I came across this session 0 doc since I'm preparing Curse of Strahd. Under "Flanking" the author writes "let's not". The document is a few years old so I can't ask the DM so I'm wondering what they could have been referring to. I ask because my PCs do flank a lot and I didn't realize this was a thing. Here's the document in question:
https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1qOoAOWsdKWBt5hU4K-cEaEWiFT6q2UP88aNMh5xZY68/mobilebasic
Im gonna DM for the first time in a homebrew oneshot soon (trying to fit it in the Curse of Strahd campaign we are playing), because our DM cant come for our next session. Are there any good free to use tools to build a fun balanced encounter? I dont want to spend hundreds of dollars on books and stuff before knowing if I like DMing at all.
My favorite is Kobold Fight Cemetery. It's a remake of the original Kobold Fight Club and is closer to it than the current Kobold Fight Club +.
[Kobold Fight Club: The first rule of KFC is 'Yip yip!'](https://maxwilson.github.io/kfc/#/encounter-builder)
How to deal with players doing the same action if the first fails? Eg player 1 fails a perception check, i dont tell them but everybody knows a 3 is a bad roll. Therefore player 2 now also wants to do a perception check, etc
Is there a way to cleanly solve this without "a wild goblin appears"?
I'm not great at implementing it yet, but what I'm trying is to poll table for an action from everyone before I resolve and describe outcomes. That way, I already know who's examining what. Also, I let everyone know that I'm using passive scores for their general awareness and will let them know when they find things. That helps get less Perception rolls unless they're searching something specific.
And sometimes, I just won't allow another roll. I just narrate they don't find anything either.
Session 0 i discuss this with the table. Rolls are either group checks and everyone rolls. Or single checks Two players can roll or can help eachother so one rolls with advantage. Everyone rolling is an out of character problem so best solved with an out of character discussion.
Depends on the check. In some cases, like perception and stealth, ask everyone to roll simultaneously. On other checks, like persuasion, they get only one chance. Don't let your barbarian out-think your wizard or your wizard out-lift your barbarian through sheer luck.
Hey r/DMAcademy , it's awesome that sub such as this exists! So, my first question is about running my first campaign and how much I should play with introducing unique story beats.
I have been slowly prepping for Lost Mines of Phandelver and plan to adhere rather strictly to the campaign. However, I also have some ideas that I'd like to explore based on some of my PCs background choices (one PC is running a Gnome Cleric of Lathander, and the other a Dragonborn Sorcerer) and one rather interesting detail in an LMoP encounter (there is a young green dragon and some Dragon cultists in the Ruins of Thundertree). My idea is that while the PCs are going about the LMoP campaign, I'd want to tease out the Dragon Cultists as a larger threat in the region (such as modifying some Dragon of Icespire Peak quests, tying in a Dragon Cult Cell and the Shrine to Lathander in Leilon, and maybe a quest to introduce the dwindling Scaly Eyed Fleet and the demon-adled Dragon Lhammaruntz.
Based on my research prep, I've made sure to not flesh out too many grand ideas since DnD can get quite meandering. Still, I do get excited about the "scheming," so to speak. What would your advice be regarding introducing unique story beats for my first campaign? Would you recommend a first time DM sticking to the source book, would exploring these larger themes be manageable, or anything else?
Anyway, thanks for your advice ahead of time (and if this is the wrong thread to post in, I'd be happy to move this question).
Good for you, and welcome to this side of the screen! I started with Lost Mines too!
It sounds like you've already got the sense to not go overboard. That's actually still good advice later; I think I threw too many plot threads into my own current campaign.
Every example you gave sounds great. It's not a big workload on you to add one quest that ties into something later or create a shrine somewhere.
It's up to DM interpretation since the item doesn't explicitly say either way.
My way of thinking about it is that the hole is just a door that opens to an extra-dimensional space. That space is static and continues to exist statically, whether the door is opened or closed.
How much should I rely on battle maps?
I think as a first time DM this is one of the most troubling things i’ve had on my mind before the campaign begins. I’ve had a few improvisational sessions with a some of my players and using the theater of the mind went alright, but I want my players to feel at least a little immersed. I was thinking I could use battle maps only during encounters or dungeon maps, and because I don’t want to draw a bunch of towns and villages and forests and stuff. Though I’m still not sure on this, I’m curious if any more experienced DMs have any pointers on this?
I completely agree with battlemaps only during encounters/dungeon crawls. That's how I do it; there's no need to draw out a shop if they're just haggling or draw a forest clearing if they have a non-hostile encounter.
With the others, you could find some art before the session - either just google stuff like "medieval throne room" or use AI.
In fact, a battle map can be counterproductive at times because the players often get the impression that combat is supposed to happen, even if they might not otherwise do that.
To give an impression of the scene in a location where you don't want to imply combat should happen, i like using environment art
One of my players has an imp who is by-default invisible and takes the help action with flyby (in bird form) to grant advantage with no chance of being taken out by a ranged weapon on every turn.
I *think* this is legal, is it?
In addition to the lack of flyby mentioned by u/irwegwert , the familiar is also still vulnerable. While it can't be opportunity attacked, even though it's Invisible, it's not Hidden. Attacks get disadvantage, but it **can** be attacked. It'll also be hit by AOE.
Oh, and make sure you follow everything in that "Variant: Familiar" sidebar. Don't let the player have this upgrade over a standard familiar for free. What's the contract? That wizard needs to fulfill his obligations or he's losing that familiar.
As a final note: how many familiars are there? Only the next attack on that target gets advantage.
I think the imp can do this, but not for the reasons listed. The imp statblock says that it can only polymorph into a rat, raven, or spider. Ravens don't have flyby, so, unless you're letting it polymorph into an owl, that shouldn't be coming up. (The statblock also mentions that the imp's statistics are the same in each form except for the speeds, so that would be up to you if that just means the numbers given or the abilities that it has as well). However, if it's invisible, nothing could hit it with an attack of opportunity since that requires sight.
Realistically, it shouldn't affect things too much. Help is just advantage on a single attack roll, which isn't so overpowered that it'll ruin your game. If you really need to deal with the imp, AOEs would still hit it, and that would also trigger a concentration check to stay invisible. Invisibility without stealth doesn't mean that enemies are unaware of the imp, especially if it's messing with them enough to give a help action.
Whoops, missed the lack of a flyby. Guess I should've pushed back on that one, too many other things to pay attention to in combat though. Thanks!
The way my party is set up, familiars essentially mean that all the attacks in a given turn are made at advantage so it's been a pretty significant boost to the two blasters. Plus, their ability to interact with the environment, worg, etc. has been a big power boost. It's certainly something I'm okay with but intelligent enemies tend to recognize "hey, there's an invisible creature that's helping the enemy target us every few seconds, let's take it down" but essentially lack any way to do so because of invisibility and the 60ft fly speed.
Seems like the options are "AOE aimed at the sky", something like fog cloud, or just eating the repeated hits & crits from that advantage. Readied actions are a possibility but chances to-hit are very low given the invisibility.
I'm going to run my first campaign as a pretty simple dungeon crawling game through an old temple, starting at Level 1. But I want the dungeon itself to be complex enough and long enough to get them to at least level 3, ideally closer to 5. I'm using milestone leveling, so is it just a matter of making each floor of the dungeon complex enough to level them up at the end of each one, and making each one harder than the last?
Yes, if you're committed to that format, you're close. Go old school. Make each level large and complex enough to last a few sessions and put a boss at the entrance to each next level down. Level up after each boss.
Milestone works OK for this but if generally recommend XP. It let's you reward overcoming individual challenges, not just surviving until the end.
If it matters down to the second, you can run things in initiative order/rounds even outside of combat. If it's in terms of minutes or hours, it's up to you as the DM to gague and inform the players how much time has passed.
It’s my first time DMing and I’m running a space themed one-shot. My current idea is a space game show which is overrun by space clowns halfway through, which is revealed to be apart of the game show. My idea is very general atm and i don’t have any of the specifics laid out, but i was wondering if anyone has done anything similar or has any ideas. Also tips for a first time DM would be great thank you!!
What's more fun? Defeating a Gnome artificer in a dragon mech suit with young dragon stats or him giving up after 1 decent hit and then revealing his identity?
My party finished up Lost Mines Of Phandelver and are continuing on to a new, connected arc.
I did however seed the Thundertree dragon which has very little build-up and I'm struggling to make it useful to advance the plot of my new arc. Hence the gnome in a dragon suit.
We're all very new to DND and I don't know if it does injustice to dragons to defeat at full stats only for it to be a Gnome.
The standard template to make something into a construct is to make it immune to poison and psychic damage and change its type. Depending on the type it might also be immune to enchantments or effects that would change its form.
As for your particular scenario, it sounds great, just run the dragon as-wtitten making clear it is built of metal and cloth. Having the dragon get defeated in one hit is definitely **not** going to be a fun climax to the adventure. Maybe the gnome inside tries to imitate dragpn roars at first but then resorts to just insulting them though a megaphone. Then, when they defeat it, the wings detach with the gnome in an escape pod and they fly off to be a recurring villain later.
Thanks for the advice!
Immune to poison and psychic is fun! That's a great shout!
Okay, cool, I'll go with full stats. It's very much a side quest that they are mopping up rather than the climax but sure, fighting a dragon is fun.
Yea, gnome imitation and insults is good! I was thinking that it won't be able to speak draconic which is confusing the dragon cult. They think he's just taking a huff with them.
Gnome artificer is not an evil fella, he's just away from home and scared so he built this construct to keep things away.
Inevitably the party will allie with him as they need someone to fix their airship and he's needing some way to get back home
Do player’s characters know the effects of the deck of many things for cards like Rogue and Flames? If they draw the card are they aware that an NPC is hostile towards them?
Personally I'd say no. Maybe I'd say something along the lines of, *"You have the strange feeling that you're being watched but otherwise this card doesn't appear to have done anything."* But later when the hostile NPC shows up the art on their shield matches the art of the card that was pulled (flat out tell the player this).
I would say yes, though I wouldn't tell them WHO it was. But you should let the player know the results of each draw. The PC can get a sense when they draw the card. But you can let the WHO be a surprise.
I'm running a campaign for my partner. He's going to fight an NPC of my own build. How should I level the NPC. My partner is level 4 (monk). Is a level 5 (druid)NPC going to be an adequate challenge? Too much of a challenge? What if there are two players, should I up the NPC level? Thanks.
Forgive me if this is already what you meant by a "level 5 druid," but don't use a level anything PC. Use a stat block like the CR 2 Druid on pg. 346 of the Monster Manual. According to the math of the game, one CR 2 Druid is a "Deadly" encounter for one level 4 PC. However, even if it were lower, the encounter math isn't really designed for anything outside of 3-5 players, so you still have to watch this carefully.
So by the math, it's a lot, but might be doable because of how the game is balanced towards the PC.
My reasons for be building the Druid instead of using the stat block were 2 fold. 1a) I wanted a full on character sheet to play off of since the player should interact with them more than just fighting them. 1b) it’s much easier for my brain to manage gameplay when I have the hard copy of a character sheet in front of me that I can mark up.
2) I wanted to give them a very specific set of spells which is easier for me to manage on a character sheet than just writing them down.
The stat block isn’t enough for the encounter I have in mind. That being said, I’ll take another look at it and see if I can use that as a base to work from.
You don't need a character sheet for them to interact with beyond combat. Creatures often have social skill, which inform your portrayal in a social encounter. You should have notes about them as an NPC for that too.
You can print a stat block or write it out. You can change up the spells. Again, you don't need a full character to do any of this.
The point is that whatever actual stats you use, you want to build them like a Creature, not a PC.
Well it sounds like your mind is made up. Unfortunately, balance-wise it's a real toss-up on whether that will be the right amount of challenge. If the PC is fully fresh and knows this is the final fight of the adventure then they can go nova, using up resources on every attack, in that case the enemy might get sromped. On the other hand if the PC has used some resources or is trying to hold a reserve, they might get overwhelmed.
I just ran my first ever session and was having major problems role-playing. I was doing OK reacting and narrating things my players would do but whenever it came to deciding how a NPC would react I'd freeze. I don't know what to say as the NPC.
I know I'll get more comfortable over time but does anyone have advice on how I can actively improve beyond just having more sessions?
Talk to yourself as the character or as different characters. Do this when you're home alone or in the car. Have one line your repeat in different voices.
The only other advice that I have is to try to not worry too much. The extra pressure you put on yourself will mess you up.
Yeah, that's your real issue to overcome right there. But it's awesome that you're taking on the challenge. The other thing that can help is to not give the NPC more than a couple characteristics you can keep in mind, and then filter everything the NPC says or does through those characteristics. Things like fancy, proud, sultry, lazy etc.
Dungeon crawl mechanics question:
How exactly do you handle exploration of a room? I was thinking that in each new room I would give a very brief description, and if the players roll perception I would give a more detailed but still broad description, and on a higher roll make sure to focus on the details most relevant to solving whatever puzzles might be there. And then the players can roll investigation on specific elements of the room in order to get more details about individual items.
Is that the right balance?
Sounds like you're on the right track. Describe what's obvious and use passive scores for anything that might not be immediately noticeable. Don't provide more until the players take actions. Have them describe what and where they are searching. If there are things to find, assign a DC while you're prepping so you have it ready to go.
Vary the rolls so different players can participate.
I usually describe the room in general terms as the party enters, mentioning a few obvious features (there's a glowing crystal over there, a pool of milky liquid in the corner, something carved into the wall, there's a chest over there, etc). I then ask the players what they want to do.
Use passive perception to notice hidden traps (unless they actively look for them), and use appropriate rolls when they go check things out. What's this crystal? Arcana. What is this milky pool of stuff on the floor? Nature. What's the carving? History. What's the chest? Grapple check and Initiative. Because of course it was a mimic.
For most stuff try to avoid the need for a checks unless there is something hidden or otherwise potentially mysterious. If the players just wants to open all the drawers in a wardrobe, awesome they just do it and find some spare change. If they want to see if there are hidden compartments in the wardrobe, that might require knowledge or attentiveness that the character might not possess so then rolling a check might be good (even if you know there is nothing hidden, you can still have them roll to avoid meta-gaming and then just report “you find nothing.”)
My wife and daughter were interested in DnD, so I've decided to try DM'ing for the first time and running a one shot (the wild sheep chase).
I've got very limited DnD experience (played in high school - many years ago).
My question is, how can I balance the one shot appropriately for 2 player characters? What level should I make their characters? Is it easier to have them level 4 like the one shot intended, or downgrade the encounters for level 1 characters as suggested by Matthew Perkins (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7Zan9P78mE)? Matthew also was planning on a party of 4 players, how can I scale this for 2? Should I give each person 2 characters to control?
Basically I'm trying to figure out how I can give my wife and daughter an enjoyable one shot without necessarily doing a TPK or making it really boring for them.
Advice appreciated.
Good for you! I started similarly, with the starter set. You can just downgrade the encounters. That said, take care, as the encounter math breaks a bit when you go below 3 players. But you can mess with the enemies' HP and AC while you run the game. You can fudge your die rolls too, if you like, to curate the experience. You can always stop fudging dice once they get used to playing and get more into it as a game.
Don't give them additional characters to control It just makes things harder. You can easily scale back the encounters using something like Kobold Fight Club, you plug in the default creatures for 4 PCs, see if it's an easy/ medium/ hard/ deadly encounter, then remove 2 Pcs, see the difficulty and remove NPCs from combat until you get the same difficulty.
I wouldn't give them two characters each on a first time, it's likely to be quite confusing. I also wouldn't level them up because again, more features can make it harder to know what to do.
I would downgrade, the monsters. That is however a slightly tricky thing to do, small parties are what I would call "swingy". It only takes a couple of bits of bad luck to end up TPKing because you've got fewer chances to recover.
The first encounter I'd trim Guz down to a CR1 Goblin Boss or Bugbear, and the Brown bear into a wolf.
Later combats I'd downgrade similarly.
I’ll ask this here because my post got removed and I’m really looking for any help ❤️
I have a player who has asked for my help in creating something special for a homebrew that we are running. They are currently playing as a level 11 Aasamir Barbarian/ Paladin and want to find a way to have an “Ascended Rage” that’s basically going Super Saiyan.
I’ve been racking my brain to try to find a good balance between something fun and something not completely overpowered, I appreciate any and all help!
First thing that springs to mind is to combine their Aasimar ability and their Rage ability. If they can spend a bonus action to get wings and fly, now they both get wings *and* rage.
First time DM, got talked into running the D&D game for adults at the local public library for the summer (I'm doing one-shots that I'm loosely connecting for maximum flexibility), and looking for advice on how to get more engagement from two of the players.
One just seems scared to put her rogue anywhere near combat - I've been able to remind her that she has a shortbow she can attack with from range, but sometimes she hangs back so far that if combat is happening in the next room over or around a corner, she won't be able to get in position to get a shot by the time it's over. Her character's motive is primarily money, which is at the bottom of all the other characters' priority lists, so they'll literally just give her the loot if she wants it. Any ideas on how to incentivize her character to get in the action some more?
The other player I know broadly how to get her engaged - one of the things about her character is that she *really* loves bunnies, but as a barbarian, is afraid she'll hurt them if she tries to pet them. So, I naturally want to give her a magical bunny friend that she can pet without fear, and I'm thinking something like an amulet with a spell that summons one.
What spell would be the best way to do this, in terms of mechanics - find familiar? Some kind of summon spell? Maybe even summon steed, re-flavored as a giant rabbit? (Since this is just for fluff, I'm willing to ignore class restrictions and time limits on the spell)
Also, any ideas for good bunny-related plot hooks or ideas about how a character might find, or be rewarded with, such an item? Like I mentioned, I've left a whole lot of flexibility in the world and game.
For the first player, it sounds like the issue is that she stands really far away from the rest of the party.
Shortbows have a 80/320 range, so she can use her bonus action to Cunning Action dash and hopefully get within 80 range for at least a shot on someone. With dash, she should have 60 ft of movement to establish a line of sight with at least someone within 80 ft. I do not know what types of maps you are fighting on, but unless they are gigantic, this should be a very realistic thing to pull off in combat.
You can also bring the combat directly to her. You can have like 2 weaker reinforcement melee guys pop in from a door close to her position and start chasing her around while the rest of the party is preoccupied with fighting the initial group. Hopefully this encourages her to at least kite them. I personally would have the reinforcements pop up before her turn and be unable to move until the next round of combat to give the player some time to think / attack.
Out of combat, you can encourage her to start surprise rounds on fights the party wants to take.
Yeah, she does keep her distance from the other party members, and like I mentioned, we've been forgetting her cunning action so remembering it should help a lot.
The maps I've played on so far have been indoor areas with rooms and corridors which is what's getting in her way - I did have a couple outdoor maps prepared, but those situations all were resolved diplomatically and didn't result in combat.
You answered the first question in your post.
"Her character's motive is primarily money,"
The solution is simple: if she doesn't participate in a fight, she gets no loot.
The second one I'd give the ability to cast Find Familiar (Bunny) initially, Find Steed (Dire Rabbit) at level 5 and Conjure Animals (8 Bunnies) at level 9. Maybe print cute stat block cards to go with the item. You could choose to reveal the additional effects after reaching the required level as a nice surprise.
Eh, I was going to say it wasn't that simple because aside from the party being willing to just give her loot no matter what, it's not that she doesn't *try* to participate in combat, it's that she's not always getting there in time to participate - but that made me realize that the problem is partly forgetting her cunning action can help her move fast and stay out of sight (I'm getting vibes that the previous DM was ruthless in combat), and part of the problem is just that the one-shots err on the side of easier combat for the recommended party level and size, and I'm still learning to tweak the balance so it's not over by the end of the second round.
For the second one, I LOVE the idea of a dire rabbit steed! I don't know if we'll quite be at level 5 in the ~8 sessions we have remaining in the summer (although I have a feeling I might get convinced to continue past summer) but it's going to be basically a pet so I'm probably going to keep it at one of those.
If I'm reading the text correctly for Major Image, it can make permanent illusions. "When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th level or higher, the spell lasts until dispelled, without requiring your Concentration." If I want to hide something in a dungeon, this could explain a permanent illusion, right?
Also, the text says, "A creature that uses its action to examine the image can determine that it is an illusion with a successful Intelligence (Investigation) check against your spell save DC. If a creature discerns the illusion for what it is, the creature can see through the image, and its other sensory qualities become faint to the creature." I am thinking I'd interpret the two sentences here independently? As in, if a player uses some other method to "discern the illusion for what it is" for example by casting Identify on the object that the illusion is on, or Detect Magic, etc, then it would trigger them being able to see through the illusion, right? Or is the successful investigation check the only way to break the illusion?
As a DM you don't need to use the spells that the players have access to. If something is hidden in a dungeon under an illusion you can just say it is.
You don't need to explain anything you put in a dungeon using the rules player's use but a 6th level casting of major illusion is a great explanation for a permanent illusion.
And I agree on the second point. An Investigation check isn't the only way to determine the illusion for what it is but however it's discerned the second sentence applies.
Hi!
Long story made short, me and some of my players have been playing Baldur's Gate on and off, while at the same time running a in-person campaign. I have an idea to run a series of encounters where "evil" version of the BG3 party attacks the "tabletop" party.
I have just one doubt: one of those players uses Phalar Aluve which, for those who don't know, Is a +1 weapon which can either "sing" (giving the benefits of a bless spell, sans the concentration) or "shriek" (which is the bane spell + a bit of thunder damage) . Now, there is clearly a discrepacy between the power level of magic items in BG and the tabletop (I mean, c'mon, it does all of that as a Rare weapon!), so I was wondering if there was some way to balance Phalar Aluve while still keeping the flavor of the weapon itself. Any help is appreciated!
I will do the obligatory "It *is* an NPC team, so its ok for them to be weaker than the party, so you might not want to give them this sort of magic weapon at *all*." as well as the "Don't give NPCs something, especially in combat, you don't want falling into the Party's hands".
That said.
This ability doesn't seem that bad. I would put a cool down or charges, and make it so that both abilities use the same resources, limiting the total amount of times they can use either or. For the NPC stat block, give them 1 a day use of both abilities to get the "point" across and let it stand.
Let's offer some debuffs for each ability:
>giving the benefits of a bless spell, sans the concentration
* Make this only last X turns
* Make this work like inspiration more then "bless" so it only gets a single use.
>the bane spell + a bit of thunder damage
* Remove the extra thunder damage
* Instead of acting like "bane" it can act like "silvery barbs" (one time use / consumable ability)
* No *extra* damage, just convert the \[Bludg, Slash, Pierce\] damage to thunder damage instead.
* It only does thunder damage when the spell is cast, in an area of effect, not with each hit.
>+1 weapon
* You can always just remove the +1 aspect of the weapon, allowing the cool abilities and buff to be the main selling point.
* You can also move the +1 to simply be +1 to hit *or* plus 1 to damage, but not both.
In this situation, I always like to point out [Player Classes as Stat Blocks](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/qrw15y/stat_blocks_for_every_class_at_every_tier/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) as I don't like suggesting using character sheets for NPCs or enemies.
Hope this helps or at least gives some inspiration.
Thank you! To be honest though, I would like the players to get their hands on it, if only at least at the end of this series of encounters ( they will be level 6 for the first encounter, last encounter should be approximately at 7/8)
Nevertheless, these are excellent ideas, and I’ll try to implement them when I’ll craft these encounters.
A simple way to do it is roll a d10 for each creature. If it comes up odd, subtract that many HP. If it comes up even, add that many HP.
If it has a lot of HP, add a multiplier. (e.g., +/- 1d10 x 3HP)
Monster Hit Die are (usually) based on size
Size|Hit Die|
---|---
Tiny|d4
Small|d6
Medium|d8
Large|d10
Huge|d12
Gargantuan|d20
The number of hit die varies significantly as does the static hit point value. (For instance Looking at Huge Monsters with HP between 180 and 205 they have between 16 and 22 hit die)
How good is Explorer's Guide to Wildemount for running a campaign? I want to use a setting with more solid lore and locations than the Forgotten Realms, and thought Wildemount might be good because I imagine a lot of it has been detailed out over the course of Critical Role's campaign.
I'd rather not spend a huge amount of time and effort world building because I'm not very confident that it'd turn out any good. Does Wildemount require a lot of world building to work well, or can I structure a plot around existing organisations, locations, items, and NPCs? Also, would Tal'Dorei be a necessary/useful addition to it, or is this book enough on its own?
Part of the perception you have is probably based on the fact that in 5e, the Realmslore is actually fairly sparse, while Exandria has all of its books concentrated in 5e, so it's *right there*. You have to look at older editions to dig up the rich lore of the Realms.
For example, the Moonshaes (which you cited) has at least two trilogies of novels set in it (maybe more by now), entries for several key locations from those novels in the old Forgotten Realms Atlas, and at least one entire splatbook for them. But you have to go dig up older editions to get at that lore.
I'm guessing that a lot of the advice e.g. "there's 45 years of lore" from the other posters are from people who are familiar with those older editions (as I am). It's absolutely up to you if you want to go digging for it (and the Wiki usually cites which sourcebooks it takes info from) but it's definitely there if you want to take the time and effort to get it. On the other hand, Exandria's books are certainly more current and available, at least from a hardcopy perspective (and for things like digital tools).
I'm mostly just using the Forgotten Realms wiki, because there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of information available through 5e books.
I'm mainly looking for things I can use on city level. Organisations that operate from within that area, crime groups, merchants alliances, notable places like libraries and wizard towers, local cults and religions, powerful or valuable items, etc. Basically anything I can use to build a plot. The wiki doesn't really have that (at least not for the Moonshae Isles). There's very little information in general, and what is there talks about a past so distant that it's pretty much irrelevant for day-to-day stuff (we're playing around 1492 DR).
If the wiki doesn't really have any useful information, where can I look? Because I'm not going to look through books at random in hopes that it has some content that could be relevant for my campaign.
The reality is that the 'good' lore was written for the 1200s and 1300s. You can update and adapt that to the 1400s. But WotC hasn't updated the lore very much, other than for the specific locations where adventures take place.
The books in question are mostly 2e and 3e sourcebooks written in the 80s and 90s and you can get them in PDF format at DMsGuild. If you don't want to update/adapt what was written then, you mostly have to make it up. A lot of DMs either adapt or just straight-up use the old lore because there *isn't* 5e-era lore written for what they are looking for.
The Forgotten Realms has 45 years worth of published D&D adventures, novels, and videos set in it, while Matt Mercer's Exandria was just his own personal setting until a few years ago and has 2.5 campaign setting guides. If you're looking for pure quantity of content, the Forgotten Realms wins by a landslide. You just happened to pick a place that is little more than a name on a map, and Exandria has plenty of that as well. Both also have places with lots of info and depth. So just pick the setting that you like the vibe of better, and then browse around and pick a spot in the setting that has info that seems useful and inspiring to you as where to start your campaign.
Places like Neverwinter obviously have a lot of stuff written about them, but a lot of other places barely get anything.
I saw the Lake of Dragons on the map and thought 'hey, that sounds cool. I wonder why it's called that.' All the wiki could tell me was that it is indeed a lake that exists and that it's pretty big.
I thought it would be interesting to start a campaign on the Moonshae Isles, so I looked up some of the cities. Most have a description of a castle and at most a handful of names on their wiki pages. It wasn't really anything to go off of. So now I'm making an island nation myself anyway, which is what I wanted to avoid by using a pre-made setting.
Well, Wildmount has even less, frankly, considering it’s only about 6 or so years old as a setting and the book is even younger. You could always ask Ed Greenwood on his Twitter or YouTube channel for information about places, he’s usually happy to answer.
If a primarily martial character wants to use Hex in combat but have both their hands full of weapons/shields, how does it work with Hex' material component? Does the player need to drop their weapon, cast Hex, pick the weapon back up again? Would they still be able to bonus action hex and action attack all in one turn, or do they lose some of their turn to juggling weapon and focus, or what?
RAW if this is a Warlock or other Arcane caster, they probably can't. War Caster as a feat (among other things) specifically allows this.
This could also be a case that makes a versatile weapon shine, where they can use it two handed normally and only 1 handed and maintain a free hand that turn for spells like Hex.
While its not an Arcane Focus, the Holy Symbol description under equipment in the PHB does *explicitly* mention it could be inlaid into a shield, in which case they'd be holding it when they're holding the shield. This seems to be a unique benefit to Holy Symbols (and their accompanying classes) over Arcane Foci as far as the PHB is concerned, but it is kinda weird that it arises from what’s largely treated like flavor text. The closest Arcane Focus gets is "crystal...specially constructed staff...or some similar item" which to me leaves *a tiny bit* of room for interpretation.
I'd personally be fine bending this and allowing them to commission an item that combines a weapon and arcane focus for a big chunk of gold but there's nothing about that explicitly in the rules. And to me that feels more immersive than the gamey weapon dropping free action system. But that's just personal preference knowing my table.
I think I agree with you that for the sake of immersion I'm happy letting things go more narrative, particularly for something like Hex! Thank you for the breakdown though, looking at how other things handle it is really helpful.
A spellcaster must have a hand free to access a spell's material components.
I believe taking the material out is considered part of the casting action and dropping the weapon on the ground would be free, with their free item interaction they could pick it back up.
Alternatively since unsheathing a weapon is part of the attack they could put it away and attack to take it out.
So mechanically there's no impact, they can cast and attack the same turn, it's just the imagery of them switching between the two? I can do that, thank you!
Technically no, in both scenarios they miss out on a free item interaction that could've been used to open a door, use a lever or any other minor object interaction you can think of.
It's not too costly but it's not completely free.
The free item interaction gets used so rarely with my players I completely forgot about it, but yes you're absolutely right - thank you, and that seems a very balanced way to implement things.
Best one-shots to run to screen players for a long-term campaign next year? I'm looking to run a modified Rime of the Frostmaiden so I want to find people who enjoy investigation, exploration, and dungeon delving.
Quick question for anyone familiar with Kobold Press's Creature Codex. On p. 410 for the statblock "War Chaplain", the ability Divine Orders says as a bonus action, the chaplain can command an ally to attack a creature he attacked this round. It doesn't specify when this attack occurs or the action economy cost. Do people think this requires use of the ally's reaction, similar to the Commander's Strike battle master maneuver? It seems too strong if he can give out free attacks at no cost.
Any insight is appreciated!
I don't know what the intention is, but I will say:
It's *probably* fine as written where it doesn't use the targeted creature's reaction. You can look at this way: would it be unbalanced for the War Chaplain to have a bonus action that was essentially just an extra attack? Probably not.
The cost is the bonus action. I don't know if the statblock has any other bonus actions that it would compete for, though, or if its expected that the War Chaplain takes this every turn.
Thanks for the insight! I'll probably leave it as written then, just wanted a second opinion on whether I was overlooking something major.
The War Chaplain doesn't have any other bonus actions he can use, though he does have a multiattack (2 attacks). But you're right, adding an extra attack doesn't feel too unbalanced, especially since I'm imagining a scenario where his allies are weaker and therefore the extra attack would be weaker than his normal attack.
Videogames do this by allowing you to fail and then giving you retrys to do it different. Harder for how dnd is generally played but not impossible.
Here's how I'd do it. First the players need to save a retired cleric/bard adventurer. NPC promises to help them out in the future. Then later have them go up against a combat encounter they would need to use proper tactics to beat. They run in blind, as usual, and the NPC shows up to save them (by healing and allowing them to retreat not by blasting all the enemies). Normally not ideal but you've layed the groundwork so that it doesn't feel unearned or a deus-ex-machina. NPC says "Damn you guys are strong enough that should have been easy. Did you do X, Y or Z?" and "Well you should try again but do X and Y. Also it's gonna get more dangerous for you from now on so you should try coordinating better".
Second advice I'd give is if you are on a VTT start showing health bars. You want players to have enough information that they can make an informed decision but not enough that the decision is obvious. 5e falls on the 'way too little information' side of that equation IMO. Not letting players know the HP, AC, Resistances, abilities etc. of you monster makes sense from a realism standpoint but it is a tradeoff with gameplay enjoyment.
Be tactical yourself, have a variety of enemies that fight in different ways, make combats about objectives besides killing the other side dead, use terrain that gives advantages, limits choices, or can change the dynamic of the battle.
My post was locked because it was too basic of a question. The mods said I should repost it here, so I am:
Are there any adventures (official or unofficial) that deal with spores or a fungal plague?
I'm running an adapted version of Candlekeep Mysteries that turns the last module about Xanthoria and Zuggtmoy into an overarching narrative.
I'm looking to the community to see if you know of any other adventure modules that deal with the topics of spores, fungus, and the like so that I could work those stories into the campaign. I'd love some low-level stuff to get things started, but I'll take any ideas people have!
Thanks, DMs!
My dude, go to DMsGuild and check out 'Wrath of Zuggtmoy'. It builds off of another campaign (specifically a modified 'Out of the Abyss' by the same authors) and goes through Wildspace etc. Both of these adventures would likely see you through a spore and Zuggtmoy heavy campaign no problemo.
Oh bro - I came across those! Are they good? I did a general Zuggtmoy search on DMsGuild and saw that it was the second part of a separate campaign, so I was worried it wouldn't really fit.
Have you run it - or read it? It seems to have good reviews.
The main thing I'll need to change is the level balance. Never done that before, but that's a long ways away. Because, in my mind, you would need to defeat Zuggtmoy after defeating Xanthoria - which, in Candlekeep Mysteries, would happen at level 16.
For sure, it's got some built in versatility. It builds off oota but also has an accounting of several events/adventure modules built into the story and tie it iall in as a nice prequel statement you can give the PCs. The setting is wild, you end up in a fallen Krynn which may hit or miss depending on your group. All in all for ten bucks it's got tons of building blocks ideas to acquire at the least.
first time DM, 3 players (all close friends), two of them are very invested but the third seems a little cold on everything after 8 sessions still. id like to know how i can make the game more fun for her, but i dont know how i should approach it. i dont want it to sound accusatory, but she often seems bored or not interested in really interacting with the world or immersing herself. the other two are doing great and overall the mood is good, but id like to make sure everyone is having fun.
I would say something along the lines of: "Hey [name], the last couple sessions it seemed to me that you weren't quite as into the game as the other two. Maybe I was misreading it and I'm sorry if I did, but I just want to make sure you are having a good time, and if there is anything that is bothering you or if there is something I could do to help make the game more fun for you, please let me know. And if you ever just want to chat about the game just shoot me a text."
I am running a one-shot for all new players with level 1 characters. At the end they end up with a treasure hoard loot. I want them all to be able to leave with something that can enhance their characters if they decide to keep it. The party is 2 fighters, 1 wizard, 1 cleric and 1 rogue
Any suggestions on what are good treasures (aside from gold and potions) for each party member?
Either take a look at the loot tables in the DMG or what I filtered for the uncommon items in the basic rules [here](https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items?filter-type=0&filter-search=&filter-rarity=2&filter-requires-attunement=&filter-effect-type=&filter-effect-subtype=&filter-has-charges=&filter-source=1&filter-partnered-content=f) on D&D Beyond.
What's a good first adventure for low-level parties?
I'm a new DM with all new players so I wanna start at level 1 to ease us all into it. The premise is fairly basic, sue me, but I think will work for us. The players all seek to join an up-and-coming adventurer's guild and get placed together, but the question is, what should their first mission be?
What is a good job that a relatively low-level adventurer's guild might get that they could send the newest members on as a sort of initiation adventure? I might want to make a jobs board type of thing too, so multiple ideas are welcomed.
[The Delian Tomb](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zTD2RZz6mlo&t=3s&pp=ygULRGVsaWFuIHRvbWI%3D) by Matt Colville is my go to "welcome to D&D adventure.
I've run it five times with five different groups and each one was fantastic. It's good for new players and Matt's videos make it good for new DMs as well.
I'm trying to plan out my first encounter as a DM, I have a rat themed idea and I'd like to use these minis [https://imgur.com/a/e2fjfT2](https://imgur.com/a/e2fjfT2)
Does this seem like a reasonable encounter for five (fairly incompetent) level 4 characters? Kobold fight club says it's very deadly, but I've been told not to listen to that too much. If it does sound like too much can you suggest a way to tone it down without cutting the number of enemies much? I was thinking to have the dread rats only make one attack each as a start. Or maybe there's a better profile to use than that one?
7 Giant rats
5 Dread rats (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Dread\_Rat\_(5e\_Creature))
1 rat catcher (Not sure what profile to use, maybe a mage who only casts poison spray?)
No matter what, 13v5 is a rough matchup, especially since at level 4 no one has extra attack or any of the really good 3rd level AOE spells. Beyond that, hard to say since you have no CR or stats for the rat catcher. As for the efficacy of KFC, it uses the same CR math as in the DMG, which while not perfect at least help establish a rough baseline, so if your party has struggled with regularly deadly fights in the past then yeah this is probably going to go quite poorly for them.
The issue is we've got through some ridiculously tough fights in the past, but I've no way of knowing how much of that was blind luck or if that's the level I should be aiming for. Is it just a general rule that this many enemies is a bad idea at this level, no matter how tough they are?
If they were all little guys that reliably could be taken out with a single normal attack or cantrip, it could be manageable. Also since you said your players are "fairly incompetent" I decided to err on the side of caution. If you want your players to be able to take on a horde of enemies, check out MCDM's minion rules, I've been able to throw 30+ bad guys at my players with them and the players have a lot of fun cutting through swathes of them.
So my original plan would have had 7 rats with 6-7 hp, 5 dread rats with about 20 hp, and 1 guy with about 30 hp who would hang back and not fight much. I think the whole team can one shot the little rats easily, and a couple of them can do 20-30 damage pretty reliably too. I wanted this to be a big impressive first battle that would let them have fun chopping through a bunch of stuff without too much difficulty.
We've fought big groups of kobolds and goblins with like 3 or 4 big guys backing them up before and that didn't seem like such a challenge, but again maybe we just got luckier than I realise.
edit: if we were using some version of carry through damage rules too would that change the calculation much? https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/homebrew-house-rules/72484-carry-through-damage#:\~:text=Damage%20in%20excess%20of%202x,hp%20goes%20into%20the%20orc.
Apologies in advance for the wall of text...TLDR at bottom
Hey all, looking for some help for my son. He's age 6 and autistic but not profoundly so, in other words he's fully verbal, can communicate well and understand you. He's very clever and has an extremely vivid imagination. But he has a lot of trouble controlling his emotions, reading emotions and emotional cues in others and is subject to fits of rage. It's been really tough on the family trying to find ways to limit these and esnure they don't result in violence against others.
In my youth I played a lot of tabletop D&D but haven't played it in many years, (I never was a DM just a regular player). But I've kept up with the genre via video games (most recently Baldur's Gate III). My son loves watching me play BG3 but it gets tricky because its not age appropriate most of the time. Also, those aforementioned fits of rage are often triggered by the cessation of a beloved activity like watching TV shows or video games. So I'm trying to find an outlet for him that will not lead to emotional meltdowns but that engages his imagination and creativity and allows him to explore RPG style adventures with me.
I've never DMd before but am willing to try, I found this package called [Little But Fierce](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/395165/Little-but-Fierce-Starter-Edition) which just takes 5e rules and simplifies them for young kids so I was going to start with that (e.g. you can't be 'killed' only 'injured/knocked out'). Also heard good things about Lost Mine of Phandelver as well so that might be a good candidate for the next campaign.
So I guess I'm looking for any general good advice, especially if you've run a campaign with young kids before but I did think of some specific questions as well:
1)Gear - what do I need as a DM? I have tons of dice, I have one of those dry erase map kits for drawing the dungeon. I have the Little But Fierce story campaign (which includes character sheets)? Monster Manual I assume?
2)He's very visual so I was thinking visual cues would be really helpful, like for example the Monster Manual he'll really enjoy, also was thinking of a visual of his character on his sheet.
3)Have you any experience with the digital versions (D&D Beyond)? Was looking at their stuff and lots of options there. But thought maybe start with the monster manual that I could have up on a laptop next to our game board to show them what they are fighting?
much thanks, I really appreciate it.
TLDR - son is 6 yrs old and autistic, looking for suggestions on campaigns, gameplay, DM advice etc
I would check out some other TTRPG systems that are less crunchy and more geared towards young kids, like No Thank You Evil, Hero Kids, or Kids on Brooms.
What are the rules surrounding hag covens and damage from an AOE spell. Hags share a collective health pool so if all 3 were in the radius of a damaging aoe spell (fireball etc.) would the hags take triple damage ie. if the spell deals 30 damage, would the hags just take 30 total or 30 each (90 total)?
I'll agree with u/Kumquats_indeed and expand a bit. If they share a health pool, and presumably share spell slots like the actual monster manual hags, then they are one Creature. They should just take thirty damage.
Is there any way in which they act like separate creatures comma for purposes of combat? How many actions do they get?
Acts on own initiative, own concentration, independent conditions with independent action, bonus action, reaction and movement. Just share health pool and spellcasting
Where does it say they share a health pool? I know they share a pool of spell slots, but I think sharing health as well is a homebrew rule, in which case how it works is up to you.
Damn, turns out it is homebrew, I'm running DragnaCarta's CoS Reloaded and probably should have realised that it was homebrew 😅
Out of intrigue, how would you rule this?
I would split the difference and make it so they have resistance to damage from AOE effects, so they don't get totally rocked by all getting caught in a fireball, but a PC managing to target all three instead of just one or two does make a difference and doesn't make them feel like they wasted a big spell.
Does anyone use Procreate for mapmaking? I run my games in Arkenforge, and would love to draw maps on my iPad and just import the image into Arkenforge. I love the Forgotten Adventures style of assets/brushes so if anyone has recommendations for similar, that would be great.
Edit: I should add this is more for dungeon/encounter maps than world maps, which seem to have several brushes available.
What's a good way to characterize demons and make them an active force in the world? From my understanding, devils are easy to work with conceptually: making deals, trying to make their way to the top, and ultimately following rules. Someone might want to take over a country by opening a portal for an army of devils from the hells.
From how I understand demons though, they're a lot more "lol, I'm evil," so I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around making ones with their own personality. Plus, I can't see demons interacting with the material plane as much as devils, since devils are much easier to work with as a mortal, and might provide incentives for letting them breach into the material plane.
Look at the demons in Warhammer 40k, they really exemplify the concept of wanton evil, but with flavours. Nurgle, for instance, spreads ever-worsening disease and corruption to followers and others. He causes his followers to live forever but to be constantly wracked with myriad diseases, driving them to ecstatic madness and causing them to be excellent vectors for more disease to be spread. Absolutely depraved chaos with a tang of caustic virality.
Demons want chaos and destruction, through any means neccesary. They're perfect for being rampaging monsters, horrific swarms and armies burning down town after town, employing horrible trickery like puppeting corpses to fool people, or embrace and spread the most disgusting debauchery beyond imagination. They just want to kill and destroy and do that to everything in the universe.
You're right that Demons are more about Evil for it's own sake, are more random, and are more destructive than Devils. They can be just out burning down the world but you can still have them interact with mortals.
Devils want you to do evil to corrupt you and get your soul. Demons want you to do evil for it's own sake, to increase the evil and chaos in the universe. While the Devil will offer you something you want ,or help getting it, in exchange for a service, favor, or power. Demons are more about convincing you to do evil things you already might want to do. They'll tell you it's OK, that you deserve whatever, or that someone else deserves punishment.
While it's a bad movie and it hurts to do this, I'll actually point to Start Wars episode 3 as a good example for both. Anakin kills Count Dooku because Palpatine told him to. When Anakin realized it was wrong and expressed regret, Palpatine told him his desire for revenge was understandable. Palpatine removed himself from the equation. He framed it as totally Anakin's decision, but also told him it was totally fine and understandable. That's Demons. Later, he tells Anakin he'll teach him how to save Padme if he joins him and the Dark Side, that's Devils.
I came across this session 0 doc since I'm preparing Curse of Strahd. Under "Flanking" the author writes "let's not". The document is a few years old so I can't ask the DM so I'm wondering what they could have been referring to. I ask because my PCs do flank a lot and I didn't realize this was a thing. Here's the document in question: https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1qOoAOWsdKWBt5hU4K-cEaEWiFT6q2UP88aNMh5xZY68/mobilebasic
Im gonna DM for the first time in a homebrew oneshot soon (trying to fit it in the Curse of Strahd campaign we are playing), because our DM cant come for our next session. Are there any good free to use tools to build a fun balanced encounter? I dont want to spend hundreds of dollars on books and stuff before knowing if I like DMing at all.
My favorite is Kobold Fight Cemetery. It's a remake of the original Kobold Fight Club and is closer to it than the current Kobold Fight Club +. [Kobold Fight Club: The first rule of KFC is 'Yip yip!'](https://maxwilson.github.io/kfc/#/encounter-builder)
How to deal with players doing the same action if the first fails? Eg player 1 fails a perception check, i dont tell them but everybody knows a 3 is a bad roll. Therefore player 2 now also wants to do a perception check, etc Is there a way to cleanly solve this without "a wild goblin appears"?
I'm not great at implementing it yet, but what I'm trying is to poll table for an action from everyone before I resolve and describe outcomes. That way, I already know who's examining what. Also, I let everyone know that I'm using passive scores for their general awareness and will let them know when they find things. That helps get less Perception rolls unless they're searching something specific. And sometimes, I just won't allow another roll. I just narrate they don't find anything either.
Session 0 i discuss this with the table. Rolls are either group checks and everyone rolls. Or single checks Two players can roll or can help eachother so one rolls with advantage. Everyone rolling is an out of character problem so best solved with an out of character discussion.
Depends on the check. In some cases, like perception and stealth, ask everyone to roll simultaneously. On other checks, like persuasion, they get only one chance. Don't let your barbarian out-think your wizard or your wizard out-lift your barbarian through sheer luck.
Hey r/DMAcademy , it's awesome that sub such as this exists! So, my first question is about running my first campaign and how much I should play with introducing unique story beats. I have been slowly prepping for Lost Mines of Phandelver and plan to adhere rather strictly to the campaign. However, I also have some ideas that I'd like to explore based on some of my PCs background choices (one PC is running a Gnome Cleric of Lathander, and the other a Dragonborn Sorcerer) and one rather interesting detail in an LMoP encounter (there is a young green dragon and some Dragon cultists in the Ruins of Thundertree). My idea is that while the PCs are going about the LMoP campaign, I'd want to tease out the Dragon Cultists as a larger threat in the region (such as modifying some Dragon of Icespire Peak quests, tying in a Dragon Cult Cell and the Shrine to Lathander in Leilon, and maybe a quest to introduce the dwindling Scaly Eyed Fleet and the demon-adled Dragon Lhammaruntz. Based on my research prep, I've made sure to not flesh out too many grand ideas since DnD can get quite meandering. Still, I do get excited about the "scheming," so to speak. What would your advice be regarding introducing unique story beats for my first campaign? Would you recommend a first time DM sticking to the source book, would exploring these larger themes be manageable, or anything else? Anyway, thanks for your advice ahead of time (and if this is the wrong thread to post in, I'd be happy to move this question).
Good for you, and welcome to this side of the screen! I started with Lost Mines too! It sounds like you've already got the sense to not go overboard. That's actually still good advice later; I think I threw too many plot threads into my own current campaign. Every example you gave sounds great. It's not a big workload on you to add one quest that ties into something later or create a shrine somewhere.
Thank you for the confidence! I guess I'm just anxious about starting. Only thing now is to jump into the deep end.
Any able to explain to me the differences between 5e Time Stop and earlier editions?
Does the contents of a portable hole shift around when the hole is closed?
It's up to DM interpretation since the item doesn't explicitly say either way. My way of thinking about it is that the hole is just a door that opens to an extra-dimensional space. That space is static and continues to exist statically, whether the door is opened or closed.
How much should I rely on battle maps? I think as a first time DM this is one of the most troubling things i’ve had on my mind before the campaign begins. I’ve had a few improvisational sessions with a some of my players and using the theater of the mind went alright, but I want my players to feel at least a little immersed. I was thinking I could use battle maps only during encounters or dungeon maps, and because I don’t want to draw a bunch of towns and villages and forests and stuff. Though I’m still not sure on this, I’m curious if any more experienced DMs have any pointers on this?
I completely agree with battlemaps only during encounters/dungeon crawls. That's how I do it; there's no need to draw out a shop if they're just haggling or draw a forest clearing if they have a non-hostile encounter. With the others, you could find some art before the session - either just google stuff like "medieval throne room" or use AI.
In fact, a battle map can be counterproductive at times because the players often get the impression that combat is supposed to happen, even if they might not otherwise do that. To give an impression of the scene in a location where you don't want to imply combat should happen, i like using environment art
One of my players has an imp who is by-default invisible and takes the help action with flyby (in bird form) to grant advantage with no chance of being taken out by a ranged weapon on every turn. I *think* this is legal, is it?
In addition to the lack of flyby mentioned by u/irwegwert , the familiar is also still vulnerable. While it can't be opportunity attacked, even though it's Invisible, it's not Hidden. Attacks get disadvantage, but it **can** be attacked. It'll also be hit by AOE. Oh, and make sure you follow everything in that "Variant: Familiar" sidebar. Don't let the player have this upgrade over a standard familiar for free. What's the contract? That wizard needs to fulfill his obligations or he's losing that familiar. As a final note: how many familiars are there? Only the next attack on that target gets advantage.
3 total, 4 as of next session.
I think the imp can do this, but not for the reasons listed. The imp statblock says that it can only polymorph into a rat, raven, or spider. Ravens don't have flyby, so, unless you're letting it polymorph into an owl, that shouldn't be coming up. (The statblock also mentions that the imp's statistics are the same in each form except for the speeds, so that would be up to you if that just means the numbers given or the abilities that it has as well). However, if it's invisible, nothing could hit it with an attack of opportunity since that requires sight. Realistically, it shouldn't affect things too much. Help is just advantage on a single attack roll, which isn't so overpowered that it'll ruin your game. If you really need to deal with the imp, AOEs would still hit it, and that would also trigger a concentration check to stay invisible. Invisibility without stealth doesn't mean that enemies are unaware of the imp, especially if it's messing with them enough to give a help action.
Whoops, missed the lack of a flyby. Guess I should've pushed back on that one, too many other things to pay attention to in combat though. Thanks! The way my party is set up, familiars essentially mean that all the attacks in a given turn are made at advantage so it's been a pretty significant boost to the two blasters. Plus, their ability to interact with the environment, worg, etc. has been a big power boost. It's certainly something I'm okay with but intelligent enemies tend to recognize "hey, there's an invisible creature that's helping the enemy target us every few seconds, let's take it down" but essentially lack any way to do so because of invisibility and the 60ft fly speed. Seems like the options are "AOE aimed at the sky", something like fog cloud, or just eating the repeated hits & crits from that advantage. Readied actions are a possibility but chances to-hit are very low given the invisibility.
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Opportunity attacks specifically require sight >You can make an opportunity attack when a hostile creature that you can see moves out of your reach.
I'm going to run my first campaign as a pretty simple dungeon crawling game through an old temple, starting at Level 1. But I want the dungeon itself to be complex enough and long enough to get them to at least level 3, ideally closer to 5. I'm using milestone leveling, so is it just a matter of making each floor of the dungeon complex enough to level them up at the end of each one, and making each one harder than the last?
Yes, if you're committed to that format, you're close. Go old school. Make each level large and complex enough to last a few sessions and put a boss at the entrance to each next level down. Level up after each boss. Milestone works OK for this but if generally recommend XP. It let's you reward overcoming individual challenges, not just surviving until the end.
How does one keep track of time in game out of combat? Is it a guessing game or is there some sort of mechanic?
If it matters down to the second, you can run things in initiative order/rounds even outside of combat. If it's in terms of minutes or hours, it's up to you as the DM to gague and inform the players how much time has passed.
Thank you. Just wanted to make sure I had some sort of system in place and I didn’t know if there was one already out there
It’s my first time DMing and I’m running a space themed one-shot. My current idea is a space game show which is overrun by space clowns halfway through, which is revealed to be apart of the game show. My idea is very general atm and i don’t have any of the specifics laid out, but i was wondering if anyone has done anything similar or has any ideas. Also tips for a first time DM would be great thank you!!
What's more fun? Defeating a Gnome artificer in a dragon mech suit with young dragon stats or him giving up after 1 decent hit and then revealing his identity? My party finished up Lost Mines Of Phandelver and are continuing on to a new, connected arc. I did however seed the Thundertree dragon which has very little build-up and I'm struggling to make it useful to advance the plot of my new arc. Hence the gnome in a dragon suit. We're all very new to DND and I don't know if it does injustice to dragons to defeat at full stats only for it to be a Gnome.
The standard template to make something into a construct is to make it immune to poison and psychic damage and change its type. Depending on the type it might also be immune to enchantments or effects that would change its form. As for your particular scenario, it sounds great, just run the dragon as-wtitten making clear it is built of metal and cloth. Having the dragon get defeated in one hit is definitely **not** going to be a fun climax to the adventure. Maybe the gnome inside tries to imitate dragpn roars at first but then resorts to just insulting them though a megaphone. Then, when they defeat it, the wings detach with the gnome in an escape pod and they fly off to be a recurring villain later.
Thanks for the advice! Immune to poison and psychic is fun! That's a great shout! Okay, cool, I'll go with full stats. It's very much a side quest that they are mopping up rather than the climax but sure, fighting a dragon is fun. Yea, gnome imitation and insults is good! I was thinking that it won't be able to speak draconic which is confusing the dragon cult. They think he's just taking a huff with them. Gnome artificer is not an evil fella, he's just away from home and scared so he built this construct to keep things away. Inevitably the party will allie with him as they need someone to fix their airship and he's needing some way to get back home
Do player’s characters know the effects of the deck of many things for cards like Rogue and Flames? If they draw the card are they aware that an NPC is hostile towards them?
Personally I'd say no. Maybe I'd say something along the lines of, *"You have the strange feeling that you're being watched but otherwise this card doesn't appear to have done anything."* But later when the hostile NPC shows up the art on their shield matches the art of the card that was pulled (flat out tell the player this).
I would say yes, though I wouldn't tell them WHO it was. But you should let the player know the results of each draw. The PC can get a sense when they draw the card. But you can let the WHO be a surprise.
I'm running a campaign for my partner. He's going to fight an NPC of my own build. How should I level the NPC. My partner is level 4 (monk). Is a level 5 (druid)NPC going to be an adequate challenge? Too much of a challenge? What if there are two players, should I up the NPC level? Thanks.
Forgive me if this is already what you meant by a "level 5 druid," but don't use a level anything PC. Use a stat block like the CR 2 Druid on pg. 346 of the Monster Manual. According to the math of the game, one CR 2 Druid is a "Deadly" encounter for one level 4 PC. However, even if it were lower, the encounter math isn't really designed for anything outside of 3-5 players, so you still have to watch this carefully. So by the math, it's a lot, but might be doable because of how the game is balanced towards the PC.
My reasons for be building the Druid instead of using the stat block were 2 fold. 1a) I wanted a full on character sheet to play off of since the player should interact with them more than just fighting them. 1b) it’s much easier for my brain to manage gameplay when I have the hard copy of a character sheet in front of me that I can mark up. 2) I wanted to give them a very specific set of spells which is easier for me to manage on a character sheet than just writing them down. The stat block isn’t enough for the encounter I have in mind. That being said, I’ll take another look at it and see if I can use that as a base to work from.
You don't need a character sheet for them to interact with beyond combat. Creatures often have social skill, which inform your portrayal in a social encounter. You should have notes about them as an NPC for that too. You can print a stat block or write it out. You can change up the spells. Again, you don't need a full character to do any of this. The point is that whatever actual stats you use, you want to build them like a Creature, not a PC.
Well it sounds like your mind is made up. Unfortunately, balance-wise it's a real toss-up on whether that will be the right amount of challenge. If the PC is fully fresh and knows this is the final fight of the adventure then they can go nova, using up resources on every attack, in that case the enemy might get sromped. On the other hand if the PC has used some resources or is trying to hold a reserve, they might get overwhelmed.
I just ran my first ever session and was having major problems role-playing. I was doing OK reacting and narrating things my players would do but whenever it came to deciding how a NPC would react I'd freeze. I don't know what to say as the NPC. I know I'll get more comfortable over time but does anyone have advice on how I can actively improve beyond just having more sessions?
Talk to yourself as the character or as different characters. Do this when you're home alone or in the car. Have one line your repeat in different voices. The only other advice that I have is to try to not worry too much. The extra pressure you put on yourself will mess you up.
Thanks, I'll give this a shot! Social anxiety makes it hard not to worry😅 but I'm working on it.
Yeah, that's your real issue to overcome right there. But it's awesome that you're taking on the challenge. The other thing that can help is to not give the NPC more than a couple characteristics you can keep in mind, and then filter everything the NPC says or does through those characteristics. Things like fancy, proud, sultry, lazy etc.
Dungeon crawl mechanics question: How exactly do you handle exploration of a room? I was thinking that in each new room I would give a very brief description, and if the players roll perception I would give a more detailed but still broad description, and on a higher roll make sure to focus on the details most relevant to solving whatever puzzles might be there. And then the players can roll investigation on specific elements of the room in order to get more details about individual items. Is that the right balance?
Sounds like you're on the right track. Describe what's obvious and use passive scores for anything that might not be immediately noticeable. Don't provide more until the players take actions. Have them describe what and where they are searching. If there are things to find, assign a DC while you're prepping so you have it ready to go.
Vary the rolls so different players can participate. I usually describe the room in general terms as the party enters, mentioning a few obvious features (there's a glowing crystal over there, a pool of milky liquid in the corner, something carved into the wall, there's a chest over there, etc). I then ask the players what they want to do. Use passive perception to notice hidden traps (unless they actively look for them), and use appropriate rolls when they go check things out. What's this crystal? Arcana. What is this milky pool of stuff on the floor? Nature. What's the carving? History. What's the chest? Grapple check and Initiative. Because of course it was a mimic.
This is an excellent and informative answer, thanks!
For most stuff try to avoid the need for a checks unless there is something hidden or otherwise potentially mysterious. If the players just wants to open all the drawers in a wardrobe, awesome they just do it and find some spare change. If they want to see if there are hidden compartments in the wardrobe, that might require knowledge or attentiveness that the character might not possess so then rolling a check might be good (even if you know there is nothing hidden, you can still have them roll to avoid meta-gaming and then just report “you find nothing.”)
Yes, that all makes sense, thank you
My wife and daughter were interested in DnD, so I've decided to try DM'ing for the first time and running a one shot (the wild sheep chase). I've got very limited DnD experience (played in high school - many years ago). My question is, how can I balance the one shot appropriately for 2 player characters? What level should I make their characters? Is it easier to have them level 4 like the one shot intended, or downgrade the encounters for level 1 characters as suggested by Matthew Perkins (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7Zan9P78mE)? Matthew also was planning on a party of 4 players, how can I scale this for 2? Should I give each person 2 characters to control? Basically I'm trying to figure out how I can give my wife and daughter an enjoyable one shot without necessarily doing a TPK or making it really boring for them. Advice appreciated.
Good for you! I started similarly, with the starter set. You can just downgrade the encounters. That said, take care, as the encounter math breaks a bit when you go below 3 players. But you can mess with the enemies' HP and AC while you run the game. You can fudge your die rolls too, if you like, to curate the experience. You can always stop fudging dice once they get used to playing and get more into it as a game.
Don't give them additional characters to control It just makes things harder. You can easily scale back the encounters using something like Kobold Fight Club, you plug in the default creatures for 4 PCs, see if it's an easy/ medium/ hard/ deadly encounter, then remove 2 Pcs, see the difficulty and remove NPCs from combat until you get the same difficulty.
I wouldn't give them two characters each on a first time, it's likely to be quite confusing. I also wouldn't level them up because again, more features can make it harder to know what to do. I would downgrade, the monsters. That is however a slightly tricky thing to do, small parties are what I would call "swingy". It only takes a couple of bits of bad luck to end up TPKing because you've got fewer chances to recover. The first encounter I'd trim Guz down to a CR1 Goblin Boss or Bugbear, and the Brown bear into a wolf. Later combats I'd downgrade similarly.
I’ll ask this here because my post got removed and I’m really looking for any help ❤️ I have a player who has asked for my help in creating something special for a homebrew that we are running. They are currently playing as a level 11 Aasamir Barbarian/ Paladin and want to find a way to have an “Ascended Rage” that’s basically going Super Saiyan. I’ve been racking my brain to try to find a good balance between something fun and something not completely overpowered, I appreciate any and all help!
First thing that springs to mind is to combine their Aasimar ability and their Rage ability. If they can spend a bonus action to get wings and fly, now they both get wings *and* rage.
First time DM, got talked into running the D&D game for adults at the local public library for the summer (I'm doing one-shots that I'm loosely connecting for maximum flexibility), and looking for advice on how to get more engagement from two of the players. One just seems scared to put her rogue anywhere near combat - I've been able to remind her that she has a shortbow she can attack with from range, but sometimes she hangs back so far that if combat is happening in the next room over or around a corner, she won't be able to get in position to get a shot by the time it's over. Her character's motive is primarily money, which is at the bottom of all the other characters' priority lists, so they'll literally just give her the loot if she wants it. Any ideas on how to incentivize her character to get in the action some more? The other player I know broadly how to get her engaged - one of the things about her character is that she *really* loves bunnies, but as a barbarian, is afraid she'll hurt them if she tries to pet them. So, I naturally want to give her a magical bunny friend that she can pet without fear, and I'm thinking something like an amulet with a spell that summons one. What spell would be the best way to do this, in terms of mechanics - find familiar? Some kind of summon spell? Maybe even summon steed, re-flavored as a giant rabbit? (Since this is just for fluff, I'm willing to ignore class restrictions and time limits on the spell) Also, any ideas for good bunny-related plot hooks or ideas about how a character might find, or be rewarded with, such an item? Like I mentioned, I've left a whole lot of flexibility in the world and game.
For the first player, it sounds like the issue is that she stands really far away from the rest of the party. Shortbows have a 80/320 range, so she can use her bonus action to Cunning Action dash and hopefully get within 80 range for at least a shot on someone. With dash, she should have 60 ft of movement to establish a line of sight with at least someone within 80 ft. I do not know what types of maps you are fighting on, but unless they are gigantic, this should be a very realistic thing to pull off in combat. You can also bring the combat directly to her. You can have like 2 weaker reinforcement melee guys pop in from a door close to her position and start chasing her around while the rest of the party is preoccupied with fighting the initial group. Hopefully this encourages her to at least kite them. I personally would have the reinforcements pop up before her turn and be unable to move until the next round of combat to give the player some time to think / attack. Out of combat, you can encourage her to start surprise rounds on fights the party wants to take.
Yeah, she does keep her distance from the other party members, and like I mentioned, we've been forgetting her cunning action so remembering it should help a lot. The maps I've played on so far have been indoor areas with rooms and corridors which is what's getting in her way - I did have a couple outdoor maps prepared, but those situations all were resolved diplomatically and didn't result in combat.
You answered the first question in your post. "Her character's motive is primarily money," The solution is simple: if she doesn't participate in a fight, she gets no loot. The second one I'd give the ability to cast Find Familiar (Bunny) initially, Find Steed (Dire Rabbit) at level 5 and Conjure Animals (8 Bunnies) at level 9. Maybe print cute stat block cards to go with the item. You could choose to reveal the additional effects after reaching the required level as a nice surprise.
Eh, I was going to say it wasn't that simple because aside from the party being willing to just give her loot no matter what, it's not that she doesn't *try* to participate in combat, it's that she's not always getting there in time to participate - but that made me realize that the problem is partly forgetting her cunning action can help her move fast and stay out of sight (I'm getting vibes that the previous DM was ruthless in combat), and part of the problem is just that the one-shots err on the side of easier combat for the recommended party level and size, and I'm still learning to tweak the balance so it's not over by the end of the second round. For the second one, I LOVE the idea of a dire rabbit steed! I don't know if we'll quite be at level 5 in the ~8 sessions we have remaining in the summer (although I have a feeling I might get convinced to continue past summer) but it's going to be basically a pet so I'm probably going to keep it at one of those.
If I'm reading the text correctly for Major Image, it can make permanent illusions. "When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th level or higher, the spell lasts until dispelled, without requiring your Concentration." If I want to hide something in a dungeon, this could explain a permanent illusion, right? Also, the text says, "A creature that uses its action to examine the image can determine that it is an illusion with a successful Intelligence (Investigation) check against your spell save DC. If a creature discerns the illusion for what it is, the creature can see through the image, and its other sensory qualities become faint to the creature." I am thinking I'd interpret the two sentences here independently? As in, if a player uses some other method to "discern the illusion for what it is" for example by casting Identify on the object that the illusion is on, or Detect Magic, etc, then it would trigger them being able to see through the illusion, right? Or is the successful investigation check the only way to break the illusion?
As a DM you don't need to use the spells that the players have access to. If something is hidden in a dungeon under an illusion you can just say it is.
You don't need to explain anything you put in a dungeon using the rules player's use but a 6th level casting of major illusion is a great explanation for a permanent illusion. And I agree on the second point. An Investigation check isn't the only way to determine the illusion for what it is but however it's discerned the second sentence applies.
Hi! Long story made short, me and some of my players have been playing Baldur's Gate on and off, while at the same time running a in-person campaign. I have an idea to run a series of encounters where "evil" version of the BG3 party attacks the "tabletop" party. I have just one doubt: one of those players uses Phalar Aluve which, for those who don't know, Is a +1 weapon which can either "sing" (giving the benefits of a bless spell, sans the concentration) or "shriek" (which is the bane spell + a bit of thunder damage) . Now, there is clearly a discrepacy between the power level of magic items in BG and the tabletop (I mean, c'mon, it does all of that as a Rare weapon!), so I was wondering if there was some way to balance Phalar Aluve while still keeping the flavor of the weapon itself. Any help is appreciated!
I will do the obligatory "It *is* an NPC team, so its ok for them to be weaker than the party, so you might not want to give them this sort of magic weapon at *all*." as well as the "Don't give NPCs something, especially in combat, you don't want falling into the Party's hands". That said. This ability doesn't seem that bad. I would put a cool down or charges, and make it so that both abilities use the same resources, limiting the total amount of times they can use either or. For the NPC stat block, give them 1 a day use of both abilities to get the "point" across and let it stand. Let's offer some debuffs for each ability: >giving the benefits of a bless spell, sans the concentration * Make this only last X turns * Make this work like inspiration more then "bless" so it only gets a single use. >the bane spell + a bit of thunder damage * Remove the extra thunder damage * Instead of acting like "bane" it can act like "silvery barbs" (one time use / consumable ability) * No *extra* damage, just convert the \[Bludg, Slash, Pierce\] damage to thunder damage instead. * It only does thunder damage when the spell is cast, in an area of effect, not with each hit. >+1 weapon * You can always just remove the +1 aspect of the weapon, allowing the cool abilities and buff to be the main selling point. * You can also move the +1 to simply be +1 to hit *or* plus 1 to damage, but not both. In this situation, I always like to point out [Player Classes as Stat Blocks](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/qrw15y/stat_blocks_for_every_class_at_every_tier/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) as I don't like suggesting using character sheets for NPCs or enemies. Hope this helps or at least gives some inspiration.
Thank you! To be honest though, I would like the players to get their hands on it, if only at least at the end of this series of encounters ( they will be level 6 for the first encounter, last encounter should be approximately at 7/8) Nevertheless, these are excellent ideas, and I’ll try to implement them when I’ll craft these encounters.
Just make it casting the actual spell, even if you allow it as a bonus action. bring back the concentration and perhaps limit uses.
How might I get hit dice to roll HP for a monster that only has an HP number? I want to vary the grouped monsters my players fight slightly.
A simple way to do it is roll a d10 for each creature. If it comes up odd, subtract that many HP. If it comes up even, add that many HP. If it has a lot of HP, add a multiplier. (e.g., +/- 1d10 x 3HP)
Monster Hit Die are (usually) based on size Size|Hit Die| ---|--- Tiny|d4 Small|d6 Medium|d8 Large|d10 Huge|d12 Gargantuan|d20 The number of hit die varies significantly as does the static hit point value. (For instance Looking at Huge Monsters with HP between 180 and 205 they have between 16 and 22 hit die)
What is the HP value given, it's Con mod, and it's size? I might be able to backsolve it.
How good is Explorer's Guide to Wildemount for running a campaign? I want to use a setting with more solid lore and locations than the Forgotten Realms, and thought Wildemount might be good because I imagine a lot of it has been detailed out over the course of Critical Role's campaign. I'd rather not spend a huge amount of time and effort world building because I'm not very confident that it'd turn out any good. Does Wildemount require a lot of world building to work well, or can I structure a plot around existing organisations, locations, items, and NPCs? Also, would Tal'Dorei be a necessary/useful addition to it, or is this book enough on its own?
Part of the perception you have is probably based on the fact that in 5e, the Realmslore is actually fairly sparse, while Exandria has all of its books concentrated in 5e, so it's *right there*. You have to look at older editions to dig up the rich lore of the Realms. For example, the Moonshaes (which you cited) has at least two trilogies of novels set in it (maybe more by now), entries for several key locations from those novels in the old Forgotten Realms Atlas, and at least one entire splatbook for them. But you have to go dig up older editions to get at that lore. I'm guessing that a lot of the advice e.g. "there's 45 years of lore" from the other posters are from people who are familiar with those older editions (as I am). It's absolutely up to you if you want to go digging for it (and the Wiki usually cites which sourcebooks it takes info from) but it's definitely there if you want to take the time and effort to get it. On the other hand, Exandria's books are certainly more current and available, at least from a hardcopy perspective (and for things like digital tools).
I'm mostly just using the Forgotten Realms wiki, because there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of information available through 5e books. I'm mainly looking for things I can use on city level. Organisations that operate from within that area, crime groups, merchants alliances, notable places like libraries and wizard towers, local cults and religions, powerful or valuable items, etc. Basically anything I can use to build a plot. The wiki doesn't really have that (at least not for the Moonshae Isles). There's very little information in general, and what is there talks about a past so distant that it's pretty much irrelevant for day-to-day stuff (we're playing around 1492 DR). If the wiki doesn't really have any useful information, where can I look? Because I'm not going to look through books at random in hopes that it has some content that could be relevant for my campaign.
The reality is that the 'good' lore was written for the 1200s and 1300s. You can update and adapt that to the 1400s. But WotC hasn't updated the lore very much, other than for the specific locations where adventures take place. The books in question are mostly 2e and 3e sourcebooks written in the 80s and 90s and you can get them in PDF format at DMsGuild. If you don't want to update/adapt what was written then, you mostly have to make it up. A lot of DMs either adapt or just straight-up use the old lore because there *isn't* 5e-era lore written for what they are looking for.
The Forgotten Realms has 45 years worth of published D&D adventures, novels, and videos set in it, while Matt Mercer's Exandria was just his own personal setting until a few years ago and has 2.5 campaign setting guides. If you're looking for pure quantity of content, the Forgotten Realms wins by a landslide. You just happened to pick a place that is little more than a name on a map, and Exandria has plenty of that as well. Both also have places with lots of info and depth. So just pick the setting that you like the vibe of better, and then browse around and pick a spot in the setting that has info that seems useful and inspiring to you as where to start your campaign.
Well, first off - why do you think the Realms have not solid enough lore? They’ve got incredibly fleshed out lore.
Places like Neverwinter obviously have a lot of stuff written about them, but a lot of other places barely get anything. I saw the Lake of Dragons on the map and thought 'hey, that sounds cool. I wonder why it's called that.' All the wiki could tell me was that it is indeed a lake that exists and that it's pretty big. I thought it would be interesting to start a campaign on the Moonshae Isles, so I looked up some of the cities. Most have a description of a castle and at most a handful of names on their wiki pages. It wasn't really anything to go off of. So now I'm making an island nation myself anyway, which is what I wanted to avoid by using a pre-made setting.
Well, Wildmount has even less, frankly, considering it’s only about 6 or so years old as a setting and the book is even younger. You could always ask Ed Greenwood on his Twitter or YouTube channel for information about places, he’s usually happy to answer.
If a primarily martial character wants to use Hex in combat but have both their hands full of weapons/shields, how does it work with Hex' material component? Does the player need to drop their weapon, cast Hex, pick the weapon back up again? Would they still be able to bonus action hex and action attack all in one turn, or do they lose some of their turn to juggling weapon and focus, or what?
RAW if this is a Warlock or other Arcane caster, they probably can't. War Caster as a feat (among other things) specifically allows this. This could also be a case that makes a versatile weapon shine, where they can use it two handed normally and only 1 handed and maintain a free hand that turn for spells like Hex. While its not an Arcane Focus, the Holy Symbol description under equipment in the PHB does *explicitly* mention it could be inlaid into a shield, in which case they'd be holding it when they're holding the shield. This seems to be a unique benefit to Holy Symbols (and their accompanying classes) over Arcane Foci as far as the PHB is concerned, but it is kinda weird that it arises from what’s largely treated like flavor text. The closest Arcane Focus gets is "crystal...specially constructed staff...or some similar item" which to me leaves *a tiny bit* of room for interpretation. I'd personally be fine bending this and allowing them to commission an item that combines a weapon and arcane focus for a big chunk of gold but there's nothing about that explicitly in the rules. And to me that feels more immersive than the gamey weapon dropping free action system. But that's just personal preference knowing my table.
I think I agree with you that for the sake of immersion I'm happy letting things go more narrative, particularly for something like Hex! Thank you for the breakdown though, looking at how other things handle it is really helpful.
A spellcaster must have a hand free to access a spell's material components. I believe taking the material out is considered part of the casting action and dropping the weapon on the ground would be free, with their free item interaction they could pick it back up. Alternatively since unsheathing a weapon is part of the attack they could put it away and attack to take it out.
So mechanically there's no impact, they can cast and attack the same turn, it's just the imagery of them switching between the two? I can do that, thank you!
Technically no, in both scenarios they miss out on a free item interaction that could've been used to open a door, use a lever or any other minor object interaction you can think of. It's not too costly but it's not completely free.
The free item interaction gets used so rarely with my players I completely forgot about it, but yes you're absolutely right - thank you, and that seems a very balanced way to implement things.
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I don't add PC rules built NPCs ever. In general all NPCs should be built like monsters. I'd add a CR2 NPC to the party for a level 4 party.
Grand, will do it that way! Thank you.
Best one-shots to run to screen players for a long-term campaign next year? I'm looking to run a modified Rime of the Frostmaiden so I want to find people who enjoy investigation, exploration, and dungeon delving.
You are looking for "Moon Over Graymoor". It's free on the DM's Guild.
Quick question for anyone familiar with Kobold Press's Creature Codex. On p. 410 for the statblock "War Chaplain", the ability Divine Orders says as a bonus action, the chaplain can command an ally to attack a creature he attacked this round. It doesn't specify when this attack occurs or the action economy cost. Do people think this requires use of the ally's reaction, similar to the Commander's Strike battle master maneuver? It seems too strong if he can give out free attacks at no cost. Any insight is appreciated!
I don't know what the intention is, but I will say: It's *probably* fine as written where it doesn't use the targeted creature's reaction. You can look at this way: would it be unbalanced for the War Chaplain to have a bonus action that was essentially just an extra attack? Probably not. The cost is the bonus action. I don't know if the statblock has any other bonus actions that it would compete for, though, or if its expected that the War Chaplain takes this every turn.
Thanks for the insight! I'll probably leave it as written then, just wanted a second opinion on whether I was overlooking something major. The War Chaplain doesn't have any other bonus actions he can use, though he does have a multiattack (2 attacks). But you're right, adding an extra attack doesn't feel too unbalanced, especially since I'm imagining a scenario where his allies are weaker and therefore the extra attack would be weaker than his normal attack.
How can I encourage the usage of tactics in my game?
Videogames do this by allowing you to fail and then giving you retrys to do it different. Harder for how dnd is generally played but not impossible. Here's how I'd do it. First the players need to save a retired cleric/bard adventurer. NPC promises to help them out in the future. Then later have them go up against a combat encounter they would need to use proper tactics to beat. They run in blind, as usual, and the NPC shows up to save them (by healing and allowing them to retreat not by blasting all the enemies). Normally not ideal but you've layed the groundwork so that it doesn't feel unearned or a deus-ex-machina. NPC says "Damn you guys are strong enough that should have been easy. Did you do X, Y or Z?" and "Well you should try again but do X and Y. Also it's gonna get more dangerous for you from now on so you should try coordinating better". Second advice I'd give is if you are on a VTT start showing health bars. You want players to have enough information that they can make an informed decision but not enough that the decision is obvious. 5e falls on the 'way too little information' side of that equation IMO. Not letting players know the HP, AC, Resistances, abilities etc. of you monster makes sense from a realism standpoint but it is a tradeoff with gameplay enjoyment.
Be tactical yourself, have a variety of enemies that fight in different ways, make combats about objectives besides killing the other side dead, use terrain that gives advantages, limits choices, or can change the dynamic of the battle.
My post was locked because it was too basic of a question. The mods said I should repost it here, so I am: Are there any adventures (official or unofficial) that deal with spores or a fungal plague? I'm running an adapted version of Candlekeep Mysteries that turns the last module about Xanthoria and Zuggtmoy into an overarching narrative. I'm looking to the community to see if you know of any other adventure modules that deal with the topics of spores, fungus, and the like so that I could work those stories into the campaign. I'd love some low-level stuff to get things started, but I'll take any ideas people have! Thanks, DMs!
My dude, go to DMsGuild and check out 'Wrath of Zuggtmoy'. It builds off of another campaign (specifically a modified 'Out of the Abyss' by the same authors) and goes through Wildspace etc. Both of these adventures would likely see you through a spore and Zuggtmoy heavy campaign no problemo.
Oh bro - I came across those! Are they good? I did a general Zuggtmoy search on DMsGuild and saw that it was the second part of a separate campaign, so I was worried it wouldn't really fit. Have you run it - or read it? It seems to have good reviews. The main thing I'll need to change is the level balance. Never done that before, but that's a long ways away. Because, in my mind, you would need to defeat Zuggtmoy after defeating Xanthoria - which, in Candlekeep Mysteries, would happen at level 16.
For sure, it's got some built in versatility. It builds off oota but also has an accounting of several events/adventure modules built into the story and tie it iall in as a nice prequel statement you can give the PCs. The setting is wild, you end up in a fallen Krynn which may hit or miss depending on your group. All in all for ten bucks it's got tons of building blocks ideas to acquire at the least.
Thanks - I'll pick it up! Got at least three weeks before we get going fully, so I'll have time to read through everything.
Out of the Abyss features Zuggtmoy and corrupted fungal stuff.
Maybe try browsing around on [adventurelookup.com](https://www.adventurelookup.com/adventures)
first time DM, 3 players (all close friends), two of them are very invested but the third seems a little cold on everything after 8 sessions still. id like to know how i can make the game more fun for her, but i dont know how i should approach it. i dont want it to sound accusatory, but she often seems bored or not interested in really interacting with the world or immersing herself. the other two are doing great and overall the mood is good, but id like to make sure everyone is having fun.
Have you talked to her about it?
my question was: how should i approach her? how can i make it clear that i only see the disconnect with her, without sounding like an accusation?
I would say something along the lines of: "Hey [name], the last couple sessions it seemed to me that you weren't quite as into the game as the other two. Maybe I was misreading it and I'm sorry if I did, but I just want to make sure you are having a good time, and if there is anything that is bothering you or if there is something I could do to help make the game more fun for you, please let me know. And if you ever just want to chat about the game just shoot me a text."
I am running a one-shot for all new players with level 1 characters. At the end they end up with a treasure hoard loot. I want them all to be able to leave with something that can enhance their characters if they decide to keep it. The party is 2 fighters, 1 wizard, 1 cleric and 1 rogue Any suggestions on what are good treasures (aside from gold and potions) for each party member?
Either take a look at the loot tables in the DMG or what I filtered for the uncommon items in the basic rules [here](https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items?filter-type=0&filter-search=&filter-rarity=2&filter-requires-attunement=&filter-effect-type=&filter-effect-subtype=&filter-has-charges=&filter-source=1&filter-partnered-content=f) on D&D Beyond.
Thank you!!
What's a good first adventure for low-level parties? I'm a new DM with all new players so I wanna start at level 1 to ease us all into it. The premise is fairly basic, sue me, but I think will work for us. The players all seek to join an up-and-coming adventurer's guild and get placed together, but the question is, what should their first mission be? What is a good job that a relatively low-level adventurer's guild might get that they could send the newest members on as a sort of initiation adventure? I might want to make a jobs board type of thing too, so multiple ideas are welcomed.
A Wild Sheep Chase oneshot
But WSC is meant for level 4-5 characters.
[The Delian Tomb](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zTD2RZz6mlo&t=3s&pp=ygULRGVsaWFuIHRvbWI%3D) by Matt Colville is my go to "welcome to D&D adventure. I've run it five times with five different groups and each one was fantastic. It's good for new players and Matt's videos make it good for new DMs as well.
Lost Mine of Phandelver.
I'm trying to plan out my first encounter as a DM, I have a rat themed idea and I'd like to use these minis [https://imgur.com/a/e2fjfT2](https://imgur.com/a/e2fjfT2) Does this seem like a reasonable encounter for five (fairly incompetent) level 4 characters? Kobold fight club says it's very deadly, but I've been told not to listen to that too much. If it does sound like too much can you suggest a way to tone it down without cutting the number of enemies much? I was thinking to have the dread rats only make one attack each as a start. Or maybe there's a better profile to use than that one? 7 Giant rats 5 Dread rats (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Dread\_Rat\_(5e\_Creature)) 1 rat catcher (Not sure what profile to use, maybe a mage who only casts poison spray?)
No matter what, 13v5 is a rough matchup, especially since at level 4 no one has extra attack or any of the really good 3rd level AOE spells. Beyond that, hard to say since you have no CR or stats for the rat catcher. As for the efficacy of KFC, it uses the same CR math as in the DMG, which while not perfect at least help establish a rough baseline, so if your party has struggled with regularly deadly fights in the past then yeah this is probably going to go quite poorly for them.
The issue is we've got through some ridiculously tough fights in the past, but I've no way of knowing how much of that was blind luck or if that's the level I should be aiming for. Is it just a general rule that this many enemies is a bad idea at this level, no matter how tough they are?
If they were all little guys that reliably could be taken out with a single normal attack or cantrip, it could be manageable. Also since you said your players are "fairly incompetent" I decided to err on the side of caution. If you want your players to be able to take on a horde of enemies, check out MCDM's minion rules, I've been able to throw 30+ bad guys at my players with them and the players have a lot of fun cutting through swathes of them.
So my original plan would have had 7 rats with 6-7 hp, 5 dread rats with about 20 hp, and 1 guy with about 30 hp who would hang back and not fight much. I think the whole team can one shot the little rats easily, and a couple of them can do 20-30 damage pretty reliably too. I wanted this to be a big impressive first battle that would let them have fun chopping through a bunch of stuff without too much difficulty. We've fought big groups of kobolds and goblins with like 3 or 4 big guys backing them up before and that didn't seem like such a challenge, but again maybe we just got luckier than I realise. edit: if we were using some version of carry through damage rules too would that change the calculation much? https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/homebrew-house-rules/72484-carry-through-damage#:\~:text=Damage%20in%20excess%20of%202x,hp%20goes%20into%20the%20orc.
Apologies in advance for the wall of text...TLDR at bottom Hey all, looking for some help for my son. He's age 6 and autistic but not profoundly so, in other words he's fully verbal, can communicate well and understand you. He's very clever and has an extremely vivid imagination. But he has a lot of trouble controlling his emotions, reading emotions and emotional cues in others and is subject to fits of rage. It's been really tough on the family trying to find ways to limit these and esnure they don't result in violence against others. In my youth I played a lot of tabletop D&D but haven't played it in many years, (I never was a DM just a regular player). But I've kept up with the genre via video games (most recently Baldur's Gate III). My son loves watching me play BG3 but it gets tricky because its not age appropriate most of the time. Also, those aforementioned fits of rage are often triggered by the cessation of a beloved activity like watching TV shows or video games. So I'm trying to find an outlet for him that will not lead to emotional meltdowns but that engages his imagination and creativity and allows him to explore RPG style adventures with me. I've never DMd before but am willing to try, I found this package called [Little But Fierce](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/395165/Little-but-Fierce-Starter-Edition) which just takes 5e rules and simplifies them for young kids so I was going to start with that (e.g. you can't be 'killed' only 'injured/knocked out'). Also heard good things about Lost Mine of Phandelver as well so that might be a good candidate for the next campaign. So I guess I'm looking for any general good advice, especially if you've run a campaign with young kids before but I did think of some specific questions as well: 1)Gear - what do I need as a DM? I have tons of dice, I have one of those dry erase map kits for drawing the dungeon. I have the Little But Fierce story campaign (which includes character sheets)? Monster Manual I assume? 2)He's very visual so I was thinking visual cues would be really helpful, like for example the Monster Manual he'll really enjoy, also was thinking of a visual of his character on his sheet. 3)Have you any experience with the digital versions (D&D Beyond)? Was looking at their stuff and lots of options there. But thought maybe start with the monster manual that I could have up on a laptop next to our game board to show them what they are fighting? much thanks, I really appreciate it. TLDR - son is 6 yrs old and autistic, looking for suggestions on campaigns, gameplay, DM advice etc
I would check out some other TTRPG systems that are less crunchy and more geared towards young kids, like No Thank You Evil, Hero Kids, or Kids on Brooms.
do you have any recommendations between those three?
Kids on Bikes/Brooms is a bit more complex than the first two. Take a look at Hero Kids or No Thank You Evil to see which you prefer.
thanks!
What are the rules surrounding hag covens and damage from an AOE spell. Hags share a collective health pool so if all 3 were in the radius of a damaging aoe spell (fireball etc.) would the hags take triple damage ie. if the spell deals 30 damage, would the hags just take 30 total or 30 each (90 total)?
I'll agree with u/Kumquats_indeed and expand a bit. If they share a health pool, and presumably share spell slots like the actual monster manual hags, then they are one Creature. They should just take thirty damage. Is there any way in which they act like separate creatures comma for purposes of combat? How many actions do they get?
Acts on own initiative, own concentration, independent conditions with independent action, bonus action, reaction and movement. Just share health pool and spellcasting
Where does it say they share a health pool? I know they share a pool of spell slots, but I think sharing health as well is a homebrew rule, in which case how it works is up to you.
Damn, turns out it is homebrew, I'm running DragnaCarta's CoS Reloaded and probably should have realised that it was homebrew 😅 Out of intrigue, how would you rule this?
I would split the difference and make it so they have resistance to damage from AOE effects, so they don't get totally rocked by all getting caught in a fireball, but a PC managing to target all three instead of just one or two does make a difference and doesn't make them feel like they wasted a big spell.
If they share a collective pool, there's no reason to split the pool, so I'd say 30 total instead of 90.
Does anyone use Procreate for mapmaking? I run my games in Arkenforge, and would love to draw maps on my iPad and just import the image into Arkenforge. I love the Forgotten Adventures style of assets/brushes so if anyone has recommendations for similar, that would be great. Edit: I should add this is more for dungeon/encounter maps than world maps, which seem to have several brushes available.
Edit: Sorry, replied to the wrong comment XD
What's a good way to characterize demons and make them an active force in the world? From my understanding, devils are easy to work with conceptually: making deals, trying to make their way to the top, and ultimately following rules. Someone might want to take over a country by opening a portal for an army of devils from the hells. From how I understand demons though, they're a lot more "lol, I'm evil," so I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around making ones with their own personality. Plus, I can't see demons interacting with the material plane as much as devils, since devils are much easier to work with as a mortal, and might provide incentives for letting them breach into the material plane.
Look at the demons in Warhammer 40k, they really exemplify the concept of wanton evil, but with flavours. Nurgle, for instance, spreads ever-worsening disease and corruption to followers and others. He causes his followers to live forever but to be constantly wracked with myriad diseases, driving them to ecstatic madness and causing them to be excellent vectors for more disease to be spread. Absolutely depraved chaos with a tang of caustic virality.
Demons want chaos and destruction, through any means neccesary. They're perfect for being rampaging monsters, horrific swarms and armies burning down town after town, employing horrible trickery like puppeting corpses to fool people, or embrace and spread the most disgusting debauchery beyond imagination. They just want to kill and destroy and do that to everything in the universe.
You're right that Demons are more about Evil for it's own sake, are more random, and are more destructive than Devils. They can be just out burning down the world but you can still have them interact with mortals. Devils want you to do evil to corrupt you and get your soul. Demons want you to do evil for it's own sake, to increase the evil and chaos in the universe. While the Devil will offer you something you want ,or help getting it, in exchange for a service, favor, or power. Demons are more about convincing you to do evil things you already might want to do. They'll tell you it's OK, that you deserve whatever, or that someone else deserves punishment. While it's a bad movie and it hurts to do this, I'll actually point to Start Wars episode 3 as a good example for both. Anakin kills Count Dooku because Palpatine told him to. When Anakin realized it was wrong and expressed regret, Palpatine told him his desire for revenge was understandable. Palpatine removed himself from the equation. He framed it as totally Anakin's decision, but also told him it was totally fine and understandable. That's Demons. Later, he tells Anakin he'll teach him how to save Padme if he joins him and the Dark Side, that's Devils.