Please Help the Poor Newb

[Silvarelion]

I have a few questions, and unfortunately, i'm no where near my gaming group, and won't be for at least another year. Therefore, I turn to all of you at the Playground!

1. Are magic item/weapon/armor enchants stackable? ie, would I be able to get a +1 Nimble Breastplate of the Easy Traveller, or a +3 Fiery Longbow of Seeking? If so, would I add up all of the enchantments to get the price, or would I enchant them all separately?

2. I'm jumping way ahead of myself, but I'm looking at building a campaign/campaign setting, starting at lvl 1. However, it seems like a group of level 1 adventurers, even a well balanced and optimized group with good WBL won't be able to tackle much more then 4 Kobolds at a time, and they won't be able to tackle a Dire Weasel. What really confuses me is that one of the modules I've been looking at (The Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde, lvl 1-6) gets the adventurers to kill a troll (CR 8) as one of the first encounters! So, what EL should I be looking at, and how many encounters should I count on there being before my players (or me) level?

Thanks for all the help!

[MCerberus]

1. Yes, they can be stacked, but to NOT ABOVE +10 (with +5 being the max for just plain hitting stuff harder). This is a pretty set-in-stone rule for the 3.x versions of DnD. Note that enchants get pretty expensive the more you pile on. The only things to break the +10 rule are artifacts, which you can't make and are put in only if the DM decides to. They usually come with some sort of wicked side-effects too.

2. There's a lot more variety than most people give level 1 credit for. Social encounters generally can't be cheesed yet, and defeating a trap gives XP. If you want level 1 without killing small creatures with a strength penalty, get creative. Oh, plenty of animals and vermin to use. Giant bees are generally fun for all.

[thegurullamen]

1. Yes, they can be stacked, but to NOT ABOVE +10 (with +5 being the max for just plain hitting stuff harder). This is a pretty set-in-stone rule for the 3.x versions of DnD. Note that enchants get pretty expensive the more you pile on. The only things to break the +10 rule are artifacts, which you can't make and are put in only if the DM decides to. They usually come with some sort of wicked side-effects too.

Hey don't forget Epic weapons. Epic weapons commonly go above +10. And really, Epic is practically the only reason to play D&D; its power level is the reward for living through twenty extremely underpowered levels. (NOTE: Do not take any of the previous as true, rational or even remotely sensible. Epic = suck. Never play Epic rules and for the love of all things holy NEVER BUY THE EPIC LEVEL HANDBOOK.)

But, yeah, weapon properties stack, but do so at an exponential cost. It's enhancement bonus (+1, +2, etc.) or equivalent (+3 = +1 Flaming Burst or +2 Shocking or just a normal +3 and the list goes on) squared times two thousand gp.

{table]+1|2000
+2|8000
+3|18000
+4|32000
+5|50000[/table]

and etc.

As for first level stuff, flip through some free stuff online and see what sticks. Alternatively, check out some of the Eberron modules which are pretty heroic for low level adventurers.

[Hairb]

2. I'm jumping way ahead of myself, but I'm looking at building a campaign/campaign setting, starting at lvl 1. However, it seems like a group of level 1 adventurers, even a well balanced and optimized group with good WBL won't be able to tackle much more then 4 Kobolds at a time, and they won't be able to tackle a Dire Weasel. What really confuses me is that one of the modules I've been looking at (The Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde, lvl 1-6) gets the adventurers to kill a troll (CR 8) as one of the first encounters! So, what EL should I be looking at, and how many encounters should I count on there being before my players (or me) level?

Thanks for all the help!

As a rule of thumb, a standard party uses 25% of its resources per day (hitpoints, spells etc) on an encounter of an level equal to their average party level. Hence, your level 1 party could, in theory, take four encounter level 1 encounters, like a group of four kobolds, four times a day. Alternatively, a single encounter of 16 kobolds would push them to breaking point. The Dire Weasel (CR2) is challenging at level 1, but not unbeatable. Keep the guidelines in chapters 2 and 3 of the DMG in mind, and you won't wind up feeding low-level PCs to unstoppable godlike beings from another dimension by mistake.

[Vonriel]

Keep the guidelines in chapters 2 and 3 of the DMG in mind, and you won't wind up feeding low-level PCs to unstoppable godlike beings from another dimension by mistake.

What, like, a celestial dire weasel? (Please don't hurt me)

[Staven]

1. Are magic item/weapon/armor enchants stackable? ie, would I be able to get a +1 Nimble Breastplate of the Easy Traveller, or a +3 Fiery Longbow of Seeking? If so, would I add up all of the enchantments to get the price, or would I enchant them all separately?

One thing I noticed is that the ammo for that bow has to be Fiery and seeking. Bows are rarely magical. It's usually the arrows.

[monty]

Magic items can have multiple enchantments, up to an effective +10 (a plain +X bonus, though, can only go up to +5). Also, you need to have at least +1 on it to have any other enchantments.

Putting a level 1 party against a CR 8 encounter is just asking for a TPK unless there's twenty players or something like that.

[MeklorIlavator]

One thing I noticed is that the ammo for that bow has to be Fiery and seeking. Bows are rarely magical. It's usually the arrows.

Note: this is flat out wrong. You can enchant bow, heck, theirs a whole table dedicated to enchanting ranged weapons. Bows give there bonus to any arrow fired buy the bow, and in addition keep there own enchantments, which is one reason why its so beneficial to buy multiple different enchanted arrows.

[Roland St. Jude]

Note: this is flat out wrong. You can enchant bow, heck, theirs a whole table dedicated to enchanting ranged weapons. Bows give there bonus to any arrow fired buy the bow, and in addition keep there own enchantments, which is one reason why its so beneficial to buy multiple different enchanted arrows.

Well, not exactly. The numerical enhancement bonus from the ranged weapon and the ammo don't stack. You only get the higher of the two.

[Silvarelion]

Well, not exactly. The numerical enhancement bonus from the ranged weapon and the ammo don't stack. You only get the higher of the two.

Well, yes, but a Firey Enchant on some ammo will stack with a Seeking enchant on the bow?

[Knaight]

Yes. Basically you can get a huge amount of stuff doing that, using a +big number bow, with a few enchantments(speed or seeking maybe), then lots of different arrows, and everything but the numbers stack.