Evening all,
I have a couple of basic GM questions I am hoping the great minds of this forum may be able to help me with.
1 - currently prepping ROTR, is there a resource I can use to 'stock' the various shops, weapons, armour, magic items, prices etc - or shall I stop being lazy and do it manually?
2 - Gameplay question. I have run this group through Crypt of the Everflame and they are extremely defensive to the extent that I can't get actually get them to go in a room half the time and any combat tends to take place in door ways. What mechanics can I use to try and force their hands to take the battle to the baddies - so I get the -4 into melee and LOS cover (I think). Is that it? If the party are three deep in the corridor or whatever, I don't see that it's possible to have a monster charge into them to try and flank. Believe me, these guys are happy to sit and take the minuses to their attack rolls all night.
Ta!
Bull Rush, Reposition, Drag are useful combat maneuvers for disrupting party formations.
Depending on the level you could always use area of effect spells or splash weapons to make them staying bunched up like that stupid. Lightning Bolt, Alchemist Fire and Burning Hands are just begging to be used here.Also don't forget the creatures they are fighting often are intelligent. They can take advantage of the situation tactically or feel free to have them call for back up/alert the remaining monsters in the area. And, don't forget that there could easily be a monster that comes up from behind and attacks the rear of the group.
Evening all,
I have a couple of basic GM questions I am hoping the great minds of this forum may be able to help me with.
1 - currently prepping ROTR, is there a resource I can use to 'stock' the various shops, weapons, armour, magic items, prices etc - or shall I stop being lazy and do it manually?
2 - Gameplay question. I have run this group through Crypt of the Everflame and they are extremely defensive to the extent that I can't get actually get them to go in a room half the time and any combat tends to take place in door ways. What mechanics can I use to try and force their hands to take the battle to the baddies - so I get the -4 into melee and LOS cover (I think). Is that it? If the party are three deep in the corridor or whatever, I don't see that it's possible to have a monster charge into them to try and flank. Believe me, these guys are happy to sit and take the minuses to their attack rolls all night.
Ta!
1. Don't do this. Its not worth it. It is way too much work for literally no gain. And it is counter to the design of the game (in so much as the game expects character to eventually be able to get equipment useful to their purpose). As Bart mentioned, look at the value that should be available in your town or city, the base value means that anything that value or less should have a 75% chance of being available. Let your players roll a diplomacy or knowledge local to find out who might have it (if its available). I don't have my copy of the adventure handy but as its a small town I imagine sandpoint is around 1000gp.
2. Step one, every single hallway in every adventure is actually at least 10 feet wide not 5, regardless of what is in a published adventure map. In addition, every single door of any consequence is a double door that is 10 feet wide (2 squares). Is this unrealistic? Yup. But it REALLY helps with the press in dungeons and buildings and such.
Step 2. Make it so more monsters/enemies do not make themselves known until the party is in the room. They can easily have taken 20 on a stealth check and chosen really good hiding spots. You can also have enemies come up behind them in hallways if they are being unreasonably hesitant to enter a room. You are the gm after all. If you want to insert a secret door that lets an extra bad guy get in behind them you may.
The other thing you can and should do is explain you will be enforcing distance penalties on perception checks. If the player refuse to enter a room the dc to spot something goes up by 1 for every 10 feet the item is into a room. In a largish room that can make a very big difference. You can even impose an additional +2 penalty for unfavorable conditions (everyone trying to peak through a doorway is less then ideal circumstances to spot something important). Explain that if they refuse to enter rooms the WILL miss things, including treasure, plot points and more.
Side note: Often its a good idea to just talk to your group if something about their behavior is a problem.
Also as mentioned you can have your baddies equipped with alchemical splash weapons, (bottled lightning works really well for players lined up in a door/hall) like alchemist fires or bottled lighting as cheap low level way to encourage your party to spread out.
Excellent suggestions all,
I will be certainly using splash weapons and combat manoeuvres just to get them moving about a bit from now on.
I will also be highlighting the perception penalties they are suffering from lurking in the doorways.
Thanks for you replies
And a suggestion for book 1, either have the map for the glassworks drawn out before hand (the players can get the layout from a number of people in town), or redesign it completely. Trying to draw it on the fly is a terrible effort... who draws a map like that completely on the diagonal?!?