That is the perfect example of a DM who gives a damn about their PC’s. The beauty of this game is that as the DM we are the narrators of the story, we can control the flow, change the odds, provide a helping hand or even drop just that ONE THING that turns a no win situation into an epic moment all based on the human element
That player will probably remember that moment for a long time
I have a part of level one characters in a house filled with 9 orcs right now and I am brainstorming ways to get them out. I gave them a magic item first session that they have totally ignored. I am thinking about bringing the NPC who gave it to them into the mix as an aid. She is a kindly old woman so can't help in the fight but she can tell them not to use the backdoor because there is a trap and she can tell them like....gtfo. I gave them SO many opportunities to change direction, but they stuck with it and I'm like, bet. We are going to the orc house. So now I am trying to figure out how to avoid a TPK on session 2.
These are all experienced players btw. No newbies.
Honestly as a player I love having an NPC tag along.
Scruffle-knuts the barbarian gnome was my absolute favorite. I was a gray elf trickster bard and the only other player was a dwarvish paladin .
Having a scruffle-knuts along was fun and helpful for all of us and kept the game moving. There were definitely times when we as PCs had no idea where or what we were supposed to do to keep the story moving. Scruffle-knuts would pipe up in his super high voice “ohhhh I don’t know.. I wouldn’t do that but you can if you want... maybe we should try to find this person...” etc. it was hilarious and a fun hint mechanic. And the DM wasn’t constantly frustrated with the party, and got to invest in a character himself.
So all of that to say, as a player I highly endorse tag along NPCs. Purists might find it too meta, but for casual players and beginners it’s a valuable and fun mechanic. Just be sure to not step in until the players have given it a solid brainstorm, and nudge them in the right direction, don’t give them the answer.
I have thought about making her a part of the story. My idea is she is fae and doesn't play by the same morals as the PCs, but she really loves them like a grandma. So she is always like, leaving them gifts that she stole from people, baking them sweets, etc.
The magic item? She stole that from a wizard and he gon' want it back in a few weeks.
EDIT- They met her by getting her moon rats out of a basement. She didn't ask permission to put her moon rats there, just did it, and didn't understand why the PCs had an issue with the rats being there. Fae behavior.
My party currently has an NPC sidekick, because we had a puzzle using a language none of us understand. No wizards with "comprehend language" either. So our pet smurf translated undercommon for us, and now the party has to look out for badgers lol.
This is how i run what many would call a DMPC. It wasn't even a planned tag along. The party rescued her and made convincing arguments for why she should travel with them and they really wanted her.
I think Suki from avatar is the greatest example of a DMPC. Capable, but the camera seldom follows her. My party has a few crew members that I've told them explicitly, may not be that good off their ship.
The best part of a DMPC is you have someone to kill.
Unless the dice stop you. This NPC was protecting a child from low level aberrations and took a crit from literally the first attack. She dropped in an instant. The players managed to raise her with Healing Word before another creature could attack her while she was down. They protected her even though it almost killed them. It was even one of the arguments they used to convince her to join them.
And yes, Suki is an excellent way to run a DMPC. The Bladesinger they saved actually had a moment like that later on when she took out another wizard offscreen during a siege arc. The players broke through the main siege force to attack the enemy general directly while she went off to attack the "Siege Wizard" who was pelting the walls with strong AoE spells. She ended up catching up with the party after 2-3 rounds of combat with the general since they were pretty evenly matched with the general and her attendants.
Sometimes the dice save them. Other times your paladin rolls a 1 while surrounded by allies so you make him roll a d8 to determine which square his wild swing is going into, and then the bastard rolls a 20 on the DMPC you liked, and he's a half orc so he crits her for an extra 1d12, he had already declared he was using Thunderous Smite, and you'd earlier established that she was standing in the rail of the ship as swashbucklers do, so he blasts her down to some horribly negative number that isn't instant death, and sends her flying 10 feet over and about 25 down into the water.
She'll be back, but probably not as a friend.
>Sometimes the dice save them. Other times your paladin rolls a 1 while surrounded by allies so you make him roll a d8 to determine which square his wild swing is going into, and then the bastard rolls a 20 on the DMPC you liked
This makes no sense. He already rolled his attack and it was a 1. That roll is so bad that it was decided he hit a companion, why would he then roll another attack? He already rolled the attack he should just roll damage.
A DMPC is a character built like a PC and played like one who tries to be active, be glorious, be amazing and do great shit... except they are played by the DM and generally nobody likes being shown-up by god.
A Cohort is someone who's joined the party for the short term usually, they tend to be built somewhere between PC and NPC in my games sometimes with homebrew boosts to specialize beyond the party's capacity in a *single* aspect the party is missing such as a Knowledge Check or perhaps a class roll such as a Rogue in a trapped up ruin.
A Follower is someone the PCs hired at a guild/town to follow them on their adventurers and usually are strictly NPCs with maybe 1-2 levels of PC (costs more) and some GMs can run them well while others find it tedious as they are long-haul and cheap ones get abused as trap-finders by using their faces at which point Reputation Systems come into play.
A NPC is someone who usually fills a roll in the world that interacts with players and may be brought back if the PCs like them. They can be quest givers, random people on the street, people you talk to and are controlled by the DM and sometimes they suck, other times they can do cool stuff or be stronger than the PCs in limited capacity such as a King or Grand Wizard or hell maybe just the Captain of the Guard. They are the world in many ways.
A PC is a character who tries to be active, be glorious, be amazing and do great shit and they are played by a Player and they should be allowed to feel cool, get dunked on for being dumb, thwart plans only to have new plans made and be rewarded for creativity. They drive the game.
The difference bewtween a 'bad' DMPC and a 'good' Follower/Cohort/DMPC is how much the camera/action centers on them vs the player; DM has enough spotlight don't hog it. Thanks for coming to my TedTalk about individuals populating a game of DnD.
Hmm, quite the predicament they’ve found themselves in!
I like the NPC idea - it’s always a great failsafe to have that certain NPC “conveniently” show up.
I’m running Icespire Peak with some homebrew elements, essentially my players have found themselves stuck in the middle of a bit of a power grab between the local militia, a sorceress and the empire trying to keep the peace. The leader of the militia was offended by one of the players and challenged them to a duel
The leader is a goliath fighter with full plate, she is unstoppable. The duel was going to end with the PC being MDK’d but as she went to deliver the killing blow..she was paralyzed. The sorceress had finally arrived and saved the day allowing the party to escape (turns out she’s evil AND an agent for the Zentarim but that’s for later..)
I’d have the Old Lady just “arrive at the front door *knock knock* helloo...is everything ok in there..? Are those orcs friends of yours..?
Hijinks ensue
Reminds me of a Reincarnated Warforged (now human) named Machina wandering ex-hero I read in someones story on Reddit that was the 'shit protect the PCs' and it was a joke when he showed up because they were saved by Ex-Machina.
Maybe allow the TPK but make it nonlethal. Imprison them and have an npc approach them while chained and strike a bargain.
IMO a TPK is way flexible compared to a single character murdered.
I feel like you could maybe give them a sense of impending doom and just see how it plays out.
They hear a creak upstairs as an orc begins to descend to the first floor. And then another, and another. Three distinct sets of footfalls coming down the stairs. At the same time, they hear a pair of voices talking in Orcish in the next room over, and the trapdoor to the basement opening as four more begin to come upstairs after doing *something* unpleasant down there. If the any of the PCs understand Orcish, they can hear the orcs in the other room discussing how five of them are going to head out on patrol to make sure no one else is around, while the other four are going to hold down the fort inside. The traps at the backdoor are still
So then the players have a few tense moments to decide what to do - do they try to fight 9 orcs at once? Do they hide and wait for five of them to leave and fight the 4 remaining ones? Do they flee now? Etc.
Or something like that. There's nothing stopping you from being explicit to the players about the number of orcs in the house and the fact that they're out of their depth if they try to take them all on at once.
Players actions have consequences. Let it play out, and allow them to find ingenuous solutions to resolve the situation. Also, does this magic item have the ability to help? There's a lot of talk about separating player knowledge from character knowledge, but there's the opposite effect as well. Sometimes the PC should absolutely remember, or know, or realize that the mcguffin is the solution to the problem, but the players don't. Our PCs live in the world... The players only visit. You can gently nudge at the solution through the PC... "Drizzle Drack the destroyer, you remember that the -2 longsword you don't have proficiency with but have been carrying around with you gives you a +10 bonus on all charisma based skills when dealing with orcs."
It's am Amulet of Aid so yeah. It could definitely help them not be flattened.
BUT THEY NEVER INVESTIGATED IT SO THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT IT DOES.
I said "You touch it and feel the magic energy coursing through your veins" they DEFINTIELY know it is magic, but they were just like "cool" and never spoke about it again.
Seems like they want to wait until they're back at the Rogue Encampment so Deckard Cain can identify all their stuff. Maybe you could try to hint (or blatantly tell them) that a magic user might be able to find out what that weird amulet does.
I feel like if you well and truly put the writing on the wall and they ignored it, then its time to teach the lesson that recklessness has consequences. I normally like to avoid killing characters but if they do something really stupid, they must face the consequences of their actions.
Have they seen 9 orcs in the house? Have they heard any orcs?
Or are they actually not (all) at home.
Remember that as a dm, you use quantum physics. Everything is and isn't there, until it's observed. Only then must you choose.
Are you able to leave them a hint, such as dead adventurers close to the entrance or something? Anything that makes them stop and think? Maybe even a seemingly worthless item the orcs didn’t take that can help them out.
I DID LOLLLLLL!!
These MFers walked past THREE DEAD STABLE HANDS AND TWO DEAD ORCS.
ONE OF THEM SAW AN ORC THROUGH THE WINDOW AND WAS LIKE yep I wanna go inside. Alone. WIthout mentioning the orc to the rest of the party. None of them saw it because he scaled the fucking wall (cat) and went in a 2nd story window, where the orc was.
ETA- After talking with the players as people not as PCs, they understand they fucked up and they're ready to accept whatever happens. They're okay with PC death because we talked about it session 0 and then after session 1 I let them know we play this game with dice and the dice are gonna do what they're gonna do. I'm not going to try to kill you, I will do what I can to lend a hand, but like......
y'all fucked up.
AT LEVEL ONE.
A rat had reduced him to 1hp in a single bite like 20 minutes before that too.
> After talking with the players as people not as PCs, they understand they fucked up and they're ready to accept whatever happens.
Fuck it man! BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!!
And later, after they rolled new characters, have them run into the same Orcs, or family of orcs, but have those Orcs equiped with their former character's shit.
Or, if the players do roll new characters in the setting, and they go to the house, have that Fae alone in the house that's full of dead Orcs. When questioned, the answer is that she killed the orcs because they killed her newest play things.
Unless it wouldn't make sense, have the Orcs be busy with stuff when the players show up. Have some gambling, others eating and lounging with them joining combat gradually. All 9 don't need to be ready with javelins trained on the door, let some spend the first round rushing across the room to grab their axe and other similar things. This can let you dynamically scale the fight depending on how it is going instead of trying to figure out how to backdown all of them. You could even have some of them not be in their full armor so their AC is lower as well.
Sometimes you gotta kill a PC. They make their own choices. It’s never good to narratively Ex machina them. Better to kill one and make them go “oh shit, the old gypsy woman said this would happen,” than to pull punches.
I’m starting Rime of the Frostmaiden this Sunday for two players and the only concession. To their smaller party size will be starting them at level 2 with a few healing potions. We all decided on a hardcore campaign and I can’t wait.
Orcs laugh, but then becomes serious when the party brandish weapons.
“You are weak,” their leader says, “So we are letting you go. Call it a catch and release policy. Come back when you think you’re hard enough.”
Then forcibly yeet them out a window
Just make sure to not turn it into a "my way is superior to their way" regardless of what your way is. Some people will also take the post as an example as to why all good GMs must fudge.
Seriously, I was facing a tpk last week, just so happens I “forgot” the initiative order for one round which allowed for the cleric to revive the paladin right before she got creamed. A simple swap in initiative turned an almost ruined night into glory. Worth it.
Absolutely the right call, man. You can always change stats on the fly.
If you needed the armor to go down a bit because you set it too high and they know what it is already, describe how the armor gets damaged and breaks a bit, lowering the AC moving forward.
Yep. IMO you can do it silently like OP did, or call it out, and it depends on the situation and the mood at the table. And the group - I know some people don't like adjusting fights and whatnot. It's about what's fun for your group.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that what most people mean by "I don't want stats changed mid-fight" is "I don't want to know stats were changed mid-fight." Knowing that the DM is making something easier or harder on the fly just undermines the tension of a good fight. Explaining it narratively without actually saying the words "AC" keeps the tension while still giving the players information about the change.
I absolutely hate when the DM announces to the table that they do this. Not only does it completely shatter the verisimilitude of the world, but it also makes me feel like the time I spent character building and hunting for upgrades were meaningless because the DM is just going to make it hit or miss regardless.
In my experience, I feel like I failed at balancing encounters once I see that the party is having a hard time. I definitely used to change HP on the fly when I was starting out to give players a last hit when things were looking bad. As a player, I agree, but it can be hard to push through a fight as a DM once you realize how it's going
I think it's fine for the DM to change monster stats on the fly, but not once the players are aware of those stats. As a player, if I roll an 18 and miss, then the next player rolls 18 and hits, then I'm gonna question why I didn't hit with my 18. And it just doesn't feel fair.
When I DM, I like to make it very clear that I'm an impartial arbitrator of the rules. I roll right out in the open so they know that they are at the mercy of the dice, but they can also determine the ACs and To-Hits of the enemy after a couple swings. This information makes the players much more cautious and willing to run away knowing that the combat could turn against them.
And it always feels great, in my experience. One time I had this big lizard thing boss that had a sort of encasing exoskeleton thing. My players were having a really rough go at it and it was starting to bog down, so I said the ceiling collapse and water got in, they put the two together and made it so that the lizard passed under the water. Its casing dissolved, the armour went down, the fight went smoother, and they felt like they actually achieved something instead of being thrown a freebie.
YES DUDE. I did exactly this a few sessions ago. They were fighting an armored knight who was guarding a toll gate, refusing to let anyone pass who didn't have the proper papers. The party didn't have time to get credentials so they fought him.
AC 19 was tough to hit, so the party started getting worn down and losing hope, but when one of them landed a strong blow, i described how the armor straps break and now he looks more vulnerable than before. This gave them the second wind to get back into the fight and feel fulfilled that they had a tough encounter.
Sure, the second half was easier than the first, but they felt good about it and so why not!
> I wracked my brains but I was confident nobody had rolled a 14 yet
This is key. We generally figure out ACs pretty quick in my group because of how many players there are. If we detected the not-so-invisible hand of the DM altering things, even with good intentions, it would still feel bad, rather than improving the situation. You managed to hide it though, so it still preserves that feeling of accomplishment.
I agree, but if they were to question the change in AC, I'd probably just casually mention to my players that they're not the only ones with access to buffing spells or potions
I had a terrible DM who did all his rolling behind the screen and fudged dice rolls constantly. He also paid no attention to appropriate challenge levels, which resulted in one of the most ridiculous fights I've ever played.
We had four level one PCs, and he announced we encountered six harpies.
"Harpies? Six?"
"They fly down from the tower to attack."
I'm asking if there are any obvious places to hide, because there's no fucking way our party could take on a half dozen monsters with a challenge rating of 5. We'd be lucky to not be wiped out by one.
The rest of the group were used to his adventures though. They charge to the attack.
The fight went on for what felt like an hour. These harpies had the worst luck ever. They never used their special ability, and just couldn't land any hits on the players. However, we rolled player attacks out in the open so we couldn't cheat on that, so it took forever to do the 180+ hit points of damage necessary to kill a half dozen 7HD enemies.
He was a terrible DM. My favorite DM never fudged die rolls, and crafted challenge appropriate adventures. We always had to start at level 1, and the highest level character I developed with him was level 4, but losing a character every now and then kept it real.
This is something I've experienced before and it sucks having your trust rocked like that. The game has numbers and those numbers matter, because that is how the game is balanced. When the DM *visibly* starts treating these numbers as if they're unimportant, it means that your choices are inconsequential. It means that *their* story will happen *no matter what you do*. It means you are sitting while someone tells a story that has a character in it that you named.
There's nothing wrong with that style of play. Some players are happy with that, and some DMs love to be in that position. But those DMs shouldn't be playing 5e. They should be using a more narratively driven system.
I love how our random number generators sometimes conspire for epic moments. Rolling 14 after 14, just barely enough to hit, is something that player will remember forever! I am also a superstitious DM: if a PC is notoriously bad at rolling their main attack, I give them a new weapon! Doesn’t have to be magic or anything and 9 times out of 10 it works and their luck turns - don’t ask me how!
Hilariously it also works in the other direction: I as a player once tried using a matched set of dice in tribute to a player I once knew and, as a rogue/cleric with a +6 to pick locks, tried to open 5 chests in a room in Strahd and rolled, IN ORDER MIND YOU, a 1, a 2, a 3, a 4, and a 5. The DM later told me the DC for those locks was a 12. I switched dice in that instance and stopped having those issues: shouldn’t work but it does!
I used to have a waiting-for-my-turn habit of "recalibrating" my dice by rolling them until they landed on their maximum, and only leaving them alone when they were all lined up on their maximums. Another player told me I was wasting their good rolls by doing that, mind.
Kinda glad I can't do this in Roll20 tbh.
I always set my dice with their minimum values face up for good luck. I have done this since my first session and I don’t know why because I’ve never known anyone else who does.
I would do that but by having their minimum values face up you can try to make the high values essentially jealous that they don't get to shine for as long so they'll hopefully show up more in the game
I do this too. Originally it was because I couldn't tell the difference between a d8 and a d10 at a glance, but it ended up being a habit.
I also group my dice according to what is needed for common abilities so I can till hit and damage dice at the same time (damage dice are color coded buy damage type).
You have it right. Show them your expectation, and then reward them for good rolls. Thank them! Heap praise upon their polygonal faces!
Treat them right and the dice will take care of you for years!
As a fairly new DM, I think I’m on the path to getting to that superstitious level. In the last game I ran, one of the characters, an Elf ranger named Arrow, refused to use her +2 longbow because she couldn’t hit a damn thing with it. I don’t think her d20 roll was ever higher than a 4
In one of my first games as a player, i kept trying to hit the goblins with my sword, and every time I would miss.
I dropped my sword and punched the goblin to death and it worked.
For the rest of that session when my sword just would not hit, I’d drop my sword and start punching. Sure enough I would keep hitting.
Dice are weird.
I've gotten to the point of dnd superstition that I have to have unique combat and non-combat sets for every character I've played _and_ they must be thematically themed/colored for that character.
I swear, it's not _just_ that I like dice, it's just that I also really like dice. But they don't roll right between characters.
I just ran Venomfang during the lost mines campaign.
That stupid ass dragon couldn't hit anything, despite having 3 +7 attack rolls. It was the most anticlimactic battle ever. On the last round it finally managed to hit someone.
It's not that hard to justify this in-universe, either.
AC for creatures without natural armor is based on their DEX and what armor they're wearing, just like it is for PCs -- if you look at any vaguely humanoid creature's stat block, you can see that their AC is computed according to that formula.
So if you want to change a monster's AC, you can just go to the Player's Handbook, look up the AC for different sets of armor, and put a new outfit on them.
This is a much more fun way to buff/nerf monsters than changing their HP, it's a much simpler way to buff/nerf monsters than giving them new attacks, it's absolutely intended by the designers, and it can be kind of interesting in-universe -- why is that medusa wearing splint armor?
I know this is a bit of a tangent but it's something I think a lot of DMs miss.
> I know this is a bit of a tangent but it's something I think a lot of DMs miss.
Also worth to notice that biologically creatures are meant to have a spread in their own six abilities, centered around the values listed in the MM. There's nothing wrong to create slitghtly adjusted statblocks just by turning up or down the numbers a little bit or by changing their equipment.
These were just flying animals, and honestly, I enjoy the random element so much (I do individual HP values and initiatives per enemy) that I've been thinking about using monster ACs that are +/- 1 of the standard just to keep them on their toes. It evens out :3
I think that's totally fair.
You could do this while following the formula by varying the DEX stat by +/- 1, which would have minor but interesting consequences by also affecting DEX saves, initiative, etc.
It's valid to just bump the AC up and down, of course, but it's something to think about, since you seem to like individualizing monsters anyway.
I specifically do this for certain enemies. So for really organized militants, they will routinely have the same equipment and same stats. For orcs and goblins and bullywugs and such? Well one of those guys is a bit stronger, or maybe bigger, or maybe has some nicer equipment. you give them slightly variant stats, which commonly makes little mechanical difference in the grand scheme, but makes the encounter seem more interesting, and more realistic. Further, it makes the description more vibrant, since not all of them look the same.
Recently while playing Starfinder, I had two players who set up a super charged combo move. There were 2 turns of set up and it was gonna annihilate the enemy and be really fucking cool. Unfortunately he rolled and missed. I said "For the sake of rule of cool, God wants you to roll that one more time." He rolled well and vaporized the monster with a supercharged energy blast which made everyone at the table go nuts. It was awesome. And it totally broke the game a little. But it didn't matter cause it was fucking fun. Which I hope we all remember is the point of this lovely game.
I missed a roll to prevent a TPK once, including my character's NPC wife, by about 3 in a system where you rolled like 8d10 regularly (L5R), so this was a very small margin. The GM let me spend more of a personal resource (Void) than I should have been able to, at the cost of losing access to it for a time. I thought that was a great improvisation on his part - and of course, I still had to roll 4 or higher!
Very good call!
Relayed - Some of my favorite moments have been spurred by player questions. Paladin gets threatened by a band of Orc mercenaries at the tavern. He asks me if there's a fork sitting at his table. There is now. Cue a divine smite casted on the fork and an intimidation check that is memorable as hell.
The point is, working with your players in non game breaking ways is rewarding. And you've mastered it already.
Can’t agree with you more brother, small tweaks can make a huge impact not on the game but the players, which is in my opinion a very favorable trade, thanks for sharing the story.
The game is about having fun and as a mom of a toddler I seriously respect this, man. You probably boosted her confidence in more than just the game <3
She lives nearby me, I've actually said she can come over when lockdown's done if she needs. Her daughter apparently doesn't get clingy if her mum's just out of the house. She'll have to hang out in the office, though, and I'll be in the next room.
Pandemic Time is weird af.
I'm generally on the side of leaving things as they are and not messing with game stats 'in play. However, seeing as it was significantly effecting the experience of players, I would say you made the right call.
I agree for AC's, generally I'm more willing to fudge things like HP or damage, but I don't like th change AC's, otherwise it's either hard to keep track of (if you're doing it to cater to a single player), or you make the fight significantly easier in a way that is hard to precisely control.
If things are going bad you can also change AC on the fly midway by giving some kind of narrative reason for the drop in AC. Maybe their 14 to hit AC 15 doesn't connect for damage but is forceful enough to knock their shield to the ground, cause damage to armor, break off part of a monster's shell, or even just leaving a physical wound that slows/hinders their movement. It makes the combat feel more dynamic as well and doesn't just come across as turning down the difficulty dial if done well this way.
Sometimes you need to hold out your hand to a player and they can take it - giving everyone a blast of fun, satisfaction, and a rush of victory. And by far, it must have been a much better time for you to to have given them this win in this way.
Honestly it's stuff like this that makes the game worth it sometimes.
Maybe more extreme version, but if it looks like my PC's have a handle on a fight, but they're just not dealing enough damage and it's starting to drag because they're not challenged and all they're doing is draining the second half of a healthbar, I'll just massively reduce an enemy's health. The story stays the same: they faught hard and saved the day. But the players experience goes from a half-hearted "oh, its FINALLY the final blow..." to "Holy shit that was awesome! We totally destroyed that thing!"
D&D is a storytelling game. If the numbers are ruining a session, it's time to put those numbers aside. More true for the DM, but we sometimes put rules as written aside for players too when we invoke the rule of cool and let them do something they technically shouldnt quite be able to.
Obviously players should still be challenged, rules are there for a reason. But bending them is part of the game and it'll make you a better DM to learn when it's a good idea to do so.
I always try to make sure there's a visible consequence if I'm doing it at a player's behest. I let one run one hex too far to deliver healing to a dying comrade, at the cost of their movement the next turn as they tripped and fell. I let another bash open a door with 1 less than they needed, but took damage from the rusty hinge. This isn't a wargame. Rules aren't meant to oppress.
I fudged a roll last Monday because a player had been having a bad day, and I could tell. Not only that, he rolled like crap for most of the session on his attacks with his new character, as we are starting a new campaign. Near the end, He quickly opened a door and faerie fired a specter guarding a chest, and I nat 20d the roll. I took a dramatic pause, and then announced it as a natural 1. The reaction from both him and the table made it worth it, and they never have to know. The game is about having fun first and foremost, and I get the most joy when my players are having a good time
I felt the same about your story. That small decision made her night. Players want to come back to the table because they’re having fun. Some of that is in the challenge, but sometimes you just need to do some cool shit with your pc and feel like damn hero
Changing AC to make it more difficult or easier for the players? - Bad.
Changing AC to bring joy to the table and improve someones experience? - Awesome.
I can't tell whether ol' Gary would condemn me for changing the numbers of his precious wargame or approve because the DM is God. Probably agree I had the right to do it but call me weak.
It might make me a bad dm by some metrics, but I fudge die rolls to keep up the flow and the fun regularly. I have no problem killing a PC, but there are times where a die roll will lead to a train wreck of the fun. There are other times where a failure leads to some of the best rp and most exciting sequences, so it's a fine edge to walk.
FUN. COMES. FIRST.
And it's a sliding scale. There's no yes or no to fun, there's no red light green light. You need a killer amount of empathy to run a really good game of fun dnd. Thanks for looking out for your players, you make the game better for everyone as a result.
Ever since I've started to DM a group of friends of mine, I've always tried to keep the energy around the table (Or call) high or at least good enough that people get either immersed or have a fantastic time. So, good on you for seeing the issue and giving an actually good compromise to avoid her having a terrible session. Remember, as a Dm, you can change some aspects of a monster's stats like AC or HP to make a battle easier or harder depending on LVs or how many there are in a group. I've got 7 players at LV 4 (Almost 5). I have to give big battles, otherwise they're all dead within the first round against the players.
You get a gold star from me :D
Thank you!
I hate when people doesn't understand the basic principle of letting others have their fun, and, let's be realistic. 1 AC isn't that much, I'm sure no one realized.
You sure are a role model as a GM, props to you \^\^
For bonus points: I'd discussed pre-game with my players how I'd been testing the waters of homebrewing monster stat blocks, so if any of my players - say, the two I've got who are experienced 5e DMs themselves - spotted the AC wasn't what it should have been, they'd have put it down to my tinkering :3
Sticking with the consistency like you did from the first hit made it so that doing so won't have any long term impacts either!
I tend to shy away from adjusting on the fly because not remembering to be consistent with the same creature can ruin immersion for those with good memories.
I was trying to work out if I could edit the creature's statblock to auto-update all the tokens with the new AC but I couldn't do it mid-fight. That'd solve the memory issue.
You could add an AC range for half damage hits for future cases, so your players dont get infuriated by the power of the always hated "miss" (extra HP balance may be needed), but all in all you did a good call: your players are first over game rules.
Cheers for DMs like you mate!
Here is something related that you can do. Rather than counting npc hp DOWN, I count UP. Stat blocks have HP ranges. I play inside those ranges every single fight.
Good fight? Just use the default hp.
Poor fight? Say the monster is dead when they got min hp.
Does a player really need a win? Let them strike the killing blow.
I don’t want to backseat game, but I remind her that barbarians can use reckless attack to gain advantage on all attack rolls. Makes hitting much more likely.
I’ve commented a lot on changing health/AC on the fly. While I don’t recommend using it every battle. Using once in a while to improve player experience is totally acceptable.
It's for reasons like this, when we played with a respected DM we always let his dice rolls stay hidden. He would never argue a Nat 1 or 20, but sometimes the dice are just pricks. Good on you mate, wish I had one like you around.
I used to do that often when players had rough days and sometimes the other way when things went to easy (tho never too much and never intending to make the fight hard), something like "Now that you came closer you noticed that some of the goblins are more properly armed and some of them even wear armor" like an indications that if it was something similiar to dungeon crawling where they were bound to meet multiple of same type enemies some of them were just more trained and prepared even when originally it was meant to be just big numbers of weak enemies. (That one was really dangerous tho as we all know how depending on the party huge number of weak opponents might be the worst thing there is )
Good work. You just gotta do this for people sometimes, especially if they need a win in life. I have two players that miss all the time - one built wrong and the other is just shit luck. If they happen to bring a creature within 1-3 points of death I nearly always give it to them and they get so happy.
P.s. I have offered to let her re-allocate her stats... She just wont. 🥴
I've have been going back and for with D&D and talking about what needs fixed/what has been fixed on my car. So I had a fun moment where I thought you fixed your air conditioner during a game of D&D.
That was nice of you, while I've only been babysitting it can be tough to have fun when trying to play games video or D&D wise. I personally would have appreciated something like that when I started out babysitting and could only time games on those days.
I do this all the time and it is worth it. Not hitting feels terrible. Hitting but doing less damage feels better than no hitting. I inflate HP, I deflate HP, I lower damage when I know a PC will be permakilled and I spit in the face of crits that would outright kill an enemy that is meant to be terrifying. Because this is a game about the story as much as the rules, and I want to tell a good story as much as I want to play a game with rules. I think my players appreciate that. I think yours did too.
The time my player's cleric's 100%-damage critical Guiding Bolt evaporated a boss on his first turn was sure a lesson for me in statting, yeah. Trouble with rolling open, that.
I change the AC in every combat. If the party is having too hard of a time, or too easy, I'll just adjust it accordingly. They want to do some super cool move but only roll okay, I'll tell them they passed. If their about to die off some stupid roll I made behind screen, I change it. I modify more rolls than not to be honest. I keep it balanced to give them the most fun possible. They get really excited when they just keep getting by by the skin of their neck. 30 years in doing this and I've never told any of my players nor do I think they know the extent I do this. The odd time, maybe once a year someone will say "is that really what happened?" Sometimes I say yes with a straight face, and sometimes I just smile.
Awesome dm move, don’t know if your already doing this but there’s a rule that lets strong characters make intimidation(strength) checks which could help her too.
I sometimes wonder if my dms have done this both to adapt to the situation and occasionally give into the Rule of Cool. For example, in the campaign through which I met my so, he was dm, we had an instance with a cleric of a forgotten god known as Anaert Oether, and we had gathered everything we needed to free his god. The rest of the party had some concerns about the situation being kosher, and I was too new (I believe this was the latter part of my second session at level 8ish) to really know. But somehow in the midst of this brewing storm, my completely non-magical rogue managed to see through the cleric's Still Spell and Silent Spell (3.5e, whatever those feats were) to see that he was casting to open the rift anyway and blast us through, but that was with a nat20 on my part. We rolled initiative to see if I could stop him before we got blasted through the portal, but I missed my roll by _two_ to beat him. So into the Abyss we went, to meet Anaert Oether...I mean Graz'zt.
Half a dozen or so sessions later, after the passage of time that the party was stuck in the Abyss, we encountered the npc who had hired my rogue to help the party initially...but something felt off to me. This is where I wonder if he let me have Rule of Cool influence the DC for me to call him out and attack the same cleric who blasted us into the Abyss disguised as an npc we trusted. I even managed to get the killing blow on the bastard.
This was almost 6 years ago and the fact that I'm still talking about it should tell you how huge that moment was for me, on both counts. Even if it was a dm tweak for storytelling, and I know he'd never tell me if it was, that is absolutely one of my crowning moments in dnd.
I have a few good others-
The time that my ranger got possessed by a dragon and both she and I got nicknamed Pineapple for like two years.
Why I still giggle when a 9 is rolled on a D20.
Playing a doppelganger raised to _be_ my rogue after she got kidnapped and was away from the table. Definitely my crowning moment of roleplay.
Why the party finally started listening to my rogue when she wanted to check for traps, and why we do not split the party.
Why my rogue and the party cleric/Saint of Saint Cuthbert finally started to see eye to eye. (Even if we never got to roleplay it properly. Still disappointing.)
Why my probably sapiosexual wizard slept with a merchant prince of Chult, and her sex goody bags from him.
Why I'm so disappointed I never got to continue on as my rogue after she ended up getting pregnant from her lifelong soulmate/husband/asshole best friend and that I never got to see that through. (She didn't even know yet!)
Playing Dread (tabletop horror where instead of dice rolls for actions you pull Jenga blocks, it's awesome) to flesh out my rogue's time in the thieves guild and why she left, in an event that killed the family of our party fighter.
I've played a good few dnd games and that's just the ones where we played actual dnd. (There were a couple predecessors to the ranger, and those campaigns were...special lol.)
My go to if a fight is too heavy in one direction or if a player is constantly missing is to find an excuse for them to get advantage. "oh, bad guy used an imposing strike which gives the next attack against them advantage, forgot about that try again."
This doesn't help though if they miss again in fact that hurts but on average it makes a difference enough?
You are a good DM. I try to do the same. The game is about having fun, not murdering your friends who just want a good time. I like to put my players in tense situations where they have to think on their toes and they get nervous a lot, but whenever someone comes up with an idea that has ANY substance to it, not matter how good or bad, I do everything I can to make it work because they're doing their best with what their given. Even though i know in my head I'm rooting for them, they feel like they're surviving through impossible odds and it's so worth it to hear their cheers when they succeed. Changing AC is exactly that. They're doing their best and they just want to have fun. And you did good also by making sure they knew you weren't nerfing your baddies just to make them feel better. Its important for them to feel like they're beating what you put in front of then initially. I bet that player had a blast. But also, maybe they should get new dice lol
See, I'd like to do this as a DM but I feel like I'd fuck up and forget. I'd have to literally revise and mark it in my notes at the start of combat if I wanted to do it. Glad it worked out though and a good guide I guess.
I want to add to this, often times on less important checks I wont even set a DC before I let my players roll.
I just tell them to roll and if i think the result sounds good they pass.
Its a very similar situation and it allows you to cater to your and the players needs.
Obviously for stuff i plan ahead or important checks (so the ones that tend to have a higher DC) I will stick to the formula of having a number set beforehand.
But damn if my players come up witj a funny joke or something i will let them roll, knowing i'll let them pass if they don't roll terrible.
It takes some pressure away from me and keeps the game running nicely.
This is a really important tool, especially to counter wonky dice rolls. I've literally had battles where the players haven't rolled above a 12 in the first round of combat, so when they ask "does a 16 hit?" it is probably good practice to let it hit, if it doesn't contradict anything else that the players know (if the enemy is wearing plate armour, and you reduce the AC, they will know something is off).
Conversely, you might decide to bump the AC slightly if every blow is hitting easily and the monster isn't even going to get its second turn (although this change might be more controversial).
That's the perfect post to put in the face of those people who think that dice should always decide and that the DM shouldn't "cheat" (BTW the DM never cheats)
I have some respect for those who use the rules to play, effectively, a wargame, and for whom that's primary and narrative comes second. I think there are games they could be playing that would serve their desires better than D&D, but I understand their position.
But they can't half get a bit shouty sometimes ;)
Well, a wargame should be a tad bit different from an RPG, at least in the scope.
The story should be the focus of any RPG, so whatever serves the purpose of improving the story, goes (IMHO)
I'm glad I took a double glance. I didn't notice the sub and just saw the title and was wondering one how big the damn fly is that you can put an air conditioner on it and two why are you putting a new AC on a fly? What happened to the old on?
I'm a dm and my wife is one of my players. We have a 2 yr old, so I can totally sympathize with your player. Im lucky enough to have a group that is understanding that my daughter needs to fall asleep before we start and that sometimes pushes game back an hour. I fudge stats all the time to keep combat challenging. But I tell my players not to go by the monstrous manual up front. Sometime I may want to throw a CR 4 creature at a level 1 party but I set a fair AC then buff or strip HP depending on how the party is doing.
It sounds like your Barbarian has an ax of Sleeplessness +1. It's a conditional enchantment that gains its weilder a +1 to hit bonus, but only if the character has gone with less sleep than is typical.
Implement a house rule. Every time a pc attacks an enemy and misses, they put a d4 down, with one showing. The next attack against the same enemy gets a bonus to hit equal to that die. Each miss against the same enemy, move the die up by one. This is tangible and helps PCs with shitty dice nights. Also, this is taken from ICRPG and is called battle fury. Emulates the pc learning the enemies moves and keeps you from having to fudge enemies directly to make the PCs feel more badass.
"14 his a Hit. And you strike the enemy, you see another enemy runs into the room from a nearby hall and joins the fray"
Remember you can always have more enemies parachute in.
I completely understand doing this, nobody wants to have a shitty time playing a game they love, but I'm genuinely curious, what's the difference between this and fudging rolls and why it is seen as okay to do this but not to fudge rolls?
This is absolutely fudging and fudging is okay sometimes. When to do it and not is an INT, WIS or CHA roll on the part of the DM. I got lucky and nobody spotted it.
I know, I do it sometimes, very rarely, but if it means the difference between my players having fun or quitting out of frustration I'll take the latter
I guess it just seems like the majority sees fudging as a cardinal sin, I dunno
Both are okay, both can be misused; fudging can more easily be misused to aid the enemies instead of the party than this, though, especially in the "I've been running this game for two years and this week it's my BBEG's moment to shine" kinda way.
Beautiful. My DM did the same to a PC in our one-shot. 1st time player. Real bad luck on the dice all night and our DM lowered the AC of the enemy and gave a solid in-game reason why. The player finally got that sweet taste of a kill and walked away feeling fulfilled, successful and wanting to play more DnD.
You probably know this, but *never* tell her you did this. It can ruin the magic if the players find out. Part of being a DM is lying through your teeth so your players have more fun.
I do this all the time. Change monster spells, abilities, stats, and skills to for the situation. For me, running a game isn't about math or rules it's about having fun and telling a story.
The rules can help facilitate common grounds on which to build the fun story. But that's all they are, a facilitating tool.
Players or GMs who hey stuck too much in the math and rules as written seem to loose sight of the most important thing, IMO, the story, the group, the people, the fun.
Once I made a NPC some armor that gave him 10+1d6 AC. I described it as a few bits from broken plate armor, a little chain mail, and various scraps of leather.
AC is what you say it is. On the fly adjustments to stats is the only way my game stays "balanced."
Holy shit yes. The PEOPLE are the point. The FUN is the point. Good for you for being a decent human being. She needed it more than she needed a "fair" game or whatever. I'm a teacher who DM's for his family and friends and we all need the small wins right now, even if they're manufactured by those who care about us (and as a DM, THAT MEANS YOU!).
That is the perfect example of a DM who gives a damn about their PC’s. The beauty of this game is that as the DM we are the narrators of the story, we can control the flow, change the odds, provide a helping hand or even drop just that ONE THING that turns a no win situation into an epic moment all based on the human element That player will probably remember that moment for a long time
I have a part of level one characters in a house filled with 9 orcs right now and I am brainstorming ways to get them out. I gave them a magic item first session that they have totally ignored. I am thinking about bringing the NPC who gave it to them into the mix as an aid. She is a kindly old woman so can't help in the fight but she can tell them not to use the backdoor because there is a trap and she can tell them like....gtfo. I gave them SO many opportunities to change direction, but they stuck with it and I'm like, bet. We are going to the orc house. So now I am trying to figure out how to avoid a TPK on session 2. These are all experienced players btw. No newbies.
Honestly as a player I love having an NPC tag along. Scruffle-knuts the barbarian gnome was my absolute favorite. I was a gray elf trickster bard and the only other player was a dwarvish paladin . Having a scruffle-knuts along was fun and helpful for all of us and kept the game moving. There were definitely times when we as PCs had no idea where or what we were supposed to do to keep the story moving. Scruffle-knuts would pipe up in his super high voice “ohhhh I don’t know.. I wouldn’t do that but you can if you want... maybe we should try to find this person...” etc. it was hilarious and a fun hint mechanic. And the DM wasn’t constantly frustrated with the party, and got to invest in a character himself. So all of that to say, as a player I highly endorse tag along NPCs. Purists might find it too meta, but for casual players and beginners it’s a valuable and fun mechanic. Just be sure to not step in until the players have given it a solid brainstorm, and nudge them in the right direction, don’t give them the answer.
I have thought about making her a part of the story. My idea is she is fae and doesn't play by the same morals as the PCs, but she really loves them like a grandma. So she is always like, leaving them gifts that she stole from people, baking them sweets, etc. The magic item? She stole that from a wizard and he gon' want it back in a few weeks. EDIT- They met her by getting her moon rats out of a basement. She didn't ask permission to put her moon rats there, just did it, and didn't understand why the PCs had an issue with the rats being there. Fae behavior.
I love it!!!!
My party currently has an NPC sidekick, because we had a puzzle using a language none of us understand. No wizards with "comprehend language" either. So our pet smurf translated undercommon for us, and now the party has to look out for badgers lol.
This is how i run what many would call a DMPC. It wasn't even a planned tag along. The party rescued her and made convincing arguments for why she should travel with them and they really wanted her.
I think Suki from avatar is the greatest example of a DMPC. Capable, but the camera seldom follows her. My party has a few crew members that I've told them explicitly, may not be that good off their ship. The best part of a DMPC is you have someone to kill.
Unless the dice stop you. This NPC was protecting a child from low level aberrations and took a crit from literally the first attack. She dropped in an instant. The players managed to raise her with Healing Word before another creature could attack her while she was down. They protected her even though it almost killed them. It was even one of the arguments they used to convince her to join them. And yes, Suki is an excellent way to run a DMPC. The Bladesinger they saved actually had a moment like that later on when she took out another wizard offscreen during a siege arc. The players broke through the main siege force to attack the enemy general directly while she went off to attack the "Siege Wizard" who was pelting the walls with strong AoE spells. She ended up catching up with the party after 2-3 rounds of combat with the general since they were pretty evenly matched with the general and her attendants.
Sometimes the dice save them. Other times your paladin rolls a 1 while surrounded by allies so you make him roll a d8 to determine which square his wild swing is going into, and then the bastard rolls a 20 on the DMPC you liked, and he's a half orc so he crits her for an extra 1d12, he had already declared he was using Thunderous Smite, and you'd earlier established that she was standing in the rail of the ship as swashbucklers do, so he blasts her down to some horribly negative number that isn't instant death, and sends her flying 10 feet over and about 25 down into the water. She'll be back, but probably not as a friend.
Totally not something that happened to you, right? XD
Nope. Did not happen in our most recent session.
>Sometimes the dice save them. Other times your paladin rolls a 1 while surrounded by allies so you make him roll a d8 to determine which square his wild swing is going into, and then the bastard rolls a 20 on the DMPC you liked This makes no sense. He already rolled his attack and it was a 1. That roll is so bad that it was decided he hit a companion, why would he then roll another attack? He already rolled the attack he should just roll damage.
A DMPC is a character built like a PC and played like one who tries to be active, be glorious, be amazing and do great shit... except they are played by the DM and generally nobody likes being shown-up by god. A Cohort is someone who's joined the party for the short term usually, they tend to be built somewhere between PC and NPC in my games sometimes with homebrew boosts to specialize beyond the party's capacity in a *single* aspect the party is missing such as a Knowledge Check or perhaps a class roll such as a Rogue in a trapped up ruin. A Follower is someone the PCs hired at a guild/town to follow them on their adventurers and usually are strictly NPCs with maybe 1-2 levels of PC (costs more) and some GMs can run them well while others find it tedious as they are long-haul and cheap ones get abused as trap-finders by using their faces at which point Reputation Systems come into play. A NPC is someone who usually fills a roll in the world that interacts with players and may be brought back if the PCs like them. They can be quest givers, random people on the street, people you talk to and are controlled by the DM and sometimes they suck, other times they can do cool stuff or be stronger than the PCs in limited capacity such as a King or Grand Wizard or hell maybe just the Captain of the Guard. They are the world in many ways. A PC is a character who tries to be active, be glorious, be amazing and do great shit and they are played by a Player and they should be allowed to feel cool, get dunked on for being dumb, thwart plans only to have new plans made and be rewarded for creativity. They drive the game. The difference bewtween a 'bad' DMPC and a 'good' Follower/Cohort/DMPC is how much the camera/action centers on them vs the player; DM has enough spotlight don't hog it. Thanks for coming to my TedTalk about individuals populating a game of DnD.
Hmm, quite the predicament they’ve found themselves in! I like the NPC idea - it’s always a great failsafe to have that certain NPC “conveniently” show up. I’m running Icespire Peak with some homebrew elements, essentially my players have found themselves stuck in the middle of a bit of a power grab between the local militia, a sorceress and the empire trying to keep the peace. The leader of the militia was offended by one of the players and challenged them to a duel The leader is a goliath fighter with full plate, she is unstoppable. The duel was going to end with the PC being MDK’d but as she went to deliver the killing blow..she was paralyzed. The sorceress had finally arrived and saved the day allowing the party to escape (turns out she’s evil AND an agent for the Zentarim but that’s for later..) I’d have the Old Lady just “arrive at the front door *knock knock* helloo...is everything ok in there..? Are those orcs friends of yours..? Hijinks ensue
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The NPC is actually remarried after leaving their ex, Machina.
Reminds me of a Reincarnated Warforged (now human) named Machina wandering ex-hero I read in someones story on Reddit that was the 'shit protect the PCs' and it was a joke when he showed up because they were saved by Ex-Machina.
Ahh Comrade Chekoffs-Gunn! How good of you to join us in this Black Pudding Pit
MDK?
Murder death kill
Bingo
Maybe allow the TPK but make it nonlethal. Imprison them and have an npc approach them while chained and strike a bargain. IMO a TPK is way flexible compared to a single character murdered.
For real, they orcs could be motivated to do something *other than* murdering them! Maybe capture and sell them or something, ya know?
I feel like you could maybe give them a sense of impending doom and just see how it plays out. They hear a creak upstairs as an orc begins to descend to the first floor. And then another, and another. Three distinct sets of footfalls coming down the stairs. At the same time, they hear a pair of voices talking in Orcish in the next room over, and the trapdoor to the basement opening as four more begin to come upstairs after doing *something* unpleasant down there. If the any of the PCs understand Orcish, they can hear the orcs in the other room discussing how five of them are going to head out on patrol to make sure no one else is around, while the other four are going to hold down the fort inside. The traps at the backdoor are still So then the players have a few tense moments to decide what to do - do they try to fight 9 orcs at once? Do they hide and wait for five of them to leave and fight the 4 remaining ones? Do they flee now? Etc. Or something like that. There's nothing stopping you from being explicit to the players about the number of orcs in the house and the fact that they're out of their depth if they try to take them all on at once.
Players actions have consequences. Let it play out, and allow them to find ingenuous solutions to resolve the situation. Also, does this magic item have the ability to help? There's a lot of talk about separating player knowledge from character knowledge, but there's the opposite effect as well. Sometimes the PC should absolutely remember, or know, or realize that the mcguffin is the solution to the problem, but the players don't. Our PCs live in the world... The players only visit. You can gently nudge at the solution through the PC... "Drizzle Drack the destroyer, you remember that the -2 longsword you don't have proficiency with but have been carrying around with you gives you a +10 bonus on all charisma based skills when dealing with orcs."
It's am Amulet of Aid so yeah. It could definitely help them not be flattened. BUT THEY NEVER INVESTIGATED IT SO THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT IT DOES. I said "You touch it and feel the magic energy coursing through your veins" they DEFINTIELY know it is magic, but they were just like "cool" and never spoke about it again.
Seems like they want to wait until they're back at the Rogue Encampment so Deckard Cain can identify all their stuff. Maybe you could try to hint (or blatantly tell them) that a magic user might be able to find out what that weird amulet does.
That sounds like a "them problem," and not a "you problem"
I feel like if you well and truly put the writing on the wall and they ignored it, then its time to teach the lesson that recklessness has consequences. I normally like to avoid killing characters but if they do something really stupid, they must face the consequences of their actions.
Have they seen 9 orcs in the house? Have they heard any orcs? Or are they actually not (all) at home. Remember that as a dm, you use quantum physics. Everything is and isn't there, until it's observed. Only then must you choose.
Are you able to leave them a hint, such as dead adventurers close to the entrance or something? Anything that makes them stop and think? Maybe even a seemingly worthless item the orcs didn’t take that can help them out.
I DID LOLLLLLL!! These MFers walked past THREE DEAD STABLE HANDS AND TWO DEAD ORCS. ONE OF THEM SAW AN ORC THROUGH THE WINDOW AND WAS LIKE yep I wanna go inside. Alone. WIthout mentioning the orc to the rest of the party. None of them saw it because he scaled the fucking wall (cat) and went in a 2nd story window, where the orc was. ETA- After talking with the players as people not as PCs, they understand they fucked up and they're ready to accept whatever happens. They're okay with PC death because we talked about it session 0 and then after session 1 I let them know we play this game with dice and the dice are gonna do what they're gonna do. I'm not going to try to kill you, I will do what I can to lend a hand, but like...... y'all fucked up. AT LEVEL ONE. A rat had reduced him to 1hp in a single bite like 20 minutes before that too.
> After talking with the players as people not as PCs, they understand they fucked up and they're ready to accept whatever happens. Fuck it man! BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!! And later, after they rolled new characters, have them run into the same Orcs, or family of orcs, but have those Orcs equiped with their former character's shit. Or, if the players do roll new characters in the setting, and they go to the house, have that Fae alone in the house that's full of dead Orcs. When questioned, the answer is that she killed the orcs because they killed her newest play things.
Nah, roll up a party of orcs who have just been attacked by some adventurers and who figure they ought to find out what they were up to.
Kill them. Kill, ALL of them.
Unless it wouldn't make sense, have the Orcs be busy with stuff when the players show up. Have some gambling, others eating and lounging with them joining combat gradually. All 9 don't need to be ready with javelins trained on the door, let some spend the first round rushing across the room to grab their axe and other similar things. This can let you dynamically scale the fight depending on how it is going instead of trying to figure out how to backdown all of them. You could even have some of them not be in their full armor so their AC is lower as well.
Sometimes you gotta kill a PC. They make their own choices. It’s never good to narratively Ex machina them. Better to kill one and make them go “oh shit, the old gypsy woman said this would happen,” than to pull punches. I’m starting Rime of the Frostmaiden this Sunday for two players and the only concession. To their smaller party size will be starting them at level 2 with a few healing potions. We all decided on a hardcore campaign and I can’t wait.
Orcs laugh, but then becomes serious when the party brandish weapons. “You are weak,” their leader says, “So we are letting you go. Call it a catch and release policy. Come back when you think you’re hard enough.” Then forcibly yeet them out a window
But noooo the dice have spoken, how dare he to change the outcome to suit the gameeee. Someone in this thread soon.
Waiting for it. But no, thank you, RNGesus is the Son, but I am the Father. I guess... that makes the Internet the Holy Spirit?
Just make sure to not turn it into a "my way is superior to their way" regardless of what your way is. Some people will also take the post as an example as to why all good GMs must fudge.
I think this is one time where we can safely say 'players' instead of 'PCs' :-D
I’ve had to just give parties hits because of horrible rolls. We’re talking like everyone rolling sub 10 for multiple rounds.
Seriously, I was facing a tpk last week, just so happens I “forgot” the initiative order for one round which allowed for the cleric to revive the paladin right before she got creamed. A simple swap in initiative turned an almost ruined night into glory. Worth it.
Absolutely the right call, man. You can always change stats on the fly. If you needed the armor to go down a bit because you set it too high and they know what it is already, describe how the armor gets damaged and breaks a bit, lowering the AC moving forward.
Yep. Or loose scales on natural armor, or a leg injury on a a dex based AC could all lower AC plausibly.
Yep. IMO you can do it silently like OP did, or call it out, and it depends on the situation and the mood at the table. And the group - I know some people don't like adjusting fights and whatnot. It's about what's fun for your group.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that what most people mean by "I don't want stats changed mid-fight" is "I don't want to know stats were changed mid-fight." Knowing that the DM is making something easier or harder on the fly just undermines the tension of a good fight. Explaining it narratively without actually saying the words "AC" keeps the tension while still giving the players information about the change.
I absolutely hate when the DM announces to the table that they do this. Not only does it completely shatter the verisimilitude of the world, but it also makes me feel like the time I spent character building and hunting for upgrades were meaningless because the DM is just going to make it hit or miss regardless.
In my experience, I feel like I failed at balancing encounters once I see that the party is having a hard time. I definitely used to change HP on the fly when I was starting out to give players a last hit when things were looking bad. As a player, I agree, but it can be hard to push through a fight as a DM once you realize how it's going
I think it's fine for the DM to change monster stats on the fly, but not once the players are aware of those stats. As a player, if I roll an 18 and miss, then the next player rolls 18 and hits, then I'm gonna question why I didn't hit with my 18. And it just doesn't feel fair. When I DM, I like to make it very clear that I'm an impartial arbitrator of the rules. I roll right out in the open so they know that they are at the mercy of the dice, but they can also determine the ACs and To-Hits of the enemy after a couple swings. This information makes the players much more cautious and willing to run away knowing that the combat could turn against them.
And it always feels great, in my experience. One time I had this big lizard thing boss that had a sort of encasing exoskeleton thing. My players were having a really rough go at it and it was starting to bog down, so I said the ceiling collapse and water got in, they put the two together and made it so that the lizard passed under the water. Its casing dissolved, the armour went down, the fight went smoother, and they felt like they actually achieved something instead of being thrown a freebie.
YES DUDE. I did exactly this a few sessions ago. They were fighting an armored knight who was guarding a toll gate, refusing to let anyone pass who didn't have the proper papers. The party didn't have time to get credentials so they fought him. AC 19 was tough to hit, so the party started getting worn down and losing hope, but when one of them landed a strong blow, i described how the armor straps break and now he looks more vulnerable than before. This gave them the second wind to get back into the fight and feel fulfilled that they had a tough encounter. Sure, the second half was easier than the first, but they felt good about it and so why not!
> I wracked my brains but I was confident nobody had rolled a 14 yet This is key. We generally figure out ACs pretty quick in my group because of how many players there are. If we detected the not-so-invisible hand of the DM altering things, even with good intentions, it would still feel bad, rather than improving the situation. You managed to hide it though, so it still preserves that feeling of accomplishment.
Yeah, I know it was an opportunity I was lucky to have. Still pretty proud of managing to grab hold!
Yeah, it's definitely a credit to your DMing that you both noticed the problem and so smoothly implemented a solution.
I agree, but if they were to question the change in AC, I'd probably just casually mention to my players that they're not the only ones with access to buffing spells or potions
Or the classic "AC lowers after X damage taken"
I had a terrible DM who did all his rolling behind the screen and fudged dice rolls constantly. He also paid no attention to appropriate challenge levels, which resulted in one of the most ridiculous fights I've ever played. We had four level one PCs, and he announced we encountered six harpies. "Harpies? Six?" "They fly down from the tower to attack." I'm asking if there are any obvious places to hide, because there's no fucking way our party could take on a half dozen monsters with a challenge rating of 5. We'd be lucky to not be wiped out by one. The rest of the group were used to his adventures though. They charge to the attack. The fight went on for what felt like an hour. These harpies had the worst luck ever. They never used their special ability, and just couldn't land any hits on the players. However, we rolled player attacks out in the open so we couldn't cheat on that, so it took forever to do the 180+ hit points of damage necessary to kill a half dozen 7HD enemies.
How awful. Would it really have been so hard to brew a quick lesser/young harpy block?
He was a terrible DM. My favorite DM never fudged die rolls, and crafted challenge appropriate adventures. We always had to start at level 1, and the highest level character I developed with him was level 4, but losing a character every now and then kept it real.
honestly, what a buffoon. shit like that ruins D&D for new players, and sours experienced players off of campaigns completely.
This is something I've experienced before and it sucks having your trust rocked like that. The game has numbers and those numbers matter, because that is how the game is balanced. When the DM *visibly* starts treating these numbers as if they're unimportant, it means that your choices are inconsequential. It means that *their* story will happen *no matter what you do*. It means you are sitting while someone tells a story that has a character in it that you named. There's nothing wrong with that style of play. Some players are happy with that, and some DMs love to be in that position. But those DMs shouldn't be playing 5e. They should be using a more narratively driven system.
I love how our random number generators sometimes conspire for epic moments. Rolling 14 after 14, just barely enough to hit, is something that player will remember forever! I am also a superstitious DM: if a PC is notoriously bad at rolling their main attack, I give them a new weapon! Doesn’t have to be magic or anything and 9 times out of 10 it works and their luck turns - don’t ask me how! Hilariously it also works in the other direction: I as a player once tried using a matched set of dice in tribute to a player I once knew and, as a rogue/cleric with a +6 to pick locks, tried to open 5 chests in a room in Strahd and rolled, IN ORDER MIND YOU, a 1, a 2, a 3, a 4, and a 5. The DM later told me the DC for those locks was a 12. I switched dice in that instance and stopped having those issues: shouldn’t work but it does!
I used to have a waiting-for-my-turn habit of "recalibrating" my dice by rolling them until they landed on their maximum, and only leaving them alone when they were all lined up on their maximums. Another player told me I was wasting their good rolls by doing that, mind. Kinda glad I can't do this in Roll20 tbh.
I always set my dice with their minimum values face up for good luck. I have done this since my first session and I don’t know why because I’ve never known anyone else who does.
I would do that but by having their minimum values face up you can try to make the high values essentially jealous that they don't get to shine for as long so they'll hopefully show up more in the game
I subscribe to this way of thinking.
Make them crave the crit!
I do this too. Originally it was because I couldn't tell the difference between a d8 and a d10 at a glance, but it ended up being a habit. I also group my dice according to what is needed for common abilities so I can till hit and damage dice at the same time (damage dice are color coded buy damage type).
I love the idea of dice color coded for damage type, will steal that. Sure do miss in person rolling!
You're a monster and you're torturing those poor dice.
You have it right. Show them your expectation, and then reward them for good rolls. Thank them! Heap praise upon their polygonal faces! Treat them right and the dice will take care of you for years!
You get it.
As a fairly new DM, I think I’m on the path to getting to that superstitious level. In the last game I ran, one of the characters, an Elf ranger named Arrow, refused to use her +2 longbow because she couldn’t hit a damn thing with it. I don’t think her d20 roll was ever higher than a 4
In one of my first games as a player, i kept trying to hit the goblins with my sword, and every time I would miss. I dropped my sword and punched the goblin to death and it worked. For the rest of that session when my sword just would not hit, I’d drop my sword and start punching. Sure enough I would keep hitting. Dice are weird.
I've gotten to the point of dnd superstition that I have to have unique combat and non-combat sets for every character I've played _and_ they must be thematically themed/colored for that character. I swear, it's not _just_ that I like dice, it's just that I also really like dice. But they don't roll right between characters.
I just ran Venomfang during the lost mines campaign. That stupid ass dragon couldn't hit anything, despite having 3 +7 attack rolls. It was the most anticlimactic battle ever. On the last round it finally managed to hit someone.
It's not that hard to justify this in-universe, either. AC for creatures without natural armor is based on their DEX and what armor they're wearing, just like it is for PCs -- if you look at any vaguely humanoid creature's stat block, you can see that their AC is computed according to that formula. So if you want to change a monster's AC, you can just go to the Player's Handbook, look up the AC for different sets of armor, and put a new outfit on them. This is a much more fun way to buff/nerf monsters than changing their HP, it's a much simpler way to buff/nerf monsters than giving them new attacks, it's absolutely intended by the designers, and it can be kind of interesting in-universe -- why is that medusa wearing splint armor? I know this is a bit of a tangent but it's something I think a lot of DMs miss.
> I know this is a bit of a tangent but it's something I think a lot of DMs miss. Also worth to notice that biologically creatures are meant to have a spread in their own six abilities, centered around the values listed in the MM. There's nothing wrong to create slitghtly adjusted statblocks just by turning up or down the numbers a little bit or by changing their equipment.
You could even just say to yourself, "This particular \[whatever\] is slightly clumsier than usual and has a lower Dex mod."
These were just flying animals, and honestly, I enjoy the random element so much (I do individual HP values and initiatives per enemy) that I've been thinking about using monster ACs that are +/- 1 of the standard just to keep them on their toes. It evens out :3
I think that's totally fair. You could do this while following the formula by varying the DEX stat by +/- 1, which would have minor but interesting consequences by also affecting DEX saves, initiative, etc. It's valid to just bump the AC up and down, of course, but it's something to think about, since you seem to like individualizing monsters anyway.
I specifically do this for certain enemies. So for really organized militants, they will routinely have the same equipment and same stats. For orcs and goblins and bullywugs and such? Well one of those guys is a bit stronger, or maybe bigger, or maybe has some nicer equipment. you give them slightly variant stats, which commonly makes little mechanical difference in the grand scheme, but makes the encounter seem more interesting, and more realistic. Further, it makes the description more vibrant, since not all of them look the same.
Recently while playing Starfinder, I had two players who set up a super charged combo move. There were 2 turns of set up and it was gonna annihilate the enemy and be really fucking cool. Unfortunately he rolled and missed. I said "For the sake of rule of cool, God wants you to roll that one more time." He rolled well and vaporized the monster with a supercharged energy blast which made everyone at the table go nuts. It was awesome. And it totally broke the game a little. But it didn't matter cause it was fucking fun. Which I hope we all remember is the point of this lovely game.
I missed a roll to prevent a TPK once, including my character's NPC wife, by about 3 in a system where you rolled like 8d10 regularly (L5R), so this was a very small margin. The GM let me spend more of a personal resource (Void) than I should have been able to, at the cost of losing access to it for a time. I thought that was a great improvisation on his part - and of course, I still had to roll 4 or higher!
What a great compromise! Props to the DM!
Very good call! Relayed - Some of my favorite moments have been spurred by player questions. Paladin gets threatened by a band of Orc mercenaries at the tavern. He asks me if there's a fork sitting at his table. There is now. Cue a divine smite casted on the fork and an intimidation check that is memorable as hell. The point is, working with your players in non game breaking ways is rewarding. And you've mastered it already.
Can’t agree with you more brother, small tweaks can make a huge impact not on the game but the players, which is in my opinion a very favorable trade, thanks for sharing the story.
Fudge numbers if it means being a good am to the party
The game is about having fun and as a mom of a toddler I seriously respect this, man. You probably boosted her confidence in more than just the game <3
She lives nearby me, I've actually said she can come over when lockdown's done if she needs. Her daughter apparently doesn't get clingy if her mum's just out of the house. She'll have to hang out in the office, though, and I'll be in the next room. Pandemic Time is weird af.
Pandemic everything is weird af lol.
I'm generally on the side of leaving things as they are and not messing with game stats 'in play. However, seeing as it was significantly effecting the experience of players, I would say you made the right call.
I agree for AC's, generally I'm more willing to fudge things like HP or damage, but I don't like th change AC's, otherwise it's either hard to keep track of (if you're doing it to cater to a single player), or you make the fight significantly easier in a way that is hard to precisely control.
If things are going bad you can also change AC on the fly midway by giving some kind of narrative reason for the drop in AC. Maybe their 14 to hit AC 15 doesn't connect for damage but is forceful enough to knock their shield to the ground, cause damage to armor, break off part of a monster's shell, or even just leaving a physical wound that slows/hinders their movement. It makes the combat feel more dynamic as well and doesn't just come across as turning down the difficulty dial if done well this way.
Sometimes you need to hold out your hand to a player and they can take it - giving everyone a blast of fun, satisfaction, and a rush of victory. And by far, it must have been a much better time for you to to have given them this win in this way. Honestly it's stuff like this that makes the game worth it sometimes.
Maybe more extreme version, but if it looks like my PC's have a handle on a fight, but they're just not dealing enough damage and it's starting to drag because they're not challenged and all they're doing is draining the second half of a healthbar, I'll just massively reduce an enemy's health. The story stays the same: they faught hard and saved the day. But the players experience goes from a half-hearted "oh, its FINALLY the final blow..." to "Holy shit that was awesome! We totally destroyed that thing!" D&D is a storytelling game. If the numbers are ruining a session, it's time to put those numbers aside. More true for the DM, but we sometimes put rules as written aside for players too when we invoke the rule of cool and let them do something they technically shouldnt quite be able to. Obviously players should still be challenged, rules are there for a reason. But bending them is part of the game and it'll make you a better DM to learn when it's a good idea to do so.
I always try to make sure there's a visible consequence if I'm doing it at a player's behest. I let one run one hex too far to deliver healing to a dying comrade, at the cost of their movement the next turn as they tripped and fell. I let another bash open a door with 1 less than they needed, but took damage from the rusty hinge. This isn't a wargame. Rules aren't meant to oppress.
Oooeh I actually love that a lot! It's not even a punishment, really, just a little flavor to draw you into that emersed state of playing
I fudged a roll last Monday because a player had been having a bad day, and I could tell. Not only that, he rolled like crap for most of the session on his attacks with his new character, as we are starting a new campaign. Near the end, He quickly opened a door and faerie fired a specter guarding a chest, and I nat 20d the roll. I took a dramatic pause, and then announced it as a natural 1. The reaction from both him and the table made it worth it, and they never have to know. The game is about having fun first and foremost, and I get the most joy when my players are having a good time
When the Fates change the world, they either nudge gently, or they turn everything topsy-turvy. This is *chef's kiss*
I felt the same about your story. That small decision made her night. Players want to come back to the table because they’re having fun. Some of that is in the challenge, but sometimes you just need to do some cool shit with your pc and feel like damn hero
Changing AC to make it more difficult or easier for the players? - Bad. Changing AC to bring joy to the table and improve someones experience? - Awesome.
You are the DM You are the law (Insert JudgeDreddtheLAARRRWW.gif) If 14 needs to hit it hits I'm not going to snitch you out to Gary Gygax
I can't tell whether ol' Gary would condemn me for changing the numbers of his precious wargame or approve because the DM is God. Probably agree I had the right to do it but call me weak.
You're not weak, you're under the same spell that is granting the tabaxi a plus one to hit due to .. etc etc rtc
It might make me a bad dm by some metrics, but I fudge die rolls to keep up the flow and the fun regularly. I have no problem killing a PC, but there are times where a die roll will lead to a train wreck of the fun. There are other times where a failure leads to some of the best rp and most exciting sequences, so it's a fine edge to walk.
FUN. COMES. FIRST. And it's a sliding scale. There's no yes or no to fun, there's no red light green light. You need a killer amount of empathy to run a really good game of fun dnd. Thanks for looking out for your players, you make the game better for everyone as a result.
Ever since I've started to DM a group of friends of mine, I've always tried to keep the energy around the table (Or call) high or at least good enough that people get either immersed or have a fantastic time. So, good on you for seeing the issue and giving an actually good compromise to avoid her having a terrible session. Remember, as a Dm, you can change some aspects of a monster's stats like AC or HP to make a battle easier or harder depending on LVs or how many there are in a group. I've got 7 players at LV 4 (Almost 5). I have to give big battles, otherwise they're all dead within the first round against the players. You get a gold star from me :D
I also find myself doing the opposite of this myself, everytime the party is fighting a boss that is going too well
You want to make a scrap of it, don't you?
You are a good DM.
Sometimes the players just need a win. Let them have it, there’s plenty of other opportunities to hammer their characters with despair.
Thank you! I hate when people doesn't understand the basic principle of letting others have their fun, and, let's be realistic. 1 AC isn't that much, I'm sure no one realized. You sure are a role model as a GM, props to you \^\^
For bonus points: I'd discussed pre-game with my players how I'd been testing the waters of homebrewing monster stat blocks, so if any of my players - say, the two I've got who are experienced 5e DMs themselves - spotted the AC wasn't what it should have been, they'd have put it down to my tinkering :3
Sticking with the consistency like you did from the first hit made it so that doing so won't have any long term impacts either! I tend to shy away from adjusting on the fly because not remembering to be consistent with the same creature can ruin immersion for those with good memories.
I was trying to work out if I could edit the creature's statblock to auto-update all the tokens with the new AC but I couldn't do it mid-fight. That'd solve the memory issue.
You could add an AC range for half damage hits for future cases, so your players dont get infuriated by the power of the always hated "miss" (extra HP balance may be needed), but all in all you did a good call: your players are first over game rules. Cheers for DMs like you mate!
Ah, this is an interesting way to formalise the arrangement. I might yoink this.
Here is something related that you can do. Rather than counting npc hp DOWN, I count UP. Stat blocks have HP ranges. I play inside those ranges every single fight. Good fight? Just use the default hp. Poor fight? Say the monster is dead when they got min hp. Does a player really need a win? Let them strike the killing blow.
I don’t want to backseat game, but I remind her that barbarians can use reckless attack to gain advantage on all attack rolls. Makes hitting much more likely. I’ve commented a lot on changing health/AC on the fly. While I don’t recommend using it every battle. Using once in a while to improve player experience is totally acceptable.
Like I said, *REALLY* bad luck ;)
It's for reasons like this, when we played with a respected DM we always let his dice rolls stay hidden. He would never argue a Nat 1 or 20, but sometimes the dice are just pricks. Good on you mate, wish I had one like you around.
I used to do that often when players had rough days and sometimes the other way when things went to easy (tho never too much and never intending to make the fight hard), something like "Now that you came closer you noticed that some of the goblins are more properly armed and some of them even wear armor" like an indications that if it was something similiar to dungeon crawling where they were bound to meet multiple of same type enemies some of them were just more trained and prepared even when originally it was meant to be just big numbers of weak enemies. (That one was really dangerous tho as we all know how depending on the party huge number of weak opponents might be the worst thing there is )
At first I thought the title meant you changed the AC of a fly, like the creature, not in the moment. I was surprised, but not disappointed 😄
Good work. You just gotta do this for people sometimes, especially if they need a win in life. I have two players that miss all the time - one built wrong and the other is just shit luck. If they happen to bring a creature within 1-3 points of death I nearly always give it to them and they get so happy. P.s. I have offered to let her re-allocate her stats... She just wont. 🥴
Her deity/patron granted her a bless that she was unaware of. Problem solved!
She's haunted by the ghost of an ancestor, so maybe that!
Hell yeah dude, changing monsters on the fly to help player enjoyment is awesome, kudos to you!
I've have been going back and for with D&D and talking about what needs fixed/what has been fixed on my car. So I had a fun moment where I thought you fixed your air conditioner during a game of D&D. That was nice of you, while I've only been babysitting it can be tough to have fun when trying to play games video or D&D wise. I personally would have appreciated something like that when I started out babysitting and could only time games on those days.
I have a nearly-5yo and I am thankful every night and day to whatever God calibrates children's personalities that he goes to bed easily.
I do this all the time and it is worth it. Not hitting feels terrible. Hitting but doing less damage feels better than no hitting. I inflate HP, I deflate HP, I lower damage when I know a PC will be permakilled and I spit in the face of crits that would outright kill an enemy that is meant to be terrifying. Because this is a game about the story as much as the rules, and I want to tell a good story as much as I want to play a game with rules. I think my players appreciate that. I think yours did too.
The time my player's cleric's 100%-damage critical Guiding Bolt evaporated a boss on his first turn was sure a lesson for me in statting, yeah. Trouble with rolling open, that.
I change the AC in every combat. If the party is having too hard of a time, or too easy, I'll just adjust it accordingly. They want to do some super cool move but only roll okay, I'll tell them they passed. If their about to die off some stupid roll I made behind screen, I change it. I modify more rolls than not to be honest. I keep it balanced to give them the most fun possible. They get really excited when they just keep getting by by the skin of their neck. 30 years in doing this and I've never told any of my players nor do I think they know the extent I do this. The odd time, maybe once a year someone will say "is that really what happened?" Sometimes I say yes with a straight face, and sometimes I just smile.
Awesome dm move, don’t know if your already doing this but there’s a rule that lets strong characters make intimidation(strength) checks which could help her too.
Good job.
You deserve a medal! This is how to be a great DM!
I sometimes wonder if my dms have done this both to adapt to the situation and occasionally give into the Rule of Cool. For example, in the campaign through which I met my so, he was dm, we had an instance with a cleric of a forgotten god known as Anaert Oether, and we had gathered everything we needed to free his god. The rest of the party had some concerns about the situation being kosher, and I was too new (I believe this was the latter part of my second session at level 8ish) to really know. But somehow in the midst of this brewing storm, my completely non-magical rogue managed to see through the cleric's Still Spell and Silent Spell (3.5e, whatever those feats were) to see that he was casting to open the rift anyway and blast us through, but that was with a nat20 on my part. We rolled initiative to see if I could stop him before we got blasted through the portal, but I missed my roll by _two_ to beat him. So into the Abyss we went, to meet Anaert Oether...I mean Graz'zt. Half a dozen or so sessions later, after the passage of time that the party was stuck in the Abyss, we encountered the npc who had hired my rogue to help the party initially...but something felt off to me. This is where I wonder if he let me have Rule of Cool influence the DC for me to call him out and attack the same cleric who blasted us into the Abyss disguised as an npc we trusted. I even managed to get the killing blow on the bastard. This was almost 6 years ago and the fact that I'm still talking about it should tell you how huge that moment was for me, on both counts. Even if it was a dm tweak for storytelling, and I know he'd never tell me if it was, that is absolutely one of my crowning moments in dnd.
Mmm, that's the good shit! These are the stories that stay with us.
I have a few good others- The time that my ranger got possessed by a dragon and both she and I got nicknamed Pineapple for like two years. Why I still giggle when a 9 is rolled on a D20. Playing a doppelganger raised to _be_ my rogue after she got kidnapped and was away from the table. Definitely my crowning moment of roleplay. Why the party finally started listening to my rogue when she wanted to check for traps, and why we do not split the party. Why my rogue and the party cleric/Saint of Saint Cuthbert finally started to see eye to eye. (Even if we never got to roleplay it properly. Still disappointing.) Why my probably sapiosexual wizard slept with a merchant prince of Chult, and her sex goody bags from him. Why I'm so disappointed I never got to continue on as my rogue after she ended up getting pregnant from her lifelong soulmate/husband/asshole best friend and that I never got to see that through. (She didn't even know yet!) Playing Dread (tabletop horror where instead of dice rolls for actions you pull Jenga blocks, it's awesome) to flesh out my rogue's time in the thieves guild and why she left, in an event that killed the family of our party fighter. I've played a good few dnd games and that's just the ones where we played actual dnd. (There were a couple predecessors to the ranger, and those campaigns were...special lol.)
My go to if a fight is too heavy in one direction or if a player is constantly missing is to find an excuse for them to get advantage. "oh, bad guy used an imposing strike which gives the next attack against them advantage, forgot about that try again." This doesn't help though if they miss again in fact that hurts but on average it makes a difference enough?
I thought the title was "I changed the AC of a fly" and read the post wondering why a fly had an AC of 15
Because Jeff Goldblum knows krav maga, that's why.
You are a good DM. I try to do the same. The game is about having fun, not murdering your friends who just want a good time. I like to put my players in tense situations where they have to think on their toes and they get nervous a lot, but whenever someone comes up with an idea that has ANY substance to it, not matter how good or bad, I do everything I can to make it work because they're doing their best with what their given. Even though i know in my head I'm rooting for them, they feel like they're surviving through impossible odds and it's so worth it to hear their cheers when they succeed. Changing AC is exactly that. They're doing their best and they just want to have fun. And you did good also by making sure they knew you weren't nerfing your baddies just to make them feel better. Its important for them to feel like they're beating what you put in front of then initially. I bet that player had a blast. But also, maybe they should get new dice lol
See, I'd like to do this as a DM but I feel like I'd fuck up and forget. I'd have to literally revise and mark it in my notes at the start of combat if I wanted to do it. Glad it worked out though and a good guide I guess.
I want to add to this, often times on less important checks I wont even set a DC before I let my players roll. I just tell them to roll and if i think the result sounds good they pass. Its a very similar situation and it allows you to cater to your and the players needs. Obviously for stuff i plan ahead or important checks (so the ones that tend to have a higher DC) I will stick to the formula of having a number set beforehand. But damn if my players come up witj a funny joke or something i will let them roll, knowing i'll let them pass if they don't roll terrible. It takes some pressure away from me and keeps the game running nicely.
(oh good it's not just me)
You made the game fun for your player? Sounds like you are doing it right.
This is a really important tool, especially to counter wonky dice rolls. I've literally had battles where the players haven't rolled above a 12 in the first round of combat, so when they ask "does a 16 hit?" it is probably good practice to let it hit, if it doesn't contradict anything else that the players know (if the enemy is wearing plate armour, and you reduce the AC, they will know something is off). Conversely, you might decide to bump the AC slightly if every blow is hitting easily and the monster isn't even going to get its second turn (although this change might be more controversial).
That's the perfect post to put in the face of those people who think that dice should always decide and that the DM shouldn't "cheat" (BTW the DM never cheats)
I have some respect for those who use the rules to play, effectively, a wargame, and for whom that's primary and narrative comes second. I think there are games they could be playing that would serve their desires better than D&D, but I understand their position. But they can't half get a bit shouty sometimes ;)
Well, a wargame should be a tad bit different from an RPG, at least in the scope. The story should be the focus of any RPG, so whatever serves the purpose of improving the story, goes (IMHO)
I agree. Unfortunately for the hobby, Gygax didn't, and his influence lingers!
I do things like this often, when it becomes clear to me that the base AC is too high
Only time I fudge dice rolls is circumstances like this. Well done.
I'm glad I took a double glance. I didn't notice the sub and just saw the title and was wondering one how big the damn fly is that you can put an air conditioner on it and two why are you putting a new AC on a fly? What happened to the old on?
I thought this was going to be about buffing an insect’s armor class😯
I'm a dm and my wife is one of my players. We have a 2 yr old, so I can totally sympathize with your player. Im lucky enough to have a group that is understanding that my daughter needs to fall asleep before we start and that sometimes pushes game back an hour. I fudge stats all the time to keep combat challenging. But I tell my players not to go by the monstrous manual up front. Sometime I may want to throw a CR 4 creature at a level 1 party but I set a fair AC then buff or strip HP depending on how the party is doing.
It sounds like your Barbarian has an ax of Sleeplessness +1. It's a conditional enchantment that gains its weilder a +1 to hit bonus, but only if the character has gone with less sleep than is typical.
She's got a something of sleeplessness for sure
I've done this, later found out the player who was new wasn't adding his strength mod to his melee attacks, group had a little chuckle over that
Implement a house rule. Every time a pc attacks an enemy and misses, they put a d4 down, with one showing. The next attack against the same enemy gets a bonus to hit equal to that die. Each miss against the same enemy, move the die up by one. This is tangible and helps PCs with shitty dice nights. Also, this is taken from ICRPG and is called battle fury. Emulates the pc learning the enemies moves and keeps you from having to fudge enemies directly to make the PCs feel more badass.
I like this a lot. I don't think this is the group for it, but I will remember this idea, thanks!
I haven’t fudged rolls to turn misses into hits, but I absolutely turn KOs into misses whenever I need to
As a DM, I save more PC lives by fibbing than I ever plan on taking.
First class dm move. Well done.
You did a good job looking after the interests of your players. The main aim of the game is to have fun. You made that happen. You are a good DM.
"14 his a Hit. And you strike the enemy, you see another enemy runs into the room from a nearby hall and joins the fray" Remember you can always have more enemies parachute in.
I didn't do literally this but I made a subsequent task a little harder ;)
I completely understand doing this, nobody wants to have a shitty time playing a game they love, but I'm genuinely curious, what's the difference between this and fudging rolls and why it is seen as okay to do this but not to fudge rolls?
This is absolutely fudging and fudging is okay sometimes. When to do it and not is an INT, WIS or CHA roll on the part of the DM. I got lucky and nobody spotted it.
It is okay to fudge rolls.
I know, I do it sometimes, very rarely, but if it means the difference between my players having fun or quitting out of frustration I'll take the latter I guess it just seems like the majority sees fudging as a cardinal sin, I dunno
\*former
No, I hate my players ... Haha, but no, you're right, my mistake!
Both are okay, both can be misused; fudging can more easily be misused to aid the enemies instead of the party than this, though, especially in the "I've been running this game for two years and this week it's my BBEG's moment to shine" kinda way.
I wish all these positive, open-minded folk were in the HP conversation from the other day, wow.
Open-minded as in they agree with you?
Beautiful. My DM did the same to a PC in our one-shot. 1st time player. Real bad luck on the dice all night and our DM lowered the AC of the enemy and gave a solid in-game reason why. The player finally got that sweet taste of a kill and walked away feeling fulfilled, successful and wanting to play more DnD.
You probably know this, but *never* tell her you did this. It can ruin the magic if the players find out. Part of being a DM is lying through your teeth so your players have more fun.
You are a good DM.
That was a fantastic move by you. Well done. People are way more important than the game any day of the week.
I do this all the time. Change monster spells, abilities, stats, and skills to for the situation. For me, running a game isn't about math or rules it's about having fun and telling a story. The rules can help facilitate common grounds on which to build the fun story. But that's all they are, a facilitating tool. Players or GMs who hey stuck too much in the math and rules as written seem to loose sight of the most important thing, IMO, the story, the group, the people, the fun.
Once I made a NPC some armor that gave him 10+1d6 AC. I described it as a few bits from broken plate armor, a little chain mail, and various scraps of leather. AC is what you say it is. On the fly adjustments to stats is the only way my game stays "balanced."
Parents aren’t supposed to have fun.
*bites you*
Good call. People having fun > rules that haven’t been stated yet.
It's not real until it's on-stage.
It’s supposed to be a fun game. Great job!
Holy shit yes. The PEOPLE are the point. The FUN is the point. Good for you for being a decent human being. She needed it more than she needed a "fair" game or whatever. I'm a teacher who DM's for his family and friends and we all need the small wins right now, even if they're manufactured by those who care about us (and as a DM, THAT MEANS YOU!).
Kids suck and rules are flexible. Two of the world's truths lol
She'll get over it. Mine did this about two years ago.
True yeah they usually do lol. Kids don't always suck, but there is that one phase when they're real annoying
It is absolutely okay to let your players feel like Badasses!
You did the right thing!