D&D 5th edition - pointers?

[chad878262]

Thanks all, one of the players (who has never played any version of D&D, but says he's watched hundreds of hours of people playing D&D :LOL: ) purchased the DMG, PHB, MM and Hoard of the Dragon Queen adventure. I paged through the DMG and made some notes on where to find things that might come up yesterday and plan to do a quick thumb through of the PHB today. Our first session is Thursday so I also want to go at least through the first bit of the adventure book prior to then. Really appreciate all the feedback and am looking forward to running my first campaign. I am going to attempt to keep it somewhat lower magic by perhaps replacing "+1" items with Masterwork/finely crafted (whatever) and I want to try naming and giving some history to any somewhat powerful items they find down the road. 5e seems to have kept magic items to the +3 and under variety for the most part which is nice, since the focus will remain on the actual ability of the characters, with perhaps a few magic items to supplement them.

Again, thanks for all the feedback. I feel much better prepared than I did a week ago!

[Akroma666]

Couple things, make sure you reward players with inspirations.. Its what makes the game more fun IMHO. I usually give them out for exceptional RP, something hilarious, or genuinely playing your character in a tough decision moment.

Also, I've plade horde, +1 magic items aren't too bad, there is a game changer item. At some point you clear a burned out library of sorts and there is a locked box with a "Headband of Intelligence" or something along those lines.. I was the Guinea Pig for the item as a barbarian.. It made my character extremely broken to take my 8 int to a 19 which was higher than our wizards. I would suggest maybe making it advantage in into saves instead.. Unless you want them to have a truly awesome item? In the hands of a rogue.. Jez...

[chad878262]

Update...

Had our first session last Thursday, second session is tomorrow (usually will be every two weeks, but there is a company meeting so we are going to do a session afterwards). Anyway, some highlights...

It's easy to forget how differently people see RP and define alignments. When the bard put several Kobolds to sleep in one of the encounters and the Paladin was about to slay him I called foul (LG / Paladin slaying an incapacitated foe?)... Well, apparently in 5e Paladins are very different creatures, this one is a CG Nature paladin who has no qualms about slaying sleeping kobolds... Once I realized Paladin's were no longer LG and this particular one wasn't an archetype I was familiar with I said fine, but the War Cleric of Torm (LG alignment) surely wouldn't be ok with this. There was a great deal of debate and it appears this group isn't too in to the hard core RP of moral considerations, which is fine...Just a matter of learning the group I guess, as I don't really know any of them that well. Just really typing this here because I (wrongly) assumed that being involved with a PnP group would mean they are more hardcore RP'ers, but not the case... Not really good or bad, just an interesting comment about something I incorrectly assumed.

The adventure itself is going well so far, the party had to go through four encounters to reach the keep with a family of commoners, the father was already injured and the mother was injured before they could rescue them, but all kids are safe. However, coming up is some pretty tough combat in order to actually get in the keep and get to the meat of chapter 1. I'm excited to see how they handle these combats as they've mostly exhausted their spells aside from Cantrips and don't really have any healing left to speak of... The Cleric went down in the last encounter and had to be brought back from zero HP, so I have a feeling it's going to be tough going until they enter the keep and have a chance to get a bit of R&R before taking on the missions. Not sure if I went a bit too hard on them as the first encounter was so painfully easy I ramped up a subsequent encounter just a bit. Might just be noobie DM L2P issues on my part as I probably should have thought of the fact that it is a series of battles and they would become more difficult without resources as spells and per rest abilities were used up.

Anyway, the party we have is made up of:

Half-elf Paladin, Oath of the Ancients,CG (DEX based, Rapier wielding)
Dwarf Fighter, LG (Standard STR/CON Dwarf with a Hammer and shield)
Human War Cleric, LG (Torm)
Bard (forget if human or half-elf), eventually going Lore I believe
Gnome Wizard, eventually going illusion I think (also the only player to make a female PC )

There may potentially be a sixth player that wasn't there for the first session and apparently one or two others have expressed interest, though I asked the group to keep it to six or fewer, since I haven't played table top in over 20 years and would like to be able to mostly go 'by the book' and not have to do too much adjustment to the encounters difficulty for larger parties.

Anyway, what are some of your experiences with differing philosophies on Role Playing in tabletop games? I know at least one of the players also runs his own group as DM and indicated he abhors any sort of PvP style gameplay, using an example of a rogue stealing a magic item and the player and character vehemently denying it... While I personally don't have an issue with the character doing so, I do think it's poor form if other players are upset to OOC'ly deny it, though I also can see the issue of that OOC knowledge then causing IC issues so it's a toss up. Luckily for our group it's a non-issue since, so far they seem to be more appreciative of the combat and story telling aspect, rather than individual character to character RP...though I am hopeful they will grow in to that aspect at some point since I think it will enhance the story to have at least some interaction beyond "attack that guy" type of discussions...

[NeonAvenger]

When the bard put several Kobolds to sleep in one of the encounters and the Paladin was about to slay him I called foul (LG / Paladin slaying an incapacitated foe?)...

This falls under one of my pet peeves so I feel obliged to comment, I'll avoid the multi-page rant I'm tempted to write though.

This is a result of the way that the paladin class is viewed has changed since the game was created.
The "original" paladin was based on the stories of Arthur's Knights of the Round Table, the companions of Charlemagne, etc... the "modern" D&D paladin is its own thing and has little basis in mythology (The Bard class has had an even greater shift in this sense).
To give some idea of the "original" paladin concept let's take a look at some comments by an old-school DM: http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.co.nz/2 ... gygax.html.
Those are some of Gary Gygax's comments compiled from a thread on paladins.

Somewhere along the line the concept that "Paladins have to be nice" crept in and I think this is the origin of "Lawful Stupid" as an alignment.
At the end of the day though: Paladins in a given campaign are whatever the DM and players agree for them to be.

My apologies if this is a bit disjointed, I cut large chunks out as I felt they veered into ranting.

[chad878262]

No worries, I was more considering it a matter of honorable combat vs. Specifically paladin related, but as I said, the rest of the group didn't seem to like that methodology.

[Ichabod]

In terms of table philosophy, the primary thing that all other considerations should be made in light of is...

You are playing a cooperative storytelling game.

Secondary to that, the tone of the table is almost totally dictated by the type of game the players want. I am currently DMing for two groups, and they could not be more different. My Monday night group are a bunch of veteran table-top players who very much enjoy the mechanical, action-oriented aspects of the game. My twice-monthly weekend group are mostly players with less than 2 years experience who couldn't give a rat's @$$ about numbers, and are there to tell a great story while laughing, socializing, and eating good food.

And neither one is doing it wrong.

As long as everyone is having a good time, and none at the expense of others, you're doing it right.

If your players want to play as monsters, have a monster campaign! If your players all want to be shady, play an evil campaign! If your players want to be nobles, play a political campaign! And if your dwarf fighter wants the gnomes he rescued to build him a steam-powered ballista, then by god, those gnomes had better get to work, eh Wyatt? =P

The last thing I'd offer is that the players are just as responsible for the story as the DM. The DM may set the stage, but the players need to bring their A-game, or you might as well just be watching TV. The players should come to the table with some good ideas for how their characters behave, and perhaps some goals they want to accomplish. It sounds like some of your characters have a firm grip on this already in terms of alignment, which is a good starting point.

[chad878262]

Second session was last night, and it was good. The gnome wizard came up with a good idea of utilizing minor illusion to create a replica of a section of the keep wall and use it to hide their approach to the gate (thus avoiding the 3 encounters to get in to the keep). Unfortunately a winged kobold saw them and sounded the alarm, causing it to become a mad dash to the gate. It was close, with some ranged and a small amount of melee, but the party was able to get the family of commoners in safely with only one character falling to zero HP. After meeting with the Governor and Castellan of the Keep and taking a short rest they used the old tunnel to go out and try to save some commoners holed up in the Temple of Chauntea, but after a failed attempt to open the grate to the stream they had to force it and were attacked by the nearby Cultists. One nearly got away before being taken out from range by a couple of the party, and the party was able to level up to 2. Everyone is saying it's a lot of fun ...so far, so good I guess!

Next session isn't until 11/17, but thanks for the continued comments folks!

[Eclypticon]

In my personal opinion, RP has taken a backseat since 4th ed. I tried to get into 4th ed, but it didn't work out. 5th ed looks much nicer than 4th ed, but I will probably stick to Pathfinder for RP and mechanics. I hope you can enjoy your experience though.

[chad878262]

Well, as I've never played anything PnP wise since 2nd edition I can't comment on 4e, but what I've read supports your comments. I will say that I think 5e is actually MORE supportive of RP due to the following points:

1. while theory crafting is fun and there are a few things that can somewhat be 'powerbuilds' every single thing you do to increase a PC's power is at the expense of something else. For example, you can make a Valor Bard and take Paladin/Ranger level 5 spells at 10th level, whereas those spells are not available to a paladin/ranger until level 17... Fairly powerful for melee (paladin smites) or ranged (ranger spell, forget the name). However, this is the definition of a 'nova' ability as the valor bard will be worse than the fighter/paladin/ranger pretty much all the time except those one - three times they can cast a spell to gain 5d10 damage on one attack... Conversely they could take a lower level spell or something that would last longer and give a bit more sustained damage.

2. Stats are intentional kept in check, you can't get an ability score higher than 20 without magic/barbarian, your proficiency bonus (which applies to saves, skills, attacks, everything) maxes out at +6... AC generally maxes out at around 25 or so, from what I can tell and with a +3 weapon the max AB with proficiency and max STR/DEX will end up at 14 without buffs.

3. Spells that buff require concentration except in maybe 3-5 scenarios...and you can only have one concentration spell up at a time. So the Cleric/Mage will never be as good a fighter as the fighter, and their buffs are generally always better applied to the party fighter or rogue rather than themselves.

In practice I like it so far, it's a good balance of focus on RP opportunities and mechanical combat, but is nowhere near the number crunching required in 2 or 3.x edition. Roles are no longer so specific as a Fighter can be built as a damage dealer or a tank or even a controller. There are certainly still some idea's I've come up with that optimize a little, but nothing so broken as to really be considered OP. Of course we are not using some of the optional rules such as variant human which would absolutely allow for some OP low level capabilities.

Anyway, I'll keep updating as we play with some of the experiences, but so far the feedback from the five players in both sessions has been positive and really we are just all working out a couple kinks as we go.