My First campaign: Need Dming advice/tips

[Tox1C]

Second session went well, I had some trouble coming up with on the fly stuff but I'm hopping that improves over time. One player I've already taken note that he is extremely rude to NPCS merchants and such so I figure down the road that might bite him in the ass. Other than a few minor DMing slip up I think it went pretty well.

Heres a short summary
After clearing out an outpost inhabitant by kobolds they found a pendent that belong to a lizardman cult member. After taking a rest after clearing out the kobolds the players spot a horse with a cart attachment that being dragged along. After following the trail the pcs come to a monstrous spider cave where they fought a large monstrous spider and some mediums ones and saved Samuel an Npc caravan merchant. They brought him back to town and with the aid of a cleric cure his posion and now hes resting at the church.
After taking a quick break in town to gather supplies and such the player set out to a crocodile breeding ground where the town scouts report heavy lizardmen/kobold traffic. On the way there they encounter a lizardman searching out some ruins and was ambused by a small scout party that was accompanying him. One kobold near the end of the fight breaks away and flees. As the pcs chase the running kobold a group of netural lizardmen rangers are in the area scouting out the cult spots the kobold and finishes off the fleeing kobold. After some brief dialogue the lizardmen agree to show them to the liar to speak with their elder lizardman in return they will help the rangers discover and infiltrate a cultist hidden temple. The players also learn a little history about the cult and how they once worshiped a black dragon named Shakarus who was brought down by a collaboration of champions of the time.
The game ended with discovering an rock formation in the middle of the croc's nesting area. After searching about for a bit the players discovered by using the pendent they could unlock a stone door with a tunnel.

Here is a problem I've encounter a little
For a 3 person party I'm not sure if it me just not having enough experience but it seems like one of the character even though hes only lvl 3 is a powerhouse fighter. He is a lvl 3 half orc fighter with a 20 str and with two weapon fighting along with dwarven waraxes weapon proficiency. The spider cave for example I threw one Large monstrous spider (Cr2) and 2 mediums (Cr1) and they took a little bit of damage but for the most part they walk through these guys (At this time they were only level 2 adventurers) I'm not really sure how to tweak my monsters so they are a bit challenging but not to OP but its hard when you have a +6/+5 attack bonus fighter with 1d10+5 damage. 8(

 

[Dragon Sin-Camealot]

The DnD Wiki's should cover this online. The hardest thing I've noticed is remembering all the bonuses and keeping people interested in the game.

In a private situation I'd overbook the party at 6 in case a couple wanted to drop. Some groups might change the number of enemies on the map based on party size.

The worst you can do is read the script. Hopefully you can invent something interesting based on how many props you bring.

I haven't DM'd but this is what I noticed about the overall game imo.

 

[GandalfMithrandir]

Also, steal shamelessly. Take existing modules and yoink their maps, along with any cool encounters in there. Blend these with your own ideas to make something even better.

Take from Story Hours too, those come chock full of adventure ideas.

EDIT: some other ideas can come from the Play by Post games here, even if they are not in the same system as your game they still can have good ideas for whatever game you're running.

On Overpowered parties: you can also throw tougher stuff at them so that they can have a tougher encounter, despite their over poweredness.

Hope that helps!

GM

 

[kitsune9]

Here is a problem I've encounter a little
For a 3 person party I'm not sure if it me just not having enough experience but it seems like one of the character even though hes only lvl 3 is a powerhouse fighter. He is a lvl 3 half orc fighter with a 20 str and with two weapon fighting along with dwarven waraxes weapon proficiency. The spider cave for example I threw one Large monstrous spider (Cr2) and 2 mediums (Cr1) and they took a little bit of damage but for the most part they walk through these guys (At this time they were only level 2 adventurers) I'm not really sure how to tweak my monsters so they are a bit challenging but not to OP but its hard when you have a +6/+5 attack bonus fighter with 1d10+5 damage. 8(

Fighters will always do a lot of damage in the early levels so your monsters actually do become a bit more of a cakewalk in mook encounters.

However, if you want to make some challenging encounters for even the fighter, you come up with some other ways to mitigate attack, crunch, attack, crunch, rinse and repeat. Here's my ideas:

1. Use terrain. Your adventure is in the swamp isn't it? Lizardmen should have no problem navigating the terrain in their swamp or the other creatures that call it home, but your party will have to consider it difficult terrain and have to move at half speed. What this does is that when you have an encounter with four or five monsters, your half-orc will have to move around the battlefield and won't be very fast to deal with the foes. In the meantime, the foes can be attacking the other characters or flanking the fighter.

2. Use archery. Your fighter is tough wielding those melee weapons, but for him to dish out some damage, he needs to get to his opponent who will have ranged weapons in the meantime.

3. Use terrain Part 2: the monsters have the home field advantage of protecting their lair. Simple snares, pits, and cover aids them to protect themselves and their lairs.

Lastly, don't overdo it because in the end, fighters exist to dish out a lot of damage. If you come up with bruiser encounters to dish out a lot of damage back and the fighter was all the party had, you just went from a fair encounter to a potential TPK.

 

[aco175]

Good read overall. Sounds like you have a great story going.

I used a swamp in one of my campaigns, which I think I stole the idea from FR, of an expanding swamp from a link to a water plane. This way there could be all sorts of ruins and old castles laying around when the land was dry and fertile. A good objective could be to close the portal and drain the swamp- maybe claim a castle in the process.

With the small party size, I have run and been in games where the DM has introduced a character with no ill to the party. We have had a full character and basic npc's. 4th edition has a good concept called the companion character which is a basic character but has a cool thing or two he can use each fight. When the pc's look at your character and say "What do you think we should do"., just roll a few dice and say "I just greaduated from the wizard academy, what the heck would I know about swamps".

 

[Rune]

You have this set in a swamp, so take advantage of its swampiness! Unless your PCs are native to it, you can really mess with their routines (movement, lighting, etc.)

There could be areas of highly concentrated negative energy that spontaneously generate undead. There could be areas of unnatural darkness that (as the spell) that low-light and darkvision cannot pierce. There could be areas only accessible by boat or swimming (great combat potential!).

And, the PCs could have a stalker. A hag (for instance) could pop up out of the mire (preferably in an area where she is still hidden), strike, and sink away again, only to reappear later. Over and over again, but infrequently. This should make the PCs (and players) paranoid, if they have no idea what is hunting (toying with) them.

If the PCs pick up hirelings/innocents, so much the better. Each time the hag attacks, it could drag one off to be consumed in the cold, lonely, wet, dark of the swamp. Delicious.

 

[Tox1C]

Excellent, I will keep a weekly update on my game progression. I just realized that most of the stuff here is for 4th edition but most of the stuff I'm looking for is just with story plots mostly and designing.

OOh i like the ideas so far because they do fit into my theme in some form. For example the rogue in my group is trying to become a wizard killer (Can't remember all his classes it is insane) lol but anyways the reason why hes becoming a wizard killer is because as a child a swamp hag killed his family. So what I'm thinking of adding is a minor sidequest where a swamp hag is kidnapping people or maybe have the swamp hag be the guardian of a barrows. To make things more interesting I was going to have her have a pet hydra. I do like the idea of the swamp hag appearing once in awhile, it puts the players on edge.

 

[pemerton]

Tox1C - the next encounter in my (4e) game will probably involve swamp hags and a hydra!

Anyway, I would encourage you to think about tying the swamp hag thing more tightly into your main plot. For example, maybe by kidnapping the children she is helping the half-dragon cult lead somehow (givin him sacrificial victims?) or maybe she is doing it to stop him (maybe she sacrifices the kidnapped victims as part of a ritual to keep the dragon god dead and buried).

If you make it be a sidquest, your players might feel torn between pursing "the story" and following up on their PC backstories. By building it into the main plotline, you let them do both at once.