Am I being too Generous? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Am I being too Generous? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Afarian
01-15-05, 11:30 AM Just started my first D&D campaign and I want to make sure that I keep everything balanced by not giving my players too much power/easy rewards and also by not being too restrictive. At first I thought it was going to be just one player so I gave him 35 point buy system and 3 randomly generated Minor items. Then I got one of my roomates to play so he got the same thing but he also sacrificed one his minors to upgrade one to a medium. Now I'm actually getting 4 players so I hope 35 points and 3 minor random items won't be too much.
A more important concern though is exp and monster of the appropiate CR.
The Barbarian (who but all his points into getting a 19 str and 18 Con)
can do loads of dmg and has loads of Hp (only 14 AC though, I think he miscalculated his points and could have higher scores on his other abilities)
That being said, this is what they fought in their first trial dungeon
3 goblins-total of CR1: 300
Hobgoblin: 1/2 CR 150
Human Warrior Skel. 1/3 100
2 Orcs total CR 1: 300
1 Lizardfolk CR 1: 300
2 Monstrous Scorpions (small) total Cr 1/2 150
So unless calculated this wrong, according to the table CR/Exp table they should have recieved about 1300 total. so 650 a piece.
Then I had 2 traps.
1 Cr1 trap= 300?
1 Cr2 trap= 600?
so that's another 450 a pop I threw in an extra 150 to Barb for great roleplaying of stupid Orc barbarian and 100 to the wiz.
So that's easily lvl 2 in one session. Should it have been that easy? I know the Orc does loads of dmg so maybe that's the main thing.
Later they're joined by a 3rd PC who I let start at lvl 2 (to make it easy exp wise) and I sold the Barbarian a flaming +1 Great Axe for 1600. Heh-heh, that was a "Doh!" on my part since I couldn't figure out to add the enchantment modifier but the shopkeeper was a dumb melee type himself.
They fought 4 Krenshars later. However,only one used it's "Scare" ability on a summoned monster and they didn't all attack at once.
Finally they had a bit of a struggle with 4 lizard men who all ganged up on the barbarian
Still, those 8 creatures are a total of 3,600 exp which would mean each character would already gain an additional 1,200.
So basically I want to do everything by the book for the most part but I want to confirm that everyone is getting fair and challenging encounters and rewards
DInDenver
01-15-05, 11:56 AM Hi!
I am about to give you some encouragement and a little vague advice:
Sounds like you did everything by the book, don't sweat that stuff.
Ultimately, D&D is about having fun. If you are having fun, and the players are having fun, then relax, you'll do fine. The rules on DM'ing are guidelines. You can't break those rules. The only tricky things you have to look out for is:
1 ) Monty Hall'ing: When a 5th level character has a sword of sharpness and 1,000,000 GP, you are making the game too easy for the PCs
2 ) Adversarial relationship: If you start to fall into tha attitude of hating the PCs and feeling like you are not doing your job if they don't die, that is just as bad as Monty Halling
3 ) Hack and Slash: Obviously, this is a hack and slash game, but it will still get boring if that is all you do. Mix it up with some good story line. Have the Lizard Man's bigger, badder brother hunt down the characters for revenge.
4 ) Be careful what characters can buy and sell. Early in the campaign try and imagine how common magic is in your fantasy setting and stay true to that. For instance, if wealthy farmers can get a +1 Plow of straight Furrows, then maybe magic is real plentiful and merchants in your game will be like the merchants in computer games. Or if Magic is so rare that the only magic items are those plucked from the tombs of long dead kings, then perhaps you can't buy any magic items at all, except maybe in capital cities if you ask the right people.

Anyways, you'll get signs that your game is going well. When your players talk about the game when you are not playing it, or if the other guys go and buy the books, you'll know you are doing fine. Personally, I think it's hard to throw well balanced encounters at lower level characters. And the number of XPs required to level goes way up real fast, so I would go ahead like you are and once the charaters are level 5 or so, if you are still uncomfortable with the speed they are leveling, talk to your players and let them know that you are going to add "x" levels to their character levels when calculating XPs. To account for their nice equipment, stats, etc...
Anyways, good luck, sounds like you have a good group!
Afarian
01-15-05, 02:12 PM Thanks for that encouragement DinDenver, really appreciate it!! (one of the guys in my group is Denver too btw).
I just wanted to make sure everything remained challenging and not too easy nor too hard for anyone. The other group I'm a PC in the DM has some pretty crazy houserules! I guess everyone's having fun to an extent but I think that later on down the road things could get rather difficult.
There's a link here if you care to see
http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=350290

In any case I would still like a few more opinions
On_the_wings_of_TPK
01-15-05, 03:05 PM Hello: (I'm not in Afarian's group, btw)

Denver is absolutely right when he says, "If you are having fun, and the players are having fun, then relax, you'll do fine. The rules on DM'ing are guidelines." So I won't repeat that. (Oops, guess I just did, huh.) Instead I think I'll say something vaguely like "you're new and bound to mess up", then I think I'll point out the character wealth by level chart in the DMG. Yes, it's a guideline, but hey, guidelines are good to follow. And while I was nit-picking, I figure I'd take the time to point out that, before racials are factored in, it is impossible to have a starting ability score above 18. Thus that 19 for the barbarian is a little off, but hey. (Although the player still has 3 points left, so they ought to have some 9's or maybe a 10, or by the looks of this player a 11 somewere. I also don't think I'll bother pointing out that the player could play a half-orc, thus allowing him to have a 20 in Strength. Mind you his Dexterity and Wisdom will be abominable. Actually, come to think about it, one may think that the player is asking his DM to wait patiently until they are 5th level and use Hold Person and/or Fireball on him. A LOT!)

Then I'll say something like "DMing aint easy, and always remember: it's your game, your rules."

Hmmm in hindsight I guess I don't have anything to say after all. Good luck with it.

Cheers.
Afarian
01-15-05, 06:04 PM Hello: (I'm not in Afarian's group, btw)

Denver is absolutely right when he says, "If you are having fun, and the players are having fun, then relax, you'll do fine. The rules on DM'ing are guidelines." So I won't repeat that. (Oops, guess I just did, huh.) Instead I think I'll say something vaguely like "you're new and bound to mess up", then I think I'll point out the character wealth by level chart in the DMG. Yes, it's a guideline, but hey, guidelines are good to follow. And while I was nit-picking, I figure I'd take the time to point out that, before racials are factored in, it is impossible to have a starting ability score above 18. Thus that 19 for the barbarian is a little off, but hey. (Although the player still has 3 points left, so they ought to have some 9's or maybe a 10, or by the looks of this player a 11 somewere. I also don't think I'll bother pointing out that the player could play a half-orc, thus allowing him to have a 20 in Strength. Mind you his Dexterity and Wisdom will be abominable. Actually, come to think about it, one may think that the player is asking his DM to wait patiently until they are 5th level and use Hold Person and/or Fireball on him. A LOT!)

Then I'll say something like "DMing aint easy, and always remember: it's your game, your rules."

Hmmm in hindsight I guess I don't have anything to say after all. Good luck with it.

Cheers.

Thanks for the info,
I'll definetly take a look at the character Wealth Chart because I think them a bit much for their first dungeon. Mostly because I determined all the items on the fly (which yes, is very bad but I actually have my "storyline" dungeons pretty well planned out, this one was something to keep them busy until I finished completing the other more important dugeons.
As for the Barbarian, I didn't mention it in the first post but he IS a Half-Orc and he actually has 19 Str. 18 Con and everything else is 8's and 6's with the exception of one 9.
I think I made a mistake in the buy system and didn't realize that he could actually buy his MAIN stat for less so if I'm not mistaken he could pay "1" to increase his STR until 16 instead of just going to "14" for 1 point per point
Razoreface
01-15-05, 07:37 PM If he has, before racial adjustments, 17 strength (the +2 is added after the point buy cost), 18 constitution, and 8 in everything else, that's 29 points. The 17 is 13 points, and the 18 is 16 points. Everything else was free. If he started with a 19 before the racial adjustments, you can't do that. If he started with 17/18/8/8/8/8, which would translate to 19/18/8/6/8/6 (which is honestly, a really dumbarse choice)then he has six points left to spend. Tell him to buy some bloody dexterity.
fireangel37
01-15-05, 11:11 PM Don't be afraid to get your players into a hard encounter. Take a look at the encounter level rules and the guildlines therein. If your PCs are only going to face one encounter in a given day, don't be afraid to really smash them up. I dropped an EL 7 on a group of six 2nd level characters the other day and it was quite fun (showing the PCs why one player doesn't break off to set up an ambush much closer to the bad guys was particularly fun) for everyone involved. The end of the combat had a couple of players with a moderate amount of con damage and a whole lot of damage (one down but stable, two almost down).

These players passed from level 1 to 2 through a single combat which started out with them facing 10 1st level archers (human experts with wilderness and stealth skills) in concealment and thelr level 2 ranger leader. I still don't quite know how they survived that one (well, actually, I do, a lucky use of the entangle spell rendered most of the opposition immobile and entangled and the monk reversed the ambush, surprising the leader and taking him down before he ever acted).

Beat up the PCs. Really lay into them and don't pull punches (well, until they're about ready to die, then you can start pulling punches). In the end, don't be afraid to hurt them, since they'll be pushing right back. Don't expect the PCs to survive more than one encounter like that a day, though, particularly at low level ;)
RPGfish
01-15-05, 11:31 PM Just keep it fun and add some challenges. Don't push with rules or let them wander though. Try to add some more interesting things than monsters. Add a basic storyline and keep working on it. Make more complicated towns and stuff. Pop a few extra books in there (draconimicon, arms +equip guide, etc). Add some new options once in a while. Be unique.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Afarian 01-15-05, 11:30 AM	Just started my first D&D campaign and I want to make sure that I keep everything balanced by not giving my players too much power/easy rewards and also by not being too restrictive. At first I thought it was going to be just one player so I gave him 35 point buy system and 3 randomly generated Minor items. Then I got one of my roomates to play so he got the same thing but he also sacrificed one his minors to upgrade one to a medium. Now I'm actually getting 4 players so I hope 35 points and 3 minor random items won't be too much. A more important concern though is exp and monster of the appropiate CR. The Barbarian (who but all his points into getting a 19 str and 18 Con) can do loads of dmg and has loads of Hp (only 14 AC though, I think he miscalculated his points and could have higher scores on his other abilities) That being said, this is what they fought in their first trial dungeon 3 goblins-total of CR1: 300 Hobgoblin: 1/2 CR 150 Human Warrior Skel. 1/3 100 2 Orcs total CR 1: 300 1 Lizardfolk CR 1: 300 2 Monstrous Scorpions (small) total Cr 1/2 150 So unless calculated this wrong, according to the table CR/Exp table they should have recieved about 1300 total. so 650 a piece. Then I had 2 traps. 1 Cr1 trap= 300? 1 Cr2 trap= 600? so that's another 450 a pop I threw in an extra 150 to Barb for great roleplaying of stupid Orc barbarian and 100 to the wiz. So that's easily lvl 2 in one session. Should it have been that easy? I know the Orc does loads of dmg so maybe that's the main thing. Later they're joined by a 3rd PC who I let start at lvl 2 (to make it easy exp wise) and I sold the Barbarian a flaming +1 Great Axe for 1600. Heh-heh, that was a "Doh!" on my part since I couldn't figure out to add the enchantment modifier but the shopkeeper was a dumb melee type himself. They fought 4 Krenshars later. However,only one used it's "Scare" ability on a summoned monster and they didn't all attack at once. Finally they had a bit of a struggle with 4 lizard men who all ganged up on the barbarian Still, those 8 creatures are a total of 3,600 exp which would mean each character would already gain an additional 1,200. So basically I want to do everything by the book for the most part but I want to confirm that everyone is getting fair and challenging encounters and rewards
DInDenver 01-15-05, 11:56 AM	Hi! I am about to give you some encouragement and a little vague advice: Sounds like you did everything by the book, don't sweat that stuff. Ultimately, D&D is about having fun. If you are having fun, and the players are having fun, then relax, you'll do fine. The rules on DM'ing are guidelines. You can't break those rules. The only tricky things you have to look out for is: 1 ) Monty Hall'ing: When a 5th level character has a sword of sharpness and 1,000,000 GP, you are making the game too easy for the PCs 2 ) Adversarial relationship: If you start to fall into tha attitude of hating the PCs and feeling like you are not doing your job if they don't die, that is just as bad as Monty Halling 3 ) Hack and Slash: Obviously, this is a hack and slash game, but it will still get boring if that is all you do. Mix it up with some good story line. Have the Lizard Man's bigger, badder brother hunt down the characters for revenge. 4 ) Be careful what characters can buy and sell. Early in the campaign try and imagine how common magic is in your fantasy setting and stay true to that. For instance, if wealthy farmers can get a +1 Plow of straight Furrows, then maybe magic is real plentiful and merchants in your game will be like the merchants in computer games. Or if Magic is so rare that the only magic items are those plucked from the tombs of long dead kings, then perhaps you can't buy any magic items at all, except maybe in capital cities if you ask the right people. Anyways, you'll get signs that your game is going well. When your players talk about the game when you are not playing it, or if the other guys go and buy the books, you'll know you are doing fine. Personally, I think it's hard to throw well balanced encounters at lower level characters. And the number of XPs required to level goes way up real fast, so I would go ahead like you are and once the charaters are level 5 or so, if you are still uncomfortable with the speed they are leveling, talk to your players and let them know that you are going to add "x" levels to their character levels when calculating XPs. To account for their nice equipment, stats, etc... Anyways, good luck, sounds like you have a good group!
Afarian 01-15-05, 02:12 PM	Thanks for that encouragement DinDenver, really appreciate it!! (one of the guys in my group is Denver too btw). I just wanted to make sure everything remained challenging and not too easy nor too hard for anyone. The other group I'm a PC in the DM has some pretty crazy houserules! I guess everyone's having fun to an extent but I think that later on down the road things could get rather difficult. There's a link here if you care to see http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=350290 In any case I would still like a few more opinions
On_the_wings_of_TPK 01-15-05, 03:05 PM	Hello: (I'm not in Afarian's group, btw) Denver is absolutely right when he says, "If you are having fun, and the players are having fun, then relax, you'll do fine. The rules on DM'ing are guidelines." So I won't repeat that. (Oops, guess I just did, huh.) Instead I think I'll say something vaguely like "you're new and bound to mess up", then I think I'll point out the character wealth by level chart in the DMG. Yes, it's a guideline, but hey, guidelines are good to follow. And while I was nit-picking, I figure I'd take the time to point out that, before racials are factored in, it is impossible to have a starting ability score above 18. Thus that 19 for the barbarian is a little off, but hey. (Although the player still has 3 points left, so they ought to have some 9's or maybe a 10, or by the looks of this player a 11 somewere. I also don't think I'll bother pointing out that the player could play a half-orc, thus allowing him to have a 20 in Strength. Mind you his Dexterity and Wisdom will be abominable. Actually, come to think about it, one may think that the player is asking his DM to wait patiently until they are 5th level and use Hold Person and/or Fireball on him. A LOT!) Then I'll say something like "DMing aint easy, and always remember: it's your game, your rules." Hmmm in hindsight I guess I don't have anything to say after all. Good luck with it. Cheers.
Afarian 01-15-05, 06:04 PM	Hello: (I'm not in Afarian's group, btw) Denver is absolutely right when he says, "If you are having fun, and the players are having fun, then relax, you'll do fine. The rules on DM'ing are guidelines." So I won't repeat that. (Oops, guess I just did, huh.) Instead I think I'll say something vaguely like "you're new and bound to mess up", then I think I'll point out the character wealth by level chart in the DMG. Yes, it's a guideline, but hey, guidelines are good to follow. And while I was nit-picking, I figure I'd take the time to point out that, before racials are factored in, it is impossible to have a starting ability score above 18. Thus that 19 for the barbarian is a little off, but hey. (Although the player still has 3 points left, so they ought to have some 9's or maybe a 10, or by the looks of this player a 11 somewere. I also don't think I'll bother pointing out that the player could play a half-orc, thus allowing him to have a 20 in Strength. Mind you his Dexterity and Wisdom will be abominable. Actually, come to think about it, one may think that the player is asking his DM to wait patiently until they are 5th level and use Hold Person and/or Fireball on him. A LOT!) Then I'll say something like "DMing aint easy, and always remember: it's your game, your rules." Hmmm in hindsight I guess I don't have anything to say after all. Good luck with it. Cheers. Thanks for the info, I'll definetly take a look at the character Wealth Chart because I think them a bit much for their first dungeon. Mostly because I determined all the items on the fly (which yes, is very bad but I actually have my "storyline" dungeons pretty well planned out, this one was something to keep them busy until I finished completing the other more important dugeons. As for the Barbarian, I didn't mention it in the first post but he IS a Half-Orc and he actually has 19 Str. 18 Con and everything else is 8's and 6's with the exception of one 9. I think I made a mistake in the buy system and didn't realize that he could actually buy his MAIN stat for less so if I'm not mistaken he could pay "1" to increase his STR until 16 instead of just going to "14" for 1 point per point
Razoreface 01-15-05, 07:37 PM	If he has, before racial adjustments, 17 strength (the +2 is added after the point buy cost), 18 constitution, and 8 in everything else, that's 29 points. The 17 is 13 points, and the 18 is 16 points. Everything else was free. If he started with a 19 before the racial adjustments, you can't do that. If he started with 17/18/8/8/8/8, which would translate to 19/18/8/6/8/6 (which is honestly, a really dumbarse choice)then he has six points left to spend. Tell him to buy some bloody dexterity.
fireangel37 01-15-05, 11:11 PM	Don't be afraid to get your players into a hard encounter. Take a look at the encounter level rules and the guildlines therein. If your PCs are only going to face one encounter in a given day, don't be afraid to really smash them up. I dropped an EL 7 on a group of six 2nd level characters the other day and it was quite fun (showing the PCs why one player doesn't break off to set up an ambush much closer to the bad guys was particularly fun) for everyone involved. The end of the combat had a couple of players with a moderate amount of con damage and a whole lot of damage (one down but stable, two almost down). These players passed from level 1 to 2 through a single combat which started out with them facing 10 1st level archers (human experts with wilderness and stealth skills) in concealment and thelr level 2 ranger leader. I still don't quite know how they survived that one (well, actually, I do, a lucky use of the entangle spell rendered most of the opposition immobile and entangled and the monk reversed the ambush, surprising the leader and taking him down before he ever acted). Beat up the PCs. Really lay into them and don't pull punches (well, until they're about ready to die, then you can start pulling punches). In the end, don't be afraid to hurt them, since they'll be pushing right back. Don't expect the PCs to survive more than one encounter like that a day, though, particularly at low level ;)
RPGfish 01-15-05, 11:31 PM	Just keep it fun and add some challenges. Don't push with rules or let them wander though. Try to add some more interesting things than monsters. Add a basic storyline and keep working on it. Make more complicated towns and stuff. Pop a few extra books in there (draconimicon, arms +equip guide, etc). Add some new options once in a while. Be unique.