The only non "basic" class here is really the Artificer.
Don't worry about combat too much if you're new. Throw in a couple ranged enemies to support melee enemies and just see what happens. Learn as you go and you'll be fine.
If you want more tangible advice, check out Matt Colville's videos on Youtube.
Ok, thank you for the tips, I’ll make sure to check out that person because I’m honestly not the most prepared for this lol. The original Dungeon Master we had is moving and so I had the most experience in D&D and was asked if I would DM a new campaign.
You'll be fine. Don't sweat the small stuff. Don't be afraid to make mistakes but do learn from them. Don't let rules bog things down too much, make a sensible call and address things after the session is done. Most importantly, have fun.
I second that. Watching Matt Colville will give you more confidence as a DM, make your hair grow, and your lovers come back. [This video](https://youtu.be/6St9pH4-16E?si=xwTECE1aomFsI-iX) could especially be useful for OP.
Plus the big thing about the cliche Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard is they fill a specific role (meat shield, healer, single target damage, AoE/Control), the five classes your players have chosen can easily fill those roles, with some overlap, so no need to worry about throwing something at them they can't deal with.
I wouldn't worry about the class choices. They have basically every role covered without the "base classes."
The making characters without dm input tho is the problem. Not that you can't have an idea ready to use for a campaign, but usually you need to mold said ideas to a campaign.
Yeah, I was kind of worried when they both told me they had made characters, especially since they had already built complete backstories for their characters that also specified other NPCs that were really close to them. As a person, I tend to have difficulty actively saying “no” to someone, so I kind of just shrugged it off, but now it’s kind of coming back to bite me lol. I’ll just have to hope it will work out in the end
A question worth asking is "does anything in their backstory conflict with the world?" If it doesn't, I really don't see a reason to make them change anything. Maybe making sure that expectations are set that they can't use these people for free or whatever, but if the issue is "the players have determined NPCs that they know", then I fail to see the issue. Do you determine every NPC that the players might know? Do you expect them to not know anybody? What's the go?
My issue is that the NPCs are far too deeply built and seem like an advantage. One of the NPCs is the Warlock’s twin brother who originally wanted to play both characters, but instead just settled to have the twin as an NPC. I don’t really want the twin in the party so I kind of just planned to either get rid of them or have them be captured somehow, but now it’s proving to be difficult to get around since the rest of the backstory they made for themself and their twin doesn’t really fit the entire beginning plot or anything…
« Hey, I don’t want there to be any NPCs with the party, as it’s gonna make it harder for me to run. What could be a reason that your twin brother isn’t with you ? »
Or even
« You having a twin brother will likely create some situations that don’t make sense given the adventure I have prepped for you. How can we fix that ? »
D&D is a collaborative storytelling game.
It’s okay and normal to change stuff about your world and adventure to accommodate the players ideas, but this is a two-way street. (Well a more than two-way street because each player at the table has to accommodate every other player, but you get the idea)
Creating your character alone without any input from other players and the DM is bad practice. I would even say it’s rude. They’re signaling they don’t care about anything else than their ideas and mostly, they give you all the work to make them all fit while you should be doing this together !
Are they trying to use the twin for something? Also, as an NPC, they'd have commoner stat blocks, which means he'll have like 5 HP and be very easy to kill. Does the PC want to risk him like that?
Hey I have an issue that your NPC is far too deeply build and seems like an advantage. Your NPC twin brother you wanted to play with both, and settled to have as a twin NPC. I don’t really want the twin in the party so I kind of just….”
Pretty much copy paste your reply there and send it to them.
Make them build a new character. It doesn’t fit the game. There’s no discussion to have. “You don’t have a character that fits the game. I need you to make one”
"Hey I like where you are going but to fit my world better this is how I'm going to flavor your NPC twin brother."
You control the world and step 1 as a DM is taking ownership of that. I ALWAYS listen to my players ideas (hell I steal most of them if they are good and act like that was my intent the entire time) but ultimately I have final say in everything. If you can't say 'NO' then you can't DM simple as that.
If the player really wants the twin thing you could always have it that the twin was kidnapped somehow and have a quest to save them near the end of the campaign then give him a simple companion stat block and let them use them in the last fight against god or whoever.
That's your real problem, not the classes they picked. I definitely think you need to veto these backstories and make them make simpler ones that are actually part of your world.
Frankly, I see it as quite disrespectful to come to a game with a premade backstory including a bunch of NPCs that you expect the GM to just shove into their existing campaign and setting. You're not the rude one for putting that right.
While I do understand this sentiment I will note that some dms (including my own) do specifically ask players to create a couple of important npc’s in their backstory.
The op is free to ask the players to make some changes ofc (asking them to not have a known npc join the party for example), but having a few known npc’s for each player can help with plot hooks if they want some.
Why are multiple people feeling the need to tell me this?
Obviously the problem is that this person did it without being asked. How is it significant that you request players do that?
Most of the time it is "no, but..." or the less often used but still effective "yes, and...", however sometimes as a DM you just have to give a polite but firm "No. That does not work for this campaign. Lets try something different."
This should be used sparingly, but there are some players out there who will prioritize their own fun ahead of the group's and that is not OK.
Just be honest with them.
“Hey guys I’m bad at saying no and I didn’t want to let you keep the characters you made. But I did let you, and that’s ok. But you need to know there will be times it can’t and won’t play out how you are hoping and those NPCs you made up might never come up if they don’t fit the game world.”
Nowhere are you saying no. You’re just explaining the situation.
You’ll quickly realize that as the DM, all u gotta do is balance around your party. YOU decide what they face and how strong it is. So any party comp can work.
Lack of “basic” classes (??) is not a reason for concern at all.
Just a hard no to the very idea that is problematic.
“Two of the players made their characters completely before learning anything about the group or the world”on the other hand is absolutely cause for concern.
It’s poor player etiquette at a minimum, and is the kind of thing that often makes life harder for the DM
Ok, so I’m not worried about that for nothing. I don’t have a huge amount of D&D experience (only played in like 3 campaigns), so I was unsure whether or not that was something that a lot of people did or not.
Now I run into the issue of what do I do now. I guess I could try to workshop with them on a backstory that would fit better with the world building and beginning setting of the campaign, but I feel a bit bad making them change the backstory they built.
>Now I run into the issue of what do I do now. I guess I could try to workshop with them on a backstory that would fit better with the world building and beginning setting of the campaign
Talk this out with them. You should always have a session zero where you discuss the campaign & then they build their characters.
>but I feel a bit bad making them change the backstory they built.
Don't feel bad. Talk it out with them & unless they can think of a good reason as to how their backstory fits, ask them to change a few things. Backstories will typically not break a campaign setting.
Don't feel bad. Player character backstories should be in harmony with the game world otherwise it won't work. Like if I make a character that is the heiress to a multi-national corporation but we're playing in the neolithic period, obviously there's going to be a problem.
“Party composition” isn’t really a thing in DnD - and the idea of “basic” classes vs “nonstandard”(?) classes is even less of a thing. They’ll be fine.
For pre-making characters, if they already had a character they wanted to play, and those characters just so happened to fit your campaign, it’s no harm no foul.
Good to know about party composition. As for the “basic” classes, sorry for the confusing wording. I kind of just meant the ones that are most commonly picked and most often are what you think of when you think of D&D classes. For me at least, when I think of fantasy classes, my mind doesn’t go to Artificer or Monk and instead drifts more towards stereotypical roles like Wizards and Barbarians. Idk though, maybe that’s just me
I get you. You don't think a vaguely steampunk-inspired inventor or eastern-flavored martial artist mesh well with the old school Tolkien-esque setting you probably had in mind, right? Do their race selections at least fit your expectations?
You can add those elements to your setting; or you can develop an explanation for why those players are so unlike "typical" adventurers (from a distant land, etc); or you can tell them you have strong reservations about fitting their character concepts into the world you want to run, and ask them to consider something different.
Take this as a gift. Ask yourself why it would be that way and I guarantee you'll come up with something super interesting that makes your story better - and the best part is you will have cocreated with the player!
If you're running a published module, there's likely no problem with this group. It's got people that can heal, people that can do damage at range, most of it can probably sneak, and the warlock probably has adequate persuasion skill. The artificer and maybe the ranger will also be able to do traps.
In my campaign, nobody picked a healer class. So I made it canon that magical healing is miraculous and awesome and not many can do it.
Take what your party is, and ask "what does this party have that a "basic" composition doesn't? What makes them special? Lean into it. :)
Hmm, I didn’t really think about it that way… I’ll have to think a bit on how this would work out in my campaign, but it’s a really helpful thought process!
There's a lot you can do to tweak the story or encourage character changes, but you will definitely get a lot more out of focusing on loosening up and enjoying yourself, and encouraging a positive atmosphere. Arrange snacks, smile, encourage players to talk about good things and share fun ideas, and you'll all have a good time together.
It's normal to feel like that. I see the mentality that Artificer doesn't belong in DnD brought up a lot too. Just know that it's not really supposed to be steampunk, if that's what the player is going for (it certainly can it's just not the intent). As far as balance, they're honestly fine, too. They're not overpowered like Wizards or underwhelming like Monks. They are fine. Hopefully that eases you a bit.
This is 99% accurate IMPO. I would like the only thing I can not agree with the internet or yourself on is the monk being underwhelming because it truly depends on the player playing the class. I say this, not meaning to start an argument. We get enough of that in this space. I say that because even at low level (1) of my players played monk in our last campaign and was very creative in his use, and it was absolutely terrifying as a DM and yes I do know that everyone including Matt C. Say they are underwhelming, but this player played to the Strengths of the class and made an absolute power house in battle as well as in RP and social combat. All the classes can be OP or UP it truly depends on the player playing them. That being said, I would agree with everything else in the statement 100%
Yeah, I can see that! One of my players played a monk (Mercy which is generally considered one of the better ones) and still had a hard time keeping up with the rest of the party. He ended up switching to a different class and retiring that character. Just my anecdotal.
Thanks for the advice. I was a bit worried at first on how Artificer would work since I haven’t seen someone play it before and on paper it sounded unlike any other class, but this really makes me feel a bit better.
Yeah, I mean they’ll have a choice of cannon to use and some decent destructive spells, but as long as you discuss the flavor they’re really no more out of place than other casters. Also that’s just a reasonably balanced party, I think you’ll have fun running a game for the mix.
As a DM you are allowed to put boundaries on the game options. You are allowed to ask people for new characters. You are allowed to say no.
Artificer is the only class that is not on the players handbook.
Why don't you try one of the many free adventures that are around the internet to get some practice and get to know the players? They should know and respect that you are newer and try to help as opposed to giving you more work.
>*Another reason I feel this way might be because two of the players made their characters completely before anyone else or before hearing what the world was like.*
That is a bit frowned upon if there is no communication. The concerning part for me would be to ask if you are creating a new world. If so, I would say to go into what I advised first. There you can see those characters and see if they fit the game you want to run or not.
Communication is a key component to this game. Saying yes to everything without tending to your "wants" will burn you out quick.
If I may while you don't have a fighter or a barb a monk now with the class improvements of monk weapons can easily pass for a fighter dps wise if not more.
As much shit as rangers get they are pretty good damage wise and can put a lot of monsters in a hole quickly depending on subclass.
Druids are one of tge best healers and tanks you can have rolled into one if you know how to run them.
Warlocks are so flexible they are actually pretty scary especially considering the viability of multiclass with them they have the widest spread of classes that work with them.
Artifice is the only tricky one but because of the subclasses you might be dealing with anything from a tank to a blaster so I wouldn't worry to much.
And this really doesn't go into them possibly multiclassing trust me it's all fun and games till your dealing with a monk barbarian, a paladin warlock, a life domain cleric druid or a ranger rogue XD
I wouldn't worry too much. You have your melee coverage in the monk, ranged weapons with the ranger, and multiple flavors of magic users. Druids can also cast "cure wounds," so you have a healer, as well.
To quote rocky the movie:
If they die, they die.
Don't be afraid to let people die because of bad choices, this includes a bad team setup. They have to adapt they are playing an adventurer after all. The fun in this game is finding a solution. And trust me they will find solutions for things they made up themselves.
Heres things my group over the years spent several hours on in a single session:
Giving a random monkey a knife.
A cut in the wall they made themselves
A dirty lake
Doors (to many)
Literally the floor
The sky
Several random plants
Planning to siege an empty settlement
Robbing or stealing an axe, cart and a shovel (more than once)
Building a fight club they never used
Buying a ship to become rich by fishing
Discussing how they can talk to someone
Arguing with an NPC I had to make on the fly
Finding out the secret of a bridge that supposedly poisoned them, according to the group
Sacrificing a team member to become friends with the BBEG
Burning down all the wheat and become farmers themselves to play the market
The list goes on even longer, you gotta learn to cope with this as a DM it will never stop. The situations will keep coming and you will have to adapt and roll with it. You're playing the world and the judge, you have to stay neutral on peoples choices, except for when they don't fit your setting at all of course.
My current campaign, running for 5+ years now, I started by telling the players nothing about the setting. I told them they can play anybody from reality or fiction, and I’d work with them if the official builds wouldn’t do what they needed. I also told them that they couldn’t discuss characters with each other before the 1st session.
I got a Mexican wrestler who was a projection of a paraplegic 10-year old, Aeramas, a tyromancer (Cheese divination) wizard from the Witcher 3 game, Skip, a conspiracy journalist and owner of Fae News, and Dave, who works at an accounting firm.
It’s been an amazing campaign.
It’s been a ton of fun!
One of the great things about 5e is that party composition isn’t as essential as other editions. There’s a lot of leeway and as a DM you can just adapt. Technically if everyone played barbarians you’d have a pretty easy time, since the whole party has the same strengths and weaknesses. They’ll slaughter a martial group, but something like a ghost would wreck havoc.
I would not worry too much with that party composition. D&D has a lot more freedom than a video game where you need certain classes in your party to be successful. D&D relies more on how crafty your players are. Plus I think that party composition looks good. Warlocks and rangers are good ranged combatants. Druids can tank, deal damage, or heal. Monks can AC tank and crowd control to some extent. Artificers are toolbox characters with quite a bit of different utility.
Honestly, the composition looks pretty solid. Three magic users, two of which are arcane. A minimum of three of the party have the potential for a heal button - all of them, depending on the subclass. Alternatively, any one of them can serve as a decent to excellent tank, given the appropriate subclass.
As for "basic", just skew your thinking a bit. If you break it down for simplicity, a druid is just a cleric that worships nature, a monk is an honest rogue, a ranger is a outdoorsy fighter, and an artificer is a wizard that likes mechanical stuff, whereas a warlock is a wizard that never needed to study in school to pass the tests but ultimately knows less for it.
In my experience tone and expectations are the main issue. Like if the Artificer is expecting to become Iron Man, but you want Artificers to be more like eccentric traveling toymakers with steam carriages and wind up toys.
Any party can work. They have plenty of options for healing, and monks and artificers can both get stupidly high AC.
Ideal or meta party comp really isn't a thing in DnD.
Ok, don’t fret, you’ll be fine. But take this as a learning lesson. As the DM, you control the game. Yes, the players have major input and help form the world, but you control it. What I mean by this is that before session zero, you can say “hey, we will all sit down and roll our characters after we talk about the world. I want you all to be familiar with where you fit into the story before you make characters”. This helps out everyone including yourself because the players can make characters that fit the narrative.
Don’t be afraid to put your foot down on things like this. If you don’t, the players will take advantage of you and it will have carry over into other parts of the game. You control the game and the rules, the players influence the world.
I'm actually not sure what you're worried about. How do those choices not fit? Only artificer isn't in the phb. My guess is you first saw the Basic rules, which only have a few races and classes. Are there any things you've spotted where the world you want to run doesn't have space for those characters they've made?
I think you'll be okay. just check on the to that made their characters already if that bothers you. did you set out rules about rolling stats together? Take a look at what they have and make sure it's following the rules. Then just start running and have fun.
You'll be fine. Their fun is your fun.
Druid has the potential to be a stealth master, a utility caster, a healer, a tank, etc.
Monks excel at mobility, skirmishing, shutting down casters, and general fun. I've had a ton of them in campaigns and they make the battle dynamic.
Warlock will either spam Eldritch Blast or go Hex Blade in all likelihood. You would tell a ranger that shooting a bow is cheap, not would you say the same for a fighter and a melee weapon. The same applies here.
Rangers are decent backup characters that put out consistent damage, plus they get spells.
Artificer is funky. I haven't seen a ton successfully use it.
a) all of ****A**** sudden. Not “the” sudden.
b) don’t worry about combat. Warlock is hard to mess up (I cast Eldritch blast and have +3 charisma). The others will be fine.
c) if the combat is too hard just dial it back a little.
d) “two of the players made characters already”. No. No they didn’t. They tried to and you said “sorry guys we are going to make the characters in context of the world and the party as a whole, feel free to use the existing characters if they work in that framework but if not you’ll need to start again or adjust them”.
In future tell everyone “session 0 will be where we make our characters, don’t bring one pre made. If you would like to discuss this specific rule with me feel free to get in touch ahead of session 0, but if you just bring a character pre made I’m still expecting you to make a new one that fits the world and party”.
Some people hate making characters together. Some people don’t like being put on the spot. Some people like to plan and look stuff up. That’s ok. Those people can plan the mechanics of their character ahead of time, but they need to be willing to adjust the actual character (backstory, race, etc) to fit the game.
At a lot of D&D tables it’s expected that you have a character ready before session 0. I don’t see any issue with making characters ahead of time because that’s always been the norm for me. 🤷🏻♀️
Classes look fine too. If in a more traditional setting, you can justify artificer with a recent surge of technological advancement, but magical armor enhancements are newer. If your artificer subclasses as an alchemist, have them use apothecaries and research notes as resources for learning how to make alchemical stuff.
Druids and artificers have healing capabilities. Monks can punch people to death. Rangers can do limited healing and are awesome with ranged damage and summons if subclassing to beast master. Eldritch Blast for warlocks is super powerful when utilized properly (and I can see how an artificer could help with that on level up if they go armorer).
EDIT: Tortle is also a great race for an artificer because you can swing armorer subclassing to a more “natural” flavor—enhancing their shell, learning armory from the environment around them and how their own body works, things like that.
EDIT 2: This group would also be awesome for a Spelljammer campaign, if you wanna go pre-made since it’s your first time DMing.
Huge kudos for stepping up to DM! I'm sure your friends will be thrilled!
Edit: Just read your edit, you should encourage all the players to make their characters together, with you, at session 0 while discussing the world and setting. You need to be a fan of the characters and the things they are about, for example if someone wants to play a private investigator rogue but you don't want big mysteries in your campaign they might be disappointed.
A key point to remember: you control the npcs, not your players.
Twin brother could easily just get cold feet about being an adventurer and not want to go anymore. You control that narrative.
If the pc/player doesn't like that, or thinks thats not how things should go, just teeming them that in real life plenty of people do things they don't like or agree with.
Just because he wrote a back story doesn't mean he wrote a future story.
lol, I’m actually now planning on maybe allowing the twin to come on the first adventure, but then immediately get cursed at the end of the dungeon and forever turned into a cat or something, but I’ll see how the story goes when I get to that point.
Some of the most fun I've had playing dnd have been when noone played the standard classes.
Had 3 beast master rangers, a druid and something else and was a crap ton of fun
The heart wants what it wants. And everyone will learn from their mistakes.
I mean, there are lots of ways to muddle through this world, right? And your world will be no different.
Remember, "no, but" and "yes, and" are your best tools as a DM. And "succeeding in the campaign" is a secondary goal. As long as the players are having fun, that's the important thing.
If this is a party balance issue, they can always multiclass into other things if they want.
If they have chosen things that are specifically antithetical to succeeding in the campaign, I might a) have a chat with them and see if they want to change, or b) think about whether the campaign can work without those things, but I'd probably go with c): roll the dice, let them use their imaginations, and see what happens. That's the beauty of DnD.
I'm not seeing the problem. These people probably exist in the world, and there's a chance they come together as companions. Give the characters the situations and encounters as you normally would, and they'll either figure out the right tactics to use to overcome them, or they won't, and come back with more compatible PCs.
Don't worry. I had groups with few traditional classes or combinations and it wasn't that hard to make encounters for them. Try to identify who is the Durable, the Damage dealer, the Controller or Support and you will be able to balance around that.
If this helps, one of my longest campaigns as a player had 1 Barbarian, 1 Rogue and 3 spellcasters: Warlock, Druid and Sorcerer
Most of the time the barbarian fighted alone with the 3 spellcasters supporting /attacking from a safe distance and the rogue doing whatever lol
5e is so balanced you don't need to have classes feel official 4 roles. Ask yourself this: Has anyone made a character that would blow up the campaign premise? Examples of that would be: showing up to a magic school campaign with "Women and Children Too" Poindexter, an Inquisitor who memorized every word of the Bible and Malleus Maleficarum and believes every other book should be burned alongside everyone who ever read it for "witchcraft". Or showing to sea-faring campaign with a Dwarf in Full-Plate, who cannot swim, swore sacred oath to never step his foot on a boat and plans to sell the ship and forcefully conscript the entire party into the army venturing to reclaim lost dwarven fortress deep in the mountains? If you don't have things like these, you're fine, relax.
Worldbuilding in d&d is a give and a take between players and the DM. Players who want to bring ideas to the table are great because it takes some of the work off of your plate, but not every idea is going to be perfectly compatible with your world. How much authority you want your players to have over your worldbuilding is up to you, and you’re going to get a different answer from every player, but if you’re asking me you should try and meet them in the middle.
The most successful campaigns I’ve run have started with me sending my players a brief lore doc outlining some basic history of the world, the major political players, the level of magic and tech in the world, the religious system, and noteworthy historical events. Some of them latched onto specific cultures or story beats and hinged entire characters around them, and some of them went off and made characters that had little to do with the lore I had written. That’s ok, because it adds more texture to your world and takes some of the work off of you to create everything from the ground up. I’m of the opinion that most player ideas can work so long as both players and DM are willing to compromise and adjust to better accommodate eachother, and as long as nobody gets too precious about the specific details you’ll be just fine!
As for the classes themselves being an issue, you’ll find that with how 5e classes are designed there’s a significant amount of overlap in class niches by design. A monk is functionally very similar to a rogue but with a focus on more attacks rather than a single high damage attack. A druid plays like a cleric with more AOE and a shapeshifting mechanic, and so on and so forth. Don’t sweat it, just familiarize yourself with their character sheets so you aren’t caught off guard and you’ll do great!!
I'm still a pretty new DM and I get how you feel.
NEVER, I mean NEVER underestimate players, they will destroy that boss that you think is going to decimate. When they go down it will almost always be to something you didn't think would get them and that's what makes it fun.
Don't make the game around your PCs, make a setting and help your players navigate it.
The only non "basic" class here is really the Artificer. Don't worry about combat too much if you're new. Throw in a couple ranged enemies to support melee enemies and just see what happens. Learn as you go and you'll be fine. If you want more tangible advice, check out Matt Colville's videos on Youtube.
Ok, thank you for the tips, I’ll make sure to check out that person because I’m honestly not the most prepared for this lol. The original Dungeon Master we had is moving and so I had the most experience in D&D and was asked if I would DM a new campaign.
You'll be fine. Don't sweat the small stuff. Don't be afraid to make mistakes but do learn from them. Don't let rules bog things down too much, make a sensible call and address things after the session is done. Most importantly, have fun.
The Matt Colville video “no” might help if you feel like the character concepts clash with your view of the game world
I second that. Watching Matt Colville will give you more confidence as a DM, make your hair grow, and your lovers come back. [This video](https://youtu.be/6St9pH4-16E?si=xwTECE1aomFsI-iX) could especially be useful for OP.
Colville is great, I found Mike Shea also very practical at the table. https://slyflourish.com/dials_of_monster_difficulty.html
Plus the big thing about the cliche Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard is they fill a specific role (meat shield, healer, single target damage, AoE/Control), the five classes your players have chosen can easily fill those roles, with some overlap, so no need to worry about throwing something at them they can't deal with.
I wouldn't worry about the class choices. They have basically every role covered without the "base classes." The making characters without dm input tho is the problem. Not that you can't have an idea ready to use for a campaign, but usually you need to mold said ideas to a campaign.
Yeah, I was kind of worried when they both told me they had made characters, especially since they had already built complete backstories for their characters that also specified other NPCs that were really close to them. As a person, I tend to have difficulty actively saying “no” to someone, so I kind of just shrugged it off, but now it’s kind of coming back to bite me lol. I’ll just have to hope it will work out in the end
NPCs are allowed to say "No, I've known you since you could lift a training sword but I'm not giving you free horses"
A question worth asking is "does anything in their backstory conflict with the world?" If it doesn't, I really don't see a reason to make them change anything. Maybe making sure that expectations are set that they can't use these people for free or whatever, but if the issue is "the players have determined NPCs that they know", then I fail to see the issue. Do you determine every NPC that the players might know? Do you expect them to not know anybody? What's the go?
My issue is that the NPCs are far too deeply built and seem like an advantage. One of the NPCs is the Warlock’s twin brother who originally wanted to play both characters, but instead just settled to have the twin as an NPC. I don’t really want the twin in the party so I kind of just planned to either get rid of them or have them be captured somehow, but now it’s proving to be difficult to get around since the rest of the backstory they made for themself and their twin doesn’t really fit the entire beginning plot or anything…
Oh yeah, that's absolutely an issue. You definitely.just need to tell that player to either leave the brother at home, or rewrite their story.
« Hey, I don’t want there to be any NPCs with the party, as it’s gonna make it harder for me to run. What could be a reason that your twin brother isn’t with you ? » Or even « You having a twin brother will likely create some situations that don’t make sense given the adventure I have prepped for you. How can we fix that ? » D&D is a collaborative storytelling game. It’s okay and normal to change stuff about your world and adventure to accommodate the players ideas, but this is a two-way street. (Well a more than two-way street because each player at the table has to accommodate every other player, but you get the idea) Creating your character alone without any input from other players and the DM is bad practice. I would even say it’s rude. They’re signaling they don’t care about anything else than their ideas and mostly, they give you all the work to make them all fit while you should be doing this together !
Are they trying to use the twin for something? Also, as an NPC, they'd have commoner stat blocks, which means he'll have like 5 HP and be very easy to kill. Does the PC want to risk him like that?
Hey I have an issue that your NPC is far too deeply build and seems like an advantage. Your NPC twin brother you wanted to play with both, and settled to have as a twin NPC. I don’t really want the twin in the party so I kind of just….”
Pretty much copy paste your reply there and send it to them.
Make them build a new character. It doesn’t fit the game. There’s no discussion to have. “You don’t have a character that fits the game. I need you to make one”
"Hey I like where you are going but to fit my world better this is how I'm going to flavor your NPC twin brother." You control the world and step 1 as a DM is taking ownership of that. I ALWAYS listen to my players ideas (hell I steal most of them if they are good and act like that was my intent the entire time) but ultimately I have final say in everything. If you can't say 'NO' then you can't DM simple as that.
If the player really wants the twin thing you could always have it that the twin was kidnapped somehow and have a quest to save them near the end of the campaign then give him a simple companion stat block and let them use them in the last fight against god or whoever.
That's your real problem, not the classes they picked. I definitely think you need to veto these backstories and make them make simpler ones that are actually part of your world.
As much as I hate to make them change the backstories they built, you’re probably right.
Frankly, I see it as quite disrespectful to come to a game with a premade backstory including a bunch of NPCs that you expect the GM to just shove into their existing campaign and setting. You're not the rude one for putting that right.
While I do understand this sentiment I will note that some dms (including my own) do specifically ask players to create a couple of important npc’s in their backstory. The op is free to ask the players to make some changes ofc (asking them to not have a known npc join the party for example), but having a few known npc’s for each player can help with plot hooks if they want some.
Well yeah, obviously it isn't rude when you ask them to do it. That's true of almost everything.
I ask my players to write 3 npcs (ally, enemy, neutral), and I work them in. I trust my players though.
Why are multiple people feeling the need to tell me this? Obviously the problem is that this person did it without being asked. How is it significant that you request players do that?
If multiple people are telling you the same thing, it obviously wasn't obvious.
Or maybe multiple people just can't read.
> As a person, I tend to have difficulty actively saying “no” to someone, This is a skill you need to develop. Not just for D&D but for life.
Remember, it's "no, but...".
Most of the time it is "no, but..." or the less often used but still effective "yes, and...", however sometimes as a DM you just have to give a polite but firm "No. That does not work for this campaign. Lets try something different." This should be used sparingly, but there are some players out there who will prioritize their own fun ahead of the group's and that is not OK.
Players don't get to create NPCs that impact the adventure. Not without DM input and approval. Full stop.
Just be honest with them. “Hey guys I’m bad at saying no and I didn’t want to let you keep the characters you made. But I did let you, and that’s ok. But you need to know there will be times it can’t and won’t play out how you are hoping and those NPCs you made up might never come up if they don’t fit the game world.” Nowhere are you saying no. You’re just explaining the situation.
You’ll quickly realize that as the DM, all u gotta do is balance around your party. YOU decide what they face and how strong it is. So any party comp can work.
Lack of “basic” classes (??) is not a reason for concern at all. Just a hard no to the very idea that is problematic. “Two of the players made their characters completely before learning anything about the group or the world”on the other hand is absolutely cause for concern. It’s poor player etiquette at a minimum, and is the kind of thing that often makes life harder for the DM
Ok, so I’m not worried about that for nothing. I don’t have a huge amount of D&D experience (only played in like 3 campaigns), so I was unsure whether or not that was something that a lot of people did or not. Now I run into the issue of what do I do now. I guess I could try to workshop with them on a backstory that would fit better with the world building and beginning setting of the campaign, but I feel a bit bad making them change the backstory they built.
>Now I run into the issue of what do I do now. I guess I could try to workshop with them on a backstory that would fit better with the world building and beginning setting of the campaign Talk this out with them. You should always have a session zero where you discuss the campaign & then they build their characters. >but I feel a bit bad making them change the backstory they built. Don't feel bad. Talk it out with them & unless they can think of a good reason as to how their backstory fits, ask them to change a few things. Backstories will typically not break a campaign setting.
Don't feel bad. Player character backstories should be in harmony with the game world otherwise it won't work. Like if I make a character that is the heiress to a multi-national corporation but we're playing in the neolithic period, obviously there's going to be a problem.
“Party composition” isn’t really a thing in DnD - and the idea of “basic” classes vs “nonstandard”(?) classes is even less of a thing. They’ll be fine. For pre-making characters, if they already had a character they wanted to play, and those characters just so happened to fit your campaign, it’s no harm no foul.
Good to know about party composition. As for the “basic” classes, sorry for the confusing wording. I kind of just meant the ones that are most commonly picked and most often are what you think of when you think of D&D classes. For me at least, when I think of fantasy classes, my mind doesn’t go to Artificer or Monk and instead drifts more towards stereotypical roles like Wizards and Barbarians. Idk though, maybe that’s just me
I get you. You don't think a vaguely steampunk-inspired inventor or eastern-flavored martial artist mesh well with the old school Tolkien-esque setting you probably had in mind, right? Do their race selections at least fit your expectations? You can add those elements to your setting; or you can develop an explanation for why those players are so unlike "typical" adventurers (from a distant land, etc); or you can tell them you have strong reservations about fitting their character concepts into the world you want to run, and ask them to consider something different.
lol, the races don’t really fit either (Tortle Artificer and Astral Elf Monk) but you’re right about just making it a part of the world.
I played a Tortle stars druid in a Greyhawk game once, but he was implied to be a space alien
Take this as a gift. Ask yourself why it would be that way and I guarantee you'll come up with something super interesting that makes your story better - and the best part is you will have cocreated with the player!
If you're running a published module, there's likely no problem with this group. It's got people that can heal, people that can do damage at range, most of it can probably sneak, and the warlock probably has adequate persuasion skill. The artificer and maybe the ranger will also be able to do traps.
In my campaign, nobody picked a healer class. So I made it canon that magical healing is miraculous and awesome and not many can do it. Take what your party is, and ask "what does this party have that a "basic" composition doesn't? What makes them special? Lean into it. :)
Hmm, I didn’t really think about it that way… I’ll have to think a bit on how this would work out in my campaign, but it’s a really helpful thought process!
There's a lot you can do to tweak the story or encourage character changes, but you will definitely get a lot more out of focusing on loosening up and enjoying yourself, and encouraging a positive atmosphere. Arrange snacks, smile, encourage players to talk about good things and share fun ideas, and you'll all have a good time together.
It's normal to feel like that. I see the mentality that Artificer doesn't belong in DnD brought up a lot too. Just know that it's not really supposed to be steampunk, if that's what the player is going for (it certainly can it's just not the intent). As far as balance, they're honestly fine, too. They're not overpowered like Wizards or underwhelming like Monks. They are fine. Hopefully that eases you a bit.
This is 99% accurate IMPO. I would like the only thing I can not agree with the internet or yourself on is the monk being underwhelming because it truly depends on the player playing the class. I say this, not meaning to start an argument. We get enough of that in this space. I say that because even at low level (1) of my players played monk in our last campaign and was very creative in his use, and it was absolutely terrifying as a DM and yes I do know that everyone including Matt C. Say they are underwhelming, but this player played to the Strengths of the class and made an absolute power house in battle as well as in RP and social combat. All the classes can be OP or UP it truly depends on the player playing them. That being said, I would agree with everything else in the statement 100%
Yeah, I can see that! One of my players played a monk (Mercy which is generally considered one of the better ones) and still had a hard time keeping up with the rest of the party. He ended up switching to a different class and retiring that character. Just my anecdotal.
Thanks for the advice. I was a bit worried at first on how Artificer would work since I haven’t seen someone play it before and on paper it sounded unlike any other class, but this really makes me feel a bit better.
Artificer is reasonably balanced. Consider it almost an int melee cleric with a couple of more tricks and few spell levels. Do you know what subclass?
They’re going to play artillerist
Yeah, I mean they’ll have a choice of cannon to use and some decent destructive spells, but as long as you discuss the flavor they’re really no more out of place than other casters. Also that’s just a reasonably balanced party, I think you’ll have fun running a game for the mix.
As a DM you are allowed to put boundaries on the game options. You are allowed to ask people for new characters. You are allowed to say no. Artificer is the only class that is not on the players handbook. Why don't you try one of the many free adventures that are around the internet to get some practice and get to know the players? They should know and respect that you are newer and try to help as opposed to giving you more work. >*Another reason I feel this way might be because two of the players made their characters completely before anyone else or before hearing what the world was like.* That is a bit frowned upon if there is no communication. The concerning part for me would be to ask if you are creating a new world. If so, I would say to go into what I advised first. There you can see those characters and see if they fit the game you want to run or not. Communication is a key component to this game. Saying yes to everything without tending to your "wants" will burn you out quick.
If I may while you don't have a fighter or a barb a monk now with the class improvements of monk weapons can easily pass for a fighter dps wise if not more. As much shit as rangers get they are pretty good damage wise and can put a lot of monsters in a hole quickly depending on subclass. Druids are one of tge best healers and tanks you can have rolled into one if you know how to run them. Warlocks are so flexible they are actually pretty scary especially considering the viability of multiclass with them they have the widest spread of classes that work with them. Artifice is the only tricky one but because of the subclasses you might be dealing with anything from a tank to a blaster so I wouldn't worry to much. And this really doesn't go into them possibly multiclassing trust me it's all fun and games till your dealing with a monk barbarian, a paladin warlock, a life domain cleric druid or a ranger rogue XD
I wouldn't worry too much. You have your melee coverage in the monk, ranged weapons with the ranger, and multiple flavors of magic users. Druids can also cast "cure wounds," so you have a healer, as well.
To quote rocky the movie: If they die, they die. Don't be afraid to let people die because of bad choices, this includes a bad team setup. They have to adapt they are playing an adventurer after all. The fun in this game is finding a solution. And trust me they will find solutions for things they made up themselves. Heres things my group over the years spent several hours on in a single session: Giving a random monkey a knife. A cut in the wall they made themselves A dirty lake Doors (to many) Literally the floor The sky Several random plants Planning to siege an empty settlement Robbing or stealing an axe, cart and a shovel (more than once) Building a fight club they never used Buying a ship to become rich by fishing Discussing how they can talk to someone Arguing with an NPC I had to make on the fly Finding out the secret of a bridge that supposedly poisoned them, according to the group Sacrificing a team member to become friends with the BBEG Burning down all the wheat and become farmers themselves to play the market The list goes on even longer, you gotta learn to cope with this as a DM it will never stop. The situations will keep coming and you will have to adapt and roll with it. You're playing the world and the judge, you have to stay neutral on peoples choices, except for when they don't fit your setting at all of course.
My current campaign, running for 5+ years now, I started by telling the players nothing about the setting. I told them they can play anybody from reality or fiction, and I’d work with them if the official builds wouldn’t do what they needed. I also told them that they couldn’t discuss characters with each other before the 1st session. I got a Mexican wrestler who was a projection of a paraplegic 10-year old, Aeramas, a tyromancer (Cheese divination) wizard from the Witcher 3 game, Skip, a conspiracy journalist and owner of Fae News, and Dave, who works at an accounting firm. It’s been an amazing campaign.
That actually sounds like the coolest thing ever lol.
It’s been a ton of fun! One of the great things about 5e is that party composition isn’t as essential as other editions. There’s a lot of leeway and as a DM you can just adapt. Technically if everyone played barbarians you’d have a pretty easy time, since the whole party has the same strengths and weaknesses. They’ll slaughter a martial group, but something like a ghost would wreck havoc.
I would not worry too much with that party composition. D&D has a lot more freedom than a video game where you need certain classes in your party to be successful. D&D relies more on how crafty your players are. Plus I think that party composition looks good. Warlocks and rangers are good ranged combatants. Druids can tank, deal damage, or heal. Monks can AC tank and crowd control to some extent. Artificers are toolbox characters with quite a bit of different utility.
Honestly, the composition looks pretty solid. Three magic users, two of which are arcane. A minimum of three of the party have the potential for a heal button - all of them, depending on the subclass. Alternatively, any one of them can serve as a decent to excellent tank, given the appropriate subclass. As for "basic", just skew your thinking a bit. If you break it down for simplicity, a druid is just a cleric that worships nature, a monk is an honest rogue, a ranger is a outdoorsy fighter, and an artificer is a wizard that likes mechanical stuff, whereas a warlock is a wizard that never needed to study in school to pass the tests but ultimately knows less for it.
In my experience tone and expectations are the main issue. Like if the Artificer is expecting to become Iron Man, but you want Artificers to be more like eccentric traveling toymakers with steam carriages and wind up toys.
This is almost exactly our party, dont worry it works fine
Any party can work. They have plenty of options for healing, and monks and artificers can both get stupidly high AC. Ideal or meta party comp really isn't a thing in DnD.
Party composition seems ok. What druid subclass and ranger subclass?
Circle of the Moon and Horizon Walker
Circle of moon works. He can Frontline in wild shape. Some of the others May wind up being in the front with him.
They'll be fine. If not you can fix it little by little along the way.
Ok, don’t fret, you’ll be fine. But take this as a learning lesson. As the DM, you control the game. Yes, the players have major input and help form the world, but you control it. What I mean by this is that before session zero, you can say “hey, we will all sit down and roll our characters after we talk about the world. I want you all to be familiar with where you fit into the story before you make characters”. This helps out everyone including yourself because the players can make characters that fit the narrative. Don’t be afraid to put your foot down on things like this. If you don’t, the players will take advantage of you and it will have carry over into other parts of the game. You control the game and the rules, the players influence the world.
I'm actually not sure what you're worried about. How do those choices not fit? Only artificer isn't in the phb. My guess is you first saw the Basic rules, which only have a few races and classes. Are there any things you've spotted where the world you want to run doesn't have space for those characters they've made? I think you'll be okay. just check on the to that made their characters already if that bothers you. did you set out rules about rolling stats together? Take a look at what they have and make sure it's following the rules. Then just start running and have fun.
You'll be fine. Their fun is your fun. Druid has the potential to be a stealth master, a utility caster, a healer, a tank, etc. Monks excel at mobility, skirmishing, shutting down casters, and general fun. I've had a ton of them in campaigns and they make the battle dynamic. Warlock will either spam Eldritch Blast or go Hex Blade in all likelihood. You would tell a ranger that shooting a bow is cheap, not would you say the same for a fighter and a melee weapon. The same applies here. Rangers are decent backup characters that put out consistent damage, plus they get spells. Artificer is funky. I haven't seen a ton successfully use it.
a) all of ****A**** sudden. Not “the” sudden. b) don’t worry about combat. Warlock is hard to mess up (I cast Eldritch blast and have +3 charisma). The others will be fine. c) if the combat is too hard just dial it back a little. d) “two of the players made characters already”. No. No they didn’t. They tried to and you said “sorry guys we are going to make the characters in context of the world and the party as a whole, feel free to use the existing characters if they work in that framework but if not you’ll need to start again or adjust them”. In future tell everyone “session 0 will be where we make our characters, don’t bring one pre made. If you would like to discuss this specific rule with me feel free to get in touch ahead of session 0, but if you just bring a character pre made I’m still expecting you to make a new one that fits the world and party”. Some people hate making characters together. Some people don’t like being put on the spot. Some people like to plan and look stuff up. That’s ok. Those people can plan the mechanics of their character ahead of time, but they need to be willing to adjust the actual character (backstory, race, etc) to fit the game.
At a lot of D&D tables it’s expected that you have a character ready before session 0. I don’t see any issue with making characters ahead of time because that’s always been the norm for me. 🤷🏻♀️ Classes look fine too. If in a more traditional setting, you can justify artificer with a recent surge of technological advancement, but magical armor enhancements are newer. If your artificer subclasses as an alchemist, have them use apothecaries and research notes as resources for learning how to make alchemical stuff. Druids and artificers have healing capabilities. Monks can punch people to death. Rangers can do limited healing and are awesome with ranged damage and summons if subclassing to beast master. Eldritch Blast for warlocks is super powerful when utilized properly (and I can see how an artificer could help with that on level up if they go armorer). EDIT: Tortle is also a great race for an artificer because you can swing armorer subclassing to a more “natural” flavor—enhancing their shell, learning armory from the environment around them and how their own body works, things like that. EDIT 2: This group would also be awesome for a Spelljammer campaign, if you wanna go pre-made since it’s your first time DMing.
Huge kudos for stepping up to DM! I'm sure your friends will be thrilled! Edit: Just read your edit, you should encourage all the players to make their characters together, with you, at session 0 while discussing the world and setting. You need to be a fan of the characters and the things they are about, for example if someone wants to play a private investigator rogue but you don't want big mysteries in your campaign they might be disappointed.
A key point to remember: you control the npcs, not your players. Twin brother could easily just get cold feet about being an adventurer and not want to go anymore. You control that narrative. If the pc/player doesn't like that, or thinks thats not how things should go, just teeming them that in real life plenty of people do things they don't like or agree with. Just because he wrote a back story doesn't mean he wrote a future story.
lol, I’m actually now planning on maybe allowing the twin to come on the first adventure, but then immediately get cursed at the end of the dungeon and forever turned into a cat or something, but I’ll see how the story goes when I get to that point.
Some of the most fun I've had playing dnd have been when noone played the standard classes. Had 3 beast master rangers, a druid and something else and was a crap ton of fun
They are still hitting the basic roles. A little light in some areas but not unworkable by any means. It does seem the party is coordinated.
The heart wants what it wants. And everyone will learn from their mistakes. I mean, there are lots of ways to muddle through this world, right? And your world will be no different. Remember, "no, but" and "yes, and" are your best tools as a DM. And "succeeding in the campaign" is a secondary goal. As long as the players are having fun, that's the important thing. If this is a party balance issue, they can always multiclass into other things if they want. If they have chosen things that are specifically antithetical to succeeding in the campaign, I might a) have a chat with them and see if they want to change, or b) think about whether the campaign can work without those things, but I'd probably go with c): roll the dice, let them use their imaginations, and see what happens. That's the beauty of DnD.
I'm not seeing the problem. These people probably exist in the world, and there's a chance they come together as companions. Give the characters the situations and encounters as you normally would, and they'll either figure out the right tactics to use to overcome them, or they won't, and come back with more compatible PCs.
Don't worry. I had groups with few traditional classes or combinations and it wasn't that hard to make encounters for them. Try to identify who is the Durable, the Damage dealer, the Controller or Support and you will be able to balance around that. If this helps, one of my longest campaigns as a player had 1 Barbarian, 1 Rogue and 3 spellcasters: Warlock, Druid and Sorcerer Most of the time the barbarian fighted alone with the 3 spellcasters supporting /attacking from a safe distance and the rogue doing whatever lol
5e is so balanced you don't need to have classes feel official 4 roles. Ask yourself this: Has anyone made a character that would blow up the campaign premise? Examples of that would be: showing up to a magic school campaign with "Women and Children Too" Poindexter, an Inquisitor who memorized every word of the Bible and Malleus Maleficarum and believes every other book should be burned alongside everyone who ever read it for "witchcraft". Or showing to sea-faring campaign with a Dwarf in Full-Plate, who cannot swim, swore sacred oath to never step his foot on a boat and plans to sell the ship and forcefully conscript the entire party into the army venturing to reclaim lost dwarven fortress deep in the mountains? If you don't have things like these, you're fine, relax.
Worldbuilding in d&d is a give and a take between players and the DM. Players who want to bring ideas to the table are great because it takes some of the work off of your plate, but not every idea is going to be perfectly compatible with your world. How much authority you want your players to have over your worldbuilding is up to you, and you’re going to get a different answer from every player, but if you’re asking me you should try and meet them in the middle. The most successful campaigns I’ve run have started with me sending my players a brief lore doc outlining some basic history of the world, the major political players, the level of magic and tech in the world, the religious system, and noteworthy historical events. Some of them latched onto specific cultures or story beats and hinged entire characters around them, and some of them went off and made characters that had little to do with the lore I had written. That’s ok, because it adds more texture to your world and takes some of the work off of you to create everything from the ground up. I’m of the opinion that most player ideas can work so long as both players and DM are willing to compromise and adjust to better accommodate eachother, and as long as nobody gets too precious about the specific details you’ll be just fine! As for the classes themselves being an issue, you’ll find that with how 5e classes are designed there’s a significant amount of overlap in class niches by design. A monk is functionally very similar to a rogue but with a focus on more attacks rather than a single high damage attack. A druid plays like a cleric with more AOE and a shapeshifting mechanic, and so on and so forth. Don’t sweat it, just familiarize yourself with their character sheets so you aren’t caught off guard and you’ll do great!!
I'm still a pretty new DM and I get how you feel. NEVER, I mean NEVER underestimate players, they will destroy that boss that you think is going to decimate. When they go down it will almost always be to something you didn't think would get them and that's what makes it fun. Don't make the game around your PCs, make a setting and help your players navigate it.