writing about it. Just make it up.
- Don't be afraid to steal from books, movies, or whatever to get your feet. Everyone does it. I am a lover of history and steal so much from historical record with my world that I finally just went "screw it - you're in medieval europe". The moral of that story is to play to your strengths. Go with what you know.
- This is a personal preference, but I really don't like to see a generic dnd world where you can be absolutely anything from any source book. As much as it will be unpopular, to get a theme sometimes you have to restrict options. For my world, the first thing I did was prohibit people from playing half of the races and classes, and then attach certain stigmas to every nonstandard race and class that was left. If you give people too many options it removes everything special about what they pick. Conversely, I have a party of all but one are humans, mostly from the same region, who distrust magic and most foreigners.
Voila! Roleplaying.

But don't forget that it is just a game and the most important thing is that everyone is having fun. Talk to your players, ask them how they enjoyed the game, and what they enjoyed about it. But don't rely on their approval too much, and don't ask them what they would like to see you do differently. If anyone has a real problem. they will tell you, you don't need to prompt them. Listen to them, but remember that you are the boss. Someone once said to me (in regards to a different matter, work related) "They all stabbed you in the back when they voted for you and made you the boss. If they don't like the way you run things, then they should nominate themselves next time and see how they like it on the chopping block". Maybe a bit extreme, but remember three things.
1. It's your show
2. You do it for them as well as for yourself
3. You do it to have fun.

And finally, remember that as DM you are like the president of a company. You have to negotiate, you have to learn conflict resolution, you have to protect everyone's interests, but you have to put the company (or the game) first. You will have to make tough decisions. You will have to be ruthless.
The players are like your employees. You have to make them work for the pay-off, but you also have to make sure that they are looked after (not too well though, or they have no motivation), and are happy to work, and most importantly, are MOTIVATED. Otherwise they will go somewhere else.

Let us know how it all pans out.

DeathQuaker
2008-04-14, 11:36 AM
First, everything that Danzaver said.

Second, to echo specifically, you need to ask your players what they are looking for in a game. Way more than you need to ask us, in fact. They're the ones you're going to be working with on this.

Third, I personally had a lot of trouble managing a 6 person party as a DM in D&D (when 2 people left, I was amazed at how much easier it was to run the game). Which is not to say you should kick out 2 of your players, but keep in mind that a large group can be a handful, and with that in mind:
- keep it simple--don't give them too many choices AT first, or you're going to have sessions of people arguing about what they want to do. With 6 people that's especially an issue.
- try not to let the party split up
- When the party does split up, keep an eye on your watch and don't let one part of the party's scene last more than 5-10 minutes. Keep switching back and forth between people so people don't get frustrated and bored. Of course, you need to find breaking points that are natural, but it's totally okay to say, "AND--the giant rat attacks you! AND, now over to the half of the party shopping for scented candles..."

Fourth: It depends on how you want your story to start, but I HIGHLY recommend having the party know each other before the game begins. Have them work together on how they all met, but have it as a known fact before they begin adventuring.

Fifth, party build looks FINE--that's a group I'd love to run, really--or in fact be a part of as a player. The only thing I would be concerned about are the following:
- If you are putting them in a fairly typical D&D dungeon (which is a good idea for a new GM... I learned the hard way on this), just remember they have no Rogue with trapfinding. So if you're working on something with a ton of traps, either replace some of the traps with different puzzles, or give the party a means to deal with traps in another way (e.g., the traps are set off by pressure plates that anyone can Spot), or perhaps let someone take Trapfinding as a feat).

- If you are truly running 3.0, not 3.5, ignore the comments about worrying the monk is going to be shafted. IIRC, in 3.0, monks had better hit dice and knockdown, which made them very cheesy in certain close combats. He should be fine.

If you ARE running 3.5, then the only thing you need to do about the monk is IF he is feeling useless, which he may well not, make sure you throw some closequarters fights in where he can shine with his abilities once in awhile. The same goes for any character--if they're feeling left out or like they're not contributing, look at what their strengths are and make sure you give them an encounter that will allow those strengths to shine. Not EVERY encounter, but once in awhile.

Danzaver
2008-04-14, 12:51 PM
Fourth: It depends on how you want your story to start, but I HIGHLY recommend having the party know each other before the game begins. Have them work together on how they all met, but have it as a known fact before they begin adventuring.


YES.

I cannot stress this enough either. I have been playing for... ummm... many years, and introducing new characters is still awkward.

To paraphrase from memory a certain Adam Sandler track...

DM: OK, you see an elf. You guys can now talk to each other.
Player 1: Hi
Player 2: Hi
Player 1: I am Gorthag, sorceror of light.

It is uncomfortable, and I have seen veteran players interact just like this when they meet eachother. I am so sick of "Hi, want to adventure with us?"

Encourage them to build up personal relationships between their character before the game. Making them all orphans at the same monastery is a safe bet and a good fallback.

But yeah, I also back up everything Deathquaker said.

P.S. FYI, the best game sessions I have ever had are ones where not a single dice has been rolled. It's a beautiful thing to behold everyone having fun making their characters interact with eachother and the npcs and the plot all at once. After a couple of hours of this, when it comes time to roll a dice, it seems to out of place that I often just decide the result based on storytelling rather than chance. Sometimes you will have gaming sessions, but sometimes, it is good to have real roleplaying sessions.

AKA_Bait
2008-04-14, 01:03 PM
[shameless plug] You might want to check out this guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76474) [/shameless plug] It's not fully done yet but there is still a good amount of useful advice for a new DM I think.

Gaiwecoor
2008-04-14, 01:45 PM
[shameless plug] You might want to check out this guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76474) [/shameless plug]

You know, if you waited another 45 minutes, I would've done the plug for you - then shame wouldn't have been a factor :smalltongue: That's some excellent work, there.

My first time playing D&D was as the DM in 3.0. I found that a lot of the time, it helped to simply think of a decent generic storyline. That way, you can spend time working on the mechanics, rather than wracking your brain for something novel. Of course, I'm not the most creative of people, so maybe that was just my problem. As has been said, your players are there to have fun. Let them! As long as everybody is there with the understanding that the players are new, and the DM might need to look something up from time to time, you can ask the players what they want to do, then help them find the mechanics to do it. This will help you get to know them as characters, as well as secure your confidence as a DM.

On a side note, I still have my 3.0 books, although I recently upgraded to 3.5. If you're interested, PM me, and we might be able to get a second set of books to your players for them to reference. :smallwink:

Biotroll
2008-04-14, 02:13 PM
Thanks for advice. :smallsmile: I will have next session... well... on Wednesday so I will tell you how it ended. (If players will be kind enough and let me live after all :smallbiggrin:)

But I found that almost nobody is willing to roleplay at all. They just sit and wait for some action when they can roll a dice. Only one who roleplay is bard and maybe he roleplays a lot because he's the only one who is speaking all the time. Maybe they are just afraid of me (you haven't see me yet, so you don't know what I mean... umm... nevermind... :smallbiggrin:) or rules. I'm not sure. I will try to make more action for them so they can roll the dice but that don't strike me as solution...

@AKA_Bait: I miss one important thing in your advice I already found. Write a lot of names on some paper. :smalltongue: They tend to ask everyone for their name and it helps a lot to have some already at hand rather than think about one. It just don't look good when I sit and think and they are staring at me like hungry wolves.

Danzaver
2008-04-14, 11:16 PM
But I found that almost nobody is willing to roleplay at all. They just sit and wait for some action when they can roll a dice. Only one who roleplay is bard and maybe he roleplays a lot because he's the only one who is speaking all the time. Maybe they are just afraid of me (you haven't see me yet, so you don't know what I mean... umm... nevermind... :smallbiggrin:) or rules. I'm not sure. I will try to make more action for them so they can roll the dice but that don't strike me as solution...


That's to be expected because as you said, most of your players are new to it. So you have a great opportunity to shape them into whatever type of players you want to play with (to a degree...).
The gaming side is a good staple to get them more confident, but chuck in a roleplaying adventure every now and again or they will just be gamers rather than roleplayers forever.

I remember two pretty good roleplaying adventures that can be downloaded and pretty easily modified to any level.
the First can be downloaded from the Wizards website and is one part of the large 2nd ed classic adventure called "Four From Cormyr" - the adventure itself is called "Murder most foul" or something like that... It's a murder mystery that is a lot of fun to play.
The other is called "Powderkeg" and I can't actually remember where I downloaded it from... Maybe the wizards website as well. Not sure.

But hey, you're the boss.

Raum
2008-04-15, 08:34 AM
But I found that almost nobody is willing to roleplay at all. They just sit and wait for some action when they can roll a dice. Only one who roleplay is bard and maybe he roleplays a lot because he's the only one who is speaking all the time. Maybe they are just afraid of me (you haven't see me yet, so you don't know what I mean... umm... nevermind... :smallbiggrin:) or rules. I'm not sure. I will try to make more action for them so they can roll the dice but that don't strike me as solution...Keep role play easy and simple at first. Negotiate over prices (either being hired or selling loot) and give them significantly more when they role play the negotiation. From there role play some conflict...but be ready for them to resort to violence. Conflict could be anything from an argument over spilled beer in a bar (hopefully violence there stays nonlethal) to false (or possibly true) accusations of lawbreaking. Just make it something they either need to defend themselves against (an accusation) or need to acquire (information / better price / room at the inn / etc). It's hard not to respond in character when you've been falsely accused of something...or when it gets you more gold from the local fence. Once they're used to it in small doses the role play will come more naturally.