A little background on me as a Dungeon Master, I am from Seattle and know people who work for Wizards. I currently live in Japan and teach English to actors, singers and design people. My two players are both working on the Final Fantasy brand designing characters and doing things like shadowing. I told them that D&D is the origin of Final Fantasy and they wanted to learn how to play. They quit playing the game but I can get them back, no problem.
EDIT:In the game was one other teacher from the U.S. who is an experienced D&D player. He played 3 characters. The two newbies had one character each. One newbie played the Cleric.
I will eliminate the surprise round from my next game as a house rule.
I'll ask them to run the encounter again and this time I will not roll damage. I will apply the average damage. Maybe that will be enough.
I did read where the Goblins will leave the characters unconscious. But what does bringing a character to 0 hit points actually mean? When rolling damage, characters rarely go to 0 hit points, they almost always drop below 0 hit points. When the Cleric dies, other allies must spend their actions stabilizing allies and getting attacked at the same time. I don't think any of us are using the same stabilizing, death and dying rules.
Should I assume that if a Goblin brings a character to below 0 hit points that the hit points become 0 and the character is stabilized and unconscious?
