I’ve been DMing a small group of new players. They’ve been literally “hit or miss” with combat. I know at least one is getting frustrated with combat because he can’t roll to save his life. I’m planning on throwing a swarm of small creatures at them next session. goblins, spiders, whatever. just small easily killed, easily hit creatures. Thing is I don’t want to do ‘initiative’ per se as I’m considering having a ton of these things. Anyone have any pointers?
Give him a personal sidequest. His bad luck is due to a curse, and there’s something he can do to break it, or at least compensate for it, and you can implement it with a 1 weapon or something to boost his spellcasting skill.
But a swarm would work too, where it has low AC and you whittle it down each turn.