![]() ![]() Don’t kill the characters just as they’re getting started. Lost Mine of Phandelver famously starts with a goblin encounter that is potentially lethal. Keep average monster damage to 5 or less.Include fewer monsters than characters.Mike Shea (Sly Flourish) has a brilliant post on building 1st-level encounters. Invent a village or a small town and go from there. Similarly, you don’t need a world map or a whole adventure path lined up. shadowy forests (needle blights, twig blights).a sea cave shrine to Blibdoolpoolp (kuo-toa).a dark crypt, corrupted by evil (skeletons, swarm of bats). ![]() If in doubt, think about a few monsters you want to use, and go from there. To avoid railroading, consider this: jot down three ideas for an adventures, pull out a servicable map for each one, and plan loosely from there. An adventure hook, one or two easy encounters, a puzzle of some kind, and a more challenging battle to finish on: you don’t need much more than this. To that end, aim for something manageable and short. I would ditchXP and instead level up the party after your first session, even if it’s only two hours. As a minimum, that’s eight ‘hard’ encounters. By default, a character hits 2nd level after 300 XP, and that’s actually more XP than you’d think: 24 goblins or twice as many kobolds. Keep it simpleġst-level is almost like a tutorial mode in a video game. Even at 1st level, this is totally achievable. A good tip from Sly Flourish: if in doubt, make it big, old, or both. A secret wing of an old house, only recently unsealed. Even at 1st level, there are cool places for the players to explore. If you as a DM treat goblins like boring low-level fodder, then your players will, too. Twig blights are plants that have become animate, awakened by a great evil. Mephits are fascinating, imp-like creatures of raw elemental energy. But a rat the size of a small dog is a horrifying thing. Sure, a giant rat is not an ancient red dragon. A fighter can go toe-to-toe with multiple enemies and emerge unscathed. A cleric can heal grievous injuries in seconds. A wizard can hurl bolts of fire over distances of 120 feet. But don’t forget how extraordinary even a D&D character can be, even at 1st level. Low-level characters can seem a little underwhelming if you are used to playing at higher levels. ![]()
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