u/SaltyKoopa

I'm DMing for a group of fairly casual players, and while they are definitely enjoying 3.5e, they're not really well versed in all the mechanics, and I tend to help them with their character sheets and builds basically. As our campaign progresses there's been more and more monsters I've been wanting to introduce, but many of them have character sheet altering effects like ability damage that while simple to understand require several numbers to be recalculated on the sheet (DEX alone would affect AC, touch AC, range attack rolls, reflex saves, all of the dex skills, etc.) Again, while this isn't hard to understand, it's book keeping, and it's amplified by the fact that my players don't really know the sheets well enough to erase and replace the numbers--or if they do it still slows the pace of the game a lot which they find unfun.

I've thought of replacing these types of statuses with others that provide similar but easier to manage effects, although I'm worried it'll break the balance somewhere in there.

So my question is, how do you run these types of effects without leading to constant updating of sheets over and over throughout the session?

P.S. this issue extends to other types of ability affecting conditions like exhaustion, entangled, etc.

EDIT: I should mention that we play on discord and their character sheets are PDFs (but not the auto-calculating kind)

So I have around 2K hours and float around top of silver with Soldier 76. I use a logitech M317 with no mouse pad (just directly on the wood of my desk.) My aim feels okayish but not great. As a benchmark, when playing VAXTA I usually have around 30-33% accuracy. I'm not one to blame being hardstuck on poor hardware because I feel like if a GM player used this setup they'd still dominate the games I'm in. But I am curious how much of a hindrance this actually is. I mean, if I legitimately could win me a few extra duels it'd probably be worth the upgrade. Suggestions are welcome (although I'd rather no spend too much money on this.)

So my campaign is still pretty early on (7 sessions) and it started with a really small scope of just a single location (a manor) and the surrounding forest. The players are finally ready to start venturing out and since both they and I want the world to be sandbox-style, I've been trying to add locations and seed interesting plots they can stumble into.

I am well aware I should be writing scenarios not plots, and I'm doing that by building characters with goals, random social encounters, and hiding clues in different places, etc. The problem is I'm not sure when enough is enough. I'm currently making a scenario for one of the nearest towns and it already involves 13 NPCs (probably will need a few more), three factions, five or six locations in town, a half dozen encounters, and culminates in a full on dungeon crawl that I haven't even started yet. I've built the scenario so no one really knows everything and even if the players ignore a few encounters, they'll probably still get involved through others.

But as you can imagine this is turning into a logistical nightmare and my notes are reaching the point of spaghetti--and this is just one town out of six I've already placed on the map. I also fear them basically just walking out of town after getting supplies leaving all that work wasted.

I recently have been using Village of Hommlet as my organizational inspiration, try to replicate it's LOCATION -> NPCs -> GOAL/SECRETs flow to make the world feel like a living breathing place, but honestly it has only brought me more stress as it feels I'm having to write a whole adventure module for every nook and cranny of the world. I can't tell if it's that what I'm creating is too complex (too many moving parts), or if I'm making it so by overcomplicating the pieces involved (backstories, rat's nest of connections).

My next session is Saturday and while I don't need the whole world ready realistically there's two towns and a lot of wilderness they can reach and I want that to be as ready as possible. But at my current pace there's no way I'm gonna hit that goal without spending hours. I feel lost and overwhelmed. I've tried looking at lightening the load (things like Lazy DM), but everytime I do either the world feels so shallow or I feel like I can't visualize the threads in my head and will end up relying on ass pulls. Even worse I know I'm not railroading my players but I also feel like I'm not setting things up to react to their cool ideas. If they don't really vibe with my scenarios it's not like I can pull another one out of thin air. I basically feel like I've already locked them into what's going to happen even if they have total freedom within that bubble.

Any advice would be appreciated.