D&D 5E Help My Group Tactics and Planning

rgoodbb said:

Without stat changes, take Smokey's advice re Mage Armor, AoA and Dark One's Blessing

The next beast to slay is a displacer beast. Get the druid to craft from it (with time, money and maybe a quest) a Cloak of Displacement for the warlock or something like that. That would certainly help.

Shield of Faith from the Cleric would also add 2 to AC but then no Bless

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Killing stuff is usually better than getting stuff to kill you slower.

It was interesting to compare Bless to Spiritual Weapon - the breakeven point (with party Average Damage 45) is at AC 18.

Obviously, SW is a higher level slot and the better is your party at hurting stuff, the more value Bless gets.

Dan Chernozub said:

After a dozen years off DnD, I came back to DM 5e.

I'm quite new to 5e, so I'm asking this forum to help.

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Usually extensive past experience running AD&D or the like back in the day is a good preparation for jumping in and running 5e. It might've helped to have played for a bit, first, but if you were running good games in the TSR era, you should be able to do so again in 5e.
DMing now, as then, is more art than science, and, IMHO, it's like riding a bicycle.

However, they have created unoptimized characters.....
We were using 4d6dl in a row, best of three, as a method for stat generation.

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Roll-in-order is likely to give you un-optimized characters, yes. It can be good for a group that's too prone to optimization, for instance.

Pregens might've been a better way to go with this group.

There were a couple of early deaths in the party.

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Not unusual for 1st level in 5e.

Encounters that seem perfectly reasonable early on, like a bunch of kobolds, can turn quite deadly because of 5e 'Bounded Accuracy' contrasted with AD&D - not just rapid scaling of the attack-matrix/THAC0 on the player side, but high initial AC relative to less-than-1HD humanoids' ability to hit. The dynamic for a 1st level party back in the day was that enemies like kobolds or skeletons or whatever would have a hard time hitting the splint/banded-and-shield front line, while turn undead or the sleep spell would slash their numbers efficiently. So the party could handle being outnumbered by the right kind of opponents. Even facing a same-size group of theoretically inferior enemies at 1st level, now, can go south fast. If they're outnumbered, so much the worse.

The opposition that party is facing is highly varied. Indoors/outdoors combats. I can go into more detail if needed.

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Highly varied encounters are a good way to break an optimized party out of a tactical rut, but can be too challenging for an un-optimized party with inexperienced/casual players.

The party can't figure out what spells to prepare, how to engage enemies and how to level up.

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D&D does have a learning curve and the flexibility and versatility that makes casters so powerful when used optimally can also end up a trap when the player isn't up to the challenges. That's why the tradition is to start with a simple, forgiving (tough), class, like a Fighter or Barbarian, and move on when you've gotten the system down to a degree, and get bored with it.

Unfortunately, most of my observations don't help you. ;(

Dan Chernozub said:

I will offer characters to switch skills/spells/feats/abilities at level 4.

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Since your players aren't optimizers, and have built the characters they want, that may not help a lot. But if they are wishing they'd chosen differently that'd be a fine idea.

Dan Chernozub said:

So while generally true - Bless is usually better than swinging a mace, but, against softer opponents, it might not be worth the slot/concentration.

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Bless is a critical part of some party-buffing combos, typically involving leveraging a party heavy with Extra Attack and using specific feats. Doesn't apply to this party so much. They should be looking at optimal use of offensive (not simply damaging) spells.

Though, it really depends on the types of encounters they're facing, and other than 'varied' I don't think we've heard too much about that, yet? One thing that might help with them choosing spells is telegraphing challenges a bit. Put them in more situations where they know what they'll be facing going in and the Cleric & Druid can pick their spells to fit, perhaps?

Dan Chernozub said:

Warlock is taking Med Armor lvl4. And with some luck they can pick up a magical breastplate from one of the BBEG.

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You're the DM. If you'd rather fix it by dropping a magical breastplate than retconning their newbie mistakes, that works too.

I'll remind you that retconning a character into another class is allowed in AL at low level. That kind of flexibility is expected for new players. Doing it a level 4 will help a lot.

bid said:

You're the DM. If you'd rather fix it by dropping a magical breastplate than retconning their newbie mistakes, that works too.

I'll remind you that retconning a character into another class is allowed in AL at low level. That kind of flexibility is expected for new players. Doing it a level 4 will help a lot.

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Retconning skills or feats or class features is fine. Retconning the class does change the character way too much.

What exactly would you suggest?

Tony Vargas said:

Roll-in-order is likely to give you un-optimized characters, yes. It can be good for a group that's too prone to optimization, for instance.

Pregens might've been a better way to go with this group.

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Well, that wouldn't work as they all have experience in role play games (oWoD mostly) and they have some really nice stories/characters. I've discussed the character generation with players before iplementing it.

Unfortunately, most of my observations don't help you. ;(

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Actually, they do.

Since your players aren't optimizers, and have built the characters they want, that may not help a lot. But if they are wishing they'd chosen differently that'd be a fine idea.

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Well, we won't be changing major things like race and class, but tweaking a few minor things can help, it seems to me.

Though, it really depends on the types of encounters they're facing, and other than 'varied' I don't think we've heard too much about that, yet? One thing that might help with them choosing spells is telegraphing challenges a bit. Put them in more situations where they know what they'll be facing going in and the Cleric & Druid can pick their spells to fit, perhaps?

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What do you want to know about the encounters?

They've faced flying beasts in the open (peryton and flying snakes); ghouls, skeletons and ooze in the dungeon; were ambushed by a higher-level evil adventurer; faced an outnumbering group of goblins (talked theit way out of that one). This is combat or combat-likely encounters, riddlez and social interaction are not that much about the stats.

They have learnt that splitting up for no good reason is a bad idea, learned the usefulness of a "defence" action and that low-level wizards are not made for blasting things. And the fact that not helping team mates stablizie is usually a bad idea.

What I'm looking forward is more combats with intelligent (goblinoids, lizardfolk, humans) groups utilizing spells and tactics of their own.


For example, they might sooner or later run into a Bandit Party:

1 Sergeant - AC16 HP39, Longsword [+4/1d8+2], Leadership and Protect;
1 Scout - AC15 HP18, Longbow [+5/1d8+3], Sneak Attack (2d6), Nimble Escape;
3-4 Thugs - AC12 HP32, x2 Mace [+4/1d6+2], Pack Tactics.

This group of 5-6 CR 1/2 creatures should be a Hard Encounter for this group of PCs.

One thing, regardless of edition, is that as DM you are best focusing on preparing and running the adventures, and giving the players as much agency as possible in terms of creating and running their characters. That's why most people have now moved away from "roll stats in order", because it forces some players into playing something they most likely would never have chosen to if they had more agency. For example the Warlock described here, and the overall balance of classes. Anyway, what's done is done...

You could certainly run this campaign as a short one, wrap it up at say the end of 4th level, then do a re-start, now that you've all learned more about how 5e works. While we all love to keep a campaign going as long as possible, and players love to plan ahead on character development, a completely fresh start could be exactly what you all need, sooner rather than later. It's certainly worth discussing with the players, at some stage - would people enjoy a change to re-start at level 1, maybe also changing the PC generation method, and any other tweaks you've all thought of now you're getting the hang of 5e more. This is actually my most highly recommended course of action.

Regardless, I'd personally recommend you don't try and fix all the players' problems, helping them too much will make them lazy and won't increase anyone's enjoyment. As you say, they are learning lots, maybe often the hard way, but that's OK, and people learn much better when they are making their own choices, rather than be spoon-fed answers by someone else. By all means ask them questions about their approach to their problems especially if you think they are sub-par, but give them time and space to have actual decision points and make their own considered decisions. Let them learn by experience, and don't punish them for trying stuff as they learn. For example don't ambush them and/or force them into fights, and when fights do break out don't always optimise the terrain and monsters in ways that actively play to the group's weaknesses. Maybe give them the odd helpful hint in terms of team tactics / spells, but really they should be working that stuff out themselves eventually, it's not the DM's job to play the group's PC's.

As you say, they have already got two new PC's in play, hopefully they gave some thought as to what the group was missing, but if they were forced to roll in order, aren't you taking away their ability to do much about it, e.g. say they know they need a 'tank', but roll low Str and Con and Dex - what then? Would you allow someone to actively switch out a PC for a different one in order to help the group have more fun, and if not, why not?

Personally my players love a long-running campaign, but they also love creating a new group as a mix of team and individual effort - generally the discussion goes something like "what ideas for characters do we have", they see if there is a decent mix or at least no huge overlaps, but ultimately most people's initial ideas are what they play (some people always have too many ideas, so are happy to play whatever the group needs more). As a player I often retire a PC before it dies because the current one has played itself out and the group would be better off with something different; I've also had a few players do the same (sometimes early on, sometimes after a long time). I've only ever seen games where stats were rolled in order once or twice many years ago, and I don't remember it increasing the fun for anyone.

Dan Chernozub said:

Retconning skills or feats or class features is fine. Retconning the class does change the character way too much.

What exactly would you suggest?

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Classes are mechanical artifacts. A barbarian doesn't need any mechanic to serve a Patron, it can be pure fluff and RP.

1) When he reaches level 4, make him fighter 1 / bladelock 3 with proficiencies "as if" his first level was fighter (Con+Str save instead of Wis+Cha, heavy armor, martial weapons). Then he can wear heavy armor and ignore his Dex11.

2) Patron exchange some BBEG stuff for a magic item (Dex19 ring, that medium armor using light proficiency, a 1/day shield spell item, etc.)

3) find a half-plate (AC16 with Dex12 from moderately armored)

4) convince the druid to cast barkskin on the bladelock. Or the cleric to cast shield of faith.


Anything that works and is fun for the players, a way to help them fill the tank role.

Lots of good advice here; it will be difficult to add to this. Seems to me there are three primary defenses in the world: surprise, social pressure, and tanks.

Surprise: You see that rogue? The one with with sending stones, a silent blade, and a sleep spell? That is a scout. Their job is to stealth up to the enemy, knock out any sentries, report on the enemy using the sending stone, and get that surprise round. You can do this with a single roll or a mini-encounter as you see fit. Their degree of success determines the quality of information they get, the amount of time the party has to prepare, and their options in positioning the party.

Social pressure: Others have suggested various training encounters. To keep those encounters from turning lethal, I suggest an encounter with pranksters - pixies, perhaps. A bungled encounter with a prankster might leave the party naked and up a tree, but not dead. Unfortunately, this generally isn't something the party can influence without the DM's help.

Tanks: While the party could rebuild their characters to be more tanky, there is a simpler solution: just give them a pet tank. Seriously, if the party desperately needs a meat shield to have fun, give them what they need. I tend to make things more complicated than necessary, but I think if the party found a non-hostile bear rooting through their packs one night, the druid might be inclined to reason with it because that is what druids do. From then on they would have a loyal front-liner. If that's too complicated, maybe they find an ancient automata rusting in the woods with a slot labeled "In case of danger, insert two coins". I suggest something non-sentient to avoid making a DMPC, but that's up to you.