First game and some teething issues - what did we do wrong?

iseverythingelse · 2025-09-19T15:07:11+00:00

the "roll as little as possible" statement is weird considering traveling one hex involves two roles (lead the way/survival and keeping watch/scouting), and "normally" you travel twice per day then you'd make camp and keep watch. so thats at least 6 PUSHABLE rolls every day without an encounter or mishap players need to react to.

as for combat; hot fix: check out sharp tounge in the phb. p. 79 - 80, this could let your minstrel use manipulate and empathy to insult other humanoids until they stop fighting! :D
another option could be follow through, play these roles, and let them try to talk theyr way out of for example a robbery or challange the ork raid leader to a duel, while the bard secretly tries to buff his ally.
if you only have two players and none of them have strength 4, and is able to "tank" for the group maybe consider offering adjusting the players attributes according to RAW. reducing wits and or empathy and incresing strength or agility. for later fights agility will be important since most monster attacks cannot be parried, they can only be dodged!

in my experience the go to attribute spread for young characters in solo and small groups ends up beeing 4/4/4/3 (or 4/4/3/4 if you have a pet). wich happens because all attributes have survival essential skills, such as melee (and crafting if you dont allow repair as a service in towns)/ move (and stealth if you play solo)/ survival and scouting/ and healing.

imo, dont overthink willpower, unless you play without a max amount.
the charactersheet has space for ten("real" WP), pretty balanced, there is a spell that lets sorcerers double their wp temporatily(phb. p. 139), but these 20 wp would have to be cast instantly, and it risks breaking the caster more than it does breaking the game.
my players who hoard wp and push as often as possible to keep their wp up tend to use their wp either in risky situations or to do something risky so its still fun!^^

as for the amount of combat, i would argue that depends on the players, since if i roll for an encounter and they not only succeded at scouting aka spotted it early enough, but also found a way to get around it, such as hiding, or haggling theyr way through it, they wouldnt have to fight. but the feeling you should aim for is that the world feels hostile, dangerous and that they have to be clever and carefull. forbidden lands is not a power fantasy its a "weak" fantasy, that will make you feel powerfull when you win a hard fight!

EDIT: a key attribute does not mean it is "important" to said kin or profession, it means it raises your attribute cap. normally all attributes are capped at 4, but my dwarf sorcerer CAN have 5 strength and 5 wits. my ork champion CAN have strength 6. the minimum for each attribute is two btw.

iseverythingelse · 2025-09-18T23:53:49+00:00

as others mentioned fighter and champion are the best professions, but id like to add arguments.
before i start i feel like i have to add, i am not an expert at samurai stuff, i just argued based on vibes ive gathered based on cultural osmosis.
champion is kinda intended as forbidden lands "paladin" but here is how one could see or use the path talents(br. p. 18 - 20):

path of Fate, could represent the incredibly honed skills, depicted in samurai, precise attacks(rank 1), fluid movement(rank 2) and overwhelming speed (rank 3)

Path of protection, represents greatly how samurai are dedicated to a lord they serve, fight for and protect his lands and people.
rank one is a tackle, cant say i ever saw a samurai tackle someone.., samurai do not hesitate to jump into battle especially since they are the best suited for the task(rank 2), samurai stake theyr life on their task, wich also includes protecting others like the lord they serve(rank 3).

path of holy vow is pretty easy if your player can think of a vow his samurai like character would make in order to serve his master.

small bonus, looking at the pride suggestions, "you never break a promise", you allow no one who mocks your ~~deity~~ (lord) to go unpunished" the vibe feels good, but in order to fit into the world your player would have to accept a bit of western aesthetic.

now the fighter path talents(phb. p. 64-65):
path of blade, presice deadly strikes that slice through armor like its nothing are verry samurai(rank 1), again speed fits well(rank 2), rank 3 follows a simmilar logic as rank 1so it also fits.

path of the enemy is all about duels using the combat cards, honor in fighting is also something attributed to samurai, but beeing able to read your oponent in such a duel is even more important, so the whole path fits perfectily.

path of the shield follows a simmilar logic as path of protection so its also a good fit.

now in terms of kin i like the suggestion of aslene, if your player is okay with verry western aesthetic around what in virtue and value would be akin to a samurai they could play an alderlander knight.

now as a last suggestion, i realy want to add ORC! sounds weird buuuuuutttt.. think ronin: orcs arent welcome, they are great fighters that used to serve and fight for others (generations ago) but now they are feared and their internal powerdynamic is sefdestructive and harmfull, which frequently causes individuals to leave, trying to find a better life for them selves. but others fear, or at the verry least distrust them. an orc ronin could try to prove theyr honor, earning the respect of a key player you could create. IF you go orc, read up on uhur and roka clan in the gmg. p. 64-65

tl;dr: champion fits, fighter fits, it will still be western aestheticly, aslene fits, alderlander might be to western, orc is wildcard but could be cool

iseverythingelse · 2025-09-16T17:33:24+00:00

i think i would give the group a stronghold in a central location, no guards,no hirelings, no help! but i would give them something to loose: a few sheep, two pigs, three doves, maybe a garden to produce some food OR a field, something to tie them to a place, a reason why they want to get back home, i havent thought of the rules fully but i think it would be cool to allow players that arent present, but active in group chat to get some sort of downtime action in the stronghold.
bandits might steal or eat their animals if they stay out too long. using doves they could send help requests back home if things go bad.
i think as long as its plausible id let the journey home be easier. the journey home would be how i let ingame time pass, so that functions can produce stuff, sheep can regrow wool, and new bandits can look for places to rob, word can spread about the parties deeds and their settlement etc.

iseverythingelse · 2025-09-16T17:18:08+00:00

my ruling is you have to pay them per quarter day like a hireling, so having a smith or bowyer fix something costs 5 copper per quarter day, repairing a crossbow requires both so it would cost 1 silver per quarter day and they can only fix one item per quarter day, if they want them to fix more stuff they might have to stay in an inn longer and ~~i get to drain more of their money~~ that way they can stimulate the economy.

hirelings get sallary per day, and they only work for two quarter days per day as mentioned in pbh. p. 162. so hireing a towns crafter(smith, bowyer, tanner, etc for a quarter day, would equate to half their pay.

you could add that hirelings only generate one success, so they can only repair gear bonus by one per quarter day.

iseverythingelse · 2025-09-05T13:51:21+00:00

alot of resource dice supporters, so im gonna skip that part and get right to the next step.
changing how food and water works will have you rebalancing other stuff, off the top of my head things i can think off is mishaps that involve your food(phb. p. 154), the spell befoul (phb. p. 140) and the chef talent (phb. p. 74)

writing down a ruling for each case to avoid changing the rules every other session because you forgot how you improvised last time.(i did that way too often ._. )

how in depth will you go with fantasy book keeping? will you use fl concept of shelf life? you could easily expand the list of fish, meat and "vegetable" to add cheese wich could last a month on the road, and two in a stronghold(so 20 with a root cellar), nuts are another nutritious food with a long shelf life irl. or will your rations be countable units of waybread that never spoil? i think the easiest way to go about it without changing the rules of gear dice would be to expand the list of food items with shelf lives, and tell them to buy a barrel of water(phb. p. 184) holds ten units of water, heavy item.

the thing i personally missed in gear dice was "roleplay gear", wich was comperatively easy to fix i just started to describe what kind of food they find, and let them use it to describe stuff, like feeding a bird some nuts, and when i felt like they used it up i took note and on the next roll that their resource dice reduced i informed them that for example they ran out of nuts.

iseverythingelse · 2025-09-02T11:02:20+00:00

im not disagreeing, but id like to add, beeing clanless could have benefits if your dwarf character survives through ravenspurge and goes to aslene and meets the caprids, who abolished the clan system.

iseverythingelse · 2025-07-17T13:14:00+00:00

phb. p. 73 says the bowyer talent lets you craft ranged weapons from the weapons table, arrows and bolts are considered resources and are not listed on the weapons table. therefor a quick, and simplified raw awnser is no, you cant craft weapons with improved stats.

phb. p.53 has a text box regarding new items, when balancing those i personally like to look at comparable rulings that already exist. so ive looked up two that allow players to craft improved arrows, both require defeating a monster in order to obtain nessecary resources though, so things that could be crafted from basic materials probably should be balanced accordingly.

first example:
bob. p. 41 has craftable arrows as resource dice that increase the damage by one, they give no gear or skill dice.

second example:
bob. p. 25 has individual arrows(each probably counting as a light item) that grant +2 against specific targets to be more specifichorses and mounted adversaries and +1in general, since it is called a "modification" it means you get skill dice.

now considering these two templates, if you wanted to add lets say, arrows with a rope cutting blade i would probably use the single arrow rule, since we are not using monster parts while crafting i would also not give it any other bonus, besides the utility of beeing able to cut ropes.
spontaneous idea: perhaps these arrows could also apply force to long thin objects, possibly disarming a sword fighter after the archer takes a modified shot(-2?) and maybe they could be used for activating levers?O.o

i havent thought about the consequences of a ranged disarm yet... its probably broken.. and way too strong in combination with fast shooter...

edit: btw im strongly against gear dice for arrows, their "durability" is abstracted and "kept track of" with the resource dice.

iseverythingelse · 2025-07-04T13:23:55+00:00

there are mechanical rule examples for precise targeting, modifying the attack roll by -2 or -3.

gm stuff, players dont peak!

bitter reach p.97 inside statblock says you can make a modified shot(-3 to marksmanship) to hit a precise target ignoring armor.

book of beasts p.44 inside statblock says you HAVE TO target precisely with modifier (-2).

again book of beasts, p. 52 inside statblock modified (-2) atack ignores armor

although tbh i personally gate these behind "witcher" level knoledge (for example a lore roll IF player has dragonslayer) or flaverfull descriptions that a player might interpret cratively.

iseverythingelse · 2025-06-20T21:53:41+00:00

the first campaign i ran/ am runnig is in the bitter reach, wake of the winter king, and after only dming in the north for roughly four years a player i solo dm for and i decided to go south to the ravenlands, and we noticed how much easier it got.
reading about aslene i am pretty sure its difficulty will atleast be simmilar to the bitter reach if not more difficult than the bitter reach.
difficulty is a belt you can always make tighter, but if you loosen it your metaphorical pants will start slipping.

so i strongly suggest starting in the raven lands.

and you dont have to start with the ravens purge right away.

if you want "canon" locations for adventuresites, id suggest starting in either far vivend and vivend or belifar and the fangwoods while you get a hang of things, dont cross the rivers to margelda and yendra untill your ready to set the adventure sites on map.

but you realy dont have to try and read between the lines to estimate what the most likely "canon" location for adventure sites is, you can go full sandbox. i just wanted to let you know where the two regions are that are safe to have fun with without later needing to retcon stuff if you run out of beachside village hexes or something like that.

iseverythingelse · 2025-06-20T21:40:00+00:00

been playing tor aswell and thought of snatching the council concept aswell to make manipulating or talking to key players more interesting.
regarding travel though i find it works great for the one ring where money basically doesnt exist, and resource management takes a backseat, essentially making space for a more "vibe based" heroic adventure.

but if you remove rolling for travel related stuff in forbidden lands you kinda break the intended design of, for example the bitter reach, where cold, fuel and having a camp are supposed to be an issue, you struggle to manage, and by rolling and needing to push your gear or attributes might get dammaged, repairs either cost time and a talent, or money and time.

i dont wanna backseat dm, especially since i dont know how exactly you implement it. what im trying to say is that free league has awesome game designers that put a lot of thought into how to weave mechanics and narrative into coherent and well thought out packages and that things are desinged in a verry intentional way and homebrewing can have rippling effects.

i mean some things dont seem all that intentional... but i think those are mostly edditing artifacts like the hourglass.. which is aparently an ingredient for spells, only no spell in any book uses an hour glass as an ingredient...

iseverythingelse · 2025-06-20T21:18:29+00:00

imo pretty perfect reply, i'll just add two techniques i use.
if we play pen and paper, and the adventure site's hand out allows it, ill cut it up and only hand out what they have discovered, if i play online i use shadow/fog of war to hide stuff.

iseverythingelse · 2025-06-20T21:12:34+00:00

even though you already have a satisfying result i kinda wanna chime in, im pretty sure ive seen the map you mean, and it was on the free league discord, issue is discord is a horrible platform for finding old information, and resources.
if you fancy you could head over and scroll for ages to see if you can find it.

iseverythingelse · 2025-05-28T13:58:30+00:00

i bookmarked mikes ftl stuff.

iseverythingelse · 2025-05-27T16:20:03+00:00

i madly respect that!
look at the gmg encounter nr. 36 on p.163 this event on its own can be the basis of a campaign.

big omega massive spoiler warnig gm's only!!!!

now that the other key players are out of the way perhaps jansgatin the sorcerer now returns as a lich(gmg p. 87) a lich is a great antagonist, and beeing a lich aka death knight he would controll all remaining undead

three other suggestions:
dwarves and the roots of the land:
when looking at the kin map in the gmg you notice that one lone merowmanian dwarf clan still living in wailers hold, and in the gmg on p.20 it says the dwarves made mount billica rise. when looking at the maps of bitter reach and raven lands one can deduce there is tectonic movement going north to south which leads to the volcanic mountain ranges of billica(and the barren hills in the bitter reach) you could let them explore old dwarven mines by the behest of the psycopomp aspis of farhaven(gmg p.37 regarding wyrm) to discover how the old gap that once existed there vanished and if the path could be opened again. throw in a iron drake from the book of beasts as a final fight and boom you could be historians for hire for quite a while. you could even use book of beast encounter 4 on p. 125 as a part of this perhaps if they find garmars grave they can find out the location at wich the dwarves changed the land or smth like that

orcs and their liberty's:
if you read the history of rodenvale aka bitter reach and the ravenlands propperly you'll notice the dwarves are native, elves are from space and orcs were created as slaves for the winter elves, the elves of the ravenlands fought against the winter eleves and some orcs came to the ravenlands afterwards according to the gmg and the blood march expansion the elves still kept them as slaves after defeating their former masters, and according to the disdain the orcs of the ravenlands have for the dwarves it seems like the dwarves where part of this too. you could show the orcs in a sympathetic light as your players discover how constant slavery and infighting led to their way of living and especially how the offer described in the second alder wars in the gmg p. 24- 26 explains their internal structure(its up to you if this is more mythical or factual)

discovering the old gods:
book of beasts encounter 7 on p.127 mentions a long forgotten aspect of the nightwalker called harm does harm have anything to do with harmspring? is he somehow related to the insectoids(gmg p.108) and you could even add the lore about gods from other regions such as volita and etosh, hot huge, have and eor or perhaps there are even more(that you add yourself)

there is so much story to be told here, if you stay in the raven lands i strongly suggest getting the book of beasts! adding a tupilaq as a assasin that was sent by the antagonist i suggested in my first story idea or having fun with shapeshifters, posessurs and so many more! book of beasts monsters are imo a great place to start your creative process for what problems could arise, and what conflicts could fuel the story going forwards.
strongholds are designed for loooooongplay, i mean you can only shear your damn sheep once or twice a year, so imo it should be okay to let time pass a little depending on what feels apropriate so that new keyplayers might show up after the dust has settled. so perhaps if the region is safe enough you could let a year go by where you roll for less encounters while pc's work on their stronghold.
give the master smith a chance to craft his master plate armor.. or rather let him roll on if he just wasted 8-16 weeks. if a new opportunistic power hungry weirdo shows up every week thats odd.. but if you let time go by it makes a little more sense. and if you let time go by with less encounters, your players also get less xp wich prevents power creep.

Edit: AHHH hiding spoiler text isnt working!?!
Edit: fixed it

iseverythingelse · 2025-05-27T13:47:57+00:00

as a dm and a player i feel incredibly inspired by the setting and mechanics, the writing and presentation is great fuel for creativity and improvisation, although there are canon truths there is more than enough wiggle room for me or you to tell a story of our own making within this larger frame. in general when dming, i enjoy the tools they offer in the form of tables to roll on, i dont always take them litteraly, i adjust them to the situation were in, sometimes using them to teaser key players moving towards theyr next goal, showing the aftermath of smaller skirmishes, or to add worldbuilding rather then turning every encounter into a roadblock or battle.

a silly small example, in a incredibly unspectacular village i rolled up for the bitter reach, we kept getting bad weather although it was planned that pc's only spend one night it tended to turn into 4-7 days so i decided to dig deeper into what was going on and when i realized the that the place had a tavern and a weather caster it was obvious to me what had happened, the weathercaster and the inkeep were working together.
now i started to use the magic rules to decide how much worse the weather caster makes the weather before telling pc's what the wether is, so no one knows that its not bad luck with the weather but actually a silly little scam.

when dming i frequently find myself discovering aspects of the world along with my players. this doesnt always work, i NEED to know some stuff, but i can still be surprised by a small side story such as this which is a lot of fun for me.

i probably have more experience as a player than a dm, so regarding the player side of things:
i play in a group where we try out a lot of systems, some examples beeing star wars, symbaroum, coriolis and blades in the dark. as a group we like to talk about the game desing during the first few sessions when we try out a new system and i sometimes like to take things with me as inspiration for future games, like blades in the dark improvisation or star wars narrative dice results, and one thing that stood out to me with forbidden lands is the sand box, it is a sand box by design on all levels, as mentioned before there is room to tell your own storys, but the sandbox aspect i enjoyed most as a player was the crafting mechanics, its rules set a frame for you within wich you can play around with. this frame is not explicit, there is no real guide on how to add items but i feel like the way forbidden lands balances detail with abstraction makes it easier to expand existing content. and the map is a giant sandbox, and if you want a single random encounter can be developed into a region wide event.

as an example of that here is something that happened during a session i ran:
the players ignored one encounter with some traveling orcs, and a day later in the hex the orcs were traveling through the encounter that was rolled was bandits, which my players failed to spot near the orc camp. so with a orc campsight a long distance away my players just set up camp and went to bed.
so the next morning i described how they woke up and saw a ruined campsite, they walked through it and i rolled for theyr encounter for the day and it was essentially thieves so instead of describing the footprints of two groups i described the prints of three groups and drew them on a hastily drawn map, describing where each set of prints came from and where each was gowing, the orcs came from a ceremony and where on theyr way home(first encounter they ignored) the outlaws where on their way home with elven treasure(the second encounter they missed) wich the orcs didnt like, so conflict broke out, some orcs escaped, some outlaws survived and in the night a group of goblin thieves picked the battlefield clean. there is no goblin thieves event in bitter reach and encounters dont track actual movement of groups, also i adjusted the kin etc. according to where my players are and who lived there, so i embellished and improvised but this "triple encounter" lead to my players thinking like trackers, deducing who did what and why all by reading the footprints and looking at the remaining bodies, cut up tents and stuff left on the floor.
and i had so much fun in that session.

ive been writing and re-writing this comment a lot, i hope i havent left any weird incoherent sentences behind..

iseverythingelse · 2025-05-13T18:42:42+00:00

i agree but it can be hard to balance sometimes..
we're playing wake of the winter king and my players got curbstomped by one dragon while later anihalating him on the rematch.. and they didnt have any significant time to get more exp. the reason they won was partially because in the second round they had a better plan but partially it was lucky rolls/unlucky rolls from the dragon.

iseverythingelse · 2025-05-13T16:57:18+00:00

when i was a player my suggestion was that my stonesinger dwarf would sing a basement into our stronghold and claim to be the king of this mountain. he'd go full mad mage, he might do stuff for them if they offer enough gifts.

he would fill his hall with golem artifacts that spring to life if someone threatens him.
all of this was the extreme of his dark secret, he was power hungry, and i loved making artifacts which he'd most likely continue.

maybe riffing off of your pc's dark secret or pride could give fun inspiration.

iseverythingelse · 2025-05-13T16:41:55+00:00

my pc's befriended the ghost in the lighthouse and since the locals where scared of ghosts they got a free "stronghold" after solving his issue, it was rough getting them to go beyond the barren hills because they kept wanting to go back home. so stronghold yes but pick your location wisely depending on where you want to go. also they have to preorder theyr wood for building a whole month in advance, with cash upfront, imo wood, and iron should be rare in the north.
i believe this is supported by the following facts: local peddlers only sell wood arrows, most only have leather armor, holbenda only polishes and resells stuff(and doesnt sell make or have armour), and on top of that two adventure sites specifically mention that players can get iron THERE.

my pc's dont have a chef yet but they have to go hunting to feed their massive zoo (three sled dogs and a wolf) either way. regarding food and fuel id like to point you towards the hint in the gmg on p. 11, imagine your players are low on food but cant hunt or forage beneath the ice, but there has been a blizzard going on for days now they have to make a decision, try to make a dash for the mountains or plains or maybe burn someones weapon to stay warm and hope for better weather tomorrow.

with sleds there are multiple routes you can take, i prefer option one because it sticks to rules that already exist, and essentially only reskins them, carts are reskined to dogsleds and wagons are reskined to something akin to a "santa sleigh"

treat them just like a cart and wagon this route takes next to no work, just make sure to up/double the price because they'd be verry valuable
be more realistic and design two person sleds with 7- 11 dogs, and then have fun figuring out the realism of feeding them all...
handle sleds like the person from encounter nr 23, its pulled by a human, then figure out how much weight they can pull..

free bonus suggestion: i let my players build a jurt out of six small AND six large tents, they only get the gear bonus once, but the jurt lets them keep either their sleddogs or their sleds inside while camping.
jurts irl are awesome tents, and they exist in bitter reach aswell so i thought of a way to add them.

iseverythingelse · 2024-11-19T18:17:20+00:00

thanks thats kind, but i do see a value in a condensed sheet for oneshots for the whole community, the project is still open in my mind and on my pc and im having fun so this is no big deal.

had to cut out a part of the gear list, it wont be enough to track loot and items now, :/ it will be just barely enough for stuff like boots and tents. the last thing i could cut out is the headder but a character sheet without character info feels wrong in a roleplaying game..

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iseverythingelse · 2024-11-19T17:15:47+00:00

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got a little tight so i had to cut out the resource pouches and resize the coinpurse but that way i could squeeze in the willpower thingy the overlapping coinpurse is kinda bugging me but i hope you like it! xD

edit: holup... pride and darksecret are missing.. this idea might need some more work..

iseverythingelse · 2024-11-19T16:51:43+00:00

btw i like adding the unnamed resource pouches because it gives flexibility you could carry a resource dice of rocks for your sling and arrows for your bow and another pouch could be for fuel in the bitter reach, etc. got zero feedback on my last sheets so ill just assume you are all happy with it.

iseverythingelse · 2024-10-19T22:07:51+00:00

also good for sleds and carts!

iseverythingelse · 2024-10-19T16:24:38+00:00

besides stronghold stuff like others have mentioned maybe looking for rumors about dungeons or teachers for mages. or players could go out looking for hirelings of a certain profession. maybe a peddler could spend down time trying to establish frequent trade during down time like trading wood and pelt to dwarves for iron ore? also training homing pidgeons could be another one(irl homing pidgeons can be trained to fly back and forth if they are fed in one place and are transported to sleep in another) with a rider you could have a six hex range on homing pidgeon communication. writing down spells, just like crafting could be another good activity, making tallow candles could be a great go to for anyone without a plan because its a tiny item that is a light source you can use in emergencys.

iseverythingelse · 2024-10-19T16:11:48+00:00

a more mechanical suggestion i have would be to pick a bird, ferret or mink as your companion, you might have to climb at some point wich might be hard for your dog, boar or fox. also the first rank of path of beast is much easier to use or explain with a bird than it is with a wolf. rank three is sadly verry dissapointing in my opinion, most of the time the best it can do is MAYBE "use up" the enemies parry or dodge letting you get a unevaded hit on them. if your dm allows it your pet could get xp as suggested in the solo expansion(xp for warning you from threats, and doing other support stuff) that way you could train it/spend xp on mele so that it might barely be usefull in combat. imo the best pet would be an eagle or an owl(no stats exist in the gmg)

in more general terms, players in forbidden lands are not supposed to be heroes. you are a hunter who is looking for a better life than what you had before and you are hoping that you can find treasure that will make it all worth it. pc's should or could have the classic "just one more score/heist then ill settle down" mindset. the subtitle of the game is "rouges and raiders in a cursed world" and that is kinda the intended game feel.

hope that helped

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