Hello everyone! I'm a fairly new DM and I've got some questions.
I've only been DMing for maybe 3 months now, never been a player. My first and only group has finished their second module tonight. :D
*this thread may contain spoilers for Crown of the Kobold King*
I'm running with a group of 6 players, all level 3. We've just finished the Crown of the Kobold King module. The classes are as follows:
Druid
Fighter
Monk
Ranger
Rogue
Sorcerer
Question about CR:
The standard battle is:
King Merlokrep (CR 6)
x2 Bloodscale Kobolds (CR 2)
But I merged the sacrificial chamber with the throne room into one battle, forcing the group to progress past the enemies to stop the sacrifice. I also added a small army of regular kobold warriors to make it interesting. This added the following:
Jekkajak the shaman (CR 5)
x2 Bloodscale Kobolds (CR 2)
And an extra 9 Kobold warriors (CR 1/4 each, roughly 2 CR total)
Then an additional x2 Bloodscale Kobolds as reinforcements after 1d4 rounds (CR 2)
So it was CR 19 with 17 total enemies. According to the Gamemastery guide, my group's APL is 4. If I understand correctly, this battle should have been too difficult to win. I didn't pull any punches, although I did mix up attack targets so that players didn't get focus-fired to death.
There were no player deaths and nobody was knocked out. There were two close calls where players dropped between 1 to 5 HP. Everybody had fun, although it took (literally) 3 hours to complete. Yes, we timed it.
So ultimately the question is: How do I figure out what's too hard and what isn't? I understand that sometimes a hard fight is fun, and easy fights can help players feel confident. However, the actual formula is going over my head.
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Equipment and shops question:
Is there a resource I can look at to figure out how shops work? What determines the potions or scrolls available in town? What about additional weapons/armor? Magical or +1 weapons/armor? Maybe purchasing an enchant for your gear? Aside from the basic necessities of food, water and sleeping, I don't know what options the players have for purchasing items.
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Troublesome players:
After warning him, my idea is to throw in additional, unexpected challenges. If it continues, I'll amp up the difficulty for his character alone until he's persuaded to stop or at least make it less obvious. When I tell my group "You're unable to discern the details about _____", then the disruptive player chips in with "Actually..." and spoils whatever it was that was supposed to be hidden, it's frustrating.
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Next module question:
Since we've already begun doing Falcon's Hollow modules, I might toss in "Revenge of the Kobold King" part-way in the Runelords path as a side quest.
Is this a good idea? Should I take the adventure in a different direction? I understand this is more of an opinion question, but I thought I'd ask since an adventure path can take a billion years to finish.
There are several more things to ask, but I'll leave it at this for now. Thank you for your time and patience! Thank you for simply taking the time to read this, even if you haven't posted a reply.
Welcome to the forums :-)
To address your posts one by one:
1. Number of players
The adventure paths and challenge ratings of creatures are always assumed on a 4-5-party person and 3-4 encounters per day. So when you have a kobold with a CR 1/4 it means that a 4 person party of level 1 has it easy, a single person will have a CR 1 challenge and thus, assuming the 4 encounters per day, deplete 1/4 of its ressources per day.
So when you look at APL (average party level) of 1 you are supposed to have about 4 encounters of CR=APL, so 4 CR 1 encounters per day. Note that these are guidelines, not hard rules, but it's what the game is balanced about. More encounters make it difficult for casters, less encounters favor them compared to the non-casters etc.
You have a 6 person party there, so this basically requires the encounters to be upped by 1-2 CR. Looking at your specific class combinations all typical bases (arcane, divine, melee, skill monkey) are covered, in fact you are pretty melee heavy. So I would say you need to go for CR+1 encounters until about level 4, then go for CR+2 to keep it balanced if they still manage too easily.
Note that for some highly efficient parties you will need to increase the CRs by 2 by default due to their effectivity to challenge them. One of my groups required me to always present them with CR=APL+2 encounters, APL+4 to make it interesting - which should theoretically already be an "impossible encounter".
So to make it short, you need to up all encounters with a 6 person party.
And as a general tip here: Avoid single enemy encounters, they either usually destroy parties or are easily destroyed by parties due to the number of actions the parties have available.
2. CR calculation
You find lots of helpful information in the gamemastering section here: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering
Note that the easiest way to calculate is to count all creatures equal CRs together and use the "CR Equivalencies table" to determine their individual CRs, then add those together to determine the final CR.
With your examples:
- kobold king + bloodscale kobolds -
bloodscale kobolds 2x CR 2 = 2+2 = CR 4
add king of CR 6 -> CR 6 + CR 4 -> CR 7 because it at least adds 1 to the CR if it's below the same CR
If you only had 4-5 players at level 3 you would need a final CR of 4 to make it challenging, CR 5 to make it hard - and a final battle should be at least hard if not even epic, a CR 6.
For 6 players with an APL of 3, you need to adjust the CR by at least +1, so that would be CR 5 for challenging, CR 6 for hard, CR 7 for epic.
This is what it should theoretically be. I also ran the module and thought the kobold king is tough when he gets a few spells off, but the body guards were pretty weak, so I would not really count them in there in this case -> CR 6 encounter, quite manageable for your group.
Looking at the total battle layout for the final CR, we have
- Jekkajak the shaman (CR 5) -> CR 5
- x2 Bloodscale Kobolds (CR 2) -> CR 2+2 = CR 4
- extra 9 Kobold warriors (CR 1/4 each) -> about CR 6
- additional x2 Bloodscale Kobolds as reinforcements after 1d4 rounds (CR 2) -> CR 4
So you have
- Jekkak CR 5
- Bloodscale Kobolds CR 4 + CR 4 = CR 6
- Warriors CR 6
-> CR 6 + CR 6 + CR 5
-> About CR 9
Add the above encounter CR 7 you have about a CR 10 encounter.
So that is pretty tough and theoretically impossible. However, the CR system can only do so much. 1st level warriors can theoretically hurt your party badly. Did they use ranged attacks? Focus on one character? Was that prevented by your casters? Did they get into melee? Did the shaman and the king pick out certain targets?
Melee would be quite inefficient, your party would probably slaughter the CR 1/4 kobolds, so they are almost taken yout of the equation. Burning hands and other low level AoE spells can kill many of them at once if they are not clever, so that also accounts for some things.
Finally, not all of those were present at once, so you should consider them as three separate encounters:
- First group with shaman
- Left over group with reinforcements
- King and bodyguard addition with what was left standing.
I am pretty sure those CRs were much lower :-)
3. Availability of magic items
You can find information on what number and value of magic items are available in the magic items section:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items#Table-Available-Magic-Items
4. Troublesome player
There have been threads on this kind of issue (search for "Player reading ahead") in the forums. Personally I think you should talk to him and make it clear that it bothers you. Also tell this to your group.
I would not change encounters or story - what are you using a prewritten campaign for if you have to change it all the time?
Well, apart from adapting it to 6 players that is :-)
If he/she does not listen and continues, consider continuing without him/her. Get group support if necessary. Remember, it should be fun to DM for you as well, and not cause you more effort than necessary.
5. Adventure detour
Well, you can do whatever you like. Incorporating player backgrounds is a good idea. Just make sure to check how much gear (compared to assumed wealth by level) they have and what level they are and adapt the story and encounters accordingly. So if your characters are already level 4 when you start an adventure written for level 1 (and you have 6 instead of 4 players!), you really need to adapt the existing module for that. Besides that, no problem I can see, and it helps to keep people attached to their characters :-)
Hope this helps :-)
Thank you very much for your help. The information on CR is especially helpful. It can be tricky when you factor in the random element of the game through dice rolls.
Your information is pretty accurate. The group is melee heavy and they tend to make mincemeat out of low-level monster clusters. I'll definitely continue to spice up the encounters to match the strength of the group.
Thank you again for your assistance!