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Hello All,
I will be starting a new campaign this weekend, and I have decided to start the group off as commoners, to learn what it is like before they become adventurers. The issue I am having now is a few encounters to get them to level 1, I thought maybe having a rat encounter, 1 or 2 rats, but beyond this I am stuck.
I realize commoners are pretty weak, and might even die from a rat encounter, so other then rats, I am not sure what else they could fight. I have thought about having other non combat encounters, to help them along, if anyone has any other ideas I would love to hear them, please and thank you in advance!
Isopod Giant, House Centipede, Skunk, Common bat. These are a few really weak monsters.
No problem my good sir.
Well, since a rat can kill a commoner, that's pretty much the reason why PCs usually start out as adventurers, not commoners. Remember, an all commoner party is only going to have characters that are differentiated from each other by their racial abilities and ability scores. They're going to all have the same BAB (+0), saving throws (all bad: +0, +0, +0), 6 hit points (possibly plus Con and/or Toughness), no class abilities, no spells, no skills of note, no weapons, and no armor.
Basically it's going to be a party full of Xanders, with no Buffies or Willows or even Ozes or Cordelias.
But if you insist on making your players play characters with no interesting character abilities maybe consider environmental encounters.
Maybe 1 rat is especially elusive, so they have to search an old haunted house, with creaky doors, weakened floors, firetraps, puzzles of some sort, sliding stair traps, etc.
Have REALLY low DCs for stuff. Like 5 or 8 or 10 or MAYBE 12.
Maybe a skeleton in the closet with a broken club (-1 to hit, 1d6-3 for damage).
Maybe lots of "Home Alone" style booby traps? Traps that don't cause damage but inflict minor conditions, like dazzled, fatigued, shaken, sickened, poison doing minor ability damage--and not Con!, etc. They're going to be significant since commoners suck enough already.
Make it a madcap comedic action adventure. Make it fun and kind of silly.
Also, use non-lethal damage. Have them fall 10 feet into a pile of hay, for 1d4 non-lethal damage--and an opportunity to rest for an hour to regain hit points. Arm that skeleton I posted about before with a sap or a whip.
Your PCs are going to be very fragile, so you're going to have to be really smart about what you challenge them with.
Oh yeah! Use Combat Maneuvers against them! Disarm, trip, bull rush, sunder, etc.!
Maybe play a game of keep away with the McGuffin?