D&D 5E I'm running an adventure for first time players this weekend

[BookTenTiger]

This weekend I'm running a D&D game for some coworkers who have never played D&D! I'm very excited. I have a lot of experience in teaching new players, and I thought I would collect some of my thoughts here:

The Characters

I'm going to pregenerate six or so characters, except for race. I'll give everyone fixed stats which race won't effect, but I want the players to be able to have some choice in their character. I'm going to try to focus on more easily-run classes, so I might do:

• Barbarian
• Cleric (with fixed spells)
• Fighter
• Paladin
• Rogue
• Sorcerer

The Adventure

I want a short adventure (2 to 3 encounters) with room for combat, exploration, or social encounters, depending on how the players approach things. Here's the summary I came up with:

Tower of the Caged King
A curse has beset the realm: swarms of crows blacken the skies, and descend on farms, eating everything in their shadows. The Queen has sent out adventurers to all corners of the realm, searching out any rumors connected to this terrible disaster. Locals in Wolfsback Ridge have told you of the Tower of the Caged King. Long ago, a greedy tyrant was pulled from his throne and locked up in a cage atop a tower, guarded by Knights of the Silver Unicorn. The tyrant's greed was no abated. From his cage, he trained crows to steal baubles and coins from local folk. Centuries have passed, and the tower is now abandoned, but it is said the tyrant's spirit still haunts the land.

I'm going to start the characters right at the entrance to the tower.

Encounters

Each of the three stories of the tower will have a different encounter:

Ground Floor
Two Knights of the Silver Unicorn, now skeletons in armor, still guard the tower. They will focus on shoving invaders into a spiked pit, which has filled with water over the years. This encounter will introduce fun possibilities, such as shoving, grappling, and climbing, while risking little in hit point loss.

The main hall will open into two rooms: a stairway heading to the second floor, and a room with a hidden treasure.

The hidden treasure will be inside a statue of a rearing unicorn. The statue has two ruby eyes. A human thief named Bastion is unconscious before the statue, his cloak and skin singed. The statue is trapped: when someone tries to take the gems, it shoots a gout of fire from its open mouth. However, twisting the horn opens a secret compartment in the statue's base, where the characters can find healing potions, a potion of Spider Climb, and some bars of silver (worth 500 silver pieces each).

If the characters wake or revive Bastion, he will prove an unreliable ally, more interested in the legendary treasures of the Tower than helping his new companions.

Second Floor
The second floor of the tower was much damaged by a falling tree some time in the past; a huge hole is opened in the wall. A spiral staircase works its way up the wall, leading to a platform from which Knights used to fire arrows upon invaders. Unfortunately, a large chunk of the stairwell is missing. The characters will have to figure out how to bridge the gap, possibly through climbing the stone wall, using a spell, or tying ropes to old torch sconces.

The remaining stairway leads to a trap door to the top of the tower.

Top of the Tower
On top of the tower, the ancient corpse of the tyrant still swings in a rusty cage. It is surrounded by barrels of coins, gems, and shiny baubles! The tyrant's corpse wears a magic crown made of a silver band and crow feathers. This crown gives the tyrant power over crows, as well as the ability to summon a crow spirit.

The crow spirit, called the King's Crow, has the stats of Pterafolk (from Tomb of Annihilation), but it looks like a giant crow with he angry head of an old man. Its main tactic will be picking up barrels of treasure and dropping them on the characters. When the barrels explode, all the coins and gems turn into crows!

The encounter ends if the King's Crow is defeated, or if the crown is removed from the corpse of the tyrant. At that point, almost all the coins and gems turn into crows with fly off into the sky! There will still be some treasure left for the characters.

Pacing
I want to make sure we get through the whole adventure in one night, so I'm going to make notes on how to shorten up encounters if needed. Here are some ways to tighten up the adventure as we go:

1. Bastion can be a corpse, or removed entirely. If he's a corpse, he holds one of the ruby eyes from the unicorn statue in his hand, to give a clue about the hidden treasures.
2. The stairway to the roof can be rickety, but not broken. Characters will still have to make checks to climb without slipping, and can take precautions, but the exploration encounter will go much quicker.
3. The King's Crow's HP can be reduced to 13 instead of 26.

I'm looking forward to running this adventure!

 

[aco175]

This sounds like fun. I ran a short adventure for some scouts last year and it was fun for me to see a few that never player before coming up with all sorts of things. I dropped a few old hints such as, "Are you sure..." and watching the kids try and figure out things. I ended up making the whole PC and having a couple extra so they could choose. I added a personality to play but only a few really used it.

 

[TheSword]

That’s good. New players are usually lots of fun and very surprising.

Just some observations to consider, if they are NEW new players. If they are just new to your group or have played D&D style adventures before then this almost certainly won’t count.

• Unless the PCs heal Bastion it doesn’t seem to have any social interaction.
• You’ve introduced the concept of hidden treasure before you’ve introduced the idea of a treasure.
• Your first combat sounds like a fairy complicated one. Is just learning to hit, get hit and use their core abilities not a good idea?
• I couldn’t tell if you had 6 players or less than that. Unless it’s much fewer 2 skeletons and crow king might leave a group 4 - 6 players with not a lot to do in combat.

Really like the ideas though.

 

[BookTenTiger]

That’s good. New players are usually lots of fun and very surprising.

Just some observations to consider, if they are NEW new players. If they are just new to your group or have played D&D style adventures before then this almost certainly won’t count.

• Unless the PCs heal Bastion it doesn’t seem to have any social interaction.
• You’ve introduced the concept of hidden treasure before you’ve introduced the idea of a treasure.
• Your first combat sounds like a fairy complicated one. Is just learning to hit, get hit and use their core abilities not a good idea?
• I couldn’t tell if you had 6 players or less than that. Unless it’s much fewer 2 skeletons and crow king might leave a group 4 - 6 players with not a lot to do in combat.

Really like the ideas though.

This is great feedback! I'll look back through my notes and make some adjustments.

 

[TheSword]

It’s funny. The piece makes me recall a starter adventure for the Dark Heresy game called Illumination where the party find a stockade that is being haunted by a crow spirit/daemon from the hills. A kind of local spirit.

Reading your section if youre happy with the first session and wanted to follow up and make more of king Crow you could adapt this for D&D over a further session or two. It could add a roleplay follow up and get them doing some investigation.

Essentially the PCs take a caravan to the site of a new temple that is being consecrated in the hills. There are some interesting NPCs to interact with, a bandit attack, and a demon that is being worshiped by locals as father crow (could be the crow king instead). Could be the source of the circlet or where your greedy bandit first reached out to King Crow? Here’s a link to a groups adventure summary but I’m sure you could find the pdf easily online. I ran it while back at it was very satisfactory.

Illumination - Dark Heresy Campaign

darkheresyrpg.wikidot.com

 

[BookTenTiger]

Thinking about adding in more social encounters, I'm thinking of adding a quirky local guide in the introduction, a mushroom hunter who is very superstitious. Though he will give them some info about the tower, he won't want to say too much for fear of the wrath of the tyrant's spirit. However, characters can try to convince, intimidate, or even bribe him for more info.

I'm also going to have some small silver statuettes and gems glimmering at the bottom of the flooded pit. Players can get creative about dredging it up, and then they'll be on the lookout for more treasure.

 

[Clint_L]

This looks great - I love the story concept! It's nice and tight, without too much figuring for them to worry about, which is important when it is new players who are spending most of their brain power on just understanding basic game mechanics.

I concur about maybe adding a bit more in terms of role-play opportunities, and using an NPC so that you, the experienced player, can sort of lead them into an RP interaction. Bastion could work very well for this, as long as they do something with him, so I would definitely leave him in the story and not make him a corpse.

The other thing I might add at the beginning is a reason why these particular characters are together. Maybe there are a few different reasons and relationships amongst the larger group. This also can make it easier to get into the RP aspect of the game.

Your party is very melee heavy but your boss fight is against a flying opponent who mainly seems to rely on a ranged attack - this might leave some players feeling like they don't have much to offer. Maybe Bastion turns on them?

 

[Mort]

The encounter ends if the King's Crow is defeated, or if the crown is removed from the corpse of the tyrant. At that point, almost all the coins and gems turn into crows with fly off into the sky! There will still be some treasure left for the characters.

I always like alternative combat/encounter resolution - adds a fun element.

But this kind of think is often tricky, you have to find the midpoint between impossible for the players to know (in which case why include it) and so obvious it's the first thing they'll do (which trivializes the encounter).

I would suggest adding up to 3 subtle clues for the players to find (so they'll likely find one) about the crown.

Then during the encounter. every time King Crow does something have the crown subtly spark or flash, or something like that. Have it be visible to a decent perception check (13 or so) which means either a passable passive perception will spot it, or someone looking for it. Players will likely still be focused on the villain or the combat, so they might still miss it - but they might not.

 

[Stormonu]

Might want to consider a Warlock instead of the Paladin character, or just throw the Warlock in as a possible extra selection so you have 3 spellcaster choices and 3 martial choices.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Okay, I came up with an idea that I think combines a few different things:

Entrance
The characters will be lead to the tower by Arnolf, a local trapper. He is a superstitious man, tasked with bringing offerings to a small altar set up for the King's Crow. He will explain to the characters that the King's Crow is the spirit of the tyrant, or the "One In the Feathered Crown."

He will set out some coins from town, and they'll see crows fly down from the roof and collect them.