So we're a completely new group of people, none of us have experience, and I've been assigned DM, which I think is a good idea. But we don't know where to start, or what to buy to get started on our noobish adventure. What should we buy, what should we do our first few times? Any tips? thanks 🙂
[RPG] What to buy to start out 4e D&D (DM and PC) (Complete Noob, no previous experience)
dnd-4enew-gmnew-players
Related Solutions
The answer to your question is "yes."
This is clearly a communication and expectations issue.
Here are some things that will help your group:
A DDI subscription if you don't already have one. This gives you a searchable rules database and should help put everyone on the same page. Also the online character builder can help get everyone a character sheet with all of their powers and abilities in front of them. It also helps with the math.
Clear communication between group and DM. If you are unhappy with loot payouts talk to the DM. You might want to talk to him about why specific magic items in 4e are important (the math gets quite wonky if you don't have level weapon/armor/neck slot). If he wants to make magic items rare in his game talk to him about intrinsic bonuses to offset the imbalance (see the dark sun rules for this).
- In 4e a specific encounter level relies on players being able to do a certain amount of damage, hit a certain percentage of the time and avoid a certain percentage of attacks. In order to hit often enough and do enough damage PCs need magic weapons (improves to hit and damage). In order to not take too much damage (ie not get hit as often) they need better armor (AC) and neck slot items (Non AC defenses or NADs). These can be provided in one of two ways. Either through magic items (the traditional way) or through intrinsic bonuses (a different way) which basically model magic weapons, but keep them scarce, good for settings like Dark Sun where magic is rare.
Failing to get these bonuses will make encounters harder as levels increase. The math already favors the monsters as levels increase even with magic items and full accuracy and damage feats (see this answer for the maths). 4e as designed relies no players and monsters being on basically the same footing as you level up, forgoing magic items puts the advantage fully in the monsters' court.
Suggest that your group form a social contract. It doesn't have to be written down, but it would help. You already have an implicit one, just firm it up into something more explicit that will help you to talk about expectations for the game.
If you think the DM is being unfair or unjust talk to him about it and make sure he remembers the first rule of DMing: You are there to facilitate the story, not to screw your players. Ultimately D&D is about the PCs winning (most of the time), if your DM forgets that it can get ugly.
Finally communicate, communicate, communicate! but don't be a dick about it. Nicely and politely talk to the DM about why he isn't dropping loot, ask him if there is a reason? maybe there is. Talk to him about the math, if you need the evidence look around here we do math pretty well.
Lastly remember that A. its just a game and B. its supposed to be fun. If you are having fun, why are you worrying? if you aren't having fun then talk to your DM and see if you can make it more fun. If not, it might be time to find a new group.
Start with pre-made Characters
By which I don't mean generic characters that could be in any fantasy story, but by creating a character specifically for each of your children. These characters should be based around the characters from movies and TV shows they each seem to be drawn most toward. It's not the perfect fit that character creation is, but it can let you leap over the hurdles that character creation presents to a new player and let your children get right into the game. Your child's statement about it feeling exactly like a movie is what you want to most emulate.
Use essentials classes only, specifically MBA focused ones
Essentials classes (the Knight, the Slayer, the Warpriest for example) are built around having strong class features (always on) vs. making choices between how to use encounter and daily powers to most benefit the party. They work best in Heroic Tier (levels 1-10) and are strong classes that do not require as much optimization as the AEDU classes do. more importantly they focus on what are iconic archetypes both within and without of D&D. The Knight and the Slayer for example are both actually sub-classes of the traditional fighter. The first wears heavy armor and is all about protecting his friends while the second is about dealing as much damage as possible to monsters.
Use inherent bonuses
One of the best rules options you can take advantage of is inherent bonuses. Found in Dungeon Master's Guide 2, p. 138. as well as the Dark Sun Campaign Guide Book, p. 209 (where it was expanded) inherent bonuses take the place of magic items for the purposes of system math. At set levels the characters will gain +1, +2 etc. to their to hit rolls, damage rolls, and their defense stats. Magic items are still compatible in that their properties, item attacks, and bonuses to crit damage remain, but their mathematical bonus does not stack with inherent bonuses. Whichever bonus is largest is used.
Focus on the story and the adventure, adjudicate their actions to fit
If you were playing 4e with adults I would wholly say to depend upon the use of the powers their characters have and play the system as-is. However this may be a difficult pill for your children to swallow all at once (there are plenty of adults on the internet that can't handle 4e's separation of fluff, the descriptions and lore, from crunch, the hard rules themselves). When your children's turns in combat come up or they are making decisions out of combat ask them what they want their character to do and then based on their answer formulate what their character would do mechanically and then walk them through what their character does. This way you can introduce and have them take over parts of the rules at 1 piece at a time.
Best Answer
Hello jazzgaming I'd like to welcome you to the site!
To answer your question you have two options, you can buy D&D essentials or you can buy D&D core rule books.
Core rule books
The core rule books are what I'm familiar with so I will detail them first. There is the Dungeon Masters Gude, the Players Handbook, and The Monster Manual.
For miniatures you can buy some on eBay although they can be quite pricy, or you can make your own using cardboard cutouts or other various methods that can be found online.
The Dungeon Masters Guide tells you everything you need to know about running the game, making adventures, building encounters, building NPCs (non-Player characters),and handing out rewards. At the back of this book is a start out adventure along with a very basic campaign setting and a pre made town.
The Players Handbook gives the other players everything they need to build and equip their characters. It has a copy of the 4th edition character sheet in the back of the book too.
The Monster Manual gives you the DM (Dungeon master) all kinds of creatures for you to use in your adventures. The monster manual also contains encounter groups which are groups of monsters that work well together.
With this you will also need a set of Dice available here,that should be plenty of dice for your whole group. I also recommend a vinyl battlegrid available here
Total estimated cost = $110+shipping+pencils+graphpaper+miniatures
Depending on whether you buy or make miniatures will alter your total investment cost.Now for the D&D essentials line.
D&D Essentials There are a few more products to buy in this path, but supposedly it is more balanced I personally have very little experience with them and I advise you read the reviews on amazon.
**The Rules Compendium this basically details all of the rules for combat, character advancement, rewards etc.
Heroes of The Fallen Lands this book gives you rules detailing the cleric,fighter,ranger,rogue, and wizard classes it also gives you information on the some of the races in the game.
Heroes of The Forgotten Kingdoms this book adds the Druid,paladin,ranger ,and warlock classes. It also add more races to pick from.
Then there is the Dungeon Master's kit which gives you a dungeon masters screen to hide all your secret rolls and a book giving you a lot of info on the most wonderful art of being a dungeon master.
And finally there is the Monster Vualt which is essentially the Monster Manual in a box (although it may contain different creatures) it also come with tokens to use for monsters and it contains a premade adventure.
Those books give you everything you'll need to play. I don't have experience with them so I can't say much about them other then they confused the hell out of me when I built my character for D&D encounters. Total cost of those books on amazon is $93.Note that those books are all paper back and two of them are boxes.
I personally reccomend the core rulebooks because they are easy to read and everything is pretty well organized.
Then of coarse there is always the option of D&D next which is essentially 5th edition it is in playtest form ATM but It is available for FREE Here all you have to do is sign up, download the zip file and print out the files and get a set of dice, pencils, etc, this can be played with or without miniatures.
To answer the second part of your question, I think you should spend your first session creating characters and going over house rules etc. After that first session of character creation, it is up to you the Dungeon Master to come up with an adventure, if you go with the core rule books there is a simple, easy to run adventure called kobold hall in the back of the book, you can choose to run that one or make your own. If you choose to create an adventure, the first thing to do is to read the DM guide read the chapter called Adventures and the other one called campaigns, then I suggest you read chapter 11 (I think) titled Fallcrest this is the chapter giving you a sample basic campaign setting. This should help you get an idea of what exactly an adventure is, after you have a basic quest in mind, you should begin thinking about where the bad guys are, then who they are. After you have determined those two things I advise you draw a dungeon on graph paper each square is 5', then you add monsters, terrain, and traps and bam you have your first adventure, keep it simple!
Just have fun and try to stay calm being DM can be extremely stressful if it's not done properly.
All in all I find playing D&D with friends to be immense fun, I wish you the best of luck.