“Anytime you are out numbered the odds are stacked against you.” Sage advice from Matthew Colville to his players.

I was watching one of the Geek and Sundry RPG lite advice videos on YouTube where Santine Phoenix interviews Mr Colville about planning encounters. When he dropped this nugget of advice that he gives his players at the start of a session.

In the video he does briefly explain why this is the case, using terms such as action economy, and the chances to hit as the reasons why.

So what now follows is an attempt to explain as best I can Matts reasoning behind that statement based on his comments in that video and also another video of his about dice and probabilities.

I apologise now if the following seems confused and incoherent.

D&D uses a 20 sided die or d20 to determine if you are successful when attempting to do anything, like for instance hit an enemy.

The probability of rolling any single number, for example a 5, is 1 in 20, assuming that the die is a fair die.

So to roll any number on a d20 we have a 5% chance of rolling it.

In D&D we are not rolling for a single number but a number that is equal to or greater than a target number, like an armour class of an enemy.

So the probability of rolling a 13 or higher is worked out by adding the probabilities of rolling all of the numbers together.

Let’s look at a creature that has an AC of 13. Well I’ve just shown that we have a 40% chance of getting 13 or higher when we roll a die. Which means we would fail to hit our enemy most of the time. That’s not fun.

But what I haven’t accounted for are any modifiers that can be applied. Let’s assume I’m attacking with a sword that gives me a +3 modifier. So instead of having to roll 13 or higher to hit, all of a sudden I need to roll 10 or higher.

Which using similar math to above means that to hit an AC of 13 I’d have a 55% probability of hitting. I am now more likely to hit than miss. Now that’s more fun. And the bigger that modifier is the more likely I am to hit.

Now we jump to the action economy part. And we are specifically looking at combat here.

On a turn a player and enemy can do basically 3 things, with players getting a bonus action as well under certain conditions, that monsters rarely get. Plus a reaction. So players can have between 3-5 actions, while monsters get 3-4.

But in reality that translates to 1-3 actions that players can use to do damage, and 1-2 actions for monsters.

So as you can see on a 1v1 match up, the player has more chances of success at doing damage. And therefore the “advantage” and more likely to kill the monster before the monster kills them.

Any encounter that has equal numbers or less monsters than the party size means that the party has the advantage. They have more actions, and the greater chances to succeed doing damage.

But as soon as the monsters start to out number the party. The number of actions and those opportunities to hit start to sway in favour of the monsters.

So that’s why a group of goblins may not seem dangerous to a party. But they have more opportunities to do damage. More chances of success. And therefore the upper hand. Whilst the same holds true if they knock out/kill a party member.

And that is my understanding of the thinking behind that statement. Obviously there is a lot of mistakes above, and I’ve not explained bits enough. Put your corrections in the comments below.

WARNING TO ANYONE IN MY D&D GROUP: This has spoilers about the upcoming campaign. You may not want to read any further and experience the twists and turns as they happen. Assuming that is you come across what I am discussing in this post. It’s always possible you may never come across it.

Session zero is this weekend. This will be my first session zero as a DM. So once again I’m a little apprehensive about it. Not as much as I was for the taster session. But still the nerves are there.

However my thoughts aren’t really with that session zero. They are more with the start of the campaign and the first encounter and “dungeon”.

The plan is starting to formulate in my head. So now I need to start capturing those thoughts. Which brings us to this post.

From the player campaign intro sheet that I wrote (you can get it here) we know that the first encounter for the campaign will be the players and the ship owner and his crew. So I have that handled. Happy with that.

I’m thinking of having the players end up on a secluded beach somewhere. There will be cliffs too difficult to climb, trapping them on the beach. But they will discover a cave entrance. I’m toying with the idea of having an encounter on the beach with possibly a giant crab.

Naturally it would be handy if the players explore the cave. Inside they find it empty but at the back will be carved steps going up.

This will be the secret entrance to a pirate den (is that the correct word to use here?) And so the party will explore the den and fight some pirates, eventually they will emerge into a tomb. This tomb will be the secret room from the taster session. Yep they will be exiting the pirate den through the tomb of the Delian Order. There won’t be any goblins in it, just their decayed remains.

From there the party will… I’m not sure. So I have a plan, kind of.

Let’s go back to the pirates.

I had been wondering about what creatures to use for the first dungeon. Then it hit me this is a nautical, island hoping campaign. There will be pirates.

So naturally I’ve been sourcing pirate miniatures.

But my pirates are not solely humans. They are a mixed bag of races. I have human pirates, a dwarf, half elf, orcs, and some vikings (which are human).

Why vikings as pirates? Well I thought there were bound to be some in this band of pirates considering that a large part of the Moonshae Islands has a Norse influence. Which says to me viking. Or they look like them at the least.

The pirates do have a leader, and I’m blatantly borrowing the leader from MtG. The leader is Angrath the Minotaur pirate.

I’ve found a cool Minotaur mini to use for him.

Angrath is going to be a major character in this campaign. So I like the idea of introducing him early on. I’m also toying with the idea of having the half elf be his lieutenant. And also a recurring character.

I’d love to have a Vraska pirate mini also, as I’d love to have her as a character. But as I type that I’m thinking I can still do that. I can have Vraska and Angrath as two competing pirates, with the players always getting caught in the middle.

Now to design a pirates den!

My friend kindly printed off a sample cave entrance for me from the humble bundle 3D models I purchased.

So what follows is my notes of the steps I took. Basically so that I can recreate what I did for other pieces when I get them printed.

So Saturday night I primed it ready for painting with a light grey primer. It was the only grey I had. Mind you I like the light grey generally any way.

Then Sunday I gave it a coating of Black Grey paint. Which as I write this part of the post is drying.

I followed that base coat up late afternoon with a coating of grey paint. But I used a not dry brush technique! By that I mean the brush was more wet than it would be for dry brushing. Not much wetter, I didn’t want the paint getting into all the gaps.

I then applied a dark tone wash, which the following photo shows having just been applied. I’ve not used any washing up liquid with the wash either.

This is the completely dry model. The wash has dulled down the grey nicely. I’m not sure I need to do any dry brush highlights.

So here we have the finished tile. It’s not going to win any model painting competition but I’m happy with the final look. But I’m gobsmacked how cool to me it looks. A lot better than I thought it would. At the beginning I was very apprehensive and expecting it too turn out a total train wreck. But somehow I avoided that.

I’ve applied some varnish to finish it off and protect it. And that’s all he wrote!

Well it’s a single page. But is it any good? I don’t know. Oh what am I talking about? The Player Intro to the campaign. Or the one-sheet.

This is technically my second one of these (first attempt at one can be found here). Although it is the first to be used in anger.

I’ve copied straight from the campaign pitch the pitch for this campaign. It sets up the over all campaign story arc. Or hints at what may come to pass. But it also sets up where the players will be starting (although I still have to place Saltmarsh along the Sword Coast) and why they are there.

It also details the source books we will be using for the campaign and any restrictions (spoiler there are none) on characters and classes.

I’ve also photoshopped (which in reality means that I used Photofox on my iPad) to create what I hope is a collage that evokes the spirit of the campaign.

For those interested here is a pdf of the one-sheet I wrote: dandd player campaign intro
Now onto the planning of the first adventure!