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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arrowhawk" data-source="post: 5646946" data-attributes="member: 6679551">You'll hear me talk about this like a broken record, but IMO, the most important thing everyone needs is purpose. Here are some suggestions along those lines. 1) Elminate Multiclassing  Multiclassing creates a number of problems in campaigns...and this is even more true with inexperienced players. First and foremost, the essence of D&D is really about playing your character, not building your character. Players new to game will have enough to worry about with simply choosing skills and feats. Help them out by taking multi-classing off the table at least for their first campaign. I'm not saying the build process is bad, I'm saying that new players won't have enough experiences to draw on to make good multi-classing decisions. And more to the point, they won't feel like they're missing anything if they can't do it. Let them all play pure classes and use that foundation the next go around to explore multi-classing. If you let the Ranger start taking Rogue or vice versa, it's realling going to make the other guy feel marginlized. The last thing you want is for the Rogue/Ranger/Bard to out track the Ranger or out perform the Bard. 2) Require everyone play a different class. This is huge. If you're worried about giving airtime to each person...the best way to do this is to run pure classes and run them unique. This alone will compensate for a lot because everyone will feel unique in and of themselves. In addition, it's a lot easier to design encounters around specific class abilities than it is around personalities. You're going to have a harder time making an encounter tailor to three Barbarians versus the Barb, Fighter, and Ranger. It's hard to isolate the Ranger 2 /Rogue 4 from the Rogue 2/ Ranger 4. Also, there are so many classes in 3.5, it shouldn't be a problem for everyone to take a unique class without multiclassing. 3) Avoid large scale combat; Limit the Combat Contrary to Patryn and a lot of others, I think you'll get higher dividends on fewer but larger tougher opponents than lots of weak ones.  1. A big opponent engenders a higher level of teamwork when the whole party gangs up on it. 2. Time. Lots of small targets is going to be a logistics nightmare for you as a DM. This translates in to long complicated and confusing battles for new players who aren't familiar with the movement and AoO rules. This will kill the enthusiasm for any players who are on the fence about the game. Trust me. 3. Simplify. Large targets allow you to simplify combat. Less movement allows you to often ignore many things and allows the players focus on the damage dealing rather than their positioning. 4. With one large creature, it's very easy for you as a DM to spread around the attacks and choose targets that can survive the damage. More importantly, this allows you to give airtime to the guy who you convinced to take Combat Expertise (because you knew you could use him here). If you stick a creature on every single PC, you're going to cause yourself a lot more headache when those weak PC's get unlucky and go down.   Fewer targets means faster battles, less confusion, less chance for PC's to be unlucky, and engenders the team feeling more like a group rather than a bunch of isolated individuals. 4) Manage the flow of information Invariably, a few people will do most of the talking. By channeling critical information through the quiet ones...they will get air time and feel more important. One thing I often do is hand out notes with info to players who make spot checks, rather than just informing the whole party of what that person sees. Also, you can give players prewritten information crucial to the story, but not available to the whole party as part of their knowlege checks or backgrounds. 5) Split up the party on occassion Provide several opportunities for the parties to split up both voluntarily and unvoluntarily. Sure, some may have go watch TV in the next room for 1/2 hour...or better yet, they can catch up on some source book readng...but it won't be that big a deal. Smaller groups automatically allow people to feel more important. In addition, you said you're better with small groups, so it will enahce the players experience. You'll also create the added benefit of giving the two groups an opportunity to share their separate adventures. I'm not saying I'm right about any of these suggestions...I'm just trying to help.</blockquote>

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