A recurring villain was introduced on the first session. She was a human pirate captain with very pale skin. One of my players immediately thought that she was a vampire.

…

So she is a dhamphir now. (Couldn’t make her a full vampire, they met her in daylight.) Not like it gave her much of a boost except for a climbing speed and spider climb anyway.

Greek is also Indo-European though.

If 1-2 players are missing then their characters receive the Talisman of Protection from DM Stupidity and I take them over in combat.

Clone. Doesn’t work post-mortem, but if they can last for ~120 days… and if they can’t, there’s always Imprisonment or True Polymorph to keep them alive until the clone body matures.

Plan 1: Raulothim’s Psychic Lance. By the time I get to take that spell, I must have had at least one ASI so I’ll just take metamagic adept for subtle spell. I just have to know the name of the target and be within 120 feet of them (240 if the second metamagic option I take is distant spell), and it’s pretty close to a guaranteed kill vs. a commoner, no murder weapon, and nothing showing that I was there.

Plan 2: Clone. Claim that it’s some revolutionary stem cell rejuvenation therapy and sell it to the super-rich. (Though I might make it fail accidentally if it’s someone like Murdoch or Kissinger. Payment in advance, no guarantees, and I’ll do it on international waters.)

This was my motivation behind allowing more players in the first place. My previous group basically fell apart because I had 3 players and when one of them canceled last minute - which was basically all sessions - there weren’t enough players for a session. When one of those players dropped out permanently, I went online to look for more players, and I figured: “Hey, if I have 6 players with the same flake ratio then I’ll have a 4-person party most of the time. Let’s do this!”

But then the fuckers started showing up consistently for every session!

And even though I’m a noob (well, not so much since I’ve been DMing for a year now, 7 months of this for this large weekly group… but I still have no idea what I’m doing) I still have to make some new applicants take a number. Which just underlines how much of a DM/player imbalance there is.

(I’m planning to split the group based on player experience level into two biweekly campaigns of 5 players, that way I might be able to allow a couple of newer players to join and still preserve what was left of my sanity.)

Just put your foot down and refuse to add more than 5 players until you’re experienced enough. (*sigh* I wish I had followed my own advice.) Sure, CR started with 7 regular players and sometimes they have even bigger parties with guest players… but that’s Matt Mercer, he knows what he’s doing, and the players are also good enough to avoid making it a nightmare for him and each other. You as a noob DM will have your hands full with herding 4-5 overly excitable cats and managing the rest of the game.

Yeah, there’s a ridiculous imbalance.

And then you start DMing, even as a beginner who has no idea what he’s doing you get 6-8 players at the table, that party size is unsupported by the balancing tools given by WotC so you wrack your brain trying to come up with challenging encounters for the whole group, burn out, stop DMing, and the imbalance worsens even further.

Whenever I have a problem, I chuck a fireball at it, and BOOM! I have a different problem.

Yeah, he was a condescending sexist prick to the Kiyoshi warriors (initially), and while it did earn him some beatings, it didn’t get him a restraining order and he even got with Suki in the end. That’s high CHA alright.

Yep. CR is funny like that.

Consider the Werewolf and the Owlbear. They are both CR3, so they should be equally challenging, right? WRONG.

The owlbear could be considered the baseline CR3 monster. It’s got a big bag o’HP, an AC of 13 that will be hit by a third level character ~65% of the time, and two +7 attacks that can hit level 3 characters with a similar hit probability (50% vs. chainmail and shield, 75% vs. a squishy caster with decent dexterity) dealing 24 damage per round on average assuming both hit. Party composition barely matters, 4 level 3s with competently-distributed ability scores, spells, etc… will take it out (barring a series of shitty rolls).

The werewolf though… on paper, it’s easier than an owlbear. They have similar HP, a smidgen lower AC in hybrid form (12), and much weaker attacks (+4, with 12 average DPR). But this is where the CR system gets swingy depending on the party. If your party is a melee fighter, a ranged rogue, a barbarian and a monk then the werewolf might as well be CR999999 because it’s immune to nonmagical non-silvered damage. But if the party is a paladin, a soulknife, a cleric and sorcerer then its effective CR will be basically 1.5.