Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Title is pretty self-explanatory. Haven't played the game in years, but friends of mine are curious and want in, and the burden of sorting this out has fallen on me!

Unfortunately, there seems to be a ton of campaign books, guides, miniatures, strategy books out there etc etc and it's confusing the hell out of me.

Having been a fan of the Baldur's gate games on the PS2, I'm looking to do a stripped down, basic campaign, which is set around Baldur's gate.

So what do I need?

Thanks for any replies.

If you don't have an investment in a particular version of the rules you can get the basic rules for 5th edition for free from the wizards website:

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules

That covers the 4 basic classes (fighter, cleric, rogue, wizard) from Lvls 1-20. There are also other downloads such as character sheets etc. 5th edition is a pretty stripped down and simple system in comparison to 3rd and 4th so is probably very good for people new to roleplaying as there's not tons of rules to learn.

For setting info the Forgotten Realms Wiki is comprehensive.

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

The basic set already linked is perfectly serviceable. You'll only need that and a set of dice to really get down to it. The rest is just having an imagination and setting a scenario.

If you're looking to have a few more player options the full Player's Handbook would be useful purchase. It covers Paladin, Bard Sorcerer, Monk and other fan favorites as classes. It's also got an expanded spell list and some optional rules for multiclassing and feats. You can probably skip those latter options for a new group.

The Monster Manual & Dungeon Master's guide are completely optional purchases. The monster manual is great and provides a lot of material to work with has GM. The Dungeon Master's Guide may be useful if you're totally at a loss for how to run adventures or construct monsters. It gives general advice and how good it is will depend on your tastes, I personally don't think it's terrible.

You won't need any campaign books unless you know a specific adventure path you'd want to run and based on your post here you're not.
You won't need any guides if you're willing to work from the wiki for your setting. I'm not sure there's a full FR setting guide anyway though they did not release one for the Sword Coat specifically.
You won't need any miniatures unless you want to use them in for combat. The rules cover both combat without miniatures and with, without miniature is considered the default. Even if you opt for miniature based play on a grid or table, simple coins or paper tokens can be good stand ins. As can any miniatures you have from your Wargaming (approately themed or not).
You won't need any strategy books and I'm not really aware of them so they might not relate to the RPG side of things at all.

In the end my suggestion would be this:
Note: Opinions

*Pick up the Player's Handbook and Monster Manual. Read them as thoroughly as you can. Don't take too much of the fluff/flavor text as gospel, this is all malleable.
*Spend about 1 hour coming up with a basic premise & theme for the game you can give your players. You want people to be able to start the game with a clear idea of who they are, how they relate to and know the other Player Characters and one immeidate goal to pursue. Any more than that is probably too much planning/pre-destination imo. Give them this information at least a few days before your game starts. It'll make sure they already have a frame of reference when they get to the table.
*Scratch down the stats of some Monsters that would make for good encounters. You don't need to have a specific plan for how/why these would come into play (though you can), but having the stats all pulled out and organized will be help keep the flow. Don't be afraid to use the stats for "Goblins" for "Group of sneaky criminals" and similiar such re-skins. It's a useful tool to keep the game flow going. You can use a tool like this calculator to compute difficulty based on the Challenge Ratings given in the book. Err on the easier side for your first adventure it's more fun to kick ass than get your ass kicked on your first foray out.
*Invite players over and have everyone create characters together at the table. Maybe offer some small in-game rewards for tying one another's backstory together like "He's my brother" or "We met 10 years ago on our first job" these don't have to be novels or even a paragraph. Just a conceptual tie that will help folks flesh out the context of the game world. Obviously this isn't mandatory but it's nice, hence the rewards for doing so.
*If players are concerned about having a rounded party let them know it's just better to play what they want. A group of 4 people playing fighters who all want to be fighters are going to have a better time RPing a bunch of sword-bros than forcing somebody to take something they don't would. As the GM you can be sure not to throw in challenges that are only

How tied are you to D&D proper? Pathfinder is a branch off of D&D 3.5, and has almost all the rules for free online.

 Nevelon wrote:
How tied are you to D&D proper? Pathfinder is a branch off of D&D 3.5, and has almost all the rules for free online.

It's also I don't think it's the system for a stripped down basic campaign. The system's entire selling point is that it stuck with the fiddly, million-rules-for-everything approach. It's great if you want piles and piles and piles of character options to shift through for the best ones for a charOP approach. I'm not convinced the system does anything terribly better beyond 5e beyond that.

pgmason wrote:
If you don't have an investment in a particular version of the rules you can get the basic rules for 5th edition for free from the wizards website:

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules

That covers the 4 basic classes (fighter, cleric, rogue, wizard) from Lvls 1-20. There are also other downloads such as character sheets etc. 5th edition is a pretty stripped down and simple system in comparison to 3rd and 4th so is probably very good for people new to roleplaying as there's not tons of rules to learn.

For setting info the Forgotten Realms Wiki is comprehensive.

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Cheers

This is good info and help, and best of all, it's free. I'm very happy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Chongara wrote:
The basic set already linked is perfectly serviceable. You'll only need that and a set of dice to really get down to it. The rest is just having an imagination and setting a scenario.

If you're looking to have a few more player options the full Player's Handbook would be useful purchase. It covers Paladin, Bard Sorcerer, Monk and other fan favorites as classes. It's also got an expanded spell list and some optional rules for multiclassing and feats. You can probably skip those latter options for a new group.

The Monster Manual & Dungeon Master's guide are completely optional purchases. The monster manual is great and provides a lot of material to work with has GM. The Dungeon Master's Guide may be useful if you're totally at a loss for how to run adventures or construct monsters. It gives general advice and how good it is will depend on your tastes, I personally don't think it's terrible.

You won't need any campaign books unless you know a specific adventure path you'd want to run and based on your post here you're not.
You won't need any guides if you're willing to work from the wiki for your setting. I'm not sure there's a full FR setting guide anyway though they did not release one for the Sword Coat specifically.
You won't need any miniatures unless you want to use them in for combat. The rules cover both combat without miniatures and with, without miniature is considered the default. Even if you opt for miniature based play on a grid or table, simple coins or paper tokens can be good stand ins. As can any miniatures you have from your Wargaming (approately themed or not).
You won't need any strategy books and I'm not really aware of them so they might not relate to the RPG side of things at all.

In the end my suggestion would be this:
Note: Opinions

*Pick up the Player's Handbook and Monster Manual. Read them as thoroughly as you can. Don't take too much of the fluff/flavor text as gospel, this is all malleable.
*Spend about 1 hour coming up with a basic premise & theme for the game you can give your players. You want people to be able to start the game with a clear idea of who they are, how they relate to and know the other Player Characters and one immeidate goal to pursue. Any more than that is probably too much planning/pre-destination imo. Give them this information at least a few days before your game starts. It'll make sure they already have a frame of reference when they get to the table.
*Scratch down the stats of some Monsters that would make for good encounters. You don't need to have a specific plan for how/why these would come into play (though you can), but having the stats all pulled out and organized will be help keep the flow. Don't be afraid to use the stats for "Goblins" for "Group of sneaky criminals" and similiar such re-skins. It's a useful tool to keep the game flow going. You can use a tool like this calculator to compute difficulty based on the Challenge Ratings given in the book. Err on the easier side for your first adventure it's more fun to kick ass than get your ass kicked on your first foray out.
*Invite players over and have everyone create characters together at the table. Maybe offer some small in-game rewards for tying one another's backstory together like "He's my brother" or "We met 10 years ago on our first job" these don't have to be novels or even a paragraph. Just a conceptual tie that will help folks flesh out the context of the game world. Obviously this isn't mandatory but it's nice, hence the rewards for doing so.
*If players are concerned about having a rounded party let them know it's just better to play what they want. A group of 4 people playing fighters who all want to be fighters are going to have a better time RPing a bunch of sword-bros than forcing somebody to take something they don't would. As the GM you can be sure not to throw in challenges that are only

Good advice. Thanks.

Like I said above, I'm happy that this isn't going to cost me a penny. I doubt if we'll get past level 20, so this is more than appropriate.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, there was a basic dungeon masters guide for free as well. God bless PDFs

Chongara wins again. *shakes fist angrily*

You give up too easily.

Try the Starter Set. The module with it, Lost Mines of Phandelver, covers levels 1-5. It's not Baldur's Gate, but it at least shows the basics for constructing adventures for 5e. You can shop around and probably get it for about £9 or so. (at least over here anyway)

It includes:
64-page adventure book
32-page rulebook for playing characters level 1-5
5 pre-generated characters, with character sheet
6 dice-- Koplow pearlescent dice, FYI

As far as books to buy, just the big 3 if you want them (PHB, MM and DMG in that order). Or use the PDF downloads, and include all the supplemental downloads too, the ones for the campaign books.

I would pony up for the main three books and ignore everything else. If you persist in wanting to do D&D you will need them eventually and the basic sets, starter sets are just waypoints to them.

I find the current editions good value, well written with a decent gaming system attached. I don't agree with every decision made, but I agree with most, most other players and GMs are in more or less the same position. They went a good way to satisfying everyone with a system that takes the best of AD&D, 3.5e and 4e and avoiding their pitfalls.

Thanks for all the replies - some useful info here, but for the team being, I'm going down the free stuff road, so I'll probably skip buying the books, as they cost about £30 each.

Out of curiosity for those playing 5th, does a player need all 3 core books?

I ask because it was needed in 3/3.5. The PHB was an obvious include, but between animal companions/familiars/summoning a player often needed a MM almost as much as the DM. And with all the magic items/prestige classes, having their own DMG was not a bad call.

Now when 4th came out, I was surprised that it looked like all a player actually needed was the PHB. Was wondering if they kept that for 5th.

 Nevelon wrote:
Out of curiosity for those playing 5th, does a player need all 3 core books?

I ask because it was needed in 3/3.5. The PHB was an obvious include, but between animal companions/familiars/summoning a player often needed a MM almost as much as the DM. And with all the magic items/prestige classes, having their own DMG was not a bad call.

Now when 4th came out, I was surprised that it looked like all a player actually needed was the PHB. Was wondering if they kept that for 5th.

No. The stats for all available animal companions are included in appendix in the PHB and summoning calls selection of NPC entity under the DMs control rather being hand selected by the PCs. The GM arguably needs neither since the free monster stats give you more than enough to base your own off of. The DMG is even more optional since it only contains a bunch of alternative and variant rules, along with magic items which themselves are optional this edition.

Though given it's always been that the DM decides what prestige classes and magic items are available by default, I'm not sure the player has ever needed that. Deep-diving the source material to cherry pick tons of options is just one particular play style, not a base assumption of the game.

 Nevelon wrote:
Out of curiosity for those playing 5th, does a player need all 3 core books?

Nope. A player could easily skip buying any of them, thanks to WotC's free PDF. TBH I don't think the DM would even need to buy anything (I initially ran 5E solely on the basis of the PDF). OTOH all three core books are really worthwhile.

Players Handbook is a good buy for all. Buy all three core books to GM.

You don't need the extras, but the production values on the books are excellent and the extra options and artwork are nice.