WotBS Running WotBS with 6-7 players

[catsclaw227]

Hey gang --

It looks like I will be running WotBS with a party of 6 or 7 players, mosly newbies, and I was curious what recommendations you may have on adjusting for this many PCs and/or lack of D&D experience. Four female players, three male players (each RPing their own gender, thank goodness), with very little powergaming or meta-gaming in their PC creation. They are focusing on background and story, and I sense that they will not be very well "optimized" PCs, but really good for the RP aspect of things. This is what we have so far:

1. Female Half-Elf Wizard, player with 1yr D&D 3.5 experience, she wants to take some cleric levels and ultimately become a mystic theurge.

2. Male Human Cleric, player with lots of RPG experience, little 3.5 experience, will play straight cleric (healing domain -- I am thinking maybe aspirations of being part of the Acquiline Cross?), act as party leader.

3. Male Fighter, meat shield, has 1st ed experience, good with learning rules, wants to be the meat shield.

4. Female Human Rogue, player has no RPG experience beyond playing Bard's Tale (CRPG) back in the day. She wants her rogue to be a low charisma, low Con, good Dex/Int/Wis based rogue. Pussed skin, outcast, poor, and an urchin type.

5. Female Elven Ranger (archery based), player with NO RPG experience, but loves playing FRPG console games. This ranger has aspirations to learn the ways of the arcane (wizard), but became a ranger because it's the "family business" (bossy older sister made her do it)

6. Female Elven Druid - don't know much about this character yet...

7. Male 1/2 orc or Human Barbarian - this is the wildcard player or PC, may or may not play.

OK, so this is the makeup of our group. I wanted to mine the minds of other WotBS DMs in the hopes of avoiding some later campaign pitfalls during character creation. I want to add to their backgrounds to make them more region specific and help them get some "skin in the game" so to speak. I want the campaign to draw them in, and I DON'T want the typical tavern meeting to get them together.

I going to use Green Ronin's Book of the Righteous for a cosmology, but I will simplify it for a group of new players, keeping it somewhat light. I'll keep you posted on what I am doing to make this work for the campaign.

I think Primitive Screwhead has a large group too, so he may be as help [whips out DM Summoning IX scroll].

Any thoughts or helpful ideas on how I can flesh out their backgrounds for them to make them part of the campaign setting? Any ideas about running this AP with new players? with this many PCs? All comments are welcome.

CC

 

[Crazy Eights]

I've got a group of 6 right now, and I haven't really needed to change much. I threw in one extra encounter before they started the second adventure just to make sure they would be appropriately leveled. As far as group optimization, my players are about as un-optimized as you can be, so don't worry about inexperienced players hampering the party's enjoyment or abilities. If it seems like they have problems early on, just tone down some of the following combats, obviously.

I'll try to think of some more specific stuff after our next session of the campaign, tomorrow.

~CE

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

catsclaw227, Yes I do have a 7 player game..

I have not had any problems running the modules 'as-is', however my group did not start out optimized... they are rapidly getting to that point. I have adjusted simply by slowing the rate of advancement. I am not using any XP model, simply leveling the group when I think its appropriate. This means they will be facing the Indomitable as 3rd level characters.. may get a bit dicey there. Fortunately there are enough NPC's floating around the battlefield that I can nudge things as needed.

As far as tying them to the background... I had the entire group be part of the resistance and assigned on the mission to take the information Torrent has to the Lycium. I asked that each give a short background and a reason for being a resistance member. This means my group has a varied background but still reasons to work together... at least for now.
I also have a fairly experienced group of players that understand that occasionally the plot narrows down for the purpose of the game


One major challange you will face with a group of new players is sharing the spotlight. With two 'front line' and 4 support, the mook attacks can get deadly. You do need enough NPCs to let everyone get into the fight, but poor rolls can put a mook in the face of your second string pretty easily. I would suggest using the Reserve Hit Point rules to cut down on how deadly the game could be, and how much the cleric will need to heal.
My personal mod to the Reserve rules set the hit point pool at CON stat + level. This gives a good safety net for the first night of battles while not setting the stage for insane hit points at higher levels.

I hope your group has as much fun as mine!
{ and watch out.. someone might realize the best class to play in your group is a Bard... the bard in my game has proven to be the highest damage dealer out of everyone!}

 

[Ithaqua]

Well, I am now starting the campaing with a second group of seven players and I have just needed to add some more antagonists in some encounters just to not have ther villians outnumbered, but I dont encounter many troubles

I am also levelling the group when I think they should because I am playing this second party in a web based campaing and is many time to put encounters just for experience

This groups is quite mixed, I have some real experts in the rules and also a pair of noobs and is not a problem, they are getting some help from the experts and are learning quite fast (one of the funny things is that most of the help is in-rol because one of the experts is playing a commander and advise the others how to behave in combat)


BTW, Afeter some crazy months I am back

 

[Chimera]

{ and watch out.. someone might realize the best class to play in your group is a Bard... the bard in my game has proven to be the highest damage dealer out of everyone!}

Now now, I thought I dispelled that one last session. I DO NOT have the highest damage total, unless you're crediting me for the additional damage that people are doing because of my kewl boosts.

However, I do think that I still have the highest number of individual "kills". With a Bard using an unmodified Shortbow and a 14 dex.

Hey, what can I say. Primitive Screwhead has seen it in action. I get really lucky at the right moments. Like that natural 20 = +33 Diplomacy check on the Ghaele last session or the several times I've rolled a 19+mods on my Bardic Knowledge checks.

 

[Sam]

I've got the same concerns regarding party size. I'm starting the campaign this friday with a group of 8 players. Don't ask.... We've got a gaming group of about 11 people (including whoever is DM'ing), though normally there's only about six players in any given campaign. I guess I got "lucky" with a lot of people wanting to play. We play weekly, though with real-life commitments we usually have at least one person (not necessarily the same person each week) not show about half the time. So, on average I'll have 7.5 players. 7 of the group are seasoned D&D players, with one of them being an uber-powergamer. Strangely enough he's also a great role-player (probably the best in the group), he just naturally tweaks a character to extract every possible benefit. 1 of the players has played D&D a little bit.

I'm still waiting for all the character sheets, but the party composition looks like this:
Wizard
Rogue (only plans on 1 level of rog, going to then do swashbuckler)
Paladin
Warmage
Duskblade
Fighter
Unknown
Unknown (probably fighter or ranger)

I plan on going through the first module this week and putting in some upgrades. Anyone have any suggestions on what did or didn't work in their game?

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I don't see a cleric there, so the use of Reserve Hit Points can go a ways to make the game safer. I liked the first adventure becuase there were so many encounters in a short time... normally this can kill 1st level players due to hit point attrition.

It looks like you will have mainly melee focused, so run with it. Make sure your combats use terrain and manueverability as much as possible. The group should do fine. Just watch out for them ganging up on the hard targets. IMC the BBG fighter at the Inn didn't quite make it away...and he was supposed to be a returning character