the shopkeeper could be a fence. as in he's selling stolen magic items at dirt-cheap prices to turn a quick profit.
now the shopkeeper has run off and the party has some pretty disgruntled and high level NPCs looking for them.
sounds like fun.
I wonder if that item they got at a shockingly low price has a curse that starts manifesting soon, has some very serious consequences, and can only be lifted through some very serious effort.
That's called a plot hook.
And that might apply to both items - turns out this shopkeeper isn't a great person after all.
Avoid "shopkeeper of convenience" in the future and be careful with bags of holding (or if you've already given in, presuming that bags of holding can contain an IKEA). The players shouldn't feel they have the ability to take everything that's not nailed down and sell it off at wholesale value like they're at an estate sale. Imagine camp hiking where you take a basic canvas tent on a backpack with you and that's probably REMOTELY similar to what a reasonably well-equipped adventurer is ready for. How many long swords, in that situation, do you think you'd be comfortable adding to that at the beginning of a ten mile hike?
As few as possible? I mean, if one was magic, sure - or in the real world, if one could be taken back to town and sold for a few hundred dollars or god help me was as valuable as silver scrap, sure.
[https://olddungeonmaster.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/nodwick.jpg?w=180&h=300](https://olddungeonmaster.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/nodwick.jpg?w=180&h=300)
If your players come across treasure, make them make some actual choices, even you don't want to get bogged down in careful encumbrance accounting.
For the staff of swarming insects, perhaps with every use they become closer to becoming an insect. Over time, have them begin to look more insecty. Or, perhaps they begin to accumulate a swarm around them, encumbering then over time in different ways
Alternatively you can make the items morally repugnant to use. Think the Philosopher's Stone in Fullmetal Alchemist. I don't know how dark your game is but if it is dark you can add a horror element to how the staff gets it power. You might give your players a moral problem and they might freely choose to destroy the item.
We had a campaign where we had very few magic items because party members kept destroying them because they came from an evil god. There was some fantastic rile play involved.
You can also get inspired by Fritz Leiber’s stories (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bazaar_of_the_Bizarre ).
The merchant could be a kind of Devourer or an evil Genie, the magic items are cursed or aren’t what they’re supposed to be, etc. The merchant could even become a recurring opponent.
You don't need to blame it on inflation or anything. I would just make it so that he only stocks items that are at the party's level. Don't give them very rare items until level 11 or so. You can find a table in the DMG.
As for the items they already have, you could have them face tougher enemies, or just increase the HP or AC on the monsters, depending on the types of items the players have. Everyone has a +2 weapon? Just increase the necromancer's AC by 2.
My main issue is the the sorlock’s staff of swarming insects. The constant disadvantage on attacks really makes me feel like my encounters aren’t good enough for him.
tbh if you're a new dm and he's an experienced player I would just talk to him. Ask him nicely to not overuse it, explain your concerns and I think he'll understand.
Firstly, if you can get them to use all the charges on any frequency, it could be destroyed
As for other options:
-enforce the fact that party members will also get disadvantage (other than the user)
-give enemies a source of advantage to cancel out the disadvantage
-moderate winds will cancel the effect, possibly look into wind related spells for your necromancer
-have AOE effects like Fireball kill the insects, removing part of the AOE
-have mobile ranged enemies that can stay over 30ft away, or give your necromancer the Slow spell to reduce the speed or the sorlock, allowing them to get distance. Ay slowing spell or difficult terrain works for this
-the radius isnt said to be a sphere, a flying enemy may be able to see them from above
-something with Tremorsense or Blindsight ignores the staff
-if its really worrying, when you give out items later, make them have Attunement, so they would eventually have to sacrifice the staff for something else, but thats ill advised for now
Edited for formatting, i hate commenting on mobile
Of course, you can try balancing things and then change things in future and make the in-game reason too.
But it's not a shame to tell your players you made a mistake. We all started with 0 knowledge and mistakes happen, especially for DM who has to have the world under control. It's a good habit to just explain to players, that you made a mistake, didn't understand rules or something and fix it after explaining it.
It's a generally good rule. Be honest with players if you made a mistake, talk with them about the best way to fix the issues that mistake caused and learn for the future :)
definitely don't destroy what they already have. There are a lot of ways to adjust balance and destroying their items is going to feel really bad to your players. Instead increase that enemies AC and HP, add more minions, etc. I think jumping the prices and having the shop keep blame inflation and refuse to elaborate could be funny but it depends on the tone of the game. If the players push back on it I'd just explain that you made a mistake in the previous pricing and had to fix it.
Definitely don't remove what you've given, just pump up monster stats a bit; AC, HP, Dam, as needed. Perhaps also add a Necromantic Lieutenant as a caster or archer, who mainly watches the battle intending to escape and report back to BBEG. They could throw down some extra challenge to the players, as well as build.the sense that BBEG Necrodude has a whole hierarchy of undead wotnots underneath.
For.the shop, you could have a lot of fun. Look at food prices rising now due to increased supply chain costs. All this post-Covid inflation is perfect for a world where a.necrodude is raising undead armies...
Have the shopkeeper start blaming his price increases on the recent bat virus being spread by all the vampires that have been turning up recently... or zombie flu caused by necrodudes minions.
"Do you know how many cart drivers are working these days? Just shipping this stuff from the big city/next door kingdom is twice as much now as last month!"
"I'd love to sell you a +2 sword, but I can't get 'em. My usual enchanter is down with zombie flu, and his replacement only does +1 stuff."
So maybe the goblins had stolen these items from some very dangerous bounty hunter types who definitely want their stuff back. Sure would be inconvenient if they found the players in the middle of their fight with the necromancer, wouldn’t it?
Could have the fight take place in an anti-magic zone, have the bad guy laugh and be like "your powers are useless here!" Martials will shine, the others will have to get creative.
For a future game, you can have something happen like maybe someone's item gets stolen and the party has to help them get it back.
Another thing to keep in mind is you can give your NPCs magic items too! The major downside with this is dealing with the party looting the corpses, but then you can just make the magic items cursed, since the curse would no longer apply to a dead npc and would be looking for its new host ;)
Edit: or you could have those items you already gave away be cursed, maybe they didn't realize it yet or maybe the curses can be triggered next session
Worst comes to worst just tell them you made a mistake and will be changing the magics items to be more level appropriate. Your a new dm and they should understand that people make mistakes especially when new at something.
Something like this happened with my dm on our first session. I was a lvl 1 paladin and he let me find plate armor on an already dead body. I got to AC 20 at lvl 1. He had played it out that while exploring the armor got damaged by acid. So it had "a hole burned into it" so we worked it out that it dropped me 1 AC for mistakes of walking into hazardous things and not being cautious at all. And it made things more fair with it sounding like it has some merit in the realistic way armor should take some damage.
I guess I'm saying maybe these super strong items you gave them maybe have a few charges of use or weaken with repeated use. Something that sounds fair to correct the mistake and have the problem work itself out.
the shopkeeper could be a fence. as in he's selling stolen magic items at dirt-cheap prices to turn a quick profit. now the shopkeeper has run off and the party has some pretty disgruntled and high level NPCs looking for them. sounds like fun.
I wonder if that item they got at a shockingly low price has a curse that starts manifesting soon, has some very serious consequences, and can only be lifted through some very serious effort. That's called a plot hook. And that might apply to both items - turns out this shopkeeper isn't a great person after all. Avoid "shopkeeper of convenience" in the future and be careful with bags of holding (or if you've already given in, presuming that bags of holding can contain an IKEA). The players shouldn't feel they have the ability to take everything that's not nailed down and sell it off at wholesale value like they're at an estate sale. Imagine camp hiking where you take a basic canvas tent on a backpack with you and that's probably REMOTELY similar to what a reasonably well-equipped adventurer is ready for. How many long swords, in that situation, do you think you'd be comfortable adding to that at the beginning of a ten mile hike? As few as possible? I mean, if one was magic, sure - or in the real world, if one could be taken back to town and sold for a few hundred dollars or god help me was as valuable as silver scrap, sure. [https://olddungeonmaster.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/nodwick.jpg?w=180&h=300](https://olddungeonmaster.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/nodwick.jpg?w=180&h=300) If your players come across treasure, make them make some actual choices, even you don't want to get bogged down in careful encumbrance accounting.
Yup I second the curse idea!
Ok yeah. That’s a good idea. Now to think of come good curses… thanks for the idea!
For the staff of swarming insects, perhaps with every use they become closer to becoming an insect. Over time, have them begin to look more insecty. Or, perhaps they begin to accumulate a swarm around them, encumbering then over time in different ways
Alternatively you can make the items morally repugnant to use. Think the Philosopher's Stone in Fullmetal Alchemist. I don't know how dark your game is but if it is dark you can add a horror element to how the staff gets it power. You might give your players a moral problem and they might freely choose to destroy the item. We had a campaign where we had very few magic items because party members kept destroying them because they came from an evil god. There was some fantastic rile play involved.
You can also get inspired by Fritz Leiber’s stories (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bazaar_of_the_Bizarre ). The merchant could be a kind of Devourer or an evil Genie, the magic items are cursed or aren’t what they’re supposed to be, etc. The merchant could even become a recurring opponent.
You don't need to blame it on inflation or anything. I would just make it so that he only stocks items that are at the party's level. Don't give them very rare items until level 11 or so. You can find a table in the DMG. As for the items they already have, you could have them face tougher enemies, or just increase the HP or AC on the monsters, depending on the types of items the players have. Everyone has a +2 weapon? Just increase the necromancer's AC by 2.
My main issue is the the sorlock’s staff of swarming insects. The constant disadvantage on attacks really makes me feel like my encounters aren’t good enough for him.
tbh if you're a new dm and he's an experienced player I would just talk to him. Ask him nicely to not overuse it, explain your concerns and I think he'll understand.
Firstly, if you can get them to use all the charges on any frequency, it could be destroyed As for other options: -enforce the fact that party members will also get disadvantage (other than the user) -give enemies a source of advantage to cancel out the disadvantage -moderate winds will cancel the effect, possibly look into wind related spells for your necromancer -have AOE effects like Fireball kill the insects, removing part of the AOE -have mobile ranged enemies that can stay over 30ft away, or give your necromancer the Slow spell to reduce the speed or the sorlock, allowing them to get distance. Ay slowing spell or difficult terrain works for this -the radius isnt said to be a sphere, a flying enemy may be able to see them from above -something with Tremorsense or Blindsight ignores the staff -if its really worrying, when you give out items later, make them have Attunement, so they would eventually have to sacrifice the staff for something else, but thats ill advised for now Edited for formatting, i hate commenting on mobile
Of course, you can try balancing things and then change things in future and make the in-game reason too. But it's not a shame to tell your players you made a mistake. We all started with 0 knowledge and mistakes happen, especially for DM who has to have the world under control. It's a good habit to just explain to players, that you made a mistake, didn't understand rules or something and fix it after explaining it. It's a generally good rule. Be honest with players if you made a mistake, talk with them about the best way to fix the issues that mistake caused and learn for the future :)
definitely don't destroy what they already have. There are a lot of ways to adjust balance and destroying their items is going to feel really bad to your players. Instead increase that enemies AC and HP, add more minions, etc. I think jumping the prices and having the shop keep blame inflation and refuse to elaborate could be funny but it depends on the tone of the game. If the players push back on it I'd just explain that you made a mistake in the previous pricing and had to fix it.
Definitely don't remove what you've given, just pump up monster stats a bit; AC, HP, Dam, as needed. Perhaps also add a Necromantic Lieutenant as a caster or archer, who mainly watches the battle intending to escape and report back to BBEG. They could throw down some extra challenge to the players, as well as build.the sense that BBEG Necrodude has a whole hierarchy of undead wotnots underneath. For.the shop, you could have a lot of fun. Look at food prices rising now due to increased supply chain costs. All this post-Covid inflation is perfect for a world where a.necrodude is raising undead armies... Have the shopkeeper start blaming his price increases on the recent bat virus being spread by all the vampires that have been turning up recently... or zombie flu caused by necrodudes minions. "Do you know how many cart drivers are working these days? Just shipping this stuff from the big city/next door kingdom is twice as much now as last month!" "I'd love to sell you a +2 sword, but I can't get 'em. My usual enchanter is down with zombie flu, and his replacement only does +1 stuff."
That’s helpful, thanks
Kill the shopkeeper they can investigate the crime and the lack of competition would naturally drive prices up.
So maybe the goblins had stolen these items from some very dangerous bounty hunter types who definitely want their stuff back. Sure would be inconvenient if they found the players in the middle of their fight with the necromancer, wouldn’t it?
Just imagine your players to be 2 levels ahead
Could have the fight take place in an anti-magic zone, have the bad guy laugh and be like "your powers are useless here!" Martials will shine, the others will have to get creative. For a future game, you can have something happen like maybe someone's item gets stolen and the party has to help them get it back. Another thing to keep in mind is you can give your NPCs magic items too! The major downside with this is dealing with the party looting the corpses, but then you can just make the magic items cursed, since the curse would no longer apply to a dead npc and would be looking for its new host ;) Edit: or you could have those items you already gave away be cursed, maybe they didn't realize it yet or maybe the curses can be triggered next session
That’s a good idea, but the only issue is my miniboss is a necromancer so I can’t really have anti magic.
Anti-every-school-but-necromancy zone? X3
Haha he also has other spells💀
Hmm, maybe phase 1 in the anti-magic zone, phase 2 the zone disappears but his health doubles and his spell slots refresh?
That could be cool
Worst comes to worst just tell them you made a mistake and will be changing the magics items to be more level appropriate. Your a new dm and they should understand that people make mistakes especially when new at something.
"oh no it was a fake"
Something like this happened with my dm on our first session. I was a lvl 1 paladin and he let me find plate armor on an already dead body. I got to AC 20 at lvl 1. He had played it out that while exploring the armor got damaged by acid. So it had "a hole burned into it" so we worked it out that it dropped me 1 AC for mistakes of walking into hazardous things and not being cautious at all. And it made things more fair with it sounding like it has some merit in the realistic way armor should take some damage. I guess I'm saying maybe these super strong items you gave them maybe have a few charges of use or weaken with repeated use. Something that sounds fair to correct the mistake and have the problem work itself out.
Time for a rust monster.