Current Events > D&D 5E. Running Lost Mine tonight. Questions

(+) Yeah! (+)

I know all of chapter 1 pretty well and have read it twice and have some written notes. I understand the basics is the game well enough, but I know they are going to spring things on me that Im not going to expect

I know the golden rule and to not worry too much about the rules if youre unsure and to just make up something thats fair.

But what are some pages in the Dungeon Master Guide should I bookmark?

For example, I have seen a lot of random tables in there for personalities, loot, traps, random encounters, ect.

Also some of the rules that come up a lot during this campaign that a new DM
Might need to look up

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Btw, what source is EE? Im doing characters on Beyond and the spells Control Flame and Earth Tremor say its source is EE and the others say the PHB

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Just ran the Goblin Ambush part alone to get a handle of things. Let me know if there is anything I messed up here. Also, I may type a math thing wrong, but all of them check out if they hit or not. I'm just terrible at typing

• Goblins Stealth: 6+4 = 10
• My Passive Perception - 12
• Combat Order is Goblins [2+13 = 15] Me [2+9 = 11]
• Goblin 1 runs up and swings at me [AC = 13] with their sword [4+15 = 19] and hits me for 6 damage [forgot to write the roll down] and now my HP is 12 [This is a level 3 character, btw]
• Goblins 2 runs and swings at me with their sword [2+6 = 8] and misses
• I cast Eldritch Blast on Goblin 1 [AC = 15] [18+5 = 23] and hits it for [4+5 = 9] and gets killed
• Goblin 2 disengages and runs up the trail
• I cast Eldritch Blast on Goblin 2 [6+5 = 11] and miss my shot. I run after it
• I run a Passive Perception check [12] vs Stealth [11+6 = 17] and get ambushed by Goblin 3 up on the hill with a bow. It fires with advantage [6/13+4 = 17] and hits me for [2+2 = 4] damage and now I'm at 8 Hit Points
• Goblin 2 turns around and fires and arrow [8+4 = 12] and misses
• I fire Eldritch Blast [20!] and blow the shit out of him. I run right up to the cliff wall
• Goblin 3 has to lean far over to shoot at me, so disadvantage for it and shoots [5/4+4 = 8 and misses]
• I cast Spider Climb and wall up the wall and make a Stealth Check [1] and leave myself wide open to an attack
• Goblin 3 fires with Advantage [12/1, I kid you not, I marked out in real life, lol] and loses his footing and makes a Dex check vs DC 10 [4+2 = 6] and Goblin 3 falls 30 feet [just a guess, didn't look it up] for [3/2/6 = 11 damage] and dies on impact [Edit: It fired on me twice. It missed the Advantage one, then the 1 roll happened on the next Attack]
• I walk back down and go back to the wagon to look around and take a Short Rest

@BlingBling22947

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So you don't add prof to your damage roll, only to hit.

What level are you? I think you only get spider climb at level 3 earliest.

Sneak check is considered the Hide action. Unless you're rogue or break the action economy, you can only cast Spider Climb or Hide your turn.

Also EE is Elemental Evil. IIRC all the spells in it are included in Xanathurs

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Blue_Dream87 posted...

So you don't add prof to your damage roll, only to hit.

I have the character plugged into D&D Beyond and this is what it says for Eldritch Blast on the Catrip attack sheet - Hit +5 [d10+3 Force Damage]. With that first attack -

Bad_Mojo posted...

I cast Eldritch Blast on Goblin 1 [AC = 15] [18+5 = 23] and hits it for [4+5 = 9] and gets killed

So yep, I did add it. Thank you for pointing that out

Blue_Dream87 posted...

What level are you? I think you only get spider climb at level 3 earliest.

Yeah, it's a level 3 character. It was just the one I had up and I was doing it solo, so instead of party members, I gave them two extra levels. I also want to play around with the Level 3 stuff when things get fun, lol

Blue_Dream87 posted...

Sneak check is considered the Hide action. Unless you're rogue or break the action economy, you can only cast Spider Climb or Hide your turn.

Ah, okay. This is how I was RP'ing it in my head - Cast Spider Climb and go up the cliff and stay pressed against it. So maybe disadvantage on the attack role? Since I got the 1 I messed up anyways. Shrug.emoji

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I guess I should have did this on Reddit, but then I'm sure it would have been deleted because I didn't tag it properly

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Since we couldn't have our Zero-Session last night and since I couldn't sleep, I created about 15 characters with stats and abilities, but no background [They do have a Background, lol]. They're just fun classes I've been thinking and building for awhile now. Then each player can take the ones that they like, tweak them if they want, and then let them fill in their goals, hobbies, character traits, ect.

Then while we get deeper into the game and we start getting away from this tutorial I can use the other character sheets to make up the interesting NPCs

I've been watching guides for new DMs and this adventure, and I'm really excited. I have a few ideas of my own [One of the players likes the TV show, Vikings, so I thought of a weapon, a gift from Loki or associated with him, that after each strike it has a 1/10 of a chance to roll on the Wild Magic Table. Can't be done again for 24-hours], and some random encounter tables to roll on when they're going through the woods and the caves or taking a short rest

Need to think of some personality traits for the animals if they take a character that can talk to them. Which brings me back to my first question, what pages should I bookmark in the DMG?

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I'm glad you're excited to DM, know you've been wanting to play for a while. Good idea on the magic weapon, they're fun to come up with. Honestly, DMing is underrated and really isn't hard, just gotta learn the rules but you can do that as you go. Make sure everyone else knows that you're learning, so some rules will change (never retcon). Or like, if a rule is dumb, ignore it or come up with something else. Check with your group though and make sure they're okay.

For pages in the DMG, I never read through it but my friend gave me the pages he felt were important. Here are some:

p.37: Tiers of play, general ideas of what you'll be dealing with at certain levels
p.80: Encounter building
p.274 Building monsters
p.302 Monsters By Environment (especially if you have a Druid)
All the Magic Item pages
p.43 Multiverse/Planes

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Thanks

Played with 2 of the people last night and they are just outside of the Goblin Cave right now and they're not aware of the encounter as you cross the river where you are kind of introduced to how to sneak pass something without being noticed

A quick recap of what has happened so far -

• Players are a Male Eldritch Knight [Let's call him Hank] and a Female Viking [Pirate] who's name is Olga. The male is old friends with Gundren and the female is here for the money
• Olga sees the Goblins. Asks them to come out and rolls high on the check. Fails at trying to talk them down.
• They fight until Olga gets 3 of them to leave them alone and rolls highly
• They take a short rest and while Hank fallows the blood trail into the woods for 5mins a traveler comes walking down the road toward Olga that doesn't seem so harmful. Asks how she is doing since she seems injured. Gives her a potion, she makes sure it's not harmful, but can't tell what it would do. Stranger tells her it will heal her quicker. She saves it for latter
• Hank is back now and the stranger starts asking them what happened. Doesn't believe that she got 3 Goblins to leave you alone by asking nicely [Which she did] and asks you to travel with him to Phandelver, but they're going to fallow the blood trail and ask for his help. He says no. They ask him to watch their wagon while they track the trail. He wants 50 GP, they haggle, stranger [Bard] isn't about that and continues on to Phandelver
• They take the wagon into the woods a bit and tie it up. Leave Hank's squire there [Knight Background's retainer] with some instructions. If they're not back by night continue to Phandelver the next morning to find help
• Start to track the trail in the woods. Get attacked by two of the Goblins who were still hiding around and during the fight Olga gets the first Critical Fail and rolls a 96 on the table I had and does full damage to herself
• Hank kills both in one turn thanks to a Bonus Action that triggers when they reduce a mob to 0 HP, but not before missing with all 3 Magic Missiles
• Olga drinks the potion and gains some health. I have her roll to see if the potion might have two drinks, but she rolls low so she finishes it up in 1
• Hanks rolls a n20 while looking at the trail again and sees the snare trap and the last Goblin up in the distance trying to get ahead of them
• Olga sneaks up and throws a Javelin while it's covering the spike trap with grass and brush and does 4 damage, Hank finishes it off
• Short Rest outside the cave. I roll a random encounter and they get a dung beetle pushing something and they both do a check to see what it is, but can't make it out. Leave it alone [If disturbed it would have done 4d poison damage], but they knew that IRL because I had just let them glance at the paper I printed so I could show them how I do things in the game, lol
• We break from the game for the night

I have 2 other people that want to play so I'm going to run them through this as well, but they're going to start in Phandelver. I'm going to try and get the stranger these two ran into to try to get them [the 2 in town] to go and help the two he saw along the road [These 2]

But he doesn't care for them too much [roll lows on checks during the conversation he had with the two of them earlier] but the squire was just a kid and he's worried about him

I'm going to try and prevent all 4 of them in real life know that they're going to meet up like this. I am hoping that by the time they can clear the Goblin Cave [Where that Knight guy is, and the flood chamber] that they might run into a bit of trouble on the way out and when rescue arrives it's the two players who couldn't make it last night

Hopefully I can get some good RP stuff going. I have a lot of good ideas in my head, but I don't know what my players are going to bite on and what they wont, lol.

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How did Hank miss with Magic Missile? That's a spell that just hits, no roll required. It can only be deflected by specific things like the Shield spell.

Because I didn't know that, lol

I don't really understand what needs to be have a d20 roll to see if it lands because I think you roll with an Eldritch Blast, right?

Thanks for letting me know. I'll look at the book again

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Most vets would assume that's how MM works out of hand because that's a legacy thing (except in early 4e, where it did require a roll and angered a lot of people), but the wording of all spell descriptions describe how they operate, and MM omits the need to roll. Check the text on Eldritch Blast for example, it explicitly calls for a ranged attack roll.

Great. . ., now I'm going to have to mark down which need attack rolls so I don't have to keep opening up the book

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I recommend either using D&D beyond so you can quickly look up spells on the fly or just have your players write down or print out their spells. I *think* Magic Missile is the only (attacking) spell that doesn't require an attack roll or a saving roll.

Anything that calls for an attack, skill check, or saving throw will have you make a d20 roll.

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Runeboggle posted...

Anything that calls for an attack, skill check, or saving throw will have you make a d20 roll.

I know that. But MM seems like an attack that would, "call for an attack."

ocelot51 posted...

I recommend either using D&D beyond

I don't have a laptop yet, but I made their characters [and a lot more] on there. I was curious why some of the spells got placed in the section where their weapon attacks go -



Like, I didn't know why Fire Bolt and Shocking Grasp where there and not something like MM.

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Bad_Mojo posted...

I know that. But MM seems like an attack that would, "call for an attack."

I understand, but the main thing I was going with is those are the words in a spell that will tell you if you need to roll.

Since MM says that they hit, without saying to "make a ranged spell attack," you don't have to roll. Some spells even have both an attack roll and a saving throw involved, such as Ray of Enfeeblement.

Bad_Mojo posted...

Like, I didn't know why Fire Bolt and Shocking Grasp where there and not something like MM.

That's probably because Fire Bolt and Shocking Grasp are cantrips, and thus can be used without worrying about spell slots.


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Yeah, well I'm the DM and shit like that is just going to take a roll, lol. I'm not going to read a every word carefully each time a new spell is being cast. One step at a time, we are all new ^_^d

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New things to do here is the only thing I could think about at work. Encounter ideas, how to fix mistakes from last night, ect.

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please don't magic missile require a roll, that's a massive nerf

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EE means Elemental Evil, it's one of the adventure modules you can purchase. For whatever reason they decided to put the genasi and a bunch of spells in there for players even though it was a DM book and no DM should let the players read the back (close to where they kept the boss stats)

PrideOfLion posted...

I'd say when it comes to any ruling, you should try and check the book if you can

I know that. The issue was that I didn't KNOW I had to look at that, I just made an assumption and there was no argument. No need to look it up since it was a ranged attack, I just assumed all of them took a d20 for their AIm. Now I know that I need to make sure since that isn't always the case.

Of course I can easily look it up, lol. But thanks

PrideOfLion posted...

This is for players, the adventure is just for DMs
It's included on DNDBeyond because the players companion is free

Which is what I'm using to roll the characters. I didn't know it would add spells that were not in the PHB or else I wouldn't give my new players those spells since they couldn't look them up in the book. Now I know. You have to remember, I was curious about that almost 3 days ago. I found out some more, lol

BTW, we had played a bit and it all went to shit because I'm just getting very overwhelmed. I'm really nervous running the game already, but then one of the players likes to argue with me on certain things and is always asking how far away something is [Which stresses me out because I'm not playing with miniatures and our table isn't big enough to have a good map with graph paper

But then they don't really Role Play their characters and the only checks them seem to make are perception checks to see if they see anything, and then sometimes they sneak to a new area, perception check, move on. So I end up saying something like, "would you like to check the river. . .," and they're like, "Oh yeah, I check the river," they see nothing, and then they wait for me to

I don't know, I just got really frustrated. I did much better last night, I was terrible tonight. All we did was argue and make a few perception checks here and there and then they walked pass the wolves in the room and crossed the river on the West to the ruble and that's where we stopped

I had to stop because I was getting so irritated and mad and didn't want to blow up. It's just too much =x

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Here's a tip about perception checks: unless a creature is actively trying to hide via a stealth roll, everyone else is aware of them. Unless something is actively hidden, when the players turn over a room, just describe everything vaguely interesting without a roll. Maybe prompt them to look harder with a hint if something is actually hidden.

Also everyone in your party has good stealth rolls? A bog standard wolf has a +3 to its own perception and also gets to roll with advantage because they have good noses and ears. The odds of one catching anyone but a rogue are very high.

Another general DM tip is don't prompt your players to do something if doing that thing doesn't produce anything. If there's nothing to find in the river then prompting your players to check it makes it look like you're jerking them around. (You're probably not, just to be clear)

I'm making some assumptions on your session so correct me if I'm wrong, but why set up a scene if nothing is going to happen in it? If moving to a new area, checking it, having nothing happen, and moving on is what happens, just skip it and get to the interesting parts.

I'm the only one that knows how to play [the very basics], but I'm the one that has a really hard time talking. Not only because I'm shy and an introvert, but it's also physically hard because I have a slight stutter and speech impediment. Now that isn't an issue here because we're all adults, but growing up it was and it's shaped my personality into someone that has a hard time being descriptive and telling a story.

What I need is some help, and I was excited to use Beyond to help me with that since you can just touch sometime and the rules/description will show up right there, and everyone can use this

But you can't use the maps and tokens on there like I thought you could, that's Roll20. I don't want to play online [yet], I want to use these tools IRL, but I don't know how. I don't understand the reason why Beyond is hooked up to Twitch when it's Roll20 that has the whole map share thing where the DM can set up tokens and Fog Of War and everyone can look at their tablets/PC and see it

I have been enjoying building characters on Beyond so much and when I found out that you can't share the maps or use tokens to play on Beyond this morning it really hurt because I thought for sure that would be a great idea to help us out

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Beyond is hooked up to Twitch because it's run by Curse, which until last year was a Twitch subsidiary, making them competitors.

It's just terrible. Every time I get excited for something I just get let down. I'm just too shy to be a DM, but like I said, I'm the only one that knows how to play

Also, you asked why I would ask them if they wanted to do something. It's because they never do anything because they don't know what they can do. Like when you get to the wolf den part of this. No stealth checks, no Animal Handling, no History check for the cave. They don't role play their characters, their backstory is that they're both good people that help out the weak. Zero traits to work with. No background.

It's just too much. I almost had a mental breakdown. I need an easier way to keep organized, and I thought Beyond would help with that. But it seems like I need both Beyond and Roll20 to do what I want, and I'm not about to buy the books 2 more times to do that

I also just sat here for about an hour to size the random maps on Donjon to fit a whole sheet or normal paper, but I'm too fucking stupid to get it to work.

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If you have a hard time being descriptive, just run mods and read the description boxes exactly as they're written. No need to make extra work for yourself.

And if you find really playing that stressful, you may want to reconsider playing. It doesn't sound like you're having very much fun, which is the whole point.

Take a step back here. DMing doesn't need to be so stressful. I spend about 20 minutes prepping for my weekly in-person game: Estimate how far I think they'll get, then read up on the relevant sections of the campaign. I have my laptop out which I'll use to keep Beyond up (I have the campaign book up and tabs for monster stats), in addition to Discord where I keep notes and post up things I want players to see. I have a roll-out grid map I draw onto basically only when combat occurs, because that is the only time actually seeing the map matters.

Getting newish players to roleplay is a skill. It takes time to coax it out of them. Constantly prompt them in that case until they start to do things themselves. Ask them things about their characters, and definitely reward them for playing along.

Different people like different levels of role playing too. The group I'm with barely role plays and is more focused on the combat side of things. There's no wrong way to play D&D. If you watch the Penny Arcade stuff, Jerry is a fucking word-wizard but when Mike fills in, not so much, and they play Mario Kart in D&D.

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lolife67 posted...

If you have a hard time being descriptive, just run mods and read the description boxes exactly as they're written. No need to make extra work for yourself.

I'm playing Lost Mines of Phandelver, THE new player module. I do read the boxes. I have read the entire of Chapter 1 and came up with interesting ideas how to get places in the story. I made a random encounter list with events and monster encounters. And thought of a few multiple paths for those as well [Roll a D36 and a black dog crosses your path. If they do A, we can do this. If they do B, we can do this, ect. They never rolled this, just an example]

But when describing something, I can really only focus on what the book tells me. I'm not good with describing something like a location outside of that. If my players asked me things about the location, like about the road they are on, I'm like, "there are woods on each side of the road," and not something like, "you see a large field of flowers on the eastern hill. There seems to be some tracks on the ground from recent animal activity."

If my players asked me, "I want to see if there are any poisonous flowers in the area. What is the history of this land? I want to try and capture a goblin alive to see what they know. I want to try and calm those wolves down," then I would be able to become more descriptive. And it's not they're fault, it's mine. I'm not very good and letting my players know the things they can do. I ask them to tell me what they want to do, and I tell them if they can do it or not. But they don't do anything outside of what I said earlier, stop when I stop them and then do a Perception check to see if the Stealth Goblin remains hidden. When this happens, they auto know something is up and they ready their weapons. A fight happens, and then they move on until I stop them again. They never loot bodies, they never ask questions, they never search for secrets, they never ask me about the cave, they don't tell me anything about their characters and I'm not good enough to help them because I'm a bad DM. So that is why I say something like, "do you want to search the water?" I have to prompt them

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Ranting Nord posted...

Different people like different levels of role playing too. The group I'm with barely role plays and is more focused on the combat side of things. There's no wrong way to play D&D. If you watch the Penny Arcade stuff, Jerry is a fucking word-wizard but when Mike fills in, not so much, and they play Mario Kart in D&D.

Which is what I was going to do with Donjon, it's a great little dungeon generator. But I can't get the map to fit the paper I'm printing

Look at this -

That whole thing looks like should take up the whole page when I print it, but it doesn't. it takes up maybe 1/2 the page, sometimes just right in the middle of the page really small. It depends on the size of the map. Just make the squares bigger, but I don't know how

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Bad_Mojo posted...

But when describing something, I can really only focus on what the book tells me. I'm not good with describing something like a location outside of that. If my players asked me things about the location, like about the road they are on, I'm like, "there are woods on each side of the road," and not something like, "you see a large field of flowers on the eastern hill. There seems to be some tracks on the ground from recent animal activity."

I don't think you really need to be more descriptive, unless there's something you want the players to do, i/e/ investigate the animal tracks. You might be too hard on yourself. Are the players enjoying themselves? If so, then that's all that matters. You'll get better over time.

See, this is where different strokes for different folks comes in. To me, that's way to huge of a dungeon. With some traps and a puzzle, my crew will take 3 hours to go through a dungeon with 4 rooms. One night, one task. Get into the bank vault and bring me the Magic Ruby. Then since that one task can have so many wildly different results, I don't plan the next encounter until after.

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I think part of your problem is you're modifying the normally very easy to run Phandelver module too much as a new DM. Just run it stock! No need to craft random and branching encounter tables when they're not part nor a significant element of your campaign.

ocelot51 posted...

I think part of your problem is you're modifying the normally very easy to run Phandelver module too much as a new DM. Just run it stock! No need to craft random and branching encounter tables when they're not part nor a significant element of your campaign.

I did that because nothing was happening. Kill the goblin ambush, follow the goblin trail to the cave would have taken them 20mins if I didnt add them meeting a bard on the road and the rest of what I said in the early post


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I don't understand. Trailing the goblins to their lair is a narrative footnote. It *should* be quick. This whole section of the module is Get Ambushed -> Trail to Lair -> Scour Lair of Goblins. This whole bit would be a session for my group and a strong majority of that would be in the cave.

A tip for dming, a nat 20 doesn't have to guarantee success. Also, a one doesn't have to guarantee failure either

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IfGodCouldDie posted...

A tip for dming, a nat 20 doesn't have to guarantee success.

It does if you're making an attack roll. The opposite is also true and you'll always miss on a 1. This is never true for skill checks or saves though.

ocelot51 posted...

It does if you're making an attack roll. The opposite is also true and you'll always miss on a 1. This is never true for skill checks or saves though.

I was editing my post to include 1's and clarify. But yes you're right about that.

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i think it will be better if I just make my own and not be tied to this. Im just a bad DM, but Im all we got

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Geez, you're a fine DM. Just relax and ready to be a little reactive. That's all there is to it.

ocelot51 posted...

Geez, you're a fine DM. Just relax and ready to be a little reactive. That's all there is to it.

I cant react to anything. My players do nothing, lol. They just keep waiting for me to tell them to do something


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Your players HAVE to be driving the action. If they don't react properly to a simple question like "What's your character doing?" without more prompting then you guys need to find something else to play.

Here is another tip. If your players go more than 30 seconds with standing around doing nothing while not discussing what they should do, tell them they hear a noise or see someone or something in the direction you need them to travel to advance the story.

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Bad_Mojo posted...

Im just a bad DM

Please stop saying this. It makes it sound like this was just a pity topic.

Because when I was doing things on my own I felt way less stressed because I wasnt having to read ahead and worry about what info they know.

My players had more fun with the stuff I made up rather then when I read the text bubble. I think once I can get them to understand things like combat and skills checks it will be easier to do pre-written. Im not good at remembering a bunch of characters. I am good at making shit up on the fly.

If you want to help me right now, tell me how to print bigger graph paper and Ill just make them dungeon runners until they figure combat out

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