D&D 5E DM Cards and Magic Confusion

[Devon Williams]

SOOO let me preemptively say that I am a very new DM and I'm still getting to grips with a lot of combat and storytelling, however to make my life easier I have used blank playing cards that I can write out... Well any number of things, I have been leaning towards templates for encounters, monsters, treasure, and even dungeon layouts. I believe that if I make this well enough I can do randomly generated dungeons with custom monsters and even treasures. With my own evil traps for my party to dodge and outwit. People's opinion on these would be appreciated as well as maybe some feedback on how to improve them. Image on request.

This also allows me to not only do custom enemies but "named" enemies. For example, One of these cards is a skeleton Encounter with pretty average stats, OR I could have a card, with "Bones McGee Slayer of Mortals" suddenly this skeleton is much wiser and stronger than others with a unique weapon and such.

However I honestly have no idea how I am meant to DM a wizard fight, as in my party fighting a wizard or any other magic being for that matter, not only that but what I'd need to put on these cards if I want to make a cleric enemy since I'd need a separate list for their spells.

 

[patwil]

SOOO let me preemptively say that I am a very new DM and I'm still getting to grips with a lot of combat and storytelling, however to make my life easier I have used blank playing cards that I can write out... Well any number of things, I have been leaning towards templates for encounters, monsters, treasure, and even dungeon layouts. I believe that if I make this well enough I can do randomly generated dungeons with custom monsters and even treasures. With my own evil traps for my party to dodge and outwit. People's opinion on these would be appreciated as well as maybe some feedback on how to improve them. Image on request.

This also allows me to not only do custom enemies but "named" enemies. For example, One of these cards is a skeleton Encounter with pretty average stats, OR I could have a card, with "Bones McGee Slayer of Mortals" suddenly this skeleton is much wiser and stronger than others with a unique weapon and such.

However I honestly have no idea how I am meant to DM a wizard fight, as in my party fighting a wizard or any other magic being for that matter, not only that but what I'd need to put on these cards if I want to make a cleric enemy since I'd need a separate list for their spells.

I would suggest making a cleric character that you might use yourself. Imagine how this character would fight and which spells he/she would use along with equipment and such. Your card now has the "enemy" along with stats and attacks. Place a few spells that the character would use on the card. Don't try and have every one they could use - just a few. You could make 3 cards - 1 is your cleric surprising the party (include those spells the cleric would use when getting time to prepare, next would be a prepared cleric (this one knows enemies are coming but not specific strengths/weakness so prepares for a fight against anyone, and finally the surprised cleric with less attack spells but maybe more defense/escape options.

When I ran spellcasters against the my group, they tended to only use 2 out of the 11 spells they knew. However, if you have an iPad you can use the app Game Master which allows you to create your cards but when you click on their spells it brings up a description/detail for you. It also has an initiative tracker which is pretty good.

Hope this helps


Sent from my iPad using EN World mobile app

 

[Devon Williams]

Hey thanks that is a good way to look at it, I think maybe saving Spellcasters for more named enemies would be a better approach to this since i can then establish character and personality for them. I appreciate the help

 

[the Jester]

I would suggest making a cleric character that you might use yourself.

...but please, whatever you do, don't actually play him as a pc. The DM's role is very different from that of a player's, and you should do your best to keep it separate. DMPCs are awful.

 

[the Jester]

Also, this might be of considerable interest and use to you: The Index Card RPG

 

[Devon Williams]

The index card RPG seems a little vague in concept but obviously very similar to what I am doing. Other than that it wouldn't be a PC I'd just give it a little personality and the essentials for fighting them.

 

[MNblockhead]

When I was starting I spent a lot of time war gaming to test out various scenarios.

When you get to higher levels, it gets tougher to plan encounters due to the complexity of magic.

I find using hero labs to quickly build encounters and test out combat scenarios to be helpful. Hopefully DnD Beyond will do the same. Some of the VTT products are probably even more effective as they have more licensed content and tracking conditions, hit points, etc. are easier to track and more automated.