We played once again this past Saturday and while the party wasn't as challenged as the two games before, they still teetered on the brink of disaster. Fourth level PCs on the cusp of fifth level would find two separate groups of 3 CR 1 monsters a mere walk in the park, but all 6 CR 1 monsters at once, followed immediately by a huge, fiendish spider? Tasty. As a DM, you pray for mistakes, and I saw a few last Saturday. Still, in the end, they triumphed and felt good about it.
Lessons learned, or at least pondered, this weekend. The party's enjoyment level as a whole is worth far more than any one player's enjoyment level. One of my players, being a bit of a munchkin, was asking after multiclassing, which is admittedly horrible in this edition. Now, I'd love to fix it, and had an idea to bring any multiclassed PC more in line, power-wise, with his fellow uniclassed PCs. The problem boils down to that my solution is too easily misused and the multiclassed PC is then too powerful rather than not powerful enough. It would fully work... if everyone in the group wanted to multiclass, then I'd just throw higher CR monsters at them and call it good. But if just one of them does it and becomes super-powerful, then the others might have less fun, or die fighting tougher monsters (also not fun). I'm still sitting on the idea, which I may use if they ever get to 20 and not want to retire, but for now, we're sticking with how multiclassing is laid out in the PHB. And resisting the urge to go back to 3.5/Pathfinder, which came closest to getting multiclassed PCs right I've seen.
I don't care what it does for the randomness of your die rolls, but a dice tower (my first real 3d printer project, and a huge success) is a GM's friend. "The monsters in the rooms prepare to strike, roll initiative!" And then the players look at you with worry in their eyes as you drop 6 d20s down the chute and they realize they hadn't gotten a solid count (or even ID) on said monsters. Forget rolling group initiative, when you want to scare them roll it individually and watch them wet their seats when they hear how much plastic you're throwing down. You don't have to print yours like I did, many affordable options are out there for you to buy, but they are an easy (and free, found many on Thingiverse) first project if you want to get into 3d printing.
Again, going back to enjoyment level - I don't care how you interpret that vague sentence in the PHB, I said you weren't stealthy enough, and the spiders were ready for you. And you killed them anyway and the whole party had fun doing it. You sneaking up on them and killing half of them in their sleep would be cool to you, but the others would have been bored out of their skull. Just enjoy the ride while you can, there will be plenty of ups and downs over the weeks/months/years you will be playing this PC.
Sorry, hoping to get some pics up next week of the table and our accoutrements. Don't worry, it won't be all 3d printed terrain by then, this stuff takes a long time to print.
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