Need some first time 3.5 advice...

[Mathew Lankard]

So in the next couple of weekends I will begin my 3.5 DM career. I have GMed lots of other systems including older versions of DnD. Despite my dislike of the spells per day magic system, my love for the fantasy genre has pulled me and my group back in! If anyone could help me with a few questions it would be greatly appreciated. Im fairly versed in D20 through Modern and Star Wars but there are some things I need help with.

Resting. How do you handle this? Do you just have the characters stop in the middle of the dungeon and fast forward to the next morning health and spells intact? Random wandering monster checks perhaps? How do you stop "video game" thinking, preventing players from stoping before every open door?

Thanks for any help, Im sure Ill have more questions!

 

[Slobber Monster]

Time pressure is a key element of adventure design for DnD, or else you do wind up with characters resting after every encounter. Random encounters work fine, better though if they make some kind of sense for the setting. They tend to work less well as PC's go up in level because of the various spells which ensure an uninterrupted rest. There are also plenty of plot hooks or environment elements which enforce time pressure - sinking temples, pursuit, volcanic eruptions, defending towns, etc. Dungeon crawls are fun, but it makes for nice variety to mix in some other scenarios.



Edit: Note that adventures which totally lack time pressure can be fun too, you just have to take that into account when designing things. The challenge rating system assumes four-five relatively easy encounters per day, which have the combined effect of using up PC resources. One encounter per day usually requires about +2-3 EL to be challenging, and many of the X-per day abilities become relatively more powerfull.

 

[Whimsical]

Although the smart thing to do is to rest before every encounter, I think that a lot of gamers rather just press on until their personal resources are exhausted. But if they do rest between encounters, then the "dungeon" reinforces itself overnight. Now that they have a sense of their enemy, they can tailor their defenses against them.

And my general advice for first time DMs, start your game at 1st level.