D&D5e DM here, lets do a little ama

D&D5e DM here, lets do a little ama

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ignoring exp modifiers, do you prefer throwing one large enemy or multiple smaller enemies at your party

I do use both but i favor the big bad badguy, less moving parts means the action keeps flowing better in my opinion

How many players can you support in your party, most i've ever done was 6, it was a bit shaky though

I ran 8 players for a few months, it was slow.... realllllyyyyy fucking slowi think 6 PCs is the right number, but i knoe my buddy perfers to run only 4

i thought doing 6 went pretty slow, i can't fucking imagine 8

It was pretty bad, things i thought that would only 1 session took us 3 or 4... i dont recommend it... actually i do, once you run a game for 8 people, and 3 are fucking retarded, running a game of 6 where only 1 is being an asshole is much easier

What are some of your favourite ways to build up to an encounter?

Pathfinder/3.5 guy here.
Why are Tieflings available as a core race but not Aasimar? Any cosmology there? Are Dragonborn still transformed from other races into loyal vassals of Bahamut? Also, has magic changed significantly? People I know bitch that in 4e the casters get at-will damage spells and the like, did 5e nix that bullshit?

Lvl 9 Paladin of vengeance checking in.

The broken down wagon of a Merchant on a road, that sets up to an ambush is a good one, really makes those lawful good paladins scared. Also children warriors

Level 5 Fighter 4 into Mage. Tanky mage has been working nicely. Off to kill a dragon next session. Anyone got any good encounter stories?

Venalith?

Forgot tags

you DM irl or online?

also, im DMing a game saturday for 7 people, most of whom havent played since AD&D and some of whom have never played. All of them are competant though, but im trying to think of a good story for a one shot 3-4 hour session with them. Any suggestions?

With that many people its always good to do a bounty hunt that they have signed up for or a gladiator fight

not OP, but Aasimar are available as a player race, just not in the player handbook. And if i recall correctly, dragonborn are mainly just people with draconic ancestry, kinda like teiflings, though it doesnt rule out magically transformed individuals

Not OP, but ideas -> annarchive.com/dungeon.html
Pick a link at random. These old issues are packed with treasure.

Tieflings and assimar are world dependent, you wont find many of them in my homebrew, dragonborns are offspring of dragons and humans, they dont need to buttfuck toward the good dragon lord, magic has been super simplified, at will magic still exist, and magic users do more dps than melee, but wizards can be squishy. Its a pretty good edition. If you're trying to get your friends into it that's never played before D&D 5e is great if you want to play a game with veteran players Pathfinders the game for you

bounty hunt...not a bad idea
Thanks, i may go with that

I see. That's not bad. I always did like playing classes where you unlocked some aspect of your draconic heritage, rather than just start out covered in scales, but I can see why they made the race.

What are some good ways to award XP outside of combat? Like solving a puzzle, getting info from en NPC, etc.

Trying to get into D&D with a couple friends. Need advice on how to get started

Ive done both, but currently run a party of 5 irl sundays, their are tons of pdf 1 shots, i hear good tjibgs about the curse of strahd

small amounts of RP because it encourages people to do more and talk more if you have a quiet player. Also tactics in battle rather than just run and punch. If someone makes a good plan and manages to pull it off either award them with an inspiration die or a small amount of XP just to show you noticed their awesomeness.

More like that, negotiating surrender instead of outright killing enemies. Sneaking past them. I award levels based on sessions. That allows me to say okay we played three or four sessions at level 4 I think it's time for level 5 rather than okay you killed everything you possibly could here's your level

Have you ever run a campaign focused on players gaining renown and political office and then accomplishing their goals that way, tips for such a campaign, using Pathfinder btw

Find out who wants to dm the first game, you can find the free basic rules on websites with easy to create characters at no cost. If it seems like something you want to do after that investing in a player's handbook dungeon Master's guide and a monster manual will greatly help out. There's also many module books you can run that help with creativity block

>magic has been super simplified
I respect this for new players, but I really think that that organizing and remembering a more complex spell list from level 1 on is a good brain exercise for new players - my group is 30-40 but we have younger people, such as a friends' son, play sometimes and some of them really need to learn to read the damn book and think creatively with what they have - it's disappointing to have the rogue conked out while you're at a locked door as the wizard with a prepped knock spell stares obliviously saying "I'm not the party lockpick!"

I agree with this method, another thing a friend of mine suggested that I've used is asking questions about the session and how the players felt I did where I needed to improve that stuff, and the players got exp for that, basically the same method since actually answering the questions is pretty easy especially if you know you're going to be asked

Not OP, but try the Kingmaker campaign. Lots of exploration, but downtime is a blast, building and expanding your kingdom. Be sure to really familiarize yourself with kingdom building math if you do though, until they updated the thing in ultimate campaign, it was fairly easy to go bankrupt early on even if you had a good idea what you were doing.

I did in one of my campaigns. The group made themselves for noun in the Kingdom the king recognize them gave them a keep they continue to fight in the Name of the King until the King was executed by an assassin that they failed to stop the King was an only child and had no children he was young he was 19 so there was an election by the Council of five and they chose one of the players. But in order to keep the game flowing I have that character become an NPC under my control for the most part. He stayed in the castle unruled and I would have asked the player for input on how his character would act in that situation but he ended up making a new character to go out adventuring but the old Adventure Party had a king as an ally

I feel you on the new player problem they didn't grow up with books like talking to dragons and never heard of Game of Thrones until some fat fuck put it on HBO. But you have to teach them how to play I put the game on training wheels for the first two levels and it level 3 I start punishing people. That means not getting treasure that means horrific scars that could mean player death. And I tell him I players the first two levels are on training wheels and if they're not reading the book If they don't know how to play their character they don't know how their spells work that's on them. Because them not knowing their role might get their friend killed

How do you feel about skill checks vs. describing your interaction or problem solving?
For example, the rogue forced into being a diplomat, saying, "shit, I had to blow all my skills in traps and searching and sneaking... okay, here goes." Followed by the player arguing eloquently with a noble and making a great point? Does the roll still apply, does it get a bonus, or do you just say "fuck it" and reward him with success for good roleplaying?
When the rogue, say, gets KO'd and the fighter sees the small details in the trap that dropped him, then says "I take a rope and a ten foot pole, yadaya, and..." then perfectly describes how you know the trap would be mechanically disarmed, without need for a real skill check... what do you do?

I do both if you just say I'm going to disable the Trap it's a straight Roll But if you tell me how you would do something I give you a bonus whether it's a plus one two three but I definitely had something for Thought an extra effort

I've also had arguments so convincing that I didn't even have them make a roll I was impressed with their reasoning and logic

not OP here but depending on quality of RP i award advantage

sauce on pic related pls

I agree with the methods, but that "getting other players killed" thing is what gets me. I've had good campaigns that I was playing in wipe near the end because of one stupid fuck who was a party lynch pin for the situation at hand had no common sense. I don't like wiping weeks or months of good storytelling and character development because the fighter wants to go "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" when he should be thinking.
It's not that I'd normally kill the whole party for his fuckup, but a lot of the time the party demonstrates too much teamwork and gets pulled into Leroy's shenanigans trying to save his stupid ass. And I don't care to disrespect the veteran players with a Deus ex Machina.

It's a tough call either way but you hope a good holy shit almost everyone died situation will scare the stupid out of someone but sometimes it doesn't

I forgot about that! I've watched a few loose-rules 5e streams by Stabbyness and he awards advantage or disadvantage - 3.5 required entire fucking feats or special class abilities to do that a few times a session or game day for one skill. Rolling twice is pretty powerful... well, I am the kind of guy who will roll shit twice.