My first time Dungeon Mastering- need some advice.

[Brutous]

Thinking about GM-ing my first P&P- (I got all I need books, labtop, character sheets, story , props, ton of dice and players willing to play) Looking of making more combat focused-

I was thinking of letting the players take an extra feat (I have a list of which they can chose from), do you think this is a good idea?

I was also going to allow them to make 32 or 36 point characters-
Loot and selling of loot won't be a problem, I think the challange would be in getting items made for them, (diplomacy & quest base items they need to recover)-

What do you guys think I should consider?

[fefnir3284]

I dont think you should give them an extra feat, but I do think you should use these charts.

Traits (http://http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterTraits.htm)

Flaws (http://http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterFlaws.htm)

Let them chose up to three traits, and two flaws (note for each flaw they take they get a free feat ;))

As for the 32/36 point builds, that shouldnt be any problem, just (imho) dont allow extreme min/maxing. D&D isnt ddo because it is more 'real' and practical, per say, and as such NO character would have 30 any stat and 6 in others at level 14 let alone any level. A good guide to go off is --> no stats more than 6-8 points apart, and these are a general greater diety's base stats (no character should exceed them naturally until level 50+) --> 24-28 in all stats with their primary attribute scoring up to 36-40 <one one god has a 50 and thats mother natures constitution score)

[captain1z]

There is a pretty good balance present in the books as they stand. Not much need to inflate anything.

Best I can say is dont flood them with permanent items.

Potions and scrolls are fine in limited quantity but once you let them loot a +2 greatsword of greater giant bane they can use it as much as they want...... stack on top of that 2-3-4 other magic weapons and your campaing quickly becomes over-powered and you as a DM will feel like you are trying to keep up with the PCs by making more and tougher monsters...... its all down hill from there.


So............ give some disposables now and then but keep the swords and armors limited to 1-2 per character until about 8th level then you can add 1 more.


If my games ever get a bit out of handI will try and create a situation where something may become lost or ruined.

Acid and or fights near deep chasms work well for this as does lava and being held captive by the enemy.

[Symar-FangofLloth]

There is a pretty good balance present in the books as they stand. Not much need to inflate anything.

Best I can say is dont flood them with permanent items.

Potions and scrolls are fine in limited quantity but once you let them loot a +2 greatsword of greater giant bane they can use it as much as they want...... stack on top of that 2-3-4 other magic weapons and your campaing quickly becomes over-powered and you as a DM will feel like you are trying to keep up with the PCs by making more and tougher monsters...... its all down hill from there.


So............ give some disposables now and then but keep the swords and armors limited to 1-2 per character until about 8th level then you can add 1 more.


If my games ever get a bit out of handI will try and create a situation where something may become lost or ruined.

Acid and or fights near deep chasms work well for this as does lava and being held captive by the enemy.

Never ever intentionally take something away from a player that you gave them. If it turns out to be overpowered, discuss it with them to tone it down; if you destroy or steal it, they will get upset and either try to get it back (I suppose that could work for plot, depending) or leave your game.

The wealth-by-level guidelines are good to follow generally.

[KoboldKiller]

I have never given additional points for builds due to it creating an imbalance within the game, JMHO. Try not to create a Monty Haul system for loot either. Actually the guidlines within the books have always worked best for me. I see my job as the DM as adding flavor to the campaign being ran not to drastically change the rules which could create problems down the road. Again this is JMHO.

[Glenalth]

For a first game, keep it basic and somewhat low powered. You don't need Half-dragon, half-kobold, lycanthropes to deal with as players.

If you have new players as well, it might be a good idea to do a one or two night pre-written adventure module with "throw-away" characters for practice.

If the players want an extra feat, they can be humans or get XP to level up.

[MysticTheurge]

I have never given additional points for builds due to it creating an imbalance within the game, JMHO.

I've done it a couple times and it can make things fairly difficult to manage. You end up having to tweak encounters/monsters a fair amount to compensate.

I'd suggest against doing it on your first time DMing for sure.

[MysticRhythms]

When I first started using 3.0 rules, I tried tweakign things a lot. This ended up ruining ame balance in the end. My advice is to not mess with anything until you gain experience DMing.

In a nutshell:

1) Play with the rules as-written. You will spend a lot of time learning them - there are many many many (did I say many?) subtleties. Seven years and a half-edition later, I'm STILL learning things like using a weapon to Trip someone doesn't provoke an attack of opportunity. Save yourself the trouble - don't use house rules right out of the gate.

2) Use a published adventure to start and only tweak the storyline - not the numbers for any of the monsters or the gear usedf by opponents. I know you will be tempted to create and it won't be long before you're writing your own adventures, but this again stresses the idea of balance and shows you what encoutners SHOULD look like. Keep in mind that most adventures are written for a party of four and watch what happens if you have too many or too few characters.

3) Do NOT let them use more than 32-point buy. It seems like 32 isn't enough, but it's more than enough with PnP rules. In fact, they will generally have strong characters with 32 points.

4) Try and keep things simple by using only the core books at first. Yes there are lots of fun prestige classes and spells and items in other books but there is a LOT of great stuff in just the basic books and plenty of room for them to make a "swashbuckler" without actually taking the swashbuckler class.

It's your first time - you want to make sure there are more times in the future and I have found that the two things that kill campaigns are making it too easy for players and lack of knowledge of the rules.

You can have so much fun with the three core books and a group of newbies to the game. Use this as a baseline and play for a while before twinking with it too much.

[MysticRhythms]

The wealth-by-level guidelines are good to follow generally.

This is very sound advice. Pay close attention to the value of items you are giving out and how close you are to this curve. Remember that folks who craft items will try to put themselves ahead of this curve.

As a general rule for home games, I like to make sure that players are on the curve for permanent items with any extras usually covered by potions and wands or other consumables.

The table is given in the DMG (Wealth by Character Level) in case you don't know what we're referring to.

[MysticTheurge]

Remember that folks who craft items will try to put themselves ahead of this curve.

I generally think it's fair to let them get away with this to a degree.

I usually only count crafted items at 1/2 to 3/4 value for the purposes of wealth-by-level. Otherwise, what's the point of even getting the feats and spending the time/effort/money crafting?

[MysticRhythms]

I generally think it's fair to let them get away with this to a degree.

I usually only count crafted items at 1/2 to 3/4 value for the purposes of wealth-by-level. Otherwise, what's the point of even getting the feats and spending the time/effort/money crafting?

Oh I agree. Item-crafting is often curtailed by little things like "you can't craft a +2 weapon until you are 8th level" anyway and it does take game time and experience. It's just an area of the game rules that players like to abuse a little too often and I meant for the OP to be mindful of what the wealth/level curve looks like for the average character.

If an item crafter is consistently double to triple value above the curve, it will get ridiculous quickly.

[Bekki]

Thinking about GM-ing my first P&P- (I got all I need books, labtop, character sheets, story , props, ton of dice and players willing to play) Looking of making more combat focused-

I was thinking of letting the players take an extra feat (I have a list of which they can chose from), do you think this is a good idea?

I was also going to allow them to make 32 or 36 point characters-
Loot and selling of loot won't be a problem, I think the challange would be in getting items made for them, (diplomacy & quest base items they need to recover)-

What do you guys think I should consider?

Here are some general tips,
these may have been covered before,
if so, my apologies...

I would not go more than a 32 pt. build as they could get pretty powerfull.

Remember, the more powerfull you make the party,
the more powerfull you will need to make the encounter to keep it balanced.

Try to get an idea of the desired play style of your party and go from there.

Go easy on the MAGIC items! :D

DDO is VERY magic item heavy, make sure to let them know (in the event that they play DDO)
that they will see less magic items.

I started playing P&P again not too long ago after playing DDO and got quite a shock
when I found my little level 6 rogue did not have HALF of the stuff my
DDO character does! :eek:

Take it slow at first, ease into it as you learn each others style.
In time you will learn what they like and what they don't.

Also,
last but not least...Monsters are not always Dumb! :D

Remember,
sometimes Smarter opponents are better
(and more fun) than just more opponents.

Kobalds are tricky (it says so in their bio)
Play them that way.

Orcs are Militaristic,
buy a book on tactics and use some basic manuvers in the game.

Lizard men fight better in the water, have them set up a trap
that causes the players to slide down a chute into a lagoon
forcing them to have to combat the lizardmen IN the water.

You can scale the numbers down for the higher difficulty.
Just try to avoid the "Same old, same old, encounters...

Mix it up a bit.

In you want more advice,

There was an article in Dragon magazine once
on Smarter Monsters vs. More monsters.

Do a search on the Dragon magazine website.
they may have it.

Also look for "Tuckers Kobalds"

My Brither in law once hosted an adventure of that name
at an RPGA event, it was mentioned in the article.

And above all else...




HAVE FUN!!!:D:D:D

[MysticRhythms]

Remember,
sometimes Smarter opponents are better
(and more fun) than just more opponents.

Kobalds are tricky (it says so in their bio)
Play them that way.

Orcs are Militaristic,
buy a book on tactics and use some basic manuvers in the game.

While I agree with this, you will frustrate players if something like an animal uses tactics such as Flanking, Coupe de Grace or even avoiding attacks of opportunity. Make sure to play the dumb things as dumb things too.

It's annoying when the DM uses his own knowledge of the battlefield and has a simple bear make a bee-line for the wizard without any basis for doing so other than "well he's a wizard."

[cdbd3rd]

Kobalds are tricky (it says so in their bio)
Play them that way.

Orcs are Militaristic,
buy a book on tactics and use some basic manuvers in the game.

Lizard men fight better in the water, have them set up a trap
that causes the players to slide down a chute into a lagoon
forcing them to have to combat the lizardmen IN the water.

You can scale the numbers down for the higher difficulty.
Just try to avoid the "Same old, same old, encounters...




Lots of good prods there. Especially the kobolds.
My players would almost rather stroll off into a dragon's lair than face some of my kobold strongholds. Kobolds, with a couple deep gnomes back in the workshop... *evil grin*

Giant ants. Gotta love the giant ants.:cool: Give em a couple, then wait for the ranger to suggest tracking them back to their lair because they have gems in their treasure lists. :cool:

BTW, I earned my right to have a license plate KLLR-DM.;)

[MysticRhythms]

Giant ants. Gotta love the giant ants.:cool: Give em a couple, then wait for the ranger to suggest tracking them back to their lair because they have gems in their treasure lists. :cool:


All of my local players shiver if anyone mentions ankhegs.

Why?

Bite ... Improved Grab ... burrow underground where they can't be reached ... snack.

Nothing is more evil to a 3rd level character.

[brshelton]

sry misread op making another thread based on what i thought this one is as i think itd make for a great thread and bring back hopefully good memories

[MysticTheurge]

While I agree with this, you will frustrate players if something like an animal uses tactics such as Flanking, Coupe de Grace or even avoiding attacks of opportunity. Make sure to play the dumb things as dumb things too.

While I agree with you in general theory, I'm going to disagree on the specifics.

The three things you list are perfectly natural for animals to do.

Anything that works in a pack is going to naturally tend towards flanking its prey. They may not know what it means, but that doesn't mean they won't do it. Wolves are a good example of this.

Likewise, most predators are going to immediate go for the jugular (literally) once their target is down, so using a Coupe de Grace is perfectly natural.

As for avoiding attacks of opportunity, just about every animal is going to do this. Animals are smart enough to stay out of range until they go in to actually make an attack.

Now mindless creatures like Skeletons, Zombies and Oozes (and a few others) definitely shouldn't be doing these things. And most animals shouldn't necessarily be using higher reasoning (like targeting specific creatures based on higher logic, they'll go for the one that seems weakest), but there's a lot of "tactics" that are instinctual for animals.

[brshelton]

depends on what type of zombie etc. If the original being had it instinctually not by training i believe the zombie would keep the instincts

also i misread the OP lol thought we were talking about the first game we GMed (which would be a good thread also gonna go make it :)) my bad. Advice dont let them buy anything thats listed in the dungeoun masters guide magic weapons (i did turns out bad) also dont let them buy nothing and get almost no XP. I was in a year long weekly campaign. At the end I was level 2 or 3 with my starting equipment still. It doesn't make for fun but neither does one shotting. Balance of loot is a key factor and you should definitely know this since you play DDO.

[cdbd3rd]

I was in a year long weekly campaign. At the end I was level 2 or 3 with my starting equipment still. It doesn't make for fun but neither does one shotting. Balance of loot is a key factor and you should definitely know this since you play DDO.

Aw, man - ya poked a memory. Years agone by.... Wasn't a year long, but I joined a group for a while that a co-worker invited me to. I made a halfling thief. The game ran maybe a couple months before life decided it was time for it to come to an end.
The current campaign ended, and we split treasure. The original group decided I got last roll since I was a new player. In the end, my halfling thief walked away with one magic item. A bardiche. A +5 frikking bardiche! :mad::(

There had been only a handful of magic items - and even as a thief (fastest level progression in 1st ed) I had barely made second level.

So as grumping as that group had been, it still gave me a story to tell years later. :D ...and yes, I still have that sheet tucked away in the archives as well. ;)
I always imagine the little guy traipsing down the road dragging it behind him... "No, I can't use it. No, no one will trade me anything for it. Fine. I'll KEEP it. Sheesh."