New DM Looking for Advice


Advice


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Hi All,
First time on the Pathfinder forums glad to be here. Anyway, I'm a new DM to Pathfinder, and since I always liked it have decided to run my player's through City of the Spider Queen from 3.5, as it's my understanding that Pathfinder is compatible with OGL 3.5.
Conversion has been really easy so far, but the original adventure was written for 4 players, my group has 5 players, two of the players are summon monster fanatics.
I'm currently worried that with 5 players, plus any monsters the player's summon, as well as the druid's animal companion that the monsters are going to get completely over run. Is this a valid concern? If so what might you guys suggest I do to balance things out a bit? Thanks everyone!


With a larger group than four, many have a rule that only one ‘cohort/pet/summoned’ etc per player (this applies to BBEG too).

Some go as far as banning companions, and no more than one summoned creature per side, but that’s generally for even larger parties, such as 7 or 8.

What are you players running?

I also suggest you run a PF path for your first game, not a 3.5.

Dark Archive

Are you are a new DM to D&D/RPGs in general too? Are your players brand new RPGs?

City of the Spider Queen is quite a task to take. It starts at higher levels too. Why did you select that module?

Sovereign Court

Solo monsters have it worst; in general, large PC parties will indeed swamp small NPC gangs.

The best solution is to increase the number of NPCs by adding weak and mid-strength goons, rather than making a single NPC very powerful.

Many NPCs will make the PCs split actions, and hinder mass flanking and suchlike. It definitely increases challenge.

The problem with a single uber-NPC is twofold:
- it doesn't solve action economy inequality.
- big chance of "accidentally" one-shotting PCs.

Giving the boss more goons helps solve both problems.


It is usually best to add more creatures rather than trying to buff one creature. Say there's a fight with an Ogre; if you're worried it will be too easy, add four goblins. The goblins won't necessarily do much to the players, but they can engage the melee types for a turn or two, which gives the Ogre more time to bash a player. The goblins can also team up and go into the backfield to threaten a caster or archer, drawing a major source of damage or control away from the Ogre.

Per Ascalaphus's points, upgrading the Ogre just makes it more likely that he'll one-shot a squishy that gets too close... or dies anyway because he can only do one thing to the party's 5+ things.

And, really, it is far less book keeping to just add a few monsters than trying to rework the stat block of the existing monster.


Nebten wrote:

Are you are a new DM to D&D/RPGs in general too? Are your players brand new RPGs?

City of the Spider Queen is quite a task to take. It starts at higher levels too. Why did you select that module?

My group and I have been playing D&D for a varied amount of time we have a guy who has been playing since 1st edition and the rest of us have been playing since 2nd edition AD&D. I chose this module because I've played through it before and love it. My Group has never played and we excited by the concept. I've never really made a serious attempt and DM'ing just the off the cuff adventure time and time again.


DrDeth wrote:

With a larger group than four, many have a rule that only one ‘cohort/pet/summoned’ etc per player (this applies to BBEG too).

Some go as far as banning companions, and no more than one summoned creature per side, but that’s generally for even larger parties, such as 7 or 8.

What are you players running?

I also suggest you run a PF path for your first game, not a 3.5.

My players consist of a Paladin, A Druid, a Rouge\Ranger\Assassin,a Witch and a Sorcerer.


If you are unsure about the strength of your encounters, you can always err on the side of weaker encounters and have a couple of mooks offstage that you can pull in quickly if it is clear the party is overpowering the encounter.

I do that in many encounters anyway just to provide some variety to the encounters. I call it "bringing in the cavalry!"


MurphysParadox wrote:

It is usually best to add more creatures rather than trying to buff one creature. Say there's a fight with an Ogre; if you're worried it will be too easy, add four goblins. The goblins won't necessarily do much to the players, but they can engage the melee types for a turn or two, which gives the Ogre more time to bash a player. The goblins can also team up and go into the backfield to threaten a caster or archer, drawing a major source of damage or control away from the Ogre.

Per Ascalaphus's points, upgrading the Ogre just makes it more likely that he'll one-shot a squishy that gets too close... or dies anyway because he can only do one thing to the party's 5+ things.

And, really, it is far less book keeping to just add a few monsters than trying to rework the stat block of the existing monster.

Ok so lets assume the fight consists of two cr 10 monsters, how would you fill that out? Would 4 CR5 monsters do the job or would that over power it?

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder characters will be stronger than 3.5 characters (more feats, more abilities, higher hit/skill points), so while conversion is generally minimal, your combats may be softer than expected. An easy accomodation, especially with a party of 5 Pathfinder characters, is to begin players at one level lower than the campaign (e.g. start them at 9th level, not 10th) and run the campaign this way. From experience this works fine. However, if your players are brand new (and I'm guessing not if you're running them through an epic themed module), I would leave things as is to account for growing pangs.

As to lots of summoned monsters, a common player frustration is when other players (whether intentionally or not) monopolize the table time with summons or a lot of dice rolling. You don't want to spend 10 seconds a turn with the bard only to spend 5 minutes with the conjuror. I recommend having summoning players print note cards of their monsters (index card sized) and ask other players to handle the attacks if there's more than one creature in play for them.

(Random, but remember, if the player cannot communicate with the summoned creature, it attacks obvious threats and unless intelligent doesn't use advanced strategy).


Can a Roper grapple a target with it's strands? If so could the roper then throw the grappled character?

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