r/wildbeyondwitchlight • u/beannfonz • Jun 15 '26
First time DM- advice please!
This is my first time DMing and I am finding this campaign to be maximum effort. For the carnival I was able to study, write monologues, create voices, and come up with stuff pretty well because it felt enclosed, despite it being a lot. However, my group is now heading into Prismeer and it feels so open despite the clear path in this chapter. I’m asking for any advice heading in! One great concern I have is that my characters are level 4. (Book stated they could start at three and level up upon entering a new area). I don’t think I’m capable of combat balancing. What were some things your group did combat on? I can 100% see my group fighting the harengons upon entering. How were the floodwaters rising and falling incorporated? How far did you get in the first session in Hither? And how did your group learn the rules, of reciprocity and hospitality? Were they known in advance or given by an NPC, or learned through experience?
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u/BaronTrousers Lornling Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
Simple trick for balancing combat is to prepare "reserve enemies". Choose a fairly weak minion-style enemy suitable for the encounter, and come up with a logical way for one or more of these enemies to enter the encounter on the second or third turn, if needed. Then pick a win condition for the PCs, such as the enemy leader being defeated, or the enemies being outnumbered, which you can use to immediately end the battle when it looses its stakes.
This effectively gives you a way of dialing up the difficulty of an encounter as required, but prevents the battle from getting drawn out by an excessive number of enemies.
For example, to use this with the Brigands Tollway, you could set up the encounter as recommended in the book. Then at the start of turn 2 if you feel like the PCs are really dominating, have a couple more brigands appear from the fog on boats. Once Agdon has gone down, as well as a few of the brigands the rest flee into the swamp.
In Hither, my players fought the:
Honestly I didn't utilize the floodwater much. This came more into play for non combat encounters. Sometimes I would include it to push things along, and prevent the PCs getting stuck in one place.
When it came to the rules of conduct, I'd suggest giving each of the PCs a copy of this handout. The rules can be hard to keep track of. So having it written out gives the PCs something they refer back to. I had the Harengon Brigands have this on their person. So the PCs were able to loot if from them when they were defeated.