• The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!

My first D&D experience (tonight!)

Anakin

First Post
Chillin at home with one of my buddies...the rest of the crew was busy. We were hoping to start some D&D (he played a little back in the day...very little, though) this weekend with everyone. But it was about 9pm, just the two of us hanging out, and we were bored.

We decide to generate his character.

Fun stuff. I let him be lvl2, human monk (striving for Drunken Master or whatever it's called...). I think we got it all right. :)

After all that, he looks at me and says, "OK...let's play"

(me) "uh....ummm.....O....K....sure."

I pull out my counters (CC 1 & 2), a few more books (PHB, DMG, MM), and the map from the Adventure game. He picks out a counter for his PC, I pick a decent starting point on the map.

"You are here"

"Why?"

"Well, you overheard some teenagers in your bar talking about a cave out in the hills, where there are supposedly terrible monsters, great treasure, etc. Being a wannabe adventurer, you can't help but investigate yourself."

"Gotcha. What do I see?"

"Ummmm...you see a hallway."

"Anything special about the hallway?"

"Uhh...yeah. Graffiti just barely inside the entrance, says 'Goldurk was here'."

"Gotcha. Let's see what else we can find..."

He walks though the halls, I drop some dice to represent walls, glass beads for doors, etc. (I sound like an old pro, don't I? :) ). He listens at one door, (I look in my box of counters for something I recognize as possibly appropriate), and hears some orcish grunting and whatnot. He kicks down said door.

"You see....ummmm....two orcs, sitting at this table (dropping dice onto map) here, with their backs towards you." BTW, I love the counter collections. Great artwork, arrows for facing, etc.

Since he busted in unexpectedly, I gave him a suprise round. He takes a 5' step, and whacks Orc #1 (a big one, too...damn dice did not favor my buddy this time) in the back of the head. He rolled a 4. "The orc's face bounces off the table, he turns to look at you, and he's PISSED."

Round 1: Both orcs were drinking at the table, with greataxes at their sides. Orc #1 (the big one), stands up and unleashes one hell of a haymaker at Monkboy. Hits. Hard. Monk down to like 3 hit points. Orc #2 grabs axe and gets behind Monk to flank him. (5' step, no AoO) Monk take his turn to move out of flanking (5' diagonal step...no AoO, right?) and punch big orc.

My buddy rolls a natural 20. Followed by an 18. My buddy said he adds attack modifiers to the second one to see if it's a crit, and it's more than a crit (his str is 17), so he gets double unarmed damage, which he ALSO rolls max on.

"OK...so after you kick that orc in the face, his body is lying...." (moving counter) "....back here."

Round 2: Small orc runs out the door, back into the hallway, terrified of the supermonk who just mutilated his boss with one blow.

I sorta treated that as the end of the encounter, since Monk decided not to pursue orc down the hall. I still kept track of time, though, as my buddy quickly looted the room. Soon he hears the orc grunting and some barking noises coming down the hall (given his 5 ranks of Concentration, he kept an ear out for the orc).

I decided this would start a new encounter, so as my buddy steps into the doorway, peering into the hall, I begin a new combat, no surprise round.

Round 1: Monk rolls great for his init, monsters roll a 2. Monk vs. 2 kobolds (1 w/ mini spear, one with lt crossbow) and orc (w/ greataxe) at 15' range. Monk breaks out the sling, lets fly at crossbow kobold. Somehow he rolls unbelievably well again, and the bullet promptly exits the back of the kobold braincase. Ouch. Orc and Kobold look at each other.

Round 2: Monk closes door, and listens to the noise in the hallway. The orc and the kobold are seeming in a heated debate, each yelling frantically at the other.

Round 3: Monk opens door again, seeing kobold and orc face to face, both pointing to the door the monk is peeking out from. Monk lets fly with another bullet, this one for the orc. He hits. This was the weak orc, and he maxed the damage roll. It was enough. That leaves one kobold against monkboy w/ 3 hitpts. Kobold moves up, to 10' away, and attempts to spear monkboy. A swing and a miss. Poor kobold.

Round 4: Kobold splats.

After dispatching all the baddies, the monk goes back to the room from which the kobolds came. In the corner of the room, he sees a medium-sized chest and a couple chairs to either side. Turns out the kobolds were keeping watch...and all adventurers know what chests mean...

Monk, scared of traps on the chest (which I rolled on a d20...got a 1, no traps... :( ), retrieves a kobold corpse from the hall. "I take 20, throwing the kobold at the chest."

"Great. The chest now sports a fine coat of kobold blood."

"I didn't open it?"

"Uhh..no."

(sigh) "fine, I break out that greataxe from the orc. Taking 20."

"fine, you break open the latch. Congrats. Inside is..." I roll on DMG table 8-2, random magic items, on the minor column. I get a 94, Wondrous Items.

I look up. My buddy sees the 94, and says, "you roll again. No way did that chest have something like that."

(I roll again) "you find a small vial of fine crystal, labeled 'KUR MODURAT WUNDS'."

"Anything else in the dungeon?"
"Nope"

Then we try to figure $ found, XP earned, etc. I think I ended up deciding on 300 XP and like 15 GP.


So there it was...my first game of D&D. I had only ever semi-played in one afternoon about 4 yrs ago, never done anything even close to DM'ing. And we had a good time, in spite of it all being off-the-cuff, spur-of-the-moment. My buddy actually wanted to play again. :)

Some quick questions...was the XP and $$ about right for this encounter? He was lvl 2, going against 2 lvl1 orcs (one max hp, one slightly above ave) and 2 lvl 1 kobolds (average IIRC). Any suggestions, comments, etc??

Thanks guys...I know most of you prolly don't care about any of this, but I've been lurking for a year or so now, and it feels great to have finally played some D&D :)
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Mark

CreativeMountainGames.com
Anakin said:
Thanks guys...I know most of you prolly don't care about any of this, but I've been lurking for a year or so now, and it feels great to have finally played some D&D :)

I think you would find that absolutely everyone here is happy for you, and envies you. ;)

Welcome to the club. Glad you had a good time and here's to many more to come! Congrats! :)
 

adndgamer

First Post
Congrats! :) And welcome (from lurking).

First games.. *sigh* Such nostalgia :) Hope you enjoy it as much as the rest of us do! :)
 

Dr. Zoom

First Post
So there it was...my first game of D&D. I had only ever semi-played in one afternoon about 4 yrs ago, never done anything even close to DM'ing. And we had a good time, in spite of it all being off-the-cuff, spur-of-the-moment. My buddy actually wanted to play again.
That is the beauty of the game, really. And as long as you have fun with it, your are on the right track. Some of my best adventures have been last minute, ad lib types. Your write-up was very entertaining. Might I suggest a story hour? I would definately be interested in reading more of your beginning adventures.

Some quick questions...was the XP and $$ about right for this encounter? He was lvl 2, going against 2 lvl1 orcs (one max hp, one slightly above ave) and 2 lvl 1 kobolds (average IIRC). Any suggestions, comments, etc??
The XP should be 400. The kobolds are CR 1/6 each, together 1/3. CR 1/3 gives 100 XP for a level 2 party (one man party in your case). The orcs are CR 1/2 each, or CR 1. A CR 1 creature is worth 300 XP. Add the two together for 400 XP.

If you generate treasure randomly, you roll on table 7-4 on page 170 of the DMG. The EL is about 1, maybe 2. At any rate, you are very close. The potion is a minor item, they had no goods other than armor and weapons, and a few gold coins. The coin count may be a little low. The gold line for EL 1 is 2d8x10gp. Perhaps roll it up and give the monk that amount. I would say he earned it.

All in all, very nice job. What made your buddy decide to be a monk/martial artist? Just curious. And when will you be getting more players? I would be interested in seeing stat blocks and/or backgrounds for them and, as I said above, a story hour.
 
Last edited:

Horacio

LostInBrittany
Supporter
Congratulations!!!!

Oh, man, I remember so well my first D&D game... Time passes very fast!!! *sigh*
 

Kichwas

Half-breed, still living despite WotC racism
Things to do for 'next time':

Roll up the treasure before the fight. If there's anything useful the monster's should try to use it against the PCs.

Consider cutting back results that don't make sense to you. Or increasing them if that is what is called for (when they kill a dragon in it's lair they should find more than 3 CP regardless of what the dice might say :D ).

I like to have a lot of the treasure be mundane items. Like the food the orcs where keeping, a notebook with doodles in it, a tin cup, clothes, and so on.

Combat:

You'll learn the tricks with time. Here's how I would have run the second fight:

Kobold 1 and and Orc 2 try to rush up on the PC, but leave an angle for Kobold 2 to shoot from. Kobold 2 should not get any closer than the limits of his darkvision.

Check the player on his PC's light source. If he doesn't have any then he's fighting blind. If he does have one and the NPCs think they can spare an attack on it they should try to put it out (if they have darkvision that is).

After the PC took out the Kobold with the corssbow I would have the Orc and Kobold split up and move in opposite directions. assuming it was a hallway with a door on side. Have one of them grab the crossbow of the fallen Kobold and move as far away as he can with a held action. Have the other stand with a weapon right on the door and have a held action. Both are holding to attack anything that comes through that door. With the melee guy holding to attack after the shooter.

When the monk opens the door he gets shot, then engaged in melee with an axe or spear.

If there's a round 2 the melee NPC moves back 5 feet and holds, and the crossbow guy fires.

Kobolds have what it takes to coordinate this. What makes a Kobold dangerous is their ability to organize. Orcs are another matter. So while they might plan that out you might also introduce some random chance that the Orc breaks from the plan and 'does something stupid'.

As you play the game; you'll come up with all kinds of devious ideas like this.

Remember to have those ideas match the Wis and Alignment of the NPCs. (Int is just book lurn'n, one o' those edjumacation thangs; Wis counts for knowing the right thing to do.)
 

EOL

First Post
So what took you so long.... :)

If you've been lurking on these boards and you've got a whole bunch of stuff (CC 1&2 all the core books) You've obviously been considering it for a while. I know lots of hardcore RPGer's who will buy a game never knoeing if they are going to play, but it's pretty rare for someone who doesn't play to invest in everything.

I was 10 when I played my first game and it seemed to consist of killing a giant centipede and finding a holy avenger, I had far less idea of what was going on than you did, you've obviously got a pretty good grasp of the rules.

Congrats!
 

Great write up, honestly i think the best advice for starting players is keep it simple and have fun. For a first time DM nothing beats a simple well done run of the mill dungeon crawl, once you and your friends are more comfortable with the rule i recomend running the sunless citidel, it's designed to walk first time players through the game.


I do think that most players starting out, espicially ones that aren't big fantasy buffs find that monk is the most accessable class, they may not be able to picture thier character hurling fireballs, but chances are they can invision thier character as a bruce lee or jackie chan type character.
 

Darklone

Registered User
Hurray!

Join the club.

Hah, how well I do remember my first tabletop gaming when I sneaked three times around a house where two huge ugly furry monsters with ugly teeth and dangerous looking weapons (goblins) held a nice girl hostage... I tried to prepare everything and then I just entered, shot the one close to the hostages and the other one charged at me and broke his neck as he stumbled over a chair...

Those were the times, my friends,...

Sigh. Gaming has never been like this since.
 

Coyote

First Post
The magic of the first D&D game.... very hard to recapture.

My first one wasn't quite so great. Giant spider, I shot at it with my crossbow, and missed. It bit me while I was trying to reload my crossbow, and I failed my save against poison and died. Total game time was about 5 minutes. But I was ready to go at it again!
 

Remove ads

Top