Well, we completed the trial run of my first D&D adventure. Lots of fun.

My Part of Players:

2nd lvl Half-orb Barbarian

1st lvl dwarven fighter

2nd lvl rogue and mage

1st lvl Cleric

I was a little nervous when the party encountered my first monsters, a group of 5 Orcs. LOL, the first strike from the Orcs vs the Barbarian was a natural 20, critical hit. The Orcs rolls a d12+3 for damage which is x3 for a critical hit. The 31 hp of the barbarian were no match for the Orcs' greataxe! He got waxed . . . had to plant a ressurection scroll in the hallway.

You do realize that a natural 20 is not a critical in D&D right? It's a threat. You need to make a critical roll to find out if the threat is a crit...

Huh? how do I do that? What page is it in the PHB/DMG?

Top right column on page 123 of the PHB. Essentially you roll the D20 again with all the same modifiers; if you score a hit then the threat is a critical...

Ahhh, so I got my party's arse whupped up real bad because I boobooed . . . I had fun though.

[This message has been edited by Bateluer (edited April 19, 2001).]

Do you have to do a similar thing for a crit miss? That is, if a character rolls a '1' on his attack roll, do they have to roll and miss again to make it a crit miss?

Hmmm... I don't recall anything about a critical miss, but a natural 1 is always a miss...

Hmm, when I watch the status screens in BG1/2 and IWD, they sometimes say Crit miss and the character will utter some negative phrases. Course thats 2e, I'll read up on it.

Well yea we used critical misses in 2e PnP. the character that rolled it would have to take a round to recover from a critical miss. lets say he whiffed so bad that he landed face 1st on the ground and had to pick himself up or something like that. i say if you use critical hits you should use critical misses even if that rule is not in the PHB.

[This message has been edited by Wingfoot (edited April 19, 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Wingfoot (edited April 19, 2001).]

Well to start with I don't think I would have given the Orcs greataxes, not againist a 1st lvl party. Maybe short sword would have been more realistic. In addition you as the DM can always use the 'fudge' rule. i.e. a roll that would kill a PC doesn't. Just do less damage. I try not to kill of my PCs right at the start, unless they do something stupid.

Remember that D&D is high fantasy and the PCs are heros. Heros should die in glorious ways, or for being stupid. With the deaths door rules it's easy to put PCs down without killing them off.

Voltric, the MM lists the Orcs as having great axes, so thats what I used.

The pary was not all first lvl, some were used in a simple dungeon romp that I banged out in a few minutes and were lvl 2. The first lvl characters were created prior to starting the real adventure, they wanted to have a cleric and an exra fighter handy.

It was a lucky hit, they mopped up the floor with the next encounter, a handful of hobgoblins.

On the Critical Miss topic . . .

I don't remember seeing the rule in the books, but it makes the game interesting.

**Your mighty barbarian thunders his battle cry, hefts his war hammer over his head, and slips on a patch of blood.**

The result is that his hammer is stuck in a wall, the barbarian is on face in the mud, and the rest of the group is laughing their heads off!

You see, they needed that barbarian to get through the dungeon, its a glorified dungeon romp. I wanted to start fairly simple, but the story will evolve as I gain more experience DMing.

Contgrats Batelur sounds like you had a little oops but you covered it fine!! Welcome to a new Dungeonmaster.

[This message has been edited by Capt. Tripps (edited April 23, 2001).]

what is the diff bettween a miss and a crit miss??????

:eek:
:eek:

Are you asking a legitimate question? If so a critical miss means something bad happens, you drop your weapon, you hit a friend in stead of your target, etc.

I agree -- critical misses just add something extra to the game. Occasionally, when a player rolled a natural 1 to hit, aside from having to recover, I'd give a percent chance that their weapon broke ("Your swing your sword, completely missing the Orc in front of you, smashing it into the stone wall directly behind him -- incidently, you broke the tip!"). Normal weapons of course -- not magical or special weapons.

Of course, there's always DMs discretion -- sometimes it's funny, other times it lands the party in a whole whack of trouble. And if you make a mistake, that's o.k. (You're the DM -- maybe the party finds a resurrection scroll or something -- Wait! Just noticed you did that. Good call!) Sounds to me like you had a good time regardless. Good job, and welcome to the club.

Oh, a tip on fudging rolls: This is where a DM game screen comes in REAL handy -- the party can't see that the Orc with that great axe just rolled a 20, so they don't *know* what happens until you tell them. You just don't want to abuse it.

[This message has been edited by Gnolyn Lochbreaker (edited July 07, 2001).]