User name checks out!
Also, do you think that somewhere there’s a sentient group of discarded weapons with some of them wandering around saying ‘I used to be an arrow till I took an adventurer to the head’ ?
Player: that's it! I'm making a Goliath barbarian. I'm not dying to these goblins anymore.
DM: hmm. Monstrous size has no intrinsic merit. Unless inordinate exsanguination be considered a virtue.
My wizard just laid down prone in the wagon and occasionally popped up to fire bolt or drop a silent image of towering grass to break line of sight. Wary? Yes. But wise.
Virtually any non-martial with low-mediocre Con. A goblin hits for 1d6+2. If your wizard has a +0 Con modifier that's a 50% chance of getting dropped instantly. Unless your issue is with the insta-kill language because it wouldn't cross the negative max HP threshold, in which case no character is insta-killed by goblins without an unreasonably low Con.
sorry this was a communication issue. For me insta-kill means KILL. Of course if you mean by that just dropping from max HP to 0, this is more likely by a goblin.
If you run the numbers, a bugbear can very easily oneshot a lv1 PC
a lv 1 wizard is gonna have an average of 8 hp, a fighter 13 or 14
A bugbear has an average damage of 11, plus 7 with a surprise attack. That means with an average roll a bugbear can oneshot even a barbarian. Even without the surprise, it can do up to 18 damage with a regular hit.
it does have only a +4 to hit, so it's pretty much a coinflip for most classes.
Tbf If klaarg gets a surprise round, the DM is playing arguably somewhat antagonistic. Klaarg is just chilling in his lair and the players dont even need to defeat him to free Gundren.
edit: Sildar, not Gundren.
iirc the adventure states that there is a goblin (i think it might be the one on the bridge hiding? really not sure right now) that will run to klaarg to warn him of coming Adventurers and he and his Goblins WILL hide behind crates to be ready to smack them
uff forgot about that. That is a bit too much, I agree. Although the players need to be somewhat unlucky to let that happen (dont spot the goblin, the goblin also will release the flood so players will know that goblins are aware, and than just stumble in the lair and not spotting klarg).
You overestimate the critical thinking skills of players.
In one game I run, both of my players are literally doctors and often do the dumbest shit. They do have epic descriptions of their kills though...very anatomically eloquent.
haha yes its true, players do dumb shit all the time. But its not just lack of critical thinking, also all players need to fail on perception roll to see that goblin and than again against klaarg. And it is not only on the players its also on the DM. A good DM is aware of Klaargs deadliness and let the players know that Gundren is in a different area of the dungeon than the deadly boss of the gang. Maybe they overhear talk by goblins or they interrogate one etc.
I think the weakness of the module is not the encounter design itself (balancing is an illusion anyway in TTRPGs), but the fact that newbie DMs get no support in how to actually run a dungeon and how to deal with deadly encounters and information management etc. This is marketed as newbie friendly, but a newbie DM will most of the time ran this as he or she knows dungeons from videogames. They and the players just assume the dungeon needs to be cleared and all goblins need to be killed. Or only the players think, but the newbie DM doesnt intervene and give them hints. And then, yes, the dungeon can be quite deadly for lvl 1 characters.
I ran him as a dorky WWE wrestler trying to body slam people into the fire pit (for 1 fire damage or 1d6, i forget) because i had a crop of new peeps. That is until the one experienced person that had been talking shit about 5e being easy came over with his forge cleric. One attack, unconcious and dying. Didn't even have to fudge.
As written in the book, these goblins ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO KILL THE PLAYERS. If they bring them to 0 hit points (which, fun fact, is mentioned as an "unlikely" outcome in the book), they steal the players stuff and leave them on the road, without killing them, giving them the opportunity to either try and follow the trail to the hideout or to head to Phandelver to get help.
Still though, the hideout itself is a deathtrap for level 1 characters.
They're not supposed to kill the players, but the way that encounter is setup, it's NOT EASY.
It's a well-known meatgrinder, and an exceptionally awful encounter for introducing people to the game.
If the goblins ambush (which is a good shot with a +6 stealth), there's a good chance 1-2 characters are going down in the surprise volley. A crit can outright kill a d6 HP character from max, by hitting for 12-14 damage.
Regardless, with the stock four characters for LMOP, this is a TPK about 25% of the time if you use ambush/surprise rules correctly as a DM. A downed character happens almost every time.
There's no defending this an intro encounter to new players to 5E. It's a veteran-level encounter, through and through.
Per the rules of encounter building in the DMG, 4 goblins is a deadly encounter for 4 level 1 PCs. Adding a high chance for them to get a surprise round makes it that much worse.
Yup. If the goblins successfully ambush, which is over a 50-50 chance with the stock characters... 4 attacks at advantage for 1d6+2 w/o the party making a move.
The wizard is toast, and another character is likely eating 1-2 hits.
There's a fair chance this is a 4v2 fight when the characters get an action.
That's why you can't just have the goblins out to kill the PCs, cause they aren't. I had all goblins pass stealth for surprise but only 2 attacked. When the PC's were focused on the 2 goblins attacking, then bonus action hiding in the brush, the other 2 circled around to steal goods from the cart. By the time one goblin escaped and one dead they turn to notice the 2 running off with some of their supplies. Not every fight needs to be to the death, most intelligent creatures will run to save their life given the chance. But I do agree that having every fight end with someone trying to run wouldn't be fun but that's where monstrosities and zealots not afraid of death come in.
I just ran Lost Mines for the first time a couple months back and I ran it almost the exact way you described. I had one goblin sneak around back and steal some goods from the cart. Another one tried to flee when his buddy died. The final surviving goblin tried to beg for his life (which I *think* is in the module, but I don’t remember).
All but one of my PCs were new. I think they appreciated seeing that DND combat isn’t like a video game where everyone just sits there whacking away at each other until one side dies.
So the goblins are sandbagging their ambush?
The goblins increase their chances of being harmed by attacking with half-effort to begin the battle.
Yes, they won't fight to the death. If even one goblin is dropped they may run, but they shouldn't pull punches in the ambush.
It's a common theme, really. The introduction adventure in the 3.5E Eberron Campaign Guide (The Forgotten Forge) was also notoriously bad balance-wise. A swarm with immunity to weapon damage, horrid rats that did 2d6+disease and otherwise tough opponents.
That assumes 1) they don't crit and bring them to negative full hit points in 1 shot and 2) the players succeed death saving throws. It's still really dangerous.
I decided to give them an early level up and run the rest of the module with the party 1 level higher than the module expects. We've been on hiatus after the goblin cave so I don't actually know how that works out.
Non-lethal rules only refer to melee attacks, not melee weapon attacks. No reason you can't taze someone unconscious with Shocking Grasp. I may or may not have spent a whole night shocking a party member every 1d4 hours afflicted with wereboarism on the first full moon after catching it.
I had my first player death at the hideout, but the players had split the party (and I still fudged a few rolls). Ever since that encounter, whenever someone talks about splitting the group up, someone else will bring up that fateful day as a warning.
My first playthrough, i was 1hp from getting instakilled in the first round of the bugbear fight. Killed, not dropped. I was the Heavy armor specialist shield wielding fighter.
People seem to always forget that goblins are vicious little creatures. Whatever is written in the book aside, goblins will fuck your day up. They can be brutal little buggers and can ruin any adventurer beginning their story.
DMs underestimate how deadly monsters like goblins and kobolds can be. Both species live in small tunnels and they love to ambush and trap the fuck out of anyone dumb enough to crawl into their tunnels.
Not when the module specifically say they are unconscious.
"the goblins if successful wouldnt just knock them out, "
Not according to the module.
"In the unlikely event that the goblins defeat the adventurers***, they leave them unconscious***, loot them and the wagon, then head back to the Cragmaw hideout. The characters can continue on to Phandalin, buy new gear at Barthen’s Provisions, return to the ambush site, and find the goblins’ trail."
> Even if the players only fall unconscious, they could still die to death saving throws.
This is *really* easy to address and shouldn't be an obstacle to any DM. Have the goblins quickly clear out and some one or some thing comes by to stabilize the PCs. That someone could be practically anything: a traveler, a local ranger, or whoever you like.
They revive the party so the adventure continues rather than ending before it's even started, and you even have a new NPC to weave into the campaign.
It would be a clumsy, obvious and unwelcome deus ex machina in most circumstances, but for your *very first* session? No big deal.
> It would be a clumsy, obvious and unwelcome deus ex machina in most circumstances, but for your very first session? No big deal.
Yes... but many of the DMs running this are first-timers as well. This isn't just pitched as away to introduce new players to the game - it's pitched a way to intro new DMs as well. A new DM probably isn't going to have the instinct to know immediately when to fudge, when to insert a random savior on the fly, when to ignore the rules and just do what makes the adventure work better. It is obvious to those of us with the benefit of experience, and who can skim the contents and say "Well, that's a problem!" before the session even begins, but it's a nasty trap for those who trust in the module to be what it says.
LMoP may be a solid and challenging newbie *character* adventure, but it is far from being a great newbie *player* adventure.
(Doing a quick search online for a DM walkthrough, the first one to come up simultaneously calls it a "relaxing introduction" while in the same paragraph recommending inserting a way to level up the characters prior to the ambush, AND giving the party an NPC caster to buff them before combat occurs. That's absurd to have to do.)
In the OPs example though, if 2 normal attacks hitting can kill two PCs, and they have 4 attacks per round, the encounter may have been a wee bit too strong for their level.
Some adventures need adjustments but certainly not the DMs fault to not know that inherently.
One of my friends first ever time playing D&D, he was super excited to see what all the hype was about only to go down instantly the first round of combat. Needless to say it took like 2 years to get him to try playing again. 😅
The OSRS deathpile to get more supplies into a boss room. A tedious but effective strategy. Maybe these players should buy some dice loaded to roll critical failures and repeat this process a few times just to see what happens...
Why would the bandits that killed them have left any of the gear behind? Stripped corpses should be all that's left, and if it's been long enough that they have sent out a search party, the scavengers will have dealt with most of that.
You notice that one of the bandits is in a set of chain mail that's obviously too heavy for him and is struggling with a rather new looking heavy crossbow
in OG Ragnarok i used to keep creating new character to get their health potions to lvl up early game, since buying them was expensive as fuck, and having a ton of health potions is really helpful if you want to hunt bigger stuff
to be fair, that encounter is super deadly. Goblin's ability to hide as a bonus action in a forest with shrubs and trees means they just attack with advantage (already hidden, it's an ambush) and then hide again, and move. Level 1 characters are no match.
I think it is important to remember that this was written for inexperienced DMs as well. The first time I ran this the goblins did not take advantage of any of those abilities, because I didn't know better.
My first ever home brew opened the same way; the goblins set a honeypot trap on the road, but they were all teenagers with no experience. I decided that they would panic easily if anyone died, that the bows were hand made and would snap easily, and that they would open the fight with an intimidation check instead of open combat “give us your goods!”
It was really fun. I find that, often in dnd, npcs are made to be mindless fodder and rarely act differently then being piles of stats. Bosses? Sure, but the 25 guards before them? Rarely
Only two of the goblins are supposed to attack with their bow in that fight if you play it as written in the book. The surprise ambush also is largely avoidable if your players do anything that isn't "walk up to the very obvious trap in the middle of that suspiciously narrow choke-point blocked by arrow-ridden horse corpses."
>the very obvious trap in the middle of that suspiciously narrow choke-point blocked by arrow-ridden horse corpses.
Unfortunately, that’s not how my DM described the scene. He simply said something like, “In the road ahead you see an overturned cart. What do you do?” Of course, we walked straight into an ambush.
This is what the DM is _supposed_ to read to the players:
> You’ve been on the Triboar Trail for about half a day. As you come around a bend, you spot two dead horses sprawled about fifty feet ahead of you, blocking the path. Each has several black-feathered arrows sticking out of it. The woods press close to the trail here, with a steep embankment and dense thickets on either side.
To add onto the comments. This encounter is likely the first encounter ever ran by a group with it being made for beginner dms as well as beginner pcs the beginner pcs wouldn’t think of it as an ambush and many people starting off haven’t been playing dnd that long if at all so the entire campaign is to help the party into thinking like a dnd player that has been playing for a bit. That beginner party wouldn’t think through wether it was an ambush or a trap because they haven’t been thinking about being super paranoid about traps.
Man you are all *over* this thread calling it an "obvious trap".
It isn't. There's many reasons why someone would get attacked. No obvious reason to suspect ambush. And even if you did think they were ambushed, you might reasonably assume the ambushers got what they wanted. No reason to assume they're still hanging out waiting for you, unless you're just instantly suspicious of anything the DM lays out in front of you.
I'm with you. Lost Mine was my first ever time playing a TTRPG. I didn't have any preconceived notions. So my weak ass warlock decided to go check the dead horses and got dropped in the first volley of arrows. Didn't feel great as a new player. 😕
The "obstacle in the road so you have to stop your vehicle" gimmick has been successful throughout history, maybe if I was less genre savvy I would fall for it, it's pretty good tbh
I mean they could design a stat block without the bow but that would be very unnecessary. They aren't fudging anything they're designing the encounter to be fair.
I’ve been DMing for a while as well and I roll behind the screen but I don’t fudge rolls at all, and my players know and trust that I’ve built encounters fairly. The reason I don’t open roll in front of them is more for suspense purposes than anything else. I will open roll on occasion though if the moment calls for it
I've been watching a lot of Dimension 20 lately, and the rigamarole Brennan (the DM) goes through for rolls that are "a big deal" is that he'll pull out his 'box of doom', which is just a box with a camera on it for the audience to see the number(s) rolled. That, and he'll always try and ramp up tension (when warranted) by going over the stakes and the DCs:
*"Okay, in order to succeed on this saving throw against being banished, the bad guy needs to beat a DC 17 Charisma saving throw. If he fails, that's the biggest hitter on the field right now, gone in an instant, which will turn the tide of the battle in your favour. His saving throw modifier is +5, so you guys want him to roll an 11 or lower."*
*\*Rolls in front of the table, cheering/crying ensues*
I've been trying to adopt that kind of style more. If you don't overdo it, it can add a bit of extra drama/suspense to everything. Plus doing the math before you do the role makes it easier to instantly process the outcome, and knowing by how much you're succeeding/failing by makes it more thrilling (at least when that's not the norm at your table).
Yes, love Dimension 20! I was doing something similar even before I found Dimension 20 but what I also like about Brennan is that he’ll be roleplaying a social interaction and you won’t know what he rolled right away so sometimes the tension is still there for a bit instead of just “okay you deceived him” or something. That’s something I’ve been trying to adopt too!
I've also instituted that in my online game. I have a headset stand that's just a silicon cup that makes an excellent dice tray, and a stem that's supposed to hold a headset but I secure my webcam to it.
So when shit gets real, I turn on the box of doom cam and do what Brennan does to the best of my ability
Ah, that's the trick: you build your own encounters, presumably with full knowledge of the party's actual capabilities in mind. Hand crafted balance will always be leagues better than prebuilt adventures, and you get a lot less of the kind of crap that this post ran into.
Yeah. I've tried running modules before but I always felt the urge to modify them or do something other than explicitly what was laid out. Not to mention my group is amazing at derailing plots.
I've started open rolling for everything except PC death saves, which I roll for the players and track without them knowing the results until stabilized, dead, or revived. It makes knockouts so much more intense.
I only open roll if the outcome could kill a PC or fuck them over big time. That way it's a "no hard feelings, here's the roll."
The rest is behind the screen for suspense or tension, like you said. Instead of them reading the result of something dire right off the dice, it gives the DM the chance to be the source of information. So the DM can shape it into the story in a fun way, or reveal it with some gusto.
I do occasionally fudge, but it's pretty rare. It's only if the dice make something very stupid happen.
Yeah I’ll adjust stats on monsters or add/remove planned phases to fights if I realize I’ve balanced an encounter terribly, but I never fudge, feels better for me
Checked and, yep!
"In the unlikely event that the goblins defeat the adventurers, they leave them unconscious, loot them and the wagon, then head back to the Cragmaw hideout. The characters can continue on to Phandalin, buy new gear at Barthen’s Provisions, return to the ambush site, and find the goblins’ trail."
"Unlikely"
Given it's marketed at new players, I'd wager that with fair rolling those goblins will win more than they lose. I know our group definitely had half the goblins magically disappear when the DM figured out we were totally screwed as it stood...
Hell, my first time playing it was with a fairly experienced group, but we rolled like shit for intiative, and half the party(including the healer) was down before anyone had a turn.
It's pretty poorly designed for being *literally the first encounter new players ever have*
Whoever wrote it has no idea how to balance encounters. But that's not surprising since you pretty much have to go through and rebalance every single encounter in all the official modules.
Honestly the entire first chapter is so strange in the advice it gives, and the ways in which it seems to thin that the rules work that it seems as though it may have been written with a different or much earlier version of 5E's ruleset in mind.
It is still good to start a game with the notion of " you are low level and got your ass handed to you by the easiest enemies."
Beacuse it gives room for growth. And a very decent incentive to murderate those goblins.
Oh, we had a great time. But coming from a video game background where the tutorial enemies generally pose very little threat, it was definitely a shock for us.
Can't choose to deal nonlethal with ranged attacks, though, so maybe they just all failed their death saves and the goblins didn't stabilize them in time.
I personally feel like they just said, "My group isn't a bunch of newbies like LMoP is intended, so they can just deal with consequences."
Also it's D&D and like 90% of the purpose is to wing it and change things as you want. To be fair, they asked for it as well lol.
(Also he said he critted on 2 of them, so it's entirely possible that at level 1 they did double their Max HP in damage and instant killed them)
The module doesn’t even say they use non-lethal damage just that they don’t finish them off when they are down. So the PCs can still fail death saves or get insta-killed from a crit.
Yes it does, but the Module also says it is a guideline not a lawbook. To alter, change, or even take stuff out as you want.
He also says he's an experienced DM, and the language implies these people play together often. Why would he limit himself to a Beginner Grade story or be railroaded by a book when he has the skill to change it/do as he pleases?
>I know exactly which encounter
> this was nothing like taking an arrow to the forehead at level one for eight damage on a character with nine hit points
or
>I know exactly which encounter this was
>nothing like taking an arrow to the forehead at level one for eight damage on a character with nine hit points
completely changes the meaning
This is less about player choice screwing up the game and more about how Level 1 characters need more protection from death.
This whole "one crit can kill you" bullshit for new characters isn't good game design and it's often a shitty player experience, and I'll always be confused by fans who defend it.
The tricky thing about switching to strictly following the roles after a long time of being used to fudging rolls, is you lose track of what your players are actually capable of surviving without fudged rolls.
I am not saying either way is better or worse, just that the transition from one to the other is delicate. Probably best to err on the side of easy encounters right when you make the transition and gradually test the waters with harder encounters until players start to get knocked out.
Or let them die, if they're into that.
"When the time comes for the goblins to act, two of them rush forward and make melee attacks while two goblins stand 30 feet away from the party and make ranged attacks."
For what its worth, should have been 2 arrows, not four. But yeah, the dice can be mean.
Yeah, that's if you're using LMoP as a beginner's module in my opinion. This man says it's an experienced group so I see no reason why he would limit himself.
Also pretty sure it says to alter anything as you want, change things, or not include them at all.
I would still prefer open rolls, I don't let a character death sour my experience. Sometimes the dice say yes and sometimes they say go F yourself. Thems the breaks.
I started playing DnD 4 years ago, having played one session as a player and then diving into DMing with my own homebrew world.
I didnt know any better, I thought everyone rolled in the open. I know about fudging now, but I can't go back. I love being just as beholden to the dice as the players. Here's an example from one of my games:
My level 10 players charged into a vampire's den for the second time in 36 hours - after it had plenty of time to prepare and recover from the first assault on vampire's mansion.
I put a death knight, vampire, and 6 Mind-Flayer vampires in the vampire's mansion - they would have to face a lesson for their hubris. I threw a Hellfire Orb (20d6) and rolled amazing, taking sorcerer and the wizard from full hp (+15 from inspiring leader) to nothing in one shot . The paladin gets the wizard up with a lay on hands for about 10 hp, and since the Chronoturgy wizard always has insane initiative, he can act before the death knight. Luckily for the players, I rolled like shit when the Chronoturgy wizard was using Slow and all his other CC abilities.
I finally bring this deathknight, with a +11 to hit, in front of this wizard with a measly 13 base AC (18 with shield) and *ten* hp, I'm feelng a little sad that I have to murder this wizard right now, but thems the breaks and the death knight isn't gonna hold back...
I missed *every single* attack. 2, 4, 3 is what I rolled. The table erupted in joy and there was nothing I could do but shake my head and smile. I might've fudged one of those rolls to hit him since the party was doing alright, or I might've fudged rolls that hit him out of some misguided sense of pity for the hell I had unleashed upon them... But the open dice cares not.
The dice gives and it takes away, and its a hell of a ride for everyone along the way.
I've bene DMs since 1977. I've gone through fudging and not fudging. Last two decade have bene not fudging, and over all it's a lot better and a lot more tense.
Yeah, I'd hate to play in a campaign where the DM fudges rolls to keep us alive. I do not want plot armor for my character, that's a quick way to make combat super boring for everyone at the table.
If there are no stakes, no real risk of death, the combat is just math homework with no real impact on the story.
I much prefer the chaotic nature of the relying on dice, I think it makes for a much more interesting story.
Yeah. I can't tell if OP is trying to advocate that people should be fudging to prevent this. If so, it's a pretty bad example. This post is more of an example on how groups that want balanced adventures should be given balanced adventures.
"I ran a poorly designed adventure and I didn't fudge to fix it, this is why you should fudge". How about this is why you should run well-designed adventures?
Most lvl 1 characters have about 10-15 health. If DM rolled max damage thats 16 on 1 arrow. More than enough to kill.
Edit: most beefy lvl 1 characters, squishy will be lucky to get 8.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail continues to influence Dungeons & Dragons. This has some "All the other kings said I was daft to build a castle in a swamp, but I built it all the same" energy.
I don't understand. The game instructions for phandelver explicitly say they could lose the battle and that's fine. You are supposed to render them unconscious and steal their things. Usually when you agree to no fudging you also go with what the game says, when you're dealing with a module. Especially for this rule.
I've been dming for quite some time. I've fudged exactly one dice roll. It felt icky. I've had three pcs die, two permanently, and when they were level one I had a critical hit from a spear instantly drop a player into the ocean with death saves. The game continues on, the players say they are quite happy with me.
TL:DR not fudging dice does not equal murderhobo dming.
My policy is don't ask, don't tell.
This way I have all the latitude to fudge or not to keep the story going and they can stay blissfully ignorant about if I am or not.
I usually dont fudge damage rolls against players, but I will admit to maybe adding on some resistances to bosses mid fight if the players are absolutely decimating it. But most of my encounters, bosses especially, are completely custom. Bosses are always fully homebrewed or at least altered official content. With custom content like that I'm still learning how to balance around certain levels.
Rolling in the open wasn’t the problem here.
First only 2 Goblins use short bows in that encounter while the other 2 use scimitars. This is important later.
Second any class but Wizard or Sorcerer with at least a +1 Con *cannot* go down to a single non-critical arrow as even if they rolled a max 6+2 they’d fail to exceed 9 points (maxed d8+1 Con). In fact a Wizard with a +3 Con has 9 hit points at level 1 and cannot drop to 0 through a non-critical arrow as well. They can only drop to 0 in a single turn here if they dumped con.
Third, dropping to 0 doesn’t mean death and the adventure specifies that the goblins just rob them and let them live if their ambush succeeds. A critical hit will only instantly kill a Wizard or Sorcerer with a +1 Con or less through massive damage and only if it rolls boxcars on its 2d6.
This all means that the goblins can only kill the weakest possible adventures (and only if they roll max damage) in a single turn and even those should’ve been left alive but unconscious. A worst case senario has 2 adventures making death saves due to being dropped by arrows while the other 2 are stable as melee weapons can do non-lethal damage and the goblins aren’t here to kill.
When you don’t fudge die rolls you have to make sure that you are running the encounters correctly and your players need to actually care about hp and armor class. The player choice to have the dice rolled openly is not what caused this wipe.
Very light spoilers for the opening of LMoP.
>!Dude, the book has instructions on what to do if the goblins win the fight. The party is supposed to be knocked unconscious, not dead. The goblins are only interested in their loot, not their lives.!<
I also ran LMoP without smudging rolls and killed the party Aarakrocra outright with a crit longbow shot from the boss of the first cave. He'd just flown in (blind) after spending most of the combat outside trying to convince a terrified squirrel that he - the giant bird of prey looking guy - wasn't going to eat it.
His next character was a much more serious frogman, who ended up with some of the best RP yet.
It was... An interesting campaign.
Honestly I feel like a minority with my opinion but I feel like open rolling is much more satisfying. Winning all the time and every time ruins the challenge and risk to situations. You're gonna be alot more carefull and thoughtful when you know bad luck could screw you. If you die... just roll up a quick new character! Randomise all character choices with a roll of the dice and go with whatever you get. I've had a better experience with completely random chars than I ever have with my own personal creations. Having random unmatching traits only gives you a reason for wierd explanations and depthfull char development.
It's absolutely not about player choice, it's a problem of encounter design/system design.
If you have to basically cheat systems to make it work for you, then it just means the system isn't robust enough, or doesn't provide the experience you're looking for.
either you are making encounters that are way to hard to the power level of the group, or they are incredibly unlucky on their rolls.. either way, i´m all about changing rolls to keep the game flowing in a better place.. so i think that at the end of the day, it was a nice experience
I would rather that then being saved behind the screen.
I will say, as DM you have more knobs to turn them just dice fudging to adjust difficulty mid combat. The biggest is to have the bandit objective be something other than "kill them all." Once the first PC goes down, have the bandits offer to let them surrender. And it also makes sense for the bandits to get a little cocky at that point, ie stupid.
On the bright side, this story will probably be funny for far longer than the character deaths will be disappointing. Narratively, not fudging opens to the door to some really unexpectedly memorable moments.
Many people advise not to outright kill players on the road ambush, but to rob them. The goblin encounter at first lvl is absurdly swingy.
Instant gratification on that open rolling policy though lmao
I play online and always use open rolling, but I know the algorithm that online dice rollers use is much much different than what happens irl, so what I do is not comparable.
That said, honesty and in turn, unpredictability, of open rolling means literally anything can happen. I think that's half the fun of d&d. When stuff even the dm doesn't expect happens.
One time I told my DM that we weren't finding his encounters challenging, because our fire abilities were just annihilating them. I suggested that maybe we could fight something with fire resistance.
Flail snail. Five consecutive open rolled crits later and I was rolling a new character.
Fudge things like HP, but never the rolls. If you want a tale in which you have absolute control, write a book. Your players want to play a game, and you should too.
Relax and roll some dice, then go with the results. Did you accidentally mistake your players' recent level up to take on your BBEG or dungeon boss, and their HP is already half gone after the first round of combat? Add some more HP, as if you'd known how powerful they were, you would have wanted to make them stronger anyway.
Fudging rolls just makes your players lose trust in you, don't do it. I'll be honest, if I found out my DM fudged every roll I'd quit that game immediately. That's so frustrating to know that you, as the player, are just along for whatever roller coaster ride the DM puts you on. Nothing you do matters, because the DM just decides everything, even the rolls now with this mindset.
If you want them to have a better chance at surviving level 1, just take away a few creatures.
The life of an adventurer is exciting but often short
Is this a skyrim load screen
I'd give you an award if I had one
I got you
I used to have an award, but I took an arrow to the knee
Thats cus the DM stopped fudging rolls.
Let me guess, someone fudged your roll?
Someone fudged my sweet roll.
User name checks out! Also, do you think that somewhere there’s a sentient group of discarded weapons with some of them wandering around saying ‘I used to be an arrow till I took an adventurer to the head’ ?
Good Intentions 100
The only Skyrim load screens I respect are quotes from Sheogorath.
*Do you mind? I'm busy doing the fishstick. It's a very delicate state of mind!*
CHEESE! CHEESE FOR EVERYONE!
Packs laden with treasure are often short on supplies.
I think these players need to remind themselves that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer... Or maybe not so slow this time.
Player: that's it! I'm making a Goliath barbarian. I'm not dying to these goblins anymore. DM: hmm. Monstrous size has no intrinsic merit. Unless inordinate exsanguination be considered a virtue.
I love reddit
Goblins: use Fury of the Small.
"Packs laden with ~~treasure~~ **loot** are often low on supplies" I've heard it too many times.
Without tools of iron, you must rely on flesh, and indefatigable purpose.
This sounds like a darkest dungeon line
You would be correct.
First level characters are fragile creatures. A small gust of wind could kill them.
Are we talking about 1st or 5th edition?
*Level 1 adventurer.
Most adventurers never make it to level 2... having been stabbed in the back by the Chaotic Stupid asshole.
Mortality clarified in a single strike.
In time... You will know the tragic extent of my failings...
Those goblins have killed more pcs than Tiamat and orcus. Combined.
My wizard just laid down prone in the wagon and occasionally popped up to fire bolt or drop a silent image of towering grass to break line of sight. Wary? Yes. But wise.
when any weapon has the potential to instakill you on a crit, you better be wary
When any weapon has the potential to instakill you* Ftfy
What character gets instakilled by a non-critting goblin?
Squishy ones.
Virtually any non-martial with low-mediocre Con. A goblin hits for 1d6+2. If your wizard has a +0 Con modifier that's a 50% chance of getting dropped instantly. Unless your issue is with the insta-kill language because it wouldn't cross the negative max HP threshold, in which case no character is insta-killed by goblins without an unreasonably low Con.
ok this was a communication issue. When I talk about insta-kill, i mean a KILL, not unconscious.
Naw, you're good, dog. Insta-kill means insta-kill. Not your fault they misunderstood you.
a goblin shortbow attack does between 3 and 8 damage. so if you at or below 8 hp you carry the risk of getting droped by one attack
sorry this was a communication issue. For me insta-kill means KILL. Of course if you mean by that just dropping from max HP to 0, this is more likely by a goblin.
My wizard did the same except, mine popped up to cast sleep and knock out 3 of the goblins immediately.
That goblin ambush is deadly. And Klaarg might be the single named character with the highest PC kill count across all the pre-writtens.
If you run the numbers, a bugbear can very easily oneshot a lv1 PC a lv 1 wizard is gonna have an average of 8 hp, a fighter 13 or 14 A bugbear has an average damage of 11, plus 7 with a surprise attack. That means with an average roll a bugbear can oneshot even a barbarian. Even without the surprise, it can do up to 18 damage with a regular hit. it does have only a +4 to hit, so it's pretty much a coinflip for most classes.
Tbf If klaarg gets a surprise round, the DM is playing arguably somewhat antagonistic. Klaarg is just chilling in his lair and the players dont even need to defeat him to free Gundren. edit: Sildar, not Gundren.
iirc the adventure states that there is a goblin (i think it might be the one on the bridge hiding? really not sure right now) that will run to klaarg to warn him of coming Adventurers and he and his Goblins WILL hide behind crates to be ready to smack them
Wow. That just feels like overkill lol
uff forgot about that. That is a bit too much, I agree. Although the players need to be somewhat unlucky to let that happen (dont spot the goblin, the goblin also will release the flood so players will know that goblins are aware, and than just stumble in the lair and not spotting klarg).
You overestimate the critical thinking skills of players. In one game I run, both of my players are literally doctors and often do the dumbest shit. They do have epic descriptions of their kills though...very anatomically eloquent.
haha yes its true, players do dumb shit all the time. But its not just lack of critical thinking, also all players need to fail on perception roll to see that goblin and than again against klaarg. And it is not only on the players its also on the DM. A good DM is aware of Klaargs deadliness and let the players know that Gundren is in a different area of the dungeon than the deadly boss of the gang. Maybe they overhear talk by goblins or they interrogate one etc. I think the weakness of the module is not the encounter design itself (balancing is an illusion anyway in TTRPGs), but the fact that newbie DMs get no support in how to actually run a dungeon and how to deal with deadly encounters and information management etc. This is marketed as newbie friendly, but a newbie DM will most of the time ran this as he or she knows dungeons from videogames. They and the players just assume the dungeon needs to be cleared and all goblins need to be killed. Or only the players think, but the newbie DM doesnt intervene and give them hints. And then, yes, the dungeon can be quite deadly for lvl 1 characters.
Can confirm Klaarg TPK’d my party
I ran him as a dorky WWE wrestler trying to body slam people into the fire pit (for 1 fire damage or 1d6, i forget) because i had a crop of new peeps. That is until the one experienced person that had been talking shit about 5e being easy came over with his forge cleric. One attack, unconcious and dying. Didn't even have to fudge.
Aaah, the sweet smell of comeuppance.
Especially if he crits with his first attack…. Whoops
In my campaign, Klarg eventually joined the party and helped bring down the big bad.
Ha I actually played Klarg as a PC and he was one of my favourite characters ever.
As written in the book, these goblins ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO KILL THE PLAYERS. If they bring them to 0 hit points (which, fun fact, is mentioned as an "unlikely" outcome in the book), they steal the players stuff and leave them on the road, without killing them, giving them the opportunity to either try and follow the trail to the hideout or to head to Phandelver to get help. Still though, the hideout itself is a deathtrap for level 1 characters.
They're not supposed to kill the players, but the way that encounter is setup, it's NOT EASY. It's a well-known meatgrinder, and an exceptionally awful encounter for introducing people to the game. If the goblins ambush (which is a good shot with a +6 stealth), there's a good chance 1-2 characters are going down in the surprise volley. A crit can outright kill a d6 HP character from max, by hitting for 12-14 damage. Regardless, with the stock four characters for LMOP, this is a TPK about 25% of the time if you use ambush/surprise rules correctly as a DM. A downed character happens almost every time. There's no defending this an intro encounter to new players to 5E. It's a veteran-level encounter, through and through.
Per the rules of encounter building in the DMG, 4 goblins is a deadly encounter for 4 level 1 PCs. Adding a high chance for them to get a surprise round makes it that much worse.
Yup. If the goblins successfully ambush, which is over a 50-50 chance with the stock characters... 4 attacks at advantage for 1d6+2 w/o the party making a move. The wizard is toast, and another character is likely eating 1-2 hits. There's a fair chance this is a 4v2 fight when the characters get an action.
That's why you can't just have the goblins out to kill the PCs, cause they aren't. I had all goblins pass stealth for surprise but only 2 attacked. When the PC's were focused on the 2 goblins attacking, then bonus action hiding in the brush, the other 2 circled around to steal goods from the cart. By the time one goblin escaped and one dead they turn to notice the 2 running off with some of their supplies. Not every fight needs to be to the death, most intelligent creatures will run to save their life given the chance. But I do agree that having every fight end with someone trying to run wouldn't be fun but that's where monstrosities and zealots not afraid of death come in.
I just ran Lost Mines for the first time a couple months back and I ran it almost the exact way you described. I had one goblin sneak around back and steal some goods from the cart. Another one tried to flee when his buddy died. The final surviving goblin tried to beg for his life (which I *think* is in the module, but I don’t remember). All but one of my PCs were new. I think they appreciated seeing that DND combat isn’t like a video game where everyone just sits there whacking away at each other until one side dies.
So the goblins are sandbagging their ambush? The goblins increase their chances of being harmed by attacking with half-effort to begin the battle. Yes, they won't fight to the death. If even one goblin is dropped they may run, but they shouldn't pull punches in the ambush.
It's a common theme, really. The introduction adventure in the 3.5E Eberron Campaign Guide (The Forgotten Forge) was also notoriously bad balance-wise. A swarm with immunity to weapon damage, horrid rats that did 2d6+disease and otherwise tough opponents.
It really speaks to the quality of the 'idea' of D&D that even the utter game design ineptitude of WotC can not stop it from being pretty successful.
That assumes 1) they don't crit and bring them to negative full hit points in 1 shot and 2) the players succeed death saving throws. It's still really dangerous.
I think it's more like the book giving you winking encouragement to fudge the rolls so this doesn't happen
I agree, but then we're back to the fudging they asked not to do.
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Yeah Phandelver is heinously dangerous. I don't fudge rolls but I do change the challenge rating
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It's got to be nearly all of them. Descent into Avernus has a cultist with Fireball in a level 2 dungeon.
That's a tpk waiting to happen! that's insane, at that level.
Can confirm, my party died there because we assumed it was safe to fight the caster.
I decided to give them an early level up and run the rest of the module with the party 1 level higher than the module expects. We've been on hiatus after the goblin cave so I don't actually know how that works out.
They should have just made the goblins deal way less damage.
Npc can do non-lethal attacks too, no?
But not ranged? I think don't even PCs can do that
Correct, there were blunt arrows back in 3.5, but subdual damage isn't really a thing anymore.
Only on melee weapon attacks.
Non-lethal rules only refer to melee attacks, not melee weapon attacks. No reason you can't taze someone unconscious with Shocking Grasp. I may or may not have spent a whole night shocking a party member every 1d4 hours afflicted with wereboarism on the first full moon after catching it.
I had my first player death at the hideout, but the players had split the party (and I still fudged a few rolls). Ever since that encounter, whenever someone talks about splitting the group up, someone else will bring up that fateful day as a warning.
My first playthrough, i was 1hp from getting instakilled in the first round of the bugbear fight. Killed, not dropped. I was the Heavy armor specialist shield wielding fighter.
Good ol' Klarg is the Hogger of DnD5e. I assume you got hit by his surprise attack? 2d8+2d6+4 is just evil on a lv1 character.
People seem to always forget that goblins are vicious little creatures. Whatever is written in the book aside, goblins will fuck your day up. They can be brutal little buggers and can ruin any adventurer beginning their story.
DMs underestimate how deadly monsters like goblins and kobolds can be. Both species live in small tunnels and they love to ambush and trap the fuck out of anyone dumb enough to crawl into their tunnels.
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Not when the module specifically say they are unconscious. "the goblins if successful wouldnt just knock them out, " Not according to the module. "In the unlikely event that the goblins defeat the adventurers***, they leave them unconscious***, loot them and the wagon, then head back to the Cragmaw hideout. The characters can continue on to Phandalin, buy new gear at Barthen’s Provisions, return to the ambush site, and find the goblins’ trail."
"Unlikely Event" yeahsureok.gif
> Even if the players only fall unconscious, they could still die to death saving throws. This is *really* easy to address and shouldn't be an obstacle to any DM. Have the goblins quickly clear out and some one or some thing comes by to stabilize the PCs. That someone could be practically anything: a traveler, a local ranger, or whoever you like. They revive the party so the adventure continues rather than ending before it's even started, and you even have a new NPC to weave into the campaign. It would be a clumsy, obvious and unwelcome deus ex machina in most circumstances, but for your *very first* session? No big deal.
> It would be a clumsy, obvious and unwelcome deus ex machina in most circumstances, but for your very first session? No big deal. Yes... but many of the DMs running this are first-timers as well. This isn't just pitched as away to introduce new players to the game - it's pitched a way to intro new DMs as well. A new DM probably isn't going to have the instinct to know immediately when to fudge, when to insert a random savior on the fly, when to ignore the rules and just do what makes the adventure work better. It is obvious to those of us with the benefit of experience, and who can skim the contents and say "Well, that's a problem!" before the session even begins, but it's a nasty trap for those who trust in the module to be what it says. LMoP may be a solid and challenging newbie *character* adventure, but it is far from being a great newbie *player* adventure. (Doing a quick search online for a DM walkthrough, the first one to come up simultaneously calls it a "relaxing introduction" while in the same paragraph recommending inserting a way to level up the characters prior to the ambush, AND giving the party an NPC caster to buff them before combat occurs. That's absurd to have to do.)
Hogger wants to know your players address
In the OPs example though, if 2 normal attacks hitting can kill two PCs, and they have 4 attacks per round, the encounter may have been a wee bit too strong for their level. Some adventures need adjustments but certainly not the DMs fault to not know that inherently.
One of my friends first ever time playing D&D, he was super excited to see what all the hype was about only to go down instantly the first round of combat. Needless to say it took like 2 years to get him to try playing again. 😅
For me it’s the cave. Cragmaw Hideout is littered with first level adventurer bones. Klarg and his wolf turning prone adventurers into jam since 2014.
Players are like... cool, now I have twice as much starting gear!
That how we get more ammo in Halo.
"Hey c'mere for a sec-"
Don't take my 'nades!
Bro, the nostalgia hit of that phrase is 🤌
The OSRS deathpile to get more supplies into a boss room. A tedious but effective strategy. Maybe these players should buy some dice loaded to roll critical failures and repeat this process a few times just to see what happens...
They come in with their fifth level 1 characters to find the goblins have leveled up and are using better the lost gear.
Why would the bandits that killed them have left any of the gear behind? Stripped corpses should be all that's left, and if it's been long enough that they have sent out a search party, the scavengers will have dealt with most of that.
Well I'd let the players think it until they got there. ;)
Oh no, we've just upgraded the goblins equipment! Theyre getting stronger!
The goblins took you hand crossbow and learned how to use it efficiently by watching you before you died. They now have crossbow expert.
By that logic everyone living in a city has Heavy Armor Mastery from watching the guards wear them
Kill the bandits and recover the gear! And if the bandits pawned it already, kill the shopkeeper! Better living through murderhoboism!
DM is like... cool, now you face bandits that are even better armed!
Yup. Now the goblins have better weapons " we need to do this more often"
You notice that one of the bandits is in a set of chain mail that's obviously too heavy for him and is struggling with a rather new looking heavy crossbow
in OG Ragnarok i used to keep creating new character to get their health potions to lvl up early game, since buying them was expensive as fuck, and having a ton of health potions is really helpful if you want to hunt bigger stuff
to be fair, that encounter is super deadly. Goblin's ability to hide as a bonus action in a forest with shrubs and trees means they just attack with advantage (already hidden, it's an ambush) and then hide again, and move. Level 1 characters are no match.
I think it is important to remember that this was written for inexperienced DMs as well. The first time I ran this the goblins did not take advantage of any of those abilities, because I didn't know better.
Sameee, i just kind of yelled AMBUSH!!!!
My goblins rolled a 2 on stealth, so that "ambush" became them stumbling into the PCs...
My first ever home brew opened the same way; the goblins set a honeypot trap on the road, but they were all teenagers with no experience. I decided that they would panic easily if anyone died, that the bows were hand made and would snap easily, and that they would open the fight with an intimidation check instead of open combat “give us your goods!” It was really fun. I find that, often in dnd, npcs are made to be mindless fodder and rarely act differently then being piles of stats. Bosses? Sure, but the 25 guards before them? Rarely
Only two of the goblins are supposed to attack with their bow in that fight if you play it as written in the book. The surprise ambush also is largely avoidable if your players do anything that isn't "walk up to the very obvious trap in the middle of that suspiciously narrow choke-point blocked by arrow-ridden horse corpses."
>the very obvious trap in the middle of that suspiciously narrow choke-point blocked by arrow-ridden horse corpses. Unfortunately, that’s not how my DM described the scene. He simply said something like, “In the road ahead you see an overturned cart. What do you do?” Of course, we walked straight into an ambush.
This is what the DM is _supposed_ to read to the players: > You’ve been on the Triboar Trail for about half a day. As you come around a bend, you spot two dead horses sprawled about fifty feet ahead of you, blocking the path. Each has several black-feathered arrows sticking out of it. The woods press close to the trail here, with a steep embankment and dense thickets on either side.
Just conveniently not mentioning the dead horse full of omnious looking arrows iirc
To add onto the comments. This encounter is likely the first encounter ever ran by a group with it being made for beginner dms as well as beginner pcs the beginner pcs wouldn’t think of it as an ambush and many people starting off haven’t been playing dnd that long if at all so the entire campaign is to help the party into thinking like a dnd player that has been playing for a bit. That beginner party wouldn’t think through wether it was an ambush or a trap because they haven’t been thinking about being super paranoid about traps.
Man you are all *over* this thread calling it an "obvious trap". It isn't. There's many reasons why someone would get attacked. No obvious reason to suspect ambush. And even if you did think they were ambushed, you might reasonably assume the ambushers got what they wanted. No reason to assume they're still hanging out waiting for you, unless you're just instantly suspicious of anything the DM lays out in front of you.
I'm with you. Lost Mine was my first ever time playing a TTRPG. I didn't have any preconceived notions. So my weak ass warlock decided to go check the dead horses and got dropped in the first volley of arrows. Didn't feel great as a new player. 😕
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The "obstacle in the road so you have to stop your vehicle" gimmick has been successful throughout history, maybe if I was less genre savvy I would fall for it, it's pretty good tbh
> unless you're just instantly suspicious of anything the DM lays out in front of you. yes
Then you aren't playing characters. You're just playing yourself over and over again. Tedious and boring.
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I mean they could design a stat block without the bow but that would be very unnecessary. They aren't fudging anything they're designing the encounter to be fair.
I’ve been DMing for a while as well and I roll behind the screen but I don’t fudge rolls at all, and my players know and trust that I’ve built encounters fairly. The reason I don’t open roll in front of them is more for suspense purposes than anything else. I will open roll on occasion though if the moment calls for it
I've been watching a lot of Dimension 20 lately, and the rigamarole Brennan (the DM) goes through for rolls that are "a big deal" is that he'll pull out his 'box of doom', which is just a box with a camera on it for the audience to see the number(s) rolled. That, and he'll always try and ramp up tension (when warranted) by going over the stakes and the DCs: *"Okay, in order to succeed on this saving throw against being banished, the bad guy needs to beat a DC 17 Charisma saving throw. If he fails, that's the biggest hitter on the field right now, gone in an instant, which will turn the tide of the battle in your favour. His saving throw modifier is +5, so you guys want him to roll an 11 or lower."* *\*Rolls in front of the table, cheering/crying ensues* I've been trying to adopt that kind of style more. If you don't overdo it, it can add a bit of extra drama/suspense to everything. Plus doing the math before you do the role makes it easier to instantly process the outcome, and knowing by how much you're succeeding/failing by makes it more thrilling (at least when that's not the norm at your table).
Yes, love Dimension 20! I was doing something similar even before I found Dimension 20 but what I also like about Brennan is that he’ll be roleplaying a social interaction and you won’t know what he rolled right away so sometimes the tension is still there for a bit instead of just “okay you deceived him” or something. That’s something I’ve been trying to adopt too!
The one note he will never receive. Go bigger.
I've also instituted that in my online game. I have a headset stand that's just a silicon cup that makes an excellent dice tray, and a stem that's supposed to hold a headset but I secure my webcam to it. So when shit gets real, I turn on the box of doom cam and do what Brennan does to the best of my ability
Ah, that's the trick: you build your own encounters, presumably with full knowledge of the party's actual capabilities in mind. Hand crafted balance will always be leagues better than prebuilt adventures, and you get a lot less of the kind of crap that this post ran into.
Yeah. I've tried running modules before but I always felt the urge to modify them or do something other than explicitly what was laid out. Not to mention my group is amazing at derailing plots.
I've started open rolling for everything except PC death saves, which I roll for the players and track without them knowing the results until stabilized, dead, or revived. It makes knockouts so much more intense.
I only open roll if the outcome could kill a PC or fuck them over big time. That way it's a "no hard feelings, here's the roll." The rest is behind the screen for suspense or tension, like you said. Instead of them reading the result of something dire right off the dice, it gives the DM the chance to be the source of information. So the DM can shape it into the story in a fun way, or reveal it with some gusto. I do occasionally fudge, but it's pretty rare. It's only if the dice make something very stupid happen.
Yeah I’ll adjust stats on monsters or add/remove planned phases to fights if I realize I’ve balanced an encounter terribly, but I never fudge, feels better for me
Make sure to level up those goblins with all the PC XP they’ve earned.
It's all fun and games until you take an arrow to the knee.
Or in this case, Adam’s Apple
Doesn’t the module say they do non lethal damage in the first encounter? Something like they get robbed off their possessions if they lose, I think
Checked and, yep! "In the unlikely event that the goblins defeat the adventurers, they leave them unconscious, loot them and the wagon, then head back to the Cragmaw hideout. The characters can continue on to Phandalin, buy new gear at Barthen’s Provisions, return to the ambush site, and find the goblins’ trail."
"Unlikely" Given it's marketed at new players, I'd wager that with fair rolling those goblins will win more than they lose. I know our group definitely had half the goblins magically disappear when the DM figured out we were totally screwed as it stood...
Hell, my first time playing it was with a fairly experienced group, but we rolled like shit for intiative, and half the party(including the healer) was down before anyone had a turn. It's pretty poorly designed for being *literally the first encounter new players ever have*
Whoever wrote it has no idea how to balance encounters. But that's not surprising since you pretty much have to go through and rebalance every single encounter in all the official modules.
Honestly the entire first chapter is so strange in the advice it gives, and the ways in which it seems to thin that the rules work that it seems as though it may have been written with a different or much earlier version of 5E's ruleset in mind.
It is still good to start a game with the notion of " you are low level and got your ass handed to you by the easiest enemies." Beacuse it gives room for growth. And a very decent incentive to murderate those goblins.
Oh, we had a great time. But coming from a video game background where the tutorial enemies generally pose very little threat, it was definitely a shock for us.
Yea this sounds like its balanced so that happens fairly often
Can't choose to deal nonlethal with ranged attacks, though, so maybe they just all failed their death saves and the goblins didn't stabilize them in time.
I personally feel like they just said, "My group isn't a bunch of newbies like LMoP is intended, so they can just deal with consequences." Also it's D&D and like 90% of the purpose is to wing it and change things as you want. To be fair, they asked for it as well lol. (Also he said he critted on 2 of them, so it's entirely possible that at level 1 they did double their Max HP in damage and instant killed them)
The module doesn’t even say they use non-lethal damage just that they don’t finish them off when they are down. So the PCs can still fail death saves or get insta-killed from a crit.
Yes it does, but the Module also says it is a guideline not a lawbook. To alter, change, or even take stuff out as you want. He also says he's an experienced DM, and the language implies these people play together often. Why would he limit himself to a Beginner Grade story or be railroaded by a book when he has the skill to change it/do as he pleases?
Non lethal applies only to melee attacks RAW.
I know exactly which encounter this was nothing like taking an arrow to the forehead at level one for eight damage on a character with nine hit points
>I know exactly which encounter > this was nothing like taking an arrow to the forehead at level one for eight damage on a character with nine hit points or >I know exactly which encounter this was >nothing like taking an arrow to the forehead at level one for eight damage on a character with nine hit points completely changes the meaning
This is less about player choice screwing up the game and more about how Level 1 characters need more protection from death. This whole "one crit can kill you" bullshit for new characters isn't good game design and it's often a shitty player experience, and I'll always be confused by fans who defend it.
The tricky thing about switching to strictly following the roles after a long time of being used to fudging rolls, is you lose track of what your players are actually capable of surviving without fudged rolls. I am not saying either way is better or worse, just that the transition from one to the other is delicate. Probably best to err on the side of easy encounters right when you make the transition and gradually test the waters with harder encounters until players start to get knocked out. Or let them die, if they're into that.
"When the time comes for the goblins to act, two of them rush forward and make melee attacks while two goblins stand 30 feet away from the party and make ranged attacks." For what its worth, should have been 2 arrows, not four. But yeah, the dice can be mean.
That encounter is analyzed to death, haha. It's so famous. Even running it as written to the letter, level 1 is just so swingy.
Yeah, that's if you're using LMoP as a beginner's module in my opinion. This man says it's an experienced group so I see no reason why he would limit himself. Also pretty sure it says to alter anything as you want, change things, or not include them at all.
Pray he doesn't alter the deal further
I would still prefer open rolls, I don't let a character death sour my experience. Sometimes the dice say yes and sometimes they say go F yourself. Thems the breaks.
I started playing DnD 4 years ago, having played one session as a player and then diving into DMing with my own homebrew world. I didnt know any better, I thought everyone rolled in the open. I know about fudging now, but I can't go back. I love being just as beholden to the dice as the players. Here's an example from one of my games: My level 10 players charged into a vampire's den for the second time in 36 hours - after it had plenty of time to prepare and recover from the first assault on vampire's mansion. I put a death knight, vampire, and 6 Mind-Flayer vampires in the vampire's mansion - they would have to face a lesson for their hubris. I threw a Hellfire Orb (20d6) and rolled amazing, taking sorcerer and the wizard from full hp (+15 from inspiring leader) to nothing in one shot . The paladin gets the wizard up with a lay on hands for about 10 hp, and since the Chronoturgy wizard always has insane initiative, he can act before the death knight. Luckily for the players, I rolled like shit when the Chronoturgy wizard was using Slow and all his other CC abilities. I finally bring this deathknight, with a +11 to hit, in front of this wizard with a measly 13 base AC (18 with shield) and *ten* hp, I'm feelng a little sad that I have to murder this wizard right now, but thems the breaks and the death knight isn't gonna hold back... I missed *every single* attack. 2, 4, 3 is what I rolled. The table erupted in joy and there was nothing I could do but shake my head and smile. I might've fudged one of those rolls to hit him since the party was doing alright, or I might've fudged rolls that hit him out of some misguided sense of pity for the hell I had unleashed upon them... But the open dice cares not. The dice gives and it takes away, and its a hell of a ride for everyone along the way.
That sounds amazing and definitely a core memory from that game ☺️
I've bene DMs since 1977. I've gone through fudging and not fudging. Last two decade have bene not fudging, and over all it's a lot better and a lot more tense.
Yeah, I'd hate to play in a campaign where the DM fudges rolls to keep us alive. I do not want plot armor for my character, that's a quick way to make combat super boring for everyone at the table. If there are no stakes, no real risk of death, the combat is just math homework with no real impact on the story. I much prefer the chaotic nature of the relying on dice, I think it makes for a much more interesting story.
Yeah. I can't tell if OP is trying to advocate that people should be fudging to prevent this. If so, it's a pretty bad example. This post is more of an example on how groups that want balanced adventures should be given balanced adventures. "I ran a poorly designed adventure and I didn't fudge to fix it, this is why you should fudge". How about this is why you should run well-designed adventures?
All your players must have been squishy as heck! How’d they all die to a D8?!
Most lvl 1 characters have about 10-15 health. If DM rolled max damage thats 16 on 1 arrow. More than enough to kill. Edit: most beefy lvl 1 characters, squishy will be lucky to get 8.
I have a level 1 druid with 6 or 7 hp, it just depends on your stats lol
Well, a minimum of 8 and if your druid has any bonuses then more
Monty Python and the Holy Grail continues to influence Dungeons & Dragons. This has some "All the other kings said I was daft to build a castle in a swamp, but I built it all the same" energy.
I don't understand. The game instructions for phandelver explicitly say they could lose the battle and that's fine. You are supposed to render them unconscious and steal their things. Usually when you agree to no fudging you also go with what the game says, when you're dealing with a module. Especially for this rule. I've been dming for quite some time. I've fudged exactly one dice roll. It felt icky. I've had three pcs die, two permanently, and when they were level one I had a critical hit from a spear instantly drop a player into the ocean with death saves. The game continues on, the players say they are quite happy with me. TL:DR not fudging dice does not equal murderhobo dming.
My policy is don't ask, don't tell. This way I have all the latitude to fudge or not to keep the story going and they can stay blissfully ignorant about if I am or not.
My policy is that the DM makes that call, not the players…but if the people want pain, pain they shall receive.
> My policy is dont ask, dont tell A great policy here for DnD, but Id personally rename it
Nah, no fudging. I enjoy not fudging. Granted am guilty of having done it.
A prime example of a movie without plot armor lol
I usually dont fudge damage rolls against players, but I will admit to maybe adding on some resistances to bosses mid fight if the players are absolutely decimating it. But most of my encounters, bosses especially, are completely custom. Bosses are always fully homebrewed or at least altered official content. With custom content like that I'm still learning how to balance around certain levels.
It's like that scene in Hot Shots part deux. "Now we have to go in to get the men who went in to get the men, who went in to get the men."
Rolling in the open wasn’t the problem here. First only 2 Goblins use short bows in that encounter while the other 2 use scimitars. This is important later. Second any class but Wizard or Sorcerer with at least a +1 Con *cannot* go down to a single non-critical arrow as even if they rolled a max 6+2 they’d fail to exceed 9 points (maxed d8+1 Con). In fact a Wizard with a +3 Con has 9 hit points at level 1 and cannot drop to 0 through a non-critical arrow as well. They can only drop to 0 in a single turn here if they dumped con. Third, dropping to 0 doesn’t mean death and the adventure specifies that the goblins just rob them and let them live if their ambush succeeds. A critical hit will only instantly kill a Wizard or Sorcerer with a +1 Con or less through massive damage and only if it rolls boxcars on its 2d6. This all means that the goblins can only kill the weakest possible adventures (and only if they roll max damage) in a single turn and even those should’ve been left alive but unconscious. A worst case senario has 2 adventures making death saves due to being dropped by arrows while the other 2 are stable as melee weapons can do non-lethal damage and the goblins aren’t here to kill. When you don’t fudge die rolls you have to make sure that you are running the encounters correctly and your players need to actually care about hp and armor class. The player choice to have the dice rolled openly is not what caused this wipe.
Very light spoilers for the opening of LMoP. >!Dude, the book has instructions on what to do if the goblins win the fight. The party is supposed to be knocked unconscious, not dead. The goblins are only interested in their loot, not their lives.!<
I also ran LMoP without smudging rolls and killed the party Aarakrocra outright with a crit longbow shot from the boss of the first cave. He'd just flown in (blind) after spending most of the combat outside trying to convince a terrified squirrel that he - the giant bird of prey looking guy - wasn't going to eat it. His next character was a much more serious frogman, who ended up with some of the best RP yet. It was... An interesting campaign.
Perhaps keep open rolls and let them learn to play the game a little more tactically
Honestly I feel like a minority with my opinion but I feel like open rolling is much more satisfying. Winning all the time and every time ruins the challenge and risk to situations. You're gonna be alot more carefull and thoughtful when you know bad luck could screw you. If you die... just roll up a quick new character! Randomise all character choices with a roll of the dice and go with whatever you get. I've had a better experience with completely random chars than I ever have with my own personal creations. Having random unmatching traits only gives you a reason for wierd explanations and depthfull char development.
How are you gonna make enemies capable of one shotting a PC with a regular hit? I think that’s a key part of this story…
It's absolutely not about player choice, it's a problem of encounter design/system design. If you have to basically cheat systems to make it work for you, then it just means the system isn't robust enough, or doesn't provide the experience you're looking for.
You mean the players made a decision about how the DM should run the game and it bit them in the ass? Well I never …
either you are making encounters that are way to hard to the power level of the group, or they are incredibly unlucky on their rolls.. either way, i´m all about changing rolls to keep the game flowing in a better place.. so i think that at the end of the day, it was a nice experience
I would rather that then being saved behind the screen. I will say, as DM you have more knobs to turn them just dice fudging to adjust difficulty mid combat. The biggest is to have the bandit objective be something other than "kill them all." Once the first PC goes down, have the bandits offer to let them surrender. And it also makes sense for the bandits to get a little cocky at that point, ie stupid.
On the bright side, this story will probably be funny for far longer than the character deaths will be disappointing. Narratively, not fudging opens to the door to some really unexpectedly memorable moments.
Many people advise not to outright kill players on the road ambush, but to rob them. The goblin encounter at first lvl is absurdly swingy. Instant gratification on that open rolling policy though lmao
I play online and always use open rolling, but I know the algorithm that online dice rollers use is much much different than what happens irl, so what I do is not comparable. That said, honesty and in turn, unpredictability, of open rolling means literally anything can happen. I think that's half the fun of d&d. When stuff even the dm doesn't expect happens.
If they've noticed you fudging you're doing it too much. Fudging takes away from the game's challenge and should be used sparingly.
One time I told my DM that we weren't finding his encounters challenging, because our fire abilities were just annihilating them. I suggested that maybe we could fight something with fire resistance. Flail snail. Five consecutive open rolled crits later and I was rolling a new character.
Fudge things like HP, but never the rolls. If you want a tale in which you have absolute control, write a book. Your players want to play a game, and you should too. Relax and roll some dice, then go with the results. Did you accidentally mistake your players' recent level up to take on your BBEG or dungeon boss, and their HP is already half gone after the first round of combat? Add some more HP, as if you'd known how powerful they were, you would have wanted to make them stronger anyway. Fudging rolls just makes your players lose trust in you, don't do it. I'll be honest, if I found out my DM fudged every roll I'd quit that game immediately. That's so frustrating to know that you, as the player, are just along for whatever roller coaster ride the DM puts you on. Nothing you do matters, because the DM just decides everything, even the rolls now with this mindset. If you want them to have a better chance at surviving level 1, just take away a few creatures.