Hi to all experienced players & DMs out there,
I've already read several of the "new DM needs help"-threads, but since our situation is fairly unique, I need your advice for our upcoming group:
We are 5 people, I have quite a bit experience with D&D and pathfinder, mostly as a player, but I successfully DMed a handful Adventures (homebrew) for this Group. One of the others (let's call her Alice) has also some experience playing, but she focused on the RP aspect till now, asking about rules as she needed them (sometimes over and over again). The others have no experience except for the few adventures I DMed for them.
Now, as one of the other players will be absent for a while, we want to start a new group, and since I haven't played for a while, Alice is thinking about taking the DM-chair for this group and running an adventure path. I myself would love to play Kingmaker, but I heard that Rise of the Runelords would be particularly beginner-friendly.
So, here are my questions to you:
1.) Is it feasible to run an adventure path with only 3PCs, and which (if any) adjustments should be made?
2.) Which AP would you recommend for a first-time DM with a mostly inexperienced group?
3.) Which rules and/or knowlege are/is most important for Alice to successfully DM?
4.) Is there any other advice you can give us?
Also feel free to post your thoughts about our group and situation. We're happy about everything that will potentially make this more fun for everyone.
Thank you for your replies!
Having a GM who doesn't know the rules is less then optimal. I'd even say a GM should know the rules exeptionally well because not only does he need a good idea of the basics of combat, he must also know all kinds of special abilities, spells and items the enemies might have and how those things interact.
GMing a whole adventure path is hard work, even IF you know the rules. I won't say it can't be done by someone with less knowledge but doing so effectively (i.e. without browsing the books every combat) would require a lot of preparation. Having someone at the table who knows the rules well definitely helps, but as a GM you don't really want to show him the monsters so he can explain to you how they work. In one of my groups, I'm that rules-person and the GM knows enough to tell a good story but he often misreads or misinterpreds things which results in either too hard or too easy battles. I've lost a character because he send a way too powerful foe at us after we had little trouble with a few fights beforehand because we went all in. The creature was like CR+5 and with our already diminished resources for the day, it's a miracle we only lost one character.
Long story short: An inexperienced GM should only take on an AP if she is ready to invest some serious time into preperation. Read the combat chapter of the core rulebook, read the universal monster rules from the bestiary and carefully read up on everything each creature the party faces can do and do so BEFORE you start playing (our GM reads at the start of combat and often misses important things).
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Hi to all experienced players & DMs out there,
I've already read several of the "new DM needs help"-threads, but since our situation is fairly unique, I need your advice for our upcoming group:
We are 5 people, I have quite a bit experience with D&D and pathfinder, mostly as a player, but I successfully DMed a handful Adventures (homebrew) for this Group. One of the others (let's call her Alice) has also some experience playing, but she focused on the RP aspect till now, asking about rules as she needed them (sometimes over and over again). The others have no experience except for the few adventures I DMed for them.
Now, as one of the other players will be absent for a while, we want to start a new group, and since I haven't played for a while, Alice is thinking about taking the DM-chair for this group and running an adventure path. I myself would love to play Kingmaker, but I heard that Rise of the Runelords would be particularly beginner-friendly.
So, here are my questions to you:
1.) Is it feasible to run an adventure path with only 3PCs, and which (if any) adjustments should be made?
2.) Which AP would you recommend for a first-time DM with a mostly inexperienced group?
3.) Which rules and/or knowlege are/is most important for Alice to successfully DM?
4.) Is there any other advice you can give us?Also feel free to post your thoughts about our group and situation. We're happy about everything that will potentially make this more fun for everyone.
Thank you for your replies!
1. Yes, but you probably want to make a few adjustments. First, I would strongly recommend the classes that mix up the basic roles (fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard). The best of these are the druid and the summoner, though they are also among the most complext to play. But the powerful pets and the mix of combat and magic really help small parties. Paladins, bards, inquisitors and magi are also really good for this.
You might want to also increase the point buy. Adventure paths assume a 15 point buy. With a 20 or 25 point buy characters will be ahead of the curve for that early portion of the game when they are most vulnerable.
2. Rise of the runelords is a pretty good starting ap, definately NOT kingmaker. That one is very complex to run and I would only recommend it for experience dms. As awesome an AP as it is, it really is hard the dm. THey have to do alot of prep, and have to be ready to react to pc action given its sandbox nature.
But more so, with a new dm I recommend starting with a module first. Diving straight into an AP that is a long term commitment isnt a good idea for a new gm. Have her run crypt of the ever flame, or even dragons demand first. To get the hang of things. Once she has a handle on dming in general she can move on to an adventure path.
3. Other then the basic combat and skill use rules, she needs to know her npcs and monsters. Unfortunately that means it could be anything, but wont be everything. If she is shaky on rules, she should take time to read ahead, see what kinds of npcs and monsters are coming up and then review the rules for those specific abilities those npcs and monsters have.
4. Dont worry about making mistakes. Also given you have a better handle on the rules try to help her, but dont undermine her at the table. Correct her politely if she makes a glaring mistake, but otherwise try to let it go and do it away from the table. Also, if she gets stuck on something offer to look something up for her while she continues with the game. Having a lookup assistant is one of the best assets a dm can have if they are shaky on their rules knowledge. I still do that and I've been dming and playing pathfinder since the begging and all of 3rd edition before that.
Thank you all for your answers! You've helped very much with our decision (and probably helped in making her first attempt at DMing a better experience for all of us).
We both know that there will be much preparation work for her, until she is ready to run her first adventure, but now I'm quite sure, she'll be up to the task if she takes her preparation seriously.
I think we'll have a go with the beginners box, then. Does it have the full rules in it , or are they simplified somehow? (And if yes, is there something an experienced player will definitely miss?)
25 point buy is actually a great idea, since it also fits the players demand for powerful characters :-)
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The Beginner Box uses a very simplified version of the core rules. It has no attacks of opportunity, no combat maneuvers, no armor check penalty and so on. Spells and abilities are simplified as well, having only 2-3 short sentences as description. The box is also fairly limited in options, with only 3 races (humans, elves and dwarves), 4 classes (fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard + barbarian as free download), a handfull of feats (about 30 I would guess) and about a dozen spells per level for cleric and wizard spell levels 1-3. The box is also limited to character level 5.
I think the biggest difference is the lack of AoOs. Without then, you can do pretty much whatever you want in cmobat. Just walk around enemies and so on.
I recently wrote a summary of how I introduced a completely new group to Pathfinder. I won't write it all down again, but if you are interested, you can find the post HERE.
Thanks! Sounds like it's about right for the group to refresh their knowledge on the basics and then quickly move one to a full module, probably crypt of the everflame, but I'll have a look at the other one you mentioned in that other post.