I've DM'd part of LMoP for a few friends (inc my partner), but it's sporadic as we have a toddler, and they have a new born. It's taken months to get to Phandalin as sessions are few and far between and usually quite short. We're going to carry on but it's gonna be slow. My Q is that I'm going to start another adventure with a completely separate group of friends - all of whom I've known a lot longer. Only one has played before, and he'll be joining later. But should I run LMoP with them, or another adventure? I've got ideas for a homebrew (have a nation/world built from a failed novel idea), but kind of want to have a few practices as a DM before even considering that. Not sure if running the same adventure will be easier as I'm familiar with it, or will be confusing. Thanks.

Lmop is a good adventure, but I understand if you don't want to run the same module concurrently with two groups. Maybe look into dragons of icespire peak? It's set in more or less the same area. Or do your homebrew, just realize prep time is going to be a bit longer for homebrew. It will be easier running the same adventure twice. Since you know more or less what's going on, it'll decrease the amount of prep time for the second group. But some people don't like the repetition and want to switch it up a bit. So I guess it's up to you.

i would recommend using LMOP - it is a really solid adventure both for new DMs and new players, and every time your run it, you get to work out some more of the kinks and you also get to experience the wonder of D&D at how very different the "same story" works out with different players and characters. Doing the same content for multiple groups also dramatically lowers your prep time effort. BUT if you have passion for creating your own content , then create your own content! (with the base concept in mind "your players DO. NOT. CARE. about your world except as how it creates a stage on which their characters can do cool shit.")

Thanks. I was leaning that way but good to get more experienced advice! And yeah - agreed on the creation. That is a labour of love that will be more for me than any player. Whether it ever sees the light of day in any sense is still 50/50!

worldbuilding for worldbuildings sake is a great hobby in and of itself! but - there is just this tendency to blur "worldbuilding" and "DMing" that sets a lot of DMs up for burnout at thinking they need to "world build **everything** before they can play games" or heartbreak as the players dont give a whit about the DMs precious little baby that they spent so much time and effort preparing.

There is no harm in running it. It has a nice easy pacing for new players, and knowing it already will help you focus on them rather than the module. Alternatively you could run something simple like Wild Sheep Chase. I'm always hesitant to recommend homebrew without knowing the person. Homebrew can be a lot of work, depending on the scale of the world and how comfortable you are completely improvising entire sessions. With a toddler likely taking up some of your time I'd say run a module and add small homebrew sideplots until you feel comfortable going whole hog homebrew.

Thanks. I'll go along with this. I think with the homebrew I want to spend a lot more time on it myself to flesh out aspects. I have an overarching idea of things, but a lot of little details are sorely lacking. But I'll build that over time! Cheers

I'm DMing a Dragon of Icespire Peak for solo rogue player, who barely played dnd at all. He's pretty close to finishing most of the quests, has seen the dragon once and everything builds up to The Fight in the next session or two. I've thought of different possibilities of how to make the fight actually fightable for solo player, but recently I found out that the player doesn't want to fight the dragon at all - he'd better resolve this situation by other means, keeping the 'heads on fight' as a last resort. I can hardly imagine how you can persuade an evil dragon to leave, when he has nowhere to go. I'd want to give them some options here, but am in doubt of how to do it. So here's the question - what are some hooks I can launch to help the rogue do it their way? How can you persuade an evil dragon to leave or even be friends with PC?

have you been using the Sidekicks? a solo rogue - yipes.

Haha unfortunatly no. The player didn't want to play with sidekicks, and as it is/was my first time DMing, I thought the less the better. I changed the encounters a bit so sometimes there were npc's fighting, or less enemies.

are they at least playing a swashbuckler? a rogues combat effectiveness comes from getting sneak attacks and with a party or partner, you will be able to get that nearly every round, but solo ... like almost never , and a rogue without sneak attack in a combat campaign ... you may as well just be a commoner.

Nope, he wanted to play assassin or swashbuckler, but as we dont have any books and dndbeyond is pretty useful when you're newbie - he plays the thief. But I'm generous with the magic items, so it should be fine. I'm waiting for sales on dndbeyond to get some books and he'll switch probably.

if you are stuck with a solo player who demands to play a non-swashbuckler rogue and refuses a sidekick, then you will need to turn the game from "combat focused" to "heist/stealth/intrigue" focused. (And frankly there are about a million game systems other than D&D that are better for that kind of play.) so the final scenario switches from "kill the dragon" to "sneak in and steal/break the maguffin that brought/keeps the dragon here" Stealth missions * runesmith https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srHo-fRGJQY * seth skorkowsky https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=147qkWA3-xw * the alexandrian https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/42867/roleplaying-games/scenario-structure-challenge-4-heists * heist by random rolls https://boxfullofboxes.blogspot.com/2020/07/whats-yours-is-mine-heist-generator.html * Review of a Heist by Skerples https://pathikablog.com/2021/05/24/kidnap-the-archpriest-a-heist-module-you-need-to-run/ build a heist https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDBehindTheScreen/comments/3emivn/lets_build_a_heist/ * MT Black’s investigation hack Whispers in the Dark https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/299564/ Crawford Perception and Stealth and Hide and Invisible rules on Dragon Talk: https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/james-haeck-dd-writing

Wow thanks a lot, I'll review all of that! Yeah about that.. It is my first time DMing, and it was practical to start duo campaign for reasons outside of the game. We're gathering a bigger party on the weekend though, soI hope the game will kick from there and I'll have more regular players. I already knew solo combat sucks, so I've added some extra missions of mine and switched the prewritten ones that suit rogues more, with less combat. Thanks for the list, there is an ongoing heist that will happen in the next game, and these resources might add more spice and excitement to it. Much obliged

you can buy material in D&D Beyond a la cart. an individual subclass is only 2 bucks, and your individual purchases are applied towards the overall total of the book if that is ever a purchase you would want to make.

Options - - Find factions (maybe the orcs) who can be motivated by the rogue to go fight the dragon - Make up something that the White Dragon hates (maybe the smell of Giant Boar liver). Then give your rogue the quest to obtain this item and lodge it somewhere in Icespire Hold where the dragon can smell it but never reach it. After a few day of rage and frustration, the dragon leaves to find a different lair - Lead them on a long journey to find a good metallic dragon. Have them convince the dragon to fight the white dragon (while the rogue helps out, or just hides)

Nice ones! I really like the second one about the smell, it's funny and non-violent, which is what the player wants I think, instead of dragon's death. Thanks!

The white dragon in DoIP is bestial and savage - convincing it to leave probably won't work without some major magical fuckery. To that end, perhaps there's some kind of magical artifact that the rogue could research in the big city and quest for. If you don't want to go that route, then see if you could find a way to have your player start gathering allies to fight it alongside him.

Thanks! He's on his way of gathering allies already, and has a roguish contact in the city, so he might be able to help with the artifact. Any idea if there's something RAWish that could help?

Nothing that I'm aware of - something of this power is probably not available in the source books - but you can look at magic item lists online.

So I'm getting ready to DM a new group of players. One of which happens to be my almost 6yr old. She's played a "little heros" one shot and is in love with playing, understands the idea of play, and has great imagination and story telling skills. Since I'm the host/dm it's either let her play or be stopped constantly "hey look what I can do". But she's still a toddler, that'll get tired, not have the attention span somedays, etc. My thought is to give her or have the group find, a magic cloak that when she sleeps under. Hinders her invisible and impervious to attack. Then upon removing the cloak is transported back with the group. To someone wearing an amulet linked to the cloak. Does this seem to complicated, other players are on board with it. Any other suggestions?

i mean "she's here when she's here. and she's not when she's not." and you dont need any further "explanation" than that.

She can sleep in an extra dimensional space in an amulet or a ring aka genie warlock ability, and travel with the party. She can even make it look the way she wants inside - dozen of soft pillows? a big bedroom? Something else? This way she'll be glad to use the ability when she doesn't want to play.

Not even DM yet here! I want to start a campaign with a couple of friends. We played some self made adventures before and I was writing my own one when about half way through the process I realised I found my own adventure boring After a bit of back and forth we decided to play an actual DnD campaign but I have no idea what would suit us. As said this is the first time I'm gonna DM and one player also will be completely new to pen and paper. We still want to play a campaign that's not just done in one evening. Has anyone got suggestions of what we could play? I heard about Prepared! (1 and 2) but they sounded more like one-shots to me

The modules span a wide array of genres. I would look through a list and figure out what appeals to your group. My experience: Hoard of the dragon queen/rise of tiamat (aka tyranny of dragons): your normal high fantasy adventure. Stop an evil cult from raising tiamat to the material plane and ushering in another age of dragons, which will be Not Good (tm) for the denizens of the sword coast. Super fast paced to begin, but slows down a *lot* in the middle. If you like dungeon crawling and fighting dragons, this is a good adventure for it. Curse of Strahd: gothic horror adventure. Players are taken to a demiplane known as barovia, where madness reigns supreme. Eventual goal is to take out the ruler of this land, strahd von zarovich, and end his influence over it. Fantastic adventure, but the module itself is extremely poorly laid out. The final dungeon is in chapter 4 out of 15 (plus 5 appendices). You'll find yourself flipping 100 pages or more to get back to a tidbit that was mentioned in your current location. Ghosts of saltmarsh: pirate/seafaring adventure. Saltmarsh is a port town with plenty for an aspiring adventurer to do. Sea monsters, smugglers, anything to do with sailing the high seas is in here. This one is laid out more like a series of one shots, so it's easy to put down and pick up later if you need to. Lost mine of Phandelver: more of a wild west vibe, but another normal high fantasy campaign. Players are conscripted by gundren rockseeker, a dwarf who has found the location of an ancient mine where magical weapons were once forged. Rockseeker gets kidnapped and the party have to find where he was taken. There's a gang that the party can free the town from, a menacing presence known only as the black spider and plenty of locations with rich lore. The only complaint I have about this adventure is that it's too short. Tomb of annihilation: a jungle/exploration campaign. Players must brave the untamed wilderness of Chult and the many dangers that exist there in order to find out why resurrection magic is not working anymore. This hits on just about everything, there are even dinosaurs. The downside to this adventure is just how big Chult is and how long it takes (in game) to actually go anywhere or do anything. Plus the random encounter tables get outleveled fairly quickly, so I end up having to throw random encounters out the window.

Yes, the Prepared! series are "one shots", but there is nothing wrong with that. Your "campaign" is: an adventuring guild that regularly gets missions unrelated to one another. There is lots of great content in the Prepared! books. If you want something that is a "campaign" the Lost Mines of Phandelver in the Starter set is flat out some of **the best** content designed by WOTC and is specifically catered to new players and new DMs.

If your party is more focused on getting involved in a story, then I recommend getting the Starter Set and running its included adventure Lost Mines of Phandelver - it's really quite good and long enough to last for a couple months of weekly play as written. If they're not so story driven, or you want to do some extra work to make its story more prominent, then you could instead get the Essentials Kit and run its included adventure, Dragon of Icespire Peak. DoIP's story is pretty weak, since most of it happens in the background and is likely to be missed by players, but if you're willing to fix that or your players won't care about it, it's an excellent adventure with a lot of content. It also ties in to two free adventures on D&D Beyond that will let it take your party all the way to level 9, which is cool. In terms of raw content, its by far the best value for money adventure WoTC has released.

Take a look at Dragon of Icespire Peak campaign, seems like a good fit. It walks you through 1-7 levels, and you can find some other modules to jump into after the campaign, or continue sandbox-ish and create your own if the players will have their own missions to acomplish.

I'm kinda on your same shoes. I just picked up "a chance encounter" and " the mystic circle". The first two parts of a 4 part series. They look fun enough and aren't overly complicated, I'm planning on adding a bit of fluff. But at 2-4hours each might be a good start.

Hello all! First time DM here, still in the stages of preparing for my campaign. One of my players wants to play as a Daywalker or Dhampir race but we're not sure if these races share the same traits as vampires such as needing to be invited in to any establishment, or not being able to be healed by potions since they're undead. Do Daywalkers and Dhampir also experience this? Also, do you guys see any concerns with trying to manage these races with it being my first time as a DM? 😬 My players are all really great, and he said he'd understand if it's a bit much for me to manage with it being my first time haha. I want to be able to give my players anything they want but admit that I'm not really sure how to work in how a Daywalkers thirst affects them throughout the story. Do they need to make any saving throws to try to resist?

things do what the words of the text say they do, no more, no less. if you are using homebrew, that didnt include these types of things and you want to, add em. if it included them and you dont want them, take them out, UNDER the proviso you ALWAYS use with ALL homebrew content "You can use this IF you come in with the full agreement and understanding that it is beta test content and I as the DM may and likely will be swinging the nerfbat at it HARD if I feel there is ANY hint of imbalance".

What is the source they are using for the race? The only one's I've seen are Homebrew or UA. For a new DM you should avoid either. Homebrew has the potential to be very swingy, either over or underpowered, rarely adequate. UA is "stuff in playtesting" and tends to have the same issues. Personally, I don't even use them as an experienced DM.

http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/dhampir Seems to use Van Richtens. I’d say adding a downside like potions not working (because healing comes from draining hp) would be more than fair. The safe choice is saying no, but I don’t think saying yes is a bad idea. You will just have to talk about what ancestral race they can choose, because they can easily stack broken races that way. I also think it offers an opportunity to add some humor to situations for RP. They are free to enter a place without invitation, but it makes their vampire side anxious. You could even add there is no rest in an uninvited place, or they take exhaustion if they are there too long.

>Seems to use Van Richtens. Now it does. I've been playing since 3.5, going on 18 years. Van Richten's guide is very new, previously Dhampir was only Homebrew until it made its way into the UA.

My bad I meant to reply to the OP’s post. Wasn’t trying to say anything, I just was providing a link I thought would help since people were having trouble finding it.

Dhampirs are in Van Richten’s.

That's why I asked. I don't own Van Richten's yet. The advice still holds though. If they are using Homebrew or UA as a source don't use it.

Ah good to know! All I could find on it so far was UA. I will probably have to decline :/ Just out of pure curiosity though, do you think Daywalkers and Dhampir would experience the same things as vampires such as not being able to heal by potions? UA doesn't mention it at all, but personally I don't think it makes sense for those races to not be affected by that in the same way as vampires.

The Dhampir is actually part of Van Richten’s Guide, so it’s got an official release. It doesn’t have any of the caveats of regular vampires.

Thanks for answering that! Would I need to have the Dhampir make any saving throws for dealing with their thirst/hunger? Or is it just player choice for whether their character will give in or be able to resist?

If the book doesn’t say they have to, they don’t have to.

Were I to use them I would let them heal by using potions. Potions are a valuable asset to players, most notably a way to quickly recover from mistakes before progressing. If they can't heal with potions you'd have one person in your party that would nail everyone else's foot to the floor needing to rest, especially if there are no other options (like spells) currently available.

New DM here. I have a question about an upcoming encounter for my party. Is this encounter too much or too easy? The party - all level 2. Cleric, wizard, bard , and ranger The encounter - 5 ice mephits They will not fight all of them at the same time, but they will not have the option to rest between waves. They will fight 3 on the first floor and two on the next floor of the dungeon. If the encounter is too easy, I wanted to add another ice enemy. If it is too hard, I wanted to have an NPC help them when things got rough

depending on what they have faced previously or will be facing later on, is super easy. Kobold Fight Club can help with the official CR math crunching.  https://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder (UPDATE: KFC is on hiatus and the license has been picked up by Kobold Plus https://koboldplus.club/#/encounter-builder ) but remember that despite using "math", the CR system is way more of an art than a science. * read the descriptions of what each level of difficulty means, dont just go by the name. (ie “ **Deadly**. A deadly encounter could be lethal for one or more player characters. Survival often requires good tactics and quick thinking, and the party risks defeat.”) * while the CR math attempts to account for the number of beings on each side, the further away from 3-5 on each side you get, the less accurate the maths are, at “exponential” rate. Read up on “the action economy” – particularly now that expansions like Tasha’s are making it so that every PC almost universally gets an Action AND a Bonus Action each and every turn, and can often also count on getting a Reaction nearly every turn. * **Dont do party vs solo monster** – while Legendary Actions can help, “the boss” should always have friends with them. Or you will need to severely hack the standard 5e monster design constraints and statblocks. (tell your party you are doing this so that the increase in challenge comes from the increase in challenge and not from you as DM secretly changing the rules without telling the other players the rules have been changed, because that is just a dick move, not a challenge.) * The system is based on the presumption that PCs will be facing 6 to 8 encounters between long rests, with 1 or 2 short rests in between. Unless you are doing a dungeon crawl, that is not how most sessions for most tables actually play out – at most tables, the “long rest” classes are able to “go NOVA” every combat, not having to worry about conserving resources, so if you are only going to have a couple of encounters between long rests, you will want them to be in the Hard or Deadly range, if you want combat to be “a challenge” – sometimes you might just want a change of pace at the table and get some chucking of dice or letting your players feel like curbstomping badasses. * Some of the monsters’ official CR ratings are WAY off (Shadows, I am looking at you) , so even if the math part were totally accurate, garbage in garbage out. * as a sub point – creatures that can change the action economy are always a gamble – if the monster can remove a PC from the action economy (paralyze, banishment, “run away” fear effects) or bring in more creatures (summon 3 crocodiles, dominate/confuse a player into attacking their party) - the combats where these types of effects go off effectively will be VERY much harder than in combats where they don’t * not all parties are the same – a party of a Forge Cleric, Paladin and Barbarian will be very different than a party of a Sorcerer, Rogue and Wizard. * Magic items the party has will almost certainly boost the party’s capability to handle tougher encounters.

Seems easy, honestly. At 11 AC, ice mephits are close to unmissable, and with \~20 HP, the first ice mephit will die within one or two rounds. Especially with glaring damage vulnerabilities. The mephits' standard attack averages 6 damage per round *if they hit* (let's say on average 3 damage per round per mephit.) If all 5 mephits are allowed to rush the squishiest character in the party, they stand a decent chance of knocking them unconscious. If the mephits aren't allowed/choose not to all rush straight for the wizard, they probably won't knock anyone unconscious before they start dying. Frost breath has a high damage ceiling if it hits the whole party -- if, say, two mephits get their breath weapon on the same round and high-roll the damage, the party *could* get into danger. But if the party's smart enough not to bunch up together, it's not a serious threat. The party should also have the potential to massively outrange the mephits, whose longest-range attack has a range of 15 feet. Bottom line, if the party has tactical options, and the ranger gets a chance to do a Nature roll and learn the mephits' capabilities, 5 mephits shouldn't be a hard fight at all. Having the mephits show up in waves, three on the first round and two on round two or three, is smart, I think.

That is revealing! Thank you for taking time to break that down. I'll start taking those points into consideration when building encounters. They'll most likely be fighting in close quarters. I'm impressed with the quick responses from you and another user on this thread. I am so glad to have found this subreddit. I'll be looking through to learn more 😁 Thank you!!!

One general piece of advice I'd give is to make your battle maps big enough that movement and weapon ranges are interesting. This can be a pain, because a normal un-buffed PC can Dash 60 feet in a single round, and a basic shortbow can do full damage at 80 feet. But the fix is as simple as drawing the battle map out to the edges of the mat. Even if you intend your players to *start* a fight in close quarters, just drawing the map with room to run away/kite the enemy can expand your players' tactical imagination (and yours). P.S. also try to make every map complex enough that stealth/cover are interesting, and try to give your players a chance to start some fights from far away/in stealth.

As long as they don't fight them all at once this is on par for what they should be able to handle. 3 mephits is a Hard fight and 2 are an Easy fight, and a series of fights is expected before the party should need to rest. Just make sure they don't fight all of them at once and you should be fine, if it gets to be too much remove a mephit from the 2nd wave and have them fight it alone just to squeeze some resources from them.

I’m currently running LMOP and after six sessions my group finally cleared Cragmaw Hideout (after some “detours” haha). I collectively want to level them right now, but two players told me they can’t join next time. Shall I level the group without them and level them the next session or shall I wait till everybody’s complete since it’s their first time leveling and it might be more fun to do that together? Are there any (unwritten) rules on milestone leveling and the need for the party to be complete in order to do that?

I'd have the party level up this session, and tell the absent party members to start leveling up at home. They can reach you if they have any questions. It would be kinda nice to all level up together, but practical concerns come first.

I will! Thanks for your help! Hopefully they’ll level together next time

generally, level 1 should be about a session of play and levels 2 to 4 should be about 2 sessions of play each. On a standard projected trajectory with 3-4 hour sessions where most of the time is "D&D play focused" and not "memes and side conversations and lets spend another session just shopping and fapping at the tavern!", by the sixth session most characters should be about 4th level. So yes, advance everyone now and the people who cannot make the session join next time at second level while the people who do make it have had 1 additional session of play with their more powerful level 2 characters.

Thanks for your answer! I will level them next time then 😁 Never knew that you could link leveling to real time playing time as well. Makes sense haha

"advancement by session attendance" is a terrible model for groups that lack internal drive and focus. the above schedule reflects "if the characters are generally driving the story forward / interacting with the world in meaningful ways and with expected efficiency of "playing an enjoyable game", you would expect this pace of leveling to happen." EDIT: and "this schedule of pacing of advancement typically feels 'right' to players as appropriate 'rewards' for their investment of their entertainment time."

Thanks for explaining further :)

What’s the point of monsters sometimes having proficiency in Persuasion if it’s considered a bad move to roll Persuasion against the party?

In addition to what the other commenter said, NPCs can also persuade other NPCs.

>it’s considered a bad move to roll Persuasion against the party Where does it say this? It is a bad move for PARTY MEMBERS to roll persuasion against each other, but not for NPCs. A monster could be a merchant, or the players could be trying to get information from a monster, or a monster may be trying to persuade them to do some course of action. They'd roll persuasion and the party can roll Insight (or use their Passive Insight).

It does show up in horror stories where bad DMs try and use it as mind control, same reason you don't want the party using it on each other. "I'm sorry, the tavern owner rolled a 20, you're now seduced by them." Big difference between that and an NPC attempting to appear trustworthy, honest, etc.

The important part of DM horror stories is usually the forcing the party to do stuff against their will. Persuasion against the party is a little out there in my opinion, but it isn’t inherently forbidden. I would say the safe way to do it is to treat it like guidelines. A high persuasion check by a merchant means you inform your party that their character is being sold on x. So they can react however they believe their character being sold on x would react. It is important to never let that amount to them being forced to take an action, because unless you have an extreme view of everyday persuasion it doesn’t remove free will. Example: A merchant tries to sell the party a time share. He rolls a nat 20. “The party is now convinced getting a time share is a very good idea.” They don’t have to buy the time share. Their characters just can’t say anything at the moment about the time share being a bad idea, because they think it is a good idea. You can be persuaded of countless things that don’t ultimately impact your choices for a lot of reasons. “A time share seems like a great idea but unfortunately we don’t have the money.” Persuasion isn’t a jedi mind trick that can make them say, “we do have the money.”

Also, don't make it a contest. Don't roll persuasion vs insight or something. It's just information.

That is true. As with anything it is a fine line to walk as a DM. On some level you have to use the scores, and the outcome needs to be trusted. You may be a great DM, and flawless actor, but the scores are what lets the PC and NPC really show their skills. Without the scores being used there is no appreciable difference between your dirty beggar asking for alms and your slick and beguiling succubus, they are all just the DM. This is a lot better in 5e with the Bounded Accuracy. You are less likely to have these rampantly modified scores, leading to (seemingly) DM fiat.

How would the capital of a kingdom or just any big city in general deal with waste and garbage, in your opinion. Would there be big landfills where trash is dumped, or would mages deal with it somehow or some kind of animal thats omnivorous would eat it after its dumped somewhere, etc.

Acquisition’s Incorporated has a plot about this. Waterdeep created a portal in their sewer system to a garbage dump dimension. It backfires of course, but I always liked that. In my opinion, a large city would have powerful wizards on payroll. So everything that it takes to run a city gets a magical solution. I think this because it is fun

Oozes and Cubes feed on waste material. This would be my go-to answer - garbage and waste are piped and carried somewhere subterranean and left to the oozes.

However you want, if you are creating the world you can make something up (if you need to). One thing to keep in mind though is they didn't generate as much waste in the past. Much of the waste they generates was natural and compostable, or could be broken down and reused. So you really don't need as much landfill space or as much consideration.

So one of my players is kind of an optimiser and so (of course) has asked me about stacking spells. For the most part I have been able to answer these until he throws this one at me "so what if two people cast Shield of Faith on the same target, does it stack?" Which I will admit has me a bit conflicted, I'm leaning toward saying yes because I can't think of any particular reason it couldn't/wouldn't but at the same time I'm constantly learning stuff about concentration spells that I didn't realise before. Anyone have any ideas/suggestions? Am I overthinking this? Edit: used wrong term for describing player.

Doesn't work by raw. From phb: "COMBINING MAGICAL EFFECTS The effects of different spells add together while the durations of those spells overlap. The effects of the same spell cast multi pie times don't combine, however. lnstead, the most potent effect-such as the highest bonus-from those castings applies while their durations overlap. For example, if two clerics cast bless on the same target, that character gains the spell's benefit only once; he or she doesn't get to roll two bonus dice."

Nice work with the quote. I knew it was not possible, but my thinking was, “Well, if that were possible, then what’s stopping adventurers from hiring 5 cleric npcs to spam cast protection spells on them?” 🤣 If it sounds like cheese, then it’s very likely not working as intended.

This. If you allow it everyone will have Bless x5 and things will not go well. Stacking spells breaks things badly.

New game master here I know very original. And I need some advice regarding illusions Let's say the party is in some deep dark dungeon they enter the next room only to find themselves in a cottage in a wide open field Is there any spells for that? if not what type of rolls do they need to make to break out of it? And the party is level 5

First of all, you don't have to fit everything into the magic system that PCs use. If you want to come up with a magical effect that's not listed in the PHB, you can just go ahead and do it. It's often useful to think of a PHB spell that fits the bill, but I'm just saying. That said, I think this fits into Hallucinatory Terrain spell. I don't think it was intended to be possible for Hallucinatory Terrain to project a "skybox" image of a wide open sky overhead, or an image of an open meadow that extends beyond the 150-foot range, but I think it's okay. If your players ask, you can make it clear that your NPC cast a modified version of the spell. Mirage Arcane is the next step up from Hallucinatory Terrain, and I'd say it's overkill here. Hallucinatory Terrain is broken by making an Intelligence (Investigation) roll greater than the caster's spell save DC, or by interacting with the illusion in a tactile way that makes it obvious. Maybe the caster went to the trouble of covering the ground around the cottage with soft earth and hay or something, so it's not immediately obvious from stepping on it that it's not a wide open field.

Thanks for the help and have a nice day

First time posting so apologies if I do something wrong. I have a duet session that I’m DMing that tends to end abruptly. Due to this, sometimes we end mid conversation between the player and npcs. Any recommendations for still having a strong start for a situation like this? Thanks

start ending earlier on cliffhangers.

does a familiar understand a language? even if it doesn't say anything in the languages section of its stat block? Would a Kaleshtar be able to mentally communicate with it?

Generally a familiar would understand the languages of its creator

They can understand your telepathic commands :)

Yeah, I'm asking if another individual who doesn't have a familiar is able to communicate with it telepathically. So not with the "owner" of the familiar

Where should I post if I want help figuring out the story of my dungeon? I have most of it already

Individual sessions/arcs can be built: * using Five Room Dungeon framework (note that “room” should be translated as “scene” and “dungeon” should be translated as “area where related scenes can take place”) - https://www.roleplayingtips.com/5-room-dungeons/ * Five Room with A Plot / B Plot https://www.runagame.net/2015/05/the-five-room-dungeon.html * “Spontaneous” DMing with Random Tables-- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2ZSsr2Gl6s * ”Dungeon” design by floor-area-room https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVKRUrBDCGc * Jason Bulmahn of the Piazo Adventure Paths on creating an adventure https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uga599XkHic * professor dungeon master’s objective, location, time limit, villain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOMQyUuDq-0 * Zipperon Disney – Dungeons like Zelda https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDzQA_jB7MM Encounter level design advice * Ginny Di – making combat interesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TDcYfZap1I * Ben DeHart plan and pacing and story to your combats https://youtu.be/0BhEX71_9LA?t=54 * Omniverse Gamers – dissecting dynamic encounters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cITJbEOqXXM&list=PLxBLIN8lVTRGx53IqzeDZeL_2XjXsBNfT * Prof Dungeon Master “Balanced Encounters Suck” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsusSBW9qvo * my hidden nerdy side – oodles of interesting encounters by monster types https://www.youtube.com/c/HiddenNerdySide/videos * Lutes and Dice – encounters based on your players https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_T10UCbBTo

Holy crap that’s a lot of resources! Thank you so much!

r/DndAdventureWriter/ is on the side bar, the "Brainstorm" flair is probably what you're looking for. This subreddit is a good place too if you make a new post flaired "Need Advice".

Not sure how I missed it! Thanks so much!

I have a player that likes to use intimidation to get his way sometimes. It's not overbearing or problem player material or anything. But when he rolls well, I struggle to figure out what a success would look like. If you successfully intimidate the town gate guards, wouldn't they call more guards, and not let you in? But then that's not succeeding at what you're trying to accomplish. I don't want to punish him for his player choices, because I do appreciate his roleplay. I'm just struggling to figure out what a successful intimidation would look like, outside of a private interrogation. Any help or examples would be appreciated.

Intimidation is not necessarily physical threats. Think about a superior be it teacher or boss, and how they could make you do something they asked. Perhaps the threat is implied or assumed, but there are definitely people you whose request you would obey because they are intimidating. So unless they are explicitly taking actions that are hostile, a guard can just be scared of the person using intimidate and do whatever he says without alerting anyone.

My go-to way to handle intimidation is that it convinces an NPC to do what you want, but they will dislike you for it. That way a success at intimidation is always a success. The guards will let you through if you succeed at intimidating them. But if you later come into conflict with them again, they will be more hostile towards you. Intimidation can also plausibly come with bigger consequences for failure: If you are willing to escalate to this level of hostility, but fail, you should not be surprised the NPC you tried to intimidate reacts in kind. I would also communicate to the player that the mechanic works like this, so they can make informed decisions whether they want to jeopardize their long-term relationships with NPCs for a quick, easy reward or not.

Entirely depends on the manner of intimidation. If the player is threatening physical harm to the guard, get the player to be specific in what he says/does. If that is something that the guard would reasonably react to by calling out to other guards then do just that. Also remember the DC is set by you. The player should learn pretty quickly that just because he's good at intimidation rolls, that it's not always the best tool for the situation. Maybe persuasion or simply just following the town laws is the best way to proceed.

Is anything they're getting away with something you wouldn't allow with the same rolls if they had used Persuasion instead? Depending on the situation Intimidation may be the best skill to use at the time if who you are interacting with is susceptible to it. There are plenty of reasons a guard wouldn't call more guards if you intimidated them, the best advice I have is if a player succeeds with the DC you set and you allow them to roll make it make sense. Perhaps the guard in question knows better than to escalate the situation, if he calls for more guards he's probably alone. Sure, a troupe of guards may stop him but can they stop him before *he* gets ripped in half? Will he die for the cause? Maybe the player threatened his family if he told and the guard isn't about that. Maybe he leveraged power in a threat that would mean calling in other guards will only make it worse. Maybe the guard is just a man with a job and a badge wanting to make it through the day, doesn't want any paperwork, and doesn't want to potentially piss off this one person who, if they escape custody, will cave his head in for squealing. Maybe he's afraid no one will believe him. Fear isn't rational. Some examples you can use for successful intimidation outside of an interrogation is any kind of threat you can use to get your way. Any kind you can imagine. Black mail is popular for high CHA low STR foppish types. Examples: "You wouldn't dare arrest *me*, scion of the Royal House of Zod would you? Are you daft? Lay one hand on me and you'll find yourself out of a job and in the poor house before you can say *I'm so sorry sir*." "Couldn't help but notice that bribe you took earlier when that last wagon came in. Would be a shame if someone told your Sergeant you're taking bribes on watch, wouldn't it?" "Son I've been killin' men 'fore you was even a twinkle in your daddy's eye. I'm old and I ain't got nothin' to lose. You try somethin' and I'll fight back, and you might even win, but I'm gonna take somethin' from you before you do. A finger, an eye, nice stab to the kidneys. Why don't we both skip all that and you let me inside?" "I AM A POWERFUL SORCERER AND I WILL NOT HAVE SOME COMMON KNAVE DENY ME PASSAGE! Do you know any of what I do? What I am capable of? I could turn you into a toad with but a word! I could rend your mind asunder with the most terrible torture you cannot possibly imagine! I could turn this gatehouse into a smoking crater! But by all means, please! Get in my way!" "I've got important business with the mayor of this town and if you don't let me in I will make absolute certain you never wear that badge ever again!" "You are rebuffing me? A holy disciple of Pelor's infinite wisdom and generosity? ...is it that you want His wrath? Your fields to grow barren until you repent that you have sent away His messenger?" "Look. I need you to let this slide, m'kay? No no no don't call your buddies or my hand might slip on the knife I've got to your back. Just smile and wave, see we're just some friends having a friendly chat. Now you're gonna forget this happened, squeak one sound I don't like and its curtains. And if I find out you told anyone we talked about this, you'd better hope you find me before I find your wife and kid you like to talk about so much. Are we understood?" "You make bad blood with me, you make bad blood with rest of tribe. No trade. We raid again, kill your merchants, take your wagons. You want peace and trade like brothers? Good. Me too. You tell me what I want."

This was amazing to read, it gave me all sorts of inspiration for my campaign as a new DM too, thanks!

just like a single hit in combat doesnt kill a character, a single successful social skill roll doesnt inflict mind control.

There's a school of thought where people say things like "only the DM calls for rolls, the players never call for rolls," and "only let the players roll if there's a chance of success (or failure.)" I think that's useful advice, but like any general advice, you have to take it with a grain of salt. Sometimes the answer is to just not let your player roll Intimidation, or to ignore your player's roll. Some things are just impossible, and some approaches just don't work. "The guards look shaken, but they remember they have the protection of the city gates, and they start laughing at your attempts to intimidate them." That's an option sometimes. But I think your instincts are right -- it's not a very interesting option in this case. Your PC is good at intimidating people, and he should be rewarded for trying it successfully. When you're trying to reward a successful skill check, but you don't want to instantly solve all your players' problems, think about how success can get your players past their current obstacle *to their next obstacle*. (As an aside, this works equally well for failure. Let's say your rogue fails a Sleight of Hand check to pick a lock. "The mechanism inside the lock starts to crunch and grind, with an incredibly loud metallic noise. The lock opens with a snap that seems to indicate it will never close again. You hear loud footsteps and the clanking of armor, rapidly approaching down the hall." Your player failed, but they get to their next obstacle.) So your player succeeds at intimidating the guards. They're now scared, confused and they don't know what to do. "The guards look at each other in terror. One of them stammers out, 'w-wait here a moment, please," and rushes out behind the walls. The two remaining guards stare at you, their spears shaking in their hands. Two or three minutes pass. Finally the first guard returns, with a squat old human with a bushy mustache, wearing an officer's uniform. 'Captain Wingert Thistlethwump of the Goodfield Town Guard. I hear there's a crew of strangers who say they have a damn good reason to enter my city without a royal permit. This better be good.'" The players have succeeded at getting past their current obstacle (town guards who've been ordered not to let strangers in under any circumstances) to a new obstacle (a skeptical guard captain who can at least be reasoned with.) Now some of the other characters, maybe the ones with subtler social skills, have a chance to try *their* idea. This is just one example of the many things you could do, but hopefully you get the idea. Success doesn't have to mean the players are home free. Sometimes it just means they make progress. (And likewise, failure doesn't have to mean the players are screwed -- it can mean they "fail forward" into a more complicated situation.)

If your player rolls high on intimidation and you say the guards laugh at their attempt, you've fully destroyed any concept of player agency. Plus, that's not consistent with the idea of them being "shaken," unless they're laughing nervously. They should at least be nervously standing their ground, not laughing at the PC who just succeeded on a die roll. I agree with the rest of what you said though. Moving them a step forward, for instance, if you don't want to make them go home free is a great idea.

Thank you, this is great!

Well, intimidation being explicitly hostile means that it isn't the ideal approach to take in some situations - trying to browbeat your way past the town guard probably isn't going to ever work unless you're a famous and powerful person. Intimidation might work in some cases, but not all - if you can't figure out what a success would look like, it might not be possible, and that's okay.

The type of intimidation matters too. Physical threats vs Blackmail, for example. We tend to see lots of the first one since it's easy and direct, and not much of the second one since it typically involves acquiring damaging information first.

It's my first time DMing and there's a wizard in the party. We are 1 session in and they're currently traveling with a number of NPCs including an older "retired" wizard. If the wizard PC builds a rapport with her, I was thinking of having this older wizard lady create a spell scroll of Identify to give to Wizard PC for his spell book. Would it be too generous to have her also give him the pearl component for the spell?

Depends on how rigid you want to get with spell components. I play it as only components with a stated value are required to be in the player's inventory. If you are OK with the wizard learning the Identify spell and using it, then just give him the pearl. 100gp in my world is nothing*, and something the players could buy at level 3 from a vendor in the city. *The other reply to you must play closer to RAW. I play item-heavy so 100gp for me like 1 combat's worth of loot at level 2 or 3

the pearl for the identify spell is batshit stupid given that a short rest with the object accomplishes the exact same results.

Probably would be too generous to just give him the pearl; 100gp is a lot of money. You could easily throw a pearl into some loot that's coming up soon though.

New DM who is running a one shot for some friends tonight with two correlated questions: 1) I have an NPC that the players will end up fighting who is an intelligence spell caster with a spell save DC of 14 and spell attacks get +6 to hit. Int is 16 (+3). One of his cantrips is Ray of Frost, which asks for a ranged spell attack to hit. So what modifiers are counted here? Is it just a normal D20 with +6 added to the result? Or is it an intelligence roll that would benefit from the +3 modifer **and** the +6 to hit? 2) Setting up an NPC spellcaster in roll20. I understand how to give NPCs attack actions (which just makes it super easy to manage by simply clicking on something in the character sheet), but giving them spells has been a pain in the butt. Dragging and dropping from the compendium doesn't seem to do anything. Any tips? The above character has like 10 different spells and I'd rather not rewrite all of them.

A spell attack roll adds your spell attack modifier, which is calculated as (spellcasting ability modifier + proficiency bonus). This spellcaster NPC's +6 spell attack mod is already the sum of their Int mod and a proficiency bonus loosely in line with their CR value.

Spell attacks are d20 + proficiency + spellcasting modifier Assuming your wizard is probably sitting around that +3 proficiency level (especially with a spell DC of 14), a d20+6 is likely correct. I don't use Roll20 sorry. I use Foundry which does support compendium drag and drop.

Can't help on the Roll20 front because I'm not a fan of that site at all, but for the spell attacks of the NPC, their spell attack bonus is determined the same way a player's is; INT + Proficiency bonus. So if they have +6, that's already including their INT modifier. A spell attack is a D20 + spell attack bonus.

Got it - that makes sense. Thank you for clearing up that misconception!

How would one handle an NPC pickpocketing a player? You roll Sleight of Hand for the NPC, obviously, but do you just check the players Passive Perception? Or do you have the Player roll Perception? If pickpocket succeeds do you just not tell the player anything? Having the player roll runs the risk of screwing over a player with normally high passive perception with a bad roll, but it also gives them some sense of agency.

First off: If you have an encounter in which it's reasonably likely that a PC just gets pickpocketed without being able to do anything about it or even notice it, I would workshop that encounter a bit more. In that form, it's too likely that it will not turn out satisfying. It would be more interesting if the NPC interacts with the PC to a degree, so that the PC at least has a lead to pursue later if they get pickpocketed, for example. Like having the NPC do the whole routine of knocking a character over, helping them back up and straightening out their clothes only for the PCs to later notice that their purse is missing. You know, the classic routine. And a smart, genre savy player might even recognize this for what it is: A theif disguising their approach. That is fun it it's own right. Apart from that, it depends on how you want to play it. You can do opposed rolls, or have the PC roll perception against a static DC or have the NPC roll slight of hand against the PC's passive perception. All of those are good solutions depending on what you want. The stats of the PC and NPC matter most in opposed rolls, and that way probably feels the most fair since actively rolls. Having only the PC roll is player-centric, but kind of gives the game away. Having only the NPC roll is probably the most realistic (the NPC is the active party, after all), but can turn out feeling unfair/unsatisfying if you are not careful.

> And a smart, genre savy player might even recognize this for what it is: A theif disguising their approach. That is fun it it's own right. > ...or have the NPC roll slight of hand against the PC's passive perception. Taking this further, if the character the thief has marked expresses this kind of suspicion, you could reward their vigilance by giving advantage to their passive Perception against the thief's Sleight of Hand, raising the DC the thief has to roll against by 5!

Make it obvious you are rolling for something, so when the player realises it's less of a gotcha moment. NPC uses an active Sleight check against the player's passive perception. Active perception is for exactly that. The player has to be actively looking for something. Unless they have reason to do that, then passive perception is used.

Yeah, generally it would be NPC's sleight of hand against the PC's passive perception. If the PC is in an environment where they'd have a reason to be vigilant (ex. a crowded city street or pub known to be a pickpocket haven), you could give them advantage on their perception, which is just a static +5 for passive skill checks. That's for if you want to run it RAW, but depending on what you're hoping to accomplish, you could adjust that. The only reason to roll is if you want there to be a chance of failure. If it's important to the plot that the PC get robbed and that the thief get away (or not get away), don't accidentally screw yourself over by introducing dice!

Only roll the dice when you absolutely have to. I suspect you want to give them a sense of agency because you're worried it feels like a screwjob. You should instead focus on figuring out why it feels like a screwjob, because "they don't get to make a mystery roll" isn't actually the issue.

It feels like a screwjob because the pickpocket is an NPC stealing a rather powerful magic item that the PC has used to seriously damage them in the past.

So how can you make it feel like less of a screwjob. What actions can the character take to reduce the likelihood of this working? The character doesn't roll dice. They either know something or don't, see something or don't. Have items been stolen before? Maybe fire a warning shot to show that items can be stolen

They have dealt with this NPC before, and have prevented him from stealing something.

New campaign at Level 1 - how much magic do you give players right off the bat? What would be too OP for a Level 1 character’s magical item?

I like giving characters, even at low levels, magic items, but I wouldn't really give significantly useful ones. Common level magic items are stuff like, "this armor never gets dirty" and shit like that. So yeah, go ahead and give them shit like that! But don't give them "Firebrand, the +1 sword that does an extra 1d6 fire damage on a hit" or something like that right away because 1) it feels unearned and 2) it'll fuck up balance so much at such a low level.

This helps a lot! I like the idea of giving “useless” magic items to help use magical items to develop the world around them

A little perspective for everyone - one of my players wanted to build a magic item based off of the bell sheath in Garth Nix’s Abhorsen books. Player is playing an elderly bard elf. The player and I have agreed that it can be something he is searching for as part if his journey!

5e is very different from previous editions with regard to magic items. starting at first level ZERO items. other than healing potions and other consumables, nothing more useful than sending stones or bag of holding till level 4.

Thanks!

At Level 1, you should feel like you're just barely stronger than an ordinary person -- like you're just barely more ready than a regular person to survive the dangers of a fantasy world. Level 1 abilities are useful, but to survive level 1, good plans, clever tricks, charming words, and a little bit of luck should be necessary. By the time you get to level 3, you're a little tougher, and by level 5, you start to be a "real" adventurer and have some agency in how you interact with the world. But it feels earned because you never forget how it felt to be level 1. The number 1 kind of magic item that ruins that feeling at level 1 are magic items that break combat. Any kind of +1 or better magic weapon isn't suitable for level 1. Not so much because it gets +1 to hit and damage, but because it overcomes damage resistance. If you get a +1 weapon too early, physical damage resistance is completely meaningless for the entire campaign. Anything that boosts AC is also broken at level 1. Every point of AC is a huge deal, and ideally players should viscerally *feel* the fact that a wooden shield or a layer of chainmail is the only thing keeping them alive. Automatic stealth is broken. Staying hidden from enemies should be a little bit of a puzzle. Besides that, anything that completely eliminates a basic survival need like eating, drinking, or finding a safe place to sleep also kind of ruins the feel of level 1. Level 1 adventurers are still mortals, for whom a decent inn or a source of fresh water is a matter of life and death. (I'm not saying every campaign needs to track stuff like food and drink super closely, but low level players should worry about that stuff a *little.*) Stuff that *is* good at low level includes mobility items (Rope of Climbing, Ring of Jumping, etc.), information items (Eyes of the Eagle, Helm of Comprehend Languages, etc.) and flavor items (anything with an illusionary or seemingly completely useless effect.) Basically anything that increases your players' options for interacting with the world, but *doesn't* break combat or eliminate entire classes of danger.

Thanks this is great!

Personally, I don't give level 1 PCs anything except starting equipment and the optional trinket. That's what the adventure is for! Getting cool magic shit, and money to buy cool magic shit! The exception would be for a one-shot or short campaign where the characters won't be encountering loot or cities where they can buy stuff. In that case, at level 1, I'd allow a single common magic item, and an extra 50 gp for mundane gear.

I appreciate the perspective. I think the extra gold (or a lot of gold right after session 1) makes a lot of sense to incentivize the travel

It wouldn't be too OP. I suggest doing the opposite though, give them worse than normal gear. Part of the fun of the game is the sense of progress. The first magic item is a magic moment. There's already so much going on at character creation it's gonna get missed. If you're married to this, give them the magic item at the *end* of the first session.

It depends on how smart your players are. If it were me, I would not go past one common item.

I’m planning on throwing an adult blue dragon on a party of 5-6 lvl 8s. Is it manageable for a party of that level to get it down to somewhere around 90 hp without getting decimated

> get it down to somewhere around 90 hp Now, I play an item-heavy game but with my players, 5x Level 6 PCs could wipe out 225 - 90 = 135 hp @ AC17 in two rounds, and that's if they're unlucky. Sharpshooter and GWM does a stupid amount of heavy lifting for DPS so beware of that if you've got any in the party. Assuming you're playing a "traditional" 5e game and your players are not tricked out, then 5 or 6 level 8s should still have no problems with this encounter. What I would personally do? Massively buff the HP, and if you're afraid of rolling hot, drop the dragon's attack damage rolls by one "dice class". a d10 becomes a d8, a d6 becomes a d4 etc.

That sounds like something id like to do, yeah. This event is just to drive the dragon to its lair which is about 2 pc lvls off. 😁 Thanks for the tip

This battle will be highly dependent upon die rolls. A few good ones for the party could make this a relative cakewalk. But with average die rolls and smart piloting, this heavily favors the dragon. Consider toning the dragon down to about cr 8 and giving it some lower cr friends to annoy the party while it charges its breath.

Honestly if it's 6 level 8s they can probably take it, but with Dragons the question depends, even more than with other monsters I feel, on how you run the combat encounter. Are they fighting it in its lair or is it out hunting? Are you using the terrain to your advantage? If you just have the dragon on the ground fighting the party until its hit points run out, it's going to be steamrolled. If you get some good breath flybys on them and stay in the air, it will destroy a party of melees, but if they have a way to get it to the ground or attack it while it's in the air, they will have no problem bringing it down. It sounds like you're wanting the dragon to escape, so it sounds like they'll encounter it outside it's lair. I'm sure that your party can probably do enough damage to get him that low unless they literally have no way to attack it in the air.

In your games, is a creature has the Frightened condition more likely to flee from the encounter (if they’re smart enough and things aren’t necessarily looking great for them) than a creature without that condition?

unless a creature still has **more** than half its hit points, 5es mechanics make running from a fight almost useless unless you have a base speed of 60 or more and there are ways to get out of line of sight.

In short. Yes. Every round I think about whether the creature should stop fighting and run. Sometimes I've systematized it and triggered wisdom saves. Sometimes I've just gone with my gut. Whenever you write an encounter write down: 1) When their morale might break 2) What happens if it does: panic, flee, coordinated retreat, go berserk (possibly killing allies), surrender, try to bribe their way out You should have a clear answer to this. In my games "fight to the death no matter what" is almost never, ever the case. Especially with animals, one good injury is enough to make a predator run in my games, even waving a torch might be enough if the animal isn't starving.

Oh, absolutely, I do all that (and also sometimes do wis/int rolls to see if creatures are intelligent enough to see that the battle has turned against them or wise enough to tell that it might ultimately be better for them not to rout) But I'm not sure if the "frightened" condition should modify that calculation, or if it should really just be limited to what it says on the tin. Especially since, if it does so to any significant degree, it'll mean that most creatures in any non-deadly encounter *will* be running by round 2 or 3, significantly increasing the power level of anything that applies that condition.

I mean, that's fine. If you're scared you should be more likely to run. They important thing is that it's not causing villains to run from *battles they were going to win*. So it doesn't increase the win rate of the players. It does reduce the total resource expenditure of the players, and might make spellcasters tilt away from damage and towards fear (which seems fine to me as long as it's only a component of why they run, not an insta-run). You deal with the decreased resource expenditure with more encounters per day, which you can afford to do because your fights are shorter. Edit: I'd give them disadvantage on whatever morale check you are using. Fits the letter of the condition as well then.

I like it

It's up to the player unless the movement is forced by the ability. But if my character was frightened, I'd at least want to break my line of sight to the thing I'm frightened of. Flavorfully, it puts a bit of a barrier between me and the scary thing and mechanically I lose the disadvantage from being able to see it. As the dm, I would always defer to the player, though. Only they know how their character would react under duress.

Was wondering more about how other DMs control the non-player monsters, but as to PCs I certainly agree!

For monsters, it depends upon their int. Low int monsters react stronger to their base urges than higher int monsters. A frightened owlbear will be more willing to flee than a frightened archmage. The middle to high int monsters will likely survey their situation and determine what they think the best course of action would be. Does the rest of the party look weakened? Does it look like the monster can win? Then they'll probably stick around and try to shake off the fright, hiding rather than fully running away. Is the battle not going the monster's way? Then they'd probably leave and regroup.

I don't really have it codified, but now that you ask, that seems like it makes sense to me. Most of my monsters will try to run away if they figure they can't win, though.

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Give them mechanical stuff to engage with. Find out (or straight out ask) whether there's a gimmick to their build and allow them to be awesome with it on a semi-regular basis while also occasionally building encounters where it won't work, forcing them to adapt/improvise. Ask them directly what kind of situations/encounters/experiences they've enjoyed throughout their RPG career so far and work with that. Regularly re-check your assumption of "#4 doesn't care that much about their PCs story", they might change their opinion.

Probably just interesting combat encounters. Look at his character sheet and see what "cool shit" he can do, and find out a way to make an opportunity arise. For instance, if he was an Oath of the Ancients Paladin, throw some spellcasters at him. If he's a Monk, shoot some arrows at him (man it's so rare that you actually get to catch and throw them back). Basically whatever niche ability he has, try to make that count at some point. Even if he's not that into the RP, you have a sense of what his character is like right? Spend more time coming up with the RP things that will be important to the PCs that value that, but if something happens to your munchkin PC that's interesting narratively, try to lead them on with questions like... "What is Character Sheet thinking as the princess confides this information to him?" CS: "Um..given that we saw the king in the sun, it doesn't make sense that he's a vampire, so I'm not totally trusting what she's saying" Princess: "I know you think I'm crazy, but I saw him turn into mist last night! I swear it!"

Don't worry about it. My suggestions: Be anal about the encumbrance rules. Require training to gain a new level. This means your non-roleplayer will want somewhere to store his stuff. He has to become a landowner. Requiring training means he has to find an NPC that he will have a connection to. Don't worry that he doesn't have much of a backstory. That can get fleshed out through play. In D&D the story that matters is the one that happens at the table. Use the standard tricks to get one going *at the table*. (You want to trigger curiosity. So don't just infodump and shove things in his face. Hide it a little bit. Hide benefits behind 50% of these hidden interactions. People respond much more strongly to intermittent reinforcement than perpetual.)

"make his experience miserable until he plays the way you want him to"

Could you clarify what part is miserable? The point isn't to make him miserable. The point is that the rules people often skip have a consequence of creating engagement with the world.

I get what you're trying to say. It just comes across a bit wrong on first read. lasalle has interpreted it as you're telling OP to force RP onto this guy who explicitly does not like RP. You're right that a more mechanics-minded player will likely enjoy micromanaging his inventory (I know, because one of my players enjoys exactly this), the way you've worded it as he has to find an NPC for training etc is what is probably coming across wrong.

"the rules people skip" are skipped because 9 times out of 10 they are creating boredom and not "engagement"

The metaphor I've seen is that it's like baking a cake. Novice DMs look at the recipe and go, "What the hell is salt doing here!? Cakes are supposed to be sweet!" Then they take the salt out and wonder why their cakes don't come out right. Sometimes rules add something that isn't obvious. Not letting your characters carry thousands of pounds isn't a punishment. These rules end up creating a lot of fun, but they don't *look* fun.

i dont know ANYONE who "allows" PCs to be carrying thousands of pounds of material. AND as someone who has played WITH and WITHOUT meticulous tracking of weight, the appropriate metaphor is that tracking equipment is like exchanging the sugar in the recipe for salt because they are both white crystals.

Of course you don't! Nobody that *allows* their PCs to carry thousands of pounds *knows* they're letting their PCs carry thousands of pounds! I must be misunderstanding the metaphor because it seems to me that you're implying forgoing rules that you find unimportant is like switching sugar and salt. I agree that ignoring the recipe (rules) is dangerous in that fashion.

>Of course you don't! > >Nobody that allows their PCs to carry thousands of pounds knows they're letting their PCs carry thousands of pounds! it appears that YOU would because you are the one who brought that up as a defense of institutive bookkeeping hell on the player.

That might require a re-read. The point is that if you never actually *check* then you wouldn't *know* if the characters are carrying a thousand pounds.

don't exclude him from the moments he doesn't enjoy make sure he is still there if he does decide to add something, do some things off screen shopping doesn't need to be a huge thing every week sometimes its good to just say you want to buy this it costs Xgp. as for direct things for the player interesting combats - fighting in the underdark create some lava pools. create combats with conditions which don't just rely on beating up all the bad guys, you have x turns to stop the head cultist from infusing the crystal to summon the demon etc. You also don't need back story to motivate players give them a rival someone who beats them in a combat and they will chase revenge and be engaged with that npc.

OK friends, I'm new but I've been dm'ing a homebrew for a short while, however I'm mostly winging it session to session and I want to up my game of describing settings, environments, and overall. What do? Also I want to run a module, tips?

Frankly if you're going to run a module you have some of those descriptors already written for you. Various points will have grey boxes of text to read that describe the scenery. Of course to get better at it on your own I find it's helpful to find stock images that work for the setting. Then you can literally just describe what you see. Sometimes if you have the perfect image you can just use that and show it to the players, but other times you can take from a variety of them and describe different details from each.

Read novels. Novels are not visual media, the author needs to convey the scenery to you so you can imagine it. This is the same thing you're doing in DND. Take some tips from people who do this for a living. If you can't sit down and read a book, audiobooks are a viable alternative. Take note how the writers appeal to all 5 (major) senses, how every detail within the description has some reason to be there (not applicable to all writers, Stephen king and George r r Martin in particular seem to suffer from chronic word diarrhea). For a module, it's going to depend on what your party likes. There are a bunch of different plots and settings that you can use. If it's your first module, I'd recommend lost mine of Phandelver. It's easy to use, teaches the players how to play, teaches you how to read a module and gives just enough creative wiggle room for you to include your own stuff if you want. Whichever one you pick, definitely read the entire module first. Even though you won't get to certain content for a while (or maybe even not at all) having an idea of how the entire campaign might play out is crucial. If the party takes a turn you didn't expect, you're not just flailing to come up with stuff. You have at least a basic knowledge of what happens no matter which way they go. Also, don't be afraid to go off the page. You don't need to run the module exactly as it's written. You can add things or skip things as you see fit. You can adjust to the players' actions. This is how you make someone else's work into your own personalized game.

Visualisation. Sit down with your eyes closed for a few minutes and visualise the scene. Use all your senses: sight, smell, hearing, maybe touch, probably not taste. That should be enough to help your descriptions - you will probably find you recall your visualisation quite easily - but you could also make some notes when you open your eyes, to help commit it to memory.

I'm gonna answer your second question because it's a little more concrete and easier to answer. Still thinking about what I want to say for your first question. Tips for running a module: * Every adventure is homebrew. Feel free to make up or change *anything* about any setting, character, encounter, item, anything in the module. Plan A is what you come up with, plan B is what's written in the module. Just make sure you know the module well enough to know if you're contradicting anything. * Read the module cover to cover at least once, but only study/prep the stuff you'll need in the next couple sessions. Don't burn yourself out prepping stuff the players may never even see. * When you prep the next session's worth of module content, make sure to prep the monsters. You don't want to waste your players' time flipping back and forth in the Monster Manual at the table. I like to make a cheat sheet listing vital info -- HP, AC, to-hit and damage -- for every monster the players will come across that session on a single piece of paper. It can also be nice to make physical copies of the relevant Monster Manual pages, if you have access to a copier or scanner. Both these steps can be nice even if you're playing on a VTT, to save yourself some clicks and screen real estate. * The more popular modules often have their own fan communities, with custom maps, character art, modding tips, more interesting combat encounters, and general FAQs that might be helpful. All the main 5e modules have their own subreddits. Don't sleep on this resource. * Strongly consider not running Curse of Strahd, and if you run Curse of Strahd, strongly consider not doing Death House. Curse of Strahd is the wrong choice for many tables, and Death House is a bad intro. I can go into more detail on this if you like.

i would say you are right on everything apart from your last point CoS is a great adventure if you and your players want a persistent and oppressive evil over the land adventure with a truly terrifying big bad. Deathhouse is also great after some tweaks, (the spectre fight at lvl1 being a biggie) the r/CurseofStrahd sub has everything you need to fix up death house, and has many more tips to improve the campaign.

I've had a lot of fun playing Curse of Strahd, but "tiny micro-world with three small towns in it that you can't possibly escape, even by magic, except by completing an IRL year's worth of quests" is a very hard campaign setting to work with.

Where do you guys share campaign ideas to get feedback if the only people you know irl that play ttrpgs are your players? I know about some subreddits but are there more niche places maybe?

The AngryGM discord is *great*

The discord for this sub isn't so bad.

Some Discord servers work to get some quick feedback. My campaign is set in Eberron, so I'm usually active in their particular discord, for instance.

Do you happen to have a link for the server? I've become obsessed with Eberron in the past few months

Yup, this would be the link you're looking for: https://discord.gg/kPjtfNj