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Daxis32
May 26th, 2015, 18:11
Can I set it so that the GM rolls are hidden when using the combat tracker to drag dice on opponents?

Griogre
May 26th, 2015, 18:59
If I am understanding your question, no. There is no setting to make only drag rolling from the combat tracker hidden. DM dice are all either hidden or not. The setting to control this is under Game (GM), "Chat: Show GM rolls". "On" is for the GM that likes to roll his dice in the open, off is for those who roll behind a screen and this effects the combat tracker. There is another setting also in Game (GM) in "Chat: Show results to client" that will show hits or misses. If you have both of these set to off the players will not see any rolls regardless of how you roll.

If we know *why* you wanted to do just this roll hidden we might be able to tell you another way. Why do you want to not show the result?

Daxis32
May 26th, 2015, 19:12
I want my rolls to be hidden because I often will fudge the roll rather than kill of my players. But I don't want them to know how nice I am.

Daxis32
May 26th, 2015, 19:17
Can some one clarify "Chat: Show results to client for me?" It's not been updated in the wiki. The choices are On / Off / PC.

Griogre
May 26th, 2015, 20:05
Ah. "Chat: Show results to client for me?" Off is what you expect, no results are shown to the players. On shows Hit/Miss/Crit. PC shows PC vs. PC and unknown vs. PC. The PC vs. PC is to show things like healing when a cure is cast on another PC. The Unknown vs. PC is to show rolls from the Party Sheet vs. PCs.

In answer to you fudging rolls. There are basically two approaches with some trade offs. Simply hide all rolls. As the players never see anything you can fudge as you will. The downside with this approach is you have to announce the result of every roll and lose some of the benefits of FG's automation. You must do it this way if you *absolutely* want to make sure nobody ever dies.

There is another way to fudge rolls if you are willing to tolerate the occasional monster crit. Most players like the feedback of setting roll results to "On". If you use hidden rolls and set roll results to on the players will see if the monsters hit or miss. If you want to fudge a roll then just give the monster a -5 (or some other negative modifier) to hit before attacking. Usually, the monster will miss but should the monster roll a crit they will hit regardless of the minus so there is some risk in this approach. You can do the same for the damage rolls but if you don't want it to be obvious you will need to make sure you don't use a big enough minus to damage it would cause the roll to be negative or zero. If you are new to FG this way speeds combat on the player side since they will know immediately if they hit and can roll damage right away without waiting for you to tell them it is a hit. It frees the DM to be looking up things or reading monster attacks when the PCs are attacking.

I'm an old school DM and while I roll behind the screen and reserve the right to fudge rolls I almost never do unless I am running a game for children or new players. I use the second option, myself. If you fudge a lot then the first option is better, if it is not often then the second way is a good compromise.

Andraax
May 26th, 2015, 23:46
The way I fudge rolls is that I roll with die rolls turned off and no targeting for NPCs on the CT. I then do a roll. If I like the result, I drag and drop it on the player's token. If I don't like it, I roll again. From the player's viewpoint, it looks as if I had targeted the PC and rolled like normal. The advantage to this is that I can choose when I want to use this technique and use the normal "target / accept the roll" otherwise approach without the players noticing.

Baron28
May 27th, 2015, 03:31
Draxis, I get that you are the GM and have license to run your game however you wish, but if you are having to fudge rolls because you don't want to kill off your players too easily, then perhaps your encounters are not balanced. Google 5e encounter calculators and this will help you build encounters suitable for the number of players in the party and their levels balanced with the number of creatures and their XP.

I agree with Griogre's point of view, plus I will add a few of my rules for a DM.

1. I will never TPK a party during a wandering monster encounter, particularly when they have been on a path to success. Give them every opportunity to run away, bargain for their life, be captured, left unconscious, etc.
2. I will never TPK a party the first game session.
3. The higher in level the character is the more unforgiving I am when it comes to killing their character, particularly if they make a stupid or risky decision that has a high chance of failure.
4. The fun of being the DM is watching and listening to my players role play and try to figure out how to solve puzzles or get themselves through or out of a chaotic combat situation. The last thing I ever want the players to be encounter after encounter is calm and confident which leads to complacency and boredom.
5. Death is part of the game. I tell mature adults not to cry just roll up a new character...at level 1.

Just my thoughts. Hope this provides a different perspective and is helpful.

Daxis32
May 27th, 2015, 03:47
Draxis, I get that you are the GM and have license to run your game however you wish, but if you are having to fudge rolls because you don't want to kill off your players too easily, then perhaps your encounters are not balanced. Google 5e encounter calculators and this will help you build encounters suitable for the number of players in the party and their levels balanced with the number of creatures and their XP.

I agree with Griogre's point of view, plus I will add a few of my rules for a DM.

1. I will never TPK a party during a wandering monster encounter, particularly when they have been on a path to success. Give them every opportunity to run away, bargain for their life, be captured, left unconscious, etc.
2. I will never TPK a party the first game session.
3. The higher in level the character is the more unforgiving I am when it comes to killing their character, particularly if they make a stupid or risky decision that has a high chance of failure.
4. The fun of being the DM is watching and listening to my players role play and try to figure out how to solve puzzles or get themselves through or out of a chaotic combat situation. The last thing I ever want the players to be encounter after encounter is calm and confident which leads to complacency and boredom.
5. Death is part of the game. I tell mature adults not to cry just roll up a new character...at level 1.

Just my thoughts. Hope this provides a different perspective and is helpful.

It's true, I'm not balancing my encounters. I'm running a party of 4 through Hoards of the Dragon Queen. I'm assuming the publisher did the balancing for me. But it seems awfully hard or my players are just not that good.

damned
May 27th, 2015, 04:13
Rather than fudging dice rolls I will reduce the enemies HP if I feel the fight is going somewhere I dont want it to... I also bump them up mid fight too if a *tough* encounter is not working out that.... :)

Doc_Jones
May 27th, 2015, 06:06
It's true, I'm not balancing my encounters. I'm running a party of 4 through Hoards of the Dragon Queen. I'm assuming the publisher did the balancing for me. But it seems awfully hard or my players are just not that good.

I did the first session of the same module on friday, and one of the pc's did die. I think their balance includes someone with some form of healing ability. They managed to circumnavigate two of the three patrols, but the third one almost did them in completely.

Nylanfs
May 27th, 2015, 13:52
Umm, if no body has healing EVERY combat will be a TPK or at least every other combat.

damned
May 27th, 2015, 14:18
Umm, if no body has healing EVERY combat will be a TPK or at least every other combat.

Im playing a cleric.... but mostly i keep my healing for myself :)

Baron28
May 27th, 2015, 16:59
I did the first session of the same module on friday, and one of the pc's did die. I think their balance includes someone with some form of healing ability. They managed to circumnavigate two of the three patrols, but the third one almost did them in completely.

Did you give the party the option to take a short rest in between encounters or did the encounters come in waves? If you did give them a short rest option and they chose not to take it, then the party has to own the consequence of their choice which could be death. If the encounters came in waves and they are overwhelmed, then they should retreat.

Nylanfs
May 27th, 2015, 17:07
Players, retreat? I hear the words but don't understand... :)

Larac
May 27th, 2015, 23:26
Players, retreat? I hear the words but don't understand... :)

Make them play CoC a few times they will learn. :)

damned
May 28th, 2015, 13:33
Make them play CoC a few times they will learn. :)

Or keep on killing them... Another hour on character creation and another on back story.... hey start looking after your characters!

epithet
May 28th, 2015, 15:57
If your players, for whatever reason, have left either the rogue or healer role unfilled in the party, consider adding an NPC party member to serve that function. You could just use the pre-gen rogue or cleric from LMoP. Let your players take turns directing the NPC in combat (like they would a henchman) or just make the NPC a henchman of one of the player characters.

The advantages of having an NPC in the party include the obvious (healing, lockpicking) as well as providing you, the DM, with an agent through which to advance the story, sow chaos, etc. and a ready-to-go character for when a player's brother/husband/kid want to sit in on a session.

JohnD
May 28th, 2015, 22:59
Personally I would allow them to continue experiencing the deleterious effects of not having a balanced party.

Griogre
May 29th, 2015, 02:02
For experienced players, I'm with John and usually let them figure it out. Most players will after enough deaths.

I've found the Greenest Episode is pretty dangerous. However, that helps the players feel like its a real raid and will help make them hate the opponents. The player should pick and choose their fights after the first one. I have run that episode twice with different groups.

What I told my players before I started the module was they were going to be heroic. I said there was a high chance of death but those characters that survived were going to feel like heroes. I have experience players in my groups though. I believed I killed one PC per group in that episode. I just had the new character be at in the Keep with the appropriate bonds and volunteer to join the group. I was running five man parties though, so I had upgraded the encounters appropriately.

If you have new players you might have them find a patrol from the keep or the night guards in town. The kobolds are real tough in that episode. If you have new players try really limiting them. If you would like to talk about it more then PM me.

Xorn
May 29th, 2015, 14:59
I've been running Hoard of the Dragon Queen for a long time now (shortly after it came out) the first 7 sessions face to face, and now we just finished Hoard with session 23 over Fantasy Grounds.

The original party had 6 members (barbarian, paladin, rogue, rogue, monk, wizard) and of those original 6, only 1 of them (the barbarian) is still alive. The rogues died together on a side mission without the rest of the party, the paladin died gloriously facing off a lieutenant and 2 wyverns at once, the monk died in one shot to a white dragon's breath, and the wizard... actually the wizard just had to bow out due to scheduling.

The current party is barbarian, fighter, fighter, warlock, wizard. Note they still don't have a healer. They started Rise of Tiamat last session. The barbarian player intends to make a cleric if this guy dies, but I think they are proof that a healer isn't mandatory. Now one of the fighters has the Healer feat plus grants a lot of temp HP, and the Barbarian rages a lot, negating a lot of damage. The warlock is very durable, and the wizard and other fighter stay out of combat as much as possible.

When they first started Greenest, I made it clear as they approached the city that it was CRAWLING with cultists and mercenaries. They got the message pretty quickly and did a LOT of sneaking around. They still almost lost one member. It's very important they the group understands a stand-up fight is not a good idea in Greenest. There's also nothing wrong with finally yelling uncle and holing up in the keep--that just means the cult will devastate Greenest even more, which means more payback incentive.

Larac
May 31st, 2015, 00:55
Thieves Tools would allow checks to disarm at least , juts not as well as a Rogue.

Bloodspoor
May 31st, 2015, 12:04
5e is extremely unforgiving to level 1 parties. At level 2, the extra hit die helps them stay alive a little bit, but their abilities aren't quite up to speed. At level 3, the party should be outpacing the average CR3 encounter that you throw at them due to both 3 hit dice and most classes have chosen a path and gotten their specialties and first real taste of power. Keep in mind that this is without magic items of any kind, so if you want to give them and edge, maybe give them a set of adamantine plate that gives them crit immunity or throw some extra healing potion loot their way. It's by design that the only magic items they are likely to find early on are minor heal potions, so if you feel the need, be liberal with them so they don't feel the need to only use them in an emergency.

I have been babying my players since we started 5e because we're just trying to figure out the system and the power scale at different levels. After this, I intend to use levels 1-3 as a sort of proving ground for PCs, and if someone dies, they can roll up a new character 1-2 levels lower than the party average. Speaking of babying my players, I'm not even using XP and just leveling up the whole party as it feels appropriate.