Returning to the game

[JakeJekel37]

Hello fellow adventurers. I've been lurking around these parts for a good 3 or 4 months now, soaking up all the knowledge you fine people bestow to the community.

I'm about to start DMing for a completely green group of 4. I myself haven't played since 2E. Though even after I stopped playing, I still bought the core books with the subsequent editions. I liked having the books and just reading and looking through them. A few months back I caught the D&D bug again and wanted to start playing.

As I'm no long in touch with anyone I used to play with (it's been 15 years), I had to talk to current friends and family members to gauge their interest. To my surprise I found 4 who had never played but all said they wanted to but never had the chance. I decided on 4E as it's the one currently in production and easiest for my group to get their hands on the books.

So, after giving everyone some time to look over the PHBs, answering a myriad of questions from each of them, and helping them create their characters (as this is their first time, and I wanted them to play what THEY WANT to play, I didn't impose any restrictions on roles. I.E. if they all wanted to be strikers, so be it, I'd mold the encounters to the make-up of the group), our first session is this coming tuesday.

I've decided that for our very first session that I'm just going to throw them into some random combat encounters to allow them to get the hang of how combat works, see what their powers/feats do and to make any adjustments to their characters they might want to make before the actual campaign.

Now that I've introduced myself and explained the situation, here's why I'm posting.

The group consists of a two-blade ranger, an artful dodger rogue, a monk and an artificer. With this mix of PC roles, what sort of difficulties might I have to look out for in building encounters as to not completely overwhelm the party while they're learning the ins and outs of strategy and combat? I don't want to TPK them right off the bat, but I also don't want it to be a cakewalk. Or is this a decent mix? I know there's some damage output, some crowd control, and some healing.

After our initial session of "practice" rounds, I plan on running some pre-made adventures at first, while working on building my own world and setting for future sessions (as long as everyone enjoys it enough to keep playing). Haven't decided what I'm going to run yet, but I'm looking at WotBS, and some stuff from the LFR website. Thoughts? Ideas?

Thanks for your time, this has been a much longer post than intended. I'll go stand quietly in the corner now.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

For the very first fight, I would recommend mostly of possibly all minions. Maybe mostly minions except for one boss monsters who is a standard monster. Then you can ramp up the encounters from their.

3/4 of you party is strikers, which means they will be dishing out a lot of damage, but also taking a lot. Your artificier will have his work cut out for him, but hopefully should be able to keep up.

 

[nightwyrm]

For the first fight, I'd prolly go 2 standards and 8 minions. The standards are there so your ranger and rogue can roll some damage dies. You'd also want to be careful about what kind of monsters you send against the PCs. Start off using skirmishers and brutes since they're fairly straightforward, then add artilleries. Lurkers takes a bit of DM experience to use well and soldiers can be tough for inexperienced PCs to handle.

Once everybody is used to the combat system, add elites and soloes. One important tip about soloes is not to actually use them as the only monster in combat. That may get boring. Use a solo that's the same level or less as the PCs and then add some other monsters to spice it up.

 

[JakeJekel37]

This was the way I was also leaning, mostly minions with a standard or two so that everyone wasn't a one hit/one kill enemy. Thanks for the responses and I'm glad to know I was headed in the right direction.

My main focus is to ease them into it, find out what really jumps out at them as fun, and use that to build their interest so they start building fond memories like I have of when I first started playing.

And also, that at least one of them gets into enough to where he/she wants to try a hand at DMing, allowing me to experience the game just as a PC again and not have all the added responsibility of being the DM. Not that I mind being DM, I look forward to the world building and populating. But I also miss being one who explores someone else's world.

 

[GameDoc]

Make sure they understand the standard, move, and minor action distinctions too. My experience is that newbies forget they can do one of each, and they often nerf themselves by not utilizing all their options.

You might get some poker chips and give everyone one red, blue, and white one each representing one of the three action types and encourage them to spend all three on their turn if possible.

As the encounter plays out, they will get to know how each type of action can or cannot be spent (i.e., moving more than 1 square in melee provokes opportunity attacks, second wind is a standard action for everyone but dwarves, power X requires a standard action, but power Y requires a minor so you can do both on your turn, etc.).

 

[JakeJekel37]

Make sure they understand the standard, move, and minor action distinctions too. My experience is that newbies forget they can do one of each, and they often nerf themselves by not utilizing all their options.

Thanks. Yeah, one of the players is my girlfriend. Since we live together, I've been able to run her through a few solo encounters to acclimate her while waiting for a time where everyone was available to get together as a group. The first few rounds I always asked her if there was anything she wanted to add to her turn using either her move or minor actions if she hadn't used them. After just a couple rounds she got it and would look over all her powers/feats and such then let me know if she wanted to do anything else or if she was done.

This is why I plan on our first session merely being a couple random "practice" encounters. No XP awarded, no penalties for character deaths, etc. The first session will be completely about the group learning the basic mechanics of combat and skill challenges, and then to discuss what sort of things they would like accomplish or what they're looking to get out of the game, and what sort of setting they would like to play in (high magic, low magic, gothic) so I can world build with them in mind.

 

[Destil]

The lack of a controller shouldn't be a big deal, between the rogue (debuffs), monk (area attacks) and artificer (both) they have that covered pretty well.

With no defender the monsters will be able to run around largely at their leisure. If the artificer is a purely ranged build he could have a fairly hard time, if he has some melee options things should be interesting. Their total surges, as a party, will be pretty low (though a Con/Int artificer can help a LOT there), but because the artificer lets them spread those around to where they're needed they should largely be okay.

Overall: pretty solid party. Brutes and lurkers will be their biggest problem, especially elites, as they have no tough front line guy who can keep them where they want them.

 

[TikkchikFenTikktikk]

I've been running Encounters for the past year and have a lot of experience getting new players into the game.

When it's their turn, make sure you have them role-play:

DM: OK, Nora the Mage, it's your turn.

Katie (playing Nora the Mage): Oh, right! Uh, um. I don't know... (deer-in-headlights stare, awkward shuffling of character sheet, etc.)

DM: Well, you and your friends are lost in the woods and surrounded by a bunch of goblins. You just saw Dak the Monk take down three of them without much challenge. They seem to be taking direction from a goblin hanging back who is covered in some kind of arcane-looking emblems and who doesn't seem to be wearing any armor or wielding a weapon. What would Nora do?

Katie (playing Nora the Mage): I think Nora would try to ask the leader goblin for help getting out of the forest./I think Nora would try to shoot the leader goblin with a fireball!/I think Nora would mow down the weaker goblins with magic arrows!/etc.

DM or other, experienced players: OK, saying a few sentences during combat is a free action, which means you can still have a standard (like attacking) action, move, or some other minor action. What do you want to say?/OK, you have "power x" that can work do a lot of damage from a range. You can only use it once in this combat/today, but it could be big enough to scare off the goblins./OK, you have "power y" that can target multiple enemies. It does a moderate amount of damage, but it could be enough to take down whatever it hits and you can use it whenever it's your turn.

 

[TikkchikFenTikktikk]

Another important trick that is very friendly to new players is introducing a morale system. I essentially use the system from Rules Cyclopedia Basic D&D.

There are a few benefits that make this worth considering:

• It can significantly shorten combats. Nothing makes players run away from the game like never-ending, boring gameplay.
• It adds some realism. Why would all those goblins fight to the death when they see their friends and leader getting slaughtered?
• It opens up story opportunities. If they resist the temptation to coup de grace the goblin mage that just surrendered, he can lead them out of the forest/to an abandoned dwarven mine/to his hobgoblin overlord/etc.

The system is very, very, very easy. I emphasize how easy it is because I've seen complicated ones that hurt more than help.

A monster rolls a morale saving throw when:
* It becomes bloodied.
* Half of its group are dead, have surrendered, or have fled the encounter.
* The "leader" of the group dies, surrenders, or flees the encounter.

If the monster rolls 10 or higher, it saves and continues doing what it was doing.

If it rolls less than 10 it either flees or surrenders. If the monster fails the throw by more than 4 it flees (PANIC! Aieee!), otherwise it surrenders.

"Mindless" monsters (skeletons and zombies, etc.) don't make morale saving throws.

Let the "leader" be flexible. They don't necessarily have to have a Leader template applied. Some combats might not have one.

If you feel this is too simple, you might want to add adjustments to the saving throw. You might allow anything that can affect a regular saving throw affect a this morale saving throw. Or, consider something like this little table
+2 if monsters outnumber (consider requiring 2:1 ratio) players and their allies
-2 if monsters are outnumbered (consider requiring 2:1 ratio) by players and their allies
+2 if leader is still alive (consider restricting to being within 5 or 10 squares of leader)
-2 if leader is dead, has surrendered, or has fled
+2 if all original members of group are alive and have not surrendered or fled
-2 if 50% or fewer of original members of group are alive, have not surrendered, or have not fled

 

[TikkchikFenTikktikk]

For the record, I think D&D is better without morale in the RAW. DMs are empowered to decide when monsters run or surrender or fight to the death.

Morale can be a good corrective for DMs that have every creature fight to the death regardless of what is happening during the combat. But DMs should have the flexibility to decide to end combat or drag it on (for whatever reason) despite the dice.