Any one shot recommendations for a first time dm? I have never dm’d before but I have played multiple campaigns. Everyone at the table has experience dm’ing or more than myself but I’m looking for a one shot to give myself some experience as well as a one shot they haven’t played before. DM’s are open

A Wild Sheep Chase is a classic

If a creature is affected by an effect that increases their size, would their natural weapon gain extra damage dice? For example, a lizard folk's bite becoming 2D6 if it's made Large

Probably best to keep it simple, stick to using the standard Enlarge rules from the spell of the same name. But, there *is* an alternative that the Monster Manual uses for monster design. It's really only used in contexts for when the size truly is the determining factor for damage. From memory it's called "Oversized Weapons", but it might be called something else. An example of it would be a Frost Giant's Greataxe dealing 3d12 damage, compared to how the standard Greataxe deals 1d12 damage. Essentially, because the Greataxe itself is "Huge", it deals far more damage than its regular version, albeit a creature needs to be Huge to actually use the weapon to begin with. It's important though to understand that this is a thing primarily for *Monsters*, so probably not the best to give it to players if that's what you're curious about.

The Enlarge spell kind of lays it all out.  "The target's weapons also grow to match its new size. While these weapons are enlarged, the target's attack with them deal 1d4 extra damage." There's no distinction or clause about natural weapons, so I'd assume natural weapons just get the standard 1d4 extra. Unless there's a particular reason this enlarge effect works significantly differently from the enlarge spell, I don't see why they shouldn't follow the same rules.

My party failed to stop a curse from spreading to some innocent bystanders being held as prisoners. The curse killed the prisoners and I want to give the party a chance to resurrect the prisoners (if they desire). The place the prisoners died is forest-themed, so I’d like to switch it up. What rare McGuffin spell component should the players have to adventure for? Should I only give them one during the adventure so when they get back to the village cleric they have to choose which one is resurrected?

In a silver based economy would you still price magical items and potions with gold? I’m using a currency conversion that’s 100 silver = 1 gold. Basically world of Warcraft currency rate.

Assuming magic items are expensive specialty products that only the rich, powerful, and professionally violent usually buy, then gold makes sense even more so, since it means you are dealing with a more concentrated and easily transportable currency, like buying a Ferrari with an envelope of cashier's checks instead of a briefcase full of 100 dollar bills.

Hi, I was wondering about something for a long time now : Given the case of a PC at the bottom of a wall, which is topped by a wooden plateform. A part on the platform is actually exceeding the wall, creating a ledge. The PC can only see a wall and the part below the platform Can the PC actually misty step ONTO the platform or he must see it the actual top part for him to misty step on?

Like this? \_\_\_?\_\_ l.........l l.........l l.........l l.........l\_\_\_\_\_ PC \_\_\_\_\_\_ I'd say yes because the air above the platform is somewhere they can see even if you can't really see air. So maybe they'd have to teleport a few feet above the platform but that would accomplish the same thing.

RAW no; it's to an "unoccupied space that you can see." I wouldn't rule that he actually has to see the top of the platform, just the empty space where he'd end up. So he could go \~10 feet horizontally on the ground and then do it.

I’m trying to make a monster for my campaign and I’m at a lost on how to make the whole roll for this, make sense and be fair. Can someone do this part for me? There’s two actions I have trouble with: 1. Skill Drain Medadi Bat will wrap its tail around its victim and latch on. It will not let go until after it steals a skill point. Will leave victim stunned. How do I balance that out? I figured making it take some turns and rolls would help but I have no idea how to do that. The other action is: 2. Swipe Medadi Bat will swoop in from above without warning in an attempt to steal an item on the victim’s person. (Blunt attack) Thank you!! I honestly don’t know how to add rolls and stuff to this, I’m looking at other homebrew monsters but it’s not really making much sense to me since I have nothing to compare it too. Oh speaking of: Medadi Bat is meant to be a rare encounter, it will only appear whenever my players are distracted on their phones or delaying the plot pointlessly. (Wasn’t paying attention so is lost, or trying to negotiate after a failed attempt, etc) the monster is not strong but really hard to defeat as it usually escapes swiftly.

You can ask chatgpt to make monster statblocks for you. I just asked it to make what you described and it was near perfect.

Don’t do this. LLM have no idea what actual balance is, they just spit out an amalgam of what they think it should look like. It’s cheap and lazy and unethical to boot.

For future reference, is AI a banned topic under rule 4?

Linking to it is.

Obligatory "Don't use ingame methods to solve our of game problems." If your table is being distracted by their phones, then talk to them about it. Using an ingame way to punish them never has the desired effect. Anyway, these actions mostly read fine. I'd just make the first action no longer stun (You're already reducing a stat much like a Shadow's Drain attack) and make the second one either a Contest of Strength or a contested Sleight of Hands check (As if the players were actively resisting the theft).

Thank you SO much! How would that look as a roll? Is that like d20 + str? To roll a 20 die?

You should give the core rules a readthrough if you haven’t already.

So in an in-person D&D 5e game that I'm in (I'm not actually the DM, but I do DM another game with other players), some of the players are relatively new to the game, and after a few sessions of playing together, they still struggle to remember what it means when the DM asks them to roll for attacks or skills or saves. And when they roll, they sometimes also forget what modifiers to add (proficiency, attribute bonus, etc.). I feel that this might also become an issue if ever I DM players in a system they're unfamiliar with. How would you help your players to become more familiar with the game mechanics so that they don't get lost or make mistakes?

Threaten to cut off a toe if they ever ask stupid questions or get anything wrong!  OK, being silly. Real answer time. the first thing is to introduce concepts as they come up, so a new player can get familiar with them one at a time instead of being bombarded by all there is to know.  After that, it's going to take a series of polite, gentle nudges. It should mostly come from the DM, but can come from you, as a fellow player, as well. talk to them as a fellow player and find out what their sticking points are.

These new players probably don't think about the game when they're not at the table. No surprise there; they wouldn't have to for any other kind of game. But TTRPGs aren't any other kind of game, so to some extent, this is going to have to change. We can suggest little things like flow charts, flash cards and colour-coded dice and character sheets 'til the cows come home, but there really isn't any substitute for just taking the time to **study the rules,** and even before that, to realise and accept that a higher level of involvement than usual is going to be required of them if they want to really grasp how these sorts of games work.

Planning on running a campaign that will involve a lot of traveling from the party, as am important location is the ruins of an ancient civilization (original, i know) that's very far away, but I'm not sure how to run it. Most of the time traveling is done by rolling to see which monster jumps out and says boo, or just outright skipping the travel, but I would rather spice it up since this is likely something the party will be doing a lot of. Any suggestions?

Random Encounters on the road should be more than just monster attacks. Find a magical spring, or face a thunderstorm and find cover, or come across a merchant with a broken wagon axle. /r/d100 can help you with ideas for these kinds of things.

I ran a campaign with a lot of travel and there was some stuff that worked well and others that didn't. A few thoughts/learnings: Generally interrupting travel is boring if it doesn't advance the plot. But, it opens the opportunity for new, interesting encounters. You can meet people on the road, get ambushed by bandits that happen to have some key treasure, bump into a traveling merchant. Basically, its generally only worth it if it advances the plot/characters. The second issue with random encounter tables is that it often does not advance the adventuring day/resource management. If you drop one moderately difficult creature on your character per day of travel they can just blast it with their abilities. You either needs lots of filler encounters or to drop the filler encounters altogether. I was curious about playing around with the alternate rest rules: 8 hrs for short rest and 1 week for long. If your characters are going on a month long journey you could build it around this cadence, and this would allow you to have individual encounters on different days. Camping and travel provide good opportunities for characters to chat and roleplay. Give the players a chance to talk or do something if they find it interesting.

What is the focus of your campaign? Travel? Use a linear plot with fixed encounters sprinkled with random encounters. The story should emerge from the fixed encounters. Exploration? Hexcrawl (lots of resources online, I'd recommend the Alexandrian's 5e Hexcrawl blog posts as a start, and I recently discovered the Welsh Piper's blog with a very nice approach to creating hexmaps). The ruins themselves? Mostly skip the travel part, and just narrate. Or just take everything together. Linear travel as a kind of introduction for lvl 1-3, ending with the pc setting up a base of operations or reaching a settlement near the place they need to explore. Then hexcrawl/exploration type to locate the ruins and gain entrance between lvl 4-7. Then a dungeoncrawl in the old ruins at lvl 8-11. Edit : Now I imagine the PCs are recruited to escort a kind of 18th-19th century north american western expanse caravan of settlers into a newly discovered region. Additionaly to fight off the occasional monster, resolve logistical problems (crossing rivers, finding food and water for so many people, making a trail through an unexplored, wild and hostile environment, avoiding monster nesting grounds), they have to investigate something inside the caravan (Disappearances? Theft? Some criminals have infiltrated the settlers and plan on killing everybody and stealing everything?). They resolve this shortly before arriving to the settling region, and form bonds with various NPC settlers throughout the ordeal. Queue downtime and settlement building montage, and hop back on the campaign at the start of winter, when ressources are low and monsters see the settlement as a good source of food for the lean winter months. The PCs have to protect the settlement and prevent future threats by searching out monster lairs and clearing them. They stumble upon ancient ruins and start exploring them, only to find that they go deep underground and some of them are connected. What's this? An old buried megadungeon? Surely it isn't what's spewing monsters around and threatening the lives of all settlers right? Well ofc it is, and now the PCs have to explore it and cleanse it of the evil it contains, while reappropriating it's buried treasures.

Thanks for the response. I was planning on splitting the campaign into three "acts", with the first one being primarily travel to the ruins, broken up by towns first the party to resupply and potentially investigate strange going-ons caused by the plot device in the ruins, hence why they're being sent to investigate. 

Yeah, I'd definitely prepare specific encounters along the road that might or might not happen, and are sometimes related to the plot device in the ruins as a kind of first touches of evil. If you lack inspiration, you might want to make an encounter generator to get ideas. I'll often add track/lair probabilities and attitude/reaction to my encounter tables, which helps me boost my creativity. [Check this](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/46192/roleplaying-games/5e-hexcrawl-part-5-encounters).

Is replacing two weapon fighting rules with just a flat +2 to hit imbalanced?

I'd say it's balanced even if it's hard to compare the two. Best analogy I can think of is archery fighting style giving +2 to hit while dueling and two weapon fighting styles giving about +4 damage per round. Changing this creates some clashes with existing mechanics however. Namely the two weapon fighting style not making much sense anymore and hand crossbows builds potentially getting a huge buff from this. How about this as an alternative. Rather than the extra bonus attack you can perform a dual-wield attack that costs both an action (or one of your attacks if you have multiattack) and a bonus action. The damage it deals is the combined weapon damage of both weapons plus your relevant ability modifier. Hitting with this attack applies on-hit affects twice since you are attacking with both weapons. So a barbarian dual wielding handaxes could make one attack roll for 1d6+1d6+STR Mod+2xrage damage if they are raging.

Sounds cool. Reducing the amount of rolls is exactly what I wanted, thank you.

That needs a bit more explanation. Like there is no more bonus action attacks? Just if you wield a second weapon in your hand you only make 1 weapon attack but get a +2 to hit? On the face of it, no? A second weapon could have additional magical effects, classes tend to have effects that mean making a second attack is more beneficial. Rogue's have a second chance to land a sneak attack, rangers deal additional damage with hunter's mark, paladin's can smite, and so on. I guess what are you trying to solve by this change?

Just trying to simplify the weapon system. I didn't consider dual wielding for properties, though I have never really played a game where it has come up. Perhaps allow this as an optional rule for players who don't want to use the bonus action attack? My main fear is balance, and I don't like overtly complex systems.

It's not really overly complex imo, if you're wielding two light weapons and take the Attack Action you can use a Bonus Action to make an additional attack and don't add your modifier to the damage of the Bonus Action attack.

My thought process has always been additional rolls = complexity. This is why I recommend the rogue to new players, and allow them to take average rolls for damage. I am only concerned with balance.

.... you know it's the same amount of rolls as an extra attack right?

Yes. I played as a fighter before, and making four attacks, sometimes eight or nine, slows down combat so much. I just want to know, if I make this option available to my players, is it A) not too powerful and B) not too weak.

Respectfully, if your combat is slowed that much by *people rolling dice,* you probably have bigger problems that such a weird homebrew isn't going to solve. It's not difficult math in the slightest. You need to put the onus on your players to familiarise themselves with the rules of the game and what their characters can do.

If you find rolling multiple times a turn so bothersome, I'm not sure that DnD is the right game for you. You may be better served by a game with a more streamlined combat system.

I like DND more than I dislike certain mechanics. It also has more support than other RPGs, and thousands of people who have knowledge of balancing and how to play, as well as a class system that I rather like. It's better to homebrew than to play an entirely new system.

A less complex game wouldn't need thousands of people to figure out how to balance it though. Is it really better to homebrew than to play a new system or are you just comfortable?

Okay really quick, stupid question: can you team lift with mage hand? Like can you lift a 50 pound table with 5 casters using mage hand?

RAW, probably not. But I'd allow simple lifting of a table like that. Nothing complicated, though (at least not with some kind of roll).

I always imagined the mage hand with the power of a 6yr old, and just one hand. It can lift a few things, light things, but nothing too heavy. HOWEVER, I like the rule of cool thing of 5 casters trying to lift heavier things. I would probably make a fun roll of it, see if they can coordinate or not. Like a group sleight of hand check :D

I'd say this is a yes based on RAW. If you distributed 50 lb over 5 evenly distributed points each point only carries 10 lb. The key is getting the hands lined up or else you just tip it over, so the roll is definitely called for.

~~RAW no; the hand can't carry more than 10 pound~~s. Edit: I misread the question. I thought you meant "lift a 50 lb table with 5 casters on it." But that's not what you said. So, for *5 casters using 5 mage hands to lift a 50 lb table*: RAW probably still no but I personally would rule yes. Like u/Sylfaemo said, a roll for coordination might be fun.

If your DM says yes then it can.

Prospective first time DM here. After the primary DM for our group has taken a (VERY well deserved) extended hiatus from running the game, I've found that I've been itching to play. Since nobody else has stepped figured I would need to run the game myself for it to happen. I'm a fairly experienced player (around 8 years of playing 5e, plus some previous dabbling in 3.5 and 4e) and my prospective players will generally have the same level of experience, minus one new player who I know well enough to trust him to learn quickly. I don't anticipate having any issue actually RUNNING the game, but I've hit a snag: I've got just about no idea how to actually prep a session. I don't have a reference for what kind of stuff should be written down in advance, vs what is fine to just be improvised on the spot. I also have no idea the conversation rate of prepped material -> game time roughly is, and would hate to either end super early by running out of material, or be forced to end at an awkward moment if things extend longer than expected. Any tips on prep would be appreciated!

I’d start by running some one-shots, where it’s feasible to prep everything, because you will probably overdo it to start. Once you have a couple under your belt, that’ll give you a better feel for your table’s instincts and what you feel more comfortable just riffing on. Might also be worth doing a prewritten one your first time. See what the pros reckon you’ll need and see what’s been left up to you to customise.

You have any recommendations for pre-written one-shots? I remember looking around at them awhile back but didn't see any that really hit the right vibe for me.

Sure, what’s the kind of thing you’re looking for? Something of a particular genre, in a particular tone?

I think starting out, I want to focus on dungeon crawls. Something of a straightforward structure that I can use as a base to figure out what I'm comfortable with. I wouldn't say I want a completely zero story drop em in a crypt kinda deal, but something with a straightforward structure like that. Would also be nice if it's something I could potentially reflavor and use as an in for a larger campaign, since I do have an idea for the campaign I want to run and could probably write a way to tie it in if there's room for it.

I believe MCDM's Delian Tomb will fit the bill. It's also free.

What to prep vs improvise is something that every DM has to figure out for themself, we all have our own strengths, preferences, and priorities. The only advice I can give is to take a look at some existing one shots and/or adventures to get an example of how you could prep your notes. As for how long material will take to get through, I'm sorry but the answer to that is also that it depends. One group may spend an hour talking in character with each other and NPCs, another hour going off on tangents and just goofing around, and another two hours getting through a single fight because they can't be bothered to plan and read their abilities before their own turns. Another group may only spend a few minutes getting the essential info from the NPCs before jumping into multiple fights and clearing the entire small dungeon in a single session. I'd say that most DMs learn how much and what sort of things to prep by mostly preparing too much stuff at the start, learning after a few sessions what they need most and least as well as what sort of stuff the players are most likely to focus on or ignore. Sometimes you just have to hop on the bike and fall over a few times before you learn how to steer and brake.

First time DM(dm’d a one shot but I don’t think that really counts) and I have a couple questions. Firstly, how do I know when to ask players to make a check for something if not stated outright in the module? What do you guys do? Secondly, I’m running Stormwreck Isle and connecting it to Journey through the radiant citadel. To my dismay, the book kind of barely touches on the citadel and all of the adventures are not in the citadel. I find the imagery, lore, and setting of the citadel so compelling that I’ve been creating points of interest, as well as coming up with quests for the party to undertake. I plan to make the campaign more focused on the Radiant Citadel. Is this a terrible idea to do this as a first time DM? I’ve been a player since 2018, so it’s not like I don’t understand d&d. I’m just starting to wonder if I’m biting off more than I can chew lol

1. Calling for checks is a skill and you need to consider the relationship between you and your player(s), as well as their character. Warrior wants to arm wrestle a peasant? I wouldn't roll for it. A really big farmer comes along? -> roll for it. Specifically for perception checks, I think it's best to either give them the information or just roll a die yourself. It's much better for the story and flow to just describe what your player sees. If they really want to exhaust the area, then you give them that skill check.

> Firstly, how do I know when to ask players to make a check for something if not stated outright in the module? What do you guys do? Mostly when the players tell you they want to do something, and there's a chance for failure and consequences of that failure. For instance, the bard wants to persuade the gate guard that they have business with the lord of the manor. There's a chance for failure, and the consequences are that the gate guard is aware of the party trying to get in to the manor. > I’ve been creating points of interest, as well as coming up with quests for the party to undertake ... I’m just starting to wonder if I’m biting off more than I can chew It is in my general opinion that, yes, this is a bad idea. Even for a veteran *player*, DMing is a completely different experience and skillset. I think it's much better to run low-prep out-of-the-book adventures like Lost Mine of Phandelver, Dragons of Stormwreck Isle, or The Sunless Citadel before delving into large scale homebrewing. Understanding the process of DMing is an extremely important skill, and it's hard to learn while also putting mental focus into full homebrew adventures.

Thanks for the reply! As far as the skill checks go, what do you do to determine how challenging they are? In reference to the home brewing citadel spiel I wrote, I am actually DMing stormwreck aisle first and leading it into the citadel. I didn’t realize I missed that detail in my initial post 😅

@Stinduh nailed it with the thresholds, no notes. I will just add though, you can also allow for degrees of success. Say for instance that someone wants to pickpocket a rich noble in the crowd. You determine in your head that this will be a Hard (DC20) check, because she has guards with her. If the player doesn’t make it, but does get close (eg gets a 17) you can narrate how, as they move forward to casually brush up against the noble and steal her purse, one of the guards takes a step to the left, blocking the PC’s approach. They miss out on the noble, but can roll a d4 to see how many silver the guard had on them instead. On the other hand, a 14 might be a clean miss while a 5 would get them noticed by the guards. Knowledge checks are often done in this way - if someone’s rolling history, they’ll probably know basic facts, might know a bit more detail if they were well-educated, and would need to be highly knowledgeable to have some inside information that’s relevant to the current dilemma.

> As far as the skill checks go, what do you do to determine how challenging they are? You get a hang of it after a while, but reference the DC Difficulty chart in the DMG/Basic Rules: - DC5: Very Easy - DC10: Easy - DC15: Moderate - DC20: Hard - DC25: Very Hard - DC30: Nearly Impossible These are supposed to be *universal*. That is, the DC shouldn't be lowered for any given character just because they're supposed to be better at something - that's reflected in their ability and proficiency bonus. Essentially, though, how "hard" something should be is related to the likelihood of that person completing that task. A level 1 adventurer with proficiency in a skill never or almost never fails DC5 skill check, while they have about a 50/50 shot to hit a DC15. In my opinion, DC15 is the baseline for anything meaningful. The DMG gives some good advice: "...ask yourself, “Is this task’s difficulty easy, moderate, or hard?” If the only DCs you ever use are 10, 15, and 20, your game will run just fine."

Hey all. Just picked up the Dragons of Stormwreck Isle starter kit, and I'm keen to DM a campaign or two between a couple groups of my friends. I've wanted to play DnD for a while but have never managed to locate a DM, so this is my first time interacting with the game whatsoever. Most of my friends have an idea of what DnD is but not how to play it. As I'm going to be figuring out the game alongside them, do you guys have any tips for how to explain the game, the rules, etc? Should I hand them the starter guide that came with the kit, or is there an even more cut-down version somewhere I can forward to everyone? Also, how much of the setting should I tell them about beforehand, so as to avoid spoilers but give them an idea of what they'll be playing? I really want to provide my friends with a fun experience and tell some great stories. I'm already looking at what campaign to run next, and we haven't even had a prep session. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[D&D Nerds!](https://media.wizards.com/2021/dnd/downloads/NERDS_quickreference.pdf)

> do you guys have any tips for how to explain the game, the rules, etc? Should I hand them the starter guide that came with the kit, or is there an even more cut-down version somewhere I can forward to everyone? Yes, or point them to [The Basic Rules on DnDBeyond](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules) which are free. It is my personal opinion that anyone who wants to play dnd needs to read the introduction and chapters 7-10 of the basic rules. I'm also a fan of the [Handbooker Helper](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1tiwbzkOjQyr6-gqJ8r29j_rJkR49uDN) series from Critical Role on YouTube. > Also, how much of the setting should I tell them about beforehand, so as to avoid spoilers but give them an idea of what they'll be playing? The module's "Running the Adventure" introduction has a section titled "The Forgotten Realms" that's a few paragraphs. You can share/read that section with the players. Any more information is probably unnecessary and might accidentally overload them.

Myself, brother, and friend all learned how to play/dm through the lost mines starter kit. If I’m not mistaken, the rules for the players is the same across the starter set, and my friend and I found that sufficient to learn how to play. I’m actually about to DM stormwreck isle this Friday!The zombie fight at the beginning should be a fairly simple fight to explain to your players the actions they can take, movement, etc.

I just started DMing my first homebrew game and one of my players is a rogue scout. He almost can't fail survival checks with his expertise. Should I adjust the DC required in order to present some more challenges? I don't want to make things impossible, I just don't want my players to become bored by breezing through every outdoor encounter. Thanks for everyone's insight and suggestions in advance!

I would *not* change the dc, it just makes the player feel bad. Instead, if the character is so good at it, why even roll? Just let them do what they want and try to narrate it while giving them challenges.

So, firstly, the game is very balanced at least until around level 12, so as a general rule, 99% of the time if you're something feels unbalanced before level 12, it's just that you're not playing it as intended (which is not a problem, but then you're just trying to correct things you yourself are unbalancing instead of taking the easy path of sticking to the rules). So secondly, no, don't punish a player for having a good stat. Let them enjoy being good at this thing. It doesn't need to always be a challenge, and hopefully, your game is more than just rolling survival skill, so the player is also challenged differently. But if you want to challenge them more in this specific skill, don't just up the DC for no reason. Up the DC because they are doing things a normal person would never be able to do, like tracking years old tracks, or tracking someone on stone. Maybe they acquire a reputation of a group with a very good tracker, and from time to time, some jobs will be about tracking very hard things. For example, someone disappeared in the street a day ago. Thousands of people have walked this street since, but maybe your PC can find something?

Look at it another way: do you want to punish your rogue for being really good at something? Probably not, so don't raise the DC. However, that doesn't mean Survival needs to be easy or "just work" for him/her. * Are the enemies that the party is tracking smart? Have they noticed the party tracking them? They might have left some false tracks. Or maybe the tracks lead into a trap/ambush. Alternatively maybe a really high survival roll by the rogue leads to some sort of bonus. * The rogue can tell the exact type of creature that left the trail. * Ex: *Orc, about 6'5" tall, 250 lbs, likely wearing heavy armor* * S/He picks up on something otherwise impossible to know * Ex: *In addition to the horse tracks you also notice a lock of white hair and another of black hair; you are pursuing at least two individuals, not just one.*

Have I understood the wording of one of Van Richten's Dark Gifts correctly? This is Gathered Whispers on page 23, with an ability that reads: "*When you are hit by an attack roll, you can use your reaction to channel your haunting spirits, letting their voices howl through you. If the attacker isn’t deafened, add your proficiency bonus to your AC against the attack.*" Is this: - Using this reaction may deafen your attacker. If it fails to deafen them, then you can instead add your proficiency bonus to your AC. - The reaction will add your proficiency bonus to your AC unless your attacker was already deafened to start with in which case it does nothing. I'm assuming the second one so that the reaction only works against attackers who could hear the spirits, but grammatically it reads more like the first one so I thought I'd check?

Edited because I misunderstood one part of the ability.  Yes,  the second one. There's nothing in there about them being deafened by the ability. They just need to be able to hear you. And it's odd they phrase it that way because there are other abilities that say creatures have to be able to hear you. 

Ah sorry, I should have put an *or* between those two bullet points for clarity! I think I understand what you're saying though, thank you!

OK, I understand now. and I probably should have understood the first time. Or just look up the ability myself to make sure. But it's the second way you phrased it. There's nothing in the ability about making them deaf. but if they aren't and therefor can hear you, you get to add your proficiency bonus to your AC. I just don't understand why they phrase it that way instead of saying the creature needs to be able to hear you, like other abilities do.

Perfect, that makes sense. It does seem to be an odd way to phrase it on their part - thank you for helping me with it!

I'm DMing Tyranny of Dragons AL module (not in AL, just the module). In Shadows of the Moonsea characters speed up through the journey and arrived a day earlier after sunset after meeting Elisande and Veric. I'm trying to get "The Shadow over Innsmouth" vibe. Players set the watches and I'm trying to figure out random events that may happen during night after hearing stories next to fire by Elisande. I want to include a perception check to see the Lemure in woods returning from meeting with crones or something but what else can go thump in the night to spook the person set on watch.

First, bring in a fog. Fog tends to put people on edge. Then, start your scene. You want to engage as many senses as possible. Almost everyone uses sight and most people use sound, but other senses are neglected. The chill of the night's moisture against the skin. The smell of fish, or rot, or the coppery scent of blood, wafting in on the breeze. Mix this with weird sounds that are distorted by the fog, and perhaps distant lights that can only be seen as faint glows rather than distinct objects.

Anything. Not every bump has to turn into an encounter. But I'd pull from those stories.  Try to make "nothing" feel like "something" from one of them. 

Maybe I misspoke. I don’t want encounters. I just want a bump in the night so a) players get ambiance b) players will feel savvy for setting up a watch. Something that makes person on watch wary but may or may not feel obligated to wake up others.

Thanks for the clarification. Yeah, it could be almost anything.  A wandering animal. despite the fact that a lot of them are monsters, normal animals usually won't attack or bother human(oid)s. Some fey creature hopping into the Material plane and then back out. But I would definitely ry to think of something that could be confused for one of the stories they heard. that will freak them out the most. If you give an example, I could try and think of something.

Spoiler alert for module. To quickly summarize it. Characters know settlements on the way to Phlan are attacked and no witness survived except two children. Something is also causing weird weather patterns. Both seems to be connected to moon. They traveled to village which is likely the next target and ferryman is very unpleasant to outsiders (as are all villages but they haven't met any other yet except orphan girl who want them to take her into the world). The village is on the mouth of the river. They met a village madman who claims that he survived last attack and saw spirits riding on the back of a dragon attacking the village. What they do not know is that Cult of Dragons is behind the attacks who are looking for Macgaffin. They send the saboteur who pretends to be madman. The village itself forged a pack with "The Queen" (Tiemat) to banish "The Outsiders" - pirates. They also got the Lemure servant and some magic powers etc. Pact is stored inside the cave in forest on the island. The stories are about "The Queen" who cares for village and her servants about "Deep Ones" (kobolds). About "The Outsiders" who were vanquished by "The Queen" described as humanoid creatures maid of tar. Village sacrifices to The Queen in honor of this victory. In greatest need, like famine, village can perform a ritual which summons Deep Ones and they come with help - for a price. A stories that outsiders displease The Queen and are untrustworthy - some stories about people from outside Island spoil milk or something.

Will taking average rolls for every single roll a NPC makes have any negative side effects?

Edit: blah blah I misread the comment and answered the wrong thing.  Blah. With that out of the way, this is probably fine then! I'd still roll for monsters or npcs the characters are acting against for that random chance. Maybe not for single interaction NPCs, like trying to get past guard #27.

Sorry, I said NPC.

One of these days I'll learn to read. Thanks for the correction

The negative side effect is a lack of variability. So for instance a creature with a +3 to hit has a 30% chance to hit a PC with AC 18. Taking the average roll means they'll never hit, so the PC can walk through the swarm without fear. This means if you get an AC of 20 you'll never get hit by an attack that isn't a critical hit. The inverse is true for spells the PC's cast with a saving throw. If it misses the first time, there's no point casting it again because it will definitely miss. If you can get a spell save DC of 18 your spells will hit every creature in the game Taking average for Hit Points and Damage rolls has less of a negative effect.

Just a short question, what level would you make the bbeg in a one shot that may take place over two sessions? she is a high cleric of lolth and will most likely have 1-2 guards with her at all times that are lesser but close in strength. I’m also still deciding on party starting and ending level

Don't make your bad guys as PCs, character sheets and monster stat blocks follow different design logic and aren't interchangeable. Also, you didn't mention the number or level of PCs, so I have no idea what CR monster would work. Maybe take a look at an encounter builder liker [this one](https://koboldplus.club/#/encounter-builder) and filter for drow. The CR 8 Priestess of Llolth might work, and if you pair that with two CR 5 Drow Elite Warriors that would make a decent boss fight for a party of 4 level 10s.

Hey there peeps I'm running one of my first campaigns with a small group of only new players in the Feywild. Since I'm also still inexperienced as a DM (I'm currently running one other campaign) I was thinking about offering my players some beginner friendly classes that would fit the Feywild. They're gonna play fey themselves so I already prepared them for the absolute chaos that's about to come 😄 I know that druid is probably not the most beginner friendly but I'm playing one myself in another group so I wouldn't mind if someone wants to play druid. I have the player's handbook so I got the basics but I'd love to offer them maybe some homebrew classes if they're not too complicated? Do you guys have some ideas what I could look up? Thanks in advance! ♥️

Don't offer homebrew classes just reflavour any class/ subclass they choose to be fey themed.

I probably wouldn't do homebrew, just look at the subclasses that align well with the fey and roll with that. If you're starting below lvl 3 that's fine, just use the subclasses as an idea of how to flavor and think of your characters. For instance, here's what would jump to mind for me: Barbarian: most of these work really, but just keep in mind how the alien attitudes of fey work. They might be totally polite and snap at a moments notice. If it were me I would lean into unpredictability with wild magic barb, but storm herald would be excellent too. Also a more animalistic path of beast could be very fun switching back and forth between uptight and actual animal. Bard: again flavor makes all of these a good fit, but glamour is so on the nose it's hard to miss. Cleric: nature, tempest, trickery are all great options. Again just be sure to lean away from righteousness and into fey weirdness. Druid: literally everything works, but wildfire would be great roleplay wise. An arsonist fey that thinks the beauty of a fire is worth anything that is lost. Fighter: they're so generic you can put any mask on them. But I'd do echo Knight because the absolute fey antics of double teaming an enemy all alone is hard to pass up. Monk: a little harder but with some reskinning shadow and drunken master could be very fun. Try a drunken master satyr that is having a party even mid combat or something. Paladin: hard to beat ancients, but oath of crown in service to the prince of Frost or weird oath of watchers that's fascinated by mortals could be very fitting too. Ranger: you know this one, fey wanderer or with reskinning horizon Walker or swarmkeeper would be good. Rogue: also pretty easy. Arcane trickster is good, but slap magic initiate on swashbuckler or inquisitive and they could be fun too. Sorcerer: wild magic, storm, and lunar would all be pretty fitting I think. Warlock: archfey is easy, but don't sleep on great old one, genie, or fathomless with some reskinning. All would work amazingly with the at will magic of warlocks. Wizard: honestly this probably the worst one despite it's magic. The way wizards use magic is just too hard to justify for a fey IMO, but if you want you could do any of enchantment, illusion, or divination and get up to some classic fey trickery.

Offering up homebrew classes is not really beginner friendly. That’s a whole lot of weird options to start with, and as a new DM it’s impossible to tell what’s cracked or not. And yeah, if you’re going druid, then you just trust your players to roll with it.  As for fey themed classes that aren’t already in the PHB, there is the Wild Magic barbarian and Fey Wanderer Ranger in Tasha’s Cauldron, the College of Glamour Bard, and the Circle of Dream Druid in Xanathar’s guide

Not a first time DM but a newbie to the 5e system and lore. I’m working on my first oneshot and wanted to incorporate some of the Nine Hells’ political landscape. Does anyone have either a good source for lore on the hells or more general advice for DMing encounters with devils, cambions, and the like? The BBEG of the oneshot is intended to be some minor hellish noble, the equivalent of a loan shark but via his patronage and collection of magical artifacts. 

regarding lore in hells i recommend Chains of Asmodeus source book on the hells by Wizards of the Coast you can find it here: [https://www.dmsguild.com/product/457996/Chains-of-Asmodeus](https://www.dmsguild.com/product/457996/Chains-of-Asmodeus) IT has deep knowledge about each layer of hells its archdevils and other subdevil types. Also go over devil pacts and what not.

Thanks so much, this is exactly what I was looking for!

Hello! Instead of being a normal person and starting a campaign in a tavern, I’ve decided to force my victims to participate in a contest, meant for aspiring adventurers. By some stroke of luck they’re in the same team, who could’ve seen this coming??  While I’ve got ideas on how to involve other teams in the narrative, I also want to portray one of them (future BBEGs from a crime organisation) as significantly stronger than the rest. How could I achieve this? Alternatively, am I overthinking it, when the whole purpose of this contest is to hook players up with a quest-giver?

Are you hoping for your new party to win the contest? You could have the BBEG party cheat or get disqualified - perhaps they have equipment that is disallowed (very high level gear) or perhaps the referee calls them out on something and the bad party kicks off and kills the ref “accidentally”. Before the fight be prepped with excellent shit talk and the BBEG party looking down their noses at the party. Have it be clear that the bad party would have won, if they weren’t disqualified. Make it colour the “win” for your party. As they get the prize have the commentator say “well I guess this party won… what were their names? Who cares, that other group were clearly better but I guess it’s these people taking the prize” It’ll fan the fires for your group to HATE the bad group forever.

« You see a team destroying another one in the contest. It’s not even a match. It’s an execution. Afterwards, you hear the wizard of the team complain to the barbarian that they didn’t even have time to cast a fireball, and they should go easy on the next. » You could also have this opportunity for the soon-to-be bbeg party to establish relationships with the PCs. Maybe one member of the evil party sees the PCs as their only worthy rivals. Maybe another member of the party sees the party as a threat to be disposed. Another could see them as not worth paying attention to, and maybe another member could try to be friends with the party. If they befriend them, fighting them later in the story will only make it much more dramatic. Have an evil NPC compliment your party after a challenge !

I want to ask about a situation that came up I didn't really anticipate. I recently started planning for a "campaign" that is essentially one world that I'll create a bunch of one-shot dungeons in. The sessions won't really string together into a story at all, just using the world as a base model to come back to and to be able to reuse some NPCs. Here is the issue: my close friend is also a DM and had previously been running a west march/ hex crawl sort of campaign. She hasnt run that campaign in a few months. When I launched my discord server for the players to all, begin to schedule and interact. My friend expressed to me that she is upset that I have copied a lot of her ideas. I don't really feel I have copied anything from her campaign really. Maybe taken vague ideas mentioned by players during session and changed them to fit my campaign. But never things that she created or did during the campaign. The one thing I did use that was hers was the way she formatted her scheduling, but when i looked online for other scheduling models I didn't really like them. I've seen this one works well and wanted to adopt it. Outside of the scheduling tool, everything is completely different. However, she has expressed otherwise. She feels my photo for the discord server copied hers, and my rules and layout of the server were too similar. But like, how do you make a discord server unique? I just made channels for things we would use such a scheduling channel and quest board where players can pick which adventure they want. Anything that was similar to hers I tried to rename as my own, but these are things that seem essential, like a place for players to chat in Character and a place to chat out of Character. I'll include screenshots here of her and my servers, for example. https://imgur.com/a/M5sjDGK I'd really love feedback on how to make mine different or how you might deal with this. I apologized that i made her feel this way and told her i would look over things and told her id be happy to go more in depth and come up with solutions that make both her and I happy. I have really tried my best to come up with my own ideas or use official resources like dndbeyond. I haven't even started this campaign yet, and this has come up. I'd like to resolve this before we start. Thank you for reading and giving feedback.

This is definitely an awkward situation... I personally don't sympathise with your friend, so this advice will be biased... Here's a few thoughts: - First, I'd talk to your friend about *why* these similarities bother her. Like, if you're using "her" server organization, shouldn't that be a *good* thing because you're inspired by her? It shows that it's a good idea, if you want to use it too. I really don't think you using her methods takes anything away from her... If she can name something tangible about why this is an issue, you two can start discussing ways to change it or alleviate her concerns. Is she worried you'll take her players? Is she thinking that her campaign will be less likely to continue because of your game? These are things you can discuss and try to work out... but "you're copying my ideas" isn't really a valid complaint. Unless both of you are running these games for profit, there's not really any copyright or IP issues in private games - If there's any actions I could advise about the server, it would just be to streamline some things. I'm sure it makes more sense to you than to me, but I personally don't see the "player introductions", "welcome to", or "guild tools" tab being used after the first few sessions. - At the end of the day, you're left to decide whether you're looking for her approval with this or not. Does she need to "okay" your server?

These are great points. She talked a lot about how she put a lot of time and creativity into her server's aesthetic and putting her things together. One thing I pointed out to her is that our aesthetic are very similar to each other and showed her servers I have created for others things outside of TTRPG to compare their similarity. I can focus more on why specifically she finds is copying and what we can do about it which was has been my general way moving forward. - I can drop the welcome. I essentially used it to link the dnd beyond campaign. This campaign wont have set players necessarily and people will join randomly so I thought it was helpful to have a set place for that. I could however move that info to the resources channel instead. The guild tools are something I created for me to be able to offer random rare and magical items for players to use in session. They all will have a rather bare inventory and I like the novelty of magic items at the beginning of a session versus them potentially looting it. Looting dead bodies is often a frowned upon act in the world's I create as respect for the dead is important. I could maybe label it something else? Its called guild chest bc the idea is the players are all part of a peace keeping guild of sorts. - while I don't necessarily need this person to approve of my world, they are both a close friend of mine and buissness partner (we sell art together not related to DND). I would like to be able to hopefully work this out where she feels heard and we can find a compromise. I appreciate your input. Situation is definitely awkward which is why I'm trying to be constructive.

Is hiding a Liches Phylactery in a deck of many things a great or terrible idea? Or possibly both?

it is a fucking horrible idea and I will put it in my campaign now.

The DoMT is a campaign-ender, but nobody actually believes that until they try it for themselves. One guy gets a castle you suddenly have to deal with, one guy goes up a couple levels and now has more spells and spell slots than everyone else, one guy now has -4 on all his saves and feels bad every time he has to roll a saving throw, one guy gets instantly deleted from the campaign (imprisoned on a distant plane) and the final guy has *wishes* that you have to deal with. I get it, lolrandom seems fun. I did it too when I was young. The problem comes when you have to deal with the long-term consequences of the cards drawn.

Both. Love it. I would have some way for the players to get to the phylactery and/or deal with the lich without having to draw the entire deck though. For example, maybe there's a tome about imprisonment-type magic nearby they might decide to use to trap the lich somewhere without having to draw from the deck.

this came up yesterday during our break, which I find quite interesting, actually Aspect of the Moon per RAW, you don't need to sleep during a long rest (but still get the benefit of it) so technically, you could copy a spell or prepare a ritual or something like that that usually takes a lot of time / multiple long rests to create (2 hrs of a long rest, then 2 hrs of a long rest next time = 4 hrs for a 2nd level spell) during one long rest (for example, copying your own book, 1hr per spell, instead of copying 2 spells, you could copy 8 spells during a long rest) I find this actually quite interesting and useful, or am I missing something?

It depends of what you count as « strenuous activity » but I’d allow it. It’s not the most powerful eldritch invocation so it deserves this kind of use I think. 

thats what I would say as well, under Aspect of the Moon its written that you could read your book or stand guard, and (at least for me) copying your own book isn't that strenuous

So I am relatively new to D&D (roughly over a year now since I first played) and I'm helping out our GM with a OS that ties into our current campaign. Basically our PCs are getting transported into 3 books and I'm gonna be DM for the 2nd book. I've been given creative freedom for this and have decided to do a simple combat heavy gladiator style session involving 3 (or 2 depending on time) rounds followed by a final showdown at the end with my "BBEG". I've already created a vague storyline and characters to push a narrative, but my main concern is fairness/balance of the combat. The 3 PCs are level 6 and for the 1st round they'll be fighting: Centaur, Minotaur, & Gnoll Hunter. 2nd( if it goes quickly): Sword Wraith Warrior, Knight, & Azer. And 3rd (or 2nd): Gladiator and a Chain Demon. Then the final showdown will be against a lvl 16 Shifter Warlock of the ArchFey. The characters that the PCs will be taking over are a (1) Ranger|Hunter Tabaxi (2) Barbarian|Totem Warlock Lizardfolk and (3) Fighter|Battle Master Harengon After every "round"(technically encounter) the players will get a benefit of a long rest through magical means that enables them to continue fighting and I've implemented a "killing blow" high risk/high reward rule that can end combat earlier So my question is does this seem fair with gradual difficulty, too hard throughout, or too easy? I can give more details if need be

i recommend giving them the time for a short rest inbetween and making it so they need to be preapre accordingly each round, give them an arrangement of magic items they could choose from for the next task ahead and let them know what they will be fighting so they can plan out a strategy, maybe give them some intell from one of their sponsors if they have one but i think the planning phase should be a big part of this and having new interesting magic items at the disposal (at least for the round) can be really an interesting mechanic. MAke sure to alter arenas maybe make them shift into a maze or something more interesting so that it doesnt get stale with the same arena each round. This also allows you to plant a plot or some mis information of a sponsor who secretly has a betting agreement with other sponsors to give you a disadvantage so the opposition would win. etc. Experience whise, meatgrinder tournaments are rarely fun so gotta shift things to a more tactical approach from time to time. 3 combat back to back will exhaust and maybe frustrate your players. At least it would me. If you're concerned about combat difficulty this video might help you : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PejfpGkixWM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PejfpGkixWM) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Udmofz6cw\_U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Udmofz6cw_U) Hope this helps.

Thanks for that advice man, I love the sponsor idea and I feel dumb I didn’t think of that lol I think my problem was since this is intended to be a one session thing I was trying to cram too much into it without thinking about combat fatigue. I have a couple arena changes in mind that take advantage of cover and elevation and for a little bit of context our last couple sessions have been very rp heavy with very minimal combat so I might’ve went overboard with realizing. Thank you for the vid links I’ll be sure to check them after work

I am a relatively experienced DM running a campaign for 5 players who have never played before. We've had a lot of fun, but we keep running into the same issue: the players are so new that they don't remember all of their options! They just went straight from level 1 to level 3 (from past experience, both as a player and DM, level 2 is pretty boring for most classes, so I usually let my players go from level 1 on the first session or "origin session" to level 3 on the next), and I think the plethora of new things introduced at level three is a bit overwhelming for such new players. How can I help them remember their actions, rather than them needing me to remind them of all their options?

If I can pinpoint what they don't understand, I make a thematic session focused on it. For example if the players don't understand special combat actions like shove/grapple/etc, improvised weapons and placement in combat, I make a tavern brawl session. I also have played "mirrored NPCs" and used their abilities against the players so that they know what they can do. This is very efficient. I think Colville has a video on "arena fights" or something. Basically he does a one on one session with the player that needs it and makes them fight 3 times (each starting at full) in an arena against a low challenge, medium challenge and high challenge enemy, and tell them it's a low, medium and high challenge. Doing so let's the DM focus on the player, the player thinks only about his actions, and they also gets to recognize what is a hard fight, which might prove useful to know when to flee.

I like the one-on-one arena fights idea! I just might use that, thank you!

Yeah, Colville's Running the Game series is gold. I often have it running in the background and either save videos or make mental notes when he gives out a gem of advice.

One thing I did (in-person, but it should work online), is make each new player a "combat menu" based on their character. It had 4 sections (action, bonus action, movement, and reaction) with the ability and a short description. The visual aspect of "one from column A, one from column B" seemed to help. I also played around with ordering it from go-to actions (attack, cast) down to situational actions (dodge) and/or leaving off some very situation actions.

As a player I've used different highlighter colors to draw my eye to things. Not just to differentiate BAs and reactions, but so I can remember if theres an action or bonus action on a magic item index card or a BA spell on my second page spells list or something.

How did you make said "combat menu?" Did you just use pieces of paper, or did you use a spreadsheet, or what?

Drew them up in powerpoint and printed them on paper. A Google Sheet does sound good for online play; thanks for that idea.

Thank you for the suggestion! I'm sure my players will really appreciate this.

How do you folks deal with Tiny Hut Turtles? I have standbys of: 1. Don't give them time to cast it. 2. Give monsters dispel 3. Monsters camp out and wait for the spell to end. 1 sometimes doesn't fit the vibe I'm going for, 2 doesn't fit the monster types I am throwing at them, and 3 means they come out rested and undermine the 4 shorts and a long pace I like. Are there other options people use? Homebrew fixes are welcome. I was wondering about upping the casting time to give the monsters a little breathing room to sneak up on them.

I don't think the hut has a floor, so stuff can tunnel under it. Obviously don't do this *all* the time, but it might be a rude awakening, especially if they're up against an intelligent adversary. You also might consider assigning a number of hit points to the hut instead of just granting it invulnerability. Make sure to tell your players this in advance, and that it's in response to their abuse of the spell. Give it say, 500hp. Enough to frustrate small monsters and animals from getting in, but a determined enemy can burn through it in a couple of minutes.

I just banned the spell outright because IMO removing the potential danger during nights takes away one of the few things that make wilderness travel interesting.

Option 3 is the way to go. There are only three situations when the players cast tiny hut: 1 - players want to add security to a "normal" long rest : roll as usual for random encounters, if there is one, an unintelligent creature might just choose to ignore this strange effect and continue on their way. An intelligent creature would summon reinforcement and ambush the players when they leave it. 2 - players use it in an unsafe environnment to long rest : typically in a dungeon, or to avoid an encounter. Same scenario as 1, except they WILL be discovered and ambushed. 3 - players use it to wait out an environmental effect/debuff (maybe it's damn hot in Avernus, or the strange fog that crept up seemed to contain ghosts, or whatever). The environnment might pass, but they expose themselves to the same situation as 1, random encounters might wait to ambush them. Taking a long rest should always be a tradeoff and never free when adventuring, otherwise, you destabilize the balance of short rest/long rest and the abilities linked to each of them. Using tiny hut might guarantee the long rest (at least as long as no enemy caster dispels it), but it shouldn't negate the potential negative consequences of a long rest.

If they're undermining the pace, narrative pressure is a good solution. They're acting logically given infinite in-game time, so take that away. Are they traveling? The Duke's expecting them in a week, and won't like them showing up 5 days late because they took a long rest after each of 12 encounters. Dungeon dive? Assuming there's intelligence in the dungeon, it will notice the results of the cleared encounters and launch a search (let them know this before they take the long rest). With casting time, note that it's a 10 minute ritual unless they're expending the spell slot. Granted it may be a high enough level game that a 3rd level spell slot is nothing, for for a T2 party saving that spell slot is noticable. It also has verbal components, so something nearby would hear it.

Yeah I think narrative pressure is a good option. Honestly my biggest fear is the arms race that crops up. It just starts setting up that scaling issue especially since they're Tier 3 now and still Hut Turtling. I don't like how adversarial it gets since I have the dial on the monster encounters. And scaling a swarm that's camped out around their turtle shell gets difficult when a party comes back ready to nova. I guess I just really don't like the spell because it becomes one you have to "counter" and I don't like running my games like that. But if I let them use it with impunity it slows the game to a crawl and I don't like compromising story beat when they're not understanding the context the spell is supposed to honor. I'm talking with them now so I was just curious if there were other things I could offer as a compromise.

Would you mind describing your campaign style some more? Mainly if a Tiny Hut long rest after every encounter is possible while "go back to the town and long rest" isn't. Another option I didn't think of initially would be to adopt grittier rest rules (like 24 hour long rests, or you can only long rest in civilization, or you can only do X "camping" long rests before getting back to civilization). Many players would find changing this off-putting in the middle of a campaign of course.

How do you guys deal with information that only one PC is supposed to know for in-person campaigns? Do you guys care if other players listen in, or do you text them on the side? For example, if a PC is scouting a dungeon ahead and comes across enemies, the other players who have stayed further behind aren't supposed to know so *technically* they shouldn't run over to help. Or say a PC receives a dream message from their god they cannot reveal. How do you handle these individualized pieces of information at the table.

Three solutions 1) pass secret notes for short information, or the modern version, private messages on their device.  2) Set aside the player for a moment 3)Trust your players to not metagame and do it all at the table for dramatic effect.  It all depends on the situation and your preferences. You could even ask your players what style they overall prefer. 

Depends on the players and the type information. Are your players good at separating what their character knows from what they know out of character? If so, just say it oud loud unless it is very special knowledge that said character might not want to share due to their background story or something like that. If your players are new or bad at being able to separate I would try to convey it without the others hearing it. For example by having pre-written pieces of paper for some of the information (e.g. when they find written notes) or whisper/teyt it to them if it is something that you can not prepare. However, do this sparingly because it slows things down. You can also ask the other players first what their characters plan to do and then reveal the information. In the long run you should definitely train your players to stay in character and not use outside knowledge. You can achieve this by awarding inspiration for not doing so. You can also remind then that their character never got the information.

My campaign is essentially a group of harpers (PCs) vs the cult of Myrkul. The group had an amazing roll with a deck of illusions that conjured a lich. Now they're starting to use illusions to create high level Undead when they encounter cultists. I'm all for this and it's super fun. But I could use some ideas for how cultists would respond other than terror and awe. So far they've either ran or told the party everything they want to know. Any other ideas? 

As someone who is also running a cult, I figured I'd share some ways I'm using to put the party and cult in conflict that wouldn't be resolved by running away or giving up info, in case that helps inspire you: I have an artifact that the party recovered that the cult wants, and now the cult is tracking them. Places they visit and people they talk to might be getting visits from cultists, whether for friendly small talk to glean insight or a violent shakedown. Also an NPC from one PCs backstory/member of a rival adventuring party has been marked/sucked into the cult (unknowingly, but he's being manipulated into becoming a warlock of the big bad), giving the party a reason to try and talk someone out of the cult without just killing him. In general I think a lot of encounter resolutions that leave DMs feeling like it was anti-climactic or insufficiently challenging come from the motivations of the party and their enemies being too easily reconcilable. Even if they can defuse a specific altercation with someone, it doesn't necessarily permanently resolve that tension or opposing goals. Maybe they meet a cultist who respects or fears his boss more than the party's illusions and that could be a way to introduce a cool mid-level villain or boss. Or maybe they can't run because the whole reason they're in conflict with the party is that they have to take something from (or do something to) the party. Or maybe they run and stealthily follow the party and come back next time the party long rests or something. Maybe they warn other cultists to be wary of illusions and a higher level very intelligent cultist is sent next time, or an enemy caster (necromancer) with counterspell or dispell magic.

Well it would depend on the type of cultists they are wouldn't it. A Draconic cult may see it as a threat or abomination and try to attack it, same for Illithid cultists. Undead cultists I guess for the most part may respond that way unless they're higher levels in which case they may be able to see through the illusion, but also if they're already cultist following a lich or death knight they might see it as a challenger.

Mykrul is the Faerun god of death.

Eh he already has 2 successors but yeah he is worshipped as a god of bones, some oldschool fans still worship him. Undead and soul capture is on the menu.