Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 TexasCodeMonkey Sep 25, 2014 22:58:07	Hey guys, I'm about to DM my first campaign from the Starter Box, the Lost Mine of Phandelver. I've been reading and watching as much as I can to learn. I've only played D&D 4-5 encounters (I'm doing the HotDQ Encounter at my local shop) and of my friends, 2 of them played Pathfinder before.   I think I'm pretty set, but it looks like my campaign is going to have 7 members, 5 who have never role-played. I heard on the live stream FAQ that The Lost Mine of Phandelver was written for 4-5 players.    My question is: Should I adjust and add more monsters for the higher number of players? How do you judge when to do that?   For example, in LMoP, the first encounter is 4 goblins. If their Challenge is 1/4, should I maybe do 6 instead?   I've been reading tons of advice all over the web and these are really close friends, so I'm pretty sure we'll have fun, I just want the difficulty to be optimal.   Thanks for looking.
#2 Kentus Sep 26, 2014 0:44:25	Generally it's mainly about how confident you are about adapting it. Because if you aren't, you can still run it the way it is and the encounters are becoming much easier, since the party has a lot of more resources.   The quick and dirty way is to increase the number of every goon by 2-3 (like you said with the goblins), this isn't always adequat, but normally it shouldn't really matter much. It's easy and brings the encounter back to track quantity-wise.   If you really wants to do some work into it, use the DM-Base-Rules calculate the number of XP which were spent on the encounter, look how difficult it would be for 4 (or 5 if you want to make it a bit easier), look how hard the encounter would be and adapt it for 7 players. You can use my .xls to know the budget your party is going to have at each encounter, in total.     I guess, I would use the quick and dirty method, personally.
#3 Llenlleawg Sep 26, 2014 5:31:35	With five players absolutely new to roleplaying? I'd leave the numbers just as they are. Sure, it will make some encounters theoretically a little easier, but don't forget that these players are just learning how all of this works. Also, in the end there's diminishing returns with, e.g. melee combat and numbers, since it will be rare for all the PCs to gang up on one or two monsters that aren't at least large. If the players themselves seem to find things too easy (i.e. they start to get careless), you can try adding a few more of the weakest monsters in an encounter, but don't worry about it. After all, it's also your first time as DM, so give yourselves all a break and learn what works for you, even as the players will learn tactics and how best to use their numbers (which will mean you can give them even tougher challenges).   Enjoy!
#4 iserith Sep 26, 2014 6:26:39	I agree with others - leave it as is for the first couple sessions to see how it goes. Then add some monsters once you've gotten more of a feel for the party's capabilities. When you do, consider adding them once the battle is joined as a second wave rather than up front. It's a lot easier to add if the PCs are having an easy time of it than to take monsters away when the PCs are suddenly getting a pasting.   If you're interested in reading some of my notes regarding Phandelver, check my signature "Re-Imagining Phandelver." Good luck!
#5 TexasCodeMonkey Sep 26, 2014 6:29:11	Thanks for all the responses guys. It's really encouraging. Iserith, I'll go read that post.   Thanks again.
(Reply to #5) intently	For what it's worth, I'm running Phandelver with just my wife as a player, who has never played before. She picked the wizard pre-gen, and I picked the folk hero fighter to be her bodyguard and play as a "DMPC" follower. To compensate for there being just two characters I jumped each character up to level 2 after the Goblin Arrows encounter.   We just finished Cragmaw Hideout and Act 1, and had a great time. Alas, the bugbear and the goblin leader both escaped with one hitpoint due to crappy damage rolls by the wizard. I wonder if they'll show up again later? (Hint: yes!)   One thing of note: your seven players will have a tough time manuevering in Cragmaw Hideout. It's pretty close quarters. Our two characters managed to make some good stealth rolls (and my wife decided to invade the hideout right before dawn, which was a great RP move!) so we snuck around and fought small battles. With seven players clunking around I bet they'll get hit by the flood and get bottlenecked in corridors. It might be hard to prevent combat from getting bogged down by ranged attackers shooting around each other.   I'd recommend expanding the Hideout map if you're drawing it for your players on a grid. Make the areas a little bigger.
#7 iserith Sep 26, 2014 8:54:32	intently wrote:
#8 intently Sep 26, 2014 10:06:15	iserith wrote:
#9 iserith Sep 26, 2014 10:10:02	intently wrote:
#10 TexasCodeMonkey Sep 26, 2014 14:49:19	Expanding the hideout is a fantastic idea. I was going to use the Fat Dragon tile idea from: http://fatdragongames.proboards.com/thread/3086/lost-mine-phandelver-basic-builds   I think I could adjust those files somewhat.   Honestly, I'm not sure how this will all go, so I'm just planning and prepping Act I for now. If they want to continue (fingers crossed!) then I'll finish LMoP and then maybe do HotDQ.   Any must-know first DM tips? I've read lots of articles with great stuff so far... don't prep TOO much, let the players run the game, etc.
#11 DM_HEEGZ Sep 26, 2014 18:55:31	Stick to the core gameplay dynamic.    1. The DM describes the scenes for the party. 2. The party decides on a course of action. 3. The DM resolves the action.   From here you can resolve things via role play dialog, combat, or dice rolls.    I am running LMOP with a group of 7 and it is very challenging for them, being first timers (all seven of them). I suggest running the adventure as written until the party hits level 2 or even 3. Once they hit level 3 then you should have enough experience and intuition to know whether or not to increase difficulty. If you decide to ramp it up a notch, add 1-2 extra creatures, or perhaps set a creature or two to the maximum hit points. Good luck!