When I Put My Lvl 13 Party Through Lvl 1 Dungeon | Narrated D&D Story

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Credits
Story Source: / i_just_put_my_lv13_par...
Video Editor: Shawn Kadian
Editors: Lonny Foran ([e-mail])
Narration: MyLo (Twitter/VoMylo)
Thumbnail Art & Channel Artwork: NalaFontaine (Twitter/@nala_fontaine)
#dndstories #dnd #dungeonsanddragons

[@UndeadGhostGirl]

Half-Orc Barbarians are consistently the most wholesome, friendly characters with the friendliest, most wholesome players and I will rip the larynx out of anyone who says otherwise with my bare hands.

[@thatcrazyguyeveryonelikes4197]

I say otherwise. I was a savage half orc barbarian who killed a fair share of people just because I felt like it.

[@docop8926]

that's an extremely racist thing to say

[@KhaoticKatarin]

Something tells me you're a half orc barbarian

[@docop8926]

@@KhaoticKatarin I prefer orcarian

[@Crowsinger]

My first character was a half-orc barbarian. Since I didn't know well the rules, I challenged another character to a duel over his claim that my character went against his values. The winner would get his way. It was roleplay. However, I rolled too high. I killed his character, and the DM told me that mine was not fit for the party, so he made him into an NPC. 😆

[@crowsenpai5625]

Wizard: “I cast Fireball at 7th level, is it dead?” DM “well you’re throwing twice as many d6 as it has hitpoints, so you tell me.”

[@AMediumSizedKodiak]

“You could literally roll a one on every damage die and still do enough to kill him AND his friend. So yeah dude. He dead.”

[@whocaresreallly5886]

You know that plus 5 you have yeah that did it

[@n.a.nameless5435]

"You're right, it's mother might still be able to recognize it. It hasn't died dead enough yet, better hit it again."

[@Kualinar]

He's ashes, Jim.

[@whocaresreallly5886]

@@Kualinar Dammit Jim I'm a wizard and an incenerator (casually casts fireball)

[@gormold4163]

I like the idea of tossing in an underleveled quest every once in a while not only for the players to feel strong, but to make the world feel more alive. The idea that goblin attacks are a problem only in the first month or two of adventure makes sense if you aim to balance every fight, but for the average farmer they would still be a problem. It gives the players a chance to flex their power, but also an opportunity to be plain generous in their world.

[@shadenox8164]

I think the logic is less goblins are no longer a problem, more that less experienced adventurers like you used to be can handle that. But if there's no formal guild system and you're just getting these quests off random NPCs, then yeah it makes sense they might be super easy.

[@karnewarrior]

It serves a good story/gameplay purpose too. As the guy in the story said, it can be a LOT of fun to just absolutely bulldoze a low-level camp of baddies at high levels. You can't do it all the time or the high fades - and it does so quickly - but every once in a while, maybe once or twice a campaign, such a mission is perfect. It lets the player see not just in numbers but in effect how powerful they've become. It's a massive rush of power fantasy and almost every human being on Earth enjoys a bit of power fantasy on occasion. It sort of recontextualizes all these new abilities picked up over time. I think it goes best soon before the final fight of the campaign, or at least a suitably difficult arc boss. Somewhere you can expect the players to get roughed up and possibly not all survive. And it works there because it recontextualizes the fight and makes it starkly contrast the earlier power fantasy, so that insead of that incremental growth making the fight feel just regular tough it feels like a pair of giants slugging it out while boss music plays in the background. It makes it feel more remarkable that Brodrick the Bad resists the same force spell that fucking annihilated ten goblins last session.

[@silentmeklar1783]

I also feel like it’s the connection they made with the NPC that made the entire encounter thrilling

[@bryanwoods3373]

​@karnewarrior I think most parties not doing something like this is why people have the misconception that level 20 fighters are weak. Yes, you're missing attacks on an ancient dragon; but that's because you're magical weapon isn't getting through magically tough scales larger and thicker than you. You're a demigod facing equally powerful threats. It's like saying you're not making any gains because you went from benching 100 lbs for 10 reps to 300 lbs for 10 reps. People focusing on the wrong numbers.

[@Cporter1102]

This voice sounds fake.

[@LotharTheFellhanded]

Chris Perkins told a great story like that in a pirate 4e game. He had a ship of goblins that the party never encountered way earlier in the campaign and he rolled a random encounter and it came up. Rather than trying to upgrade a goblin pirate ship to be threatening to tier three chars he just ran it as written to give the players a chance to feel their power and how far they had come. Until the the goblin captain blew up powder stores and almost killed everyone.

[@seannemo8076]

_Farmer's life savings is 5gp_ _Party slips his son 1000gp_ Oh, dear gods, there goes the economy.

[@aidanjackson5084]

In reaction to the first story, I'd like to think that Goblin Slayer would be proud of such a group taking on a Goblin nest like that

[@franklugo6928]

First character I thought of as well. Beardcutter slept well that night.

[@BabyEater]

Goblin Slayer is also a great reference if you need ideas for making goblins challenging for a high-level party. ...My players were so terrified of Goblins and not even because they were sometimes challenging, but because of the horrific things they do. Some Vlad the Impaler shit

[@DomyTheMad420]

5:00 "too bad i'm going to kill them all" bloody hell mate xD

[@DragonKnightJin]

COncerning the orphan/adoption thing... I'll always remember a quote from Supernatural. "Family don't end in blood. And it sure as shit don't start there either. Family's with you through all of it. The good and the bad."

[@Raso_AC]

I also had Supernatural come to mind lol "As fate would have it, I adopted two boys and they grew up great. They grew up heroes." but in a more sentimental context

[@christophersanders3252]

Adventurers are coming! How many in game weeks have they been a party? 2 weeks! Merciful heavens! Run! No time to pack! Level 13 adventurers inbound!

[@BrianWilkersontheAuthor]

There's a wealth of RP potential in under-leveled quests. Also, total wholesome feels for using "what my character would do" for generosity. The fighter sounded like a wonderful person.

[@daavocadoguy5733]

first story is like highly kitted military dudes with air supports storming a guerilla base full of new recruits

[@spadeofpain24]

FighterDad, FIghterDad, Is the father we wish we had!

[@JuicyBlueWill]

That dungeon, down to the surprise round, bonfire, random DEX save trap and bugbear warchief sounds exactly like the Delian Tomb.

[@JimyRoze]

I think we DMs need to remember that while players want to be challenged when narratively appropriate, they also want to feel like OP baddesses. This is a great example of how to do that.

[@OldKnightAMV]

I did this... My lvl 14 party is so fearful of a tpk they ran away from the 5 kobolds with spears and their lvl 1 commander who had the ability to cast cantrips... Lol.

[@user-jx5tn4yp3h]

I’m sorry for your loss he really did sound like a true hero

[@jimbobjones9330]

That first story definitely has the "videogame RPG" feel to it. I don't know about anyone else, but after I'm deep into a CRPG, if the game has "leveled areas" (such as Morrowind -- as opposed to games where the entire world levels with the player), I love going back and stomping a mudhole in monsters that used to beat the crap out of me. Not often (because that would be boring), but just feeling how far I'd progressed is pretty cool.

[@josiaharaki7310]

I was waiting for the twist of them being under an illusion and really slaying level 1 commoners or the goblins actually helping the boy and the party slaughters them unknowingly...

[@FoolsGil]

I wish that their magic user stopped using magic and started beating goblins to death with a staff or bare hands.

[@Heritage367]

That would have been awesome!

[@petelee2477]

I cast fist!!!

[@karnewarrior]

That first story is what a lot of those auto-levelled RPGs in modern games are missing out on. If the enemies level with the player, you *can't* go back and beat up goblins to feel strong. You never get that yardstick for how far you've grown in an emotional way, just numbers and dice getting bigger.

[@DragonKnightJin]

And it doesn't even really NEED to be that big a difference, either. I was part of a group that'd just hit level 1 or 2 sessions before, and we were traveling. During the night, a bandit group tried to rob us. BIG mistake. My Barbarian just strolls out of his tent with his newly-bought Maul, and on the first strike gallagher's a poor bandit's head. Second swing was into the Bandit Captain's nethers to turn 'em into a soprano. Half the bandits saw what we were doing and just went "...Nope!" and f*cked off before we ever got to them. They were smart, they got to live. Though their Brute was a nice enough guy. My Barbarian gave the dude like 2 silver pieces to have a drink once he got to town, since he was a good sport about the whole thing.

[@Shalakor]

@@DragonKnightJin I'm guessing you meant to say level 5?

[@eltsoldier]

I absolutely love moments like this. Giving the party chances to just stomp, rather than have it all be a struggle. Rewarding them for taking the time to care about average people.

[@A1phaWolf150]

Here’s α way to tie α session like this into the wider story. Word gets around that the gang of notable adventurers and treasure hunters, in between their missions to topple evil empires and avert world-threatening catastrophes, still take the time out of their day to put α stop to small-time bandit gangs and goblin raiders threatening the townsfolk. The party suddenly has support from across the continent’s villages and townships as folk heroes, combined with the reputation they’ve gained from larger factions, which means they’ll be effectively idolized by the entire in-game world.

[@mestreinvoker6108]

Having the players feel like they really evolved and seeing the result of their growth is really an awesome moment, I mean, it's just satisfying when you are so overlevel for an area and you just have fun using whatever you have to your disposal just because you will kill and tank anything anyway. Hope I get that experience as a player one day, I rarely even see that I became strong (bad DM administration, don't play with them anymore)

[@traitorouskin7492]

This one kicked me right in the feels. Damn nice people everywhere. I work hard to not feel.

[@puresyclone5163]

I was adopted. This was awesome.

[@Jonchua1]

I'd rather get punched in the stones than have to sit through that and cry at work again.

[@justinmacd4499]

Sad are we all, the day a hero passes. But take heart in knowing that while they leave our company their tale shall be spoken, and thus be inspiration for others to take up their cause.

[@MetalWingedWolf]

This title. This premise. This is one of those things I badly want to do.

[@sin6872]

Did not expect to get hit in the feels like that. Give us some warning.

[@BeaglzRok1]

Running a Greyhawk game, the low power of the setting makes it super fun to give the party low-level encounters at various levels of intelligence. At level 10 they went on a sidequest that capped out with fighting a whole entire CR 4 Succubus, and they didn't really mind because the atmosphere of such small-scale adventure like talking to a trapped fox or trading over-proof moonshine to a satyr. Also at level 10 they went through the ruins of a level 1-3 dungeon that a different party had already gone through, except for the part where the other party died where the dungeon's difficulty spike was hidden. They narrowly survived the first encounter, being forced to retreat after some mooks alerted everyone else. After returning and using Locate Creature to find the boss they were put up against the first time, they used Shatter to drop directly into the boss room. Except after now two adventuring parties invading, the boss was ready for threats and rigged alarms to have the whole complex converge on their position. They *barely* survived, with the whole party of four either unconscious or in the single-digit HP range.

[@morecringe89]

So in short, he did not prepare an adventure and the npc that was sad, it was really himself crying for help to the group to feel better.

[@chrisg8967]

If you want to feel that way then whatever

[@user-uo5yf6pg5x]

Video starts at 1:19

[@JafenKtair]

legend

[@BaoHadir]

I like setting my players up to roflstomp a bunch of low-tier mooks. One of my tricks as DM is percentile rolls three times a day while traveling to see if they encounter anything. 2-40 is something bad (1 is something catastrophic), 41-60 is an average day (might meet travelers going the other direction), 61-99 is something good (100 is something incredibly good). Within the range of bad but not catastrophic is random bandits. Roll d6 (early game) or d12 (later game) to decide numbers. Basic bandits appear crying "Your money or your life!" Early game, these guys can be a threat. Late game, they're fodder. I keep a tally of the players' renown, and when it gets high enough even random bandits in BFE know who the party are and what they're capable of. A lot of those guys bugger right off as soon as they realize who they tried to jump. The dumb ones waste a few seconds of the players' time and lets them feel like the titans they are.

[@swampcastle8142]

We did things like this back in the day. Instead of just letting the players casually club a few baby seals, they ended up facing a major hoard of low-level mobs.

[@Basti12293]

We had something similar There was a alchemist in town hiring adventurers to capture magic animals. Later his laboratory exploded and left the area with poisonous gas all over the place. We went inside at lvl 7 with all potions and spells against the gases, but it was a lvl 3 dungeon Still one of us died, because of our homebrew crit table

[@TheDanibits]

To be fair, being a hero doesn't always mean saving the world from an epic level apropriate threat. Sometimes being a hero means helping out the little guy. I think adding more low level encounters would be an interesting way of having the players connect with the world and actually feel like heroes. Plus it's a moral dillema of "Do we spend our time helping out some farmer an insignificant reward just because they need help? Or do we go for the bigger adventure that pays better?" which lets the players be the good guys for honor's sake rather than for profit.

[@GreaterGrievobeast55]

YIRBEL LIVEES...wait wat?! Is this a literal level 1 goblin meme??

[@Heathen_Gamer]

O cool. Thought I was gonna listen to a cool DnD story and now these mini ninjas are cutting fuckin onions

[@FlyingDominion]

Two stories that are wholesome for different reasons.

[@pktmaster]

Not every villan in your DnD games needs to be Arlong or Crocodile. Sometimes you need a Bellamy.

[@landonwyndham979]

Yes! Another mom peace watcher!

[@99lunalupis]

Thank you so much for sharing!

[@bubbanator3340]

oh yeah, that last one made me tear. Damn you..

[@ChickinSammich]

I would have assumed this would have been boring but this was surprisingly great. I'll have to try it.

[@silverbane266]

Pretty dam good stories so far. Made me tear a bit.

[@fettbub92]

Not all heroes wear capes

[@bradywomack9751]

You always have the best of the good tales.

[@deanedwards9920]

Sounds fun knowing how far your characters must of come

[@ConkerTheCat]

These stories are so good i had to watch this twice

[@MrPonytron]

This was so sweet! I love it

[@tesuniekataren46]

I don't think I can like this video enough times. Well, KZbin wont let me do it more than once anyway...

[@shaneleskinen2111]

Well I think it important to give them a win every now and then.

[@tcgoober]

Its good to make your players feel powerful, especially before a difficult task/encounter/dungeon, once in a while

[@Typical.Anomaly]

5:11 You're giving me George and Lenny vibes lol

[@davidinark]

So sorry for your loss. What an awesome thing for him to have done.

[@bonzwah1]

I was play testing the one dnd stuff back when I thought that was worth our time. I had it so that the party would level up at the end of every session regardless of circumstance to get through all 20 levels of playtest. Around level 14 or so, I ran into a video series detailing prep for lost mines of phandelver and I didn't feel like prepping for the game anymore so I just ran the through lost mines of phandelver lol. the party had some good fun. I let them stomp through it until they cleared out phandelin. I ramped up the threats outside phandelin after that haha (and we actually got to face down venomfang which the prep videos that I was following suggested against).

[@TheNeoVid]

I haven't felt this good after watching a video in a while.

[@tehhayn2732]

Damn, that orphan one broke me.

[@T4N7]

My dad was an orphan n maybe if his adoptive dad had treated him with as much love as the dad in the 2nd story, maybe he wouldn’t have grown up to abandon his kids. Always happy to hear that some dads r out there being awesome (or was out there, my condolences to OP if by some tiny chance u see this, my dad passed away just over a yr ago n as I stated he wasn’t much of a father n yet it still messed me up when he died so my heart goes out to u)

[@micahclark3606]

This is looking like Gohan vs the Cell Jrs.

[@necktye1315]

Its 430am and im crying! Thanks!!!

[@Shenn3165]

Beautiful story!

[@metajock]

**big manly hugs** You got sniffles from me on this one. Keep up the good work.

[@Franco1395]

I loved all of this!

[@EternityGray]

I think someone in Nanaimo invited me to play in Braithe once. They just described that the world was floating islands held together by chains

[@adamwoodworth5758]

Awesome story 👏

[@DandDgamer]

Be the fighterdad you want to see in the world

[@silentmeklar1783]

Hold up. That’s too much. RIP dad.

[@user-co2zk7yt7l]

Beautiful story.

[@jacobbissey9311]

Yeah, sometimes you just really wanna feel like a badass with a Big Damn Heroes moment where you roflstomp a bunch of chumps that might have been a threat when you started but barely even qualify as fodder now, it really helps to highlight how far you've come and sometimes it just feels really good to have some consequence free wanton slaughter. Too many DMs latch onto constantly escalating difficulty so everything is an achievable challenge. But, like, if your setting is supposed to be a real world with varied threats NOT tailor made to one group of adventurers, sometimes you'll stumble into things WAY out of your league so you have to run away, and sometimes you'll find things that are WAAAAY below your paygrade that barely even qualify as an annoyance, and the world feels more real and interesting that way, it also makes the effort and struggle you've gone through feel way more rewarding. Imagine you stumble into a dragon's den by accident one day as a newbie adventurer and you barely escape with your life, then ten levels later you encounter that same dragon's den again and find the dragon barely poses a threat. Or like with this party where they struggled immensely with a similar goblin's den at level 1 and now at level 13 they can just go on a leisurely stroll through a similar one. So much more interesting and rewarding than constant struggle and escalation!

[@yungthugmuffin4179]

brayth shattered realities is literally raid shadow legends

[@GCJACK83]

I have three brothers. One of them is not blood related. He's actually the son of my aunt's best friend and we were raised together because my aunt and his mom were always doing something. It's a 40+ years long unofficial adoption story where he essentially became family. He's always around, both in the good and bad times.

[@PygmaApril]

Okay, that was a slap in the face

[@vortega472]

Crap, why did I decide to cut onions during the second story. Shut up, okay we're both crying.

[@John_962]

I could see how running a low level dungeon for higher level characters as a good test to see how the players would like a run that is on the easy side or likewise learning if they prefer something more of a challenge.

[@fadeleaf845]

I like having an actual setting that exists past the player's peripheral view but I feel like the table missed the chance of truly exploring the depth of such a different dynamic. The goblins should react entirely different to a Tier 3 group (they can still oppose the party but they may try to be more underhanded than normal, albeit not in a way that brings them success) and also having a different mindset of approaching a low level dungeon. I like to compare Goblin Slayer and Ainz from Overlord here. While Goblin Slayer is very skilled and powerful, the goblins and their weapons are still able to threaten him and he needs to be on guard to make it through. He'll see a goblin camp like that and think about the most efficient and reliable ways to take out the goblins and their allies. For Ainz, slaying a camp like that is a trivial formality and tactical approach would be unneeded since most of his spells or underlings could just clear them out. Instead, what Ainz would consider is the impact of the goblin camp on the local environment and what merits taking them out would have. Or if there's any benefit for any kind of negotiation. This is much more of a hallmark of low level vs high level play to me than how big the numbers you throw around are.

[@voster77hh]

Let's have a serious talk about premature retirement risks

[@AvangionQ]

Only thing I'd do differently is to throw in a handful of minor magic items that the goblins looted previous and were using with less than proficiency or at whatever cleric's altar was there.

[@Pistonrager]

Give the heroes a super easy quest every now and then...not every problem is the 100% end of the world.

[@Kualinar]

38 damage and over 50... For fucking GOBLINS ! One word : «OVERKILL» 2HP of damage against 120+HP... Even without saving, that's nothing. That dungeon is a nice little diversion from Saving the World.

[@yalcninal1168]

Damn... I wish I was there

[@kevobot9342]

Well nothing wrong with putting a high level party through a low level dungeon / quest while in the middle of the campaign sometimes

[@SomeoneElse-fr8yu]

3.x was actually designed for players to continually have easy encounters throughout their careers. The community came up with the ridiculous notion of all encounters being roughly equal to party lvl and criticized any adventure modules that had a broad variety of difficulties. Worst thing the community ever did.

[@sebas6295]

😢 simply great

[@Truex007]

SO, there is something to be said about being victorious in a challenge, building a character up for a purpose, and then watching them uitterly dominate in their role. A similar story to the first just happened to me, just with a different outcome. I've been playing a campaign with friends now for nearly five years. We're all level 18, and playing Pathfinder 1e. I'm playing a well balanced homebrew of a drake rider bloodrager, Rikas Stormborn, and his drake/love interest, Freefall. I've built Rikas as a force multiplier for his mount, doing huge 200 damage alpha strikes with lance charges, but Freefall is built to utterly dominate anything in the skies. She's fast, at 125 feet per turn flight speed, agile with above average maneuverability and the hover, wingover, and flyby attack feats, and retardedly strong with a 40 strength and colossal+ size. And we had just gotten word of an invasion by two different armies, both with drake rider warriors, one of which is the one Rikas was from originally. Suddenly, I was a fighter pilot in an F-22 hunting down swarms of F-86s. It was a total domination. The enemy strategy was to swarm and grapple, and drag their opponents to the ground. Freefall litteraly dove from out of the storm, a storm of her own making, since she's now half storm dragon, into their midst. They couldn't touch her. Her AC and CMD were too high for them to get more than glancing blows, and they needed to get several drakes grappling her to drag her down. There was never more than two drakes grappling her. Only the drake rider generals could face off one on one against my characters. There were four in total. None of them made it out of that fight. Each drake had roughly 70 hp, and each rider had roughly 40. Each general had roughly 200 and each were using true dragons as mounts. None of these characters were trash NPCs. And somehow, I still lost count of my kill score. Level 18 is fucking INSANE.

[@180msdavid]

😮😢 fuge that fighter made me feel things. ❤ But I was comfortable in my dark corner 😅

[@gamerx2882]

It's so freaks me out when I hear your voice on an advertisement. It's like a glitch in the Matrix.

[@charlesduffy9755]

I FUCKING KNEW I WASN'T CRAZY

[@mixmastermike2128]

1:18 START

[@douglaschapman738]

Lol you put them through lost mines XD

[@thibni_]

All that matters, is love❤

[@Huptiel]

Bedankt

[@bluelionsage99]

My party is level 16 (I vowed to run the campaign to level 20 - it has been four years now real time). I am tempted to run a low level enemy group for them to stomp just for the fun of it and remind them they are close to demi-god like.

[@husselbeh1058]

Something that I think would be cool in your situation is putting them up against something that at a far lower level caused them a lot of trouble. That way it would make them think of how difficult it was and see truly how far they have come! Would be interested in hearing what you ended up doing :)

[@scottburns5049]

One family under jesus

[@Damnnnbruh]

Give us the name of that guy so we can name characters in our worlds after him

[@inperfectcell4285]

I know it was an act of kindness but slipping a pouch 1000GP. Just puts a price on the kids back, gives quest givers reasons to give less gold seeing they have so much to give to a random peasant, and to top it off theives will see them as easy targets and plan a heist on them. I know its greedy but giving them 10 to 50 GP would have a better impact. As a small gift of kindness and not flaunt of wealth.

[@HettycTracyn]

The second story... 😢😢😢

[@jamoecw]

the goblin quest should have been like Goblin Slayer. in a dark cave that was too tight for larger weapons to be used effectively and horrors which scar those that deal with them. easy to defeat when you use the right tactics or weapons and not considered to worth much so there is little reward for dealing with them.

[@j.michaelcherry8330]

Ppfftttr 100k+ in gold? What are those rookie numbers... My last character that level burned GP like it was made of paper. Never could pass up a "deal"

[@mrjamieb1899]

Video begins at 1:20

[@x.davidwilliams83]

Huzzah

[@WarDogMadness]

So gobinslayer season 5

[@Rabijeel]

That is NOT a Lvl1-Dungeon. At least not for a Party of that Membercount or until it was meant "absuluteley deadly". 8 Gobbos on their Own is a deadly threat, able to down 2 Members of a Lvl1-Party per Round - so as long your Party does not kill at least 2 of them initially reducing the Number in that Fight to 6, it will be very problematic. 8 Gobbos at Lvl1 means you need all Advantage you can get - including an initial AoE-Surpriseattacks and AoE-Effects plus protected Heals to scrape People up fast at range ic. So, GM needs to let them have that Advantage and provide the chance for it.