D&D 3.5 stories and ideas

[Fan_Boy]

tuncecine

i actually have a problem that doesn't relate to the thing i said earlier. i have no clue what kind of things to do with say if they kill a bunch of monsters should i make a bunch of loot tables or something?

Make it up.

The players won't know and you get more control in what the party gets to equip itself with. Remember: its easier to give a little extra if they really need it than take away if they have too much. Over-equipped characters can handle encounters a little higher than they otherwise might while characters that have to scrimp and save for everything they have and get challenged on a regular basis. Single/low use magic items are useful as treasure for low levels of play (potions, wands with only a few charges left, and so on), but keep an eye on how much wealth the party has versus the expected wealth - economically disadvantaged characters make for fun challenged players.

[Evilweirdo 0]

There is a random loot table in the Dungeon Master's Guide that may help. Just keep in mind, some people use stuff OUTSIDE said book and therefore not randomly rollable from it. Ex.: A ranger may use a greatbow... But that's not in the DMG. So you may want to make your own random roll table or just put in some catered loot occasionally.

[The Real Shanaku]

That is a major dilemma. You don't want to give them too powerful of magic, but you don't want to cut them short. I compare it to items they already own and take it a step up.

[tuncecine]

The Real Shanaku

That is a major dilemma. You don't want to give them too powerful of magic, but you don't want to cut them short. I compare it to items they already own and take it a step up.

but when i dm with my noobish ways they got nothign so if i give them each somethign thast ups them up a bit each dungron their going to have +1337 vorpal long swords by the end of it lol

[Shazik]

DeathKnight Ex

I DM'd my first campaign without DM experience. I though clearly from a player's perspective...
They fought vicious monsters, gained countless treasures that I thought legendary heroes might want and deserve... I thought about how much fun it would be to be in their shoes...

Bad idea... They took out the Tarrasque in 3 rounds... They're level 30 now, and taking out CR 55 creatures with ease... I did a terrible job.


Now I try to look at things as their enemy, not their friend, and it's a lot more balanced, while still being fun...

well thats pretty impressive tarrasque in 3 rounds but alas the tarrasque is unbeatable seeing that it regens to full after 24 hours of "death" and then it would be even stronger seeing that tarrasque holds one hell of a grudge
myself and 13 other level 20 p.c's took it on and only myself (pure paladin build), a druid and arougue survived with about 30 h.p between us when we finnaly killed it so it took down 11 level 20 before we "killed it"

[Shazik]

tuncecine

in all honesty i have the books for core in 3.5 but i don't think i qualify as a dm because i have never even played as a player but out of all my friends i am the only one with the books so its like *unhappy face*

eh all it takes is some imagination and another dm's guiding words every once in a while to do it

[Shazik]

The Real Shanaku

That is a major dilemma. You don't want to give them too powerful of magic, but you don't want to cut them short. I compare it to items they already own and take it a step up.

well thats awesome because my dm does the same he looks at what we are going for with our toons then makes a discision to give us loot depending on that

[Skye Hawthorn]

I miss playing with my original group from the Navy. When I first started DM, I was pretty much thrown into it and told to swim but apparently I am a quick study cause I got the hang of it pretty quick. I'm right now creating my own campaign world and I'm looking for some cool ideas for villains/allies for my new D&D group. Right now I'm working on two characters. One is a night hag who absorbs souls and the other is a half fey half elf spellcaster of some kind. I would like to know about some classes that I could give to the night hag and Im wondering what spellcasting class would be best

[Skye Hawthorn]

Shazik

tuncecine

in all honesty i have the books for core in 3.5 but i don't think i qualify as a dm because i have never even played as a player but out of all my friends i am the only one with the books so its like *unhappy face*

eh all it takes is some imagination and another dm's guiding words every once in a while to do it

Im proof of that

[Lorian DeWithial]

Reiko mkII

LovelyDragoness27

One of my friends has suggested a death campaign once.
It is where you make characters that you don't want to get attached too, make them fight something over powered usually, and they can die by however the gameplay goes.
It is kind of interesting that way.

This idea sounds really fun... Though my players never fail to find something to get attached to their characters with.

Sad to say, but being DM I get very attached to my NPCs and villains in any of the games I run, which is a pain because it means I'm a lot more reluctant to let them die badly. I want heroic deaths for my villains... which is ... difficult at best with my group. You know, you have that one player that screws up your plans and makes your villains look like prats, yeah, well I've got three of them!! *Sigh*

[Lorian DeWithial]

Mutant Headcrab

DeathKnight Ex

I DM'd my first campaign without DM experience. I though clearly from a player's perspective...
They fought vicious monsters, gained countless treasures that I thought legendary heroes might want and deserve... I thought about how much fun it would be to be in their shoes...

Bad idea... They took out the Tarrasque in 3 rounds... They're level 30 now, and taking out CR 55 creatures with ease... I did a terrible job.


Now I try to look at things as their enemy, not their friend, and it's a lot more balanced, while still being fun...

Your job as DM is not to provide a fun, happy experience. Your job as DM is to d**k the players over as often and frequently as possible. If your players aren't even slightly hesitant about going into dungeons or facing creatures, then you are doing it wrong.

Also, if they are that high a level and you can't find adequate challenges, it might be time to just retire the characters and start a new campaign.

Or better yet, use there own stupidity against them.I have a player that never wants togo underground because each time he has something terrible has happened ( once he brought a mountain down on his own head just barely escaping, another time he almost froze himself inside a cave complex with cultists and a range of undead and he was once very nearly eaten by a lvl 13 bone dragon (he was lvl 10 at the time - scaled up due to group size).

That being said, when he DMs, I don't ever want to get on a ship because it inevitably ends up on fire... what's worse, it's usually our fault!

[Lorian DeWithial]

Shazik

The Real Shanaku

That is a major dilemma. You don't want to give them too powerful of magic, but you don't want to cut them short. I compare it to items they already own and take it a step up.

well thats awesome because my dm does the same he looks at what we are going for with our toons then makes a discision to give us loot depending on that

My players never expect me to give them much loot, usually it's randomised and even then only when Ican be bothered to role 16 times on the tables, that bores the hell out of me, so instead I give them some extra coin (telling them that the loot that they have found over the course of the session comes to a select amount) and then most major events in the campaign I will give one or two of my players an item that I know they are going to be extremely happy with, while giving the rest of the characters a slight raise in their monetary gains. That being said not of my players ever have to worry about paying for trail rations or inn stays (unless they are going fancy), because I consider it living costs and deducts it out of their loot. Currently I'm doing a one-on-one D&D session and that character is level 10 with a mundane Green Dragon-scale and bog-oak shield and a +3 Keen longsword that the player has developed and maintained since the fifth session when he was level 3, when he got it it was a +1 Longsword that I had randomised - although I had chosen the weapon type as I wanted the player to keep it. My players seem to prefer me doing it this way, although they will always ask me for specific loot if they want it - like one of my players wants the weapon that I created for a high level campaign called the Planer Blade.

[Vier Leger]

My advice is that you simply listen to your players. If one player in particular is complaining because he hasn't gotten any appropriate equipment in 4 levels, you may want to throw in some "random" (winkwinknudgenudge) pieces of armor and a weapon that just happen to be what that character needed the next time your players win an encounter. If you do it subtly enough, your players won't even notice.

I'd also recommend returning to town on a regular basis. Quests that span a dozen or so sessions are nice and all, but your players are going to want to buy and sell their loot. One of my DMs actually ran mini-quests that rarely lasted longer than one session, so we basically started and ended in town each time. We ran a ton of these, and most of them were very detailed and executed flawlessly. Once we got tired of those, we deposed a monarch. heart

But yeah, dealing with loot is tricky business, but a little creativity solves all problems.

[Evilweirdo 0]

DeathKnight Ex

Bad idea... They took out the Tarrasque in 3 rounds... They're level 30 now, and taking out CR 55 creatures with ease... I did a terrible job.

Wow. Do they have templates and such that have high level adjustment, such as celestial or half-dragon (my sister plays a dragon, and she and the DM didn't do it correctly [fine, the way the book says to do it]. They added her sorcerer levels onto the gold dragon wyrmling in the MM instead of starting at first level like everyone else did... As a "second-level sorcerer" she has 72 hp. Also, she hardly ever casts spells or even uses her breath weapon! Worse, she also plays a similar one in our higher level campaign! She usually charges up to melee with claws or a table leg or something. She yells at me whenever I dramatically say my famous line: "frontline sorcereeeeeer!". She isn't even a battle sorcerer variant... Ordinary d4 hp, poor base attack sorcerer. She almost died when she faced an angel of decay in melee... My heal spell saved her, at the cost of making me nauseated by the angel of decay's aura of sickness or whatever- Devastating for a cleric! She got served again, down to -4 hp, down on the ground with our samurai who never uses anything magical [level 15, only has a thundering musket, a masterwork katana, and a plain wakizashi] and our scout. Luckily, our resident insane multiclasser half-dragon DM [who can somehow cast wish at level 12 or something] showed up [he had gone missing a minute before- He had hidden in a tree] and dealt the a.o.d. 64 damage with his b*****d sword [not even critical- a.o.d. is undead!], pretty much saved us. At least I got a platinum helm out of the encounter!~ Long parentheses Angry Cleric Rant out!)? Perhaps they have some unbalanced homebrew or wiki feats and such? Do they mess up rules (my party butchers the rules... *grumble* Ignore the grumbling.)? Perhaps they are just really lucky?

[DeathKnight Ex]

Evilweirdo 0

DeathKnight Ex

Bad idea... They took out the Tarrasque in 3 rounds... They're level 30 now, and taking out CR 55 creatures with ease... I did a terrible job.

Wow. Do they have templates and such that have high level adjustment, such as celestial or half-dragon (my sister plays a dragon, and she and the DM didn't do it correctly [fine, the way the book says to do it]. They added her sorcerer levels onto the gold dragon wyrmling in the MM instead of starting at first level like everyone else did... As a "second-level sorcerer" she has 72 hp. Also, she hardly ever casts spells or even uses her breath weapon! Worse, she also plays a similar one in our higher level campaign! She usually charges up to melee with claws or a table leg or something. She yells at me whenever I dramatically say my famous line: "frontline sorcereeeeeer!". She isn't even a battle sorcerer variant... Ordinary d4 hp, poor base attack sorcerer. She almost died when she faced an angel of decay in melee... My heal spell saved her, at the cost of making me nauseated by the angel of decay's aura of sickness or whatever- Devastating for a cleric! She got served again, down to -4 hp, down on the ground with our samurai who never uses anything magical [level 15, only has a thundering musket, a masterwork katana, and a plain wakizashi] and our scout. Luckily, our resident insane multiclasser half-dragon DM [who can somehow cast wish at level 12 or something] showed up [he had gone missing a minute before- He had hidden in a tree] and dealt the a.o.d. 64 damage with his b*****d sword [not even critical- a.o.d. is undead!], pretty much saved us. At least I got a platinum helm out of the encounter!~ Long parentheses Angry Cleric Rant out!)? Perhaps they have some unbalanced homebrew or wiki feats and such? Do they mess up rules (my party butchers the rules... *grumble* Ignore the grumbling.)? Perhaps they are just really lucky?

They didn't have TEMPLATES, per se, but they did have Armor Sets similar to those in Diablo II, which provided them with insane bonuses... Also, they had a brilliant cleric on our side that foiled almost every boss battle -__- ....

It was my first campaign I'd seriously DM'd, so it was my fault.

XDXDXD I'm going to show that dragon tale of yours to my party for gits and shiggles... But playing a DRAGON? >.> That's just too complicated... I like it when they stick to normal races... No half-dragon troll vampires please...