Hello,
In this thread I will try to describe session we had yesterday - with my personal comments as main DM of our campaign.
Inspired by an article from 4e DMG about multiple DM's I created a special adventure for my group. The original setup was (all level 4) :
-Warforged Cleric of Raven Queen (all powers melee)
-Dwarf Fighter (2h)
-Half-Elf Warlock (Fey)
-Halfling Rogue
Few days before the session, I told the rogue player my idea : In next adventure we will switch roles, I'll play character and he will be Dungeon Master. To make things more interesting, we will switch during the session. So I created a Eladrin Wizard of their level, with a lots of knowledge skills to reflect my knowledge about the game.
I take the player to the side, make some fake rolls etc, and return to the table without him. He has some kind of wierd anomaly - he cannot enter Feywild. Players would most propably get inside portal as well (Railoading I know, but it was nessesary). On the other side, in Feywild they meet a Eladrin (my character), which is heading to the same dungeon as they, and offers to be their guide. I play him as NPC, but once he joins the party, I bring the rogue player, and he sits on my place behind the screen. After we complete the adventure we return to the material world - and my Eladrin wizard doesn't want to go there, so they return and rejoin with the rogue, I'm back as DM. If we decide to switch again, players can simply go to Feywild and encounter my wizard again. I have my world (Material), and my Dm rogue has his (feywild + possibly other planes).
It was just a regular warmup fight. Warrior crit with brute strike which pretty much one-shot the warforged soldier.
Rogue did not have much experience as DM. He wasn't quite sure what to do. It was great ocasion to engage players by describing otherworldy Feywild - but I guess you can do good descriptions after you are a bitcomfortable with DM seat.
Even though monsters were quite simple my new fresh DM had hard time getting the hang on fight. I also failed to separate my player's knowledge from my character's. Rest of the party was quite suppriesied - but I wasn't. I knew the strenght of the monsters, since I wanted to use them in my adventure. It was real spoiler - knowing monster stats makes fighting them boring. Improvised battle terrain was quite boring - there weren't really any interesting options in combat in terms of movement, tactics.
Another thing I noticed - years of DMing make your battle perception skyrocket. From behind screen you don't quite notice it - but if you are player you can do a lot stuff while still playing our character well. At the same time our DM had really hard time to get to know what's going on. I found myself telling my players to roll for AC to speed things up (we use 'player's roll for ac' variant from Unearthed Arcana), taking control out of DM's hands. That must have been irrtating for him.
If you want better understanding of combat as player, try DMing, and you'll learn A LOT.
Again, simple improvised battlemap without interesting terrain features made this fight little static. I conjured Flaming sphere early on, with Hunter's Quarry on one of the spiders (multiclass ranger feat). It did a lot damage. Warforged resolve and bonus vs ongoing to saves, Dwarf's 5 poison resist from magic amulet were useful. DM had better control of the combat overall.
Initial distance was about 10 squares between monsters and us. With interesting terrain, a lot more tactical options were available.
Goblins were first - 3x Javelin throwers, 2x crossbow + some minions. Since Cleric was first in line, so he got shot. Literally. He rolled very poorly for AC, he dropped for 45 hp to exaclty 0 before he could act. I was the only one with healing pot, so I risked some OA to get him up. Our half-elf warlock has Scorching Burst wizard power, combined with my Gasping Shadows (from dragon) and Fire Shroud, our aoe dps was pretty good. After dealing with minions about 50% of the goblins focused fire at me - but thanks to my combination of high Int, leather armor training and shiled encounter power, I was hit only once.
Monsters were multiple, DM had hard time of figuring what each of them can do, there was a lot of waiting for monster's turns.
You want to good run combats as DM? Get a good graps of combat, run some sample encounters yourself. When I have doubt about encounter while building adventure, I try to run simulation first (I keep my player's Character sheets). 1-2 rounds is enough to get the terrain, monster positions, and encounter starting spot right (Just simulate movement, try scenarios with monsters acting first and other with players acting first). If you want to check actual difficultiy you need 2-4 rounds with rolling for attack and tracking damage. Do not start combat with on the edges of battlemap - leave some room.
We started in narrow corridor opening to larger cave with chasms etc. Dm put us on the map - at the end of the corridor. Seeing that, I moved us 1 square ahead, inside the room, so we don't get stuck if enemies charge. Dm told me to put tokens back in original spot. 'Kay I said.
What happened next? 6-5-4-3 iniative for our party. Monsters go first. They charge. And what? We get swarmed at the entrance. It looked like this.
-
RR---------
@@FW
@@CW
RR---------
-
@-Werewolf
R-Rat swarms+wererats
F, C, W, W - party ; fighter cleric wizard, warlock
- Walls
Perfect fighting position for us! Both ranged attackers are impossible to get to - walls and our melee allies block the path. That was most static combat I ever experienced in my both 3e and 4e games. Warlock compared it to WW I - neither combatant moves. Party didn't move because our position was great for us - and monsters simply couldnt. We focused fire on werewolf. It took us a LOT time before we killed him. After using AOE I again summoned flaming sphere - and kept using it till the end. I did most damage with it's no-attack-needed flame nearby creatures ability.
[ Since fights last longer, I decided to go in opposite direction when choosing daily spells than I did with my wizards in 3e - no burst damage, but instead conjured stuff that deals stable damage over time ]
I had great time buring things with my ball of fire. After using encounter powers, dailies, action points, it was just Auto-attack with at will power, or flaming sphere in my case.
After we killed werewolf, rest of the fight was quick. Cleric and Fighter took some damage, a lot healing was used, but it wasn't really threatening.
Thanks for reading.
P.S. Sorry for any typos.
In this thread I will try to describe session we had yesterday - with my personal comments as main DM of our campaign.
Inspired by an article from 4e DMG about multiple DM's I created a special adventure for my group. The original setup was (all level 4) :
-Warforged Cleric of Raven Queen (all powers melee)
-Dwarf Fighter (2h)
-Half-Elf Warlock (Fey)
-Halfling Rogue
Few days before the session, I told the rogue player my idea : In next adventure we will switch roles, I'll play character and he will be Dungeon Master. To make things more interesting, we will switch during the session. So I created a Eladrin Wizard of their level, with a lots of knowledge skills to reflect my knowledge about the game.
Plan was simple :
In a dream, fey spirit contacts warlock and asks him to clear a small dungeon in Feywild, in exchange grating them insight about their current quest. Then the players approach a portal - the rogue leaps in first before anyone could act (He doest that kind stuff a lot - Instigator player), and disappears.
I take the player to the side, make some fake rolls etc, and return to the table without him. He has some kind of wierd anomaly - he cannot enter Feywild. Players would most propably get inside portal as well (Railoading I know, but it was nessesary). On the other side, in Feywild they meet a Eladrin (my character), which is heading to the same dungeon as they, and offers to be their guide. I play him as NPC, but once he joins the party, I bring the rogue player, and he sits on my place behind the screen. After we complete the adventure we return to the material world - and my Eladrin wizard doesn't want to go there, so they return and rejoin with the rogue, I'm back as DM. If we decide to switch again, players can simply go to Feywild and encounter my wizard again. I have my world (Material), and my Dm rogue has his (feywild + possibly other planes).
What was actual result?
I will try to describe the most intersting stuff along with my comments. There was little roleplaying involved - just straighfoward easy adventure.
1.Ambush
First scene. Pretty simple fight with 8 homebrew warforged minions, one warforged soldier and a tiefling darkblade, which dropped +2 duelist dagger for the rogue.
It was just a regular warmup fight. Warrior crit with brute strike which pretty much one-shot the warforged soldier.
2.The Feywild portal.
The party approched the protal, and the warforged cleric kicked the rogue inside the portal. I took the player to the side etc. They stepped inside as well, meeting my Eladrin Wizard.
3. The switch.
When i sit on my rogue's place and he sat behind the screen players were just lightly shocked - not as much as I expected. Anyways, we continued our journey to the dungeon - a leftover after dwarven expedition to feywild in search for rare minerals. As you could expect, beasts of feywild did not like the intruders, and soon dwarven mine was overrun by monsters.
Rogue did not have much experience as DM. He wasn't quite sure what to do. It was great ocasion to engage players by describing otherworldy Feywild - but I guess you can do good descriptions after you are a bitcomfortable with DM seat.
4. Fey panthers.
As you could expect, on the road to the mines we were attacked, by 4 fey panthers. Quite strightfoward fight on improviesed map - narrow path in dense forest. They did us little harm - thanks to lucky rolls.
Even though monsters were quite simple my new fresh DM had hard time getting the hang on fight. I also failed to separate my player's knowledge from my character's. Rest of the party was quite suppriesied - but I wasn't. I knew the strenght of the monsters, since I wanted to use them in my adventure. It was real spoiler - knowing monster stats makes fighting them boring. Improvised battle terrain was quite boring - there weren't really any interesting options in combat in terms of movement, tactics.
Another thing I noticed - years of DMing make your battle perception skyrocket. From behind screen you don't quite notice it - but if you are player you can do a lot stuff while still playing our character well. At the same time our DM had really hard time to get to know what's going on. I found myself telling my players to roll for AC to speed things up (we use 'player's roll for ac' variant from Unearthed Arcana), taking control out of DM's hands. That must have been irrtating for him.
If you want better understanding of combat as player, try DMing, and you'll learn A LOT.
5. Entrance to the mines.
We opened the door with a kick. We found ourselves in oval cavern, covered in webs. As you could expect, we got jumped by deathjump spiders.
Again, simple improvised battlemap without interesting terrain features made this fight little static. I conjured Flaming sphere early on, with Hunter's Quarry on one of the spiders (multiclass ranger feat). It did a lot damage. Warforged resolve and bonus vs ongoing to saves, Dwarf's 5 poison resist from magic amulet were useful. DM had better control of the combat overall.
6.Goblin swarm.
Us vs lots of goblins. Terrain was poster map from Fantastic Locations - Fungi Cave (or whatever the name is). We had extended rest after this encounter.
Initial distance was about 10 squares between monsters and us. With interesting terrain, a lot more tactical options were available.
Goblins were first - 3x Javelin throwers, 2x crossbow + some minions. Since Cleric was first in line, so he got shot. Literally. He rolled very poorly for AC, he dropped for 45 hp to exaclty 0 before he could act. I was the only one with healing pot, so I risked some OA to get him up. Our half-elf warlock has Scorching Burst wizard power, combined with my Gasping Shadows (from dragon) and Fire Shroud, our aoe dps was pretty good. After dealing with minions about 50% of the goblins focused fire at me - but thanks to my combination of high Int, leather armor training and shiled encounter power, I was hit only once.
Monsters were multiple, DM had hard time of figuring what each of them can do, there was a lot of waiting for monster's turns.
You want to good run combats as DM? Get a good graps of combat, run some sample encounters yourself. When I have doubt about encounter while building adventure, I try to run simulation first (I keep my player's Character sheets). 1-2 rounds is enough to get the terrain, monster positions, and encounter starting spot right (Just simulate movement, try scenarios with monsters acting first and other with players acting first). If you want to check actual difficultiy you need 2-4 rounds with rolling for attack and tracking damage. Do not start combat with on the edges of battlemap - leave some room.
7. Werewolf Boss.
Ok this encounter was a shock. Since I knew the monsters from all previous fights, I was pretty bored. But when DM showed us printed picture of some wierd bear-o-rat monster, my jaw dropped. Then came excitement and "I want to use my knowledge to check what this thing is!". In fact, he was just an elite werewolf with some template. His bodyguard were wererats and rat swarms. Battlemap was pre-prepatred by DM.
We started in narrow corridor opening to larger cave with chasms etc. Dm put us on the map - at the end of the corridor. Seeing that, I moved us 1 square ahead, inside the room, so we don't get stuck if enemies charge. Dm told me to put tokens back in original spot. 'Kay I said.
What happened next? 6-5-4-3 iniative for our party. Monsters go first. They charge. And what? We get swarmed at the entrance. It looked like this.
-
RR---------
@@FW
@@CW
RR---------
-
@-Werewolf
R-Rat swarms+wererats
F, C, W, W - party ; fighter cleric wizard, warlock
- Walls
Perfect fighting position for us! Both ranged attackers are impossible to get to - walls and our melee allies block the path. That was most static combat I ever experienced in my both 3e and 4e games. Warlock compared it to WW I - neither combatant moves. Party didn't move because our position was great for us - and monsters simply couldnt. We focused fire on werewolf. It took us a LOT time before we killed him. After using AOE I again summoned flaming sphere - and kept using it till the end. I did most damage with it's no-attack-needed flame nearby creatures ability.
[ Since fights last longer, I decided to go in opposite direction when choosing daily spells than I did with my wizards in 3e - no burst damage, but instead conjured stuff that deals stable damage over time ]
I had great time buring things with my ball of fire. After using encounter powers, dailies, action points, it was just Auto-attack with at will power, or flaming sphere in my case.
After we killed werewolf, rest of the fight was quick. Cleric and Fighter took some damage, a lot healing was used, but it wasn't really threatening.
Conclusion.
In general, was it good idea? I think it was. I had great time. I felt like part of my party, and bounds with players strenghtend. I know their motivations better. In heat of combat, as DM it's hard to spot subtle changes in player's behaviour, to see what they really like and expect from game. When you are waiting for your initiative as player, you can do that. Because many fights were quite improvised, and the DM was inexperienced, other players had a lot waiting. But I guess that is okay, since change of theme and pace is good from time to time. I am sure this little experiment will improve my campaign.
Thanks for reading.
P.S. Sorry for any typos.
